Close Call (8 page)
Riley had really reamed them out. Lucarelli and Shannon rode the elevator down from his law office in silence. Shannon was about to say something before the doors opened to the lobby. But one look at his buddy, and he knew better. He knew Aiden was furious, a condition that, in Denny’s experience, did not bode well for anyone.
A heavy Loop haze, the combination of early evening heat and the residue of day-long pollution-spewing auto traffic, hung over south LaSalle Street. Pedestrians immediately began to sweat as they hurried away from their air-conditioned work places. Shannon’s forehead was gleaming before they’d walked the two blocks to where Lucarelli had parked his car, in a loading zone around the corner on Van Buren, directly across the street from a private lot that charged $12 an hour. There was a $100 parking ticket under the windshield wiper on the driver’s side. Lucarelli yanked it off and ripped it apart before unlocking his door.
Inside, motor going, air-conditioner laboring, Lucarelli sat for several minutes, staring straight ahead. He could still hear that fuckin’ Riley, his doughy face red with anger, lecturing them. They were in Riley’s small office in one of the older, more casually maintained LaSalle Street office buildings. The view out of the dust streaked window was of the gritty, gray brick building just across the air shaft next door. “I don’t give a damn that you blew all that racetrack money you stole,” Riley had said, pacing back and forth in the small room. “Any garden variety idiots could have done that. But it takes a special brand of idiot to do it so quickly, and in one weekend, at just two casinos in the same area.”
He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. He said, “You’d think somebody might notice a couple of guys who were dropping nearly a hundred thirty grand in less time than it’d take you to drive to Florida. Honest to God, boys, what were you thinking?”
They sat there, silent. Finally, Aiden asked, “How do you know this?”
Riley said, “My brother-in-law Marty is a shift manager at the Trump. You two were pointed out to him as first division losers. They’ll probably send a limo for you the next time you want to go gambling there. Jesus,” Riley said, “a hundred thirty grand down the tubes so fast. You don’t have much respect for money, do you?”
Riley had sat down then, Lucarelli, his head down, watching out of the tops of his eyes, listening to the old leather chair creak as Riley plumped his fat ass onto it. Shannon had his head down too, sitting in a chair before the desk alongside Lucarelli, like bad boys in the principal’s office. Lucarelli looked up, sneering at the attorney, “Well, so what? It was our goddam money. At least it was at that point,” he’d added, laughing at his own cleverness, jabbing Shannon with his elbow.
“You still don’t get it, Aiden,” Riley barked. “The last thing you’d want to do after pulling off a job like Monee Park is get noticed. The way you get noticed? You throw money around in public places in a hurry. That’s how.” Riley shook his head. “You’re just damned lucky there was a bachelor party for some young, hot shot Chicago trader going on at those casinos last weekend. That group went from one boat to another and back, drinking, raising hell, losing their asses. One of those cocaine-fueled nitwits lost a quarter of a million dollars in three hours at a roulette table. These jerkos drew all the attention. You can be thankful for that.”
Riley’s lecture had continued for another ten minutes, Lucarelli really starting to steam as it went on. Finally, he leaned forward and banged his fist on Riley’s desk. “Can we move on to something else?” he snarled. “This ain’t working for me.”
Riley stifled a sharp retort. He said, “Do you get my point, boys?” They said yes. Riley didn’t offer to shake hands with them, and they didn’t reach for his. Walking to the office door Shannon kept his head down, like a chastised juvenile. Before closing the door behind them, Riley said, “We’ll work through this, lads. Remember the other times I’ve helped you out. I’ll be in touch.”
Exhausted from his confrontation with these two galoots, Riley sat down in his creaky chair. He took the Wild Turkey bottle out of the lower right hand drawer and didn’t cheat himself. Sighing, he reviewed that day’s depressing news, that Monee Park, despite being robbed, was not going to miss a night’s racing, having somehow come up with the badly needed money. He sighed again, knowing he’d have to reach out and call on the two cousins another time in the near future. Unfortunately, they were the best he had to work with. Their predecessors, a half-dozen or so Canaryville punks, had unfortunately fallen within the grasp of the justice system.
***
Still sitting on Van Buren in the Taurus, Lucarelli bitterly quoted the attorney. “Remember the other times I’ve helped you.’ Big fuckin’ deal. It wasn’t just Art the Fart’s efforts got us off.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t forget Canaryville Amnesia,” Aiden said, starting to feel a little better, especially when he heard Denny laugh and say, “You’re right about that, man.”
It wasn’t getting any cooler in the Taurus. Lucarelli was about to pull out into traffic when he looked in the side view mirror and stopped. One of Chicago’s mounted police officers was coming up on his left. The cop stopped and peered down from his horse at the scraps of parking ticket on the concrete. Lucarelli gave him a dirty look, aiming another one at the horse. Horse and rider continued on their way. Lucarelli, smirking at Shannon, said, “Let’s go get a pop.” He put the car in motion. Shannon was relieved at the lowered level of tension now emanating from his volatile cousin. “Go for it, man,” he said.
Lucarelli at first drove east on Van Buren. Then he said, “I don’t feel like Rush Street tonight.” He turned right on Wells.
They left the Taurus in an unattended, self-pay parking lot on South Dearborn and entered Mackie’s, a long established saloon featuring great hamburgers and, since the gentrification of the old loft buildings in the South Loop area, a popular place for young professionals. This was a neighborhood that years before had seen Hollywood movie stars stop between trains at the Dearborn Street Station and be photographed for the Chicago newspapers. That impressive old structure today was an indoor mall, surrounded by recently developed condo buildings.
“I was here for my cousin Lily’s birthday party last month,” Aiden said to Shannon as they walked in. “She lives around here.” Shannon, dressed like Aiden in jeans and work shirt, looked around uneasily. “Not our type in here, Aiden,” he said. Aiden paid no attention to him. He muscled his way through the crowd to the bar and told the bartender “Jack Daniel’s shots, a couple of taps back.” Chris, an Art Institute student who’d only recently taken up bartending at nights, said, “What should be back?” He looked so puzzled that Aiden had to laugh. “Taps,” Aiden said. “Tap beer. Beer on tap. Draft beer,” he explained, grinning, but still kind of pissed that this yoyo acted like he was hearing a fuckin’ foreign language. “Pull a couple of beers and put them behind the shots. My man,” he added, jabbing Shannon in the side.
They had four quick rounds, Aiden working some of the few remaining Monee Park twenties out of his back pocket. Half an hour into it, Aiden offered to buy a round for the party of six to their right, two guys and three decent looking girls, one outstanding one. The men hesitated. But Aiden gave them one of his looks, suggesting they’d be better off goddam well accepting his generous offer, and they did. The outstanding looking girl at the end lit a cigarette. Aiden could see her eyeing him in the long mirror behind the bar. She was tall and tanned with a body she wasn’t shy about displaying, tank top and shorts, like she’d just come from tennis on a nearby Grant Park court. Aiden figured his head probably came up no farther than her clavicle, a spot both lower and higher than from where he wouldn’t mind starting on her. He flexed his forearm as he reached for his beer, muscles jumping underneath his snake tattoo. She didn’t appear to notice.
While Chris worked up another round for the two of them, one of the guys they bought now buying for them, Aiden patted his jeans jacket pocket. He said to Denny, “You want a little bump?” Denny, eyes semi-glazed, said, “No, man, I’m already flying along here. I’ve got to order some food. You want a burger?”
Aiden didn’t reply. He was in motion now, brushing past these stuck up yuppies on his way to the washroom, fondling his stash of meth. Into one of the men’s room stalls, out with the pocket mirror, laying the precious powder onto the glass. A careful inhale. Magic time! The click hit him before he’d even finished washing his hands. He looked at the “Employees Must Wash Hands” sign. “No shit they should,” he said, feeling frisky now. Suddenly he lashed out at the towel machine with his right hand, putting a pretty good dent in the metal. He was rolling now. He yanked the washroom door open so violently it nearly left its hinges.
Denny was talking to some guy about the White Sox current pitching woes when Aiden returned to the bar. He sidled over next to the outstanding looking chick. She was smoking another cigarette. He said, “Want a drink?” She didn’t turn, didn’t respond, didn’t even look at him out of the corner of her eye. For a second he wondered if maybe she was deaf. Then she turned to the girl next to her and said something in a low, cool voice that Aiden couldn’t hear. They both laughed.
He could feel his face burning when the young woman turned back to look at him in the mirror back of the bar, a faint smile on her lips. She still didn’t say anything. Aiden snatched the Virginia Slim out of her hand and plunged it into her half-filled cranberry martini glass. It made a hissing noise. She looked at him in astonishment. “Should learn to answer when you’re talked to, bitch,” he said. A guy behind him said, “Hey, watch that talk.” Lucarelli shoved him aside as he grabbed Shannon’s arm with his other hand and headed for the door. “Let’s blow this fag joint,” he said loudly.
“I was having a good time in there, Aiden,” Shannon complained as they walked to the car. Lucarelli didn’t answer him. Approaching the Taurus, Lucarelli suddenly stopped. There was a figure on the ground next to the car’s left rear wheel. “What the hell?” Lucarelli said, running forward. “Get the fuck away from there,” he shouted.
It was an old man, apparently a wino who had wandered away from the mission facility a block over on State Street. He grasped an empty pint of Thunderbird (“What’s the word? Thunderbird. What’s the price? Sixty twice.”) in one hand. The other arm lay across his forehead as if he was shielding his eyes from the distant street light. He was snoring softly, head propped against the outside of the tire. Lucarelli kicked him in the ribs with his right boot. The old man cried out. Shifting his weight, Lucarelli drove his left foot into the man’s face. There was a cracking sound. Blood spurted from his nose and mouth, and he passed out again.
Lucarelli grunted with satisfaction. Leaning down, he grabbed the wino’s legs, pulled him away from the car, and dragged him over into the shadows near the parking lot fence. Shannon followed. He gave the old guy a kick with the side of his boot, kind of half-hearted, but enough, he thought, to keep up his cred with his dangerous cousin.
In the days after the track robbery, things started quieting down for Doyle, his routine resembling that of his uneventful first week on the job. He fell into the rhythm of his lengthy work days that began when he toured the stable area early each morning to gather material for the Barn Notes that he wrote, then e-mailed by noon to local media outlets. The hope was the Notes would serve as a basis of publicity for the track. Most Chicago area sports departments these days, Doyle knew, had pretty much chosen to ignore horse racing on a daily basis, though they still reserved some coverage for the big weekend races. With the exception of
Racing Daily
, the industry’s trade journal, the newspapers only staffed Monee Park on Saturdays. Doyle tried to break through this barricade by making his Notes as unusual as possible. He enjoyed his conversations with most of the trainers and jockeys he met on the Monee Park backstretch, though there were some rude bastards he learned to avoid.
The smooth nature of his week came to an abrupt halt just before the final race Saturday night. That was when two middle-aged press box stalwarts, Hollis Randolph of the
Chicago News
and Randy Hicks of
Metro Daily
, got into what they considered to be a fist fight.
For some reason, the press box vibes had been bad for most of the evening, beginning when Randolph asked Doyle “turn down that damn jazz you’re playing on the radio.” Doyle looked up, startled. He’d never heard Randolph say anything so forcefully.
“What, you don’t like jazz?” Doyle said. “What kind of American are you?” Still, he reached over to his CD player and lowered the volume on John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps.”
“Too damn squawky,” Randolph answered. “If there has to be music playing in here, make it classical,” he sniffed, turning back to his computer keyboard.
“I’m going to take umbrage at that, Hollis,” Doyle responded.
“Take all you want.”
“You’re telling me you dig that classical mush, the tedious, predictable repetition of the same note patterns in different keys for minutes at a time? Where, after you’ve heard the first few notes, you can accurately predict the next fifty or so? Where you look around at the audience and there isn’t a toe to be seen tapping? Where the only display of movement in the dead serious crowd is that of guys nodding off to sleep? An old buddy of mine termed it SFB music. So Fucking Boring. Not for mine, my friend. However, in the spirit of cooperation, I will lower the sound over here.”
His mustache twitching, Adam’s apple bobbing behind his navy blue bow tie, Randolph grunted an indiscernable reply.
But the squabble that erupted a couple of hours later did not involve musical tastes. Source of this conflict was the traditional press box handicapping pool. That night, Randolph and Hicks were in the contest, along with three television camera men, Morty Dubinski, Alvin the press box mutuel clerk, Rudy the bartender, and two radio station reporters. The contestants each put $10 into the pot. The person with the most points accumulated by the end of the night (five points for picking a winner, three for second, one for third) got the money. Doyle had decided to stay out of it until he got to know this crew better.
This night, everyone in the contest blew their chances early in the program—except the voluble Hicks. He was, as he chortled loudly, “hotter than a bowl of Terlingua, Texas chili.” He kept rubbing it in, especially irritating Hollis Randolph who was holding the pool money. Hollis had managed to come up with just one winner through the first eight races. Hicks, who had tabbed five, rode him unmercifully as the night went on. “You couldn’t pick your nose tonight, Hollis,” was one of the least offensive Hicks jibes.
To Hollis Randolph’s irritation, Hicks announced that he wanted to “get away early to beat the traffic.” Because of that, he asked Randolph to pay him off so he could leave. Randolph refused. He worked at his computer, not looking up as he said, “You know the rules, Hicks. The winner of the pool doesn’t get paid off until after the last race is run.”
“Yeah, but nobody can win the last race and beat me,” Hicks protested. “I’m too far ahead. I’m the winner, you idiot. Now pay me!”
As Randolph continued to ignore him, the enraged Hicks reached around from behind him and slapped him across the cheek. The tall, spindly Randolph sprang out of his chair like a startled heron. The two then began flailing away ineffectually at each other as the other press box denizens gawked.
Doyle could hardly believe what he was seeing as Randolph and the squat, overweight Hicks stood no more than three feet apart, missing each other with both hands, puffing and sweating. He roughly stepped between them, shouting, “I’m not going to watch any more of this bitch slapping from you two. If you can’t fight like men, return to your seats. And,” he added, “Randolph, give Hicks his goddam money.”
The two responded to these commands with relief. Randolph, hands shaking, eye glasses askew on his long nose, got out his wallet and handed some bills to Hicks, whose round face was now glistening with sweat. Hicks took the money without saying a word. He went to his desk, packed up his portable computer, and scuttled out the door.
Doyle gave Rudy the bartender the high sign for a round of drinks on his tab. Rudy quickly produced a Bushmills on the rocks for Doyle, then started filling the rest of the orders. Doyle said to Morty, “How often does this kind of crap go on here?”
“I’ve never seen a fight in a press box in my life.”
“Well,” Doyle said, “you sure as hell couldn’t say you saw one here tonight. That hardly qualifies as even a minor fracas. What a couple of nudniks.”
He walked to his desk and sat down. Susan Lane-Barker, the tall, slim young woman who covered the weekend races for one of the major press services, looked over at him. “Why are you smiling, Jack?” she said reproachfully. “I thought that was disgraceful.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, smiling back at her. “Sometimes, seeing people making fools of themselves tends to lighten my mood. As long as they don’t harm anyone but themselves,” he added. “It’s a weakness of mine.” Susan, far from mollified, turned back to her keyboard.
Doyle asked Morty to lower the volume of the televised White Sox game. It was Morty’s turn to look aggrieved. “I take it you’re not a Sox fan, Jack?”
“That’s right.”
Morty sighed, forcing himself to come to grips with a dreadful new possibility. He said, “A Cubs fan, I suppose.”
“Nope.”
Morty was surprised. He sat back in his chair, giving Jack a long, speculative look. “You mean you’re not a baseball fan? What kind of American are
you
?”
Doyle let a little of the smoky Bushmills roll around in his mouth, “grace his gums” as he had once described the feeling, before he answered. “I gave up on the so-called national pastime several years ago, Morty. Starting when mediocre major league infielders started making more money in a single year than all the teachers in a mid-size elementary school. Since sluggers turned into grotesque masses of muscle and started to hit six-hundred foot home runs. That’s when I scrubbed baseball off my blackboard. C’mon,” he said, “let me make a bet with Alvin and we’ll go outside and watch the last race.”
It was Doyle’s first bet at Monee Park. The race was for older horses going a mile and a sixteenth. He used the first two favorites and a 7-1 shot in a straight trifecta, needing them to finish one-two-three in that order. They ran one-two-four. He crumpled up his mutuel ticket. They walked back into the now nearly empty press box. Morty said, “Can I leave now?”
“Did you e-mail that press release about Monday night’s special events?”
“Done.”
“Okay,” Doyle said. “Take off. See you tomorrow.”
Morty turned around when he’d reached the door. He had a sly grin on his face. “One more thing,” he said. “Hopalong Cassidy. What was the name of his horse?”
Doyle said, “You’re a devious little bastard. Hopalong Cassidy? How the hell would I know the name of his horse? That was way before my time.”
“Topper,” Morty said triumphantly, then exited, chuckling.