High Stakes (23 page)

Chapter Fifty-three

“You've had a setback,” Aldo Caveretta said softly as he and Harvey Rexroth began their early morning walking tour of the Lexford Prison recreation yard. It was one of the two days per week that the inmates were allowed to have a full hour each of such outdoor exercise. The two wore their yellow, hooded rain jackets against the drizzle of this late summer day. More than half of the usual contingent of a.m. exercisers had opted to remain inside.

Rexroth stopped in his tracks. He grabbed Caveretta's elbow. “Setback?” he howled. “What do you mean, setback?” Rexroth's broad face reddened and spittle formed at the edges of his large mouth.

Caveretta angrily shook off Rexroth's grip. “Keep it
down
, Harvey. There's hardly anybody out here now. Still, in this joint, everybody listens to what everybody says if they can. Always looking for an angle. Information is currency here, my friend. You should know that. So, for godsakes, keep it down.”

Rexroth snorted in disgust but resumed walking slowly aside the lanky lawyer who, after another dozen yards, stopped, looked behind them, then whispered, “Our hit man didn't make the hit. Not only did he not make it, he got himself killed in the process. An ugly death, I'm told.”

Rexroth's big jaw dropped. He stood in stunned silence for a few moments that preceded an explosive response. “You mean that cocksucker Doyle is still alive? Your killer got killed! What the…” He interrupted his tirade to spit angrily onto the rubberized track. Two joggers sidestepped him as they passed, looking back in disgust.

His large chest pushing against the front of his jumpsuit, Rexroth said, “Okay. First question. Do I get my fifty thousand back? Second question. Can you find somebody more capable out there who can take on this job and kill this fucking Doyle with my fifty grand rebate? Honest to God, I thought your people were supposed to be good at this!” Rexroth's voice had risen in the course of these questions. Caveretta looked cautiously front and back before saying, “I'll see what I can do.”

The drizzle now was replaced by an increasingly steady rain. Caveretta waited as his infuriated companion resumed his stomping, and frothing, and arm-waving. Another two fellow inmates strode rapidly past, looking inquisitive. Aldo waved them off. “No problem,” he said to them.

It took another three minutes for the imperious media mogul to finish acting out.
Like the spoiled rich bastard he is
, Caveretta thought.
I can't take
any more of this super jerk. And I won't
. By the time their morning exercise was over, Caveretta had mentally charted his course. Back inside their building, he walked away from the still complaining Rexroth and went to arrange for the phone call he would be allowed later that day. He passed up lunch. When it was time for his call, Caveretta dialed the private number in Kansas City of attorney Paul Trombino. A first cousin on his mother's side, Trombino had unsuccessfully defended Caveretta in the federal trial that saw him winding up in Lexford, eating primarily mediocre-at-best food and dealing with dickheads like Rexroth.

Aldo, ever the realist, had never held his conviction against attorney Trombino, since he had been found guilty primarily as a result of the damning testimony provided by traitorous nephew Rudy Randazzo. Little Rudy, his sister Angela's firstborn, Aldo's only godson, who grew up to be an Outfit button man, and who had been federally entrapped so that the little shit ratted out Uncle Aldo before disappearing into the Witness Protection Program. Such betrayal by a relative would never stop stinging.

Aldo could picture himself thirty-two years earlier holding the blanketed infant Rudy over the Holy Rosary Church baptismal font, thinking to himself at the time
this kid is so ugly
the obstetrician shouldn't have slapped him to start breathing, he should have
slapped his mother for producing him.
Aldo had come to often deeply regret during his tedious Lexford Prison days that he hadn't “accidentally” dropped and drowned little Rudy in the baptismal water. He wouldn't be here in with Rexroth, this human boil of irritation, had he done so.

During his Lexford Prison phone call that day, Caveretta spoke to Trombino both in Italian and the coded English with which both men were very familiar. Even though Trombino was at first incredulous as he considered Aldo's plan, and by no means certain it would work, he of course went along. An agreement was reached. Trombino could not refuse to carry out this plan since cousin Caveretta's imprisonment had already lowered his grade in the extremely significant Scaravilli Family rating system. Any further decline was devoutly to be avoided.

“Aldo,” Trombino finally said, “I will get started on this right away.”

“Prego
.” Caveretta inhaled, deeply relieved after he hung up the phone and walked back toward his cell, smiling to himself and thinking, not for the first time, about the wonderful variety of ways in which the mills of justice could be manipulated to grind.

Chapter Fifty-four

Karen Engel and Damon Tirabassi walked out of their supervisor's office in the FBI's downtown Chicago headquarters. There was a spring in their steps despite the muggy August air.

Their regular reporting meeting had not begun on a high note. They had to listen to a nine-minute, possibly scripted, oration from their boss about “the pressing need to find this dangerous, crazy, criminal horse killer. Not yesterday, mind you, the day before!”

They were familiar with this career bureaucrat's foibles and fantasies, most of them fed by his career spent behind a desk, far removed from the agency's real work. All they could do was listen, nod, and vow to “retriple” their efforts.

Preparing to leave his office, they'd been startled to receive what the Director considered just “an ancillary piece of information.” It was that which had them smiling as they waited for the elevator.

“What do you think, Damon? Should we tell Jack about this?” She and her partner were among seven people waiting for the elevator. The other five pricked up their ears at the possibility of overhearing something of use.

Damon frowned at her. “
Sotto voce
. We'll talk in the car.”

They made quick purchases at the sandwich shop on the other side of Dearborn Street before walking to their car in the nearby underground garage. Once inside, doors closed, air conditioner cranked, Karen postponed opening her veggie wrap to say again, “What about letting Jack know?”

Damon took a large bite out of his Italian beef sandwich before answering. “I don't see any reason not to. Doyle probably needs a bit of a morale boost after the attempt on his life on Willow Road. He might even like to get an idea as to why that happened.” Damon frowned. “I told that server hot peppers, not sweet. Oh, well. Anyway, I'm glad the Harley shooter missed. Doyle's never been a personal favorite person of mine, but…”

“Oh,
really
,” Karen laughed.

Damon said, “You know how I feel about him. A major pain in the posterior, but not somebody I'd like to lose.”

“I do know. Let me call him.”

***

Doyle was in Ralph Tenuta's box at Heartland Downs. He'd hardly slept two nights earlier even after his dinner with Moe and Leah. He hadn't had too much sleep last night, either. Too many questions on his mind. Some son of a bitch attempting to kill him on his way home from the racetrack? What the fuck was that about?

He picked up his cell phone. “Hey, Karen.”

“Good to hear your voice, Jack. In fact, good to know you are still around to have one.”

The horses were coming onto the track for the afternoon's first race. He didn't spot any bettable items among them. “Thanks, Karen. Obviously, I'm quite happy to have survived the attempt to erase me from life's entries. I'm out here sitting in Ralph Tenuta's box trying to shake off the aftereffects.”

“Yes, and Jack, all kidding aside, we're happy you're still alive.”

Doyle said, “Have you heard anything from the Sheriff's Department about this jerk who was firing at me from his Harley?”

“Sergeant Monroe asked the Bureau for help and we gave it. So far, we know your attempted killer was from Kansas, was going to school there at the university. Social loner. Premier student. Supposedly interested mainly in computers, cycles, and guns.”

Doyle said, “It's that last part that interests me.”

Karen handed the phone to Damon, who had finished his Italian beef, wiped his chin, and burped with quiet satisfaction.

“Jack, it's me.”

“I recognize your dulcet tones.”

“Jack, I'm ignoring all of your usual sarcasm past this point. What you might want to know is the preliminary investigation has tied this Wiems to the Kansas City Outfit.”

Doyle got to his feet as the field of thoroughbreds charged across the first-race finish line. “The
Outfit?”

“That is correct, Jack. What I am going to tell you now is something you may never, ever tell anybody you got from me. Okay?”

Jack said, “Damon, you know my word is good. What's the deal here?”

“FBI wiretaps conducted in Lexford Prison yesterday have your old enemy Harvey Rexroth arranging to have you killed. He was working through a fellow inmate, a lawyer belonging to the Kansas City Outfit. The lawyer, I can't tell you his name, decided to lessen
his
Lexford sentence by turning over to the government Rexroth's plans to kill you. The incarcerated lawyer wore a wire. He got Rexroth on tape promising to pay to get you killed. This earned the lawyer a reduction of his Lexford time by fourteen months. Great deal for him.

“But,” Damon said, “Rexroth, trapped on tape caught ordering a fifty-thousand dollar hit on you, will get his stay in Lexford extended another five years for conspiracy to commit murder.”

Doyle sat back down in his box seat. “Rexroth? That crazy fucker? Man oh man. But wait. Who did the hiring of the guy who took those shots at me on Willow Road?”

“The imprisoned lawyer says he never knew the identity of the killer hired by Kansas City people,” Damon answered. “He claims complete ignorance of that. Well, of course, he'd have to. And maybe that's actually true. The Outfit top guys always use as many cutouts as they can. But we've learned that the cyclist was a young man named Wiems. Student at the University of Kansas. Some kind of a computer phenom, according to his school records. Parents both deceased. And no criminal record whatsoever.”

“The bastard's got one now,” Doyle said. “I hope they inscribe it on his headstone. Thanks for the information, Damon.” He hung up.

Chapter Fifty-five

Next morning Doyle was in conversation on his cell phone when he heard the click of an incoming call. But he delayed picking it up as he talked with Ralph Tenuta about Mr. Rhinelander, the once ailing, now almost completely recovered colt. Finished with Tenuta, he clicked on his answering machine and was surprised to hear the normally placid Damon Tirabassi almost frothing during his message. “Jack, I think we've caught a break on the horse killer case. Call me sooner than ASAP.
Wait!
Call me before that.”

Pleased by Tenuta's report on Mr. Rhinelander's progress, Jack hoped Tirabassi would provide more good news on this rainy, late August evening. He quickly phoned the FBI agent.

“I am returning my government's call,” he said solemnly.

Tirabassi grunted. “No time for your idea of comedy, Jack. Hold it. I'm going to put this on speaker phone for Karen. We're in my office.”

Karen said, “Here's the situation, Jack. We got a tip earlier this afternoon from Rockland College, up close to the Illinois-Wisconsin state line. Ever heard of it?”

“Barely. Didn't they have a good Division Three football team a couple of years ago?”

“Yes, they did. And one of the linemen on their current team, a kid, or a young man I should say, Randy Meier, contacted our office today. He's working as a night watchman at Rockland's veterinary school in the Large Animal Division to help pay his tuition.”

Doyle's lifted his one working eyebrow, the left one having been rendered immobile years before in the bloody course of his final Golden Gloves bout. “Aha.”

“Randy Meier said that last night, during his four–to–ten shift, he was patrolling the school grounds. Evidently on these summer nights, the staff there turns the horses they are in charge of out in a paddock. Randy knew all about the other vet school killings and about the fifty thousand reward. So he came to attention when he saw a dark pickup truck pull up on the far side of the paddock on the road that runs along there. It parked, lights out, even the interior light off. Somebody got out of the passenger door and walked over to the fence. A young gelding named Saint Lester, a recent contribution to the school program, was standing in the middle of the paddock. But he started to move toward this figure.

“According to Randy Meier, it looked suspicious to him why the person was calling Saint Lester over to him. Or her. He couldn't see clearly. The figure had on dark clothes including a dark sweatshirt and hoodie. Just about when Randy thought about hopping the fence to go see who this was, he heard a couple of cars loudly, rapidly, approaching from the east. Coming on the road near the paddock area. Their horns were blowing, they had music pumping out, raising hell. I guess this is not uncommon for the American youth living in that area. Anyway, once the two noisy cars had passed, Randy saw that the person who'd been summoning the horse had ducked back into the truck and started to quickly pull away in the opposite direction of the speeding kids. He wondered to himself, as he put it, ‘Who the hell could that be out there talking to Saint Lester like that?' Then he remembered the other vet school horse killings and the advertised reward. So he called us.”

Doyle said, “This was last night?”

“Correct,” Karen said. “And coming right from the sort of out-of-the way veterinary research facility that you wouldn't think would draw any nocturnal visitors. Unless they were there for a purpose.”

“Look,” Doyle said, “I'm not much for tossing wet blankets about. But what makes you think this was an appearance by the horse killer? Shoot, it could have been some old coot on his way home from a country tavern stopping to take a leak and say ‘hello, nice horsie.'”

Damon said, “Randy Meier in his months on his shift there had never seen anything like this happen before. We think it might be our killer. Interrupted by happenstance and some joy riders on that rural patch. But maybe planning to return.”

“Did your Junior G. Man get a description of the truck? A license number?”

“No,” Karen said. “It was too dark, and it all happened too quickly.”

Doyle shrugged. “So, what are you going to do with this sketchy info?”

“We're going to stake out Rockland College starting tonight. Remember, we haven't had the hint of a lead in this case since the first of these killings. Finally, we've got something to take action on. Maybe we are grabbing at straws,” Karen said. “But we've got nothing else to grab at. Do you want to come with us?”