Red took a sharp exit off the Circle Beltway. He continued talking, but Wanda wasn’t really listening. She was concentrating on two questions: which frozen casserole she would take from the freezer once they reached home, and whether the comforting toast they would share would be libations of Pabst Blue Ribbon or of the pear brandy she kept under the kitchen sink for special occasions.
She had another question, too, one that made her smile as she rode: how long would it take her designated driver and fledgling assassin to cool off from this night’s intense excitement and fall asleep in her loving arms.
Chapter 14
It had been nearly two months since the death of the Willowdale stallion Wilton Lad when Jud Repke picked up his phone one afternoon and heard the cold, calm voice of Ronald Mortvedt.
“Got us another job. I’ll pick you up Friday morning,” Mortvedt said curtly.
“You in Louisville?”
“Never mind where I am,” Mortvedt answered. “Just be ready Friday morning. You’ll be back home in a couple of days.”
Home for Jud Repke was an aging apartment complex on the north side of Louisville, Kentucky. Repke had lived there for seven years, rent free, serving as the building’s superintendent. He’d gotten the job through his brother, a friend of the building’s owner. Jud set his own hours, working as few of them as he could get away with, so he had no trouble fitting a Mortvedt-procured job into his schedule.
Like Mortvedt, Jud Repke was an ex-convict who had never been married, having settled instead for a succession of live-in women friends over the years. Jud had met Mortvedt in the federal correctional center at Oakdale, in the southwestern portion of Louisiana. Repke was serving a three-to-five year term for transporting stolen goods, luxury automobiles, across state lines, a trade he had successfully practiced for much of his adult life before slipping up when a deal went bad with a New Orleans Mafia bigshot named Joe Angelici. The Mafia guy walked, but Repke was convicted and sentenced. Mortvedt was already in Oakdale doing his race-fixing time when Repke arrived.
At a well-worn thirty-eight, Jud Repke was a year younger than the ex-jockey who, he realized after they had known each other for less than a week, was both much smarter and tougher than he was. A natural follower, Repke gratefully buddied with Mortvedt for eighteen months in Oakdale before the ex-jockey was released. Repke was granted parole a year later.
When, two years ago, Mortvedt had tracked Repke down at a grandstand bar at Churchill Downs late one blustery fall afternoon, Repke was not only delighted to see his old jailmate but to hear his plans for work. It didn’t take Repke long to agree to go into business with Mortvedt. As Jud later would gratefully say during some of their late-night bar visits, “Ronnie, you been a regular money machine for me, and I thank you for it.”
Repke was also unaware of what had gone on in Mortvedt’s life after the two of them left prison, unaware that Mortvedt had joined a burglary ring that operated in the New Orleans area. Repke was unaware that, one winter night, Mortvedt had killed a home owner who discovered him, beating him to death with the crowbar he had used to gain entrance to the house.
It was at that point in his life that Mortvedt confirmed for himself, once and for all, that killing didn’t bother him in the least. Had Repke known that, he would still have been eager to go into business with the little man.
Harvey Rexroth had also been eager to go into business with Ronald Mortvedt-or at least someone like him. Their unlikely alliance dated from a horse sale four years earlier, one of the major Kentucky auctions. It was a hot, humid July night, and bidding for the best stock was equally torrid throughout the premier portion of the sale. That session concluded with the offering of a mare named Donna Diane.
A champion runner, Donna Diane was now retired from racing, had been bred, and was carrying a foal sired by a famed male champion. This mix of blue chip past performances and golden-hued promise combined to make for an extremely attractive prospect. Donna Diane was valuable in her own right, and the anticipated foal could correctly be expected to have tremendous value as a runner, then a breeding prospect, no matter what its sex. “By a champion, out of a champion” began the auctioneer’s sales spiel. All these factors added up the expectation that Donna Diane would attract the highest price at the sale. She did not disappoint.
In the weeks leading up to the auction, Harvey Rexroth had boasted to several industry people that he was determined to buy Donna Diane. He saw her as the potential leading light of his growing broodmare band, a name acquisition that would further underline his stated desire to become a major player in horse racing.
As Donna Diane was led into the crescent-shaped sales ring that night, Rexroth mopped his face. Despite the air-conditioning inside the pavilion, he was sweating heavily. Seated next to him, Byron Stoner had never before observed his boss at anything approaching this level of anxiety.
When the bidding began on Donna Diane, the first shouted offer was a whopping one million-unheard of for an opening bid. The crowd buzzed. The price rose rapidly after that, shedding bidders along the way. Finally, it became clear that there were really only two serious factions remaining: Rexroth and a partnership made up of wealthy Irish breeders and English bookmakers. This partnership had dominated the sale in recent years, spending millions on horses that it shipped back for eventual racing in Europe.
The bidding on Donna Diane climbed to four million, then five million. When the man representing what Rexroth resentfully termed the “foreign conglomerate” coolly indicated that six million dollars was fine with him, Rexroth realized he was not going to outbid these rivals.
Without even a glance at the expectant auctioneer, Rexroth suddenly rose from his seat and stormed out of the pavilion into the steamy night, Stoner and Kauffman struggling to keep up with him. Approached by reporters as he awaited the arrival of his limousine, Rexroth rebuffed them all, including Ira Meyer, who worked for Rexroth’s own Horse Racing Journal.
For days after the sale, Rexroth fumed over his failure to purchase Donna Diane. Stoner had never seen him so bitterly distraught. Stoner attempted to counsel Rexroth to look beyond it, but his advice earned him only a tirade of curses. Finally, one night, Rexroth summoned Stoner to join him poolside. His massive jaws grinding with intensity, Rexroth said, “I am going to have Donna Diane. That mare should belong to me, and she will.”
“That partnership will never sell you the horse,” Stoner cautioned. Rexroth just looked at him. “I’m well aware of that,” he replied. Then he described what he wanted done, emphasizing to Stoner that “they’re due to ship her abroad at the end of the month. That’s how much time we have.”
The next morning, Byron Stoner flew to New Orleans. There, through the expensive offices of Daniel Delacroix, a powerfully connected attorney employed by RexCom to represent its interests in that section of the South, Stoner was introduced to Lou Tenuta, a high-ranking member of the Tornabene crime family. Over dinner that night in a private room of one of the city’s legendary restaurants, Stoner explained the purpose of his visit.
Lou Tenuta listened impassively for several minutes, his thick hands folded before him on the linen tablecloth. He wore an expensive light blue suit, a dark blue custom-made shirt, and a white tie. With his black pompadour and narrow black mustache, he looked to Stoner like a prototypical French Quarter pimp.
Tenuta beckoned to the waiter watching from across the room. The waiter snapped his fingers to a busboy. The ripple of command reached the kitchen, from which plates of food quickly emerged, drawing Tenuta’s rapt attention. Stoner, always a light eater, paid as little attention to this food as he did to most.