Kellman had waved a greeting as Doyle was ushered in, but continued his phone conversation. He was elegantly dressed as usual, white linen shirt agleam under a gray silk suit, two huge diamond cufflinks sparkling as he shifted the phone from one hand to another.
Kellman perched on a chair behind his desk. But there were no chairs in front of it. Kellman preferred to do business from the couch, located several deep-carpeted yards from his desk, where he could easily reach over and give an encouraging pat to a customer’s knee or hand.
Still talking on the phone, Kellman motioned across the room to Jack. The late afternoon sun behind Kellman’s back served to back-light and further emphasize his startling head of frizzed white hair. He was urging Doyle to help himself to the lavish platter of fresh fruit that just been delivered. Responding in pantomime, Doyle waved off Kellman’s offer of something to drink.
This was Doyle’s first visit to Kellman’s place of business, and he was impressed by the prestigious Michigan Avenue address, the two glossy receptionists in the outer office, the extensive collection of modern art that graced the walls of the spacious, tastefully furnished room.
Doyle walked over to the north-facing window, admiring the view. When his gaze fell upon a church steeple in the distance, Doyle remembered the shock he’d felt early that morning. After informing Byron Stoner that he had personal business in Chicago and would be away for the day, Doyle had gotten into his car at Willowdale and turned on the radio as he pulled out of the driveway.
“And JEEZUS, driving old CAR NUMBER ONE, he leads the JERUSALEM 500, you better believe it, brothers and sisters.…”
The voice had jumped out of the speakers, startling Doyle. How’d I get this station on my dial? Doyle thought, quickly reaching for the knob. He found hard to believe the popularity of the man he thought of as “Elmer Gantry in a jockstrap.” Doyle silenced the radio and inserted a Gene Harris tape. Doyle smiled as the gospel-influenced jazz pianist’s music replaced the preacher’s bombast.
“That’s right, sweetheart,” Kellman cooed into the phone, eyes alight as he winked at Doyle. “That’s the price. Rosemary is going love that coat. You’ll have to take her out every night next winter, show her off.” Kellman laughed loudly at the short response to that suggestion.
“Okay, that’s how we’ll do it. Tomorrow afternoon, I’ll messenger it over to you. Same to you, Feef.”
Placing the phone down, Kellman said, “Fifi Bonadio.” He shook his head. “Cheapest son of a bitch in the Outfit. Every time he buys a coat as a present for one of his punches, it’s like you’re negotiating the fuckin’ Louisiana Purchase. And with all the money he’s stolen and hidden….”
Moe crossed the room. First he shook Doyle’s hand, then reached up to pinch his cheek fondly. “This is our City Boy?” he said, glancing at Doyle’s farm manager outfit, short-sleeved white shirt with no tie, tan khakis, western boots. “You’re dressed like Ronald Reagan on vacation,” Kellman said. “All you need is a red neckerchief.” He took a seat on the couch, plucked a pear from the tray on the table, and sat back.
“So what is it, Jack?” Kellman smiled. “You miss me? That why you drove all the way up here from Kentucky to talk?”
“Not quite,” Doyle replied.
The reason for Doyle’s visit, as he had explained to agents Engel and Tirabassi prior to departing Kentucky, was to pick Kellman’s brain regarding what he thought Rexroth might be up to with Willowdale’s mystery horse-the fast, bay colt of unknown origin that Willie Arroyo was still flying in to work out. “If anybody would know, it would be Moe Kellman.” The agents did not disagree.
Doyle spent the next quarter hour recounting to Kellman the details of Aldous Bolger’s beating, an event Kellman was very curious about, having seen the various media accounts, and the confession of Lucas Collier. “We’re looking to tie together Mortvedt and Rexroth,” Doyle said.
“You mean you and your FBI buddies.”
“Yeah, me and my FBI buddies,” Doyle answered glumly. “You probably know all about that, how they’ve got me by the balls because of the City Sarah thing.”
Kellman held up his hands defensively. “I know about how they reeled you in. That’s all I know, and all I want to know. All I’m assuming, Jack,” Moe added with great seriousness, “is that you’ve been very, very discreet regarding our dealings.”
Doyle said, “They know more about you than I do, I guarantee you that. No, they haven’t laid all over me regarding our…what could you call it, association? More important to me right now is Rexroth, what he might be doing.”
“That’s great, Jack,” said Kellman. He settled back on the couch and began to talk. He said that of course he had no way of knowing “exactly what Rexroth was planning,” but one possibility came to mind.
“Are you familiar with ringers in horse racing?” Kellman asked.
“No,” Doyle said. “Thanks to you, my knowledge of racetrack crime is confined to stiffing horses.”
Kellman let that pass. “Well,” he said, “it’s hard to do, but it’s not impossible. Simply put, it involves the substitution of a fast horse, the ringer, for a slow horse. And it involves two horses that look very much alike.
“The last case like this that I remember involved some guys out west. Two guys. They got their hands on a set of the equipment that’s used to tattoo horses-you know, identify them. You saw City Sarah’s lip tattoo, right?”
“Right.”
“So,” Kellman continued, “these guys went to Mexico, either Juarez or the track in Mexico City, I don’t remember, and paid cash for a pretty good runner, plenty fast enough for what they needed. They brought him back to northern California. This Mexican horse had no tattoo. So they tattoo him with the registration number of this bum they’d been racing up there. The horses looked almost exactly alike, and I think they were the same age. The slow horse hadn’t finished in the money in six months.
“They enter the slow horse under his name, but they lose him someplace and run the fast one, and he wins big. Twice. The horse checker at the track sees that the tattoo matches up with the one on the slow horse’s papers, so he doesn’t suspect anything’s out of line. He thinks the horse is legit. Believe me, this is the kind of caper that is very rarely attempted these days. It was more common seventy, eighty years ago. Hell, they had a guy years ago that painted horses so they could be used as ringers. Paddy Barry, I think his name was.
“Anyway, these guys cash two huge bets before the authorities get wise to them and determine that no registered tattooer had ever worked on the Mexican horse, that his tattoo was really the tattoo of the slow horse. Both of the guys were kicked out of racing and convicted. One of them did time. Before the other one had a chance to serve, he turned up as a floater in San Francisco Bay.”
Kellman paused to deftly tong an ice cube from the silver bucket to his tall glass of Perrier. “The floater was related to a friend of mine, a third cousin of this guy I know. But that’s another story.
“Now, besides the tattoo as identification,” Kellman continued, “horses registered in the United States can be traced by blood types. Their parents’ blood sample records are on record-both the sire’s and the mother’s, or the dam’s, as they call them.
“As I understand it, that system was put in mainly to protect against mix-ups with young horses. If a guy bought a horse that was supposed to be sired by, say, Uncle Sam, who’d knocked up Miss Liberty or whatever, and for some reason the guy has doubts that this is true, he can check it out. The foal’s blood sample has got to be consistent with the blood types of its parents. If not, then something isn’t kosher and the alarms go off.”
Doyle shifted in his chair. “This is all very interesting, Moe. But what could this have to do with Rexroth?”