Kellman said, “I’m coming to that.
“Suppose-just suppose-that Rexroth has got a horse that nobody knows about.”
“What do you mean?” asked Doyle.
Kellman said, “I’m talking about a horse that nobody, or hardly anybody, knows about. A horse that has not been registered, or officially named. A horse that for racing purposes does not exist. And suppose this horse is owned by Rexroth, and Rexroth is giving this horse secret workouts, flying in a professional jockey to work him, staging simulated races.
“And suppose this unknown horse is supposed to be the fastest item to come along since Cigar?” Kellman sat back again on the couch, looking self-satisfied bordering on smug.
Doyle said, “I’ll be damned. You’ve heard something, haven’t you?”
Kellman didn’t answer that. He just smiled at Doyle, his eyes twinkling. “Try a pear?” he asked.
Getting up from his chair, Doyle walked slowly over to the north window of Kellman’s office suite, deep in thought. He was not even slightly aware of the impressive flotilla of pleasure boats maneuvering in the green-blue waters off Oak Street beach, or the giant white clouds, looking like deformed dumplings, that moved before the steady northwest wind, being pushed across the lake toward Michigan.
All of Doyle’s thoughts were concentrated on the bay horse housed back at Willowdale, the horse that jockey Willie Arroyo flew in to exercise each week, the horse that Aldous Bolger had been instructed by Rexroth to ignore.
He turned back toward Kellman. “Okay, let’s say Rexroth has got this unofficial horse, or mystery horse, or whatever you want to call him. What could he do with him?”
Moe reached to the silver platter and began expertly to quarter a red apple as big as a bocci ball, using a long, thin knife sharp enough to skim fuzz off the nearby peaches. He said, “If this animal has talent, there could be a special use for him. It would be tricky, but it could be done.”
“You’re talking about as a ringer.”
“I’m talking about as a ringer, yes.”
Doyle paused to think this over. “What about the horse’s registration papers? The lip tattoo? How could Rexroth work around those things?”
“The registration papers? Simple. You just use the slow horse’s papers. They’re on file at the track. All they have to show is the description of the horse in question. And if I’m right, Rexroth would have a horse in his racing stable that looks a helluva lot like the unknown horse-as close to identical as he could find.
“So the official papers aren’t a question, not considering the advances in technology along those lines.”
“Say what?” said Doyle.
“I’m saying that forged documents are all over the place. You don’t need printing presses any more. All you need is some larcenous computer genius with an inkjet printer and a scanner. Jack, from what I’ve been told, nearly half of the counterfeit money passed in this country is made that way. Papers for a horse would be no problem for the right guy to produce.”
“The tattoo. What about that?”
“No problem. Not for a guy with Rexroth’s money. That guy Stoner he’s got working for him could find an abortionist in the Vatican. They’ve got resources, my friend.
“What they could do is buy, on the sly, the services of one of the official horse tattooers. Maybe they use muscle, or blackmail. Maybe just money. But they get the guy to put the correct tattoo of the slow horse on the unknown horse, who has never been tattooed because he’s never been near a racetrack. Yet. Then they switch the horses, and they run the fast one under the slow one’s name. Get it?”
Doyle slumped back in his chair. All that Kellman had theorized, Doyle realized, could very well become reality under Rexroth’s guidance. The bay horse from the Annex…that must the betting tool that had been polished up and honed over the past few years.
“But what I still don’t get,” Doyle said, “is why a guy like Rexroth would go to all this trouble. Get involved in something like this? The bastard’s got all the money he’d ever need.”
Kellman said, “Jack, why does Rexroth kill horses for the insurance like you think he does? You tell me what this guy’s all about. I’ve got no answers for that. He is what he is.”
“I don’t know where to go with this stuff,” Doyle said. He felt overwhelmed. He went over to the window again, gazing out as unseeingly as before.
Doyle’s formerly ultra-high self-confidence level, for years near the top of the charts, was in free fall, a descent that was picking up enough momentum to qualify as a plummet. Aldous’ beating, the FBI tie-in, the hovering factor of Mortvedt-all this had invaded his life in just a few months, changing everything for him. Mentally, he tried to gather himself, as in his boxing days, when after being caught with a good wallop he’d always say to his opponent, “Is that all you’ve got?”
Doyle took a deep breath. Before turning away from the window he found himself wondering again why Moe Kellman was being so helpful. Kellman wasn’t the sort who would feel any great guilt over Doyle’s being robbed of his City Sarah payoff. He was too practical for that, though he had been generous enough with the added five grand. He’d also suggested that Jack not get too cozy with the FBI agents who had visited him. A bribe in a velvet glove, Doyle considered it.
No, Kellman’s willingness to help must have its source elsewhere. Perhaps it was traceable to something else that he’d once said to Doyle: “I like to know things. A lot of what I learn winds up making money for me.”
Doyle sat down again. “What could we do to stop Rexroth and his ringer caper?”
“Not we,” Kellman replied, the twinkle in his eyes obvious once more. “You.”
He offered another neatly quartered piece of apple to Doyle.
“Can I suggest something to you, Jack?”
Chapter 30
It was late on a Saturday afternoon, the end of a perfect early autumn day on the west side of Louisville.
Had he still been employed by Harvey Rexroth’s Horse Racing Journal, Red Marchik would have been complaining bitterly about being required to work so late on such a beautiful afternoon, especially with the Kentucky Wildcats football team playing at home. “Love them ’Cats,” was a Marchik family mantra, mostly during basketball seasons when the teams were usually excellent, but in football season, too. Red was a fan who “bled Kentucky blue.”
But now, still out of work and with more time on his hands than he’d ever had to deal with before in his life, Red gave no thought to the state university’s football fortunes as he emerged, blinking, from his basement bunker and started slowly raking the leaves that carpeted his backyard.
The ESZT-3 sports network had just finished its fourth consecutive hour of auto racing, all of which Red had tuned to; the channel was now offering a fifteen minute infomercial on oil-changing. Red was confident he knew all there was to know about oil-changing, so he had turned off the TV.
He then switched on the radio. It was Reverend Roland Ruland’s re-run of his early morning show. “Raisin’ the bar…Raisin’ the bar…” Red heard the Sports Preacher thunder. “We hear that so off-ten these days. Comes from your track and field, the high jump or maybe the pole vault…whatever….We know they’re talkin’ about a higher level.
“You want to talk about really raisin’ the bar? Then, brothers and sisters, let’s talk about RAISIN’-when JEEEEEZUS high-jumped over the top of death, when he pole vaulted way, way, way, way over the top of death, and raised old LAZARUS from the dead. JEEEEEZUS CHRIST ALMIGHTY DID THAT, PRAISE GOD.”
Red knew Wanda would have listened to more, but she was out shopping. So Red had turned off the Sports Preacher and headed for his backyard, where he continued to wrestle with the problem of how to deal with his yet unsatisfied lust for revenge against Harvey Rexroth.