Anyway, it wasn’t illegal drugs but Whit Dunbar’s mouth that kept getting him into hot water. He’d told off I don’t know how many owners. When a horse wasn’t ready, he’d say so, and if the owners didn’t go along with his judgment, he didn’t refrain from describing them and their antecedents. It kept Dunbar with a very limited string of horses, because some of those owners weren’t going to take it from the hired help.
It didn’t matter, either, that Whit Dunbar’s family was once one of them. His grandfather had been the Whitman for whom this track was named, in its better days a long time ago. But the money and the stables had gone the way of a lot of fortunes back in the Great Depression, and Whit worked for other people now. The horses were all somebody else’s.
Except for one animal, and that one he had in Ginger’s name.
I remember the day he bought that filly at Fasig-Tipton’s yearling sales. I was with him when they brought out Number 134, and Whit’s eyes lit up like he’d had a century bet on Temperence Hill winning the Belmont.
Funny, she wasn’t a very pretty thing. Gangly-like, as most yearlings are, and moreover, she sort of shuffled. Now I know a horse can’t really shuffle, but she sure looked as if she dragged her feet. We were positioned right at the rail of the little circle where they walked the horses, and Whit clucked to her. She flipped her head up so fast I thought she was going to lift the little groom who was holding her bridle right off the ground. Whit swears she gave him the “look of eagles” that horsemen are always talking about.
The upshot was he blew nearly every cent he had on that chestnut, outbidding some fancy-pants fellas that strolled around making like John Hay Whitneys while jumpsuited flunkies did their inspecting and bidding. I was eyeing Whit like he’d lost his mind, but all he kept saying was, “She has the look.”
Well, since then she’s proved she can run all right — like the wind. And she’s a kind thing to rate — a dream horse. Whit talks about her as if she might be his ticket back to the Big Time, and he just might be right. She’s due to put it all on the line in her first real test this weekend.
But that “look of eagles” from the chestnut filly cost Whit a lot more than the $15,000 he shelled out last year. Today it cost him his daughter’s life.
If only he hadn’t made it sound like such a sure thing...
Days start early at Whitman Downs, as at most tracks. It wasn’t long after sunup that Ramon, one of the exercise boys, found Ginger’s body alongside the training oval, when he rode Samarkand out for a work. She was lying face down on the dew-wet grass by the timer’s stand, but he didn’t even have to dismount to see that she was dead. There was a big hole in the back of her neck, and her wheat-colored hair was bronze with blood.
That Samarkand must have set a record with Ramon galloping him back to the stabling area, because Ramon was screaming and whipping and sobbing and yelling for the cops at the same time.
First one out to see what all the hollering was about was Whit himself, who’d been talking with Don Hauser, one of the few owners who’ll get up early enough to watch the dawn workouts. The two of them and “Bulldog” Smith, the track’s owner (or that part of it not in hock), ran — fast. My boss Beau Jellife followed at a somewhat slower clip, while he sent me for the police.
I make better time in my wheelchair than most of them can on their two legs. With the powerful arms I’ve built up, it’s an acquired skill. By the time I got back with Lieutenant McLane, Whit Dunbar was cradling his daughter’s body in his arms, with her blood staining his bluejacket.
Don Hauser was standing there looking lost as he helplessly whacked a crop against his boots. Bulldog Smith made strange crooning sounds that were somewhere between a sob and a hound’s wail.
Lieutenant McLane got right to work while I wheeled myself all over the place scrunching this way and that, looking for a bullet casing I figured had to be there.
“For Pete’s sake, Wyman, you’re digging up enough to plant flowers! Keep that contraption still!”
“Sorry, Lieutenant, I thought I could help by finding the bullet.”
“Well, don’t think! You’re not on the force now. When I need your help, I’ll ask” — and then, apparently thinking better of that not-too-tactful remark, he added in a kinder tone — “How about getting these people out of here for me? The boys and the wagon are on the way.”
I touched Bulldog’s arm and steered him off. Beau Jellife needed very little coaxing, and Hauser, too, looked relieved to be sent away. I decided Whit Dunbar had a right to stay there with his daughter. The rest of us, with the still-quivering jockey Ramon, gathered in my quarters which adjoined Beau’s tack rooms.
It seemed a good time for a few strong belts, so I broke open the bar, even though the sun wasn’t hardly full up over the infield yet. Hauser cast an appreciative eye on the lacquered Chinese cabinet where I stocked the booze, and I noticed he also took in the antique French armoire and Kirman carpet.
“Pretty fancy for a stable,” he said.
“Yeah. I like to live as well as I can, and my salary and pension give me enough to get by okay,” I told him, not that it was any of his business. It was true, though. I’d only made it to detective sergeant, but when a wild shot hit me in the spine and ended that career, I’d started another with Beau — part security man, part assistant trainer, part most everything else. My disability pay was pretty good, and Beau wasn’t stingy with the green even if he wasn’t always too heavy with it for himself. And there were always poker games and a good safe bet now and then.
I made out fairly well, generally. Up and down sometimes, but then I didn’t have much besides myself to spend it on. As for living “in a stable,” as Hauser put it, I’d figured that if I had to be at the track to watch over the ponies I might as well move in. And I’m one of those guys who likes even the smell of horses.
I opened the liquor cabinet and told them to choose their own poisons while I wheeled out to the little kitchen for ice. When I’d filled the teak bucket from my specially designed low ice chest and rejoined them, I saw we had more company: Howard Lanier and Sal Verdi, neither of whom I particularly welcomed at any time, and especially not now.
Lanier had, until recently, been one of “those” owners — expecting every horse to be Nashua, but not parting with the bucks to give it half a chance. It wasn’t as though he didn’t have the cash. He was loaded. A tall handsome guy with an arrogant air and a supercilious smirk on his face half the time. I didn’t like him.
I didn’t like him to play poker with either, but he often filled up a game late at night around the barns. At least he lost like a gentleman and helped to keep us in good whiskey.
Verdi was one of those meatballs you wouldn’t want to bump into in an alley. Screwy thing about that, because there really wasn’t much against him except his appearance and his manners. He looked like a cold potato, and he used a gold toothpick to flick away the tobacco that clung to his teeth from the smushed old cigars he sucked in his fat mouth. A gold toothpick. That’ll give you an idea.
Word was that Verdi was trying to buy a controlling interest in the track; wanted to make it into something classier. Maybe he would. But if he saw it for classy, he’d have to keep himself in the background, way back. Bulldog Smith wouldn’t strike you as Ivy League, but seeing him you wouldn’t think you’d wandered into a remake of “The Godfather.”