John McEvoy - Blind switch

Doyle’s Project-named City Sarah-was a four-year-old black filly with a dazzling burst of speed on the racetrack and the disposition of an eager puppy off of it. Although she was a relatively cheap item in Zocchi’s well-stocked public stable-a claiming horse, whose genetic composition confined her to competing on the lower end of racing’s class scale-City Sarah was the stable pet. City Sarah eagerly nuzzled greetings to anyone who visited her stall, ate jelly doughnuts whenever they were offered, and developed an obvious affection for Doyle, who had never been held in comparable esteem by anything that weighed a half a ton or by anything that weighed considerably less.

At the end of that week, Doyle was summoned by phone for dinner at Dino’s with Moe Kellman. Plans were thereupon unfolded. Angelo Zocchi, Moe said as he dipped breadsticks in a specially prepared garlic paste, was to enter City Sarah in two races she could not possibly win. “Put her in over her head twice for thirty-five grand claiming, she’ll be nowhere,” Moe assured.

Next, the Real Foray into Fraud: Angelo would run City Sarah back down at her true class level, $25,000 claiming, and she would fail once again, this time courtesy of Doyle’s work. With this trio of clinkers dotting her dossier, City Sarah would again be entered for $25,000 claiming-and this time she would win.

The odds, Moe said, would be “exactly what my Group is looking for. We’ll bet our money, the horse wins, and that’s that. Very simple, Jack,” Moe said, waving a breadstick for emphasis.

Doyle had to admit he was by no means clear on this. “So what’s the big difference between a twenty-five grand horse and a thirty-five grand horse,” he began. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s big,” Moe assured him. “Look, racing’s got kind of a caste system. It’s based on ability, and it’s defined by numbers. Did you know there’s a big, big difference in talent between even five grand and thirty-five hundred dollar horses?”

“No, I didn’t,” Doyle said. “I’m not sure I understand a lot of this.”

“You don’t have to. Look,” Moe said, reaching into a bowl of garlic-stuffed olives Dino had placed next to the breadsticks, “you know from German Jews and Polish Jews? Lace-curtain Irish and pig-shit Irish? I don’t even have to go into this with you, Jack. Just take my word.”

I hope it’s as strong as your breath, Doyle thought as Moe reached again for the olives; he was palming them like peanuts. “You haven’t told me how I do this thing,” Doyle pointed out, adding: “Get one thing straight-I won’t hurt this horse. I won’t give her any dope or something like that.”

Moe’s dandelion head went from side to side. “You don’t have to. Hopping horse went out with spats. The testing labs have gotten too good. They discover the dope, then throw the book at the trainer. We don’t want to put Angelo out of business. He’s a good horse trainer, and he’s straight, but he owes us. Angelo will tell you what to do.”

Doyle considered Moe’s description of the Plan. “Won’t there be guys who pick up on this? Who’ll recognize what’s going on?” he asked. “Won’t they jump in and bet this horse when your guys do?”

Moe dismissed that possibility with a wave of his hand. “Jack, remember this: brains, discipline and patience are the key to the successful bettor. That explains why there are so few of them. Don’t worry about the odds we’re going to get,” Kellman grinned.

So, they ran City Sarah twice against $35,000 claimers, and she got her ass kicked, just as Moe Kellman had predicted. Doyle found he didn’t like this at all.

For the first in City Sarah’s series of three races, Doyle stood at the rail, rooting loudly, as the black filly led the field through a fast half-mile before deflating to finish tenth of twelve. As Doyle led her back to the barn, City Sarah was blowing like a bellows.

“Come on, you little mother,” Doyle said to City Sarah, patting her neck as they walked down the sandy path, “you ran your eyeballs out, you did your best. God love you.”

As Doyle was preparing the feed tub for City Sarah that evening, E. D. Morley sauntered down the shedrow. He looked admiringly at the still exhausted horse. “She’s a hard-trying bitch, ain’t she?” Morley said.

Ten days later, another field of $35,000 horses showed their backsides to City Sarah. When an irritated Maggie Howard complained to Doyle about Zocchi’s misplacement of the horse in her races-“What’s he doing with this nice little horse?” Maggie had asked-Doyle could only mumble a vague reply. He felt terrible. He drove from the track to one of the neighborhood bars near his apartment, and into one of those Tom Waits-nights he was so familiar with, packed with mixed emotions and mixed drinks.

When midnight arrived, Doyle realized he had confessed his entire life-plight to an off-duty waitress named Maureen Hoban at O’Keefe’s Olde Ale House. Maureen was only eight months or so out of Cork, Ireland, she said, but was apparently already a veritable Margaret Mead of American bar disappointments. Doyle liked her immensely.

Doyle bought numerous rounds for the two of them. He was amazed at a coincidence uncovered in the course of their lugubrious conversation-Maureen knew his co-worker, E. D. Morley!

“Sure, I met that Rustafartian fraud at the racetrack,” she giggled. “I go there on my off-days from work. I love your American harses.”

As closing time neared at the Ale House, Doyle was sorrowed to discover that Maureen was the first woman he had ever met who, the more he drank, the worse she looked, with the booze flushing makeup out of her pores in rivulets. But Maureen’s shrewd reading of his situation regarding the fixed race, Doyle found, had a beauty of its own.

“You’re a fookin’ fool if ya don’ go after that mooney,” Maureen advised. Doyle again recited his various reservations, but Maureen banished these with a wave of her arm.

“Wot am I hearin’ now?” his counselor from Cork continued. “You’re broke down flat, are ya not? Said ya wouldn’t go back to them stiff-necked jobs ya used to do, am I right here?

“Acarse, there’s the risk somebody’ll grass on you, but the kind of mooney ya’re talkin’ about, well, chance is sure to be built in, is it not?

“Just you forget now about hurtin’ that little harse’s feelins’, or the tiny off chance of gettin’ caught out. No,” Maureen concluded, “ya should just thank the God ya’ve turned your back on that the little Jew man wants to pay ya so much for doin’ so little.”

This, Doyle decided, was just the pep talk he had needed. He was primed with purpose as he lurched to his car, Maureen in tow. No, she didn’t want to go home with Doyle, Maureen said, though she appreciated his insincere offer. All she asked in return for her sterling advice of the evening, she said, was to be notified in advance as to the date of City Sarah’s “go” race-so that she might herself make a “wee small wager” into this betting coup. Relieved that he would not have to share the rest of the night with Maureen, whose eye shadow appeared to be loosening in sheets, Doyle promised her he would most assuredly let her know the date of the Big One.

With her second consecutive dismal failure behind her, City Sarah next was entered at her “winnable” level of $25,000. Another lousy effort here-this one to be effected by Doyle-was the second-to-last brush stroke on Moe Kellman’s conniving canvas.

Angelo Zocchi called Doyle to the stable office that morning, then locked the door. “This is what you do today, Doyle-you give that filly extra heavy rations of feed, two hours before race time. An hour before, you start giving her all the water she wants. Don’t let anybody see you doing this, don’t talk to anybody about it.”