John McEvoy - Blind switch

Doyle put his elbows on the table, resting his head in his hands. Then he said, “When you’re all done critiquing my housekeeping, could one of you maybe get around to where you tell me what business you think you have with me?”

Though his head was still pounding, the coffee was working to help clear Doyle’s mind. He began to further size up his uninvited visitors.

Tirabassi appeared to be close to Doyle’s age and was of similar medium build. His forehead was furrowed with worry lines. He reminded Doyle of Father DiCastri, the assistant pastor at the parish of his boyhood, a man so laden with concern for his fellow man that his rare smiles were widely reported by parishioners whenever they appeared.

The woman, Karen, was another, decidedly different story, in Doyle’s grudgingly admiring estimation. With her tall, athletic figure, attractively wide-set eyes, and open expression-one that suggested she was not going to be as quick to judge Jack Doyle as was her partner-Karen sat in pleasant contrast to Tirabassi, who impatiently tapped two fingers of his right hand on the table as he coldly regarded his host.

The woman was the first to speak.

“We’re here, Mr. Doyle, as a result of information we received suggesting your involvement in a fixed horse race.” She paused, allowing time for that to sink in.

Doyle felt his heart skitter briefly into overdrive, but he looked at Karen without changing expression. He said nothing.

Tirabassi said, “The race in question was at Heartland Downs. It was a race won by a horse you used to work with when you were in the employ of a trainer named Angelo Zocchi.”

Doyle cleared his throat. “Yes, I worked for Zocchi. Then I quit working for Zocchi. So what? And what ‘fix’ are you talking about?”

Tirabassi shrugged. “Maybe ‘fix’ is overstating it,” he said. He leaned toward Doyle, frowning, the intensity of his expression nearly bringing together in a horizontal line Tirabassi’s thick, black eyebrows. “But maybe not,” he said. “Something went on with that race, something kinky.” He shook his head disapprovingly. “And you were part of it, Mr. Doyle.”

Doyle said, “Something kinky? What the hell does that mean? I think you’re blowing smoke,” he added, looking at Karen.

Said Tirabassi, “Let me spell it out for you. The Bureau was alerted to this situation by an extremely reliable source, a man named Scotty Roxborough. He’s a bigtime linemaker in Las Vegas. Roxy sometimes helps us out with information, and sometimes we help him out. He informed us that there was an unusual amount of action on that race at Heartland Downs, most of it going down on that horse you groomed, City Sarah. Roxy said race books all over Vegas were hit with money on that horse.”

Tirabassi reached into his suitcoat and extracted a notebook. He began to read from it. “According to Roxy-and this is a guy who knows-the win payoff was suspicious in itself. The horse was listed in the track program and the Racing Journal at odds of twenty to one. But she went off at only eight to one. Even more suspicious was the number of bets using the horse in what Roxy called the ‘gimmicks’-exactas or trifectas. Roxy said there hadn’t been a race like this for several years, since a trifecta race at Gateway Meadows. That one eventually led to the conviction and imprisonment of half a dozen participants.”

Karen cut in. “Horse racing, Mr. Doyle, is one of the most closely monitored businesses in the country-both by its own operators and regulators and, in some cases, with help from people like Roxborough. For the most part, the sort of massive attention it gets works well to keep racing clean. As you may know,” she smiled, “there’s more fraud in banking than horse racing.”

“The racing people,” Tirabassi interjected, “want to insure that the sport is on the up and up in order to maintain the public’s confidence. And the Vegas people want it to be that way so that they don’t get taken by crooks putting something over on them. They react very unkindly to that. They watch horse race betting as carefully as they keep track of the off-the-field associations of NFL quarterbacks. And NBA referees, for that matter.”

Doyle shifted in his chair, but remained silent. The pounding in his head had settled into a low, steady thrum , punctuated by an occasional sharp flash of pain, as if Mongo Santamaria were at work in there. Even the pleasant sound of Karen Engel’s voice failed to offset this rhythmic discomfort. He thought, fleetingly but bitterly, of Maureen and E. D.

“We were alerted to all this by the agent in our Chicago office who maintains contact with Roxborough,” Karen said. “He checked with his local sources, who confirmed that there was something out of line about that race. The same agent spotted you while reviewing routine surveillance tapes of a man named Moe Kellman. We knew who he was. The restaurant owner, Dino, told us who you were.”

“What’s ‘routine’ about a surveillance tape?” Doyle snapped.

Karen ignored the question. “Moe Kellman, as I’m sure you are aware, is one of the Chicago Outfit’s major money movers. We know that, even though we’ve never been able to build a case against him. Kellman oversees the operation of many of the Outfit’s legitimate businesses, ones that have been started with money he helped to launder years ago.…”

Doyle pondered this information, which was brand-new to him. He’d suspected that Kellman’s background was not exactly pristine-after all, the talk of “my people” between a couple of such men of the world as themselves suggested otherwise.

But, Doyle knew, Chicago was full of phonies claiming to be “connected” to the Outfit, or “clouted up” at City Hall, or in the police department; Doyle had met, and seen through, a number of them. He realized now that Kellman’s subtle hints over the course of their conversations were, unfortunately for Doyle, the real thing; that the little man actually stood tall in the local criminal hierarchy. This knowledge made Doyle’s headache worsen.

“I know Kellman,” Doyle admitted. “We work out at the same gym. But so what? There’s undoubtedly all kinds of other twisted citizens there morning and night. Keep in mind, the membership roster is heavy with lawyers and securities traders.”

Doyle began attempting to retrieve pieces of the conversations he’d had with Kellman over Dino’s dining tables. When some of these pieces came back to him, especially discussions of City Sarah’s racing schedule, Doyle felt a wave of unease. To his immense relief, he heard Tirabassi say, “We don’t have any audio tapes of you and Kellman, or Kellman and any other of his interesting dining companions, for that matter. That’s an Outfit hangout, and Dino’s is checked for bugs daily by one of their best security men.”

Doyle struggled not to grin at this revelation. “So, why are you hassling me?” he said to Tirabassi. He was beginning to feel better on all fronts.

Karen immediately deflated him.

“We’ve tied you to Kellman,” she said, “and we’ve established that you worked for Zocchi. Not only that, but that you worked on the horse in question, this City Sarah. And we know you left Mr. Zocchi’s employment shortly after that race.

“We’ve been to the track and checked with Zocchi about you. He described you, I’m quoting, as an ‘uncooperative’ individual whom he was ‘not at all sorry to see go.’”

Fuck you too, Zocchi , Doyle thought.

“Did you ask Zocchi about this so-called fix?” Doyle said.

“We interviewed all of the stable personnel,” Tirabassi replied. “All but you, that is, since you’d so abruptly quit. Probably with the money you’d made from setting this thing up.”