John McEvoy - Blind switch

Doyle winced at that statement. To Tirabassi he said, “All you’ve unloaded on me here seems to add up to a bunch of nothing. You may not know it, but I used to make my living in advertising and sales. I’ve got a built-in bullshit detector, developed during those days, and it’s pulsating…it’s humming , the more I listen to you two.

“If you had anything solid on me, we wouldn’t be having this cozy little coffee klatsch. You’d have served me a warrant at the door and hauled my ass downtown.” He got to his feet and stretched his arms expansively, trying to look nonchalant.

The agents exchanged glances. Then Tirabassi said to Doyle, “We’ve got a Mexican illegal, a busboy from Dino’s, who is facing deportation charges. Bye bye Chico, you know what I mean? He’s very willing to testify that he overheard parts of a conversation in which you and Kellman talked about a fixed horse race.”

Doyle snorted. “For Chrissakes, come back to the real world, man. Dino doesn’t keep a busboy down there who knows more than ten words of English. If he did, they might hit up Dino for a huge raise to get them in range of the minimum wage. No, I can’t imagine your deportee as some kind of star witness in court.

“I think you two are blue-skying here, as we used to say over at…well, my former place of business.”

“Mr. Doyle,” Karen responded, “please sit down a minute and consider a few things. One, we can cite you as a ‘known associate’ of Moe Kellman, and we’ve got a file on him that’s thicker than the Chicago phone book, even though he’s never been convicted of anything. Plus, we can tie you to the scene of the reported fixed race. You worked with that horse, you can’t deny it.

“Now, these things might not add up to a conviction in your case,” she conceded. “But they certainly add up to a package of damning information we could dump on the desk of any legitimate employer you might seek to find work with in the future.

“This is not the kind of background information that’ll lead you to a corner office anywhere. Think about it.”

“Well, well,” said Doyle, “and here I was under the impression that all those old J. Edgar Hoover techniques of threat and implication were things of the past. I thought I’d been hearing all about the ‘New FBI.’ You’re shaking my faith in federal law enforcement.

“I don’t get it,” Doyle continued, genuinely puzzled. “You tell me all this stuff about a fixed race, involving me, you say, but you admit you don’t have a case against me. Still, you make threats about messing me up with future employers. What’s the deal here, folks? Out of the immense citizenry of this great nation, why has your little corner of the Federal Bureau of Investigation selected Jack Doyle’s life to play with?”

Karen looked over at her partner, who nodded for her to continue.

“Actually, Jack, there’s something you could do for us. Something that would serve to wipe your slate clean with us.”

Doyle said angrily, “Whatever you’re talking about, it’s got blackmail written all over it. I know very well how personnel managers react to visits from people like you.”

“Let’s start thinking of this more as an invitation to cooperate,” Karen smiled, “an opportunity to ‘give something back,’ as the professional athletes say. You put one over in one area of the horse business. Maybe we can’t prove it, but you did it. You know it, and we know it. It was unworthy of you, Jack. This is a chance for you to make up for it.

“Just listen to what we have to say. It won’t take long. It’s not distasteful, or dangerous, but it might actually prove satisfying to a risk-taker like you. And it’s in your best interests,” Karen added.

“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” Doyle said in amazement. “What the hell could I do for the FBI?”

Tirabassi broke his silence. “You ever hear of a man named Harvey Rexroth?”

Twenty minutes later, Doyle and the two FBI agents sat in a well-worn, high-backed red booth at the rear of Petros’ Restaurant, two blocks from Doyle’s apartment.

When it appeared that his conversation with Engel and Tirabassi was going to go on for some time, Doyle told them, “Look, this is all very interesting. But I’m not exactly at the top of my game this morning. I need some breakfast.”

“I assume you mean ‘Not here,’” Karen said, grimacing in the direction of Doyle’s refrigerator.

“The only time I eat in is when I have carry out,” Doyle said. “Let’s go down the street.”

Petros’ was one of the thousands of Greek-owned restaurants in Chicago, the vast majority of them featuring reasonable prices, decent food, and moderate pretensions. Petros, Doyle informed the agents as they walked south on Clark Street, was a bald-headed import from Mikos who was convinced he looked exactly like the old television detective Kojak, portrayed by Telly Savalas, and loved to be referred to by the actor’s first name.

As they entered and walked toward the back booth, Doyle gave his usual greeting to Petros, who was seated at a table with clear sight lines to the cash register and its buxom female operator. “Hello, Smelly-no, Telly,” Doyle called out. Petros scowled. “Go sit down, Jeck, I’ll tell Gus to start up burning your eggs.”

Karen ordered a muffin, Tirabassi just coffee. “Give me the full load, Elaine,” Doyle said to the waitress. When it arrived, that proved to be scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausages, and three slices of buttered toast.

Karen shook her head. “Cholesterol concerns aren’t exactly on your front page, are they?”

Doyle grinned. “Not a factor, my dear. I come from a long line of Micks that thrived on bacon and eggs until they died in ripe old age. My cholesterol count is almost in a dead heat with my weight, one-sixty. When we’d take our annual physicals at Serafin Ltd., my doctor used to turn pale with envy every time he reported this to me. He’d throw the test results down on his desk and spit out the information.”

Tirabassi finished his first cup of coffee. “Do you think we could get back to the matter at hand, Doyle? Or are you going start bragging about your triglyceride count?”

The matter at hand, and particularly the subject of Harvey Rexroth, was not one he was “tremendously familiar with,” Doyle admitted. “I know who Rexroth is, some kind of media mogul. He’s mentioned in the papers every once in awhile, or there’ll be his photo at some fund raiser. Homely-looking sucker, as I recall. But,” Doyle asked as he finished his third piece of toast, “where does he come into this picture of yours that’s got me in it?”

Over the next hour, interrupted only by the periodic appearances of Elaine the waitress with coffee refills, the two agents combined to provide a summarized oral biography of Harvey Theodore Rexroth, age forty-four, owner of palatial homes in Kentucky, Florida, and Montana and a $12 million condo in New York City where his business was headquartered.

Harvey Rexroth descended from a family of wealthy Montana ranchers, their presence in the Treasure State tracing back to the turn of the century. Harvey’s great-grandfather, Horace, maintained two hundred thousand sheep on thousands of cheaply acquired acres. Horace for years was known in the West as the Mogul of Mutton.

His eldest grandson, Harold, was the first to branch out into business beyond the borders of the wide-open ranges. Sent east for schooling, he was graduated from Harvard, then its Business School, and soon began to diversify his family’s holdings, acquiring newspapers all over the West and Southwest. Later, following the Reagan Administration’s deregulation of the communications industry, he began adding radio and television stations to the huge media company that became known as RexCom.