Black Diamond (25 page)

He wrote something on the back of a business card and led me to the door.

“Mr. Higgins will drive you back to the Gresham Hotel.”

When we shook hands, he slipped the card into my hand.

I continued to clasp his hand for one last burning question. “What constraints go with this information? What are my limits?”

He placed his other hand on top of mine. The smile was genuine.

“Just this. Don't get yourself killed, Mr. Knight. I'm beginning to like you.”

On the drive back, I diverted Mr. Higgins with a request to drop me at the Hertz car-rental office on South Circular Road. On the way, I checked the business card the superintendent had given me. On the back, he had written the address of a pub, McShannon's on Fowne's Street. No great shock. The Irish seem to have a proclivity for doing business in the back rooms of pubs.

The name written above it in clear print was, “Top Man—Martin Sweeney.” It brought back the troubled look on trainer Rick McDonough's face when he gave me that same name as the man who was pulling the strings on Black Diamond.

I committed the information on both sides of the card to memory and burned the card at the first opportunity. A card with both names could prove an embarrassment or worse if the wrong eyes found it.

The clerk at the Hertz office was tickled beyond measure to be able to lease the Jaguar to me again. He all but offered to drive it for me.

My first stop was the Gresham to throw a few essentials from my luggage into a plain paper bag and drive west out of Dublin.

Within an hour, I arrived at the Keadeen Hotel on the Curragh Road in Newbridge. It is an exquisite gem, awash in flowers, and set in undulating green country close to places I needed to be in the next two days.

I checked in with the name Dave Robicheaux. How many people in Ireland would recognize James Lee Burke's Louisiana
detective? And if they did, the very literate Irish would be more amused than suspicious.

I used the next two hours to stop by the National Stud Farm a few miles away. I needed a cram course on Thoroughbred breeding practices in Ireland where Black Diamond was sired and born.

I was always bugged by Rick's account of Black Diamond's uninspired breeding. What nagged me was that world-beaters from undistinguished sires and dams pop up once in a great while, but not often. Speed is most frequently passed on from champion stock. Considering the whoopla that went into concealing Black Diamond's speed, if it were that important to me, I'd start with proven bloodlines.

I took the public's tour of the National Stud Farm, but I needed more particular information. I cornered Mick, the lifelong horseman who gave the tour. I told him I was writing a novel, and true to the nature of the literature-loving Irish, the floodgates of information opened.

The part of his information that mattered to me came down to this. The breeding of Thoroughbred racehorses can only be done legally by putting a stallion and mare together at the proper moment in an enclosure Mick referred to as the “honeymoon suite.” Artificial insemination is banned because of the possibility of confusing or falsifying the lineage of the foals.

Three witnesses watch nature take its course—one from the owner of the mare, one from the owner of the stallion, and one from the Irish National Registry. DNA samples are taken of the mare and stallion for possible later comparison with the DNA of the foal. Then, in Ireland, a tiny electronic chip with all of the lineage information is inserted behind the ear of the foal. Before the horse runs in any race in Ireland, the chip is scanned to verify that the horse is not a ringer.

This was new to me. The chip method has never been adopted in the United States. Before every American race, a track official
checks the number tattooed inside the upper lip of every horse on the way to being saddled in the paddock to verify the identity of the horse. The registry of tattoos is kept by the Jockey Club.

Before parting company with Mick, I laid the ultimate question on the line. “How could someone get around the system in Ireland? Let me put it straight. How could someone falsify the lineage of a Thoroughbred?”

Mick gave this simple Yank an indulgent grin and cut him off at the knees.

“Don't try it, lad, even in a book. It's impossible.”

I gave him a grin, a nod, and a handshake, but I was thinking, “
Ah, Mick, nothing is impossible if you put enough money and clout behind it.”

It was a little past four in the afternoon when I drove the Jaguar, for which I was developing a guilty affection, up to the gates of the Dubh Crann Stables. I had apparently burned no bridges on my last visit. The guard swung open the gates with nothing more than a wave.

I mouthed a two-word question through the window, “Kieran Dowd?” He pointed to a paved, one-lane path that led to a large stable that was only slightly more spotless, sterile, and luxuriously appointed than the lobby of a Four Seasons Hotel.

I pulled the Jaguar up crosswise at the open door of the stable, skidding to a stop. There was a point. It's like the answer to the question, “Where does an eight-hundred-pound gorilla sleep?” The answer, “Anywhere he wants.” Same for the Jaguar.

The disquieting rumble of the Jag engine, together with the audacity of blocking the stable entrance, brought a hopping Mr. Dowd through the door ready to have someone's head.

“What in the bloody hell do you think you're—?”

By the time his eyes adjusted to the sunlight and he recognized the Jaguar, I was out of the car with my arm around his shoulder leading him back into the stable with a running monologue.

“Mr. Dowd, the pleasure of seeing you again is all mine. I'm here to talk to you about just one thing. Money, Mr. Dowd. I'm here to make you a wealthy man, and not do so badly by myself as well. Are you ready to stop babbling about parking spaces and listen to me?”

He caught enough of that to clam up. He just looked at me with his mouth agape and a totally confused look on his face.

“I told you last time, Mr. Dowd. You've got talent. And it's being wasted on chicken feed. I've got contacts that can turn your talent with horses into more euros than you can count in a week. Are you listening, Mr. Dowd? Don't waste my time.”

I gave him a second to close his mouth and swallow before he could get his tongue in gear.

“I don't understand a word you say, fella. You didn't make any sense the last time, and you don't make any sense now. Who the hell are ya?”

“Damn, you are obsessed with names, aren't you? I'm Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'm Mickey Mouse. What the hell difference does it make? I can't waste time with this. I want to hear just one word. Say yes or no. I have no time for anything else. Say yes, and we'll do business that will put you on top of the world. Say no, and I'll drive out of here and you'll have your damned parking space back. What'll it be?”

He took two paces backward and looked at me. He started to laugh.

“You are the most confusing son of a bitch, whoever the hell you are. You blow in here like a damn tornado. I don't know what you want. Yes. No. What the hell is all that?”

I smiled back at him. “That's excitement, Mr. Dowd. You look like the big shot around here. That's why I'm talking to you. How about giving yourself half an hour off? There's a pub ten minutes down the road. Let me buy you a pint. Fifteen minutes later I'll bring you back and drive off. It'll be as if I've never been here. But I'm betting the price of a pint or two that we'll be in business together. What's to lose?”

I held open the passenger door to the Jaguar. Whether it was curiosity at the audacity of this Yankee, the offer of a windfall of money, or just a ride in a Jaguar that did it, inside of a minute we were on the road to the Horse and Hares Pub.

Within ten minutes we were at a back table behind two creamy pints of Guinness's finest, absorbing the warmth of a peat fire in the back-wall fireplace.

“Now, Yank, for lack of the name you won't give me, what are we doing here?”

“We're getting to know each other. I need to know I can trust you. I'll tell you what I know already. You're a hell of a horseman. And at the same time you're a hell of a scam artist.”

He stiffened. It was a gamble. I could have lost him then and there. I put a friendly hand on his shoulder to prevent any rapid retreat.

“Don't take me wrong, Mr. Dowd. To me, it's a term of admiration. I like to think of myself the same way.”

He studied me for a few seconds before taking a sip of the Guinness.

“Now, Kieran, may I call you that?” It seemed the moment to slip into his first name. He showed no response.

“You and the group you work for have gone to extremes to conceal the talent of a horse called Black Diamond. Total fraud. You took him to the States to make a real killing. The first try didn't come off, but he's ready to go again. Are we in synch here, Kieran?”

He simply took a long draught of the Guinness and set it down deliberately. “You have a way of demanding a lot and giving nothing, Yank. What part do you play in all of this?”

“None. Yet. But I have the ability to multiply the profits from Black Diamond's next race into a figure that neither you nor the bunch you work for have ever dreamed of.”

We just looked at each other for several seconds. “I'm just askin'. How does it work?”

“Ah, that's for me to know, and for you and your boys to induce me to tell you.”

“And how do we do that?”

“For you it's simple. I need you to set up a meeting.”

“With whom?”

I took a long draw on the Guinness to fake a nonchalance that covered nerves pulsing all over my body.

“Martin Sweeney.”

He leaned back and just laughed. “Oh, Yank. No one could accuse you of faint heart.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning why don't you ask something simple? Maybe I could set you up with Queen Elizabeth.”

“I don't think so. The queen's not into horse scams. Martin Sweeney is. I once told you I worked with Seamus McGuiness. He's no longer among the living. That puts Sweeney in his spot. I can do him more good in fifteen minutes than all of his bank robberies put together. When you talk to him, you can put it just that way.”

Dowd was looking at me now with seriousness mixed with curiosity.

“And tell him this. He can put me to the test. I'll make him twenty thousand euros in twenty-four hours just to prove I can do it. But I need fifteen minutes of his time first.”

I let him chew on that while I finished the Guinness. I stood up while he just looked at his glass.

“And if he did want to talk to you?”

“Tell him to leave a message with the desk clerk at the Keadeen Hotel. Just say where and when. It has to be in the next twenty-four hours. Preferably in Dublin.”

“And what name might he leave it for?”

I threw a ten-euro note on the table in front of him for the pints. “Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

I checked out of the Keadeen Hotel within half an hour. I was less than comfortable staying at an address known to the gang of thugs I'd be dealing with.

The desk clerk who helped me check out was tall, polished, and perfectly tailored—the ideal specimen of Irish hospitality. I told him
that I was expecting a message, and that I'd call later if he would do me the kindness to read it to me over the phone.

“Certainly, sir.”

“The message will be for me in the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

“Excellent, sir. And when you call, shall we address you as Mr. Universe or simply governor?”

“Just Arnie will do. I don't want to flood you with autograph seekers.”

“Most considerate, sir. Must be such a bother.”

“Happens all the time. Very embarrassing.”

I slipped him a twenty euro note. “It'll be our little secret, sir.”

I returned the car to the rental agency and caught a cab back to the Gresham. I called the desk clerk at the Keadeen from my room phone. Sure enough, Kieran Dowd had hopped to it. The message was to the point.

“Eight o'clock tonight. McShannon's Pub.”

I rode down to the lobby for a brief chat with Tommy, the older concierge who treated me like a returning son when I checked in. We slipped around the corner from his station for a quiet word.

“Tommy, I need a bit of wisdom from a man who knows the city. I have an appointment at McShannon's Pub this evening. I'm not sure I'd trust the man I'm meeting as far as I could throw the Gresham—with you in it. What am I getting myself into here?”

“Absolutely nothin' to fear, if you take a bit of advice.”

“Good.”

“You haven't heard the advice.”

“Which is?”

“Take the first cab in the line in front of the hotel to the Dublin Airport, and get as far the hell away from McShannon's Pub as you can get.”

“Ah, Tommy. My mother, my partner, and a very pretty girl would
probably all second your advice. I can't do it. Tell me about McShannon's. Forewarned is forearmed.”

“That's a sweet little phrase. It'll probably get you killed if you walk into McShannon's for anything but a pint.”

“Let's go at it this way. I have a meeting with a man whose name you're better off not knowing. I can't avoid it. What am I looking at?”

He took my arm and led me around another corner to heighten the isolation.

“If you're a tourist, you'll walk in, have a pint, enjoy the
craic
, and breeze out again. If you ask any pointed questions, you'll as likely as not be carried out the back door. Do you hear what I'm saying.”

“What is this place?”

“It's the headquarters of a bunch you don't want to get crosswise with.” We were alone, but he looked both ways anyway. “They're the remnants of the meanest of the lot that're left from the times we'd like to forget. Do I have to say more?”