Black Diamond (33 page)

“They're off!”

A storm of dirt hit the starting gate as nine horses dug in from the hips to hit top speed in three jumps. Five leaders went full out for an early advantage. They pressed in on each other to get a position on the rail.

When the leading cluster fanned out, there were three abreast across at the front. The horse that Boyle had fixed it for, Tailgunner, was on the rail and edging his head into the lead. I picked up Black Diamond's colors. He was settling into fourth position on the rail.

With the binoculars, I could detect the other jockeys beside Tailgunner working the reins to seesaw the bits in their horses' mouths to give Boyle's horse, number four, the undisputed lead. It was subtle, but I knew what I was looking for.

They came into the turn in that order after a blazing fast two
furlongs. The Diamond was hanging onto fourth position, nearly a length behind the leader and saving ground on the rail.

Halfway around the turn, Tailgunner opened up a length lead. The announcer picked it up and blared, “It's Tailgunner driving into the stretch! He's heading home!”

I was dying more and more as the gap widened. I had to grab the railing in front of me to keep from screaming, “Open him up, Alberto!”

It was as if he heard my thoughts. I saw Alberto crouch lower across Black Diamond's neck. I could see his lips working close to Diamond's ear.

In a flash, the Diamond burst into a new dimension of speed. He veered off the rail to the right. In three strides, he was on the heels of the horse running third. The jockey ahead of him seemed startled to have the Diamond at his back and driving. Before their hooves clicked on each other, the jockey ahead pulled slightly to the outside. Alberto saw daylight. He seemed almost possessed. He was on Diamond's neck, thrusting forward with every stride.

The Diamond caught the fever and turned the heat up another notch. He blew through on the inside, past the third and then the second horse. He had a clear track. He went for the leader.

The announcer was screaming into the mic. “Here comes Black Diamond! The Diamond is flying.”

The Diamond lengthened his stride and dug in with every powerful thrust of his back legs. He cut the lead to three lengths, then two. By the time they passed the eighth pole, it was half a length.

The jockey on Tailgunner turned back for a fleeting glance. He went to the whip. Tailgunner responded with everything he had left, but he was nearly spent.

Alberto never let up. His legs drove against the stirrups in perfect rhythm with the Diamond's strides. They were twenty yards from the wire when the nose of the Diamond burst into the lead. At the wire, he had the lead by a full head.

I saw Alberto rise straight up in the irons with both arms lifted
to Heaven. His fists were clenched. He was pumping them skyward as if he were finally beating off the beast.

The race was over, but Black Diamond never slackened his pace for another half mile. And Alberto just let him run. It was a victory lap for both of them.

I could have fallen back into the seat in exhaustion, or I could have leaped in the air and hugged anyone close by, but there was business to do.

I looked over at the superintendent. For the first time I clearly saw an emotion in his eyes. He was looking at me, and the emotion was stark hatred. He just glared with no words.

I heard a rustle of activity behind me. Seven uniformed officers lined up against the back rail of the box. The superintendent started to rise, and then just sank back down in his seat.

There was no fuss. Two of the officers lifted the superintendent out of his seat and told him he was under arrest. A third put handcuffs on him, while one of the arresting officers began the rote, “You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you—”

Whether because of the Miranda warnings or just because there was nothing to say, the superintendent was taken out of the box and up the steps without a word.

The business of preferring charges would be taken care of by Billy when he got back to his office. For the time being, the familiar threesome—Mr. Devlin, Billy Coyne, and I took a table in a far corner of the clubhouse bar. I don't know what they ordered, but a soothing three fingers of Famous Grouse went a long way to settling my raw nerves.

“All right, kid, now lay it out. All of it. What tipped you to the superintendent? You blew my mind last night when you told me. I've been working with him for a year and never got a clue.”

“A bunch of things that didn't come together until the last few days. You, for one, Mr. Coyne.”

He just held up his hands in a question.

“When I picked up little Erin from the priest and the nun in Ireland and brought her home, I left her and her mother with Terry O'Brien in a house on the shore on a dead-end street in Winthrop. Nobody knew where. Not even the priest and nun. I checked that. Except you, Mr. Coyne. When I filled you in, I told you that they were with Terry. You told me later you briefed the superintendent on everything in confidence. It was the only way the Irish mob could have found out. When I went to Terry's a couple of days later, one of their thugs was there to finish the job on them.”

I saw a look of almost repentance mixed with anger on Billy's face.

“Damn it, kid. I never thought. It was a secure line. I remember now. He asked me. I must have spilled it.”

“It's all right, Mr. Coyne. I probably would too if he'd asked me. It was only when I started piecing it together that I knew he had to be with the Irish gang. I'll give you another shocker. I recently found out that there's a top guy in that Irish outfit who remains invisible. I'd bet my Corvette that our superintendent's the head of it all. No wonder you and he never got anywhere in shutting down that gang.”

Billy just shook his head. I think he was replaying confidential conversations with the superintendent over the past year.

“There's another piece to it. Before I left Ireland, I briefed him on what I learned about Martin Sweeney. Harry Wong and I played a wagering scam on Sweeney when I thought he was the top man. We arranged a phony loan of three million that he was going to bet on Black Diamond with Harry's imaginary syndicate. He was going to make twenty or thirty million on it. I did it to get information. When I told the superintendent about it, that was the first he'd heard of it. Sweeney was apparently doing this on his own. It must have smacked of a move by Sweeney to take over the top spot. That midnight, Sweeney was gunned down in an alley behind his office. That was too much of a coincidence. But even that wasn't the final clincher.”

I paused for a long, slow sip of the Grouse. It wasn't thirst. I'll admit it. I was playing the scene for all it was worth. And it felt good.

Mr. Devlin leaned in for privacy.

“Now you've got both of us, Michael. What final clincher?”

I leaned back in the chair. Privacy be damned. I was enjoying this business for the first time since Hector Vasquez walked into my office.

“Well, it's this way. The last time I saw the superintendent in Ireland I tried to convince him to come over here for the race. Once I figured who he was, we needed to have him over here so Mr. Coyne could arrest him, at least for extortion. The problem was how to convince him. I suggested he could work closely with Mr. Coyne and see the race and a bunch of other stuff that I see now didn't really matter. He had to come over. He knew he had Sweeney murdered, and it was time to collect the extortion money from all the Americans they had on the hook. He had no one else he knew he could trust. Certainly not Boyle, who, by the way, has probably packed up and left town before the Irish boys could get to him. That meant the superintendant had to make the collection himself. I had Tom Burns tail whoever picked up the money, which, by the way, was doubled this time. I heard back from Tom. Guess who made the pickup from a dead-drop at Barnes & Noble in person?”

“Our very own superintendent.”

“Right on, Mr. Devlin. That tags him with an extortion charge at the least. I should tell you this, Mr. Coyne. Before the race, I made a strong point of telling the superintendent that Boyle had the race fixed for number four. I told him even Black Diamond's jockey was too scared to cross Boyle. I figured that with that kind of assurance, he'd put the whole extorted collection on four to win instead of Black Diamond. From the look I got when Black Diamond won, that's exactly what he did. That was a major loss of funds. It might have hammered that outfit financially. They just lost their leadership and their financing in two days. I don't think they'll be a threat to us over here for a while, Mr. Coyne.”

Mr. Devlin fairly exploded. “Damn well done, Michael! Damn well done!” He turned with a flourish to the dour Billy Coyne. “And wouldn't you like to join in the kudos to my junior partner, Billy Coyne, for pulling your chestnuts out of the fire?”

Billy Coyne dug deep and forced what appeared to be a genuine smile. He held his hand out to shake hands.

“Kid, I've got to admit—”

“Uh, uh, uh, Billy.” Mr. D. was scowling at him.

“All right, Michael. You done good.”

I settled for that. Just the “Michael” instead of “kid” felt like a victory of gargantuan proportions.

Billy stood up first. “I've got work to do. There are indictments to draft.”

His last words as he left the table were, “I'll be in touch, kid.”

Sic transit gloria.

It was three days later that our little troop gathered in Judge Peragallo's courtroom. After our last visit with Hector, and the events that led to the arrest of the superintendent, I had the time to pull together all of the information we'd turned up and finally focus single-mindedly on every possible cause of Danny's fall. After eliminating all of the impossible and extremely unlikely explanations, I was stunned to be left with just one.

I went back over the video of Danny's last race one more time. This time I knew what to look for. And there it was. The only remaining question was how I could have missed it the first hundred times through that video.

We filed a motion with Judge Peragallo for dismissal of the indictment against Hector. Angela Lamb raised a cloud of dust over the abruptness of the motion and hearing, but she subsided when the judge reminded her that she was the one pushing for a trial immediately, if not sooner.

The three days between the last race and the hearing day on our motion had been the best I could remember in the past three weeks. I deliberately slowed the pace and spent time doing practically nothing other than preparing for the hearing.

There were two other things I did enjoy doing during those days. I paid a visit to the backstretch the morning after the race. I gathered the jockeys together between exercise rides. There was no need to be furtive about it. In fact, I was delighted to say it in both Spanish
and English for the world to hear. There would be no more fixed races at Suffolk Downs at the hands of Mr. Boyle. His day was done, and their day was just dawning. The grins and jokes and backslaps and even cheers convinced me that maybe it had all been worthwhile. In fact, maybe I'd go on doing more than appeals of parking tickets.

I got a special handshake that turned into a mutual hug from Alberto Ibanez.

“You rode one hell of a race, Alberto.”

He seemed a bit emotional when he just nodded a thank you. I started to leave when he held my arm.

“I just want to say it. When you said those words to me just before I went up on Black Diamond. You said, ‘Ride like the wind, 'Berto. Bring him in. It's going to be all right.” He put his hand on his heart and couldn't seem to say anything further.

I simply pressed his shoulder, which said, “I know.”

Before I left, I dropped down to Rick's barn. I could see him looking at me while I was with the jockeys.

He held out that twisted, knuckley hand, and I took it. He had a grin like I hadn't seen. “We did okay on that race, Michael. Like you said, I bet the ranch on Diamond.”

“Way to go, Rick. What're you going to do with all that money? Retire?”

He came up sharp.

“Hell no! I'm just gettin' started. I'll be at the yearlin' sales in Florida next month. You won't recognize this place when I bring in some new blood.”

“I'll be here at the backstretch the day they come in, Rick.”

“You'd better. I'm thinkin' of namin' one after Miles O'Connor. What do you think?”

“I think he'll be up there cheering every time he runs. I wonder if they have pari-mutuel betting in Heaven.”

“Hell, if they don't, Miles'll start it.”

On the morning of the hearing, Judge Peragallo rapped the court to order at nine thirty sharp. I was at defense table with Hector waiting for Mr. Devlin. Hector was jumpy as a cat, which had the odd effect of settling my nerves down.

Just as the judge took the bench and gave the “be seated” signal, I saw Mr. D. coming in the back door. He took a seat in the back of the courtroom. I caught his attention and signaled him to come up to defense table, but he waved it off. I could read his lips, mouthing the words, “It's your case, son. You finish it.”

It would be hard not to notice that the two center rows of spectators' seats were filled with Hector's fellow jockeys. I didn't recognize the two women in the front row. Hector whispered to me that his mother had flown in from the Dominican Republic, and the young woman beside her was his wife. I had no idea how much English they spoke, but the lines of intense worry on their faces spoke clearly how much depended on the outcome of that hearing. Now Hector's case of nerves became contagious.

Judge Peragallo looked down at me. “I have a full docket, Mr. Knight. What have you got for us?”

I called Hector to the stand and had him sworn in. I had had a giant television screen brought into the courtroom and positioned so that the judge and counsel at the prosecutor's table could get the full view. There was no jury at this hearing.