Black Diamond (8 page)

I was alone at the rail beside the path Alberto would take to change silks for the next race. When he passed, I congratulated him in Spanish. He smiled and said, “
Gracias
.”

I asked for his autograph and held out my program. Alberto was the second leading jockey at Suffolk, so the request was not unusual. He came over and signed his name with the pen I offered. I could see him reading the words I wrote over the place he signed: Vinnie Hernandez sent me. He said this could be the time you talked about. Can I see you?

He handed the signed program back to me. I thanked him for the signature. He said, “
De nada
.” And nothing more.

I watched him walk up the path, and realized that he'd be seeing Vinnie Hernandez in the jockey's room.

I was at the rail by the paddock for the saddling of the horses for the fourth race. Alberto never looked at me when he came out with the other jockeys to mount up. He just looked at the head of his horse when he rode by on the way from the paddock to the track.

I stayed by the paddock rail, puzzling over a next move, when I
saw Alberto's groom, who sets out his change of silks and helps saddle his mounts, drift my way. He waived and said hello in Spanish like an old friend.

I asked in a low, conspiratorial tone the question that is asked of grooms in the same tone fifty times a day by the bystanders—“Any good tips?”

He responded in Spanish in the same tone, “Sure. Let me see your program.”

He took my pen, wrote in the program, closed it, and handed it back. I saw what he wrote and must have reacted with a slightly stunned look. The groom just shrugged and went back to business.

At exactly five thirty that evening, I paid the entrance fee and climbed the marble steps to the east wing of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. I knew my way to the room of Dutch masters. All of the tourists, copying artists, and class trips had abandoned the room in search of an evening meal.

I could see the back of one man, seated on the bench in the center of the room gazing at
Portrait of a Woman Wearing a Gold Chain
by Rembrandt. He was alone in the room with the exception of the guard at the door. I sat on the bench beside him, although neither of us looked at the other. The guard was probably not within earshot, but we kept it in Spanish.

“Alberto, my name is—”

“I know, Mr. Knight. I spoke with Vinnie. You seem to have made an impression.”

“Call me Michael. I'm representing Hector Vasquez.”

“I know.”

“Thank you for seeing me. You like Rembrandt?”

There must have been just a taste of surprise in my voice. He gave me a sidewise glance.

“What's not to like? Tell you the truth, I'm more into Frans Hals. All those happy Dutch smiles.” He nodded to a Hals painting to the right. “You seem surprised.”

I couldn't help an uneasy smile. It seemed an occasion requiring truthfulness, even in details.

“A little.”

“Uh-huh. Jockeys are not supposed to appreciate art, right?”

“I suppose they could. Nothing personal. I notice we're not exactly surrounded by jockeys. I also suppose you picked this place because you figured it's unlikely we'll run into any other jockeys here, no?”

He smiled. “Touché. Would it be offensive to notice that we're not exactly up to our elbows in lawyers either?”

This time the smile was real. Some ice had been broken. For some reason, I felt on steady ground talking to this man.

“I wish I had longer, Alberto, but I don't. Cards on the table. Hector is being charged with murder because Danny Ryan's death occurred in the course of what the D.A. wants to call a felony. The felony is a form of racketeering. She claims the race was fixed.”

“What did Hector say? I'm sure you asked him.”

“Hector is scared out of his wits and protecting his hindquarters. If I asked him if he'd ever jaywalked, he'd deny it. I need the truth about the race. If I don't get it, and I walk into that courtroom without it, the D.A.'ll blindside me in ways that'll kill us with the jury.”

“So you're asking me?”

“Vinnie Hernandez gave me your name. Let me tell you what I think. Whatever happened to Danny Ryan to knock him off that horse was connected to fixing the race. Hector's horse won, so I have to believe that's how it was set up. But Hector says he didn't touch Danny. For no particularly good reason, I believe him. That's why I took the case.”

He said nothing, but his eyes were glued on me.

“I need to know who was behind the fix. I figure if this race was set up, it's not the first time. Quite likely, it happens on some regular basis. That would mean you jockeys, to give you the benefit of the
doubt, are under the thumb of someone who can pull your strings whenever it suits him. How'm I doing, Alberto?”

He looked back at the Rembrandt in silence. I gave him the slack.

“You have a family, Mr. Knight?”

“Michael.”

“I'll stick to Mr. Knight till I know you better. We're not pals yet. Same question.”

“I have people I care about.”

He nodded. “So do I.” He stopped there.

“I think I get the picture. You jump when you're told to—which means pulling your horse—or there are threats. I assume the threats come from an organization you believe can carry them out. How do you and the others feel about that?”

He looked around and found that the guard had moved to the adjoining room. Alberto was on his feet directly in front of me.

“I hear you did some exercise riding, Mr. Knight. Ever ride in a race?”

“No.”

He nodded, and turned back to the Rembrandt.

“Think about this. A Thoroughbred can hit forty miles an hour. We balance on two little strips of metal and ride so close to the cleats of the horse ahead they sometimes click hooves. When they do, one horse or the other usually goes down. That puts the jockey under the horses coming from behind. There isn't one of us that hasn't been in the hospital. Broken bones, worse. Could happen every time we take a leg up on a horse for a race.”

“I know what you're saying.”

“No, you don't. Hear the rest. We love racing, the sport, so much that there isn't one of us would give it up for anything in the world. We love to compete for the win seven, eight times a day, and we forget the danger.”

“Alberto—”

“Just listen.”

His emotion was generating a heat I could almost feel.

“How would you like to sit on a horse in the starting gate, knowing you're risking being crippled for life before that horse crosses the wire, and being told there's no point to it. You have to lose the race. You're asking me how we feel about having the thing we love enough to risk everything for turned into a damned toy for a bunch of gangsters.”

I hesitated to push it, but it was all cards on the table.

“I have to ask. Do you get paid to lose? Do you take the money?”

There was a fire in his eyes when he said it. “Yes. Now ask me why?”

“Go ahead.”

“Because if any of us didn't take the money, they'd think we refused the fix. We could find one of our family dead. We know that.”

I got up and stood close enough to whisper.

“Alberto, you and Vinnie Hernandez talked about ending it. Suppose I could give you a way to do that. Suppose I could give you an assurance that your family would be safe.”

“What kind of assurance?”

“I'm working on that. Suppose I could satisfy you. Could you get the other jockeys to band together against this?”

“You don't know what you're up against.”

“So I keep hearing. I'm learning. I won't come to you until I'm sure. When I do, will you work with me?”

I could see the faintest light in his eyes, and the beginnings of a smile.

“Who the hell are you, Mr. Knight?”

“I'm someone who wants you to call him Michael”

I held out my hand. He hesitated but finally took it.

“I'll say this much. When you're ready to talk, I'll listen, Michael.”

I was back at the office just before six that evening for a muchneeded conference with my senior partner. I breezed into his office, oblivious to the head scabs I still carried from my tête-à-tête with Scully.

“What the hell, Michael?”

“Looks worse than it is. Little bar incident. Good as new.”

I sat while he insisted on examining the dents. I sometimes wondered if he went to law school or medical school. When he saw fit to release me from the Devlin Clinic, I told him the whole story, beginning again with Boyle to put it in context, and ending with my quasi commitment to Alberto Ibanez. There was no point this time in not touching on the Scully run-in.

“We have to see our client, Mr. Devlin. Can you get us past Billy Coyne?”

“We'll see. What's your theory?”

“I don't have one. Yet. If Hector didn't knock Danny out of the saddle, who did? There were riders behind him, but how could they reach him?”

Mr. D. was leaning back in his desk chair in his heavy thinking position looking at Boston Harbor.

“I've seen that race film a dozen times. I can't see how it happened.”

“I've seen it two dozen times. I can't either.”

“Could he have been shot with something from a distance? He
fell to the left, so it had to come from the right. Someone by the rail or in the stands?”

“I thought of that. It had to hit him pretty hard to send him out of the saddle. That means it would have left a mark.”

“Billy Coyne sent over the autopsy report this morning. I scanned it. No mention of a mark.”

“They may not have looked for it if it wasn't fatal. Can we get our own medical examination?”

“We can and will. I filed a motion in court this morning to allow an independent examination of the body. Billy assented to it, and the judge allowed it. Dr. Gregg's doing it this afternoon.”

“Good. That could help clear Hector.”

“It's a dream, Michael. Don't count on it. That would have been one hell of a shot at a moving target, in public. Besides, Billy Coyne's sharp. I'm sure he had the coroner check for the same thing the first time around.”

“It seemed like a good straw, and we are grasping.”

“Granted.”

“At least we know this much. The race was fixed for Hector's horse to win. Hector was obviously in on the fix.”

“Which he denies. Will you believe me now that clients lie to us?”

The debate that started the first day I walked into Mr. D.'s office was raising its head for another round, with me on the short end.

“Not to get sidetracked, Mr. Devlin, the next question is who was behind the fix.”

He grinned at my end run, knowing he had scored a few points for his side. I pressed on.

“From what Ibanez implied, I get the idea these race fixings happen with some regularity. Whoever's pulling it is connected enough to have all those jockeys scared stiff.”

“Smells like organized crime. But which group?”

“That's the twist. I'm certain Erin's kidnapping is connected to that fixed race. We know Scully is up to his ears in the kidnapping.
That should lead us to Boyle. But it doesn't. As I read Boyle, he never heard of Erin Ryan.”

“So what do you hope to get from our mendacious client?”

“Maybe with a little pressure he'll tell us who's behind fixing that race. Behind all the fixes. And why the dead end at Scully.”

Mr. D. gave it three seconds of pondering before dialing the number of the district attorney. Another twenty seconds and he had Billy Coyne on the line.

After the usual banter, Billy arranged for an interview with our client, Hector, the following morning in police headquarters at Government Center. The unusual rigmarole to see our client was caused by the D.A.'s decision to hold him out of the general jail population in protective custody. She still chose not to disclose the reason, and Billy was bound by her orders.

It was nearly eight that evening when I left the Prudential Center Legal Seafood restaurant. With a nerve-wracking night ahead, I succumbed to the fortification of a baked stuffed lobster so sinfully good that it should have been called “Illegal Seafood.” I had two hours before leaving to pick up Colleen for a meeting with the devil in the Park Street subway. It being Monday night, there was only one place on earth this creature of habit would spend it.

The little row of circular stairs that led from the darkness of Beacon Street near the golden domed State House into the deeper darkness of one of Boston's hidden jewels was for me like a passage from the helter-skelter world into semiparadise. Two feet inside of Big Daddy Hightower's jazz club, I could feel the fractiousness of the outside life ebbing and the magic of Daddy's stand-up driving bass coaxing harmony and joy back into my soul.

With the exception of a tired ten-watt bulb on the miniscule bandstand, there is scarcely a ray of illumination to be found in the club when the musicians are playing. It's deliberate on Daddy's part to keep conversation during the sets to zero.

After five years' worth of Monday nights, I can find my favorite
stool at the bar by the Braille method. I've never reached a full sitting position before my favorite barkeep, Sam, has placed three fingers of that liquid gold called Famous Grouse Scotch over three ice cubes within an inch of my expectant grasp. This night was no exception.

I had used my cell phone on the way over to call Terry O'Brien, one of the three nonfamily people on earth whom I rank above my Corvette—Lex Devlin and Big Daddy being the other two. I left a voice mail asking if she'd like to meet me at Daddy's if she had the time. I knew her chores as fashion consultant for Filenes would keep her at work until sometime later.

Meanwhile, about an inch into the Grouse, I felt an enormous presence slide in next to me at the bar, and a hand that could palm a watermelon resting on my shoulder.