Bullet Work (5 page)

Dan could only recall Lennie raising his
voice one time, but he could be forgiven for that as Lennie had a
35-1 shot keyed in a superfecta that paid $466,000. Other than that
one time, Dan had never seen Lennie shout, root his horse on, or
make a scene. He was the consummate thoroughbred gambler.

“They turn up the backside.… Jasper June
leads by two, Hollerin Hal, My Guy, and Minion’s Gate.… Topic A is
fifth…three back to YaYa Dime, Total Energy, Billie’s Dream,
Anacka…two more back to Bishon and Vindicate trails…half mile in
forty-six and two.…”

“Stay right there, seven.” Milton was shaking
the remaining bite of his hotdog toward the track. “No passing
zone, baby. Stay right there.”

“That Hollerin Hal is hanging right with
them,” Lennie stated. “Jock’s working too hard on the seven. TP,
here comes your boy.”

“Out of the turn and into the stretch Jasper
June has led every step of the way. Hollerin Hal starts to inch
closer on the outside.… Minion’s Gate starting to make a move…and
Vindicate on the extreme outside is closing fast.…”

Milton could sense that Jasper June was
losing steam. “Damn it, hit that horse, c’mon.”

Dan jumped to his feet. Hollerin Hal was
going to do it. He was clearly going to hit the board, but the one
horse was moving quickly.

“Danny boy may have a winner,” Lennie
said.

“Hollerin Hal surges to the lead.… Jasper
June trying to hold on…Vindicate in the middle of the track…at the
wire it’s Hollerin Hal, Vindicate second, Jasper June holds third
and Minion’s Gate fourth.”

Lennie slapped TP on the shoulder. “Hey Teep,
your boy almost got there.”

TP smiled. “Told you that fuckin’ kid can
ride. Need to get him some live horses.”

Milt sat down disgusted. “Eighteen to one.
Shit, Danny, get here a little earlier when you have a tout like
that.”

Over the years Dan had learned that Milton
was a bad loser but a good friend. Inside he was happy for Dan. Of
course, he’d have been happier if he had money down on Dan’s
horse.

“Looks like we need some drinks.”

“Hell, yeah,” TP shouted.

Dan waved at the cocktail waitress working
the section. The good ones always watched for anyone who won the
previous race. They tended to get bigger tips that way. It didn’t
take long in this business to figure out that losers don’t tip
well. Dan pointed at each of them. No refusals.

“We need three tall beers and a black
coffee,” Dan said.

Lennie was a recovering alcoholic who drank
coffee all hours of the day. It made no difference whether it was
ten below zero or ninety in the shade—hot black coffee. Being
around drinkers didn’t bother him. In a weird way he seemed to like
it.

“And a pretzel. With some of that nacho
cheese stuff,” Milton shouted after her.

She turned and Dan nodded. “Bring him two
pretzels. It’ll save you some steps later.”

She laughed and walked off.

“How many times you have the exacta?” Lennie
asked.

Dan had forgotten that he had the one and
three boxed with Hollerin Hal.

AJ’s horses ran first, second, and fourth,
all at better than 12-1. He’d nearly cold-cocked a monster trifecta
with no program or racing form. “I had it two and a half
times.”

“Nice hit,” said TP. “You’re gonna share some
with Uncle Sam.”

“What the hell, I’m a patriot.” Tickets
paying more than three hundred times the value of the bet were
cashed with taxes withheld on the spot.

The exacta payoff was going to be close to
the line. If Dan did his record keeping right, though, he’d get the
money back next April 15.

The race was declared official, and the
prices flashed up on the tote board. The twenty across brought back
$720, and the exacta ticket was forty bucks shy of two grand.

Hello, taxman, Dan thought. And thank you,
AJ.

Chapter 9

Angry voices knifed through the air
as Jake Gilmore entered the building housing the Racing Secretary’s
office. About one hundred people, mostly men, were packed into the
open area and hallway running past the secretary’s cluster of
offices.

Large spaces of white drywall covered the
walls, interspersed with an occasional winner’s photo tacked to the
wall. Yellow and beige checked tiles on the floor confirmed that
every expense was spared to decorate this most functional of
spaces. Down a narrow hallway to the left a series of offices hid
from sight. These housed the racing secretary, track president,
horseman’s liaison, and track security.

The meeting was called on short notice; only
a few hours after the letters had been delivered to the trainers.
Word traveled fast on the backside and at the speed of light when
it involved the potential to lose money.

Tim Belker, the chief of security for the
racetrack, was near the far wall, motioning to several trainers to
calm down. He was tall and muscular, one of those guys who looked
like he could still play tight end in the NFL. Following an
All-American senior year at that position with Penn State, he’d
been taken in the fourth round by the New Orleans Saints. He was
cut just after the third pre-season game and cut the following year
by the Jets.

The game had passed by his physical
attributes. He was a tight end from the 1970s, a stonewall blocker
with great hands, but today’s tight ends could run a 4.5 forty-yard
dash. Tim could never crack 4.7. Despite his talent, he was a relic
of old-fashioned football.

He took a job as a private security guard and
quickly rose through the management structure. After four years he
started his own security company but didn’t have the sales ability
to sustain it. The position at Fairfax Park opened up, and he
jumped for the steady paycheck and the opportunity to place bets at
work. That was three years ago.

Belker’s hair was dark and close-cropped,
military-style. His effort to silence the teeming mass of trainers
was having little effect. Allan Biggs, president of Fairfax Downs,
and Chase Evert, racing secretary, were also on that side of the
room, effectively making it the front of the room.

Jake had torn up his version of the note, but
the message was etched in his brain. It was addressed “Dear
Partners,” as if this creep was something other than an
extortionist and petty criminal. It went on to describe how Emerald
Stone, a gelding trained by Keith Daniels, had been poisoned and
Missing Lens, a mare trained by Juan Camillo, had to be destroyed
after a cannon bone fracture.

Unless an animal’s DNA carried the strains
deemed desirable to carrying on a royal equine blood line, the
fracture of a cannon bone was a death sentence, and it was for
Missing Lens.

The note also told of the kidnapping of
Exigent Lady from Hank Skelton’s barn. The movement of horses onto
and off the property was a daily routine, but actually kidnapping a
horse out from under a trainer’s nose was a whole new level of
criminal enterprise.

Trainers were warned that future injury was
inevitable for their barns unless they agreed to pay a “safety
fee.” The safety fee was twenty dollars per horse per week.
Trainers who agreed to pay the fee were assured that their horses
would be protected from these “random acts of violence.” Those who
failed to pay the fee were at risk for “unfortunate
circumstances.”

Jake had come to the meeting for information
only. There was no way in hell he was going to pay some damn
“safety fee.” Jake didn’t want to put his owner’s horses at risk,
but he needed all the day money he could get.

Jake never disclosed his financial condition
to anyone, but he’d taken a beating since the start of the year.
Two owners had dropped him at Delaware Park. They went with the
latest pharma-trainer, who juiced the horses and got quick wins
where Jake couldn’t.

Damn stews needed to crack
on these guys.
Winning long shots created by these
pharma-crooks brought in bets, and the pricks in suits just looked
the other way.

The day money from a few horses shipping to
his barn this week would help, but only a little. He needed some
wins—and fast. He’d tightened up on receivables as much as he could
without appearing desperate. His reserve fund was gone. Payroll and
vet bills spun around each week like a screen door in a tornado. He
needed horses on the track and wins. That would solve everything.
It had to.

Allan Biggs waved his arms, trying to silence
the crowd and get its attention. Tim Belker put two fingers in his
mouth and emitted a shrill whistle that brought the unruly group to
an activity level nearing calm.

Biggs was tall and slender, with a healthy
shock of white hair that was combed straight back. He was
sixty-four years old and had been in the industry for nearly fifty
years. He wore a black pinstriped suit with a white open-collared
dress shirt.

Although he’d never worked a day on the
backside, he’d run just about everything possible on the grandstand
side. He was liked by some trainers and tolerated by the rest.
Perhaps the best one could say about a track president was that he
was tolerated on the backside.

There existed a healthy tension between the
front office and the backside. The front office had to set a purse
structure likely to bring in good stables. They needed to bring in
quality horses to have a product on which people would want to
wager, both on track and via simulcast. Tracks made money by
bringing in more gambling dollars than they paid out in purses.
Trainers demanded higher purses. Tracks wanted purses maintained at
a level where increased gambling dollars fell to the bottom line.
Trainers talked with their feet. If the purse structure was
suitable and they could win at a given track, they stayed. If not,
they walked.

Biggs held one hand in the air as he spoke.
“Thank you all for coming in tonight on such short notice. I want
to assure you that Fairfax Park is doing everything we can to
ensure the safety of your stock.”

“What the hell can you do?” someone yelled
from the back of the room. Several other trainers piped up in
agreement.

“Please, please,” Biggs continued. “I know
this is a difficult time, but please be patient. In a minute I’m
going to turn this over to Tim Belker, and he’ll tell you about
increased security protocols and plans for the facility. We’ll
catch the person responsible for this. We’re working with local law
enforcement and the FBI.”

“What are you gonna do for us?” Daniels
shouted. He was standing on the other side of Belker. “I gotta dead
horse. I had day money tied up and planned to run out some good
money on purses. Now I got nothing but a dead animal and a whole
bunch of owners who wonder how the hell something like this can
happen.”

“Keith, I’m sorry about this situation,”
Biggs said. “Unfortunately, the loss is something your owner will
have to address with his insurance carrier.”

“Insurance?” Keith shot back. “Who do you
think it was? Secretariat? There’s no insurance on that animal.
Hell, probably no insurance on 95 percent of the stock back there,”
he said, motioning toward the backside. “We’re just screwed. My
owner’s screwed; I’m screwed. This whole place is screwed.”

Several other trainers grumbled affirmative
reactions, and heads nodded around the room. “Keith, like I say,
I’m sorry. Nobody saw this coming.” As though he was afraid the mob
would descend on him, Biggs turned to Belker. “Tim, can you update
us on security?”

Belker stepped forward slightly. “Thanks,
Allan. First, I’d like to thank the management of the racetrack. In
light of these tragic and horrendous attacks, management has
increased the security budget by 83 percent through the remainder
of the meet. This will allow us to hire two additional security
officers and ensure that we have two security officers on site
24/7. The security officer on the backside will be in addition to
the security guard in the shack when you drive in.”

“Tim, how the hell they steal my mare off the
grounds?” Hank Skelton yelled. The volume was well beyond what was
necessary as he was standing about six feet from Belker.

Skelton brushed his scruffy and uneven brown
hair away from his horn-rimmed glasses. His head hadn’t been near a
licensed barber in months. He was tall and lean with jeans that
were about two inches too short. The cuffs on his work shirt were
rolled back, exposing slender, stark white forearms attached to
weathered and grime-stained hands.

They were hands that tended to animals
sixteen hours a day. Thirty years at the bottom end of the circuit
had stunted his patience and erased any semblance of a sense of
humor. Thirty years waiting for the big horse to enter his barn and
turn his life around. Thirty years of waiting for his payday to
arrive.

“I mean, come on, someone can bring in a
trailer, load up one of my horses, and just drive right by your
fuckin’ security guard,” Skelton screamed, pointing a finger at
Belker. “What the hell is that? Doesn’t do any good to have more
people on site if they aren’t any smarter than the dumbshits you
got now.”

“Hank, we’re investigating that right
now.”

“That’s bullshit, Tim.” Shelton lunged toward
Belker like he was going to take a swing. Belker stepped back into
a defensive stance. Money would have been on Belker. No one knew
that better than Belker. He would have dropped Skelton like a sack
of horseshoes. Fortunately for Skelton, two other trainers stepped
in and restrained him. Skelton didn’t offer much resistance in the
scuffle.

“Easy, Hank,” said Biggs, extending an open
hand toward him. “Let’s work together to get this resolved.”

Skelton jabbed his nubby finger at Belker.
“They backed up a fucking trailer and took my mare right under your
noses. I don’t care if you put 100 new security guards on site.
What the hell difference would it make?”