Triple Crown (22 page)

5.25.

Satisfied, I relocked the drug store, silently let myself out into the shedrow and went quickly back to the office.

The ten runners were at the start, still having their girths checked. The Man o’War Stakes was run on the turf course that sits inside the main dirt track. The race was over a mile and
three furlongs so the starting gate was in front of the grandstand.

With one eye on the TV screen, and with the outer office door shut and locked, I used the picks to let myself into Keith’s bedroom. Maybe I was just naturally inquisitive, but it seemed a
shame not to have a quick look in there while I had the opportunity. I might not get the chance again.

Not that there was much to see.

Keith appeared to have very few clothes, hardly enough to fill even half the available locker space. Indeed, he had more well-thumbed copies of hardcore girlie magazines than anything else,
mostly spread across the floor under his bed.

Each to their own.

I went back into the office, locking the door to Keith’s bedroom behind me.

‘They’re in the gate,’ called the track announcer through the TV. ‘And they’re off and running in the Man o’War Stakes.’

Neither of the Raworth horses won the race. One finished a creditable third but the other was always well off the pace, trailing in last of the ten, some twenty lengths behind
the winner.

The mood in the camp when everyone returned to the barn couldn’t have been more in contrast to that of the previous day after Teetotal Tiger’s triumph.

George Raworth was spitting feathers in anger, in particular over the horse that had brought up the rear of the field.

‘That damned jockey,’ he kept saying over and over to Charlie Hern. ‘He never gave the horse a chance.’

I’d watched the race pretty closely on the TV and, in my opinion, a combined reincarnation of both Fred Archer and Willie Shoemaker wouldn’t have managed to get the horse any closer.
It was sometimes easier for a trainer to blame the pilot than to accept the fact that the horse was simply not good enough.

I slid away from the inquest.

Just as I had been happy to hang around during the good times of yesterday, I was eager to be away from the doom and gloom of today. I wanted to be perceived as a lucky omen, not a portent of
failure.

Instead, I found a quiet spot away from listening ears to call Tony.

‘A cryogenic flask?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s hidden away under boxes in the drug store. There are three straws of material kept in it, frozen solid in liquid nitrogen.’

‘Liquid nitrogen?’ Tony said. ‘Is that toxic?’

‘No,’ I said, laughing. ‘Eighty per cent of the air we breathe is nitrogen.’

‘But that’s not a liquid.’

‘Liquid nitrogen is just like the nitrogen in the air,’ I said, ‘but it has been made so cold that it liquefies.’

‘But how do you get it?’

‘It’s created as a by-product when air is liquefied to produce oxygen, you know, for medical use and such. Anyone can buy liquid nitrogen from an industrial gas producer. It’s
storing it that’s the problem. You need what is called a Dewar – a bit like a big thermos. That’s what a cryogenic flask is.’

‘But what’s the liquid nitrogen for?’ Tony asked.

‘To keep the material inside deep frozen.’

‘But what is this “material”?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ I said, ‘but I have acquired some. It is in a test tube in my pocket. It’s no longer frozen but we could still get it analysed.’

‘How did you acquire it?’ Tony asked somewhat sarcastically, as if he could already guess.

‘You don’t want to know.’

He laughed down the line. ‘Do you want me to arrange a pickup?’

‘Yes, please,’ I said.

‘We have a FACSA office in New York. They deal mostly with boxing. I’ll get the station chief to collect it himself. His name is Jim Bradley. No one at the racing section will know
anything about it.’

I still didn’t like it. It would mean someone else would then know that I was not who I said I was.

Tony seemed to sense my hesitation.

‘I’ve known Jim Bradley since we joined the NYPD together as cadets some forty years ago. I’d trust him to hell and back. If I tell him it is hush-hush, he’ll not tell
anyone, I promise.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Where and when?’

‘It’s Saturday. I’ll try Jim at home. Call me back in half an hour.’

I used the time to have my supper at the track kitchen, exchanging a plastic token with Bert Squab for a plate of highly spiced chilli con carne with rice.

Fortunately, there was no sign of Diego or his chums as I sat down to eat. I could do without that distraction at the moment.

I called Tony on the stroke of the half-hour.

‘Jim says pass it through the chain-link fence on Plainfield Avenue, which runs up the east side of the barn area. Jim drives a black Ford Bronco SUV and he knows the area well.
He’ll park up exactly opposite the high-school sports field at eight-thirty sharp. It will be dark by then.’

I looked at my cheap watch. It read 6.46 p.m. I had an hour and three-quarters to wait.

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll be there.’

‘Do you need him to get anything for you?’

How about a cricket box?

I was next to the chain-link fence opposite the high school sports field at least fifteen minutes before the allotted time, mostly obscured from the barns by a line of trees
and some bushes.

The streetlights out on Plainfield Avenue, and the other lights on poles around the barns, did nothing more than throw deep shadows beneath the trees within which it was easy for me to remain
hidden.

I crouched, stock still, facing inwards towards the barns, searching for any telltale movement that might indicate the presence of other eyes, there to watch me.

There was nothing. Not even a rabbit or a squirrel.

I waited.

Jim Bradley arrived in the black Ford Bronco right on cue at eight-thirty exactly, and the handover of the Vacutainer test tube through the fence took only a few seconds.

I was already well on my way back to the bunkhouse before the Bronco had even turned the corner at the end of the street.

‘It’s semen.’

‘What?’

‘Semen. Probably equine semen but more tests are needed to confirm it.’

‘But that’s ridiculous,’ I said.

‘Quite so,’ Tony agreed. ‘But that’s what it is, nevertheless. I dug a biochemistry professor at Columbia University out of bed early on Sunday morning to test it. He
swears to me that the stuff you gave to Jim Bradley was semen. Some of the sperm in it were still swimming.’

It didn’t make any sense.

‘Why would a training stable need frozen semen?’ I said. ‘Artificial insemination is not even permissible in Thoroughbreds. All mating has to be done by live cover – the
stallion has to physically mount the mare.’

‘Maybe George Raworth is collecting semen from his colts and freezing it to breed from later, even if it’s not permitted by the rules.’

‘I very much doubt that,’ I said. ‘It’s not all that easy to get semen in the first place, not unless you have a mare on heat to get the colt excited. You would also need
specialist collecting equipment, and I saw none of that during my search. And what would be the point? He couldn’t use the semen for breeding, anyway. Nowadays, every Thoroughbred foal has to
be DNA-tested to confirm its parentage before it can be registered into the stud book.’

‘Then your guess is as good as mine,’ Tony said.

It was Sunday afternoon and I was behind the track kitchen, talking on the telephone. I had purposefully chosen a wide-open space so that no one could creep up to listen to my conversation
without being seen. It also had the added advantage that I would be able to see any potential attacker from afar.

I spun through 360 degrees.

No eavesdroppers. And no Diego.

‘So what do we do now?’ Tony asked. ‘Don’t you think we have enough for a raid?’

‘I think we should wait a while longer,’ I said.

‘What for?’

‘Two reasons. First, I am interested in finding out what the semen is used for, and second, I am off to Pimlico tomorrow. I’ll be down there until after the Preakness. There would be
no point in planning a raid here at Belmont if I’m not around to see any reaction if Raworth is forewarned.’

‘Is his whole operation moving down to Pimlico?’ Tony asked. ‘We could mount the raid there.’

‘He’s sending only five horses down in a truck – three run in the Preakness itself, and the other two in different races. The rest of them stay here.’

‘How did you manage to get yourself included?’ Tony asked.

‘I was lucky. In the right place at the right time. Four of the staff are going, including me, plus George Raworth himself.’

‘Well, it’s your call,’ Tony said. ‘Can the British do without you for another week?’

‘Paul Maldini was not expecting me back for at least two weeks.’

‘But it has already been two weeks since I met you at Dulles.’

So it had. Somehow, it didn’t seem that long.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I need a bit longer.’

‘Shall you tell Paul or shall I?’ Tony asked.

‘It might be better if it came from you,’ I said. ‘Tell him that I’m not coming back just yet.’

‘How long shall I say you’ll be?’ Tony asked.

‘You said to me in London that you needed me to work for you for as long as it takes. Paul Maldini was at that meeting. He didn’t object.’

I reckoned Paul hadn’t objected because he knew I was contemplating leaving the BHA. He was aware of my unhappiness that I no longer had the opportunity to work undercover. Perhaps he
thought it was better to lend me to Tony for as long as it took, and then have me back, than to lose me altogether.

‘Tell Paul that it might take a little longer, that’s all,’ I said. ‘When is the Belmont Stakes?’

‘Not for another four weeks,’ Tony said. ‘You’re surely not thinking of working as a groom until then?’

‘For as long as it takes,’ I said.

On Monday morning, after normal stables and exercise, Keith, Diego, Maria and I loaded the special horse-transport that would take us the 200 miles southwest to Pimlico.

I was more used to British-style horseboxes than the huge eighteen-wheel articulated lorry with its massive cab that arrived for us at nine o’clock. It was similar to the one I had seen
arrive at Churchill Downs to collect Hayden Ryder’s horses on the morning he’d been shot.

Quite apart from the five horses, there was a mass of other stuff to go – feed, tack, buckets, blankets, bedding, pitchforks and brooms – not to mention our own personal effects.

There had been a few murmurings from Raworth’s other grooms, but not because I had been chosen to go to Pimlico ahead of them, rather for the reason their individual workloads would
increase here due to me being away.

Charlie Hern told them to shut up and get on with it, or leave. ‘There are plenty of others wanting your jobs,’ he warned them. In my opinion, it wasn’t the best example of how
to conduct relations with one’s labour force, but I didn’t say so. I just got on with the loading.

Diego was a pain. Twice he purposely knocked things out of my hands as I was carrying them to the vehicle.

‘
Estúpido gringo,
’ he said each time. But he was the stupid one, I thought. I wouldn’t fancy a year on Rikers Island for any money.

George Raworth drove a white Jeep Cherokee four-by-four right up inside the barn at the far end from the office, next to the drug store.

Charlie Hern had been in there for a while busily filling boxes with pills, potions and other paraphernalia, and these were now put into the Jeep, along with the CryoBank flask.

George and Charlie carried the heavy white metal cylinder out of the drug store together, each holding one of the handles, and then they lifted it into the vehicle, placing it upright behind the
front passenger seat. They did it when they thought all the grooms were otherwise engaged and wouldn’t notice. But I’d been keeping a special eye out to see if they would take it.

But I still had no idea why.

Finally, when everything else was packed, the five horses were loaded into the trailer.

I led Debenture out from Stall 2, patting him all the while on the neck to keep him calm. Horses generally don’t like any changes to their routine. It can make them nervous, and half a ton
of skittish horseflesh can cause a lot of damage both to themselves and anyone close by. That’s partly why the five-year-old gelding went in first. He was the old man of the five, the other
four being three-year-olds, and his presence on board should help settle the younger horses.

Next, Ladybird, the filly, was loaded, going into a stall at the rear of the trailer behind a solid partition. It was not ideal to take colts and a filly on the same transport, as the very
presence of the filly could make the colts become excited. Hence the use of a solid partition and the placing of the filly at the rear so that, as the vehicle moved, the airflow prevented the colts
from smelling her. I knew of one transport operator in England who sometimes resorted to smearing Vicks VapoRub into the colts’ nostrils to overpower the smell of fillies travelling in the
same horsebox.

Fire Point was the last of the horses to be loaded.

He appeared to be in perfect condition, the muscles in his neck standing out sharply and those in his flanks rippling gently under his short summer chestnut coat. Keith coaxed him up the ramp
and into his travelling stall in the trailer. All the horses had thick bandages wrapped around their legs and rubber boots on their hooves to reduce the chance of injury caused by a bump or kick,
but Fire Point went in without anything more than a shake of his narrow head, as if he already knew he was the star of the show.

Keith and I rode in the back with the horses while Diego and Maria were up front in the cab with the driver. It was an arrangement with which I was very happy. I didn’t have to keep my
eyes on Diego to prevent him niggling me, or worse, and I didn’t have to fight off Maria’s sexual advances. Not that I really wanted to, but the fallout from Diego wasn’t worth
the reward.