Murder at the Racetrack (38 page)

•    •    •

Into Katie’s still-shaking hand Fritzi was placing—what? An envelope?

He’d taken it out of his inside coat pocket. It was the size of a greeting card, it was sealed. On the front hand-printed
KATIE FLANDERS. Fritzi said, “Don’t open this till later. Promise.”

“Promise—what?”

“Don’t open this till later.”

“Later, when?”

But Fritzi was walking away from her. Fritzi was leaving her behind. Like a sleepwalker, she would remember him. Ashen-faced,
and sweaty, and his damp hair curling and lank behind his ears. And the back of the sexy Armani jacket sweated through between
his shoulder blades. Katie called, “Fritzi? Wait.” Tried to follow him but there were too many others in the aisle. Damn,
Katie was stumbling in her ridiculous high-heeled shoes. “Fritzi?” Trying to follow the man she loved, and always she would
remember: It was one of those nightmares where you are trying, trying desperately, to get somewhere, but can’t, like making
your way through quicksand, a bog that’s sucking at your feet, and she could see Fritzi only a few yards away, quickly descending
the steps in the center aisle, for a few confused seconds her vision was blocked, then again she saw, she would be a witness,
as Fritzi Czechi made his swift and unerring way to the woman in the wide-brimmed straw hat and eye-catching lilac pants suit,
this woman and her male friend who were also on their feet, dazed and exhilarated by the outcome of the race, which for them,
too, would seem to have been unexpected, more than they’d hoped, and then Katie was seeing the woman glance around, at Fritzi,
her geisha-white face not quite so young as Katie had thought, and frightened, yet she was trying to smile, for a woman’s
first defense is a smile, and her companion beside her who was just lighting a cigarette turned to see Fritzi, too, and possibly
there was a glimmer of recognition here, too, but no time for alarm, for there was a flash of something metallic in Fritzi’s
upraised right hand, and the man staggered and fell back, and there was a second flash, and the young woman screamed and fell,
the straw hat knocked from her head, there came one, two, three more shots and now in the crowd there were isolated screams,
shouts, a wave of panic that sucked all the oxygen from Katie’s lungs and brain and left her paralyzed unable to believe she’d
seen what she had seen, for it had happened too swiftly, nothing like a movie or TV scene for in fact she couldn’t see, all
was confusion, the backs of strangers, the flailing arms of strangers, a man beside her elbowing her in his desperation to
escape, a woman behind her beginning to sob, and Katie was frantic to get to Fritzi, but shoved to the side, her leg bruised
against a seat, and now there came another shot, a single shot, and more screams, on all sides strangers were shoving and
pushing to escape, while others were ducking down into their seats, and Katie from Jersey City understood it was wisest to
imitate these, huddling in her seat with her face pressed against her knees, her arms crossed over the tender nape of her
neck, praying to God another time for help, as if in these moments of terror not knowing who the shooter was, and what he’d
done, and that, with that last shot, it was probably over.

•    •    •

He’d killed them with a handgun that would be identified as a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol with a defaced serial number
that would be traced to a shipment of several hundred similar pistols that had been illegally sold in the New York City area
in the mid-1980s. He’d killed his estranged wife and her companion with two shots and three shots respectively. From a distance
of less than eighteen inches. Both had died within seconds. He’d then turned the gun on himself, as witnesses watched in horror,
placing the barrel precisely at the back of his head, aiming upward, and pulling the trigger with no hesitation. It was a
stance, it was an act, Fritzi Czechi had clearly rehearsed many times in solitude.

Katie identified herself to police. Katie Flanders, who’d been Fritzi Czechi’s companion. Dazed and exhausted yet not hysterical
(not yet: that would come later) she’d answered their questions, all that she knew. Suddenly sick to her stomach, vomiting
what tasted like hot acid. She was fainting, medics attended her, her blood pressure dangerously low, yet she recovered within
a few minutes and was strong enough to refuse to be taken to the hospital. Refused an ambulance. No, no! She searched for
the envelope that had fallen beside her seat. With badly shaking fingers she opened it as police officers looked on. Yet,
she opened it. Inside were keys to the BMW, and registration papers, and a document that looked legal, deeding the car to
“Katie Flanders.” A terse hand-printed note on a stiff white card:

Dear Katie

This is for you. Also the things in the trunk.

A token of my esteem.

Fritzi C.

Esteem! Fritzi C.I
Katie began to laugh shrilly, helplessly, swiping at her eyes. Fritzi Czechi had eluded her, as she’d always known he would.
It had not mattered that she loved him. It had not mattered what old, good buddies they were, from Jersey City. Like the roan
stallion with the white starburst on its forehead overtaking, passing the other horses, galloping furiously, unstoppable,
continuing in his ecstatic head-on plunge away from the dirt track, out of Meadowlands park, out of your vision and into eternity.

Julie Smith

I
come back to myself around six a.m. one fine December morning. The first thing I’m aware of is that I’m in some kind of institutional
cafeteria, my hands clutching one of those generic thick white mugs, this one filled with a murky liquid— undoubtedly coffee,
but you couldn’t prove it by me. My taste buds aren’t working so well, and neither is anything else. I’m still too groggy
to even know my name, which is as new as my surroundings. I feel a hand on my shoulder and soft breath at my ear. “Ya feelin’
better, baby?”

A black woman is standing behind me, hovering gently. She is the one who brought the coffee.
Better than what?
I wonder. I can’t remember feeling anything, ever, but pretty soon I remember too much, and realize that that’s because I
haven’t wanted to. I’ve been in a state of alcohol-induced numbness for weeks, maybe months. But it comes to me soon that
I may be where I want to be.

“I’m fine,” I lie. “Thanks for the coffee. Am I at the Fair Grounds, by any chance?”

“Least ya got that right. Ya know what day it is?”

I don’t. “But I’m in New Orleans, right?” I ask.

“Oh baby,” the woman says. She sits down across from me and I see that she is in her fifties and she has a round, kind face.
“Ya need a job? Mr. DeLessep’ need a hotwalker. Ya know what hotwalkin’ is?”

I do know. And I know the Fair Grounds is a racecourse, and that I am on the backside. I know the backside of a track like
my own neighborhood. I know its language, its rhythms, even its secrets—including the fact that it’s a good place to hide,
that people like me, lost souls who love horses and want a ready-made community, turn up at tracks routinely. No one will
think a thing about my being here, will think it odd that I seem to have dropped from the sky, with my Yankee accent and decent
grammar. I am Italian by birth, but I can probably pass for Hispanic, like most of the low-level workers at the Fair Grounds.
At least till I open my mouth.

“I’m Luz,” I say, and I’m acutely aware of the homonym. I must have been feeling self-destructive when I picked it. Big surprise.

“Velvet,” she answers, and it takes me a moment to realize that this is her name.

“Good to meet you,” I say. “How can I find Mr. De-Lesseps?” I know his name, of course. I’ve made it my business to know who
all the best trainers are, all the important owners, all the big horses. Perhaps I will get to walk Big Easy, which I’d like
a lot.

There is more racing in Louisiana than you’d imagine— maybe more than in any other state. Some of the best riders grew up
at the cheap tracks in Acadia, sat on the backs of horses while other kids played on seesaws. Still, this is not the land
of the Secretariats and the Seabiscuits and the Silky Sullivans. It isn’t the big time, but thoroughbreds remind me of that
old saying about sex—even the worst is wonderful. There are still some nice animals here, and Big Easy’s one of the best—or
used to be. He isn’t the horse that interests me most, and Jimmy DeLesseps isn’t the trainer I came here to meet, but I’ve
still plucked a plum.

In a few hours I’ve sobered up, and I find that I have an instant family, a ton of new friends, and a half-decent job— walking
hots, about all I can handle right now. I also have sunshine, clear blue sky, and the company of horses. Everything I want.
I’ve landed on my feet, though God knows how.

In one way it’s a sad day, though. Some horse breaks a leg in the fourth race, and I see his doc put him down, right on the
road by the dumpsters. I can’t help it, I get tears in my eyes. The vet turns to me. “He didn’t suffer,” he says, not knowing
that I know as much about it as he does. “We used to have to use what they call the Humane Killer.” He shakes his head. “How
ya like that? the Humane Killer.”

“You mean you shot them.”

“Yeah, but some of these docs drink a little too much, and they got to missing too many times, and sometimes the wrong horse
got shot, or maybe a person. So we switched to strychnine.”

“Strychnine.” I wince, knowing what that would do to a horse, thinking about the convulsions, how its neck would stretch backward,
the agony the drug would cause the animal.

“But then we had to stop that, too. Because they were feedin’ the dead horses to the lions at the Audubon Zoo, and the cats
were pukin’ their guts out.”

In spite of myself, I laugh. Because I know I’m really in New Orleans. Where else would you hear a story like that?

I think of my favorite Damon Runyon yarn, “A Story Goes with It,” the one about Hot Horse Herbie, the tout whose tips always
came with a tale. In New Orleans, a story
always
goes with it—whatever it is—and it usually makes you laugh.

Even though it’s early afternoon and a three-year-old colt has just become lion food, I feel okay. I know I can make it. I
can stay here and sober up and do what I came here to do.

I get a little apartment in Mid-City, right in the Fair Grounds neighborhood, and I go to meetings when I can, but mostly
I work, and that does it by default, almost.

Many of the jobs at the track, like mine, require little or no skill—though some require the nerve of a fighter pilot—but
you’ve got to show up. That’s almost the whole job. You have to be there at five a.m. every day, including weekends.
No one
gets a day off. Ever.

•    •    •

Annalise Marino Finley, the person I was before I morphed into Luz Serrano, used to have her own business, which she ran with
her husband, Sam. She has a graduate degree, and people address her as
Dr.
Finley. Annalise is a damn good veterinarian. Luz Serrano walks horses to cool them down.

That’s all hotwalking is. They have machines that do it now, but they’re awkward and a little dangerous. Most of the good
trainers don’t use them. Nothing like the human touch, especially with a fractious animal, and thoroughbreds are notoriously
fractious.

The backside of the track—the backstage part, if you will—is its own little bustling city. Everybody’s got a job to do, but
there’s a lot of downtime, too, and nobody notices a young Hispanic-looking woman in jeans, as long as she doesn’t go where
she doesn’t work. I pretty much have the run of the place, if I stay out of the big owners’ barns. That old-time racetrack
secrecy thing is still in force. God forbid somebody should clock your horse, a phrase that means a lot more than time it
with a stopwatch. For instance, you might, if you were bold enough, unwrap its bandages to look at its legs. You might discover
it had a bowed tendon, which would be disastrous in a claiming race.

Because in a claiming race, you’re gambling that the horse you claim is “worth the money,” as we say in my village. Claiming
is a gamble, like everything else here, and we prefer that word to “bet.” If he wants to keep his horse, the owner is gambling
that his horse won’t get claimed; if he doesn’t, he’s betting the horse will.

If he gives a horse a drug called etorphine (aka elephant juice), he’s betting it’ll run like Citation, but not go crazy enough
to run into a wall. He’s also gambling that it doesn’t get tested.

In theory, all the winners get tested after the race, and sometimes—as in a stakes race—so do the other horses who run in
the money. But testing is like airport security—some days it doesn’t happen the way it’s supposed to. The Cajun guys like
to roll the dice to see if it’s worth it to take a shot. If one guy sends a horse (shoots him up with narcotics, which, oddly
enough, stimulate horses), and the horse doesn’t test positive, word gets around that the drug he used is passing. And there’s
suddenly a rash of positives. One weekend, I heard, eighteen winners tested positive at the Fair Grounds.

My friend Bumpy Verrette, who works at the window, takes a philosophical view: “Look, ya got ten horses in a race, half are
on the needle, the other half are on the joint. No problem. Ya got a level playing field.”

When he says “joint,” he’s not talking about pot—he means a little battery with two prongs on it that slips in the palm of
the rider’s hand. Give a horse a jolt of that, he’s gonna run his haunches off. It’s also called a machine, and it’s highly
illegal. The old-timers say when they harrow the turf, they turn them up by the dozen.

In a weird way, Bumpy’s right—everybody’s out for the edge. I should know. My husband, Sam, was a racetrack vet. Here’s the
simple fact: There’s only one injection it’s legal to give a horse on race days. That’s a diuretic called Lasix, which reduces
a horse’s blood pressure. Yet ninety percent of the injections given are administered on race days.