Riders Down (9 page)

Chapter Fifteen

The day Eddie Calvin was to be buried, Matt finished his morning run on the Evanston path bordering Lake Michigan just as the rim of the emerging sun climbed into view.

He’d gotten up earlier than usual because he, Maggie and Rick were scheduled to begin their drive to Indiana by 6 a.m. Eddie Calvin had ridden for Maggie some years before, and she was going to pay her respects. Matt and Rick had both been assigned to cover the event for their respective papers.

After checking his watch, Matt sprinted the last two blocks to his Hinman Avenue condo, pounded up the back stairway, and hit the shower right after activating the coffee maker. Twenty minutes later, dressed as formally as most racing writers ever get—shirt, tie, sport coat, pressed slacks—he sipped his coffee as he watched out the front window for Maggie’s black GMC Denali. When it pulled up in front of his building, he went immediately down the stairs and out the door, hair combed but still damp from his hurried shower. As he approached the curb, Rick got out of the passenger seat. He said, “You sit with Maggie. This is way too early for me, man. I want to stretch out in back get a little more sleep.”

“Help yourself,” Matt said. He kissed Maggie on the cheek as she began to pull away from the curb. She was wearing an expensive-looking black dress. Her broad-brimmed black hat lay on the console between their seats.

“Let me give you one tip before I go to sleep,” Rick said as he settled into the broad second seat. “Maggie, keep going straight south once you’re on the Outer Drive. It’s old Highway 41 and it’ll take you down along the lake to 90 before you hook up with 65 to go south. That way you’ll miss the Skyway tolls.”

“I’ll pay the tolls,” Maggie said, eyes on the mirror in which she could see Rick. “No time for the old scenic route this morning. We’re in a hurry.”

***

Three hours later Rick awakened just as Maggie turned off Highway 65 at Lebanon, Indiana, and headed east to Carmel, where Eddie Calvin’s funeral would be held. “Lebanon,” Rick said sleepily, “home of Rick Mount, the greatest shooter in the history of college basketball.”

Matt said, “You aren’t that old to have seen him. Mount played for Purdue in the sixties.”

“My dad graduated from Purdue,” Rick said. “He used to show me all the old films of Mount, over and over. That cat could flat out shoot.”

Nearing their destination, Matt thought that it was with this kind of small talk that people tried to avoid confronting the sad scenes awaiting them. Matt had been lucky, he knew, having attended very few funerals thus far in his life, his parents and both siblings all alive, most of his other relatives, too. The lone major loss he’d experienced had been the car crash death of a high school baseball teammate, Hank Wiggins, killed at seventeen in a head-on collision with a truck driven by a multiple DUI offender.

Matt was one of Wiggins’ friends who, a month or so later, received a copy of a poem written by the dead boy’s sister, Mary Anne, a devout Catholic whose faith turned out to be another victim of that horrible accident. The poem described the funeral home visitation for her brother. It ended with words Matt had never forgotten.

Maggie had used Mapquest, and they found the funeral home in Carmel without any trouble. Its parking lot was jammed with cars belonging to Calvin’s fellow jockeys, horse owners and trainers, friends of the family, and some racing fans. Efficiently managing the traffic flow was a team of neatly dressed funeral home staffers wearing the kind of solemn, concerned expressions only they have mastered.

“Well, at least attention is being paid,” Matt said softly as they parked. He was thinking of the tirade he’d heard from Tyree Powell the previous afternoon. The Jockeys’ Union rep had phoned Matt in the press box. He was steaming. “Naturally, your paper has been writing about the jockey murders,” he said, “but what about writers on the dailies, for God’s sake? If some madman were knocking off lunkhead linemen from the NFL, or bumping off some of baseball’s steroids boys, they’d be all over the story. But two of my guys have been killed and hardly anybody outside of racing seems to give a damn. I am seriously pissed off about this,” Powell concluded.

Maggie, Rick and Matt got in line to sign the register in the foyer of the funeral home, nodding to people they recognized. There were quite a few other racetrackers from Chicago. Inside the large room with the bronze coffin at its far end, dozens of chairs were occupied. Eddie Calvin’s widow stood to the right of the closed coffin. Next to her stood Reverend Dave Cruikshank, the well-known “backstretch minister.” Lucy was wan, her eyes red from weeping. Her two young daughters sat quietly with relatives in the front as mourners filed past to pay their respects. The minister looked to be even more in shock than Lucy, responding automatically to the expressions of concern and condolence uttered by people in the line.

Waiting alongside Maggie for the line to move forward, Matt heard Rick say from behind him, “I can’t use my old sidling move in here.”

“What are you talking about?” Matt whispered.

Answering in a hushed voice, Rick said, “Usually at these things I make one very quick appearance. I sign the registry book, make sure the principal mourners have noted my presence, hurriedly shake a few hands, and get the hell out of there. I hate these things. Thank God they went with a closed coffin.”

“I don’t think they had much choice,” Matt said.

The coffin was flanked by dozens of impressive floral arrangements. One was in the shape of a horseshoe, its “U” facing down. Rick nudged Matt. “Somebody should have told the florist about that mistake. The ‘U’ should always be pointing upward. That’s how all the horseshoes hang in racetrack tack rooms. If the horseshoe is pointed down, they think it means luck is running out.”

Matt said, “Doesn’t make any difference now. Poor Eddie’s luck has already run out.”

Later, leaving the cemetery on this gray-skied, humid, late June afternoon, Matt putt an arm around Maggie as they walked to her car. She had wept softly at the funeral home after embracing Lucy Calvin, and now her tears began to flow again. “Eddie rode the first winner I ever saddled,” Maggie said. “I’ve known him and his family for years. I can’t even imagine how much Lucy must be hurting right now. Once he’d gotten himself straightened out, they had a great life together. That poor woman. Those poor children.”

“And for what?” Matt said. “That’s what I don’t get. Either with Eddie Calvin or Carlos Hidalgo before him. Who would want them dead. Why?”

Opening the back door of the Denali, Rick gestured toward the car containing the bereaved family. “I’ll give the widow and Randy Morrison a lot of credit for their restraint. They kept the TV vultures completely out of the picture. Pun intended. No weepy interviews, no sappy statements about tragic loss from assholes who can’t wait to get in front of the cameras. People like that make me sick,” he said, slamming the door shut.

The drive back to Chicago seemed twice as long as their trip down to Carmel. Gloom prevailed. The three of them spoke rarely, Maggie concentrating on driving, Matt sitting with his head back and eyes closed, trying to make some sense of it all. The only sound out of Rick until they approached Gary, Indiana, was a succession of piercing snores that Matt was able to interrupt only by reaching between the seats and slapping his friend’s leg. Rick finally awakened as Maggie drove onto the arching toll bridge leading to Chicago.

Rick yawned, stretched and began drumming his fingers on his knees. Then he attempted to change the mood in the car.

“Driver,” he said, half smiling, “I have a question for you.”

Maggie glanced at him in the mirror. “Yes?”

“Did you hear the joke about the old horseplayer who had a heart attack right after the first race one afternoon?”

She shook her head no. Rick said, “The track doctor rushes to the scene and examines the poor guy. After checking for vital signs, the doc reaches into the old man’s shirt pocket and pulls out a mutuel ticket.

“‘How is he, Doc?’ a bystander asks. ‘Is he alive?’

“The doctor looks down at the mutuel ticket in his hand, then shakes his head sadly. ‘Only in the double,’ he says.”

Rick hooted with laughter. Maggie gave him a weak smile. Matt grimaced. He said, “That joke has been around since Seabiscuit was a yearling.”

Rick looked hurt. “It has? I’ll be damned. A guy just told it to me last week.

“Oh, well,” he added, “I was just trying to lighten you guys up a little bit.”

Pulling up at the toll taker’s booth Maggie said, “Thanks for trying, Rick.”

***

Four days later, when Randy Morrison had returned to California after helping to escort his half-brother’s remains back to Arkansas where their parents were buried, he received a phone call in the Dell Park jockeys’ room. Randy’s shoulders slumped dejectedly as he listened to the now familiar whispered voice.

“You should have done what I said. But you didn’t. I warned you after I killed Carlos Hidalgo that you had better obey. He was an example I chose at random to prove to you what I could do. But you didn’t listen to me. And Eddie Calvin died as a result.

“If you don’t lose with the next two horses I tell you to lose with—and that’s all there will be, I promise you—you will die. I promise you that, too. Do you understand?”

There was silence. Then the whispering voice commanded, “Answer me.”

“I’ll do it, you bastard,” Randy Morrison replied. “I’ll do it.”

“Yes, you will. You have no choice. This call is untraceable. The letter I sent you is untraceable. The killer of your half-brother is untraceable. Your next instructions from me will be untraceable. Neither you nor the police or FBI will ever know who I am. That’s why you will do what I say.”

There was a pause before the voice said, “You’ll be hearing from me soon.”

The phone went dead.

Bledsoe rose from the chair in his Madison apartment and stretched. He smiled, feeling pumped up in the best sort of way. The groundwork had been laid. His plan was unfolding right on schedule. It would not be long before he started really picking up momentum, and money, on his way toward what he’d begun thinking of as “Grandma’s millions.”

Chapter Sixteen

Randy Morrison heard the boos. They were loud and clear and persistent. No way he could have missed them. The torrent of abusive sound seemed to increase as he strode rapidly through the tunnel leading from the racetrack to the jockeys’ room. He had been the target of angrily shouted comments in the past—what professional athlete hadn’t?—but never at this high level of furor.

“Morrison, you little bum, you should hang your head in shame…Worst ride I’ve ever seen…Wake up, you runt, what’s the matter with you?…How much did they pay you to do that, you thieving pinhead?” These were the more genteel critiques.

On and on it went from the gauntlet of horse players lining his path. Finally, Morrison burst through the jockeys’ room door and into sanctuary. Yanking off his helmet, he hurled it into the bottom of his locker. His valet, Gene Wishman, looked at him in puzzlement. The other riders in the room studiously avoided looking at him at all as he angrily tore off his silks. “Gene,” he said, “call the stewards and take me off those last two mounts today. Tell them I’m sick.”

Minutes later, standing beneath a hot shower, Morrison did indeed feel sick—as if there was a cold chunk of shame lodged in his stomach, weighing him down, rendering him almost immobile. He stood under the shower for nearly ten minutes, going over and over in his mind what had happened in the recently concluded Dell Park Derby.

Morrison had received the phone call in the Dell Park jockeys’ room that morning. The disguised voice said, “Eighth race today. Lose with Lord’s Heir. Or else you’ll be dead within the week. Just like your brother.” The phone clicked off. Morrison dropped the receiver and leaned against the wall, feeling faint. It was what he had dreaded: being instructed to intentionally lose on one of the best three-year-old colts in the country, in the final leg of a National Pick Four, on national television. His bowels began churning and he hurried to the bathroom, where he remained seated in a stall, head in his hands, for many minutes. He finally emerged after the concerned Wishman called out, “Randy, you okay?”
No
, Morrison thought bitterly
, I’m never going to be
“okay”
ever again.

Four hours later, Randy Morrison did what he’d been ordered to do. When the gates sprang open at the start of the Dell Park Derby, Morrison tugged hard on the left rein, causing Lord’s Heir to soundly bump the horse next to him, ridden by Morrison’s friend Jesse Bartlett. Jesse looked over at Morrison in amazement. Randy heard him say, “What the hell?”

In the collision both horses were knocked briefly off stride, and Lord’s Heir, the three-to-five favorite, was shuffled back to sixth place. Impatiently, Lord’s Heir threw his head and pulled against the tightly held reins. Ordinarily, Lord’s Heir was on or near the lead from start to finish of his races. That was his preferred running style. But Randy reined him in, for there was nowhere to go at that point, what with five horses bunched up in front of them. Lord’s Heir tossed his head resentfully at this restraint and began to fight against his rider, thereby losing even more lengths.

It got worse after that for Lord’s Heir and his thousands of backers, at Dell Park and at hundreds of simulcast locations around North America. When an opening seemed to occur nearing the far turn of the Derby, Morrison opted to go outside and around horses. This cost Lord’s Heir additional lengths—more than enough of them to keep him from hitting the board. Coming back to unsaddle, Morrison—one of the sport’s more popular jockeys—felt the crowd’s anger hit him like a giant fist. Even Lord’s Heir, once Randy had dismounted, seemed to regard him irritably. Morrison brushed past Lord’s Heir’s red-faced trainer, mumbling, “Just didn’t have it today.” The furious trainer hurled his track program at Randy’s retreating back.

After showering, Randy dressed hurriedly. He ignored Wishman’s attempts at conversation and headed out the jockeys’ room door. Randy could hear the track announcer describing the ninth race action as he jogged to his pickup truck. The horse he’d been taken off of was winning. That hurt, but not as much as what had come before. Randy Morrison had never felt this bad on any day at any racetrack. He had betrayed the sport he loved, the sport that had made him wealthy far beyond any of the farm boy dreams he’d had back in Arkansas.

Randy felt a strong need for something to assuage his enormous sense of loss, of self-betrayal. An almost overpowering desire for alcohol swept over him, making him shiver despite the warm air pouring in his truck’s windows as he sped down the highway toward his home.

But “almost” was as overwhelming as he let it get. Pulling into the driveway of his townhouse, he saw his daughters wave at him from the backyard’s raised swimming pool. He shivered again. Then he said, “I just can’t go down that road again. Lord Jesus, help me not to. Help me not to.”

***

SAN DIEGO——One of the largest payoffs of the thoroughbred racing season occurred yesterday, spurred by the shocking result of the Derby here at Dell Park. When huge favorite Lord’s Heir finished out of the money in the $500,000 race, two lucky bettors collected on their winning National Pick Four tickets.

One of the winning tickets was sold at Heartland Downs near Chicago. The other was purchased at a Wyoming off-track betting parlor.

The four winning horses were Jo Jo’s Dream ($17.80) at Cantering Downs, Dreary Petunia ($9.80) at Hellas Park, Judy’s Nightmare ($18.80) at Golden Gateway, and Chuck A Lot ($48.40) in the Dell Park Derby. The winning numbers were 3-2-8-2.

The Dell Park Derby produced the biggest surprise of the day as Lord’s Heir, under regular rider Randy Morrison, ran the worst race of his career. A winner of five straight going into the Derby, Lord’s Heir’s loss ruined thousands of National Pick Four tickets across North America since he had been confidently “singled” on many of them. It was just the second loss suffered by Lord’s Heir in his ten-race career. He had a very troubled trip yesterday, checking in fourth after finally shaking loose from traffic and closing belatedly.

Claude Bledsoe had viewed the televised running of the Dell Park Derby on one of the sets in Doherty’s Den. He watched Randy Morrison’s artful ruination of Lord’s Heir’s chances as impassively as he could. But as he told Jimbo Murray that night, “I felt a kind of rush in my chest and a major vibration in my balls. It was fucking great.”

The televised racing show had started late (delayed by the completion of a log-rolling contest from northern Minnesota) and run so late that it concluded abruptly. To Bledsoe’s surprise, the broadcast crew made no mention of the payoff in the National Pick Four. So Claude hurried from Doherty’s Den to the UW library just a few blocks away, booted up a computer, and logged on to the
Racing Daily
web site. He read: “Two winning National Pick Four tickets, each worth $460,000, one in Chicago, one in Wyoming.”

Bledsoe laughed, so loudly that a Pakistani med student jumped in his seat at a nearby computer monitor.

“Wyoming,” Bledsoe said. “Must have been somebody’s grandma in Cheyenne betting her license plate and piggy-backing our train. More power to her,” he added benevolently. “If we’d had the
only
winning ticket, it might have looked kind of suspicious.”