I was up early the next morning and on my way to Island Downs, but first I wanted to stop at Howard Biel’s office and prepare him for a minor earthquake in the world of thoroughbred racing.
“Are you sure of this, Henry?” he asked me worriedly.
“No, Howard, I’m not. If I was I’d’ve called Diver and he’d be on his way out to the Downs with me, but it fits. Spencer’s assistant is definitely involved. Spencer’s own involvement is still up in the air, but I’m going to see him this morning, to try and make it a little clearer.”
“What about Lassiter, and Benny?”
“Apparently their only crime was being insensitive and driving a young girl to — ”
“What?”
What, indeed.
Now I was sure I knew who killed Penny Hopkins, but I couldn’t prove that, either. Maybe Melendez would give me the proof I needed, though.
I got up. “I’ll be in touch, Howard.”
It all fit, I realized, riding down in the elevator. Now the diary made sense, the film made sense, even Melendez’s part made sense, but I still needed proof.
First, however, Woody Spencer.
There was the usual activity around Spencer’s barn, but at first glance there was no sign of either him or anyone fitting Brinks’ description, which was supplied by me and was actually all I had to go on. From the two glances I’d had of him, I wouldn’t have known him if he walked up to me.
Instead of checking every stall, I decided to check Spencer’s office first.
“Ya’ll come in,” he called out in answer to my knock.
I went in and found him alone, seated behind his desk. A quick check of the room told me that Brinks wasn’t, and couldn’t possibly have been there without my seeing him. There was no place in that small room for a man to hide.
“Mr. Spencer.”
He squinted at me through his glasses and there was no doubt that he remembered me from the incident with Danny Aiello in his office.
“Hold on, boy,” he said, half rising. “You come back heah to mess up mah office again? Should ah call for security?”
“There won’t be any need for that, Mr. Spencer. I’d just like to talk to you for a few minutes. I promise I won’t disrupt your office or your schedule.”
“Okay, boy,” he agreed, after giving it a moment’s thought, “what’s our angle?”
“As I told you before, I’m working for Howard Biel, as well as with the police on Penny Hopkins’ murder.”
“A shocking thing,” he remarked. I noticed that his accent was once again fluctuating between heavy and nonexistent.
The fact that there was no audience might have had a lot to do with it.
“A lovely young girl,” he added, shaking his head. “Seems to me this would be strictly a po-lice matter. Why are they letting you work on it?”
“I’m a little closer to it than they are. I started out looking for a missing girl, and I found a dead one. Along the way, Eddie Mapes got killed, and I got curious.”
“Curious?” he asked. “About what?”
“See, you’re curious, too?”
“Hell, boy, what have I got to be curious about?”
“What I know. What Eddie Mapes told me. Even what Danny Aiello told me and the police.”
He looked at me sharply and asked, “Aiello told the po-lice something, did he?”
“Why should you want to know?” I asked.
“Well — I don’t, but you’re right, boy. I am curious. I mean, a man can be curious, cain’t he?”
“Could we drop the good old boy routine?” I requested. “I mean, there’s no one here but you and me, and it’s kind of gettin’ on mah nerves, if you know what ah mean?” I mimicked.
“Now, look, son — ” he began, but I cut him off.
“You look, Spencer. Let’s stop going around in circles. There are a lot of loose ends coming together, and they’re starting to point directly at you.”
“Me? What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded.
“What happened to the accent?” I asked. He gave me a disgusted look and I continued. “First of all, Eddie Mapes was your regular rider until Danny Aiello arrived on the scene. That’s when you started squeezing Mapes out and easing Aiello in.”
“Aiello’s is a damned talented rider,” he told me. “And everybody knows that Mapes was tailing off considerably.”
“You mean, the word was going around that Mapes was losing it. If he heard it often enough, he might have started believing it himself. No, I think there was a campaign to convince Mapes, and everyone else, that he was on the downslide. Keep his mind off riding, that was Aiello’s part. In return, he’d be rewarded with live mounts — a lot of them from your barn.”
“Why would anyone want to convince people that Mapes was losing his ability?” he asked.
“I think Mapes wouldn’t play with a fixer, so the idea was to put him in a position where he would have to, or give up riding. Only thing was, there were still some trainers who believed in him. He rode one of their horses Sunday, in the stakes, and won when he was told to lose.”
I paused a few beats, just for dramatic purposes.
“They killed him.”
“Who?”
“Out-of-town talent. My guess is they were from Chicago.”
He reacted to my mention of Chicago. His eyes got busy, roaming around the room.
“One of your owners is from Chicago, isn’t he?” I asked.
“Not that I know of,” he answered.
“Sure, Angie DeLillo. He’s a big man in that town, isn’t he?”
“Look, Po, if you think I’m involved — ”
“Of course you are. Your assistant was the one giving Aiello instructions. I saw them together, just before and after he picked a fight with Mapes.”
“Gordon?”
“Where is Gordon, anyway? I’d like to meet him. He doesn’t seem to do much assisting — with horses, that is. I know of two jockeys who don’t even know his last name.” I meant Danny and Brandy. Apparently Gordon Brinks was around the track for purposes other than training.
“Where’d Gordon come from?” I asked.
“He came highly recommended,” Spencer claimed.
“From Chicago?”
“I think you had better leave. Mr. Po — ”
“Was he sent by DeLillo, Spencer?”
“Mr. Po, now I demand that you leave. You are questioning my integrity — ”
“I’m questioning a lot more than your integrity, Mister. You’ve been in on this from the beginning, and it led up to Eddie’s murder. He was your main rider and you were taking away his livelihood. You passed the word to the other trainers that he was losing his skills. He was being pressured by a couple of thugs, badgered by Aiello, but he still wouldn’t give in. When he won a race he wasn’t supposed to he was killed by three men, one of whom got away after shooting me. Was the third man Gordon Brinks, Spencer?”
“I never killed anyone.” He was starting to sweat, which was what I wanted. “It was — ”
“It was who, Woody? Who gave the order to have Mapes killed? Was it DeLillo, or was it Donero? C’mon, Woody!”
He looked very small, old and frightened, and the next moment I knew why the latter was true.
“I gave the order, Po,” a voice said from behind me.
I turned and saw a tall, dark, slim man with a short, fat ugly revolver. It was pointed right at me.
“Gordon Brinks, I presume,” I said, calmly, much calmer than I felt. I was not used to having guns pointed at me. Last time I didn’t have time to be scared. Now I had all the time in the world and I was putting it to good use.
Brinks was about thirty-five, with a smooth, totally unlined face, as if it were made of wax. He wore no particular expression, which enhanced that effect.
He smiled at me now and said, “That’s as good a name as any,” and then the smile was gone. “Your friend Mapes got nosy, Po. Not only wouldn’t he play ball but he decided to play detective. He thought if he could get something on us, we’d have to lay off him.”
“So you imported some talent and had him laid off, right?”
“Clever with words, aren’t you?” he asked. He jerked the gun and my stomach jumped.
“You know something, Po? I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for missing you that night.”
I put my fingers to my head and told him, “Oh, you didn’t miss, pal, you were just a little to the right.”
I was talking to try and keep my mind off the gun.
If Brinks was the third man at that hotel the other night, then it was for sure that he was something other than an assistant trainer.
“Do you even know anything about horses, Brinks?”
“Actually, I could be a pretty good trainer, if my talents didn’t lie in other directions.”
“Like murder?”
“I-I never knew they’d murder anyone,” Spencer said at that point. He came around from behind his desk and moved alongside me.
“I never knew you were going to — ” he started to say to Brinks.
What happened next was Spencer’s fault for being such a small, light man. It was my only chance and I took it. I wanted to stay alive and, at that point, would have gladly traded his life for mine.
In the end, we are all selfish creatures.
I actually lifted Spencer up off the floor and threw him at Brinks. He crashed into his “assistant” and they both went through the door out into the gravel. The gun discharged and a bullet dug a hole in the ceiling and hid. I moved fast and drop-kicked the gun from Brinks’ hand. He got to his feet and took off.
“Oh, shit,” I snapped. I had gone through this before with Aiello, and Brinks’ legs were a lot longer than the little jockey’s. I decided I needed some help.
One of Spencer’s hotwalkers was walking a horse, cooling him out after his workout. I grabbed the reins from him, said, “Excuse me,” and jumped up on the horse.
Have you ever tried to ride a horse bareback?
It’s a good thing I didn’t have to ride him a long way, I would have fallen off ten times. Brinks was heading down the road toward the main gate and I aimed my mount — as best I could — in that direction. We made up the ground between him and us very quickly and I just kept on riding until my horse went right over him.
Then I fell off.