CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jesse Brunson was walking the filly, Francine, in tight circles in the saddling enclosure, a three-sided tall space with dusty clerestory windows admitting shafts of muted sunlight. The horse was visibly excited. There were other horses in the paddock, some of whom knew what was coming, having raced before, and people. People everywhere, all seemingly talking at once. The muscles beneath the young horse’s red coat rippled, her head was up and moving at all the sounds of race day. She blew a few times.

“She nervous?” Tagliabue asked Agnes Ann, who stood at the entrance to the enclosure.

“More curious than nervous, I would say. This is all new to her.”

“Well, that can’t be bad, can it? At least we know she’s got enough energy for the race.”

“True enough, Tony. As long as she doesn’t spend too much of it before the race starts.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Well, break a leg.”

She laughed. Maybe they don’t say that at the races as they do in the theatre.

Tagliabue left Agnes Ann then—he took a chance slipping in to wish her luck but he knew how important this first race was to her and Jesse so he wanted to show his support. He walked out quickly, hoping no one had recognized him talking to her. His new hirsuteness had altered his appearance considerably. Even so, some sharp-eyed person could have seen through the disguise. By the time “Riders Up” sounded and the jockey Manny Ramirez got a boost from Jake Collier and settled into the tiny saddle, Francine was all Agnes Ann’s son could handle. Jesse walked her out of the paddock and through the tunnel and a wall of noise from fans anxious to see the racers in the flesh. The filly’s eyes were showing white, her ears were moving fore and aft and she was shaking her head as the track’s bugler played the “Call to Post.” Jesse handed her off to an outrider on a placid horse called a lead pony. Francine was wet along the flanks and foaming at the neck. She pranced, keeping her head close to the old quarter horse lead pony. The outrider spoke in Spanish to the jockey: “She never run before?”

“No, nunca.”

The bigger man pursed his lips and said something that sounded like “Oh, shit.” Manny Ramirez looked as if he was ready to find a safe landing spot, but together the two experts got the filly calmed enough to get on the track and begin to warm up. Jogging a little seemed to ease her fears, but the bettors didn’t like her sweat. The entrants in the third were all maidens, so none had won yet, but most of the others had run in one or two races. That seemingly meager experience gave them an advantage many experts thought amounted to 10 or 15 percent in finishing distance, so it was not surprising that Francine’s fractious post parade had the punters worried. With seven minutes to post, the odds on her went up to fifteen-one. Tagliabue bet ten dollars on the nose for Agnes Ann’s entrant, then settled into his grandstand seat to watch the race and Marv the Magpie. He found Harris again with the railbirds at the finish line, hemmed in but untouched.

The horses reached the starting gate. Francine went in quietly; some of the other animals did not like the idea of moving into one of the tight starting stalls. They fussed, backed, threw their heads. One even kicked out. The starters finally got them all into the gate. Ramirez was in Agnes Ann’s lime silks with a darker green WI circled on the back, so he was easy to pick out at the tumultuous start, ten young beasts bolting down the chute at the bell, their fervor accentuated by the clanging of the flung-open gates and the yelling from starters and jocks. Francine broke well, a boon in a seven-furlong race. She fought Ramirez for a while down the backstretch but settled in four lengths back, still straining enough for her rider to have to keep a strong hold on her. Tagliabue could see through his glasses that her mouth was pulled toward her neck.

At the half-mile pole, she seemed to accommodate herself to the race, striding easily for the first time. Tagliabue hoped she had enough stamina left for the stretch run. She was running three-wide and clear of other horses.

On the turn for home, Ramirez moved her in and up, two out from the rail. The two-horse, a dun mare who was the favorite, moved at about the same time and took over the lead. Francine followed her up. She was boxed in by a gray filly to her left and a horse coming on the outside, but didn’t realize it, running hard behind the leader. The five came up three deep with speed and passed them all.

The field straightened for the homestretch, ears flat, teeth bared, and flaring nostrils sucking in great quantities of the Adirondack air. The roar of the crowd intensified, almost overpowering the thunder from the horses’ pounding hooves. With a furlong left, the gray inside Francine could no longer maintain the pace and fell back a length. Ramirez took his mount to the rail, a dangerous decision on a new racer. Francine changed leads with the move and surged forward, her rider’s left boot painting the fence.

The dirt was a little deeper in tight and the space to pass the leaders was narrow, but Francine seemed to care not a whit. Her nervousness had disappeared with the excitement of the competition itself. She was racing and that’s all she cared about. Her neck straining, her body flattening, she ate up the ground in great flying strides. She passed the favorite and caught the five-horse with three jumps left to the finish. She won her first race by a neck. Manny Ramirez had not touched her with his crop.

Sensing the race was over when her jockey relaxed, Agnes Ann’s filly galloped around looking at the other horses with her ears up and a bounce to her step. She liked this racing business. Even the crowd noise didn’t seem to bother her now. The tote lit up with the payouts for her win: twenty-eight dollars to win, twelve dollars to place, and seven dollars to show. Tagliabue had a ticket worth $140 in his pocket.

That evening, Tagliabue ended his congratulatory call to Agnes Ann when Maurizio phoned.

“Some race, eh? That red gal loves to run, don’t she?”

“She does, Maury. You get down on her?”

“That’s why I’m calling, plus I’m leaving tomorrow and wanted to be sure you remembered. I’m having a helluva time and hate to go, but I gotta get back to my fucking job by the weekend. Look here, Anthony. I bet fifty bucks across the board on Agnes’s horse. The payout was eleven hundred and seventy-five bucks.”

“Hey! Good for you, Maury.”

“Yeah, thanks. Only trouble is, you got to pay taxes on anything over six hundred or something. I had to sign a form, with your name. Cause I’m using your ID.”

He paused, expecting the worst.

“No problem. That’s just more proof I was here.”

“You don’t care about the taxes shit?”

“No, not as long as you fly out of Albany in my name tomorrow.”

“I’m going, cuz. I hate to leave but I’m going. Some little chicky here at the clubhouse bar is gonna miss her Anthony Tagliabue though.”

“As long as she doesn’t come calling at my apartment in Bath when the race meeting ends,” Tagliabue said through a smile.

“She does, she’s gonna be disappointed.”

While the Westfarrow Island team celebrated their hand-ridden victory in Francine’s first race, augmented by a physical exam that showed no ill effects from the contest, Tagliabue got ready for the first part of his assignment from Giselle. It required leaving Saratoga and heading back to Westfarrow Island. First, though, he had a private burden to relieve.

He changed hotels, moving farther from the track. Before leaving his old room, he shaved clean and cropped his hair short. He jammed his baseball cap on his head and left carrying his own bags. Since he had checked out earlier, Tagliabue talked to no one in his new guise. He stopped his rental in a McDonald’s parking lot and pasted on a white fisherman’s beard, around the jawline with no mustache, and drove to a Holiday Inn Express where he checked in as Frank Fabris. In his room he jammed a bald-head cover on his head, looking in the mirror like a bald guy—if one didn’t look too closely.

Engagement day was dry and mild at post time for the first race. Marv Harris was dressed in dark clothes again, claiming his usual rail position. The grandstand was only half full. By the call for the third race, people were filling the seats, some eating sandwiches brought from home. Tagliabue worked his way past legs and bags to the aisle and down the steps to the track apron. A briefcase crossed over his chest and hung by his right side. He went into a bathroom stall, pulling the mask head from the bag. Placing it on his head, he pulled the hat over it tightly.

Back outside, it was two minutes to post. People rushed forward to the track. Tagliabue let himself be carried with the crowd until he was behind Marvin Magpie. If Marv turned around he would see him, and probably recognize him from that close. There was one person between him and Harris. The race started with a roar from the crowd. Tagliabue inched forward. There was movement in the mass of humanity, and Tagliabue felt himself being jostled. A young man next to him apologized, barely taking his eyes from the race. Someone else splashed beer on himself and cursed.

The horses turned for home. The roar intensified. Everyone on the apron, probably even the rent-a-cops hired for the monthlong meeting, watched a horse move up from the back of the pack, moving so fast it looked as if he may overtake the two leaders as they raced for home. People screamed, raised their arms. Tagliabue bent over suddenly. He pulled his hat off and jammed it into his bag. Taking out a small .22-caliber revolver he turned sideways and pressed it into Marv Harris’s back. He squeezed the trigger. The report barely registered amidst the concentrated tumult at the rail. He dropped the gun. Harris cried out. His voice too was lost in the crowd noise.

Bedlam reigned at the finish line. Harris was dead but his body hadn’t yet fallen. Masses of people were propping it up, pushing it as it tilted, jumping and screeching as the horses closed on the wire. No one realized there was a dead body among the crowd of bettors. All eyes were fixed on the finish like laser beams. Nothing was detected in any other direction. Tagliabue peeled off his surgical gloves, stuffing them into the top of his briefcase. No one paid attention to anything but the exciting finish run. Money was on the line. The crowd surged around him as the horses reached the last pole. The noise reached a crescendo.

Tagliabue moved sideways in small shuffling steps. People had moved past him to the rail as the finish came up. He was jostled, kept moving, slowly and inexorably toward the open concrete floor behind the biggest mass of people, everyone trying to get as near the racing surface as possible as the horses thundered past. Finally, he came clear. He walked slowly under the grandstand as the crowd quieted immediately after the race ended. Someone screamed. He kept walking. A security guard started moving toward the rail to his left. The uniformed man yelled, “Make way. Police! Make a hole.”

Tagliabue walked out Gate C to his car in reserved parking. It was quiet out on the concourse. It was, he knew, too early for bettors to be leaving the racecourse, so his departure would be obvious on security cameras, but he could do nothing about that. He had to get away from the scene of his crime. He walked slowly, keeping his head down and trying to minimize his height. The Hyundai started easily. Driving away, he peeled off his beard and his head mask and put them in his briefcase. He took out a hand towel and wiped the perspiration from his face and head. He breathed deeply, turned the air up, and felt his pulse begin to wane as the miles slipped by.

Back at the hotel everything appeared normal. He showered in his room and lay on the queen bed naked, willing his conscience to clear, telling himself that he had saved the state money by executing Harris and had rid the world of a blight on its culture. He got up and dressed when night came. Drinking a mini bottle of brandy, he sat by a window and watched the traffic roll down Union Avenue in a blur of red and white lights. He heard no sirens.

After breakfast the next morning, he drove his rental to Portland, Maine, and turned it in. Maurizio picked him up and drove him to his apartment. He went in quickly, fired up the incinerator, and waited for the sheriff’s office to call.