Blind switch

As Doyle drove home that October Saturday night through the leaf-strewn streets north of Chicago’s Loop, he couldn’t help but contrast his present feelings to those he’d had four months earlier when, with $25,000 in cash in his pocket thanks to City Sarah’s big win, he’d scoured his neighborhood in a fruitless quest for celebration.

This night, well, this was different. For one thing, he’d made a far larger score off the Heartland Derby than he had by helping to cause City Sarah’s embarrassment, then her lucrative victory. Thirty minutes before the Heartland Derby, Doyle had taken half of what he thought of as the guilt money E. D. and Maureen had sent him- $15,000-and bet it to win on Bunny’s Al.

The size of the wager, previously unthinkable in Doyle’s experience, had seemed as natural as his next breath.

There had been long periods in his up and down life during which Doyle felt far from convinced that he ever really knew what he was doing. Yet, occasionally, moments emerged during which he felt fate’s golden hand gripping him by the elbow and, for a change, not propelling him into another of life’s traffic jams.

Rare moments they were. They sometimes dolphined out of the darkest, most depressing seas of Doyle’s life, as when Moe Kellman, sweating in the Fit City gym, invited him to lunch for the first time at Dino’s Ristorante. For Doyle they represented the “inevitability of the inevitable,” a concept he had attempted to explain to both of his wives before they became ex-, to friends both former and current, sometimes even to complete strangers.

“Situations arise, and you know before they develop what’s going to happen,” Doyle would say. “It’s like deja vu in advance. You just know. Usually what you know is going to happen is awful-but not every time. Not every time. Once in a great wonderful while you just know that a good thing’s coming, finally rolling your way. Get it?”

He had asked that question many times and rarely heard a positive reply. This night was different, he knew it just as surely as he had known his bet on Bunny’s Al was going to be a winner. Doyle’s fifteen grand had swelled to a profit of $75,000-the odds had drifted up to five to one just before the race-in the minute and fifty seconds it had taken Bunny’s Al to run a mile and an eighth that afternoon.

He was on a roll. And it wasn’t just the money that had his spirits surfing about a yard and a half over the roof of his northbound Accord.

Doyle knew that nothing could ever make up for what had happened to Aldous. But Mortvedt’s getting wiped out that way-eliminating the prospect of short prison time because of his cooperating testimony-provided a large chunk of satisfaction. “We forgive but we don’t forget,” Doyle said aloud as he turned west off Clark Street onto Fullerton.

He smiled as he thought of the expression of gratitude he’d received as he drove away from Heartland Downs that afternoon. It had come over his cell phone from Moe Kellman, who on Doyle’s advice instructed his “people” to leave Lancaster Lad out of all Heartland Derby betting they were doing and in whatever bets they were booking.

“Moe, if you don’t mind my asking,” Doyle had said, “how did you get this number? I never gave it to you and it’s unlisted.”

“Do you really care, Jack?” Moe had replied, before urging Doyle to “go out and have the celebration you deserve.”

Before heading for his apartment, Doyle made two stops. The first was at the night deposit window of his bank, just off of Clark Street on Fullerton, where he dropped off the check that the Heartland Downs pari-mutuels had made out to him for his fistful of winning $100 tickets on Bunny’s Al.

The second stop was at McTweedy’s Travel Agency farther west on Fullerton. Doyle double-parked and dashed inside.

The office was empty except for a departing receptionist, nameplate reading Heather, who was in the process of locking the front door. Doyle persuaded her to gather up travel brochures and a schedule of Air New Zealand flights. After thanking Heather and wishing her a good night, he re-entered his car amid a crescendo of car horns and shouted threats from road ragers who had been forced to creep past the double-parked Accord. Doyle gave them a merry wave as he drove off.

As he steered down the ramp into the garage below his apartment building, he tried to calculate what time it was in New Zealand. If it was already tomorrow there, as he suspected, would that be too early to call Caroline Cummings? Or too late? He decided to phone her anyway.

Doyle had described the capture of Ronald Mortvedt in a phone conversation he’d had with Caroline two nights earlier. It was a lengthy call, for which he was grateful. He’d missed the sound of her voice. Caroline had updated Jack on Aldous’ improved condition.

Caroline went on to thank Jack for his role in Mortvedt’s capture, and then she made him promise to phone with a report on Heartland Derby Day. “I’ve got a feeling Saturday’s going to be a corker,” she said. “Be sure to call me, Jack.” He promised he would. He then heard her invite him to come down for the holiday.

“What holiday?”

“It’s our Labour Day. It’s coming up October 27.”

“I’d like that,” Doyle said.

“And plan to stay with us awhile,” she’d insisted. “It’s a long flight to get here, and expensive as well. There’d be no sense in turning about and going right back, would there?”

There was a pause in the conversation. Then Jack said, “No, there wouldn’t be any sense in that.”

Doyle eased the Accord down the damp, oil-slicked ramp toward his parking place. He got out of the car and locked it. He looked around the garage and saw no one. His footsteps echoing off the concrete floor were the only sound in the dank, dimly lit structure. It was still relatively early for a Saturday night, and most of his fellow residents’ vehicles were absent from their parking places.

Smiling broadly, he suddenly stopped, lifted his arms wide, and raised his eyes to the moisture-beaded ceiling only a few feet above his head.

“Where did I go right?” shouted Jack Doyle.