“Thibideau.”
“Damn it!” Raines snapped, and his vehemence startled me.
“Uh, there could be something else,” Callahan said. He came over to us and took off the gown.
“There?s a crack in the pastern leading out of the fracture. It appears to be slightly calcified, which
means it?s been there a while. A few days, at least.”
“So it wasn?t a cold.”
“I?m telling you this because Doe here can?t say anything until he finishes his tests. But I?d say this
animal was on Butazolidin because he was gimpy after the race on Sunday.”
“Where did you get that information?”
“The jock, Impastato. But he didn?t have anything to do with this I don?t think. He quit Thibideau
Sunday because he?d been made to break the horse out at the five-eighths and the horse was strictly a
stretch runner, which is another reason he lost Sunday.”
“The trainer?s Smokey Barton, right?”
Callahan nodded.
“He?ll go to the wall for this.”
“It?s done a lot,” Callahan said.
“Not at this track,” Raines growled. “Not anymore.”
Shuster went back to work and Callahan nodded for me to follow him out of the room. We went
outside and leaned against the side of the building in the hot afternoon sun. Callahan didn?t say
anything. A few moments later Raines came out.
Callahan said, “Mr. Raines, I think we need to talk.”
Raines cocked his head to one side for a beat or two and then said, “Here?”
“Preferably not.”
“My office then. We?ll go in my car.”
He drove around the track without saying a word and parked in his marked stall. We took the elevator
to the top floor of the stadium, then headed down a broad, cool hallway to his office.
It was a large room, dark-panelled and decorated completely in antiques, down to the leather-bound
volumes in its recessed bookcases. Ordinarily the room would have been dark and rather oppressive,
except that the entire wall facing us as we walked in was of tinted glass and overlooked the track. The
effect was both startling and elegant.
His desk was genuine something-or-other and was big enough to play basketball on. Executives in
Doomstown seemed to have a penchant for big desks. This one was covered with memorabilia. It sat
to one side and was angled so that Raines could see the track and conduct business at the same time.
