do you want to know?”
“You been playin? coy ever since you got here, actin? like this is your first trip to town,” he said. “See,
I ain?t buyin? that because I don?t think you?re on the level and it ain?t a one-way street, y?know, it?s
give and take.”
I had been underestimating the big man. He was either a lot more perceptive than I had given him
credit for or he knew more about me than I thought he did.
“Give me a for instance.”
“For instance, I got this gut feeling you know all about Chief and Titan and the Findleys.”
I wasn?t sure I could trust Dutch Morehead, I wasn?t sure I could trust anybody. But I had to start
someplace. I decided to prime the pump a little.
“No bullshit,” he said.
“No bullshit,” I answered. “I lived with Chief Findley and his family for one summer. That was 1963.
Teddy Findley was my best friend. We played football together. We were in Nam together. I was with
him when he died.”
“Uh-huh.”
That?s all he said. He was waiting for more.
“1 never knew my own father,” I went on. “He died at Guadalcanal before I was born. I guess Chief
was like a father figure to me. What he said was gospel. You could. . . you could feel the power of the
man when he walked in the room. It made the room hum. I?ve got mixed feelings about all that now.”
“I?ve heard that about him. There isn?t much left anymore.”
“No, now Raines is doing the humming.”
“So what?s that to you?”
“Bottom line, if Raines is the man now, then he has to take the rap for what?s happened here. Sooner
or later it?s going to fall on him.”
“So?”
“So how come he?s got his head stuck so far in the sand?”
“Harry Raines is a local boy,” he said. “Surprised everybody because he was kind of a hell-raising kid
who grew up to be a shrewd businessman and a tough politician. His old man was a barely respectable
judge, had a passion for all the things judges ain?t supposed to lust after—women, racehorses,
gambling. Hell, the old man died in his box at Hialeah with a fistful of winning tickets in his hand.”
“So that?s where the interest in horse racing started,” I said.
“From what I hear, by the time Harry was old enough to pee by himself, he?d been to every racetrack
in the country. He handicapped his way through Georgia, played football, was one of Vince Dooley?s
