where they fight for every yard,
with Jesus playing fullback
and Moses playing guard…
Oh, rock ’em…sock ’em…
Jeeeeezus knock ’em…
Stick with God.
When the last note had faded away, Wanda poked Red in the ribs. “Heaven sakes, honey, get up,” she urged. “We’ve got to get out there and talk to your cousin about killing Mr. Rexroth.”
***
In the weeks following the Marchiks’ Night of the Jackal fiasco in the Willowdale broodmare pasture, the experience continued to rankle the redhead. “Who thought horses could be that big?” Red said to Wanda. She clucked and cooed sympathetic replies, assuring her husband that there are many different brands of bravery. Just because horses scared him did not mean he was a coward, or in any way lacking as a man. Red gratefully agreed with her assessment.
But the desire for revenge continued to burn. One cool Wednesday morning, Red and Wanda drove over to Versailles to visit Red’s cousin Junior Kozol, a gas station attendant who served as a colonel in General Oscar Belliard’s Underground Militia. Red explained he was looking for guidance in how to eliminate “a true threat to this nation and,” he added, “a man who has done personal harm to yours truly.”
“Stealth and guile, guile and stealth,” Junior told Wanda and Red as the three of them sat at the fold-down kitchen table of Junior’s small house trailer on the outskirts of town, a trailer whose jumbled interior reeked of gun oil and dirty socks. “That’s the way to do these things.
“Now,” Junior continued, “I don’t want to know who your target is, Cousin Red. In fact, I don’t need to know. Security reasons,” Junior whispered. “Just let me ask you this, is he or she the kind of individual that goes out in crowds a lot?”
“Sure is,” Red said. “Very prominent man, one of the leaders of business and society in this area.” He spoke almost proudly of his hated former boss.
“Well, that’s real good,” Junior said. He looked thoughtful as he began to energetically itch inside the left armpit of his gas station coverall, meanwhile using the other hand to plow a Q-tip deep into his right ear. Wanda looked at him wide-eyed. “Let me do some research on this, Red,” Junior said. He gestured to a shelf that took up most of one of the side walls of the trailer. It was packed with products from the burgeoning How to Kill/Maim/Dismember Your Fellow Citizens branch of American publishing.
“I’ll report back to you next week, if that’s all right with you,” Junior said, now starting to scratch his way downward from his armpit. Red said, “That’s fine, Junior. You know how to contact me.” Then he and Wanda exited as quickly as politeness permitted.
Said Wanda as she shut her car door, “I’ll bet that boy scratches his balls more than a major league first baseman.”
Red shook his head. “He’s not the brightest youngster,” he said of his thirty-two-year-old relative, “but he’s right on the cutting edge of this professional killer stuff. Oscar Belliard speaks very highly of him, very highly. And Junior’s daddy, you know, was a Navy vet-just like me.”
Wanda turned her head and looked out the car window as she rolled her eyes.
Junior called the next Tuesday. He told Red, “I’ve got your answer, Cuz. I’ve nailed it down. It’s called cue- rah-ray.”
Red responded angrily. “Goddamit, Junior, I’m too old to learn one of those sneaky slant-eye marital arts things. How am I going to jump up in the air and kick anybody backwards? I got bad knees from my days in the United States Navy.
“And,” Red added, “I just can’t take on the Target in hand-to-hand combat. He’s got people around him all the time.”
“Well that, Cousin Red,” Junior chortled, “is exactly my point. C’mon down to the station later, I’ve got the four-to-twelve shift. I’ll fill you in, and you can fill up your tank on the house.” Junior laughed again, obviously in a fine mood.
The Marchiks made their way slowly and carefully toward the clubhouse entrance of Heartland Downs racetrack. It was a beautiful July Fourth afternoon, and a large holiday crowd was on hand in eighty-degree weather beneath a cloudless blue sky. A slight breeze ruffled the flags in the racetrack infield. As the throngs moved through the turnstiles, they were serenaded by a six-piece Dixieland band, its members sporting straw hats. Strolling jugglers and balloon artists labored to entertain the horse players’ children who were along for the afternoon of races that was to be followed by an elaborate, and free, fireworks show come nightfall.
Red Marchik, wearing a red sport coat, white slacks, and blue American Legion cap, was aware of the comfortable temperature. But he was not enjoying the sight of the cloudless sky, nor the looks of pre-race anticipation on the faces of his fellow Heartland patrons, for he couldn’t see them. With Wanda guiding him by the right elbow, Red was cautiously advancing, a blind person’s long red and white cane poking the path in front of him, his eyes hidden behind a coal-black sunglasses.
“How’m I doing, Wanda?” Red asked. Wanda, looking more wary than festive in her pink polyester pants suit, kept her gaze straight ahead. Without looking at her husband, she whispered, “You’re doing just fine, Red. Just give us a coupla more taps with the cane every few yards, will you? You know, make it look as realistic as you can.”
Red inadvertently complied when he tripped on the first step of the clubhouse stairs. Desperately seeking to regain his balance, Red swung his free arm widely, nailing the man beside him directly on the nose. As the man’s nose spurted blood, he began to curse Red. But then, noticing the glasses and cane, he stopped, and said, “Sorry, pal, I guess I got in your way. Have a good one,” he added lamely.
The man’s white shirt was spattered with crimson as, handkerchief held to his nose, he turned to a cigar- smoking man next to him. “Lou, how much time we got to bet the double?” he asked. “They’re almost at the gate,” came Lou’s answer. Hurriedly, the man with the bleeding nose reached into his pocket. He handed a bill to the cigar smoker, a look of desperation on his face. “I ain’t had time to handicap. I just got here, and then this blind guy pops me in the nose. Run in there and get me a $20 daily double, willya?”
The man with the cigar said, “Whadda you want in the double?”
“Get me…well, you know…hell, get me
Red and Wanda, meanwhile, had quietly removed themselves from this scene and passed through the clubhouse doors into the air-conditioned interior. They then took the elevator to the third floor of the clubhouse. Everyone in the elevator gave Red plenty of space. A woman in a broad black hat smiled sympathetically at him and said, “Mister, you can probably pick them as good as me even if you
Once the Marchiks had been ushered to their reserved seats near the stairway leading to the paddock, Red sat down with a groan and mopped his brow. “I’m sweating bullets, Wanda,” he said. “This isn’t easy, walking around like a blind man when you’re not blind. The ones that really are blind got a cakewalk compared.” His lifelong reservoir of resentment, with its base of imagined imposition, had begun to froth in the Fourth of July sun. “I need a beer,” Red added piteously. He groped for Wanda’s hand.
She removed her hand from Red’s reach. “You’re just sweating out all that beer you guzzled last night,” Wanda said. “No beer for you right now. Remember what Junior said: we’ve got to be at our ‘lethal best to meet the test.’”
The previous night, sitting around the poker table in their basement, the Marchiks had watched as Junior Kozol put the finishing touches on the weapon he’d obtained for use in the intended murder of Harvey Rexroth. This item, which Junior had discovered in one of his assassination textbooks, was a cane for the visually impaired, modified to contain at its end a retractable needle. Junior had mail-ordered it from a dealer in Alabama. The needle, as Junior had promised, contained curare.
“This is full proof, Red,” Junior had insisted. “The KGB used this, the CIA, everbody. Remember when that
