“Part of the problem,” Doyle mumbled, “is that you pulled off something few people have, and you can’t even brag about it to anybody.”
The harder Doyle tried to celebrate, the worse he felt. On a night that Doyle had made more money than his salesman father had ever made in half a year, he headed home just after 10:30. Doyle had a bit of a buzz on from the drinks, and he knew it, so he was extra careful, parking the Accord with precision in the dank lot beneath his four-plus-one apartment building.
They had been waiting, crouched, on the off side of the car that bordered the parking space marked “Doyle.” Jack had locked the door and was starting to turn away from the Accord when he heard-much too late-sounds he knew shouldn’t arise.
They were very good. Doyle couldn’t even fully pivot before he felt a knee jam into his lower back and a powerful arm encircle his neck, felt the arm then jerk his chin up and back so quick and hard he thought his eyeballs were going to exit the rear of his head.
Quiet instructions were being issued as Doyle struggled. He heard a mixture of them, urgently whispered: “Keep him like that…Not a sound, now…Up with his sleeve…”And when the needle hit midway up his extended right arm, Doyle realized that they were not going to kill him, realized what this was all fucking about. His body already in the sway of whatever they’d shot him up with, Doyle fought to keep awake and alert. This, too, was a losing battle.
Last Doyle felt, the envelope with the twenty-five thousand was being extracted from his jacket and his assailants were gently positioning him, like a salmon on a bed of slivered ice, across the backseat of the Accord.
Last Doyle heard as they slipped away were the little sounds of rubber soles across the concrete garage floor and what, in his narcotic-driven slippage, he bitterly discerned to be voices, one a man’s, the other a woman’s, in the respective singular accents of…
Chapter 4
The two men parked the car nearly a mile from the southern border of Willowdale Farm, Harvey Rexroth’s Kentucky showplace. The trip to the back gate that led to the stallion barn took them less than twelve minutes, even in the dark. They trotted quickly, with purpose, without speaking. They quickly climbed over the white slatted gate and went forward, one on each side of the graveled path, moving silently through the damp grass.
Each man was dressed completely in black, each wore a black nylon mask. The shorter of the two led the way, moving confidently, as if he were very familiar with the site.
Once they had reached the complex that housed Rexroth’s stud horses, the most valuable animals on the property, the shorter man motioned to the left and they angled that way. He then gave a signal to stop. The taller man moved alongside. For a few moments they crouched in silence. The only sound was a slight breeze from the west that moved gently through the rhododendron bushes that outlined the stallion barn’s walking ring. There was no sign of any night watchman. No surprise there, thought the shorter man, they’re right where they should be- nowhere close to here.
After slipping silently through the door of the two-story brick building, they walked softly down the broad middle aisle separating the stallions’ stalls. Their stealthy movements on the rubber-padded barn floor did not go unnoticed. The horses were immediately aware of them, aware that strangers had arrived. Some of the horses shifted their feet in their stalls, uneasy about the presence of these visitors at this unusual hour. Two horses poked their noses against the tall metal screens that served as stall doorways.
After he’d counted down the row on the right, the short man whispered, “It’s that one.” He pointed to the second stall from the far end of the row. They crept toward it, trying not to further arouse the horses’ curiosity. “I’ll take his head,” said the smaller man, “you slip in there.” He carefully opened the stall door. “Wait till I get a good hold of him,” he hissed.
The small man held the palm of his left hand forward as he reached for the horse’s halter. In his hand were peppermint candies. “C’mon babe,” he invited, “c’mon babe.” The horse, a nine-year-old bay named Uncle Francis, responded suspiciously to this invitation from this stranger, backing away and tossing his head. But as the shorter man kept talking softly, persuasively, soon Uncle Francis moved his nose forward to the man’s palm and snuffled up the candies with his lips. Like most horses, he liked peppermints.
“
Poised behind the horse’s left rear leg, the taller man raised his right arm high. In his hand was an iron crowbar. With a sudden, devastating motion he brought the crowbar down as hard as he could against the leg of the unsuspecting horse. Under the impact of the powerful blow Uncle Francis’ cannon bone cracked like an icy tree branch in winter. The horse screamed in agony as he crashed to the floor of the stall.
Uncle Francis continued to make terrible sounds as he thrashed in the straw bedding, trying to fight his way to his feet. The taller man adeptly dodged the horse’s massive body as he moved to the stall door. Uncle Francis somehow got himself upright, lurching on his three good legs as the other dangled like a broken hinge.
The shorter man quickly closed the stall door. The piteous sounds of the stricken horse reverberated throughout in the dark barn; the other stallions, very aware of the terror in their midst, had begun a crescendo of neighing that counterpointed Uncle Francis’ cries of pain.
It would not take long for others on Willowdale Farm to become aware of this event. Lights were already being turned on in the farm manager’s residence, some three hundred yards up the gravel lane, when the two black-garbed figures trotted briskly in the opposite direction, their grisly mission accomplished.
Two days later, the Saturday edition of Harvey Rexroth’s daily newspaper
“There was nothing that could be done to save the horse,” owner Rexroth was quoted as saying. “We summoned the best veterinarians around, and they agreed that this gallant runner would have to be put down for humane reasons. This is a tremendous loss to Willowdale, and to the racing and breeding industry, for we were convinced Uncle Francis would sire a succession of youngsters as talented as he was.”
Knowledgeable breeding experts responded with skepticism to this claim, for Uncle Francis-following his excellent racing career-had proved to be a disappointment as a sire. Once they’d hit the racetrack and failed to impress, the market value of his young horses had plummeted, as had that of Uncle Francis. He wasn’t unique in this sense, for not every good racehorse makes a good sire. But he was evidently unique in paying such a severely painful price for his progenitive inadequacies. Insured for $8,000,000, he was worth far more dead than alive. None of this was mentioned in the
Reading the story while lying on his motel bed late that Saturday night, on the outskirts of a town one hundred ten miles from Willowdale Farm, the shorter man of the midnight duo cackled with delight.
“This sumbitch Rexroth is crookeder that we’d ever think to be, man,” he said appreciatively. He was talking to his partner and roommate. But Jud Repke was asleep and did not hear the words of Ronald Mortvedt.
Chapter 5
Doyle awoke in a mental haze. After battling his way toward consciousness, he realized he was on the old brown couch in the small living room of his furnished apartment. Vaguely, very mistily, he recalled awakening in the backseat of his car in the apartment building’s garage, pulling himself up the short flight of stairs to the elevator, later fumbling for long minutes with his front door lock.
