The Significant Seven Read Online Free Page A

More importantly,
why
would I do something like that?”
    There was a momentary silence before Doyle said, “I’m Irish, and I was raised Catholic, and we don’t have any statute of limitations on guilt. But don’t think you’re going to hold that race-fixing caper over my head again. You gave me your word I was signed off after we broke the insurance ring. Right, Karen?”
    “Yes, Jack,” Engel said. “And we’ll keep our word. We’re not threatening you with anything. We’re pleading with you to help us. We’ve arranged for you to begin working as a groom for a trainer named Ralph Tenuta. His barn is centrally situated on the Heartland Downs backstretch. It’ll make a good spot for you to base yourself.”
    Doyle stood up and walked the few feet into his condominium kitchen. “I’m making more coffee,” he said. Karen sat back in her chair, crossed her long legs, and gave Tirabassi a discreet thumbs up sign.
    As he waited for the coffee to perk, Doyle thought over what he’d just heard. For some reason that he couldn’t understand, he felt a sense of excitement. He hadn’t done anything but travel and laze about for almost a year now, after his work as publicity director at old Monee Park. He’d made a good deal of money during that venture. He didn’t really need money. What he needed was something to do.
    Following his amateur boxing days, Doyle had held a succession of advertising jobs, moving up the corporate ladder until he’d been abruptly dismissed for brandishing his wise ass persona too broadly in a business world that he’d never really enjoyed or cared about. Next came his first association with the FBI, then the Monee Park publicity job, a bittersweet experience at best because of his dealings with, and feelings for, the track’s very attractive co-owner Celia McCann.
    His thoughts went back to the first horse he had groomed, City Sarah, the one he’d stiffed and which later won the race that the Mob guys had bet on. He’d developed a real sense of respect and liking for that little black filly. He’d come to not only admire but like City Sarah and her backstretch colleagues, fey, one-thousand pound animals that, for the most part, tried to do their best. The thought of some asshole purposefully stopping that quest aroused a deep anger in Doyle.
    He brought the coffee cups into the living room. “Tell me this,” he said, “how in the hell can somebody manage to stuff a piece of sponge down the nose of a horse.”
    Tirabassi sipped his coffee, giving Doyle a nod of approval. “Good coffee. As to your question, what Karen and I have been able to establish is that it would probably take two people to manage it. One has to hold the horse’s head, the other handles the insertion. These would have to be people who know horses. These spongings are an inside job. If you can call ‘inside’ anything that happens in a racetrack barn area, hundreds of acres, a couple thousand stalls at Heartland Downs.”
    “Damon,” Doyle said, “you’re talking needle in a haystack shit here. Say I went to work for this Tenuta. Say I wander around, doing my usual nosy business, eight, ten hours a day. What are the chances of me finding the person or persons who are doing the sponging?”
    Karen said, “You were a huge long shot to bring the insurance creeps to justice. But you did it. We’ve got no one in the Bureau who can carry off working as a plant on a racetrack backstretch. A reward has been offered, a good one, $50,000 by the racetrack and the horsemen. But nothing’s come of it. Jack, you’re our best bet.”
    Doyle walked over to the living room window. He looked down at traffic-heavy Halsted Street, considering. He laughed again before turning back to the agents.“Tell me about Tenuta.”
    Tirabassi said, “Man’s been training for years and doing well. He’s got more than forty horses in his barn. He could use a stable agent to keep track of business, workouts, scheduling of owner