A Stone's Throw by James Ziskin (best story books to read .txt) 📗

“Might have.”

“I see. And my second question is, why do you care?”

“I don’t,” he said with his sinister smile. “At least not too much. She wasn’t the nicest girl I ever met. Plenty pretty back then, but surly-like and greedy. Wasn’t going to win any Miss Congenitalia contests. Too bad for her, but life goes on.”

I thought Jimmy should return his grade-school diploma—if ever he’d managed to cheat his way to one—with apologies for the offense given to his school.

“The first time we met, you said Johnny Dornan probably deserved what he got. What made you say that? Did you know Johnny?”

“Not to say hello. But an associate of mine came to me about ten days ago with some dirt on him. It seems Johnny didn’t do all his business aboveboard. He was involved in some shady stuff.”

“Go on.”

“This guy tells me Johnny got himself into some big trouble about ten years ago. He was an apprentice rider down south. Some track in Kentucky or Maryland. The guy wouldn’t tell me. He was worried people might figure out who talked.”

“Doesn’t sound all that helpful yet,” I said.

“Patience, Ellie. You’re a smart girl, but you don’t take any joy from conversation. Relax and let me tell the story.”

If Jimmy Burgh was willing to share some useful information with me, I was willing to indulge him his snail’s pace. After all, I knew precious little about the jockey beyond the inadequate descriptions Lou Fleischman and Carl Boehringer had provided. With those meager details, along with the contention by Fadge’s horse clocker that Johnny Dornan was “shifty,” I had next to nothing. Yet someone had felt compelled to shoot him between the eyes and incinerate him alongside an over-the-hill floozy in a foaling barn in the dead of night.

“In fact, I came here tonight with Joyce to give you a tip,” continued Jimmy. “You see, this friend of mine by the name of Bruce, he told me that Johnny Dornan was riding under an assumed name. If the NYRA knew who he really was, he couldn’t get his boots shined anywhere within a hundred miles of a racetrack. And, for the sum of two hundred bucks, he gave me Johnny’s real name.”

“Bruce, you say?” I asked. “Not Eddie or Phil or Solly?”

“Bruce. What’s wrong with a name like Bruce?”

I let it go. But I could see where this was going. “So you thought you might approach Johnny with the information Bruce sold you and offer to keep it to yourself in exchange for a favor.”

“A favor or two,” he said with his gold-toothed grin. “Johnny was consorting with gamblers, you see. And once a jockey crosses that line, it’s hard to get back to the other side again.”

“Clever of you,” I said.

“As things turned out, no. Johnny went and got himself killed before I even had the chance to speak to him. And now I’m out two hundred bucks. I can’t exactly ask a favor from a dead man.”

“That’s tough.”

“I’m a big boy. Some bets pay off; others don’t.”

“So why tell me this? Why would you share this name with me?”

“I thought maybe I could recoup my losses.”

I certainly didn’t have that kind of money to throw away on a tip. And I was sure that paying for information amounted to crossing into murky ethical territory.

“Jimmy, I don’t have two hundred dollars,” I said.

“I figured as much. But maybe you could scare up fifty bucks. To soften the sting of my loss.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t give you fifty dollars or even five. There’s the question of journalistic principles.”

“Suit yourself,” he said again. “Me, I don’t have the luxury of principles.”

Then, placing both hands on the table, he slid himself out of the booth and rose to take his leave.

“Jimmy, wait,” I said. He stopped and glared at me. “I want to ask you something.”

“Shoot.”

“Is Micheline worth fifty dollars to you?” I was appealing to his personal decency if not his business sense.

His face hardened. Gone was the creepy gold-toothed grin, replaced by an even more menacing glare. He retook his seat in the booth opposite me.

“Sure she is.”

“Then please tell me Johnny Dornan’s real name, and I’ll track down his past, who killed him, and . . . what happened to Micheline.”

Jimmy stared me down for a long moment. “You’ve got nerve, I’ll say that.”

Sensing a crack in his resolve, I decided to push my luck. I asked him for another favor. “Do you know anyone named Robinson?”

Johnny Dornan started his riding career under the name John Sprague. It came as a surprise to Jimmy Burgh that Johnny was Canadian, and he’d never heard of anyone named Robinson. At least none who came to mind.

I spent an hour nursing a drink and chatting with the Bell Canada operator from my apartment. Using a 1956 Rand McNally road atlas to navigate around Manitoba, I checked off city after city, wondering how many pages my telephone bill would add up to the next month. I figured a jockey would most likely come from a rural area, and so I avoided Winnipeg for the first thirty minutes. Then the operator, who by that point was all in on the sleuthing exercise, suggested we look at the capital and, bingo, we landed on a John Sprague Sr. at an address near the Assiniboine River, a stone’s throw from an oval marked “Polo Park” on my map. I slapped my forehead. It was a racetrack.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It was nearly midnight but, with the time difference, an hour earlier in Manitoba. Awfully late to be phoning, but, shameless, I decided to brazen it out. And good thing I didn’t wait till morning; the disoriented man who picked up the receiver on the ninth ring probably agreed to answer my questions only because he’d taken the trouble to climb out of bed, tie on a robe, and shuffle to the kitchen to answer.

“Who did you