Jubilee's Journey (Wyattsville #2)(42)
THUNDERBAY WINS AGAIN AT TROPICAL PARK
Hurt looked at the front page photo of a racehorse and smiled. The track. For more years than he could remember, Daddy George took money that should have put food on the table and played the ponies. He’d skip work, spend the day at Heidelberg Raceway, then come home rip-roaring drunk and in the foul mood that came from never winning.
Hurt plunked down a dime and bought the paper, then asked for directions to Tropical Park Racetrack.
“Union Terminal,” the news dealer replied. “They got a bus that goes direct.”
Hurt gave a nod and turned back in the direction he’d come from.
When Hurt stepped off the bus at Tropical Park, he caught the smell of his father—the stink of cigars and sweat mingled with meanness. Then he heard the sounds, the all-too familiar sounds of angry words with hard Ks and an intolerance that slammed against his ears and rumbled through his head with a roar.
He paid his entrance fee and entered the track.
Inside there was a crush of people moving, shifting from one place to another. Hurt grabbed a program and moved through with the crowd. Twice someone shoved him in the back, and he slid his hand inside the jacket pocket just to feel the gun. As long as it was there, he’d be okay. A gun was bigger than Daddy George.
A gun was more powerful too.
Daddy George could beat a boy into submission, but a gun could put an end to it.
Hurt’s eyes were open as he moved with the surge of people, but behind those wide open eyes he was picturing his daddy with a blown-out hole in the middle of his chest—a hole where a heart never was.
As Hurt walked, he shifted his eyes—right, left, forward, right again. Too many people. Faces crowded together, and arms reached across one another. “Gimme two on the Daily Double!” someone yelled. Then another voice echoed the same command. “Five across the board,” a voice called out—a woman, not Daddy George.
A swirl of confusion began to circle Hurt. Too many people; too many sounds. It was impossible to pick out even one person in the pressed together mass of flesh. How would he ever find Daddy George?
Hurt opened the program and found his answer.
King George V, in the fifth race.
Turner’s Turn
When Mahoney left the station house, Griffin was waiting in the car.
“Well,” Griffin said, “how’d it go?”
“Hard to say.” Mahoney shrugged. “I got the feeling Gomez didn’t want me poking around the Klaussner thing, but I’m not sure why.”
“You ask about the kid they caught?”
Mahoney shook his head. “No. I’m thinking there might be more to this than we know. Let’s stop by the Doyle place first and see what she’s got to say.”
It was close to one-thirty when they pulled up in front of the Wyattsville Arms. After the Sam Cobb incident, Mahoney knew Olivia Doyle would be wary of any tag-along partner, especially one the size of a grizzly.
“Hang back,” he told Griffin. “Give me ten minutes or so to explain you’re an okay guy, then you can come up.”
“I’m an okay guy?” Griffin laughed. He was a big man with a big laugh that at times had the sound of thunder.
Mahoney climbed out of the car and walked into the building. Nothing had changed—at least nothing he could put his finger on—yet a strange sense of foreboding had settled into his stomach. It’s that damn Gomez, he thought. Then he rang Olivia Doyle’s doorbell.
Olivia was half-expecting it to be Jim Turner. She’d had four different friends call and report that he was going door to door asking if anyone had seen kids running through the building. To be on the safe side, she’d told Ethan Allen to use the back stairs for coming and going to school and leave his bicycle in the back lobby mud room. She also kept Jubilee hidden inside the apartment. When the doorbell sounded, she figured for sure it was Jim Turner waving another copy of the building rules in her face or, worse yet, an eviction notice. Olivia shooed Jubilee into Ethan’s bedroom and closed the door.
“Not a sound,” she whispered, “and no matter what you hear, do not come out of the room until I say it’s all right to do so.”
When she looked through the peephole and saw Detective Mahoney’s face, Olivia was pleasantly surprised. After her lie about Anita swimming in Chesapeake Bay, she’d pretty much given up on eliciting his help.
“Come in,” she said in an extremely gracious voice.
Olivia thought she’d first sweeten things up with a plate of homemade cookies and fresh coffee, but Mahoney said not to bother and they settled on the sofa. “If you don’t mind,” he said, “my partner and I would like to run through—”
Olivia’s mouth fell open. “Partner? I hadn’t counted on…”
“I realize that you had a bad experience last time, but Sam Griffin is—”
“Sam!”
“This isn’t Sam Cobb.” Mahoney tried to use a soothing tone, but with every word he spoke the alarm in Olivia’s face became more apparent. Finally he fell back on the tactic he’d seen Griffin use.
“Sam Griffin is godfather to all three of my children,” he said. “I’ve known him for almost thirty years. He loves kids, got five of his own. Every year he plays Santa Claus at the church festival.”