The Significant Seven Read online

  ***

  In its music room/lounge, Tom’s Charhouse this week was featuring a guitar player from a Chicago soft rock band that had been briefly famous two decades earlier. Doyle and Cindy stopped to read the poster with the man’s name and photo on it. A critical review quoted beneath the picture of the musician stated that his music as a soloist in recent years had become “meditative and earthy, luminous and pensive.” Peering into the sparsely populated lounge, they saw an overweight, gray-haired, pony-tailed man bearing not the slightest resemblance to the poster photo from his old band’s glory days. He rumbled into the beginning of a Joe Cocker hit that, Doyle immediately decided, he should have left to Joe Cocker.

  “Good God,” Doyle said. “Let’s get a table on the far side of the dining room. Okay?”

  The Charhouse host, a harried looking fellow, greeted them at his lectern. Doyle watched as the man carefully scrutinized the night’s roster before checking off Doyle’s reservation. To Doyle, the host looked a lot like Ralph Nader, but even more humorless. At Doyle’s request, and motivated by the double sawbuck Doyle slipped him, the Nader lookalike quickly led them to a table in the rear of the crowded dining room. It was next to a window overlooking the nearby street. Cindy asked their waiter for iced tea, Doyle ordered Bushmills on the rocks. They both opted for steak, the house specialty, a New York strip for Doyle, a twenty-four ounce porterhouse for Cindy. Doyle’s surprise was apparent. Cindy said, “No, Jack, I can’t polish off a piece of beef that big. But Tyler loves, I mean loves, cold steak. He doesn’t get it very often. So, I’ll bring him some home.” She smiled at him over the rim of her glass. “I’m taking advantage of you here tonight.”

  “No, the advantage is surely mine.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I’m here with by far the most attractive woman in the place.” He raised his glass. “To you.” She clinked her glass carefully against his.

  “This is a real treat for me, Jack. I don’t often get to go out to places as nice as this.”

  Over the salad course, Doyle employed what he had discovered years ago was the most effective way to ingratiate himself with women he was dating, or even just dealing with on a business level. He asked Cindy about herself. She responded with a description of her upbringing as a miner’s daughter in a small West Virginia town, her marriage and husband’s tragic death, the avenue that had delivered her to Heartland Downs for the work, to the trailer park with her mother.

  Taking a breath from her narrative, Cindy asked for a glass of merlot. After a couple of bolstering sips, she said, “I’m second generation trailer folk, Jack. Not trash. Just people, most of them hard-trying like mine. Where I grew up was close to a run-down old riding stable, Sheridan Acres, run by a guy named Glen. He was the manager and part owner. He gave me a job after school and on weekends starting when I was fourteen. I loved working with the horses, learning to ride them. I got to be pretty much enamored with Glen. And he knew it.” She put the wine glass down and sat back in her chair, arms crossed across her chest, eyes lowered.

  “Couple of years after Glen gave me the job, he gave me something else. A baby. I was sixteen, clueless. My Mom convinced me to put the child, a girl, up for adoption. I did. I’ve regretted it ever since. I’ve often thought that, years later, when I had Tyler, I was being punished for not keeping that perfectly healthy little girl. But I wouldn’t trade my Tyler for anything. There isn’t a more innocent, sweeter-natured person in the world.”

  Tears began to slide down Cindy’s face. Doyle handed her a napkin. He didn’t know what to say. He was getting more and sadder information than he was used to in such situations.

  “Two years later,” Cindy continued, “ I met Lane Chesney, Tyler’s daddy. You probably heard of him, a good jock who died young on the racetrack.”

  “I have,” Doyle said. “That was a very sad thing.”

  “It was. It was. Anyway, before I met Lane, I met and married another rider, name of Herbie Echols. We were both nineteen. He was a pretty good rider at that time, when he was straight, which lasted about a year into our marriage. Then he got to coking and drinking and running around on me. I divorced him. I didn’t even try to get alimony. I was hating him so much I didn’t even want money from the little bastard. Herbie moved to California and went downhill in a hurry. Lost his rider’s license about three times because he failed drug tests. Last I heard, Herbie was up in northern California trying to be a jock’s agent. Hah! The man could hardly sort out the bills in his wallet, much less keep track of a bank account or a condition book.”

  She picked up her wine glass. “So, Jack, you probably know more than you ever wanted to know about me. I’m sorry I started rambling like that. Sorry for the tears, too.”

  Patting her hand, Doyle said, “Actually, the comforting of widows has become kind of a specialty of mine.” Responding to Cindy’s quizzical look, Doyle continued “Oh, there was a lovely woman in New Zealand. Another one I knew, ah, quite well somewhat recently at Monee Park.”

  Cindy, intrigued, said, “What happened between you and these women?”

  “Things just didn’t work out,” Doyle shrugged. There was a lull in their conversation.

  “Is that a pained expression I see on your face?” she said. “You don’t look comfortable talking about this. Do you have mixed emotions?”

  Doyle paused. “Yes and no,” he answered. And they both started laughing.

  Their entrees arrived. Cindy’s porterhouse extended to the edges of the wide plate. She and Jack both laughed at its size. They laughed again when the waiter presented their baked potatoes, each the size of a large hand grenade. “They give you your money’s worth here,” Cindy said. She cut into her steak.

  On the street outside the restaurant, a horn-blowing wedding party drove raucously past, either away from the reception or toward it. Cindy said, “You should have seen the wedding I was at a month ago.”

  Where?”

  “Back in West Virginia. I flew there for the weekend, left Tyler with Mom. It was a girl I went to school with in Nitro, Mary Anne Bullamore. We were great friends and we’ve kept in touch and she finally snared a husband.”

  “Snared?” Doyle asked with a smile.

  Cindy said, “Mary Ann weighs about two-fifty. Sweet, sweet girl, but at the bottom of the eligible bachelorettes’ list, if you know what I mean. Then, a year or so ago, she wrote me that she’d met this neat truck driver named Marvin Prochnow. Marvin, I found out when I saw him, weighs about one-twenty. Seems to be a nice little guy.

  “What can I say? You never know for sure what people will fall in love with what kind of other people. I’ll tell you this, though. It was a wedding to remember. And not just because of the differences in the way the bride and groom looked.”

  Doyle said, “Go on.”

  Cindy chewed another fork full of porterhouse before replying. “Mary Anne went to university. She got interested in what she called Eastern Studies. I’m pretty sure she majored in it. A lot of Zen stuff. I hardly knew what she was talking about when she’d call me.

  “Anyway,” Cindy continued, “the wedding ceremony was held at this strange looking little building on the outskirts of town. The front of the building had a Christian cross on it, and a big blue and white Jewish star, and a crescent moon, and some other symbols I didn’t recognize. The leader of this church is a man, I am not making this up, who calls himself Swami River. He had on a big flowing white outfit and a long black beard. Below his robe,you could see the Reeboks on his feet. He did the ceremony. It took about ten minutes. There were ‘Ommmms’ and some deep breathing exercise stuff and about eight minutes of what the Swami called ‘meditative contemplation.’ You were supposed to keep your eyes closed, but I couldn’t help but look at Mary Anne, who was beaming. She was as happy as I’d ever seen her.

  “When this was over, the Swami and his helpers passed around little pieces of what he called ‘gomunnion’. T
hey were really squares of vegetarian pizza. You were supposed to eat them and then wash them down with wine that was being passed around in goat skin bags by these strange ushers. You should have seen what they were dressed in.” She paused to put another dollop of sour cream on her diminishing potato.

  Doyle had stopped looking on in wonder at the way Cindy was moving happily through her dinner, at the flush in her tanned cheeks as she recounted details of the wedding in Nitro. His meal was good. This narrative he considered better. He waited for more, smiling at this enthusiastic young woman.

  Cindy said, “I don’t want to bore you with all this wedding stuff, but I’ve got to tell you about the end, one of the best parts. We left the church to go right next door to Swami River’s house. He had cleared all the furniture out of what I guess was the living room. That’s where the dancing was. Mary Anne and Marvin stepped out on the floor, they were so happy and cute, I loved it. The music started pretty quick. It was ‘Proud Mary.’ Remember? John Fogarty, Creedence Clearwater Rival? There was my friend Mary Anne twirling little Marvin around the room. It was great to see. And you know the disc jockey for the night was? Yes. Swami River.”

  Cindy cut what she said was her final bite of the beef. “This is the best steak I’ve ever had,” she said. “Tyler’s going to think so, too.”

  ***

  The only awkward moment of their night came as they waited for their dessert to be served. Doyle had ordered coffee and a crème brulee, Cindy a small cookie assortment with green tea. Before their orders arrived, Cindy suddenly coughed hard. She leaned forward and Doyle saw and heard something small and hard land in the middle of the plate before her. It appeared to Doyle to be a tooth. It was.

  Cindy gasped and covered her mouth with her napkin. There was a moment of very awkward silence before Doyle said, quietly, “I believe you’ve dropped something.”

  She looked at him over the top of her napkin. Her shoulders began to shake. Tears emerged, but her eyes were laughing eyes. Doyle stayed quiet. Then he started laughing, too.

  “Oh, Jack. That’s probably the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me.” She plucked the false tooth off the plate and, behind the napkin that she held up to her face, carefully inserted it back into the middle of her mouth. Wiping her eyes again with her napkin, she looked at Jack and gave him an intentionally goofy smile. He broke up.

  “Sorry about that,” she said. “It’s never happened to me before, you know?”

  Then she began to laugh aloud as he joined in. People at nearby tables turned to look at them. Doyle reached across the table to cover Cindy’s hand.

  “Care to tell me the story on this?” he said.

  She lowered her napkin. “I had my mouth busted open by a two-year-old colt in the starting gate at Heartland Downs two years ago. The trainer, it was Ralph Tenuta by the way, was trying to teach the colt about the gate. I’m the exercise rider that day. First, the colt gnawed on the assistant starter’s thumb when they were attempting to lead him in. He was kicking out behind, too, scattering those guys. I’m thinking, ‘What am I doing here on this animal? He’s nuts.’

  “They finally get the s. o. b. into the gate and close the doors. But all of a sudden he rears up and tries to throw himself over backwards. Hit me in the mouth with his neck. I was lucky he didn’t crash my head into the top of the gate. One of my front teeth came out. I had to have root canals on a couple of others, right that day, over at the dental clinic. Ralph paid for all of that work. I wound up with this one false tooth, the one that just fell out. Couldn’t afford a dental implant, and I had to get something to put in there so I wouldn’t look like a cartoon character.”

  Doyle said, “Hold on a minute. Was that wild two-year-old Editorialist?”

  “Sure was. Damn, Jack,” she added, “that false tooth has only one other time come loose like that. One day in the spring, I cooked pot roast for Mom and Tyler and me. I marinated it, but I guess not enough. It was like biting into a miner’s boot. My false tooth fell out on the table. Mom thought it was hilarious, and Tyler looked scared, and then we all just looked at the tooth. Like you did just now. Once Tyler was over the shock, he started laughing for about ten minutes. He told his special ed class about it for weeks.

  “For the most part,” Cindy said, “the damn thing stays in place. I don’t know why that happened just now.” She patted his hand. “I appreciate your, well, your reaction. Or nonreaction. You know?”

  Doyle said, “Cindy, you are looking at a man who has starred in far more embarrassing life moments than that.” He toasted her with the last of his Bushmills, looking over the top of his glass at this very attractive, healthy, glowing specimen of American womanhood. Missing tooth? So what?

  Chapter Sixteen

  May 15, 2009

  Steve Charous’ weekday morning agenda was as routine as a Chicago Cubs late season collapse. Before opening his insurance office in downtown Des Plaines, he breakfasted Monday through Friday at the Golden Greek Grill. Black coffee, small grapefruit juice, one raisin bagel with a schmear of cream cheese. By the time he had speed read the Chicago Tribune and Wall Street Journal, he’d finished eating and was ready for his business day.

  This Thursday morning Ike Pappas, owner and operator for thirty-one years of the Golden Greek Grill, called out, “Steve. Hey, Steve. Got a call for you here on the house phone.”

  Charous had just drained his juice glass and taken his first sip of coffee and was awaiting the arrival of his bagel. He shrugged, got out of his window chair, and walked to the phone that was next to the restaurant’s cash register. “Hello. Hello?” No answer. “Hello, Steve Charous here,” he said impatiently. As he did so Iris, his regular waitress, placed the plate with the bagel and cream cheese on Steve’s table. It was the last plate she would ever bring him. She returned to the kitchen.

  A tall, strong looking man rose rapidly from the table across the aisle from Charous’. He wore a UPS delivery man’s uniform, dark sun glasses, carried a clip board in one hand. With one quick motion of his other hand, he dropped a bagel onto Charous’ plate, deftly scooping up the one already there. None of his actions were observed by any of the other customers who were subsequently questioned. He walked quickly out the front door. Ike Pappas told investigators later, “No, I never seen that man before. But so what? What the hell happened?”

  Charous, back at his regular table, bit into his bagel. He convulsed almost immediately. Horrified diners tried to come to his aid, one retiree applying the Heimlich. It was over quickly.

  The subsequent autopsy determined that Charous died of a violently allergic reaction to a peanut-based substance contained in the partially eaten bagel on his plate. “Steve had that allergy condition from childhood,” his widow told police. “He wouldn’t knowingly go within five miles of a peanut or anything with a peanut in it.”

  Iris the waitress, distraught, swore she had served “our Steve, that nice man, the same kind of bagel I brought him for ten years.”

  Ike Pappas produced the receipts from the Brooklyn Bagel Boys Company, supplier to his restaurant. “There ain’t a peanut bagel on that list,” Pappas fumed. “Jews don’t do peanut bagels. I don’t know what’s going on here.”

  The day Steve Charous was buried Ike Pappas, for the first time in the history of the Golden Greek Grill, closed the place. He, Iris, and Alex the cook attended the funeral at St. John the Baptist-Greek Orthodox Church in Des Plaines. Also present in the large crowd were the five remaining members of The Significant Seven.

  Chapter Seventeen

  May 15, 2009

  Doyle’s hour-long drive to Heartland Downs stretched an extra fifteen irritating minutes, the result of one of Cook County’s numerous summer road projects. He tempered the extended time listening to one of his favorite CDs by jazz pianist Keith Jarrett, “You and the Night and the Music,” a beautifully contemplative set of songs from that usually volatile keyboard genius. Jarrett and I must
be maturing, Doyle thought. A few years ago, this crappy traffic would have had me speeding along the shoulders.

  Finally parked on the south side of the Tenuta Stable barn at Heartland Downs, Doyle locked the Accord. He stretched, then straightened to inhale the early morning backstretch air, a combination of dew, hay, and horses, topped by an aroma of coffee brewing. He unlocked the door to Ralph Tenuta’s office and went to work on his laptop computer, continuing, to Tenuta’s amazement, to modernize methods that had been in place in racing since the first trainer took a piece of charcoal to a cave wall.

  Doyle had managed to convince Tenuta, a staunch Luddite in these matters, that the stable’s work routine could be modernized and improved. Instead of having all his Mexican employees come to the office to get their assignments, in rudimentary Spanish from their well intentioned but foreign language-challenged employer, Doyle devised a system that took the mystery out of these morning meetings. He printed out in Spanish what each person was to do that day and handed these papers to them. Every one but old Cesar could read. Emilio read his assignments to him.

  At 5:45 a.m., a glum Ralph Tenuta came through the doorway. Doyle, not looking up from the computer screen, said, “Hey, Ralph.” When he didn’t get an answer, he turned away from the keyboard and watched as Tenuta slumped down in his chair. The trainer said, “I’m having a hard time coming to grips with what’s happening with my owners. The Charous wake yesterday? Hell, they just kind of stood around looking at each other. I mean, the five guys that are left.”

  Doyle said, “Yes, it’s hard to figure. I never met Charous, but I know you liked him a lot.”

  “One of the nicest men you’d ever meet,” Tenuta said. “It’s a goddam shame.”

  They sat in silence until there was the sound of running feet outside the door. Doc Jensen poked his head in. “Morning, men,” he said. His face was flushed, his eyes alight with excitement. “Come with me,” he said, “I’m going to show you one of the damndest things you’ll ever see on the racetrack. C’mon.”