Jate's Boy

JATE’S BOY

BY

Peter P. Sellers

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2017 by Peter Sellers

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. 

Outside Joey Grasso’s apartment building

Buffalo, NY

September 17, 1990

10:00 AM

Blaster was hyperventilating but that was to be expected after a face-to-face kill. He focused on controlling his breathing as he pulled back out onto the street in front of Joey Grasso’s building. He knew the FBI stakeout was a car about a block down to his right, so he turned the van left. He wasn’t going to the bus terminal parking lot to ditch the van immediately; he wanted to do a few things first. He knew the guy buffing the floor outside Grasso’s apartment had gotten a good look at him, so he wanted to change his appearance as quickly as he could. He wanted to wash his hands as soon as possible to rid himself of the cordite from firing the Glock, and he wanted to ditch the gun and exterminator uniform he had been wearing.

Five blocks from the apartment building, he pulled into a fast food parking lot. Removing his hat, he jerked a plastic sandwich bag from the glove compartment. He pulled a small mustard jar out of the bag and set it on the console between the seats. After unscrewing the jar’s top, he carefully dipped a small fine-toothed comb into the black liquid. Slowly, he started combing the liquid into his hair, dyeing the gray streaks above his ears black. In minutes he completed that task and reached back in the glove compartment to remove a small electric razor. Attaching a trim adapter, he proceeded to shave off his mustache. Next, he removed his exterminator’s shirt and pulled on a blue sweatshirt.

He checked his pulse, his heart rate was very close to normal. The time-honored procedures for the after-hit exit were engrained in him. One: it’s over and done—don’t think about it for a second. Two: spend as much time re-establishing your composure as you need while exiting the location. Three: alter your appearance as dramatically as possible as soon as possible. Four: begin normal activities as you follow your exit plan. Five: know exactly what you plan to do with the weapon afterward… and do it. Lastly, begin your mental exercises to flush the experience out of your mind. Think positive thoughts about what joys and experiences lie ahead.

Feeling relaxed, almost in a state of euphoria, and remarkably calm, Blaster stepped out of the van, walked slowly into the restaurant and headed to the bathroom to wash his hands… and then grab some lunch. He looked forward to getting back to Florida. He grinned broadly as he scrubbed his hands and thought to himself…. Mike woulda loved to have been there.

The September Sales at the Fair Grounds

Syracuse, NY

11:10 AM

The next yearling was being led into the ring as Michael Butler and his wife, Sophia, got up to leave. Side by side they walked toward the back of the tent and the portable sales office to sign the bid slip so the money for the horse they had just purchased could be taken from their account. Sophia had begun to trail behind her husband and he turned back to see what she was doing. She had her hand over her mouth watching Jate’s Boy, the yearling colt they had just acquired in a dramatic bidding duel, being led back to his stall. She turned to catch up with her husband, her face deliriously happy. Michael couldn’t remember her looking so alive and vibrant. People were extending their hands toward them in congratulations like they did after she had won a race with a horse they’d bet on. Michael watched Sophia as she laughed and answered the people calling out to her. It occurred to him that the fifty-thousand-dollar price they had just bid for Jate’s Boy might have been a sale’s record. They were acting like little kids to be honest, but fuck it, Michael thought. It was a great day.

Butler turned the corner at the last row and started out of the tent toward the portable trailer--- a motor home, that was acting as the sales office. He couldn’t help but notice three big, beefy uniformed New York State troopers standing behind Jim Crone, an investigator with the New York State Bureau of Criminal investigations. As Butler approached them, standing just to the left of the trailer, he nodded. Crone and Butler had exchanged some testy words and Butler wasn’t in the mood to deal with him.

Five yards from the trailer, Sophia caught up with her husband, sliding her arm through his. Crone, muscular, fit, deeply tanned and broad shouldered, wearing black aviator glasses, raised his hand in their direction as if he wanted them to stop.

Hey, Jim, Butler said, let me take care of something and I’ll get right back to you.

Michael Butler, Crone said in a very serious voice, stepping toward Butler, you’re under arrest. You need to come with us now.

Butler wasn’t really listening, but Sophia heard exactly what Crone had said. She pulled on her husband’s arm and stopped. Butler tookay a step farther then stopped and turned toward Crone.

What did you say? Sophia demanded.

What did you say? Butler, too, said.

Crone stepped closer to them and stated, Butler, you’re under arrest for conspiracy and obstruction of justice. You need to come with us now.

The three troopers started to surround him. People were turning toward them to see what was happening.

Butler lowered his voice and looked at the troopers around him. What’s this all about?

In a staccato, but awkwardly monotone voice, Crone read Butler his rights as Sophia stood silently by his side. He could feel her squeezing his arm in a vice grip. Crone had to raise his voice at one point as he was reciting Miranda to Butler because the auction had resumed and the auctioneer was drowning him out. Crone’s face grew very red.

When he finished, Crone asked Butler if he understood his rights. Yes, I do, Butler told him, the anger building inside of him.

Sophia took a step toward Crone, who tilted his head back but stood his ground.

In a voice no louder than a hiss, she said, You mother fucking son of a bitch!

He looked her in the face, expressionless, and turned toward one of the troopers. Take him away.

Butler was in minor shock. Sophia walked a few steps to her husband’s side to get in Crone’s face again. You mother fucking son of a bitch!

Sophia, stop… That’s enough, Butler said. Then to Crone. Give me a minute to talk to my wife, will ya?

He nodded. You got two minutes.

Sophia walked forward and put her face inches from Crone’s and hissed again. You mother fucking son of a bitch!

Sofi, stop, come here, Butler said, stepping away from the group.

She backed away from Crone, her eyes on fire and locked on Crone’s, her own face white with anger.

Baby, calm down. You gotta do something for me. Call Paul Collins and tell him to get a hold of Bob O’Hanison in Saratoga. Ask Bob to be my lawyer. And please, don’t make a scene. You need to get as far away from this as you can. Understand?

She was glaring at Crone.

You gotta calm down, her husband told her. Go in there and sign the paperwork. We want that horse, and then call Paul.

She turned back to her husband. They’re gonna regret this, Michael. I’m gonna see to it.

Butler put his hands on her arms. Calm down and get as far away from this as you can. I’ll call you at the house when I can. I love you… Sign the paperwork on our horse.

She embraced him and kissed him hard on the mouth. I love you, too.

She turned to look back at Crone, and in a manner way too much like her gangster uncles, she pointed a finger at Crone, thumb up. Then, bending her index finger, pulled an imaginary trigger, slowly… twice.

1994

Three and A Half Years Later

Adirondack Correctional facility

Raybrookay, NY

Prisoner: 7785403, Michael Butler

Michael Butler: 35, 5’11", 180 pounds, bluish-gray eyes, brown hair.

This day was my twelve hundredth and seventy- fifth day in the prison’s breakfast line. Three and a half years. And I had exactly eighteen months, five hundred forty-eight more days left on my five-year sentence, which I was serving at the Adirondack Correctional Facility in upstate New York.

I was doing time in a medium-security prison. That means no really bad dudes are doing time at the joint. But doing time is doing time.

I spent every one of those twelve hundred seventy-five nights in a seven-by-eleven cell. I had a window, a shitter, a sink, and no cellmate. That was the difference, I heard, between maximum- and medium-security, no cellmate. My prisonmates were mostly drug offenders, first or second-time burglars, embezzlers, con artists, or guys caught at frauds and tax cheats—mostly non-violent crimes. They were of all ages and all levels of educational backgrounds. The library didn’t get a lot of action… Fuck and motherfucker were the two most popular words in the place.

Time was the nine-hundred-pound gorilla in my world. The days dragged endlessly and occupying my mind was a constant struggle. I was serving a sentence for conspiracy and obstruction of justice, but that often vacuous charge warrants an explanation: Unproven speculation by local law enforcement personnel that I was involved with the mysterious deaths of certain persons (all with criminal backgrounds) and the accompanying frenzied media theories created an environment that one zealous state criminal investigator, Jim Crone, found irresistible. He made it his mission to bring me to trial. I was arrested and charged the day my wife Sophia and I bought Jate’s Boy. The last time I saw the horse was as he and I were, separately, being led away.

When I refused to testify at trial on my own behalf, I was found guilty though no positive proof or eyewitness was brought forth to connect me with any of the deaths. Circumstantial evidence and my stoic stonewalling of the judicial system got me the five-year sentence. I kept my mouth shut about my involvement and what I knew, and I’m paying the price.

The conditions of my incarceration could be worse. My trial, combined with the notoriety I received from the national best-selling book The Marriage Buster and my wife’s fame as a top harness racing driver, made me pretty well-known on the inside. I was considered a celebrity inmate. I get shown respect by the population and treated politely by the guards. Mine wasn’t hard time, but doing time was doing time.

Everybody was assigned a job in here. There were four or five departments and everyone was rotated every six weeks. The worst was outside maintenance in the winter, the best was laundry detail. I enjoyed working in the vegetable garden in the summer and hated the kitchen shift. Working in the library was most coveted. I’d never pulled that shift. The rumor was that it took bribes to get. I left that alone.

I desperately missed three things: living with my wife, harness horse racing, and daily freedom. I feared my marriage would never be the same, and I feared I would never be able to get back to horse racing because of my conviction, but my daily freedom was five hundred and forty-eight days away. I’d spent a lot of sleepless nights in this place worrying about the first two and I knew I brought all my problems on myself, but I was a principled man, even if no one else agrees, and reminding myself of that had gotten me through.

I tried to keep busy when not doing my assigned job (which was incredibly tedious and boring). With the warden’s begrudging permission, I started an educational project for my fellow inmates; it quickly became popular. I taught a twice-weekly class on handicapping harness horse races.

It was often a raucous couple of hours…. The guys never agreed with each other’s choices. I started the class with some basic information. Okay, okay… fifth race at Saratoga, open to that… It’s a conditioned race, a mile for pacers who have won five thousand lifetime.

Harness races are divided into classes based on earnings of the horse. A horse with lifetime earnings of five thousand dollars is a pretty good race horse if the horse is just coming four years old.

I went on with this train of thought. Notice that of the eight horses in the race, one has shipped in from Vernon, a mile track. So let’s first look at the finish times for the last three races of each horse. You see the shipper has the fastest times, but as you know, a mile track is generally faster than a half-mile track, the tighter turns slow a horse down, so that’s misleading. Saratoga is a half-mile track. But, I told them, let’s look at the last quarter-mile times. You’ll notice two of the horses have better times than the others, including the shipper… and both won their last time out. Right away, you gotta think they’re fit and racing well.

It was something I learned very early from my father, a driver/trainer himself. I got a daily racing periodical sent to me that listed the entries and results at the five harness racing tracks in the state. The journal included a very good past performance history of every horse entered in their respective races. In my class held in the library, I discussed the various indicators and performance factors that will affect the results.

Let’s look at each horse’s first-quarter times. The two fast closers are middle of the pack, not bad news. They save energy at the start because they want to race off the pace. How about going to the half… They’re top three or four. They start moving up nicely on the back stretch.

It helped that I had raced against many of the current crop of horses’ parents, especially New York breds, since I began working in New York State harness racing, first as a groom in 1977 for the great driver/trainer Frank Ervin at Vernon Downs, then for John Sampson at Vernon, and eventually, as a driver/trainer at my own stable. As my curriculum has evolved, the students and I projected race outcomes, placed fictitious bets, and then scrutinized results and paper winnings. We kept it simple… two dollars was the maximum fictitious bet, and everyone started with a mythical one hundred dollars. Actual track payoffs were used to calculate total winnings.

Okay, I always said to them. Let’s look at start positions for the fast closers. Both won from outside the four hole. Very encouraging. The shipper had the two hole and was third at the half twice in his last three races but didn’t win. But our two closers, starting three hole and five hole, have never been better than fourth at the half, they got breathers in their third quarters… Notice they both had twenty-nine and change times, kinda slow… but then, relaxed and still fresh, they made their moves with strong finishes and won. Good pre-race plan and smart tactical decisions from the drivers.

Handicapping harness horse races required a couple of things a lot of the guys in with me seemed to have: a basic but quirky intelligence, the ability to read and work with numbers, the sense for the unwritten intangibles, and an understanding of the laws of chance. I was very good at handicapping harness races, and I’d proven to be a good instructor. Never one to get up and speak in front of a group of men, I actually found it pleasant to dissertate on a subject I knew almost as a second nature.

It was not surprising that so many of the inmates were interested in harness horse racing. It had often proven to be the choice of blue collar types. Hard to figure why it would be a more popular alternative to thoroughbred racing. Perhaps it was the fact that in harness racing standardbreds were the breed of horse, not thoroughbreds, hinting at a lower-class persona, and harness horses pulled a little two-wheel sulky with a driver, men who looked like themselves, instead of the diminutive jockey on a thoroughbred’s back. Another reason for the inmates’ partiality might have been their awareness of harness horse racing’s longtime stigma for race fixing. It seemed to make some sense that they might enjoy the association vicariously. We never talked about that, however.

So, guys, let’s look at the drivers for the two fast closers. One has driven his horse every start and he’s driving the horse in this race… the other has, too, but he’s not driving the horse for this race. Anybody got a thought on that?

The inmates made their picks and they were duly noted in a betting system set up on a cell block-by-cell block basis. The system was quite an organizational achievement. The program had become a rather important part of the daily life inside.

It’s a no brainer, guys… The fast closer with the same driver. He’s my pick. Everybody agree?

Some of my more zealous followers seemed to have gotten themselves well prepared with a skill that may help them when they return to society.

My expertise as a handicapper also allowed me to maintain a link with Sophia and her racing career.

The Fed Ex packages from Sophia were always opened before they were given to me, and that was annoying, but the excitement it gave me pulling out the racing sheets and the past histories of the horses in the races was worth it.

Sophia had won the Filly Pace at Rosecroft and was going to be back in a Grand Circuit race at Freehold Raceway in New Jersey. She wanted my thoughts. She was going to be racing a three-year-old colt pacer named Allsilknsmooth she had purchased at auction in Illinois the fall of ’92 with her uncles’ money on my recommendation, and had done very well with him racing in Chicago as a two-year-old. I spent a day scrutinizing the past history of every horse in her race.

By lights out I had broken down the strengths and weaknesses I was able to decipher from Allsilknsmooth’s two-year-old histories. Horses change a great deal as they grow and mature between two and three, but certain consistencies can remain. There were two horses I expected to be his stiffest competition. Both had the same negative traits. First, neither was a fast leaver; their first-quarter times were always in the high twenty seconds… twenty-eights and twenty-nines, and both had a history of breaking stride (going off the pace to a gallop) if they went to the half faster than fifty-five seconds. Their strengths were a slow first half pace with a strong charge at the end. The way to try to counter that was a fast pace by Sophia right from the start, not letting them determine the pace of the race, and then, see who had fitness and heart at the end. Sophia usually loved to grab the pocket, the number two position right behind the leader, saving ground and letting her horse relax while the leader tired. This time I was going to recommend she do exactly as she had done in the Filly Pace, get to the front immediately and set a fast pace, giving her horse a breather down the backstretch only until the three-quarter pole. Then she would have to shake her youngster up and hope for the best because the other two would be charging. But, my prediction was they would tire at the finish.

I wrote out my thoughts and sent them back to her apartment address in Chicago.

A secluded setting, Northeastern Iowa (Delaware County)

The Home of Congressman Darren Bianchi

The two ten-pound dumbbells made a resounding thud as Darren Bianchi dropped them on the hardwood floor. One started to roll away and he put his foot on it. He was too tired to reach down. He stepped over to the full-length mirror that stood by the front entrance and admired his pumped-up arms and chest. Not bad for forty-two, he said out loud to the reflected image.

He walked to the downstairs guest bathroom and stepped on the scales smiling inwardly when the pointed indicator stopped at one hundred seventy-eight: the perfect weight for his six foot one inch frame and exactly what it had been for the last several years. He leaned in closely to the vanity mirror over the sink and ran his hand through his thick hair.

Nothing yet, he said as he straightened up, pleased to see no signs of gray. He leaned back toward the mirror, and widening his eyes as if he’d seen a ghost, he rolled his brown eyeballs left and right, checking the whites for any signs of redness. They were clear as a fresh snow. It was another good day in the world of Congressman Bianchi.

The Sunday paper was one of Bianchi’s favorite times of the week, especially the Book Review Section. He was a voracious reader and he liked to check out the reviews of the latest crime novels. He’d grown up in Chicago, and as a youth, fascinated by crime tales, had enjoyed following the press reports of the feared mobsters, the Tanzini Brothers. He had purposely cultivated a friendship in private school with the son of one of the mobsters, eventually making contact with the older Tanzinis. He scanned the cover of the Book Review and smiled. Settling back on his couch in front of a roaring fire, he started to read.

The banner headline sprawled across the cover page declared, "Chicago Marriage Buster a summer hit!"…and below it, a pencil caricature of the author, Kimberly Powers, emphasizing her remarkable physical assets, gazed seductively back at Bianchi. Inside was the feature story, as if America hadn’t heard enough of the intimate details of the infamous "Chicago marriage buster. The writer of the article, a male Bianchi noted, gushed over the frankness and candor of the four hundred plus pages of Ms. Powers’ lurid, spicy, tell-all of sex, entrapment, and blackmail that destroyed a dozen marriages in the Chicago area during the late eighties and early nineties. Her tale, he emphasized, was infused with a solicitous tone of remorse, but to an insatiable gossip hungry public, it was Ms. Powers’ graphic descriptions of her four-year career, spent mostly under the covers, engineering the dissolution of several very high-profile marriages and her insistence they were all done for hire, that set this confessional" apart from the usual celebrity gossip tome.

Interestingly, Ms. Powers further insisted the most notable of her assignments, to break up the marriage of Sophia and Michael Butler, was a failure… Mrs. Butler, the star attraction of the Chicago harness racing world and Mr. Butler, a former driver/trainer now serving a prison sentence in Upstate New York for obstruction of justice and criminal conspiracy, a conviction brought about in part by Ms Powers’ testimony at Butler’s trial. Powers maintaining it was Butler’s strength of character and genuine love for his wife that thwarted her best efforts to drive a wedge between the couple. Her client, for that unsuccessful mission, was Mrs. Butler’s immediate family… the notorious Chicago crime bosses, the Tanzini Brothers, Sophia Butler’s uncles, in what Ms. Powers insisted was an attempt to persuade Mrs. Butler to leave her husband and bring her considerable talent and skills back to Illinois from central New York and head up a family-owned racing stable.

Bianchi dropped the Book Review in his lap and looked out the sliding glass doors to his deck and beyond to the high hills that surrounded the house. He thought about an idea that had been drifting around in his brain; maybe it was more a fantasy, but he liked to mull it over. His idea had little to do with the marriage buster book, although he looked forward to reading it, but his idea was about the beautiful Sophia Butler. He thought he might just be able to make this thing he had in mind happen. He made a note to call Albert and went back to the article.

An excerpt from the Butler chapter, edited for length and printed by permission of the author:

Michael Butler was a gorgeous man; charming, sexy, and disarmingly attractive, and so was his wife. They were a beautiful, successful couple who worked very hard together to achieve their goals in life. I was hired and guided by Albert Tanzini. His only orders to me were that his cousin Sophia was not to find out it was her own family who were behind the plan to break up her marriage.

I traveled to Vernon, New York, to be near Michael and started by putting myself in his line of sight at various places like the racetrack and the hotel/casino in Verona. I carefully arranged what seemed to be accidental meetings where short, innocent conversations took place. I worked very hard to make sure he was getting a good, but brief, look at me every few days. Gradually, he started to take more notice. Finally, we began to enjoy a few private lunches and sweet parting kisses together. I felt I was making progress. But along the way, I also started to observe the Butlers as a couple and it became obvious to me they were very much in love. I questioned my intent, doubting my success. In the end, Michael played me to get information he wanted about Sophia’s family. He knew all along what they were up to (he eventually told me he had, what he called listeners in Chicago). He knew who I was and what I was after. He made his only real mistake when he asked me to be the go between for him with a messenger of the Tanzinis. The secret meeting took place at a motel near Vernon, and eventually, I was identified as present at the meeting, and as a result, was subpoenaed to give testimony at Michael’s trial about what I had seen and heard at that meeting (the presence of certain guns used in a later crime). My testimony was damaging to Michael, who was really only trying to protect his marriage, and I greatly regret it.

***

Bianchi poured himself a cup of coffee and read the wrap-up to the article:

The Marriage Buster is a national best seller. It seemed every month one or more of the couples from the book is featured in a national magazine or newspaper. Where are they now, and what did they think of the book… and Ms. Powers? In prison Michael Butler is isolated from the notoriety, but Sophia Butler, a well-known personality, has had to face the scrutiny almost daily; the constant press references to the success of the book and its lascivious subject matter, not to mention the bizarreness of the Tanzini element, has only ratcheted up the attention on Mrs. Butler.

By the time the Grand Circuit season of 1993 ended, on which she is now a mainstay and fan favorite driver, Sophia Butler had been declared, by a popular national gossip magazine, One of the Ten Most Interesting Women in America.

Getting up from the couch, he retrieved his address book and searched for Albert Tanzini’s number. Sophia Butler was gold in the bank and he was connected to her through her cousin Albert. He knew Albert well enough to call him on a Sunday… What the hell, Bianchi thought, I’m a congressman.

Office of the New York State Racing and Wagering Board, Albany, NY… 1:00 PM

It was a blustery, early spring day. After a three-year void, Michael Butler’s name had been mentioned to Paul Collins, not to say that Collins hadn’t thought about him often since Butler had been sentenced to five years in prison for conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

A meeting was dragging on in the windowless conference room on the sixth floor of a downtown Albany office building, and Paul Collins was enduring the frustration from the information he was getting from his staff, all of whom were seated around the table. As one of the staff members droned on with his report, information Collins was already aware of, he took a moment to ponder his personal fate, a subject that had become increasingly more and more on his mind, especially with the increase in AARP and social security information he was getting in his home mailbox. He had stopped his regular weekly golf game because of an arthritic shoulder, he had recently had his eyeglass prescription increased, and he was struggling with a cholesterol number that had his doctor urging him to start taking a daily pill; he knew blood pressure medicine was next.

So basically, in conclusion… Collins heard, relieved this might mean a wrap up to the meeting. The bottom line of this report says that Yonkers Raceway doesn’t have an average attendance high enough to justify the state’s expense of putting the slots in. This report says the track needs to draw another thousand a night or so on average.

From what to what? Collins asked.

Ah, four thousand to five, I think, his young assistant, who he had brought with him from the Great Head Waters Casino in Verona, declared.

Shit, he said, trying to hide his irritation. That’s a lot of people.

His young assistant looked across the table at him, laying the report down in front of her, and stating with an expressive smile, They just need to get Sophia Butler there for awhile.

A chorus of unanimous Yeahs! filled the room.

Collins leaned back in his chair, exhaling slowly, surprised by her very insightful suggestion. Pushing his reading glasses to the top of his head, he said, You’re right, but with the way she left, I don’t think she’ll ever come back.

Why not? He heard to his left, not bothering to face the questioner.

She feels her husband really got screwed over. When he got sent up, she quit the stable and left the state with a big middle finger stuck out the window.

Well, his young assistant said, Paul, that’s why you get the big bucks. Didn’t you match them up? They know you well, don’t they?

Another young, eager voice said, Get her husband out of jail and let him start racing at Yonkers. Maybe Sophia will come back to him.

The yeahs were louder that time.

Paul Collins had been promoted within the Racing and Wagering Board, much to his surprise, just weeks after the Michael Butler trial had concluded. Collins’s relocation to Albany, NY from his position at the Great Head Waters Casino at Verona, NY, where he oversaw the gaming operation at the casino, was not something he relished, but not ready for retirement, he had accepted his fate.

He had actually thought he would be fired or asked to resign for what he believed others perceived as sloppy handling of Michael Butler’s actions as an undercover operative under his supervision for the Racing and Wagering Board.

Collins’s career had been a satisfying but thankless one. Twenty years he had been with the New York State Racing and Wagering Board, spent entirely monitoring and policing the sport of harness racing at the race tracks around the state, numbering as many as seven at one point. The pressure to win, always intense among the horsemen, and the allure of cash payouts from the pari-mutual betting system were magnets for dishonest schemes by certain elements of the public, and it all demanded daily monitoring. Controlling the fine line between good sportsmanship with fair competition and the devious guile of the criminal intent had become an exhausting process. The strength of character and unusual talents of Michael Butler had been needed and appreciated often over Collins’s long career.

But, during the years of Collins’s time with Racing and Wagering, as Butler became a successful driver/trainer based at Vernon Downs, there had been a number of unsolved deaths of people loosely connected to harness racing and the grisly world of crime that wafts about the sport like the smell of dead fish. Butler was believed to have had adversarial relationships with a couple of the deceased, and suggestions circulated, particularly in the local media, that he had knowledge of, and possible involvement in, the unsolved murder cases. Finally, against Collins’s advice, Butler had been charged and found guilty of obstruction of justice and criminal conspiracy, often vacuous charges, difficult to define, let alone prove, and sentenced to five years in prison.

At his trial, Butler had refused to name names or offer any form of defense against the charges, stoically pleading not guilty, refusing to take the stand and testify for his innocence. Collins had testified, but despite his attempts to defuse the charges by offering alternative scenarios and a positive character assessment in support of his former undercover operative, the prosecution had limited his testimony and had repeatedly told him to just answer the questions and cut the elaboration. To Collins, Butler had been unfairly convicted. He believed the New York State Bureau of Criminal Investigations and the local police had not proven Butler’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Collins felt that Butler’s trial and conviction, widely publicized, had sent a negative message to potential future operatives, seriously jeopardizing the state’s ability to activate successful undercover operations, imperative to policing the sport of harness racing.

And so, The Racing and Wagering Board, overseers of the state’s gambling enterprises—the racetracks and the casinos—had asked him to relocate and head up a project that had been cooking for years and had just started to boil: bringing slot machines to New York State race tracks, to rejuvenate sagging attendance, expand the gambling revenues and options of the patrons, and generate more tax dollars to the state. Yonkers was to be the pilot program.

Several states had recently passed legislation allowing slot machines at racetracks. The governor had let the word get around that New York needed to get with the program.

The room had fallen silent as Collins pondered the suggestion. Finally, he said to his assistant, Call what’s-his-name over at the governor’s office and then Bob O’Hanison in Saratoga for me, please.

Adirondack Correctional Facility, Raybrook, NY

Like everyday, with tray in hand I patiently waited in line, shuffling along, wondering what I’d have for breakfast, knowing it’d be scrambled eggs, bacon, white toast, and maybe a sweet roll. But this day, something the slightest bit unusual. I noticed a guard supervisor strut into the mess area, whisper to an underling watching the line, and point in my general direction. The bull listened, nodded, and he looked toward me.

A few moments later, as I was holding out my tray, waiting for the eggs, I was tapped on the shoulder. I turned, and the mess guard said, See me as soon as you’re done eating.

Twenty minutes later, I was standing in the warden’s office, looking at the wall behind him as he squinted up at me from his steel-gray desk, his mouth turned down at the sides like he’d had a lemon for breakfast, a look of irritation and disinterest stretched on his round red face.

You must have a friend somewhere, Butler, he said, looking down at his desktop.

He picked up a piece of paper and was reading it.

How’s that, sir? I asked.

Sit down, he said, pointing the piece of paper toward the chair to my left.

I got a fax here from somebody in the governor’s office asking that you be made available for a private phone conversation this morning. He handed me the fax, which I read. That’s what it said. "Be available for a private phone call at ten o’clock."

Okay, I said.

I called this guy who signed the letter… Paul Collins. He wouldn’t tell me what it was about, but he’s above me in the food chain, so you’re gonna take that call next door in the conference room.

Okay, I said.

It was a beautiful spring day in the Adirondacks, blossoms on the trees… lilacs just starting to bloom outside the conference room window. Spring is a season of hope, but I refused to get mine up too high that this might be about a parole. As I waited, staring at the phone and my wristwatch, I wondered what my old friend could possibly want. Finally, it rang. Picking it up, I said, Hello.

Hello, Mike. Bob O’Hanison.

It wasn’t Paul Collins. It was my lawyer. Bob had represented me at my trial three and a half years ago. When I was arrested back in September of 1990 and realized I needed a lawyer, he was the first guy I thought of. We talked a lot before he agreed to take my case. The state had charged me with conspiracy and criminal obstruction of justice. Unable to produce enough proof to charge me with murder, it had managed to get enough support for a charge of conspiracy and obstruction of justice. At trial, as I had told Bob I would do, I refused to answer any questions about the unsolved deaths or give any information in my defense. I made it very plain to O’Hanison I was protecting others. There was not much for Bob to do except argue about the lack of witnesses and lack of evidence that could conclusively link me to the crimes.

Everything had been circumstantial and hearsay. But, the jury found me guilty and gave me the maximum sentence… five years.

Bob had been involved with me in the Cobra Venom case as an assistant DA back in ’82.

Buffalo mobsters, along with a number of drivers and trainers, had concocted a scheme to fix races at Vernon Downs and Saratoga Harness that was based on injecting cobra venom into certain horses. The undetectable venom gave them a false sense of euphoria, allowing them to race faster. I had worked closely with Bob and Paul Collins as an undercover operative for the Racing and Wagering Board and contributed mightily to breaking the case. Bob prosecuted that case for the state, really led the charge against the perpetrators with the vengeance it deserved and he’d impressed me. I’d heard shortly after that he returned to private practice as a criminal defense attorney. He was a very smart guy. He told me he had taken my case because he respected what I had done to help break up that race-fixing scheme and how I’d done it. We shared a mutual respect.

It was good to hear his voice. We exchanged pleasantries and he asked me to hold while he plugged in a third person. The line went dead for a few moments then Bob came back on.

You there, man?

Yeah, I said.

Paul, you there? Bob asked.

Yeah, I’m here. Hello, Michael. It’s Paul Collins.

I recognized Paul Collins’s voice instantly. I hadn’t laid eyes on him or spoken to him since my trial. We called him as a character reference, which he enthusiastically gave, and then the prosecution called him to support their case…. Tough to maintain a friendship after all that. But, we have a lifetime of history and I considered him a friend.

Hello, Paul, I said.

Michael, I’d like to get right to the point. Do you mind?

You usually do, I said. Fire away.

He was chuckling slightly as he started to speak. "I’m back in Albany now, still with the Racing and Wagering Board, which has changed a lot over the past few years. I’m with a group that oversees special projects relating to harness racing in the state. Right now, I’m working with people trying to bring video slot machines on site at Yonkers Raceway. It’s a pretty complicated thing as you can imagine anytime gambling’s involved. I spend a lot of time talking to politicians."

He stopped and seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

Yeah, okay, I said, and what’s that got to do with me?

Well, it’s a long story, but to get to the point… we’ve had a pretty comprehensive survey done, a feasibility study, for a legislative committee that’s charged with either recommending it go to a vote or killing the idea, and the bottom line is Yonkers Raceway needs to pump up their attendance a good bit to make the deal fly.

Okay, I said, I’m following this.

There have been several suggestions to try to get things going there, none that are being met with great enthusiasm until recently. A good idea popped up and has been well received by the high ‘IQs.’ I haven’t mentioned it to anyone else outside Racing and Wagering, except O’Hanison, and I want to talk to you about it.

I don’t see where I fit in to something like that, I said.

I think I could arrange a parole release in return for your help, he said.

Okay, I’m in,