Monday, January 05, 2009
Code Name: Pebgate
En Route To Princeton, New Jersey, January 6, 2009--I am airborne as I write this. The chief, who called after I wrote about Peb being sacked after a 54-year career as cartoonist for the Daily Racing Form, is dispatching me to Princeton, where Peb lives and where he learned that with a free lunch come walking papers. After talking to the chief, I immediately packed a trenchcoat and a snap-brim fedora. They were left over from Halloween about 10 years ago, when I went to a party in Malibu as Philip Marlowe. At least I thought I was Marlowe, but at the end of the evening they gave me third prize in the Buster Keaton look-alike contest.
After packing, I called Phone Book Universal and they Fedexed me the Princeton Yellow Pages. They weren't much help. There are 136 restaurants in Princeton, and Peb could have eaten in any one of them. I need an eavesdropping waiter to put the case on ice. I have the time to eat my way through all of the eateries, but not the expense account. I got permission from the chief to hire a local shamus for a few days, and went to the Yellow Pages again. Under "Plumbers" I found a firm called Gumshoe, Gumshoe & Gumshoe, P.I. They had a toll-free number, but on my first call I misdialed, reached a 900 number and got for free a recording with two horses to bet in the last-race superfecta at Philadelphia Park. They offered me two other horses for $1,200.
The number for Gumshoe, etc., was busy for half an hour, so I decided that I'd sign on one of their ops after I got to Princeton. Since it was chilly in Los Angeles, in the low 50s, I wore the hat and coat to the airport. At the curbside check-in, there was trouble. A skycap looked at me queerly and said in a demanding tone, "What's your business back East?"
"I might look like a skycap, but I really work for that guy over there." He pointed to something in the shadows, next to the building.
"That's a golf bag," I said, but before I could get the last word out of my mouth, the golf bag began to move in my direction.
In the bright sunlight, as the bag got closer, I could see that it was a clever disguise. A man popped out, dressed in a trenchcoat and snap-brim fedora. He bore a striking resemblance to Buster Keaton. He threw down a niblick and a 3-wood, reached into his coat pocket and produced a badge, which identified him as a federal marshal. "Now," he said, "what's your business back there?"
I thought about blowing my cover, telling him about the Peb lunch and questions it left unanswered, but all that might have caused me to miss the flight. Instead I lied through my teeth and told him I was going back to bet the last-race superfecta at Philadelphia Park. He nodded knowingly, told one of the real skycaps to check my bag and pointed me in the direction of the gate.
My seatmate on the plane is a stranger, and a few minutes after we were airborne he offered a business card that read: "Esadaf Amine."
"This is really unusual," I said. "Last month, someone with your name invaded my checking account and illegally withdrew $514."
"Not so strange," he said. "You can't imagine how many Esadaf Amines there are in the Istanbul telephone book. By the way, got any pictures of your kids in your wallet?"
The stewardesses have been moving up and down the aisle, taking orders for box lunches. One of them came up to me and Amine and said, "There's a choice between blood tongue and headcheese. We might also have one or two fried yeasts left. We have a special today. They're $19.95."
"Maybe I'll have the tongue. . . " I said.
"Sure you wouldn't prefer the headcheese?" the stewardess said. There was a prolonged wink coming from her right eye.
"Make it the headcheese," I said. The ins and outs of Pebgate work in strange ways.
Minutes later, I opened my box, trying to avoid the stealthy glances of Esadaf Amine, who was struggling with his tightly wrapped box of yeast. Inside my box, besides the headcheese, pumpernickel and imported hummus, was a fortune cookie. I trembled as I removed the cellophane, crushed the cookie with my thumb and index finger and salvaged the little slip of paper inside. On one side were four numbers. On the other side, it read: "Last-race Superfecta: Philadelphia Park."
The stewardess was back, asking for our drink orders. She was now wearing a smart silver patch over her right eye. So that wasn't a prolonged wink after all.
An hour or two before I boarded this plane, Peb had reached me, and while he generally approved of most of what I wrote about his dismissal by the Racing Form, he also said: "I would like to clear up something important which may have been misleading, probably by my fault." He went on to say that none of the new owners of the Form were at the lunch, just two good friends from the paper, Rich Rosenbush, the editor-in-chief, and Mandy Minger, vice president for marketing. "What I found so ludicrous was that two of my favorite people were delegated by the new owners to give me the bad news," Peb said. "It was awkward, but I'm not bitter, and above it. I want Rich and Mandy to know that I still cherish their friendship."
Pebgate has taken on a life of its own (I did not coin the word; Peter Berry, the track announcer at Mountaneer Park, should get credit).
Our plane is descending now, and as I look down on Greater Philadelphia, I'm trying to remember the last time I was in Princeton. It was almost 25 years ago, when I covered the Olympic rowing trials for the U.S. team. This was during the days when the Los Angeles Times was plying me with one major assignment after another.
There was this coxswain from Erie, Pennsylvania, who introduced me to one of the finest restaurants in Princeton. The maitre'd's name was Claude, and if Claude was still around, he might help me cut through the 135 remaining restaurants in town and solve Pebgate.
Claude would surely remember me. When the coxswain and I arrived, he said: "I'm your host."
"Your Host, of course," I said. "The sire of Kelso, right?"
After we ordered, the coxswain looked at me and said: "Wonder why we got the table next to the toilets?"
Continuation from Bill Christine's Lines in the Sand blog post on Jan.2nd
Written by Bill Christine
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