Gargantuan (17 page)

“But you have cigarettes on you?” Her eyes light up.

“Yeah, a few, why?”

“May I have one?”

“Sure,” I say, surprised. “You don’t look like someone who smokes.”

“Oh I don’t. Not really. Henry lost his mother to emphysema so I only smoke very occasionally and never in front of my husband. I’d be immensely grateful if you’d loan me a cigarette though.”

“Sure,” I say, fishing for the pack in my jacket pocket.

“Oh not here.” Violet looks terrified. “We’ll take a walk. But first, I will introduce you to our string.” Violet pushes her chair back and stands up. “Come then.”

She takes a dark purple shawl down from a coatrack. She covers her head with this and opens the office door. Soon, Violet is introducing me to the fourteen horses under her and Henry’s care. When we have patted many necks and glanced at many pairs of straight, well-made legs, she brings me to Jack Valentine’s stall for a formal introduction.

We reach his stall just as the gelding is being led back in. The groom, a small, muscular white woman who’s only wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt in spite of the severe cold, eyes me warily. Violet introduces me as her dear friend. The groom warms a little and reluctantly steps out of the stall, leaving Violet and me to ogle the dark brown gelding.

“He’s a big one,” Violet says proudly, as if she’d made him herself.

“What a face,” I say, scratching the horse’s muzzle as I admire his well-made head and expressive eyes. Jack starts gently truffling at my hair again.

“Aha,” Violet says, noticing the gelding’s tender gesture, “you’ve been approved of.”

I smile at the lady.

“Well then, shall we take that walk we discussed?” she says in a stage whisper.

“Yes, of course.”

We walk away from the shedrow. Violet scans around, presumably looking for spies who might report her smoking.

“Shall I give you one now?” I ask.

“No no, dear girl, no. I have a spot.”

She leads us to one of the shabbier-looking barns. There are half a dozen horses stabled here but it’s a low-rent outfit. The aisle isn’t raked and there are no color-coordinated trunks and stall guards. We walk to the right of this barn and here, at last, Violet stops and extends her hand like a greedy child.

I give her a cigarette and light one myself. I watch her inhale deeply and slowly.

“Ah, it’s awful but so delicious,” she sighs, exhaling. “And now, dear girl, all about you.”

“All about me what?”

“I have told you my life story and now I must have yours.”

I am suddenly reminded of a scene in high school, when I met my first best friend, Bliss. She was a tall handsome redhead who seldom showed up for school, but somehow passed all her classes. She didn’t seem to have time for her mere mortal classmates and I’d always been afraid of her until one day we encountered each other in the girls’ bathroom. She asked if I had a cigarette and I gave her one. We smoked, talked, and promptly became inseparable.

I give Violet a brief biographical sketch, telling her that my life was similar to hers in that I was restless and didn’t know what to do with myself. I tell her about nearly drinking myself to death before age thirty but then finally sobering up, landing at Coney Island, and calling it home. I tell her a little bit about last spring, when I worked as a hotwalker and, through a series of unlikely events, got to the bottom of a racehorse killing scam and was able to save a young colt I’d grown fond of.

“So it’s true!” Violet exclaims. “You
are
a horse person.”

“Oh I’ve always loved horses, yes. I’ve always felt like I could get inside their heads and feel them. I’m convinced it’s the only reason I do well when I actually put money on a race. If I can see the horse in the flesh beforehand, I can usually guess how it’s feeling and bet accordingly.”

“You’re in trouble, dear girl,” Violet laughs. “Those are the symptoms.”

We finish our cigarettes and I watch Violet frantically searching her pockets for a stick of gum to hide her smoker’s breath. At last she finds the gum, pops it in her mouth, then asks me to sniff her hair.

“You don’t stink,” I assure her. “I probably ought to head back to the track and watch Attila ride,” I add. I feel so at ease with Violet that I’m tempted to tell her that someone is trying to kill Attila. But I keep my mouth shut.

Violet and I agree to meet up for a sandwich later on and I head toward the track. I start to feel anxious again, worried about Attila’s situation and not knowing quite what to do about it. One minute I feel like the unpleasant events of the last few days have all just been a coincidence, the next minute I feel certain someone is about to kill the man I’m sleeping with and that if I don’t tell the police soon, I will, in a sense, be responsible if something bad befalls him.

I reach the rail of the training track and gaze out at the working horses and riders. I close my eyes to better hear the sound of their hooves pounding the dirt of the big sandy track. For a moment, I’m at peace again.

I
rolled over and almost had a heart attack when I made contact with another body. I was about to reach for my weapon when I realized the body belonged to Lucinda and that I had invited her to be here.

I sat up and looked over at the girl. She was lying on her side, turned toward me but sleeping at the far edge of the bed. She had one hand tucked under her cheek. Somehow, she looked weak in spite of her muscular body’s obvious strength.

After taking a nap yesterday evening, I’d awakened feeling panicked. I’d put on clean clothes and had taken a quick walk to clear my head and think things through. The Bureau. My horses. Ruby. When I got back to the apartment I tried calling Ruby again. No luck. My facial hair was itching and I was lonely.

I called Lucinda. She sounded a little aloof but did accept my invitation to go out for a late dinner. We had wine with our meal. Whiskey after. I offered to drive her back to her place. We got into my car. She gave me a soft sad look, then tentatively reached over and brushed her lips against mine. I put my hand on hers. Her skin was rough. She kissed me again. Harder this time. I took her home with me.

She stood perfectly still as I removed her clothes. I tried to be tender. She was nervous. It was awkward and vaguely painful. And now, here she was. Sleeping at the far edge of the bed, as if afraid of
intruding, even in sleep. She was naked and the sheet had come off the bed.

I went into the kitchen and put a can out for Cat. I watched her devouring the little brown squares of meat, then proceeded into the bathroom to throw water on my face. I looked in the mirror, watching droplets trickle from my beard. I realized that until now I had never slept with a woman while sporting facial hair.

When I emerged from the bathroom, Lucinda was sitting up. She had pulled the sheet all the way up to her chin. Her hair was matted, her eyes were puffy, and she looked frightened.

“Good morning,” I said.

“What time is it?” she asked abruptly.

“Quarter to four,” I said, motioning at the bedside clock.

Lucinda jumped out of bed. I got a good look at her back and the dark pink scar that was violent evidence of her accident. It was thick and ran the length of her spine. I felt my stomach knot up.

“You’re looking at my scar,” she said.

“Sorry,” I said.

She gave me a dirty look, then went into the bathroom. I heard her running water in the sink.

I went into the kitchen and shuffled around. I made coffee, poached some eggs, and toasted four pieces of bread before Lucinda appeared. She looked considerably happier than she had upon waking. She smiled and looked around the kitchen. Cat had finished her cubes of meat, but was lingering near the bowl, licking her paws.

“I made breakfast,” I told Lucinda.

“Can’t eat now,” she said.

“You can’t? You have to ride though, you need energy.”

“Nope. Slows me down,” she said, shooting a dirty look at the toast.

“I’ll watch you eat,” she said, sitting down in one of the kitchen chairs.

I felt uncomfortable choking down my eggs as her eyes bored holes in me. She said nothing as she sipped black coffee. I tried bringing up a few topics. Who she was riding for this morning, Will
Lott’s new turf mare, like that. Anything I said or asked was met with monosyllabic grunts. She evidently felt as awkward as I did. This was a relief, really.

Twenty or so minutes later we left my apartment together. She said she had some riding clothes in a tack room at the track and didn’t need to go home.

I parked the car then walked Lucinda to Don Beach’s barn, which was on the way to mine. The sun wasn’t thinking about coming up yet but the backside was alive and thrumming. The radios were going. Horses were whinnying. Buckets were rattling.

“I’ll see you a little later?” I said as we lingered there at the edge of Don Beach’s shedrow.

“Yeah,” she shrugged, not seeming to relish the idea.

“Everything okay?” I asked. I could feel eyes on us. One of Don Beach’s grooms was staring. Within a half hour the backside would be talking about how the attractive exercise rider who’d had an accident and lost her nerve was sleeping with some claimer trainer with a beard.

“Sure, everything is fine,” Lucinda said then turned her back to me.

I wasn’t at all sure she’d turn up at nine to work my horses. Clove was racing and I was only going to walk her that morning but the other two needed work. I chastised myself for everything as I headed to my barn to feed.

My horses looked worried. Humberto, the groom who feeds for both the trainers I share the barn with, was already there, dispensing grain to everyone but my three. I greeted the stocky Peruvian man. He favored me with a grunt. He seemed to get along with the horses just fine but he didn’t have any charm to waste on people.

MY HORSES WERE
relieved when I dumped breakfast into their feed tubs. They’d all changed hands so many times before they’d doubtless had some very shitty handlers and missed more than a few meals. It made me a little sick to think about.

I stood in Clove’s stall while she ate, watching to make sure she was cleaning up every last bit of her light breakfast. I didn’t need to worry. She inhaled the stuff then rattled her tub with her nose, letting me know she wasn’t pleased about the tiny portion.

“You’re racing today, girl,” I told her, patting her neck. She truffled at my sweatshirt pockets, looking for the treats I normally kept there.

“Sorry, girl. Not today.”

I started taking off the wraps I’d had on her overnight. Her legs felt good. Cool, firm.

“How do you feel?” I asked her. For an answer, she put her nose back into her empty feed tub. I took this as a good sign.

I WENT ABOUT
my business, mucking the stalls and grooming. Humberto had a salsa station going. It was giving me a headache but I didn’t want to start anything by asking him to turn it down. My efforts to block the music out led me to worrying over Ruby. Why she hadn’t called back. How I would sound to her when we did talk. If she would read my voice, my pauses, and know that I’d slept with someone else and that it had only made me miss her worse.

The morning stretched out under a bed of clouds that was turning the day humid. It was getting close to nine. The plan had been for Lucinda to work my two horses right after the track renovation break, so they’d have the best footing possible. My horses needed all the help they could get. But nine had come and gone and I was about to give up when Lucinda appeared. Her hair was pinned up and her chaps were covered in mud. She looked good though. Like she’d absorbed a nice portion of the speed and power of the horses she had worked.

“Hey,” I greeted her, trying for a relaxed tone, like I’d never had any doubt she’d show.

“Ready?” was all she asked.

Though she obviously didn’t have much to say to me, she communicated with Mike’s Mohawk well enough. I sat in the grandstand
with binoculars, looking on as the woman I’d slept with worked my horse. I’d told her to give him a slow two-mile gallop. His back had been bothering him and I didn’t want to push him until he was a hundred percent. The horse wanted more though. Bobby Frankel’s star four-year-old, the one that had won the Derby the previous spring, was breezing under much scrutiny from the press and half the backside. The big dark colt came up to Mike’s flank, and my gelding fought Lucinda. Mike’s Mohawk didn’t know or care that he was a six-year-old Ohio-bred claimer. He didn’t want the other horse getting by him. Lucinda battled with Mike for a few moments and finally got him to settle and focus and let the other horse blow on by.

Lucinda and I laughed about it later, after we’d worked Karma and put both him and Mike away.

“Nobody told Mike he’s a claimer, huh?” Lucinda said, grinning.

“That’s my horse,” I said. I asked her if she wanted to get some lunch but she declined. I was relieved. Maybe last night would blow over like a mediocre dream.

BY EARLY AFTERNOON
, there was nothing to do but wait around for Clove’s race. The race was a seventeen-thousand-dollar claiming event for fillies and mares four years old and up. At age eight, Clove was definitely
up
. I’d fussed over the mare a lot already there wasn’t anything more to do for her and I really should have tended to some Bureau business but I just couldn’t. I tried calling Ruby again. The machine came on requesting that I leave good messages. I hung up and dialed her cell phone. The girl hates phones but back a few months ago, when I was still in New York and could never track her down, I bought her a cell phone. Not that she ever turns it on. I was expecting to get the voice mail and I almost hung up when she answered.

“Yes?” she said. She must have known it was me, caller ID would show my number. But maybe by now she’d forgotten my number.

“Ruby, it’s Ed.”

“Hi,” she said. It was hard to read her tone. I could hear familiar background noise.

“Are you at the track?” I asked, feeling a bit indignant that she’d be at a racetrack without me.