Flamethrower - Maggie Estep [23]
“You’re a patient of Jody’s, aren’t you?” Tobias asked, as if they were running into each other at a cocktail party. “I met you at Belmont.”
“Yes,” Ruby said, finding her voice.
“I’m sorry I hit you on the head. I thought you were Miller coming back to hurt me.”
“Miller?”
“My kidnapper,” Tobias said casually. “What’s your name again:
“Ruby. And why did this Miller kidnap you?”
“I hired him to. Surely Jody figured that out,” Tobias said glibly.
“She wasn’t quite sure. But suspected.”
“Of course he wasn’t supposed to cut my leg off.”
Serves you right, Ruby thought. Thanks to Tobias’s idiotic scam, Violet was being stripped of her best horse and Jody was flipping out. “You must be in pain,” she said.
“Terrible, yes. Miller did give me some Percocet. Takes the edge off.”
Ruby caught another whiff of Tobias’s body odor. It was vile enough to make her eyes cross.
“Are you all right?” Tobias asked.
“My head’s spinning.”
“You were out cold for a few minutes,” Tobias said. “We should get to a hospital.”
“Where is this Miller person?”
“That I don’t know,” Tobias said.
“I’ll call your wife, and I’ll call us an ambulance.”
“No ambulances,” Tobias said.
“You’re going to get in some legal trouble no matter what. Calling an ambulance won’t make any difference.”
“I want to go to a Manhattan hospital, and an ambulance will only take us nearby. I just don’t trust these outer borough quacks. Miller has already botched me, I’m sure.”
“He cut your leg off himself?”
“Oh yes. He’s a veterinarian. I suppose he lacks the bedside manner and subtlety of a human sawbones. But he seemed to know what he was doing.”
“You watched him cut off your leg?”
“No no.” Tobias waved his hand at the absurdity of the notion. “He blindfolded and anesthetized me. But he gave me a very matter-of-fact report on the proceedings as he went along. Ligated the small arteries, sutured the larger ones. He applied something called thromboplastin to the bone cavities to control oozing.”
Ruby was revulsed, but Tobias seemed to relish the telling.
“He was very thorough,” Tobias said cheerfully, “and he left me that book so I could acquaint myself with postoperative stump management.” Tobias was motioning toward a book on the floor.
Ruby glanced over. Emergency War Surgery. A lugubrious-looking burgundy book with gold embossing.
“I haven’t been able to focus my eyes to read it though,” Tobias added.
Ruby was aghast. “Why exactly did he cut your leg off?”
“I was concerned that Jody wouldn’t take the whole thing seriously and wouldn’t pay up. Miller thought that leaving her a piece of my body would be a good convincer. I was unsuccessful in talking him out of that particular course of action.”
Ruby gulped and stole a glance toward Tobias’s leg. Just under the knee, where the leg now ended, Miller had attached some sort of metal device that was pulling the skin over the stump like a sausage casing.
“Now, could we get a car service and go to a hospital, please?” Tobias asked.
“My doctor works out of New York Hospital. Will that do?” Ruby asked.
“That’s fine.”
Ruby felt for her phone in her pocket then realized she’d put it in the little tool pouch attached to her bike seat.
“Do you have a phone in here?”
“No. Miller took my cell, and there isn’t a working phone in the house.”
“I’ll go get mine,” Ruby said.
“Probably won’t get a signal. But try it.”
Ruby slowly got to her feet and took a few steps forward. She could feel the blood drying near her left temple. Her vision was slightly blurred, and she had the worst headache of her life. She walked into the living room, where her bike leaned against the wall. She took her cell phone out, flipped it open, and punched in Jody’s number. No signal. She moved around the dining room. Nothing. She peered out between the filthy curtains, saw that the street was deserted, and stepped outside. The sleepy sounds