Flamethrower - Maggie Estep [72]
The little beach was completely deserted, and the water lapping at the white sand was a brilliant blue. It was a pocket of unexpected paradise, a tiny slice of beauty at the edge of the world.
Ruby picked up a stick of driftwood and threw it for Spike. He bounded ahead, retrieved the stick, and deposited it at Ruby’s feet. He looked from Ruby to the stick and back. He tilted his head. Ruby threw the stick again.
There was a figure walking toward Ruby, coming from the other end of the beach. As the figure came closer, Ruby saw it was a homeless-looking guy. His clothes were dirty rags, and he was barefoot.
“Good afternoon,” he said formally as he came within a few feet of Ruby.
“Hello,” said Ruby.
The man smiled. He had perfect teeth.
“Do you have a cigarette?” he asked.
Ruby fished her pack out from her jeans pocket.
“Here, I don’t need them,” she said, offering the whole pack.
The guy looked surprised then quickly pocketed the pack, secreting it into one of the folds of his clothing.
“Thank you, lady, thank you,” he said. He walked past Ruby.
Above, two gulls hovered, as if dangling from strings a ghost had thrown through the sky.
Ruby found a Fireball in her pocket and popped it into her mouth.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MAGGIE ESTEP is the author of six books and her first crime novel, Hex, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2003. Her writing has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Brooklyn Noir, The Best American Erotica, and Hard Boiled Brooklyn. Maggie is the co-editor of Bloodlines: An Anthology of Horse Racing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
For more information, go to www.maggieestep.com.
ALSO BY MAGGIE ESTEP
Read all of Maggie Estep’s critically acclaimed
R U B Y M U R P H Y M Y S T E R I E S
Ruby Murphy’s life has been flat lately. The Coney Island Museum isn’t doing much business, Ruby’s live-in boyfriend has moved out, and her best friend Oliver is battling cancer.
A chance encounter with a woman on the subway leads to an exciting offer Ruby can’t refuse: Ruby agrees to follow the woman’s boyfriend, Frank, a man who works at Belmont Racetrack and seems to hang out in odd places with bad company. Ruby soon finds herself pushed headfirst into horse racing’s seamy underbelly, a dangerous world where nothing is as it appears, and survival seems like a long shot.
ALSO BY MAGGIE ESTEP
Read all of Maggie Estep’s critically acclaimed
R U B Y M U R P H Y M Y S T E R I E S
Ruby Murphy is back—back in Coney Island with a bunch of endearing misfits, back at the racetrack ogling thoroughbreds—and her life is nothing if not complicated. She has plenty to worry about: a jockey named Attila Johnson; a good-hearted Teamster with a bad back; a neighbor who is suspicious of anything that moves; one very fat cat who craves raw meat; a missing FBI agent; a few fine horses; and the sure knowledge that a killer is lurking.
Copyright © 2006 by Maggie Estep
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Estep, Maggie.
Flamethrower: a Ruby Murphy mystery / Maggie Estep.— 1st ed.
(alk. paper)
1. Women detectives—New York (State)—New York—Fiction.
2. Coney Island (New York, N.Y)—Fiction. I. Title.