Gargantuan_ A Ruby Murphy Mystery - Maggie Estep [20]
The backstretch was alive and humming in the cold dawn. Grooms mucking stalls out. Hotwalkers hand walking horses. Radios blaring salsa as if it were high noon in Miami. Sal seemed dazed as he looked around, taking in the activity.
“This your first time on the backside?” I asked him.
“Yeah. Amazing back here,” he said, and I smiled to myself, remembering how I felt the first time I’d set foot here, how it seemed like I’d finally found my home.
We came to Henry’s barn where Pepe, one of Henry’s hotwalkers, was leading a bay filly around the shedrow.
“Attila,” Pepe nodded at me.
“Where’s Henry?” I asked, stopping to pat the filly on the neck.
“In his office, pulling his hair out.”
“Oh yeah? What happened?”
“What happened?” Pepe looked incredulous. “Snow, Attila. Canceled races. Horses high as kites. Henry’s got owners crawling down his back trying to figure out what races to put their horses in now.”
“Oh,” I said. Pepe, who is fiercely protective of Henry and the horses, eyed Sal. Sal stared back at the hotwalker. I didn’t offer any explanation for my bodyguard.
I stuck my head in Henry’s office. The man looked terrible. The crevices in his face were deeper than usual and the pouches under his large brown eyes were drooping down to his mouth.
“You okay, Henry?”
His head jerked up and he frowned. “Attila, there you are. I was wondering if you’d turn up.”
“Oh yeah? You need me?”
“Looks like they’re getting the track in shape, I’m gonna send one set of horses out and Layla is sick. I could use you.”
Layla Yashpinsky, an exercise rider, was a small muscular woman with an ass of iron and shoulders like a German swimmer. But, for all her apparent physical power, the girl had been out sick ten of the last twenty days. Rumor had it she’d taken up with one of Shug McGaughey’s assistant trainers, so maybe she wasn’t sick in the traditional sense of the word.
“This is my friend, Sal,” I said, indicating my bodyguard. “I’m just taking him around with me for a few days. Hope that’s okay. He’s interested in buying a horse.”
Henry glanced up briefly, grunted a greeting at Sal, and then gave me instructions on what to do with the two horses I was going to work for him.
“Just a very easy gallop with both of them,” Henry said, “and if that footing’s really bothering them, then use your judgment and just do as much as the horse is comfortable with. I’ll be up there in a few minutes to watch.”
I nodded at Henry.
Sal and I started heading away from the shedrow, over toward the training track. It was still inky and dark out and a numbing wind was blowing snow everywhere. Sal was hatless, the bare skin of his shaved head exposed to the elements. He pulled his coat collar up closer to his ears.
“You okay? You need a hat?” I asked him.
“I’m fine. My head is always hot,” he said, grinning a little.
I was already cold to the bone but it didn’t matter to me much. I’d be on a horse soon.
As we came closer to the track, Sal started grumbling about how much he hated the idea of my riding out there, in plain view of anyone.
“It’d have to be a sniper to get at me when I’m on the track, Sal,” I tried assuaging him.
“Exactly my point.”
“I just don’t think that’s gonna happen,” I said quietly.
“And what, you thought someone was gonna try to take you out on the beach at Coney Island?”
“I’m starting to think that was an unfortunate coincidence.”
“Very unfortunate, I’d say.”
I just wasn’t worried. I was about to get on a horse. This thought was starting to warm me up good when I saw Tony Vallamara walking toward us. It looked like he was staring right at me and I felt my stomach knot up. Tony had been a jockey at some point long before my time. After a few unsuccessful seasons, he switched over to being a jockey’s agent. I don’t think that went too well either and eventually he turned crooked,