Gargantuan_ A Ruby Murphy Mystery - Maggie Estep [29]
“Uh,” I grunted. I liked the trainer’s record and Velasquez, the jockey, was a monster. I didn’t put a whole lot of stock in yearlings costing too much though. Didn’t mean they could run. I was the kind of guy who rooted for underdog, inexpensive horses. I’d almost had to kill myself when Funny Cide had lost the Belmont Stakes. Like everyone, I’d been hoping for him to stick it to those regally bred million-dollar colts one more time. It hadn’t been his day though and a blue-blooded horse won.
“You want it or not?” Nicky said, getting a little impatient with me.
“Sure. Twenty to win,” I said.
A few minutes later, I watched Velasquez shoot the filly out to the front of the pack and stay there until two lengths from the finish line when a 35-1 filly caught her.
I felt a little depressed but not too bad and, since I wasn’t sure why I’d come here in the first place, I decided it might be time to get on with my day.
“I guess I’m gonna get going,” I said to Johnny.
“Oh yeah?” he said. “You need a drink, Sal?”
“No thanks, Johnny,” I said, feeling a little aggravated since, after ten years in AA—I had actually told Johnny about it—he still offered me drinks every chance he got.
“You got any more bets to place?” he said.
“I dunno. What’s on at Aqueduct tomorrow? I hear they’re opening up again.”
“Yeah. Ain’t much to like. My uncle Davide got one of his in a race,” Johnny shrugged. Johnny was loyal to his uncle and this loyalty extended to his touting the uncle’s racehorses. Uncle Davide is, from what I gather, pretty high up in what’s left of the mob in these parts, but the guy does not have an eye for horses at all. I’ve never seen anyone pick out bum-luck horses with more consistency than Davide. I don’t think he’s ever had a horse run in the money, never mind win a race.
“Yeah? How’s Davide doing?” I asked.
“Oh, he’s fine,” Johnny shrugged. “There’s a decent allowance colt in the fourth tomorrow,” he added, brightening, “Oat Bran Blues. Good horse. But he’s got that apprentice Attila Johnson in the irons and I heard something about the kid holding his mounts back for a little extra payday. Probably why he’ll go off at twenty to one or so.”
Bingo. This is why I was here.
“Yeah, I heard that apprentice ain’t crooked anymore.”
“Oh yeah?” Johnny suddenly looked more interested in me than he’d been in a number of decades.
“Yeah. I know someone who knows him.”
“And what, the kid admitted he was fudging?”
“He ain’t a kid actually. I think the guy’s in his thirties or something,” I said, choosing not to answer the question as it might involve me in a way I didn’t care to be involved.
Johnny looked at me blankly. I got up to leave, wondering if he was gonna press the issue.
“Come on, Sal, tell me what you heard.”
“I just heard he wants to win,” I said, and then I went out, nodding at Nan, who was smoking another one by now.
I got in the truck. Put Mr. Schoenberg back on. Thought about Karen. Wondered what might befall me if I went home. I couldn’t figure it out. I put the music up a few more notches. Decided I might actually like opera.
ATTILA JOHNSON
10.
The Blind Eye
Eventually, the chaos over the masked rider passed and I went ahead and walked a half-dozen horses for trainers I knew—including Arnie Gaines, the trainer Ruby had walked hots for nine months back. I stopped by Henry Meyer’s barn again to talk to him about how he wanted me riding Oat Bran Blues, the big floppy-eared bay I was riding in the fourth race the next day.
I stuck my head in his office and saw Henry’s wife, Violet, sitting in Henry’s chair, her feet up on the desk. She was frowning in concentration as she studied tomorrow’s Form.
“Ms. Kravitz,” I greeted the lady.
In spite of having married into one of the most misogynistic professions going, Violet Kravitz held on tight to her maiden name and the appellation of Ms.—even though, back when Ava and I were still attempting something, Ava had proudly come in one day waving a New York Times essay by a saucy young woman who was dead set against