Gargantuan_ A Ruby Murphy Mystery - Maggie Estep [43]
Finally, one day about a year and a half after I’d left Oklahoma, I found what I was looking for scouring the results charts in the Daily Racing Form. A three-year-old colt named Darwin’s Hiccup had run second in a maiden race up at Aqueduct, in New York. My horse had just been named Darwin. None of this Hiccup business. But maybe there’d already been a racehorse named Darwin and the Jockey Club made them come up with another name. I dunno. They’d registered the little guy as Darwin’s Hiccup. It was definitely him though. Listed his dam as Bubbledance and she was the one Sandman had told me about. The mare that had won a stakes race in New York.
The trainer for Darwin’s Hiccup was a guy named Robert Cardinal. Right away, I started asking folks around Laurel what they knew about the guy. At first no one had heard of him, but then it turned out that my very own boss had actually been his assistant for a few months a long time ago.
“He’s a good-hearted guy but he’s had some shitty luck lately,” Nancy Cooley told me in that no-nonsense way she had. “How’d you hear about him, Ben? He bringing a string down to Laurel? You gonna turn your back on me and go work for Cardinal?” She was teasing me I guess. She was a nice woman. Always paid me on time and never poked into my business.
“No, nothing like that, Miss Cooley just he’s training a colt I’m interested in.”
“You’re interested in a colt? What, to buy? You been holding out on me, Nester? You some trust fund kid slumming on the back-stretch?”
She was laughing. Her blue eyes were sparkling and her choppy hair was sticking up more than usual, like it was laughing too. She was making me nervous though. I didn’t want to tell her the story about Darwin and me since it would lead back to Sandman and Oklahoma and, potentially, my having killed those people.
“No,” I said, “I’ve just been trying to pick out horses to follow and that’s one that I decided to follow. I’m just trying to learn.”
She grinned at me. Then patted me on the arm and bustled on down the shedrow.
I found the phone number for Aqueduct and called up asking for Robert Cardinal’s barn. A mean-sounding woman told me he was stabled at Belmont. I called there and actually got Robert Cardinal on the phone. When I offered my services as a hotwalker, he gruffly told me he had all the hotwalkers he needed. I wasn’t gonna let that set me back though.
The next day, I went into Nancy’s office. She was hunched over a condition book, trying to find the right race for a problematic two-year-old she’d just been given to train. Her hair was drooping a little and she looked tired.
“Miss Cooley?” I said, because she hadn’t looked up even though she must have sensed me standing there.
“Oh, Ben, hello,” she said.
“I’m sorry but I’ve got to give my notice. I’m gonna go up to New York. To Belmont,” I said, feeling sort of frightened but excited too.
“Oh? You got an offer up there?”
“Nah. Just always wanted to see New York.”
Nancy Cooley frowned a little.
“It’s a little tougher up there, Ben, you know. You’re a good worker and I’d recommend you to anyone who asked but you might have a hard time getting hired.”
“I know,” I said, “but I’m gonna take my chances. I appreciate all you’ve done for me. I don’t want you to think I don’t. And I feel bad about leaving Glassy Jane.”
“She’ll miss you. I will too,” Nancy Cooley said.
I felt a little embarrassed. I hadn’t known she cared either way. Sure, I was good with the horses but so were plenty of people.
“That’s nice of you to say, Miss Cooley.”
She looked at me for a few moments then asked when I wanted to leave. I told her as soon as she could spare me. She shrugged and told me to give her a few days.
They were a long few days. But, on the fourth day, she told me I could go. She’d gotten Mary, a young girl just out of high school, to take over the horses I was rubbing. I packed up my clothes and waited till no one was around. I’d never said good-bye to