Gargantuan_ A Ruby Murphy Mystery - Maggie Estep [73]
The thing that was worrying me now was I’d heard Robert Cardinal was going to put Attila on Darwin in a race later that week. I couldn’t think of any reason why anyone would want the apprentice doing something to hurt Darwin but you never know. I had to see to it that the guy did not ride my horse. This might be a tricky thing to pull off. But it would have to be done.
BIG SAL
23.
Vicious
I wake up with the most vicious hard-on I’ve had in months. My wife is asleep next to me, flat on her back with her mouth half open. I don’t think she’s the cause of the extreme morning hard-on though. More likely the little exercise rider got into my dreams. I’ve got half a mind to go hunt that girl down right now at four in the morning, hold her personally responsible for my physical condition but I’ve got this wife. If she wasn’t such a head case, I probably wouldn’t be getting exercise-rider hard-ons.
I turn over on my side and nudge Karen. She doesn’t move. I pull the covers back and run my hands over her chest. She moans a little but not really a sexy moan. Used to be she loved to wake up and find me inside her. Maybe she still does.
I reach between her legs, feeling her heat before putting my mouth on her.
“What the fuck?” my wife says, suddenly waking up.
“Morning, baby,” I say.
“Get away from me, Sal.”
“Karen,” I say in a soft voice, “I thought you wanted to make another baby.” I’m willing to do anything right now, including knocking her up against my better judgment.
“Fuck you, Sal,” she says, getting out of bed.
I watch her storm out of the room. After a moment, I go into the bathroom where I jerk off with a vengeance. Picturing Layla the exercise rider.
“Feel better?” Karen asks spitefully when I emerge from the bathroom.
She’s grudgingly making coffee. Her mouth is drawn down in anger.
“I don’t understand you, woman.”
“Don’t ‘woman’ me, Sal.”
“What do you want me to do to you, Karen?”
“Just drink your fucking coffee and leave me alone,” she says, violently hitting the coffee pot’s On switch before storming out of the kitchen.
I sit at the table, waiting for the coffee to brew and wondering what my wife is brewing.
A half hour later I leave the house without saying another word to Karen.
I get in the truck, put on some Beethoven, and drive to the motel to pick up Ruby and the jockey. I start thinking maybe I’ll pull Ruby away from the jockey and bend her ear about my wife problems awhile. Ruby never offers much in the way of advice, but she listens just fine.
I leave the truck running as I go to knock on the motel room door. Attila opens up immediately. He doesn’t look like he’s in a good mood. Must be a mood virus going around.
“You guys ready?” I ask the jockey.
“I’m ready. Ruby’s gone.”
“What do you mean gone? Where’d she go?”
“Back home. We weren’t getting along,” he says in a flat, quiet voice.
“Oh,” I say. “Sorry about that,” I add.
The jockey shrugs. “Give me one minute,” he says. He turns back into the room where he grabs his down jacket and a bag.
We walk over to the truck in silence.
“You don’t have to do this anymore, Sal,” he says once he’s settled in.
“Don’t have to do what?”
“Watch my back. Ruby’s not keen on me right now. You’re her friend. You don’t know me from a hole in the dirt.”
“A hole in the dirt?”
“I mean I’m nothing to you.”
“I never heard that. ‘A hole in the dirt.’ Isn’t it supposed to be a hole in the ground?”
“My mother liked to change expressions around,” he says in the same quiet, flat voice.
I feel badly for the guy and wonder exactly what he did to invoke Ruby’s wrath.