Gargantuan_ A Ruby Murphy Mystery - Maggie Estep [95]
“Thank you so much,” Violet says, bowing slightly to the guy. I can’t imagine grooms get bowed to all that much, but this guy seems used to it.
Violet starts drying her long gray hair as she gives me details of the day’s events. I’m more than a little startled to hear her utter Uncle Davide’s name. I try keeping my face blank. I don’t want to have to explain to Violet how it is I know Davide Marinella, my friend Johnny, the bookie’s, uncle. Davide is known to everyone, including the FBI, as Uncle Davide.
“It’s always the way with these Mafia people though,” she says. They’ve always got names. I’m sure this reprehensible Davide man is not in fact anyone’s uncle.”
I shrug. The truth is, he’s uncle to a dozen or so of Johnny’s brothers, sisters, and cousins. According to Violet, Davide’s down-fall came in trying to fix that little race Jack Valentine ran in. All just to give his horse a chance. Stupid if you ask me. And surprising. I just wouldn’t have thought Uncle Davide to be stupid. Shows how much I know. Just about zero.
“And, as a sad punctuation mark to these dark events, it appears Jack Valentine chipped a sesamoid bone. It will take him months to recover and we’re probably just going to have to pension him on a farm somewhere or sell him off as a pleasure horse prospect.”
“I’m sorry, Violet, that’s a shame.”
“It’s sad, yes,” she agrees, “but that’s horses.”
I ask her a few questions about horse injuries, finding that in fact I am quite interested in all of this and on some level maybe racing really is getting in my blood. Which must be how I’ve somehow ended up here, sitting in a racing stable office at three P.M. on a Friday afternoon with rain coming down in rivers and a forty-something-year-old woman darting out of the office anytime someone walks by so she can try to cadge cigarettes. I don’t know if the entire backside of the track has been asked not to give Violet Kravitz cigarettes or if the collected lot of them have given up the habit, but no one seems to have a cigarette and Violet is getting increasingly fidgety. She doesn’t seem to have any actual work to do and we’ve tried and failed to reach Ruby several times, so finally I suggest I give her a ride to the store to get some cigarettes.
“Certainly not, Sal.” She is indignant. “I am not going to buy cigarettes. What do you take me for?”
“Sorry, I just thought, well, I thought you wanted a cigarette.”
“One. Not twenty.”
“Okay. Sorry. I take it back.”
This makes her laugh.
“You still haven’t told me what’s brought you here on this unfortunate afternoon, Sal.”
“Just needed to hear someone other than my head talking at me,” I shrug.
“Well, should you need an ear, mine is in perfectly good working order,” she smiles.
“Thank you, Violet, that’s nice of you,” I say, meaning it. “You need a ride somewhere or you staying here?”
“Henry will be back soon. I’m going to wait for him here and do a little work,” she says, indicating a stack of paperwork on the desk.
“All right then, Violet. Thank you for keeping me company.”
“For tales of murder.”
“Yes. All of it. Thank you,” I say, and I find myself bowing to her just as she did to the groom.
I get back to the truck and put Beethoven’s Third back on because suddenly I can tolerate a little good cheer.
I DRIVE OVER to Brooklyn and to the North Side, in the direction of Johnny’s candy store, wondering if it’ll even be open or what will be going on. I pull into a spot half a block away and am debating about whether or not I feel like going in there. For all I know, the feds have the place wired. I’m sitting staring ahead when I get the best idea I’ve had in a very long time. It occurs to me that my son Jake’s violin teacher, Marilyn Levy, lives right around here somewhere and that Jake happens to get his violin lessons at four on Fridays. It’s now four-forty-five. If Karen’s really trying to hide from me, she probably hasn’t taken Jake for his lesson. On