Wednesday afternoon. Checking phone messages. No news from Lorna. No call from Clay. That stung. It had been 36 hours, not that I was counting. The morning at Dimsboro had gone well. I’d made another 50 bucks, Hellish had behaved, and Vipe hadn’t shown his scary face.
The phone rang. I grabbed it. Lorna.
“Nikkarina, you’re in business. Lucy wants to come over right now and check your place out.”
A brisk knock on the door came about 15 minutes later. I swung the door open. Could this be Lorna’s sister?
Lucy Doone stood on the landing outside my apartment staring at a pot of withered Petunia remnants. She was slender with silky red hair, no freckles, no tattoos. She wore a black knit suit with splashy gold buttons and carried a shiny black leather pocketbook. She looked about 30.
I remembered Lorna saying something about being a change-of-life baby. That her two siblings were older. This one turned and swept me with haughty green eyes. Lorna hung back, a couple of steps down the staircase.
“Hello,” Lucy said, holding out a thin, manicured hand.
I shook her hand, and she withdrew it quickly. Fine by me, felt like holding a dead fish anyway.
“Lorna said you might sublet for a month while I look for something suitable.”
The way she’d pronounced “Lorna,” made it obvious she didn’t consider her little sister “suitable.” I probably didn’t rate, either.
“Come have a look,” I said.
She came in and seemed to tolerate my blue batik slipcovers and straw rug. Slippers appeared, tail plumed, eyes bright.
“Oh. A cat.” Slippers sauntered over to her, purr motors in full throttle. He sat at her feet and gave a silent meow.
Traitor.
“He’ll have to go,” Lucy said.
Lorna and I exchanged glances.
Lucy marched around, said she’d take the place on a month-to-month basis. “How soon can you get out?”
“Tonight,” I said. I stared at my cat.
Lorna caught my look. “I’ll take the cat. Mom won’t mind.”
We settled the deal, got the cat carrier, litter box and bag of Iams. Then the Doone sisters left, arguing about the howling cat and who’d sit where in the Jetta.
After they took Slippers, I had to fight tears. I was in a bad way. Forced myself to sort clothes, make a list, start packing.
Around five that afternoon I heard a knock on my door and my heart kicked up. Had to be Clay. But Louis Fein stood on the other side of the door’s spyhole, wearing a downcast, miserable expression.
“Louis,” I said, opening the door, “what happened? Looks like you lost your last friend.”
“I lost Carla,” he said, and started to cry.
I grabbed his arm, pulled him into my apartment, pushing him toward the couch. “Sit,” I said, snatching a Kleenex from the bleached-wood counter that separated the living room and kitchen. Louis used the tissue with a loud honk. His black silk shirt appeared to have been slept in, his eyes were bloodshot, his face as rumpled and creased as his shirt. Not a hot dog today.
A momentary fear washed over me. “Did something happen to Carla?”
“She dumped me.” Now he was blubbering.
A sour booze scent clung to him. I didn’t feel sorry for him. He’d been a rat, jumping ship on me when the first cloud of suspicion darkened my head. Why had he come crying to me? “She broke up with you?”
“She called me last night from Kentucky. She’s there with him. For three days.” He waved his sodden tissue at me, tears streaming down his face.
I grabbed the whole Kleenex box and shoved it at him. Knew the answer but had to ask anyway. “She’s with who?”
“She’s running with that Clay Reed.”
How could Clay be with Carla? Had I imagined Monday night? “How long has she been seeing him?”
Louis stared up at me, a child who needed comforting. He’d have to get in line behind me.
“She told me . . . on the phone,” he wailed. “Said she’d met someone else. I was mad, kept asking her. Finally she told me it was Clay.”
Outside the dump truck had arrived and was lifting the garbage container. A succession of booms sounded as it dumped the container, vibrating my apartment, rattling the dishes in the kitchen cabinets.
“Louis, I know it hurts, but why are you telling
me
this?”
“Because you’re her friend. You probably know what’s going on.”
“I haven’t a clue. Haven’t talked to her since the two of you bailed on me at the first sign of trouble.”
He drew back. “Oh, that.”
I was disgusted with all three of them. “Louis, I’ve got no job, can’t pay the rent, and the police are hounding me.” I boiled over, yelling now, “I DON’t CARE ABOUT YOUR PROBLEMS.”
He grabbed a handful of tissues and made for the door.
That night I moved into Dimsboro.
A yellow harvest moon was rising in the east as I hauled a sleeping bag, the futon I’d bought at Wal-Mart, and a small bag holding toothpaste and other essentials over to Hellish’s stall.
The sound of car tires on gravel turned my head. Marteen’s black Mercedes rolled by, the tinted windows and deepening dusk making it impossible to see inside. The car slowed, a rear window hummed down, and Chocolate’s face appeared. She was wearing a red hat. A veil sparkling with red-and-black sequins covered her dark eyes. A shiny layer of crimson lipstick coated her mouth.
“Nikki, sugar,” she called. “You moving in with that horse?”
“’Fraid so.”
“Honey, we got an extra bed over at Marteen’s now. You wanna stay there?”
“Gee, thanks, Chocolate. But I’m fine.”
I thought I heard something about “shouldn’t be sleeping with no horse” as her window powered up. The Mercedes receded into the distance. What was with her and those outfits anyway? I was beginning to think Marteen’s barn must be a cover for a stable of call girls.
Hellish was thrilled to see me. She pinned her ears and shook her head in a menacing manner when I opened the stall door, pitchfork in hand. We ignored each other while I cleaned her stall, paying particular attention to my corner. I told myself this was great. I wouldn’t have to drive back and forth twice a day to take care of her.
I lay out my futon and crawled into my sleeping bag. Couldn’t help thinking about Clay . . . and Carla. Wondering if I’d been too hard on Louis as I closed my eyes. Eventually, the sound of Hellish munching hay lulled me to sleep.
A familiar noise jarred me awake. I didn’t move, just listened. The latch on the stall door grated. Someone was sliding it open, slowly. Hellish, partially illuminated by moonlight, swung her head toward the sound. The door squeaked open, the silhouette of a dark, thin figure appeared in the doorway. The person’s head turned sideways, as if listening, and I saw the outline of a ponytail. Vipe.
My hand crept to the can of pepper spray I’d put in my sleeping bag. I needn’t have bothered. Hellish’s bared teeth glimmered in the moonlight, she grunted and charged Vipe, teeth clacking. He drew back and slammed the door shut, cursed in Spanish.
I saw the glint of metal over the stall door. This jerk wasn’t going to cut my horse. I grabbed the pepper spray can and erupted from my sleeping bag, scuttling through the straw on hands and knees, popping up over the stall door, fingers ready on the can’s nozzle. Vipe was gone.
In the morning I rode four for Bubba, and picked up another three at a different barn. My last horse, a truly contrary individual, had thrown me on the path leading back from the track. My neck and back stiffened up as I waited for the ornery horse’s owner, a squat, tight-mouthed woman, to pay me. She resented paying cash even more than my neck resented forced rotation. Since she’d never see me again if she didn’t pay, she handed over the green. Compared to what was available at Dimsboro in the way of riders, having me in the saddle was like having Chris McCarron show up.
I was just five when McCarron won the ’87 Kentucky Derby on Alysheba. My mom jumping up and down in front of the TV set, yelling her heart out for those two, had made a memorable race indelible. I’d seen replays since. The thrill’s still there as Alysheba clips heels with Bet Twice and stumbles badly, a wall of horses looming behind. McCarron, with the agility of a high-wire artist, picks his colt’s head up, steadies him, changes lanes to clear Bet Twice and sprints on to win the Derby.
Such dreams were far removed from Dimsboro, especially after another night of sleep deprivation. I was beyond ready to crash when I dragged myself back to face Hellish, wishing someone else had to climb on that recalcitrant horse’s back. And was there any point with her only a step away from lameness?
There was no light in her stall, so I went down the shedrow to flip the electric switch. Came back to find the dim bulb revealed a dark-haired man kneeling in the straw by Hellish’s front feet. I suppressed a cry, my brain scrambling to remember where I’d left the pepper spray.
“Thanks,” said Jack Farino. “Wondered where that switch was.”
“You scared the hell out of me. What are you doing here?” I could feel my hands clenched into fists, made an effort to relax them.
“You’re jumpy as a stray cat. You never returned my call . . . about a proposition I’ve got for you.”
“You’ve got no right to be in here with my horse.” Anger sharpened my words. Who the hell did he think he was anyway?
He stood up. Those eyes — sharp, but hooded. Like a bird of prey. “Nikki, this horse has been sore on and off since I came to Laurel. You’re in a tough spot. I’ve got an offer that might help you, and since I was in the neighborhood I decided to look you up. I used to be a farrier and when I saw Hellish —”
“You just waltzed in and started working on her without permission?”
“Look, I tried to find you, you weren’t around and she was pointing with that right front.”
His mention of “pointing” diverted my anger. A lot of horsemen say when a front leg hurts a horse will push it forward and turn it out slightly, taking some of the body weight off. The action relieves pain, and the result is the foot looks like it’s pointing at something.
“I’m just trying to see if the trouble originates in the foot. I’m trying to help you.”
I sighed. “Okay, but if your hurt her . . .”
He turned his attention back to Hellish, leaned over and lifted her right foreleg. Hard to ignore the way his black jeans molded over a tight butt. I snapped my eyes away before he caught me staring. The curved metal and sharp, tapered end of a hoof pick glinted in his hand. Scrapings from inside her hoof already sprinkled the yellow straw. I could smell the odor. Pungent, like strong cheese.
But mostly I registered surprise at Hellish’s calm behavior beneath Farino’s hands. Maybe she was a sucker for those dark, Gypsy looks.
Farino straightened, removed his jacket, revealing a white sleeveless T-shirt. His arms had the long hard muscles of a man who rode and did hard work. Not like the guys I’d seen strutting from gyms with puffy muscles, often overlaid with fat. His thin cotton outlined pectoral muscles, a flat abdomen. I’d lost control of my eyes. They slid south. Oh boy.
“Come here,” he said. “I want to show you something.”
A vague alarm sounded in my brain. A warm tingle surged through my core.
Farino folded his jacket.
I took a step backward.
He turned and moved into a dim corner and lay his jacket next to a metal farrier’s box I hadn’t noticed before. He reached into a canvas bag and drew out a rawhide apron, like the blacksmiths at the track wore when shoeing. He slipped it on, picked up a trimming knife and slid it into the apron’s pocket. He rattled around in his tool box and withdrew a pair of steel pull-offs.
Obviously, he planned to work on Hellish. I felt disappointed. Had I thought he was going to work on me? Had I completely lost my mind?
“What are you doing?” Did he know what he was doing?
“If you’ll stop dancing around over there and come here, I’ll show you.”
Farino bent over, grasped the filly’s right front foot. Both Hellish’s knee and ankle joints were bent so the bottom of her foot now faced up. I stared, fascinated as always with the spongy, V-shaped frog. Centered, taking up about a third of the foot bottom, the frog acted as a cushion when the hoof struck the ground.
“See this metal here?” Farino tapped the front end of the shoe with a forefinger.
The aluminum racing plate was nailed into the outside of Hellish’s hoof wall, an action I knew caused no more pain than a person trimming the tip of their fingernail.
“Yeah,” I answered, wondering what he was up to. Get to the point, Farino.
As if he could sense my impatience, he raised his head and silenced me with those gypsy eyes. Looked back down. “See this sole?” He tapped the flat, hard-as-leather section lying between the frog and the hoof wall. “Whoever shod her last time left the metal pressing into the sole.”
Clements’ blacksmith. I got closer, focused, could see the inside rim of her shoe pressed hard against the sole. Didn’t look that off to me. “That could make her sore?”
“Hell, yes, and this foot’s worse than the other one.” Using the steel pull-offs, he grabbed the shoe and pried it off. Dropping the metal tool into the yellow straw, he pulled the trimming knife from his pocket. “We’ve got to trim back the sole enough so when we put the new shoes on there’s no contact.”
He’d brought me new shoes? How would I pay for this? Yet the man seemed to know what he was talking about. The way Farino bent over near me, the thick, wavy dark hair covering his head was close and extremely touchable. I admonished myself for such a foolish thought, and watched him peel away layers of my filly’s sole. I knew he’d have to go deep before he hit nerves, caused pain or drew blood. He placed the shoe on her foot to check its proximity to the newly pared foot bottom.
“That should do it.” He dug around in his tool box and pulled out two new shoes. They came with horseshoe-shaped yellow rubber rim-pads. “This will give those front feet some cushion.” He took out a metal rasp and filed her hoof some, then smoothed the sole. I couldn’t believe how willingly Hellish accepted his actions. Her eyes were half closed, her body relaxed.
Farino rustled around in the toolbox some more, pulled out a farrier’s hammer and shoeing nails. These last he clamped between his front teeth, leaving his hands free. Strong hands. He set the shoe, pad side first, against the hoof, pulled one nail from his mouth, and lightly tapped it in place. Checked to make sure he’d angled the nail properly, then drove it home with swift, hard strokes.
Sexual
.
Where had that come from?
I took a step back, watching those hands bend back, then clench flat the nail ends where they pierced through the outside of the shoe. He rasped them smooth, then reached for the filly’s left front foot.
About the time he finished, Mello’s lined, nutmeg-colored face appeared over the stall door. He sniffed. “’Bout time somebody dug in that foot.” He squinted at Farino and a faint stirring of recognition moved across his face. “Do I know you?”
Farino’s head swivelled toward the old man, his hawk eyes blank mirrors. “No, sir, don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.” He stood up, pulled a rag from his jacket pocket, wiped his hand, and stepped forward to shake Mello’s.
“You Jake Farino’s son?” asked Mello.
I was amused and pleased to see the startled look in Farino’s eyes.
“Mello knows things,” I said.
Farino waited a couple of beats. “My
grandfather
was Jake Farino. You knew him?”
“Sure,” said Mello. The lines around his mouth crinkled deeper as he smiled. Smoke from that long ago fire filled his eyes. “He trained up at Belmont back when Gallorette was running.”
“Mello’s convinced Hellish here’s a reincarnation of Gallorette,” I said.
Farino rubbed the small of his back. “Thought her name was Helen’s Dream.”
Mello placed his elbows on top of the splintery wood door. “Nikki here don’t want to be reminded of her mama every time she sees this horse.”
My jaw dropped in astonishment. “Hellish fits her,” I muttered.
Farino grinned. “Whatever you’re talking about, Mello, you just hit the nail on the head.”
“Some things you can’t help but see.” Mello picked at a long, pointed splinter coming loose from the wood. “Don’t matter what you call this filly. She be Gallorette.”
“Huh,” said Farino. “She’s got the white rings around her feet, the strong bones, but I don’t believe Gallorette had any white on her face.”
“Don’t be fussing ’bout that. Gallorette was fast as lightning. This one here’s got the mark right on her face, is all.” Mello stepped back from the wood door and shuffled away. “You’ll see,” he said, his voice fading as he moved down the aisle way. “She gonna be Nikki’s dream.”
I shook my head. Didn’t appreciate false hope. Too much of that in the racing game. Farino gathered his tools, stowed them in his box.
“Thanks,” I said. Hellish was prancing in place, ready to get to work. I could hardly wait to take her out, see how she moved with her doctored-up foot.
“Let me ask you something.” Farino’s eyes held that speculative look, like the first time I’d ever seen him staring at me from the catty-cornered barn. During the last few minutes he’d been so kind and decent, but now something wolflike crept into his expression. “Mello’s right. Not about the reincarnation,” he said, catching the look on my face. “Her ability. She’s got speed. Saw her run in New York as a two-year-old. You seem to have a way with her. She’ll come right for you.”
His words flattered me. I stepped right in it. “There was one day I galloped her, she felt like a stakes horse. She’s been abused. It’s like nobody knew what they had.”
“Exactly,” he said. “She gets no respect. When you run her, I’ll help you in any way I can . . .”
“I’ve been ruled off. I can’t run her, ride her or anything else.” I clamped my eyelids shut for a moment, opened them to find Hellish staring at me, reacting to the emotion in my voice. I slid my hand down the silky fur on her neck. Pulled a loose strand of mane hanging near her withers.
Farino stepped closer. “When this mess you’re in blows over, and it will, you’ll run her. She’ll be a longshot.”
Why was he so sure my dark cloud of suspicion would disperse?
Farino locked his eyes on mine. “But you hold her first time you run her, make sure she puts in a bad race. Next time out she’ll be the longest shot on the board. Then . . . you
send
her.” His mouth curved in an unattractive smile. “They’ll be shoving piles of money at us through the betting window.”
Was he like Clay? Thought I’d run a con? I could feel my jaw tighten. “That’s called fraud. I don’t do that.”
A movement at the base of the wall to my right pulled my gaze off Farino. A mouse scurried along in the straw, squeaked, then dove into a small hole in the corner. The mouse didn’t bother me, but I was mad as hell at the rat standing in front of me.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I said, pulling cash from my coat pocket. “How much do I owe you?”
“Forget it,” he said. He got a better grip on his toolbox, shoved the stall door open and left.
I couldn’t figure him out. He seemed so sure I’d be cleared. Was it because he knew who killed O’Brien?