by Sasscer Hill
“Yeah. It was a guy driving, like, four horses out of the ocean. You know, just with reins.”
“Poseidon,” Carla said. “God of the Sea.”
I was glad I’d never shown the mermaid carving to Carla, never described the sea horse tattoo on the arm of the girl who’d been shot. And what if the guy who’d come to my motel wasn’t Orlando? This thing was starting to spook the hell out of me.
A quick mental note for us to call Rick Harman, and then I plunged ahead. “Was this agency guy white, Latino, black, what?”
“Oh,” Tracy said. “Latino.”
“Was he giving this party?”
“I don’t think so, but it sounded so cool! Dagger and some of his band were going to be there and stuff.”
The rap star. No doubt there would be all kinds of “stuff” at the party.
“Did Jade go?”
“I don’t know.” Tracy rubbed her arms like she was cold. “I…I haven’t talked to her since we left the agency.”
“What day was the party?” But I already knew the answer.
“It was supposed to be the night—the night her parents were murdered. The night she disappeared.”
CHAPTER 25
“I’m calling Rick,” Carla said as I turned the Toyota to the right out of Palm Courts a few minutes later. As she dialed her call, I thought about talking to Klaire. With her past connections, she might know something about this Poseidon tattoo guy. If she was anything like her cousin Mello, she could help us.
Okay, I’d finally admitted it. I believed in this stuff. Didn’t know how much, or how far I’d trust it, but I firmly believed in a human’s ability to perceive things beyond the five senses.
Carla rolled her eyes. “Voice mail,” she said in disgust. She left a message for Rick about Jade’s friend Tracy, then turned to me. “What’s next?”
“I’m starving. But I don’t feel like a restaurant. I’m beat.”
“That’s why I’m ordering room service. It should be ready by the time we get there.”
“Can I take a shower?” I’d always wanted to try out the bathing options in a hoity hotel like the Diplomat. I even had clean clothes in my laundry basket in the trunk of my car.
“Of course,” Carla said, connecting to the Diplomat.
As she placed our order, I drove past the famous restaurant, Billy’s Stone Crab, on our right. Someday. A few miles farther, I took a left into the Diplomat’s drive. We left the Toyota with valet parking—there were fringe benefits for hanging out with Carla—and rode the elevator up to the eighteenth floor.
Her room had a king size bed with a white comforter, a desk, a couch, and more importantly, a balcony with sliding glass doors. The terrace held a glass-topped table and four chairs. The balcony railing was paneled in glass so guests had a clear view of the Atlantic Ocean beyond.
I slid the door open and heard the rush of the sea. I collapsed in a chair and put my feet on the table.
“Carla,” I called into the room, “do you think I could have a piña colada, too?”
* * * *
About the time I’d stuffed myself with room service salmon, pasta, and spinach, my drink arrived. Taking the froth-filled glass in one hand and my tote with a change of clothes in the other, I stepped into Carla’s elegant bathroom.
White marble, huge fluffy towels, gold fixtures, and a whirlpool tub with ledges big enough to sit on. I set my drink down and turned the gold knobs, pouring steaming water into the tub.
The array of Carla’s bath, body, hair, and makeup products was staggering. I might never get out of this room. Moments later, I sank into the tub, poured citrus scented bubble bath into the water, and hit the whirlpool button. Sipping my piña colada, I closed my eyes.
Sex couldn’t be this good. But as the bubbles swirled around me, I pictured Will’s quick, sure fingers sliding the chain into Diablo’s mouth that first day. Maybe it could be as good.
About the time I was dried, dressed, and spiking my short hair with mousse, Carla tapped on the bathroom door.
“Nikki? Rick’s here.”
“I’ll be out in a minute.” He sure was on the case. He must have called her back while I was bathing. And now he’d come to her room?
Stepping outside the bathroom, I saw Rick and Carla sitting on the balcony at the glass-topped table. He wore a white jacket over a black tee and slacks, apparently off duty. They were leaning toward each other, their hands almost touching. I drained the last drops of my drink, set it on the service cart, and stepped outside.
Rick noticed me first. “Nikki, good lead you got today.” He frowned slightly. “I’m glad Carla called me, but you two have to promise me to stay out of this from now on.”
“Sure,” I said. “Can you tell me if this guy with the Poseidon tattoo was at the White Sands yesterday? Did you arrest him?”
“Any information I have about him is part of an ongoing investigation. Are you guys trying to get me fired?” Smiling at Carla and me, he made quote marks in the air with his fingers. “Hallandale Beach detective cited for injury to civilians in vice case.”
“I don’t want to get you in trouble, Rick,” Carla said, “I just want to find my daughter.”
“And I’m working on that, okay? You gotta trust me on this, Carla.”
Beyond the balcony, the sea crested and foamed on the beach below. The Diplomat’s long shadow darkened the image as the sun set to the west, behind the hotel.
I nodded at Rick. “We trust you. I gotta get back to my motel and get some sleep.” I felt like a third wheel, anyway. Rick had designs on Carla, and she didn’t look too ready to beat him off.
* * * *
The next morning, after finishing up stable work, I asked Orlando if he had come by my motel the day before.
He set down the rake he was using, drew himself up tall and said, “The men in my family don’ go to motel to see woman. We take her to dinner or dance.”
“Just checking, Orlando. Someone told me a man who looks like you was asking about me.”
Orlando stroked his mustache. “He a lucky man if he look like me! Anyway, I not there.”
“Okay. Later,” I said, and gathered my things before leaving the track and heading for the Sand Castle.
When I arrived at the motel, Scat was stretched out, sunbathing on the concrete in front my room. As I leaned over to pet her, the door to Stella’s room clicked open a couple of inches.
“Hey, Stella.”
“Nikki, you just get back?” she asked after widening the opening and stepping outside.
Like she didn’t know. “Yeah,” I answered. “Remember that Latino guy you saw hanging around? Did he have any kind of mark on his arms?”
She squinted, deepening the lines bracketing her eyes and mouth while she thought. “You know, he did. Had a tattoo of a guy looked like the devil. Holding this little pitchfork.”
I’d bet my last two bucks the pitchfork was a trident. “Did this devil have anything else?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Horses.”
I swallowed. “This guy sounds pretty scary. Let me know if you see him again.”
“Don’t you worry, bubbela, he won’t get past me.”
“Thanks.” Stepping into my room, I closed the door, hooked the flimsy chain and turned the deadbolt. Probably anyone could kick the whole thing in. I put a chair up against it and felt marginally better.
I made a cup of coffee and sat at my tiny kitchen table. I’d only been in Florida for five days. So much had happened it was hard to sort out.
A girl had died at my feet, her identity still unknown. Two girls were missing, one of them Carla’s daughter. I’d been saddled with the horse from hell, a new owner with a horrible scar, and a psychic who had visions of Jade surrounded by water.
I touched the sea horse box, still on the table. Opening it, I withdrew the stone mermaid and stared at her face. Somehow Jade’s disappearance was connected to the sea. But the mermaid wasn’t revealing any secret
s. At least not to me. Damn, I’d forgotten to call Klaire the night before.
Sliding the mermaid back into her box, I continued reviewing events: A Vice detective pursued Carla, Will pulled at me like a magnet, and a creep who ran hookers was lurking around my motel room. In two days I had to race Diablo. No wonder I’d been tossing back the bourbon and piña coladas.
CHAPTER 26
The morning of the race we took Diablo’s hay away and hand-walked him on the shedrow. He whinnied angrily when the two fillies, all decked out in saddles and bridles, sashayed out for morning exercise as if they lived to annoy him.
I sacrificed Imposter’s morning exercise by leaving him in his stall next to Diablo. Keeping the colt calm was essential. A meltdown before his race would be a disaster.
Currito came by briefly to check on his colt, telling me he’d see me later in the paddock. By ten-thirty, we’d finished up, and Jim had left to run errands.
Orlando and I were drinking Cokes in the feed room when a loud crack resonated through the wall. I stuck my head out into the aisle way and saw a man with long, dark hair walking quickly away from Diablo and Imposter’s stalls.
“Hey!” I called.
He looked back at me for a moment. Dark-glasses, taller than Orlando, and a full goatee instead of a moustache. A long-sleeved tee covered his arms so I didn’t know if he had a Poseidon tattoo or not. But gold rings pierced his ears.
“Orlando, who is this guy?”
Orlando darted from the feed room. “I don’t know. I have not seen him before.”
The guy had almost reached the far corner.
“Hey,” I yelled again and took off after him. If he’d messed with Diablo.…
When I rounded the corner, the man had vanished. There were so many places he could hide among the barns, sheds and vehicles. Was this the guy who’d been at my motel? I ran back to check on Diablo, but Orlando was already in the stall and had beat me to it.
“I don’t see no problem with him, Nikki. I think he kick the wall when the man walk by.”
The loud bang had sounded like Diablo nailing the wall. Damn it. Strangers had no business in our shedrow.
“You got any peppermints on you?” I asked.
“Si.”
While Orlando crinkled off the plastic covering, I snapped a shank onto Diablo’s halter. Palm flat, Orlando offered Diablo the treat. When his big equine molars crunched and ground the candy, the scent of peppermint oil drifted to my nostrils.
I handed the shank to Orlando and went back to look at Diablo’s rear shoes. He’d always been good about picking his feet up, and when I checked the racing plates, the metal shoes were still on snug and square. Good. The slightest shift could cause a huge problem in his race.
Neither Orlando nor I found any sign the horses had been tampered with. Still, I didn’t like the coincidence of this man showing up, whoever he was. I rubbed the small of my back and stretched my neck.
“Orlando,” I said, “you need to stay with Diablo until Jim gets back around noon. Then you can take a break.”
“Don’ you worry, Nikki. Nobody bother this horse, not on my, how you say, ‘my watch?’”
“Right, not on your watch. I guess I’ll see you guys in the paddock. Beth is coming with—”
“You worry too much. Is my job to get Diablo to the paddock.” He flipped his hair back and grinned. “No problema.”
“Thanks, Orlando.”
I grabbed my kit and left. At the grandstand, I found the side door that led to the jockey’s room. Two riders stood outside smoking, probably to keep from eating.
I paused outside the building when my phone rang, and stepping to the side to avoid the cigarette smoke, I answered.
“Nikki,” Carla said. “George didn’t get much from that tag number. Car belongs to a guy who sells real estate in Broward County. He’s clean, no record, lived here all his life.”
“What’s his name,” I asked.
“Roger McAddis.”
He didn’t sound much like a Latino gunman, and I was pretty sure the guys we were looking for were either from outside the country or illegal immigrants.
“Are you sure he was following us?” Carla asked.
“I don’t know. We’ll talk about it later. Right now, I need to get ready for Diablo’s race.”
“See you in the paddock,” Carla said.
* * * *
Inside the jockey’s room, two men sat at a desk with phones and big calendar-blotters where they kept track of the day’s races, riders, silk colors, valets, and who knew what all. One guy was gray-haired with a nicely clipped moustache and a snazzy Panama hat. In addition to his blotter, he had a clipboard, colored Highlighters, Post-it notes and a tall glass of iced tea. His official title was “Clerk of the Scales.” The other guy was younger, trimmer, and busy on his phone. Probably the assistant clerk.
The Panama hat guy checked me in and pointed out the entrance to the women’s section.
“Let’s see,” he said, squinting at his blotter, “you’re riding Diablo Valiente in the ninth, right?”
“Yes.”
“You’re in the seven hole?”
“Yes.”
“Okey dokey. Get yourself some towels,” he waved at a long counter stacked with freshly laundered and folded bath towels. “Your valet today is going to be…” He squinted some more. “Juanita.”
Not being a regular rider at Gulfstream, I didn’t have a valet, but Juanita would receive a piece of anything I earned. Everything in racing is about slices of the pie.
If Diablo won—or placed somewhere in the first four or five—Currito as owner, Jim as trainer, me, and the valet got a percent. If Diablo finished out-of-the-money, Juanita still got a percent of the jock’s fee I’d earn from Currito.
Glancing around, I saw the silks hanging on racks in a room to my right, and on my left the obligatory wall-mounted video screen, where the jockeys could watch the day’s races. A water cooler hummed beneath it, and beyond them, a woman stood behind a small snack counter fronted by stools. Green-padded armchairs surrounded small white-topped tables near the counter.
A couple of pieces of exercise equipment stood in the room, too, but no one was using them. A jockey, lounging on one of the armchairs, had pulled up another chair to rest his legs and feet. His eyes were closed.
I needed a shower and a catnap. After buying yogurt and a chocolate bar at the counter, I headed for the women’s area.
The room was nicely outfitted with a steam room and dry sauna. It wasn’t as nice as Carla’s hotel room, but a far sight better than Laurel Park’s accommodations for female jockeys. On the other side of the sauna’s glass door a woman lay on a padded bench. She was covered by a green towel and beads of perspiration. Large custom-made cabinets with cubby holes, drawers, and a working sink stood at each end of the room. Someone, probably the gal in the sauna, had placed a small stuffed lion, a jar of Johnson’s shoe wax, a bottle of water, and assorted bath products in one of the cubby holes. I touched the fuzzy mane on the little lion and put my things in the cubby hole next door.
Glancing again at the lion, I fingered the small San Raphael talisman hanging on a slender chain around my neck. A jockey named Paco had given it to me when I’d been hurt once, and I’d had the medal made into a necklace and wore it often.
Playing the dangerous game we did, we took our good luck charms seriously.
CHAPTER 27
At four o’clock that afternoon, when the horses in our race had been saddled, the man with the snappy Panama hat called for riders to the paddock. In our shiny silks and polished boots, we filed through a door leading from the jockeys’ room into the saddling tunnel.
At Gulfstream, they tack the horses inside this dim passage that runs through the base of the grandstand and connects the paddock with the racetrack on the opposite side.
As we walked the rubber-paved floor and skirted several fresh piles of manure, I glanced at the row of two-sided stalls built against
one wall of the tunnel. The designer had capped the concrete stall walls with green metal railing and fronted each one with iron poles crowned by ornate brass finials.
Reaching the tunnel’s end, we walked down a ramp into the bright sunlight of the paddock, where railing formed a circular dirt path for the horses. I spotted Diablo, proud and magnificent, on the far side. In the middle, pink flowers in planters bloomed around a putting-green oval of grass, and the fountain I’d seen on my first day splashed in dead center.
I felt pretty snazzy in Currito’s red and black racing silks, emboldened with a gold lightning strike between my shoulder blades. My black helmet cover even had a gold pompom. Ahead of me, Jim stood near the rail. Currito, in a black suit with a red-and-gold pocket square, appeared to be my match mate.
Threading through the parading horses, owners, trainers, and hangers on, I headed for the two men. As I reached them, Orlando led Diablo past us.
Up close, the colt looked calmer than I had expected, and I was glad to see it. Jim nodded at me, and Currito shook my hand.
“Buena suerte,” he said.
“Thanks,” I replied. I needed all the “good luck” I could get—at least until we were safely sprung from the gate.
I glanced at the competition circling the paddock. Diablo was the standout as far as looks went, but the bettors weren’t too high on him as it was his first start in North America. South American past performances were hard to read, and a lot of people didn’t trust foreign stats, anyway.
Hammer and Stay Tuned, the four and the six, were the heavy favorites, ridden by two jockeys from the Florida-New-York circuit. Their horses had won a number of good races, and I could see why they were favored to win.
As the paddock judge called for riders up, Jim drew me aside a moment.
“When you break, relax him. If you can. If he wants to go, let him. We both know what will happen if you fight him.”
I nodded, and Jim gave me a leg up into the saddle. Then everyone walked from the paddock back through the tunnel.
I let out a breath when I saw Beth and Bullwinkle waiting for us on the track. Beth took the lead strap from Orlando and she and Bullwinkle escorted us away from the grandstand along with the other horses, lead ponies, and outriders. After a delightfully uneventful warmup, we paraded to the gate where the crewmen waited for us.
