The Dark Side of Town

by Sasscer Hill

  In the three stall, Becky Joe held the filly’s head, stroking her neck, keeping her calm. With the valet’s help, Pizutti cinched Wiggly Wabbit’s girth tight, before strapping the second, overgirth around the tiny saddle. This standard practice of using two girths could save a rider’s life, a rider like Stevie.

  The jockeys paraded into the paddock, their silks like the plumage of exotic birds. Stevie stopped near Pizutti. Nerves tightened the lines on his face, and his eyes darted from Pizutti to the horse as if seeking an answer.

  The paddock judge called for riders up, Pizutti tossed Stevie into the saddle, and Becky Joe led Wiggly Wabbit toward the track. With Stevie on her back, the filly’s head came up, and the muscles in her neck and hindquarters seemed to swell as if injected with an increased supply of blood and oxygen. The bold look in her eyes said, “Bring it on.”

  Stevie patted her neck as Becky Joe led them past me, but a shadow of anger and uncertainty flitted across his face. He pressed his lips together, and his eyes squeezed shut a moment. They opened, filled with conviction. I didn’t know what was going on with him, but he’d just made a decision.

  The horses filed from the paddock into the grandstand pass-through and out of sight. I zipped through the building, stepped onto the track apron, and saw Pizutti standing by the rail ahead of me. I placed myself a couple of feet to his side and slightly behind. Using the JumboTron, I watched the horses warm up. Our gray filly looked even better than she had in the paddock. The fans thought so, too. On the tote board, as the horses loaded into the gate, Wiggly Wabbit was the favorite.

  The bell rang, the electronic gates crashed open, and the announcer cried, “They’re off!”

  The horses exploded out. Lightning Lily immediately gained a half-length lead. The number five horse took a left turn out of the gate and crashed into Daisy Do Right, but Daisy held her ground, her long legs getting organized and gathering momentum. Wiggly Wabbit broke evenly, and Stevie had her well positioned in third place. Starlight lay near the back of the pack, as a different chestnut, probably a future “also-ran,” charged into second place.

  The colorful silks and gleaming Thoroughbred coats flowed through the first turn and onto the backstretch with Lightning Lily still on the lead. Stevie lay in third, with Daisy Do Right breathing down the back of his neck in fourth place.

  Starlight used the backstretch straightaway to power forward, picking off stragglers until she drew even with Daisy Do Right, still in fourth. As the horses flew into the far turn, Stevie looked back to see who was coming. Some riders got busy whipping and driving, especially the jockey on the also-ran chestnut. His stick flashed frantically as his filly’s stride shortened.

  As she faltered, Stevie and Wiggly Wabbit swept past and took aim on Lightning Lily. Daisy Do Right and Starlight began their final moves, leaving the rest of the field struggling behind. It was now a four-horse race.

  Excited screaming drew my attention to the right. The two gals in short dresses had followed me and stood only a few feet away. As I turned back, Pizutti made an angry gesture with his fist. What was his problem?

  I could hear the horses rocketing down the stretch toward me. Their hooves thundered, making the ground beneath my feet tremble, the sound of their lungs incredibly loud as they pumped massive quantities of air in and out.

  Stevie asked Wiggly Wabbit to give him her soul, and she did, digging in and drawing almost even with Lightning Lily, who struggled mightily to hold to the wire. Behind these two, Starlight raced ahead of Daisy Do Right, whose immensely long legs had lost time switching into high gear. Even so, I feared the big filly could grind past everyone if they didn’t get to the wire soon.

  Around me, the crowd was yelling for their picks. The women in short dresses were jumping up and down, screaming for Wiggly Wabbit and Starlight. I hoped they’d win.

  Wiggly Wabbit drew even with Lightning Lily, looked her in the eye, and Lily folded. Wiggly Wabbit swept past, and Starlight followed, her nose at Wiggly Wabbit’s flank. Daisy Do Right still motored forward.

  By now, the two girls were wild, as Wiggly Wabbit held the lead, with Starlight a neck behind and coming. Behind them, Daisy Do Right inched closer in tireless determination.

  Stevie put his stick away, hand-riding Wiggly Wabbit with everything he had. It was beautiful to watch; the kid could ride. His filly held on and flashed under the wire, winning by a whisker.

  The bubbly blonde ran to me and threw her arms around my neck, shrieking, “We won! We won!”

  Her buddy rushed over, and giddy with excitement, we gave each other high fives. With an angry sound, Pizutti threw his program on the ground. He stomped through the gap in the rail to meet Stevie, who would soon pull up near the winner’s circle. Becky Joe was on the track waiting for them.

  The bubbly blonde and her friend rushed off to cash in their tickets. I would get my money later. Now I wanted to know what angered Pizutti. I stepped through the gap and walked through the heavy sand, stopping close to him and Becky Joe.

  Stevie stood in the stirrups, easing his filly down to a jog, then a walk, as they approached us. He sat proudly in the saddle, his eyes lit with joy and triumph. As they pulled up, Becky Joe grabbed the bridle, and led them toward the winner’s circle. Pizutti walked close to Stevie, and I followed. The trainer tilted his head up to say something, and I saw his scowl before he angled his face away. It was hideous and a little shocking. Most of the times I’d seen him, his expression was bland, even pleasant.

  Stevie had just pulled off the greatest achievement of his career; he’d won at Saratoga, beating three of the top jockeys in the United States. But Pizutti’s anger brought the worry lines crashing back to the kid’s face, and an edge of fear into his eyes.

  I got as close as I dared.

  “And if Rico does anything like that,” Pizutti was saying, “it will be on you. You knew what you were supposed to do.”

  My heart sank. I’d bet my last buck Pizutti had told him to lose the race. And who the hell was Rico?

  5

  While everyone filed into the winner’s circle for the win picture, I hung back, not wanting to be in the photo.

  Pizutti pasted on his happy face for the camera, but Stevie was pale, his unease obvious in the tight lines around his mouth. The filly’s proud owners, two guys wearing black turtlenecks, shiny jackets, and soul patches, beamed for the camera. Becky Joe’s face remained expressionless, while Wiggly Wabbit blew hard, working to restore her cardiovascular system after the huge effort.

  I glanced at the owners again. They looked a wee bit slimy to me. Good thing that they, along with every trainer, jockey, or track worker, had to hold a license from the state racing commission. And everyone was fingerprinted. No exceptions. I’d run their names later. If the owners had legal action against them, I’d find it right quick.

  Stevie finally managed a strained smile in time for his win photo. After dismounting, he whipped off the filly’s tack, rushing with it to the jockey scales as if unable to get away from Pizutti fast enough. I waited on the track for Becky Joe to lead the filly out, and when they stepped onto the sand, I walked alongside them.

  After clearing the grandstand pass-through, we clip-clopped along the path I’d walked earlier. We waited for a traffic cop to halt the cars on Union Avenue, then crossed the street, entered the backstretch, and headed for Pizutti’s barn.

  “So, Becky Joe,” I said, “Stevie wasn’t supposed to win, was he?”

  She gave me a sharp look, then shifted her gaze away.

  I kept my eyes on her, pressing her with the weight of my stare until she responded.

  “What?”

  “Did Pizutti tell him to pull the race?”

  She made a small sound of annoyance. “Looks that way. You saw how the boy was before the race, all nervous, scared, and shit. Then he rides like a pro, wins the damn thing, and Mars ain’t happy about it.”

  “You know,” I said, “I like Stevie. He looked so torn in the pa
ddock, and then it was like he made a decision, and decided to run his race. That took guts.”

  “He’s a good kid. I hate Mars asking him to pull the horse. But now Stevie’s put himself on thin ice. Remember, you’re just a walker, I’m a groom, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about any of it.”

  “But what kind of trouble is Stevie in?” I asked.

  “Wouldn’t know.”

  The woman held information like a bank vault. I tried again. “I heard Pizutti talk about a guy named Rico. Do you know who that is?”

  Becky Joe took a bad step, jerking the filly’s shank with the stumble. She gave me a quick look, her face suddenly expressionless. “I couldn’t say.”

  The bank of Becky Joe had closed. Still, her reaction told me a lot. Rico could be an associate who’d gambled big money against Wiggly Wabbit. Maybe Pizutti suspected NYRA was looking at him hard for drug violations, and he’d decided to step away from that danger and try fixing races instead.

  I’d call Brian, a guy I knew in the TRPB office. Among other things, he worked with the agency’s Betting Analysis Platform. He examined wagering data on an almost real-time basis, and fished for suspicious events. Maybe Rico had left a trail.

  * * *

  Late that afternoon, Calixto came around to my side of the barn. He wore a white Western shirt with pearl snaps, black jeans, ostrich boots, and an enticing smile. He carried two bottles of beer. A suitor bearing intoxicating gifts.

  I’d been sitting in a folding chair near the tack room waiting to help with the evening feed. I still wore the bleeding-roses T-shirt, and my Goth look was refurbished with freshly blackened eyes.

  “Querida,” he said handing me a beer that was cold and beaded with moisture, “would you at least consider removing the skull earrings?”

  “It’s my cover,” I said quietly. “I’m a Goth, remember?”

  “You make it hard to forget.”

  I shrugged, and examined the beer’s label. The name was unfamiliar to me. “Where did you find this, anyway? Ommegang Adoration?”

  “You don’t like the name? I’m supposed to adore you, yes?”

  I took a sip. Dark and strong. Maybe a little too intense for my taste, but not bad. Not bad at all. In fact, it was growing on me.

  “Ommegang’s a local brewery,” he said, toasting me with his bottle, before squatting in the aisle before me. The muscles in his thighs tightened against the fabric of his jeans as his face dropped to the level of my shoulder.

  I could smell him. All male, with a trace of sweat and a hint of expensive cologne. He put a hand on my knee. My stomach contracted, and I sat farther back in my chair.

  “Pequeña leona, don’t draw away. You are supposed to find me irresistible. Your amiga Becky Joe is watching us, as are two other grooms. Drink la cerveza and smile at me.”

  I did. I needed the beer. The way he was looking at me, like he wanted to lay me down in the shedrow and have his way with me, made me dizzy. For God’s sake, Fia, he’s not interested in you, he’s faking it. The man was a trained liar. Like me.

  Becky Joe Benson was eyeing us from where she stood outside the feed room, an open can of beer in her hand, and a knowing expression on her face. She was waiting for the assistant trainer, Carl Albritt, to hand out the buckets he’d loaded with grain and carefully measured doses of supplements. Carl—tall, thin, and bushy-haired—wore geeky glasses, but the eyes behind them were sharp. He worked hard at his seven-day-a-week job and demanded the same from his employees, and as soon as he’d caught on to the shirker groom I was now covering for, he’d fired the guy.

  It was almost dinnertime for the horses on Pizutti’s shedrow. The feed-room door hung open, Carl was rattling buckets, and every horse was ready for dinner. Thirty of them had their faces over their stall gates. All stared at the feed room. A few of the more anxious pinned their ears, pawed, then backed into their stalls before whirling and charging forward again.

  “Calixto, I have to help feed,” I said, pouting as if leaving him would be painful. “But I love the beer you brought.”

  He stood, and touched my hand. As I stepped away, his fingers trailed lightly along my skin. I took a steadying breath, and turned to see Becky Joe grinning at us. Javier, the groom, was smiling, too. This was good, right?

  I almost ran toward the pair, then slowed down before reaching them. I tried to put on a normal expression.

  Becky Joe looked from me to Calixto. “Oh, Lord, if I was twenty years younger. That man is serious trouble. I’m sure I saw a chastity belt around here somewhere. You want me to get it for you?”

  Javier snickered.

  I gave them a cocky look. “I can handle him.”

  Becky Joe snorted. “Honey, you just failed the straight face test. Failed it bad. Even I couldn’t have handled that one.” She tossed her empty can into the trash, before leaning over and grabbing another beer from a cardboard six-pack conveniently close by on a hay bale. She popped the top and took a long drink. A few drops ran down her chin.

  Beneath her scraggly brows, she had big eyes, and under her weathered skin, nice cheekbones. I could almost see her as a young, fit jockey. No doubt a head turner. But sun, booze, and a hard life had done irreparable damage to her skin and eyes.

  While I was considering Becky Joe’s past, Javier set six buckets piled to the brim with grain in the aisle. Becky Joe grabbed three pails and headed left. I took three, headed right, and walked to the far end of the shedrow, where I dumped two of them into the tubs in the last two stalls. The sweet smell of molasses rose to my nostrils, and I almost scooped out a mouthful for myself.

  The third stall belonged to Ziggy Stardust. He was fierce about his grain, and snaked his head over his gate before pinning his ears and baring his teeth at me.

  “This is not how we win friends, Ziggy,” I said, picking up a hay rake and brandishing it at him until he withdrew into his stall.

  Once he backed up to where I could feed him without losing my arm, I tossed his grain in as quickly as possible before scooting back. His bold and fiery nature had powered him to the winner’s circle many times, but he was no toy in the barn.

  Returning to the feed room, I grabbed three more pails and stopped outside Bionic’s stall. It had been a couple of days since his work, and he looked good, like he’d gained weight and muscle tone. Nodding his head up and down, he nickered for his dinner. He was a sweet boy, and let me rub his forehead while his mouth worked ambitiously on the grain.

  Wiggly Wabbit was a different story. She appeared interested in dinner, but when I poured it in her feed tub, she picked at it, then turned away. Not surprising, seeing the grueling effort she’d just made to win her race.

  Once we’d finished serving oats, I topped off the horses’ water buckets, while Becky Joe, Javier, and another groom rotated the horses out of their stalls and hand-grazed them in the grass around the barn. The remaining grooms picked at the stalls, providing a lick and a promise until the morning when, with pitchforks and wheelbarrows, they would dig and scrape the stalls clean.

  By the time we finished, the sun sat low on the western horizon, and the air had cooled. We exchanged good-byes and everyone headed out except me. I wanted to take a last look at Wabbit. Zipping up my denim jacket against the increasing chill, I walked toward her stall. My dad had ingrained the habit in me during my days with him at Pimlico. Every night we’d checked our horses to see if they’d cleaned up their feed and were settled and happy. I could still hear his voice, “Happy horses win races, Fia.”

  I heard footsteps behind me and stopped. Stevie had come onto the shedrow. I wanted to ask him about Pizutti’s angry reaction that afternoon, but resisted. Prying too hard could backfire.

  Instead, I said, “Great ride on Wabbit today.”

  “Thanks. How are she and Bionic doing?”

  “Bionic’s great,” I said, “but the Wabbit’s appetite is off.”

  We walked to their stalls. Bionic had licked his tub clean, but Wi
ggly Wabbit’s remained three-quarters full.

  “What’s the matter, girl?” I asked, stroking her head. I glanced at Stevie. “I was hoping she’d be deep in her feed after she ran, but you know how they are. They get too tired, they won’t eat.”

  Stevie nodded. “Especially fillies.”

  “Especially them. They seem to worry more than the boys.”

  “Worrying’s a bad thing,” Stevie said.

  He’d provided an opening and I didn’t resist. “It is bad. You seem like you have something bothering you.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  But as he spoke, his eyes seemed almost pleading, as if he hoped I’d ask again, as if he wanted to talk.

  “Stevie—” The sound of an approaching vehicle stopped me. We both turned. Pizutti drove his dark-blue Mercedes SUV up to the barn and stopped. An older man sat in the passenger seat.

  Stevie’s face blanched. His head turned left and right as if seeking a place to escape, before he took a breath and grew still. As if unable to keep the thought silent, he said, “He’d only find me somewhere else.”

  “Who? What is it?”

  “Nothing, Fay. Forget it. You’re done feeding, right?” he asked.

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Then leave. Mars’ll be pissed if you act curious about him, or that guy.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Just go.” He gave me a little push, then walked toward the two men who’d climbed from the SUV. Pizutti had parked near the end of the barn that housed Ziggy’s stall.

  I sauntered a short ways down the shedrow, then took a quick glance over my shoulder. None of the three guys were looking my way, so I dropped to my hands and knees and scooted into Wiggly Wabbit’s stall. Once hidden, I called Calixto, hoping he was still on the barn’s opposite side.

  He answered on the first ring, his voice sounding amused. “I believe we are the new hot topic around the barn. I heard Becky Joe warning you off, and now, Maggie Bourne tells me to watch myself. She says you will drain my blood and put me in a coffin. Pequeña leona, I—”