by Sasscer Hill
“Yes sir.”
I managed to get the contents of eight pails into the feed tubs without getting bitten or stepped on, but wound up with a sprinkling of sticky grain on my clothes, in the pockets of my coat, and my hair.
I liked Ravinsky. He struck me as a kind, decent man, and I prayed he’d let me work for him at Laurel. As I moved down the line of stalls, I wondered about Pedro. Had he run away from home? Was he hurt? I might have thought he was just hanging with friends, except his parents found his absence so unusual and alarming.
It was nice to worry about someone other than myself. But as the winter night sky darkened outside the barn and the cold air grew more frigid, a familiar feeling of panic overtook me.
You have a safe place to sleep tonight. Just keep going, Nikki. You can do this.
When I got to my room, it was warm and toasty. Once again I curled up in my cot with the comforting scent of horses, sweet feed, and the tangy, clean smell of liniment.
My last thoughts before I went to sleep were about Pedro. Maybe if the Mexican restaurant where he worked was close by, I’d go there for lunch. I wanted to do something to help Carlos. It was probably a dumb idea, but I couldn’t shake it.
I slept soundly, amazed to wake up and find the gray light of another cold dawn coming through the dusty window of my room. It was the first time I’d slept through the night since Stanley had come into my life.
I worked hard that morning. Feeding the eight horses and cleaning out their stalls while each one was exercising out on the track. I felt a little in awe and envious of the two small and wiry Latino guys that showed up to ride. They wore cool-looking leather chaps and boots as they rode the horses off the shedrow and headed for the sandy mile-oval, something I was longing to do.
“Do the horses gallop every day?” I asked Ravinsky.
“Yep,” he said. “Except if they’ve just had a race. We usually give them three days off. Just walk them around the shedrow to let them stretch their legs a bit.”
“So Silver Punch will just walk today?”
“Yep. But he worries me a bit, ‘cause he didn’t eat his feed and hardly any hay. Course that’s not unusual to back off right after a race. Let’s hope he cleans up his dinner.
Then he studied my face and nodded as if he’d reached a decision. “I’ll need you to help Maria walk ’em as soon as you’re done cleaning the stalls.”
“Yes sir.”
Apparently he was still figuring out what to do with me, as he worked me hard, but not unfairly. He’d brought me a box of fried chicken, coleslaw, and biscuits the night before and I’d wolfed it down so fast, he’d mumbled something about a stray cat.
As I continued working, Maria showed up looking drawn and pale, shaking her head when Ravinsky asked her about Pedro.
“He never came home.”
“It will be twenty-four hours soon,” Ravinsky said, “The police will start looking for him.
For some reason this made Maria take an involuntary step back. Then she shuttered the sudden fear I’d seen on her face.
“Where can they look more than Carlos? He is still searching. I am sorry Carlos is not here for you.”
“Don’t worry about it. Nikki’s doing a good job on the stalls.”
Maria flashed me a grateful smile.
As I finished the stalls, I thought how much I liked the long braid of shiny black hair that hung down her back halfway to her waist. Her full face would be pretty if she was happy. When I was done, she showed me the ropes for hot walking a horse, which were more complicated than I’d expected.
I had to constantly watch each horse as I walked him, checking to see how hot and wet his coat was, how much water he was allowed to drink and when. What surprised me the most was that after he drank most of his water and was almost cooled out, I was expected to take him in his stall and encourage him to pee by whistling.
Then I remembered that only the day before, which seemed more like half a lifetime ago, Carlos had done the same thing with Silver Punch after the horse won at Pimlico.
By the time Maria and I were finished, it was almost eleven a.m. Hungry, I asked Maria where the Mexican restaurant was.
She told me it was on 198, within walking distance, and gave me directions.
“Hold on a minute,” Ravinsky said when he got wind of my plan. “How do you think you’re going to get back in here without a license badge to show the gate guard?”
Oops, dumb not to realize that if I went out, I couldn’t get back in unless I wanted to climb more razor wire. “I, I don’t know.”
“I’m leaving shortly. I’ll drive you up to the gate and get you a three-day pass. But after I put you on my badge list, you’ll need to go to the racing commission office in the grandstand. Give them your ID and social security number and they’ll issue you a hot walker’s license.
Maybe now wasn’t the time to tell him I didn’t have a social security number, was too young to have a driver’s license, and my birth certificate was in Baltimore in the house with Stanley. No way was I going back there.
Ravinsky headed into his office, and Maria, who’d been listening to the conversation, motioned me to walk down the shedrow with her. A few steps later, she stopped and looked around as if to make sure no one was listening.
“You have your ID?”
When I told her no, she said, “There is a man, he is assistant manager at Burrito Burro. He help some of us. His name is Bic. Give him my name, Maria Pedroza. He can get you a Social Security card.”
“A fake one?”
“Sí,” she said, with a worried glance up and down the shedrow, obviously worried someone might overhear.
“How much?”
“Not too bad,” she said. “Maybe fifty dollars.”
I’d already doled out more of my win money than I’d meant to, but if I wanted to work, this would be money well spent. Unless I got caught.
“Sí,” she said, with a worried glance up and down the shedrow, obviously worried someone might overhear.
“Won’t the racing commission guy know it’s fake?”
“No. My brother, he got work here.” Then she pressed her lips together in a way that suggested she’d said more than she’d meant to.
“I won’t say anything,” I said. “Thank you, Maria.” If I’d had doubts about checking the place Pedro was last seen, the lure of obtaining an ID overrode my hesitation.
I started to walk away, and then turned back. “Maria, what did Pedro do at the restaurant?”
“He worked in the kitchen. He cut the peppers and tomatoes, stir the sauce pots.”
Like Mom.
“You find anything,” Maria said, “you let me know, yes?”
“Of course.”
A while later I was driven off the grounds by Ravinsky in his Ford 250 pickup. He hung a right on Whiskey Bottom Road, and another right on Brock Bridge Road which paralleled the backstretch barns to our right. He reached a stoplight at the four lane highway that was198.
Pulling close to the curb, he withdrew his wallet. “Here’s for today’s work,” he said, extracting a fifty-dollar bill.
I slipped the money into my pocket. “Thank you.”
“Hop out here,” he said. “Restaurant’s in a strip mall about a block away. You might want the drugstore that’s there, or the Goodwill a little farther down.”
He must have been reading my thoughts. I’d been longing for a toothbrush, shampoo, soap, towels, and a trip to the backstretch shower.
When I reached the strip mall, I saw a billboard above a restaurant picturing a donkey with a basket of burritos on his back. A happy, smiling man in a serape and Mexican hat led the burro. The burro wasn’t smiling
Pushing through the glass door, I almost felt faint when I was hit by the aroma of cooked beef, chili sauce, and beans. Investigating what had become of Pedro and the search for a fake ID would have to wait until I’d consumed at least two tacos.
The restaurant was the downscale type
where you go to the counter, order, pay, and then someone brings the food to your table. The floor tiles were the color of terra cotta and the walls were decorated with murals of the same burro and man on the billboard outside.
Two Latina women worked there behind the counter and apparently a skinny little guy who emerged through a swinging door with a tray of hot chili sauce.
I ordered three tacos, and when I’d finished them, I went back to the counter and spoke to the women behind it.
“I’m looking for my friend, Pedro. Is he in today
One woman looked away from me, and the other said, “No, he’s not here.”
“Well, have you seen him?”
The woman lowered her voice as two customers entered the shop. “He’s missing. Never showed up today, never called. He’s in hot water with the boss, I’ll tell you that.
“So, you have no idea where I can find him?”
“No, I don’t.” Her gaze slid to the new customers. “May I help you?”
The two newcomers said they wanted to read the wall menu first, so I asked the woman, “What about Bic. Is he in today?”
Her expression changed, her body seemed to still momentarily, and she stiffened. “Yeah, he’s here.”
“May I speak with him? Tell him Maria Pedroza sent me.”
Her friendly attitude evaporated. “I’ll see.” She walked out from behind the counter, down a short hall past the restrooms, and knocked on a door at the end.
She came back, gestured at the now open door. “In there.”
I walked to the doorway and went inside. A beige wall lined with file cabinets faced me. To my right was a metal desk, with a laptop and a bunch of papers. A guy sitting in an office chair behind it raised his head to look at me.
He might as well have been a snake, coiled and ready to strike, because seeing him stopped me dead.
10
I stared at the albino, at the black holes where warm eyes should have been. I had to remind myself to breathe.
Recognition flickered across his face. His mouth twisted into a condescending shape somewhere between a smirk and a smile.
“You come here to steal food?”
He was such a jerk! But I couldn’t raise enough contempt to drown my fear. Was it because his eyes had no soul?
I had to swallow before I could get the words out. “I need ID.”
“I bet you do,” he said. “So, you know Maria?”
“Yeah. She told me to see you. I, uh, I need a social security card so I can work in her barn.” I hated asking this guy for anything.
“He leaned back in his desk chair, folded his arms across his chest. “Small world, huh? That no good son of hers ever show up?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” I said. “I have money. I need ID. Can you help?”
“You seem to have a lot of problems. What happened to your mommy?”
So the jerk remembered stealing my five dollars and how I’d run back to Mom in tears.
“She’s dead.”
At least he had the decency to look startled. “Sorry for your loss.”
Then his eyes narrowed and a calculating expression crossed his face. “So you’re on your own now?”
I nodded.
“Sure, I can help you out. I’ll need twenty-five today. Come back tomorrow. I’ll have the card and you can pay me another twenty-five.”
Just like that? “Don’t you need my name or something?”
“Hell no, I can’t use your real name.”
His eyes kept moving rapidly back and forth as if he had no control over them. And when he looked at me, he seemed to have trouble training both eyes on me at once. If he hadn’t been such a bully, I might have felt sorry for him.
“So,” I asked, “what name will you use?”
“Some dead lady’s.” Then he laughed like he’d just told a great joke.
The beige walls of the office seemed to close in on me, and I took a breath, trying to stay calm. What a horrible man Pedro worked for. How could Maria stand it?
Then it hit me. The whole Pedroza family was probably in the country illegally. That’s why Ravinksy’s mention of the police had made Maria so nervous. Did Ravinksy know? But what if he did? This isn’t your concern, Nikki.
“So you got the twenty-five or what,” Bic said leaning forward, making the desk chair groan.
I had put fifty dollars in my pocket earlier and pulled out a twenty and a five, placing it in his outstretched hand.
“Come back same time tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll have it for you.”
I wanted to get out of there. “Okay,” I said, before turning on my heel and forcing myself not to run from his office.
Outside the restaurant, I walked past its glassed-in front, stopped before the hardware store next door, and let out a long breath.
Why did this guy have to turn out to be the freaking albino?
I’d known he was a creep, but even when he’d stolen my five that day, I’d only thought of him as a bully. But here he was providing false ID. He was a criminal. Who knew what else he might be into?
Had anyone pressed him if he knew anything about what happened to Pedro? Maria and Carlos were probably afraid to ask if they were illegals and he’d provided their ID.
It’s none of your business. You’re in enough trouble already.
Still, I found myself walking to the end of the block and around the corner where I found a wide alley running behind the restaurant. Maybe there was some trace or sign of Pedro. Maybe I could find something. Heading into it, I passed numerous locked steel doors and garbage cans. At my feet were frozen puddles of dirty water imbedded with grit, trash, and cigarette butts.
Halfway down, I found the back door of Burrito Burro. It had a small loading dock with a Dumpster to one side. So far I was accomplishing nothing.
Turning in a slow circle, I surveyed the signage on the back entrances of the buildings lining the alley. There was the hardware store, a print shop, an auto parts store, and a beauty salon.
The door directly across from Burrito Burro’s appeared to be the back entrance to a doctor’s office. The building used a lot of space, stretching to the far end of the alley. The name Braygler was stenciled on the rear door. I’d heard the name before. But where? I couldn’t remember.
A wind kicked up at the head of the alley and I pulled my coat closer around me. This was stupid. I wasn’t learning anything other than how freaking cold it was in the alley. I walked back to 198 and hit the drug store and Goodwill.
After purchasing necessities at the first stop and some jeans and two fleece shirts at the second, I headed for the racetrack. When I saw the barns just behind the fence on Whiskey Bottom Road, my spirits lifted. I knew that inside each building, there were horses bedded deep in straw, wearing warm blankets, enjoying an abundance of hay, feed, and water. I’d found a place where I belonged. Well, almost belonged.
I showed my day pass to the guard at the stable gate, and then trudged along the paved road past a number of barns and a big lot filled with horse trailers and vans. Beyond that was the biggest barn on the grounds, which I’d learned was the receiving barn, which is to say it received the horses that were shipping in for that day’s races.
Walking along, I passed shedrows with multi colored bandages hanging on the railing to dry in the cold sun. Salsa music drifted from some of the stables, but it was the occasional ring of a hoof, or the sound of a snort, or whinny that was music to my ears.
A rooster and three hens were scratching in the grass nearby. I’d never seen a real chicken before coming to this backstretch. Apparently trainers kept them for eggs or just because they liked having them around. The birds were colorful additions, and I found their behavior to be both ridiculous and endearing.
When I reached Ravinksy’s barn, I went into my room, loving the heat emanating from the room’s little electric heater. I had just set my parcels down on the bed when someone knocked on my door.
It was Mari
a. She stared at me, the tension in her body indicating her desperation for good news.
“Did you hear anything at the restaurant?”
“No, Maria. I’m sorry. I didn’t.” The way her face fell made me feel like I’d just kicked a dog. “I asked the women behind the counter. They didn’t know anything about Pedro.”
“Did you see Bic?”
“I did. Thank you for telling me about him. He’s going to help me,” I said.
“Did you ask Bic about my Pedro?”
“No, he . . . I was afraid to ask him.”
“Sí. Yo comprendo. He is not a nice man.”
My curiosity about Bic was as strong as my uneasiness about him. I knew he wasn’t a nice man. But what did she know?
“Is he mean to Pedro?”
“Sometimes. But he cheated us. He took our money. Said he would help with immigration. But he do nothing.”
My face must have given away my thoughts, because she said, “Don’t worry. You will get your card. That he will do.”
“What is Bic’s last name?” I asked, thinking I could look him up on Ravinsky’s laptop.
“His last name?” Her brows pulled together as she tried to remember. “Un momento. Let me think.”
I didn’t know much, but it seemed odd that a guy around eighteen would know anything about immigration. Maybe there would be information about him online that could help Carlos and Maria to get their money back. Sometimes on Mom’s computer I’d found “beware” sites about people and the bad things they’d done.
Carlos and Maria had been so nice to me; I longed to do something to help them.
“Braygler,” Maria said suddenly. “Braygler is his last name.”
The name I’d heard before but hadn’t been able to remember where. And today I had seen it again, stenciled on the backdoor of a doctor’s office.
“Does Bic have family in Laurel?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Why?”
“I’m just wondering what the deal is with him.”
