Flamethrower
Page 18
“Ugh,” she said aloud.
Spike tilted his head and looked at her.
“I don’t always look like this,” Ruby said.
The dog tilted his head the other way.
Ruby was supposed to be at The Hole by 5 P.M. to help Coleman with the kids who were coming for a horsemanship lesson. And Bob, who’d been afraid to do anything other than be nice and grovel for several weeks, had dared to ask Ruby to stop by the museum later to help him sort through slides for a history of Coney Island lecture. Elsie wanted Ruby to look through a baby-naming book with her that night. And there were probably a half dozen other things she was supposed to do too. But it could wait. All of it.
Ruby drove with the windows down, letting the wind cool her. Spike was squinting, the wind flapping his ears. Ruby got onto the Belt Parkway but got off before the exit to The Hole. She pulled the Mustang into the parking area for one of the small beaches just off the Belt. Spike trotted next to her as she walked down the sandy path to the water of Jamaica Bay. It was ten degrees cooler here, and a strong wind masked the traffic sounds.
The little beach was completely deserted, and the water lapping at the white sand was a brilliant blue. It was a pocket of unexpected paradise, a tiny slice of beauty at the edge of the world.
Ruby picked up a stick of driftwood and threw it for Spike. He bounded ahead, retrieved the stick, and deposited it at Ruby’s feet. He looked from Ruby to the stick and back. He tilted his head. Ruby threw the stick again.
There was a figure walking toward Ruby, coming from the other end of the beach. As the figure came closer, Ruby saw it was a homeless-looking guy. His clothes were dirty rags, and he was barefoot.
“Good afternoon,” he said formally as he came within a few feet of Ruby.
“Hello,” said Ruby.
The man smiled. He had perfect teeth.
“Do you have a cigarette?” he asked.
Ruby fished her pack out from her jeans pocket.
“Here, I don’t need them,” she said, offering the whole pack.
The guy looked surprised then quickly pocketed the pack, secreting it into one of the folds of his clothing.
“Thank you, lady, thank you,” he said. He walked past Ruby.
Above, two gulls hovered, as if dangling from strings a ghost had thrown through the sky.
Ruby found a Fireball in her pocket and popped it into her mouth.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MAGGIE ESTEP is the author of six books and her first crime novel, Hex, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2003. Her writing has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Brooklyn Noir, The Best American Erotica, and Hard Boiled Brooklyn. Maggie is the co-editor of Bloodlines: An Anthology of Horse Racing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
For more information, go to www.maggieestep.com.
ALSO BY MAGGIE ESTEP
Read all of Maggie Estep’s critically acclaimed
R U B Y M U R P H Y M Y S T E R I E S
Ruby Murphy’s life has been flat lately. The Coney Island Museum isn’t doing much business, Ruby’s live-in boyfriend has moved out, and her best friend Oliver is battling cancer.
A chance encounter with a woman on the subway leads to an exciting offer Ruby can’t refuse: Ruby agrees to follow the woman’s boyfriend, Frank, a man who works at Belmont Racetrack and seems to hang out in odd places with bad company. Ruby soon finds herself pushed headfirst into horse racing’s seamy underbelly, a dangerous world where nothing is as it appears, and survival seems like a long shot.
ALSO BY MAGGIE ESTEP
Read all of Maggie Estep’s critically acclaimed
R U B Y M U R P H Y M Y S T E R I E S
Ruby Murphy is back—back in Coney Island with a bunch of endearing misfits, back at the racetrack ogling thoroughbreds—and her life is nothing if not complicated. She has plenty to worry about: a jockey named Attila Johnson; a good-hearted Teamster with a bad back; a neighbor who is suspicious of anything that moves; one very fat cat who craves raw meat; a missing FBI agent; a few fine horses; and the sure knowledge that a killer is lurking.
Copyright © 2006 by Maggie Estep
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Estep, Maggie.
Flamethrower: a Ruby Murphy mystery / Maggie Estep.— 1st ed.
(alk. paper)
1. Women detectives—New York (State)—New York—Fiction.
2. Coney Island (New York, N.Y)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3555.S754F63 2006
813’.54—dc22 2006003885
eISBN: 978-0-307-52381-5
v3.0
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1 - Leg
Chapter 2 - Fireball
Chapter 3 - Help
Chapter 4 - Heights
Chapter 5 - Magic
Chapter 6 - Unfit
Chapter 7 - Rats
Chapter 8 - Wrong
Chapter 9 - Sawbones
Chapter 10 - Machinery
Chapter 11 - Falling
Chapter 12 - Game
Chapter 13 - Fire
Chapter 14 - Trip
Chapter 15 - Spike
Chapter 16 - Shot
Chapter 17 - Stalked
Chapter 18 - Lost
Chapter 19 - Flamethrower
Chapter 20 - Paradise
About the Author
Other Books by This Author
Copyright