A Stone's Throw by James Ziskin (best story books to read .txt) 📗

the jockeys, J. Dornan, caught my eye. That was the rider who’d ruined Fadge’s big play the day before. I searched the program and found his name listed in four of the day’s starts, including the first and second races. I elbowed Fadge and asked him if he’d noticed Johnny Dornan aboard any of the horses. After the second request, he acknowledged me and said no.

I asked a couple of the less-harmless-looking men lurking nearby if they knew, but they were more interested in asking for my phone number than sharing any information. Then another man tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the air. The PA system was echoing through the park, announcing that jockey J. Dornan had been scratched from the day’s races. All of them. When Fadge scurried off to place his bets, I grabbed his Racing Form and searched for any news of the jockey. Maybe he was ill or had been arrested. Who knew? I was hoping for something, anything that might explain his absence. Anything but a fire on a derelict stud farm off a backroad highway in Saratoga County. There was nothing.

It was raining steadily, and my escort was otherwise occupied, so I sat on a bench inside the grandstand. I picked up a discarded copy of the Albany paper, and, curious, I glanced at the previous day’s race results. The last race had indeed been won by Wham’s Dram, with Johnny Dornan aboard. There was no information in the paper about the jockey’s colors, but a photograph showed the smiling rider in diamond silks atop Wham’s Dram in the winner’s circle. Could have been orange and black. I had no reason to doubt Fadge’s expertise when it came to the attire of jockeys. And I had to admit that pattern looked quite similar to the piece of fabric I’d found in the ashes at Tempesta Farm. Impossible to say for sure in black and white, but the likelihood of Johnny Dornan climbing up into the saddle ever again was growing dimmer by the minute.

The rain let up enough that I could enjoy the parade at the paddock with my camera at the ready. I stood on the other side of the rail fence, mere feet away from the horses. Led by grooms around the enclosed circle, the animals passed, steaming in the cool, wet air, and I snapped photos of each. Leisurely, with graceful—almost indolent—strides, the Thoroughbreds sauntered through the mud as a few devotees studied them alongside me. I overheard some conversations and comments, men in drenched sport coats or leisurewear discussing quality and quantity of sweat—who could distinguish sweat from rain?—and temperament as they related to readiness to run. The serious horsemen, however, the ones who projected competence and knowledge, said little or nothing. They simply watched with a steady gaze. Some were well-dressed cosmopolitan types, while others looked like professional gamblers, humble but on top of their game. The rest, the hobbyists, pretenders, and admirers, made glib observations about form, breeding, and personality, as if they had the dope directly from the horses’ mouths.

A couple of ladies in fancy hats to my right admired the beauty of a roan’s coat until the poor horse—being a horse after all—answered nature’s call not ten feet in front of them. They waved their gloved hands in front of their pinched noses and beat a hasty retreat to the clubhouse. Two heavyset men chewing soaking wet cigars pronounced the excretion a sure indication that the horse would fly to victory as a result of his lessened weight. They used a word I don’t favor. Armed with this valuable new intelligence, they sprinted off to the betting window to wager their all on the regular roan. None of the pros seemed excited by what they must have seen thousands of times.

A magnificent, shimmering black beast rounded the turn and edged close to the fence rails where I was leaning with my camera. He threw back his head and snorted. The bit clattered against his teeth, and then he nickered in my general direction. Fixing me with his right eye, the horse made it clear that he was aware of my attentions. More than a hint of self-consciousness. Animals sometimes exhibit shyness, after all. I clicked two frames of his glorious face, and he perked up, as if he knew what a camera was for. Or that he was a handsome boy.

“He says hi, miss,” said the young groom escorting him.

I smiled. “Hello to him. What’s his name?”

“This here’s Purgatorio.”

The horse passed and continued on his leisurely round. Then I noticed his racing colors. Black-and-orange diamonds.

“Excuse me,” I asked, chasing after the groom. “Is he from Harlequin Stables?”

The groom whispered that he wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone while walking the horses. “I shouldn’t have said nothing at all before.”

“Can’t you nod yes or no?”

“Look at your program,” he said out of the side of his mouth.

I shrugged and checked the race card. Purgatorio was indeed an issue of Harlequin Stables.

“You couldn’t have just said yes?” I called to the groom.

He made a great show of acknowledging three men about twenty yards ahead to my right. One was a jockey in black-and-orange-diamond livery. The other two were dressed in street clothes. The man in charge—the one on the receiving end of the others’ deference—was a drooping, gray man in an ill-fitting suit. And though he was heavyset, it appeared he’d recently lost some weight; at least that was the impression given by his luffing trousers, belted high on his belly, and the billowing jacket draped over his narrow shoulders. He looked to be about sixty-five or seventy. The third man in the parley, about twenty years younger than the boss, was dressed modestly in off-the-rack slacks, a light jacket, and a well-worn cap. He stood a step or two back from the jockey and the man in charge without saying a word.

The boss barely acknowledged the groom, and then only with a