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.