Flamethrower

by Maggie Estep

  “You fucked up my life.”

  “All I did was tell someone else about some of the things you were doing.”

  “It wasn’t any of your business. Now you know what it’s like having someone meddle in your business, don’t you? It’s not that pleasant, is it? You feel like you’re going to snap, right?”

  “How did you find me here?” Ruby felt she might be pressing her luck with the twenty-questions routine, but she needed all the facts.

  “The wonders of modern technology. GPS tracking system. Slapped one on that pretty little Mustang of yours.”

  By now, two more cops had crammed into the security office, and one of them, a detective, stepped in.

  “All right, miss, so this is the guy?”

  “Yeah,” Ruby nodded. She felt numb and sick.

  “Go on outside. I’ll finish up here and tell them what we know about Frank,” Ed said, gently guiding Ruby and Spike to the door.

  “Okay,” Ruby nodded.

  Outside, she leaned back against the wall of the office, then slowly sank down to the ground. Spike licked her cheek.

  BY THE TIME ED walked Ruby back to Nancy Cooley’s shed row, where he’d parked his car, the fire had been brought under control, and the firefighters were slowly pulling back the charred pieces of bungalow. As Ruby stood there, gaping, she saw a leg, disembodied and blackened. Ruby thought it a particularly sick irony that the last thing she should see of her psychiatrist was a leg, detached from the body it had once supported.

  Ruby vomited again.

  “Come on, you don’t need to see this,” Ed said. Nancy Cooley had appeared and now ushered Ruby, Ed, and Spike into her barn office.

  “Sit,” Nancy said solicitously.

  Ruby let herself collapse backwards onto a chair.

  RUBY DECIDED SHE would make Ed jump through quite a few hoops before she’d forgive him, but he did make her life a whole lot easier over the next few hours. He could talk the talk with all the law enforcement officials, and he monitored the people questioning Ruby.

  Ruby had just finished giving her statement to yet another official and was alone in Nancy’s office when her cell phone rang, the ominous unidentified caller showing up on the screen. She guessed it was Tobias. She braced herself.

  “Yes?”

  “Hello, Ruby,” Tobias said.

  “Jody is dead.” Ruby came right out with it.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your wife died in a fire.” Ruby didn’t see what use it would be prettying up an ugly fact.

  There was a long, awful silence.

  “How?” he finally asked.

  “It’s partially my fault. I was being stalked. My stalker set the bungalow on fire,” Ruby said.

  “Bungalow?”

  “Where Jody was staying. I was in there talking to her. The guy set the place on fire.”

  Ruby was having trouble making complete sentences. She stuttered out the rest of it. How she couldn’t get Jody to leave the bungalow. How the roof collapsed. She left out the part about the leg.

  “She thought she looked bad.” Ruby couldn’t get this out of her head. How Jody apparently had died because she didn’t want the world to see her looking like shit. “She wanted to brush her hair or something.”

  Tobias kept falling into long silences, and Ruby would gently remind him she was there, at the other end of the line.

  “What did you tell the police about me?” he eventually asked in a small, resigned-sounding voice.

  “I gave them your home phone number since you’re next of kin.”

  “You didn’t tell them?”

  “That you were trying to extort your wife for money? No. I didn’t see the point. She’s dead. You lost a leg. That has to be enough.”

  “The cops won’t be looking for me?”

  “Only to notify you about your wife.”

  There was another long silence.

  “I have to go now,” Ruby said.

  “Yes,” Tobias said. “All right.”

  Ruby squeezed her puppy to her chest. He licked her chin.

  20. PARADISE

  It was hot for mid-September, the mercury tickling 95 and a huge low-slung sun casting haze over Belmont.

  Ruby locked herself inside Violet’s office so she could change her clothes in privacy. Spike jumped onto the ancient office couch, spun around in two circles, then plopped down and closed his eyes, immediately falling asleep. Ruby envied him.

  She took the crazy pink and white seersucker dress out of the suit bag. She’d bought it a week earlier on a shopping expedition with Jane, who’d finally come back from India. They’d had a restorative afternoon together, spending money on frivolous items and cheering each other up. Jane was recovering from hideous intestinal parasites she’d gotten in India, and Ruby was taking baby steps toward feeling less skittish and haunted. Buying the absurd pink and white dress helped. Only now she had to wear the damned thing. Juan the Bullet was making his debut in a little more than an hour, and Ruby had to sit in a box with the owners. She had to look festive.

  There was a knock at the door, and Ruby’s heart missed a few beats. She was still nervous all the time, jumping at the slightest sound. She figured it would be like this for a while.

  “Ruby?” It was Violet.

  “Just a minute.” Ruby zipped up the dress. She’d had to change in Violet’s office since Ed had banished her while he got Juan the Bullet ready—banished her gently and apologetically the way he did most things with her lately, but banished.

  Ruby opened the door to let Violet in.

  “Oh!” Violet seemed genuinely shocked. “You look fantastic!”

  “I don’t look like a drag queen?”

  “Stop being ridiculous.”

  “Okay,” Ruby shrugged.

  “They’re here again,” Violet said, lowering her voice.

  “Who?”

  “Tobias and Miller.”

  “Oh,” said Ruby.

  In some convoluted version of Stockholm syndrome, Tobias and his kidnapper, Elvin Miller, had become bizarrely inseparable. Tobias didn’t have any business at the track, but a few days after Jody’s death he started turning up at Violet’s barn to stare forlornly at the horses he didn’t own. Violet didn’t have the heart to ban Tobias, but having him around made her nervous. What’s more, Miller, whose job it was to navigate the wheelchair through thoroughly inaccessible areas of the back-stretch, was a reckless driver and sometimes spooked the horses.

  “Will you say hello? Tell them Juan the Bullet is racing?”

  “Won’t that make Tobias feel shittier?” Ruby asked.

  “I think it would cheer him up.”

  “Okay,” Ruby shrugged again.

  “I’ll see you in the clubhouse later?”

  Ruby nodded. She snapped Spike’s lead onto his collar then walked out into the barn aisle, taking care not to step in a puddle with her new bright green sandals, repeatedly chiding Spike, who kept trying to make a beeline for the manure pile.

  As she came around the corner at the end of the barn, Ruby nearly collided with Tobias’s wheelchair.

  “Sorry, Ruby,” Tobias said. “My driver is drunk.” He motioned at Miller, who looked glum but not drunk. Tobias had been given a prosthesis, but he seemed to prefer having Miller wheel him around.

  “Good luck with Juan the Bullet,” Tobias said.

  “Oh, you know?”

  “Part of why we’re here. Wanted to watch the race live.” He looked slightly sad saying it. Fearless Jones, whose new owners had put him with a trainer in California, had sustained a career-ending ligament injury. He would recover but would never race again. There wouldn’t be any bittersweet thrills for Tobias watching the horse he’d lost turn into a stakes winner.

  “Good luck,” Tobias said, “and tell Ed good luck too.”

  “Thanks,” said Ruby. “Nice to see you,” she added, even though she wasn’t sure it was.

  As she watched Miller wheeling To
bias away, Ruby wondered what Jody would think of her husband now. Ruby thought about Jody at least once a day, had added the psychiatrist to the repertoire of dead people she sometimes imagined were watching her. It was harrowing but better, she supposed, than not thinking about it at all and internalizing it till it turned into a neurosis that one day would come screaming out at the wrong time.

  Ruby walked back over to Ed’s barn to lock Spike in the office until after Juan’s race. The puppy stared at her long and hard then rested his head on his paws and sighed.

  Ruby didn’t run into Ed, who was probably at the security barn with Juan. She made her way to the clubhouse to look for the owners.

  THE HEAT HADN’T kept the fans away. Belmont was unusually crowded for a Friday in fall. There were women in hats, aging patriarchs in navy blue suits, girls in skimpy outfits, and, here and there, bedraggled degenerate gambler types grumbling about the heat and the crowd.

  It was fifteen minutes to post time, and Ruby was standing with Juan the Bullet’s owners, Lisa and Mary Tyson. Ruby’s dress was itchy, and her shoes pinched her feet as she stood inside the leafy Belmont paddock. Juan was in his saddling stall, shaking his head as Ed put the saddle on and Nicky tightened the girth.

  The paddock judge called “Riders up,” and Nicky led Juan the Bullet from his saddling stall. Ed gave the rider, Freddy Frio, a leg up.

  “Oh, he’s so beautiful,” Lisa said softly.

  “Yes,” Ruby agreed, “he is.” She was admiring Ed as much as the horse though. Ed looked particularly good to her right then. In the month since Jody’s death, Ed had cooked dinner repeatedly, bought at least six dozen roses, and frequently thrown Ruby down on the bed for the kind of impromptu frenzied screwing she liked best. So Ed looked good. But the horse did too. Juan was still pigeon-toed and a little under-weight, but, at that moment, under the giant sun, with his tack gleaming and his tiny rider astride, Juan the Bullet was magnificent.

  As the horses were led to the track to meet up with their ponies, Ed came over to attempt to exude confidence for Mary and Lisa’s benefit. Ruby knew it wasn’t entirely an act. He believed Juan the Bullet had a much better chance than his 34-1 odds might indicate.

  “I’ll be watching from the rail,” Ed told the two women. He’d already warned them he’d be too agitated to sit in their box. It was Ruby’s job to make sure Mary and Lisa were comfortable and entertained.

  “See you in the winner’s circle.” Mary winked at Ed.

  Ed offered a weak smile.

  While Lisa went to sit in the box, Mary and Ruby headed for the betting lines. Ruby was in line right behind Mary and heard the woman putting a thousand dollars to win on Juan. Ruby didn’t want to risk the racing gods’ wrath by making an enormous bet on her boyfriend’s horse. She kept it to twenty dollars to win.

  Ruby tried to relax as she settled into her seat next to Lisa, but her stomach was knotted and she felt like her eyes were bulging out of her head. She noticed that Mary and Lisa had a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket. She sincerely hoped they’d have a reason to pop it.

  Out on the track, Juan was on his toes, ears flicking slightly in response to his rider’s hands. While the other two-year-olds nervously danced and crow-hopped, Juan arched his neck and focused. He looked like a pro. His chestnut coat gleamed red under the sun, and for a second, Ruby flashed on Jody’s vividly red hair. It would be a long time before she stopped seeing that awful picture of her psychiatrist’s charred, disembodied leg. But at least Ruby had stopped seeing Attila’s lifeless head, his blood staining her fingers. That, she had come to terms with. Finally.

  Ruby’s stomach flipped as the horses loaded into the starting gate. Juan went in and stood solidly on all fours with his ears pricked forward.

  The bell rang, the gates opened, and nine maiden colts and geldings popped out. Juan the Bullet broke well and shot to the lead. His strides were short but machine-gun quick. He opened a two-length lead on the others. Ruby felt her stomach twist up even more. The race was only seven-eighths of a mile, and front-runners won those often enough, but Ruby would have preferred to see the little chestnut tucked into second or third, stalking the pace. The jockey was skiing in the irons, trying to hold Juan back, but it wasn’t doing much good. Juan wasn’t rank per se, he had his ears forward and looked very cheerful, but he was insisting on having it all his way.

  Though the horses behind him kept shifting positions and taking turns coming up to Juan the Bullet’s hind end, it looked as though Juan was on his own magic carpet. No one seemed to be able to get all the way up to threaten him.

  As they came around the turn, Ruby watched the rider finally give Juan the Bullet his head. The little colt put his ears forward and surged. At the same time, the number-five horse, a big bay, broke away from the pack and came neck and neck with Juan. Ruby watched Juan pin his ears, threatening his opponent. The jockey showed Juan the whip but didn’t touch him with it. Juan surged monstrously and, in a few seconds, had three lengths on the bay. Ruby held her breath. There was only an eighth of a mile to go, but she’d seen it time and again: tiring front-runners looking for a place to lie down as the closers came on to collect the pieces.

  She needn’t have worried. Juan the Bullet expanded his lead by another length and cruised home by daylight. His ears were forward.

  Ruby’s legs had stopped working, and she had to sit down. She couldn’t feel her extremities. Next thing she knew, Lisa was grabbing hold of her, pulling her to her feet and down the stairs toward the winner’s circle. There was a blur of smiling faces, and then Ed was hugging Ruby and saying, “We did it! We did it!”

  Nicky the groom was grinning broadly, and Violet, who had suddenly materialized, was kissing everyone, including Mary and Lisa. Only Juan the Bullet stood primly still, his head held high, almost disdainful as the track photographer documented the happy event. Lisa and Mary took turns kissing their horse’s nose before Nicky led him out of the winner’s circle and back toward the barn.

  “Come to the box to celebrate.” Mary gestured to include Ed, Ruby, and Violet.

  Mary popped the champagne, and diminutive Lisa lit a big cigar. Violet, who, as far as Ruby knew, had met Mary and Lisa only once, had her arm looped through Mary’s and was regaling the strapping blonde with the story of one of her horses who manured in his water bucket when something displeased him.

  By her third glass of champagne, Lisa had befriended a pair of brunettes in the next box over. The ladies were all working on another bottle of champagne when Ed and Ruby left them.

  “They’re happy,” Ed commented as he and Ruby headed back to the stable area.

  “Deliriously,” Ruby said. She was walking gingerly so as not to stain the sandals that were killing her feet.

  “And you?” Ed said.

  “And me what?”

  “Are you happy? Delirious? We never talk about it. About your state of mind.”

  This was true. Ruby never mentioned the aftermath of having been stalked or of feeling responsible for not dragging Jody out of the bungalow.

  “Oh,” Ruby said, “I’m fine. Frank’s not getting out for the next few decades.”

  “I meant Jody. You don’t still feel responsible, do you?”

  “No, I’m all right with it. I’m fine,” Ruby said, even though this wasn’t entirely true.

  “What does ‘fine’ mean in this instance?”

  “It means fine. I’m glad you and I are good, and I’m glad to have my job back. But I do feel fucked up about Jody’s death. Like that.”

  “That’s what I mean. You feel fucked up. Are you going to be all right?”

  “Do you mean should I go see a psychiatrist to deal with my own psychiatrist having let herself burn to death? No. Probably not.” Ruby felt her shoulders tense.

  Ed smiled slightly. “Okay, okay. Don’t get worked up.”

  “I’m not,” Ruby shrugged. They’d reached Ed’s shed row, and Ruby couldn’t wait to liberate Spike from the office.r />
  “You’re going to The Hole now?”

  “In a minute, yeah. I’m gonna change clothes and get Spike. Then go.”

  Ed put his hands on her hips and looked down into her, deep into her.

  “You okay?”

  “Not bad.”

  “I got you something.”

  “Something?”

  “A present.”

  “Really?”

  Ed walked down the aisle a few paces and opened one of the tack trunks there.

  “Here,” he said, handing Ruby a cloth sack.

  “What is it?”

  “Look inside and see.”

  Ruby opened the sack and pulled out two beautiful pieces of leather. There was a collar with a brass plaque reading SPIKE and a lovely leash as well.

  “These are beautiful!” Ruby practically screamed.

  “Had the bridle maker make them,” Ed said, “that guy down in Maryland. Spike will look good in that.”

  Ruby thought fleetingly of the vegan Goth girl at the pet store in Trout Falls and repressed a smile. “Thank you, Ed, thank you.” She reached up, pulled his head closer, and kissed him vigorously.

  He dug his fingers into the small of her back.

  “I’ll see you at home,” Ruby said.

  She felt his eyes on her ass as she walked over to the office door.

  Spike jumped off the couch and wiggled. He was going at it so hard it was a struggle putting his new collar on. Once Ruby did get the collar on though, it was a thing of beauty. Spike looked like a million bucks. Ruby picked him up, which wasn’t easy. He was pushing fifty pounds now. She let him lick her cheek then put him down and closed the office door so she could change into barn clothes. Spike started bouncing off the walls, jumping onto the couch then off again, looking at Ruby and making little whining noises in his throat in case she had any doubts about his needing a good long romp.

  Ruby took her hair down and looked at herself in the tiny mirror hanging to the right of Ed’s desk. The facial bruising was long gone, but there were dark circles under her eyes, and her face was narrow and pale. Ruby had never been a rosy-cheeked corn-fed type, but right now she looked nearly cadaverous. She really hadn’t been eating, riding her bike, or doing much yoga. The only time she moved her body was when she hoisted herself up onto Jack Valentine’s back every few days to trot around the paddock. She wondered how long she’d looked like this and why no one had said anything.