Murder at the Racetrack by Otto Penzler Read Free Book Online

still a fuck-up. Course they were cops. You think you get the big bucks for offing
     some lowlifes? Those guys, they were nosing around where it don’t concern them. I try to do a good thing here, get you out
     of the hole, but gamblers, you wouldn’t recognize a winning bet if it bit you on the ass.”
    The Nine is leveled at me, and the thing is, I don’t feel a thing, maybe sadness, he says,
    “Ah, you could have been a contender, know? But we handed you your ass at Fenway Park and guess what, you’re…”
    He never got to finish. The bedroom door had opened and the girl was out, swung the bottle of Grey Goose at his head. He went
     down like a bad song.
    After I dumped him in the East River, I muttered,
    “You choked, pal, and your horse is disqualified.”
    Back on the Island, the girl has built me another Jim Beam, is running her hand along my thigh and I ask,
    “Why?”
    Her head is nodding again, she’s way into that coke and she whispers,
    “For Ziggy.”
    The riff unreeling in my head…
and where were the spiders?
    I look around the apartment, wondering if I can hold off tomorrow’s runners. I’m feeling lucky, figure I’ll bet the Nine horse
     in the last race.
    I think Lenny would appreciate the irony. I’d stuffed the Nine in his mouth, not an easy fit. Figured it would be the last
     time he pulled it and he sure as hell wouldn’t be running his mouth no more.

ZUPPA INGLESE
    Jan Burke
    E ric Halsted ran a hand over his closely cropped hair, sighed, and shifted in the big leather chair. He was being made to wait,
     and he didn’t like it.
    Over the past weeks, taking over all the loose ends of his late brother’s loosely led life had tried Eric’s patience nearly
     to the limit, and today the delaying tactics of trainer Arnie Shackel just might exceed that limit.
    Eric had spent all of yesterday afternoon and evening, as well as an hour or two this morning, rehearsing exactly what he
     was going to say to Shackel. He would praise the trainer, thank him for his work with Zuppa Inglese, and make it clear to
     him that his services were no longer required. About that time, Shackel would probably do a little arguing, claim he had a
     contract saying he must have a certain amount of notice, but Eric would point out that his attorneys had already provided
     that notice, and mention that certain features of that contract undoubtedly made it null and void in this state.
    Donna Freepoint, the new trainer, had also found the contract to be highly unusual. “Downright odd for there to be one. Weirder
     still for Mark to have signed it,” she had said.
    Why Mark had signed it without first letting one of Eric’s attorneys look it over—as had been Mark’s practice with other business
     deals—was one of a great many questions Eric would ask him if he saw him in the Great Beyond. It would be very far down the
     list on such a quiz.
    Why didn’t you call me, talk to me, tell me how much you were troubled?
That one would be much higher. Far above that would be,
How could you bear to do this to Jimmy?
    The inevitable images, derived from Eric’s imagination and what he had been told about his brother’s death, played through
     his mind, his personal horror film.
    Setting: the rolling hills north of this racetrack. A rural road crests near Shackel Horse Farm.
    Action: Mark stands outside his vintage Corvette on a hill that overlooks the farm, watching the morning workouts through
     binoculars. Perhaps he had wanted to watch Zuppa Inglese run one last time but did not want to interact with the people who
     worked there. Remote, from above.
    Another horse owner is the last person to have seen him alive.
{Was she?
His mind never wants to let go of this question.) She drives past him, does not stop to say, “Mark, think of the people who
     love you,” “Mark, there is a way through this, let me help you,” or any of the things Eric would have said if he had been
     the one to have a last chance to talk