“She’s a slut. At this very moment she’s probably fucking some stableboy. She always does, before she races.”
“Why?”
“Because she says she can feel the horse better afterwards. You know how Formula 1 drivers feel with their buttocks how well the car is performing? Beatrice can feel how well the horse is performing with her—”
“Okay, okay, I get it.”
They filled out their checks at a small, unoccupied table.
“You wait for me here,” said Ingrid.
“No, please. I’ll go,” said Montalbano.
“Look, there’s a queue. If I go, they’ll let me cut in front of the others.”
Not knowing what to do, he approached one of the buffet tables. All that there had been to eat had been dispatched. Nobles, perhaps, but famished as a tribe from Burundi after a drought.
“Would you like something?” a waiter asked him.
“Yes, a J&B, neat.”
“There’s no more whisky, sir.”
He absolutely had to drink something if he was ever going to revive.
“Then a Cognac.”
“The Cognac’s finished, too.”
“Have you any alcohol left?”
“No, sir. All that’s left is orangeade and Coca-Cola.”
“An orangeade,” he said, sinking into depression before he’d even had a sip.
Ingrid came running up with two receipts in her hand, as the baron sounded the second cavalry charge.
“Come, let’s go. The baron is calling us all to the hippodrome.”
And she handed him his receipt.
The hippodrome was small and rather simple. It consisted of a large, circular track surrounded on either side by a low fence of interwoven branches.
There were also two wooden turrets with nobody in them yet.The starting gates, of which there were six, stood in a row behind the track, still empty. Guests were allowed to stand around the track.
“Let’s stay here,” said Ingrid. “We’re near the finishing post.”
They leaned against the fence. A short distance away, there was a white stripe on the ground, which must have been the finish line. Just above it, on the inside of the track, stood one of the turrets, probably reserved for the judges of the race.
Atop the other turret, the Baron Piscopo suddenly appeared, microphone in hand.
“Your attention, please! The line judges, Conte Emanuele della Tenaglia, Colonel Rolando Romeres, and the Marchese Severino di San Severino, are invited to take their places in the turret!”
Easier said than done. One reached the platform of the turret by way of a small, rather cramped wooden staircase. Considering that the youngest of the three, the marchese, weighed at least two hundred and seventy pounds, that the colonel was about eighty and had the shakes, and that the count had a stiff left leg, the fifteen minutes it took them to get to the top must have been some kind of record.
“Once it took them forty-five minutes to get up there,” said Ingrid.
“Is it always the same three?”
“Yes. By tradition.”
“Your attention, please! Will the competing ladies please go with their horses to their assigned starting cages!”
“How are the cages assigned?” asked Montalbano.
“They draw lots.”
“How come there’s no sign of Lo Duca?”
“He’s probably with Rachele. The horse she’s racing today is one of his.”
“Do you know which cage she’s got?”
“The first one, the one closest to the inside track.”
“And it could not have been otherwise!” commented a guy who had overheard their conversation, as he was standing just to the left of Montalbano.
The inspector turned to face him.The man was about fifty and sweaty, and had a head so bald and shiny that it hurt the eyes to look at it.
“What do you mean to say?”
“Exactly what I said. With Guido Costa in charge of it, they have the gall to call it a lottery!” said the sweaty man, indignant, before walking away.
“Have you any idea what he was talking about?” he asked Ingrid.
“Of course! The usual nasty gossip! Since Guido is in charge of the lots, the man was claiming that the lottery was rigged in Rachele’s favor.”
“So this Guido would be—”
“Yes.”
So, in that social circle, it was well known that there was something between the two.
“How many laps do they run?”
“Five.”
“Your attention, please! As of this moment, the starter may give the starting signal whenever he sees fit.”
Less than a minute passed before a pistol shot rang out.
“And they’re off !”
Montalbano was expecting the baron to act as the announcer and narrate the race, but Piscopo di Militello fell silent, set down the microphone, and picked up a pair of binoculars.
At the end of the first lap, Rachele was in third place.
“Who are the two in the lead?”
“Benedetta and Beatrice.”
“Think Rachele will make it?”
“It’s hard to say.With a horse she doesn’t know . . .”
Then they heard a great roar, and on the far side of the track there was a great commotion and a lot of people running.
“Beatrice has fallen,” said Ingrid. Then she added, maliciously, “Maybe she didn’t put herself in the right condition to feel the horse properly.”
“
After the second lap, Benedetta was still in the lead, though followed closely by a rider the inspector didn’t recognize.
“Who’s she?” he asked.
“Veronica del Bosco, who shouldn’t be any problem for Rachele.”
“But why hasn’t Rachele taken advantage of the fall?”
“No idea.”
As they began the final lap, Rachele moved up into second place. For about fifty yards she engaged in a tight, rousing head-to-head dash with Benedetta, as the crowd seemed to go completely mad with shouting. Even Montalbano found himself yelling:
“Come on, Rachele! Come on!”
Then, about thirty yards from the finish line, Benedetta’s horse seemed to grow ten extra legs, and there wasn’t much Rachele could do about it.
“Too bad!” said Ingrid. “If she’d had her own horse, she would surely have won. Are you sorry?”
“Well, a little.”
“Mostly because you won’t be kissed by Rachele, right?”
“So what do we do now?”
“Now the baron is going to read the results.”
