an hour, with the bone chips either removed or screwed into place. Then they rolled the leg up and moved her out of the OR and into a pool so she wouldn’t break another leg coming out of sedation.
He stayed until she was awake and then followed the vet out into the hall.
“Her vitals are good and the operation went well,” the vet said, “but the former can change quick. And it’s going to take time until we know what we’ve got.”
Shit. That little speech was exactly what he said to next-of-kins and other relatives when it was time for folks to go home and rest up and wait to see how a patient’s postop went.
“We’ll call you,” the vet said. “With updates.”
Manny snapped off his gloves and took out his business card. “In case you don’t have it in her records.”
“We’ve got it.” The guy took the thing anyway. “If anything changes, you’ll be the first to know, and I’ll update you personally every twelve hours when I do rounds.”
Manny nodded and stuck out his hand. “Thank you. For taking care of her.”
“You’re welcome.”
After they shook, Manny nodded back at the double doors. “Mind if I give her a see-ya-later?”
“Please.”
Back inside, he took a moment with his filly. God . . . this hurt.
“You hang on, there, girlie.” He had to whisper because he couldn’t seem to draw a full breath.
When he straightened, the staff were staring at him with a sadness he knew was going to stick with him.
“We’ll take excellent care of her,” the vet said gravely.
He believed they would, and that was the only thing that got him back into the hall.
Tricounty’s facilities were extensive, and it took him a while to change and then find his way out to where he’d parked by the front door. Up ahead, the sun had set, a rapidly fading peach glow lighting up the sky as if Manhattan were smoldering. The air was cool, but fragrant from spring’s early efforts to bring life to winter’s barren landscape, and he took so many deep breaths he got light-headed.
God, time had been running at a blur, but now, as the minutes drooled by, clearly the frantic pace had exhausted its energy source. Either that or it had slammed into a brick wall and passed the fuck out.
As he palmed up his car key, he felt older than God. His head was thumping and his arthritic hip was killing him, that flat-out race over the track to Glory’s side way more than the damn thing could handle.
This was so not how he’d envisioned this day ending. He’d assumed he’d be buying drinks for the owners he’d beaten . . . and maybe in the flush of victory taking Ms. Hanson up on her generous oral suggestion.
Getting into his Porsche, he started the engine. Caldwell was about forty-five minutes north of Queens, and his car could practically drive the trip back to the Commodore itself. Good thing, too, because he was a goddamn zombie.
No radio. No iPod music. No phoning people, either.
As he got on the Northway, he just stared at the road ahead and fought the urge to turn around and . . . yeah, and do what? Sleep next to his horse?
The thing was, if he could manage to get home in one piece, help was on the way. He had a fresh bottle of Lagavulin waiting for him, and he might or might not slow down to use a glass: As far as the hospital was concerned, he was off until Monday a.m. at six o’clock, and he had plans to get drunk and stay that way.
Taking the leather-wrapped wheel with one hand, he burrowed into his silk shirt to find his Jesus piece. Gripping the gold cross, he sent up a prayer.
God . . . please let her be okay.
He couldn’t stand losing another one of his girls. Not so soon. Jane Whitcomb had died a whole year ago, but that was just what the calendar told him. In grief time, it had been only about a minute and a half since it had happened.
He didn’t want to go through that again.
FOUR
Downtown Caldwell had a lot of tall, windowed buildings, but there were few like the Commodore. At a good thirty floors in height, it was among the taller in the concrete forest, and the sixty or so condos it housed were Trump-tastic, all marble and nickel-plated chrome and designer-everything.
Up on the twenty-seventh floor, Jane walked around Manny’s condo,