Nice Fillies Finish Last

CHAPTER 8

“That’s slightly obvious, isn’t it?” she said curtly without looking up.

She continued to grind away at the starter. Her voice was clipped and pleasant, without the abrasive quality it had picked up on the way through the amplifier. The resilience of women often surprised Shayne, and this one didn’t look as though she had just come close to being raped by a harness-racing driver in a motel room. She didn’t wear a hat. Her hair, which was ash-blonde, was cut in an intricate and casual style, down almost to her eyes on one side. Her eyes were dark, carefully but not excessively made up. It was a cool, lovely face, with well-marked cheekbones and a proud mouth. Her body was slender. She was wearing a pale rose suit. Like the Mercedes, it had clearly come a long way and cost a good deal.

“Move over,” Shayne said agreeably. “I used to have a Mercedes. I remember you had to catch it just right.”

She gave an explanation of well-bred annoyance. “It always starts.”

She shifted across and Shayne slid behind the wheel. He ground the starter with his foot all the way down, a listening expression on his face. “I doubt if you’re getting any spark.”

He pulled the hood-latch. Getting out, he raised the hood, which concealed him from the woman in the front seat. He took off the distributor cap and dropped in the rotor, closed the hood and returned to the wheel. This time, of course, the motor started instantly.

“Magic!” she exclaimed. “I had visions of tow-trucks and baffled mechanics and standing around in garages the rest of the afternoon. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”

“Seems to be OK now,” Shayne said, listening to the quiet purr of the powerful motor, “but let it idle for a minute. We’ve met, haven’t we? Don’t you have something to do with the harness track over here?”

“I watch the races occasionally.” She gave her watch a covert glance. “It seems to be running beautifully. Again, I certainly do thank you.”

“I can’t remember who introduced us,” Shayne went on. “I thought they said you had your own stable. What I was thinking-if you’d called a garage, they would have charged you twenty-five bucks or so to answer the phone. And how many mechanics around here have ever looked under the hood of a Mercedes? They have a hard enough time keeping up with Ford and General Motors.”

She reached for her bag. “Forgive me. I didn’t-”

“No!” Shayne said hastily. “That’s not what I meant. I have a soft spot in my heart for anybody who owns a Mercedes, and I wouldn’t take any money for a favor like this. But I just can’t seem to pick a winner at Surf-side. My wife has been giving me a hard time. The minute I recognized you-I still can’t think of your name, but it’s on the tip of my tongue-I thought maybe you had a horse you can give me.”

She considered a moment. “I don’t know what harm it would do.” She looked at her watch again, openly this time. “You might take a small flier on My Treat, in the ninth.”

Shayne’s eyes opened. “In the ninth! Listen, thanks for the tip, I appreciate it, but whenever I hear about anything good in a twin-double race, it starts me going on a pet project of mine. I know you’re in a hurry, but give me a minute. I’ve worked it all out. If you only had one other winner- one other winner — in the other three races, you could clean up. I’ll explain it to you. You wheel your horses with all sixteen entries in the other two races, at a cost of a hundred and twenty-eight bucks. And the point is, you don’t drive down the odds! That’s the beauty of it.”

He was trying to unsettle her, and to judge by the look on her face, he had succeeded. At that moment the phone rang stridently in his Buick. It was an unexpected sound, coming from a parked car, and her hand jerked.

“That’s the call I’ve been waiting for,” Shayne said. “I want to tell you more about this twin-double idea. It’s sensational.”

He turned off the ignition and took the key with him. Leaving both front doors open, in the Mercedes and his own car, he answered his phone.

“Mike,” Rourke’s voice said when Shayne said hello. “Can you talk?”

“Briefly.”

“That license number you gave me. I had Lucy do the phoning on it while I checked the billiard parlor. It’s registered to Mrs. Claire Domaine.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“Now we’re beginning to move, right? I’ve got to get out of this goddamn hospital before you wrap it all up by yourself. The billiard parlor. Guys and Dolls-what a corny name. It’s all prettied up, they tell me, bright lights, coke machines, no spittoons, so they can get the local family business away from the bowling alleys. Pretty soon there won’t be a place left where a guy can go to get away from women. The thing about it, the manager still does some loan-sharking on the side. His name’s Pudge Temkin, or Tomkin, if it matters. Now am I allowed three guesses?”

“One should be enough, Tim.”

“OK. Is Paul Thorne borrowing betting money for tonight and paying Shylock interest on it?”

“That’s the way it looks.”

“Then why don’t we spoil his bet for him and get him into real trouble? After all the blood I’ve lost, I have no charitable feelings about the guy. Mike, they’re giving me some crap about changing the dressings and keeping me for observation. Can you come over and serve them with a habeas corpus or something so they’ll let me out? I’ve got something I want to tell you. Thorne’s wife made some kind of crack about Paul and a nurse’s aide. The ball was going back and forth pretty fast right then, and I didn’t get much of it. But my friend Miss Mallinson, the cute nurse I told you about, sneaked me out the list of women who do volunteer duty here-Uh-oh,” he said abruptly. “I’ve got to hang up. Head nurse. She thinks I ought to be more helpless.”

Shayne put the phone down thoughtfully and returned to the Mercedes. While he was talking to Tim, the woman had slid back behind the wheel.

“I’m terribly, terribly late,” she said pleasantly. “And I’m afraid I haven’t time to discuss your betting system. If I may have the key?”

Shayne went around and got in beside her. “I’ll give it to you in a minute. First I’d like to ask for a little cooperation. My name’s Mike Shayne.”

She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “Cooperation?”

“You’ve probably gathered that I’m interested in the twin-double operation you have underway, and I’d like you to tell me how many people are mixed up in it besides you and Paul Thorne.”

She laughed lightly. “I think you’re out of your mind.”

“I’ll give you a piece of advice,” Shayne said wearily. “When you use a motel for a meeting place, don’t go in your own car. If you do, don’t put your own license number on the registration card. They never bother to check. Now let’s talk about horses, Mrs. Domaine. What about My Treat, the one you just gave me? What do you guess the opening odds are likely to be?”

“Twenty to one at least. Your name’s Shayne? It’s a good tip, Mr. Shayne. A three-year-old mare, and not many people know how much she’s improved lately. The driver will be offered a bonus for a win. I don’t know what your object is, but be satisfied with that much. If you’re too greedy, you may end up with nothing at all.”

“You don’t realize how vulnerable this is,” Shayne said patiently. “A professional handicapper was told there might be something fishy about the last four races tonight. He looked at the horses and drivers, and the name of Paul Thorne jumped out at him. Half an hour ago Thorne borrowed a sum of money from a Lauderdale loan shark, before meeting you at a motel. None of this is hard to figure. It must mean he’s pretty confident you have a winning combination.”

She leaned forward, and for the first time Shayne felt that he had her attention. “From a loan shark? You mean one of those people-”

“Yeah,” Shayne said. “Twenty percent a week, and if you can’t make the payments, two or three thugs come to see you with baseball bats. One of those people.”

“You followed him?”

“A red convertible with the top down is easy to follow.”

She went on drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. “Exactly what are you proposing?”

“I want to know the names of all the horses, all the drivers, how much money is tied up in it, and the terms of the split. I have enough of a handle now so I think you have to tell me. I can go to the racing secretary with what I have-the loan-shark transaction by itself might be enough-and he can either scratch a few horses, beginning with all of yours and Thorne’s, and give Thorne a twenty-four-hour suspension. Or he can let it go ahead and, after it’s over, give every horse a thorough going-over, and look hard at all the people who show up at the mutuels office with winning twin-double tickets. That way he may be able to come up with some permanent suspensions and maybe a criminal prosecution.”

She sighed. “Perhaps we’d better take you in, Mr. Shayne, but you’ll have to be satisfied with a single ticket. At a guess, it might bring you in about four thousand dollars, if everything goes according to plan.”

“How many people would have to approve it?” Shayne said. “You can use the phone in my car.”

“I wouldn’t dream of using the phone in your car,” she said. “Give me an hour or two, tell me where I can reach you, and I’ll phone you the combination we recommend.”

“That’s not enough,” Shayne said stubbornly. “How could I be sure it was the real combination? I want some facts I can check.”

She shook her head firmly. “No, that would be unwise. You’ll have to take a chance, along with the rest of us. I can’t guarantee anything. I really don’t think you’ll go to the racing secretary and talk yourself out of four thousand dollars. I have to go now. Give me your phone number.”

Shayne weighed the ignition key in one hand. “Do you know a stableman named Joey Dolan, Mrs. Domaine?”

“Yes. We’re good friends.”

“Has anybody told you he’s dead?”

That jarred her. Shayne had broken news of this kind to enough people over the years so he could be fairly sure that her surprise and shock were real. She pressed her knuckles against her mouth and shook her head slowly. “Oh, God. When?”

“He was found in a doorway in Miami this morning. They did an autopsy on him. He’d been drinking wood alcohol.”

“Joey wouldn’t drink wood alcohol!” she said sharply. “I saw him last night when he came in from walking one of our horses. He was the same as he always was. Exactly the same.” She checked herself abruptly. “Are you a policeman?”

“I’m a private detective,” Shayne said.

“Oh, that Mike Shayne. I would have expected you to be more-” She checked herself again. “Did you know Joey?”

“A friend of mine did, and he doesn’t believe Joey would drink wood alcohol either, unless somebody who knew him laced his bottle of sherry. We think Joey found out about this twin-double swindle, but why that meant he had to be killed we don’t know. It would have been simpler to buy him off with a winning ticket. Any comment, Mrs. Domaine?”

She breathed in and out slowly, her eyes moving. “I think I’ll stop talking now, if it’s not already too late. You’re a clever man, Mr. Shayne. Please get out.”

Shayne reached over to the steering post and inserted the ignition key. “I’d like to think of a way to put some pressure on you. Does your husband know about this motel setup?”

“You’ll have to ask him.”

“I suppose that means he does know. Give me time, I’ll think of something else.”

He went back to his Buick. Mrs. Domaine looked across at him through the lowered window, her eyes unfriendly.

“Did you sabotage my motor so it wouldn’t start?”

“What do you think?”

She turned the key, came back with a jerk, reversed and joined the stream of traffic heading for Fort Lauderdale. Shayne considered his next move briefly. He didn’t like the way this was developing.

He backed out, waited for an opening, and made the turn. The first thing he had to do was confer with Rourke. He felt for a cigarette. He was caught behind a long trailer that was trundling its cargo of refrigerated meat southward at the steady speed of thirty miles an hour. As soon as he saw a chance to pass, he swung over into the left-hand lane, accelerating sharply. Another car, he saw in the mirror, was making the move behind him. A light sports car approached rapidly from the opposite direction, at a speed well over the limit. Shayne would have time to get back, but he could already see that the car on his tail would be cutting it close.

He put the pedal all the way down. The powerful Buick overtook the truck and swerved back across the double line. He kept the pedal down, to leave a large enough gap for the second car, a black four-door sedan. The damn fool was still coming, he saw, trying to pass them both.

Shayne touched his brakes lightly, to alert the truck driver. His unconscious mind was figuring an equation involving his own car and three others, moving at various rates of speed, and he didn’t like the answer he was getting. The sedan pulled even. He glanced at the driver, who had a grizzled head, a weather-beaten face and an excited expression. Shayne came down hard on his brake. He had to slow down fast, to let the sedan in, but if he slowed down too fast, he was sure to be rammed by the truck. The interval between Shayne’s Buick and the truck narrowed, then held. For an instant he thought his calculation had worked. But the driver of the sedan cut in too sharply, much too soon. Shayne swerved, scraped past one utility pole and smashed a fender on the next, and then the truck hit him from behind.

The Buick skidded across the highway, through the retaining cables and dropped heavily down the six-foot embankment to the beach.