Nice Fillies Finish Last (11 page)

“Are the Domaines here?” Shayne said.

“Yes, but you’re going to give me a few minutes first.”

She nodded to a headwaiter, who took them to a small table and removed a RESERVED sign after they sat down.

“A very few minutes,” Shayne said. “Not that you couldn’t tell me quite a bit if you wanted to, but I don’t think you want to.”

“Bourbon on the rocks,” she told the waiter. “Cognac,” the redhead said when the waiter looked at him. “A glass of ice water.”

The clubhouse was extremely crowded and noisy. The patrons here seemed as harassed as those in the grandstand, in spite of being able to pay the added tab and a higher price for their drinks.

“This is no place for confidential murmurs,” Mrs. Moon said, “but lean closer and I’ll tell you something.” She gave him a blinding smile.
“God,
but I like big rangy men. I like other kinds too, though, so don’t take it too personally. Can you hear me?”

“Barely.”

“The ninth race,” she said. “I haven’t been paying attention to this pipe dream of Claire’s, because the odds against hitting the twin double are purely fantastic. It’s hard enough for me to figure one race at a time, let alone four. But there’s so much juice in the air! Everybody’s behaving so abnormally. Larry loaning you his Caddy, for example. That was no light gesture. He won’t even let his wife drive that car.”

The waiter set down their drinks. She started working on hers right away.

“You said you’d try to be here at seven,” she went on. “He’s been on pins and needles ever since, wondering why you didn’t show up. You wouldn’t notice it unless you knew him. He’s smiling more than usual, a lot more. With Larry that’s always a bad sign.”

Shayne was giving her his full attention. “What’s he scared of?”

“If you want me to guess, he’s worrying about Paul Thorne, who’s a hard man to handicap. If you and Thorne should tangle—” She looked speculatively at the breadth of Shayne’s shoulders. “Who would take whom, I wonder? And how many trees would be uprooted?”

“I don’t have much time, Mrs. Moon,” Shayne said impatiently. “Has Domaine given Brossard the plan for the race?”

“I guess. I saw him in the paddock. The thing I wanted to tell you—God knows if there’s anything to it—is that my trainer took me into one of the stalls and told me if I wanted to make some money to put a wad on my own horse in the ninth. Fussbudget, I told you about her. He wouldn’t say why, but he doesn’t go that far as a rule, and he had a smug look around his chops. I told Claire and Larry. There’s still time to call it off, or hedge. They stiffened at first, but then they decided I was kidding, which I’ve been known to do. I’m worried. A lot seems to be riding on this miserable twin. Too much, and I don’t mean money.”

“If you don’t mean money, what do you mean?”

She shrugged helplessly. “I wish I could tell you. Maybe its only a matter of face, or prestige. Maybe Larry didn’t want to let her do it and she made him. Certainly it was a dumb move. There’s more going on in that marriage than meets the eye. They aren’t a relaxed couple at the best of times, but tonight they’re both wound up to the point where, if things don’t go according to schedule—and how often does that happen?—there’s sure to be fireworks. Mike, would you be a good sweet man and tell me what your role is in this?”

“Why should I?”

“I thought you’d say something like that. Well, I may be making a mistake, but what the hell? Claire’s carrying a gun in her bag.”

“Is that so?”

“You think I’m imagining things, do you? I saw it! She knows I’m an old friend of Larry’s, an old and good friend. What if my trainer’s right? What if Fussbudget wins? She’ll think Larry and I arranged it to make her look foolish, and it wouldn’t surprise me if somebody gets shot. I don’t want it to be me, and I don’t want it to be Larry. I’m being melodramatic, but why else would she bring a gun to the races? You tell me.”

“Mrs. Moon, are you having an affair with Paul Thorne?”

Lines like brackets appeared around her mouth. “Exactly what do you mean by that?”

“Does that mean the answer’s no?”

“Damn right the answer’s no! You’d do better to put that question to Claire. I admire the man’s looks, but I would no more let him—Have you ever looked at his fingernails? He has too much of a horse smell for my taste.”

Shayne finished his drink impassively.

She put both hands on the table and said quietly, “All right. But will you please not tell Larry? That was a rather low blow, my friend. I shouldn’t have sounded quite so horrified. It’s nothing important, but if Larry heard about it, it would offend his esthetic taste, as it offends mine, in a way. I’ve been a friend of Larry’s since before he married Claire. As soon as they break up, I intend to take a very cold aim and see if I can bring him down. That’s no secret. I’ve given him fair warning. You can go now. I’ll pay for the drinks.”

“They’re on me,” Shayne said with a grin.

“You could be quite nice if you weren’t such a bastard. I really looked bad on that one, didn’t I?”

The crowd was drifting back from the betting machines. Shayne spotted Domaine, at a circular table with his back to the track, studying a program. Claire, beside him, was smoking one of her little cigars, looking coldly elegant, untouched by the common passion of the people around her. Shayne stood still, which set up a slight eddy. It caught her attention. He moved his head toward the door. She frowned and nodded, then laid her half-smoked cigar in an ashtray and spoke to her husband.

Shayne returned to the betting gallery, which was feverishly lighted by the great neon signs: CASHIERS, SELLERS, $10 COMBINATION, $2 STRAIGHT. Would-be bettors at the ends of the lines ducked from one line to another, trying to find one that was moving fast enough so they could get their money down before the bell clanged. Claire sauntered out after him, not hurrying. Faint lines around her mouth showed her tension.

“Is Tim Rourke all right?” she said urgently. “I called the hospital and they acted very strangely. They said they couldn’t give out any information. Why? What’s happened?”

“They probably couldn’t find him. As a matter of fact, he’s here. He doesn’t feel so hot, but not because of the pills you gave him. Can you get away for awhile?”

“Away?”

“Yeah. I need some help. It’s too complicated to go into. What about the Moon horse in the ninth? Has that made any change in your plans?”

“No. Larry thinks she’s trying to be funny. Paul knows the horse well and says there’s nothing to worry about. How long would I have to be gone?”

“Maybe an hour.”

She thought and nodded. “I’ll tell him I ran into some friends, and they want me to watch the next few races with them. We’re getting on each other’s nerves. I’ve done everything there is to do. Larry’s going to buy the tickets.”

“Is it OK for him to buy them himself?”

“For the first half. Other people are lined up to make the exchange before the eighth and collect when it’s over, if all goes well.” She held up her crossed fingers. “Mike, at dinner all of a sudden Larry started talking about things we did together when we first knew each other. He actually seemed quite sentimental, and I don’t know how to explain it. He’s taken a half-humorous tone with me for a long time, as though I’m a barely competent actress he’s watching on the stage. At one point he took my hand. He doesn’t do that kind of thing when we’re by ourselves, let alone in a public restaurant. Molly Moon turned several different shades of pink. She has designs on my husband, I believe. Probably she’d be a better wife for him than I am. And the really surprising thing—don’t ask me to explain it—is that he’s started worrying about letting me meet Paul alone at the motel after the races for the payoff. Why don’t we put the money in the mail? Well, for one thing it’s riskier. Paul would yell bloody murder if we made a change in plans this late. He’d suspect something.”

“Sure. He’s got that loan shark on his neck. That was probably a twenty-four-hour loan.”

“Larry doesn’t know about that. Why should he suddenly decide that Paul’s too flakey and unpredictable to deal with face to face? It didn’t bother him last night or this afternoon.”

Shayne worried his earlobe. “Let’s see how it develops. Do your best to look casual.”

When they returned to the clubhouse, the horses in the third race were scrambling for positions on the rail at the first turn. Mrs. Moon was back at the bar, working at a new drink. Everybody else was watching the horses, but she watched Shayne, her eyes hard, her mouth unsmiling. Larry Domaine took his binoculars down for an instant to smile at Claire when she slid in beside him. When the race was over, she said something to him and he nodded.

“I got quite a meaningful look from Molly Moon,” Claire told Shayne when she joined him. “She doesn’t like me, I fear. Where are we going?”

“Now don’t jump. To the Golden Crest Motel. I’ll explain on the way.”

They went down the long ramp and along the apron in front of the stands, passing in front of Rourke. Win Thorne was pushing off from the paddock rail as they came past. She looked from Shayne to Claire, who had briefly dazzled her husband in spite of being so thin. She made some comment under her breath.

“I’ll tell you what I’m planning to do,” Shayne said after helping Claire into her husband’s Cadillac. “It won’t work if Domaine insists on making the payoff by mail, but let’s go ahead with it anyway. You may have to tell him there’s a loan shark involved, and Paul’s insisting on getting the money tonight. I’ve still got a key to room 17. We’re going to plant a mike under the bed in your room and run a wire through to a recorder, so when you and Thorne start talking we can get the dialogue on tape. I want to work out your end of it beforehand, so we’ll get the kind of statement we want.”

“Mike, do you think Paul killed Joey?”

“I think it’s possible.”

He turned toward Fort Lauderdale, and they drove for a time in silence. She glanced at him, starting to speak, then turned abruptly to look out the rear window.

“Mike,” she said excitedly, “somebody’s following us!”

ADJUSTING THE MIRROR, Shayne picked up a pair of headlights. He put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it with the dashboard lighter, watching the headlights and the speedometer as well as the road ahead. There wasn’t much traffic, and in a moment he was doing eighty, without strain. The headlights behind him stayed the same size in the mirror. He zoomed past a slower car; the headlights followed. He slackened speed, and the car behind him kept the interval.

“Let’s not worry about it,” he said. “We have the speed to lose him, but we don’t want any trouble with the troopers. I’ll take him through town.”

“It’s a cab,” she said, peering back. “A Yellow Cab. That’s good, isn’t it? You’ll be able to tell when he’s not there.”

“An experienced cabdriver can be a hard man to shake. Turn around, Claire, and let me handle it.”

He made the turn toward the ocean. Instead of continuing across Route 1, he turned north again and led the taxi into Pompano Beach. He drifted up to a green light, then accelerated hard as the light changed and went through on the yellow. At the next corner he cut through a gas station, sliding past a car drawn up at the pumps, shot into a parking area in front of a shopping center, down a lane between parked cars and out by a different exit.

“I think that does it,” he said, watching the mirror.

He turned another corner, tires squealing, then another, and slipped into the first open parking space. He cut his lights and waited.

“Who could it be?” Claire said anxiously.

“I don’t want to find out,” Shayne answered.

Turning on his lights, he drove to the beach and took A1A south to the motel. He kept one eye on the mirror, saying nothing.

Parking, he reached into the back seat for the paper bag containing the tools he had taken out of the locked chest in his Buick. He also brought out the bourbon bottle. He held it up to the light to check the level of the whiskey. It was still a third full.

Claire had gone ahead to unlock Room 18.

“God, that was a ride,” she said after he closed the door and turned on the lights. She looked around at the anonymous furniture, the big double bed and the blank TV screen. “Mike, all of a sudden I don’t like the idea of being alone in here with Paul Thorne. I wish there was a connecting door we could unlock.”

Shayne emptied the paper bag on the bed. “I brought your husband’s bourbon so you can give him a drink. If you’ve got forty-odd thousand bucks to give him, he shouldn’t make any trouble. Who knows? He might even relax for a minute. It won’t last, but maybe while he’s counting his money and having a drink with a lovely woman, he’ll forget how mad he is about being a poor hill boy surrounded by glamorous people who inherited their dough, if that’s the main thing that’s been bugging him.”

“Fine,” she said. “He’s relaxed. Now what do I do?”

“Now you ask him, in a very friendly way, about Joey Dolan. What we’re doing here, Claire, is testing a theory. I’ve only exchanged one sentence with Paul Thorne, and I may have figured him all wrong. But I’ve heard a lot about him, and it seems to me that if he killed Dolan, and did it so ingeniously that he can’t be touched for it, he’ll want to brag about it to somebody.”

He moved the TV set out from the wall. Using a small brace and bit, he began to drill through the baseboard, nearly flush with the floor.

He went on, squinting to keep cigarette smoke out of his eyes, “And I think you’re the one person he’ll want to brag about it to. In a way, this should make you even. Be thinking about how to bring up the subject. We’ll run a rehearsal on the way back to the track. After winning all that money, you’ll be excited, naturally. You were scared for a while, but now you’re pleased with yourself, pleased with the horses, pleased with Thorne.”

“I hope I can say it so he believes it.”

Shayne ran a wire through the hole to the next room. After tying in a small button microphone, he screwed the microphone to the underside of the bed, ran the wire down the leg of the bed and pressed it out of sight against the edge of the wall-to-wall carpeting. Then he pushed the TV set back into place. Claire was sitting in the single armchair, smoking a small cigar while she watched.