Nice Fillies Finish Last

by Brett Halliday

  “Thorne’s in the number-three slot,” Granby said over the whir of the projector. “Driving Don J. A pretty horse, very spirited horse. Three-year-old, great blood line, he had all the makings of a free-for-aller. His best time for the mile was 2:04 on a half-mile track. He’s going in a Class A race here for the first time. He went away at three to one, as I recall. He’s fourth there at the turn. That’s Star Music, a Domaine horse, ahead of him.”

  A new camera picked up the horses as they rounded into the backstretch. The tape’s fidelity was very good, but the total absence of sound made the action seem unreal. The accident happened at almost the exact second when the camera on the next tower took over. Star Music drifted away from the rail going into the turn. Thorne was using his whip as he tried to brush Don J. through on the inside, along the rail. Suddenly his horse veered sharply to the right. Star Music bounced and went into a gallop, and the inner wheel of Star Music’s sulky struck Don J. on the leg. There was a moment’s tangle and Don J. veered back, breaking clear, and went into the rail.

  Granby stopped the tape and reversed it. The horses and sulkies retreated around the track in a rapid blur.

  “I’ll go through it again in slow motion,” he said. “We understood that Thorne was underinsured on the horse. He didn’t put in any complaints of dirty driving. Accidents do happen and we came to the conclusion that this was one of them, though we’ve learned to give anything involving Thorne an especially close look. After Star Music broke there’s too much dust to see clearly. We lose the continuity when we switch cameras.” The horses were moving back in the right direction again, slowly and painfully. “What apparently happened, as we reconstructed it, was that a shaft buckle broke as Thorne went for the opening. The shaft dug into the dirt and pitched the horse to the outside. The Domaines had had trouble with Star Music breaking. Brossard was driving him. An excellent man, one of our veterans, but he couldn’t hold him. The shaft broke as Don J. hit the rail. You can see the end for a second. There.” He stopped the projector. Thorne’s horse froze on the screen at the moment of impact. The broken shaft could be seen beneath the rail. “Then the splintered end whipped up and went into the horse’s belly. That might have been enough. He also broke both front legs. Thorne broke three ribs, cut open his head to the bone and damaged his spleen. We noticed a falloff in attendance while he was in the hospital. Frankly, he’s one of our biggest drawing cards, which is why he only pulled a three-week suspension this last time. I thought he ought to be set down for good. The stewards didn’t see fit to agree with me. Do you want me to run it through again?”

  “You don’t have any pictures of what happened after he went through the rail?”

  “No, the cameras follow the race. I don’t get you. Thorne was out cold.”

  “Could the shaft have been cut or weakened in some way before the race?”

  “Possibly,” Granby said guardedly. “It was examined, of course, but it was pretty well smashed up.”

  Shayne looked closely at the screen. “Let me see the next couple of frames.”

  Granby advanced the tape slowly, in short jerks, watching the detective. Shayne held up his hand and stared at the screen. Several figures were running toward the track from the backstretch. The one in the lead had a short goatee. Joey Dolan had worn a goatee, Shayne had been told.

  He moved his hand and the tape resumed. After a moment he stood up, partially blocking the screen, on which the remaining horses moved slowly around into the home stretch.

  “Thanks,” he said. “You’ve been a great help. I’ll let you know if there’s anything else.”

  “Do that.”

  Shayne left him rewinding the tape, his face carefully impassive.

  The first race was half over. Unlike the one Shayne had just watched, this was taking place at normal speed, to the accompaniment of a deafening din from the stands. Ignoring the straining horses, the big redhead pushed through the crowd, aiming at the ramps leading to the clubhouse. Suddenly his eye was caught by a white turban in the throng pressing against the low fence, on the asphalt apron at the far end of the grandstand. The horses thundered past while a powerful voice on the public-address amplifier called the order of finish. A fat man next to Shayne bounced up and down, waving both arms and yipping with excitement.

  “Thirty to one! Look at those figures. Look at that payoff, will you? And the only reason I had him, he’s got the same first name I do, Ronald. What do you think of that?”

  “I think it’s great,” Shayne said. “Do you mind if I borrow your binoculars for a minute?”

  The fat man whipped the strap over his head. “You can borrow my pants if you have any use for them, buddy. He pulled out ahead the second you stopped here. I don’t claim you did it all by yourself, but you helped.”

  Shayne steadied the binoculars and brought up the focus. The white turban he had spotted in the crowd turned into a head bandage. The nose unquestionably belonged to Tim Rourke. What in God’s name was he doing here?

  He handed the binoculars back to their owner and returned to the apron in front of the stand, keeping his eye on Rourke’s bandage, which had begun to move toward the lower betting level. He overtook his friend at the edge of the seats.

  “Tim!”

  Rourke turned. Miss Mallinson was with him, looking as supple and radiant in a sweater and skirt as she had in a nurse’s uniform.

  “Been looking for you, Mike,” Rourke said briskly. “How many redheaded racing fans do you think there are here? Thousands.”

  “Tim, my God, why aren’t you in bed?”

  “I had a little nap, I feel greatly refreshed. I didn’t feel like waiting for the regular discharge, so I went over the goddamned wall. Sandra helped me.”

  “Not willingly,” she said. “I practically had to carry him.”

  “Only at first,” Rourke insisted. Wobbling suddenly, he sat down in an empty seat. “I can’t convince Sandra I deserve a Tom Collins. Somebody has to hold the damn glass for me, and she won’t. Get me one, will you, Mike?”

  “A Tom Collins!” the nurse said helplessly. “Mr. Shayne, do you know any secret way to handle him?”

  Rourke grinned up at his big friend. “Mike, sit down. I’ve got something important to tell you.”

  Shayne moved a program to the next seat and sat down beside him. The reporter said, “Win Thorne, that’s Paul Thorne’s wife, was hinting around that her wandering husband had something going with a nurses’ aide at the hospital. Well, there was I, flat on my back. They were putting in stitches and slapping on butterfly bandages, but I didn’t let it stop me. I found out—”

  Shayne broke in, “That Mrs. Domaine is a nurse’s aide. That’s yesterday’s news, Tim. Now you can go back to bed.”

  “I told you he knew,” the nurse said.

  Rourke’s face, or as much of it as was showing, fell. “Damn it,” he muttered. “One of these days I’m going to get somewhere ahead of you. Not by staying in bed all afternoon, I admit. Well, so long as I’m here, I think I’ll take a crack at the twin double. How about you?”

  “First I’m going to take a crack at Mr. and Mrs. Domaine. Will you be serious for a minute? How do you really feel?”

  “I really feel lousy,” Rourke admitted with a growling half-laugh. “They stuffed my head with cotton before they fastened the top back on. Sandra’s going to take care of me, aren’t you, baby?” He put one hand, with its great gauze mitten, clumsily about her waist. “She’s never seen a harness race, can you imagine? She’s not only one of the swingingest dolls in the place, she keeps taking my pulse. I think that shows she likes me.”

  “It shows I don’t think you’re well enough to be out of bed,” she said severely.

  “Maybe we could arrange something,” he said with a leer. He lowered his voice and asked Shayne seriously, “How’s it coming?”

  “It’s coming,” Shayne said shortly. “Things are beginning to make sense, but proving anything is going to be tough. One of the
toughest. Somebody gave Dolan a bottle of sherry, but how are we going to get an admission that there was wood alcohol in it? Well, it’s possible, but it’s going to take a lot of manipulating. You sit here and I’ll be back in an hour or so. If you see anybody you know with a pair of binoculars, borrow them.”

  “I’ve got a pair in the car,” Rourke said. “I’ll send Sandra for them, if I can get her to stop taking my pulse.”

  A flamboyant young woman separated herself from the crowd going up the aisles and bent down to take a closer look at Rourke. She was wearing a tight striped dress, slashed low in front. Shayne had seen her before, wearing a flowered wrapper, in the doorway of Paul Thorne’s trailer.

  “Cut yourself?” she inquired pleasantly. “What I’ve got to do, if people keep dropping in for cocktails, is put a back door in that trailer.”

  Rourke made no move to introduce her. “Hi. Nice to see you again. He didn’t knock out any teeth?”

  “Don’t remind me.” She waggled her lower jaw, to make sure that everything worked, and gave a little giggle. “I ought to be sore at you. I don’t mind about the broken window, we’re covered, but all those little pots of cactus. No kidding, I grew those plants from seed, you may not believe it, and pow! I don’t see how you squeezed through, frankly, unless you used a shoehorn. All that stuff about doing a feature story for the paper—that was a load of crap, wasn’t it?”

  “Not really,” Rourke said weakly.

  “Oh, I don’t blame you! One excuse is as good as another. I thought it was kind of sweet.”

  She fluttered her fingers at him, smiled at Sandra and Shayne, and walked away.

  “Be in this general area so I’ll know where to find you, Tim,” Shayne said hurriedly, and went after her.

  Behind him he could hear Rourke beginning to explain to Sandra that the girl was wrong about his motives. She had thought he was interested in her, but he had really been working on a story.

  “I’m sure,” Sandra said skeptically.

  Shayne overtook Mrs. Thorne at the rail. She looked up at him questioningly.

  “You remember me,” he said. “I didn’t think Tim would want to have it get around that he’d been thrown through a window by a jealous husband. I told the cop he was a burglar.”

  “Oh, sure. I’m a little nearsighted. Paul didn’t throw him out, he dived.”

  “Even so,” Shayne said. “Let me buy you a drink.”

  “I’d like a drink,” she said. “But I’m under strict orders from Paul since this afternoon. Don’t talk to anybody I don’t know.” She gave him a slanting look. “And I don’t know you, do I?”

  “Sure you do,” Shayne said easily. “I’m an old family friend.”

  “Oh, yes, now I remember. But I’d better take a rain check on the drink. I don’t want to forget what horses I’m supposed to be betting on.”

  The drivers for the second race were now parading their horses while the public-address announcer called their names.

  “There’s Paul now,” she said. “I know he can’t pick me out of the crowd, even with his marvelous eyesight. Boy, did I have a hard time getting him to say he was sorry he socked me.” She gave Shayne another quick slanting look. “I don’t know what Rourke told you was going on when Paul walked in—”

  “Tim’s a very discreet guy.”

  “Well, nothing really was, no matter what Paul thought. I guess you’d better run along now, though, because every time I open my mouth I put my foot in it; Paul’s definitely got a point there. If he’d tell me the whole thing, I mean all the ins and outs, I might be able to fake it better. But the safest thing to do when anybody mentions horses is to shut up.”

  “Do you do his betting for him?”

  “Natch. If he couldn’t trust me, who could he trust? But don’t try to pump me by standing there looking big and rugged and sexy. That’s going to get you nowhere.”

  Shayne grinned down at her. “I’m probably the only person in this crowd who isn’t trying to pick a winner. I’m trying to pick a loser. What I’d like you to tell me is how you knew your husband was sleeping with Mrs. Domaine.”

  She put a hand against his shoulder to steady herself. “Dawn begins to break. You’re a detective.”

  Shayne took out his license and gave her a quick look at it. “My name’s Michael Shayne. My client doesn’t want me to broadcast who he is, but in this situation it’s probably pretty obvious. For now, we want to keep everything quiet. There might be some money in it.”

  “Never mind the money,” she said bitterly. “This I’ll give you free. If Domaine wants to divorce her, I couldn’t care less. She’s older than Paul is, you know. The poor bastard never had a chance. She dazzled him with that Mercedes. Those little five-hundred-dollar suits. Paulie had to admit afterward that she’s nothing to rave about between the sheets. Skinny as a beanpole. It’s the accessories, you know? You peel off the wrappings and there’s nothing there. No feeling.”

  “I suppose you know about the apartment.”

  She nodded toward the track. “And there the son of a bitch goes. Brossard.”

  Shayne looked at the track. The horses were coming past the grandstand at the end of their first half mile, led by a big powerful bay. Shayne recognized the driver as he flashed by. The last time Shayne had seen him, he had been cutting in sharply to force Shayne off the highway above Fort Lauderdale.

  “And why do you think he lent Paul his apartment?” she said. “He’s been trying to get me in the sack with him for the longest time. Ugh. He’s about ninety years old, repulsive. He thought I’d be so mad that Paul was banging an owner’s wife that I wouldn’t care who I got my revenge with. Well, hell, I believe sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, but give me credit for some taste. I told the creep to stay away. I guess I hurt his feelings. You wouldn’t think a character like that would have feelings, but apparently he did. Paul thinks he killed his horse. Don J. No, I take that back. I’m not supposed to talk about horses.”

  “How do you mean, Brossard killed him?”

  “How should I know? He’s been in the business for ages. He knows the tricks. Now will you look at that?” she exclaimed as the horses came around into the stretch. She cupped her hands to her mouth. “Drop dead, bum! Just luck, Brossard! What did you do, buy everybody off? Boo!”

  Brossard came on to win by two lengths.

  “There’s one consolation,” she said as the winning numbers went up. “Paul told me to put twenty bucks on him. But he’s so finky I can’t yell for him. Honey, I’ve got to go down by the paddock, in case Paul wants to sneak me a message. If you want to know anything else, tomorrow when Paul’s out exercising horses would be the best time. Look for the trailer with the broken window.” She laughed suddenly. “I was supposed to be passed out on the floor when it happened, but I opened one eye when I heard the crash. That Rourke. My God—if they had that event in the Olympics he would have won the gold medal.”

  CHAPTER 15

  MOLLY MOON was sitting at the clubhouse bar, erect on a tall stool, giving off a hard glitter, much like the diamonds at her wrists and on her fingers. Seeing the tall redhead as he came in, she said something to the man she was with and left her drink on the bar. “Michael,” she said with satisfaction, taking his arm. “I stayed alert and got to you before anybody else did. That shows I still have my youthful reflexes.”

  “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 i
n 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.”