Brett Halliday - Million Dollar Handle

He moved off at an angle, his big head down. Shayne worked his way back to the crowded bar and ordered a Scotch and water, which he took to Linda Geary’s box. The infield ceremony was ending, ahead of schedule because of the missing speakers. The crowd came to its feet for the final prayer, led by the rosy-faced monsignor.

Linda accepted the glass without looking at Shayne. Shayne studied her while the benediction echoed out of the PA outlets. Her cheeks were wet. She was a tall girl with long straight hair to her shoulders. She had her father’s nose and slightly protuberant eyes. She would have been handsomer weighing twenty pounds less. Her clothing was disarranged in various small ways, as though to show that she knew she was plain and too heavy, and there was no point in bothering. Her blouse was partly out of her skirt, and a button was missing.

Her lips were trembling when the prayer ended. “I think I’m sorry the bastard’s dead.”

She turned. Seeing Shayne instead of Harry Zell, she reared back, her face darkening.

“You killed him, you bloodsucker,” she cried, and threw the drink at Shayne.

One of the ice cubes caught him under an eye. “What did I do, get the wrong brand of Scotch?”

They had the full attention of the nearby box-holders. Shayne saw a waiter looking their way, and he signaled for another drink. She tried to get past him into the aisle, but he blocked her.

“Harry gave me a message for you.”

“All right, what?”

He sat down, his knees high. The mourners were beginning to file off the stand. One of the politicians helped Charlotte Geary down the steep stairs. Shayne said nothing, and after a moment’s puffing and flouncing, Linda sat down beside him.

“Well, damn it, what’s the message?”

“I only said that to get you to stop blocking the sightlines. He has to make some calls, and he asked me to carry your drink. What makes you think I had anything to do with killing your father? I thought the idea was that he took care of that himself.”

“You’re enormously sure of yourself, aren’t you?” The waiter handed in the new drink. She seized it and drank. “You and the rest. Hasn’t it struck you that maybe you overdid it a little? You killed the goose. Now no more of those golden eggs.”

“I’d say there are still a few money-making possibilities. Even if Harry’s deal goes through, and it seemed to me he was looking a little pessimistic. How much do you know about the way your father did business?”

“Me?” she said bitterly. “His only child? I’m the PR girl. I handle the press passes and get the puffs in the papers. Of course I’m also a minority stockholder, so what aspect of the business did you have in mind?”

“Were you surprised to hear he was paying off that many people?”

The Scotch had soothed her slightly. “Oh, somewhat, I guess. I knew about it in general. That was his excuse for keeping me on a dollar-a-week allowance, practically. To get any money at all out of the King of Miami Dog Racing, I had to go down on my knees and sing “Swannee River.” Everybody else was getting rich out of Surfside, but not Max Geary, and God knows, not Max Geary’s daughter.”

“Then why didn’t he sell?”

“Because he was an idiot! A stubborn, sentimental idiot! He got his back up and he wouldn’t listen. He was the world’s most infuriating man, and what the hell am I talking to you about him for?”

“Because you think there’s a chance you might be able to use me.”

She swung around, her eyes still moist and nearly overflowing. “What do you mean, use you?”

“Why is Harry having such a hard time smiling tonight? What did your mother do, stall him?”

“How did you know that? It only happened two hours ago. Oh, yes. Dog racing was so important to Max. Surfside is his monument. She can’t bring herself to sign it away before his body is cold. Of course that’s not the real reason. The real reason is lust, and in case you didn’t hear me, I’ll spell it for you. L-u-s-t. Do you know what it means? It’s a word you hardly ever hear anymore.”

“I know what it means, but how does it connect with dog racing?”

“It’s intimately connected with dog racing. Not that I blame her too much, except that it’s just so-I don’t know, so humiliating. And so damn inconvenient right now. Max always had girls on the side, even when we were months behind on the electric bill. But Mother? Another man? Never. Do you want to look at him?” She reached around and took a pair of binoculars off the rail. “Can I borrow these? All right, at the front of the paddock. He’s younger than I am, for goodness’ sake.”

Two men were standing together at the front of the enclosure, watching the dogs being made ready for the fifth-race parade. One, resting against the rail, was in his sixties, with a deeply lined face and thin hair, the prim mouth of a snuff-user. He directed a stream of tobacco juice onto the track and drank from an open Coke bottle. Shayne adjusted the focussing knob. The liquid in the bottle was too pale for Coke.

The young man at his elbow was built like a jai alai player, slight but muscular. He put a stick of gum in his mouth and moved back toward the kennel, with the ease and sureness of someone who knows precisely where he is and what he is doing.

“Good-looking kid,” Shayne commented, returning the binoculars.

“Oh, smashing. Poor Mother has been playing golf and doing the housework all these years, and that doesn’t prepare you for real life. She didn’t have a chance. Honest to God,” she burst out, “if I told you how we had to cut corners and make do while that ocean of payoff money was pouring out month after month… And then to have to listen to this hypocrisy, this bullshit about the money he raised for the Boy Scouts. They wanted me to get up on that platform in a black dress, with a little lace hanky so I could touch my eyes when they said something especially affecting. But not me. I wouldn’t have any part of it. So he got plastered, so his car got away from him. I knew it was going to happen. I even knew it was going to happen in just that way.”

The bugle sounded, and the dogs left the enclosure.

“I know what people thought of him. A maudlin, sloppy old bore. Do you know he never used to take more than one or two sociable drinks before we enlarged? Before we added the quote Hall of the Greyhound, unquote? The scale of everything changed. A bigger handle. Ten drinks for Daddy a night instead of two. We had to do it. The washrooms-my God, they were foul. We had to put in hurdle races. That just about killed Max, all by itself. Because when the good old boys in Kansas course their greyhounds, they don’t make them jump over sawed-off broomsticks, do they? Honest, traditional dog racing isn’t enough in this day and age. It has to be fancied up. You don’t watch the dogs, you watch the TV.”

The marshal lifted each dog’s chin and tweaked its blanket, to make it look like a winner, when the caller announced its name and weight. The numbers were dancing on the tote board.

“Oh, God,” Linda said, weeping. “When I was about seven he used to take me hunting and fishing. Those were the great times. When his trouble began, he didn’t even know I was alive. I’m the unluckiest person. Look around you. Everybody’s got a fistful of bills. The kennelmaster’s an old friend of mine, I do his betting for him. I thought I could piggyback on his bets and come out ahead, but I can’t even seem to do that. Whenever he tells me he has something that’s absolutely sure, that’s the night I can’t spare more than a few lousy bucks. It’s a money-making machine, but I’ve never been able to get it to perform for me.”

At the rate she was drinking, she would need another Scotch in a minute. Shayne waved at a waiter. She blew her nose hard.