Brett Halliday - Nice Fillies Finish Last

Rourke was where Shayne had left him, bleeding into a towel.

“How in God’s name did you get out that window?” Shayne asked. “It’s about big enough for a midget.”

“Don’t ask me,” Rourke said bleakly. “I shut my eyes and sailed through.” He looked down at the blood-soaked towel. “I must look like a pound of raw hamburger. But if I hadn’t made it, I’d look a lot worse. He was fixing to clobber me. I don’t mean because I was making time with his wife. Because I was interested in tonight’s twin double. He said he’s got a busy afternoon. Tail him. See where he goes.”

“Sure, as soon as I get you to the doctor.”

“I can get myself to the goddamn doctor!” He started to get up, thought better of it and sat back. “Going to rest here a minute first. Take off.”

Shayne looked up at the fat woman, who had returned to the doorway of the trailer. “Is there a hospital around?”

“There must be one in Lauderdale, anyway. I can look in the book. Does he want an ambulance?”

“Call a taxi.” He grinned at her. “There’s an angry husband not far away, and we don’t want any sirens.” She disappeared.

“Go on, damn it,” Rourke said, looking up from the towel to find Shayne still hesitating. “If you’d come with me in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened. I haven’t won a fistfight from a guy that big in years. Mike, for God’s sake! As soon as he gets clear, he’s going to start moving. This may be the only chance we get. Don’t waste it.”

“OK,” Shayne said curtly. “Call me on the car phone so I’ll know where you are.”

He turned on his heel and stalked off. He had known something like this would happen. But from now on Rourke was going to have to get out of his own jams.

Seeing activity in front of the Thorne trailer, he pulled up abruptly and waited until the cop drove off. In a moment Thorne came out and headed for the barns, going straight to the stalls where he kept his horses. He emerged a moment later wearing a necktie and a light sports jacket, which probably meant that he had to keep an appointment somewhere else, as no one wore neckties here in the daytime.

Shayne went for his Buick. He wheeled it around near the end of the grandstand, where he could see any cars coming out of the compound. Thorne made it simple for him, appearing in a long red convertible with the top down, an easy car to follow. Shayne dropped out of sight until he heard the convertible whoosh past with Thorne getting everything the motor was able to give him in that gear.

Shayne had the Buick in motion as the convertible crossed the Seaboard Air Line tracks, heading south. At Sunrise Boulevard Thorne signaled for a left turn, and Shayne dropped back, letting a Volkswagen pass. The Volkswagen driver had trouble deciding which way to go, and Thorne was out of sight by the time Shayne made the turn. He built up his speed, taking chances in the thickening traffic, and came up with the convertible again as it waited for the light to change at the Route 1 intersection.

Shayne moved up close, following without difficulty as Thorne entered Fort Lauderdale. Thorne was clearly impatient, consulting his watch constantly, crowding slow-moving cars and racing the motor when he was stopped by a light. On S. E. Sixth Avenue, near Twenty-fourth Street, he swung into a parking slot. Without dropping any coins in the parking meter, he headed for a doorway between two stores. A sign over the door said, “Guys and Dolls, Billiards.”

Shayne snapped his fingers silently. The only opening he could see was an illegal one in front of a fire hydrant. He pulled in and left a Miami News card under his windshield wiper. The billiard room was over a men’s clothing store, directly across from a medical block. Shayne crossed, went up one flight and into a dentist’s waiting room. A bell sounded as the door opened, and a teen-aged girl with bands on her teeth looked up from a magazine. Shayne went to the window. When a middle-aged nurse came in, he gave her a quick look at his license and said quietly, “Police business. We’re expecting a stickup.”

“A what?” the girl in the braces said excitedly.

The redhead said, “Please sit down.”

He spoke in a quiet voice that carried authority. She obeyed instantly.

The dentist joined the nurse in the doorway. “There won’t be any shooting?” he said anxiously.

“I hope not,” Shayne said without turning.

The billiard room, some twenty or thirty feet away, was brightly lighted with fluorescent lamps. Only one table was being used. Paul Thorne was talking earnestly to a fat man in a blue linen coat at the cigarette and candy counter. The fat man listened, his lips going in and out. Presently he took a cigar box out of the glass case, opened it and counted out a dozen or so bills. Shayne couldn’t read the denominations, but the total was large enough to require a second count. Thorne counted it a third time.

Shayne nodded to the dentist and the nurse, and went out without further explanation. He was back in his Buick and had moved into double-parking position by the time Thorne returned to the convertible.

Thorne reversed and went north again on S. E. Sixth Avenue, turning right instead of left on Sunrise Boulevard, toward the ocean instead of the raceway. Reaching the ocean drive, he went north. Halfway to Pompano Beach, on the outskirts of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, his brake lights flared and he made a sharp turn into a double-decker motel called the Golden Crest. Shayne pulled into a gas station. While his tank was being filled, he watched Thorne leave his convertible in a depressed parking area and go up the outside steps to a room on the second floor.

Facing the door, he ran a comb through his long hair, which had been tossed about in the open car, tightened the knot of his necktie, brushed a wisp of hay off the sleeve of his jacket, and checked his fly. Then he tried the knob. Finding the door unlocked, he walked in.

Michael Shayne moved his car to the Golden Crest parking lot. On the way to the office, he checked the number of the room Thorne had entered; it was number 18. A woman with thick-lensed glasses was ready for him in the office. She greeted him cordially and slid a registration card across the counter.

“A room?”

“I think my wife already phoned in a registration,” he said. “She’s having her hair done in Lauderdale. Mrs. Petersen of Miami.”

“I don’t think we’ve had any registrations in that name.”

She began to flip through registration cards, Shayne watched for Room 18. When it turned up, he put his finger on it. The signature was hard to read upside down. It seemed to be Marian Sellers, or Sailers.

“That looks like it,” he said.

“No, sir. That’s an Orlando party.”

Shayne took his finger away, having made a mental photograph of the license number on the card. The woman completed her search and shook her head.

“It doesn’t seem to be here.”

“She likes to take care of these things,” Shayne said, pulling his earlobe. “One room’s as good as another, as far as I’m concerned, but she has strong ideas about what’s right and what’s wrong. Well, I ought to know what she likes by now. I know she’ll want to be on the balcony, so we won’t be bothered by cars. As close to the ocean end as possible, but we’d better not be right over the cocktail lounge.”

The woman made several suggestions. He settled finally on Number 17 and signed in.

Even when people use a false name at a motel-and Shayne assumed that the name on the card for No. 18 didn’t belong to a real person-they usually give their true license number. He had no trouble locating the car belonging to the guest in Room 18-a black, well-maintained Mercedes, with red-leather upholstery. The car itself, the care it had been given, the low mileage, and the accessories on the dashboard all denoted money. Shayne had a feeling he was going to want to ask the owner of the Mercedes some questions. He found the hood-latch and pulled it, then raised the hood and un-snapped the distributor cap, after which he removed the rotor. Putting the crucial little part in his pocket, he replaced the distributor cap and closed the hood. Then he moved his Buick into an open slot beside the Mercedes. Some months before, Shayne had been hired to find and bring back the runaway wife of a telephone-company official. He had spent a week looking for her, another week persuading her to return. His client showed his gratitude by having a phone installed in Shayne’s car. This had doubled Shayne’s effectiveness, and he didn’t know how he had ever functioned without it. He dialed local information and was given the number of the Fort Lauderdale hospital. Yes, he was told a moment later, they had just admitted an emergency case by the name of Timothy Rourke, and they would see if he was allowed to answer the phone. In another moment a woman’s pleasant voice said, “Emergency, Mallinson.”