Brett Halliday - Nice Fillies Finish Last

“Do you know what these crazy Domaines are hoping to do?” Mrs. Moon said. “They think they’re going to abscond with half the twin-double pool. Did you ever hear anything like it?”

“Molly, please,” Domaine said. “If you keep interrupting, I can’t explain this in orderly sequence.” He turned back to the redhead. “Molly’s an innocent bystander. We’ve been looking at a horse of mine she’s thinking of buying. When I heard about the accident, I wanted to drop her at a bar, but she insisted on coming, to see what Michael Shayne looked like. Try to ignore her.”

“Are there any of your horses in the twin-double races tonight, Mrs. Moon?” Shayne said.

She gave another caw of laughter. “A lovely little filly named Fussbudget, in the ninth. I love Larry and Claire dearly, but if I can spoil things for them, I assure you I’ll take great delight in doing it. And you know, I just might!” she warned Domaine.

“That’s one thing I won’t worry about,” he said dryly.

“Go ahead, Larry,” she said, drinking. “I’ll keep quiet.”

“You probably know quite a bit of this by now,” Domaine said to Shayne. “My wife makes the odds calculations in the family, and she’s actually become pretty good at it. Her theory is that it’s the one way left to beat the income tax. Winnings are supposed to be reported to the government, but in practice, of course, they hardly ever are. And why should they be? Taxes have already taken out an immense percentage. The money that comes out of the machines on one race, or most of it, goes back in on the next, and Uncle Sam takes that tax nibble every time. Excuse me-this is a mania of mine. She’s developed quite a shrewd streak, Claire. My horsemen don’t think she’s quite as naive as they did at first. To me beating the machines has always been an intellectual matter, like a chess problem. To her it has become a passion.”

“How rich are you, Mr. Domaine?” Shayne said.

Mrs. Moon laughed. “Now you’ve embarrassed him.”

Domaine took a sip of his whiskey and said stiffly, “I have a fairish amount of money.”

“Did Mrs. Domaine have property in her own name before you married her?”

Some of Domaine’s good humor left him. “No.” He removed his pince-nez. They were trembling. The dents remained on his nose. “After having your car shot out from under you, you are entitled to one or two rude questions. You have now used up your quota. My financial standing, or my wife’s before or after marriage, has nothing to do with any of this. Will we go on relief if we fail to win the twin double? No.”

“To say the least,” Mrs. Moon put in.

“My God,” Domaine said desperately. “Here I’ve decided to make a full disclosure of our plans for tonight, and nobody wants to listen! We have a mare named My Treat, Mr. Shayne. For various reasons, some of them accidental, some carefully contrived, she is faster than her classification. She won’t be a champion, she’s unlikely to win any great sum in purses, but she’s going against slower horses tonight in the ninth, and, all things being equal, we think she’ll win.”

“Unless Fussbudget beats her out,” Mrs. Moon offered.

“I’ll make you a small side bet on that,” Domaine said. “Shut up now, Molly.” To Shayne: “Paul Thorne thinks he has a winner in the sixth. He’s driving a poorly behaved trotter, potentially very fast, which has broken gait and finished out of the money, well out, in five out of his last six races. Few people are likely to bet on him. Thorne has made some equipment change, some change in his training technique, and he’s confident that tonight he can keep the horse at the trot for the full mile. One of our stablemen spotted the improvement during the early-morning workouts and told my wife.”

“Would that man’s name be Dolan?” Shayne asked.

Domaine’s eyebrows rose. “You’re better informed than I thought. Dolan, yes, not that it matters. Very well. A horse in the sixth and one in the ninth-that gave Claire her inspiration. It meant combining with Thorne, and I was of two minds about that. In some ways the man is a menace.”

“Attractive as sin,” Mrs. Moon said.

“Do you think so?” Domaine said coldly. “A bit too much on the surface, I would have thought. Of course, Claire couldn’t confer with him in public. It would have been foolish to have him at our house. She decided to rent a motel room, a method she has used before, though never with Thorne. This worried me. I know him, you see; he used to drive for me. He’s quick, violent, conceited. I came close to forbidding it, or trying to forbid it-it’s not all that easy to stop Claire when her mind’s set on something. I decided to deal with the problem in another way. I have a driver named Franklin Brossard. You know him, Molly. He’s not in the first flush of youth, but he’s strong and reckless, and I’d back him against Paul Thorne any day. I sent him to the motel, without Claire’s knowledge. He was parked there when she arrived. After Thorne appeared and went to her room, Brossard loitered outside the door. Those motels are constructed of matchboard-if she’d had any trouble, Brossard would have heard it. But nothing happened. Thorne drove off. Claire’s car wouldn’t start. A large, rugged-looking redheaded individual-Brossard had seen him doing something to the motor earlier-got in with her. After a brief conversation, Claire ordered him to get out and leave her alone. Apparently the man refused. At this point Brossard phoned me for instructions. We assumed, you see, and I think the assumption was reasonable, that some gambler had got wind of the twin-double coup and was trying to hector Claire into giving him the details. I was dismayed. When Brossard offered to give the man a scare, I regret to say that I told him to go ahead. I had second thoughts at once, but there was no way I could call him back. As soon as Claire could get to a phone, she called to say that she’d had an encounter with a private detective named Michael Shayne. That frightened me more than a little. I don’t know if you’re married, Shayne?”

“No.”

“One of the first things you learn, if you want to make a success of marriage, is to temporize. When your wife puts this much thought and time and money into something, let’s hope, for the sake of domestic tranquility, that it bears fruit. I shouldn’t have allowed this to go this far. I’m sorry.”

“What does Claire do when she loses?” Mrs. Moon asked curiously. “Stamp and scream?”

“Certainly not,” Domaine said testily. “But ordinary conversation becomes difficult and I have to walk around the house on tiptoe, which I don’t enjoy. I didn’t intend to have this accident happen, Shayne; that’s all I can say. Neither did Brossard, actually.”

“The hell he didn’t,” Shayne said with a short laugh.

“No,” Domaine insisted. “He called me immediately. He was afraid someone had taken down his license number. I said I’d drive over at once and see what was required. Are you covered by insurance?”

“Car insurance,” Shayne said. “Nobody’s been willing to write me any life insurance yet.”

“From what I hear of your operations,” Domaine said, “I’d say that was a sensible precaution. I’m trying to convince you that there’s no point in telling the police the name of the other driver. As a matter of cold fact, Brossard would deny it. So would I, I suppose. But I want to make up for this stupid blunder by helping in any way I can. Let me loan you this car, for example.”

“And you do realize, don’t you,” Mrs. Moon said, “that, by giving you a winner in the sixth and the ninth, he’s offering to let you in on the twin double?”

“Molly, you have no subtlety,” Domaine said. “Putting it that way turns it into a different kind of offer.” He poured Shayne more bourbon. “Needless to say, Shayne, I know I owe you something. Whatever you decide, I’m sure I can weather it, but if you find it necessary to mention Brossard’s name to the police, Claire will know I have given her a bodyguard. I would suffer for it. She often makes the point that she is a grown-up girl.”