Brett Halliday - Nice Fillies Finish Last

“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.”

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.”