Brett Halliday: Nice Fillies Finish Last

“You’ll have to excuse the way the place looks,” she said. “On a hot day I just let the dirt collect. Why not start right off by calling me Win, Mr. O’Rourke?”

“Rourke, without the O,” he said. “My friends call me Tim, and I know we’re going to be friends. You’re sure I’m not interrupting anything?”

“What’s there to interrupt? This is the quiet time of the day, not that the joint ever really swings, and I was sitting around doing my nails and relaxing with a weak martini. I think there’s one more in the pitcher if you’re interested. What the hell? Live dangerously. I get more compliments on my martinis.”

Rourke told her he never turned down an offer of a martini, and watched her pour. She was in her middle twenties, with slanting blue eyes and a mouth that had been made up recently, probably while she was deciding whether to let him in. She was a little plump, but Rourke, still dazzled by all the pink and brown flesh-tones, didn’t feel critical. She had a mole on one side of her navel, a surgical scar on the other; both, he thought, were equally attractive.

“Isn’t it hot?” she said.

She waved him to a couch. As he sat down it moved unsteadily beneath him. Probably it changed into a double bed at night. She had tilted the slats of the Venetian blinds to keep out the sun. A small refrigerator purred quietly in one corner. She gave him a martini and frowned down at herself.

“Gee, on second thoughts, I get so used to padding around with next to nothing on I forget how it looks. I’ve got a terrible reputation with the neighbors already, but what I tell Paul is, if a bikini’s OK on the beach with thousands and thousands of people, what’s wrong with it at home? But I mean, I don’t know you, do I? I think I better put something else on. You know, I stood there at the window for the longest time? I couldn’t decide to go to the door or not. Paul has these rules about letting in salesmen when I’m alone in the house, but I didn’t think you looked like a salesman. It’s all right to let reporters in. What the sports pages say about a driver is important, money-wise. You can’t stay in the business and not cooperate with the press. Right at this point Paul’s career could use a good write-up, believe me.”

She opened a narrow metal closet, still talking, took out a flowered dressing gown and shrugged it on, belting it in tightly at the waist. “And these things in my hair. Ghastly. That was the real reason I didn’t let you in right away, after I decided you weren’t peddling vacuum cleaners, probably.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Rourke said. “I’ve seen women in curlers before.”

“I bet you have. You’re not married, are you?”

“No.”

“I can almost always tell.” She drained her martini, crunching a piece of ice between her strong white teeth. “People think eating ice cubes is a disgusting habit, but I like to. They have that nice potent flavor.”

Unfastening the scarf around her head, she began to strip out pins and rollers. “Finish your drink, it’s mainly ice water. I’ll make us another batch as soon as I get myself looking human.”

The ice-cold martini got to Rourke very fast. One of the things that made him a good reporter was an ability to listen while people talked, and with Win Thorne he could see that all he had to do was hope that the gin held out.

She was humming the title of a popular song while she brushed her shoulder-length black hair.

“Now I feel better,” she said, turning. “I’m going to take the bull by the horns. Paul’s just right for this story. He looks great in photographs. I don’t want to tell you your business or anything, this is only a suggestion, but what you could do is go to the film patrol-they take movies of every race-and look at some of the highlights of his best drives. Even when you know they turned out OK, they can still make the hair stand up on your head. He’s a lunatic sometimes! I think I know what’s bothering you, though. That last suspension.”

“It’s been bothering me a little,” Rourke said.

“I knew it! Paul doesn’t mind all the trouble he gets into for rough driving. The slobs who bet on the driver and not the horse, they like to think he’s going to break his neck, if he has to, to get home in the money. Horserace bettors as a class, Tim, you can have them. He gets suspended for bumping and fighting in the paddock or interference, and it’s all to the good. But this fifteen-day rap was for betting against himself. That harms him with the fans, and I hope you won’t have to mention it in the story. You understand that everybody does it, because why should you pass up a race when you’re driving a dog yourself that doesn’t have a chance, and there’s a stick-out horse going against you, maybe at a good price? But the stewards take this holier-than-thou attitude.”

Meanwhile, she was making more martinis, measuring by eye and going light on the vermouth. “Besides,” she added, “he never admitted it. They don’t have to prove anything. They just get a report from somebody who doesn’t like him, and there are lots of drivers who don’t like him because they’re scared of him. And snick”-she made a throat-cutting gesture-“out of competition for fifteen days.”

Rourke held out his glass and she filled it, smiling. She brushed back her hair with the hand that held her glass.

“One thing about these trailers, they’re the right size for two people if they like each other. If they don’t, it’s murder.” She touched the dial of a small radio. “Do we want some music? No,” she decided.

“Didn’t Paul start out driving for the Domaines?” Rourke said.

There was a slight check to her movements. She returned the pitcher to the top of the refrigerator. She sat down, crossed her bare legs, and arranged the wrapper carefully.

“Why, yes. Sure. But you know how they make you do when you drive for one stable. They have these plans for the horses and they tell the driver, certain ways to rate the horse, where they want him to make his move. And you know that didn’t sit so hot with Paul. He has to be in charge all the way. And like every big stable, they’ve got their share of dogmeat horses, and he had to take what they gave him. That hurt him in the standings. He thought he’d do better as a catch driver. And he did do better. For a while he did fine. He bought a few horses. There was one big roan gelding, Don J. Oh, what a lot of horse! Earned nearly twenty thousand for us, let alone what we made betting on him, and I began to think in terms of having a few dollars in the checking account for a cushion. We put a down payment on a house in town, a quarter acre with our own dock, and then Don J. went into the rail and we had to shoot him. And Paul had forgotten to send in the insurance! He’d bought a couple of weanlings from the Domaines’ farm, cost an arm and a leg, and all they’ve done since is eat and take medicine. I personally think Domaine stuck him. Then a couple of bets went sour, and that’s why we’re still living out of a trailer. This last fifteen days without a cent coming in-”

She shuddered and took a long swallow of her martini, to kill the taste of being out of money.

“I suppose he’ll have to be careful about what he bets on for a while,” Rourke suggested.

“He better be careful, or I’ll pick him apart with my fingernails.” She touched the radio dial again, pulling her hand back without turning it on. “I’m not going to tell you he’s stopped betting, because that wouldn’t be human nature.”

“Off the record,” Rourke said. “About all I know about harness horses is which end you feed them at. Granted that Paul’s an expert, and if he’s driving in a race himself, he has something to do with how it turns out, but how can he be sure?”