Brett Halliday - Nice Fillies Finish Last

“He can’t be. But you aren’t betting against the odds, honey, you’re betting against the public. They don’t know anything. All you have to do is fifteen percent better than the public, to beat the tax bite, and you’ll make out OK. Honestly, when you came in I didn’t think I was going to end up giving a lecture.”

“What about the twin double?” Rourke said carelessly. “I suppose he steers clear of that?”

“I wish he did! He gets inspirations, like anybody, and so far he hasn’t even come close. Like the last time, when we were drinking tap water instead of Beefeater martinis, that was all because of a twin double. He thought it was in the bag. We hocked things to get in on it. They’re still in hock, I’m sorry to say. Oh, he has the gambling fever. Finish your drink and I’ll give you another before it gets too watery.”

Rourke looked at his watch. “I have to be going in a minute.”

“Oh, pooh. I’ve been trying to think what I could tell you about Paul that you could use, if you do the story, and I’ve just had a flash.”

She brought the pitcher over. She was beginning to wobble, Rourke noticed. He drank up, to be ready with an empty glass. She went off balance all at once, as though a heavy truck had crashed into the side of the trailer. She ended up partly on the couch and partly on Rourke. Somehow she had managed not to spill any martinis.

“Wow!” she said. “What happened? I don’t have to get off for a minute, do I? Give me time to adjust.”

“If you’re comfortable,” he said. “The only thing is, these trailers are about six inches apart, and I don’t know what Paul would think if he-”

“Don’t worry, he really won’t be back. He’s got a deal on the fire. I came over here to give you a drink. Where’s your glass?”

She put the pitcher on the floor after pouring. He had the martini glass in one hand and nowhere to put the other except on her hip. He could feel the outlines of her bikini beneath the smooth dressing gown. She wriggled a little to settle herself.

“What I was going to say,” she said comfortably. “About Paul and dames. He’s a good-looking guy. That lovely build. When he comes into the stretch going for a little gap between two sulkies, using his whip and yelling bloody murder, his cap usually off by that time-well, it makes me weak in the knees to think about it. All I have to say is, I’m not the only one. I’m reconciled to the fact. I mean he’d be a hit with the fair sex even if there wasn’t the money angle to it. But they not only want to get in the back seat with him, fast, they want him to whisper the name of some horse in their ear afterward. See what I mean? The public never thinks about that kind of problem. How does it strike you as an angle for the story?”

“I’ll think about it.”

She was moving more than necessary, he thought. If he was going to get anything significant out of this girl, he had better hurry up. He tried to think what questions Mike Shayne would ask.

“Uh-does Paul do any driving for the Domaines any more?”

“Sometimes. One of their horses won’t behave for anybody else. They aren’t enemies or anything.” She pulled back a little to get his face into focus. “Why are we harping on the Domaines all the time, honey?”

“I just thought when you were talking about the twin double-why wouldn’t it be a smart idea for a big stable to compare notes with some driver who was theoretically independent? Figure two of the races, and you’d have a headstart.”

“You can tangle yourself up in knots if you try to be too smart. All you want to do is beat that fifteen percent. You know what I like about you, Tim? Now don’t laugh. No muscles. Most of the guys around here think all they have to do is ripple their biceps a few times and they’re in.” She touched the side of his face. “I like people who can talk about current events and like that. I bet it takes plenty of brains to be a reporter.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” Rourke said. “For example, I ought to be finding out about that suspension of Paul’s. Maybe it’s the gin. Maybe it’s the way you look in a bikini. I can’t think of any more questions.”

“Didn’t I tell you about that suspension? It was made up out of thin air. He was betting on a Domaine horse, speaking of coincidences, and the judge caught him with the ticket on him in the paddock. He just happened to pick it up off the ground, but would they believe him? No, he’s made monkeys out of them too many other times. There’s more gin, but I feel so lazy, don’t you? Everybody at the track gets up at the crack of dawn, and that’s why I think it’s OK to start drinking around lunchtime-it’s like late afternoon for ordinary people. Honey, Paul’s your best bet for this story, so why waste your time looking for anybody else? Stick around. I want you to say yes, because, boy, do we need that favorable exposure right now. What I’d like you to do-you’ll be interviewing other people about him, then come back and get our side of it. Paul has a funny habit of getting under different people’s skin. Look at him the wrong way and the next thing you know he’s in orbit. He goes around at about two hundred and eleven degrees all the time, one degree more and he boils over. There’s a reason for that. It’s not so bad being poor when you don’t see anybody else but other poor people. But in racing half the people don’t have a cent and the other half are rolling. Honey, stay where you are. I want to get some music.”

One of her bare arms slid around his neck and pulled him forward. The kiss she gave him tasted of gin and vermouth, with a faint tang of olives. The couch slipped, as though threatening to come open by itself. Her tongue moved against his. She groped for his hand and put it inside her wrapper. His fingers were cold from the martini glass, and she shivered as they touched her stomach.

He was trying hard to be objective. He knew she was hoping to delay him, and he knew she wasn’t as drunk or as taken with him as she wanted him to believe. He wondered if the questions about the twin double had made her suspicious, if she was trying to pin him down until her husband showed up. Still, he didn’t like to be rude. Against his will, he was responding to the movements of her tongue. His hand was in contact with the bikini. Mike Shayne, he knew, would stand up without ceremony at this point and dump her on the floor, but he had long ago faced the fact that he wasn’t Mike Shayne. She gasped something against his mouth and he felt her hand on his, directing him to the tiny hidden zipper.

And then she pushed away suddenly, her lithe body in rapid fluid motion. Twisting, she was up in an instant, pulling her wrapper together. The belt had come off, and was probably somewhere beneath Rourke. She gave him an urgent frown. The drinks had slowed his reactions, and he was still frozen in a disordered position when he heard the door open. That released him. He came forward in a partial crouch, his face serious, as though he and Mrs. Thorne had been discussing foreign policy or some other important question.

Rourke looked up out of the corners of his eyes. The man in the doorway had come in without knocking, and it stood to reason that he was probably Paul Thorne, who had been described to Rourke more than once as being a dangerous, violent, impulsive man. He was wearing a knit shirt, and the biceps the reporter had also been told about were out there in plain sight, bulging from the short sleeves. His neck was a short, solid column, seemingly made of something more unyielding than ordinary flesh. Against the bright sky his features were indistinct. He stepped on into the trailer, which at once became seriously overcrowded, and closed the door. Now his face took shape. He would have been exceptionally handsome if his eyes hadn’t been too small and too close together. There was a mean glint in them that sent a shiver down the back of the reporter’s neck. Thorne looked from his guest on the couch to the empty martini pitcher on the floor, and on to Win, who, in the half second she had been given, had somehow managed to look cool and indifferent, a little bored.