don’t think of myself in that kind of role.”
“Thorne’s financing his share with loan-shark money,” Shayne said. “He can’t be as casual about losing as you can.”
Domaine’s frown deepened. “If he’s tried to bribe anybody or bring anybody else in on it, I pray he’s been careful. I don’t give a hang what happens to him, but this is precisely what I’ve been concerned about-by combining with him, to a certain extent Claire put herself in his hands.”
“What about Fussbudget, Mrs. Moon?” Shayne said.
The abrupt question made her jump. “Oh, hell. I was just needling Larry. My head trainer said she was feeling frisky this morning. That’s really all I know.”
“Is Brossard driving My Treat tonight?” Shayne asked Domaine.
“Yes, and that’s another reason I don’t want him arrested.”
“Does he know you want him to win the ninth and Thorne’s trotter to win the sixth?”
“He gets his instructions tonight. His post position in the ninth is number two. He’ll be told to tuck in behind the number-one horse at the first turn. There’s one other horse Claire is worried about-not Fussbudget, Molly. When that horse begins to make its move, Thorne expects to be in a position where he can move at the same time and carry him out. Brossard should take the lead at the five-eighths pole, and lead the rest of the way. I don’t know if he’ll be betting on himself. Probably.”
He waited for Shayne’s next question.
After finishing his drink, the redhead said, “All right, I accept your apology, Mr. Domaine, and I think I’ll take you up on the loan of your car. I have to make a quick stop in Lauderdale, and then get back to Miami.”
“This is generous of you, Larry,” Mrs. Moon said ironically, “and what do we do, hitchhike?”
“We take a taxi,” Domaine said. He put a warm hand on Shayne’s knee. “I’m glad you’ve decided to do it like this, Shayne. Will you be back this evening?”
“Sure.”
“I’m meeting Mrs. Domaine in the clubhouse for drinks at seven, if you’d care to join us.”
“All right, if I can.”
“I’ll be there,” Mrs. Moon said. “Maybe you can help me pick a few winners.”
She gave him a look that was frankly speculative. He returned it with one of his own, and was rewarded by a small stir of discomfort from Domaine. A few pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place.
CHAPTER 11
In Fort Lauderdale, Shayne dropped Domaine and Mrs. Moon at a cab stand, then found the hospital and parked.
A bosomy woman in a large hat presided at a desk in the reception room. By keeping her hat on, she showed that this wasn’t what she did for a living, in fact that she didn’t have to work at all unless she felt like it. She had a small card file, which she fingered when Shayne told her he had come to see Timothy Rourke. She said brightly, “No visitors, I’m sorry.”
“He’s seeing visitors,” Shayne said. “I talked to him on the phone a half hour ago, and he said to come over. Will you call the floor and find out?”
She gave him a quick scrutiny. Clearly he couldn’t be made to go away by pretending he wasn’t there.
“I hate to,” she said. “The nurses just about take your head off, which is funny considering that we’re only trying to help.” She picked up the phone and asked for the nurses’ station on the third floor. “Reception,” she said firmly. “An inquiry about the patient in 325, Timothy Rourke. He’s listed on my card as a No-Visitors, but someone here insists that’s a mistake.”
She listened, said, “I see,” and hung up. She reported to Shayne: “The patient’s asleep at the moment. If you’d care to take a seat, and if he wakes up before visiting hours are over-”
“Who’s his doctor?”
She glanced at the card. “Dr. Greenberg, but doctors are even harder to get hold of than nurses. You can try at the desk.”
The switchboard girl tried to locate Dr. Greenberg for him, and told him presently, “He’s not in the hospital at the moment, but if you’d take a seat-”
Shayne’s face was grim. He went back outside and around a corner to the emergency entrance, large double doors opening onto a low dock. They were marked NO ADMITTANCE. He pushed them open and walked in. Finding the fire stairs, he went up to the third floor. In 325, a private room, a heavily bandaged patient was sound asleep, propped up on two pillows and snoring peacefully. Shayne recognized his friend by his long nose, almost the only feature not covered with bandages. His hands were concealed inside great gauze mittens.
“Come on, boy, wake up,” Shayne said. “Tim!”
He shook the reporter’s shoulder. Rourke’s long snore turned into a half-growl and a whistle. He exhaled violently, making a sound like a honking goose, then the snoring resumed.
“Goddamn it!” Shayne said, shaking him hard. “Wake up!”
“Just what do you think you’re up to?” an icy voice demanded from the door.
Shayne turned. A trim, green-eyed nurse was regarding him furiously. Shayne snapped his fingers, trying to remember the name Rourke had mentioned on the phone.
“Miss Mallinson.”
“Yes, and what do you mean by barging in here and manhandling my patient?”
“I’m just trying to wake him up. What kind of shot did you give him, anyway?”
Advancing, she drove him away from the bed. After adjusting the sheet over Rourke’s chest, she listened approvingly to his snores, as though admiring their musical quality.
“He needs that sleep badly,” she said. “We didn’t have to give him anything. He fell asleep by himself.”
“I want to talk to him for a minute. He can go back to sleep afterward. He won’t object.”
He tried to get around her.
“Keep this up,” she said pleasantly, “and you’re going to hear a scream that’ll raise the hair on your head.”
“Fine. That might wake him up.”
“We have five male nurses on this floor. Together they might be able to handle you. You’re Mr. Shayne, aren’t you? Well, seriously. This kind of sudden deep sleep is the usual reaction after an accident like his. I know he was rattling away like a machine gun when you talked to him, but he was exhausted. He lost pints and pints of blood, and anybody as skinny as that doesn’t have it to spare. We persuaded him to eat something, which neutralized the alcohol, and he went off like that.” She snapped her fingers. “I was just as glad, to tell you the truth. He’d been keeping me on my toes. He’s impossible, isn’t he?”
“Didn’t the bandages slow him down?”
“Not as much as you’d think. I tried to keep out of reach, but he’s sneaky.”
She blushed slightly, and Shayne tried a different approach. “If he calls you after the bandages are off and asks you to have dinner with him, will you go?”
She evaded his eyes. “Oh, people act a certain way in the hospital, but when they get out it’s different. I don’t think he’ll call me. I’d go, certainly. I wanted to be mad at him but I couldn’t, he was so funny. And I liked the way he behaved when the doctor was sewing him up.”
Shayne absentmindedly poked a cigarette into his mouth, taking it out again when she looked at him severely. He leaned on the foot of the bed and looked at his sleeping friend.
“Tim and I have known each other a long time, Miss Mallinson. He was on a story when he got hurt. It may turn out to be a big one. He wouldn’t fall asleep in the middle of it, regardless of how much blood he’d lost, or how many stitches he’d had taken. Reporting isn’t just a business with him. It’s the way he exists.”
Suddenly, trying to explain why the Tim Rourke he knew so well couldn’t have fallen asleep at a time like this unless he had been drugged, Shayne realized what the reporter had meant when he said Dolan couldn’t have drunk wood alcohol. It wasn’t in character. Shayne’s cigarette came out again. He put it between his lips without lighting it.
