“That’s what you think is going on tomorrow night?”
“Considering the circumstances,” Dolan said, “I’m practically ninety-nine percent certain, and that’s why I think a five-hundred-buck investment is reasonable-it could pay off in real dough. Here’s what I want to do. Most of the guys I know in the barns, swipes and caretakers, they’re like me-when something like this comes along, they’ve got to let it go half the time, because they don’t have any betting capital. I’ll mouse around. You can keep a secret from the racing secretary, but you can’t keep a secret from the guy who rubs the horse, and that’s the guy I’m going to be dealing with. I may not have to spend the full five hundred. God, Tim! I don’t mind horses, but I’m getting a little tired of cleaning up after them. If I got one-tenth as much attention as these trotters and pacers, I’d never say a cross word to anybody. Of course it’s true I can’t go a mile in two minutes. I’m getting too old for the rat race, Tim. I’d like to eat filet mignon for breakfast, for a change. Wear a necktie. I’d like to own one TV set before I die.”
Large sums of money had begun dancing through Rourke’s head. “If this works, I’ll buy you a color set and a hi-fi. Have a drink, Joey, I’ve got to confer with some guys.” He covered the mouthpiece. “Mike, loan me five hundred bucks.”
Shayne looked at him quizzically, his ragged red eyebrows coming together. “I heard part of that. The betting windows aren’t open at this time of night, so what’s your rush?”
“He’s been explaining it. He’s got one winner in the last four races and he’s got to spend some money to get a second. This is no nickel-and-dime stuff. I’ve known him for years, he’s reliable. Come over here-I don’t want to yell.”
Grinning skeptically, Shayne dropped onto the arm of a chair beside him. The reporter lowered his voice.
“He’s talking about the twin double. Remember the bus driver last month who hit that for a hundred and seventy-eight thousand bucks? An exception, granted, but be conservative. Say you only take out ten or twelve grand-”
Dolan’s voice said anxiously, “Tim, don’t give them any details. The fewer people know what we’re doing, the better. Plus something else. We’ve got some ugly boys in this business, when they want to be, and they aren’t going to be crazy about somebody like us squeezing in. I don’t want to worry you; you’re perfectly safe. I’m the one I’m thinking about.”
“I appreciate that, Joey,” Rourke said. “But this character here is a skeptic, from way back.” He covered the mouthpiece again. “Mike, I’ll pay you back double your money in twenty-four hours. If anything goes wrong, I’ll give you fifty out of every paycheck till we’re square.”
“If it’s that good,” Shayne said, “I might take a piece of it myself. Let me talk to the guy.”
Rourke held the phone out of reach. “Oh, no, this is my contact, damn it. You have that obnoxious habit of asking intelligent questions. You can take the wind out of people’s sails faster than anybody I ever saw. Just because I happen to be temporarily short of cash-Joey,” he said into the phone, “I’ve got a small problem, but nothing I can’t take care of. Where do I meet you?”
“Make it at Sweeney’s,” Dolan said. “That’s a cafeteria across from the backstretch. Take Atlantic Boulevard and turn off on Judson Road, you’ll see it. Tim, you’re positive you’ll be there? Because this is the kind of shot that comes along once in a lifetime. If I muff it, I’ll just have to relax and coast from now on, and it’s all downhill.”
“I’ll be there,” Rourke assured him. “I know plenty of people who’ll loan me money on my IOU, without a lot of hemming and hawing.” He checked his watch. “Not much traffic this time of night. I should get there between three-thirty and a quarter to four.” He hung up.
“Ad,” he called to Ad Kimball, who was about to leave. “Don’t go yet. I’ve got a proposition.”
“I know, you want me to help you bust the twin double. Tim, you’ve been working too hard. You’re starting to crack up.”
“People win the twin double every night, for God’s sake. Why not me? Judge,” he said to Judge Benson, “you have an open mind. You know nobody makes any real dough unless they’re prepared to take a few chances.”
“Sorry, Tim,” the judge said. “I have a hard enough time persuading my wife to let me play poker. It wouldn’t be smart to compound the felony.”
When Rourke looked hopefully at Schwartz, the cab-driver told him, “Only creeps bet on the twin, in my book. That’s an amateur’s bet. I thought you had more sense.”
The others also turned him down and said good-night, leaving him alone with Mike Shayne. Avoiding his friend’s eye, Rourke stood up jerkily, his lanky frame opening like a carpenter’s rule.
“I’ve still got a few friends around town. The trouble’s going to be to get it in cash. Did you see what I did with my car keys?”
Shayne laughed, took out his wallet and started counting. “You could probably raise it, if you made up a good enough pitch. A dame in trouble, something like that. But sooner or later they’d find out what you wanted it for. That’s a good way to lose friends.”
“Mike, you bastard,” Rourke said, racking the bills and putting them in his pants pocket. “What did you have to scare me like that for? Listen, let’s make it a syndicate, and I’ll owe you two-fifty. Anything we clear we’ll split down the middle.”
Shayne shook his head. “A straight loan, Tim. I can think of better ways to get rid of money than trying to pick four winners in a row.”
“You don’t pick four.” Rourke scribbled an IOU. “You pick two, and bracket them with all the horses in the other two races. And of course you get say a twenty-dollar bill on each of your two winners, in the regular pool, and if only one of them comes in, you’ve got your investment back right there.”
Under the even gaze from Shayne’s gray eyes, this sounded less plausible than when Joey Dolan had told it to him on the phone, and all at once Rourke wondered if he was making a fool of himself. Was it possible that this was nothing but a scheme to hustle him out of five hundred dollars? Dolan wouldn’t turn in an expense account on how he spent the money. What if he didn’t really spend it at all? It was true enough, as Schwartz had said, that people who put money into the twin double were usually hunch-players, whose idea of a sensible way to pick the winners was to use the first four digits of their social-security number. Dolan’s tips had always been good, but that was the classic confidence-game technique, setting the victim up for the real take. What would Rourke do if Dolan called for another five hundred in the morning? And another five hundred in betting money? Shayne could be right, Rourke thought. He should have played it cool and asked for a little more proof. Money didn’t grow on trees, even in this climate.
“Mike, you wouldn’t consider driving up with me, would you?” he said hopefully. “See how it sounds. If you don’t think it’s on the level, blow smoke through your nose or something and I’ll keep the dough in my pocket.”
“Now I know you’re nuts,” Shayne said. “I’ve got things to do tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I keep forgetting you’re not as young as you were,” Rourke said, swaying. “I can remember times when you’d stay up three nights running, but the years take their toll, don’t they? Dolan did say there might be a certain element of danger. I mean, with this amount of scratch involved, they won’t look kindly on a couple of strangers. The more slices, the smaller each slice. But there’s probably not too much to worry about. At this stage, how would anybody know what we had in mind?”
“True,” Shayne agreed gravely.
Rourke put a cigarette in his mouth and fumbled for his lighter. He had trouble bringing the flame and the end of the cigarette together. He threw the lighter away and caromed off a chair on the way to the mantlepiece for the keys to his Ford.
“I guess I shouldn’t have taken that last drink,” he mumbled, running his words together. “But don’t worry, I’ll get there. That heap of mine just about handles itself.”
He was putting some of this on, but the truth was that he didn’t look forward to the drive alone. The Sunshine State Parkway had been engineered to eliminate all forms of distraction, and he often came close to falling asleep on it even in daylight, when he was fully awake to begin with.
Shayne watched his helpless-drunk act, unimpressed.
“What a faker,” he commented. “All right, we’ll go in my car.”
CHAPTER 2
