headlights on.
“Tim,” Shayne said sharply. “Pay attention. Don’t come in unless I call you. Rap on the wall if you can hear me.”
Two quick raps answered.
Shayne heard Thorne’s clumping step on the stairs. Going quickly to the bathroom, he stepped into the shower stall and pulled the curtain across.
“Mike, please,” Claire said faintly from the bedroom.
The overhead outlet dripped cold water on Shayne. He tightened both faucets, but the drip continued. He heard the outer door open.
“Paul, don’t!” Claire cried.
There was the sound of a hard blow. “You think I’m going to hold still for this, you bitch?” Thorne shouted. “I want half.”
“Half of what?” Claire said suspiciously.
“Half the payoff! What kind of a jerk do you think I am?”
“There isn’t any payoff. You knew there was a chance it wouldn’t work. We always knew that.”
“Yeah!” Thorne said scornfully. “If the mare broke a leg or some other horse surprised us, OK. I’d have to pack up and run, and run a long way, but that was the chance I took when I borrowed from that guy. But this was no accident. This was planned. The trouble is, I know you. I know you all the way through.”
Claire had lost some of her fear of him, now that they were face to face. “There must be something behind this clamor,” she said with a return to her habitual coolness. “Some terrible suspicion is working in that pea-sized brain. You must think I told Frank to hold her in.”
“I know when Frank’s trying and when he only wants the grandstand to think he’s trying. He gave the mare a real heads-up drive. But the times! That was how you suckered me. That My Treat is no 2:04 pacer. I should have taken her out and timed her myself.”
“I timed her.”
“That’s what I mean! You timed her, and then you conned me into throwing away a thousand bucks I don’t have. You wanted to cut me up like confetti so I’d blow away. But I don’t blow so easy! How many winning tickets did you end up with?”
“If it gives you any satisfaction to think I rigged this, go ahead and think it. Larry says he’ll loan you a thousand, on your IOU. Out of the goodness of his heart, I don’t know why. Do you want it or don’t you?”
“Yeah, I’ll take the thousand. That’s not all I’ll take. Why didn’t you wait a couple of days to cash in? I’ll tell you why, kid. I didn’t get through high school, but that doesn’t make me a moron, either. You wanted to be sure I’d know what a genius you are. You wanted to rub it in that I’m dirt, nothing but dirt.”
“That’s exactly what I think you are. What’s rankling with you, Paul? That you killed Joey Dolan, and you’re no better off than you were before?”
“I didn’t!” he shouted. He repeated in a lower voice, “I didn’t kill Joey. That’s more your style. I’d guess he found out about Fussbudget, and that might have spoiled your nice little double-cross. You had to get back at me for walking out on you. First you set a world’s record for getting in bed with me-”
“Stop it.”
“And then when everything wasn’t just so-” He was starting to shout again. “What kind of a lay were you looking for? Some three-quarters pansy, who’d say may I, honey, do you mind, sweetheart? You drove me out of my head with your complaints, and when I couldn’t put up with that mouth any more and smacked you, what did it make me? A big dumb gorilla.”
“Paul, I’m warning you.”
“If you didn’t like the way I was, what did you sleep with me for?”
“You’ve always distorted everything, and you’re still at it. Here’s the thousand. Count it and get out of here.”
“You hated me from the word Go. You couldn’t be satisfied with getting me beat up and knocked out of the business, back to scratching for a living on that goddamn farm. Not you, not Claire Domaine who gets her picture in the paper. You could have used somebody besides Rutherford and I never would have known who was murdering me. But you wanted me to know. That was the main part of it.”
“What about Rutherford?” she demanded.
“Goldy Rutherford! I was there on the table getting my leg tied up, and the nurse says to the doctor, ‘Did you hear that Rutherford just cashed a winning ticket in the twin?’” And the doctor gives a big laugh. So does everybody. Even the mutuels office knows Rutherford is a Domaine beard. You’re on thin ice there, baby-they’re all wondering why you used somebody that obvious.”
“You’re mad. I haven’t talked to Rutherford since-”
“Since last night. Sure, sure. There are eight tickets still out. How many have you got?”
“Keep your hands out of my bag!”
A chair scraped and went over. Shayne tensed and took hold of the shower curtain.
“And here it is!” Thorne exclaimed. “Twin double, six and eight! Another twenty-two grand. So you didn’t have any dough on Fussbudget! Put that down.”
There was a hard thud. Then the sound came that Shayne had been waiting for. The gun banged, for an instant there was silence.
“Listen,” Thorne said, “I didn’t mean to do that, Claire. All I want is my split. Claire, baby, I wouldn’t shoot you. What did you have to bring a gun for, for God’s sake? I wouldn’t hurt you.”
There was no answer.
Thorne’s voice was suddenly uncertain, the voice of a shaken small boy. “I didn’t want to do all those things to you, Claire. I’ve got to go now. You understand why I can’t stay, don’t you? It was an accident, but people wouldn’t believe it. I’ll call a doctor. You’ll be all right.”
The door opened and closed.
Shayne stepped out of the shower stall. Claire lay on her side on the floor beside the bed. The gun was near her hand. She moved her head, and made a whimpering sound. Shayne saw the mark on her forehead where Thorne had hit her just before the gun went off.
Hearing a key scrape in the lock, he faded back into the shower. Footsteps entered the room.
“Good evening, darling?” Domaine’s voice said. “Having trouble?”
CHAPTER 19
The footsteps softly crossed the carpet.
“Larry,” Claire whispered.
“I see you’re still breathing,” her husband said. “That’s unfortunate. Did you think I was going to stand by and let you sleep with half the male population of southern Florida?”
There was a rustling noise, followed by a quick shot.
Shayne burst out of the bathroom and struck in a blur of motion, getting the gun in one hand and back- handing Domaine very hard with the other. Domaine went over the double bed and off it on the other side. Claire still lay on the carpet, frozen, her eyes wide with shock. There was a black powder burn on her forehead. She had just been shot by two men in succession, but it almost seemed that the one she was most afraid of was Shayne.
He gave her a warning look and went after her husband, who was coming to his feet. Another openhanded blow from Shayne sent him sprawling into the armchair.
“Goddamn it,” Shayne said in savage self-disgust. “I had you tabbed as a talker. I thought you’d want to torment her a little before you shot her.”
Domaine reached up, his hand trembling badly, and removed his pince-nez, which miraculously had stayed clamped to his nose after two blows. “I was in a hurry. She’s dead, of course?”
“Taking a. 38 slug in the brain isn’t the best way to stay healthy,” Shayne said grimly. “I’m sorry it happened like this. She was a damn fine woman. Maybe we can get both you and Thorne for it. I’ll sure as hell try.”
