After taking his Buick out of the garage, he double-parked and picked up a News on Twelfth Avenue. He read Rourke’s story before moving off. Rourke had warned him it would be damning, and it was. There was a boxed front-page editorial on declining moral standards in the city, the inescapability of corruption in an atmosphere where everybody, presumably with the exception of newspaper publishers, was out for the fast buck. The only remedy suggested was continued vigilance and reform in the system of allotting racing dates. Perhaps four dog tracks in one metropolitan area were too many. The sports page carried a statement by the ex-sports editor, Wanamaker, admitting that he had been guilty of bad judgment in accepting gifts and hospitality from Mr. Geary, but denying that this had affected in any way the paper’s coverage of the sport. Another story described in detail the Surfside security system, the twenty trained security guards, the closed-circuit TV, the tattoos, the two-hour quarantine and the postrace testing by trained veterinarians. Whatever money had passed between the late Max Geary and those on his secret payroll, the public could rest assured that when the dogs sprang out of the starting box, all eight of them sincerely wanted to overtake and devour that synthetic rabbit.
Shayne tore out the list of Geary’s payees and studied it again at dinner. He ate without hurrying, but also without being aware of what he was eating.
The “full” signs were up in Surfside’s own parking lots, and Shayne had to park well to the south of the track, near Harding Park, and walk back. Geary would have been pleased by the turnout. As Shayne paid his way in, the greyhounds were being called onto the track for the third race. The floor was already littered with a drift of uncashed tickets. A covered stage had been erected across from the grandstand, a little off-center so it wouldn’t block the view of the board, which was draped with black bunting. Above the morning-line odds for the next race, lights said: “Surfside Kennel Club Honors the Memory of a Great Sportsman.”
Shayne bought a program and opened it to the page listing the Surfside officials, from Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell Geary, Owners, through the racing secretary and safety director and director of mutuels, the judges and chief clerks, down to the announcer and lure operator and kennelmaster. There was another list of state racing officials, under the Board of Wagering and the Board of Business Regulation. Shayne compared the names with those he had torn out of the News, and found little overlap.
When Surfside was expanded and modernized some years before, to meet the competition of the new tracks across the bay, a huge inside auditorium, the Hall of the Greyhound, had been added, with a theater-sized screen and twenty smaller TV screens along both walls. Here, in chilly weather, bettors could eat and drink at one of the many bars and snack bars, place their bets and watch the races without ever seeing a living dog. Even tonight, with the temperature in the high sixties, there were more customers in the auditorium than in the grandstand or clubhouse. On the innumerable monitors, the speakers scheduled to eulogize Max Geary were about to take their places. Several of the promised dignitaries, including the Senator, had discovered engagements that kept them elsewhere. Here in the murky auditorium, few people were paying attention. The betting windows were closed for the time being, but with eight races left on the program, there was much work to be done.
Shayne went through to the escalators, passing a sign saying, “No Public Admittance Beyond This Point.” The executive offices and racing control were on a long suspended deck, hung from the grandstand roof. The front wall was almost all window, a long double-pane strip starting a foot above floor level and ending at the ceiling. No one was using Geary’s office. Leaving the door slightly ajar, Shayne turned down the volume on the public address outlet so he could hear anyone approaching, and went past the desk. The closed-circuit monitor was set on automatic, clicking from one location to another every twenty seconds. There was a two-drawer file, locked. On the other side of the track, a rabbi was in the midst of the opening prayer. Finding nothing of interest, Shayne moved on.
In the main control room, the lure operator was leaning forward, arms folded, over the long arm of the notched rheostat. The track announcer glanced around as Shayne looked in. Recognizing Shayne, he brought the front legs of his chair down with a thump. The TV technician and the chart writer, young men with nearly identical drooping mustaches, were laughing about something. The laughs faded instantly.
All twelve closed-circuit screens on the big console were working. Nothing was moving in the lockup kennel. A few late arrivals were still clicking through the turnstiles. Lines of impatient bettors had already formed at the sellers’ windows.
Shayne nodded and passed on.
He caused a similar stir in the judges’ box. There were six men here. He recognized none of them. If they hadn’t watched Painter’s press conference, in which Shayne’s name had figured prominently, they had seen clips of it later. Quick looks were exchanged. What was Shayne, the recipient of $80,000, doing here?
Shayne moved on to the VIP lounge. This was a big room, comfortably furnished, with its own bar and serving pantry. Tonight, of course, it had been used by the dignitaries now on the infield platform. The TV monitor showed the same scene that could be watched by looking out of the windows, but the sound was choked down to a whisper. The rabbi’s prayer was finished at last, and his place at the mike was taken by an official of the Dog Racing Association. Shayne found that the bar stocked his brand of cognac, and he poured himself a shot. He looked at the dog pictures on the wall, and was at the big window, drinking, when the door opened behind him and one of the men from the judges’ group came in. He was breathing rapidly, as though he had come a much longer distance.
“I need a drink. I can’t listen to that crap.”
He had a manila envelope under one arm. He put it on the bar while he poured whiskey, and when he sat down, laid it on the couch beside him. Behind dark-rimmed glasses, he blinked continually.
“I don’t know if this was such a hell of a good idea, Shayne, showing up tonight, but if you want to know something, I was thinking about calling you.”
“I don’t place you,” Shayne said.
“I’m Lou Liebler. And I don’t mind telling you, I’m getting a little edgy.”
“We all are,” Shayne said. “Max surprised a few people. There are some things that shouldn’t be put in writing. What was he trying to prove?”
“I can’t figure that one out.”
He drank, put the glass down, touched the envelope, scratched under his jaw, and reached for the glass again. If he had been any more nervous, he would have been flying.
“Liebler, sure,” Shayne said, remembering the name from the program. “You’re here looking after the interests of the State of Florida.”
“Correct. And when the state’s interests clash with my interests, I try to work out a compromise. Do you want to give me a general statement of where things stand at this point?”
Shayne studied his cognac. When he was satisfied with it, he drank.
“The difference is,” he said carefully, “people are going to be watching now. Changes have to be made. New shares all around.”
“Ouch. Well, I won’t say we didn’t expect it.” Liebler gestured at the monitor, on which a fat TV comedian, very much in earnest, was extolling Max Geary’s selflessness by citing the charity drives he had headed, as well as many small, unpublicized acts of kindness and generosity. “Not all that generous, I didn’t think. But without that big piece off the top, Max’s piece, there’s going to be more for everybody.”
“We don’t want to get involved in a war.”
“I’ll go along on that,” Liebler said, his eyes jumping from Shayne to the monitor, and then back to Shayne. “I’m a confirmed pacifist. At the same time, I know what I’m entitled to.”
The most interesting thing about this conversation so far was that Liebler’s name hadn’t been one of the ones in Geary’s book. Painter had identified only one name from the Wagering Board.
“What about Wolf?” Shayne said. “Is he going to be reasonable?”
“I wouldn’t like to be the one to put it to him, but he must be shaking and shivering today. Frankly, I was surprised at the size of his number.”
“Didn’t he have this job before you?”
Liebler gave him a quick look, which might have been slightly tinged with suspicion. “Al Wolf. Yeah. And when his transfer came through, he recommended me to replace him. For which I couldn’t thank him enough.”
“Can he hack the publicity?”
“I don’t see why not, if he keeps his mouth shut.”
Again Shayne thought about what he was going to say before he said it. “That’s what I wanted to check up on. If Painter had anything else to go with that little black book, he wouldn’t be handling it this way. He’d be after indictments. He’s hoping to get the hysteria going, so somebody’ll panic and they can turn him around.”
