“I know what people thought of him. A maudlin, sloppy old bore. Do you know he never used to take more than one or two sociable drinks before we enlarged? Before we added the quote Hall of the Greyhound, unquote? The scale of everything changed. A bigger handle. Ten drinks for Daddy a night instead of two. We had to do it. The washrooms-my God, they were foul. We had to put in hurdle races. That just about killed Max, all by itself. Because when the good old boys in Kansas course their greyhounds, they don’t make them jump over sawed-off broomsticks, do they? Honest, traditional dog racing isn’t enough in this day and age. It has to be fancied up. You don’t watch the dogs, you watch the TV.”
The marshal lifted each dog’s chin and tweaked its blanket, to make it look like a winner, when the caller announced its name and weight. The numbers were dancing on the tote board.
“Oh, God,” Linda said, weeping. “When I was about seven he used to take me hunting and fishing. Those were the great times. When his trouble began, he didn’t even know I was alive. I’m the unluckiest person. Look around you. Everybody’s got a fistful of bills. The kennelmaster’s an old friend of mine, I do his betting for him. I thought I could piggyback on his bets and come out ahead, but I can’t even seem to do that. Whenever he tells me he has something that’s absolutely sure, that’s the night I can’t spare more than a few lousy bucks. It’s a money- making machine, but I’ve never been able to get it to perform for me.”
At the rate she was drinking, she would need another Scotch in a minute. Shayne waved at a waiter. She blew her nose hard.
“I thought I owed it to Max’s memory to get drunk tonight, but now I don’t think it was such a good-” She turned suddenly, and her hand closed on Shayne’s arm. “That’s a divine muscle. Is that what you used to put Max in the hospital? Or a baseball bat?”
“Would you like an explanation of that?”
“Oh, never mind, I don’t think I’d believe it. I know he was impossible sometimes. I had enough fights with him myself. I threw a platter of chicken at him once. Shayne, I need some help.”
“What kind?”
“I think it was tetrazini, what difference does it make?”
“I mean what kind of help?”
“Not psychiatric. Maybe the kind of help you could give me with that hard right arm. Go back a few minutes. You asked me a question, and now I think I’ll answer it. How much did I know about the business? Thanks,” she said to the waiter as he passed in a drink. “Officially, not a hell of a lot. But unofficially-well, I made it a point to nose around, because some day all this was going to be mine, was the idea. None of the dog people pay any attention to me-I’m part of the wallpaper. And one of the things I’ve found out, one of the major things, is why he paid you three thousand a month.”
“He had every reason to keep that confidential.”
“He thought he was keeping it confidential. I pieced it together.”
“I think you’re trying to bluff me, Linda. Tell me your theory.”
“No, I don’t think I will. You play this game all the time. I’m new at it. I don’t want to hear you tell me how wrong I am. Because I know, and you’d better believe it. And this gives me a little muscle, even though I’m really only a frail girl. I think I’m going to hire you, Shayne, you corrupt son of a bitch. Mike Shayne, yeah! But I’m not going to pay you any money. I couldn’t afford your fees. This time your fee is going to be silence.” She put her finger to her lips. “Do me a favor, and I won’t explain that three thousand to the cops, or the newspapers, or the state’s attorney.”
Shayne continued to look at her steadily, and she went on, “I’m in a position to lay you waste, will you admit that?”
“Probably, if you have any evidence at all.”
“Pooh, evidence. I don’t need it. I’m the daughter. Do you want to take a chance? Go ahead. You may think you’re in trouble now, but wait till I’m done talking.”
“Who do you want me to work on, the kid in the kennel?”
“Exactly. His name is Ricardo Sanchez, and I’ll give you five days to get him off the track and out of Miami. Am I wrong in thinking that’s the kind of work you do?”
“I’ve done it,” Shayne said shortly. “But it can backfire. If your mother gets the idea you’re persecuting him, you’ll be worse off than you are now.”
She touched his arm again, this time running her palm along its full length to the wrist. “You can control that. I like competent people, and I have a feeling you’re competent. They’ve got an apartment in the Fanchon Towers. She rented it for him. Mother and I don’t have those long girl-to-girl talks anymore, and I had to follow her one night, which made me feel very crummy. I kind of sympathize with the old girl, but you have to admit it’s grotesque. He’s completely uneducated. Just because he has that great smile and that neat little Cuban ass.”
“You want to break it up for her own good, so she won’t be hurt.”
“So she won’t change her mind about selling Surfside! For the last year we’ve been conspirators. How were we going to make that drunken madman listen to reason? Then all of a sudden, a hundred-and-eighty-degree switch. North to south, uptown to downtown. And why? So she can make her Latin boyfriend racing secretary, or something even more grand, general manager, whatever his heart desires.”
“Has she definitely said she won’t sell, in those words?”
“She sent back Harry’s purchase agreement, with no explanation. But I know the explanation. It’s that Cuban stud, who no doubt is giving her the first satisfactory humping of her adult life. Get something on him,” she said viciously, “and if there’s nothing to get, invent something. But I know that look, the sassy way he moves. There’s larceny there somewhere. Talk to his Cuban girlfriends and find out what he does when it’s siesta time in the barrio. And then pound him with it! Catch an outgoing bus, Ricardo, or that Latin American ass will end up on a slab.”
“You really want to go that far?”
“I want you to break it up, and break it up fast, and don’t tell me how you did it if it embarrasses you. In five days. Oh, she’ll sell eventually. No other move makes sense. But I want that Cuban to be a thing of the past before there are any loose piles of cash lying around.”
The woman they were talking about was still huddled with the mayor and other dignitaries in the infield. From this angle, the pool beyond, set in loose blue gravel, looked like a dog biscuit. The dogs were yipping in the starting box.
The announcer cried, “And heeeeere comes Speedy.” The artificial rabbit, a two-foot length of spring steel wrapped in sheepskin, with bright inflamed eyes, whipped around the turn, releasing the lid of the starting box. The dogs poured out.
“Dee!” Linda cried in alarm. “Dee Wynn. What’s the damn fool doing?”
The older man Shayne had seen in the paddock had wandered out on the track. He was wavering, holding the Coke bottle the way a tightrope walker uses his pole, for balance. The pack pounded hard toward the turn. These first moments were the most important part of the race, for in three races out of four, the dog that leads at the first call will go on to win. The bettors in the clubhouse boxes were yelling encouragement to the dogs they had money on, addressing them not by name but by number.
“Go back, Dee!” Linda called. “Oh, my God. Dee, go back, you’ll be massacred-”
Suddenly, the old man realized that in a moment he and eight charging dogs would be contending for the same stretch of track. He gestured with the half-empty bottle.
The announcer, above on the control deck, had seen him. “Dee-leave the track.”
The kennelmaster hesitated, and made the wrong choice. The lure operator was leading the dogs by forty feet. He came back on the rheostat handle, and the lure slowed. In a moment the leading greyhound was only a few lengths behind it. Wynn jumped toward the infield. A yell went up. He was a half step from safety, in the air in the middle of his final bound, when the lure arm struck his ankle. Both legs flew up, the bottle went sailing, his arms flailed like an off-center windmill, and he came down hard on the seat of his pants. It was a spectacular spill.
And an instant later the dogs were on him.
The board flashed: “No Race. No Race.”
The pack split. A few dogs continued after the rabbit, which was now far ahead around the turn, but the others wheeled and broke, and two headed back toward the starting boxes. The lure folded inward and disappeared.
The announcer was calling, “No race. No race. The fifth race will be rescheduled later in the program, hold your tickets, ladies and gentlemen, hold your tickets.”
