The decoy, a replica of the lure with the same startled eyes, was leaping up and down behind the wire screen, further distracting the dogs. Some turned in and allowed themselves to be captured. Others were already past.
Usually an aborted race is greeted with resentment from the customers, especially those whose dogs are leading at the moment the sign is flashed, but Wynn’s fall had been so wildly comic that everyone was laughing.
“You cretins,” Linda cried furiously. “Can’t you see he’s hurt?”
She pushed past Shayne. Wynn was still down on the track, his legs splayed, supporting himself on his hands, while the handlers and dogs raced around him. He felt the need to spit. His mouth worked, and a stream of juice jetted out halfway to the paddock entrance.
“You see such wonderful backwoods types here,” a heavily jeweled woman said in the box above Shayne. “I mean, it’s America, isn’t it?”
Chapter 7
Shayne finished his drink and went back to thinking about the Geary family and his own problem. Security men helped Wynn to the paddock, hopping on one leg. New greyhounds were called out, and again the numbers began to move on the board.
A waiter brought Shayne a folded note. It was crudely lettered, in block capitals: GOT SOMETHING FOR YOU, $$ INVOLVED, MEN’S LAV, B LEVEL GRANDSTAND. SIXTH RACE. IMPORTANT BE THERE.
The sixth race was next; there were seven minutes until post time. Shayne refolded the note and tapped his knuckles with it. He stood up, leaving the glass on the rail. He read the note again, standing. It didn’t fit in with any of his various guesses, and he already knew that unless he was extremely careful with his next few moves, something much worse than being knocked down by a mechanical rabbit and trampled by dogs was likely to happen.
At the gate into the grandstand area, he had his clubhouse ticket punched so he could get back without paying a new admission. Instead of trying to make his way through the great cavern between the grandstand and the theater, he went outside to the terrace between the stand and the track. The greyhounds were being introduced. At the far end of the terrace, he went back up one tier, stopping just after reentering the betting room.
The lines were snaking up to the windows. This was a beer-drinking crowd, and to make access easier during periods of heavy use, the entrance to the men’s room in the far corner was an open archway, reached by passing a double baffle. A notice had been posted on the outside partition.
Shayne stopped a woman returning to the grandstand. “Could I borrow your glasses? A guy’s buying some tickets with my money, and I think he’s trying to stiff me.”
“Oh, dear, you’re going to change the eye-setting. But I don’t guess it would be Christian to refuse.”
Shayne focussed on one of the betting lines, and lifted the glasses slightly to get the small sign at the men’s room entrance. It had been printed in the same block capitals as the note: CLOSED. USE OTHER FACILITIES.
He returned the glasses. “Thanks. If you want a winner, bet some money on the six dog.”
“Six?” she said breathlessly. “Are you sure?”
“It’s a tip from the kennel.”
She turned back to the windows, feeling for money. Shayne returned to the grandstand and stepped along an empty row until he spotted a stringy old man sitting alone with a hot dog and a plastic glass of beer. He was wearing a battered, broad-brimmed straw hat with a sweat-stained band.
Shayne sat down beside him. “Evening.”
“Evening.”
“I wanted to ask you if that hat is for sale.”
The old man’s eyebrows lifted. “This old hat?”
“I’ve got a dog in the next race,” Shayne explained, “and I’ve got a nice little bundle riding on him. The last two times he won for me, I was wearing a big straw just like yours. Not that I’m superstitious, but I’ll give you ten dollars for it.”
The old man cackled. “Oh, no, you’re not superstitious. Ten dollars is a sight more than it’s worth.” He removed the hat, exposing a bald, freckled skull. “Reckon I won’t get me a sunburn from these mercury lights. It’s a seven and three-eighths, and it’s given me good service.”
Shayne paid him and put on the hat.
“Don’t fit too bad,” the old man observed. “Now if I was a gambling man, I’d ask for the number of that dog. But you can’t bet dogs on the Social Security, unless you’re a pretty sorry damn fool. I come out here to pay my fifty cents and watch the show. Good luck to you, son.”
Shayne returned to the betting room, headed for the glow of one of the stand-up bars, and ordered whiskey. Nobody lingered here. The drinkers ordered, drank up, and left. In a moment or two Shayne had worked himself into a spot at the end, from which he could watch the closed men’s room from beneath the brim of the big hat. If somebody was inside waiting to meet him during the sixth race, sooner or later he would have to come out.
“And heeeere comes Speedy.”
The lure came around, and the greyhounds broke from the box. The bartender, a fat man in the concessionaire’s white and orange uniform, yelled at the nearest TV screen, “One-four-seven. Come on, one-four- seven.” A trifecta bettor, one of those foolish people who think they can guess which three dogs will come in first, second and third, in that order. The crowd noises, very loud at first, died to a whisper, building up again to a roar as the dogs came into the stretch. The six dog won by a length. The bartender had placed two of his dogs in the top three, but Shayne’s casual pick had spoiled the bet for him.
The crowd drifted back to the betting arena to see the race replayed. It seemed just as tense the second time, and even a shade more real. Shayne ordered a fresh drink and turned to the next page in his program.
Presently another eight dogs circled the track, this time starting from the backstretch and running nine- sixteenths of a mile. At the end of that race, the seventh, a man came out of the men’s room. His skin was the color of light chocolate. A gold hoop, the size of a half dollar, swung from one ear. He was hatless, his black hair close to his scalp in overlapping ringlets. He was wearing Adidas running shoes, and he was very loose.
Shayne’s head was down, much of his face screened by the brim. The man with the ear hoop walked toward the monitors, stopping beside a heavily built man who was studying the morning line for the upcoming race. He wasn’t comparing numbers with his program. He was merely staring.
After a quick exchange, the smaller man returned to the men’s room. Shayne moved out into the crowd. When the man at the monitor turned, Shayne turned with him. After a close look at his clothes and the way they hung, Shayne stepped in close from behind and slipped one hand around his waist, encircling him brusquely and covering the gun in the clip-on belt holster against his right hipbone. With his other hand, Shayne kept him from twisting.
“Are you Arthur Jacobs?” Shayne asked softly.
“No, you got the wrong guy.”
“Let’s take a walk.”
The man tried to stomp on Shayne’s instep. Swinging him on one hip, Shayne lifted him clear of the floor.
“And let’s try not to disturb people. They’ve got their minds on the next race.”
Shayne walked him to a phone booth and put him in, coming part of the way in with him and holding him with his knees and one elbow while he pulled the gun, a. 32 automatic. Then he eased up and let him slip down on the half-seat. Shayne didn’t know him, but he knew others like him. He had red-veined eyes and a muddy complexion. People who lead ordinary lives would have been terrified or sputtering, but apparently this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened to him.
“I tell you you’re making a mistake.”
“What’s the gun for?”
“In case I get lucky and win some of their money. I don’t want to get hijacked.”
