walked it out.
The crowd had finally realized that something dangerous was happening, and was draining toward the exits. The cop was standing ten feet away, still in the grip of the shooting hysteria. Having fired his gun once, he wanted passionately to fire it again.
The track announcer was calling, “And going into the backstretch it’s Josie S. on the inside-”
Shayne lifted the body so the feet were clear, and ran at the cop. Unnerved by the shattered face and the rotating arms, the cop tried to go two ways at once, and stumbled. Shayne released the body with a yell, and jumped at the escalator.
Several customers were riding up from the ground floor. Shayne, a frightening sight himself by this time, swung out on the strip between the two staircases and slid to the ground floor.
A security guard was running to warn the others at the turnstiles. Shayne made the opposite turn, away from the gate. He wrenched open a door-“Press, Public Relations”-and walked in, colliding with Linda Geary.
She recoiled, and said accusingly, “You got blood on me.”
“That’s because I’ve got blood on me,” Shayne said. “It’s nice to meet somebody for a change who isn’t waving a gun.”
She stared at him, brushing at the blood on her hands. “For heaven’s sake, what happened?”
“I’ve been shot at and knifed, and don’t ask me why because I don’t know. Your cops think the only way to stop me now is to kill me, so will you lock the door and tell them you’re lying down with a headache?”
“There’s no lock on the door. Who shot at you?”
“I’d say they’re professionals. That’s all I have time for.”
Blood was dripping off his fingertips. He put the. 45 in his belt and worked his jacket off his injured shoulder. Linda made a small distressed sound.
“Do you think your father was murdered, Linda?” Shayne said.
“No!” She raised a hand as though she thought he was about to hit her. “ Murdered! He was drunk, he went off the road-”
“Maybe somebody was parked there waiting, and nudged him off. Did he believe in using his seat belt?”
“The car made an awful noise when he didn’t.”
“It was sitting out there in a dark parking lot all evening. Sprinkle a few pints of gas on the motor, and it’d be sure to catch on fire. That might explain why everybody seems so tense.”
He was using his ripped shirt to sponge off the blood. The knife blade had gone deep into the muscle, and had probably touched bone. Linda had the back of her hand to her mouth.
“It’ll look better when it’s sewn up,” Shayne told her. “You know your way around this place. What about emergency exits?”
“I’m sorry,” she said faintly, “but I have to-”
She plumped into a chair, her face very pale. After a moment she gave her head a hard shake. “And I’ve been complaining this job was so dull. You’d better have some water.” She waved toward a closed door. “But don’t expect any needlework from me. I’m no good at that kind of thing.”
This group of offices had its own small washroom. Leaving the door open. Shayne filled the basin. When the water turned red, he emptied it out and ran more.
Linda pushed to her feet. “Do I have to watch? You do that and I’ll check something. Don’t go away.” When Shayne looked around at her she said hastily, “I hired you to take care of that Cuban. You can’t do that if you’re full of holes. Trust me.”
He let her go. Five minutes went by. When she came back, he was sitting on the corner of a desk, bare to the waist, a towel knotted around his upper arm. Some of her color had returned.
“I had a quick Scotch,” she explained. “Very therapeutic. My God, Shayne-you’re as scarred as a redwood.”
“Always room for one more.”
She gazed at him, blinking her prominent eyes. “You’re a-magnificent-looking man, do you realize that? I’m sorry I threw a drink at you. Who would have realized, with your shirt on-”
“I accept the apology, Linda, and I’d like to be moving. What’s going on out there?”
“They’re running around looking for a crazy killer, and it seems they have a body to prove it. You didn’t tell me you killed somebody.”
“Linda, there were three of them, two guns and a knife. I have something to work on now, and I’d like to keep it rolling. In an hour or two, if nobody looks in here in the meantime, I can probably walk out and surrender. But then I’ll be tied up for at least twenty-four hours, which is how long it takes to pick up after something like this. If I’m out in the open, they’ll try again. This time I’ll be better prepared.”
“I was thinking we’d go in my office and push the desk against the door and talk. Daydreaming again. You need something to wear. I’ve got a raincoat that won’t fit you, but let’s see.”
She went into one of the offices, and brought out a tan coat which she draped around his shoulders. He moved the. 45 from his belt to the side pocket.
“I’m Max Geary’s daughter,” she said. “They wouldn’t shoot me, would they?”
“I hope not, Linda. If you see any guns, lie down fast. Get down on the floor.”
“I’ll feel so silly. Walk with your knees bent so you don’t look so damn tall.”
She stepped out by herself first, then looked back and nodded. The only security uniforms in sight were at the extreme front of the building. Linda took the sleeve of the raincoat, then found his arm and steered him. The announcer’s cry seemed far away from here, echoing from one hard surface to another. She hurried him around a corner to a door under a red cross.
“Big night for Surfside,” she said as they went in. “I’ve got another casualty for you.”
A nurse and a dark young man in uniform were rolling Dee Wynn onto a stretcher. The kennelmaster was wearing a long splint immobilizing his left leg. He talked in a steady murmur, waving a hand as though brushing off flies. The ambulance that was usually parked at the end of the homestretch, beyond the starting box, had been backed up to the entrance, which gave onto the track. They slid Dee in and came back to Shayne.
“A little argument about money,” Linda said. “He’s ambulatory, but we’re going to be paying his medical expenses, so give him a ride, will you?”
The young doctor twitched the raincoat aside and looked at the blood-soaked towel. “We’d better put a dressing on that.”
“Let’s go,” Shayne said. “The sooner I get out of this clip joint-”
“You can’t blame it on Surfside, and you know it,” Linda said. “Clip joint, really.”
Shayne shook off the man’s hand when he tried to help, and climbed into the ambulance. Dee Wynn raised his head to see who was with him.
“What happened to you, friend, get knocked down by a rabbit?”
The greyhounds for the tenth race were being called from the paddock. Its bell clanging, the ambulance rolled out on the track, and through the gate.
Chapter 8
“Do you know anything about racing dogs?” Wynn’s hand kept waving, breaking the rhythm occasionally to scratch his crotch. “I know you don’t. I know all the dog people in this county. People claim they know dogs. They studied the tout sheets, and they know enough to steer clear of the fancy bets. They talk like a chart writer. But you can’t know dogs until you’ve coursed them. Made some good money coursing in the old-fashion days. Dogs that wouldn’t run on a race track for doodly-shit, they’d win for you every time in a wheatfield, coursing a real jackrabbit. And when they get catched, those big buck rabbits, they’ll let out a screech like a baby. If you wasn’t standing right there at the bob wire, you’d think a live human baby was squealing out there in the stubble. People from the East would get sick to their stomach. But to a dirt farmer, rabbits are the worst varmints alive, and that squeal is music. You ought to go out there sometime and get in on a real old-fashion roundup, where we’ll stampede five or ten thousand jacks into a wire pen and club them to death with sticks. In Abilene, Kansas. The United States Challenge Cup pays as high as three thousand dollars for a winning dog. I never came close against the big Kansas kennels.
