to the floor. He came into the access driveway as the J. T. Thomas truck entered from the opposite end.
Shayne held to the middle of the two lanes. The truck roared directly at him. Shayne was swearing savagely. He held the wheel steady with the weight of his left forearm, and fumbled the. 38 out of the sling.
He fired through the windshield, aiming downward. One of the truck’s front tires blew. The truck swerved into some shrubbery on the left of the driveway, and came back, out of control. Shayne pulled the wheel hard. He struck the van just back of the front door, and was thrown forward into the windshield.
For an instant, pain took him elsewhere. When he came back, the driver of the van, still wearing the perky white-and-orange cap, was out and running. He vaulted onto the loading dock, stumbling briefly. Before he recovered, Shayne would have had a shot, but his. 38 was somewhere on the floor.
He had blood in his eyes. He stepped down.
The sky was filled with the excited barking of dogs. In the control room, Dave was playing the kennel loop, to go with the action on the screens.
The rear door of the van had popped open. Frieda Field was on the floor, tightly gagged. She had twisted around and was trying to roll to the door.
He helped her sit up. “Are you O.K.?” With a movement of her head, she urged him to go after the driver. He started to work at the knot holding her wrists, but she kicked him away.
“All right. I’ll be back.”
Inside, the crowd remained intent on the screens, which showed a fixed view of the interior of the burning kennel. Shayne sent one of Painter’s plainclothes-men to release Frieda, and picked up a phone. When the control room answered he asked for Rourke.
“I saw him come back in,” Rourke said. “We’re tracking him. He’s at the sellers’ windows. Looking outside. In that cap, he’s easy to follow. Mike, I think it’s Castle.”
“With a beard?”
“He’s been gone a long time. Moving. Stopped again. Painter has two of Soupy’s guys. Shall I let Painter have this one, or do you want him?”
“I don’t like to be selfish.”
“He can’t get away, all the exits are covered. No, there he goes! There he goes, Mike. Heading for the grandstand.”
“Swing one of the overhead cameras. Pick him up when he comes out, and put it on the screens.”
Rourke shouted to somebody. Having decided to let the police make the capture, Shayne moved to where he could watch on the screen. The sound was cut off abruptly. Now he could hear the frantic barking of the real dogs in the kennel. The main film patrol camera, which filmed the start and finish of each race, swung completely around and began to scan the nearly empty grandstand. That picture replaced the kennel interior on the screens. The camera held on one of the gates into the betting hall. A bearded man in the concessionaire’s uniform came through.
“There he is,” Rourke’s excited voice said over all the outlets. “The man in white. It’s Tony Castle. Who just bombed the kennel, killing some high-priced racing greyhounds. Wanted for conspiracy to commit murder. Be careful. He may be armed. Let the cops do it.”
The camera followed the hurrying figure down the steeply pitched aisle. The foam truck Shayne had been driving had been disentangled from the wrecked van, and was being brought in to lay foam on the fire. It stopped beside Shayne, and he stepped up onto its bumper so he could see over the crowd. Castle was taking the steps dangerously fast, two and three at a time. But that aisle led nowhere except to the paved terrace in front of the grandstand. Shayne caught a flicker of movement and color. The big gate in the corrugated fence behind the starting box was beginning to swing. Another J. T. Thomas man in orange and white appeared for an instant in the opening, then slipped out of sight.
“Everybody stay back,” Rourke’s voice clamored. “The man is dangerous. Watch it on TV.”
Two track workers brought the foam jet around to bear on the burning kennel. Shayne pulled one of them aside, body-checked the other, and slid behind the wheel. Without stopping to cut off the foam, he came about and headed for the paddock fence, bracing himself so he wouldn’t be sent into the glass a second time. He hit hard, hung for an instant and went through, rocking. The foam hose whipped behind him, spraying the infield, the track, the knots of people on the grandstand lawn. He had a straight 150-yard run. The crowd was yelling him on, as though they had tickets on him.
Castle, at the far end of the straightaway, went over the rail, landed running, and headed for the gate. He was beginning to labor like the tranquilized dogs on the backstretch in the Classic. Shayne groped behind him, and his fingers fastened on the hose. He followed it to the nozzle and brought it up and around. The foam jetted straight in the air for an instant, then arched outward in front of the truck, and struck the gate before Castle reached it, knocking it shut. Shayne adjusted his aim slightly. As Castle turned, a gun in his hand suddenly, the powerful jet caught him in the chest and tumbled him backward.
Shayne slewed to a stop and jumped, landing on Castle with both feet.
They rolled together. Breaking free, Shayne stamped at Castle’s gun hand. Ignoring the pain in his arm, he pulled Castle up by the front of his uniform and slammed him against the gate, shaking the gun loose. Shayne kicked it away.
The two men stood looking at each other. Castle gasped for breath. The cocky hat had been knocked off. A few strands of gray hair were plastered across his skull. The wet uniform had picked up some of the track dirt as he rolled. He had fattened up, as well as adding the beard, since Shayne last saw him. Shayne would have passed him on the street without a glance. Sometime in the last seven years, he had become an old man.
“Mike Shayne,” Castle breathed. “You were in the kennel.”
“We videotaped that last night. A man of your age shouldn’t be running around like this. You ought to be sitting in a deck chair watching seagulls.”
“With a mint julep,” Castle said. “It was that goddamn ear you sent me.”
Painter ran up, breathing hard. “Is that Castle? That’s not Castle. What happened to him?”
“He’ll look more dangerous in clean clothes,” Shayne said. “Tony, one question before the lawyers take over. What was your name doing in Max Geary’s payoff book?”
“A decoy, the same as yours.”
“What?” Painter demanded. “What are you trying to say? Shayne never got that eighty thousand dollars?”
“I did my best to tell you,” Shayne said. “And it was Tony’s men who gave Max that beating. I have one of them on ice, and I think he’ll be glad to testify.”
Castle showed emotion for the first time. “You cut his ear off and he’s alive!”
Shayne laughed. “Tony, you’re as much of a mark as the two-dollar bettors in the stands. This is personal now. Just you and me. Explain that payoff book.”
Castle shook himself inside the foam-soaked uniform. His shoulders straightened.
“I don’t like you, Shayne. Give me that gun back, I’ll shoot you right here in front of everybody. But you made it a man-to-man thing with that ear, and you outplayed me. I had the girl today, and you sat tight and made me make the moves. That took balls. So you deserve this. Max borrowed two million from me. I didn’t expect him to pay it back. I expected to take over the track and sell it at a good markup to Harry Zell. But every payment came in on time. I wanted to know what kind of angle he was working, because if it worked at Surfside, it would work anywhere. Not just the dogs, the horses. That would run into real money. But he didn’t want to go shares. So I pressed him a little, put him in the hospital to think it over. And he worked out a way to protect himself. Here was the problem. How does he stop me from beating his head in again? He could file a statement with a lawyer, to be turned over to the state’s attorney if the boys started hitting and hit too hard. But with no other evidence they couldn’t extradite me, and you know I wouldn’t come back on my own. A one-day story in the paper, and then the lid would go on. So he came up with this. Mike Shayne’s another matter. Put your reputation on the line, and he knew you’d keep at it till you had all the answers. As I have reason to know, from seven years back. So he told me. If he died funny, Shayne would be named as a big taker. I backed off fast.”
“Did you kill him?” Painter said.
Castle turned slowly. “I gave Shayne an answer because he earned it. Who are you?”
“You’ll learn who I am, believe me,” Painter said, dancing.
Castle made a quick, contemptuous turn, and started toward the grandstand. Painter skipped after him. He
