“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.”
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.”