Million Dollar Handle

by Brett Halliday

  “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. The way I made out was the side bets. Had a big lop-eared fawn bitch one year, earned close to ten thousand. She never cared to win by more than a point. She’d keep a length ahead of the other dog, to tease him, like, and make him suffer more when he lost. I trained her in the slob, to strengthen the leg muscles. Nobody fools with that kind of nicety anymore. What happened to your arm?”

  “Knifed. What happened to your leg?”

  The waving hand stopped for an instant.

  “Cracked a couple of anklebones, they tell me. They give me a shot and I’m not feeling a thing. I slipped, that’s all in the world it was. A simple slip. That spic bastard said I could make it—he’s after my job, looking for ways to embarrass me. I wanted to get out and talk to the widow. They think that was an accident, don’t they? Sure they do. That was no accident. He thought he could run a dog track honest, old Max. All that bullshit—the man who took dog racing away from Al Capone. Oh, yes, we had many a discussion on the subject. You can’t run a dog track honest, there’s too much temptation, and you’re a damn fool to try. I’m laying here talking with an ankle that’s smashed, you might say, and the reason it don’t hurt me is modern science. I couldn’t walk on it, you know, but I could tell you stories about greyhounds that broke a leg in a race and finished on three. They want to run, you know. They’ll rip the leash out of your hands. Well, do you think a medical doctor is the only person can administer a needle? We didn’t use needles so much in the old days. When we wanted to stop them by a couple of lengths, we’d put a rubber band around a toe. They don’t like that. And the rubber band’s going to break or rub off before the race is over, so there’s nothing to show. Or you wedge in a little pebble. Cinch up the muzzle strap. All kinds of flapping tricks. With a dog that’s known as a good-breaking dog, you want to take off a couple of blinks in that first sixteenth. And that drops you a class, and gets you a better price the next time out.”

  “What makes you think it wasn’t an accident?”

  “I been getting these spells. One leg just folded up under me, at a bad time.”

  “No—Max Geary.”

  Dee raised his head to peer at Shayne in the dim shifting light.

  “I was in the back seat. I was waiting for him to come out, but he was taking his time about it, and I slipped off to sleep. I wanted to consult him. I’ve got an assistant, name of Ricardo, and I think he’s been wigwagging somebody in the stand. Not that I oppose putting a little spell on a dog when it’ll do him some good. I need something to carry me between meetings. The price of good bourbon! I think
too much of my kidneys to drink anything younger than four-year-old. I can remember in Prohibition—yes, sir, I date all the way back—even then I wouldn’t drink none of that rotgut. People could go blind drinking that stuff. Rotgut was the name of the first dog I ever owned. I favor an ugly name for a dog. Give them a pretty handle like Lovely Evening, and the damn-fool public will bet on the name and beat the price down on you. But Max, he didn’t hold with tampering. I got to spit.”

  “We’ll be there in a minute.”

  “I got to spit now,” Dee said moistly. “If you don’t spit when you got to, it gets in your system and poisons you.”

  He lifted his head. “Hand me that pillow slip.”

  Shayne took the pillowcase off the second bed. Dee unloaded into it, wadded it up and pushed it under the mattress.

  “And he was making it, too,” he said, lying back. “Max. He was running honest and he was making a nickel. That’s when the ticks began eating on him. The politicians. That’s what I call them—ticks. They suck themselves up, and they suck themselves up, until they bleed you white. The only way to get rid of them is to burn them off. And Max got so bitter about it. That’s when he modernized, to get back his dates. Hurdle races. He had many an argument with himself before he put in those hurdle races. And the Hall of the Greyhound. The Hall of the TV is more like it. Gourmet French dinners. Those are hunting dogs out there, coursing dogs. I listened to those stuffed shirts talking tonight, and it made me want to puke up. What those dogs are going after is meat! Meat for the table! We buy our meat nowadays in the Piggly-Wiggly, wrapped up in plastic. I’ll tell you what I think about that—you say you’re interested—”

  “I’d like to get back to Max’s accident.”

  “I’m telling you something, mister. You know the yell when the dogs break? You don’t hear that yell at the horse tracks. Only reason a horse is running, there’s a man on his back giving him a buzz with a battery. A dog runs because he’s a chaser. A killer. The crowd knows that. They’re yelling for their dog to catch the rabbit and bring him home for supper. A dog’s no good until he’s been schooled on live hares. Sometimes you’ll get a dog that can run but he won’t chase. So you put a rat in a tin can and hang it around his neck. A hole in the can so the rat can bite your dog in the neck, and he’ll bite and bite until the dog is near crazy. Then you let the rat go, and the dog will be on him in a flash, and from that minute on he’s over his namby-pamby ways.”

  “You were asleep in the back seat of Max’s car. When did you wake up?”

  “You wouldn’t expect me to sleep through, would you? Crash, bang. Then the big whoosh. And that’s all I saw because my big ambition in life, if you want to know, is to stay alive to enjoy the end of it.”

  “Did you see the papers today? If Max was so honest, where did he get the money to pay off those people?”

  “You don’t know dogs, and you don’t know business. What do you think? He had accountants. What looks like a profit to you or me, they’ll take that figure and move it from here to there, and presto Caruso, it’s a loss. All kinds of ways, like the different ways to slow down a dog. Gypsy ways, we call them, though the only gypsies in dog racing are in England and Ireland. We got an Irish dog in the Classic tomorrow night—no, the night after—and that’s why we call it the International. One hundred thousand in augmented purses. Don’t worry, we got it. It’s in escrow, is the expression they use. One of the things the gypsies would use was a touch of wintergreen. You could tell a wintergreened dog by the bald patches where it took off the hair. Or a piece of chewing gum under the tail. I wouldn’t do nothing like that to a dog.”

  “Do you know the name Tony Castle?”

  At that the hand stopped moving and fell to his side and gripped his thigh.

  “The medicine’s wearing off. I need some more medicine. Nurse!”

  “Did Castle loan Max the money for the renovations?”

  “Ask the accountants. What have you got in that pocket, a bottle? Because now’s the time! Finish it up. They’ll take it away from you. I been in hospitals before.”

  When they pulled up at St. Francis a moment later, Dee was holding his leg with both hands and moaning and complaining. Shayne got out by himself and walked into the emergency room.

  “Is Dr. Almani still on nights?” he asked a nurse.

  “I think so. I’ll have them give him a call.”

  Shayne sat on a bench while the young resident unwrapped Dee’s leg and prepared him for X ray. Before they were ready for Shayne, Rashid Almani came in—a slender, olive-skinned Pakistani who was preparing for a career in forensic medicine after he returned to his native country. His teeth flashed when he saw Shayne on the bench. Shayne had spent ten days in this hospital the previous summer, after a car chase that had ended with three vehicles wrecked and Shayne the only participant still alive.

  “Michael! You’ve been staying too healthy. I’ve missed our talks.”

  “I’ve got something to talk about now. Can we use this side room?”

  “Surely.”

  Shayne closed the door after they went in. He sat on the examining table while Rashid looked at the wound.

  “It went deep. Lie down, Michael. We have some work to do here.”

  “I want to arrange something first. Didn’t you say you’re going home fairly soon?”

  “In two weeks. I am looking forward to it, and I’m not looking forward to it.”

  “Maybe you’ll be willing to do something for me. I had to shoot somebody, and that always leads to lots of questions. You know Painter.”

  “That self-righteous man. I listened to the radio news.”

  “I want to be in such bad shape that he can’t get in to talk to me. Besides a knife wound, a gunshot wound in the leg. A .45-caliber slug, from a distance of two yards. It smashed the main legbone, and you had to do some major stuff to put it all back together. I’m under heavy sedation. Totally out of the picture for the next couple of days.”

  “That would be breaking various hospital regulations. I assume you are asking me to do this because it’s important?”

  “I think so.”

  “And those who knifed you, or who caused you to be knifed. They will believe that you are now harmless.”

  Shayne had forgotten how quick the Pakistani was. “That’s the main thing.”

  Rashid considered. “I think I will do it, but you must allow me to go through certain motions. There is so much paperwork. If I admit you for a smashed leg, I must treat you for that. And that way there will be less lying. No one will X ray you to see if it truly happened. When you wish to leave, we can take off the cast. I have been wondering all evening how you would prove the falsity of that listing.”

  “What listing?”

  “Your name among the other payments by the dead man, Geary. A difficult problem.”

  Shayne looked at him. “Rashid, are you serious? You don’t think Geary paid me that money?”

  “I consider it highly unlikely. Are you a blackmailer? No, certainly not. Do you take bribes? I would doubt it very much. Are you a political go-between? Why should you accept such disagreeable low-paid work? A fixer of dog races?”

  Shayne laughed. “Rashid, do you realize that you may be the only person in Dade County who gave me the benefit of the doubt?”

  “The story was carefully designed to convince. The question then becomes, is it a forgery by the police?”

  “I saw the book. I don’t know Geary’s handwriting, but it looked legit.”

  “Then Geary himself, for some private reason, mixed your name in with the rest. He is dead. How do you find out what was in his mind? Indeed, a most difficult problem. So if I can help you with a small deception, I am happy to do so. You are losing blood, Michael. Is there anything else?”

  “Yeah. Call WCGN. That’s the news station. Tell them Mike Shayne has been treated at St. Francis emergency for wounds incurred in the gunfight at Surfside. Give them some technical details about what kind
of cast you put on. That ought to do it.”

  Chapter 9

  Frieda Field was in her late twenties, trim, blackhaired. She was the widow of a private detective, killed a few years before as a result of not having been quite careful enough. Frieda had decided to continue the agency, and with occasional help from Shayne, she had managed to do fairly well in a business where women usually type the letters and answer the phones. Shayne started using her because he had worked with her husband, and continued because she turned out to be very good. She also became one of his best friends.

  He called her as soon as Rashid finished with him. The phone in her apartment didn’t answer. He was considering whom to get instead, when she walked in, in a long dress and silver earrings, with a pint of cognac, not one of the medicines dispensed in even the best-run hospitals. She kissed him.

  “I heard it on my car radio. Mike, when there are three of them, and they all have guns and all you have are your fists, what’s wrong with waiting for reinforcements? You don’t have to prove anything. I’ll still like you.”

  “I didn’t know there were three. I only knew about two, and I thought I had one of them taken care of. I’ve been trying to call you. I’ve got a job for you. Martell’s, I see. Get some glasses.”

  She went to the bathroom and came back with two tumblers. “How bad is it, Mike? That radio announcer makes a big point of sounding semihysterical, but I didn’t think you’d be up to cognac tonight. This was for tomorrow. They aren’t letting anybody in to see you, supposedly. That was to discourage Painter?”

  “I couldn’t take that guy twice in twelve hours. But the news you heard was a little exaggerated. True, they were shooting at me, but everybody missed.”

  She looked at the cast on his left leg, running all the way from ankle to hip. “You didn’t do all that just to get out of talking to Painter.”

  “Only partly.” He drank some of the cognac, and waited for the pleasant explosion. “See if you can tell me what the radio said.”