Nice Fillies Finish Last

by Brett Halliday

  Shayne left the monotonous parkway at the Pompano Beach interchange and began following signs. The turns to Surfside Raceway were well marked. The closer he came to the track, the surer he was that something had gone wrong. He shouldn’t have let Rourke go alone.

  The big, sprawling plant was quiet, apparently almost deserted in the hot afternoon. He locked his Buick and left it at the edge of the almost empty parking area, and plunged into the stable compound on foot.

  Finding Paul Thorne’s stalls, he awakened a sleeping groom, who told him he had seen Thorne going off toward the trailer park, probably to take a nap, which was the sensible thing to do at this time of the day. Going in among the trailers, Shayne was in time to see the gangling body of his friend come hurtling through the narrow window of a trailer, his arms windmilling. He lurched away. The redhead spat out his cigarette and set off after him at a hard run.

  He had left a trail of blood. Catching a glimpse of him as he staggered between two trailers, Shayne sliced into the tangle and cut him off. The reporter, in worse shape than Shayne had ever seen him, floundered a few more steps and collapsed against him. His coat and shirt had been cut to ribbons. He was only wearing one shoe. There were a dozen long slashes on his face and hands, but the blood made it hard for Shayne to tell which ones were serious. His face was a grotesque mask. His breath was loaded with martinis.

  “Mike?” he said weakly. “You’re on the Beach somewhere, earning fifteen G’s. You’re not here.”

  “What’s going on?” Shayne demanded. A heavy sedan halted at the edge of the trailer park. A burly uniformed figure leaped out and called, “Thorne! Thorne! Come here.”

  A powerfully built, man in a sports shirt stepped out of the trailer with the smashed window. Rourke made a plucking gesture at Shayne with one of his bloody hands.

  “Mike, it’s true. They’re trying to pull it off. The twin. Everything we thought. That means Joey Dolan was no accident.”

  A fat woman in a playsuit, her forearms dredged with flour, opened the door of the nearest trailer and looked at Rourke with horror. The reporter sat down. “I’ve had it,” he said.

  Shayne whipped out his bill clip and peeled off a dollar, which he handed to the woman. She took it automatically. “Get him a towel soaked in hot water,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

  He returned to the Thorne trailer at a fast walk, approaching it from the kitchen end. Looking up at the broken window, he gave a short awed whistle. The opening couldn’t have measured more than two feet one way and ten inches the other, and he couldn’t believe Rourke had forced himself through it without being greased.

  He pulled up in the lee of the trailer, his ragged eyebrows together and his eyes wary.

  “Beating up on your wife again, I hear, Thorne,” the cop said. “People can’t take a nap with all the yelling and screaming. Well, you know what we told you, any more trouble of any kind and you’re through here, you’re through and no kidding. This time I’m turning you over to the sheriff’s office.”

  “What crap,” Thorne said easily. “Who complained, Pruneface next door? Beating up on Win! Hell, man, we disagree sometimes, but she’s more likely to beat up on me than I am on her. Win, baby!” he called. “Come out here and tell the man.”

  “You aren’t going to get out of this,” the cop said with satisfaction. “Look at that goddamn window. What did you do, throw a bottle through it?”

  Shayne hesitated only briefly. He didn’t know what had happened, but he knew they didn’t want Thorne to be tied up by the sheriff for the rest of the day.

  He stepped out and came up to the two men, breathing hard. “I’m afraid he got away. I damn near had my hands on him for a second, but he was too slippery. He had a car waiting. I only got the first two numbers of the license—seven, eight. Christ!” He gave a sudden hoot of laughter. “When I saw him come crashing through that window!”

  “You saw somebody jump out the window?” the cop said.

  “Yeah, and I thought at first it was a case of the husband walking in at the wrong time, but then why would the guy have a getaway car all set, with the motor running? Did he get away with anything much?”

  Thorne looked at him, thinking. “I haven’t had a chance to check,” he said slowly. He turned angrily on the cop. “Honest to God, this is typical of you people. If you hadn’t been so fast to jump to conclusions, I might have caught him.”

  A disheveled but very good-looking young woman in a wrapper, barefoot, the side of her jaw swollen, appeared in the doorway of the trailer.

  “Win!” Thorne said, alarmed. “Are you OK?”

  “I’m—not sure.”

  Now that they had their cues, they had no trouble manufacturing a story. A small, vicious-looking hoodlum had forced his way into the trailer waving a gun. He took her purse and then, liking her looks, tried to throw her down on the sofa. She was struggling with him when Thorne walked in. The cop looked from one to the other suspiciously, obviously sorry that Thorne was off the hook, and made no objection when Shayne excused himself.

  Rourke was where Shayne had left him, bleeding into a towel.

  “How in God’s name did you get out that window?” Shayne asked. “It’s about big enough for a midget.”

  “Don’t ask me,” Rourke said bleakly. “I shut my eyes and sailed through.” He looked down at the blood-soaked towel. “I must look like a pound of raw hamburger. But if I hadn’t made it, I’d look a lot worse. He was fixing to clobber me. I don’t mean because I was making time with his wife. Because I was interested in tonight’s twin double. He said he’s got a busy afternoon. Tail him. See where he goes.”

  “Sure, as soon as I get you to the doctor.”

  “I can get myself to the goddamn doctor!” He started to get up, thought better of it and sat back. “Going to rest here a minute first. Take off.”

  Shayne looked up at the fat woman, who had returned to the doorway of the trailer. “Is there a hospital around?”

  “There must be one in Lauderdale, anyway. I can look in the book. Does he want an ambulance?”

  “Call a taxi.” He grinned at her. “There’s an angry husband not far away, and we don’t want any sirens.” She disappeared.

  “Go on, damn it,” Rourke said, looking up from the towel to find Shayne still hesitating. “If you’d come with me in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened. I haven’t won a fistfight from a guy that big in years. Mike, for God’s sake! As soon as he gets clear, he’s going to start moving. This may be the only chance we get. Don’t waste it.”

  “OK,” Shayne said curtly. “Call me on the car phone so I’ll know where you are.”

  He turned on his heel and stalked off. He had known something like this would happen. But from now on Rourke was going to have to get out of his own jams.

  Seeing activity in front of the Thorne trailer, he pulled up abruptly and waited until the cop drove off. In a moment Thorne came out and headed for the barns, going straight to the stalls where he kept his horses. He emerged a moment later wearing a necktie and a light sports jacket, which probably meant that he had to keep an appointment somewhere else, as no one wore neckties here in the daytime.

  Shayne went for his Buick. He wheeled it around near the end of the grandstand, where he could see any cars coming out of the compound. Thorne made it simple for him, appearing in a long red convertible with the top down, an easy car to follow. Shayne dropped out of sight until he heard the convertible whoosh past with Thorne getting everything the motor was able to give him in that gear.

  Shayne had the Buick in motion as the convertible crossed the Seaboard Air Line tracks, heading south. At Sunrise Boulevard Thorne signaled for a left turn, and Shayne dropped back, letting a Volkswagen pass. The Volkswagen driver had trouble deciding which way to go, and Thorne was out of sight by the time Shayne made the turn. He built up his speed, taking chances in the thickening traffic, and came up with the convertible again as it waited for the light to change at the Ro
ute 1 intersection.

  Shayne moved up close, following without difficulty as Thorne entered Fort Lauderdale. Thorne was clearly impatient, consulting his watch constantly, crowding slow-moving cars and racing the motor when he was stopped by a light. On S. E. Sixth Avenue, near Twenty-fourth Street, he swung into a parking slot. Without dropping any coins in the parking meter, he headed for a doorway between two stores. A sign over the door said, “Guys and Dolls, Billiards.”

  Shayne snapped his fingers silently. The only opening he could see was an illegal one in front of a fire hydrant. He pulled in and left a Miami News card under his windshield wiper. The billiard room was over a men’s clothing store, directly across from a medical block. Shayne crossed, went up one flight and into a dentist’s waiting room. A bell sounded as the door opened, and a teen-aged girl with bands on her teeth looked up from a magazine. Shayne went to the window. When a middle-aged nurse came in, he gave her a quick look at his license and said quietly, “Police business. We’re expecting a stickup.”

  “A what?” the girl in the braces said excitedly.

  The redhead said, “Please sit down.”

  He spoke in a quiet voice that carried authority. She obeyed instantly.

  The dentist joined the nurse in the doorway. “There won’t be any shooting?” he said anxiously.

  “I hope not,” Shayne said without turning.

  The billiard room, some twenty or thirty feet away, was brightly lighted with fluorescent lamps. Only one table was being used. Paul Thorne was talking earnestly to a fat man in a blue linen coat at the cigarette and candy counter. The fat man listened, his lips going in and out. Presently he took a cigar box out of the glass case, opened it and counted out a dozen or so bills. Shayne couldn’t read the denominations, but the total was large enough to require a second count. Thorne counted it a third time.

  Shayne nodded to the dentist and the nurse, and went out without further explanation. He was back in his Buick and had moved into double-parking position by the time Thorne returned to the convertible.

  Thorne reversed and went north again on S. E. Sixth Avenue, turning right instead of left on Sunrise Boulevard, toward the ocean instead of the raceway. Reaching the ocean drive, he went north. Halfway to Pompano Beach, on the outskirts of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, his brake lights flared and he made a sharp turn into a double-decker motel called the Golden Crest. Shayne pulled into a gas station. While his tank was being filled, he watched Thorne leave his convertible in a depressed parking area and go up the outside steps to a room on the second floor.

  Facing the door, he ran a comb through his long hair, which had been tossed about in the open car, tightened the knot of his necktie, brushed a wisp of hay off the sleeve of his jacket, and checked his fly. Then he tried the knob. Finding the door unlocked, he walked in.

  CHAPTER 7

  MICHAEL SHAYNE moved his car to the Golden Crest parking lot. On the way to the office, he checked the number of the room Thorne had entered; it was number 18. A woman with thick-lensed glasses was ready for him in the office. She greeted him cordially and slid a registration card across the counter.

  “A room?”

  “I think my wife already phoned in a registration,” he said. “She’s having her hair done in Lauderdale. Mrs. Petersen of Miami.”

  “I don’t think we’ve had any registrations in that name.”

  She began to flip through registration cards, Shayne watched for Room 18. When it turned up, he put his finger on it. The signature was hard to read upside down. It seemed to be Marian Sellers, or Sailers.

  “That looks like it,” he said.

  “No, sir. That’s an Orlando party.”

  Shayne took his finger away, having made a mental photograph of the license number on the card. The woman completed her search and shook her head.

  “It doesn’t seem to be here.”

  “She likes to take care of these things,” Shayne said, pulling his earlobe. “One room’s as good as another, as far as I’m concerned, but she has strong ideas about what’s right and what’s wrong. Well, I ought to know what she likes by now. I know she’ll want to be on the balcony, so we won’t be bothered by cars. As close to the ocean end as possible, but we’d better not be right over the cocktail lounge.”

  The woman made several suggestions. He settled finally on Number 17 and signed in.

  Even when people use a false name at a motel—and Shayne assumed that the name on the card for No. 18 didn’t belong to a real person—they usually give their true license number. He had no trouble locating the car belonging to the guest in Room 18—a black, well-maintained Mercedes, with red-leather upholstery. The car itself, the care it had been given, the low mileage, and the accessories on the dashboard all denoted money. Shayne had a feeling he was going to want to ask the owner of the Mercedes some questions. He found the hood-latch and pulled it, then raised the hood and un-snapped the distributor cap, after which he removed the rotor. Putting the crucial little part in his pocket, he replaced the distributor cap and closed the hood. Then he moved his Buick into an open slot beside the Mercedes. Some months before, Shayne had been hired to find and bring back the runaway wife of a telephone-company official. He had spent a week looking for her, another week persuading her to return. His client showed his gratitude by having a phone installed in Shayne’s car. This had doubled Shayne’s effectiveness, and he didn’t know how he had ever functioned without it. He dialed local information and was given the number of the Fort Lauderdale hospital. Yes, he was told a moment later, they had just admitted an emergency case by the name of Timothy Rourke, and they would see if he was allowed to answer the phone. In another moment a woman’s pleasant voice said, “Emergency, Mallinson.”

  “I’m calling about Mr. Rourke,” Shayne said. “My name’s Michael Shayne.”

  “Mike Shayne,” she said. “Yes, indeed. We’ve been having a discussion here on the subject of phoning you. He’s insistent, isn’t he?”

  There was a small clatter.

  “Mike!” Rourke’s voice said. “Hey, you ought to see the nurse they gave me. You know those thin white nurses’ uniforms, what they do for ordinary women? My God, you ought to see the effect on this one! Wonderful figure, wonderful legs, a neat little pair of ears. On top of everything else, green eyes! You know how I react to green eyes. They enfeeble me!”

  “You sound a little high,” Shayne said, amused. “What are they prescribing for you?”

  “I prescribed it for myself on the way over. That was a sensational idea about taking a taxi, Mike. Whenever we saw a saloon I sent the hackie in for a double martini to go. Now everybody feels I ought to have something to eat. I’m resisting.”

  “How are you otherwise?”

  “Hell, I’m in great shape. They tell me they put in eighteen sutures, but that’s impossible. The main thing was those goddamn cactus needles. They had to yank them out one at a time with tweezers. Mike, where are you? What happened with Thorne?”

  “I’ll tell you later. If you want to do something useful, put in a couple of calls. I’ve got the license number of a black Mercedes. I’d like to know who owns it.”

  “Let’s have it. Baby,” he said to the nurse, “take this number.”

  Shayne gave him the number from memory. “Another thing, and this you’ll have to work through Will Gentry or somebody on the cops in Miami. I want to know the story on the Guys and Dolls billiard parlor on South East Sixth Avenue in Lauderdale. A fat man at the cigar counter. What’s his gimmick?”

  “Got it,” Rourke said promptly.

  “Call me back. If the car phone doesn’t answer, try the Golden Crest Motel in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, on A-l-A. Room 17, and the name I’m using is Petersen.”

  He repeated the room number and hung up. He thought for a moment with his hand on the phone.

  He had recently made a large investment in electronic equipment, which he used only when absolutely necessary. It seldom lived up to the claims made by the manuf
acturers, and he had noticed long ago that private detectives with the biggest inventory of bugs and recorders soon came to rely on them instead of using their intelligence, connections and common sense. But he needed to know what was happening in Room 18, and there was only one way to find out.

  He unlocked his trunk, and then unlocked a metal box that was welded to the floor under the carpet. He took out a simple transistor amplifier, the size of a silver dollar. Upstairs, he let himself into the room he had rented, and clamped the amplifier to the wall that Room 17 and Room 18 had in common. In theory, the wall would act as a sounding board, permitting the amplifier to pick up any sound in the next room above a whisper. Sometimes it worked, but this seemed to be one of the times when it didn’t. He could hear voices, but they weren’t clear enough so he could distinguish any actual words.

  He freed the suction cups that held the device to the wall and moved it to a new spot, avoiding nail heads and the seams where the panels of plasterboard came together. A woman’s voice, fuzzy and distorted, rasped suddenly, “Stay where you are, or I promise you—”

  A man’s voice interrupted her; Shayne thought it was Thorne’s. “Dear sweet Jesus, what a day. First my wife waves a knife at me, and I have to take it away. Now you. I make a small pass and you yank out a goddamn .38. Of course, I know it’s not loaded. You aren’t the type to be walking around carrying a loaded gun.”

  “Make any more stupid moves,” she said, “and you’ll find out exactly how loaded it is.”

  “What happened to sex all of a sudden? When did it start getting so disgusting?”

  “Paul, you know as well as I do. This has to do with money and nothing else. Sex is out. Out. I hope that’s emphatic enough to penetrate those thick layers of stupidity. I saw the skyrockets go off when I mentioned the word ‘motel.’ It’s the safest place I could think of to meet. This isn’t exactly a safe thing we’re doing, and we have to be careful. True, this particular motel room contains a double bed, but it isn’t going to be used. Get that through your head. Sit down and I’ll put this away. It makes me nervous, I might pull the trigger. Did you raise the money?”