“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-”