“Soupy, any luck?”
“Mike, I’m beginning to see spots, not people. Ha-Ha has his hair in a ponytail-he ought to be easy. But I haven’t seen him. Beach detectives, though, the whole bunch is here. And there’s my good friend Peter Asshole Painter.”
Shayne checked the screen. The inward flow was increasing. He saw the chief of detectives talking to one of his plainclothesmen near the turnstiles. He moved away, and Shayne followed him onto the next screen. Dave’s changes had disturbed the sequence, so when Painter left that picture in the top row, he appeared next in one along the bottom. He went to the kennel and joined the group looking in.
Dave, behind Shayne, grunted. “Yes, yes, stick it in him.”
After a moment he moved to the viewing window and reran the tape he had just made. “Got the needle this time, Mike. Nice and clear.”
The grandstand was filling up. Soupy leaned forward on his hands, his eyes skittering from screen to screen. Thinking he saw one of the three men, he followed the figure off the screens into the clubhouse. Using Shayne’s binoculars, he picked him up as he came into the bar area.
He shook his head. “A ponytail, but not Ha-Ha.”
Rourke and Shayne exchanged a look. “So many ifs in this thing,” Rourke said. “If that press conference announcement spooked Tony and he went back to Nassau-”
“That wouldn’t be masculine. Then I could tell people I drove him out of Miami twice. No, they’ve got to be here. If we don’t locate them I’ll get up on the stage and let them take a crack at me. Painter’s men and Lou’s men can cover the exits.”
D’Alessio heard that. “If you think I’m going to do anything helpful you’re crazy.”
Time passed. Shayne kept track of Painter. When he stopped near one of the security phones, Shayne looked up the number on the Centrex card and dialed. Painter looked to see who else was nearby. When the phone beside him went on ringing he picked it up.
“Shayne! Why do I always say yes to these things? This isn’t police work, it’s amateur night. I’ve got sixteen men here, and damn it to hell, I shouldn’t have done it. I feel like a damn fool. If this is a diversion, to collect the police in one place so you can pull something somewhere else-”
“It’s not that,” Shayne said, “but I told you I can’t guarantee anything. I want to make a small change. We haven’t spotted our guys yet, and I’m beginning to wonder if they’re outside looking for my car. What did I tell you, eight-fifteen? Move it up half an hour. I’m parked down from the Deauville. You can be back in plenty of time for the Classic.”
Painter’s face didn’t show in the monitor, but from the way he was standing, it was clear that he was examining the changed instructions for hidden explosives.
“I’ve gone this far,” he said finally, “might as well go the one extra step. But if this doesn’t work out, you’d better take a long airplane trip and forget to come back.”
The announcer was calling the daily double, the evening’s first opportunity for a big-number payoff. The dozens of small screens around the track, and the full-size one in the theater, showed the morning line odds. When the windows opened to receive actual bets, the numbers began to change. Jerome Kern tunes came from the loudspeakers. The big clock on the tote board continued to move forward.
Soupy said, “Got to take a break. My eyeballs are falling out. I don’t suppose you guys have anything stronger than cigarettes? — No, I didn’t think so.”
The leadout boys, having given their dogs a second weighing, were bringing them into the paddock. Sanchez walked to the rail, where he coughed into his fist. Shayne lowered the binoculars, thinking.
When the race started, nobody in the control room except the caller looked at the dogs. Soupy was moving from screen to screen. Dave, with the Surfside engineer at his elbow, monitored the film patrol screens, sending the action out through the main feed and simultaneously into the video box for taping. Shayne, at the window, was combing the clubhouse, looking for people who, like himself, were looking at the crowd, not at the race.
Painter gathered three men, and Shayne followed them off the screen. When they returned, three races later, Painter was walking with more purpose, swinging his arms. With an extra fanfare, the dogs for the big International race were about to be paraded. Sanchez appeared, an unlighted cigarette between his lips. This time, instead of watching Sanchez, Shayne was searching the grandstand, looking for a pair of binoculars trained on the paddock.
“Got him,” he said. “Tim, come here. Four aisles from the end, up about twelve, thirteen rows. A black in a big white cap.”
“I see him.”
The first dog reached the marshal and was announced. The black put his binoculars away.
Shayne emptied his wallet. “Get downstairs fast and pick him up when he comes in. Get in line with him and bet the same number.” He looked around. “Anybody else want to get in on this?”
Soupy groaned. “Just my luck, you catch me with a couple of fives.”
Dave threw in two hundred.
“Lou?” Shayne asked the safety chief. D’Alessio snapped, “You not only want me to be party to a fix, you want to rope me in on it. Some ethical sense you’ve got there.”
Rourke went out, counting bills. Shayne watched the white cap move to the crosswalk. On the betting room monitor, Rourke materialized beside him and slipped into the same $100 Win line. The black remained at the window longer than most, but Rourke was able to get his money down before the bell clanged. He was back in the control room, blowing, as the dogs hit the first turn.
“Number four.”
The four dog, an Irish red brindle bitch named Elegant, had been listed at 14 to 1. The price had been driven to nine in the last minutes of the betting. She was running third, a yard in from the rail. In the back-stretch, the two front-runners ran out of gas, and she sneaked between them.
“And it’s Elegant coming into the stretch,” the caller shouted, “Drizzle by a length, H’s Choice third, and it’s Elegant, it’s Elegant to the wire, Elegant wins it, H’s Choice second-”
Elegant’s well-wishers in the control room had been urging her on silently, in sign language, but as she crossed the line three lengths ahead of the opposition, Soupy was unable to suppress a joyful cry. The caller snapped off his mike.
“Everybody shut up. The track isn’t supposed to care who wins.”
The “Official” sign was flashed, and Rourke went off to cash the tickets. The winning bitch was separated from the rest, and led to the finish line for the pictures. The others, in the paddock, were having their muzzles and blankets removed. Painter and his two men conferred with the security man at the kennel entrance. After a moment, they were admitted.
On the track, Mrs. Geary was presenting Elegant’s owner with a trophy and a check. Linda, perhaps a little drunk, was stage-managing the photographers.
Another ceremony was underway inside the kennel. Shayne and the others watched it on the closed-circuit. The police came out, bringing Sanchez. Shayne had already dialed the security phone at the entrance, holding up for the last digit. He dialed that now.
When the security man answered, he asked for Painter.
Painter sounded pleased with the world. “You came through for once. We found a couple of needles on him. He did a fast toilet-flush, but not fast enough. We have a pint bottle of something that looks like gin, but I doubt if that’s what it actually is. I take back some of the things I’ve been thinking. Catch you committing a felony, that’s the way to get some cooperation out of you.”
“Don’t leave yet. You’ll be missing a lot. Is everybody out of the kennel?”