Shayne took the public address mike. “Painter. Pick up the phone at the kennel.”
When he saw the chief of detectives beginning to move, Shayne dialed that number again. It was ringing by the time Painter got there. Shayne handed the phone to Soupy.
“Give him the guy’s description and tell him to pick him up. Then keep looking. There are two more.”
“Giving directions to Painter,” Soupy said. “I’ll love that.”
A lick of flame appeared in the cloud of smoke pouring out through the kennel’s smashed wall. On the closed-circuit screen, dogs were leaping down from the broken cages. The concessionaire’s dolly had been turned over by the force of the blast, and the big cartons were scattered. The man who had been pushing it came out of the crowd. Shayne grabbed Rourke’s shoulder and pointed to the white-and-orange cap.
“Going into the cafeteria, see him?”
They picked him up on the cafeteria monitor. Instead of turning toward the betting hall and the theater, he went toward a side door that would take him back to the loading dock and the service entrance.
Using his elbow, Shayne opened a path to the door. Lou Liebler jumped in front of him. Shayne knocked him aside.
He ran down the moving escalator. The crowd was still magnetized in clusters beneath the screens, and he was able to move quickly to the next escalator, getting a glimpse of Painter’s men closing in on the theater sandwich counter. The wide ground-floor corridors were completely deserted. He saw Linda coming out of an unmarked door. She looked startled. He hit a closed exit gate with his shoulder and burst through.
He looked one way, then the other. Two Surfside workers were running toward the foam truck, parked in its own bay to the right of the entrance. Shayne was there first, and it started for him at once. He backed it out and wheeled.
The kennel and service entrance were at the extreme end of the long structure. He depressed the gas pedal to the floor. He came into the access driveway as the J. T. Thomas truck entered from the opposite end.
Shayne held to the middle of the two lanes. The truck roared directly at him. Shayne was swearing savagely. He held the wheel steady with the weight of his left forearm, and fumbled the. 38 out of the sling.
He fired through the windshield, aiming downward. One of the truck’s front tires blew. The truck swerved into some shrubbery on the left of the driveway, and came back, out of control. Shayne pulled the wheel hard. He struck the van just back of the front door, and was thrown forward into the windshield.
For an instant, pain took him elsewhere. When he came back, the driver of the van, still wearing the perky white-and-orange cap, was out and running. He vaulted onto the loading dock, stumbling briefly. Before he recovered, Shayne would have had a shot, but his. 38 was somewhere on the floor.
He had blood in his eyes. He stepped down.
The sky was filled with the excited barking of dogs. In the control room, Dave was playing the kennel loop, to go with the action on the screens.
The rear door of the van had popped open. Frieda Field was on the floor, tightly gagged. She had twisted around and was trying to roll to the door.
He helped her sit up. “Are you O.K.?” With a movement of her head, she urged him to go after the driver. He started to work at the knot holding her wrists, but she kicked him away.
“All right. I’ll be back.”
Inside, the crowd remained intent on the screens, which showed a fixed view of the interior of the burning kennel. Shayne sent one of Painter’s plainclothes-men to release Frieda, and picked up a phone. When the control room answered he asked for Rourke.
“I saw him come back in,” Rourke said. “We’re tracking him. He’s at the sellers’ windows. Looking outside. In that cap, he’s easy to follow. Mike, I think it’s Castle.”
“With a beard?”
“He’s been gone a long time. Moving. Stopped again. Painter has two of Soupy’s guys. Shall I let Painter have this one, or do you want him?”
“I don’t like to be selfish.”
“He can’t get away, all the exits are covered. No, there he goes! There he goes, Mike. Heading for the grandstand.”
“Swing one of the overhead cameras. Pick him up when he comes out, and put it on the screens.”
Rourke shouted to somebody. Having decided to let the police make the capture, Shayne moved to where he could watch on the screen. The sound was cut off abruptly. Now he could hear the frantic barking of the real dogs in the kennel. The main film patrol camera, which filmed the start and finish of each race, swung completely around and began to scan the nearly empty grandstand. That picture replaced the kennel interior on the screens. The camera held on one of the gates into the betting hall. A bearded man in the concessionaire’s uniform came through.
“There he is,” Rourke’s excited voice said over all the outlets. “The man in white. It’s Tony Castle. Who just bombed the kennel, killing some high-priced racing greyhounds. Wanted for conspiracy to commit murder. Be careful. He may be armed. Let the cops do it.”
The camera followed the hurrying figure down the steeply pitched aisle. The foam truck Shayne had been driving had been disentangled from the wrecked van, and was being brought in to lay foam on the fire. It stopped beside Shayne, and he stepped up onto its bumper so he could see over the crowd. Castle was taking the steps dangerously fast, two and three at a time. But that aisle led nowhere except to the paved terrace in front of the grandstand. Shayne caught a flicker of movement and color. The big gate in the corrugated fence behind the starting box was beginning to swing. Another J. T. Thomas man in orange and white appeared for an instant in the opening, then slipped out of sight.
“Everybody stay back,” Rourke’s voice clamored. “The man is dangerous. Watch it on TV.”
Two track workers brought the foam jet around to bear on the burning kennel. Shayne pulled one of them aside, body-checked the other, and slid behind the wheel. Without stopping to cut off the foam, he came about and headed for the paddock fence, bracing himself so he wouldn’t be sent into the glass a second time. He hit hard, hung for an instant and went through, rocking. The foam hose whipped behind him, spraying the infield, the track, the knots of people on the grandstand lawn. He had a straight 150-yard run. The crowd was yelling him on, as though they had tickets on him.
Castle, at the far end of the straightaway, went over the rail, landed running, and headed for the gate. He was beginning to labor like the tranquilized dogs on the backstretch in the Classic. Shayne groped behind him, and his fingers fastened on the hose. He followed it to the nozzle and brought it up and around. The foam jetted straight in the air for an instant, then arched outward in front of the truck, and struck the gate before Castle reached it, knocking it shut. Shayne adjusted his aim slightly. As Castle turned, a gun in his hand suddenly, the powerful jet caught him in the chest and tumbled him backward.
Shayne slewed to a stop and jumped, landing on Castle with both feet.
They rolled together. Breaking free, Shayne stamped at Castle’s gun hand. Ignoring the pain in his arm, he pulled Castle up by the front of his uniform and slammed him against the gate, shaking the gun loose. Shayne kicked it away.
The two men stood looking at each other. Castle gasped for breath. The cocky hat had been knocked off. A few strands of gray hair were plastered across his skull. The wet uniform had picked up some of the track dirt as he rolled. He had fattened up, as well as adding the beard, since Shayne last saw him. Shayne would have passed him on the street without a glance. Sometime in the last seven years, he had become an old man.
“Mike Shayne,” Castle breathed. “You were in the kennel.”