“You don’t seem to be getting gas,” he said.
CHAPTER 8
“That’s slightly obvious, isn’t it?” she said curtly without looking up.
She continued to grind away at the starter. Her voice was clipped and pleasant, without the abrasive quality it had picked up on the way through the amplifier. The resilience of women often surprised Shayne, and this one didn’t look as though she had just come close to being raped by a harness-racing driver in a motel room. She didn’t wear a hat. Her hair, which was ash-blonde, was cut in an intricate and casual style, down almost to her eyes on one side. Her eyes were dark, carefully but not excessively made up. It was a cool, lovely face, with well-marked cheekbones and a proud mouth. Her body was slender. She was wearing a pale rose suit. Like the Mercedes, it had clearly come a long way and cost a good deal.
“Move over,” Shayne said agreeably. “I used to have a Mercedes. I remember you had to catch it just right.”
She gave an explanation of well-bred annoyance. “It always starts.”
She shifted across and Shayne slid behind the wheel. He ground the starter with his foot all the way down, a listening expression on his face. “I doubt if you’re getting any spark.”
He pulled the hood-latch. Getting out, he raised the hood, which concealed him from the woman in the front seat. He took off the distributor cap and dropped in the rotor, closed the hood and returned to the wheel. This time, of course, the motor started instantly.
“Magic!” she exclaimed. “I had visions of tow-trucks and baffled mechanics and standing around in garages the rest of the afternoon. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.”
“Seems to be OK now,” Shayne said, listening to the quiet purr of the powerful motor, “but let it idle for a minute. We’ve met, haven’t we? Don’t you have something to do with the harness track over here?”
“I watch the races occasionally.” She gave her watch a covert glance. “It seems to be running beautifully. Again, I certainly do thank you.”
“I can’t remember who introduced us,” Shayne went on. “I thought they said you had your own stable. What I was thinking-if you’d called a garage, they would have charged you twenty-five bucks or so to answer the phone. And how many mechanics around here have ever looked under the hood of a Mercedes? They have a hard enough time keeping up with Ford and General Motors.”
She reached for her bag. “Forgive me. I didn’t-”
“No!” Shayne said hastily. “That’s not what I meant. I have a soft spot in my heart for anybody who owns a Mercedes, and I wouldn’t take any money for a favor like this. But I just can’t seem to pick a winner at Surf-side. My wife has been giving me a hard time. The minute I recognized you-I still can’t think of your name, but it’s on the tip of my tongue-I thought maybe you had a horse you can give me.”
She considered a moment. “I don’t know what harm it would do.” She looked at her watch again, openly this time. “You might take a small flier on My Treat, in the ninth.”
Shayne’s eyes opened. “In the ninth! Listen, thanks for the tip, I appreciate it, but whenever I hear about anything good in a twin-double race, it starts me going on a pet project of mine. I know you’re in a hurry, but give me a minute. I’ve worked it all out. If you only had one other winner- one other winner — in the other three races, you could clean up. I’ll explain it to you. You wheel your horses with all sixteen entries in the other two races, at a cost of a hundred and twenty-eight bucks. And the point is, you don’t drive down the odds! That’s the beauty of it.”
He was trying to unsettle her, and to judge by the look on her face, he had succeeded. At that moment the phone rang stridently in his Buick. It was an unexpected sound, coming from a parked car, and her hand jerked.
“That’s the call I’ve been waiting for,” Shayne said. “I want to tell you more about this twin-double idea. It’s sensational.”
He turned off the ignition and took the key with him. Leaving both front doors open, in the Mercedes and his own car, he answered his phone.
“Mike,” Rourke’s voice said when Shayne said hello. “Can you talk?”
“Briefly.”
“That license number you gave me. I had Lucy do the phoning on it while I checked the billiard parlor. It’s registered to Mrs. Claire Domaine.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Now we’re beginning to move, right? I’ve got to get out of this goddamn hospital before you wrap it all up by yourself. The billiard parlor. Guys and Dolls-what a corny name. It’s all prettied up, they tell me, bright lights, coke machines, no spittoons, so they can get the local family business away from the bowling alleys. Pretty soon there won’t be a place left where a guy can go to get away from women. The thing about it, the manager still does some loan-sharking on the side. His name’s Pudge Temkin, or Tomkin, if it matters. Now am I allowed three guesses?”
“One should be enough, Tim.”
“OK. Is Paul Thorne borrowing betting money for tonight and paying Shylock interest on it?”
“That’s the way it looks.”
“Then why don’t we spoil his bet for him and get him into real trouble? After all the blood I’ve lost, I have no charitable feelings about the guy. Mike, they’re giving me some crap about changing the dressings and keeping me for observation. Can you come over and serve them with a habeas corpus or something so they’ll let me out? I’ve got something I want to tell you. Thorne’s wife made some kind of crack about Paul and a nurse’s aide. The ball was going back and forth pretty fast right then, and I didn’t get much of it. But my friend Miss Mallinson, the cute nurse I told you about, sneaked me out the list of women who do volunteer duty here-Uh-oh,” he said abruptly. “I’ve got to hang up. Head nurse. She thinks I ought to be more helpless.”
Shayne put the phone down thoughtfully and returned to the Mercedes. While he was talking to Tim, the woman had slid back behind the wheel.
“I’m terribly, terribly late,” she said pleasantly. “And I’m afraid I haven’t time to discuss your betting system. If I may have the key?”
Shayne went around and got in beside her. “I’ll give it to you in a minute. First I’d like to ask for a little cooperation. My name’s Mike Shayne.”
She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “Cooperation?”
“You’ve probably gathered that I’m interested in the twin-double operation you have underway, and I’d like you to tell me how many people are mixed up in it besides you and Paul Thorne.”
She laughed lightly. “I think you’re out of your mind.”
“I’ll give you a piece of advice,” Shayne said wearily. “When you use a motel for a meeting place, don’t go in your own car. If you do, don’t put your own license number on the registration card. They never bother to check. Now let’s talk about horses, Mrs. Domaine. What about My Treat, the one you just gave me? What do you guess the opening odds are likely to be?”
“Twenty to one at least. Your name’s Shayne? It’s a good tip, Mr. Shayne. A three-year-old mare, and not many people know how much she’s improved lately. The driver will be offered a bonus for a win. I don’t know what your object is, but be satisfied with that much. If you’re too greedy, you may end up with nothing at all.”
“You don’t realize how vulnerable this is,” Shayne said patiently. “A professional handicapper was told there might be something fishy about the last four races tonight. He looked at the horses and drivers, and the name of Paul Thorne jumped out at him. Half an hour ago Thorne borrowed a sum of money from a Lauderdale loan shark, before meeting you at a motel. None of this is hard to figure. It must mean he’s pretty confident you have a winning combination.”
She leaned forward, and for the first time Shayne felt that he had her attention. “From a loan shark? You mean one of those people-”
“Yeah,” Shayne said. “Twenty percent a week, and if you can’t make the payments, two or three thugs come to see you with baseball bats. One of those people.”