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“What I was going to say,” she said comfortably. “About Paul and dames. He’s a good-looking guy. That lovely build. When he comes into the stretch going for a little gap between two sulkies, using his whip and yelling bloody murder, his cap usually off by that time-well, it makes me weak in the knees to think about it. All I have to say is, I’m not the only one. I’m reconciled to the fact. I mean he’d be a hit with the fair sex even if there wasn’t the money angle to it. But they not only want to get in the back seat with him, fast, they want him to whisper the name of some horse in their ear afterward. See what I mean? The public never thinks about that kind of problem. How does it strike you as an angle for the story?”

“I’ll think about it.”

She was moving more than necessary, he thought. If he was going to get anything significant out of this girl, he had better hurry up. He tried to think what questions Mike Shayne would ask.

“Uh-does Paul do any driving for the Domaines any more?”

“Sometimes. One of their horses won’t behave for anybody else. They aren’t enemies or anything.” She pulled back a little to get his face into focus. “Why are we harping on the Domaines all the time, honey?”

“I just thought when you were talking about the twin double-why wouldn’t it be a smart idea for a big stable to compare notes with some driver who was theoretically independent? Figure two of the races, and you’d have a headstart.”

“You can tangle yourself up in knots if you try to be too smart. All you want to do is beat that fifteen percent. You know what I like about you, Tim? Now don’t laugh. No muscles. Most of the guys around here think all they have to do is ripple their biceps a few times and they’re in.” She touched the side of his face. “I like people who can talk about current events and like that. I bet it takes plenty of brains to be a reporter.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” Rourke said. “For example, I ought to be finding out about that suspension of Paul’s. Maybe it’s the gin. Maybe it’s the way you look in a bikini. I can’t think of any more questions.”

“Didn’t I tell you about that suspension? It was made up out of thin air. He was betting on a Domaine horse, speaking of coincidences, and the judge caught him with the ticket on him in the paddock. He just happened to pick it up off the ground, but would they believe him? No, he’s made monkeys out of them too many other times. There’s more gin, but I feel so lazy, don’t you? Everybody at the track gets up at the crack of dawn, and that’s why I think it’s OK to start drinking around lunchtime-it’s like late afternoon for ordinary people. Honey, Paul’s your best bet for this story, so why waste your time looking for anybody else? Stick around. I want you to say yes, because, boy, do we need that favorable exposure right now. What I’d like you to do-you’ll be interviewing other people about him, then come back and get our side of it. Paul has a funny habit of getting under different people’s skin. Look at him the wrong way and the next thing you know he’s in orbit. He goes around at about two hundred and eleven degrees all the time, one degree more and he boils over. There’s a reason for that. It’s not so bad being poor when you don’t see anybody else but other poor people. But in racing half the people don’t have a cent and the other half are rolling. Honey, stay where you are. I want to get some music.”

One of her bare arms slid around his neck and pulled him forward. The kiss she gave him tasted of gin and vermouth, with a faint tang of olives. The couch slipped, as though threatening to come open by itself. Her tongue moved against his. She groped for his hand and put it inside her wrapper. His fingers were cold from the martini glass, and she shivered as they touched her stomach.

He was trying hard to be objective. He knew she was hoping to delay him, and he knew she wasn’t as drunk or as taken with him as she wanted him to believe. He wondered if the questions about the twin double had made her suspicious, if she was trying to pin him down until her husband showed up. Still, he didn’t like to be rude. Against his will, he was responding to the movements of her tongue. His hand was in contact with the bikini. Mike Shayne, he knew, would stand up without ceremony at this point and dump her on the floor, but he had long ago faced the fact that he wasn’t Mike Shayne. She gasped something against his mouth and he felt her hand on his, directing him to the tiny hidden zipper.

And then she pushed away suddenly, her lithe body in rapid fluid motion. Twisting, she was up in an instant, pulling her wrapper together. The belt had come off, and was probably somewhere beneath Rourke. She gave him an urgent frown. The drinks had slowed his reactions, and he was still frozen in a disordered position when he heard the door open. That released him. He came forward in a partial crouch, his face serious, as though he and Mrs. Thorne had been discussing foreign policy or some other important question.

CHAPTER 5

Rourke looked up out of the corners of his eyes. The man in the doorway had come in without knocking, and it stood to reason that he was probably Paul Thorne, who had been described to Rourke more than once as being a dangerous, violent, impulsive man. He was wearing a knit shirt, and the biceps the reporter had also been told about were out there in plain sight, bulging from the short sleeves. His neck was a short, solid column, seemingly made of something more unyielding than ordinary flesh. Against the bright sky his features were indistinct. He stepped on into the trailer, which at once became seriously overcrowded, and closed the door. Now his face took shape. He would have been exceptionally handsome if his eyes hadn’t been too small and too close together. There was a mean glint in them that sent a shiver down the back of the reporter’s neck. Thorne looked from his guest on the couch to the empty martini pitcher on the floor, and on to Win, who, in the half second she had been given, had somehow managed to look cool and indifferent, a little bored.

“We were hoping you’d be back early, Paul. Mr. Rourke here is from the Miami News. They want to do a feature story on you. Isn’t that great? You’re just in time, he was getting impatient.”

Without saying a word, her husband picked her up by the waist in his huge hands and slammed her against the stainless steel partition separating the living area from the tiny kitchen. Her lips writhed, she was suddenly ugly. She slid into the kitchen, snatched up a butcher knife and whirled.

“Don’t do that again.”

Thorne laughed. He wasn’t as large as he had looked in the doorway, but he moved with the power and grace of a jungle animal. One of his front teeth had been broken and not yet repaired.

“What have you got on underneath?” he demanded.

“Don’t be stupid!” She flicked the robe open and gave him a glimpse of the bikini. “I’ve got my bathing suit on, or doesn’t that prove anything?”

“You didn’t think I’d be back for a couple of hours. You knew I’ve got a busy afternoon. What are you on, about the fourth batch of martinis?”

“I offered him a drink! Why not? What’s wrong with being friendly with a reporter? You don’t need favorable publicity, do you? What was I supposed to do, spit in his eye?”

Rourke had checked his clothing and decided it would do no harm to try to get out without any broken bones. He sat forward, and the couch lurched underneath him.

“Three’s a crowd,” he said with a nervous laugh. “I’ll wait outside. Call me when the argument’s over.”

“This won’t take a minute,” Thorne said without turning his head. He took a step toward his wife and put out his hand. “Handle-end first.”

She made a stabbing motion at his outstretched hand. “Handle-end, hell. Right below the belly button, if you come any closer. Don’t you know how to behave? What kind of story do you want him to write about you anyway?”

“I don’t need any help from the goddamn newspapers! You bitch, let’s have that knife before I-”

“I’m supposed to hang around all day doing housework, is that it?” she cried. “How much housework is there in a twenty-eight-foot trailer? And where have you been, may I ask? I don’t suppose you’ve been bouncing around in a motel with anybody, have you? Of course not. She’s too busy helping out in the hospital. The nurses are so overworked, Lady Bountiful has to come in and change the flower water.”