He heard Rourke’s voice at the door saying cautiously, “Mike?”
Moving the painter’s ladder, Shayne let them in. Simpson was as loose as a puppet, in the relaxed phase of his twice-daily cycle.
“Still alive, I’m glad to see,” he said approvingly. “And do stay that way, Mike.”
“If I live through the next couple of hours I should make it,” Shayne said.
“I had a quick call from Ha-Ha. He only had time for one word-Surfside. So I want you to stay right in this room, Mike, and keep away from the window.”
“I may have to do some moving around. I want you to spot them for me.”
“Mike, I’d rather not do that, if you don’t mind. I like it better behind the scenes.”
“We’re going to be using closed circuit,” Shayne said. “Dave, time to go to work.”
Dave, the electronics technician, was on the couch, leafing through Playboy. He stood up, yawning and scratching.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you, Mike. What do we do when the Surfside people don’t want to let me take over their console?”
“We reason with them,” Shayne said. He took the. 38 out of his belt holster, checked the cylinder, and shifted it to his sling.
“Oh, God,” Soupy moaned. “I didn’t know I was getting involved in anything like this.”
“Think of money, Soupy.”
He led the way to the master control room, passing the judges’ box. Lou Liebler was lighting a cigarette when he looked around and saw Shayne. He nearly set fire to his eyebrows.
“Say-Mike. Got a minute?”
Shayne made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. “Everything under control, Lou. Talk to you later.”
The console engineer had just arrived, and was arranging his working aids: cigarettes, crackers, cheese, a bottle of Gatoraid and a paperback mystery. He looked around.
“And who is this bearded gnome? Dave? Welcome aboard. Now you can find out how a professional works.”
“We seem to be hijacking your dog track,” Dave said apologetically, “so move over.”
“Hijacking,” Shayne said from behind him. “That’s too strong a word. We’re just going to add a few touches. Still, you heard him. Move over.”
The technician started to get up as Tim Rourke and Soupy pushed in. “Who are you people? Who authorized this?”
“I didn’t know who to ask,” Shayne said. “Do you know what I mean by a citizen’s arrest? A citizen sees a crime being committed, and instead of ducking he steps up and arrests the guy, and if he’s lucky he doesn’t get his head shot off. We have reason to believe that crimes of a serious nature are being committed here. Watch the kennel monitor for a minute.”
The technician looked from face to face, then at the bank of closed-circuit screens. All of them were alight, and most of them busy. He swung around at once. “Somebody switched locations!”
“Dave and I did that,” Shayne said, “but the kennel people don’t know we’re getting a new angle.”
The screen showing the interior of the kennel was crosshatched with lines. This was the ventilator grill, concealing the second camera. Amateur handicappers were already gathering behind the glass on the clubhouse side. That entire wall was glass, to convince the bettors that Surfside had nothing to hide. The wide-angle lens distorted dimensions, and when Sanchez walked in front of the hidden camera he seemed to be lopsided and moving with a slight list.
“Keep watching,” Shayne said. “Soupy, slide in here.”
Two of the pictures showed the main turnstiles, a third the corridor to the clubhouse escalators. Early arrivals were beginning to dribble through.
“Concentrate,” Shayne said. “For every one you spot there’s an additional hundred bucks.”
The track’s safety director, a squat Italian named Lou D’Alessio, came blasting in.
“What, may I ask-”
The engineer watching the monitors said suddenly, “Lou, take a look at this.”
In the kennel picture, Sanchez was facing the hidden camera, looking down at something in his hand. The hand was screened from the watchers outside, and also from the regular closed-circuit pickup, which had been cut off and was no longer transmitting. As he changed position, they could see he had a small hypodermic syringe.
“Tape it,” Shayne said.
D’Alessio pushed closer. “What’s the bastard think he’s doing?”
Sanchez reached into one of the cages, as if to check the dog’s identifying tattoo. Injecting the medication took only an instant. The syringe was hidden in his fist when he closed the cage and moved on.
Dave reversed the tape and replayed it. “We didn’t get the needle.”
“Be ready for it the next time,” Shayne said.
The safety director turned. “This is very, very serious. You don’t know how serious this is. That dog is in the Classic.”
Shayne blocked him. “Leave him alone for now. Somebody has to handle the dogs.”
“You don’t understand. He’s fixing the Classic. People are going to be betting on that race.”
“And most of them, as always, are going to get screwed. Let’s stay calm and quiet and see what else happens.”
“I’m responsible for security at this track.”
“You’ve been doing a lousy job at it. Soupy’s looking for three gunmen. Let’s lower our voices. We don’t want to distract him.”
D’Alessio growled. As he pushed forward, with an arm raised, Shayne went beneath the arm and caught him about the chest.
“Soupy, he’s carrying a gun. Get it, will you?”
“Me?”
“You’re nearest. It won’t bite you.”
Shayne could feel the excited ticking of D’Alessio’s heart. He let him go after Soupy reached in and pulled his gun.
“You’ve been busy with pickpockets and breaking up fights,” Shayne said. “Your security here is a joke, except that I wasn’t laughing when one of your uniforms shot at me a couple of nights ago, in the middle of a crowd. I can’t be objective about that, but I’ll try to overlook it if you’ll keep out of our way. Under the counter would be a good place.”
“You don’t mean it. I’ve got too much to do.”
“I mean it. This is an outside audit. We don’t know who’s involved and who isn’t.”
The announcer arrived next, a leathery-faced person who had been calling dog races since adolescence. He was surprised to see the crowd, and more surprised to see D’Alessio on the floor, knees under his chin.
“Lou? What are you doing down there?”
“Resting, what do you think I’m doing? Making myself promises.”
“Well,” the announcer said, looking around, “I’m going to need some elbowroom. I’ve got to familiarize myself with the dogs.”
They rearranged themselves, and he squeezed in. Shayne ended up at the windows, and Rourke passed him a pair of binoculars. They were at the end of the suspended deck, and through a window in the side wall he could look into the paddock and see the loading dock on the far side of the lockup kennel. Wagons from the contract kennels were parked in a separate enclosure. Beneath, he could see all of the clubhouse and three-fifths of the grandstand.
“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?”
“He was working alone. As soon as I get him booked, I want to see that those dogs get every conceivable test there is.”
“Let me talk to him for a minute.”
The little man’s head shot forward, the reflex that showed he feared he was about to be blind-sided. Before he could speak, Shayne explained, “I want to push him while he’s off balance. He can’t be as cool as he looks.”
“All right, but enunciate, so I can hear both ends.”
He offered the phone to his prisoner. “Mike Shayne wants to talk to you, and I’m going to listen.”
When Sanchez took the phone, Shayne said. “I taped your conversation with Mrs. Geary last night, Ricardo. I’ll pause three seconds while you think about that. One. Two. Three. Now I want to ask you about that left front fender.”
Through the binoculars, Shayne saw him swallow. “You taped-”
“You’ve already had your three seconds. You’ll have to explain that fender to Painter. Try it on me first.”
“It always gets so banged out here,” Ricardo said. “Everybody gets so damned drunk. Three times in the last two months. Dee saw it and made up the story. He wasn’t riding in Geary’s car that night-he just saw a way to make money.”
“Your car would be easy to jump-start. If you parked it at midnight, somebody with a coat hanger, Mrs. Geary, for example-”
“No.”
“You don’t think she’s capable of knocking her husband off the road?”
“She couldn’t start a car without a key. She doesn’t have the faintest idea what’s under the hood.”
“I’ll let Painter have you, then. I don’t think you’ll fall apart.”
Hanging up, Shayne reached over the announcer’s shoulder and picked the mike out of his hands. “Now for the main event. Give me room.”
He opened the switch. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention. The management regrets to announce that no more wagers will be accepted tonight. Sellers, lock your machines. I repeat, lock your machines.”