Nice Fillies Finish Last Read online

  Brett Halliday

  Nice Fillies Finish Last

  CHAPTER 1

  TIM ROURKE sneaked another look at his hole cards. Satisfied, he took a long pull at his warm highball.

  “I think I’m going to raise that five dollars.”

  It was two-thirty A.M. on a pleasant January night, in Rourke’s Miami apartment. The ice cubes had given out around midnight, but his guests weren’t letting that interfere with their drinking. Judge Benson, on Rourke’s left, always much too optimistic at this time of night, contributed five chips, on the theory that a miracle could happen on the final card. Ad Kimball, a sports writer on the Miami News, folded. So did the next man, a canny cabdriver named Schwartz. Michael Shayne, the big redheaded private detective, counted out ten blues and said calmly, “See that and raise you five.”

  Rourke squinted down at his friend’s open cards. He couldn’t see much there except a pair of threes. The lanky reporter was well aware that, after the amount of whiskey he had packed away, he was in no condition to weigh the odds. That didn’t mean he was going to let himself be panicked by a small pair.

  “And five more,” he said.

  The phone rang. Ad Kimball picked it up as the dealer flipped a seventh card, face down, to the four players still in the game. Rourke gathered up his down-cards and looked at them carefully. He was pleased to see that he had a third ace to go with the two aces and two kings he already had. A full house, by God! By concentrating hard, he managed to look serious but not elated.

  Kimball said, “Somebody named Joey Dolan, Tim, calling collect from Pompano Beach. Do you want to take the charges?”

  “Dolan!” Rourke exclaimed. “Damn right. Good friend of mine. He feeds me tips on the harness horses up there, and he generally knows what he’s talking about, too.” He pushed ten blue chips from his dwindling stack into the middle of the table. “I’m still high man on the board. High man bets ten bucks.”

  Shayne saw him and raised him another ten, and at that point Rourke’s mood changed abruptly, for the worse. Apparently the redhead, who was the luckiest poker player Rourke had ever run across, was going to beat him out of the first halfway decent pot he had had a chance at all evening. It cost him another ten dollars to make sure. Grinning, Shayne turned over a second pair of threes to go with the two he had showing.

  Rourke made a disgusted sound and took the phone.

  “What’s the matter?” Joey Dolan’s voice said, aggrieved. “If you didn’t want to talk to me, all you had to do was tell the operator.”

  “What did I do, groan?” Rourke said. “That wasn’t meant for you, Joey. I just dropped fifty clams on a full house, aces and kings. Got beat with four measly little threes. Does that sound fair?”

  “Oh, poker,” Dolan said. “I didn’t know what for a minute.”

  “Yeah, and it’s not nearly as satisfying as losing money on the trotters, which gets you out in the fresh air. What have you got for me, Joey, anything good?”

  “Maybe,” Dolan said. “It could be so good I don’t like to chatter about it on the phone. Can you come up?”

  “Like when, around dinner time tomorrow?”

  “No, no. Immediately if not sooner. Be worth it to you, Tim. Excuse me, my throat’s dry. Time for a small nip.”

  Rourke had known Dolan for years without ever seeing him sober, whether at two-thirty in the morning or two-thirty in the afternoon. He heard a faint gurgle as liquor went out of a bottle and into Dolan.

  “Dust gets into everything out here,” Dolan complained. “But you can’t pave a racetrack, can you? The horses wouldn’t like it.”

  His voice faded, and when it came back it was much too loud. “The seats they put in these phone booths! Unless you’ve got the hind end of a robin, it’s hard to stay on. Tim, this could be it. It really could be it.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Rourke said. “But what’s wrong with telling me on the phone? It’s an hour’s drive, if I felt like driving, And I don’t, frankly.”

  “I’ll need some cash. What do we do, usually? I keep my ears open around the barns, I hear about a hot horse and I pass it on. You buy two ten-buck tickets across the board, one for you, one for me. How about the information I gave you lately, it stood up pretty good, didn’t it, buddy?”

  “Damn good. Hold on a minute!—Deal me out the next hand,” he called to the poker table.

  Mike Shayne stood up, stretching. “We’re breaking up, Tim.”

  Rourke protested, but the players who were still at the table were settling with the banker. Shayne, as usual, was the big winner.

  Rourke returned to the phone. “The bums are running out without giving me a chance to get even.”

  “Don’t let them walk away with all your cabbage, Tim. I’ll need about—oh, five or six hundred ought to cover it.”

  “Joey, be serious. Those four little threes cleaned me out. I’m in the red at the bank and I don’t get paid till Friday. I don’t say I couldn’t raise it, but they’ll have to know what it’s for. I know you’re not trying to fast-shuffle me, but to them you’re nothing but a name.”

  “OK,” Dolan said sadly. “I’ll tell you what I think, only Jesus, I hate to.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I think somebody’s trying to beat the twin.”

  “The twin double?” Rourke said in disbelief. “Come on.”

  “Yeah,” Dolan insisted. “That pool has been running close to two hundred G’s most nights. That’s something to shoot at. I have a pretty good idea how one of the races tomorrow night is going to turn out. One of the twin-double races, and the horse is a long shot. Tim,” he said impatiently, “are you in or not? Because if you don’t want to bankroll me, I’ve got to make some more phone calls. I want to start spending money as soon as it’s daylight.”

  “You still haven’t told me what you need five hundred for.”

  “To spread around. The twin double, that’s four races, thirty-two horses, thirty-two drivers. I want one other winner out of those thirty-two, and with any luck at all I can find one. If I don’t, we can forget the twin and bet on that long shot and cover expenses, more than cover expenses. I can’t guarantee anything, but the odds! What we’ll get is maybe an even-money chance to break into the twin-double payoffs, and about the lowest they ever pay is a couple of hundred to one. Look. If you’re going to borrow from some jerk who never heard about the twin double, you’ll have to explain it.”

  “Wait till I get my drink.” Rourke reached out and Shayne gave it to him. “Go ahead.”

  “Say somebody has the winning horse in the ninth, all things being equal, no accidents, no interference. For one reason or another, Joe Doakes in the grandstand never heard of the horse, and it stands to go off at phone-book odds. All right. You can win a nice bundle on him, but if you bet any real dough, you’ll shorten the price. Not only that. Joe Doakes is going to look at the tote board and see that something’s cooking. The company line has the horse at, say, seventy-five to one. When you make your bet, all of a sudden the win pool takes a big jump and the price drops to fifty. Uh-oh. So there’s stable money going in on the horse, is there? Everybody in the grandstand rushes to get aboard. The horse wins. When you go to the cashier’s window, you find he’s only going to pay you a crummy ten spot for a two-dollar bill.”

  “I know that, for God’s sake,” Rourke said.

  “So what you do, you put your money in through the twin double, where it doesn’t ruin the odds. You locate another winner in the twin-double races. Two winners out of four is all you can honestly hope for, because you know what harness racing’s like, it’s full of surprises. You wheel your two winners with all the horses in the other two races. That costs you a hundred and twenty-eight
bucks to get one winning two-dollar ticket. But if a couple of those winners were long shots, you can cash in your two-buck ticket for upwards of ten grand. And those long odds stay on the board so Joe Doakes don’t know what’s happening to him.”

  “That’s what you think is going on tomorrow night?”

  “Considering the circumstances,” Dolan said, “I’m practically ninety-nine percent certain, and that’s why I think a five-hundred-buck investment is reasonable—it could pay off in real dough. Here’s what I want to do. Most of the guys I know in the barns, swipes and caretakers, they’re like me—when something like this comes along, they’ve got to let it go half the time, because they don’t have any betting capital. I’ll mouse around. You can keep a secret from the racing secretary, but you can’t keep a secret from the guy who rubs the horse, and that’s the guy I’m going to be dealing with. I may not have to spend the full five hundred. God, Tim! I don’t mind horses, but I’m getting a little tired of cleaning up after them. If I got one-tenth as much attention as these trotters and pacers, I’d never say a cross word to anybody. Of course it’s true I can’t go a mile in two minutes. I’m getting too old for the rat race, Tim. I’d like to eat filet mignon for breakfast, for a change. Wear a necktie. I’d like to own one TV set before I die.”

  Large sums of money had begun dancing through Rourke’s head. “If this works, I’ll buy you a color set and a hi-fi. Have a drink, Joey, I’ve got to confer with some guys.” He covered the mouthpiece. “Mike, loan me five hundred bucks.”

  Shayne looked at him quizzically, his ragged red eyebrows coming together. “I heard part of that. The betting windows aren’t open at this time of night, so what’s your rush?”

  “He’s been explaining it. He’s got one winner in the last four races and he’s got to spend some money to get a second. This is no nickel-and-dime stuff. I’ve known him for years, he’s reliable. Come over here—I don’t want to yell.”

  Grinning skeptically, Shayne dropped onto the arm of a chair beside him. The reporter lowered his voice.

  “He’s talking about the twin double. Remember the bus driver last month who hit that for a hundred and seventy-eight thousand bucks? An exception, granted, but be conservative. Say you only take out ten or twelve grand—”

  Dolan’s voice said anxiously, “Tim, don’t give them any details. The fewer people know what we’re doing, the better. Plus something else. We’ve got some ugly boys in this business, when they want to be, and they aren’t going to be crazy about somebody like us squeezing in. I don’t want to worry you; you’re perfectly safe. I’m the one I’m thinking about.”

  “I appreciate that, Joey,” Rourke said. “But this character here is a skeptic, from way back.” He covered the mouthpiece again. “Mike, I’ll pay you back double your money in twenty-four hours. If anything goes wrong, I’ll give you fifty out of every paycheck till we’re square.”

  “If it’s that good,” Shayne said, “I might take a piece of it myself. Let me talk to the guy.”

  Rourke held the phone out of reach. “Oh, no, this is my contact, damn it. You have that obnoxious habit of asking intelligent questions. You can take the wind out of people’s sails faster than anybody I ever saw. Just because I happen to be temporarily short of cash—Joey,” he said into the phone, “I’ve got a small problem, but nothing I can’t take care of. Where do I meet you?”

  “Make it at Sweeney’s,” Dolan said. “That’s a cafeteria across from the backstretch. Take Atlantic Boulevard and turn off on Judson Road, you’ll see it. Tim, you’re positive you’ll be there? Because this is the kind of shot that comes along once in a lifetime. If I muff it, I’ll just have to relax and coast from now on, and it’s all downhill.”

  “I’ll be there,” Rourke assured him. “I know plenty of people who’ll loan me money on my IOU, without a lot of hemming and hawing.” He checked his watch. “Not much traffic this time of night. I should get there between three-thirty and a quarter to four.” He hung up.

  “Ad,” he called to Ad Kimball, who was about to leave. “Don’t go yet. I’ve got a proposition.”

  “I know, you want me to help you bust the twin double. Tim, you’ve been working too hard. You’re starting to crack up.”

  “People win the twin double every night, for God’s sake. Why not me? Judge,” he said to Judge Benson, “you have an open mind. You know nobody makes any real dough unless they’re prepared to take a few chances.”

  “Sorry, Tim,” the judge said. “I have a hard enough time persuading my wife to let me play poker. It wouldn’t be smart to compound the felony.”

  When Rourke looked hopefully at Schwartz, the cab-driver told him, “Only creeps bet on the twin, in my book. That’s an amateur’s bet. I thought you had more sense.”

  The others also turned him down and said good-night, leaving him alone with Mike Shayne. Avoiding his friend’s eye, Rourke stood up jerkily, his lanky frame opening like a carpenter’s rule.

  “I’ve still got a few friends around town. The trouble’s going to be to get it in cash. Did you see what I did with my car keys?”

  Shayne laughed, took out his wallet and started counting. “You could probably raise it, if you made up a good enough pitch. A dame in trouble, something like that. But sooner or later they’d find out what you wanted it for. That’s a good way to lose friends.”

  “Mike, you bastard,” Rourke said, racking the bills and putting them in his pants pocket. “What did you have to scare me like that for? Listen, let’s make it a syndicate, and I’ll owe you two-fifty. Anything we clear we’ll split down the middle.”

  Shayne shook his head. “A straight loan, Tim. I can think of better ways to get rid of money than trying to pick four winners in a row.”

  “You don’t pick four.” Rourke scribbled an IOU. “You pick two, and bracket them with all the horses in the other two races. And of course you get say a twenty-dollar bill on each of your two winners, in the regular pool, and if only one of them comes in, you’ve got your investment back right there.”

  Under the even gaze from Shayne’s gray eyes, this sounded less plausible than when Joey Dolan had told it to him on the phone, and all at once Rourke wondered if he was making a fool of himself. Was it possible that this was nothing but a scheme to hustle him out of five hundred dollars? Dolan wouldn’t turn in an expense account on how he spent the money. What if he didn’t really spend it at all? It was true enough, as Schwartz had said, that people who put money into the twin double were usually hunch-players, whose idea of a sensible way to pick the winners was to use the first four digits of their social-security number. Dolan’s tips had always been good, but that was the classic confidence-game technique, setting the victim up for the real take. What would Rourke do if Dolan called for another five hundred in the morning? And another five hundred in betting money? Shayne could be right, Rourke thought. He should have played it cool and asked for a little more proof. Money didn’t grow on trees, even in this climate.

  “Mike, you wouldn’t consider driving up with me, would you?” he said hopefully. “See how it sounds. If you don’t think it’s on the level, blow smoke through your nose or something and I’ll keep the dough in my pocket.”

  “Now I know you’re nuts,” Shayne said. “I’ve got things to do tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, I keep forgetting you’re not as young as you were,” Rourke said, swaying. “I can remember times when you’d stay up three nights running, but the years take their toll, don’t they? Dolan did say there might be a certain element of danger. I mean, with this amount of scratch involved, they won’t look kindly on a couple of strangers. The more slices, the smaller each slice. But there’s probably not too much to worry about. At this stage, how would anybody know what we had in mind?”

  “True,” Shayne agreed gravely.

  Rourke put a cigarette in his mouth and fumbled for his lighter. He had trouble bringing the flame and the end of the cigarette together. He threw the lighter away and
caromed off a chair on the way to the mantlepiece for the keys to his Ford.

  “I guess I shouldn’t have taken that last drink,” he mumbled, running his words together. “But don’t worry, I’ll get there. That heap of mine just about handles itself.”

  He was putting some of this on, but the truth was that he didn’t look forward to the drive alone. The Sunshine State Parkway had been engineered to eliminate all forms of distraction, and he often came close to falling asleep on it even in daylight, when he was fully awake to begin with.

  Shayne watched his helpless-drunk act, unimpressed.

  “What a faker,” he commented. “All right, we’ll go in my car.”

  CHAPTER 2

  THE GROOMS AND HOT-WALKERS had finished cooling out the horses that had raced in that evening’s program. After putting their charges away for the night, they had gone to bed themselves. In another hour or so, a new set of grooms and trainers would arrive for breakfast, but at the moment Sweeney’s Cafeteria, across the street from the one-mile training track at Surfside Raceway, was all but empty. An attendant or two dozed behind the steam tables. Four or five customers, including Rourke and Mike Shayne, were scattered about the brightly lit dining area.

  The big clock over the cash-desk said five minutes to four, and there was still no sign of Joey Dolan. Shayne had brought a pint bottle of cognac, which not only helped keep them awake but improved the taste of the thick, bitter coffee.

  “What do you say, Mike?” Rourke asked. “Give him ten more minutes?”

  “That’s up to you,” Shayne said. “This is your excursion. I have nothing to do when I get back except sleep, and I can do that any time.”

  “I’m sorry. From the way he sounded on the phone, I thought we could count on him.”

  “Oh, I’m glad I came, Tim. Otherwise I never would have got to know Sweeney’s, which is undoubtedly one of the really great cafeterias of the Eastern seaboard.”

  “Will you lay off, Mike? I said I was sorry.”