Nothing In Her Way (13 page)

He gave me a superior smile. “Whatever that means.”

“It means it’s pretty straight. Thoroughbred racing is one of the most rigidly governed sports in the world, and they do a good job of keeping it clean.”

“You think so?” He didn’t, it was obvious. And he had the knack of implying that if I did I was a fool.

I shrugged it off and changed the subject, as if reluctant to talk about horse racing. We got onto fishing, which wasn’t much better. He had only amused tolerance for fly fishermen. In a few minutes Cathy came back.

“More trouble,” she complained with a wry smile as we sat down. “Sometimes I envy men. I had a run in a stocking and had to change it.”

I ordered another round of drinks to make sure Benavides would have time to get here. When we had finished them, Lachlan said, “We’ll take my car. It’s already out front.” We went out through the lobby with Cathy in the middle chattering about something. It was after seven, and when we got out the big doors in front it was dark except for the street lights and the glow from the sign over the cocktail lounge. Fog was coming in across the hill and cutting off the tops of the buildings. Benavides wasn’t in sight. He’d had plenty of time, I thought angrily. Where the devil was he? Then I saw him. He had just come around the corner of the building, walking very fast.

We turned and went down the sidewalk toward Lachlan’s car. Just before we reached it I could hear footsteps behind us, beginning to run now, and then he called out.

“Senor Rogers. Doctor! One moment, please.”

We all turned, just as he came up and put a hand on my arm. I shook it off angrily, brushing at him with my hand. “Get away,” I said irritably, continuing to walk toward the car.

He came after me, talking very fast in Spanish. “Please you must listen. You will tell me when there is another one, no?”

“What are you talking about?” I said coldly. I had him by the arm now, and was hustling him away. “Shut up, you stupid idiot!” I hissed at him, still jockeying him along. I turned to Cathy and Lachlan and apologized in English. “I’m sorry. I’ll get rid of him in a minute. You go ahead.”

They went on toward the car with Lachlan turning to look curiously over his shoulder. I walked Juan back, being careful not to get completely out of earshot.

“Now, you big-mouthed fool,” I lashed at him, winking at the same time, “what are you doing here?”

“Senor Barnes sent me away from Miami. He said he would kill me. But I must have money. I cannot live in this country without money. You will tell me when there will be a long race, no?”

“You’re lucky Barnes didn’t kill you,” I said angrily. “I heard about it. You talked your stupid head off. There was so much comeback money at the track we didn’t get five to one.” I chopped it off suddenly as if just realizing I was talking too loudly myself.

“But, Doctor, how am I going to live?” he begged. “You must tell me when there is another so I can bet—” He stepped back, holding out his hands, as I made a step toward him.

I took out my wallet and handed him the $260 and the bus ticket, folded up between the bills. “Here,” I said. “And you stay away from here. If I see you around here again, I’ll call Cramer. You know what he does to long tongues.”

He tried to follow me back to the car, still talking. I waved him off furiously, and he turned finally and shuffled away. He had done it nicely, and I hoped he’d use that bus ticket.

They were in the car waiting, and looked questioningly at me as I slid in beside Cathy. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Damned nuisance. The only way you can get rid of him is to give him a couple of dollars.”

“Oh?” Lachlan asked casually, easing the car away from the curb. “Do you know him?”

“He used to work for my father, in Peru. Dad brought him back to the States with him three or four years ago, but he won’t work any more. Just a bum now.”

He didn’t say anything more as we drove on down the hill through the early-evening traffic. I was eager for a chance to talk to Cathy, to find out how it had gone over and how much of it they’d been able to hear. All through dinner I was hoping to get a moment alone with her, but I never did. Afterward he suggested we go to the Fairmont, but Cathy begged off, saying she had a slight headache. We came back to the apartment about ten o’clock.

The minute we were inside the door she pulled my head down and kissed me. “You and Benavides should go on the stage.”

“Was it all right?”

“Perfect.”

We avoided Lachlan completely for the rest of the week, and then, as she said he would, he came to us. Early in the morning after the Benavides incident I went downtown to the hotel where he was staying, intending to build a fire under him if he was still hanging around. He was gone, however, and the chances looked good that he had taken the bus for El Paso. As soon as we got back to the apartment we packed a couple of bags and took off for Carmel. Everything was under control, and all we had to do was play hard to get and just wait.

It was wonderful at Carmel. I forgot the whole thing for three days, and stopped worrying about Bolton, and Donnelly, and whether the police were watching us. It was a fine time.

We hadn’t been back in San Francisco more than a few hours when he called us. He had four tickets to a play at the Geary, he said. How would we like to join him and his date for it, and then go dancing afterward?

“We’re beginning to click, darling,” Cathy said, looking speculatively at a row of gowns hanging in a closet.

It was easy to see Lachlan had something up his sleeve when we met them downstairs in the cocktail lounge and I got a glance at his date. No aging buck on the prowl would want to be chaperoned by a married couple when he could have been alone with all those natural resources. She was a brown-eyed blonde who overflowed her gown to within a short drool of being arrested for blocking traffic. The gown itself was a plunging-neckline affair in a sort of ripe-avocado green, and above the timber line she looked like whipped cream squeezed out of a tube. Her name was Bobbie Everett and she was in radio, she said, and when I made the obvious and somewhat asinine observation that she ought to be in television she thought that was cute. This was odd, considering that she had probably heard the same remark ten thousand times since TV had taken the bosom to its bosom.

The strategy began to be a little obvious by the time we’d left the theatre and had gone to a night club. Really, I was the most interesting man she’d ever met. Honestly, I was. I simply must tell her all about myself. Working with race horses, imagine that. Didn’t I think racing was just simply divine?

She had to have something to report to Lachlan, so I blossomed into a brilliant conversationalist under all this flattering attention and told her all about myself. I told her how to treat bowed tendons.

Of course, I didn’t know anything about it, but since practically anything was news to her, I was on safe ground. It was about five dances before I was able to outmaneuver Lachlan and get a dance with Cathy.

“Well,” she said, “and how are you and your little friend? You don’t seem to be feeling any pain.”

“I’m all right,” I said. “A little snow-blind, but otherwise O.K.”

“Yes,” she said, “I thought you looked like a homesick skier. But remember, you’re the close-mouthed type. What has she learned so far, besides the fact that your vision seems to be all right?”

“I haven’t told her anything except the story Lachlan already has from you.”

We compared notes as soon as we were back at the apartment. She was elated. There wasn’t any doubt at all now that he was going for it.

“He’s going for something,” I said. “Maybe it’s you.”

“Don’t be silly. Listen, Mike, we’re turning for home now. I can tell. From the things he said tonight—when he wasn’t playing the big shot, of course—I’ve got a pretty good picture of just how much he’s figured out. He knows you’re mixed up in horse racing in some way, but he can’t quite see where or how. I mean, you’re not anywhere near an operating track, you’re obviously not a bookie, and if you were an owner or trainer you’d say so. And that thing Benavides kept saying about a ‘long race’ is getting him. Why should long races be any different from any others? He hasn’t quite enough information to complete the picture, but he will have, very shortly. I’ve got a date with him tomorrow. You don’t know it, of course, but he’s taking me out to lunch.”

We didn’t get up until late, and around noon she went out. She was enchanting in a whole new spring outfit, smart and very lovely from nylons to short-veiled hat, and when she came to kiss me she left a hint of fragrance that lingered in the apartment after she was gone.

“I’m off to betray you, darling,” she said.

I prowled irritably around the apartment. Was he going for it, or was he just going for her? She was convinced he was rising to the bait, but just how sure were we as to what he considered the bait? Maybe, as far as he was concerned, she was it. Lachlan had money already. He didn’t chase girls to get money; he used money to chase girls. And what if Bolton had tipped him off, as he’d threatened, and he was laughing about the whole thing, playing along with us while the police watched, just waiting to spring the trap? I shuddered.

I kept thinking about Bolton, and after a while I started wondering about Charlie and why we hadn’t heard anything of him. After a while I couldn’t stand my thoughts and the apartment any longer and went out and walked downtown. I had to locate a good bookie joint, and they weren’t very plentiful any more. The federal tax and the clampdown by the police had driven most of them out of business. It took a number of telephone calls to some old friends before I got on the trail of one. It was in the rear of a saloon on the other side of Market. I finally got in, and sat around for a while reading a scratch sheet and watching the Santa Anita results go up on the board. I didn’t need the place yet, but I wanted to get the telephone number and be sure I could get in when I did. I made a few random bets, and lost on all of them.

She still wasn’t back when I returned to the apartment. I mixed a drink and sat around thinking of the fine time we’d had at Carmel and wondering if it could ever be like that all the time. Maybe when we finished with this…I got up and started pacing the floor again. Maybe when we finished with this we’d be in separate penitentiaries.

It was a little after five when she came in, very happy, and ran to kiss me. They’d had lunch, and then gone for a long drive down toward Half Moon Bay.

I mixed her a drink, and she told me. “He has all the parts now, Mike,” she said, talking very fast and excitedly. She had changed into lounging pajamas and a blue robe and sandals and was curled up in a big chair with the drink. “He got it out of me at last.” She looked across at me and laughed. “I finally told him about the plant that had fascinated you ever since you were a child in Peru and how much research you had done on it. He’d never heard of coca, and the chances are he’s down at the library right now, looking it up in the encyclopedia. And when he finds it, he’s gone.”

That was it. Coca was the detonator, the trigger on this booby trap she had rigged. She’d first learned of it when she was in Peru. Cocaine is derived from it, through an involved chemical process. The Andes Indians chew the dried leaves and it acts as a stimulant. They are able to get by on very little food and can carry tremendous loads for long distances when under the influence of it. Naturally, it’s harmful, as is any system of trying to get something for nothing, but that wasn’t the point.

The point was that this was one of a series of deadfalls he should have planted in his mind now, and if he followed the trail she had left he should stumble into every one of them. I was interested in the effect of coca, which was a stimulant; I had been a veterinarian at a South American race track and had become interested in something else that wasn’t part of my job—the saliva tests they give the winners of races to check for illegal drugs or stimulants, and which are a chemist’s job; Benavides had stupidly kept saying something about “long” races while I was trying to shut him up; and last but not least, I had brushed him off and denied very coldly that there could be anything crooked about racing the only time he had mentioned it. All that, plus the fact I apparently had a mysterious source of income I never talked about, was a very neat package.

It should be obvious to anyone who thought about it that if illegal drugs introduced into a race horse would show up in a chemical analysis of his saliva or urine, the same drug would always show up no matter in what form it was used. But with all the overwhelming weight of evidence pointing in the other direction, he could close his eyes to that and come to the only natural conclusion—the one he wanted: that I had worked out a method of getting some form of coca into a horse and giving him enough edge to win a long race at, say, a mile and a quarter or above, without its being detectable in the tests. That was it—that and the fact that he had got all this information out of her instead of from me, had got it because she was a frivolous chatterbox who didn’t have sense enough to keep her mouth shut. He understood Spanish, and he had a way with the ladies. He had put one over on us.

We stayed away from him that night, and we both remained in the apartment until noon the next day. Then I went out alone, picked up the
Examiner,
and wandered into the bar. It was practically deserted except for the single barman on duty in the afternoon. I sat down in a booth, ordered Scotch and water, and spread the paper open at the sports section. I killed two hours there and then went on back to the apartment without ever seeing him. When I came in she said he had called, wanting us to go out with him and Bobbie Everett again. She had begged off, saying she didn’t feel up to it.

“I think it’s you he’s after,” I said.

“No,” she said. “Wait. Give him time.”

The next afternoon I did the same thing, sitting in the bar with a drink and the morning paper open, reading the racing news from Santa Anita and the Florida tracks. Just before I was ready to take down my props and go home, he came in.

“Oh, hello, Rogers,” he said, with just a shade too much heartiness. “Mind if I sit down?”

I grunted an invitation of sorts and folded up the paper, giving him just a brief glance at what I was reading. “How’s Mrs. Rogers? Hope she’s not feeling bad.”

“No,” I said. “Just a cold.”

His drink came. “Well, here’s to crime,” he said. Maybe that’s the latest thing, I thought. He set his glass down suddenly, as if he had just remembered something. “Damnit,” he said, “I’ve been meaning to tell you something. Thought of it the other day. I remembered you were a fly fisherman, and a friend of mine that’s here in town now has a big ranch up on the Rogue River. He’s always after me to come up when the steelhead are running, but I don’t care anything about that piddling kind of fishing. Thought you might like to meet him, though. I’ll bring him around and introduce him. He’ll fix you up with some fishing, come summer.”

“Oh, thanks,” I said. “Thanks a lot. I’ve heard a lot about the Rogue, but I never had a chance to fish it.”

“Well, that’s what friends are for, the way I see it.”

“That’s right,” I said, without much enthusiasm.

He was silent for a few minutes, apparently thinking about something.

“Say, Rogers...” I looked up.

“Yes?”

“We hit it off pretty well. And we’ve both been around. I’d like to have a little talk with you. The barman can’t hear us over here.”

I tried to keep my face blank and lit a cigarette to cover up my nervousness. “Talk about what?” I asked.

He leaned forward a little and lowered his voice. “As I said, we’re not kids, so you can cut out the innocent talk with me. I know who you are.”

The butterflies were swarming in my stomach, and it was all I could do to stare back at him without any expression at all. If he had our number, what was he going to do? Call the cops? Was it too late now to run?

“Would you mind explaining what you’re talking about?” I asked, as coldly as I could.

“Cut it out,” he said. Then he winked. “There’s just the two of us here, so you can let your hair down. I’ve known all along you were cleaning up some way, but it took me a while to figure it out. How about letting me in on something good?”

I could feel the sigh of relief coming all the way up from the bottom of my lungs and choked it down before it got away from me. It had been a bad moment.

“Look, Lachlan,” I said irritably, now that I had hold of myself again, “what the devil are you talking about, anyway?”

“So you’re going to play it that way?”

“Play what?”

“That hard-to-get stuff. Good God, man, all I want is just a tip now and then. That’s not much to ask, is it?”

“Maybe I’m a little dense today,” I said wearily. “Or I never did learn the English language too well. Would you mind drawing me a picture?”

He leaned back in the seat and watched me for a moment, and then the nasty smile began to spread across his face. He was getting ready to let me know he had me.

“Yeah. If you insist, I’ll draw you a picture, Rogers. You’re a pretty slick customer, but there are others around. I’ll tell you something you didn’t know. I happen to speak Spanish as well as you do. And I heard your little argument with your friend the other night. You remember, the one who used to work for your father?” He chuckled.

I let it hit me in the face, just a glancing blow he would be able to see for an instant; then I went blank again. “All right,” I said, “so you’re a linguist. I still don’t see what you’re driving at.”

He leaned on the table again. “The hell you don’t. That boy was yelling something about ‘long races.’ I couldn’t figure it out at the time, but I’ve got it now. We both know what you’re doing, so why not cut it out and be a good guy and let me in? I know how to keep my mouth shut, if that’s worrying you, and I won’t bet heavy enough to tip anything.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Let me get this straight. You’re suggesting I’m mixed up in horse racing? Is that it? That I’m getting information of some kind?”

He grinned again. “Now you’re talking sense. Except that I’m not suggesting anything—I know. And I don’t mean ‘information.’ I mean fixed races.”

I stared at him. “Don’t be a fool. There’s no such thing as a fixed race.”

He shook his head. “Boy, you’re a hard nut to crack. Look, Rogers, I not only know you’ve got a way to gimmick a race now and then; I even know the kind you gimmick and the way you do it without getting caught. Now, will you come off it?”

I sighed and put down my glass. “Are you really serious about this, Lachlan, or is it a gag of some kind?”

“Of course I’m serious.”

“Well, look. I’ll tell you a few things. I used to work around race tracks as a veterinarian, so maybe I know at least as much about racing as you do. And one of the things I do know is that there is absolutely no such thing as a fixed race. Did you ever stop to figure out how many different and unpredictable factors there are to contend with in just one race? In an average field of eight horses, say? There are eight jockeys, eight horses, eight pole positions, good racing luck, bad racing luck, jams on the turns, injuries and a thousand other things. And if you were fool enough to try bribing riders, there never have been and never will be eight crooked jockeys in one race. The odds against it are astronomical. There might be one you could buy, or even a slim chance of two, but not eight. At least six, and probably all eight, would report you to the stewards, or at least laugh in your face. They make a living riding horses, and if they got caught in something like that they’d be out on their tails in ten minutes.”

“Cut it out,” he interrupted. “I’m not talking about crooked jockeys. Don’t be so pigheaded. I know you hype ‘em. Or your men at the track do.”

“Doping, you mean?” I snorted. “Didn’t you ever hear of the saliva test?”

“Sure.” He had that wise grin on his face again. He looked at me and said slowly, “Sure. I’ve heard of it. And I happen to know you’ve got a way to beat it.”

I got up. “Well, there’s no use arguing with you. I can see that. Think anything you want, but”—I stopped and stared coldly down at him—“don’t bother me with it any more. I don’t go for it.”

I went off and left him sitting there. As I was going up in the elevator it suddenly struck me, that thing she had said a long time ago in Reno. She’d said he would come to me, demanding to be let in on a fixed race, and that the way to convince him there really was such a thing was to deny it could even exist.

The next move was up to him, and he did exactly what she had said he would. The next morning the telephone rang and she answered it.

“Oh, how are you?” she asked, a little breathlessly. “Why, no, he isn’t in. He went downtown this morning.” She looked across at me and winked, with the deadpan innocence of a child. There was silence for a moment while she listened. “Well, I—I really shouldn’t… Oh, yes, it would be perfectly all right, of course… Well, all right. I’ll meet you there in the bar. But only this once. I’ll leave a note saying I’ve gone to the movies.”

She hung up and looked over at me and grinned. “El Prado, for lunch.”

She was gone until nearly three, and when she came in she didn’t say anything for a moment. I could see she was bursting with something, though, and after she came over and kissed me and rumpled my hair she opened her purse without a word and dropped a sheaf of bills on the sofa. I looked at them. They were century notes, and they came to a thousand dollars.

“All right,” I said, waiting.

“It was just as if I had written the part for him and he’d spent all night memorizing his lines.” She sat down and lit a cigarette. “Mike, it was so easy it wasn’t even any fun. He said he knew what you were doing, and there was no use my trying to cover up any more. Oh, he was quite brutal about it. He had me, you see. I was slipping out and meeting him. I tell you, sweet, that conceit of his is something that has never been approached. It’s awe-inspiring. So I broke down and told him everything. Then he turned on the Lachlan charm, which seems to consist largely of breathing on you and bugling and trampling the shrubbery, and said everything was going to work out fine. We’re going to double-cross you, you see.

“I went on to explain that it wasn’t quite as easy as that. A lot of times I never did know myself when you had a deal coming up or what horse it was. You see, you’re very hard and mean, and you never tell anybody anything. I told him you actually shot at a man once, for talking too much. He should find that easy to believe, after the way you brushed him off yesterday. Oh, I gave him a good story about all the double-frammis times frammis-squared elements that went into it—how you never knew for sure until just a few hours before racetime that it was a deal because they had to wait to get a line on the probable odds, since they never dealt in short-priced horses, and because they didn’t want too much money bet too soon, for some silly reason you had tried to explain to me but which I could never understand. I’m the bird-brain type, you see. Anyway, you usually get the telephone call from the track just in time for you to get your money bet, and most of the time I don’t know anything about it until it’s all over.