Bond took a shower and changed and walked down the road and had two Bourbon old-fashioneds and the Chicken Dinner at $2.80 in the air-conditioned eating house on the corner that was as typical of’the American way of life’ as the motel. Then he returned to his room and lay on his bed with the Saratogian, from which he learned that a certain T. Bell would be riding Shy Smile in The Perpetuities.
Soon after ten, Felix Leiter knocked softly on the door and limped in. He smelled of liquor and cheap cigar smoke and looked pleased with himself.
“Made some progress,” he said. He hooked the armchair up to the foot of the bed on which Bond was lying. He sat down and took out a cigarette. “Means getting up damned early in the morning. Five o’clock. The word is they’ll be timing Shy
Smile over four furlongs at 5.30. I’d like to see who’s around when they’re doing that. The owner’s given as Pissaro. One of the directors of the Tiara happens to be called that. He’s another one with a joke name. ‘Lame-brain’ Pissaro. Used to be in charge of their dope racket. Ran the stuff over the Mexican border and then broke it down and parcelled it out to middlemen on the coast. The FBI got on to him and he did a term in San Quentin. Then he came out and Spang gave him the job at the Tiara in exchange for the rap he’d carried. And now he’s a racehorse owner like the Vanderbilts. Nice going. I’ll be interested to see what sort of shape he’s in these days. He was almost a main-liner in the days he was dealing in coke. They gave him the cure in San Q, but it’s left him a bit soft in the head. Hence the ‘Lame-brain’. Then there’s the jock, ‘Tingaling’ Bell. Good rider but not above this sort of caper if the money’s right and he’s in the clear. I want to have a word with Tingaling if I can get him alone. I’ve got a little proposition for him. The trainer’s another hoodlum-name of Budd, ‘Rosy’ Budd. They all sound pretty funny, these names. But you don’t want to be taken in by it. He’s from Kentucky, so he knows all about horses. He’s been in trouble all over the South, what they call a ‘little habitch’ as opposed to a ‘big habitch’-habitual criminal. Larceny, mugging, rape-nothing big. Enough to give him quite a bulky packet in police records. But for the last few years he’s been running straight, if you care to call it that, as trainer for Spang.”
Leiter flicked his cigarette accurately through the open window into a bed of gladioli. He got up and stretched. “Those are the actors in the order of their appearance,” he said. “Distinguished cast. Look forward to lighting a fire under them.”
Bond was mystified. “But why don’t you just turn them over to the Stewards? Who are your principals in all this? Who pays the bills?”
“Retained by the leading owners,” said Leiter. “They pay us a retainer and extra by results. And I wouldn’t get far with the Stewards. Wouldn’t be fair to put the stable-boy in the box. Be the death sentence for him. The veterinary has passed the horse, and the real Shy Smile was shot and burned months ago. No. I’ve got my own ideas, and they’re going to hurt the Spangled boys far more than a disbarment from the tracks. You’ll see. Anyway, five o’clock, and I’ll come and hammer on the door just in case.”
“Don’t worry,” said Bond. “I’ll be on the doorstep with my boots and my saddle while the coyotes are still baying the. moon.”
Bond woke on time and there was a wonderful freshness in the air as he followed the limping figure of Leiter through the half light that filtered through the elms among the waking stables. In the east, the sky was pearly grey and iridescent, like a toy balloon filled with cigarette smoke, and among the shrubs the mocking birds were beginning their first song. Blue smoke rose straight up in the air from the fires in the camps behind the stables and there was a smell of coffee and wood-smoke and dew. There was the clank of pails and the other small noises of men and horses in the early morning and as they moved out from under the trees to the white wooden rail that bordered the track, a file of blanketed horses came by with a boy at each head, holding the leading rein right up close to the bit and talking with soft roughness to their charges. “Hey, lazybones, pick yo feet up. Giddap. You sho ain’t no Man-O-War dis mornin’.”