Nice Fillies Finish Last by Brett Halliday Page B

was true, and you’d call them in the morning. I don’t think they liked it.”
    “Too bad.”
    “And I had a very odd anonymous call, collect from Pompano Beach. Well, anonymous—he gave the operator the name Mr. Jones, but I’m quite sure it wasn’t his real name. I took it down in shorthand, as much as I could get. I’ll give you the high spots first. When I told him you weren’t in, I had a hard time keeping him from hanging up. He was quite skittery. I finally persuaded him to leave a message, and what he wanted to tell you was that he talked to Dolan early this morning, he thought around three.’”
    Shayne scraped his chin with his thumbnail, frowning. “That would be after Dolan called Tim.”
    “Yes, but he’d been drinking, Michael, both then and when he talked to me. He said Dolan had a half-empty bottle of sherry. It wasn’t very good sherry, naturally, and Jones said it had a funny kind of raw taste. Dolan was very excited. He said—let’s see—he said he’d had a wonderful piece of good fortune, and if it paid off, he’d be rich enough to spend next summer in Ireland. But he was worried about something. He kept saying you had to take chances if you didn’t want to end your life in the gutter. He told Jones to listen carefully, in case anything happened. He was supposed to meet somebody in the Belle Mark Apartments in Miami, and he told Jones to write that down, the Belle Mark Apartments. He stood there while Jones did it.”
    “Where did this happen?” Shayne said, still frowning. “He wouldn’t say. He said it was a good thing Joey made him write down the address, because when he woke up this morning he’d forgotten all about it. He had a splitting headache, which he thinks may have been from whatever gave the sherry that funny taste. When he heard Dolan was dead, he felt in his pockets and found the paper. I asked him why he didn’t tell the police, and he gave a strange laugh. From what Tim told me, the police wouldn’t follow it up anyway, would they?”
    “Probably not. Why did he call me?”
    “He said something about seeing you at Sweeney’s last night. I take it that’s some kind of bar or cafeteria. Maybe he only talked to someone who saw you. Apparently it’s known that you and Tim were supposed to meet Dolan and he didn’t show up. I said I knew you’d want to talk to him. He said, ‘Why?’ very nervously. I tried to convince him that trained investigators are able to see things that ordinary people overlook, and if he wanted to keep it anonymous, he could call back when you were in and go on using the names Jones. He said no, you’d trace the call, and then before I could tell him that calls can’t be traced, he got excited and said he didn’t want the same thing to happen to him that happened to Joey, and bang, he hung up. I’m sorry, Michael. I’ve been thinking of different ways I should have handled him.”
    “Forget it. We’ve finally got a concrete lead, and believe me, we needed it. What impression did he make on you?”
    “It’s a funny thing, Michael, it seemed to me he was trying to hide his identity by pretending to have more of an education than he actually did. Part of the time he seemed drunk, part of the time sober. Southern. Sure of himself and very anxious, by turns. This is all no help, I know.”
    “Did you look up the apartment house?”
    “The Belle Mark—yes, it’s on Ninety-sixth Street, in Miami Shores. I think that’s a high-rent district. I don’t know for sure.”
    The trooper was looking for Shayne. He seemed surprised to find him talking on the phone in the back seat of the wrecked car.
    “That’s fine, Miss Hamilton,” Shayne said, to let her know he was being overheard. “Do you remember the Mercedes you looked up for Tim?”
    “Of course. Mrs. Domaine’s.”
    “That’s a husband and wife operation. And didn’t Tim mention another name?”
    “Paul Thorne?”
    “Yeah. Go to the head of the class, angel. I want