"Brixton, Danvy - Dead Hands On The Wheel (Avenger 4203)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brixton Danby)

DEAD HANDS ON THE WHEEL
by Denby Brixton


They would have driven the bookie straight to the electric chair
--except for a strange detour that saved his life!



There are a lot of things people won't believe, and sometimes I think this story is one of them.
I don't even know whether to believe it myself--except that there are court records to back up
everything I say: court records which saved me from the chair,

But you can take the story or leave it, I'll give it to you right from the start.


I stood up to see what the crowd was yelling about--then sat down again. It was Jack Pelham,
passing the grandstand in a try-out spin in that yellow racer of his. I mopped my forehead.
Beads of sweat had broken out on it when those dopes in front of me started to shout, because
I thought they were shouting for Rocco Landi, the coast champ, who was the favorite to win this
500-mile "special" over an open-country course, laid out in twenty-five-mile laps.

Like I said, Landi was the favorite. There'd been a lot of "future betting" on him; which
means--in case you don't know--that us bookies had taken a lot of bets in advance of the race,
at good odds; bets that we'd win if Landi lost, or if he didn't drive in the race. They weren't
like the bets made at the track, which would be off if Landi didn't start.

A little bookie named Dingle edged up alongside me and whispered: "Say, Wally, d'you think
I'm all right on those future bets on Landi?"

I laid my hand on his skinny shoulder, and gave it an encouraging squeeze. "Safe as a
church, Eddie!" Then I lowered my voice. "Landi won't start. I'm giving you the inside!"

"Thanks, Wally," he murmured, looking relieved, and he went off, whistling.

I left my seat in the grandstand and went down to the bookies' ring.

My clerk was busy, giving orders to his assistant, but he looked up when he saw me.

"What's the total we stand to lose, Barney?" I asked him.

He looked over his sheets. "Close to a hundred and fifty thousand, Mr. Nuber!"

It was a lot of dough to have up on a race, where the skid of a tire, or the slip of a
wheel, the loosening of a bolt, the slightest mechanical flaw, or the smallest lapse on the
part of the driver might spell the difference between defeat and victory.

But l knew that Rocco wouldn't start. I was sure he wouldn't start. There was a "fix"
on, and I was giving my friends among the odds-layers the benefit of my inside dope.