Read Rules of Prey for Free Online

hush-hush.”
    Lucas turned and looked at him. “He said right now?”
    “He said right now. And he sounded like he meant it.”
    Lucas’ eyes defocused and he turned toward the track, staring sightlessly across the oval to the six-furlong starting gate. The jockeys were pressing their horses toward the gate and the crowd was starting to drift down the patio to the finish line.
    “It’s the maddog killer,” Lucas said after a moment.
    “Yeah,” said the fat cop. “It could be.”
    “Has to be. Goddammit, I don’t want that.” He thought about it for another few seconds and then suddenly smiled. “You guys got horses for this race?”
    The fat cop looked vaguely uneasy. “Uh, I got two bucks on Skybright Avenger.”
    “Jesus Christ, Bucky,” Lucas said in exasperation, “you’re risking two dollars to get back two dollars and forty cents if she wins. And she won’t.”
    “Well, I dunno . . .”
    “If you don’t know how to play . . .” Lucas shook his head. “Look, go put ten bucks on Pembroke Dancer. To win.”
    The two cops looked at each other.
    “Really?” said the thin one. “This is a maiden, you can’t know . . .”
    “Hey. It’s up to you, if you want to bet. And I’m staying for the race.”
    The two internal-affairs cops looked at each other, looked back at Lucas, then turned and hurried inside to the nearest betting windows. The thin one bet ten dollars. The fat one hesitated, staring into his wallet, licked his lips, took out three tens, licked his lips again, and pushed them across the counter. “Thirty on Pembroke Dancer,” he said. “To win.”
    Lucas was sprawled on the bench again and had started a conversation with the woman in the cowboy boots. When the surveillance cops got back, he moved down toward her but turned to the cops.
    “You bet?” he asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “Don’t look so nervous, Bucky. It’s perfectly legal.”
    “Yeah, yeah. It ain’t that.”
    “Have you got a horse?” The woman in the cowboy boots leaned forward and looked down the bench at Lucas. She had violet eyes.
    “Just a guess,” Lucas said lazily.
    “Is this, like, a private guess?”
    “We’ve all got a couple of bucks on Pembroke Dancer,” Lucas said.
    The woman with the violet eyes had a Racing Form on the bench beside her, but instead of looking at it, she looked up at the sky and her lips moved silently and then she turned her head and said, “She had a terrific workout at six furlongs. The track was listed as fast but it probably wasn’t that good.”
    “Hmm,” said Lucas.
    She looked at the tote board for a few seconds and said, “Excuse me, I gotta go powder my nose.”
    She left, hurrying. The fat cop was still licking his lips and watching the tote board. The odds on Pembroke Dancer were twenty to one. Three other horses, Stripper’s Colors, Skybright Avenger, and Tonite Delite, had strong races in the past three weeks. Pembroke Dancer had been shipped in from Arkansas two weeks earlier. In her first race she finished sixth.
    “What’s the story on this horse?” asked the fat cop.
    “A tip from a friend.” Lucas gestured over his shoulderwith his thumb, up toward the press box. “One of the handicappers got a call from Vegas. Guy walked into a horse parlor a half-hour ago and bet ten thousand on Pembroke Dancer to win. Somebody knows something.”
    “Jesus. So why’d he lose his last race so bad?”
    “She.”
    “Huh?”
    “She. Dancer’s a filly. And I don’t know why she lost. Might be anything. Maybe the jock was dragging his feet.”
    The tote board flickered and the odds on Pembroke Dancer went up to twenty-two to one.
    “How much you bet, Lucas?” the fat cop asked.
    “It’s an exacta. I wheeled Dancer with the other nine horses. A hundred each way, so I have nine hundred riding.”
    “Jesus.” The fat man licked his lips again. He had another twenty in his wallet and thought about it. Across the track, the first of the horses was led