High stakes - By Dick Francis Page 0,45

for a bank.

Allie opened it. Smiled widely. Gave me a noncommittal kiss.

‘This is my cousin’s house,’ she said. ‘Come in.’

Behind its secretive front the house was light and large and glowing with clear, uncomplicated colours. Blue, sea-green, bright pink, white and orange; clean and sparkling.

‘My cousin Minty,’ Allie said, ‘and her husband, Warren Barbo.’

I shook hands with the cousins. Minty was neat, dark and utterly self-possessed in lemon-coloured beach pyjamas. Warren was large, sandy and full of noisy good humour. They gave me a tall, iced, unspecified drink and led me into a spacious glass-walled room for a view of the setting sun.

Outside in the garden the yellowing rays fell on a lush lawn, a calm pool and white painted lounging chairs. All peaceful and prosperous and a million miles from blood, sweat and tears.

‘Alexandra tells us you’re interested in horses,’ Warren said, making host-like conversation. ‘I don’t know how long you reckon on staying, but there’s a racemeet at Hialeah right now, every day this week. And the bloodstock sales, of course, in the evenings. I’ll be going myself some nights and I’d be glad to have you along.’

The idea pleased me, but I turned to Allie.

‘What are your plans?’

‘Millie and I split up,’ she said without visible regret. ‘She said when we were through with Christmas and New Year she would be off to Japan for a spell, so I grabbed a week down here with Minty and Warren.’

‘Would you come to the races, and the sales?’

‘Sure.’

‘I have four days,’ I said.

She smiled brilliantly but without promise. Several other guests arrived for drinks at that point and Allie said she would fetch the canapés. I followed her to the kitchen.

‘You can carry the stone crabs,’ she said, putting a large dish into my hands. ‘And okay, after a while we can sneak out and eat some place else.’

For an hour I helped hand round those understudies for a banquet, American-style canapés. Allie’s delicious work. I ate two or three and like a true male chauvinist meditated on the joys of marrying a good cook.

I found Minty at my side, her hand on my arm, her gaze following mine.

‘She’s a great girl,’ she said. ‘She swore you would come.’

‘Good,’ I said with satisfaction.

Her eyes switched sharply to mine with a grin breaking out. ‘She told us to be careful what we said to you, because you always understood the implications, not just the words. And I guess she was right.’

‘You’ve only told me that she wanted me to come and thought I liked her enough to do it.’

‘Yeah, but…’ She laughed. ‘She didn’t actually say all that.’

‘I see what you mean.’

She took out of my hands a dish of thin pastry boats filled with pink chunks of lobster in pale green mayonnaise. ‘You’ve done more than your duty here,’ she smiled. ‘Get on out.’

She lent us her car. Allie drove it northwards along the main boulevard of Collins Avenue and pulled up at a restaurant called Stirrup and Saddle.

‘I thought you might feel at home here,’ she said teasingly.

The place was crammed. Every table in sight was taken, and as in many American restaurants, the tables were so close together that only emaciated waiters could inch around them. Blow-ups of racing scenes decorated the walls and saddles and horseshoes abounded.

Dark decor, loud chatter and, to my mind, too much light.

A slightly harassed head waiter intercepted us inside the door.

‘Do you have reservations, sir?’

I began to say I was sorry, as there were dozens of people already waiting round the bar, when Allie interrupted.

‘Table for two, name of Barbo.’

He consulted his lists, smiled, nodded. ‘This way, sir.’

There was miraculously after all one empty table, tucked in a corner but with a good view of the busy room. We sat comfortably in dark wooden-armed chairs and watched the head waiter turn away the next customers decisively.

‘When did you book this table?’ I asked.

‘Yesterday. As soon as I got down here.’ The white teeth gleamed. ‘I got Warren to do it; he likes this place. That’s when I made the bets. He and Minty said it was crazy, you wouldn’t come all the way from England just to take me out to eat.’

‘And you said I sure was crazy enough for anything.’

‘I sure did.’

We ate bluepoint oysters and barbecued baby ribs with salad alongside. Noise and clatter from other tables washed around us and waiters towered above with huge loaded trays. Business was brisk.

‘Do you like it here?’ Allie asked, tackling the