Million Dollar Handle

by Brett Halliday

  Nash arranged a forty-eight-hour floater policy with his insurance agent, to cover the borrowed equipment. Shayne left them dismantling cameras and preparing an inventory. Nash was still wavering between awe at the scope of Shayne’s proposals, and worry about all the possible things that could go wrong.

  Shayne had fallen behind on his phone calls. Surprisingly, it was the sports editor, Wanamaker, who had turned up a link between Tony Castle and C. and W. Factors, which had loaned several bushels of money to Harry Zell. The Cuban detective who had been following Ricardo Sanchez reported that Sanchez had arrived early at the kennel, where without Dee Wynn he would be fully occupied for the next couple of hours, and the detective was about to have a drink with a cousin, who worked at the Pompano Beach harness track. Rourke had had no further word from Frieda.

  Surfside’s phones had been put on the Centrex system, with automatic switching and a different number for each extension. Shayne dialed the number given for Public Relations. Linda Geary answered.

  “You big ugly redhead,” she said hoarsely. “Where have you been all day? Why didn’t you call me? What are you up to, damn it?”

  “Working on Sanchez. One or two other things. I’m going to need a little sponsorship. Can you arrange for me to have the run of the track tonight after everything closes?”

  “For what nefarious purpose?”

  “You don’t really want to know. You want to be able to deny you had anything to do with it.”

  “Translated, that means you want to bug the kennels, and prove Ricardo is shooting up dogs. That shows nice professional enthusiasm on your part, Mike, but it won’t be necessary now. I’m calling you off.”

  “Why?”

  “I decided there was no point in going through third parties. I barged in on Mother with blood in my eye, and told her in no uncertain terms that unless she went ahead with the sale, and did it today, her guy was going to get the same working-over Daddy got, and from the same source—Mike Shayne. That drained the blood out of her face, I must say. She wants that boy with his limbs in working order. Hell, I don’t begrudge the old girl her little adventure. I wouldn’t mind a piece of that myself, not that she’s offering to share the good fortune. And she signed, Mike! She signed like a woolly lamb. We’ll finish the meeting, and then the wreckers take over.”

  “What did she sign, exactly?”

  “A purchase agreement. Harry’s been carrying it around in his briefcase for a long time. Surfside Kennel Club, your name will shortly be Harry Zell’s Palace.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “The ceremony took place about half an hour ago. Don’t be too disappointed now, Mike. You’ll have plenty of other chances to hector people.”

  “Sometimes it’s harder to cut me off than it is to put me on.”

  She said more sharply, “Remember, Buster, I’m holding a sledgehammer. That’s not my style, usually. Usually I whimper and beg. But it worked so well with Mom—she crumpled, she fell apart!—I’m going to see how it works with you. Lay off, or the full truth about your eighty thousand dollars from Surfside will be in all the papers and on all the news shows. You are talking to the lady who knows.”

  “I hear you, Linda.”

  “Stop in. I’ll buy you a drink on the expense account.”

  “Maybe tomorrow night.”

  “Look for me at the clubhouse bar.”

  Shayne broke the connection gently enough, but then he banged the meaty side of his fist against the wall of the booth. After a long moment, he dialed another Surfside extension, the control tower. He asked for Lou Liebler, the tax man.

  Liebler said carefully, “Too much going on here, I can’t hear you. I’ll call you back from another phone.”

  When they were connected again: “Mike, we need a face-to-face. All that money flowing both ways and we’re not tapped in on it.”

  “We may be fairly soon. Did you find out anything about Geary’s financing?”

  “One or two things, but should we talk about it on the phone?”

  “It’s high percentage nobody’s listening.”

  “Well—I did better than I expected without a subpoena. During the renovations, the books show a series of advances from a New York company I never heard of. Some of those notes are still outstanding. Some have been paid off by transfers of stock.”

  “Tell me that again,” Shayne said, frowning.

  After Liebler repeated it: “Anything to connect the New York company with the Bahamas, or with Castle?”

  “No, but there’s this. It’s from Wolf, in Tallahassee. It has nothing to do with tax matters—he stumbled on it. You know Geary was always going back and forth to Nassau, and it seems he had a whole second life there, house on the beach, boat, woman, different lifestyle. And Wolf says that the woman was planted on him by Castle, to find out where he was getting his extra money.—Mike?” Shayne must have made some sound. “Is it helpful, I hope?”

  Shayne was gripping the phone hard. This was the woman Frieda had heard about, and decided to question.

  “Thinking,” he said. “Hold on a minute.” But whatever was going on in Nassau, there was no way he could influence it from here, and he went on: “I want you to arrange something for me, Liebler. I’m as anxious as you are to get the flow started, but I can’t just walk in and wave a magic wand. I have to pinpoint it. I can do that mechanically if I have the run of the place for a few hours. I think early tomorrow morning would be the best time—very early, so I won’t be bothered.”

  “I’ll meet you anyplace you say.”

  “You’re a hard-working man, Liebler. You need sleep. I never like to have people looking over my shoulder. When two people know a secret, it stops being a secret. Nothing for you to worry about financially. I’m increasing the size of your cut by a third, and the same for Fitzhugh. Tell him. Is everybody out by two o’clock?”

  “Pretty close, usually. There’s a watchman.”

  “I need a key, and I need that wiring diagram you were carrying around, and I want Fitzhugh to talk to the watchman so he’ll be expecting me. Tell him I’m checking the TV security, late at night so nobody’ll know about it. That should be good enough cover. And tomorrow night—money, Liebler. More than usual, to catch up after our little vacation.”

  Chapter 13

  Shayne looked up the address of the Fanchon Towers, where Ricardo Sanchez had been living since making the acquaintance of Charlotte Geary. After finding a parking place, he unlocked the trunk of the Buick, then unlocked a metal box welded to the floor, and picked out a small transistorized unit three quarters the size of a cigarette package. It came equipped with suction cups, and contained a microphone and transmitter, capable of broadcasting at good fidelity an eighth of a mile.

  The building, a new one, was still renting; according to the small print at the bottom of the vacancy notice, it was a Harry Zell venture. It was wedged onto a sliver of land at the edge of Little River Canal, and it was clearly outside the financial range of anyone trying to live on a Surfside salary. There was a vestibule, a locked inner door. Shayne picked his way through. Upstairs, he rang the bell, and getting no response, began working on the simple lock.

  He stepped in and felt for the light switch. The light came on before he found it. Mrs. Geary was already there, and like so many other people in the last day and a half, she was pointing a gun at him.

  “It’s you,” she said. “He’s not here. You’ll have to beat him up some other time.”

  Shayne closed the door. “I don’t want to beat him up. I want to ask him how he can afford to pay the rent here.”

  “I pay three quarters of it. That’s fair.”

  Shayne turned on another light. It was a one-room apartment with a small kitchen alcove, a smaller terrace and a splintered view of the Bay and the lights of Miami Beach. The carpet had probably come with the apartment, but there wasn’t much furniture, and little to show that anyone lived here. A low lamp table at the end of a convertible sof
a was the logical place for his microphone.

  He turned. He had studied Mrs. Geary’s face through field glasses the night before, and she had looked drawn and strained. She couldn’t have slept much since, and her eyes were red, as though she might have been crying. But she was slender and moved well, and without the marks of fatigue she would have been a good-looking woman.

  “If you aren’t going to shoot me with that, put it away,” Shayne said. “This isn’t that kind of problem.”

  “I’m not so sure. There was shooting last night, some of it done by you, I understand. The animals are fighting over the meat.”

  “Does he keep any booze here?”

  “He doesn’t drink much, only to celebrate something. This has been good for me because I was beginning to need those martinis.”

  Shayne sat down within reach of the lamp table. He waved at her, but she stayed on her feet, the gun pointed at the floor.

  “Don’t make yourself too comfortable. Have you talked to Linda?”

  “Briefly, on the phone.”

  “Didn’t she tell you you’ve been discharged?”

  “She was never my client.”

  Mrs. Geary looked surprised. He explained, “Before I take on a client, we have a clear agreement on what I’m expected to do, and how I’m going to be paid. Linda assumed she hired me, but she walked away before I said yes or no. I’m not too interested in rearranging your private life. If it works, great. But you don’t look as though you’ve been enjoying it much lately.”

  “Oh, God.” Dropping the gun into her purse, she sat down facing him, squinting slightly, her knees tightly together. “If you aren’t working for my loving daughter, what are you doing breaking into Ricardo’s apartment?”

  “I’m working for myself. Maybe you can help me.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “So I’ll lose interest and quit. I don’t want any more trouble. Last night was close enough. I didn’t understand that at the time, and I still don’t. I don’t know who’s going to be pointing a gun at me next. You, for Christ’s sake. Why do you even own a gun?”

  “It was Max’s. All right, instead of shooting, let’s talk. You begin.”

  “First you wanted to sell. Then you didn’t. Now you do, Linda tells me.”

  “I seem to be rather changeable.”

  “You must have reasons, Mrs. Geary. What were they this time?”

  “Because I’m scared! I want a comfortable, uneventful life.”

  “Does Ricardo know about the latest switch?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Is that why you brought a gun?”

  “No! Mr. Shayne, if you want to ask any factual questions, go ahead, but leave my feelings out of it. I felt something about Max, maybe not grief, but definitely something. I’m not over it. Why don’t you ask about money? That’s what you’re really interested in.”

  “I didn’t know it showed. O.K. It’s your track now, and you have a right to sell it. But you can see why the people on Max’s slush list, including me, aren’t too happy about that. We won’t get any grease out of a hotel on the site. Somebody will, but different people. Let me negotiate for you. I’ll get you a better deal than Max had. There’s money there, Mrs. Geary. How much, I don’t even like to guess. Why don’t you forget about being honest and poor, keep the track open, give Ricardo a promotion to kennelmaster, and see how much we can squeeze together? Try it for a year.”

  “I was actually thinking of doing just that. Mr. Shayne, although I don’t see why I would need your assistance. I would find it too strenuous, I’m afraid.”

  “You wouldn’t have to go near the track. I’ll bring you a suitcase of money a couple of times a month.”

  “Surfside’s a gold mine, I suppose! Do you really think that? After all those huge payoffs, there was nothing left for the owners. Really—you’re talking to the secretary-treasurer.”

  “So Max never told you how he was doing it?”

  She laughed. “In the first place, I don’t believe he was doing anything illegal. If he was, I didn’t see any of the money. Can I persuade you to go now, please? Ricardo has a very low flash point. I want you to be gone by the time he gets here.”

  “I’d like to meet him.”

  “There’s no point in that! Honestly. He can’t tell you anything about Max’s secrets, if he had any. Ricardo is down at the working level, the dog level. And there’s nothing you or anybody else can say or do to make me change. It’s too late. It’s done!”

  “That still leaves a lot of loose ends. What do you think of the suggestion that your husband’s death may have been murder?”

  “I don’t know what to think! I know so little—” She looked down at her clenched hands. “But I hope it isn’t true. I want it to be Max’s own fault. He always claimed he could drive better after a fifth of whiskey, and I hate that kind of masculine bragging! He deserved it. I know that kind of drinking is a way of committing suicide—but I don’t want to discuss it. You’re trying to confuse me. Isn’t there some way I can appeal to you? Ricardo has a lot of the old-fashioned Cuban ideas. I don’t want anything to go wrong with this. I’m all—keyed up. I’ll say something I shouldn’t—”

  “About what, Mrs. Geary?”

  “I don’t know why I said that. I wash my hands! I am no longer the majority owner of a stupid dog track, providing the working class with low-cost excitement in the open air, except for those eccentrics who prefer to stay inside and watch television. Very soon I will receive a check from Mr. Harry Zell, and I have no intention of staying in Miami, the city my late husband did so much to shape. Good-bye, all of you.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “That’s—” She looked at her watch. “No, it’s too early.”

  Shayne had the transmitter out of his sling by the time she reached the door. She checked through the peephole.

  “Oh, dear.”

  Hurrying, Shayne couldn’t make the suction cups grip on the underside of the lamp table. The door opened. A Miami plainclothes detective was standing outside.

  “This where you had the break-in?”

  His chin was drawn down, and he seemed very angry about something. She turned swiftly, and Shayne straightened. The transmitter stayed in place for an instant, but fell silently to the carpet.

  “I dialed the emergency number when you—”

  The cop had some kind of grievance to work off; he was mad at everybody tonight. Mrs. Geary retreated, more and more agitated.

  “You see, I heard a noise at the door, I wasn’t expecting anybody—”

  “Which one of you is Sanchez?”

  She looked helplessly at Shayne, who came forward and said angrily, “I’ll take care of this clown. Hold it right there. Nobody invited you inside.”

  “All I want is an explanation. What were you doing upstairs? What’s wrong with the intercom? And don’t give me that tough-guy shit, because I am fed up with this goddamn job and with this goddamn city. I’ve had it!”

  “It’s really nothing to get worked up about,” Mrs. Geary was trying to say, but Shayne rode her down.

  “You can’t go halfway with these guys, or they’ll settle in and drink your liquor and expect a ten-dollar tip when they leave. I know the type, believe me. Out,” he said to the cop, with a gesture. “I don’t like your manner. You’re on the public payroll, goddamn it. We pay your salary. The tax payers. Now pick up and get out of here.”

  He put a little head fake on the cop. The cop went with it, and Shayne slapped his shoulder with the heel of his hand.

  The response was automatic. He was crowding the cop, and the cop had to crowd him back, bringing his hand up between them to push Shayne off. Shayne’s heel caught and he crashed to the floor, taking the lamp table with him. The lamp blinked out as it hit the floor.

  Mrs. Geary ran between them. “That’s enough! I’m waiting for Mr. Sanchez. I have a key, I’m a friend of his. This is Mike Shayne, the detective—”


  “Oh, Shayne, is it?” the cop said.

  Shayne yelled from the floor, “Goddamned if I let anybody get away with that. These rednecks are getting worse by the mouth. Don’t even know how to ask a civil question.”

  “I’ll ask a few when I get you to the station,” the cop said.

  “You’re going to bust me? Fine. I know a lawyer who specializes in false arrest. He’s gotten some very nice settlements.”

  He had the transmitter in the palm of his hand. He moistened his fingertips, and rubbed the moisture onto the suction cups. When he set the table upright, he left the transmitter adhering to its underside.

  “That’s it, break up the furniture. What do we need with hurricanes when we’ve got the police force? Where did they find you, boy, up in the piney woods? If I had the use of both arms—”

  “Let’s go, private detective.”

  They continued to trade remarks down the corridor and into the elevator. There Shayne’s manner changed.

  “You did me a favor,” he said with a laugh. “That woman had me pinned down. She wanted me to spend the night and I’ve got other plans. Thanks.”

  The cop was still making twitching and brushing movements with his hands. “Second thoughts? It isn’t that easy. I’m going to write you up and you’ll have the rest of the night to sober up and cool off.”

  “If you want an apology, I apologize.”

  “I want blood,” the cop said, shaking. “You don’t hit a police officer on duty and then say, ‘Oops, sorry, I take it back.’ I don’t care who you know.”

  “I’m working,” Shayne said reasonably. “I’ll stop in tomorrow and explain it to you.”

  “Like hell. I’m setting this schedule.”