Million Dollar Handle

by Brett Halliday

  “With a mint julep,” Castle said. “It was that goddamn ear you sent me.”

  Painter ran up, breathing hard. “Is that Castle? That’s not Castle. What happened to him?”

  “He’ll look more dangerous in clean clothes,” Shayne said. “Tony, one question before the lawyers take over. What was your name doing in Max Geary’s payoff book?”

  “A decoy, the same as yours.”

  “What?” Painter demanded. “What are you trying to say? Shayne never got that eighty thousand dollars?”

  “I did my best to tell you,” Shayne said. “And it was Tony’s men who gave Max that beating. I have one of them on ice, and I think he’ll be glad to testify.”

  Castle showed emotion for the first time. “You cut his ear off and he’s alive!”

  Shayne laughed. “Tony, you’re as much of a mark as the two-dollar bettors in the stands. This is personal now. Just you and me. Explain that payoff book.”

  Castle shook himself inside the foam-soaked uniform. His shoulders straightened.

  “I don’t like you, Shayne. Give me that gun back, I’ll shoot you right here in front of everybody. But you made it a man-to-man thing with that ear, and you outplayed me. I had the girl today, and you sat tight and made me make the moves. That took balls. So you deserve this. Max borrowed two million from me. I didn’t expect him to pay it back. I expected to take over the track and sell it at a good markup to Harry Zell. But every payment came in on time. I wanted to know what kind of angle he was working, because if it worked at Surfside, it would work anywhere. Not just the dogs, the horses. That would run into real money. But he didn’t want to go shares. So I pressed him a little, put him in the hospital to think it over. And he worked out a way to protect himself. Here was the problem. How does he stop me from beating his head in again? He could file a statement with a lawyer, to be turned over to the state’s attorney if the boys started hitting and hit too hard. But with no other evidence they couldn’t extradite me, and you know I wouldn’t come back on my own. A one-day story in the paper, and then the lid would go on. So he came up with this. Mike Shayne’s another matter. Put your reputation on the line, and he knew you’d keep at it till you had all the answers. As I have reason to know, from seven years back. So he told me. If he died funny, Shayne would be named as a big taker. I backed off fast.”

  “Did you kill him?” Painter said.

  Castle turned slowly. “I gave Shayne an answer because he earned it. Who are you?”

  “You’ll learn who I am, believe me,” Painter said, dancing.

  Castle made a quick, contemptuous turn, and started toward the grandstand. Painter skipped after him. He snapped his fingers at two detectives, who closed in on Castle and made it an official arrest.

  Chapter 19

  Painter dropped back to get in step with Shayne.

  “I didn’t get all of that. Geary was stealing?”

  “I guess you could call it that,” Shayne said wearily. “First I want to see about Frieda, and then I’ll meet you in the control room and we’ll check on something.”

  Passing under the first of the hanging screens, he looked up and saw himself and Painter, at the foot of the grandstand. Most of the customers from the theater had drained back, and were swirling about on the lawn and the track, in a threatening mood. The foam truck, trying to get back to the kennel, was blocked. “Let it burn!” someone shouted.

  Painter said uneasily, “This could get out of hand. A lot of whiskey and beer has been sold here tonight. Maybe you’d better get back on the PA and tell them what’s happening.”

  A group of dissatisfied bettors had surrounded an usher, shouting. He wasn’t much of a symbol, but he was all they had. A plastic chair sailed out of the grandstand. Two security guards rescued the usher, and then were surrounded themselves. A fat drunk began hitting one of the guards with his program.

  Shayne’s stride lengthened. He pushed to the escalators and walked them upstairs. Another crowd, equally ugly, had gathered at the foot of the escalator to the tower deck. The security man was fingering the flap of his holster.

  “Keep that gun out of sight,” Shayne snapped.

  In the control room, he told Dave to throw the tote board onto the screens. He picked up the mike.

  “This is Shayne again. Some of you may have missed what happened. Tony Castle has been arrested. A couple of things haven’t been explained. One of them is who murdered Max Geary.”

  The word “murder” caught the crowd, and they began to come about. The noise subsided. Shayne glanced at the closed-circuit monitors, and saw the same thing happening inside. He switched off the mike momentarily and spoke to Dave. The big film-patrol camera came all the way around to point to the control room window, where Shayne was standing. When he had that image in the console, Dave put it on the feed to the screens.

  “There’s an idea up here,” Shayne continued, “that it may be risky to blow this open. If you find out how you’ve been robbed over the years, you’ll tear the place apart and trample people. But think about it. How many people here tonight are regulars? Audience participation time. Hold up your hands.”

  He nodded to Dave, who threw one closed-circuit picture after another onto the outgoing feed.

  “Now,” Shayne said, “how many ended up last season ahead of the machine?”

  He laughed as the hands came down. “Right. This isn’t a place to win money. You come to get out of the house and have a few beers. I’ve spotted a few winners, but they weren’t betting from form charts. Max Geary was one. The kennelmaster, Dee Wynn, was another, and that’s another murder we’ve got to explain. You saw Ricardo Sanchez with the needle. I located his betting agent, and I’m glad to say I managed to get some money down. How much did those tickets of mine pay, Tim?”

  “Fifty-eight hundred.”

  “Fifty-eight hundred,” Shayne repeated into the microphone, “and that looks like the only money I’m going to clear out of this. I took it away from those of you who bet on one of the other seven dogs. Don’t throw chairs, please. You’ve been taken, as usual.”

  A beer can came flying up out of the crowd and rattled against the control room window. Painter said uneasily, “Shayne—”

  “But tonight we gave you your money’s worth. An explosion and fire. Dogs burned to death. You saw a chase with a foam truck, which I think is a first. In a minute I’m going to give you an explanation of a mammoth swindle, and who knows, there may even be more action. Now I’m going to demonstrate something. Watch the tote board. Those of you who are inside, stay where you are and we’ll put the board on the screens for you. I want every seller in order, starting at the north window, to unlock his machine and punch out ten tickets.”

  He looked at the betting hall monitors. “First window at the north end, the ten-dollar quinella. I want ten tickets on the one-two combination. Go.”

  The seller at that window activated his machine. He punched the ten button, the one and the two. The tickets spewed out. The house had now accepted a $100 bet that the two inside dogs in the next race would finish either first or second, it didn’t matter in what order. On the big board across the infield, the odds changed in the quinella pool.

  “That machine is working,” Shayne said, and called the next.

  Again the figures jumped. Shayne worked down the row. Coming to the first window in the $10 win series, he called for another ten tickets. Nothing changed on the board.

  “That may be the one we’re looking for,” Shayne said. “Seller, is your machine producing tickets?” On the monitor, the seller gave an affirmative wave. “Now try ten more.”

  Again, no change. The crowd murmured.

  “You’re getting the idea,” Shayne said. “Two hundred dollars just came in that window. Twenty tickets went out. But nothing registered on the board. Ordinarily, with all the windows working at once, you’d never see it. It’s a simple scheme. Any pari-mutuel track can work it. Geary did the wiring when the track was renovat
ed. All he had to do was cut into the line from that one ten-dollar window to the main circuit, and install an on-off switch. The switch could be anywhere in the building, built into an ordinary light switch, a TV set, a telephone. Pick up that telephone, and one ten-dollar window would cut out of the pool totals. The money would keep coming in, the tickets would keep going out, but as long as the switch was off, none of the transactions would be included in the total handle. He was careful about it. I’ve heard the figure six thousand a night. The window machines, individually, would all tally. As soon as the sellers checked their receipts against their own machine totals, they’d clear the machines and go home. The only people who knew the track had a surplus were the three who handled the main count. Max Geary. Fitzhugh, the racing secretary. Lou Liebler, the state’s tax man. Now Dave, if you’ll swing that camera a couple of degrees to the north, we’ll see that sterling police officer, Chief of Detectives Peter Painter, entering the judges’ box to make a double arrest.”

  Painter straightened his necktie and went out.

  Shayne went on talking while the camera moved to the next window. Liebler and Fitzhugh were conferring in the back of the brightly lighted box.

  “I can’t give you the dialogue,” Shayne said as Painter entered. “‘Fitzhugh? Liebler? You’re under arrest.’ That’s about it, unless they try to shoot their way out. No, they’re white-collar people. Incidentally, if Linda Geary is listening, will you come to the control room, please? Now we’ll continue. What Geary was doing, in effect, was adding one point to the regular seventeen-percent bite. He kept his two collaborators on fees. He was the only one who knew the location of that switch. When he died, they tried to find it. They had wiring diagrams, and Liebler had been keeping a minute-to-minute schedule of where Geary was and exactly what he was doing during betting hours. They narrowed it down to the VIP lounge, but they still couldn’t find it. We’re going down there now. When we walk in, we’ll be picked up by a closed-circuit monitor. This is an extra one I installed last night, behind a two-way mirror. There won’t be any sound, but I’ll come back and explain. Don’t throw any chairs while I’m gone.”

  Painter, after playing his TV scene, had given the prisoners to his detectives for processing. Shayne, passing, took a sour look from Liebler.

  “How in God’s name—I pulled that place to pieces.”

  “Careful, Lou.”

  “I’m not worried. I’d like to see you prove anything.”

  Linda was coming up the escalator. Shayne met her at the top.

  “Linda, what’s that room on the ground floor down from the PR office? I saw you coming out of it.”

  “Room? Oh, that’s all storage. Trash, old programs, tickets.”

  “Let me have one of your hands.”

  She started to extend a hand, but thought better of it and put it behind her.

  “I won’t wrestle you,” Shayne said. “I just thought it might smell of gas.”

  “Gas.”

  “Burn, Surfside, burn. When you said that, I thought it sounded like a good slogan. If the track burns down, your mother will have to sell. I think the trash in one of those rooms is gasoline-soaked. I think there’s an incendiary device set to go off sometime early tomorrow morning.”

  She yelled and struck out at him. He caught her hand and smelled it.

  “Hard smell to get rid of. Peel off another man, Petey, and let Linda show him.”

  She covered her face with her hands, her shoulders shaking.

  Entering the VIP lounge where he had spent the day and part of the previous night, Shayne pointed out the two-way mirror among the bottles behind the bar.

  “There’s no reason to monitor this room usually, but I didn’t know which way this was going to go. I was thinking I might inveigle Castle up and have a conversation.”

  He poured a glass of cognac, lifted it to the crowd watching him through the hidden camera, and drank.

  “I saw one of the timetables Liebler was keeping on Geary. Geary liked to keep moving. He probably hit every department two or three times in the course of the night, and naturally he kept dropping in here to talk to his very important guests. He was a big drinker. He had a drinker’s kidneys. He was always excusing himself to go to the john. And that’s where he put the switch. Underwater, at the bottom of the tank. If somebody like Liebler was listening, he’d hear the usual splash and the usual flush. The water would run out of the tank, exposing the switch, Geary would reach in and throw it, and the water would come back and cover it. There’s a timer, to throw the ten-dollar window back into the system after it’s been out exactly fifteen minutes. I disconnected that so we could check the machines.”

  He opened the washroom door. Inside, Charlotte Geary lay face down on the floor. An empty glass had rolled beneath the wash basin, amid a scattering of pills.

  “Call first aid,” Shayne said urgently. “The list by the phone.”

  He pulled her over and checked for a pulse. Her face had the bluish tinge of souring milk. On his knees, Shayne forced her mouth open roughly and began to blow into it hard. He heard Painter at the phone, asking for a resuscitator and a stomach pump. Presently he established his rhythm, and he kept it going until the doctor from the first aid station ran in and took his place.

  He watched the doctor work for a moment. Painter swept up the pills and returned them to the bottle.

  “I guess this one is obvious. When she saw us arrest the Sanchez boy—”

  “No, it’s my fault. I had to make a public announcement that they were sleeping together.”

  “Move, Shayne, will you? You’re blocking the TV. The crowd’s quieter, and we might as well give them something to look at and keep it that way.”

  “Petey,” Shayne said slowly, “I think you’ve just come up with something.”

  “What?”

  “That’s been transmitting all night. If it’s still in the video machine—”

  He rode the escalator to the control room, taking the last few steps at a run. Harry Zell, the developer, had joined the technicians and the announcer. He was leaning carelessly against the console.

  “Get away from there, Harry.”

  Zell looked around and down, stabbed the Erase button, and holding his finger on it, pulled a gun with his left hand.

  Shayne’s hand came out of his pocket holding a handful of change. He threw it at Zell. At the same moment, Dave fell off his stool against Zell’s knees. The announcer hit him with the loose mike, swinging it like a bolo. Zell’s finger was forced off the button. Shayne joined the group and pried the gun loose.

  “Finally. Something we didn’t catch on closed circuit.”

  “We’re still shooting through the window,” Dave said. “We have it for replay.”

  Shayne recovered the fallen mike. The fat man, panting and bleeding, seemed to have lost weight in the last moment. Shayne told Dave to pull the VIP lounge closed-circuit tape. In a moment it was running on the main monitor; nothing showed but the empty room.

  “Speed it up. Cut back in every four or five minutes.”

  The picture blurred. The third time Dave came back, Harry Zell’s great moon face filled the screen. He was at the bar, pouring.

  “Let the customers see this,” Shayne said.

  Dave backed off and came into the scene again. Shayne explained who Zell was, and what he so desperately wanted. Zell was looking directly at the camera, smoothing his hair. He turned to hand Charlotte Geary the drink.

  Painter entered. “What’s this? I don’t get it.”

  “Freeze it for a minute,” Shayne told Dave, and went on, talking both to Painter and into the mike. “You probably know Harry’s been trying to buy the track so he can put up a hotel here.”

  “I read the papers.”

  “But what the papers haven’t printed is that this deal is really crucial. I went through his books last night, and from the way it looked, unless he can slap on some fast Band-aids, the state’s attorney is going to want him
for embezzlement. Not only that. He’s in hock to Tony Castle through a factoring firm, and has been for years. If he goes bust, owing Tony a bundle, he’s afraid Tony will do something unbusinesslike, such as kill him. Harry, if you want to contradict any of this—”

  “You’re telling it.”

  “I tried a little experiment last night, and I think I can say that Harry isn’t one of those people who enjoy physical pain. He screamed like a rabbit being caught by a greyhound. He probably screams that way when he cuts himself shaving. Everything turned on whether Max Geary would accept his offer for Surfside. Max refused. We know why—he had a diamond mine here. But his wife and daughter didn’t know about the diamonds. Zell thought that if Max was out of the way—”

  “Come on,” Painter said. “I know who killed Geary. The boy, Sanchez. Dee Wynn saw him.”

  “Did you believe that identification? He needed a name to make it saleable. And when he told Harry he saw Ricardo, Harry bought.”

  “Shayne, are you telling me that Harry Zell stole Ricardo’s car—”

  “Well, maybe not. Sanchez may be right—the bumped fender had nothing to do with the accident. Wynn saw the fender, and dreamed up the rest of it.”

  “After leading me to believe that that was a murder—”

  “It doesn’t matter. What we’re going to get Harry for is the murder of Dee Wynn.”

  “Hold on. Sanchez was named in the deposition. He’s the logical man.”

  “I had a detective following Ricardo all day. He went various places, but he never saw Wynn.”

  “But why would Zell—Wynn would make a better witness alive.”

  “From talking to Wynn, my guess would be that his price tag was something like twenty thousand. That wouldn’t be impossible for Sanchez—he could get it from Charlotte Geary or work it off in a few weeks in the kennel. But I really mean that this is one promoter who doesn’t have a dime. He might be able to raise twenty thousand from some trusting Shylock on a two-hour loan, but after he paid Wynn he had to get the money back in a hurry, and Wynn went into the canal.”