Murder Spins the Wheel

by Brett Halliday

  The larger of the men, with a tanned face and a fair mustache, said, “I’m Nate Williams, Treasury Department. You can talk to me.”

  “You saw him, didn’t you?” Painter said. “Helping his dear friend and buddy to escape. Don’t try to deny it, Shayne. I’ve got two outside witnesses this time.”

  “All Harry did was hit a cop with an ashtray,” Shayne said. “To me that’s only a misdemeanor. It was a piece of bad luck that the cop died.”

  “You heard what he said, I hope,” Painter said excitedly. “These men are narcotics agents. Harry Bass wasn’t transporting heroin from Miami to New York, I suppose. You’re not up on the late news, Shayne. They caught him red-handed!”

  The second Treasury agent stooped over Harry. “This man needs an ambulance, Nate. He doesn’t look too good. I’ll phone from inside.”

  “You can have Bass,” Painter said. “He’s all yours. Shayne is the one I want. It gives me great pleasure,” he said, looking up maliciously at his redheaded enemy, “to put you under arrest for accessory after the fact. Sanderson, put the cuffs on him.”

  A car Shayne recognized as Tim Rourke’s turned in from the shore drive. It was hailed at once by two Treasury agents. After a moment it proceeded slowly up the driveway, the two agents walking alongside.

  Shayne said, “I told a few people to meet me here. If you can get Petey to calm down for a minute, Williams, we can clear the air while we’re waiting for the ambulance. Harry won’t be hitting any more cops tonight.”

  “You seem to think you’re in charge,” Painter said. “Let me tell you, you’re not.”

  “I’ve heard Shayne gets results,” Williams said to Painter.

  “Results!” Painter howled. “By blackmail and stunts and intimidation and pure stupid luck! And because people like you are willing to play footsie with him instead of putting him in jail where he belongs!”

  “You don’t seem to like Shayne much,” Williams remarked dryly. “If we all try hard, maybe we can keep personal feelings out of this. I’m interested in pinching off this heroin pipeline before it gets into production, and I should think you would be too, Chief.”

  Painter was momentarily silenced, and Shayne put in, “There isn’t any heroin pipeline. This was a one-shot deal. The aim of the whole thing was to get Harry Bass. It worked.” He looked down at his friend. If he lived, he would have to stand trial for killing a peace officer in front of two witnesses, a crime still subject to the death penalty in New York. He looked up and forced himself to say in a businesslike tone, “It would help if you’d send a man to pick up a white Alfa-Romeo, over on La Gorce, beside Brevity Lane. The keys are in it. That’s the car they used to smuggle the stuff in.”

  After getting instructions from Williams, the two agents who had come up the drive with Rourke turned around and trotted away. Rourke left his headlights on, to light up the group on the steps and the gravel.

  “This is the kind of spirit I like to see,” he exclaimed, coming out of his car. “Peter Painter breathing fire, with his gun showing.”

  Sanderson sheepishly began to put his gun away, but Painter snarled, “Keep it out. Keep your eye on Shayne. He has something up his sleeve.”

  Steve Bass ran up the steps and knelt beside his father’s body. “He’s been hurt! He needs a doctor! Did anybody send for a doctor?”

  “He’s had a hard time,” Shayne told him, “but it’s nearly over. We’re getting an ambulance.”

  Steve turned back to Rourke’s car. “Betty, come on out,” he called. “This is Mike Shayne. Tell him what you told me about Vince.”

  Betty opened the door herself, but tripped coming out and ended up in Painter’s arms. The little man, embarrassed, tried to pass her on to Sanderson, who was looking another way. Finally Painter leaned her against Rourke’s front fender. She looked up with admiration at the big redhead, on the steps above her.

  “Mike Shayne. You creamed that cop for me and I never thanked you.”

  Steve said apologetically, “I tried giving her just ice and soda without any Scotch, but she could tell the difference. I’m afraid she’s pretty potted. Betty! Listen to me. Tell Mr. Shayne—”

  “Results!” Painter commented. “Here’s a prime example. How much credence can we put in anybody in that condition? Potted? She’s blind!”

  Betty ignored him. “Honey, I’d like to do something nice for you,” she said to Shayne. “Nobody ever socked a cop for me before. That’s what I call polite.”

  “I can give you the gist of what she told me,” Steve said. “You wanted me to find out who Vince had been seeing the last couple of weeks, Mr. Shayne.”

  “Vince who?” Painter demanded.

  “I’ll tie it all up in a minute if you’ll hold your water,” Shayne said. “Go on, Steve.”

  “That’s the way to talk to cops,” Betty said approvingly.

  “Vince was seeing a new girl,” Steve said. “I don’t know how the bastard did it, it gave him a full schedule. Betty knew about Mrs. Naples. Her she didn’t mind, because that was where the money was coming from, but anybody else was too much.”

  “Mrs. Al Naples?” Painter said incredulously.

  “Chief,” Williams said, “let’s listen, shall we?”

  Steve continued, “So Betty borrowed a car and a pair of binoculars and followed him. Six dates in six days. A couple of times Vince and the girl went off in the girl’s car. One day they spent the afternoon at the girl’s place on the Beach.”

  Theo Moore’s white Alfa turned in at the end of the drive, one of the narcotics men at the wheel.

  “So Betty broke it to Vince,” Steve said. “Which one did he want, Betty or the chick with the convertible and the fancy apartment? He got all red and said she was dreaming.”

  “He blushed!” Betty said. “Can you believe it? Vince?”

  “Then when she told him what she knew and how she’d found it out, how many hours he’d been spending with the girl—”

  Betty interrupted indignantly. “Do you know what the crap artist told me? He said she was his sister!”

  Suddenly, seeing the white Alfa, her mouth fell open.

  “That’s the car!”

  Theo Moore pulled herself out of the Alfa with her good arm. Betty pointed at her, her finger shaking.

  “That’s the girl!”

  Theo looked up at Shayne. “Was this your idea, Mike, bringing me here? I remembered I’d left the car unlocked. I suppose I’m out of a job now, and it’s my only asset. I didn’t want it stolen.”

  “Girls as good-looking as you aren’t out of a job long, Theo,” Shayne said. “Yeah, it was my idea. When I was fishing out your door key I noticed that the keys to the Alfa weren’t there. I thought you’d be going for it just about now. You gave a good imitation of a sleepy girl, but I didn’t actually see you swallow any sleeping pills.”

  “I think you’d better explain,” she said, puzzled.

  Betty pushed away from Steve’s restraining arm and started for Theo. “I saw you through field glasses! I studied that face.”

  Theo looked Betty over, still puzzled and apparently un-alarmed. “Do I know you?”

  Shayne put in, “She’s just finished identifying you as Vince Donahue’s sister.”

  “I didn’t say she’s his sister!” Betty said. “That’s just what Vince told me. I hope you don’t think I believed him.”

  “Theo, let me ask you a question,” Shayne said. “What were you and Harry doing this afternoon between say two and three-thirty, when he started to watch the Florida Christian game?”

  “Mike, what connection can that have with anything?”

  “There’s a connection.”

  “Harry and I were together. I don’t think I’ll go any further than that.” She looked around at the group. “What are all these people doing here?” She frowned as her glance stopped at the unconscious figure on the steps. “Is that Harry?”

  “You know it’s Harry. You called the narcotics people
to be sure they’d be here.”

  He came down a step. Everybody else, even Peter Painter, had the sense to keep out of it. From now on it was between Theo and Shayne.

  “Can you produce your father if you have to, Theo?” he said softly. “You said he’s a minister in a little town in Tennessee. What little town?”

  “I don’t have to put up with this,” she said firmly. “I really don’t.”

  “Well, it’s not the first time anybody ever invented a new set of parents,” Shayne said. “You needed that kind of background to make me believe in your suicide attempt. For the spur of the moment, it wasn’t bad. I might have believed the story, but I couldn’t believe in the suicide. You’re too competent a girl. You wouldn’t bungle a simple little thing like that unless that was the way you wanted it.”

  She made a small gesture with her bandaged arm. “Why would I—”

  “You’re playing for high stakes, Theo. When you come right down to it, a flesh wound with a .25 caliber bullet isn’t much to pay for two hundred thousand bucks. And that two hundred thousand could have been only the beginning.”

  “You’re mad!”

  “I’m a little mad. Angry, not crazy.” Another car came into the driveway. This one was a swaying, rusted-out sedan with only one headlight and without a muffler. Everyone else turned to watch its noisy approach, but Shayne’s eyes remained on Theo’s face. His respect for the girl increased. Her puzzled, aloof expression didn’t change even when Johnny Black, the Florida Christian quarterback, stepped out of the car.

  “Sorry I couldn’t make it sooner,” he said to Shayne. “The damn gauge doesn’t work and I ran out of gas.”

  His eyes passed Theo’s face and jumped back. “Theo Donahue!”

  Shayne laughed. “That one worked very well. Thanks, Johnny. Tim, if I know you, you’ve got a bottle in your pocket. Give the boy a drink.”

  “No, thanks, Mr. Shayne,” Black said.

  Rourke had produced a pint of blended rye. Shayne said, “I’ll have one before you put it away.”

  Taking the bottle, he sauntered over to Theo’s Alfa. One of the narcotics agents had pulled out the back seat and was looking along the floor.

  “Nothing yet,” he told Shayne.

  “Keep looking.”

  Painter said indignantly, “All I have to say is, it’s one hell of a way to run an interrogation. What’s the charge against this young lady?”

  Shayne, a cigarette in his mouth, handed the bottle back to Rourke without the cap. When the reporter started to speak, Shayne stopped him with a quick wink. He stooped over as though looking for something on the floor of the Alfa’s front seat. His lighter flared. For an instant, concealed from everyone but the narcotics man in back, he let the lighter flame char the inside of the bottle cap.

  He straightened with a pleased grin. He tossed the bottle cap in the air and caught it as it came down.

  “At this point I’d better mention my constitutional rights,” Theo said. “I’m curious, I suppose we all are. What exactly is going on? What is any of this meant to prove? I told you a few things in confidence, Mike. I hope you don’t expect me to repeat them in front of strangers. I’m willing to answer any and all questions put by a properly constituted authority after I’ve consulted an attorney.”

  Shayne grinned at her. “I don’t like some of the things you’ve done, baby, but I certainly admire your style.”

  She went around the Alfa and said icily to the narcotics agent whose legs now protruded from the door of the little car, “If you don’t mind, I’ll be going home now. Or do you have a search warrant?”

  “Oh, we don’t have a prayer of arresting you for smuggling heroin,” Shayne said cheerfully. “There hasn’t been any heroin in that car for weeks, and since we won’t go into court with this, the lack of a warrant doesn’t matter. This is for information. Interpol will want to check on the garageman who worked on it in Nice.”

  “Here it is,” the agent said in a muffled voice. “And a damn professional job.”

  There was a faint clink. He backed out and motioned to Shayne. He had taken off a long metal plate which had fitted exactly between two seams in the Alfa’s floor. The little dome light, augmented by the agent’s flashlight, showed a shallow well, several inches deep, extending across the Alfa’s body, like a false bottom in a trunk. It was filled with packages of bills.

  Painter and Williams, the chief narcotics agent, peered in from the other side.

  “I’ll be goddamned,” Painter said. “Those are twenties and fifties. There must be—”

  “About two hundred thousand,” Shayne said casually. “Probably a little less.”

  He motioned to the agent, and the man slid the metal lid back in place.

  “I’m going to tell this in order, Theo. Feel free to interrupt.”

  “I don’t think I will, thanks, Mike,” she said coolly. “It’s true that I’m Vince Donahue’s sister. That wouldn’t be hard to prove. As far as I know, it’s no crime to have a brother who’s been getting into messes since he was two years old.”

  “And that’s about the only thing I will be able to prove,” Shayne said. “You’re a smart girl, Theo, and it’s a shame you couldn’t think of anything better to do with all that intelligence.”

  Sanderson and one of the narcotics men had remained at the foot of the steps, beside the unconscious Harry Bass. The others, including Betty, had come over to the Alfa to gawk at the money. Shayne had an attentive audience.

  “Johnny Black grew up with the Donahues in St. Louis,” he said. “He told me Vince and his sister moved in with an aunt after their parents were killed. I didn’t think about the sister again until I caught a trace of a St. Louis accent in something Theo said tonight. The way she pronounced the middle vowels in Miami. I’m no expert, but I once knew another girl from St. Louis who said it that way. The wheels started turning. I don’t know which Donahue got to Miami first. Vince drifted into small beach-boy swindles, but Theo was the one with the brain, and she wanted something bigger.”

  “How do you know what I wanted?” she said.

  “I’m guessing,” Shayne admitted, “but I do know you didn’t want to go on working in an insurance office. You arranged a meeting with Steve Bass. He liked you. Soon you were working for his father. He liked you. A girl with your looks and style, working in his house most of the time, would have no trouble getting an invitation to the Riviera. Vince found out the name of a man to see in France. He sold the deal to Doc Waters, and Doc scraped up the money to finance it.”

  Williams looked around at Doc, who smiled lewdly and spread his arms. “Frisk me, fellows. Anybody who finds any junk gets a free cigar.”

  “Theo made the connection in France,” Shayne went on. “She wangled this Alfa out of Harry and brought it back through the customs loaded with heroin. But you didn’t turn over the entire shipment, did you, dear? You took your pay in kind, and waited. Vince had a handle that could produce a football fix some day. When he found out about a mare that was going to win a horse race at a long price, you were ready to move. For the key hour and a half this afternoon, when Harry might have softened the blow by laying off some of the bets, you kept him busy. And you’re right, the Constitution says you don’t have to tell us how you did it. Harry wasn’t supposed to spot the football fix, but he did. Everything else went like clockwork. We thought at first that the big thing was the double fix, but that was only step number one. The stickup was step number two. Step number three was where it was supposed to end—with Harry being picked up in New York on a narcotics rap which he couldn’t beat. You had the run of the house. You handled Harry’s plans. You could plant the heroin in any one of a dozen ways, and the arrest could take place anywhere, even here in Miami. But New York was better. It’s chilly there at this time of year, and you could insist he wear his topcoat. After that, an anonymous call to the New York cops. He would have been tried up there, where the judges are hard on narcotics wholesalers. He wouldn’t
be back in his home town for twenty years, if he lived that long.”

  “I don’t get that part, Mike,” Rourke said. “What was her object?”

  “To take over,” Shayne said quietly. “This girl has ambition. She knows the ins and outs of Harry’s business, legal and illegal. Probably not much of it is written down. In the first days after Harry’s arrest, everybody would have to turn to her.”

  “Shayne, you’re a nut,” Doc Waters said flatly. “There’s dissatisfaction around, plenty of it, but who’d accept a woman?”

  “You would,” Shayne said. “She’s a smart girl, and I think she could have pulled it off. Not all at once, step by step. Nobody likes a Donnybrook, with everybody brawling for the top spot. For a while she’d carry on as Harry’s agent, and after maybe two or three years people would realize how good she was. And let’s face it, she’s good. Look at the generalship that went into this thing tonight. She’d be the first, like the first woman astronaut. She’d be rich, famous, and a credit to her sex.”

  “Oh, I’m so brilliant,” Theo said bitterly.

  Shayne continued, “But Harry didn’t like the idea of going to jail for handling narcotics, and he didn’t stop to think it over. He blew. Theo didn’t know this, of course. Am I right so far? She went to her brother’s boat to look for a bait bucket filled with money. I’ll tell you more about that bait bucket in a minute. She emptied it and put it with the rest of the take in her Alfa. She was a little worried about me, I think, because I was pointed in the right direction. She was with me when we heard about New York. That was a bad blow. She turned pale and she cried. They were genuine tears. I tasted one to make sure. I think she thought I was kissing her.”

  He grinned at her. She said acidly, “You’re a real bastard.”

  “Yes, Theo. The tears weren’t for Harry, but for what had happened to her plans. She had an elegant chess solution all worked out, and Harry had kicked over the board. Now if I could talk to Harry before anything else happened, I might be able to convince him to go to the hospital and lie down. She must have considered shooting me. But she only had a small gun, and it might not have stopped me. So she shot herself. She knew exactly what Harry would do if he made it to Miami. He’d head for Doc Waters. Harry knew Doc wanted him replaced, and he knew that Doc had been dabbling in narcotics. Naturally he thought Doc was the source of the heroin in the lining of his coat. Theo wanted the meeting to take place. If Harry killed him, which came close to happening, he’d still be tainted with narcotics and he’d have a murder to answer for, regardless of what happened to the New York cop. She managed to hold me up for a couple of hours, and it was nearly enough. Another five minutes would have done it.”