Murder Spins the Wheel ms-53

by Brett Halliday

  4

  Shayne stopped his Buick behind Doc Waters’ Thunderbird. Waters had been watching for them. He came down the porch steps, a drink in his hand.

  “This surprises the hell out of me,” he said, looking in at Harry. “You let a couple of punks stick you up?”

  Harry took Waters’ drink out of his hand and emptied it in a long swallow. He handed it back.

  “I don’t remember asking you here, Doc,” he said evenly.

  “Well, for God’s sake,” Waters said uneasily, “if I need an invitation after all these years-I waited a solid hour. I’m under pressure, Harry. I told you that.”

  “You’re a rat and a son of a bitch,” Harry told him. “It’s your own fault you’re under pressure. You know what I’m talking about.”

  His secretary and Shayne helped him out of the car and up the steps. Waters tried to get in on it but Harry twitched away.

  “I don’t want your crummy hands on me.”

  Shayne maneuvered his friend through the front door. He looked at Theo, who said helplessly, “Put him in here, I guess.”

  Shayne steered him into the living room and lowered him onto a broad sofa. Harry touched his head and groaned.

  “Give me another jolt of whiskey before that last one wears off. What happened to Billy?”

  “He was on the right side of the wall,” Shayne said, “so he probably traveled by ambulance. Look at this cigarette.” He held a cigarette in front of Harry’s eyes. “Can you focus?”

  After trying for a moment, Harry shook his head slightly. “OK, call a doctor. But I want to get you moving first.”

  Waters said behind them, “I’ll call him, Harry. Who do you use?”

  “Jason Goldstein, in Surfside.”

  Theo ran in with a pan of warm water and towels, and knelt beside the sofa. “You look awful,” she said with an attempt at lightness. “Hold still, I want to clean you up a little so you won’t scare the doctor.”

  “You’re a cute-looking kid, Theo,” Harry said. “Especially the one in the middle.”

  She wrung out a washcloth and began sponging his forehead. “Don’t do too much talking.”

  “Kiss me.”

  Her hand stopped. “Now Harry.”

  “Mike won’t mind. No, not there,” he said as her lips approached his cheek. “On the mouth.”

  The expression on her face was hidden from Shayne. He lit a cigarette. Putting down the washcloth, Theo took Harry’s face in both hands and kissed him gently and thoroughly, without hurrying. Shayne had ample time to snap his lighter shut, to put it away, to examine the pictures on the walls. She lifted her head.

  “I think I feel better,” Harry said. “Let the washing go for now, Theo. I’m clean enough. Get Mike some brandy. There’s a bottle of Cordon Bleu around somewhere.”

  “He can wait a minute,” she said calmly, and finished sponging the blood and dirt from his face.

  Harry’s hair, the small amount he had left, was graying over the ears. He had a rugged, outdoors face, with a quick smile and sun crinkles at the corners of his eyes. It was true, as Shayne had told him, that he was a few pounds over his best weight, but he had the arms and shoulders of a professional fighter.

  “And a bourbon for me,” he added.

  “No,” Theo said, “not till the doctor says so.”

  “I know what the doctor will say-bouillon. I’ve got to tell Mike something, and I can’t do it without a drink.”

  She looked up at Shayne.

  “It won’t kill him,” Shayne said.

  “All right, but it’s against my better judgment.”

  Harry watched her leave the room. Her walk was lithe and athletic.

  “There’s a real woman,” he said. “Mike, sit down. Here’s the problem.”

  Shayne moved a straight chair closer to the sofa. “What do you want me to do with Waters, throw him out?”

  “No, I’d better have him here where I can watch him.” His face twisted suddenly and he put his hand lightly against the top of his head. “I really think they may have busted something. I relaxed at the wrong time, Mike. One of them kept saying, ‘Don’t kill him, don’t kill him.’ I don’t know why he thought it mattered.”

  “If it’ll make you feel better,” Shayne said, “two of them are dead.”

  Harry looked at him questioningly, and Shayne told him about his chase of the holdup men and its abrupt ending on the 39th Street cloverleaf in Miami.

  “That’s two out of three,” Harry said. “Never mind. Those were the troops. I want to know who’s behind it. That was no spur-of-the-moment job. It was planned. Somebody knew about Doc’s cash situation. The bastard has no margin at all. Sting him twice in an afternoon, and they knew he’d have to call on me for backing. A long shot at Tropical, a football game, a stickup. They could be three accidents, or they could be connected. I think they’re connected.”

  “What’s your idea, Harry, that the real reason for the fixes wasn’t just to beat Doc, but to get your cash out where they could take a crack at it?”

  “That’s my idea. I’m getting dizzier by the minute so I’ll say it fast. Florida Christian against Southern Georgia. We had Florida at eleven points. A rush of last-minute money came in on Georgia, most of it in Doc’s territory. You don’t get that kind of late action against the local team unless somebody thinks they know something.”

  “What did the Christians win by?” Shayne said. “Six points, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Harry said bitterly, “six points. One more touchdown and we’d have been in. I watched the last half. It’s one of those stymie situations where both lines are so strong that nobody gains on the ground and it’s up to the quarterback to break it open with passes. And it seemed to me he was a tick slow about getting off his shots. They red-dogged him, sure. But a couple of times he had a receiver wide open and he let himself get blitzed with the ball still in his mitt. Other times he just missed the receiver.”

  “That happens, Harry.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve got a suspicious mind. If the betting had been normal, but it wasn’t. Well, we get taken once in a while, you know that, and what can you do? But I like to know what’s happening to me so it won’t happen again. That’s what I wanted you to look into, this quarterback. What kind of car does he drive? Does he have a safe-deposit box, and what’s in it?”

  Shayne scraped his thumb along his stubbled jaw. “Harry, you’re talking about Johnny Black. He’s All-American. These days the pros are handing out bonuses of a hundred thousand and up, and he’s going to get offers. How much would you have to pay him to take that kind of chance in his last college game? Too damn much.”

  “I could be wrong,” Harry admitted. “What time is it?”

  Shayne looked at his watch. “Five of eight.”

  “There’s a sports program at eight, highlights of the games. See what you think.”

  Doc Waters came in from the hall. “Well, I had a hell of a time locating Goldstein, but he says he’ll be with you in fifteen minutes. Look, I know you’re feeling lousy, Harry, but before he gets here. I told you what I’m up against. There’s a time element.”

  Harry’s head made a small rotating motion and his eyes closed for an instant. He blinked hard.

  “I said I’d cover you. I consider that a contract. But don’t irritate me.”

  Theo came in with bottles and glasses on a large tray. Shayne took the tray from her and put it on a low table.

  “I couldn’t find the brandy he was talking about,” she said. “I hope this will do. Will you make your own?”

  She poured a little whiskey in a tall glass, adding ice and considerable soda. “And I’m taking no responsibility for this, Harry.”

  “Give that to Doc,” Harry said. “I’ll have mine straight.”

  She looked at Shayne for support. When he didn’t give her any, she grudgingly covered the bottom of an old-fashioned glass with bourbon and handed it to her employer.

  Doc Wate
rs was fidgeting around without sitting down. “One thing I didn’t tell you, Harry, and it makes a difference. My big winner’s Al Naples. Anybody else I could maybe stall.”

  “Don’t worry about Al. He’s retired.”

  Doc drank some of the weak highball. “Maybe, but I don’t think I’ll take a chance on it.”

  “Is this the Al Naples from Chicago?” Shayne asked.

  Waters nodded. “And I wish he’d stayed there.”

  “Harry, if you don’t need me right now,” Theo said, “why don’t I finish my typing?” She bit her lip and burst out, “I can’t just sit down, and have a drink, and pretend everything’s normal! The doctor said fifteen minutes, but when did a doctor ever come when he said he would? You ought to be in the hospital. You’ll need X rays, and why not have them now instead of later?”

  “Let’s see what Goldstein says about X rays,” Harry said. “Get the typing out of the way, and if I have to go to the hospital you can come along. I won’t blast off at Doc any more. I’ll try to remember he’s human.”

  Doc’s mustache jerked in annoyance. “I’m human. But who else?”

  “Turn on the TV for Mike,” Harry said.

  Theo touched Harry’s shoulder lightly, crossed the room and switched on the big set. Again Harry watched her leave, his eyes soft and vulnerable.

  Shayne adjusted the volume. The announcer was delivering a razor-blade commercial, in a tone of great conviction. After that he went directly into a fast review of the Florida Christian-Southern Georgia contest, which the favorite had won but with little to spare. Shayne watched Johnny Black hit with two scoring passes in the first quarter, then suddenly lose his touch.

  “I’d say there were four plays,” Harry said when the announcer shifted to a game in the Middle West. “He could have scored with any one of them. Heads or tails, and they all came up tails.”

  “You think he threw it?” Waters said.

  “That’s what I want Shayne to find out. Now tell him about the third race at Tropical.”

  “Harry, where’s the percentage? There’s not a damn thing we can do but pay up.”

  “Doc, give me some more whiskey.”

  When Waters hesitated he said sharply, “So it’s bad for me. Do you care?”

  Waters took his glass and poured him a strong drink. Harry was squinting, trying to keep things from overlapping.

  “A couple of mugs stuck me up when I was eighteen,” he said. “They got a wristwatch and three bucks. That was the last time till tonight. I don’t like it. I also don’t like being clubbed with a pistol barrel. I think Mike will work on it for me if I pay him enough dough, but he has to know the facts. All the facts. What’s the name of the horse?”

  “Ladybug,” Waters said reluctantly. “There’s no mystery. She’s a Naples horse, in his wife’s name, for tax reasons. In two years she never did a thing. Fifth, sixth. What do you want Shayne to do, Harry, walk in on Al Naples and ask him if he fixed the race? Sure he fixed it. He fixed it by hiding the mare’s speed. Why worry about how? There are ways. He fooled everybody, and she paid off at sixty-five to one. His wife couldn’t get to the track this afternoon. She had to have her hair done, and anyway she didn’t want to bet at the track, she said, because she didn’t want Al to know she was betting seven C’s on the mare, she liked her so much. That was her story, and what was wrong with it? They got four thousand down all told, here and there. I tried to call you, Harry, and where were you? We could have come back to the track with some of that, fed it into the machines. But you weren’t answering the phone.”

  Shayne finished his cognac and poured himself some more. “If it was just the football game or just the horse race, would you still need Harry’s help to make the payoff?”

  “He’s like my banker,” Waters said defensively. “I don’t keep that amount in a bureau drawer. Maybe I could have pieced it out, the football payoff, with a little squeezing. It’s the two hits at the same time that hurts. And what I’m trying to get a statement out of you on, Harry, is what the hell am I supposed to do now? Naples expects it, and what do I tell him? It’s me he’s collecting from, not you.”

  His voice was rising. Harry cut him short.

  “I said I’d take care of it,” he said, his eyes hard. “Mike, are you in?”

  Shayne nodded. “With pleasure. I took a couple of cracks on the head myself, and I’d like to find the man and get an apology. I’ll start with Johnny Black, but don’t count on anything there, Harry. If he buttons up and stays buttoned up, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “Use psychology, Mike. Do you want a retainer?”

  “Can you afford it?”

  Harry snorted and Shayne stood up. “If I find the dough, I’ll take ten percent.”

  “Ten percent!” Waters exclaimed. “That’s high.”

  “OK, Mike,” Harry said briefly, closing his eyes. “Call me. Maybe you’ll get lucky and I won’t have to knock myself out raising it.”

  “Do what the doctor tells you,” the redhead said, looking down at him. “You’re not a kid any more.”

  “Prime of life,” Harry said without opening his eyes.

  The doorbell chimed and Theo went to answer it. It was a Beach patrolman, wanting to know if by any chance Mr. Bass was missing a Cadillac. The doctor arrived as Shayne was leaving. Theo accompanied Shayne to his car.

  “I take it you’re going to be working for him. I’m glad.”

  “He’s making pretty good sense,” Shayne said. “I was hoping those drinks would knock him out. If you can get rid of Doc Waters, so much the better.” He hesitated. “You might pass this on to the doctor. I was with Harry another time when he had a concussion. It was a freak accident-a dead branch fell off a tree when he was out hunting. He didn’t seem to be too badly hurt. But then somebody said something he didn’t like-nothing important, just a remark-and he went haywire. It took three of us to haul him off the guy before he committed a murder. That time there wasn’t any doctor around.”

  She shivered. “I’ll certainly tell him. Did Harry say anything about-” She stopped. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say. But something’s been eating at him the last few weeks. He’s under some kind of strain. Well, I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”

  Shayne put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it with the dashboard lighter as he went down the driveway. He stopped after turning onto North Shore Drive and put on the dome light, to check a road map for the quickest way to the Florida Christian campus. After putting away the map he waited another moment, smoking thoughtfully. Then he made up his mind and headed for the causeway.

  5

  Using the phone he had recently had installed in the front seat of the Buick, Shayne called the Accident Investigation Unit of the Miami police. After being shuffled from one extension to another, he was finally connected with Squire, the sergeant he had met at the wreck of the stolen Dodge.

  “Glad you called, Mike,” Squire said. “You dropped a couple of remarks I want to follow up on. There were two guns in the car, and one of them had been fired. Chief Gentry thinks you ought to come in and tell us what you know.”

  “I’d like to do it on the phone, if that’s OK,” Shayne said. “I’m still working on it. Here’s what happened. I had to pull up sharp to keep from hitting a Cadillac which was on fire. When I got out to see what I could do, I was jumped. A Negro was lying in the street. I didn’t have time to check him for bullet holes. This was on Normandy Isle, in Painter’s jurisdiction, and that makes it tricky. You know how I don’t get along with Painter. When you talk to him you’d better not tell him where the information comes from.”

  Squire chuckled. “He’d probably arrest you for setting fire to an automobile.”

  “Yeah. Since I saw you I’ve found out a little more. The guys who bushwacked me had just held up Harry Bass, and I’m told it was a very nice score. Maybe you better not mention that to Painter either. Harry won’t report it, and you know how Painter can complicate the si
mplest things.”

  “This doesn’t sound too simple to begin with, Mike,” Squire said. “If it was up to me I wouldn’t tell Painter anything. God knows I’m not impartial on the subject. The Chief said to pass on what we have if you cooperated, and you seem to be cooperating more than you sometimes do. There was no important dough in the wreck. No luggage. Just a couple of hundred bucks personal cash in the guys’ pockets. They were both from St. Louis. Pedro Sanchez and Thomas J. Pond, Jr. Sanchez was carrying a pass book in a St. Louis savings bank, with one entry, a deposit of ten thousand bucks, dated last Thursday. We’re sending their prints to Washington, and that’s all. Mike, I still think you ought to come in.”

  Shayne put him off, thanked him for the information, and then settled down to some fast driving.

  Florida Christian was twenty-five miles from Miami, on the edge of the Glades. There was little traffic on the Trail, and Shayne made good time. He had been here often to football games, but that was all he knew about the institution. The stadium, of course, was the principal structure on the campus, a huge bowl illuminated by a necklace of lights. Shayne circled around it in widening arcs until he found a brightly-lighted two-block section that functioned as a downtown.

  He cruised slowly, made a U-turn and came back, stopping when he saw two husky undergraduates, one wearing a football sweater. He called them over. He was right in assuming that they could tell him where to find Johnny Black. Black was a Lambda Phi. The Lambda Phi house was the third building from the end of fraternity row. Fraternity row was the first street to the right.

  This being Saturday night after the last game of the season, the Lambda Phi’s were having a party. The house was big and rambling, with white columns and a screened-in porch. Shayne went all the way in, passing several clumps of young men and girls, before asking for Black.

  “He’s here somewhere,” the boy he spoke to told him, “but where? Hold this.” He handed Shayne his beer can, cupped his hands around his mouth and called, “Johnny!” in a piping voice not intended to penetrate the din. He turned back with a mock shrug. “You’ll just have to look.”