Murder Spins the Wheel ms-53

by Brett Halliday

  Shayne went on. Somebody was playing a guitar in one room. In another there was a beer keg, but the Lambda Phi’s and their guests were using empty cans as mugs, holding the triangular punched opening under the spigot. Shayne asked several more youths for Johnny Black. They all assured him that Black was present, and to keep looking.

  In the library, a room with a fireplace, numerous athletic trophies and leather furniture, he saw his first old grad. He was a short, nearly rectangular man, with a broken nose and receding hair. Alarm stirred in his eyes as they met Shayne’s. He had his back to a wall covered with framed photographs of football teams, and he wasn’t socializing with anybody.

  Shayne went on asking for Black. Having seen him only from a distance on TV, in a football helmet, he knew he wouldn’t recognize him here. Presently the broken-nosed man made up his mind and came toward him. One of the teeth at the front of his smile had a corner missing.

  “I’m Bus Colfax,” he said, putting out his hand, “and I’m trying to decide if I know you. Didn’t you use to line-back for the Packers?”

  “Mike Shayne,” the redhead said, shaking hands. “Which Packers?”

  Colfax laughed heartily. “Which Packers! That puts me in my place, all right. After all these years I ought to know an ex-pro when I see one. Can I use my influence and get you a beer? That’s what the kiddies are drinking, not that I don’t have a couple of pints of rotgut in the car. Which will it be, Mike?”

  “Neither right now, thanks. I’m looking for somebody.”

  Colfax laughed again. “Isn’t everybody?”

  A dark girl with bangs almost down to her eyelashes came up through the haze.

  “Excuse me,” she said to Shayne. “Are you the one who was asking for Mr. Black?”

  Shayne told her he was, and that his name was Michael Shayne.

  “Would you mind telling me what you wanted to see him about? If you’re a sportswriter he’s not giving any interviews.”

  Shayne grinned down at her. “How about autographs? Tell him we have some mutual friends, and I’ll only take fifteen minutes.”

  The girl looked doubtful, but brushed her hair back from her eyes and went away.

  Bus Colfax had audited this exchange closely. “For three or four weeks at this time of year,” he said with sympathy, “they’re kings. You have to study their moods, play on their weaknesses and back out when you leave the room. But the minute they sign, they’re property like everybody else. That’s the way I console myself.”

  He looked around quickly, shed his bantering manner and became all business. He tapped Shayne lightly on the forearm with the rim of his beer can.

  “Shayne, I won’t make a guess at what club you represent. That would give away who I consider our chief competition. I’m down from the Warriors. I don’t have to tell you that I wouldn’t be here if we didn’t want the boy. I’m ready to spend money to get him. Frankly, I can’t give him the sky. Play it close to your vest, keep throwing in blue chips and maybe you’ll end up with Johnny Black on your roster, at some astronomical bonus figure which is sure to leak to the press. Then all the other All-Americans get a highly inflated idea about how much he’s worth. Or there’s the other possibility, that I’ll end up with Johnny Black at a similar figure, and you’ll end up sucking hind tit, with nothing to show for your expense account.”

  Shayne was beginning to see a way to handle Johnny Black. He looked thoughtful.

  “I see what you mean, but I don’t have much leeway.”

  “You don’t realize how much leeway you’ve got,” Colfax said joyfully. “All you are is the man on the spot, and what the people in the front office don’t know won’t keep them awake nights. If you got here an hour later, I could already have inked the kid, and vice versa. Maybe we can save ourselves some headaches and save our clubs some dough. We both need a quarterback. That’s why we’re here. I don’t have to read your mind to know you could use a good lineman. From here I go to the University of Miami, and you know who I’m contacting there-Humboldt. I don’t care who you are, could you use Humboldt or couldn’t you? Bidding is what we want to avoid. How about if we talk it over, have a can of beer and a couple of shots, discuss our mutual needs and requirements, and decide which boy to go for. If we both have the same boy at the top of the list, then we bid for him, but only as a last resort.”

  “And you want a passer?” Shayne said.

  “We want a passer. Back away from Johnny, Mike, and as far as the Warriors are concerned you can have Humboldt at your own figure, and I’ll put that in writing.”

  “Shayne?” a voice said behind the redhead.

  He turned. Black was shorter than he had looked playing football, but he seemed just as powerful even without artificial padding. His hair was cropped close. He was chewing gum and smiling pleasantly, as though all his worries were far in the future.

  “Johnny!” Colfax exclaimed, faking a blow to the muscle of his throwing arm. “I’m Bus Colfax, and I’m going to pull a little rank on my friend here. I’ve still got a long way to travel, and there’s an old saying, first come, first served. Let me outline a few points to you on behalf of the Warriors, then I’ll be on my way. Is that fair, Mike?”

  “Bus Colfax,” Black said solemnly. “Mr. Colfax, you don’t know what this means to me. You’ve always been one of my-well, idols. I hope you don’t have to push on tonight. We can fix you up with a bed. Golly, when I tell the fellows who you are-”

  Colfax cocked his head. “Johnny, to tell you the truth my schedule is flexible. There’s nothing I’d like better.”

  “That’s great! The Warriors-Mr. Colfax, as far back as I remember it’s been my ambition to be a Warrior. I’ve just about made up my mind that it’s either the Warriors or med school. I’ll see what Mr. Shayne has on his mind and be right back. The things I want to talk about!”

  Colfax beamed, and somebody handed him a newly filled can of beer. Still smiling pleasantly, Black moved away through the crowd with Shayne. He was greeted continually from all sides.

  “Johnny boy.”

  “Where you going, Johnny?”

  “This is pretty public,” he said to Shayne. “We could go outside.”

  “Yeah, we better go outside.”

  “You’re in the private-detective business, right?”

  Shayne nodded.

  “I thought so,” Black said carelessly, replying to a girl’s wave. “It didn’t register on Bus, and that’s fine. I won’t ask you any questions right now, but I’ve got them, believe me.”

  He took Shayne back to the porch, where he was caught up briefly in a group of new arrivals, and then down the steps. “Now,” he said in a low, intense voice, “I want to know what the hell this is all about.”

  “Don’t choke up,” Shayne told him. “Who knows, everything may still be all right. Let’s ride around. You can show me the campus.”

  He started toward his parked car. After only an instant’s hesitation the quarterback followed. Another girl called to him from the porch. He grinned, pointed to Shayne and shrugged helplessly.

  He said nothing until they were under way. He tried to keep his tone casual, but Shayne could tell that it wasn’t easy.

  “Now. Who’s in trouble, and what can I do for you?”

  “A lot of money changed hands on the game this afternoon,” Shayne said. “The betting pattern was peculiar, and I’ve been retained to ask you a few questions.”

  They turned off the street of fraternity houses. Black was sitting in an athlete’s relaxed slouch, hands clasped between his legs. Suddenly, without warning, he whirled and chopped hard at Shayne’s jaw. Shayne came forward and the blow landed behind his ear. He had been hit in that exact spot earlier in the evening, with the barrel of a gun.

  He went away for a second. When he came back he found that his reflexes had taken over to do what was necessary. Without touching the brake, he had swung the wheel and headed for a telephone pole. At the same time he hurled himself sid
eward. Black was young and strong, a contact athlete in top condition, but Shayne doubted if he had done much fighting in the front seat of cars. The first surprise punch was the only one Shayne intended to allow him. He kept his own arms and shoulders in motion, tying Black up against the door. It was over in a moment. Black’s powerful neck and shoulders were tightly braced, as he tried to get Shayne to hold still for another shot at his jaw. The Buick rode up over the curb and banged into the pole, and at the same second Shayne yanked Black’s head forward and downward against the top of the dashboard. He felt the resistance melt out of the boy’s body. To make sure, Shayne turned him slightly and clipped him with a crisp, professional left. It didn’t have his weight behind it, but it went in where he wanted it. He could tell by the solidity of the contact that it was a knockout punch.

  He pulled the boy back on the seat and let him recover. He backed away from the pole and drove on through the dormitory area until he found a place to park on a secluded, tree-lined block. The boy’s eyes were open, regarding him expressionlessly. He touched his face where Shayne had hit him.

  Shayne said, “Is that the way you make people feel like doing you a favor? Or did you really think you could knock me out and sign with Colfax before I spoiled it for you? You wanted to know who was in trouble. You’re in trouble.”

  Black’s face folded in on itself. “Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

  “You can always go to medical school,” Shayne said without sympathy. “There’s a big shortage of doctors.”

  “There’s a shortage of pro quarterbacks,” Black said. “That pays better.” He doubled up his fist and hammered his knee. Apparently he had swallowed his gum. “I could make it. I could make it my first year with the Warriors. The guy they’ve got throwing for them now is thirty-six years old. I could be the biggest-”

  “Don’t cry about it,” Shayne said. “I meant it when I said it might still happen. It’s up to you. I’ll tell you what the situation is, Johnny. The cops aren’t going to figure in this, and neither is your dean’s office or your athletic department. My client wants to know who did it to him, so it won’t happen again. I wasn’t sure before you threw that punch, but I’m sure now. There was a big rush on Georgia just before game time, most of it with a bookie who happens to be short of cash. He had to call on my client for two hundred thousand bucks to make the payoff. Before the dough could be delivered there was a stickup. The two hundred thousand went down the drain.”

  “Two hundred thousand,” Black whispered.

  “I’m glad to see you’re listening. It all ties in. My client watched the last half of the game on television. He has a good sense of smell, and he smelled four plays.”

  “My timing was off,” Black said sullenly.

  “It was off four times, just enough to bring you home within the point spread. Even with the heavy action on Georgia, it might not mean anything. Add it to the stickup and it means a lot. I’m convinced you threw those four plays, Johnny, and that’s all that matters. Maybe a pro like Colfax could look at the films and spot little changes in your style that would give it away. It’s not necessary. The pro leagues are skittish about gamblers and people who know gamblers. All I have to do is tell Colfax my client’s name, and back it up with some betting totals, and it’s goodbye contract. I don’t need an airtight case, any more than Colfax has to give you a reason for not signing you. All he has to do is say thanks for the warm beer, and blow.”

  Black’s face was rigid. He forced the word “Please?” through stiff lips.

  “That’s a good sign,” Shayne said. “If you watch the old gangster movies on TV, you may think that Jimmy Cagney and George Raft will come out and work you over with baseball bats. Times have changed. Now they write it off to overhead. But naturally they don’t want it to get to be a habit. Tell me how it happened, Johnny.”

  He shook his head shortly. “I can’t. It won’t happen again, I promise you that.”

  Shayne made a rude noise. The boy said earnestly, “If I do go with the Warriors, it’s not a question of whether I’d want to, I couldn’t. No one person has that much control.”

  “I’m not thinking about you,” Shayne said. “I’m thinking about your contact.” He picked up the phone from the little cabinet between them. “What’s the Lambda Phi number? After that quick con you gave him, I’m sure Colfax is still there.”

  Black’s hand darted out and closed the switch. “What would you gain by it?”

  “Nothing. I wouldn’t lose anything either, which is what makes it easy. This is just routine.”

  Black looked at Shayne intently, to see how much was real, how much bluff. People who played poker with Michael Shayne often wondered the same thing, and usually ended up broke.

  “You wouldn’t be doing it for money,” Shayne said. “They couldn’t pay you enough. What else is there but blackmail? Tell me about it, and maybe in the course of other things I can take care of it for you.”

  Shayne let him think it out by himself.

  Black heaved a deep sigh, which made him seem much younger. “His name’s Vince Donahue. He said today wouldn’t happen again, but I’m not that innocent. I knew he’d call up next year, and the only way I could stop it would be to quit football. That’s why I was going to stick Colfax for the biggest bonus I could get. Do you think it was easy to miss those passes? I had a shot at the Conference record! I got a funny look from one of the guys. I had to say I had a muscle spasm, and not to tell anybody so it wouldn’t queer me with the Warriors.”

  Now that it was coming, Shayne didn’t look at him or question him, but went on smoking in silence. A student on a bicycle approached. Black waited till he was past.

  “Vince has a tape of a phone conversation. It’s all out of context. I said it, but it sounds worse than it was. He said he’d send it to the sports editor of the Miami News if I didn’t play along. And he would have, too. That was yesterday. If I’d known where he lived I might have-” He stopped, his fists clenched. “Well, it’s just as well, I didn’t, or I might be in an even worse jam.”

  “Go back a way,” Shayne suggested. “Where did you meet him?”

  “All the way back, in grammar school. We were in the Boy Scouts, we played football, baseball, basketball-you name it. He could have pitched in the majors if he’d stuck to it. He was a natural platform diver, a wonderful swimmer. But he didn’t have the desire. He kept changing from one thing to another. And then he had some bad luck. Do you want to know all this, Mr. Shayne?”

  “Yes. Go on.”

  “It was just after he got his driver’s license. It wasn’t Vince’s fault, the other car went through a stop sign, but he thought if he’d been on the ball maybe he could have got out of the way. His mother and father were killed. Every body felt sorry about it, but he didn’t let that go on for long. He always had a mean streak, even before the accident. He and his sister moved in with an aunt, and that woman was hard to get along with. I sympathized, but! He broke dishes and robbed her and did things like ordering eight rooms of furniture-that kind of stupid stuff. He was left end on the football team, and in the state semifinals he took one of my passes and ran the wrong way. That was the end of the friendship. He didn’t even pretend to be confused, he was yakking it up all the way. Next year he dropped out of school and nobody knew where he’d gone. But where would somebody like that, who didn’t give a good goddamn about anything, a good swimmer and diver, where would he go but Miami?”

  “Where do you come from, Johnny?”

  “St. Louis.”

  Shayne gave him a piercing look.

  “Does that mean anything?” Black said.

  “I talked to the cops. They say two of the stickup guys came from there.”

  Black groaned. “What a character. I don’t suppose it’s a coincidence?”

  “Probably not, Johnny. Finish it up.”

  “I made the team here my sophomore year. He saw my name in the paper and came out. The funny thing was, I was glad to see
him. Most of the time he was an asset to have around. He was almost a student here for a while. He sat in on courses. Then he decided the hell with it, and went back to Miami. He still came out to see me, or he called me, and sometimes we talked football. Of course I had access to our scouting reports and I knew about injuries and so on. He always needed money that year. When ever I thought the point spread was out of line I’d let him know and he’d bet a hundred bucks. That was all there was to it, but if you listened to the tape! I never bet a cent myself. I have a scholarship and anyway I don’t believe in it, it’s too risky. That was two years ago. I saw him once last year after a game, with a girl singer from New York, and he was driving a Jaguar. He showed me the registration to prove it was his. He made a big mystery about what he was doing. He said I’d sleep better if I didn’t know. After that not a word, until yesterday, out of a clear sky. The coach got word on the grapevine that the Warriors were interested, for real money. I knew we could take Georgia, but this being my last game and all, I wanted to do it by a top-heavy score. He called me on the house phone and played the tape for me, right there with the brothers sitting around doing their homework. I was stunned, I guess, and he played it again. I had to say yes. I know you’re not supposed to do what a blackmailer tells you, but this wasn’t any ordinary blackmailer, it was Vince Donahue. I knew him!”

  Shayne stubbed out his cigarette and started the motor. Black peered at him anxiously.

  “I know the whole thing hangs on whether you believe what I say about the tape, that it was nothing but chitchat. I don’t know how I can prove it. Put me out of my misery. What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to drop you,” Shayne said, “and I don’t think I’ll come in to say goodnight to Bus. Don’t sign with him tonight. If I decide your story’s true, or even ninety per cent true, you may still end up in the big money. I’ll let you know tomorrow. Now I want to ask you some questions about Donahue. You don’t know anything at all about how he makes a living?”