Fourth Down to Death

by Brett Halliday

  The coach beside Shayne dropped his grease pencil. On the bench below, the quarterback’s face had gone blank. He took the phone from his ear and weighed it for a moment before raising it again.

  “In that case I’d better not say anything before I talk to a lawyer.”

  “If that’s the way you want to play it. You’ve got a well-known face. If you left the hospital to talk to Reddick last night, you’d better figure somebody saw you.”

  “Why would anybody kill Reddick when all they had to do was buy him?”

  “He was trying to sell to too many people at the same time.”

  James made a fist and hammered his thigh. “This is goddamned unprofessional, is all I have to say! On a press-box phone!”

  “I’ve got money on New York, remember. Maybe I’m trying to unsettle you so you won’t be able to find your receivers.”

  “If you’re trying to unsettle me, you’re succeeding, man.”

  “I’ll switch subjects. Have you decided to trust Joe Truck this week?”

  “I think so,” James said, more subdued than he had been at the start of the exchange. “I think he’s going to play heads-up football. I’ll admit I sent Mangione in to see him, with money and a tape recorder. I needed that handle. It didn’t work out, but your testimony can get him kicked out of pro ball, and I predict that today he’s going to take his man apart.”

  “Do you still think he was reached last week?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Of course not. I don’t want to insult you, but I think both of you are reasonably honest. Ronnie, what’s been going on at the Holiday Inn outside of Fort Lauderdale?”

  James made a distracted gesture. “Mike—”

  “Chan described an episode in San Francisco. I take it that wasn’t the only one in the series.”

  A sigh came over the phone. “I’m stiffening up here, damn it. Hang on.”

  He ran in place for a minute, pumping his arms. “All right,” he said, “and what a wonderful time to talk about sex. The San Francisco thing was a flop. The maid walked in just before the big bang. So we had to do it again, see. I mean, we had to! Otherwise it would be too goddamn embarrassing whenever we saw each other. You can understand that. The Holiday Inn was the place, and if you want to know how I’d rate it, you’ll have to twist my arm… It wasn’t bad, as a matter of fact. Everybody was very cheerful and busy, and we ended up friends.”

  “She forgot a dispatch case and you went back for it.”

  “So? Not a dispatch case. Makeup and stuff. She didn’t want to get it herself because she thought she recognized one of the couples at the pool.”

  “You didn’t ask yourself if there was anything phony about that?”

  “No, why? If somebody she knew saw her going into a motel room in the middle of the morning, they’d think—”

  “You were conned, Ronnie,” Shayne said, interrupting. “Ted Knapp left the case in the room, not Chan. Ted Knapp, the betting man, who sells insurance on the side. Joe Truck saw him drive up and go into the room with the case and come back without it. Then you came along, left your motor running and went in and got it. Naturally Truck thought you were picking up a cash payoff for your performance the week before, against New Orleans. So you were selling out your poor underpaid teammates, were you? He decided to let a 260-pound defensive lineman land on you, so you’d know better. And Ted Knapp, betting against Miami, won at least fifty thousand.”

  James swore explosively. “That Chan! Do you know for a fact it was fifty thousand?”

  “Minimum. It was much higher than his usual play, so wouldn’t you guess that he knew in advance what was going to happen?”

  “How’s he betting this week?”

  “On Miami, heavily.”

  “How about Chan?”

  “The other way. She doesn’t think you can beat the points.”

  “You mean she took New York and seventeen?” He came to his feet and executed a little dance step on the slippery grass. “Mike, you’re better than dexamyl! I said I’d talk to you after the game. I’ll improve on that. I’ll talk to you at the half. If you want to sit with somebody, Dody’s in section O, halfway up. This is going to be a game to remember…!”

  CHAPTER 16

  Ted Knapp had good enough connections to get press credentials. He touched Shayne’s shoulder as he came in out of the rain, a pair of field glasses slung carelessly over one shoulder. He was smoking a long thin cigar.

  “I expected you to call me.”

  “I’ve been tied up,” Shayne said. “People tell me you like Miami.”

  Knapp’s teeth flashed. “Who doesn’t? Ronnie’s jumping around down there like a young goat.”

  “You bet Miami at the top of the spread, when everybody else thought Ronnie was still on the serious list.”

  “I’ve got secrets,” he said with a smile, and started to go deeper into the press box.

  Shayne said, “I have two witnesses who saw you leave a dispatch case in a room at the Fort Lauderdale Holiday Inn.”

  “I’m sure you have,” Knapp said calmly, turning back. “I sometimes keep appointments in out-of-the-way places with married women. If you want me to turn pale, you’ll have to come up with something more startling than that.”

  “You told me you don’t like to call attention to yourself, and you’re doing it again this week, betting high.”

  “Mike, there’s a saying. Circumstances alter cases. I put together everything I knew about Ronnie James, and I couldn’t resist the points.”

  “It’s a bad time to be conspicuous. You probably know the commissioner’s in town. He wants to know what happened to his investigator.”

  “Nobody’s going to pursue that very far,” Knapp said. “The man was a drunk, and when they look into his bank accounts they’re going to find some unexplained deposits. Publicizing all that won’t be in the best interests of the sport, do you think?”

  “It’s going to be publicized.”

  “Maybe,” Knapp said skeptically, “but you’ll see some massive pressure to keep it quiet.”

  “Do you have a sleeping-pill prescription?”

  Knapp looked annoyed. “I haven’t taken sleeping pills since I stopped getting to the office at nine o’clock. What’s the point of the question?”

  Without looking at him directly, Shayne had him under careful observation. “Somebody gave Reddick an overdose of barbiturates. No amount of pressure can keep that out of the papers.”

  Nothing moved in Knapp’s face. “You’re an alarmist. The man drowned, after all—water killed him.”

  “We’ll let the lawyers argue about that,” Shayne said, and added abruptly, “Would you be interested in a deal?”

  Knapp waved his cigar. “Deals are my way of life. If we’re going to be talking business, we’d better stand out in the rain.”

  He turned up his collar and they left the shelter of the press box. The rain was still coming down. A shout went up as the Miami team lumbered into view at the mouth of the tunnel.

  “You realize a couple of Miami coaches heard all that,” Knapp pointed out. “What sort of deal are you thinking about?”

  “Are you still interested in buying the club?”

  “Did Zacharias tell you that? We had some conversations last August, but the price he wanted was out of line. There were some tax complications. Even if we could work those out, I’m not sure I’m still in the market.”

  “You know you are—it’s your kind of thing. It can’t go through if the commissioner’s against it. He won’t care about the way you live or your various girls. You got good newspaper space last year when you raised money for whatever it was. But it’s always noticed when a smart man suddenly does something stupid. You’ve gone out of character and alerted everybody by winning a series of flamboyant bets. I think Stitch Reddick found out how you worked the one last week. Give me some honest answers to a couple of questions and I’ll keep that quiet. You still might manage to sneak th
rough.”

  “Talk to me after the game.”

  “Everybody wants to talk to me after the game. The offer won’t be open after the game. It’s withdrawn at the kickoff.”

  Knapp shook the ash off his cigar and drew on it carefully. “I’ll have to take my chances. I’m like every red-blooded American—I’d like to own a major sports franchise with a piece of a TV contract, but if I don’t grab this one, I’ll live through it. Good try, Mike… We’re getting wet.”

  He punched Shayne’s shoulder lightly.

  The New York starters were being introduced, to light applause. All the seats had been sold, but because of the vile weather only three quarters were occupied. Shayne, following Knapp back into the press box, broke out his binoculars and began looking for Dody Germaine in section O, starting in the middle and working both ways. By the time Miami kicked off, he had concluded that she must be one of the numerous ticket holders who had decided against attending the game.

  Shayne didn’t watch the runback, or any of the plays that immediately followed. He was moving his glasses slowly along the Miami bench. Coach Lynch was standing up in a peaked baseball cap, one of the few uniformed men with no protection against the rain. Joe Truck stared at the ground, ignoring the action on the field. Shayne held the glasses for a long moment on Dr. Bishop. The tall homely doctor, in a yellow slicker and fisherman’s hat, was huddled far forward, his lips parted. One hand slid inside his slicker and palpated his stomach mechanically. He seemed to be taking more than a medical interest in the game.

  Shayne lifted the glasses to the seats behind the bench. Chan and Sid Zacharias were together in one of the midfield boxes, crouching together beneath a large striped umbrella. Chan was shouting at the players, and Shayne looked back at the field. Miami now had the ball and Ronnie was in the pocket, the football poised, waiting for someone to get open. The Miami split end buttonhooked sharply, and skidded on the wet grass. Ronnie threw to him, but a New York linebacker got a hand in the way and batted it down.

  Leaving the press box, Shayne descended to the next transverse aisle and began to circle. The Miami fullback went through a hole in the middle to a first down. Ronnie connected with a short flare pass, then rolled out to the right and pitched on the run to another receiver, and it seemed that the Miami offense was beginning to move. An offside penalty stopped them. One down later, when the offensive team jogged to the sidelines, Shayne put the glasses on Ronnie again. Everybody else was muddy, but so far he had managed to stay on his feet. He didn’t seem troubled by the way things were going.

  There were several empty seats in the box below the one in which Chan and Sid Zacharias were sharing their striped umbrella. Shayne brushed past an usher who wanted to see his ticket, or in lieu of that, to be handed a tip, and sat down where he could reach back and touch their knees.

  “You called me, Sid?”

  “Mike Shayne, you tough bastard!” Chan cried, and batted his face with a glove.

  The usher, seeing Shayne in conversation with the owner and his wife, stuck his hands in his pockets empty and went away.

  “I called you last night,” Zacharias said curtly. “I called you again this morning. Various times.”

  He was wearing a jaunty mountaineer’s hat with a damp feather, a long-skirted British raincoat and high boots. His wife was in red. Her expression was mixed. There were frown lines around her eyes, but she was smiling faintly.

  “Not a mark on you. Whereas Joe Truck and Aaron Brown—”

  “Does Sid know you asked them to beat me up?”

  “I told him,” she said lightly, “and he approves. Because he’s really furious with you, Mike.”

  “I see that. Does Sid know you’re betting against the family team?”

  “Shh,” Chan said, still smiling. “People are listening.”

  Zacharias glanced at his wife. “That doesn’t look like such a smart move now, does it, with Ronnie playing? How much did you bet?”

  “My usual hundred. That spread looked so delicious, I succumbed.”

  “She bet fifteen hundred I know about,” Shayne said. “It’s my guess she has a network of out-of-town beards.”

  Zacharias now said grimly, “I think we ought to adjourn to the parking lot and discuss this in depth.”

  “We don’t want to miss any of the scoring,” Shayne said.

  He took out his flask and offered it to the couple above him. They both shook their heads.

  Shayne drank and put the flask away. People around them were on their feet, but Shayne didn’t turn to see what was happening on the field. Chan and Sid continued to watch him.

  “In the light of everything,” Shayne said to Zacharias, “don’t you think you’d better change your mind about getting a divorce?”

  “I haven’t said anything about divorce,” Zacharias said.

  “Maybe not out loud, but she got the message. Are you sure this other woman will be an improvement?”

  “Mike, my dear fellow,” Chan said, “Sid has a point. This really is damned public for that kind of remark.”

  “Nobody’s listening. I’d really like to hear about Chan’s competition, Sid. What’s she like?”

  Zacharias bit off the words, keeping his voice low. “Whatever you’ve been told, it’s not a serious involvement.” He hesitated, cracking his knuckles. “I’ve broken it off, in fact.”

  Chan looked surprised. “When did this historic event happen?”

  Her husband’s mouth worked uncomfortably. The people on either side were intent on the game. There was another great yell, and the PA announcer called a first down for Miami. But on the next play, New York intercepted a James pass and ran it back for a score.

  Zacharias groaned as the score went up, and then turned back to Chan. “What does it matter if it was last night or a week ago? It was last night, actually. I decided she was a little too—pallid. It’s definitely over.”

  “Now say you’re sorry,” Shayne said.

  “For God’s sake!” Zacharias burst out, his voice rising. “What do you think you’re up to?”

  “Just curious,” Shayne said without bothering to lower his voice. “Your wife and I came close to sleeping together last night.” He put his hand on her leg above her boot. “But we talked it over, and decided that was exactly what you were hoping to arrange.”

  “You’re out of your skull!”

  “Why did you hire me, Sid?”

  “For the exact reason I gave you. With this cretin Reddick in town—”

  “You could take care of Reddick by throwing him a few bills. But maybe you didn’t know that. He was in a bar last night, waiting for me. But he would have come out to talk to you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re implying, but I’ve never laid eyes on the man.”

  Shayne’s hand rose as high as Chan’s knee. “How about you, Chan?”

  “The same goes for me, thank the Lord, and if Sid has really broken off with that bitch, you can take your hand off my leg.”

  She gave him a wry, realistic look. He laughed and took his hand away.

  “I don’t like this tone of voice,” Zacharias said. “And I don’t like your insinuations.”

  A corpulent drunk in the next box, in a soggy camel’s hair coat, peered forward to see under the Zacharias umbrella. “I thought that was who it was,” he remarked to his companion.

  “This is going to be all over town,” Zacharias said.

  “You’ll be all right if you haven’t killed anybody,” Shayne said. “Reddick talked to me about money just before he died. Not any unimportant sum, but millions. Millions. If you add up all the bets on this game, all over the country, you’ll get a figure in the millions, but no one person or group of people can collect more than a piece of that. You simply can’t bet a huge sum unless you do it every week, and spread it around. Bookmakers deal with regular customers for predictable amounts of money. The big layoff men sometimes accumulate a heavy play on one side, but there’s no indication th
at they took a special interest in the Boston game last week, and this week they’ve stayed away from Miami altogether. You’ve been trying to get out of your marriage without getting stuck with alimony. That would mount up over the years, but not to millions. The only large sum I’ve heard anybody mention has been your asking price for the franchise.”

  “I don’t follow you,” Zacharias said.

  “Chan does.” Shayne glanced at the scoreboard. Less than a minute remained of the first quarter. By now New York had put up a touchdown, the conversion and a field goal for ten points.

  He went on, “I still think there’s a chance we can tie everything up without any more damage. But you’ve got to start being honest with me, and you’ve got to do it right away.”

  Neither of them said anything.

  “A bookie I know made a quick telephone survey. Here’s how we line up. Ted Knapp is on Miami. I’m on New York. Chan’s on New York. A nurse named Dody Germaine—she was looking after our wayward boy, Ronnie, in the hospital—was supposed to be betting on Miami, but I think she said the hell with it and put the money in her own pocket. Who did I leave out? Oh, Ronnie James. He has thirty thousand on New York.”

  “Ronnie!” Zacharias said in a sharp whisper. “That’s a hell of a thing to come out with in public.”

  Shayne corrected himself. “I said Ronnie. I meant Ronnie’s personal physician. It may not be Ronnie’s money. Now watch the play. See if it tells you anything.”

  He turned toward the field. Miami had the football on its forty-yard line. An end-around sweep was stopped for no gain. On the third down, which had to be a pass, receivers spurted downfield. The defense seemed to be reacting perfectly. But all at once the Miami tight end cut toward the flag and caught New York’s weak side linebacker leaning the wrong way. Ronnie, moving back as the pocket sagged around him, lost his footing in the mud as he released the ball. It sailed weakly over the line of scrimmage and was caught by a New York linebacker, who was instantly tackled.