Never Bet Your Life

by George Harmon Coxe

  He stopped and his smile went away, as though his thoughts were finally catching up with his words.

  “The only thing is—” He broke off and tried again. “What I mean is, it’s funny you should be coming along today like this. Old Ed Greer’s had this place on the market for six months. Couldn’t get anybody interested. Now this morning he calls up and says he wants to take it off the market for a while. Something about an option.”

  He hesitated, the enthusiasm oozing from his system. “I suppose I could go down there with you,” he said, making no move to get out of his chair.

  Dave stood up and said it would not be necessary. He said it might be better if he went alone and looked around without letting Mr. Greer know he was interested in buying.

  “If it’s anything I’d want and it’s still for sale,” he said, “I’ll stop back.”

  Bradbery’s smile came back. He stood up. The hand that shook Dave’s was still warm and damp.

  “You do that, Mr. Barnum,” he said. “If it doesn’t suit you we’ll find one that does. Turn left at the light and head south. The first motel you come to is The Plantation. That ain’t it. Ed’s is the next one. Calls it Villa Greer.”

  The Villa Greer looked just about as Dave expected it to look: weathered, unkempt, ordinary. A fine old banyan tree spread its branches across the front of the property, and opposite its broad trunk stood a small sign which identified the place. There were two stucco units separated by fifty feet of weedy lawn from which grew five or six palm trees of no great distinction. The units—each had four doors with room beside each for a car—seemed solidly constructed but the paint was flecking from the trim. Some of the screens looked rusty, and the benches on the lawn in front of each door also needed paint. A smaller, flat-roofed building stood in line with the right-hand unit but was built apart. The sign which jutted above the doorway said: OFFICE.

  Coming in from the sunlight, Dave found the interior dim but surprisingly airy. There was a counter immediately in front of him, a glass case with cigarettes and gum in it, a rack partly filled with fly-specked postcards advertising the Villa Greer.

  The man who rose from the wicker chair beyond the counter was tall, gaunt, and round-shouldered. His long face had a hawklike quality and his thick white hair was in startling contrast to the wrinkled, sun-browned skin. He looked to be about sixty-five and his voice had an unidentifiable twang.

  “Something for the night, young man?”

  “No,” Dave said. “My name’s Barnum. I’ve been looking around and I wanted to make some inquiries about your place. I understand it’s for sale. Is it still on the market?”

  “Yes, and no.” Greer leaned his elbows on the counter. “Yes, it’s for sale and no—well, I mean I ain’t sure whether it’s on the market now or not. You interested for yourself?”

  “Well, in a way.”

  “You ever been in the motel business?”

  “No.”

  “Know anything about it?”

  “Not too much.”

  “Then let me give you a piece of advice which I don’t expect you to follow but which I’m gonna give you just the same. Stay out of the motel business. Maybe you think that’s a hell of a way for a man to talk that wants to sell one.”

  He stuck out his chin, as though expecting an argument. Dave tried to look impressed. He said he had a friend who knew more about such things than he did.

  “You figure on being partners?” Greer demanded, still belligerent.

  “Well—”

  “Are you sure this friend knows the motel business or is he just talking you into some deal that you may damn well regret?” He pulled a stubby pipe from his shirt pocket and reached for the pouch on his hip. “Come outside,” he said.

  Dave suppressed a grin. He followed the older man to a pair of cane chairs in the shade of the banyan. He sat down, knowing he was in for another monologue but willing to listen in return for some information.

  “The motel business,” Ed Greer said when he had his pipe drawing, “is no place for a young man unless he figures to make a career of it. No damn place for older people either unless they’ve had some experience along that line. The whole thing is a nasty illusion. It sounds great. Come down here and live all the year round in the sun. In business for yourself, building up for the future, rent free, do the work yourself. You figure all you need, once you’ve got the capital to get started, is a strong back.”

  He jabbed his bony chest with the stem of his pipe. “Take me. I’m from Indiana originally. Salaried man most of my life until my father died and left me some property. Mary and I—she was my wife—had been down here a couple of times. Liked it. Hated all that cold weather up north. Not so much the winters as those God damned cold wet springs that never seemed to end.”

  He made an all-inclusive wave of his pipe. “Helped build this place myself. Had it spick and span. Worked hard, both of us changing sheets and making beds and house cleaning and all that. Made some money, got the place free and clear. It was the paper work got us down. Taxes. Records. Books. State tax, sales tax, room tax, income tax, withholding tax.”

  He hesitated, mood sobering and his voice full of thought. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just blowing off a head of steam. Maybe if Mary was still alive I’d feel different. Don’t seem to give a damn. Don’t make the beds any more. Hire it done. Let the place run down and take six dollars a night where I could be getting ten if I’d get to work with some spit and polish and a paintbrush. The trouble is I’m wearing out just like my equipment and I say, the hell with it. That’s why I’m selling out when I can. You know what I’m going to do?” he said.

  “I’m going to get me a little bungalow over in the lake country where a man can hunt and fish cheap. Seven, eight thousand over there will get me the place I want. I can get sixty for this. Say I can invest fifty at four per cent. Two thousand a year and only my own bed to change. Next year I’m getting in on this old-age pension stuff. Sixty-five. I figure I’ll draw sixty-odd dolars a month, enough for taxes on the house and upkeep, the keep of a secondhand car. Let somebody else worry about the taxes and keeping the weeds out of the drive and sendin’ back the things these damn-fool tourists leave in their room and then you have to mail it to them. I’m tired of bowing and scraping and being polite to people and listening to their God damned complaints.”

  He knocked his pipe out in the palm of his hand and scattered the dottle. He blew through the stem.

  “Now this fellow that’s interested in my place, it’s different with him. First off he knows his business. An experienced man. Knows exactly what he’s getting into, knows the only way he could buy this place for sixty thousand—I’ve got two hundred feet on the road and room out back for as many units again as I got, quarter of a mile to a beach—the only reason he could buy it is because it’s run down. He’ll fix that. Paint, new furniture, new sign, neat, attractive grounds will start bringing in ten dollars a night again in the season.”

  “I think I know the man you mean,” Dave said, deciding it was time to get on with what interested him most. “Stinson?”

  “That’s right. George Stinson. Runs the Seabeach Motel up past Vantine. Ambitious, knows how to deal with people.”

  “How long has he been interested in this place?”

  “For quite a while, on and off. Last month he came down here and talked real serious. Last, week he dropped in again. That’s why I was telling you the place was off the market, at the moment, but still for sale. Called me up and asked if I’d take a thousand dollars for a sixty-day option.”

  “When was that?”

  “Last night. Got me out of bed. I asked him why the hell he couldn’t wait till morning. Apologized. Said he’d finally made up his mind and wanted my answer.”

  An odd, tingling sensation grew swiftly in Dave’s chest. He found he was unconsciously holding his breath. He let it out easily as he reached for a cigarette.

  “What did you tell him?” he asked, not loo
king up.

  “Told him yes. Like to see him get the place because I know how bad he wants it. Called me again this morning and said he was putting the check in the mail. Said he’d stop past in a day or two and sign the agreement.”

  He turned in his chair as a car pulled off and rolled to a stop near the office.

  “If I get the check by morning Stinson’s made a deal.” He watched a sport-shirted man wearing a long-visored fishing cap unfold himself from the car. “Excuse me,” he said. “Time to tend to business.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  DAVE BARNUM had one more call he wanted to make before dark, and to reach his destination he had to drive forty miles down the coast to this town which stood on an inlet reaching in from the sea. It took a while to make inquiries and get satisfactory directions, and by the time he had turned into the proper road the sun had set and there was only the afterglow to light the land.

  Willie Shear’s house was one of two which occupied a man-made island. A high stone wall separated it from the neighboring estate, obscuring all but the red-tile roof and running along the front to a concrete retaining wall bordering the water. Steel gates had been swung back to give access to the driveway but as Dave drove past he noticed a cord-like contrivance had been embedded across the drive, apparently a signaling device when activated by a passing car.

  The house came into view after he had circled for a hundred feet or so along the black-topped drive and now, off to the right, he could see the private dock. A sleek and modern-looking cruiser, which appeared to be about forty-five feet overall, was moored here, her out-riggers’ vertical fingers reaching toward the sky. Working on the brightwork aft was a thick-chested man in dungarees, T-shirt, and a disreputable-looking yachting cap.

  A four-car garage blocked Dave’s view a moment later and as his glance slid past he brought it swiftly back to focus on the end car, a robin’s-egg-blue convertible with the top down. He knew at once that it was a Cadillac. He knew too that there undoubtedly were hundreds like it in that part of the state. Perhaps it was the association of the car with the name of Willie Shear that brought to mind the convertible he had seen pull past him the night before as he ran back to the bungalow.

  He remembered each detail distinctly: the headlights which had flashed on just as he started to turn into the grounds, the way the car had angled into the road, its color and year and model.

  Beyond that he could not speculate but now, as he pulled in behind the two other cars which had been parked in the drive near the front entrance, he could feel an odd tension begin to work inside him. When he stepped to the drive he discovered he was nervous. Even his thoughts had become apprehensive and uncertain, as though the quiet elegance of the estate had suddenly taken on some inexplicable but sinister air.

  The signaling device at the gate apparently was working because when he approached the wide front steps a man awaited him. He wore black, tropical-weight trousers, and the white jacket of a servant, an egg-bald, bushy-browed man with a truculent expression. He looked like a butler, with muscles, but he had none of a butler’s air or manner. His gaze was hostile rather than suspicious and he acted as if he found it an effort to be civil.

  “Who do you want?” he asked without preliminaries.

  “Mr. Shear.”

  “Who’re you?”

  “Mr. Barnum. Dave Barnum.”

  “Mr. Shear know you?”

  “Probably not. Just tell him the man who owns the Club 80 wants to see him.”

  Until then the butler had made up his mind Dave wasn’t going to get in. Now he seemed undecided. He turned abruptly and started up the stairs, Dave following. When they reached the top step the fellow stopped and made a downward thrust of his index finger.

  “Wait here,” he said.

  Dave grinned at him. He said: “Thanks.” Then, hearing faintly the sound of music, he looked to see where it came from.

  There was a picture window on the left of the doorway and because of it he could look through the corner of what appeared to be a living room to the adjacent porch. There was a small bar here, some thickly upholstered chaises and chairs in blue and maroon, an overstuffed divan of the same material. Three women and three men sat around with drinks in their hands and when the butler appeared a moment later one of the men rose and followed him into the living room. Three seconds later the butler reappeared in the doorway.

  “In here,” he said, and gave a jerk of his head before he disappeared down the hall.

  Willie Shear was waiting in the center of a living room that reminded Dave of a composite of all those he had seen in such movies as were devoted to men of Willie’s type and profession. His first impression was one of reasonable good taste without distinction—though this may have been the fault of the decorator—an over-all air of expensiveness. That was about all he had time for then because Willie Shear was watching him with bright gray eyes that were bored, amused, and, deep down, suspicious.

  Dave had not known quite what to expect. He had had a fleeting glimpse of Willie—though he did not know who he was—the day he had called on Gannon, but it was no more than that because Gannon had immediately banished Dave to his own half of the bungalow. His familiarity and knowledge of the more important figures in the gambling world had therefore been limited to newspaper photographers and, as with the living room, Hollywood portrayals of the type. Now he made his own appraisal.

  Willie Shear was not formidable in appearance. He did not look particularly tough. He was of average size and might have been in his early forties, more plump than thin, with good shoulders, and not soft looking, at least not in the face and jaw. He was barbered, manicured, and groomed to perfection. He wore what looked to be handmade loafers, fawn-colored cashmere sox, tan doeskin slacks, well pleated and perfectly draped, an off-white shirt of some soft-looking material, and a jacket of navy blue linen that had not yet acquired a wrinkle.

  His sportsman’s tan seemed to add a distinction of its own so that the only flaw in Willie’s appearance was his nose, which had been broken twice and battered frequently in the two years he had battled—with considerable success—for recognition as a welterweight. Having presently discovered easier ways of making a living, he now had this souvenir as the only reminder of that phase of his life, and somehow that lopsided nose seemed to add rather than detract from his appearance. It was honorably earned and lent character and a certain rugged authority to a face that might otherwise have been simply dismissed as ordinary.

  All in all it seemed to Dave that if there was to be one adjective to be used concerning his impression of Willie Shear, that word would have to be “successful” regardless of his business, background, or breeding.

  “Leroy said the name was Barnum.” Willie’s voice was like the rest of him, confident, assured, a bit superior. “Dave Barnum.”

  “That’s right,” Dave said, and grinned, not at Willie but at the butler’s name.

  “And what was that about owning the Club 80?”

  “That’s also right.”

  Suspicion flicked again in the gray eyes.

  “John Gannon owned the 80.”

  “He was murdered last night.”

  “So I heard. A Captain Vaughn from up in Vantine was down here a couple of hours ago with one of the local boys.” Willie’s glance slid away and his voice grew quiet. “A tough break,” he said. “Gannon was one of the old-timers. A big name in his day. I knew him well. What about the funeral? I’d like to send flowers…. You own the Club 80 now?” he said with a swiftness of digression that surprised Dave. “How does that happen?”

  “I inherited it.”

  It was Willie’s turn to register surprise. He tipped his head forward an inch and his lids went down and up like shades. Then, apparently convinced by something in Dave’s manner, he shrugged.

  “Related?”

  “No.”

  “An old friend?”

  “Of my father’s. He helped me through college. There weren’t any rel
atives and—” Dave checked the sentence because the thought of John Gannon and that will bothered him greatly. “He also named me executor.”

  “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I understood you wanted to buy it.”

  “Who said so?”

  “John. You were up there the day before yesterday talking terms, weren’t you? You and Sam Resnik.”

  Dave had let his glance stray even as he spoke. It was difficult not to. For almost the entire wall separating the living room from the screened and covered porch was glass, and to Dave the three women who sat outside were something to see.

  Two were blonde, one a brunette. All were smartly dressed, all were young, all were exceedingly shapely and apparently quite well aware of the fact. Dave had an idea that it would take a good hour to make them up the way they were but he also guessed that if you had a pocketful of money and an evening to spare a man would find any one of them attentive.

  The two men looked younger than Willie. Their jackets were too natty and too loud but they looked all right considering the company they kept. The one with the taller of the two blondes was holding her hand in a careless way as he sat beside her on the divan; the other was busy talking to the second blonde who sat at his feet on the chaise. Dave couldn’t hear the words but the gestures supported the impression.

  When, a moment later, he looked at Willie Shear he could tell the other was aware of his interest and he found the open amusement in Willie’s eyes embarrassing. Willie allowed himself a small grin and nodded.

  “You’re right about wanting to buy. The thing is”—he looked out on the porch—“we were going out in a few minutes. For a drink or two and a spot of dinner. Why don’t you come along, Barnum? Then after dinner maybe we could have a talk.”

  Dave’s laugh sounded a bit forced, even to him. He said he guessed not, but thanks just the same. He said it looked like a case of six being company and seven a crowd.