Murder Spins the Wheel (2 page)

3.

ON NORMANDY ISLE, BEACH POLICE were stopping traffic on Bay Drive and sending it around the golf course. Shayne wanted to find out what had been done with the unconscious Negro, but it would have to wait. Because of the unreasoning enmity of his old antagonist, Chief of Detectives Peter Painter, he had as few dealings as possible with the cops on this side of the bay.

He followed the directions of the red flashlights without objecting. A few minutes later he pulled into Harry Bass’ gravel driveway on the bay side of the island.

The house was lighted up. As he went up the front steps he heard a typewriter clacking busily inside. A chime sounded when he rang the bell. The typewriter stopped. In a moment a girl came to the door.

Harry had been married twice, and his second divorce had just become final. He had always had good taste in girls, and on the evidence of this one it seemed to be getting even better. She was blonde, probably in her late twenties, though Shayne was no longer much of a judge of women’s ages. She was wearing horn-rimmed glasses. A pencil with a large eraser was stuck in her hair and a light cashmere sweater was thrown carelessly over her shoulders. All Harry’s women had been sexy-looking. She was no exception, but she also looked interested and intelligent. That was new.

“You’re Michael Shayne,” she said, opening the screen door. “I’m Mr. Bass’s secretary, Theo Moore.” She looked at a small wristwatch. “He’ll be back in a minute. I’m supposed to find you a drink and make myself agreeable.”

She smiled at him when he stayed where he was. “Come in, Mr. Shayne. I won’t bite.”

“Does Harry still drive that Ferrari?” Shayne asked.,

She laughed. “No, these days he’s much more sober and sedate and respectable. They sold him a Cadillac, no less, with backseat television and a refrigerator. I was afraid it might change his personality, but he still seems to be the same man.”

Shayne said grimly, “Was anybody with him?”

She reacted immediately to his tone. “Yes, a man named Billy Wallace. Is anything wrong?”

“If Billy Wallace is colored,” Shayne said, “wearing a white cap and a gun, yeah, something’s wrong. Somebody slugged Billy and set the Cadillac on fire.”

She took a quick breath. “On fire! I heard the siren but it never occurred to me—Mr. Shayne,
wasn’t Harry there?”

“No. It looks as though he’s been jumped. Do you know where he was going?”

She shook her head too quickly. “I really don’t.”

“I don’t want to waste time going up blind alleys,” Shayne said roughly. “You must have some idea.”

She hesitated. “I think he was taking money to somebody. I try not to know about that part of his business, but I can’t put stoppers in my ears. Apparently a football team won this afternoon when it was supposed to lose—or lost when it was supposed to win, I don’t know which. That’s why he wanted to talk to you. The phone kept ringing for two hours straight. I was in the office, typing up some things that have to be signed before Monday, but I did hear him say once, “How much do you need?’ He went up stairs and brought down a suitcase. Billy put it in the car. Mr. Shayne, what shall we do? The police—”

“Not yet. I want to check something first.”

When he started down the steps she came with him.

“Stay here in case the phone rings,” he told her.

She shook her head and said stubbornly, “No, I want to know what happened.”

She got in beside him. They were halfway down the driveway when a car turned in from the road.

“There he is!” Theo cried with relief.

Shayne backed up to the doorway, letting the other car into the turnaround from the opposite direction. It was a black Thunderbird. The man who got out wasn’t Harry Bass.

“Hey, baby,” he said to Theo as she stepped out of Shayne’s car. “Where’s the boss, inside?”

Shayne recognized him in the light from the porch. His name was Doc Waters. He had recently returned to Miami after several years in the Caribbean and had bought into the lucrative Collins Avenue bookmaking, a district that included the biggest hotels. He was a short man, overweight, with a bright resort wardrobe. Too much exposure to the sun had turned his face yellow. He had sharp, agile eyes and a narrow hairline mustache.

“Mr. Waters, did Harry talk to you?” the girl asked in a worried tone.

“Sure he talked to me. That’s the whole point.” He peered through the Buick’s windshield, his eyes narrowing. “Mike Shayne?” He put out his hand, which Shayne shook through the open window. “Glad to see you, man. It’s been years. And what goes on around here, please? Those cops on the road?”

“Harry had an accident,” Shayne said briefly. “Was he on his way to see you?”

Waters considered briefly, flicking his little mustache with his thumbnail. “An accident. I don’t like that. I knew when I woke up this morning it was going to be one of those days. Yeah, he was on his way to see me. I gave him an hour and then thought what the hell. He’s been getting very chintzy lately, since he moved up here—I’m supposed to stay strictly away, we conduct our business in automobiles. Common people like me would lower the real-estate values, right? Listen, honey,” he said to the girl in a more guarded tone, glancing in at Shayne. “How did Harry come out of this accident, OK or not?”

“I don’t know!” she said helplessly. “I don’t know anything about it yet, except that it happened.”

“You’re his secretary. You’ve got a right to talk to the cops and ask them. He was bringing me a package, understand. It could be wrapped up in paper, or in some kind of little suitcase. Watch for it. If you see it, kind of latch onto it, know what I mean? It’s Harry’s property, but if the cops get hold of it, ten to one Harry won’t see it again.”

“I don’t think I could do that,” she said.

“Then get a receipt for it,” he insisted. “In front of witnesses. Shayne, you advise her.”

Shayne grinned at him. He pressed the Drive button and they began to move. The girl called back, “The liquor’s on the terrace.”

Shayne remarked, “Doc hasn’t changed much since I saw him last.”

“I
knew
there was money in that suitcase. Harry doesn’t use names on the phone, but he has a special tone of voice when he’s talking to people like that.”

Shayne turned left at the foot of the driveway. She looked at him in surprise.

“The sirens were on the other side of the island.”

“They’re stopping cars,” Shayne told her. “I’m going in across the golf course.”

There was a Saturday night dance at the Normandy Shores clubhouse. The building was ablaze with light and activity, and surrounded by parked cars. A boy with a flashlight waved them into the parking lot. Shayne cut all the way through, stopping when his headlights picked up a line of battery-powered golf carts in front of the professional’s shop.

“I can’t walk in these heels,” Theo said doubtfully.

“Nobody walks in Miami,” Shayne said.

He took a three-cell flashlight out of his glove compartment and left his headlights on so he could see to start one of the little carts and back it out of line. The girl perched beside him. He saw red flashes in the sky from the revolving beacon on one of the pieces of fire apparatus, and he set his course by that.

“Do you think they—killed him?” the girl asked quietly.

“Maybe,” Shayne replied, steering around a tree. “People sometimes get themselves killed for a couple of bucks, and Harry must have been carrying a lot more than that. But he’s not that easy to kill.”

They jolted across a rough furrow. She grabbed the rail.

“If there was just Billy and the Cadillac, maybe they kidnapped him.”

“No, I followed their car and Harry wasn’t in it. They took a curve too fast. When the cops pry the car open they may find the money, but I doubt it. There’s a third man I haven’t accounted for, and he probably has it.”

“Mr. Shayne,” she said brokenly, “if anything really bad has happened—I’ve tried to tell myself gambling money was no different from other kinds. People can bet at the race tracks, it’s encouraged, for heaven’s sake! If the police really wanted to stop illegal betting they could do it in a minute, couldn’t they?”

“Sure. Don’t hold your breath till it happens.”

She turned toward him, her face pale in the reflected light from Shayne’s flashlight. “It sounded like a dream job when I heard about it. Something different all the time, quite a lot of responsibility. Good pay. It didn’t take me long to talk myself into it. I went into it with my eyes open. He’s a tremendous man. Oh, God, I hope he’s not—”

Cutting across the rough between two fairways, Shayne swerved to avoid a menacing hollow and Theo was thrown against him. She grabbed him to keep from falling. Shayne held her with one arm while he tried to keep the cart under control with the other. Her weight shifted as they hit another bump. His hand closed on her breast. It was the wrong way to be holding her on short acquaintance, but he couldn’t move his hand without letting her fall. The flash light bounded away. Shayne stamped at the floorboard, trying to find the brake, but it wasn’t in the logical place. She clung to him and he felt her breath on his cheek.

As soon as they were back on level ground she freed herself and returned to her seat. “Sorry,” she said in a small voice. “That was my fault.”

Shayne found the flashlight. It was still alive. “This seems to be my night for reckless driving,” he said. “What football game did Harry want to talk to me about?”

“Mr. Shayne, I just don’t know. He was watching it on television, and he kept calling me in to see what I thought. It looked legitimate to me, not that I know all that much about football. And there was a horse, too, at Tropical Park. I think the two things together made him think that neither one was entirely a matter of luck.”

Cutting his speed, he threaded his way carefully between sandtraps guarding the approach to a high green. Now they were approaching the stone wall near the burned-out Cadillac. Only one piece of fire apparatus remained, a small chemical pumper. The wind was blowing off the bay. The smell of scorched metal was strong and unpleasant.

Shayne cut the switch. As the motor died he heard a low moaning in the darkness between the cart and the wall.

Theo cried, “Harry?” and jumped down. Her heel went into the soft turf of the green. She fell. Swinging the flash light without getting down from the cart, Shayne began to rake the beam back and forth across the intervening space.

Something moved. The beam jumped toward the movement and picked up the figure of a man, with wildly waving arms.

Theo stumbled again and Shayne passed her. He flicked the flashlight across the face of the man staggering toward them. It was dirty and bloodstained, with staring eyes, but it was unquestionably Harry Bass. Shayne closed with him quickly. Harry swore and batted the flashlight away with a flailing blow. He aimed another swing at Shayne’s head, missed and went sprawling.

“Take it easy, Harry,” the redhead said in a conversational tone. “Mike Shayne.”

Harry came to one knee, panting. Recovering the flash light, Shayne pointed it at his own face. Then he turned it on Theo.

“You’re among friends.”

Harry said heavily, “Where the hell are we?”

“On the Normandy Shores golf course. I’d say about the eighth green. Did you have fire insurance on your Cadillac?”

Theo said quietly, “We have to get him to a doctor.”

“Hell with that,” Harry rumbled. “I need a drink. Been trying to climb that damn wall. Bastards over there wouldn’t listen to me.”

He came to his feet. Theo caught him, both arms around his chest, as he began to topple.

“I’m OK,” he said.

“Oh, yes, you’re fine.”

“How do you want to do it, Harry?” Shayne asked. “You can sit down and we’ll cover you up, and I’ll go back and call an ambulance. But if you don’t want to talk to the cops or sign a complaint right away, we’ll give you a nice bumpy ride out in a golf cart.”

“Mr. Shayne, be serious,” Theo said. “Look at him.”

Harry pulled away. “Not the first time in my life—”

Shayne caught him as he pitched forward. “All right, we’ll take the golf cart. You’ve put on some weight.”

“Hell I have,” Harry mumbled. “Maybe a couple of pounds.”

Shayne turned him so he could look at the flashlight. “How many lights do you see?”

Harry stared at the flashlight, then waved in disgust. “How can I count them when they keep moving around?”

Shayne laughed. “All you need is a couple of weeks in bed and you’ll be out here swinging a golf club.”

He supported the gambler to the cart and helped him up. Harry slumped forward, his head on his folded arms. Theo stood on the ledge behind him, to hold him in.

“How much did you lose, Harry?” Shayne asked before starting the motor.

For a moment he didn’t think Harry had heard him.

“Two hundred G’s,” Harry said softly.

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 Waters 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.