Brett Halliday - Murder Spins the Wheel

She said with a rush, twisting the belt of her apron, “I might be able to tell you something, but first you have to tell me why you want to know. Go over to one of the booths. I’m not supposed to sit down in my uniform, but I’ll put on a raincoat and come back.”

Shayne paid for another cognac and carried it to an empty booth. In a moment the waitress came back through a door marked “No Admittance,” wearing a raincoat over her uniform. The bartender spoke to her. She shook her head stubbornly. Coming over to Shayne’s booth, she slid in across from him. The red-haired waitress brought her a mixed highball.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Rose.”

Rose pulled nervously at her drink. “I’d better find out what I am doing. I hear you’re Mike Shayne. Why do you want to talk to Vince, Mr. Shayne?”

Over the second cognac, Shayne had been thinking. Given what he already knew about Vince Donahue, which of the two waitresses would the boy pick? The one now sitting opposite Shayne would give him uncritical admiration, money when he needed it, sympathy when he needed that, she would always be waiting for him, she would pretend to believe his stories. To hang onto him she would do anything he demanded. She would probably feel flattered that he had any time for her at all. And giving her a closer look, Shayne saw something warm and appealing beneath her surface awkwardness. All she needed was to sit up straight and have a professional do something about her hair.

He said carefully, “You won’t be too surprised to hear that he’s in trouble.”

“Well, no,” she admitted.

“He’s stepped on some people’s toes,” Shayne continued. “They’re middle-aged and settled. They wear white suits and neckties, and to somebody like Vince they probably look pretty harmless. They’re anything but.”

“That sounds like him. He just doesn’t give a damn. But you’re going to have to be more specific.”

Shayne continued feeling his way. At the first wrong approach, he knew the girl would take off her raincoat and go back to work.

“He’s mixed up in a football fix,” he said. “He rigged something, or helped rig it, and it cost his friendly neighborhood bookie somewhere around a couple of hundred thousand bucks. I don’t mean Vince got all that, or even much of it. But so far he’s the only name I’ve heard mentioned.”

“I knew it was something like that,” she said miserably. “Does that mean he’ll go to jail?”

Shayne studied her. “There’s a law against blackmailing football players, and conceivably he might go to jail. But to be honest about it, I don’t know. People in the gambling business don’t like to let the courts handle their discipline problems. I might be able to influence what happens. If nobody cooperates I won’t have much of a chance. There was also a stickup, incidentally. I don’t know how much he had to do with that.”

She made a quick joyless grimace and drank some more whiskey. “Oh, that’s great. If he had anything to do with a stickup, it wouldn’t be a gas station or a delicatessen, would it? It would be somebody important.”

“That’s the picture of Vince I’m beginning to get,” Shayne said. “I still don’t know much about him.”

She drew a deep breath. “I-lived with him, Mr. Shayne. You’ve guessed that. Everybody in the hotel thought it was foolish of me. They think it’s foolish to go on feeling the way I do about him now, but that doesn’t mean I can turn it off, like a faucet. When you came in, everybody automatically protected him because I guess they feel sorry for me. I’ve done my share of protecting Vince Donahue and pretending I didn’t know where he lived. But now I’m beginning to think that maybe-well, maybe if it’s not too serious, a little time in jail-”

She met his eyes and said quickly, “Not because he walked out on me. I’m not trying to get back at him. But he has to realize! With most people, it’s easy to get into things and hell to get out. But Vince always manages to get out just as easily as he gets in. Nothing bad ever seems to happen to him. Maybe going to jail won’t work. I guess it doesn’t, usually. But it would get him away from Miami Beach before the roof caves in. He’s-terribly handsome, Mr. Shayne. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen him, but he’s one of the best-looking people. The way he moves. And if something goes wrong this time I’m afraid-” She stopped and drank unhappily. “He’s proud of his teeth. He had caps put on last year and they’re absolutely perfect. The way he looks is the only real thing he’s ever had. And I can see how it’s going to end-with one person holding him and another hitting him in the face with brass knuckles.”

“How what is going to end?” Shayne asked.

She hesitated. “He’s running around with a married woman.” She searched his face. “Well, I started and I might as well finish. She’s staying at the St. Albans. Vince met her there at the pool. She must be thirty-five and she has loads of money. I saw her once and she’s not too bad-looking for somebody that old. I’m not jealous. Oh, I’m jealous, but I always knew I couldn’t have one hundred percent of Vince, even fifty-one percent. It isn’t the money that’s the big attraction this time. It’s who she’s married to. Would the name Al Naples mean anything to you?”

Shayne kept his face carefully blank. “I’ve heard of him. I’d say Mrs. Al Naples was somebody to stay away from.”

“But you’re not Vince, are you? She’s not the first married woman staying at the St. Albans that Vince has gone to bed with. But nothing like this ever happened before. The others were all married to-I don’t know-stocking manufacturers from New Jersey, who wouldn’t know what to do even if they found out. And they probably wouldn’t be too interested in finding out.”

The red-headed waitress stopped at the entrance to their booth, still trying. “Don’t trust him, Rose. Be smart for once in your life. The way he gets business is to keep his name in the papers. He’ll notify TV and radio and Life magazine. Big brave private eye rounds up dangerous teenage thug with his bare hands.”

“No, he won’t,” Rose said.

“And why do you care what happens to that bastard, after what he did to you-”

“I wasn’t married to him, after all. He didn’t make me any promises.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“I wasn’t dumb enough to believe them. Please. You don’t know as much as you think.”

The redheaded girl flounced off.

Rose went on to Shayne, “Vince slept with her once, just once. She thinks that makes her the local expert on Vince Donahue. Everybody thinks I’m biased about him, but I know exactly what he’s like. You thought Grace was the one he’d go for, didn’t you? Yes, you did. You weren’t even going to ask me if I knew him. But she couldn’t give him what he needed. Everybody thought it was temporary with me. As I very well know, I’m not too terrific. I do all right in bed, but I can’t carry on a conversation about nothing, like some girls. And he told people it was just an in-between stand with me, the nice thing about it was that I didn’t make him work. That’s not why it happened. He needed somebody to listen to him who loved him. Who knew he was a heel in a lot of ways, but who loved him just the same. He told me about those other girls because he couldn’t boast about them to anybody else. And after a while he cut out the other girls. Well, I don’t want to fool myself. He’s like butter on a hot skillet, and he always will be. Mr. and Mrs. Al Naples-there was a combination I couldn’t beat. What would you call Al Naples? A mobster, I reckon. Vince couldn’t ever be that important himself, because you have to work your way up and he can’t stick to one thing that long. But he could get a tiny piece of it, do you see, Mr. Shayne? — through Naples’ wife.”