Brett Halliday - Murder Spins the Wheel

At the gate into the drunk tank he said, “Which of those dolls was yours, Mike? The one in the blouse and no bra, the one in the bra and no blouse, or the one in neither blouse nor bra?”

Shayne grinned at him and went in. The gate clanked shut. Steve was watching for him, his parted lips and quick breathing showing his anxiety.

“Do you mean to say you’re Mike Shayne?”

Shayne lifted a sleeping drunk off the bench beside him, and deposited him on the floor. The drunk didn’t wake up.

“You didn’t tell me your last name was Bass, either,” he said, sitting down. “I don’t think I’ve seen you since you had braces on your teeth.”

The boy groaned. “I told them I was Joe Taylor. I knew it wouldn’t work.”

In spite of the oppressive heat in the huge cell, the boy was shivering. The short ride in the patrol wagon and the shock of finding himself in jail had driven the gin out of his head. He kept picking at the crease in his slacks and yawning nervously.

“I haven’t any right to ask you,” he said, “after throwing all that film on you and socking you in the jaw and everything. But will you tell Dad I didn’t smoke any of the pot? I never even sampled it. I was scared to.”

“Right now Harry has other problems.”

Steve shook his head gloomily. “This is going to take precedence. I know from experience. He wanted me to go to college. He didn’t finish eighth grade himself, but he thinks there’s something sacred about having a B.A. So I went to college. I squeaked through. Now he wants me to get a job in some big company and sit in an air-conditioned office with the light on all day, and do what they tell me. And look glad. I just don’t see the point. I only have one life. I know I’m driving him out of his mind, but he’s driving me out of mine.”

“I want to ask some questions, Steve,” Shayne said. “Do you remember any of the things I said about Vince?”

His fingers roved uncertainly across his forehead. “Something about a stickup? Mr. Shayne, it’s not possible.”

“It’s not only possible, it happened. And then somebody drowned him, a hard thing to do to a semipro swimmer. How well did you know him?”

“He used to hang around the Lambda Phi house at college. He knew some of the brothers. The last couple of months I’ve been running into him all the time. I never went on a party with him before. That’s what I’ve got to convince Dad of. I guess somebody backed out at the last minute. He called up and wanted to know if I was busy. I didn’t know there was anything but liquor involved. But who’s going to believe that?”

“Your father may,” Shayne said. “He’s the one Vince and his buddies robbed. Vince wanted you at the party to give him an alibi. Not for the cops. For Harry. If you said you knew for a fact that he was locked in that cabin while the stickup was taking place, your father would take your word for it. That was the reason for the movies-so you’d stay put.”

Steve had begun shaking again. “I don’t know if you ever noticed Dad’s secretary?”

“Theo Moore? I met her tonight.”

“Those damn movies. Every time I think of the way I let myself get hypnotized-I can’t expect Theo to stop reading the newspapers all of a sudden. And that will be that.”

Remembering the kiss Theo had given Steve’s father, Shayne said carefully, “Have you been dating her?”

“I’ve been trying to. She puts in a lot of overtime. I doubt if she’ll be too impressed with somebody who puts in a whole evening looking at a dirty movie, when the real thing was right there under his nose. It isn’t healthy. She’ll think I’m some kind of creep.”

Shayne felt a grin trying to break through. He forced himself to say seriously, “I think I may have an out for you, Steve. Your father lost two hundred thousand bucks tonight, and naturally it rankles. If I can locate it and find out what happened to Vince, it’s going to take off a lot of the heat. In fact, I’d be willing to tell your father you worked with me on it. If he wants to figure that’s why you went to Vince’s party, I won’t disillusion him.”

Steve’s face cleared. “Mr. Shayne!”

“Wait a minute. If you actually contributed something, it would sound more convincing. I need to know who Vince has been seeing the last week or so. How about Betty? Would she know?”

“I can sure as hell ask her!” Steve said enthusiastically. “I don’t know if they were shacked up, but I think so. How should I go about it?”

“They’re going to turn us loose in a few minutes. Catch her before she disappears. Give her one drink and let her talk. If you find out anything, call me on my car phone-you can get the number from the mobile operator. Or try Tim Rourke. It’s the only Timothy Rourke in the book. I want to know about Vince’s drug habit-how long he’s had it, how much it’s been costing him, if he was pushing the stuff himself. I want to know if he’s been having conferences with anybody out of the usual run. This thing took a lot of planning, and it wasn’t worked out on the phone. They probably had to run at least one rehearsal. Nobody I’ve talked to seems to think that Vince did the staff work himself.”

“I don’t think he did either,” Steve said. “He wouldn’t want to go to that much trouble. That I’m sure of.”

As Michael Shayne and Steve BAsS came out of the station, an automobile horn across the street was tapped lightly. The sound came from a white Alfa-Romeo. There was a girl at the wheel.

“It’s Theo!” Steve exclaimed, and started toward her.

“Steve,” Shayne said, and the boy came back. “Betty’s going to be out in a minute. Don’t lose her.”

“Oh, God, that’s right. Do me a favor-ask Theo to drive you somewhere. If she sees me going off with Betty at two in the morning-”

“All right,” Shayne said.

“And if you talk to Dad before I do, I’ve found it pays to get your version out before he says anything. If you let him talk first, he thinks he’s got to stick to it to show he’s the master.”

Shayne thanked him for the advice and crossed to the white car.

“Mr. Shayne,” Theo said. “Can I give you a lift?”

“Sure.”

Shayne went around to the other side and squeezed into the bucket seat alongside her. “I have to talk to Harry, and the sooner the better.”

“Mr. Shayne, didn’t Doc Waters tell you? He flew to New York.”

“I know that, and he’s in no shape to be wandering around.”

“He certainly is not!” she said grimly. “I didn’t approve at all, but do you think he’d listen to me? I don’t understand why these people can’t wait forty-eight hours for their money, do you?” She shook the stick shift angrily. “He made me so mad! Can we go somewhere and have a drink? If I don’t talk to somebody I’ll burst.”

“I left my car on La Gorce Island,” he said. “We can talk on the way. Did he give you a New York number?”

She started the motor, then hesitated briefly. “I have the name of the man he’s seeing. It’s probably an unlisted number. It’s-well, damn it, it’s-”

She told him who Harry had gone to see. Shayne swore under his breath.

Theo said, “That was my reaction exactly.” She put the powerful little car into gear, accelerated sharply and took a corner with an expert flip of the wheel. “They had some business connection years and years ago. Harry couldn’t think of anybody who’d have that much cash on hand here in Miami. And on a jet plane, New York is just around the corner. Harry called him-he didn’t have to look up the number, he just dialed it-and then we had a mad scramble to put him on the plane.”

All at once, looking straight ahead over the wheel, she uttered a one-word obscenity.