Brett Halliday - Murder Spins the Wheel

“Harry never wasted much time,” Shayne said.

“No. He had a look in his eye the first time he interviewed me. I recognized it, and he knew that I recognized it, and I took the job anyway. Growing up as a minister’s daughter in a little Tennessee town-I know it’s a cliche that ministers’ children kick up their heels as soon as they get away from home, but goodness knows it happened with me. Harry was going to France for a vacation. He asked me to go with him. I jumped at the chance. I’d never been anywhere before. And I had a wonderful time. He bought me a car. Maybe I shouldn’t say it, but he-blossomed, Mike. His last divorce hit him hard. He must have known our arrangement was temporary! We never talked about it, I thought it was understood. He’s charming and fun to be with and generous and full of vitality, but I just can’t marry him!”

“Because of his age?”

“Partly. But the fact is, like it or not, I can’t close my eyes any more to the way he makes his money. Especially since we came back from Europe there have been-oh, hidden places in his days which I’ve known by instinct I shouldn’t ask him about. Conversations are broken off when I come into a room. I picked up the phone once when he was talking to somebody on the bedroom extension. That’s the only time he ever yelled at me.”

She stubbed out her cigarette. “I think I love him, whatever the word means. I want him to be happy. He says he wants to stop all the cloak-and-dagger conniving we have to go through to be together. He thinks it makes me feel sordid and humiliated, but it doesn’t at all. It’s simply not important. Mike, I know it’s asking a lot, but could you explain that to him?”

“No,” Shayne said unfeelingly. “I stopped delivering that kind of message years ago. That’s why I still have a few friends. This is between you and Harry. First you have to decide how you really feel.” He broke off. “The hell with it.”

He drank from the bottle. There was a quick buzz from the radio telephone. He picked it up.

“Yeah?”

“Mike,” Tim Rourke’s voice said soberly. “What’s with this marine operator? Never mind. I’ve got some bad news.”

“About Harry,” Shayne said flatly.

“Yeah. Do you want the worst of it first, or hear it in sequence?”

Shayne’s fingers automatically felt for a cigarette. “In sequence.”

“My man on the Daily News knows the duty sergeant in that precinct, and all it took was a phone call. You won’t like this, Mike. It’s a narcotics squeal.”

Theo’s head was close to the phone. The reporter’s brassy voice came through the instrument loudly enough for them both to hear. The color emptied out of her face.

“Where did the tip come from?” Shayne said.

“I don’t have that. These were detectives from the narcotics squad, not federal men. They were in the lobby of the Central Park West apartment house where the big guy lives, waiting for somebody in a head bandage to make a drug delivery. Harry showed up in a topcoat and a head bandage. The doorman checked on the house phone-was it OK to send up a man named Bass? He was told it was OK. The dicks wouldn’t be able to get upstairs to see the transfer, so they arrested Harry as he was getting into the elevator.”

“No,” Theo said distinctly.

“Mike?” Rourke asked.

“Go ahead,” Shayne said in a steely voice.

“The lining of his topcoat was loaded with uncut heroin. I’m sorry as hell, Mike. I know how you felt about the guy. You know how it is with heroin estimates-some pretty big figures are being passed around in dollars. They haven’t weighed it yet, but they will. They’ve got the coat.”

Shayne frowned. “They don’t have Harry?”

“I’ll say they don’t have Harry. I can’t swear to what happened. Apparently Harry was almost out on his feet to begin with, and when they found the heroin he caved in. It was a real collapse, because the narcotics boys are experts at making arrests. They do it all the time and they’re hard people to fool. They didn’t think they could take him in except in an ambulance. He was in a chair or on the floor, I don’t know which. One cop went to the phone and all of a sudden Harry came up like a rocket. He butted the cop who was watching him. I don’t know anything about his head injury, but it must have hurt like hell. Maybe the pain helped. He hit the other cop with a standing ashtray. The next second he was out the door. Now this is what makes it tough. The guy he hit with the ashtray has brain damage, and they don’t think he’s going to make it.”

“Harry, goddamn it,” Shayne said, half to himself. “You poor son of a bitch.”

“It’s still early. Until we actually get the flash there’s no law against hoping. But the cops assume they’re looking for a big heroin man who killed a cop, and that adds to the pressure. He got away in the cops’ car. This happened a couple of hours ago, maybe three-I couldn’t get an exact time. The News has a dozen men on it now. I get credit for starting it, so they’ll call me with developments as fast as they come in. I’d better hang up now so the phone will be open.”

“Yeah,” Shayne said bleakly.

There was a tiny pause. “God, Mike, did you ever think Harry would-”

“Don’t be dumb,” Shayne snapped. “Haven’t you been around long enough to spot a frame when you see one?”

He hung up.

“Here,” he said, extending the cognac bottle to Theo. “This may help.”

She almost dropped the bottle but succeeded in downing a mouthful of cognac.

“It’s not a frame-up,” she whispered. “The horrible thing is that it’s true.”

“True that Harry was selling heroin to get Doc Waters out of a hole?” Shayne said. “I don’t believe it.”

Her lips trembled. “I’m so sorry, so sorry. He hated the drug business. Mike, don’t you see? It must mean he was afraid he couldn’t raise the money on Monday. I knew things were bad, but not as bad as this. He’s lost money in grain futures. In the big real estate deal I’ve been working on there’s been delay after delay. I should have realized no one would loan him that amount of money without security, old friend or not. They don’t trust each other that much.”

“Theo, are you trying to tell me he kept a reserve of heroin to fall back on when he needed cash?”

She nodded slowly. “And I helped! Not knowingly, but there I am, right in the middle of it.”

“All right, Theo,” Shayne said. “Take your time.”

Suddenly her face went to pieces. It started quietly, but in a moment it took hold and she was weeping wildly. Shayne, one hand on the wheel, keeping an eye on the buoy, left her alone. As her sobs became more violent, she slipped off the table and crumpled to a heap on the floor.

He waited till the first paroxysm passed. Then he said harshly, with the brusqueness that is often more effective than sympathy, “Get up now, Theo. You must have known when you let Harry make love to you that it wouldn’t be simple.”

She took a despairing breath. “Why can’t it be?”

“The only time sex is simple is when you don’t see each other again after it happens, and that has drawbacks too. Get up and blow your nose. I want to hear what happened in France.”

She was quieter, but when she still didn’t move he said with deliberate roughness, “Get up, Theo. It won’t be pleasant for you, but it’s worse for other people. So long as that narcotics man is alive, Harry has a chance. Stop sniveling and tell me exactly what you know.”

She gave him one white, frightened glance, and came to her feet. Her glasses were askew and her face was streaked. She tottered against him. He gave her a little shake and kissed her lightly.