Brett Halliday - Murder Spins the Wheel

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?”