Murder Spins the Wheel Read Online Free PDF Page B

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.

5.
     
    USING THE PHONE HE HAD recently had installed in the front seat of the Buick, Shayne called the Accident Investigation Unit of the Miami police.