Brett Halliday

Fourth Down to Death

CHAPTER 1

In the darkened room, Mrs. Zacharias leaned forward to crush out her cigarette. Michael Shayne, the private detective, was sitting beside her on a deep leather sofa, a drink in his hand, completely relaxed. As she sat back, her jeweled hand brushed against his leg.

Shayne’s powerfully built body screened her from her husband, who was at the movie projector. She found Shayne’s hand and passed him a crumpled piece of paper. Shayne slipped it into his pocket.

“You have to be a genius to run this damn thing,” Sid Zacharias said. “Sweetie, get Mike some more cognac while I figure it out.”

“Stay there,” Shayne told her, uncoiling.

The lights came on. Shayne collected the two highball glasses, added ice and Scotch, and poured more cognac for himself. Sid Zacharias was one of the major taxpayers in this part of the world, and his bar was stocked with excellent brands of liquor. The film slipped, and Sid swore under his breath.

“If you’ll get out of the way, maybe I can fix it,” his wife said.

“I don’t want you to fix it. I don’t even want to hear you make any suggestions. In this family it’s the man who cooks the steak and runs the movie projector.”

She smiled up at Shayne, taking the drink. “You’re not married, are you, Mike? Lucky you.”

They were in the game room of a large, showy house on Key Biscayne. Every available inch of wall space in the room was covered with framed photographs of Sid or Chan Zacharias, their animals, cars or boats. The entire biography was there on the walls, wildly out of sequence: the first mile of federally financed highway, the first bridge, the first Miami Beach condominium. A picture of Sid as an Eagle Scout hung beside Sid as the golfing companion of the Republican nominee for President; and there was Sid as the owner of the Miami professional football team. In the early photographs he looked tense and hungry, but as the money accumulated he had learned to relax. His hair had turned gray and he wore it longer and longer. His tailoring improved. His style, too, had changed over the years. His stocky body was still heavily muscled, with the beginnings of a paunch. He was as tough as ever in the important ways, but he seldom yelled any more and he had hired a Yale graduate to write the speeches he delivered to business groups. (There were several widely spaced photographs of Zacharias in white tie and tails on a dais with other important men.)

On the wall, he outnumbered his wife by four to one. Chan Zacharias was shown as a bride, giving the cameraman a bright sexy smile, on a cruise, in riding costume at a horse show. Two decades later, she was kissing an unflustered young quarterback named Ronnie James, who had just been signed by her husband at the highest bonus ever paid a rookie.

The real woman on the sofa, still lean and good-looking, her long hair as platinum as ever, watched Shayne inspect the photographs. She was wearing a pants suit and considerable jewelry, and had kicked off her shoes.

“A dreadful display,” she remarked. “One of these days I’m going to bring in the plasterers when Sid’s away, and plaster over the whole room.”

“You do that,” Zacharias said absently, struggling to thread the film, “and I’ll plaster you over, baby, only with concrete. If I didn’t have those shots on the wall, I wouldn’t believe it all happened.”

“It gives the wrong impression, Sid. People don’t realize you’re actually quite shy.”

He pressed a button and the reels began to whir. “What do you know, the damn thing works. Somebody get the lights.”

Shayne cut the lights and returned to the sofa, where he rolled the cognac around in his glass and drank.

“Now, if I can find the place,” Zacharias said. “I want you to look at two plays, Mike. This is the Boston game last Sunday. Did you see it, by any chance?”

“No, I was in L.A.”

“Ronnie James got hit twice in the first quarter by the same guy. Twice in a quarter. Ronnie’s a valuable piece of real estate, and I don’t like it when that happens.”

“I hear he’s still in the hospital.”

“Still in the hospital, still in the goddamn coma! And that’s bad news for Miami football fans, because when Ronnie James isn’t healthy we have to go to our running game. And we don’t have a running game.”

Before the signing of Ronnie James, the Miami club, an expansion team, had lost money at the rate of half a million a year. James was not only a first-class quarterback, as measured by statistics, he was a star, a draw. He always had a little crowd around him. Women agonized over the risks he ran. In James’s second professional year, ticket sales boomed and Miami nearly won its division, losing to Kansas City in the final game of the season when James injured an elbow. This year the won-lost record was four and two, and until James’s concussion Miami had seemed certain to make the playoffs.

Zacharias slowed the reel, and the blur on the screen turned into football players.

“Too far.”

He reversed, and after several false tries found the play he wanted.

“Third and fourteen, so you know he’s going to be passing. You know it, and eleven Boston players know it, weighing a total of a ton and a half.”

“Poor Ronnie,” Chan said, sitting forward.

This was the sideline movie, with a good view of the Miami backfield. The ball was snapped. The lines clashed. James dropped back, setting up for the pass.

“Watch number sixty-six,” Zacharias said.

Behind a protective semicircle of huge men, James looked small and vulnerable, like an athlete who had blundered onto the field from some less violent sport. He needed four seconds, while a Miami halfback ran a fifteen-yard down-and-in. Suddenly a defensive end with sixty-six on his white jersey ripped through the screen. One of the Miami defenders tried a clothesline jab from the side, but he knocked it away. He threw himself at James’s fragile knees, which had already been taken apart and put back together again too many times. James got rid of the ball as he went backward. It was caught for a first down. Number sixty-six landed on him hard, all knees and elbows.

Zacharias froze the action with James lying crumpled up beneath the heavier man. “He got up from that one. You may not know this sixty-six—Horace Monroe—he’s in the game of football for the pleasure of tearing people apart. You notice the way he went for Ronnie’s knee. All you have to do with that left knee is tap it to see if you get a knee jerk, and Ronnie’s back on the table for another operation.”

“How many times did they catch him last season?” Shayne asked.

“Fourteen. Those goddamn knees are the reason I pay my offensive line two hundred grand. Now we’re going back and look at Truszowski, who got beat on the play.”

Joe Truszowski, also known as Joe Truck, had been All-Pro offensive tackle two years running, and he rarely made a mistake. Now, as Zacharias reversed and came back into the action at half speed, Shayne saw the huge tackle take a blow on the earhole of his helmet and another across the face bars. Reeling away, Truszowski bumped a teammate and tied him up long enough to prevent the man from blocking number sixty-six effectively as he went through. Truszowski, recovering, threw himself against the chest of another defensive lineman and knocked him to the ground.

Zacharias ran the play again, then advanced the film rapidly and worked it back and forth until James could be seen backpedaling in another passing situation. This time Shayne watched Truszowski from the beginning. The big tackle came out of his three-point crouch and jumped at Monroe, bringing both arms up under the man’s chin. Again he absorbed a swinging forehand smash, and Monroe grabbed his pads and yanked him off-balance. He fell against Monroe’s ankles, but Monroe sidestepped and continued into the Miami backfield. He came in low, aiming at the quarterback’s knees. As Ronnie danced daintily away, Monroe sliced upward. His helmet slammed against James’s chest. The helmet continued to slide, ramming James’s face mask and driving his head backward. James was still holding the football. Both feet were off the ground. He landed badly, and the ball squirted away.

“Oof,” Zacharias said.

“A contact sport, as they say,” Mrs. Zacharias observed.

Zacharias switched off the projector. “Let’s not look at that again, it’s too painful.”

Turning on the lights, he planted one hip on the corner of the billiard table and removed his horn-rimmed glasses. He immediately looked more like the Sid Zacharias he let the public see. In none of the photographs on the wall, Shayne had noticed, had he been caught wearing glasses. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and drank some Scotch.

“What do you think, Mike?”

Shayne drew carefully on the expensive cigar he had been given. “Monroe was trying to force a fumble and send Ronnie in early, and he did both. The Boston management probably gave him a new car. If you mean was there anything funny about those two missed blocks, I’m the wrong man to ask. I’m not that much of a football nut. It looked legitimate to me.”

Chan put in, “Sid’s in a minority of one. Truck already had a fractured finger. The guy broke his nose on that second play, and he didn’t have it fixed till after the game.”

“Joe Truck has been playing pro ball for nine seasons,” Zacharias said. “He knows where every official is on every play, and if the officials don’t see it, the cameras don’t, either. Joe doesn’t get fooled twice in one quarter. After the first time, Ronnie ran at least four plays into the line. Four pileups, with Joe Truck and number sixty-six on the bottom. That’s when Joe does most of his damage. This time apparently nothing happened. Number sixty-six came right back and gave him another arm—broke his nose, true. Simple-minded people like my dear wife think that proves he couldn’t be lying down on the play.”

“I keep telling him,” Chan said to Shayne. “Joe didn’t know where he was or what he was doing. My God, even on the street he looks stoned. He’s been hit in the face too many times.”

“He’s conditioned,” her husband said impatiently. “He knows what he has to do on a pass play—keep that headhunter away from the passer. But the reason I wanted to consult you, Mike, and this isn’t really a change of subject—one of the commissioner’s gumshoes has been in town the last couple of weeks, making everybody nervous, including me. Stitch Reddick, do you know him?”

“I’ve heard the name. He’s not supposed to have much on the ball.”

“Two security men,” Zacharias said. “One thousand athletes, two hundred and sixty coaches, another five hundred front-office people. You don’t want anybody too brainy, because what if he actually found out something? Of course Stitch did get a couple of players suspended a few years ago for betting on their own teams, and maybe that means everybody else is honest. I hope so.”

“He’s been here two weeks,” Shayne said thoughtfully. “What happened two weeks ago? You beat New Orleans.”

“By seven points,” Chan said, “and the spread was nine. Everybody who bet on Miami lost their money. We were in field-goal range, and Ronnie threw an interception. A field goal would have put us over and our backers would have won.”

“Stitch wouldn’t come in unless he had more to go on than that.”

“I don’t know what he has,” Zacharias said, “and I hope nobody tells me. Maybe it’s just routine, but I’ve heard of a couple of episodes in other cities where the guy did more harm than good. At this point we start talking business.”

He picked up a manila envelope from the top of a color TV cabinet. “Whatever it is, somebody has to handle it. It can’t be me, because the way I deal with creeps like that is kick them in the ass and tell them to sue if they don’t like it. We’ve got to run our own investigation, find out what he’s after, and forestall him, if possible. My first idea was to put you on retainer. But if we go out and hire a private detective in the ordinary way, and that leaks, people are going to think we have something to conceal. Where-there’s-smoke-there’s-fire kind of thing.”

“I haven’t done any retainer work for years,” Shayne said.

“Here’s how I’d like to do it.” He pulled a stock certificate out of the envelope. “I’ll sell you a hundred shares, one-percent ownership, for a nominal sum like fifty dollars. The price doesn’t need to be public knowledge. As a partial owner, you’ll have an interest in protecting your investment. Any kind of gambling scandal would depress the value of your shares. Right now the franchise is worth around nine or ten million. Last year at this time the tag would have been a million less. A year from now? That may depend on what you can do about Stitch Reddick.”

Shayne studied him. “What you’re saying,” he said slowly, “is that you think where there’s smoke there’s fire.”

“Hell, Mike, let’s be realistic. Counting hangers-on, we’ve got a hundred and twenty people in the organization, plus wives and girl friends. We know more about the situation than anybody does in Las Vegas, and when the point spread is really out of line, you know that out of that mob of people somebody’s going to find a way to get some money down.”

“And isn’t that terrible,” Chan said sarcastically.

“All right,” her husband said. “Did Joe Truck, or anybody connected with Joe Truck, have a bet on last Sunday’s game? I want to find out before Stitch Reddick does. I don’t know anything about Truck’s private life. He’s married, that’s all I know. He gets about a fourth of what I pay the quarterback, and no endorsement money. He can’t last many more seasons, and then what? The pension doesn’t start until he’s sixty. Maybe he has some kind of grievance against Ronnie—I don’t know. I hope you’ll agree to make it your problem.”

He finished his drink. “I used to worry more about this, but I’ve got other things on my mind these days, and the players know it. I want you to be my scarecrow. Stand out in the field and keep the crows away from the corn. As soon as everybody understands that Michael Shayne is one of the owners, they’ll decide not to do anything illegal, I hope, or if they take a chance, they’ll be very, very careful.”

“One percent of nine million is ninety thousand,” Shayne said. “For that much money you don’t expect me to stand around.”

“The club is worth nine million only if somebody’s willing to pay nine million for it. This week, with Ronnie in Mercy Hospital, nobody’s making any offers. The value of your fee will depend on how well you do your work.”

Shayne started to frame a question, but broke off. “If you knew anything more about Joe Truck, you wouldn’t tell me, would you?”

Zacharias said seriously, “That’s the idea. All I want to know is what I see in the films. If Stitch Reddick wasn’t standing in the wings, I’d be tempted to let it ride. Ronnie can be pretty irresponsible at times, but one thing I know about the boy is that he can take care of himself.” He added, “But not while he’s unconscious.” He rapped his knuckles against the rail of the billiard table to take off the curse. “Knock wood. Do we have a deal, Mike?”

Shayne waited a moment. “OK. I still think the fee’s high for what I’m likely to accomplish. Don’t expect too much. If Truck actually took money for those mistakes, there’s not much chance of proving it a week later.” He stood up. “But you never know. I’ll push him a little, and see how he reacts. If I find out anything, how much do you want me to tell you?”

“As little as possible, unless there’s some action you think I ought to take. I don’t even intend to be around. I’m driving down to the Keys tonight, so I can get up early in the morning and do some spear fishing. I may not even come back for the game tomorrow.”

He took out a pen and scrawled an endorsement on the stock certificate, then put it back in the envelope and gave it to Shayne.

“I feel better already. Another drink?”

Shayne shook his head. “I’d better talk to some of the bookies before they turn off their phones.”

They shook hands. Zacharias took him to the door and wished him luck, giving the door frame a quick knock as he did so.

“Damn it, I’m getting as superstitious as my grandmother.”

The Zacharias’s house was on Ocean Drive, along the outer edge of the Key. Shayne waited until he made the turn onto Crandon Boulevard before pulling over to read the note Chan Zacharias had slipped into his hand.

It said: “More to this than meets the eye. Wait for me at tollhouse.”

CHAPTER 2

As he drove, Shayne picked up a sports broadcast on his dashboard radio, but he had missed the football news.

He tried to raise the mobile operator on his car phone, but he was too far out. After passing the toll barrier on the Rickenbacker Causeway he signaled her again. This time she answered, and he gave her several numbers where she might be able to find his old friend, Timothy Rourke, a reporter on the Miami News. Rourke was the paper’s crime specialist, but during the football season he spent much of each day lounging around the sports department, on the alert for information. He bet ten or a dozen college and professional games a weekend, and after deducting the bookie’s vigorish—the ten-percent fee on each losing bet—he usually ended up a little better than even.

Shayne locked the stock certificate in a strongbox welded to the floor beneath the front seat. Presently the phone sounded. He picked it up.

“Hey, Mike,” Rourke’s voice said cheerfully. “When’d you get back?”

“This afternoon. Where are you?”

“En route. My answering service gave your operator my mobile number. How’s that for status?”

Shayne grinned. “An answering service? A car phone? Who’s paying for all this?”

“Well, I’m not. The city desk kept complaining about the way I didn’t return their calls. Now I won’t have any excuses, is the idea. You asked about my whereabouts. I’m driving north on North Miami between 7th and 8th. At this moment I’m passing Luigi’s Big Pizza. Now I’m stopping for a red light.”

“Are you busy otherwise?”

“Very much so. I’ve just been given cocktails at a young lady’s apartment. We’re on our way to the Coq d’Or for dinner. And then if I have anything to say about it, we’ll head back to the young lady’s apartment. Don’t call me there because I doubt if I’ll have any hands free to pick up the phone.”

Shayne heard a small disturbance. Rourke continued in a moment, “Not that I’ve got full clearance on all that yet. This is our first date. You may not realize that some chicks still consider it unladylike to go to bed with a man on the first date.”

“Can you give me a moment when you get to the restaurant? You may not get a story out of it, but it could make you some dough.”

“I’ve always liked the sound of that word. What’s going on?”

“How are you betting the Miami game tomorrow?”

“I’ve got five hundred on New York at seventeen points,” Rourke said promptly. “A hell of a big spread, I know, but New York’s got the scoring power, and with James in the hospital, what are we going to use for offense?”

“I’ve been hearing about the game last Sunday. How did you do on that one?”

Rourke groaned. “Dropped a thousand. Bad afternoon for everybody. That Boston son of a bitch almost tore Ronnie’s head off. I knew from the way he went down the first time that it wasn’t his day.”

Shayne heard an exclamation in a girl’s voice, and the squeal of tires. “Tim? Take it easy.”

“I’m all right,” Rourke said. “I was up on the sidewalk briefly. I’m not used to driving one-handed. What’s this sudden interest in football?”

“All of a sudden I seem to own a small piece of the team. Is tomorrow’s game still on the board?”

Rourke sounded alarmed. “As far as I know. You’re scaring me, Mike.”

“You haven’t heard any rumors?”

There was an instant’s pause. “Mike, I’ve been drinking martinis, remember. I may be a tick slow. You mean you don’t think the Miami linemen were trying last Sunday…?”

“That’s one of the possibilities that’s been thrown at me. Have you heard that one of the commissioner’s security guys is in town?”

Rourke whistled softly. “Checking up on our little boys? What’s his name, do you know?”

“Stitch Reddick.”

“I know him! Yeah—an ex-FBI man. He worked for the Bureau for something like ten days. Mike, I’ll call a couple of people and get back to you.”

“What I want to find out is if anybody won really big last week. At the same time I don’t want to stir up anything, because I’d like to keep the action open to see what happens. Zacharias wouldn’t bring me in unless he thought it was serious. So let’s walk on our toes. Could you work it through somebody on the sports side of the paper? Not the football writer. How about Bob Lloyd—doesn’t he have gambling connections?”

“That kind of informant likes to get paid. Is there grease available?”

“If necessary, but try it the other way first. Tell Lloyd you know somebody who wants to raise some capital, and it’s a deal he can’t take to a bank. Has anybody been hot lately?”

“With extra money to invest? I get the idea. Where will you be?”

“Try the operator.”

He broke the connection as a low yellow MG came through the toll barrier snapping its headlights. It went by with a roar. Shayne started his motor and followed.

On the mainland, after turning right on Miami Avenue, the MG signaled and pulled over. Shayne parked. Cutting his motor and lights, he went forward to the MG. Mrs. Zacharias, at the wheel, was revving the motor, which raced and then idled, raced and idled. She seemed to be in somewhat the same condition herself.

“Get in, Mike, get in. I’m as mad as a burned cat, and I’ve got to blow some of it off.”

Shayne cramped himself into the low bucket seat. She jammed the stick into gear and spun her wheels getting away. Her face had a feverish glow. She was driving barefooted, her white jacket unbuttoned one button further down than when she had said goodnight to Shayne in the game room.

“I brought some cognac for you. It’s in the glove compartment. I don’t want anything. I’m too high on adrenaline. Do you know what I’d like to do to Sid? I’d like to heat a pair of pliers and take off his skin in strips.”

“What happened, Mrs. Zacharias?” Shayne looked in the glove compartment and found an unopened pint of the same cognac he had been drinking on Key Biscayne. “I thought he said he was going fishing.”

She laughed angrily. “The minute you went out the door—” She shot him a quick glance. “I shouldn’t tell you this, probably, but what the hell. He accused me of making a play for you. You didn’t get that impression, did you, Mike? He’s really and truly sick.”

“Did he see you give me the note?”

“I don’t think so. Call me Chan. I, too, am a part owner of the Miami professional team, but I own two percent, isn’t that lucky? I was supposed to be rubbing my leg against yours, for heaven’s sake, and generally carrying on like a bitch in heat. Give me an honest answer. Did I at any time—”

Shayne laughed and drank from the bottle.

She glanced at him indignantly. After a moment, losing some of her charge, she said more naturally, “Other people’s marriages! Damn it, if I did bump you once or twice, it was purely by chance, and I don’t know why I’m involving you in a family fight. We’ve been married for nineteen years, and it’s wearing a little thin.”

She braked to a stop at a red light. “I’ve changed my mind. Give me a jolt of that.”

He handed her the open bottle and she dashed some cognac down her throat. She came down hard on the gas as the light changed, and they shot forward.

“I do feel sort of aggrieved. It’s a common pattern. As soon as the husband makes his first five million, he starts wondering if he married the right wife. The idea is, Sid wants to go into politics. Am I the type to be gracious to Republican committeewomen? Quite frankly, I’m not. Now I’ll try to be a little more rational. You noticed that everything he said pointed you in the direction of Joe Truck.”

She passed a slower car, cutting back in sharply. “Joe got married in college like most pro ballplayers. He’s pretty banged up now, but when he first came into the league he was a good-looking guy. And Sid got the idea—” She sawed at the wheel. “Which has nothing to do with anything, really, it’s all ancient history, but what I’m trying to tell you is that Sid may be hoping you’ll make the connection so he can use it in court. Divorce has been hinted at. I may be maligning the bastard, but I do know that something’s definitely going on that I can’t figure out. He wants to unload the club, have you heard that?”

“I knew it was on the market last year.”

“Football’s beginning to bore him. And no football owner yet has been elected to Congress, as far as I know. He hasn’t asked my opinion. I’m a two-percent owner, but I did ninety-eight percent of the work in the early days. I worked out the schedule, scouted players, sold tickets. And it was fun! Of course it’s different now, the computers are in charge. But I can’t see just dumping the whole thing for the capital gain, after all that work and sweat. And now here’s Stitch Reddick, and Sid’s afraid of a scandal that will tarnish the image and make the property harder to sell.”

“What kind of scandal, a blown game?”

“Maybe. We don’t have those long confidential talks any more, and I honestly don’t know what’s happening in the back of his mind. But I’ve been talking to owners in some of the other cities, and I know something I don’t think Sid does.”

The ramp to the North-South Expressway loomed ahead, and the MG leaned into the long turn. As soon as they cleared into the high-speed lane the speedometer needle began to climb. Shayne drank again, letting her tell it at her own speed.

“All I could get was hints,” she said, “but from the way it sounded, once or twice Reddick has picked up something that could have been bad for everybody, and the owner was able to squash it by dealing with him direct, without going through the commissioner’s office.”

“You mean he was able to buy Reddick off?”

“I think that was what I was being told. So that may be something else you’ll be called on to handle while Sid’s swimming around underwater looking for fish.”

Shayne reached behind him, unhooked the seat belt and fastened himself in.

“I’m going too fast, as usual,” she said, and let the needle ease off to eighty. “Everybody says I’m a wild driver, but that’s the only way I stay sane. I’ll turn around in a minute. I’m about down to the nub. I’ve watched those films a few times, and the funny thing to me is that Ronnie didn’t really seem to sit down that hard. Not hard enough to put him in a six-day coma.”

“Comas are hard to fake.”

“I’d say impossible, unless he has the doctor working with him. And his doctor’s name is Prettyman. For your information, if you didn’t know it already, Ronnie James and Dr. Prettyman have often been seen drinking in the same nightclubs. They both like the looks of Miami Beach showgirls.”

The 79th Street exit was approaching. She touched her brakes.

“I know I’m reaching, Mike. But what a stunt if they could work it! Ronnie’s a bright lad, as every sports fan knows. He’s a quarterback, and you have to expect him to think like a quarterback. From the age of fourteen he’s been the hottest thing around, in high school, college and now the pros. That kind of life doesn’t make a person humble.”

“Do you have anything more definite than that?”

“Not really,” she admitted. “But Len Bishop, the club doctor, hasn’t been able to get in to see him. Of course Bishop’s a bone man. Still, he’s responsible for certifying injured players for the Tuesday list, and Ronnie’s doctor wouldn’t let him in the room.”

She completed the long loop beneath the expressway, ending up headed south.

“I’m not hoping to convince you. All I want to point out—Sid kept hammering away at Joe Truck, Joe Truck, and up to a point I have to agree that something was wrong with Joe in that game. But until I see it on videotape, I won’t believe he took money to miss a block. In the first place, what kind of moron would try to tamper with a lineman? And if anybody did, I think Joe would break him in two. He’s the old style of ballplayer. No sideburns. Prayers in the locker room.”

“How did he play the rest of the game?”

“Normal. Even very good, considering that he was going with a broken nose and a dislocated finger. Number sixty-six, the one who racked Ronnie up, left in the third quarter with a shoulder separation. He didn’t get that shaking hands.”

“How’s Truck going to react when I ask him some questions?”

“Well, Mike,” she said, “you’d better be diplomatic. He outweighs you.”

He thought about what she had told him while she slid in and out of lanes. Their exit was just ahead, and she began shifting down.

“I feel a little calmer,” she said. “Now I think I can go back and finish my conversation with Sid without using any four-letter words.”

“Did you bet on last week’s game, Chan?”

“You mean, did I, personally? My usual hundred dollars to win.”

“Who’s your bookie?”

“Sol Ambrosiano.” She smiled. “Are you going to check up on me, Mike?”

“Sooner or later. Are you and Joe Truck still friends?”

“I shouldn’t have told you anything about that! I just thought I’d better get in ahead of anybody else. Number one, it’s a long time ago. And Sid and I have a gentleman’s agreement. Tonight, for example, I know perfectly well that he isn’t going spear fishing. He’s seeing a girl.”

Coming down off the ramp, she plunged into the regular Miami traffic, taking chances that would have been foolhardy in a less powerful car.

“What do you think Sid will want to do if I find out some of his players have been working with gamblers?”

“I honestly think he won’t want to know about it, Mike. But I definitely do want to know about it, and I hope you’ll feel that your smart move would be to tell me. I’m not going fishing. I’ll be home. That’s really the main thing I wanted to say. Remember I know more about some of these players than anybody, including the coaches.”

“Where does Truck live?”

“In North Miami. He’s in the phone book, spelled T-r-u-s-z-o-w-s-k-i.”

They turned into the block where he had left his Buick. He unhooked the safety belt.

“What’s your first move going to be, Mike? I’m curious.”

“It depends on what the bookies are saying about last week’s game.”

“In other words—mind your own business, Mrs. Zacharias,” she said philosophically. “Let me see—how to put this? I have—well, a rather raunchy reputation in some circles, I suppose not entirely undeserved. But don’t make any summary judgments until you hear my side of it, OK?”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you are. The stories are ninety percent exaggerated, Mike. One final point. In the back of my dear husband’s mind, he knows Ronnie James is mixed up in this somehow. Sid took a huge amount of heat for signing Ronnie at that big bonus. Whenever Ronnie leaves training camp or misses practice, Sid’s always the one who forgives him. Ronnie’s a great vodka drinker and girl fancier, and I don’t think he believes in exercise. But still he wins games, and all the old-line people think that’s bad for football—including the commissioner. So Stitch Reddick will do himself some good with his employer if he can pin something on Ronnie. That’s what Sid wants to avoid. Will you call me?”

“Sure.”

“Take the bottle. If I walk in with an open bottle of cognac he’ll know I’ve been talking to you.”

Shayne dropped the bottle in his side pocket and returned to his own car.

CHAPTER 3

The yellow MG zoomed off as though bound for another planet.

The phone rang in Shayne’s Buick. “Mike?” the operator said, “Timothy Rourke.”

“Goddamn it,” Rourke’s voice said an instant later, “you really loused up my evening, you know that? The chick I was out with doesn’t know one end of a football from another, and she didn’t want to learn. She got tired of sitting around while I talked to people on the phone about the point spread. So now I’m free, and I blame you, man.”

“What are people saying about the point spread?”

“Do you want the facts or the rumors?”

“The facts first.”

“Well, the big local winner last week—betting on Boston, not Miami—was a guy named Ted Knapp. You may know him. He’s some kind of insurance broker.”

“I think so,” Shayne said, probing his pockets for a cigarette. “He ran one of the charity drives last year. When you say a big winner, how big?”

“Fifty thousand, minimum. You suggested talking to Bob Lloyd. He knew the answer without phoning anybody. It’s being talked about. I don’t mean there’s a consensus, the bookies are just letting each other know that the Ted Knapp situation may bear watching. With Ronnie out of that game, there was no way Miami could beat the points. Any bookie who pays off on a bet like that is going to wonder if the guy had information, and maybe he’s somebody to be worried about in the future.”

“Does Knapp have any connection with the club?”

“He brokers their insurance. That’s not necessarily suspicious—it’s the business he’s in. He hears about injuries, but after they happen, not before.”

“Was his bet last week higher than usual?”

“It had to be. That’s my one hard fact. Now for the rumors, and there are plenty of those. The game tomorrow has been put in the circle—you know, off the boards—in a couple of places—Chicago, St. Louis. There’s a logical explanation. Nobody knows enough about the backup quarterback to set a firm line. The local bookies are jumpy, but if they take the home game off the board, they lose a lot of action. The points are so pretty that plenty of money is still coming in on Miami. I couldn’t find out which way Ted Knapp is going this week. Bookies don’t like to talk about anything current—they’re afraid of starting a stampede. But go back two weeks to the New Orleans game. He won money on that. You remember—or maybe you don’t—that Ronnie threw an interception in the last quarter that made everybody in New Orleans very happy. They lost the game, but ended up on the winning side of the points. Cynical people always wonder whenever that happens. Was Ronnie tired? Professional athletes aren’t supposed to get tired. In the Kansas City game last year, did that elbow really hurt him? He hasn’t had trouble with it this year at all. None of this would matter, probably, except for his choice of companions. I know we don’t believe in guilt by association, but if he wants to associate with third-generation Italian-Americans in shaped suits, with no visible income, why doesn’t he do it in the privacy of his own apartment?”

“I’ve seen those photographs.”

“And then he enjoys himself. That’s suspicious in itself. Blond is his favorite color. He hasn’t ever raised money for crippled children.”

“Did anybody you talked to suggest that he might be faking this head injury?”

“My God, no!” Rourke exclaimed. “Is that what this is all about? You mean there’s a chance he may get in the game tomorrow? I’m going to ring off, Mike. I’ve got to call my bookie.”

“Let’s find out a little more. If you want to help—”

“I’ve got nothing better to do… unfortunately.”

“I just talked to Chan and Sid Zacharias. They didn’t tell me much, but I got the feeling that something’s about to explode. Sid had to see me the minute my plane got in, and he made the terms so good that I wouldn’t mind starting work right away. That’s fine with me—I’m just coming off two very dull weeks in fun-filled Southern California.”

“What’s your assignment?”

“Very vague. Find out what Reddick’s up to, and buy him off or neutralize him. First I want to talk to Ted Knapp, if I can find him. Then there’s an old con man’s ploy I want to try. I can’t just call Truszowski and ask him if he took a payoff to get Ronnie smeared. He’d say no. You know people in different walks of life, Tim. Can you get me a pint of blood?”

“Certainly. The corner delicatessen should carry it… Come on, man, where can I buy blood on a Saturday night?”

“It doesn’t have to be human blood. Keep in touch.”

Ted Knapp didn’t answer his phone, and Shayne went looking for him. The phone-book listing gave his address as a glass and aluminum tower on the bayfront, with a doorman, its own marina, a fountain in the lobby and closed TV security. Shayne was told that Mr. Knapp was out for the evening. Five dollars to the smooth Cuban at the desk and another five to the doorman produced the information that he could undoubtedly be found at the Biscayne Kennel Club, inasmuch as that was where the dogs were running.

The doorman looked at his watch. “If you get there before the second race, I like the five dog, Mr. Shayne. I think he’ll go off at a nice price.”

Shayne thanked him for the tip, and soon was driving north on the expressway again, this time in his own car and only five miles an hour over the posted limit.

The Biscayne Kennel Club was built on unincorporated land outside North Miami. Shayne bought a ticket to the clubhouse section. On the brightly lighted racing surface, dogs were being handled into the stalls for the start of the second race. Shayne discussed his problem with two waiters, and one, again a Cuban, was able to identify Mr. Knapp for him. As Shayne went down the aisle the bell clanged, the unconvincing artificial rabbit burst out of concealment and the dogs began the pursuit, yapping madly.

Knapp, a handsome, tanned man in his early forties, watched with a slight smile. The girl with him was much younger than he was. She screamed encouragement at number five, which had broken on top and was out in front by a length. Her excitement began to fade as the animal was overtaken in the backstretch. It came out of the turn well back and finished nowhere.

She crumpled up a handful of tickets and threw them down. “I could kill that damn doorman.”

Knapp laughed. Looking up, he saw Shayne. There was a slight gap between his front teeth, which kept him from being too good-looking.

“You’re Michael Shayne.”

“Yeah, and I’d like to talk to you about football. Privately.”

“Football happens to be one of my favorite subjects. Baby,” he said to the girl, “go out to the bar and ask for more ice cubes. I’ll join you in a minute.”

“Yes, master.”

Knapp put one hand at the back of her neck and kissed her mouth, so she would feel less piqued at being sent away.

“Do you want to bet on the next race?” she asked.

“Let’s watch this one. The sixth is when we get even.”

She squeezed past Shayne with an upward glance through extra-long eyelashes, and Shayne took her seat. She had long red hair and was tidily built, with each set of curves merging musically with every other. Knapp watched until she passed out of sight at the top of the aisle.

“Life gets sweeter and sweeter. Cigarette, Shayne?”

Shayne accepted a cigarette from a silver case and Knapp lit it for him.

“Football,” he said. “A private detective. I have a feeling this may be something I don’t want to hear.”

“I understand you beat the bookies for fifty thousand on the Miami-Boston game last week.”

Knapp winced. “They beat me on a couple of others, but never mind that. How do you know? I hope it’s not common knowledge.”

Shayne breathed out smoke. “A friend of mine on the News, Tim Rourke, found out for me. All it took was a phone call.”

“A friend of yours on the News. You don’t take long to get to the point, do you, Shayne? A well-known Miami businessman, ex-president of the Junior Chamber of Commerce, cleans up by betting heavily against the home team. Very unpatriotic of me, as well as very illegal. Now you’d like me to explain my betting methods, and in return you’ll persuade this friend on the News not to use the story.”

“Something like that,” Shayne said evenly. “I really doubt if you’d get arrested.”

“I doubt it, too. But I don’t want the bookies to hang a ceiling on me. You’re not working for the league, are you?”

“No, for Zacharias.”

Knapp shook the ash from his cigarette. “I suppose he’s worried about Stitch Reddick.”

“That’s one of the things he’s worried about. He’s also wondering if anybody’s been bribing his football players.”

“Now, Shayne,” Knapp said easily. “Bribing football players is against the law, and that’s one law they enforce. You know as well as I do that it doesn’t happen very often, because it’s difficult and dangerous and there’s no guarantee that it’ll work. The only person who might try is a layoff bookie with too much action on one side of the teeter-totter. My personal opinion is that a book would have to be unbalanced by at least a million dollars to make it worthwhile, and even then the guy would have to be slightly insane.”

“Do you usually bet as much as fifty thousand on one game?”

Knapp shook his head impatiently. “That was a special situation. I go high maybe four or five times a season, when I see something I really like. I can usually hide it by going out of town, but the only place you can get important money against Miami is here in Miami. The book’s always out of balance because that’s how fans are. Sid’s a friend of mine. Does he know about this?”

“Not from me.”

“I don’t want him to get any wrong ideas.… I see I’ll have to tell you the story of my life.”

“Boil it down,” Shayne said. “I’m only interested in the last couple of weeks.”

Knapp looked at his cigarette with distaste and stubbed it out. “I’ve got to start cutting down on the damn things. Shayne, how many people do you know who switch, I mean who switch completely around, at the age of forty-one? I’m forty-four now. Three years ago two things happened. I paid a tax on an income of a third of a million dollars, and my wife left me. She said I was despicable. It shocked the hell out of me. I did some thinking about the insurance business. Everybody needs insurance, unless you drop out of the world completely. But it’s a bet, isn’t it? You bet the company your house won’t catch on fire, and if you live in the right part of town they give you good odds.”

The dogs in the third race had begun their hopeless chase of the make-believe rabbit. For a moment there was too much noise for Knapp to continue.

“For the company it’s a sure thing,” he said after one dog had beaten the others to the wire and the excitement subsided. “No careful insurance company can ever go bankrupt. I wore a dark suit, a white shirt, a dark blue tie, every working day of my life. My only vice, and I mean that literally, was betting on football pools. A dollar or two a week. The day my wife moved out I hit the pool for seventy-five dollars. I wore a bow tie to work the next day—everybody in the office was astonished. I had four martinis before lunch, met my first real-life bookmaker, bet the seventy-five on a horse that was running at Tropical, the horse came in for me, and here I am. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. Each day something different. I heard somebody say once, ‘The next best thing to winning is losing.’”

Shayne shifted his body impatiently, and Knapp said, “I have a reason for telling you this. I’m selling my business. I don’t know yet what I’m going to do—I have several prospects. Now if I get labeled as the swinger who won X number of dollars when Ronnie James went into his coma, it’ll close out some of my options. That’s why I’m glad to cooperate with you.”

“I’m always glad to get cooperation,” Shayne said. “What made you so sure Ronnie James was going to be dumped?”

Knapp looked distressed. “I can’t see into the future. Let me scotch that idea right now. I was betting the points, the probabilities. Don’t forget, I’m on the outside.”

“The outside of football, or of bookmaking?”

“Both. I have to beat the vigorish to break even. All I ever try to do is win three bets out of five. The Vegas boys set the opening line on the basis of the best information available Monday morning. The spread changes as more information comes in. I try to keep my information fresher than theirs. Sometimes I hear things that never get reflected in the official line at all. That’s all there is to it, nothing very sinister. I have contacts on most of the major clubs. Needless to say, the one thing I don’t intend to tell you is who they are. I get a daily injury report. Morale—if there’s any dissension among the players, I know about it. Have the coaches come up with any bright ideas for new plays or formations?”

“Specifically,” Shayne said, “last Sunday, Boston against Miami—you must have had something really solid.”

“But I didn’t. It wasn’t one big thing, but a combination of little things. I work it both ways, and one of my best sources happens to be in Boston. That man has yet to give me a bad steer. One of their wide receivers had been hobbling around on a twisted ankle. He was ready last Sunday, and that’s only one of the things Jimmy the Greek didn’t know. James humiliated Boston the last time out by something like forty-two points. So the Boston front four was psyched up to hurt him whenever they got in. On the Miami side, Ronnie skipped Wednesday’s practice. Most people don’t pay attention to that any more, but I do, because it irritates the linemen. They’re doing grass drills while he’s sipping vodka and lemon somewhere, surrounded by willing chicks in bikinis. Football’s a weird game. It doesn’t take much to dull the edge. And you can’t concentrate on football when you know that a shoofly from the league office is nosing around looking for violations. I admit that when I heard Stitch Reddick was in town I made sure it was passed around so all the players knew it.”

“Is that all?”

Knapp hesitated. “What kind of terms are you on with Sid and Chan?”

“They’re clients.”

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s Chan’s club. She held it together in the lean days when Sid was ready to drop it. Sid’s around more now, but she still comes on like the owner. And she’s not the owner, you understand. There are cross currents there. Sid’s made some decisions for no other reason than to show her he’s the one who has the power to make decisions. Plus”—he stopped and took out his cigarette case, selected another cigarette and lit it—“owners, especially women, and especially women who only own two or three hundred shares out of ten thousand, ought to stay away from the players, and Chan never has.”

“She made a big point of telling me about that.”

Knapp looked surprised. “She told you about Ronnie?”

“What about Ronnie?”

“I started this,” Knapp said glumly. After one puff on his new cigarette, he put it out. “She’s met him after practice a few times. I’m sorry to say that’s the kind of thing I look for. If the quarterback’s seeing the owner’s wife, how will it affect the points? Friday afternoon there was a fight of some kind in the trainer’s room. The team doctor, Len Bishop, tried to break it up, and he caught a fist or an elbow. He was wearing a very colorful eye for a couple of days. That’s the complete story, Shayne. A black eye, a skipped practice, Stitch Reddick in town. Maxwell, the place-kicker, had diarrhea Thursday. On the other side, all the key Boston players were healthy and the team was really up for the game. I decided to make this one of my big ones. Even if Ronnie hadn’t been clobbered I would have gone home with the money, I think.”

“Who do you like tomorrow?”

“Which way I go may depend on you, Shayne. Are you going to unsettle things further, or calm everybody down? Unless there’s some good indication by noon tomorrow, I may sit it out.”

Shayne considered. It sounded plausible, and it might even be true. Knapp’s fingers kept picking at the crease in his slacks to keep himself from reaching for a cigarette.

“Do you know what Reddick has been working on?” Shayne asked him.

“No. He’s a great man for tapping phones, and I’m not even dialing for a weather report until he leaves town. I’ve got two or three ideas, things I’d look into if I were you, but one area I wouldn’t waste any time on is Ted Knapp—after getting all that money down, did he do something to make sure he won? I know the answer to that. He didn’t.”

“All right, thanks,” Shayne said, standing up. “I may have more questions for you after I hear what other people are saying.”

“Stick around to the sixth. I can give you a winner.”

“I haven’t bet on a dog race in years,” Shayne said. “I don’t put money in slot machines, either.”

Knapp’s girl looked at Shayne sleepily as he approached the bar.

“He’s free,” Shayne told her.

“I didn’t realize who you were at first,” she said. “Do you feel like buying me a drink?”

“No,” Shayne said, and went past.

CHAPTER 4

Timothy Rourke’s car, a scarred Chevy with one functioning headlight, pulled into the shopping center and drew up beside Shayne’s Buick. Rourke got out, a tall, skinny figure with a nervous way of flapping his hands as he walked. His usual cigarette was pasted to the corner of his mouth. He had been wearing a necktie earlier, but he had pulled it off and stuffed it into a jacket pocket.

He moved in beside Shayne. “I got the blood you wanted. What do we do with it, drink it?”

Shayne said absently, “There’s some cognac in the glove compartment if you want that.”

“I brought martinis, thanks, and I’ll have to drink them fast before they get warm.”

Through Nikon binoculars, Shayne was studying the lighted windows of a house across the street from the shopping center. It was a low stucco structure on a narrow lot. The front lawn needed attention. Joe Truszowski, the Miami All-Pro offensive tackle, lived here, and in another moment Shayne intended to go in and ask him how much he’d been paid to miss two crucial blocks against Boston.

“Don’t you want to know where I got the blood?” Rourke said. “I asked a few friends, and nobody had any suggestions. All the butcher shops were closed. I don’t know any chicken farmers.”

Shayne moved the glasses to the line of cars along the curb. After a moment he settled on a black Oldsmobile hardtop with Georgia plates and two radio aerials. Light from the shopping-center sign glittered from the sloping rear window and kept Shayne from seeing inside.

He lowered the glasses. “Sorry, Tim, I was thinking of something else. Where’d you get it?”

“It’s mine,” Rourke said gloomily. “I had a doctor draw it off for me. I’ve been drinking since noon, so it’ll probably test out at about eighty proof.” He took a plastic squeeze bottle out of a paper bag. “I take it you’re thinking of working the old cackle-bladder routine, right? The con man wants to cool out the mark. Somebody shoots the con man with a gun loaded with blanks. He’s carrying the cackle bladder in his shirt pocket. He breaks it, blood spurts all over and the mark catches the first plane out of town.”

“That’s the idea. Zacharias thinks Joe Truck hesitated on those two plays. The theory is that after nine years in the pit his brains have been scrambled, and so it couldn’t have been his own idea. The few linemen I know seem to be pretty intelligent people, but I want to check it out. I should be able to get him to throw a punch. I’ll hit the floor, and if I’m bleeding badly enough it may scare him into making a phone call.”

“That’s the way I thought your mind was working,” Rourke said, producing a flat three-pack of rubber contraceptives. “The bottle’s going to be hard to palm. Fill one of these. And I stopped at a novelty store, in case you want to make it a real production.”

He went into his bag again and brought out a plastic wound. “Spit on the back and it stays on by suction.” He clapped it on his own forehead and adjusted the rearview mirror to study the result. “I’d say it looks more like a knife wound, but slosh on the blood and he won’t know the difference.”

“The blood’s enough,” Shayne said, checking the front of the house again through his field glasses.

He shifted the glasses quickly to the black car with the double aerials. A woman, partially hidden by the bole of a palm tree, was looking into the front seat.

He started his motor. “That black car, Tim… double aerials…”

“What about it?”

Shayne drove to the lot exit, where he stopped again and used the glasses. He still couldn’t see through the car’s back window, but the woman was now in focus, a pretty girl in slacks, somewhat plump, with a high pile of brown hair. Leaning down, she was gesturing angrily at someone in the car.

Shayne passed Rourke the glasses.

“Don’t know her,” Rourke reported in a moment.

She was shouting now, shaking the door handle and hammering with her other fist on the closed glass. Shayne caught an occasional snatch of shrill invective. Without looking away from the scene, he fished out a cigarette and lit it, using his dashboard lighter.

“What the hell?” Rourke said. “The door’s locked. Why doesn’t he just drive away?”

“What’s Stitch Reddick’s home base? Atlanta, isn’t it?”

Rourke swung the glasses. “Yeah. Georgia plates.”

The woman took off one high-heeled shoe and pounded on the window. When the glass didn’t break, she raced across to a convertible parked in the Truszowski driveway, yanked open the luggage hatch and came up a second or two later with a lug wrench.

“If that’s Stitch,” Rourke said, “maybe we ought to break this up before somebody gets hurt.”

Shayne continued to lean on the wheel, smoking. The woman approached the black Olds, running erratically in her one shoe. She swung the wrench on the run. It broke the window on the driver’s side. She raced around the car. After knocking out that window she started on the windshield, keeping up a continuous flow of threats and obscenities.

“She’s going to wreck that car,” Rourke observed.

“Yeah, looks like it,” Shayne agreed, unconcerned.

Finally the front door of the Olds opened and a man jumped out. She had been waiting for this. Reaching in through the broken window, she unlocked the door and snatched up a tape recorder from the front seat. She was backing out when the man grabbed her.

She backed into him hard, using her hips, and flailed at the car roof with the recorder. He managed to swing her around, and she hit him once with the recorder and once with the cutting edge of her hand.

“That’s Stitch,” Rourke said, peering through the glasses. “Cute little mustache.”

Reddick came back at the woman and caught a knee in the stomach. She aimed another vicious chop at the side of his neck, but now he knew what kind of fight he was in. Ducking, he took it high. She threw the recorder to the sidewalk and began stamping on it. Reddick connected with a right, sending her staggering back against the car. When he bent down to retrieve the flat little box, she kicked him in the head.

Rourke looked around. “Mike, those people are going to kill each other!”

“Maybe you’re right.”

He put the Buick in gear and rolled out of the parking lot. He didn’t hurry, and by the time he pulled up behind the Oldsmobile the fight was over.

Reddick was thinner than he had looked from a distance. His cheeks were deeply hollowed. Everything about him, even his narrow mustache, was disarranged. His head was bleeding.

He wrestled the woman around, one of her arms in both hands. As he turned her toward the car, he lifted cruelly. She was stamping blindly, in the hope of getting his instep with her sharp heel, but she had lost some of her steam. The battered tape recorder had broken apart on the sidewalk.

“You’re going to regret this,” Reddick snarled at her. “Maybe you don’t know who I am… maybe you’re about to find out. You’ll get six months for this, and I’ll personally see to that!”

Shayne, coming around the Olds, said mildly, “Take it easy, Stitch. You don’t want to arrest anybody.”

Reddick turned without letting go of the woman’s arm. He looked past Shayne and saw Tim Rourke, with the gory plastic wound still stuck to his forehead.

“So I don’t want to arrest anybody?” he repeated. “Suppose you tell me why not.”

“Former FBI men aren’t supposed to let frail women beat them up.”

“Let me tell you she’s not so goddamned frail,” Reddick growled. Then: “That’s Tim Rourke. Do I know you?”

“I’m Michael Shayne, and we’re both trying to keep the pro game honest. Who’s the girl?”

Reddick gave her a vicious shake. “I don’t know who the hell she is. I was parked here minding my own business, and all of a sudden she began banging on the window. Will you look at the goddamn car?”

He relaxed his grip slightly, and she tried to twist away. He clamped down again and made her whimper.

“I’m not through with you, baby, not by a long shot.”

“You stinking bastard,” she said, wriggling. “Let go!”

“Not before we have a long heart-to-heart talk.”

“I’d like to be included in that,” Shayne said. “Let’s see if we can retrieve something. A little less pressure, Stitch.”

Reddick snarled and twisted harder. “I’d like to pull her goddamn arm out of the goddamn socket.”

Shayne took Reddick’s neck from the side in one hand and squeezed. Reddick let go of the woman.

“Jesus,” he said in disgust.

“What’s your name?” Shayne asked her.

She said sullenly, “Bea Truszowski.”

She was looking for a way through, but Shayne and Reddick had her blocked against the car, with Rourke backing them up. She was breathing hard, her breasts rising and falling inside a tight black jersey. Her hair had pulled loose, and one long dark strand fell alongside her face.

“Then you’re Joe’s wife,” Shayne said. “Is somebody inside talking to him?”

“I don’t have X-ray vision. I was supposed to go to the movies, and then at the last minute I didn’t feel like it and came home.”

“And you found a league security agent sitting outside your house taping a conversation.”

She cut her eyes at Reddick. “Gee, is that who it is? I didn’t know…”

Reddick began putting himself back together, brushing off his clothes and finishing with a quick flick at his mustache to be sure the hairs were all growing the right way. He touched his temple, and looked at the blood on his hand.

“You bitch. People who hit me always end up sorry. You wrecked a valuable piece of recording equipment, and I suppose you think that’s going to get Joe off the hook. Anything but. I know who that is in there, and that’s all I need. I can get Joe kicked into civilian life like that.” He snapped his fingers.

“You do that, buster,” she said, “and the next time you get a cut forehead it’s going all the way through.”

“Don’t threaten me. You don’t have anything to threaten me with but physical violence, and I can protect myself against that, I assure you.”

He wavered suddenly and slumped against the fender. “You know how it is after a fight, Shayne. You feel—drained. You don’t happen to have something to drink, do you?”

“Tim, the man needs a drink.”

“We have cognac,” Rourke said, “and then we have some warm gin.”

“Gin,” Reddick said.

Rourke passed him a flask. Reddick gave Shayne an unfriendly look as he raised it to his lips.

“And I’ll get around to you in a minute. Don’t tell me you couldn’t have broken that up before she destroyed the evidence.”

He drank deeply, and coughed up some of the last mouthful.

“Warm—I call it hot.”

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and drank again. “Well,” he said, returning the flask to Rourke, “in one way I’m glad we’ve got a newspaperman here. Rourke, you may have to vouch for the fact that it wasn’t my fault this fell apart. How many times do you think I get within smelling distance of a thing like this? Not too often. This was real courtroom evidence, and a woman had to come along and louse it up for me. Story of my life.”

“Who’s in there, Stitch?” Shayne asked.

“In due time, in due time. All will be revealed. Which Zacharias are you working for—Mr. or Mrs.?”

“We’ll have to talk about that sometime.”

“Well, I can’t force you to use your head instead of your fists, but this is one time when I advise you to think before you swing.” He looked at Shayne shrewdly. “I’ll bet you twenty-five bucks it was Chan that hired you, right?”

“You’d better be on your way,” Shayne said. “You’ve got insurance papers to fill out.”

“I doubt if the insurance is going to cover it,” he said, looking at his car. Then he gave a high-pitched laugh. “I don’t know why Chan’s so worked up about me. I’m harmless. I had all my teeth pulled years ago. But you’re right, this is down the drain. Why cry over smashed tape recorders? You can have the tape, if you think you can get anything out of it. But they only spoke about two words before the bitch started screaming. So goodbye, everybody. Things are breaking in six different places. Bea, you’d be a more desirable female if you didn’t fight so dirty.”

She said hesitantly, and with a complete change of tone, “Give Joe a chance, will you? He can explain—”

“Kid, believe me, it’s out of my hands. I’m an agreeable slob, and usually I’ll listen to any reasonable proposition. I don’t enjoy wrecking people’s careers. But did you ever try to stop a skyrocket after it’s out of the tube?”

“Please…?”

“Baby, relax. I really think Joe’s going to make it. When something is big enough, there’s a conspiracy of silence and everybody benefits. And this, in my humble opinion, is big. Remember I said that, Rourke.”

“You aren’t trying to do too many things at once, are you, Stitch?” Shayne said.

“That’s a failing of mine, I know, but I can’t seem to help myself.”

He found a pair of bathing trunks in the back seat and wrapped it around one fist to sweep the slivers of glass off the front seat. “One final word. Tell Chan it may be too late. If you want to borrow the skyrocket metaphor, feel free. I’m willing to be quoted.”

He got in, slammed the door with a tinkle of glass and leaned all the way over to address Shayne through the open window. “You’ve got a pretty good average, I understand. But football’s my subject. I’m the expert. Next time stay on the sidelines and let me handle it.”

“Sure, Stitch,” Shayne said evenly.

Reddick drove off.

“Stitch Reddick, all right,” Rourke commented. “He doesn’t try to be a nice guy because nice guys finish last.”

The block was quiet. Bea Truszowski limped to her other shoe and bent down to put it on. As she came erect she touched her forehead.

“I’m going to faint,” she announced in a whisper.

She fell against Shayne. He caught her under the arms, feeling the impact of her breasts.

“I don’t believe you, Bea,” he said, holding her away from him. “You’re not the type. You handled Stitch Reddick very well. But this may not be as serious as it seems. The owners want to hold the club together through the season, and the last thing they want is trouble.”

She looked up at him, and then at Rourke. “He’s a newspaper reporter.”

“I’m a newspaper reporter,” Rourke agreed, “but I don’t print everything I hear. I’ve done very well by Mike’s rules, and this is his baby. I’ve also got some money on the game tomorrow, which gives me an interest.”

“Then, great,” she said, pulling away from Shayne. “Goodnight, fellows. Nice to’ve met you.”

“We’re not leaving,” Shayne said. “Give me your house keys.”

“You’re crazy. How could I do that, even if I thought it was a good idea? Joe’d clobber me.”

“We’ve wasted enough time, Bea. Who’s in there with him?”

“How should I know who it is! He told me I was making him nervous, to go to the movies. I do what he tells me the night before a game. He has different ways of concentrating. But there was something about the way he said it… What’s everybody flocking around for, anyway?”

“People think he let the pass-rush through last week so they could get the quarterback.”

She gave him an appalled look, her mouth open. Whirling suddenly, she darted into the street. Shayne overtook her in two strides. She started a yell.

“Joe—”

Shayne hit her. Her eyelids fluttered, and this time there was no question that she was gone.

Rourke held her while Shayne went through the pockets of her tight slacks and found a leather key case.

“I think you got a tooth,” Rourke observed.

“It’s a rough sport. There’s some heavy cord in the back seat. Tie her up and gag her with something so she can’t yell.”

He picked her up and pushed her into the Buick. While Rourke was tying her wrists together, Shayne unlocked the trunk and took out two cameras, one a small German 16 mm. loaded with film so sensitive it could take high-definition pictures by starlight, the other an old-fashioned Speed Graphic with a flash attachment. He handed the smaller camera to Rourke.

“If I work this right, someone’s going to skin out of there in about a minute. Try to get his picture.”

He unrolled a prophylactic and partially filled it with blood from the squeeze bottle, leaving enough slack so he could loop the open end around one finger.

“Don’t forget,” Rourke said. “Football players are paid to be brutal.”

Holding the big camera in his left hand, with the blood-filled sheath concealed against the flash holder, Shayne crossed the Truszowskis’ yard to the front porch.

CHAPTER 5

The key turned in the lock, but the door had been bolted from inside.

Shayne circled the house, moving carefully. Hearing a woman speaking in a low husky whisper, he eased up to a lighted window and looked in through the tilted slats of a horizontal blind. He saw a small cluttered living room, with plastic furniture that looked as though it had been bought with green stamps. The voice came from a TV set near the window, and as Shayne moved on, it continued to whisper about the sexual rewards open to men who were bold enough to wear a certain perfumed after-shave lotion.

He found the back door locked. He sorted through the keys, but none of them worked. Setting down the camera and keeping the prophylactic cupped in his left hand, he went to his picks. In a minute, he heard a faint click as the tumblers spilled over.

He tried the door again, and it opened.

He stepped quietly into a dark crowded hall. A refrigerator was purring calmly near the doorway to the kitchen.

“The thing of it is, Lou,” a voice in the kitchen said nasally, “I don’t know him that well.”

“The kicker’s the guy we’ve got to reach,” another male voice said. “He has something to say about do we or don’t we come in under the points.”

There was a short pause, and the sound of bodies shifting.

The first voice said, “If I thought I could help you I’d say yes. I could use the bread. But this Maxwell’s funny—a funny character. He just doesn’t socialize.”

“Joe, baby, we’ve got this cat scouted. I hate to involve anybody else, to tell you the truth, but we can’t get near him, and we been trying all year.”

“Lou, how would I even introduce it?”

“The guy’s hurting,” Lou explained. “That part we arranged. Like he’s got to come up with five G’s in a hurry or somebody near and dear goes to jail. He’s worrying, Joe; he’s sick to his stomach worrying where he can get his fingers on five thousand. That’s why he don’t get in on the horseplay in the showers or join the boys for a beer. Get him off in the can or something and say, ‘Maxie,’ or whatever you call him, ‘I don’t like the attitude. Your ass is dragging. Something’s bothering you, isn’t it? I don’t like to butt in, but you’re going to start missing those goalposts, and this is my livelihood.’”

“He’s been kicking fine, Lou. Been booming them in.”

“Put it in your own words,” Lou said impatiently. “Cut the dialogue according to the situation. ‘You got those big circles under the eyes, Maxie, and I want you to keep healthy so we can win. Can I help you with any money, perhaps?’ I promise he’ll listen. See, he’s got this great average, the best in the league, and if the situation arises tomorrow where a kick will put Miami over the points, he can go to the right or the left a few yards and the average can absorb it.”

“Maxie knows about the birds and the bees.”

“And the chances are we won’t even need him.”

He broke off, and the atmosphere changed slightly. “Are you sure the doors are locked?”

“That’s the refrigerator,” Joe said. “It makes that kind of humming noise.”

A chair scraped. Shayne drifted forward, his camera raised.

As he appeared in the doorway, two faces looked around at him, startled. Joe Truck didn’t seem especially large, but the chair he was in looked very small. He needed a shave. His nose, which had been broken the previous Sunday, was hidden beneath a mass of dirty tape. His eyes looked out from beneath a ridge of scar tissue, but they didn’t seem to be focussed on anything. Two of his fingers protruded at curious angles.

The man across the table from him was something else. He was short and dark, in a black suit of rough silk, and he could clearly be mean if he thought it was necessary. He raised one hand to hide from the camera.

The flash bulb blew, sending a blaze of light over the two men and the objects on the table—a glass of milk in front of Joe Truck, an empty shot glass and a bottle of Canadian whiskey, a white envelope from which a sheaf of money had spilled onto the tablecloth.

Shayne grinned. “Thanks for holding still. That should make a nice sharp print.”

Lou snapped, “Can we deal?”

“Not on this, Lou.”

“There’s some nice bread around. Ask me about it.”

“Sorry, I’m already signed up.”

“Joe, grab him, for God’s sake!”

Joe Truck blinked up at Shayne without moving. Shayne started to turn, and a short .38 pistol appeared in Lou’s hand.

“Don’t go. I get hysterical when people sneak up on me and take my picture. This wouldn’t be a first for me. I’ve shot people before.”

“I doubt it,” Shayne said. “You’re a runner, kid. You carry the money, and if somebody walks in at the wrong time, you’re the one who gets slammed. Put it away before you shoot yourself in the foot.”

Lou fired into the door frame an inch from Shayne’s shoulder.

“Careful,” Truck said mildly, still without moving. “My wife won’t appreciate it if she has to mop a lot of blood off the kitchen floor. And I got some close neighbors here. One shot—it’s a car backfiring. Two shots—it’s a gun.”

Lou hissed, “Get the camera, stupid.”

“If you want it that much, get it yourself.”

The little eyes above the nose bandage remained sleepy and indifferent. Lou kicked back his chair and came toward Shayne in a mincing movement, the gun advanced.

“After thinking it over,” Shayne said easily, “I’ll accept your offer. You get the picture, I forget that I heard you trying to tempt an innocent lineman, and I get the envelope on the table.”

“Drop the camera. Kick it over.”

Shayne shrugged. Suddenly he flicked his eyes at Truck, who was still in his chair. No football player would have gone for the fake, but Lou’s gun jerked. Jumping in close, Shayne swung the camera and stamped down hard at one of the pointed shoes. Lou tried to bring the gun back. Shayne had his wrist in his right hand. There was nothing in the way of muscle beneath Lou’s black suit. Shayne pulled the gun up and let it scrape across his own forehead.

Then, with a hard downward twist, he wrenched the gun out of Lou’s grasp and sent it spinning across the kitchen. The camera dropped. He staggered past Lou, touched his head and fell on the palm of the hand that was holding the blood-filled condom.

Tim Rourke’s blood squirted out around him. He twitched, stuffing the condom inside his shirt, and lay still.

“Jee-sus!” Lou said fervently.

“You’re tougher than you look,” Truck said. “I’m impressed.”

Lou turned Shayne on his back and knelt beside him. Shayne was breathing raspily, his eyes all but closed. Looking up through a bloody haze, he saw a sallow, anxious face swimming above him.

“I didn’t think I hit him that hard,” Lou said. “Who the hell is he, some newspaper jerk?”

“That’s Mike Shayne.”

“The detective?” He stood up, and reached for a paper napkin to wipe the blood off his fingers. “Talk about mopping up the kitchen. This cat they’ll believe without the picture. He saw the dough on the table.”

“Why get so excited? I always keep cash around to pay the paperboy. You stopped in for my autograph, and we talked football. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Except that my name’s Mangione, and Little Jimmy Mangione of Bergen County, New Jersey, is my father’s brother. We’ll be convicted before we can say a word.”

“On what evidence?”

“I’m not talking about evidence, dummy! In the papers! On TV! The name is all they need. You think Jimmy Mangione has any rights? As for you, boy, you’re off that payroll, as of tomorrow.”

“I don’t see it. I was feeling you out. You didn’t really think I’d bribe Maxwell for you, did you?”

“Nobody’s going to buy it! It’s idiotic! Come on, help me think. Did the club hire him, or who?”

“What difference does it make?”

“If he’s a free agent, we could put some pressure on and see if he’d go with it.”

“He’s supposed to be a hard man to move.”

“It’s your house,” Lou said, his voice climbing. “I didn’t want to meet here. What are we going to do with him?”

Truck thought for a moment. “If he’s working for Sid, it should be OK. He won’t call a press conference. We can talk it over and work something out.”

“Maybe. Maybe. Think about it, will you? How can you sit there digesting your food with something like this going on? He has to be hit, don’t you realize? For both our sakes, and we do it together.”

“You’re nuts.”

Lou pulled at his necktie. “We can’t just drop him in a hallway. This type of person don’t forget it when somebody slaps him with a .38. Look at that blood, will you? Listen to the way he’s breathing. I can’t move him myself. We’ll drive out in the Glades somewhere and put him in. I say we ought to use a couple of slugs to make sure, but we can talk about it on the way. Put on your goddamn shoes.”

“I don’t see—”

There was a note of panic in Lou’s voice. “What’s my uncle going to do if he sees his name in the papers again? God, does he hate that kind of story! Every shape and variety of fuzz starts following him around, embarrassing the family, and he can’t do business. And you know who he’s going to blame.”

“You?”

“Right, he’s going to blame me, and he’s got a hair-trigger temper. It’s not as bad as it was once, but man—”

He picked up the bills on the table and thrust them into his pocket. Truck leaned forward.

“Where are you taking that?”

“I need it, under the circumstances.”

Joe’s tongue made a clucking sound. “What about the game tomorrow? Those bets are down.”

Lou rubbed his forehead. “You’re right.” He slapped the envelope on the table. “Another five for you, another five for Maxie, if we beat the points. Now will you move? What if your wife walks out in the middle of the movie?”

“She never did that in her life.”

Truck bent over to put on a pair of sneakers. Lou retrieved his revolver. As he came back, jerking his hands with impatience to get underway, he slipped in the blood slick. He landed beside Shayne, coming down hard on the little bones at the base of his spine. The flat of his hand slapped in the blood.

“What’s the matter, can’t you stay on your feet?” Truck said.

Lou maneuvered, trying to keep his other hand from going into the blood, and was about to pull himself up when there was a sudden wild howl.

Shayne turned his head, but neither of the others saw the movement. Lou’s unbuttoned jacket had brushed against a kitchen chair. The howl wavered and broke off as he stood up.

“What was that?” he said excitedly. “Did you hear that, Joe? What was it, a siren?”

Truck rose slowly. He had been impressive sitting down. On his feet, surrounded by kitchen appliances and furniture on an ordinary human scale, he was a monster.

“That was feedback,” he said.

Lou took a step backward. His heel shot out to one side, but he sawed at the air and kept his balance.

“What are you talking about—’feedback’? Joe, we’ve got to get out of here. Work out the details later.”

Truck had been conditioned to move fast for short distances. Lou darted back, but the huge lineman caught him with a quick lunge.

“What have you got inside the coat?”

Gathering Lou’s shirtfront in one hand, he lifted the smaller man and felt inside the black silk jacket. His hand came out holding a tape recorder.

“Insurance, Joe,” Lou said, his voice wavering. “Like a receipt for the money, to make sure everybody performs. You’re dealing with football players, six-six, two hundred and fifty pounds. They take your money and laugh at you, and what can you do?”

“You taped the whole thing…”

“Joe, as I say—for insurance. Everybody does it. With you I shouldn’t have bothered.”

“And next time you wanted me to do something, you wouldn’t have to pay me. I’d have to do it, or Zacharias would get a tape in the mail.”

Lou protested, “We always pay people! I’m under instructions. We’ve got a regular way, Joe, cards on the table. This operation is clean, I mean it. Money’s no problem. If you don’t dig the price I’ll bump it a thousand. Don’t blow this out of proportion. We’ve still got Shayne to worry about.”

Truck examined the tape recorder, pressed one button and then another, and erased the damaging conversation.

“That does it, then, Joe,” Lou said. “Now we can get on with—”

He jerked like a puppet as the phone rang. Truck made sure the erasure was complete before putting down the recorder to pick up the phone.

“Yeah.”

Shayne heard a metallic rasp. Truck answered in monosyllables.

“‘Too bad’ is right. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”

He slammed the phone down. Lou was edging past, doing his best to keep out of the blood. Shayne decided to remind them that he was still alive. He groaned heavily and moved an arm. Lou’s eyes jumped to Shayne, and back to Truck.

“Pick the son of a bitch up and let’s clear out of here. It’s our one out,” Lou said.

Shayne had been surprised by the big man’s calm; Shayne’s sudden appearance and Lou’s hysterical reaction had seemed to leave him unmoved. But now, without warning, Truck flung out an arm and knocked Lou against the wall. Lou’s hand dived for his gun. The big man grabbed him and snapped him backward. Lou’s head banged against the wall and his hand came out empty.

“You got me into this,” Truck said. “Now you want to kill somebody… dump him in a swamp. You couldn’t even dump an ashtray.”

Shayne, behind them, sat up and looked for something to use as a weapon.

Truck continued, “Why should I worry about anybody’s uncle? He’ll be mad at you, not me. I’ve got to get straight with Sid Zacharias.”

“Joe, consider—”

He banged Lou’s head against the wall. “If you kill anybody they’ll get us both for it. So what I’m going to do with you is break your back. You need time to think.”

“Joe,” Lou said too eagerly, “You wiped off the tape and we’ll smash the guy’s camera… we’ve got a damn good deal going tomorrow… there are ways…”

Truck cuffed him lightly, and then drew back a massive fist and drove it against his jaw. Lou slumped slowly to the floor. Truck kicked him once before he was all the way down, and twice more before Shayne, coming to his feet, hit him with the Speed Graphic camera.

The big man looked around, and Shayne tagged him with a right. As pain shot up his forearm he was afraid he had broken a bone. Truck went back, jarring the stove out of position and breaking a coupling. Gas rushed into the room. Shayne followed with two powerful lefts to the stomach. It was like hitting a plasterboard wall; the flesh gave but not enough. Truck pushed at Shayne’s chest, keeping him away.

Lou crawled toward the doorway.

Truck skidded in the blood, and Shayne hit him a swinging blow across the head with a chair. Partially stunned but continuing to shuffle forward, Truck caught him in a savage hug. Shayne used his shoulders and knees, trying to free a hand for a chop at Truck’s exposed throat, but he might as well have been wrestling a tree.

The phone was ringing again. Truck lifted an arm. Shayne saw it coming, but there was nothing he could do to avoid it. Lights blazed around him.

The first thing he heard after that was an urgent hiss of escaping gas. Truck was talking. Shayne lay face down on the bloody floor, close to the broken coupling. He tried to move, but nothing seemed to be working.

Truck said, “Shayne. Yeah, he’s here. He’s pretty messed up.”

After a moment he went on, “Mercy Hospital, OK. Chan, the thing with Mangione, it didn’t work out. I hate to tell you—a real shambles.”

CHAPTER 6

Shayne was aware of being moved. A bell clanged, and kept clanging. Lights raced across his closed eyelids. He was jolted unpleasantly as the ambulance dipped and swung. Eventually it stopped, and hands slid him out onto a rolling gurney.

Presently he heard a woman’s voice and the sound of running water. A nurse, seeming to float above him, was washing him gently. Shayne’s body was weightless. After a time, gravity began to return and he settled slowly onto a hard hospital bed.

Tim Rourke, an unlighted cigarette between his lips, leaned against the foot of the bed. A starchy red-faced nurse came into view.

“No smoking in here,” she said sharply.

“I’m not smoking,” Rourke said. “I’m just using it for oral gratification. Mike, are you with us?”

Shayne made a sound, and the nurse turned.

“I believe he is! The man has the constitution of an ox. After the amount of blood he lost—”

Rourke grinned. “Not all of it was his.”

The nurse touched Shayne’s forehead with a cool hand. “How are we feeling, dear?”

“Better. Get me a drink.”

She pulled back her hand. “You have a choice of two beverages, Mr. Shayne. Water and orange juice.”

“Orange juice. Crank me up.”

Rourke worked the crank at the foot of the bed, and Shayne’s head rose. He was wearing the usual hospital garment, the kind that ties in the rear.

“Is Ronnie James in this hospital?”

Rourke brought out his lighter and lit his cigarette. “Miss Cannon’s been telling me about that. He’s getting the celebrity treatment, with round-the-clock nurses.”

“But it’s a funny thing,” the nurse said, “as I was saying to Mr. Rourke—Are you sure you’re up to visitors, Mr. Shayne? The doctor said it was all right, but if you don’t want to be bothered, I’ll hustle him out of here so fast—”

She glanced at Rourke, sprang at him and picked the burning cigarette out of his mouth. “That does it. March.”

“I want to talk to him,” Shayne countered. “What’s your first name?”

She hesitated before admitting, “Thelma.”

“I swallowed some cooking gas, Thelma, and I can still taste it. A puff on a cigarette might help. And if you’d get me that orange juice—”

“If you really think—” She put the cigarette between his lips. “I’m a dyed-in-the-wool fan of yours, Mr. Shayne, and for you I’m willing to bend the regulations a little. There, you’ve had your puff.”

She removed the cigarette and left the room with it, holding it at arm’s length.

Shayne sat up and accepted the pint of cognac Rourke was holding out to him.

“I had a feeling you might need some medicine,” Rourke said. “I drove your Buick in. It’s in the south lot, keys under the floormat.”

Shayne swallowed with difficulty. “What happened to you while I was inside losing blood?”

“I was observing,” Rourke said cheerfully. “Keeping my eyes open. I don’t know what kept me from going in when I heard that shot… cowardice, I guess. Then the first casualty came staggering out. Black silk suit and a broken jaw. I got a couple of pretty good pictures. Who was he?”

Shayne drank again, and this time the cognac slid down more easily. “Does the name Jimmy Mangione mean anything? From someplace in New Jersey?”

“Mangione—hell, yes! He’s one of the biggest layoff men in the east. A power. But that wasn’t Jimmy I saw—Jimmy’s been around for years.”

“That was Lou. A nephew. Did he have a car?”

“He only made it as far as the sidewalk. He sat down on the curb and tried to stay alive. I was wondering if I should be a good Samaritan or let him get better by himself. Then a nurse drove up in a Volks and helped him in.”

“A nurse?”

Rourke lit two new cigarettes and gave one to Shayne. “One of the most therapeutic nurses I’ve seen in a long time. Long blond hair over her shoulders. She had to lean down to pick him up, and Mike, what a sweet ass! I’m not impartial about nurses—that damn uniform—but I think you’d agree this one was special. I took a couple of shots. I didn’t get her face, but that rear elevation I’d recognize anywhere. She was mad at the boy, but I wasn’t close enough to catch the dialogue.”

“How do you know she was mad?”

“From the pantomime. The way she was shaking her hair. She gave him hell, and he was feeling bad enough as it was. They drove off. Truck’s wife started kicking around and making gobbling noises. Pretty soon the ambulance showed up. I was a little surprised to see that you were the one they carried out. The lady was getting on my nerves by this time so I let her go. When I was taking out the gag, she bit my finger—to the goddamn bone!”

He showed his bandaged finger. Shayne’s nurse bustled in with a glass of orange juice over cracked ice.

“Cigarettes!” she exclaimed. Then: “Well, I suppose I’ll have to be flexible for once. Go ahead, if you want to destroy your lungs.”

Shayne sipped some of the orange juice through a bent straw, but after the gas and the cigarette it tasted like creosote. He went back to cognac.

“What were you telling Tim about Ronnie James?”

“Oh, it’s probably nothing, but I did remark on it. I don’t keep up with the latest in football, but from the way the girls were behaving, some of them, this Ronnie James could be the Crown Prince of Denmark. The way they fluttered around! What I thought was unusual, not that there’s probably any real significance to it, when somebody’s as important as that and there’s money in back of him, he usually goes into intensive care”—she waved upward—“where they take you after a heart attack or an operation, so somebody has an eye on you every minute. But not Mr. Ronnie James. They brought in special outside nurses.”

“Maybe it wasn’t really a coma,” Shayne suggested.

“Oh, no question about that!” She looked at him sharply. “Is there? I know they took a whole series of EEG’s, and that’s one machine you can’t fool. Why, good heavens—” She stopped. “What I could do is take a stroll down there right this minute and find out.”

“That’s my job,” Shayne said. “Can you put on a head bandage?”

“That scalp cut is just superficial, Mr. Shayne. The doctor doesn’t think it needs to be dressed.”

“I just want it for camouflage.”

“You don’t really think you’re in any condition to get out of bed, do you?”

“Let’s find out.”

He swung his legs over the side and pushed off. The walls of the room turned to crepe paper and the lights dimmed. Then he walked to the door and came back.

“I’ve felt worse. It’ll wear off if I keep moving. Get the gauze.”

“I honestly don’t know,” she said uncertainly. “To put a bandage on somebody who doesn’t need it—it seems to me that might be considered a little unethical.”

Ten minutes later, in a bulky head bandage, wearing a red hospital bathrobe and heelless slippers, Michael Shayne went along a corridor in the new pavilion, recently added to the hospital for patients who wanted a private room and a view of the lower bay.

A nurse came out of the nursing station and approached Shayne at a rapid walk. She was startlingly beautiful, with long blond hair, dark eyes, a blinding complexion. There was an interesting flow of movement inside her uniform. She knocked lightly on a door and entered.

It was room 29, Ronnie James’s room.

An instant later a second nurse erupted from the room. Without glancing at Shayne, she hurried to the nursing station to sign out.

Shayne waited until she disappeared into an elevator. He listened at the door of the room she had left and turned the knob quietly. It was locked.

After considering briefly, he went back to his own room. Rourke was still there, using the phone.

“Ronnie’s nurse locked herself in,” Shayne said. “People aren’t supposed to do that in hospitals.”

“Ronnie gets VIP treatment everywhere. Do you think this means—”

“I’ll find out in a minute,” Shayne said.

After assembling his lock-picking equipment, he returned to the Bayside Pavilion and opened the simple spring lock with a narrow strip of celluloid. He knocked loudly, counted to five without hurrying, and entered.

The only light came from a small Sony television receiver mounted on a movable arm above the bed. The sound was turned all the way down. The blond nurse was standing at the bureau, smoothing her uniform.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

Shayne turned on the overhead light to look at her patient, who was lying back on two pillows wearing a head bandage much like Shayne’s.

“Well, well, it’s Ronnie James,” Shayne said. “The famous quarterback. I’m a fellow patient, and I thought I’d stop in to see how he’s doing.”

“Are you crazy?”

“They don’t know yet. I haven’t had all the tests.”

The top sheet was partly thrown back. When he appeared in public, James wore elaborate clothes, given him free by a top California designer, but he had a way of always looking a little sloppy in them. Except in helmet and pads, he never looked much like an athlete. His shoulders were narrow and sloping. He was scornful of people who lay around on beaches getting suntanned, and the color of his own skin indicated indoor lighting and late nights. His long hair and hussar’s mustache needed work.

Shayne thumbed back one of his eyelids. The pupil was showing, but it stared up at the light without wavering.

“I see he’s been thrashing around,” Shayne said. “The bed’s a mess.”

Letting the eyelid roll shut, Shayne picked up James’s wrist. The pulse was racing.

“Very fast pulse,” he commented. “Is that normal?”

The nurse came up to him. “This is my patient, and I’m in charge. Please leave the room immediately before I ring for an orderly.”

“Is it usual to lock the door when you come in?”

“Don’t be silly. The door wasn’t locked.”

“And you’ve got blood on your uniform,” Shayne pointed out. Without letting go of James’s wrist, he touched a splash of fresh blood on her shoulder and another at her waist. Then he brushed the back of his hand across her breasts. “No bra. You’ve just been in bed with him, haven’t you? I know that isn’t regular hospital procedure.”

“You are crazy. He isn’t even conscious.”

“If you can believe the papers, Ronnie’s never in the habit of sleeping alone. What’s your name?”

The call button was on the small table at the head of the bed. To get to it she would have to reach past Shayne. She began to drift toward the door.

“But what are you after?” she said, puzzled. “Some betting information? See for yourself. He won’t be playing tomorrow. I don’t know who you are—”

She spun and dashed for the door. Shayne’s foot was in the way when she tried to pull it open. She turned and hit him with both hands.

He took her elbows. Forcing her back against the bed, he held her there, her legs locked between his knees.

“I’m Michael Shayne, and I’m a private detective. I’ve been given a small piece of the Miami football club to trace down some rumors involving Ronnie and a few other players and gamblers. It’s more than the job is worth, which indicates that the owner’s sure something is going on. It’s been suggested to me that Ronnie’s no more unconscious than usual. If so, I can use some cooperation. Are you listening, Ronnie?”

“Don’t bore me about it,” the nurse said. “Talk to his doctor.”

“The doctor’s a personal friend of his. I think Ronnie’s holed up here so he won’t have to go into the game tomorrow behind a line he can’t trust. And being Ronnie, he’d arrange for a night nurse who’d lock the door and jump into bed with him the minute she came on duty. A little late tonight, because a funny thing happened on the way to work.”

She was struggling to break the lock of his knees. “You have a diseased mind, my friend!”

“But what Ronnie may not know is that this willing blond nurse has an association with a hoodlum named Lou Mangione. The guy seems to be very minor, but he has family connections. That’s Lou’s blood on your uniform. When he crawled out of Joe Truszowski’s kitchen, he had a few broken ribs and a broken jaw, and I thought he looked very discouraged.”

She stopped opposing him. “You didn’t look so marvelous yourself, I understand.”

“I’m used to it. Now what’s your name?”

“Dody Germaine.”

“Are you really a nurse?”

“I really am, and I have a paper to prove it.”

“You look more like a model.”

“I’ve done that, too. But modeling only lasts a few years.”

When he released her, she stayed where she was, leaning against the edge of the bed. One of her hands dropped casually onto Ronnie’s leg.

Shayne pulled a chair to the bedside and sat down. “Do you want to wake up now, Ronnie?”

The quarterback continued to lie still with his eyes closed, breathing deeply and evenly.

“If you want to know what really happened,” the nurse said, “he began to come to the surface on Wednesday, I think it was. But he wanted to keep the reporters at bay for a few days, so he talked Dr. Prettyman into not making an announcement. He’s still very weak. I’m the only one of the nurses who knows about it. He sleeps during the day.”

“And you wake him when you come in?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes he wakes up by himself,… Did I really snap the door? I didn’t intend to, and I admit he made a sort of feeble grab for me. He takes his reputation seriously, even when he’s half asleep. And then he conked out again just before you knocked.”

“What about Lou Mangione?”

“I suppose that does seem odd. It’s really not. I’ve known Lou for years. He found out I was Ronnie’s nurse, and he called to see if I could give him any news. He bets something like ten thousand dollars on football every weekend, or so he claims—he’s an exaggerator. He also says he has a retainer from the Orange Sheet… do you know it? A kind of tip sheet published in New York. He bought me dinner tonight. All I told him was that Ronnie wasn’t necessarily out of action for the whole season. On the way to the hospital he stopped off to see somebody, and he was beaten up terribly. Did you do that to him, Mr. Shayne? I couldn’t make out.”

Shayne smiled at her appreciatively. She was a cool girl, and had made an excellent recovery. “After the fight started, I was on his side.”

He picked up Ronnie’s wrist and found the pulse. The beat was now slow and regular.

“Maybe I can drop a few things into his subconscious… Ronnie, have you been having sex with Chan Zacharias?”

The pulse jumped.

“It wouldn’t make sense from your point of view,” Shayne continued, “but a superstud like you can’t act like an ordinary person. You must run into no-choice situations all the time. There was something in the past between Chan and Joe Truck. Sometime I’d like to get your comments on that. But let’s talk about football. I’ve been hearing about a bad afternoon you had last fall against Kansas City.”

Again there was a slight pickup in James’s pulse rate.

“I think I’ve discovered something,” Shayne remarked, grinning, to the nurse. “This is better than a lie detector… Ronnie, did you win any money on that Kansas City game?”

James moved his head slowly and his eyes opened. He pulled his wrist out of Shayne’s loose grasp and rolled his head to look up at the girl.

She bent down to kiss him, and for an instant her long hair concealed them both.

“Baby, you’re back,” she said.

James came up on his elbows and punched an extra pillow into place behind him. “I haven’t been anyplace,” he said in a normal tone. “I’ve been lying here picking up odds and ends. Christ, Shayne,” he said to the detective, “if there’s anything I don’t want to do, it’s to answer silly questions about things that happened last year. That’s under the bridge. Have I had sex with Chan Zacharias? Who hasn’t, and what difference does it make?”

He reached into the drawer of the bedside table and took out a partially consumed bottle of Scotch. “Do you drink Scotch, Shayne?”

“On occasion.”

“Get us some glasses, kid,” James said to the girl, “and then go away and hide.”

She said calmly, “If we could have two minutes in private—”

“First I want two minutes in private with this man. He has priority.”

“You’re tightening up, Ronnie. It isn’t like you. What did it—the name Mangione?”

“Yeah, the name rings a very loud bell. The glasses, sweetheart, and then ciao.”

She shook her head at Shayne. “I liked him better in a coma.” She brought two glasses from the bathroom and set them on the bedside table. “Mr. Shayne, move a little. Talking isn’t the best way to communicate sometimes, and I want to get back on good terms with Ronnie before I go.”

Bending down to kiss the patient, she ran her hand under the sheet. She straightened after a long moment.

“Why do so many lunatics want to bet on football games? Ring if you need me, Ronnie.”

She made a good exit. Shayne watched her go, but James was busy pouring the drinks.

“Let’s skip the ice. They’ve got good room service here, but I’m not supposed to be conscious.” He lifted his glass. “To the point spread.”

After drinking, he said, “Did I really hear you say Sid cut you in for a percentage?”

“One hundred shares.”

James pursed up his lips. “He’s worried. My lawyer tried to get me a piece when I signed, but Sid’s very possessive about that ball club. Does he have any idea I’m planning to show up tomorrow?”

“Are you?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“Chan thought it was funny Dr. Bishop couldn’t get in to see you. Were you ever really concussed at all?”

“I’ll tell you about it,” James said, looking at his Scotch. “After the first time I was hit, everything was double. Sometimes that clears up after a few plays. You hold on and hope. Then the pocket blew out again. You know that big iron ball they use to knock down buildings? That was what hit me. I looked up and this time everything was multiplied by four. Miami had forty-four men on the field. I decided it was time to let them carry me off. Sure I was concussed. But that was six days ago.”

He threw back the rumpled sheet and slid out of bed. He was wearing pajama tops and jockey shorts. His legs were lean and spidery, the knees crisscrossed with surgical scars. He teetered for a moment, straightening each leg painfully before he was able to move laterally. Then he began stretching and bending.

“Have you been working out all week?” Shayne said.

“Every night, religiously. More or less.”

He began running in place, creakily at first because of the trouble he had with his knees. “I’m going to stage a marvelous recovery and astound the bookies. My vision’s cleared up. I only see one thing at a time, and that’s the main thing.”

“You’re in lousy shape,” Shayne commented.

James broke off with a disgusted flap of his hand. “I can do two hundred sit-ups, and that’s more than most people.” He flexed his arm, feeling the elbow and the shoulder. “The arm seems to be OK. Passing’s mostly psychological, anyway. You have to psych the ball out there. If I play—I say if—I may not have the best game of my career, but there’s no way they can beat us by seventeen points. I wish we didn’t have rules against associating with gamblers. You could bet New York at seventeen, and then bet Miami when they hear I’m back and the points drop, and win both ways. People look all year for that kind of deal.”

He took a pull of his Scotch and began to pace. “I’m sick of this room. What do you know about Dody, anything?”

“She’s been working here a week. I doubt if they’d take her on if she wasn’t really a nurse.”

“I could have been more careful. I didn’t know where I was until Monday sometime—I think it was Monday. I only lost about a day, and you do that when you cross the International Dateline, don’t you? I discussed it with my doctor. He’s a wild man. And we worked this out—the club’s paying the bills, so why not? Lying out up here is better than running laps. He fixed it with the nurses—I was out of the coma but I couldn’t talk; I was still a vegetable. Then came Thursday night. Dody was sponging me off, and you’re right about one thing, Shayne, she doesn’t wear bras. All of a sudden I got better.” He grinned. “That’s the only kind of exercise I like. Now what’s this about Lou Mangione crawling out of Joe Truck’s house?”

He continued to pace, weaving and rolling his shoulders, while Shayne described the violent scene in the Truszowski kitchen.

“You actually saw money? Cash?”

“It was spilling out on the table. The top bills were fifties.”

James scratched his stomach reflectively. “What I don’t understand—why was Mangione carrying a tape recorder?”

“I heard two theories,” Shayne said. “Truck thought they wanted the transaction on tape so they could blackmail him with it. Mangione claimed that all they were doing was making sure they’d get value for their money.”

“My name wasn’t mentioned at all?”

“No, it was all Maxwell. When he goes out to try for a field goal, they want him to think about the larger picture.”

“Which side of the bet are they on? Are they betting Miami to win or lose?”

“Why does it matter?”

“It matters to me. Didn’t Sid tell you a character named Stitch Reddick is in town?”

“I think that’s the main reason he hired me. Whatever Stitch finds out, Sid wants to know about it first. And Stitch had a pickup device planted in Truck’s kitchen. He didn’t overhear anything, as it happened, because Joe’s wife smashed his receiver.”

James had been about to drink. He turned slowly and put down the glass.

“Tell me about that, will you?”

Shayne shrugged and drank without answering.

“I know,” James said, giving Shayne a look at his famous boyish grin. “Here I am, putting a fake on my own people, and why should you tell me anything? But football’s based on deception, Mike. You know I’m not here just to get out of going to practice. What am I trying to do—get to be a millionaire at the age of twenty-four?” He shook his head. “Money’s involved, because it’s a money game. If they knock me out of football they knock me out of the money. But I’m also thinking of my knees. I lost the right one in high school, both cartilages, medial and lateral. In college they began to work on the other. The doctors were in and out so often I had to get used to that great old zipper joke. Whenever a defense man gets through, you’ll notice that’s where he aims.”

“What about Joe’s sloppy blocking last week?” Shayne asked. “Was that deliberate?”

“I think so,” James said slowly. “Everybody messes up blocking assignments now and then. One of the things the front four is trying to do is pound your men so hard that after a while they lose track of where they are. But this was early. Joe hadn’t taken that much damage.”

He paused and lifted the Scotch.

“There are three men in this league who want to kill me. I was top cat last year, for both yardage and TD’s. Anybody who kills me will get a twenty-percent boost. What these guys are trying to do is put me on the ground so hard I won’t be able to play football against them anymore. There’s only one way to be really sure of that—if I’m dead. They work up to it all week. ‘I’m going to kill him, I’m going to kill the mother.’ Of course if you asked them they’d say all they really want to do is cripple me for life. You have to see the look in their eye—it doesn’t show in the films.”

“Number sixty-six is one of the people you’re talking about?”

“Goddamn right! Off the field he’s a black militant, which gives him the extra incentive. Joe Truck knows he can’t get careless against Monroe. If he loses me, we don’t make the playoffs, and playoffs mean money. After I got that first bang, Joe and I had something to settle. There’s a theory Joe’s stupid, and the fact is that sometimes he is stupid. But you can get a look from Joe and it means something. This time he didn’t look my way in the huddle—he was blowing his ears. And so I knew I had to watch out.”

“How do you explain it?”

“I can’t, but that envelope on his kitchen table really jars me. When I woke up Monday I wondered if I’d done something to hurt his feelings. I know that sounds ridiculous, but even when you weigh two-sixty you can still have feelings. I decided to take the week off and think about it. I don’t get paid by the game. I thought Stitch Reddick might turn something up in the meantime. But Mangione…” he said thoughtfully, “That has to be inside money. It doesn’t fit with Reddick.”

“Remember I just started a couple of hours ago,” Shayne said. “So explain that.”

“The thing that gets Reddick interested is when a game goes off the board, when the bookies stop taking bets. If you look at it one way, he’s not working for the commissioner as much as he is for the bookies. They supply him with his information. But if it’s a bookie fix, or if the bookies have been cut in on it, the game stays up and they use layoff men to keep the points from moving. It’s queer as hell. Stitch has been here two weeks at least, long before I decided to take this vacation.”

“Do you want to talk about the New Orleans game?”

James winced. “You mean why did I pass instead of keeping the ball on the ground? That goddamn spread—when I first came into the league I didn’t even want to know what the points were. But that can be bad, too. The first game I started we tried for a field goal from the forty-five and Maxwell made it. And the next week the bookies refused to take bets on Miami because that field goal put us over the points. I tried to tell people I didn’t know what the spread was, but nobody believed me. Now I get very conservative in that kind of situation, and so does every other quarterback. We play careful football. The trouble is, against New Orleans—I had the feeling all day that they were reading me. On that pass play I tried to surprise them with an audible, but I didn’t surprise them. They were waiting.”

“You’re beginning to feel persecuted,” Shayne observed.

“Am I!”

“Do you know a guy named Ted Knapp?”

“Sure, he sold me a policy last year. He calls me once in a while. I kid him along. I hear he wants to buy the club.”

“He didn’t tell me that.”

“I know they were dickering last summer. I guess they couldn’t get together on the price.”

“He made a minimum of fifty thousand last week betting against Miami. Have you heard that?”

James seemed only mildly interested. “I know he bets. But he’s not a fixer.”

“Do you know the red-headed girl he takes to dog races?”

James smiled slightly. “When I knew her she was a brunette.”

“I asked you a question when you were pretending to be unconscious. Have you been climbing into the sack with Mrs. Zacharias?”

The quarterback kicked the rug into position and lay down on his back. “Sit-up time.”

“You don’t want to talk about that?”

James laced his fingers behind his head and sat up and lay down, sat up and lay down.

“I just don’t see the bearing.”

“I’m trying to draw a diagram. I’ve got a half-dozen people, and I want to know how they connect.”

“You can make that one a dotted line, Mike. I’ll tell you about it sometime, but not tonight.”

He did a dozen rapid sit-ups, then slowed down. “What are you going to do about Truck?”

“Turn him in, probably.”

“You know if you tell Sid, he’ll have to fire him, and we need Joe. Isn’t that why Sid gave you a percentage instead of a fee? Maybe you won’t agree with me, but why not go to Joe tomorrow and tell him you might be able to forget what you saw, depending on what kind of game he plays?”

“Are you still willing to have him in front of you?”

“When he’s giving a hundred percent, no one can pass him. New York’s front four aren’t too scarey. If I see Joe’s man coming at me, I’ll lie down and have another concussion.”

“And use the same electroencephalograms?”

“Right,” James said, standing up. “My doctor got them out of his files. The patient who had that coma never came out of it.”

Shayne finished his drink. “Is there anything else you want to volunteer, Ronnie?”

His exercise period over, James plumped up his pillows and returned to bed. “I can’t think of anything.”

“Mangione had a gun,” Shayne said soberly. “He was willing to use it. He and Joe had an argument about whether or not they ought to take me out in the Glades and feed me to the pelicans. Joe just sat there chewing gum. Nothing bothered him until he got a phone call, and then he announced he was going to break Lou’s back. He would have done it in another minute. People wouldn’t be this tense if they were betting pennies. I think you’ve told me about one tenth of the things you know, and a carefully selected one tenth.”

“You didn’t expect my life story, did you, Mike?”

“I don’t usually get it. But you don’t think this might be a little too big to handle alone?”

“I’m doing all right. It’s only a boy’s game, after all. If you’re going, tell Dody to report back. You interrupted something when you broke in. And after I get that out of the way,” he added, “I have a few questions to ask the girl.”

Shayne stood up, and for a moment stayed at the bedside, looking down at James and scraping his thumbnail across his chin.

“All I can do at this stage is look as though I know more than I do, and hope somebody panics. Do you have any suggestions about who I ought to see next?”

“I’ll tell you one guy on the club I don’t like,” James said after a moment. “Dr. Len Bishop. He’s a lousy doctor. He thinks he’s the world’s greatest football expert, but he never personally played the game. On top of everything else he has cold hands. Why don’t you growl at him and see what happens?”

CHAPTER 7

Shayne left the room.

At the elevators opposite the nurses’ station, Dody Germaine was talking to a tall man in a physician’s pink jump suit. Shayne started toward them, walking quickly.

The elevator door opened, and the man in the jump suit glanced at Shayne before stepping in. He carried very little weight for his height, which was six feet three or four, and he was bent forward at the waist, like a carpenter’s rule not fully extended. He was balding, with a pockmarked face that gathered itself to a point in a long sharp nose.

The door slid shut.

Dody murmured, “Mike Shayne, eh?” and started to pass him.

“Who was that?” Shayne said.

She gave him an amused look. “One of the staff doctors, I think. I don’t know too many people in the hospital, actually. I come to work, I lock myself in, apparently, and some hours later I go home.”

The duty nurse called, “Wasn’t it Dr. Bishop, Dody?”

Dody gave a pretty shrug. “He told me his name, but he’s a mumbler.”

“Where do you go for your coffee break?” Shayne said. “I want to talk to you about that blood on your uniform.”

“I couldn’t take time off now, Mr. Shayne. I just came on, and I’m a conscientious girl.”

The nurse at the desk said, “Are you Mike Shayne, by any chance? I wouldn’t know you in the bandage. Somebody was trying to locate you a minute ago. Do you want me to see if the board’s still holding the call?”

“Please.” When Dody tried to get around him, he blocked her with a forearm. “Not till we’ve had some coffee.”

“I told you I didn’t want any. Don’t make yourself unpleasant. I do work here, you know.”

“What I’m interested in is what you do before and after work.” She made an attempt to go under his arm and he put it around her, locking her in place. “I’m taking this to the cops in a minute or two, unless you can talk me out of it. They love arresting people with names like Mangione. They can tell the papers he’s reputedly a member of a reputed Mafia family. It’s a prestige arrest, and your name will be mentioned.”

“Why on earth would my name be mentioned?”

“You’re reputedly his girlfriend. You reputedly picked him up in a Volkswagen and let him bleed all over your clean uniform.”

The other nurse held out the phone. Shayne forced Dody into the alcove behind the desk. The duty nurse said in a low voice, “What’s going on, Dody? Should I interfere?”

“I wish you would!”

“Don’t,” Shayne told her harshly, and planted his foot so she was unable to move her chair.

He picked the phone out of her hand and said hello. A switchboard girl asked him to hold on, and in a moment more the exuberant voice of Stitch Reddick, the commissioner’s investigator, exploded in his ear.

“Shayne!” He was shouting to be heard over the sound of music and other conversations that were taking place around him. “This isn’t such a genius-type idea, you know, talking through a switchboard, but I’ve got to find out. Is there money available? I said, is there money available?”

“For what?”

“You didn’t just come down from the boondocks, Shayne. You know for what.”

“There’s money around,” Shayne said briefly. “I’m not authorized to spend any of it, but if you can come up with a quiet solution, a deal is certainly possible.”

“I can’t reach Zacharias.”

“He’s away overnight. You’d better talk to me, Stitch. Where are you?”

“We’ll get to that in a minute. I’m not too anxious to talk to you, man, after the way you stood there smoking while that Truszowski bitch smashed up a perfectly good tape recorder.” There was a sound of drinking, the clink of a glass being put down. “If you’d exerted yourself a little, we’d be in better shape, but never mind. A concept’s beginning to take form. Not only that, I’m in a position to prove it.”

“Congratulations.”

“Enough of your sarcasm, Shayne. We underpaid staff people keep plugging away day in, day out, not getting much in the way of understanding or appreciation, but sometimes all that patience pays off. I don’t expect to get any glamorous publicity out of this or any of those huge Michael Shayne fees. The main thing I’ve got to consider is what’s best for organized football.”

“I understand you, Stitch,” Shayne said impatiently. “Where are you?”

There was a thump, and more drinking noises.

“Maybe I’m in the process of changing my mind. It’s comfortable here. The bourbon’s flowing. The only reason I called was to find out if you could set up a meeting with Sid, and since you don’t seem to be able to do that, the better part of valor may be to let it simmer overnight.”

Shayne said quickly, “Did you send Mangione in with an envelope to trap Joe Truck?”

“Did I send Mangione—? Shayne, you’ve lost your marbles. Who’s Mangione?”

“A kid from up north who wears hair spray and pointed shoes. That was a phony scene in there, and if you didn’t arrange it, somebody else did.”

“I can’t hear you too well. But Joe Truck is very peripheral in this, very peripheral. I think I can guarantee that the story I have to tell will make Sid’s real hair stand on end under his hairpiece.”

“I’ve been picking up things,” Shayne said. “I may have that story myself by tomorrow morning, and then you won’t have anything to sell. You’d better see me. Stitch, not only is this going through a switchboard, a couple of people are right here listening, including a girl who may have some money on the game. Did you know there’s a chance Ronnie James may be playing?”

“James may be playing!” After a moment Reddick sighed. “You son of a bitch, you know something I don’t. I thought I was in possession of the essential facts. But I’m not selling facts, am I, I’m selling whether or not I pass them on to the commissioner. Come on over. I’m soaking up bourbon and atmosphere in what is laughingly called a pub. Half-a-Sixpence, on Route One, somewhere in the vicinity of 17th Avenue. I’m a drink and a half from pass-out time, so don’t dawdle… I know you want me to make sense. Be thinking how high Sid can be persuaded to go for absolute silence.”

He hung up without saying goodbye. Shayne gave back the phone.

He still had Dody in an iron grip. He moved her out of the alcove. The other nurse said, “What’s with your patient, Dody?”

“I left him sleeping like a baby,” Dody told her. “Temperature ninety-eight point six.… All right, Mike, I accept your invitation for coffee. Let up a little—my arm’s going to be black and blue. One fast cup, and I’m screaming and kicking all the way. It’s such a waste of time. I’m not telling you anything.”

“Are you sure?”

“Damn sure. I’m an interested party! Who’s this Stitch you were talking to? What was all that about using Lou Mangione for bait, or whatever? I don’t know why I ask. With a detective the information all flows the other way… And not only that,” she added, “the coffee here is terrible.”

“In that case—” Shayne said.

They were passing a men’s room. He knocked the door open and pulled her in. She was too surprised to resist until they were inside.

“Anybody here?” Shayne called.

There was no answer.

“What happens now?” Dody said coolly. “Am I going to be raped?”

“I’ll take a rain check on that,” Shayne said. “We need some privacy because I may have to do some shouting.”

He pulled her around and slammed her back against the washbowls. Her breath came out in a puff. She looked at him in disbelief, her cap askew.

“Different things sometimes work,” he said. “Good-looking girls hate to be hit in the f ace.”

“You wouldn’t—”

Shayne hit her with the heel of his hand. Her head banged back against a mirror. She let a small moan escape, and caught the edge of a washbowl to keep from falling.

“And when Lou Mangione does it,” Shayne said, “he’ll use knucks. That’s the feeling Lou gives me.”

Throwing back her hair, she looked at her reflection in the mirror and touched the reddening spot on her cheekbone.

“Don’t do that again, please, Mike? I was wrong, I shouldn’t have been so snippety. I know this is how you earn your living. But don’t romanticize Lou Mangione. If that’s your idea of the Mafia, for heaven’s sake—”

“The smaller they are, the less they have to lose. He was carrying a gun. He fired at me with it. He wasn’t trying to hit me, but after thinking it over he decided to do it again, and this time not to miss.”

“That’s absurd.”

“I thought so myself. Where’d you take him?”

“He’s here, under heavy sedation. Various things are broken, ribs and so on.”

“What’s your interest in Dr. Bishop?”

“It’s not sex, if that’s what you’re implying. One of the Miami players, a linebacker, had some kind of muscle strain. When Dr. Bishop came by, I asked him how the boy was doing. That’s all.”

“How is the boy doing?”

“Better than expected. He’ll probably play part of the game tomorrow.”

“What are you going to do with the information?”

She met his eyes. “I’ll take it into consideration, along with everything else.”

“It’s probably classified. Why should Bishop tell you?”

She breathed out angrily. “It isn’t that important! But you’re bigger and stronger than I am, so I’ll have to confess. I didn’t meet Len Bishop there in the corridor for the first time. I’ve had drinks with him once or twice—”

Shayne cut this short with an obscenity. “Where’s your money come from?”

“I bet on football games. I know it’s against the law, but doesn’t everybody do it? Lou and I have a kind of syndicate.”

“How long has that been going on?”

“Since the start of the season. We met at a party in New York. He can be amusing. Well—not very, really, over the long haul, but from a business point of view, it hasn’t been bad. I can walk into any hospital in any football city in the country and get a job. I do the research and Lou places the bets. I didn’t know he carried a gun! I’ve never seen him with one.”

“Did you know about the deal he was offering Truck?”

“Obviously. Not in detail, but I knew there was money involved.”

“How about last week? Did Lou handle that?”

“I don’t know. Please—don’t look so skeptical. It isn’t a full-time thing with me. We made a sizable bet on Boston, but he wouldn’t tell me why. I didn’t press him. We don’t live together or anything.”

“Do you live with anybody?”

“No. I get a smothery feeling with the same person around all the time. But you know what I mean—I don’t carry it to extremes.”

“How did you get the James assignment?”

“That was easy, they’re desperate for nurses. Actually, Len Bishop recommended me. It was a boring job the first few days.”

“Do you know a bettor named Ted Knapp?”

“I know his name. Lou’s mentioned him.”

“Have you slept with Dr. Bishop?”

Her head came up. “You saw him. That’s an insulting question.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “What’s the answer?”

“I’m not going to give you an answer. Can I go now, please? And what people are going to say if they see us coming out of a men’s room together—”

Shayne stayed where he was, blocking her way. “You haven’t given me a hell of a lot. I don’t like this Mangione story. You and Lou don’t fit. Certain combinations I can believe, and others are all wrong. Sid and Chan Zacharias—I believe. They’re getting a little restless, but you can see how they stayed together all these years. The combination worked.”

“Mike—”

“I’m not finished. With your looks you don’t have to go to bed with the first person who rings your doorbell. You’re working an angle, and it has to be more than money. And I do already know from one look at Bishop that you don’t fit with him, either. The same would go for me.”

She looked interested for a moment. “Mike, don’t be so sure about that. You don’t really know, do you?”

“What would we talk about after the first half hour? I’d say you’re more Ronnie’s type. If I saw you and Ronnie in a bar it wouldn’t surprise me at all. You and Ted Knapp would fit. You’d fit very well. You’d fit with Sid Zacharias, but probably for only a weekend.”

“You’re getting colder and colder. Why does it have to be more than money? I was one of the top models in New York a few years ago, at a hundred dollars an hour. I got used to it. But I did silly things with it, and it disappeared. Nursing pays less—a great deal less. The theory behind the point spread isn’t that hard to figure out.”

“Are you betting Miami to win or to lose tomorrow?”

“To win, of course. I’m the one who cured Ronnie’s concussion.” She moved closer and said in a softer voice. “I think you’re a little worried about me.”

“I think you’re in over your head. These are serious people.”

“Lou doesn’t terrify me a bit, Mike. He won’t be a factor tomorrow. I beefed up the shot we gave him, and he won’t be opening his eyes for at least twenty-four hours.”

The door opened behind Shayne and an elderly attendant shuffled in.

“Oh. Excuse me. Are you—”

“Come on in,” Shayne said, after looking at Dody for an instant. “We’re leaving.”

CHAPTER 8

Shayne returned to his room.

Clothes were a problem. His own were blood-soaked. Miss Cannon, the nurse on his floor, after protesting that he wasn’t ready to face the world, finally went off to the supply room and drew an orderly’s uniform, white short-sleeved shirt and white cotton pants. Paying his bill and completing the necessary paperwork delayed him another ten minutes.

His mobile operator checked Tim Rourke’s car phone without success. Shayne crossed to the Dixie Highway on one of the short streets angling up from the bay, and looked for the bar where he hoped Stitch Reddick would be waiting for him.

There was a swinging sign—Half-a-Sixpence. The front of the building was half-timbered in an unavailing attempt to give it the look of a London pub. Shayne left his car on the street and went inside. The interior was broken up into snug drinking areas, again in the British manner, with hunting prints on the walls. Shayne circled a dart game. A jukebox was in full cry in the main bar. Shayne looked in the phone booths and the men’s room, but Reddick, it seemed, had given up and gone home.

The bartender was a meat-faced man in a derby and a handlebar mustache. Shayne ordered a drink.

“I’m supposed to meet somebody here,” he said when the cognac was poured. “A little pencil-line mustache. Cheekbones.”

The bartender moved his shoulders. “I don’t look at them that close, to tell you the truth.”

“He phoned from here. He was drinking bourbon, and he’d already put away quite a few. His topic was football.”

The doubt cleared out of the bartender’s face. “Sure. I’ve been getting a lot of them lately—inside information on how the game’s going to turn out. He left about—oh, five minutes ago. Took a phone call and blew.”

Shayne downed his drink and gave the man a flash of his identification. “Where did he get the call, in the booth?”

“No, it came in on the bar phone.” He put both hands on the bar and gave Shayne an upward glance, preparing to negotiate. “If I heard part of the conversation, would it be worth anything to you?”

Shayne put down enough change to pay for his drink and started away.

The bartender called after him, “I’m not talking important money. Buy me a drink, for Christ’s sake.”

Shayne turned back and dropped two singles on the bar. They disappeared into the bartender’s shirt pocket.

“Like it was a guy’s voice, but kind of faggy? Said, ‘Fellow there at the bar named Skitch?’ Guy took the phone. Said, ‘Yeah, Skitch talking. Blah blah blah.’ Said, ‘I’ll talk about it but, man, I got you pinned to the board.’ It struck me, the way he said it. ‘Pinned to the board.’ Said ‘I’m open, but the thing is, what have you got to trade?’ Then bang, he slammed down the phone and was out of here. Five minutes ago, ten, I didn’t notice the time.”

“Too bad you only heard one end,” Shayne said.

“I don’t have X-ray hearing.”

Outside on the sidewalk, Shayne hesitated. As he started for his car a motor coughed further up the block. Headlights pulled out of line and came at him. The light reflected from the windshield was broken into many tiny glints. Shayne moved aside, recognizing the car as Stitch Reddick’s black Olds, its windshield starred by blows from Bea Truszowski’s lug wrench.

As it came abreast of Shayne, moving slowly in low, Shayne caught the door handle and wrenched the door open. Stitch Reddick, at the wheel, goggled around at him. His lank brown hair was disheveled. He seemed very drunk, barely under control.

“Mike Shayne?”

The Olds veered toward the parked cars. Shayne had one leg inside the front seat by the time Reddick’s blurred brain made the necessary correction. Veering back, he stepped hard on the gas. The sudden acceleration swung Shayne’s body out of the car. Shayne kept his foothold, recovering as their forward momentum checked slightly when Reddick changed gears.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Reddick shouted. “Not twice in one night! This is mine! Get the hell out of the car!”

He stayed in second, and as he turned his head to shout he slipped into the wrong lane. A horn bleated. An oncoming sedan missed the Olds by inches. Reddick pulled at the wheel as the car rocked.

He stamped hard on his brake. The door swung open all the way, and Shayne, fighting to hang on, swung with it. Again Reddick hit the gas and the door came back. Shayne caught at the open window and felt a sliver of glass rake his hand.

Reddick braked, accelerated, and at the next corner skidded into a turn. For an instant the Olds drifted. The wheels took hold just in time to prevent a crash. Reddick went back into a tight S, alternating brakes and gas in an attempt to shake Shayne loose.

“Pull over!” Shayne yelled. “Goddamn it—”

“You bastard, how many times do you think you can mess me up? Let go of that door or I’ll kill you!”

Shayne worked his other knee in onto the front seat. He was back in balance, ready to let the next small shift in speed carry him into the car.

Reddick snarled and ran his inner wheels up on the sidewalk. There was a utility pole ahead. He aimed to the left of the pole and accelerated, hoping to scrape Shayne off as he passed. At the last instant Shayne jumped clear. The Olds banged against the pole and caromed back onto the street.

Shayne landed well, with a shoulder roll. Reddick yelled back, “Get lost, bastard!”

He laughed wildly and gave a one-finger salute out the open window.

Shayne pivoted and set out for his Buick at a hard run. As he turned the corner he glanced back without breaking stride. The taillights of Reddick’s Olds were moving west, toward Coral Gables. After sloughing off Shayne, Reddick had slowed down, and was wobbling back and forth across the center line, his brakelights flaring occasionally as he gave himself contradictory commands.

Shayne leaped into his Buick and hit everything at once. The phone was ringing. He ignored it. He came about in a tight U-turn and opened the Buick up. A taxi was coming around the corner. Shayne bulled it out of his way. As he came out of the turn he saw Reddick’s Olds, a half-dozen blocks ahead, swing sharply north.

Shayne began working west toward 27th Avenue, letting his brakes help him around corners. Much of the time he was fifteen to twenty miles an hour over a safe speed. Running parallel to Reddick, one block over, he nearly passed him. Jumping a red light at the corner of 27th, he picked up the wobbling taillights, and slowed abruptly.

Reddick was off in his own time zone. He drove more and more slowly, until finally he was meandering along at little over walking speed. He took turns apparently at random. Several times he found himself in a squeeze, and he made the other cars move. Shayne hung a block behind. The interval widened as they came into a patch of heavier traffic.

In West Miami, Reddick started south. Before long he was up to sixty again, keeping a straight course as long as he was going fast. Whenever he slowed, his attention seemed to wander. They were approaching the bridge over the Coral Gables Canal. Reddick was well within the speed limit now, not using his brakes. He drifted too far to the right, failed to notice it in time, and when he felt the rough shoulder under him he swung the wheel the wrong way. He rode over a stanchion and through a restraining cable, and plunged down an embankment out of sight.

Shayne skidded to a stop and leaping out, ran to the break. The Old’s headlights, below him, were still burning, but they were in the water.

He heard a hissing sound. Shayne scrambled down to the wrecked car. It jerked forward a few inches, then stopped again. He wrenched the door open and Reddick fell against him.

Reaching in, Shayne set the emergency brake, and retrieved Reddick as he began to slide toward the water. The bank was slippery. Shayne’s leg went in to the knee.

Reddick mumbled something thickly and threw out both arms.

“Cooperate, damn it,” Shayne snapped, struggling with him. “That car’s going to be down on top of us in another minute.”

Reddick’s full weight came against Shayne and knocked him backward. Shayne dug in, but the footing was precarious and Reddick flopped away. His face was a mask of blood.

A car stopped on the road above them. Reddick’s Olds lurched suddenly, its rear end beginning to come around. Swearing savagely, Shayne yanked Reddick aside as the car slipped slowly past into the water. Reddick was no longer trying to fight. Shayne laid him flat on the bank and worked an arm under his knees.

“Big,” Reddick said quietly. “Millions involved, millions.”

“That’s good. Lie still and I’ll try to get us up out of here.”

One of Reddick’s arms fastened around his neck. Shayne pried him loose and managed to hitch him up a short way before he slipped again.

“She worked it,” Reddick said. “Mrs. Z. Coach Lynch, everybody. Hurry. Give you fifty percent, Shayne. Half. We’ll clean up, man.”

Shayne forced Reddick up another foot, and anchored him there while he dug in and gathered himself for the lift. It was an awkward place, lit only by the headlights on the road. He took a deep breath.

Suddenly the headlights went out. Then there was a quick slithering rush, a shattering explosion inside Shayne’s skull. He lost Reddick, and went feet first into the water.

The canal was warm and sluggish, and tugged at his clothes. He swallowed some of it. He could feel himself sinking. His arms and legs were heavy, and didn’t seem to be part of him at all. The pain was bad. His body revolved slowly.

Something struck the back of his hand. His fingers closed on Reddick’s shoulder.

They drifted, and when Shayne came languidly to the surface, he brought Reddick with him. He breathed in deeply. Reddick was floating face down. Shayne knew he should do something about that, but first he had to solve the puzzle of his legs. He went under briefly. Then suddenly the pain broke. He lashed out violently and brought them both against the bank.

Somebody shouted, “There’s a car in the water!”

Shayne let the slow current turn Reddick’s face to the sky. He was easier to handle now.

They had drifted under the bridge and all the way out the opposite side. He splashed to attract attention, but the onlookers were all on the other side of the bridge. There was a babble of voices.

Shayne began to work back toward the bridge. The bank was steeper here, shelving off abruptly. He tried once to get out, but he slipped back and Reddick, twisting, almost got away.

Shayne’s strength was returning slowly. Reaching the bridge, he swam back under it on his back, holding Reddick’s face out of the water. On the far side, he pushed Reddick up on the bank and was able to get out himself an instant later.

Somebody said, “I’ve got him.”

Two men had lowered themselves from the road, hanging on by the broken cable. They carried Reddick up, following the track made by the Olds as it came down. Shayne’s fingers touched a length of galvanized pipe, and he took it up with him.

Reddick lay at the edge of the pavement. Three cars were drawn up behind Shayne’s Buick, and a half-dozen people were around him. There was an ugly gash on Reddick’s forehead, but the canal water had washed off most of the blood.

Shayne knelt beside him and blew hard into his open mouth. The lips had a warm, sour taste. He blew again, settled back on his heels and began to work into the rhythm. The people around him continued to talk quietly.

Other cars stopped. Shayne went on trying until he heard a siren. An ambulance pulled up in front of the lined-up cars and an attendant, jumping down, shouldered Shayne aside. Shayne sat back wearily.

“Mouth-to-mouth won’t bring this one back,” the attendant said presently. “He’s dead, baby.”

CHAPTER 9

The attendant and the driver moved Reddick into the ambulance.

“Get in,” the attendant told Shayne.

“I’m all right,” Shayne said, standing up.

“You sure as hell don’t look it.”

The bright interior light in the ambulance illuminated Reddick’s face. A white sliver of bone showed in the face wound. Shayne went through his pockets quickly, taking nothing but a small tape recorder clipped to the inside of the soggy jacket.

“Don’t knock him around on the way in,” Shayne said. “We’re going to want an autopsy.”

The attendant looked at him curiously. “Didn’t I take you in earlier this evening?”

“You may have.”

The attendant shook his head. “How do you do it? I thought you were through for the weekend.”

He slammed the rear doors, got in beside the driver, and the ambulance moved off, its siren beginning to complain.

Shayne could hear the phone ringing in his own car. He picked up the length of pipe he had found at the water’s edge and took it with him. The phone continued to insist. He got in, thumbed open the glove compartment and took out the cognac. After drinking he waited a moment. Then he took a deep breath and picked up the phone.

“Chan Zacharias,” a voice said. “Mike, I want to talk to you.”

“Go ahead.”

There was a brief pause. “Has anything happened? You sound—I don’t know, a little remote.”

“I always sound this way when I’ve been slugged with a galvanized pipe. I didn’t call you, you called me. I’m listening.”

“You were slugged! Who by?”

“Somebody connected with professional football or professional bookmaking. I don’t know which.”

“Oh, dear. That makes my problem seem—Are you OK?”

“I’m functioning. Not at capacity yet.”

“Have you bumped into Stitch Reddick?”

“Twice.”

“Could you be a little more forthcoming, Michael? Naturally I’m sorry about what’s happened, but I’m curious, too. I’m sitting in an empty house looking at a Stone Age movie on television, and none of it has been registering. You promised you’d call.”

“I’m not ready to turn in a report yet, Mrs. Zacharias. I still have people to see. I’ll be in touch in the morning.”

“Mike, don’t wait till then! I wouldn’t get a wink of sleep.”

He drank without replying. The bite and afterglow of the excellent cognac started him on the slow climb back.

“Mike?”

“Yeah, I’m here. You didn’t give me much when you talked to me before. Have you changed your mind?”

“I suppose you could say that. Sid thought we’d be better off if you didn’t start with any preconceived ideas, but that was a little unfair to you, I think. I was so keyed up after that stupid quarrel with Sid, I didn’t know what I was saying. Time has passed. I’ve relaxed. If you give me a second chance I think I’ll do better.… I’d like to try being completely honest, and see if it helps. Will you come over?”

“Now?”

“Whenever you can make it. I have no plans at all about going to bed.”

“Has anybody told you Ronnie James may be playing tomorrow?”

“What?” she screamed. “Ronnie? How can he? He’s been in the hospital all week…”

“He’s had very good care. You’d better get some money down while they’re still giving seventeen points. I’ve got to change clothes on the way. Twenty minutes.”

He broke the connection and called the police.

He was put through to a captain he knew, named Squire. Shayne gave his location and described what had happened. Squire listened, making notes, coming to full attention only when Shayne mentioned Reddick’s football connection. That changed a routine highway fatality to a front-page news story.

“I want to understand this, Mike. You were chasing him?”

“Following him,” Shayne said. “I don’t think he knew I was there. There’s no doubt he was drunk. He was driving in spurts, very fast and then very slow. I was hoping one of your people would pull him over—I knew if I came up alongside he’d try to outrun me. When he went off the road he wasn’t doing any more than thirty-five and he wasn’t using his brakes. He was thrown against the windshield, and after that he was underwater. I’d like to know exactly what killed him. Is there a chance you could run an autopsy tonight?”

“At this time Saturday night, Mike?”

“Even if it may have been homicide?”

“Homicide! Did I miss something? You said he was alone in the car, drunk, driving erratically. He went through a retainer into the canal. Do you think the car was tampered with?”

“Probably not. He’d been weaving all over the road, part of the time at high speeds, and it would have shown up before then. But more than one person is going to benefit from this. Some funny things have been going on. He’d stumbled onto some kind of betting scandal and he was trying to use it for blackmail. I can’t tell you any more than that—I’m still trying to put it together. An autopsy report might help.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Squire said dubiously. “But there’s going to be some wailing and complaining.”

After hanging up, Shayne examined the tape recorder Reddick had been carrying. In the world of pro football, Reddick was known to lean heavily on electronic equipment. Someone had called him while he waited for Shayne at the Half-a-Sixpence. I’m open, he had said, according to the bartender, but the thing is, what have you got to trade? Then he had bolted out to the street. He had still been on the block when Shayne arrived some minutes later. Obviously the rest of the conversation had taken place in a car.

Shayne reversed the tape, stopped it, and went into playback at the machine’s usual speed of one and seven-eighths inches a second. There was no sound at first except for a vague rustling and footsteps. Then music was heard, becoming louder and louder until it drowned out all background noises. It stopped abruptly and a voice that unmistakably belonged to a radio disc jockey began shouting.

He was silenced, and Stitch Reddick’s voice said, “I can’t hear myself think with that damn radio on.”

The disc jockey came roaring back, smothering the reply. Even under optimal conditions, bugging devices are seldom completely reliable, which was why Shayne himself rarely used them. This music was heavily amplified, with a strong bass beat which would prevent the police technicians from sorting out the voice-range frequencies.

A song ended and a commercial for a teen-age skin cream followed. Shayne was listening closely, but nothing came through except an occasional unsatisfactory fragment: “… a drink… it should pay… game plan… guaran—…”

There was another complete phrase: “… if you hurry.” This was followed by the slamming of the car door.

He played the tape again. He was beginning to see a possible explanation for Reddick’s strange behavior and the words he had spoken at the edge of the canal, but he needed more than this.

A police car swung past him and parked. Shayne knew both cops slightly. He took them out on the bridge and showed them the submerged Olds. The tip of one of the twin radio aerials could be seen jutting out of the black water.

After finishing with the cops, Shayne drove to his apartment hotel on the Miami River, where he stripped off his wet clothes and carefully removed the head bandage. He touched the back of his head. If he hadn’t been wearing the bandage at the time he was clubbed, something much worse might have happened.

He dressed. Returning to his Buick, he headed south toward the causeway to Key Biscayne.

CHAPTER 10

The door opened.

Chan Zacharias swayed drunkenly against the brightly lighted hallway. She was wearing flowered pajamas, cut low in front—a fine-looking woman, more interesting to Shayne than any of the others he had met that night.

She took his arm and pulled it against her. “You should have come straight over. I’m not as clear-headed as when we talked. Come in and join me. A brand-new fifth of Martell’s is waiting.”

He turned her to face the light. Her body was totally relaxed. She smiled at him and shook her head slowly. Her hair swung.

“I don’t deny I’ve been drinking,” she said, “and you’re not in good focus. But hang on to me and I know I’ll make it.”

He turned back. “Get some sleep. I’ll call in the morning.”

She pulled him hard. “You know you have to stay, Michael. It’s your duty as a detective. If you leave without asking me any questions they’ll kick you out of the union.”

“Goodnight, Chan.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She slid her arm around his waist. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m still enunciating. I’ll drink some coffee and lay off the booze and tell you everything you want to know. If you ask me the right questions, it’ll make your life much simpler.”

The phone rang.

“Poll takers,” she said. “Ignore them.”

She pulled him into the living room. The phone stopped after the third ring. She poured a strong slug of cognac into a bubble glass and pressed it into his hand.

“That commits you to stay.”

“What did you want to tell me?”

She sat down in the middle of a big sofa and kicked off her shoes. “I’ll put the coffee on in a minute,” she said, picking up a highball that looked as though it was mostly Scotch. “I can’t remember what I said. I was sitting here.” She drank. “Worrying. Lonely as sin. Feeling sorry for myself. Poor Chandonette. And I went back over the conversation we had earlier, and I wished I’d been a little more honest. Mike, do sit down, please. I can’t be peaceful with you looming over me like that.”

She patted the sofa, and scowled at him when he took a chair across from her. She continued her explanation.

“Things have been piling up around me. I’m in a state of fury most of the time. The minute you appeared tonight, I started calculating how I could use you in my dogfight with Sid. That’s mean and self-centered, and it’s also fairly dumb, because if you don’t clear this up fast, a lot of fine people are going to be in the soup, including Chan Zacharias, needless to say.”

When he did nothing but watch her, she said, “Ask me something.”

“What are you mainly after, Chan?”

“That’s easy. I want to stay married, keep the property intact, and have a satisfactory sex life. Is that too much to ask?”

“Sex life inside marriage or outside?”

“What’s wrong with both?”

Shayne drank. “I’m trying to get everybody diagrammed, and it hasn’t been easy. If you really want to be candid, tell me about you and Ronnie, and whether Sid knows about it or not.”

“Oh, Mike, do we have to start there? It makes me sound so promiscuous, and that’s a word I hate.” Shayne said nothing, so she continued, “Well… I can give you its full extent in fifty words. Sid wanted to talk to Ronnie about his contract. This was in San Francisco; we were out for the Oakland game. Something came up and Sid had to leave. When Ronnie got there I was all by myself, on my third drink, and open to any reasonable suggestion. He made a suggestion I thought was reasonable. That’s all there was to it. Once! Unfortunately—” She stopped.

“Unfortunately.”

“The maid came in. Ronnie tried to get out of bed and his knee locked. It does that unless he’s careful—it gets jammed and he can’t straighten it out. He couldn’t stand up and he couldn’t put on his pants… You wouldn’t believe it in a blackout skit in burlesque.”

“And Sid came back with Ronnie still in his underwear?”

“Did I say he was wearing underwear? No, we were spared that, but he heard about it. It was too good a story to keep corked.”

“You said something about divorce.”

“That’s a guess. I haven’t heard from any lawyers yet.”

“What kind of terms are you on with Ted Knapp?”

She looked at him carefully before answering. “Friendly, I guess. I don’t know any of his secrets. He’s been to the house a few times, but always with a mob of people.”

“He’s trying to buy the club?”

“Everybody and his uncle have been trying to buy the club since we turned the corner. Sid was talking with Knapp last summer, and for a while I had a horrible feeling it was actually going through. I think somebody in Knapp’s group backed out and he couldn’t come up with the money.”

“What was the price?”

“They were talking about nine.” She knocked on the coffee table, a superstitious gesture she may have picked up from her husband. “Nine million dollars. A nice round sum.”

“You called Joe Truck tonight when I was there. How much of all that was your idea?”

“None at all.” She shuddered. “That really fell apart in a big way.”

“Did Stitch Reddick get in touch with you tonight?”

“No.”

She made it a question. He drank, and for a moment they looked at each other.

“Earlier, you wanted to talk to me,” Shayne said. “When I didn’t answer right away you had the operator keep on ringing. She usually only rings once—it’s a car phone, after all. You had something to tell me, and I don’t mean a story about some casual sex in a San Francisco hotel room. That’s very minor. Ted Knapp made a lot of money last week betting against Miami, and for Ted it was a bad move. It put him in the spotlight, and the bookies will be watching him from now on. If he gets to be known as a gambler, he’ll have to give up any hope of buying a football franchise.”

“I don’t see what you’re driving at, Michael. I honestly don’t know anything about that.”

“Ronnie thinks somebody may be selling plays. Have you heard any talk about that?”

“Selling Miami plays? That’s serious.”

“Does Sid bet on the games?”

“With people he knows, not through bookies.”

“How’s his financial picture outside of football?”

“Sid’s financial picture is excellent. The son of a bitch is loaded.”

“You said he’s involved with another woman. Tell me about her.”

“She plays a good game of bridge. She raises money for arthritis—no, not arthritis, that’s not a rare enough disease. She always seems to be nipping off to Acapulco or the south of France. A real drip.”

There was still some cognac in Shayne’s glass, but he left it. “Thanks, Chan,” he said, standing up. “I’ll find my own way out.”

Her face froze. “You don’t think I’m trying to be helpful.”

“You want me to think you’re trying to be helpful.”

“If that’s so, I’m not succeeding, apparently. Mike, if you’d just tell me what you want to know—”

“I want to know what kind of goddamn game you think you’re playing!”

She sat forward. “I’m not playing any game,” she said quietly.

“The hell you’re not. You’re trying to score points on Sid and win some money. That’s probably not everything you’re trying to do, but it’s all I’ve figured out so far. And if one of your football players or the private detective you’ve hired happens to get beaten up, too bad. That’s what they’re paid for. But when somebody gets killed—”

Her breath caught, and her hand went out automatically to knock on the table. “Nobody’s been killed.”

“Stop acting,” Shayne said scornfully. “You don’t do it that well. When you called me half an hour ago, you were breathing hard. Stitch Reddick was asking for money, and you needed help. You were ready to spill the whole thing and ask me to handle it for you. Now you put me off with some junk about extracurricular sex. Who cares who you sleep with? I don’t, and I doubt if Sid does, either.”

“I don’t know what gives you the idea—”

Shayne rode her down. “Then you found out that Reddick was no longer a problem, and you stopped worrying.”

“Mike, you’re trying to trick me—”

“You know damn well he’s dead… it’s the only way to explain this switch.”

She came off the sofa and put her hand on his arm. “You’re so wrong… How did it happen?”

“They’re finding out now. I think it was murder.”

She swayed in against him. Shayne’s arms stayed at his sides. After a moment she drew a deep breath. Returning to the table, she picked up her drink and emptied it in one long pull.

“You told me you were slugged. Does that have anything to do with—”

“Reddick was still alive and talking. I was wearing a head bandage, and that took some of the impact. Even so, it was close. I’m not complaining. Anybody who gets into an automobile these days has to be lucky to stay alive. It happened that I was lucky. Reddick wasn’t.”

She gave him a dazed look. “I need a minute to straighten this out. You think he found out something I wouldn’t want him to make public—”

“That’s right.”

“So I had him killed?”

“God knows you’re involved. If you want to tell me about it, fine. Otherwise I’m on my way.”

She shook her head. “You can’t go now. Mike, would you please, please, stop putting this pressure on me and tell me exactly what happened to Reddick, so I can know what to say?”

She looked at him appealingly.

“I suppose you won’t,” she said when he failed to answer. “That would be poor technique. It’s true I haven’t been thinking of this as a life-and-death matter. I may have even been a little frivolous about it. I did know he was dead, but I didn’t think there was any possibility of murder. I was told he got drunk and smashed up his car.”

“Who told you?”

“I have friends who call me when they think there’s something I ought to hear. He was dead when he got to the hospital, that’s all I know. It seemed to solve quite a few things.”

“Whenever a blackmailer dies, Chan, murder is one of the possibilities that has to be looked into. It’s going to be a hell of a big story, either way. Stitch Reddick, investigating rumors of a football fix, dies the night before one of the most surprising point-spread changes of the year. I don’t know why sports scandals are bigger than any other kind, but they always are. People must be glad to find out that those hot pitchers and quarterbacks are as crooked as anybody else.”

“Sid won’t be delighted.”

“How much do you have on the game, Chan?”

“Too much,” she said ruefully. “I was an idiot, and I can’t hedge—I don’t have any cash left. But don’t tell Sid.”

“Will you start thinking? Before I took Reddick into the canal with me, he mumbled your name. It was all very garbled and hard to make out. He said Mrs. Z. worked it. Is there anybody else around with that initial?”

She looked puzzled. “What did he mean, I worked it?”

“It’s too late to ask him, Chan,” Shayne said impatiently. “He also mentioned Coach Lynch. He said if we went in together we could clean up.”

“Lynch? That’s impossible. He’s the one coach in the league—Mike, he’s a Mormon, he gives a tenth of his pay to the church. He won’t do commercials—”

“You’ve convinced me. Go on from there. If you’ll go back to the beginning and stop lying, I think there’s a chance we can straighten this out before anybody else gets hurt. Right now is the deadline.”

“I don’t see why anybody else should get hurt.”

“You know about momentum. When something like this gets underway, it has to play itself out. It’s harder to stop a war than it is to get into one, and you’re right out in the middle of the battlefield.”

“Thanks for the warning, Mike, if that’s what it is, but I think the boy’s going to get the girl, and we’re all going to live happily ever after.”

Shayne made a movement, and she said hastily, “Except for Stitch Reddick, of course, and he brought that on himself. If you drink, don’t drive. Why should I care about Stitch Reddick? I wish you’d sit down. I want to talk about making a deal.”

“What kind?”

“I know exactly what happened in last week’s game, and in the New Orleans game the week before, and in the Kansas City game last year when Ronnie had his elbow trouble. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but I wish I did. Together we might be able to work it out and get in on it. But I need some proof that you aren’t implacably hostile. I have a suggestion.” She looked at him evenly. “Make love to me.”

Shayne laughed.

After a moment she smiled. Sitting back, she said in a softer voice, “I had to say it that way. If I tried to put my arms around you to say it, you would have slugged me. But why not? Those are the rules of the house.”

“They aren’t my rules.”

“I’ve got a philosophy. If I talk to you, there’s a good chance I’ll come out with an empty bank account and everybody mad at me. And you’d get a solution, one-percent ownership of a valuable ball club, excellent word-of-mouth publicity. Mike Shayne triumphs again. A deal’s no good unless it’s good for both parties.”

“Goodnight, Chan.”

“You haven’t said why not,” she said reasonably. “I have to get something out of this. Then I can tell my friends I’ve had an intimate experience with Mike Shayne. It’s worth more than an autograph.”

She went for his unfinished cognac and brought it to him. “Dear Michael Shayne. Consider my suggestion without sentimentality. Where will you go if you leave? It’s late. Everybody’s gone to bed. Whereas if you stay you’ll get quantities of valuable information, and you might even enjoy yourself slightly.”

“Let’s do it the other way around. Talk to me first and then I’ll pay off.”

She came close enough to touch him with her body. “I’m not sure I could trust you. Damn it, don’t argue. I’ve just had my bedroom repapered. Let me show you.”

The points of her breasts moved against him. Evidently she thought she had him. Her eyes were partially closed, and she touched her forehead to his shoulder.

“Whose idea was it to hire me,” Shayne said, “yours or Sid’s?”

She drew back. “His, but I concurred. I’m one of your admirers. I think you’re without a doubt one of the sexiest men in Dade County, and if you care to step into my bedroom, which is just around the corner, I’ll give you some proof of the way I feel. Or we can stay here, if you don’t want to go that far. Keep your clothes on if you want. Whatever you like, I like. I’ve been having fantasies about you for weeks.”

“Has Sid ever heard you say anything like that?”

“I don’t believe in keeping my esthetic opinions to myself. I could give you a rundown on all your big wins. I’m girlish on the subject. Just the other day there was a picture of you going up the front steps of the courthouse, taking them three at a time, and it honestly made me shiver. As for Sid—he goes up steps one by one.” She frowned suddenly. “Are you suggesting he knew I’d ask you to—”

“It would explain the high fee. He must know you don’t like to sit around by yourself on a Saturday night looking at old movies. It sounds to me as though he set up that episode in San Francisco, and then thought better of it. Ronnie’s a property, after all. Use him in a divorce case and you lower his trading value. I’d be much better. It wouldn’t even hurt me professionally.”

She returned to the coffee table for a cigarette. “Sid is kind of an intriguer… Yes, let’s stay out of my bedroom.”

She lit the cigarette and blew out the match. “Goddamn it, let’s fool him and go to a hotel! I mean it! I’m not sure you’re right, but if there’s anything to it at all, don’t you think it puts us under a sort of obligation? Mike,” she said excitedly, returning to him and prodding him in the chest, “why don’t we, really? I don’t want to be alone, I’m too charged up. And you wouldn’t be copping out, because it’s in the postcoital conversations that I get really confidential…”

“Tell me one thing.”

“Afterward.”

“You must know that every now and again some good-looking woman has tried to tie me up by getting me into bed with her.”

She breathed out smoke and said philosophically, “But it doesn’t usually work, does it?”

“Sometimes it works. I’m human. You do the bit as well as anybody, including those little looks to make me think it’s all very carefully calculated. I’m supposed to decide that you want to divert me because I’m on the right track—which must mean I’m doing something wrong.”

“I don’t follow that! But never mind, I get the general idea. Tonight I sleep alone.”

He poured himself more cognac and drank it off. “Have you been here the whole evening?”

“Yes.”

“Somebody called Reddick in a bar a few minutes after ten. They met in a car, and before they started talking Reddick was given a drink. I think it was laced with barbiturates, which can be bad in combination with alcohol. He was driving about twelve minutes. It would take just about that long for the dose to hit. If I hadn’t been right on his tail, he would have died in the hospital. If he hadn’t gone off the road he would have died at home. Pretty surefire, all in all. How’s your supply of sleeping pills?”

“I never take them. All right—go on if you’re going. Go out and find your goddamn murderer, and the hell with you.”

But she came to the door with him. “Sorry about this scene, Mike. If I’d done it a little differently, I think it might have worked. The pro’s going to beat the amateur, every time. Give me one real kiss before you go.”

He kissed her. She responded fully, but made no effort to prolong it.

“If everything works, will you meet me somewhere for dinner tomorrow?”

“I doubt it. Lock your doors.”

As he crossed the porch, he heard the door close softly behind him. A phone was ringing somewhere in the house.

CHAPTER 11

He had left his car in the driveway, behind Chan’s sleek MG. He stepped into the shadows and waited.

There was a half-moon. This was an expensive, quiet neighborhood, with nothing moving on the streets. A few lighted windows could be seen through the shrubbery, but most of the nearby houses were dark. There was a party somewhere, probably aboard a moored boat.

When his eyes had adjusted, Shayne crossed the lawn to the garage. There were three berths, two empty. The third held a surprisingly battered station wagon. He went to the little MG and checked its mileage—which had vaguely registered with him when she was speeding. After Chan had dropped him at the causeway toll plaza, the car had traveled nine miles, just enough to bring her home.

Again he stopped to listen before continuing to his Buick. He went around to the driver’s side, reached for the door latch, and then, hearing something move, leaped back and whirled.

There was a blur of motion, and he was struck a violent blow across the chest. A heavy figure with upraised arms started to hover toward him. He swung hard. The shadows separated, and he saw two men trying to close with him. Both were enormous, and after one contact, he knew they were very strong. He brought his knee up, and somebody grunted. It was Joe Truszowski. The second man, a Negro, was clearly another football player, with bushy sideburns running along his jaws.

“Aaron, hold him,” Truck ordered.

The Negro was trying to pin Shayne against the car so Truck could hit him. It wasn’t football. There was no referee. Shayne, at six-feet-one a much smaller and lighter man, had been in this kind of brawl more than once in his career. Some he had lost, some he had won. This time he thought he had a chance, because so far the Negro wasn’t trying to hurt him badly.

Shayne kept between them, turning their bulk and awkwardness to an advantage. He had faster hands. They stamped around heavily, part of the time in moonlight, part in shadow.

Shayne swung an elbow at the Negro, and stung Truck with a rigid finger aimed at his eye.

“Don’t be dumb, Joe,” Shayne said. “You’re in trouble already.”

Truck grunted, straining. Shayne saw an opening, and hung a hard right on his jaw. The jolt traveled up Shayne’s arm and exploded in his shoulder. It was one of the hardest rights he had ever thrown. Truck stayed on his feet, leaning forward, but his powerful arms dropped to his sides and his head rolled.

Shayne might have finished him then, but the follow-through after the punch took him through a predictable arc, and the Negro caught him.

“Rack him, rack him,” Truck said.

With a sweeping backward motion, Shayne broke the aerial off his car. It was extended to its full length and was no good for close work, but he brought the stump back and rammed it hard into the Negro’s stomach.

It must have hurt, though the Negro said nothing. Shayne broke free and jumped onto the grass. Continuing the same movement, he spun around and slashed the Negro’s face with the aerial. In the half-darkness the Negro didn’t see it coming, but he heard it and felt it. Shayne brought it back and opened up the other side of his face.

Truck was still doing a little shuffle on the asphalt. Shayne whipped the aerial at him, and Truck moved back, clawing at his eyes and swearing.

Shayne kicked the Negro away from the car and got the door open. He managed to grab the galvanized pipe from the floor where he had dropped it.

Aaron threw his weight against the door, trying to hold Shayne in the opening. Shayne stabbed the broken end of the aerial upward, and this time the Negro yelled. Freeing himself, Shayne swung the pipe.

The man saw it coming and fell backward, raising an arm. Shayne put his full strength into the swing, and heard the crunch of breaking bone. With his other hand, Aaron seized Shayne’s wrist and wrung the pipe out of his hand, then took two backward steps and sat down hard on the grass, muttering in pain.

Truck’s head had cleared. Shayne looked on the ground for the pipe. He thought he saw it, but then Truck swung a hand like a rock, and connected. Shayne was too close to use the aerial again. As Truck charged, he seized the heavy man with both hands and pulled, sidestepping. Truck plunged into the side of the Buick, no doubt doing considerable damage.

Shayne hit him twice from behind and once more as he turned.

“Shayne, you’re going to—”

Shayne hit him very hard on the nose bandage, and felt the cartilage snap. But that nose had been broken so often Truck gave no sign of feeling it. Setting himself, Shayne swung again. Truck took it on the side of the jaw and kept coming. Shayne pumped in a hard left to the stomach, low, before the big arms closed around him.

To Shayne’s surprise, the grip loosened at once. He brought up both arms as though breaking a tackle, and the explosive effort sent Truck staggering sluggishly back against the car.

A woman’s voice said harshly, “Will you cut it out, Joe?”

It was Bea Truszowski, wearing the same tight slacks Shayne had seen her in earlier. Her hair was up in curlers. She had just rapped her husband over the head with the pipe, and stood ready to hit him again. Draped across the fender, his chin against his chest, he was making vague swimming gestures.

“Give me that,” Shayne said, putting out his hand.

“You can go to hell,” she said. “This is stopping right now.”

Truck rotated groggily and peered at his wife. He had taken out his teeth before the fight, and the empty mouth made him look older.

“You hit me.”

“Damn right I hit you! Stay where you are or I’ll do it again. If you move one inch—one damn inch—I’ll give the damn pipe to Shayne.”

“Go right ahead,” Truck told her, but without moving in her direction.

“It’s really something!” she said. “Being married to the town’s number one lunkhead. This is Mike Shayne! He has to be working for Zacharias, don’t you realize that yet?”

“Never mind who he’s working for—he’ll sell us out to the highest bidder!”

“What highest bidder? I know you can’t help it, but you’re the stupidest man in pro football, and that takes in a lot of people. Will you stop letting Chan baby do your thinking for you?”

Shayne said to Truck, “What did Chan say when she called you?”

“Nobody called me.”

Bea raised the pipe threateningly. “What’s the point of lying?”

“I saw money on your kitchen table,” Shayne said. “That’s all we need to get you banned and labeled. You’re supposed to stay away from people like Lou Mangione.”

“Which is what I’ve been telling you,” his wife pointed out angrily. “They don’t have to prove anything. They tear up the contract and laugh.”

Truck pushed off the car and flexed his shoulders. Shayne flicked the radio aerial, but the fight appeared to be over.

“And that shows how much you know,” Truck said. “All they need to do is check with Stitch Reddick. I’m covered.”

“Reddick’s dead,” Shayne said.

Truck gaped at him. He sucked in air as though his throat had closed up suddenly.

“He isn’t either!”

“He is, though,” Shayne said. “He was in a car accident. The body’s at Mercy Hospital. You won’t want to take my word for it, so stop in and ask them how he’s doing. And you’d better take your friend in and have something done about that shoulder.”

The huge Negro on the grass said thinly, “Joe, I got to get a shot—”

“I told Reddick about Mangione’s offer the minute I got it!” Truck declared.

“I know that,” Shayne said impatiently. “It doesn’t change the fact that without Reddick to back you up, you can’t prove it. Think about it, and maybe you’ll decide to apologize.”

“He apologizes,” Bea said quickly. “Don’t you, Joe? He’s sorry he did anything that silly.”

“That’s not enough,” Shayne said. “I want to start getting some cooperation for a change.”

“Mr. Shayne,” Bea assured him, “he’ll cooperate all the way, or I personally am going to break his head for him.”

The injured man on the grass made a small sound. “Joe—”

“Take him in,” Shayne said curtly, “and then don’t go anywhere. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

Bea tugged at her husband’s arm. “Joe, we’ve got to do what he says. Joe…”

Truck blinked malevolently at Shayne. “If she hadn’t clipped me with that goddamn pipe—”

“Sure, honey,” she said sarcastically, “we know about your muscles. It’s your brain we’re thinking about.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say that kind of thing in front of other people,” Truck said.

He bent over and helped the black player to his feet. Bea ran to get their car.

“Is it really true about Stitch?” Truck said.

“It’s really true. Keep thinking about it.”

Bea brought the car up, and her husband and the other man climbed in. She got away fast. By that time Shayne was sprawled in a pool of shadow beside his Buick, waiting for the sound of an opening door. The party on the boat had accelerated in the last few minutes. He heard shrill laughter.

Chan Zacharias came out of the house and ran across the lawn. She was carrying a flashlight and a length of clothesline. Her flashlight found him. He smelled ether.

As she came down beside him, he quickly reached out and took an ether-soaked rag out of her hand. She fell back in surprise and the flashlight hit the driveway and went out.

“Mike.”

“Ether’s not bad,” he said. “Almost humane.”

“Christ,” she said in disgust, recovering. “I thought two of them could handle you… Where are those clowns?”

“I had a little luck.” Getting to his feet, he pulled her up so her face was in the moonlight. “Now…!”

“Mike, I just wanted to put you in the freezer until after the game. You could have slept with me and this wouldn’t have happened.” She put her hand on her heart. “God, you scared me, sitting up like that!”

“Are you scared enough to talk to me?”

She shook her head. “I don’t see how anything’s changed.”

“Everything’s changed. You have pretty good information, so you must know that I walked in on Joe Truszowski as he was taking a bribe from one of those bad Italians you read about in the papers. Stitch Reddick had planted a bug under a chair so they could get it on tape. The other guy, Mangione, had an open mike in his pocket. It banged against the chair and there was a real feedback screech. Joe must have known you need two mikes to make that kind of noise, but he didn’t look for the bug. He already knew it was there. He was very cool about the whole thing until somebody phoned him. I think it was Reddick, to say the plan wasn’t working. Are you following this?”

“I get the idea.”

“Truck was hoping to get some publicity as the man who cooperated with the league’s security machinery in exposing an attack on the integrity of the great American sport. But Reddick’s receiver was out of action. The conversation was going out, but nobody was taking it down. Still, Truck hasn’t been worrying because Reddick could always explain.”

“And now with Reddick out of the picture—”

“That’s right,” Shayne said. “After doing his best to clobber me a couple of times, Truck can’t think I have any reason to feel friendly. So he has to tell me exactly what happened last Sunday, exactly who said what, and when. If you want to give me your version first, I’m willing to listen.”

“Come in the house where it’s comfortable. Or if you want to reconsider that hotel idea—”

“I don’t think so, Chan.”

“Now don’t rush me—I’m thinking. Even if I made up something wild, I couldn’t hold you more than fifteen or twenty minutes, and that’s not enough. I don’t want to get you really mad at me… But I don’t think Joe can tell you anything that will hurt me too badly. So goodnight again, Mike.”

He let her walk away.

CHAPTER 12

Shayne, in the well-lighted Mercy Hospital parking lot, was wiring his broken aerial together when Tim Rourke came running toward him.

“Developments, Mike! You know that gorgeous night nurse of Ronnie’s—”

Shayne continued winding the flexible wire around the aerial’s overlapping ends. “Dody Germaine.”

“Is that her name? She just took a taxi to the airport, and now I’m wondering if maybe I should have followed her to find out where she’s going.”

“How long ago, Tim?”

“Ten minutes at the most.”

Shayne finished his provisional repair and signaled for the operator.

“Was she still in uniform?”

“No, she’d changed. She came down in the elevator with some tall, skinny guy, and he put her in the cab. I didn’t get much of a look at him, but I think it was the team physician; I forget his name—Bishop, Len Bishop. The knee man.”

When the operator answered, Shayne gave her a number. In a moment more he was connected with Hank Shapiro, the night security man at the International Airport. He and Shayne had frequently worked together, most recently on a smuggling case which had ended with a fifty-fifty split of a $10,000 reward.

“Are you busy, Hank?”

“Just sitting around listening to the airplanes take off.”

“A girl’s coming out in a taxi from downtown. I’d like to know what flight she takes. She was alone when she left here, and she shouldn’t be hard to spot. Wait a minute.” To Rourke: “What’s she wearing?”

“A suit, I guess you’d call it. Little blue checks. The important thing was what was inside the suit. She had a little suitcase, small enough to carry on the plane. Tell him not to worry—he’ll notice her.”

After passing on this information, Shayne hung up thoughtfully and started a cigarette.

“I’ve been nosing around asking questions,” Rourke said, “and here’s something I picked up. One of Ronnie’s day nurses brought a shopping bag to work yesterday, and inside that shopping bag she had a couple of those insulated canisters you get in Chinese restaurants when you order dinner to go out. The orderly I talked to said that shopping bag was giving off the very definite smell of steak. Steak’s one of the things they don’t feed intravenously. Which makes me think Ronnie may be—” Shayne’s expression stopped him. “Now you’re going to tell me you know it already?”

“It’s old news, Tim. I think I’ve got a couple of minutes to fill you in. I’ve connected a few people, but we still don’t have a pattern.”

His head thrust forward at the end of his long neck, Rourke listened. After a moment he took out a notebook, laid it on the hood of Shayne’s Buick and began making notes in his tiny, unreadable script.

“I knew this was going to be big.” He turned back a page to check his earlier notes. “But I hate to tell you this, Mike—somebody’s lying.”

“There goes another illusion,” Shayne said, putting out his cigarette. “I need a check on this Germaine girl. She said she worked as a New York model a couple of years ago. Do you know anybody who might know her?”

Rourke considered. “One of my old News buddies has been taking pictures for Vogue. It won’t hurt to try him.” The phone rang.

“And what a pleasure that was, Mike,” Shapiro reported from the airport. “Following a chick like that could get to be habit forming. That’s one of the most interesting going-away actions I’ve ever seen.”

“Where did it take her?”

“That’s the funny thing—nowhere. She was here about three minutes, and went back to town.”

Shayne scraped his chin. “Give me the play-by-play.”

“Right. She got out at the cab drop, and I noticed her right away. You didn’t tell me she wouldn’t be wearing a bra. That brightened everybody’s evening. She came into the main concourse, bought a paperback mystery at the newsstand and checked arrival times at the Pan Am counter. Then she went out and picked up another cab to take her back to Miami. She was under observation all the time—and I do mean close observation. She didn’t speak to anybody. She didn’t pass any packages. She didn’t pick up anything. Sorry, Mike.”

“Don’t be sorry. That explains quite a lot.”

“When you’ve got any more assignments like this one, think of me, will you? Nothing much happens out here after midnight.”

Shayne put the phone down and repeated what Shapiro had told him.

“What the hell?” Rourke said, puzzled.

“What the hell is right. Fakes all over the place. I’m seeing Joe Truck in a minute, as soon as he gets his bandage changed, and I hope he’s going to be the exception.” Rourke went off to shut himself in an outside booth to call New York, while Shayne crossed the parking lot and entered the hospital by the emergency entrance.

This part of the building was bleak and functional, with exposed cinder-block walls, a preparation room and a series of bare cubicles off a low-ceilinged concrete corridor. Bea Truszowski was alone in the waiting room. She sat on a wooden bench, her hands on her knees, staring at nothing. She had taken out her curlers and put on lipstick. Her face showed tired, hard lines.

She leaped up, seeing Shayne, and spoke with animation. “They’re working on him now, but they must be just about through. Mr. Shayne, we agreed in the car—he’s going to tell you the whole thing. I think I believe him, sort of, but I can see how Coach and Mr. Zacharias are going to want something in the way of evidence. Can you give me a cigarette?”

Shayne provided her with one and lit it for her.

“Joe’s picking me up here when they’re done, so we might as well sit down. Mr. Shayne, if you want to do me a favor… I know you don’t feel too loving toward Joe at the moment… but if you’d just listen to what he says? Tell him you’ll suspend judgment till tomorrow? He won’t sleep unless you can relieve his mind, and it’s when he’s tired that he gets hurt. He needs a solid nine hours.”

Shayne sat down. “How did you happen to be with him at the Zacharias’s?”

“I made him take me along,” she said grimly. “I’m the one who answered the phone when the bitch called, and I’ll call her ‘bitch’ to her face, because that’s what she is. All she has to do is snap her fingers and Joe comes running. I told him I didn’t approve of it. I didn’t raise my voice. I merely pointed out quietly that if he went off to make love to another woman the Saturday night before a game, considering that he makes such a fetish of not making love to his wife on Saturday night to save his strength, I intended to lay the entire matter before Mr. Lynch. And you know Mr. Lynch. He doesn’t make much of a habit of asking questions. Around here his word—is—law! So Joe had to let me go, as the lesser of two evils.” Her husband walked in while she was talking, his nose reset and freshly bandaged. The cut above his eyes had been stitched, and he was now wearing his front teeth. He gave Shayne and his wife a sour look.

“If I’m interrupting anything—”

Bea bounced up to meet him. “I’ve just been telling Mr. Shayne. We realize he has us over a barrel. Start with last Sunday.”

Truck scrubbed his fingers through his close-cropped hair, sat down on one of the benches, and sighed. “I don’t know if I did the right thing or not.”

“You did the wrong thing,” his wife said. “That goes without saying.”

“You blew those two plays, didn’t you?” Shayne asked.

“Well, yeah,” Truck said uncomfortably, “and I hated to do it. That guy beats me sometimes, but I usually get a piece of him. There’s this way he moves his hips, I can key on him. But I’ve had this James kid for two seasons now and he’s running out my ears.”

“Joe,” Bea said, “for the good of the club, for your own good—”

“Shut up,” Truck said mildly enough. “I’m the one they hammer on. I try to do a job out there. In my time I’ve torn up a few people who thought they were tough. I try to be a credit to football. I keep my weight right on the button and any time they want somebody to show up at a dinner to help ticket sales—”

“OK,” Shayne said without sympathy. “—while Ronnie drinks and doesn’t come to practice and gets most of the endorsement income. It’s a cruel world.”

“You know it,” Truck agreed. “And you left out a few things… Am I allowed to ask a question? All they’ll tell me about Reddick is it was a one-car accident. Was there anything—well, out of the ordinary about it?”

“Quite a few things.”

“I mean, it’s bad timing from my viewpoint, and I don’t know if it was a coincidence or not. He was looking for extra income, Stitch, that stuck out, and if he was trying to cut himself in on Ronnie’s or somebody’s action… Because you may not realize it, but Ronnie’s got a very big thing going here, as far as I can make out.”

“Tell him about it,” Bea urged.

“Like in the K.C. game last year,” Truck said. “If we’d took that one, it meant a minimum of four thousand per man, more than that depending on how far we went afterward. Four thousand to me and Bea is pretty good bread. But up there where Ronnie is—his tax bracket—he loses it all to the government. But if he gets it in the form of a payoff, and some people say you can’t blame him, even if it’s only four thousand—and it couldn’t hardly be that little—he’d come out ahead. So last year, as I say, he had water on the elbow. That was legit, you couldn’t fake the inflammation, and Doc Bishop had to draw some of it off and stick in some butazolidin. That much I can vouch for. Ronnie built on that. There was some grumbling afterward among the guys. It wasn’t so much that he was missing passes, it was how he was doing it.”

“He was paid,” Bea said flatly.

“Who do you think paid him?” Shayne said.

“A fellow named Knapp was around at the time, and he’s always making these crazy bets—like how many blackbirds are going to light on a stretch of telephone wire. Against New Orleans two weeks ago—somebody jaked the bookies on that one, and here we get into what I know for a fact. There’s this Holiday Inn outside of Fort Lauderdale. We’re not close pals, Ronnie and me, and that’s known. I got a tip that Ronnie had a room there, and if I went up for an hour or two on such and such a morning, I could learn something. Well, with my size I can’t sit in a coffee shop and hope they won’t notice me. So I stayed in the car and Bea did it. First this Knapp. He pulled up and went in one of the rooms for just long enough to turn around. He had a kind of dispatch case when he went in, and he didn’t have it when he came out. Fifteen, twenty minutes later—”

“More like an hour,” his wife put in.

“More like an hour… Ronnie drove up in that flossy car, I don’t even know the name of the make, and he went in the room and came out with the dispatch case. No two ways about it—he was collecting the payoff for calling the New Orleans game so it ended up in the middle and the bookies got beat coming and going.”

“You got a tip,” Shayne said. “How did that work?”

“In the mail,” Truck said. “Typed, with no name on it.”

“I thought it was kind of cuckoo,” Bea said, “but when Joe showed it to me, I thought—why not drive up to see? And sure enough, first Knapp, then Ronnie James. The same dispatch case, I’ll swear to that. How else can you explain it?”

“And that’s why you decided to knock Ronnie out of the Boston game?”

“I wasn’t trying to get him concussed, understand. It was more of a warning. I was going to take him aside later and say, ‘Look, remember you depend on me and the guys on the line if you want to stay healthy.’”

“Were you planning to ask him for a piece of the payoff?”

“No,” Truck said indignantly. “I don’t go in for that kind of crap!”

Bea moved uneasily. “Honey, Mike’s not like some people. He won’t automatically condemn a person. When everybody else is making a fortune—”

“That’s the thing,” her husband said. “When Sid sells the club he’s going to pick up five or six million clear profit, and when you think about it—is that fair? Ronnie’s a great draw, but put him behind some offensive lines I could mention and he’d never complete a pass. I’m the one who got the two All-Pros.”

“Now what about Lou Mangione?”

“What about him? He called me up on the subject of the best way to get to Maxie, the kicker, and that son-of-a-bitch Stitch Reddick had a bug on my phone, as it happened. I still don’t know what Stitch had in mind—what he was intending to do with that tape. I didn’t tell Bea about it, and that’s where I made my mistake. She’s been nagging me all year—”

“Joe, I have not.”

“Yes, you have,” he said reasonably. “About the paycheck. I thought the thing to do about Stitch was to go into it with him and keep the old eyes open. And if somebody in this room hadn’t busted up his receiver, we could have worked out something.”

“What kind of protection are you giving Ronnie tomorrow?” Shayne said.

He got an astonished look from both Truszowskis.

Joe cried. “You mean he’s been dogging it all week? Why, that dirty—and here I’ve been feeling I knocked us out of the playoffs.” Another thought struck him. “The points! Bea, they’re giving seventeen on New York, and if Ronnie’s going to be in there—”

“Stay out of it,” Shayne told him coldly. Then, less harshly: “You’re already in one betting jam… Look, a couple of direct questions, and then you can go get some sleep. Did you get the feeling the Boston defense was reading you last week?”

“I’m the wrong one to ask. All I see is the guy in front of me. One of the coaches was beefing afterward.”

“Who’s Ted Knapp’s connection on the team?”

“I didn’t know he had one.”

“He has one.”

Truck considered, but in the end he shook his head. “Ronnie’s the only one I ever tied him in with. If you mean somebody who’s feeding him information—a player would cost too much. A trainer, or Doc Bishop—” He stopped, and said slowly, “Bishop’s got this new girlfriend, hair down to here. You don’t go out with a doll like that without money in your pocket. And old Doc—” He shrugged. “I’ve seen his wife, and she’s let herself get heavy. This blonde. Mmmh, mmh. It’s lucky I’m happily married.”

“Don’t brag about the ‘happily,’” Bea said coldly.

“How is he as a doctor?”

Truck said cautiously, “Well…when you get an injury, the first thing he has to do is find out where it hurts. He likes that part. I’ve had him for three operations now, and they all came out all right.” He added, “He makes all these little jokes which just aren’t funny.”

“Does he give amphetamines?”

“If you think you need it, you get it, and if anybody asks questions, it’s B-12. I’m a candidate for one tomorrow, believe me. I’m half dead.”

“Couldn’t you let Joe go to sleep now, Mr. Shayne?” Bea asked plaintively.

“You didn’t answer one question,” Shayne said. “Are you going to protect Ronnie if he plays?”

“Why not? I made my point Sunday.”

“All right,” Shayne said, dismissing them.

“But as far as sleep goes,” Truck said, heaving himself up, “what a laugh. You gave me all these new ideas, and they’ll keep rattling around in my head the rest of the night.”

Bea whispered a suggestion, but he shook his head.

“No, Bea. If I told you once, I told you five hundred times—I’ve only got so much strength, and I’ve got to save some for football.”

CHAPTER 13

Shayne took the elevator to the fourth floor and made the long trek around to the Bayside Pavilion, where he found Ronnie James’s room.

The bed had been stripped, and the mattress was turned back. Ronnie had departed, leaving several empty pints that had once held Scotch, candy wrappers, copies of Sports Illustrated, drooping flowers and a large untouched basket of fruit.

Returning to the phones in the main lobby, Shayne dialed Ronnie’s apartment. There was no answer.

He asked the girl at the desk if Dr. Bishop was in the hospital. After trying several extensions she found him in surgery, where he was working on one of his football players, who had been brought in with a badly crushed shoulder.

Shayne heard someone calling his name. It was Squire, the police captain who had taken his phone call about Stitch Reddick’s accident. Squire was small and compact, with an efficient air that was partly due to his heavy horn-rimmed glasses. He came up to Shayne and shook hands.

“You worried me with that word ‘homicide,’” he said, drawing Shayne out of earshot of the girl at the desk. “And after I thought about the implications, I called the Chief and we decided to see if we couldn’t get the autopsy done tonight. I just picked up the report. Now this is preliminary, Mike. It hasn’t been certified. But homicide we can rule out. The cause of death was definitely drowning. Water in the lungs, lungs collapsed, blood changes. The skull contusions were severe enough to induce unconsciousness.”

“Was he alive when he went into the water?”

“He was alive, but he may not have been conscious.”

Shayne scraped his chin. “I’m interested in how his blood tested.”

“Very high alcoholic content—one hundred and fifty parts—three times the legal minimum. It isn’t surprising he piled up the car. The surprising thing is he didn’t do it sooner.”

“I was hoping you’d find barbiturates.”

Squire gave him a look. He pulled out a typed report, switched to thicker glasses and read for a moment.

“You’re right—a hefty dose. But even without it, he had more than enough booze in him to put him to sleep.”

“Would the combination be strong enough to kill him if he hadn’t gone in the water first?”

Squire hesitated. “Damn it, now you’ve got me worrying again. I’m no toxologist, but I’d say it’s likely. I know you’ve got to take a hell of a lot of those pills to be sure of killing yourself, but it’s easier if you’re drunk at the time. Are you saying he didn’t take those pills himself, that they were administered?”

“He wouldn’t take sleeping pills—he was right in the middle of something. Anyhow, you’ve got a tentative cause of death, so forget I asked you about barbiturates. Let’s stick to the alcohol. We know he drank that of his own free will.”

“The Chief wanted me to ask you what Reddick was working on.”

Shayne looked at his cigarette and chose his words carefully. “He’s been investigating contacts between Miami football players and known gamblers.”

“Which isn’t covered by any statute,” Squire said unhappily. “That’s what we were afraid of. I’m in contact with a known gambler right this minute—I’ve played poker with you myself. Attempted murder is something else. Do you have any idea how it happened, Mike?”

“Too many ideas. I think I can tell you something definite tomorrow, when we see how the points move.”

“The Chief’s staying up to hear about the autopsy. Why don’t you call him?”

“Tell him I’ll be in touch with him tomorrow after the game.”

Squire gave him a direct look. “But will everybody still be alive tomorrow after the game?”

“I don’t guarantee it,” Shayne said. “But the only way we can influence what’s going to happen is by canceling the game and refunding the ticket money. I don’t think anybody’s ready to do that.”

“Let’s leave it this way. If the Chief still wants to talk to you, he’ll call your mobile operator and your hotel switchboard. Then if you don’t feel like returning the calls, it’s your ass, not mine… I’m working the game—I may see you.”

Tim Rourke came in as Squire was leaving.

“I’ve got a surprise for you, Mike. These little things all add up, right?”

“Did you pick up something on Dody Germaine?”

“It was easy. She may be dating Dr. Bishop or Lou Mangione at this stage of her career, but it was different in New York last summer. She was Ronnie’s girl then.”

Shayne had only partly finished his cigarette, but he threw it down in disgust. “I thought I finally had these people paired off. Are you sure?”

“No question about it. This buddy of mine saw them a couple of times, at, like, Mets games. He doesn’t know whether they were sleeping together, but if you believe the press releases, he doesn’t throw away any of that valuable personality on chicks who kiss him goodnight at the door. Bishop’s still here, incidentally, if you want to ask him about it.”

“I don’t want him to feel left out. Why don’t you go home? It’s late.”

“I’m not sleepy,” Rourke said, covering a yawn. “I can’t quit until I know what I’m going to do about that five hundred I bet on New York.”

Shayne left him in the waiting room, nodding, and took the elevator to the surgical floor. Only one operating room was in use, and the red No Admittance sign was on. He waited, smoking.

Five minutes went by before Bishop came out, shaking water off his hands. He glanced at Shayne, then turned back and gave him a second look.

“You’re Shayne,” he said. “I heard you were around.”

“Yeah, asking questions. How’s your patient?”

“In fair shape, but he’s through for the year. A funny kind of impact fracture. He was in a fight, I think, but he claims a car hit him.”

“I did that,” Shayne said. “Does that disqualify him for compensation?”

“Undoubtedly,” Bishop said coolly. “Do you want to talk to me about something? I’d like to change.”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

Bishop told him to come along, and Shayne accompanied him to the changing room at the end of the corridor. Bishop stepped along jauntily, shaking his fingers and flapping his elbows in a queer kind of disjointed walk. His eyes moved continually, never stopping on any object for more than a second.

He entered his dressing cubicle and stripped off his bloody working clothes.

“What do you know about this man Stitch Reddick?” Bishop threw over his shoulder. “I had a session with him this afternoon, and he was already quite smashed. Alcohol and automobiles—one of the two ought to be abolished.”

“What was he asking you about?”

“Oh, how I’ve handled injury announcements, mostly. I’ve been handling them exactly as I always have. I turn in the Tuesday list after consultation with Coach Lynch. I oppose that procedure, by the way—we only do it to make things simpler for the point-spread fraternity. I don’t know why we can’t simply establish a pari-mutuel betting system like the race tracks, and let the public set the odds.”

“That’s an evil suggestion, Doctor,” Shayne said dryly. Bishop looked at himself in the mirror on the back of the cubicle door. He didn’t seem repelled by the eroded complexion or the retreating chin. He smoothed his eyebrows. With a small pair of pocket scissors he trimmed the hair in his nostrils. He poured powder into the palms of his hands and smoothed it on. Then he brushed his hair back vigorously, gave himself a quick spurt of deodorant and began to dress.

“Well, I used to rail about this,” Bishop said, “but I’ve mellowed, I think. It’s a strange profession these people are in. Is it sport? Is it entertainment? Is it a business? I’m paid a reasonably good salary, but quite a few of the knees I work on belong to men who earn three, four times as much as I do, for a much shorter season. Still, that’s fine with me… I’ve never had any overpowering impulse to be out there struggling and straining and getting hurt in front of seventy thousand people… Reddick asked me about the psychological strain—didn’t I feet tempted to use my insider’s position to win a dollar or two from the friendly neighborhood bookmaker?”

“What did you tell him?”

“I wouldn’t recognize my friendly neighborhood bookmaker if I saw him.” He drew on a pair of tapered checked slacks. “It’s a rare Monday morning when the published point spread comes close to reflecting the true situation on the club. But what can you do? Nothing—the risks are out of proportion. My way of dealing with the problem is not to read the sports section. I know the name of the team we play tomorrow, but that’s truly the extent of it. I don’t think Reddick could bring himself to believe this, but it’s literally true.”

“Do you know Ted Knapp, Doctor?”

“Certainly,” Bishop said, looking around. “Football insurance is fantastically complicated. He and I have endless wrangles. You’re probably referring to the fact that, unlike me, Ted Knapp is known to be a gambler. And I’m sure he wins an occasional bet with information he has picked up from me. He sent me an expensive stereo system for my birthday, ostensibly because I’ve been so helpful in insurance matters. I talked to Mr. Zacharias, and we decided I should send it back. Reddick had also heard about that stereo system—a ridiculous man.”

“Then you haven’t had any cash dealings with Knapp?”

The doctor gave Shayne an irritated look. “I’m not out of my mind.”

“Would you like to deny that you’ve had anything to do with betting on football games, or with transmitting information to people who used it for betting purposes?”

“I deny it flatly. Am I under suspicion here, Shayne?”

“Sure. You’re in a key position. That stereo system you sent back would be a good way to cover yourself, to show you’re a hard man to buy. What do you know about Ronnie’s injury last Sunday?”

“Not a blessed thing. I didn’t examine him, and I can substantiate that. The whole episode has been very, shall we say, unusual. At approximately eleven thirty tonight he discharged himself as cured. That’s not only unusual, it’s highly suspicious. The story is that certain intimates of his knew about it in advance, and plunged heavily on Miami.”

“Who told you that, Doctor?”

“People have been calling me. I’m the one who’s supposed to know whether our first-stringers are healthy enough to play. I’ve been kept completely in the dark on Ronnie. I don’t think even Morty Lynch knows about it yet. We’ve all been assuming all week that we’ll have to go against New York with the standby quarterback, and if this turns out to be one of Ronnie’s typical escapades, I can predict an explosion. The fur,” he said with some relish, “will definitely fly.”

“Have you ever heard of Ronnie having money on a game?”

Bishop sat down and slipped his narrow feet into highly polished ankle-high boots. “There are always rumors.”

“Did Reddick ask you about any rumor in particular?”

“Shayne,” Bishop said, exasperated, “Reddick was fishing, just as you are. I had to cut him short because I had other things to do, patients to attend to. I wasn’t sure of his position. I had the impression he was thinking first of Stitch Reddick, second of Stitch Reddick, and only third of professional football. I realize that it’s different with you. You’ve been brought in by the front office, and if there’s any hanky-panky going on, you sincerely want to stop it… Hanky-panky—a glib expression.… I know this is serious. But it’s been a long day, and tomorrow will be even longer. If you have any more specific questions, I’ll be happy to try to answer them.”

“How old are you, Doctor?”

Bishop’s hand jerked slightly. “That’s specific, at least. I’m forty-two.”

“How long have you been wearing that kind of boots?” The doctor turned slowly, and for the first time his eyes stayed on Shayne’s face for more than an instant before jumping away. “I completely miss the point.”

“How well do you know Dody Germaine?”

Bishop’s manner was beginning to become more agitated. He reached for a lightweight sports jacket—this, too, was new—but sat down again without putting it on.

“I think that qualifies as being no particular business of yours.”

“It’s everybody’s business,” Shayne told him. “If Reddick didn’t question you about it, it was because he hadn’t stumbled across it yet. I don’t know Mrs. Bishop, but the chances are that she and Dody aren’t in the same class. That’s a stylish-looking young girl. She made big money as a model a few years ago. You get used to that kind of income, and you miss it when it stops. I can’t tell you much about her friends, but I know the name of one of them. It’s Lou Mangione. He’s a button man. Very slick, but small-time. He carries a gun. Does that fit with the Dody you know?”

“Not at all,” Bishop said, frowning.

“Look in the mirror again, Doctor. You never had luck with girls like that. Not as a boy and not later. Why do you think you managed to score at the age of forty-two?”

“I’ve taken her to dinner a few times. I suppose we’ve been seen together. That doesn’t mean we’re having an affair.”

“If you aren’t having an affair,” Shayne said dryly, “you’re really being taken. You got her the job here, didn’t you?”

“I happened to know she’s a registered nurse—”

“And the hospital’s short of nurses. Yeah. Ronnie’s been the question mark this week. She couldn’t find out how he was by asking you, so she had to get in to the bedside. You put her in a cab to the airport tonight. Where did she tell you she was going—back to New York?”

“I’m not turning that girl over to your tender mercies, Shayne! I know she seems calm and self-possessed, but underneath she’s desperately insecure.”

“And she’s looking for financial security. I got the same impression.”

“Please don’t be sarcastic about it. I’ve been spending as much time with her as I’ve been able to manage. I’m aware it can’t last. I’m seventeen years older. I suppose you could call me uncoordinated—some people are, you know. I don’t relate well. But with Dody I’ve been able to—”

He stopped, and his prominent Adam’s apple rose and fell as he swallowed.

Shayne said, “How did you get together in the first place?”

“I suppose she initiated it! I’m not quite senile yet. She pretended to be drunk so I’d drive her home and put her to bed. I came out two days later. I know she was thinking how she could use me to make some money, but do you think I objected? I don’t want Ted Knapp giving me presents, but if a girl like Dody Germaine is willing to come to bed with me in return for an occasional report on the aches and strains of a handful of football players, I’ll be damned if I’ll insult her by telling her to practice her tricks on somebody else. For that matter, if a newspaperman calls me and asks for a bulletin on Aaron Brown’s smashed shoulder, I’ll give him the full rundown. It’s not privileged information. Not that he’s all that important, he’s just a blocker on the punt-return team.”

“What would you do if she told you to put out false information?”

“She wouldn’t do that. Then she’d have to admit why she’s sleeping with me… her pretense is that she likes it.”

“How long do you think it’ll last?”

Bishop smiled. “If we reach the playoffs, it’ll last into the playoffs. Of course I know it’s temporary. Nothing like it ever happened to me before, and I doubt if it’ll happen again. She’s an incredible girl, Shayne! Incredible.”

His tongue came out briefly and touched his lips. “Now I suppose you’ll feel you have to pass this on to Zacharias. Well, go ahead. I honestly don’t feel I’ve betrayed the club, but if I have, it’s been worth it.”

“How’s she betting the game tomorrow?”

“Don’t you understand? I don’t give a damn about that part of it. I don’t know or care how many points they’re giving in Las Vegas or anywhere else… It’s all the same to me whether the team wins or loses. When I see a fracture or a torn ligament or a pulled hamstring, the only thing I ask myself is how long it’ll take to get that man back into pads. It’s all I concern myself with…”

“Why do you think they didn’t let you examine Ronnie?”

Bishop opened his hands. “I think my connection with Dody is becoming known. We haven’t bothered to be careful—I haven’t gone home for the last three weeks! I’m sure my wife must be out of her mind.” He said this with satisfaction. “If you want a theory—”

“I’ve already heard quite a few,” Shayne said, “but I’ll listen to yours.”

“I’m theorizing that Joe Truck and Ronnie worked that together. Ronnie couldn’t just fall over and ask to be taken out. He had to be hit. So he arranged for Joe to ease up, and when he saw Joe’s man coming he took a dive. They could win twice with the one move—bet Miami to lose last week and to win tomorrow.”

“Are you seeing Dody tonight?”

“Not tonight,” Bishop said with regret. He stood up. “But tomorrow night. And if I continue to be lucky, Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night—”

CHAPTER 14

Tim Rourke was snoring in the waiting room. Shayne shook him awake and told him again to go home.

“Not before you tell me which way to bet,” Rourke grumbled. “Here I am on the inside of a hot situation, and I don’t know any more than I did six hours ago. I could have stayed home and flipped a coin.”

“As far as I can see, it’s still a toss-up,” Shayne said. “New data keeps coming in all the time.”

“Well, process it, will you?” Rourke said. “Process it, man… You’re slow tonight, for some reason.”

“Are you still betting with Sol Ambrosiano? If I get a clearer idea, I’ll call in the bet for you. How high do you want to go?”

“Depending on how you think it looks. Maybe a dime?”

“One more thing,” Shayne said. “When you wake up in the morning, call six people and tell them Reddick’s autopsy turned up signs that he’d been given a lethal dose of barbiturates twenty minutes before he died. Pick the six people carefully, because I want it to get around.”

“Is it true or false?”

“True.”

“Mike, listen—if somebody was willing to squash Reddick, that means it’s a big operation, so make it fifteen hundred, will you? Two thousand.”

“Can you pay two thousand if you lose?”

“I can raise it… Well, don’t bet it if there’s any question about losing!”

They separated at Shayne’s Buick. Shayne looked up the home phone number of Coach Morty Lynch and gave it to the operator.

Lynch answered at once. Shayne identified himself and apologized for calling so late.

“Don’t give it a thought,” the coach said briskly. “I’m on the last year of my contract, and I don’t sleep much Saturday nights. Zacharias told me he was hoping you could start right away. What about the Stitch Reddick thing? Is it under control?”

Shayne told him that Stitch Reddick, in a sense, was still the major problem, but they had others. “Have you heard from Ronnie?”

“A couple of hours ago. He did me the honor of calling me. I take it he’s been propped up in a hospital bed watching Bonanza while the rest of us have been working ourselves to the bone getting up for tomorrow.”

“Something like that,” Shayne said. “If he wakes up in time to make the game, will you use him?”

“What a warm, likable son of a gun he is, Ronnie. What I’d like to do is hang him from the goalposts by the ears, but there’s a new brand of football being played in this league, Mike… The game has changed, the image has changed, the owners have changed, and you know I’ll use him. But I intend to find out what went on in that hospital room, and I hope I can hit him with a stiff fine and make it stick. The hell of it is, he’ll probably have one of his best afternoons.”

“You’ll have to scrap your game plan.”

“And when New York hears about it, they’ll have to scrap theirs. We’ll all be busy tomorrow morning.”

“Where do you work out your last-minute changes?”

“In the taping room, why?”

“Have you ever had it looked at for bugs?”

There was a moment’s pause, and Lynch said quietly, “Is that a serious question?”

“Several people have told me they thought Boston and New Orleans were a little clairvoyant.”

“That’s been known to happen. We try to outguess them, and they try to outguess us. It doesn’t mean they were bugging our—” He breathed, “You know—it could be.”

“I’ll meet you at the 16th Avenue entrance in ten minutes.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

The phone rang the instant Shayne put it down.

A voice said, “Shayne—Sol. Sol Ambrosiano.”

Ambrosiano was one of the town’s most successful bookmakers, in business continuously twenty years without an arrest. He was smart and careful, with friends in both political parties. Shayne’s account with him, never active, had been dormant since Shayne stopped betting on college and professional football. Both men had a wary respect for each other.

Shayne said, “I didn’t think you liked to talk to people on car phones.”

“I hate it. It’s against my principles. If I give you a number, will you call me back from a booth?”

Shayne jotted a Coral Gables number on the inside of a match cover and hung up.

He decided to let the bookie simmer, and waited until he was only a block from the Orange Bowl before pulling in at an outdoor booth. His phone rang before he left the car. It was Sid Zacharias.

“Mike,” Zacharias said wearily, “we’re in touch.”

Shayne’s face wore a slight smile. “I’m surprised you’re still up. If you’re going to be over the reef by daybreak—”

“I postponed that and came back to town. I’ve just had a blistering call from the commissioner. He knows what happened to his security man. He’s flying down, and we have to work out our strategy before he gets here. I know I gave you carte blanche, more or less, but I wish you hadn’t been chasing Reddick when he went off that bridge.”

“Is that the way the commissioner got the story?”

“It’s what happened, isn’t it? Everybody knows Reddick never refused a drink. Somebody got him drunk, and I assume it was you, and then scared him somehow and set up a car chase. A typical Mike Shayne operation—highly successful, highly visible. Possibly I gave you the wrong impression, because this wasn’t what I had in mind… But if you were going to do it this way, why didn’t you let somebody else fish him out of the canal? You can see how it looks to the commissioner.”

“—that Reddick was getting too close, so you hired a private detective to put him out of action.”

“Exactly, damn it! In one way the commissioner doesn’t have much power. In another way, he has it all. This is going to be rough, and I’m beginning to wonder if we can ride it out.”

Shayne’s face had hardened. “I’ll sell you back that hundred shares for forty thousand dollars. That’s one percent of four million, and at this point that’s all the franchise may be worth. Let’s say we talked about a deal but we couldn’t get together, and I decided to go ahead on speculation. I’ll make out better that way—the commissioner may want to hire me to pick up where Reddick left off. And I can name my own price.”

Zacharias said, “Somebody who didn’t know you might consider that an attempt at blackmail.”

“Not at all. Any free agent has the right to offer his services to anybody.”

“You aren’t a free agent quite yet. Perhaps I used the wrong tone a minute ago. There may be—there undoubtedly are—extenuating circumstances. Can I tell the commissioner you had nothing to do with Reddick’s accident?”

“That wouldn’t be true. I’ll explain when I see you.”

“How are you situated at the moment? Let me buy you a drink.”

“I’m about to knock off for the night, Sid,” Shayne said. “I suggest you do the same.”

“Mike—I’d feel better if you could give me an interim report. Did you find out what Reddick has been doing?”

“He’s been trying to milk the situation for money. Tell the commissioner that and see if it shuts him up.”

“I’ll need some details. I know he’ll hightail it straight in my direction the instant he hits town.”

“You’d better go back to plan A and go fishing, Sid.”

“Then he’d know I was ducking him, which would make him madder. I’ve got to have a story to give him. Now if Reddick had evidence of some kind of betting coup, but was holding off doing anything about it so he could get in on it himself—”

“That would probably be your safest angle.”

“I’m glad to hear you agree,” Zacharias said. “I’m home, but I can meet you any place you specify.”

“Not tonight, Sid.”

“Then let’s make a date for breakfast. Can you come down around nine?”

“Nothing much can happen before the game,” Shayne said. “I’ll be at the stadium, and maybe we can talk during the half.”

The owner’s voice rose. “I can’t stall him that long. Now I hear Ronnie’s out of the hospital. We need an explanation for that—on its face, it looks like an out-and-out deception. He was on the serious list yesterday morning, and even an athlete in top physical condition doesn’t recover that fast from a serious head injury.”

“It not only looks like a deception,” Shayne said firmly, “that’s what it is. We’ll talk about it at the stadium.”

“What if he slaps a suspension on Ronnie—”

“He can’t do that without evidence. I’ve been in a couple of fights since I saw you, Sid. One person is dead, and I came close to being the second. I think I could have avoided some of that if you’d leveled with me.”

“What do you mean I didn’t level with you—”

“It’s standard. Clients hardly ever tell me the full truth in the first interview. But according to my rules, it means you aren’t entitled to an interim report. Tell the commissioner to forget about suspending anybody if he wants to find out what happened to his boy. When Reddick went into the canal he was doped to the eyebrows as well as full of liquor. We’re looking for somebody we can rap for murder.”

Zacharias continued to make noises, but Shayne put the phone down gently. Shifting to the booth, he dialed the number Ambrosiano had given him. The bookie sounded relieved to hear from him.

“I was beginning to think you were shucking me,” Ambrosiano said. “This is a nervous business, and I’m getting out after the Superbowl. My kids are all through college and one of these days the law of averages will catch up with me and they’ll bust me for not paying the fifty dollars… You know why I’m calling.”

“Miami-New York.”

“That’s right. I hear you’ve been retained by Zacharias.”

“Now who told you that, Sol?”

“Everybody in town knows it. I heard it from a cab driver, for Christ’s sake. I’m hoping you can give me some information, because I could really get stabbed on this game if the points keep moving.”

“What are you giving now?”

“Fifteen on New York.”

“Down two,” Shayne said thoughtfully.

“Which I could live with if it holds through the morning. But I’ve been getting a rush of Miami money, and I thought I’d better stop answering the phone until I find out what the hell is going on.”

“If you want my advice, Sol, put the game in the circle. Did that cab driver tell you what happened to Stitch Reddick?”

“No, what did? I’ve been hearing about Stitch for two weeks. And that’s a funny one, because we didn’t have any reason to send for him. We don’t even know why he’s here.”

“Right now he’s dead,” Shayne said, “and there are going to be rumors tomorrow morning that somebody killed him. I’m hoping for a small panic, and I can’t predict now which way some of these people are going to jump. If you’re out of balance, better lay off what you can and eat the rest.”

“The game’s already off the board in a couple of places. But I don’t like to take off a Miami game in Miami. It’s bad public relations. I thought, you know, if we could pool our ideas maybe we could come up with something… The rumors, Mike! Joe Truszowski and a rookie named Aaron Brown got into a fight and smashed each other up—have you heard that one? And Morty Lynch has been fired. And so on… The thing is, inside money has been coming in both ways. I’ve never known anything like it.”

“Sol, if there’s an announcement tomorrow morning that Ronnie’s playing, what will that do to the points?”

“My God! Many thanks, Mike. The game is off the board, as of now.”

“Wait a minute. Answer the question.”

“We’d have to drop it to six or seven, and we couldn’t survive at the price. This is crazy—how can he play? He hasn’t touched a football all week. What’s that going to do to his timing?”

“He says passing is all psychological.”

“It is, like hell! Am I glad I called you—I’ll get to work and see how much of this Miami money I can peddle. I really owe you a favor, Mike.”

“Maybe I’ll collect right away.” He waited a moment. “You’re heavy on Miami by how much?”

“If you want to go into that, let’s not do it on the phone.”

“I’m in a booth. You’re a gambler. Take a chance for once.”

Ambrosiano said apologetically, “I keep thinking about what I’ll live on after I stop making book. One of the things I don’t have is social security.… To answer your question, I’m heavy in six figures.”

“You can’t get rid of all that at fifteen points. Ronnie checked out of the hospital an hour ago, and that kind of news travels fast.”

“Which is why I’ve got to move.”

“I think it’s already too late. If the game’s scratched everywhere else and you stay open, you can pull in money from all over the country.”

“At seven or eight points, and that’s the way bookies go bankrupt. A quarter of a million on Miami at seventeen. A quarter million on New York at seven. And what if New York wins by ten? I lose half a million.”

“You said your kids are through college. The whole object of the point spread is to bring in maximum action.”

“You’re leading up to something.”

“Yeah. I’m beginning to get a faint glimmer. If I give you a list of names, will you find out for me how they’ve bet?”

The bookie was doubtful. “I don’t know, Mike. Even if they bet with me, that’s top security information.”

“I like your sense of ethics, Sol, but make an exception tonight, in the interests of staying solvent. See if you can get any help from the layoff people, and if it seems you’re stuck, get back to me. I’m still moving around.”

“Mike, I have to think of my clients—”

“Even when they’re trying to screw you?”

“Nobody bets because they want to lose. I think you may have tied me up just long enough so nobody’s going to want any of my Miami action, and that’s probably been in the back of your mind all along, right? Give me the goddamn names.”

“Mrs. Zacharias,” Shayne said. “Ted Knapp, and if you know anybody who ever did any bearding for Knapp, check on them, too. A nurse named Dody Germaine. Stitch Reddick, and he’s somebody else who’d use beards. Lou Mangione.”

“Who?” the bookie said quickly.

“Not the one you’re thinking about. This is a nephew. Any family connection of any of the coaches or players or anybody in the Miami organization. Anybody in the Ronnie James set—his agents or his agents’ girlfriends. Any doctor on the staff of Mercy Hospital. I think that’s it. There’s a lot of work there, but I don’t want to know about amounts below ten thousand. I’m looking for somebody who bets inconsistently—a hundred dollars one week, five thousand the next.”

“And who wins with the big bets?”

“Not necessarily.”

“It’s going to take time,” Ambrosiano said, still doubtful. “I’ll have to wake up some people. You’d better call me. From a public phone.”

Morty Lynch, a stocky, powerfully built man whose short hair seemed electrically charged, was waiting for Shayne at the appointed gate, striding up and down swinging his arms.

“Sorry I’m late,” Shayne said.

“That’s all right. I’m killing the clock.”

Shayne took a powerful three-cell flashlight and they entered the stadium lobby. As they walked he explained what he was hoping to find—a miniaturized transmitter with an open mike. The receiver could be located anywhere within a radius of an eighth of a mile, taped to the bottom of a seat or concealed in a parked car. Most installations of this kind were left unattended. The tape recorder would be voice-actuated, starting only when somebody spoke. So Shayne cautioned Lynch to say nothing after they entered the locker room, and to move quietly.

With no football players in it, the dressing room seemed huge. Their feet made no sound on the tufted carpet. There were four long unpadded tables in the taping room, several heat units, a whirlpool bath, a small alcove with a desk and medical supplies, another alcove at the far end, with a portable chalkboard, a table and a half-dozen straight chairs. A defensive pattern was chalked on the board.

They began looking. Lynch started to say something, but turned it into a cough when Shayne gave him a look.

It took them only a minute or two to find it—a small box the size of a cigarette package, taped to the backside of the drawer in the low table. There was just enough clearance so the drawer could close with the transmitter in place. Lynch grinned broadly and made a motion as though to pry it loose. Shayne waved him away and put the drawer back. They headed through the locker room, turning out lights.

“You’re right, Mike,” Lynch said when they were out in the echoing corridor. “We’ll put in the key plays as usual—for the bug’s benefit—and then we’ll go to the john and turn on the water and work out the variations.”

“Let them stop you the first couple of times. When you come in with the first variation, try to break it for a score. Then work a few switches and go back to one of the plays they expect, and score with that.”

“And then play regular hard-nosed football. Mike, whatever Sid’s paying you, you just earned it. If I were a gambling man, I’d take a piece of that seventeen-point money myself.”

Shayne didn’t tell him the Miami game had been embargoed in at least two major cities, and was in trouble in Miami itself. Lynch already had enough to worry about.

After saying goodnight, Shayne returned to the phone booth and dialed Ambrosiano. The line was busy. He waited until he was a block from his hotel before trying again.

“Mike,” Ambrosiano said. “Well, San Francisco and L.A. have heard about Ronnie and closed down. Vegas is open, but nobody wanted to help me. I seem to be caught, and I’m not the only one. Tomorrow could be a bad day for the profession. I didn’t get all the information you wanted, but I made a start. Are you ready?”

“Go ahead.”

“Ted Knapp is strong on Miami with my book and three others. We’ve got to assume that if he likes Miami to that extent, he went out of town with more. His credit is good in Vegas for up to forty thousand, but they wouldn’t tell me if he used it.”

“When did he place those bets?”

“Today—late afternoon, early evening. Mrs. Zacharias has five hundred with me on New York at seventeen, and a thousand more at fifteen. You figure it out. The name Lou Mangione didn’t mean anything to anybody. I couldn’t get anything on Stitch Reddick. That would have to be really underground, and unless you can give me some kind of lead, there’s no use asking.… I did better with the doctors. There’s one guy who does most of the medical business, and believe me, it’s lucrative. They’re high-income people with too little time to do any real research. Most of the play has been on Miami. Nothing on Miami over five. He’s booked one big bet on New York, thirty thousand, and here’s somebody who usually spreads his money across and hasn’t ever gone over a nickel on anyone game. The name is Prettyman.”

“Prettyman!” Shayne said, hearing the name of Ronnie James’s drinking companion, the doctor who had taken care of the quarterback’s simulated coma. “Do you know when he put it in?”

“Early in the week. I think Tuesday.”

“That does it, Sol,” Shayne said after a moment. “How many points do you want to give me on New York?”

“This is your own money we’re talking about?”

“If Prettyman has confidence, I have confidence. You said something about seven points.”

“I’ll give seven when I hear that James is definitely playing! All I know for sure is he’s out of the hospital.”

“Give me ten and you can put me down for ten thousand.”

“You’re telling me something,” Ambrosiano said with care.

“And another thousand for Tim Rourke.”

“Mike, you’re cheering me up,” the bookie said more happily. “I still don’t get it, but you’re the man on the inside. You think it’s safe to keep the game on the board?”

“That’s up to you, Sol. At ten points, I think I’ve got the percentages. But you know as well as I do that nothing is sure in football.”

CHAPTER 15

Shayne told his switchboard to block all calls. He slept late, ate a large, leisurely breakfast, and riffled through the Sunday papers. The sports pages were gloomy about the home team’s prospects without their brilliant first-string quarterback. Reddick’s death had made page 1, but the stories were perfunctory and didn’t make much of his affiliation with professional football. He had gone in the water and Michael Shayne, the private detective, had pulled him out, but not soon enough.

Shayne asked for his accumulated calls. Most of them were from the Chief of Police, Will Gentry, and from Sid Zacharias. He threw the slips away and called Rourke. Rourke was surprised and concerned to learn that Ambrosiano had given as much as ten points on New York after hearing that James would be running the Miami offense.

“We figure he’ll be weak after all that time in bed,” Shayne said.

“Mike, would you mind not joking? I’m not questioning your judgment, but what is it based on?”

“A hunch, Tim.”

“It damn well better be more than a hunch!”

Rourke had a press pass for him. They agreed on a place to meet, and Shayne called Ambrosiano. The bookie had taken a few more heavy bets on Miami, but then had decided he was in deep enough and closed down the line. Nobody else in town had taken anything.

A cold rain was falling. Shayne filled a pocket flask with cognac, found his field glasses and phoned the desk to have his Buick brought around. By the time he reached the Bowl, the lots were beginning to fill up, but it was still half an hour until game time and most of the people were staying dry in their cars.

He met Rourke and they rode the elevator to the enclosed press box, on the uppermost tier. Rourke was becoming more and more concerned about his bet. He realized that Shayne knew more about the situation than he did, and as usual, preferred to keep his ideas to himself, but was the slippery footing going to work for them or against them?

“We’re not betting on the weather,” Shayne said. “We’re betting on the quarterback.”

“Yeah, but why should Ronnie want to lose?”

“Stop jittering and have a drink.”

“It seems to me I have something to jitter about. The goddamn city editor heard that rumor about Reddick’s autopsy, that the guy was stoned as well as plastered, and why hasn’t he had a report from his ace reporter, who claims to be covering the story?”

“You don’t print another paper till tomorrow morning. Plenty of time.”

“That’s exactly what I told him, with some profanity thrown in. The commissioner flew down, did you hear that? And to all questions from reporters at the airport, he quipped, ‘No comment.’”

Only a few of the typewriters in the long line were busy. The radiomen were testing their circuits. At opposite ends of the long built-in counter, two clusters of coaches, an offensive and defensive man, from each team were laying out their equipment. Two phones from each station connected with the New York and Miami benches.

Taking an unoccupied chair, Shayne unlimbered his field glasses. People were beginning to file into the stadium under assorted umbrellas and wearing rain-weather gear. On the Miami side of the field, the place-kicker, Art Maxwell, was kicking imaginary footballs. Ronnie James, in a plastic rain cape without his pads, was warming up on the sidelines.

Shayne moved his focussing knob. Ronnie, chewing gum, seemed very loose. He lobbed the ball to a rookie from one of the suicide squads and the rookie tossed it back. Ronnie gathered it in, darted to his right, and fired one very hard. It squirted out of the rookie’s hands. Ronnie laughed and waved.

Shayne lifted his glasses to the club boxes in the upper tier. They were still empty.

Without putting his glasses away, he went down the line of chairs to the Miami coaching phones. Reaching past one of the coaches, he picked up a phone and worked the crank. The coach grunted a question.

“Relax,” Shayne said. “I’m working for Zacharias.”

The phone rang on the Miami bench. James, a step or two away, picked a return out of the air and threw another hard, perfect spiral. Shayne continued to agitate the phone until another player picked it up. Shayne asked for the quarterback.

He kept his glasses on James’s face. “This is Mike Shayne up here. I want to wish you luck.”

“Great day for a ball game,” James said.

“How are you feeling after all that bed rest?”

“Sharp, man. Ready to roll.” He looked up toward the press box, continuing to work his throwing arm under the cape. “We’re going to massacre these bastards, so if you want to get down a last-minute bet—”

“The game’s off the board all over the country—haven’t you heard? I managed to bet eleven thousand on New York before they closed.”

The engaging James grin was shut off abruptly. Crinkles of concentration formed at the corners of his eyes.

“What points did they give you?”

“Ten.”

From the quarterback’s reaction, this was bad news. He scowled.

“You’re going to lose your money.”

“I’m counting on you, Ronnie. I don’t think you’re going to have that spark today.”

“You know, this isn’t the best kind of pre-game warmup. They tell us to think positively. I’m going to have that spark—I’m going to connect with every pass, and the people who backed Miami are going to be drinking champagne… Now back to work.”

“Don’t go yet,” Shayne told him. “I had another reason for calling. Did you see Reddick last night before he was killed?”

James spun around as though hit. His face no longer visible, he said, “I’ll talk to you after the game. I can’t jam up my mind now with a lot of—”

Shayne interrupted. “You’re the new breed of ballplayer, Ronnie. You don’t take football that seriously. Is Dody here someplace?”

“What Dody—the nurse? I can’t keep track of everybody.”

“We checked with New York,” Shayne said. “If you’d tried a little harder, you could have found a girl who couldn’t be tied to you with one long-distance call. That suggests you wanted it to be easy. It goes with your style. You imported her. I’m sure you paid her plane fare. She imported Mangione.… I can either suppress this or pass it on. Which way would be best for you?”

James came around again and sat down on the bench. “Shayne, people are listening up there. Will you please bear that in mind?”

“Don’t feel embarrassed. It’ll all be out in the papers tomorrow morning.”

“You’ve got binoculars on me, haven’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Then look me in the eye. I’ll start answering questions sixty seconds after the game. I won’t take time to get out of my muddy pants. So lay off right now, will you? It’s in your interest and the club’s interest.”

“I don’t believe it. You can’t swing this yourself, Ronnie. I keep telling people that everything’s changed. Stitch Reddick didn’t die in an automobile accident. He was murdered, and I think I can prove it.”

The coach beside Shayne dropped his grease pencil. On the bench below, the quarterback’s face had gone blank. He took the phone from his ear and weighed it for a moment before raising it again.

“In that case I’d better not say anything before I talk to a lawyer.”

“If that’s the way you want to play it. You’ve got a well-known face. If you left the hospital to talk to Reddick last night, you’d better figure somebody saw you.”

“Why would anybody kill Reddick when all they had to do was buy him?”

“He was trying to sell to too many people at the same time.”

James made a fist and hammered his thigh. “This is goddamned unprofessional, is all I have to say! On a press-box phone!”

“I’ve got money on New York, remember. Maybe I’m trying to unsettle you so you won’t be able to find your receivers.”

“If you’re trying to unsettle me, you’re succeeding, man.”

“I’ll switch subjects. Have you decided to trust Joe Truck this week?”

“I think so,” James said, more subdued than he had been at the start of the exchange. “I think he’s going to play heads-up football. I’ll admit I sent Mangione in to see him, with money and a tape recorder. I needed that handle. It didn’t work out, but your testimony can get him kicked out of pro ball, and I predict that today he’s going to take his man apart.”

“Do you still think he was reached last week?”

“Don’t you?”

“Of course not. I don’t want to insult you, but I think both of you are reasonably honest. Ronnie, what’s been going on at the Holiday Inn outside of Fort Lauderdale?”

James made a distracted gesture. “Mike—”

“Chan described an episode in San Francisco. I take it that wasn’t the only one in the series.”

A sigh came over the phone. “I’m stiffening up here, damn it. Hang on.”

He ran in place for a minute, pumping his arms. “All right,” he said, “and what a wonderful time to talk about sex. The San Francisco thing was a flop. The maid walked in just before the big bang. So we had to do it again, see. I mean, we had to! Otherwise it would be too goddamn embarrassing whenever we saw each other. You can understand that. The Holiday Inn was the place, and if you want to know how I’d rate it, you’ll have to twist my arm… It wasn’t bad, as a matter of fact. Everybody was very cheerful and busy, and we ended up friends.”

“She forgot a dispatch case and you went back for it.”

“So? Not a dispatch case. Makeup and stuff. She didn’t want to get it herself because she thought she recognized one of the couples at the pool.”

“You didn’t ask yourself if there was anything phony about that?”

“No, why? If somebody she knew saw her going into a motel room in the middle of the morning, they’d think—”

“You were conned, Ronnie,” Shayne said, interrupting. “Ted Knapp left the case in the room, not Chan. Ted Knapp, the betting man, who sells insurance on the side. Joe Truck saw him drive up and go into the room with the case and come back without it. Then you came along, left your motor running and went in and got it. Naturally Truck thought you were picking up a cash payoff for your performance the week before, against New Orleans. So you were selling out your poor underpaid teammates, were you? He decided to let a 260-pound defensive lineman land on you, so you’d know better. And Ted Knapp, betting against Miami, won at least fifty thousand.”

James swore explosively. “That Chan! Do you know for a fact it was fifty thousand?”

“Minimum. It was much higher than his usual play, so wouldn’t you guess that he knew in advance what was going to happen?”

“How’s he betting this week?”

“On Miami, heavily.”

“How about Chan?”

“The other way. She doesn’t think you can beat the points.”

“You mean she took New York and seventeen?” He came to his feet and executed a little dance step on the slippery grass. “Mike, you’re better than dexamyl! I said I’d talk to you after the game. I’ll improve on that. I’ll talk to you at the half. If you want to sit with somebody, Dody’s in section O, halfway up. This is going to be a game to remember…!”

CHAPTER 16

Ted Knapp had good enough connections to get press credentials. He touched Shayne’s shoulder as he came in out of the rain, a pair of field glasses slung carelessly over one shoulder. He was smoking a long thin cigar.

“I expected you to call me.”

“I’ve been tied up,” Shayne said. “People tell me you like Miami.”

Knapp’s teeth flashed. “Who doesn’t? Ronnie’s jumping around down there like a young goat.”

“You bet Miami at the top of the spread, when everybody else thought Ronnie was still on the serious list.”

“I’ve got secrets,” he said with a smile, and started to go deeper into the press box.

Shayne said, “I have two witnesses who saw you leave a dispatch case in a room at the Fort Lauderdale Holiday Inn.”

“I’m sure you have,” Knapp said calmly, turning back. “I sometimes keep appointments in out-of-the-way places with married women. If you want me to turn pale, you’ll have to come up with something more startling than that.”

“You told me you don’t like to call attention to yourself, and you’re doing it again this week, betting high.”

“Mike, there’s a saying. Circumstances alter cases. I put together everything I knew about Ronnie James, and I couldn’t resist the points.”

“It’s a bad time to be conspicuous. You probably know the commissioner’s in town. He wants to know what happened to his investigator.”

“Nobody’s going to pursue that very far,” Knapp said. “The man was a drunk, and when they look into his bank accounts they’re going to find some unexplained deposits. Publicizing all that won’t be in the best interests of the sport, do you think?”

“It’s going to be publicized.”

“Maybe,” Knapp said skeptically, “but you’ll see some massive pressure to keep it quiet.”

“Do you have a sleeping-pill prescription?”

Knapp looked annoyed. “I haven’t taken sleeping pills since I stopped getting to the office at nine o’clock. What’s the point of the question?”

Without looking at him directly, Shayne had him under careful observation. “Somebody gave Reddick an overdose of barbiturates. No amount of pressure can keep that out of the papers.”

Nothing moved in Knapp’s face. “You’re an alarmist. The man drowned, after all—water killed him.”

“We’ll let the lawyers argue about that,” Shayne said, and added abruptly, “Would you be interested in a deal?”

Knapp waved his cigar. “Deals are my way of life. If we’re going to be talking business, we’d better stand out in the rain.”

He turned up his collar and they left the shelter of the press box. The rain was still coming down. A shout went up as the Miami team lumbered into view at the mouth of the tunnel.

“You realize a couple of Miami coaches heard all that,” Knapp pointed out. “What sort of deal are you thinking about?”

“Are you still interested in buying the club?”

“Did Zacharias tell you that? We had some conversations last August, but the price he wanted was out of line. There were some tax complications. Even if we could work those out, I’m not sure I’m still in the market.”

“You know you are—it’s your kind of thing. It can’t go through if the commissioner’s against it. He won’t care about the way you live or your various girls. You got good newspaper space last year when you raised money for whatever it was. But it’s always noticed when a smart man suddenly does something stupid. You’ve gone out of character and alerted everybody by winning a series of flamboyant bets. I think Stitch Reddick found out how you worked the one last week. Give me some honest answers to a couple of questions and I’ll keep that quiet. You still might manage to sneak through.”

“Talk to me after the game.”

“Everybody wants to talk to me after the game. The offer won’t be open after the game. It’s withdrawn at the kickoff.”

Knapp shook the ash off his cigar and drew on it carefully. “I’ll have to take my chances. I’m like every red-blooded American—I’d like to own a major sports franchise with a piece of a TV contract, but if I don’t grab this one, I’ll live through it. Good try, Mike… We’re getting wet.”

He punched Shayne’s shoulder lightly.

The New York starters were being introduced, to light applause. All the seats had been sold, but because of the vile weather only three quarters were occupied. Shayne, following Knapp back into the press box, broke out his binoculars and began looking for Dody Germaine in section O, starting in the middle and working both ways. By the time Miami kicked off, he had concluded that she must be one of the numerous ticket holders who had decided against attending the game.

Shayne didn’t watch the runback, or any of the plays that immediately followed. He was moving his glasses slowly along the Miami bench. Coach Lynch was standing up in a peaked baseball cap, one of the few uniformed men with no protection against the rain. Joe Truck stared at the ground, ignoring the action on the field. Shayne held the glasses for a long moment on Dr. Bishop. The tall homely doctor, in a yellow slicker and fisherman’s hat, was huddled far forward, his lips parted. One hand slid inside his slicker and palpated his stomach mechanically. He seemed to be taking more than a medical interest in the game.

Shayne lifted the glasses to the seats behind the bench. Chan and Sid Zacharias were together in one of the midfield boxes, crouching together beneath a large striped umbrella. Chan was shouting at the players, and Shayne looked back at the field. Miami now had the ball and Ronnie was in the pocket, the football poised, waiting for someone to get open. The Miami split end buttonhooked sharply, and skidded on the wet grass. Ronnie threw to him, but a New York linebacker got a hand in the way and batted it down.

Leaving the press box, Shayne descended to the next transverse aisle and began to circle. The Miami fullback went through a hole in the middle to a first down. Ronnie connected with a short flare pass, then rolled out to the right and pitched on the run to another receiver, and it seemed that the Miami offense was beginning to move. An offside penalty stopped them. One down later, when the offensive team jogged to the sidelines, Shayne put the glasses on Ronnie again. Everybody else was muddy, but so far he had managed to stay on his feet. He didn’t seem troubled by the way things were going.

There were several empty seats in the box below the one in which Chan and Sid Zacharias were sharing their striped umbrella. Shayne brushed past an usher who wanted to see his ticket, or in lieu of that, to be handed a tip, and sat down where he could reach back and touch their knees.

“You called me, Sid?”

“Mike Shayne, you tough bastard!” Chan cried, and batted his face with a glove.

The usher, seeing Shayne in conversation with the owner and his wife, stuck his hands in his pockets empty and went away.

“I called you last night,” Zacharias said curtly. “I called you again this morning. Various times.”

He was wearing a jaunty mountaineer’s hat with a damp feather, a long-skirted British raincoat and high boots. His wife was in red. Her expression was mixed. There were frown lines around her eyes, but she was smiling faintly.

“Not a mark on you. Whereas Joe Truck and Aaron Brown—”

“Does Sid know you asked them to beat me up?”

“I told him,” she said lightly, “and he approves. Because he’s really furious with you, Mike.”

“I see that. Does Sid know you’re betting against the family team?”

“Shh,” Chan said, still smiling. “People are listening.”

Zacharias glanced at his wife. “That doesn’t look like such a smart move now, does it, with Ronnie playing? How much did you bet?”

“My usual hundred. That spread looked so delicious, I succumbed.”

“She bet fifteen hundred I know about,” Shayne said. “It’s my guess she has a network of out-of-town beards.”

Zacharias now said grimly, “I think we ought to adjourn to the parking lot and discuss this in depth.”

“We don’t want to miss any of the scoring,” Shayne said.

He took out his flask and offered it to the couple above him. They both shook their heads.

Shayne drank and put the flask away. People around them were on their feet, but Shayne didn’t turn to see what was happening on the field. Chan and Sid continued to watch him.

“In the light of everything,” Shayne said to Zacharias, “don’t you think you’d better change your mind about getting a divorce?”

“I haven’t said anything about divorce,” Zacharias said.

“Maybe not out loud, but she got the message. Are you sure this other woman will be an improvement?”

“Mike, my dear fellow,” Chan said, “Sid has a point. This really is damned public for that kind of remark.”

“Nobody’s listening. I’d really like to hear about Chan’s competition, Sid. What’s she like?”

Zacharias bit off the words, keeping his voice low. “Whatever you’ve been told, it’s not a serious involvement.” He hesitated, cracking his knuckles. “I’ve broken it off, in fact.”

Chan looked surprised. “When did this historic event happen?”

Her husband’s mouth worked uncomfortably. The people on either side were intent on the game. There was another great yell, and the PA announcer called a first down for Miami. But on the next play, New York intercepted a James pass and ran it back for a score.

Zacharias groaned as the score went up, and then turned back to Chan. “What does it matter if it was last night or a week ago? It was last night, actually. I decided she was a little too—pallid. It’s definitely over.”

“Now say you’re sorry,” Shayne said.

“For God’s sake!” Zacharias burst out, his voice rising. “What do you think you’re up to?”

“Just curious,” Shayne said without bothering to lower his voice. “Your wife and I came close to sleeping together last night.” He put his hand on her leg above her boot. “But we talked it over, and decided that was exactly what you were hoping to arrange.”

“You’re out of your skull!”

“Why did you hire me, Sid?”

“For the exact reason I gave you. With this cretin Reddick in town—”

“You could take care of Reddick by throwing him a few bills. But maybe you didn’t know that. He was in a bar last night, waiting for me. But he would have come out to talk to you.”

“I don’t know what you’re implying, but I’ve never laid eyes on the man.”

Shayne’s hand rose as high as Chan’s knee. “How about you, Chan?”

“The same goes for me, thank the Lord, and if Sid has really broken off with that bitch, you can take your hand off my leg.”

She gave him a wry, realistic look. He laughed and took his hand away.

“I don’t like this tone of voice,” Zacharias said. “And I don’t like your insinuations.”

A corpulent drunk in the next box, in a soggy camel’s hair coat, peered forward to see under the Zacharias umbrella. “I thought that was who it was,” he remarked to his companion.

“This is going to be all over town,” Zacharias said.

“You’ll be all right if you haven’t killed anybody,” Shayne said. “Reddick talked to me about money just before he died. Not any unimportant sum, but millions. Millions. If you add up all the bets on this game, all over the country, you’ll get a figure in the millions, but no one person or group of people can collect more than a piece of that. You simply can’t bet a huge sum unless you do it every week, and spread it around. Bookmakers deal with regular customers for predictable amounts of money. The big layoff men sometimes accumulate a heavy play on one side, but there’s no indication that they took a special interest in the Boston game last week, and this week they’ve stayed away from Miami altogether. You’ve been trying to get out of your marriage without getting stuck with alimony. That would mount up over the years, but not to millions. The only large sum I’ve heard anybody mention has been your asking price for the franchise.”

“I don’t follow you,” Zacharias said.

“Chan does.” Shayne glanced at the scoreboard. Less than a minute remained of the first quarter. By now New York had put up a touchdown, the conversion and a field goal for ten points.

He went on, “I still think there’s a chance we can tie everything up without any more damage. But you’ve got to start being honest with me, and you’ve got to do it right away.”

Neither of them said anything.

“A bookie I know made a quick telephone survey. Here’s how we line up. Ted Knapp is on Miami. I’m on New York. Chan’s on New York. A nurse named Dody Germaine—she was looking after our wayward boy, Ronnie, in the hospital—was supposed to be betting on Miami, but I think she said the hell with it and put the money in her own pocket. Who did I leave out? Oh, Ronnie James. He has thirty thousand on New York.”

“Ronnie!” Zacharias said in a sharp whisper. “That’s a hell of a thing to come out with in public.”

Shayne corrected himself. “I said Ronnie. I meant Ronnie’s personal physician. It may not be Ronnie’s money. Now watch the play. See if it tells you anything.”

He turned toward the field. Miami had the football on its forty-yard line. An end-around sweep was stopped for no gain. On the third down, which had to be a pass, receivers spurted downfield. The defense seemed to be reacting perfectly. But all at once the Miami tight end cut toward the flag and caught New York’s weak side linebacker leaning the wrong way. Ronnie, moving back as the pocket sagged around him, lost his footing in the mud as he released the ball. It sailed weakly over the line of scrimmage and was caught by a New York linebacker, who was instantly tackled.

“You can’t blame Ronnie for that one,” Shayne said after the noise subsided. “It’s a wet field.”

He raised his glasses to the press box, and picked up Ted Knapp, who was also using binoculars. Knapp wasn’t following the on-field action, but was studying the Miami bench. Shayne, behind and above, couldn’t see the players’ faces. Ronnie James came in toward the phones, removing his helmet and running his fingers through his damp hair. A man in a yellow rain slicker—Dr. Bishop—spoke to him. Ronnie gave him a small tight smile. Shayne followed him with the glasses until he took the phone.

Shayne looked back at Chan. She had touched her face with her wet glove, and her eye makeup was smeared.

“When New York saw that formation,” Shayne said, watching her, “they expected a certain pass pattern. We had them fooled. If Ronnie hadn’t slipped it would have been an easy TD. Watch some more.”

Zacharias leaned forward. “What is all this, Shayne?”

“You can figure it out. Chan owns two percent of the club. The income from that won’t be enough for a divorced woman to live on without alimony. She knows more about the team than you do, so don’t antagonize her. Give her a present.”

“When I hired you, I didn’t know I was going to get marriage counselling thrown in,” Zacharias remarked bitterly.

“My suggestion is thirty percent,” Shayne said.

“What?”

“Give her thirty-percent ownership and you’ll start winning again.”

“Are you saying that Chan—”

“You know her better than I do. What did you expect? That she’d lie down and ask you to kick her again?”

Zacharias had forgotten that people might be listening. “Why should I saddle myself with alimony for somebody who treats me the way—” he said in a choked voice. “A coarse, loud, cheap—who has sex with any—”

Shayne interrupted, “Face the facts, Sid. You’ve got more money than you did when you started, but that doesn’t make you Prince Charming. You don’t want Chan as an enemy. She’s been carrying on a systematic campaign to lower the value of the property, and she’s done a good job of it. But there’s time to reverse. Say you’re sorry and promise her thirty percent. As a thirty-percent owner, she’ll understand she has to talk to me, and talk fast. I need some hard facts, with names and dollar amounts. I think I can still control it, but we’re cutting it damn close.”

“You’ll have to be more explicit,” Zacharias said.

“You don’t want me to be more explicit. People are listening.”

That was now true. The activity on the field was less interesting than what was happening in the Zacharias box.

Zacharias leaned over, close to Shayne, and whispered, “Did she kill Reddick?”

“I doubt it.”

Zacharias looked at his wife, looked away, and looked back. “Hell, honey, is it worth it?”

“Thirty percent,” Shayne said crisply. “Hurry it up.”

“Twenty?” Zacharias said hopefully. When Shayne moved to get up, Zacharias said hastily, “All right!” He nudged Chan with his elbow. “Honey, we’ve got all those years invested. I don’t blame you for putting up a fight. I didn’t expect you to go this far, but we don’t have to go into it now. So it’s OK? I’ve got to see the commissioner after the game, and he’s going to be asking me questions—Questions I don’t know how I’ll answer. I don’t care for Shayne’s methods, and I don’t like the way he’s been talking, but we need him, baby, right now we need him. So let’s get back on the same team.”

She moved uncomfortably, looking at Shayne instead of at her husband. “Mike, the trouble is—you don’t know him. That sounds sincere, but it could be an act. I’ve got to get it in writing.”

“We don’t have time. You’ll have to trust him.”

“I’ve trusted him before…”

“I love you, dear,” Zacharias said, his voice low and expressive. “I want to stay married to you. From now on everything’s going to be different.”

She murmured, “But if I do what Mike wants and you change your mind afterward, I can’t enforce it, can I?” She considered an instant longer. “No, I want a legal transfer of shares.”

Shayne swore savagely and turned back to the field.

New York had moved to another touchdown; Miami had yet to score. Maxwell was about to try for a field goal from the New York thirty-five.

A shout went up. The official signaled that the kick was wide.

One group of players poured off the field and another group took their places. James, now very muddy, looked tired and discouraged as he came over to the bench and took the phone. A trainer was manipulating somebody’s leg. Shayne’s mind jumped, and he checked the bench. Dr. Bishop’s yellow slicker was gone.

He stood up.

Chan said pleadingly, “Mike, you see my position, don’t you? He’s such a tricky bastard. How do I even know he broke off with—”

Shayne pushed out to the aisle. A moment later he was vaulting the rail onto the field. A sideline official turned toward him. Shayne ran to the concrete tunnel behind the bench. The crowd was yelling; New York’s quarterback had completed another long pass. A knot of equipment men and trainers clustered at the entrance to the tunnel, glumly watching the game. Captain Squire, a few steps away against the bottom rail, called to Shayne.

Shayne pushed through, and headed for the locker room.

The big dressing room was empty, littered with the debris left behind by the athletes who had used it earlier. Shayne kicked against a discarded helmet. Most of the dressing stalls were open, the clothes inside arranged with compulsive neatness.

“Bishop? Are you down here?”

In Dr. Bishop’s cubicle, a little refrigeration unit stood open and the drug chest was unlocked. Shayne was about to turn when a glint of broken glass on the floor caught his eye.

He crouched. Apparently Bishop had dropped a hypodermic syringe and someone had stepped on it, grinding glass into the carpet. Shayne touched the bits of glass with a moistened fingertip and sniffed, without detecting anything new in the mixture of locker-room smells. He tore a piece of tape from an unused reel, and pressed it, adhesive side down, on the smashed syringe. He rolled up the tape and put it away.

He checked the table by the chalkboard. The little mike was still in place, still open.

He pushed his hat to the back of his head and looked around, frowning. There was a dull thumping roar from the crowd; something else had happened on the field.

He looked into the toilets, then into the shower room. Water was dripping onto some soft, elastic surface. His scowl deepening, Shayne strode to the last stall.

Dr. Bishop, still in his yellow rain slicker, was coiled on the floor with water tapping onto his upturned face. Shayne had to move him to see the traumatic marks the bullet had made entering one side of his skull and leaving by the other.

He was lying on the gun.

CHAPTER 17

Shayne posted himself with his back to the locker-room door, put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it.

He had less than a minute to wait before the first cleats clattered down the concrete tunnel. A flood of football players rounded the turn in the corridor and swept down on him.

He stayed where he was, his back to the door. One of the lesser coaches demanded to know what he was doing.

“Get Lynch for me,” Shayne said.

“This is the half, man! We’ve got to—”

Lynch came bustling up. “What is it, Shayne?”

“Look in the shower room, and don’t touch anything.” He moved aside and let Lynch enter. As those in the rear of the milling group pressed forward, the jam around Shayne increased. A babble of voices banged back and forth between the hard walls and the ceiling. The players who had seen action could be easily told from the substitutes—by the end of the half the mud had been very bad.

The door opened against Shayne’s back. Lynch bellowed for silence.

“It’s tough,” he said to Shayne, “but we’ve got a football game to complete here.”

“We’ll need cops,” Shayne said. “You can use the main dressing room but that’s all.”

“Some of the guys need medication. I hope you don’t think you can keep us out of the john. Out of the way, Shayne. The clock’s running.”

Shayne opened the door enough so he could snap the spring lock, and slammed it again.

“There are other johns. You’ve got plenty of time. We don’t have to start the second half on schedule.”

Lynch had concealed any emotion he may have felt about the dead man, but now he exploded.

“You don’t goof around with the TV schedule. Not in this day and age.”

“Today we’re setting a precedent. Send for the cops. There are two at the end of the tunnel. That’ll be enough to start with.”

For an instant Lynch seemed about to tell his football players to roll over Shayne and force the door. Then he turned away with an angry gesture and gave the orders.

Presently Squire and a second cop worked in through the football players. A custodian arrived a moment later to unlock the door.

Shayne, Lynch and the cops entered first, and the others poured in behind them. The players settled down in groups with their appropriate coaches. The half-time score, Shayne learned from one of the unmuddied rookies, was 23-7, New York. Maxwell, bothered by the mud and the dead ball, had missed on three field-goal attempts.

Squire came out of the shower room, brushing his fingertips. “Suicide?”

“Possibly,” Shayne said. “If somebody killed him it’s going to be a bitch to prove. We can’t wait for everybody to talk it over—we’ve got to hit them while they’re still off balance.”

He explained what he wanted.

Squire squinted at him. “I think it might be better to go by the book, Mike. These are important people.”

“Yeah, and it’s an important industry. Give them a couple of hours, and you’ll see everything closing down.” Squire nodded, still not entirely convinced. Leaving the other cop to keep the players out of the shower room, he put in a call to Homicide while Shayne removed the live mike from the table in the taping room.

Then he found another room deeper in the bowels of the stadium. It was cold and dank, containing a portable chalkboard and a dozen small chairs with hinged arms. The board still showed a diagram of a simple draw play, with an arrow showing where the fullback would go if all the opposing players behaved predictably and moved out of the way. More cops arrived, and Squire sent them off on various errands. Coach Lynch objected violently when Shayne pulled Ronnie James and Joe Truszowski out of the locker room.

“You’ll do better with your backup man,” Shayne told the coach. “Ronnie’s still feeling the effects of that coma.”

James grinned at him. “What are you talking about, Mike?”

“You didn’t seem to be concentrating out there.”

“The conditions, the conditions, man… What happened to Bishop? He shot himself?”

“That’s the way it looks.”

The people he had sent for began to gather. Zacharias came in blustering.

“I must say, Shayne, this is a pretty high-handed procedure.”

“Shut up and sit down,” Shayne told him coldly. Zacharias stopped short and gave him an incredulous look. “Shut up and—”

“Sit down. I tried saying please, and nobody listened.” Zacharias looked around at the others, and sat down in one of the little schoolroom chairs. Chan, who had just entered the room, sat down beside him.

“Ronnie, what’s the explanation of this?” Zacharias demanded of his quarterback.

“I asked,” James said, “but he isn’t saying anything until everybody gets here.”

“We need a couple more people,” Shayne said. “The commissioner’s not in his box. He may have gone out to his car so the fans won’t see him drinking. Dody Germaine doesn’t seem to be using her seat in section O, Ronnie. Does that bother you?”

If Ronnie’s expression changed, the mud concealed it. “That’s one chick nobody owns.”

Chan threw back her rain hood and looked at herself in a pocket mirror. Distressed, she began to work on her eyes.

Ted Knapp came in with Rourke. Seeing the others, Knapp stopped on the threshold and Rourke ran into him.

“I’ve got an insurance matter to ask you about, Knapp,” Shayne said. “Another death, and this one is in the family. Was Dr. Bishop covered by the club policy?”

“Bishop?” Zacharias said. “What’s happened to Bishop?” Knapp came into the room and sat down. “He’s covered against any football-related injury—plane or vehicle crashes while traveling with the team. Why—what are the circumstances?”

“They’re football-related,” Shayne said. “And now we’re all going to keep quiet and think of how much better it would be if everybody made a practice of telling the truth.”

They were sitting facing him. He picked up a piece of chalk and tossed it idly, his eyes moving. Joe Truck’s huge body overflowed the small seat. Chan put her makeup tools away and lit a cigarette.

“This is all so obvious,” Zacharias said. “The oldest technique in the world.”

“Maybe the commissioner didn’t like the kind of football he was seeing, and went home,” Shayne said. “We can start without him, but first we need to hear what the Homicide boys have to say about Bishop. Maybe he died of a heart attack, and that bullet wound was put there to confuse everybody.”

“Len was shot!” Chan exclaimed.

There was a stir in the room.

“You heard what he said,” Zacharias said sourly. “He told us to shut up, so let’s shut up until we collect a few lawyers.”

“It’s not time for the lawyers yet,” Shayne said. “Before it’s over, they’ll get plenty of business.”

The door opened again. This time it was a Miami cop and the commissioner, a short, nearly bald man who put on a flashing smile at the sight of any newspaper or television camera. There was no smile on his face now.

“Sid Zacharias,” he said. “You weren’t answering your phone this morning. Nobody knew how I could get hold of you. Obviously you didn’t feel the situation was serious. Now you send a police officer after me… Ronnie James, I see. What are we going to be treated to, a lecture on how not to throw the forward pass?”

“This is Mike Shayne,” Zacharias muttered. “He may explain or he may not, you never know.”

The commissioner shot a look at Shayne. “Reddick was trying to get away from you when he went into the canal…”

“You’re the one who sent him down here, Commissioner. Now, I’ve told everybody else to shut up and you’re included.”

The commissioner swelled slightly. “No two-for-a-quarter gumshoe is going to talk to me like that, I can guarantee it.”

The chalk in Shayne’s fingers snapped. He took two forward strides. Gathering up a handful of the commissioner’s raincoat, he walked the smaller man back hard against the cinder-block wall.

“Two security men for twenty-six teams,” Shayne said, “and one was Stitch Reddick. You knew how he worked. He was too sloppy to find out much, but if he did happen to come across something, he wasn’t the type to rock the boat. He’s gone now, and the boat is rocking. If you’re really interested in protecting organized football you’ll sit down”—he moved the commissioner around until his knees hit a chair—“and shut up.”

The commissioner sat down hard.

Zacharias snapped, “And I hired you! Christ, when I make a mistake—”

After that, they kept quiet, and listened to the thump of the bass drums from the marching band on the field. James and Truszowski, the only athletes, were the most composed. The others fidgeted and shifted. Presently Squire put his head in and called Shayne. They conferred in the corridor in low tones, and when Shayne came back the police captain came in with him, remaining in the back of the room without sitting down.

“Come to order,” Shayne said. “There’s a bump on the top of Bishop’s head. He may have been hit in the taping room and dragged to the showers and shot there. Or he may have shot himself and knocked his head when he fell. The gun has a knurled grip and won’t show any prints. They’re still working, but let’s assume it can go either way.”

“Bishop? Who’s Bishop?” the commissioner demanded, sitting forward.

“The team doctor. Keep listening, and you’ll pick up things as we go… How much did you offer for the franchise last August, Knapp?”

The commissioner looked around. Knapp bobbed his head at him.

“I’m Ted Knapp, Commissioner. I’m an insurance broker here. Sid and I have been talking, off and on. I put together a syndicate, but we felt Sid’s price was a little unrealistic. Unless he’s changed his mind lately, we’re two million apart.”

“Give us the dollar figure,” Shayne said.

“Nine million bid, eleven million asked.”

“Now I’m going to imagine a scene,” Shayne said. “Negotiations are off. Chan Zacharias meets Knapp privately and makes him an offer. She’ll drive the price down to nine for a fee of—let’s see—half a million bucks. How close am I, Chan?”

“What? What?” the commissioner said.

“I’ll ask you once more,” Shayne ordered, mildly enough. “Hold your questions for now. We’re trying to establish some facts. Sid was working himself up to call off the marriage, if possible without paying alimony. A half million in cash would be a fair settlement from Chan’s point of view, and if she couldn’t get it from her husband, she felt entitled to raise it somewhere else. She considers herself partly responsible for the club’s financial success.”

“Mainly responsible,” Chan put in.

“How close is that half-million figure?” Shayne said. “I don’t think you’d do it for less.”

She returned his look without replying.

“I think it’s pretty close,” Shayne went on, “and that’s the big thing that’s been going on here. The rest has been incidental.”

He made them wait while he started a cigarette.

“If Captain Squire was up here, he’d give you the warning at this point—you have a right to keep silent, and anything you say can be used against you. I’m going to get around that by doing most of the talking. If anybody wants to contradict me, clear your throat. I’ll be glad to listen.”

The commissioner started to get up. “The contradicting starts right now. This whole proceeding is outrageous! You have no authority to hold anybody and you know it. I refuse to sit here and listen to vague, unsubstantiated charges until I get legal representation.”

“Let the commissioner leave if he wants to, Squire,” Shayne said. “But before you go, Commissioner, let me tell you what my plans are. I’ve been taking a pounding from you people. In my business I can’t afford to let that happen. I’ve been lied to consistently and hit in the face a few times with hard objects, including Joe Truszowski’s forearm.”

“I said I was sorry,” Truszowski muttered.

“Nobody else has… Now, you watched the first half, Commissioner. Ronnie was a long way off his usual form. And Art Maxwell missed three field goals in a row for the first time this year. What makes this all so interesting is that one of Ronnie’s close pals is betting heavily on New York. So is the wife of the owner. Ordinarily we could handle this without headlines, but if we can’t work something out in this room, the whole smear is going to be spread on the record. That’s what happens, folks, in a murder investigation.”

The commissioner sat back. “I understood you to say it was a possible suicide.”

“Stitch Reddick wasn’t a possible suicide. So my contribution here is going to be following his trail backward, city by city, to find out how he operated. You’re staying?”

“It’s damned irregular, and I don’t like it. But talk fast. I want these players on the field in exactly”—he looked at a thin watch—“ten minutes.”

“Keep track of the time,” Shayne told him. “Let’s jump back to the Kansas City game last year. It may have started before then, but that’s where I picked it up. Joe, some of us may not remember what happened in that game. Remind us.”

“Ronnie threw it, that’s what happened! I get madder every time I think about it.”

“Threw the game?” James countered. “My elbow was so tight I couldn’t throw, period! It was loosening up by the end of the half, and Doc Bishop drew off some of the fluid. That helped for about two passes, and then it went.”

“Conveniently,” Joe Truck said.

“Joe, you’re paranoid.”

“Did you win any money on that game, Knapp?” Shayne asked.

Ted Knapp was sitting alone in the last row of chairs. “My memory isn’t that phenomenal, Mike.”

“Knapp’s one of the town’s big bettors,” Shayne explained to the commissioner, “but he doesn’t want to talk about it in front of you. He bets percentages. You don’t succeed that way without good sources and up-to-the-minute information. Dr. Bishop was his local man. Before the K.C. game, Bishop gave him a bulletin on Ronnie’s elbow, and didn’t he ask you to do some betting for him, Knapp?”

“You’re telling it,” Knapp said indifferently.

“The bookies may remember. This is going to scare every bookmaker in town, and I think we’ll get their full cooperation. Let’s say Bishop had ten thousand riding on Ronnie’s elbow that Sunday. Knapp is in on enough situations every week so he can lose a few without feeling it. But that would be Bishop’s one bet, and he’d be willing to take a chance if it meant he could make sure of winning. He gave Ronnie an injection at the half. Whatever it was, it didn’t help the elbow.”

“The swelling went down,” James recalled, “but I think there was some kind of numbing agent in the mixture. A weak solution of Novocain would do it. If you want to know the truth, I think he was manipulating that elbow all year. I’d get one kind of shot if he was on one side of the points, a different kind if he was on the other.”

“The team doctor!” the commissioner said, staring. “That’s too fantastic to believe…”

“Why? I haven’t had a bit of trouble with the elbow since he stopped taking care of it. A sting sometimes, on the follow-through. The thing about a doctor, when he gives you a shot you don’t take the syringe out to your own laboratory to have it analyzed. Like with Maxwell. He’s a great man for needles. B-12 every week. If he’s coming down with a cold, he gets penicillin. A little Seconal mixed with that penicillin will take just a tick off his timing.”

“When did you figure this out, Ronnie?” Shayne said.

“I didn’t do much figuring. It came to me. Last winter sometime. I was looking at boats, wandering around the Chris-Craft showroom on the Beach, and I bumped into Doc Bishop on a forty-eight-foot cruiser. I forget what the price was, but it was more boat than I wanted. As far as I knew, Bishop was like me, just looking. But he gave a kind of jump and banged his head on the ceiling. And he got all red in the face. You don’t see that happen too often. That’s not much to go on, I know that, but he couldn’t afford a forty-eight-footer unless he was moonlighting. So I had a conference with another doctor I know, and we went over those elbow symptoms and fitted them in with the point spread on a couple of crucial games.”

“Didn’t we see Len in a kind of big boat last summer, Sid?” Chan said.

“Don’t volunteer anything until we see where this is going,” Zacharias replied.

“Are you ready to tell us how much Bishop cleared on the K.C. game, Knapp?” Shayne said.

“Be reasonable. It’s too long ago.”

“How about two weeks ago—is that too far back? Miami against New Orleans.”

“Mike,” Knapp said slowly, “it begins to dawn on me that I won’t come out of this little disturbance with a football franchise. I’ve already told you that’s only one of the possibilities I’ve been exploring, and I won’t be too heartbroken if it falls through. Betting on football games is one thing. But when you start talking about shooting a quarterback’s elbow with Novocain, you’re getting up on a different level. I think I’ll start following your advice and shut up.”

“Then I’ll go back to guessing. To lower the price of the club by two million, all Chan had to do was make sure of a losing season. It’s easy to lose football games. A little dissension will do it. With Ted Knapp’s help, she set up a scene to convince Joe Truck that Ronnie was taking a payoff—”

“I saw that, goddamn it!” Truck objected.

“Everybody was being conned that morning, Joe. When you blew those two blocks last Sunday, Ronnie thought you’d been paid to do it. Everybody was getting suspicious of everybody else, and that’s not the way you play winning football. There were also some sexual aspects I’ll save for executive session. But Chan made sure I knew about them so I’d ask questions and stir up more trouble… Ronnie, do you want to tell us about Dody Germaine now?”

“Go ahead, you’re doing fine.”

“Ronnie was keeping a close watch on Dr. Bishop. Any football player has more peace of mind if he can trust his club physician. So he brought down one of his New York girls, who gave Bishop a simple fake and Bishop fell for it. The doctor and the girl have been sharing the same bed for the last few weeks. Remember—Bishop was never a percentage bettor. He was always looking for a sure thing. All he wanted to do was double his money every time. Last week Dody was able to tell Ronnie that Bishop was betting against Miami, betting a lot of money. And that alarmed Ronnie to the point where he went into a week long coma. All right. Handling Bishop’s bets was getting to be a problem for Knapp. It was part of his technique to be as unobtrusive as possible, and he especially didn’t want to come out in the open now, with the purchase of the club hanging fire. Nevertheless, he bet fifty thousand last week, and I know damn well that he wouldn’t have done it unless he was under some kind of heavy pressure. Bishop must have threatened to expose his betting network, and that would have killed the deal for the club. Is this getting too complicated for you, Commissioner?”

“I understood what you’re saying. But I don’t believe much of it.”

“Why else would Knapp suddenly change systems and go over to sure-thing betting? He’d been winning regularly, but not enough to get himself labeled. It’s the big conspicuous winner who gets sandbagged on the way home from the casino.”

He looked at Knapp, who just shrugged. Shayne went on, “Ronnie wanted two things. He wanted to expose Bishop and get him fired, and he also wanted to break him financially. Ronnie’s name was on the serious list, the point spread went to seventeen, but Dody Germaine was able to fell Bishop that a coup was in the making, that Ronnie was really planning to play. It looked like another sure thing. One hundred thousand dollars would turn into two hundred, and Bishop could stop trying so hard. But by this time, Ted Knapp was balking. Bishop had to place most of the bets out of town. Doctors know doctors all over the country. He’s probably been giving them tips all along, and his performance record has been perfect. Even so, they wouldn’t bet any serious money for him on the strength of a phone call. They had to have cash. So he sent Dody, with a suitcase full of bills, on a swing of a few major cities. He bought her the plane ticket and sent her out to the airport, but she didn’t bother to go, of course. She came back with the money intact—it was Ronnie’s paycheck to her—and I’m really sorry Dr. Bishop isn’t alive so I could tell him the news. She had to be here by game time to reassure Bishop that his bets were down, but she’s not the kind of girl to sit out in the rain and get her hair wet watching a football game. I expect she’s on her way back to the big city.”

“Hell, the girl worked for that money,” Ronnie said. “As a matter of fact, it was a hundred and eleven thousand. Your guesses haven’t been off by much, Shayne.”

The commissioner looked at his watch. “Two more minutes.”

“I don’t think we can make it,” Shayne said. “I don’t know where Reddick picked up the scent. One tapped phone conversation would do it, and isn’t that the main way he worked—by tapping phones? He had a choice. He could collect from Knapp, from Sid and Chan, or from Dr. Bishop. He tried to collect from all four. One of them called him out of a bar, gave him a doped drink and told him a fancy story… Ronnie may have something to say on that point.”

“I knew he was up to something,” James said, “and I wanted to get him to hold off for a day. I thought five hundred bucks would do it—I guess I figured too low. I didn’t get to him in time. I saw him get into Doc Bishop’s car.”

“That’s definite, Ronnie?” Rourke said from the rear of the room. “You saw Bishop?”

“Yeah.”

Shayne continued. “When I followed Stitch, Bishop followed me. He was afraid Reddick might tell me something after I pulled him out of the wreck, so he knocked us both into the canal.”

There was a sound at the door and Coach Lynch looked in.

“Shayne, what do you suggest I do for a quarterback, damn it?”

The commissioner snapped, “Stay in the dressing room with the door locked!”

Lynch’s eyes widened and his head disappeared.

“I’m nearly through,” Shayne said. “Trouble has brought Sid and Chan back together, and the club is no longer for sale. Do you want to verify that for the commissioner, Sid?”

Zacharias, unsettled by the question, looked at his wife. “She almost cost me two million bucks, and now we should get back together…?”

“It’s your best bet. She’s in a position to go on sabotaging you even if you kick her out. She’ll take you for more in the end.”

“Jesus,” Zacharias said, “what a basis for a marriage!”

“I’d like to know what happened to Bishop,” the commissioner said impatiently. “Not that I care a hell of a lot, if he murdered Stitch.”

“First I want to make sure everybody sees the beauty of Ronnie’s idea,” Shayne said. “With Ronnie starting, with New York the favorite at seventeen points, Knapp and Bishop both knew they had an overlay, as close as you can get to a sure thing in professional football. I almost went for it myself, and then I was told that Ronnie’s own doctor, Prettyman, who’s been covering for him in the hospital all week, wasn’t betting on Miami, he was betting on New York. And not just a couple of hundred bucks—thirty thousand. That meant Ronnie was going to be throwing to lose. He persuaded Maxwell to come in on it, to miss a few kicks so Bishop couldn’t fail to see what was being done to him. Coming off the field after one of his interceptions, Ronnie gave Bishop a look, and Bishop understood it. If Ronnie played through the second half, Bishop’s hundred and eleven thousand bucks were down the drain. The halftime score was pretty close to the spread. Bishop’s one chance of winning was to knock Ronnie out between the halves.”

“I already told him I was going to need a jolt,” James said. “And I was going to grab the needle, turn it over to Sid, and that would be it for Doc Bishop.”

“So a few minutes before the end of the half,” Shayne said, “Bishop came down to get ready. I didn’t see him leave the bench, but somebody else did.” Shayne lit a new cigarette from the butt of his old one. “We can eliminate Chan and Sid. I was talking to them at the time. Eliminate the commissioner. I can’t see him shooting anybody.”

“I haven’t shot anybody in years,” the commissioner said.

“Ronnie and Joe were both out on the field playing football. That leaves Ted Knapp.”

Heads turned toward the insurance man. Knapp shook his head good-naturedly, forgiving Shayne for his obvious lack of intelligence.

“I was in the press box. It’s public up there.”

“People were coming and going all the time. Miami was in scoring position. Everybody was looking the other way. You’d been watching the bench, and you could see how things were going. Ronnie was giving it to you. You could absorb the loss, but Bishop, the damn fool, was down on the bench chewing his fingernails and telling himself he had to do something drastic. It wasn’t just money with Bishop. It was his new girl, a whole new way of life. He had to stop Ronnie before the boy ruined him. And if that backfired, as it was likely to—you were a lot cooler at that point than Bishop was—your whole connection with him was bound to come out. He was on your payroll. You’d worked together on something equally tricky the previous week. You’re the gambler, the automatic bad guy. The jury would be sure to decide that giving the quarterback a crooked injection was your idea and Bishop was only following orders. You couldn’t get less than three years.”

“Mike, you’re dreaming aloud!”

“You took the elevator down. Bishop was preparing the hypodermic. You tried to talk some sense into him, but he wouldn’t listen. The minutes were passing. You had to be out of there before the players came in. The thing that’s going to be bad is the fact that you had a gun in your pocket. That shows premeditation. You must have been expecting something.”

“You’re right about part of it,” Knapp said in an exhausted voice, “but let’s think up a different theory. Bishop realized at the last minute that he’d never get away with it, and shot himself. He’s the one who had the gun in his pocket.”

“It could have happened that way,” Shayne agreed.

He picked up the drawer he had pulled out of the table in the taping room and turned it around to expose the little mike. “One of the things Chan did—as part of her scheme to undermine the club—was plant this bug under the blackboard in the locker room. If Bishop had a conversation with anybody just before the end of the half, this would pick it up. There must be a receiver around someplace.”

He suddenly strode forward and picked Chan’s purse out of her lap and emptied it into the drawer.

“Mike!”

He chose a cigarette package as the most likely possibility. It had been opened. Only one cigarette had been removed.

The room was silent. Shayne and Knapp looked at each other.

“It won’t have my voice on it,” Knapp said.

Shayne stepped forward. “Maybe not. And maybe it’s only a pack of cigarettes. But you like to bet. You told me last night that the next best thing to winning is losing. Squire, give me your gun.”

Squire hesitated before taking his revolver out of its holster and passing it to the private detective. Shayne reversed an empty chair, flapped up the writing arm and dropped the cigarettes on it.

“Here’s the bet. If there’s a recorder inside this package, there’s only one way you can destroy it. That’s with bullets.”

One of the chairs behind him fell over as Chan scrambled toward the wall.

“These transistorized babies are pretty sturdy,” Shayne said, “but fire all six rounds and the odds are that you can blow it apart.”

“Shayne, this is out of some bad TV script,” Knapp said.

Shayne held out the gun, butt first. “Take a chance. It’s a good bet. I’m giving you the edge. We might find somebody who saw you leaving the press box, but we couldn’t get a conviction on that by itself. We’ll need the tape.”

Further along the corridor, an official was hammering on the locked door of the Miami dressing room.

“Can I touch it?” Knapp said.

“Go ahead.”

Knapp squeezed the cigarette package between his thumb and forefinger and put it carefully back on the chair arm.

“I think it’s cigarettes,” he said after a moment. He took the gun and looked around with a strained smile. “This is what you call a good bet? Chan, is it cigarettes, or not?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Knapp pointed the gun at the package. “The choice is…” he said slowly. “If you have a tape to take into court, you can get your goddamn conviction. But if I shoot up this package”—he waited, thinking—“I’ll be tried in the newspapers, right? And go to jail for conspiracy to tamper with football players. Three years, Shayne? I’d be lucky to get out in six. I’ve inquired. I definitely wouldn’t like it in jail. So how can I win? I can’t. But there’s always the next best thing.”

He put his face down, lifting the gun, and fired. Shayne, expecting the move, chopped the gun out of his hand. The shot went high, plowing a furrow along Knapp’s scalp.

Knapp dived for the gun, but Ronnie James kicked it away.

Shayne left the mopping up to Squire and the Homicide people, and joined Rourke in the press box.

Ronnie’s passing had improved. Maxwell connected with a long forty-five-yard field goal, then with another from the forty. But a quarterback can control a football game completely only when he is attempting to lose. Ronnie was at the mercy of his own defense, which never succeeded in stopping New York. New York won by thirteen, and Rourke threw his torn-up program in the air.

“I was worried there for a minute.”

Shayne, beside him, had his field glasses on the Zacharias’s box. Sid Zacharias was pulling at his wife’s arm. Chan shook him off and looked up at the press-box windows through binoculars of her own. She located Shayne.

One of her eyebrows lifted in a faint, elegant shrug. She gave her focussing knob a deliberate half-twist, sending Shayne’s face out of focus, and then she put the glasses away and went with her husband.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17