Murder Spins the Wheel (8 page)

12.

HE SWUNG THROUGH INTO the cabin. Betty’s head knocked against the sill as he pulled her after him. But after what he had gone through on her account, he saw no reason to handle her gently.

Holding her like a partly open jackknife, her head down, he let the water she had swallowed drain out onto the carpet. He shook her, then dumped her on the floor to start artificial respiration. He took the lower part of her rib cage in both hands and came down hard. She spewed out more water, diluted with Scotch. He helped her expel one more breath. When her eyes opened he got up off his knees, leaving her to recover the rest of the way by herself.

She flopped over on her back, her wet slip clinging to her thighs. Her long hair was as stringy as seaweed.

She looked up at him accusingly. “Where’s Vince?”

“I thought you said it was a Negro,” Shayne said in a disgusted voice.

He went into the bathroom and returned with a large, rough towel. He rubbed his coarse red hair briskly. Lee watched him from near the window, her eyes wide.

“Was it really Vince?”

Steve put his head in the door. “What’s going on in here, may I ask? Vince said to be quiet. This is a ritzy neighborhood, somebody’s going to report us. Wait and see.”

“You drowned him,” Betty said flatly, staring up at Shayne. “You drowned him like a kitten.”

“Yeah.” Shayne tossed her the towel. “Dry yourself off. You look like a drowned cat yourself.”

She shook the towel off and came to her feet, her eyes blazing. “He had on his scuba suit. It was only a joke! He’s always doing things like that.” She whirled toward Lee. “Isn’t he? You know how he’s always popping out of the water to scare people.”

“He was just floating there,” she said doubtfully.

“He was fine! He had his oxygen! Then this guy jumped on him and opened up his zipper and held his head under water.”

“Now why would I do anything like that?” Shayne said reasonably.

“For the good of society! I know the way your mind works. Just because he can’t cope, just because he gives himself a shot once in a while, you think he ought to be drowned like a damn kitten!”

Ignoring her, Shayne sat on the edge of the bed and stripped off his wet socks. He dried his feet on a pillow case.

“Do you think I’m going to let you get away with it?” Betty was standing over him, her fists clenched. Suddenly she began beating him on the top of his head with both fists. “Why couldn’t you give him a break? What did he ever do to you?”

He caught her arms and moved her out of his way. She was sputtering incoherently. When she tried to kick him between the legs he turned her around and put her down emphatically on the bed.

“Goddamn it, if you hadn’t jumped on me—” He waved in disgust. “Will you shut up?”

He had one more thing to do before he left. Vince’s death would have to be reported, but first he wanted to pull in the bait bucket and get it out of sight.

“I don’t understand what happened,” Steve said, puzzled. “What did you say about Vince?”

The other couple, wearing a minimum of clothing, had floated in from the stern in search of entertainment. The man said, “Vince go for a swim?” He giggled.

Lee had been on Shayne’s side while he was in the water, but now she seemed to be wavering.

“I couldn’t tell, Steve, it was so dark down there. I saw him open Vince’s suit. He
did
hold him underwater.”

“I thought you’d decided to be friendly,” Shayne remarked.

“I can’t feel very friendly toward people who go around drowning—”

Shayne swung out over the windowsill. Betty flung herself at him.

“He’s going to swim ashore!”

She caught him by the hair, jerking him inward, and Lee hit him with the empty Scotch bottle. She hadn’t completely made up her mind about him, and checked her swing at the last instant. He fell in across the sill and slid back into the cabin. Betty was all over him, scratching, kicking, pummeling the back of his head. Shayne felt a blaze of anger. Coming to his feet, he gripped her by the wet hair and swung her around.

“Will everybody listen to me?” he said savagely. “Let’s hope it penetrates. There was a stickup on Normandy Isle at about seven-thirty tonight. Vince threw this party so a watchman could testify that he was on board at seven-thirty, and five other people could testify that he was in bed with Betty and a bagful of junk. Betty saw him—hold still, damn you—Betty saw him mainline the stuff with her own two eyes, and she was so disappointed in him that she packed away a fifth of good Scotch. But this one time Vince didn’t use heroin. There are his clothes.” He pointed the struggling girl at the open closet. “He swam across to Normandy Isle and two old friends from St. Louis picked him up in a stolen car. He pulled the job and swam back. Don’t ask me why he couldn’t haul himself up the ladder. If Betty had kept out of it, we’d probably know.”

“Vince didn’t ever stick up anybody,” Steve said scornfully. “It’s not the kind of thing he goes in for.”

“There’s a first time for everything. Now there’s something down in the water I want to get. Relax for a minute.”

He pushed Betty toward the bed. The instant he let go of her she whirled and attacked him again.

“Who are you, anyway? I never saw you before in my life. You’re no friend of his.”

Lee put in, “He said he’s a detective.”

The word was like kerosene on a dying fire. Steve howled, “You bastards, when are you going to start minding your own business? What harm did Vince do you? But you’ve got to make your arrest quota, don’t you? He’s never been pulled in before. Naturally he didn’t want you to take him in for possession! Naturally he jumped out the window! I thought there was something screwy about it when you jimmied the door.”

The third girl, reacting slowly, finally understood what they were saying about Shayne. “He drowned Vince?”

Steve turned toward her and explained, “Maybe Vince was too smoked-up to turn on his oxygen.”

Outraged, the girl burst past Steve and hit Shayne like a projectile. She had passed in an instant from relaxation to a state of uncontrollable fury. The other man came into the cabin, his fists raised in boxing position, and danced around behind the three girls. Shayne was borne backward and hit the wall. The empty Scotch bottle was jolted out of Lee’s hand, smashing the mirror.

Losing patience, Shayne picked up Betty and knocked the blonde girl down with her. Then he threw her at Lee. The boy aimed an elegant jab at Shayne’s head, or where he imagined Shayne’s head ought to be. The big redhead came in with a right, putting all his feelings about this situation behind it. The boy went over the bed, hit the wall, slid to the floor, and stopped moving.

Shayne gave Lee a warning look as she tried to get up. Everyone was accounted for but Steve. As Shayne went through the doorway looking for him, Steve jumped out and dumped the tangle of movie film over his head and shoulders.

The film writhed and coiled like live snakes. Steve pulled back his right fist and hit Shayne in the jaw, going off balance just as it landed. As a result it didn’t explode. Shayne raked at the film, trying to free at least one arm, and Steve tried again with a roundhouse left. Shayne saw it coming and ducked away, putting the back of his head directly into the downward path of the other Scotch bottle. It connected solidly, dropping him to the floor, still in the grip of the dirty movie.

He had to take a short count until the noises in his head subsided. He heard a chair go over. Somebody whipped a pillow case over his head like a hood.

“You’re going to get a lesson,” Betty’s voice panted. “Steve, get a rope! Get a rope! He can’t drown somebody and get a medal for it. Throw him in himself. See how he likes it.”

Her fingers stopped moving, and suddenly there was complete silence in the room except for hurried breathing. Shayne heard a siren. It was coming fast.

Steve’s voice said, “I knew we were making too much racket. These fancy bastards around here can’t stand a little noise.”

Somebody wrenched Shayne’s wrists behind his back and started binding them together with a torn strip of cloth. The siren died at the end of the lane.

“I don’t know about you people,” Steve said, “but I’m getting out of here.”

“No!” Lee’s voice said excitedly. “Everybody get a bottle. It’s a private party, what right have they got? They think they can do anything they damn please.”

There were scurrying sounds around the room. Shayne lay still, but kept a space between his wrists as they were lashed together. Heavy footsteps ran along the dock. He flexed his wrists until he could revolve his hands. Finding the knot, he began to pick it apart with his thumb and forefinger.

The cops, confronted with a silent but lighted boat, halted and conferred on the dock. They proceeded up the gangway with more caution.

“Hello?” a voice called. “Anybody aboard?”

“OK, Maguire,” a second voice said. “See if they’ve passed out or what.”

Shayne worked his hands free. There was a nervous laugh from somebody, immediately stifled. The cops stepped off the gangway, and Shayne heard them moving along the deck toward the lighted doorway. He still hoped that under cover of the confusion he could get down the ladder and cut loose the money-filled bait bucket. If necessary he could swim under the dock with it and wait till the boat was cleared. Once the money fell into Peter Painter’s hands, Harry Bass would have a hard time proving ownership. In the end it would probably escheat to the city.

“Hello?” the cop called again.

Shayne recognized Maguire’s voice. He was a tough, bullheaded veteran who was famous for extracting confessions from Negroes, and he had been commended frequently for shooting teen-age holdup men. It sometimes seemed to Shayne that Maguire only considered the season open on bandits under the age of twenty-one. An encounter with Betty and her friends, Shayne thought, would do him no lasting harm.

Maguire’s foot scraped in the doorway, and suddenly the storm broke. Shayne sat up quickly, ripped off the pillow case and began trying to divest himself of the film. The room was noisy with screams and curses. Maguire staggered to one knee. For an instant he and Shayne regarded each other on the same level. Maguire’s hat had been knocked off and his head was bleeding.

“Shayne?” he said wonderingly, and took out his gun.

Steve slapped at his wrist with a broken chair. The other cop, a plainclothes detective, was being belabored with empty bottles. His arms were raised to protect his head. The blonde girl stole around behind him and dropped him with a vodka bottle.

A man with a flashbulb camera darted in, made a picture and dived beneath the table.

Shayne stood up and started for the cabin where everything had started. He was trailing loops of film. Betty was knocked violently backward past him. A long welt had sprung up across her face. Rebounding from the wall, she threw herself at Maguire and buried her teeth in his fleshy neck. He screamed like an animal and tore her loose.

He bounded after her and hit her twice with his night stick. The first blow landed on her shoulder. The second all but tore off an ear. She collapsed at Shayne’s feet. Maguire had reached a state which wasn’t unusual with him, where he no longer knew what he was doing. He lifted the nightstick in both hands. His little eyes had contracted to red, angry pinpoints within their pockets of flesh.

Moving fast, Shayne caught the nightstick as it came down. A flashbulb popped.

“Out of this, Shayne,” Maguire grated.

He pushed Shayne and raised the nightstick again. Cords stood out on his neck. Betty stared up at him in terror. If he had succeeded in bringing the nightstick down, he would have split her skull to the brain.

Shayne hated to hit cops. It was rarely practical. He sighed, shook loose the last loop of film and nailed Maguire with a short right when he was wide open. As he sagged, the redhead took the nightstick out of his loosening hold.

“Let’s have it,” a third cop said, advancing.

With a joyful cry, Lee hit this cop in the face with a chair. She came around fast, snatched Maguire’s nightstick away from Shayne and whacked the cop with it before Shayne could stop her. She and the redhead struggled for the nightstick for a moment, and the photographer’s head popped up above the table. He made another picture, ducking out of sight as Steve scaled an empty film reel at him.

“Let go, Mike,” Lee said reasonably. “I’m going to beat his brains in.”

“Like hell you are.”

Shayne wrenched the club out of her hand. With a sideward thrust of his foot he moved Betty out of the cabin doorway.

And then, with the entrance of three more cops, he realized that the money would have to wait. They had arrived without sirens. They all had their guns out. Seeing three fallen comrades amid the broken bottles and tangled film, they were clearly in a good mood to shoot somebody. “Drop that,” the leading cop told Shayne. Shayne dropped the nightstick. Steve wavered up to the cop, ignoring the drawn gun, and tried to punch him. Missing, he fell down. The photographer popped up with a fresh flashbulb and made another picture.

13.

SHAYNE WAS HUSTLED ALONG the dock with the others. The Beach cops used a modified Volkswagen bus for their riot calls, with two rows of facing benches. Except for Maguire, who had been driven off in an ambulance, Shayne knew only one of the arresting cops by sight, and if that man recognized him, he was careful to say nothing about it. Shayne made no attempt to identify himself or to ask for different treatment, which they wouldn’t have given him.

Betty had been permitted to put on more clothes, but her bag had been confiscated before she could comb her wet hair or do anything about her lipstick. The welt left by Maguire’s nightstick showed clearly, even in the dim overhead light, and she kept one hand cupped over her injured ear. She was rocking back and forth.

“I’m going to be sick,” she whispered.

The wagon got underway with a jerk. More police cars had collected, and the officer in charge had decided to go in using their sirens.

“Betty,” Shayne said.