Never Bet Your Life

by George Harmon Coxe

  “Who was Gannon going to sell to, Sam?”

  “Who says he was going to sell to anybody?”

  Vaughn nodded at Dave. “He does. He drew up a tentative agreement but left the name blank. So who was here yesterday afternoon talking business?”

  Resnik hesitated. For a moment Dave thought he was not going to reply and then he apparently changed his mind.

  “Willie Shear.”

  Somewhere in the room there was a faint, whistling sound and Dave saw that it came from the plain-clothes man. Vaughn’s gaze did not waver but his eyes opened and then narrowed in thought. When he spoke he sounded impressed.

  “Willie Shear, hunh? Well, Willie’s a little out of my territory but I guess he can be questioned too. Until then this could add up to a nice motive, Sam. With Gannon around he could close you out as of next week. With him out of the way you’re still in business.”

  He looked the room over. “Lots of motives,” he said. “Nice things to have, but me, I’d rather have the killer and figure out the motive later. Let’s get some times,” he said, and pulled out a notebook and pencil.

  “Mr. Gannon gave you the slip tonight”—he looked at Dave—“because you fell asleep. Or were you drunk?”

  Dave accepted the question without resentment because he felt he was responsible for what happened. He did not know why he should fall asleep and could not believe he had. And yet—

  “I wasn’t drunk,” he said. “I must have fallen asleep.”

  Vaughn consulted his notebook. “Gannon left the club around ten minutes of eleven or so.” He looked at Workman and Betty. “Did you see him leave?”

  “He came by our table,” Workman said. “Said he was playing a trick on Dave. Got a big boot out of it. Said not to wake him. Betty wanted to anyway but I thought she’d better not get mixed up in it.”

  “When did you leave?”

  “A quarter after as a guess.”

  Vaughn nodded. He asked if it was customary for Betty to swim at night and she said yes, when they were hot like they had been lately. She said Workman had wanted to take a drink to the beach with him but she hadn’t wanted any. She was waiting when he came by and knocked on her door.

  “When was that?”

  “About eleven thirty, I think.”

  “See anyone you knew?”

  “I saw Mr. Tyler. He was walking and we passed him just before we turned in here on the way from the club.”

  “I was there too,” Tyler offered. “At the bar.”

  “You didn’t go swimming right away, did you, Miss Nelson?”

  “No. We sat behind a dune and had a cigarette and Carl had his drink. We talked and—”

  “For how long? Guess.”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Nearer fifteen, I’d say,” Workman said.

  “Did you notice anything at all during that time?”

  “Yes.” The girl frowned, continued hesitantly. “We decided to go in the water and I stood up and took off my robe and I was facing this way when I put it down. That was how I happened to see the car go past.”

  “Here?” Vaughn asked quickly.

  “Along this end of the drive. There’s a light outside, you know, and the car was moving slowly and I thought it was going to stop, and then it went on a little farther and I lost sight of it.”

  “Did you recognize it?”

  “I—I think it was Mr. Resnik’s. It was the same color and make and—”

  Her voice trailed off. Vaughn examined Resnik with new interest but the gambler was looking at the girl, his eyes in shadow and revealing nothing.

  “You’re mistaken, Miss Nelson.”

  “It wasn’t you, Sam?” Vaughn asked calmly.

  “No.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  Resnik’s lips twisted. “The way I see it,” he said, “you’re the one who has to do the proving.”

  Dave waited, wondering now if Resnik had been the man who had slugged him. He felt sure Betty would not have made the statement if she had not been quite certain about the car, and he expected Vaughn to pursue that line of questioning. Instead, the captain continued as if the information were unimportant.

  “The way I figure it,” he said, “is that you two”—he glanced at Workman and Betty—“got to the beach around eleven thirty or so. At maybe a quarter of twelve a car went past. You”—he looked at Dave—“got here around ten of.”

  “About that,” Dave said.

  “Then it looks as if someone came in here during that half hour with a gun. All but one of you knew Gannon had tried suicide in the past, and you’d think a smart lad who wanted him out of the way would have shot him close up so we’d assume it was suicide—which we probably would have. Except for one thing: the safe.”

  He paused to look at Dave, continued slowly. “It was open. So if you’re telling the truth—and right now I’m not conceding a thing—maybe the killer had the gun in Gannon’s back and forced him to work the combination and then Gannon made a break. The gun was in his back and it went off. Maybe only a couple of minutes before you got here. Maybe the killer was looking for the key to the inner safe when you walked in on him.”

  “Maybe,” said Dave. “But it doesn’t explain the missing five thousand or the copy of the agreement I typed up.”

  “No,” said Vaughn wearily, “it doesn’t. You wouldn’t know about that five thousand, would you, Sam?” He looked through his notebook as though expecting no answer, tipped his head. “That gives us a line on everyone but you, Mr. Workman. Where’re you from?”

  Workman said he was from Santa Monica, California, and mentioned a street and number. Vaughn’s brows lifted as he jotted it down.

  “Long ways from home, aren’t you? What line of business’re you in?”

  Workman rolled over on one hip so he could get at his wallet. He thumbed through some inner compartments, extracted a card. Vaughn examined it with interest.

  “A private investigator, hunh? Just traveling around, or have you got business in this section?”

  “Business, I hope.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like looking for a missing heir.”

  “Who?”

  Workman’s lips fashioned a thin smile and there were sardonic lights in his amber eyes. “I’ve been working for ten months on this case. If I find the guy there’ll be a bonus. If someone else finds him I’m not so sure about the bonus.”

  “I have to take your word for this?”

  “Write this down,” Workman said. “Leeman and Vance,” he said, and mentioned a Beverly Hills address and telephone number. “They’re the lawyers handling the estate. They can tell you what they want. You could call them.”

  “I’ll do that.” Vaughn put his notebook away. “Okay,” he said. “That’ll do for now. I’ll have to ask you all to come down to my office in the morning—I’ll let you know when—so I can get your statements. By that time we’ll know if the transients saw anything tonight that will help us…. If you’ll just go over Mr. Gannon’s effects and papers with me and sign for them,” he said to Dave, “I’ll be on my way.”

  Sam Resnik was the first one out, followed by Tyler and Stinson. Workman and Betty were next, and though she looked back over her shoulder at Dave as she went through the door she did not speak. Not until Vaughn had gone and Dave had turned out the lights. It was when he started to close the door that someone called to him softly from outside. She was standing there alone when he went down the two steps.

  “I had to come back.” She stood looking up at him, her hand on his arm. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “You mustn’t think it was.”

  She said other things but all he could think of now was that she was worried about him and wanted to comfort him, and he was so strongly moved that he covered her hand with his and drew her close, knowing he had never loved her more.

  “Please, Dave,” she said. “You mustn’t feel too badly.”

  “All right,” he said husk
ily, wanting to voice so many things he could not seem to say. He pressed her arms and told her he’d be all right, that she must get some sleep, turning her away now and watching until she walked to her room and disappeared inside.

  He remembered all this as he started to undress and then, moved by the compulsion of a thought that he had never been able to accept, he knew there was one thing more he had to do that night.

  He had removed his shirt and now he replaced it; he put on his tie and jacket. A glance at his watch told him it was twenty minutes after two and when he went outside, the motel was quiet, the windows blackly shining. Automatically turning toward the carport, he stopped short when he realized the car was gone. For a moment he wondered why he had forgotten to mention the fact to Vaughn and why Vaughn had not thought to ask about it; then he started across the lawn, turning left on the highway and keeping to the side of the road.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE LIGHTS were still on at the Club 80 as Dave had known they would be. There were fewer cars in the parking lot now and as he started across it one of them near the edge looked strangely familiar, so much so that he walked toward it until he could make out the Massachusetts license plate. Then, as he stood there with the bewilderment growing in him, the attendant strolled up behind him.

  “How long has that been here?” Dave said.

  “Ever since you left.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me then?”

  “I tried to,” the man said. “You came out and asked about Mr. Gannon and I told you and then, bingo! you were off to the races. I yelled after you but you kept on going.”

  Dave checked the denial which rose in his throat because when his mind went back he remembered the attendant had called after him.

  “Okay,” he said with all the patience he could muster. “Let’s start at the beginning. When I drove in earlier I parked over there.” He pointed to a spot near the door. “Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Who moved it?”

  “Miss Drake.”

  “What?”

  The attendant took a breath now that it was his turn to be patient.

  “I told you Mr. Gannon came out. Miss Drake drove him home. When she came back a few minutes later the spot you had was gone so I had to park it here.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah,” said the attendant in a tone which suggested the matter had been terminated.

  The orchestra was playing when Dave entered the club’s main room, and there were perhaps a dozen couples dancing, one of them Liza and Sam Resnik. Neither saw him move toward the corner booth he had occupied earlier. They were occupied with themselves and oblivious of their surroundings as befitted people in love, dancing beautifully together, slowly and with an effortless grace.

  The waiter who had served Dave before moved up as he sat down. “Back again?” he said disinterestedly.

  “For a nightcap,” Dave said. “Bourbon and water.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And bring a flashlight.”

  The waiter did a take, opened his mouth, then moved off with it still open. When he returned he had the drink and the flashlight. He put them down and stepped back, curiously awaiting the next step in the performance.

  “I lost part of a cuff link,” Dave said. “I thought it might be here.” He took out a ten-dollar bill. “Get me some change, will you?”

  When the waiter moved off into the semi-darkness of the room, Dave slipped to one knee beneath the table, paying no attention to anyone else but spraying the bright beam across the floor. That was when he saw the three tiny capsules under one seat, half-capsules really, blue-and-red-striped containers reminding him of the sleeping capsules he gave nightly to John Gannon but somewhat smaller.

  There should, he knew, be a fourth half somewhere around but he did not bother with it now. He snapped off the light and slid back on the seat. The whole operation had taken no more than seconds and he was waiting when the waiter came back with his change.

  “Find it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Lucky you.”

  He took the flashlight and the quarter Dave left and moved off and now Dave sat there, glass in hand, having no feeling of surprise or elation. He only knew that the small, persistent part of his mind that had repeatedly rejected the obvious had been right all the time….

  Like the main room, the gambling room at the rear of the Club 80 had lost most of its customers since Dave had been there earlier. One of the roulette wheels had been closed down for the night as had one of the black-jack tables. One of the hard-eyed blondes still dealt watchfully to four die-hard fanatics, and at the roulette table still operating there were about eight players and another eight or ten spectators.

  Over by the grilled window in the rear wall, Lacey spoke occasionally to the cashier while he kept an eye on the croupier and stickmen. He was a tall man, nearly bald now, with a pink, close-shaven face and a low-voiced way of speaking. His age defied a precise analysis but was probably somewhere in the fifties, and Dave understood almost at once that Lacey did not yet know what had happened at Seabeach. He was grateful for that because he had some questions in mind, and he began by asking what kind of a night the house had.

  “Fair,” Lacey said. “For awhile I thought it was going to be too damned good.”

  “Was Sam here after Gannon left?”

  “Hah!” Lacey grinned at the cashier, who grinned back. “I’ll say he was here. About eleven o’clock Sam was bleeding plenty.”

  Dave put on what he thought was an interested look and waited, hoping there would be more. In a moment it came and Lacey seemed to enjoy the telling.

  “This guy comes in about a quarter of eleven,” he said. “A little, pot-bellied guy with a flashy doll trailing him. He’s about half stiff and he pulls out two fifties and gets some five-buck chips. He starts playing the numbers, five at a time, a chip each. He blows fifteen and then the last time he hits on number six, leaves five markers and damned if it doesn’t repeat.”

  He shook his head and sighed, apparently at the memory. “Maybe you don’t know it but wheels act different on different nights. Sometimes they hit numbers all over the board and sometimes a certain part of the board seems to get most of the play, like the top third or the middle, or sometimes the lower third. Well, this guy hasn’t been watching the wheel. He knows from nothing, but I’ve been watching and the lower third is getting a lot of the play. Well, he sticks with it, and pretty soon he’s playin’ the limit and hitting too often. By eleven o’clock—I know because I look at my watch—he’s in us for about five big ones and Sam is bleeding all over the floor.”

  He sighed again. “Then the wheel starts to behave. A couple of zeros and a double-zero and the numbers start getting higher and the chump stays with the lower third. By a quarter after he’s dropped his original hundred and he quits. He’s had a wonderful time and Sam goes out to take the air—he sure needed it too—and the place quiets down…. It could have been rough,” he added thoughtfully. “Ten minutes more of that luck and he’d have closed us up. After the way Willie Shear clipped us last week we were a little low on cash.”

  Dave, who had been listening with only part of his mind, came swiftly to attention, remembering now the effect the name had had during Vaughn’s investigation.

  “Willie Shear?” he said.

  “For twenty-two big ones.”

  “Twenty-two thousand?” Dave’s eyes grew dark with thought. He did not know why any of this should be important but some instinctive impulse told him that it was. “How?” he asked. “I thought there was a house limit.”

  “There is for the ordinary customer. Willie had a run of luck and he was in us for eleven G’s. Then he wants one more spin, red or black. Now the house limit is there to protect the house against a crazy run of luck. A player knows that and he can cash in and blow, or play our way. But Willie’s different.”

  He hesitated, intent on some bit of play at the nearby wheel; then he said: “W
illie says let’s play for the eleven and if Sam says no the word gets out Sam’s a tinhorn. So Sam gets the cash and we spin the wheel and it comes up red, right where Willie is … Ah, here’s the boss now.”

  Resnik was moving round the table, headed Dave’s way, his gambler’s eyes busy. A quick glance took care of Lacey and then he gave his attention to Dave, taking his time, examining the glass in Dave’s hand, the knot in his tie before looking him in the eye.

  “Have trouble sleeping?” he asked softly.

  “I came back to get the car,” Dave said. “Liza drove John home and brought it back. I didn’t know about it then.” He was watching the wheel now and suddenly, moved by some unaccountable impulse, he stepped over, took out a five-dollar bill, and dropped it on number six.

  The croupier, without even glancing up, picked up the bill, replaced it with a chip, and stuffed the bill in the table slot. The ball jumped, clicked, came to rest on six. Dave put his glass down, picked up the chips and took them over to the cashier’s window. He stuffed the new bills in his pocket and moved back to Resnik, who had watched the operation without changing his expression. Now he chuckled.

  “You make it faster than I do,” he said. “And you know enough to quit.”

  “I wanted to see if my luck had changed.”

  “What else do you want?” Resnik was watching the play again and when Dave made no reply he said: “You didn’t come back here for a drink. I’m not so sure about. the car; I didn’t know about that.”

  “I thought I might get an answer to a question.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Who’s Willie Shear?”

  If the name had any effect on Sam Resnik he gave no sign of it. He continued to watch the play with silent interest until Dave thought there was to be no answer. Then he spoke.

  “Willie?” he said. “Oh, he’s one of the boys.”

  “Like you?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Resnik waited while another ten seconds ticked past.

  “Willie operates on a little larger scale. He’s got a place south of Palm Beach that would make two of these rooms. I’ve heard he’s got a big piece of a room outside New Orleans and he’s got other interests in Nevada.”