Never Bet Your Life

by George Harmon Coxe

  “I can fix that,” Willie said. “I can have someone over here for you in fifteen minutes.”

  “Thanks just the same.”

  “I think you’d like her. In fact I’d guarantee it. A very luscious number.” He hesitated, still amused. “If you’re worrying about the tab—”

  Dave said he wasn’t worried. He was annoyed at Willie’s amusement but he did not say so. He said he wasn’t dressed for it, that he had to get back.

  “All right.” Willie glanced at his watch. “Let’s go in here.”

  He led the way back to the hall and along it to a room on the left, a paneled room filled with books and leather furniture. He stepped to a cellaret and lifted the top to expose bottles, glasses, an ice bucket. He asked what Dave would have.

  “Nothing, thanks.”

  Willie shrugged with his eyebrows, then came round behind a walnut desk and eased down in his executive’s chair. He took out an ebony cigarette holder trimmed with gold and began to fit a cigarette into it. When he was satisfied he spun a light from a table lighter.

  As he settled back to inhale, the breeze coming through the window ruffled the papers on the desk. He shifted a silver ash tray so it would serve as a paper-weight and during this time Dave had a chance to do some thinking. He was impressed by Willie Shear and he knew it. He had an idea it would be a mistake to underestimate Willie and he suspected that most of those who had done so had cause to regret it.

  At the moment he himself had no intention of trying to outsmart the man. Somehow he felt that to do so would put him beyond his depth. The first intuitive warning that there was something sinister about the house had long since vanished but that same sort of intuition warned him to be cautious now. He wanted information and he hoped that by the right sort of cross-questioning and the proper pretense he could get it.

  “I understand you were willing to pay $120,000 for the property,” he said.

  “Something like that. If Gannon had been alive on the first of the month I’d have had myself a new club.”

  “I’m a little surprised that you’d want it.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re a big operator.”

  “Who said so?”

  “Several people.”

  Willie was not displeased. He examined his cigarette holder.

  “If the Club 80 was mine it would be bigger,” he said matter-of-factly. “There’s plenty of room. A little remodeling would fix it so I could double the size of that gambling room. I’d double the number of customers too.”

  He tapped ashes, put the holder in his mouth, and spoke past it.

  “Sam was smart enough to give his customers good food. I’d keep that but I’d put a real orchestra in there, some real top entertainers. By next season I’d be able to triple the profits. That’s my business.”

  “If you had bought it, or could buy it,” Dave said, “how would Resnik come out?”

  “With get-away money. That’s about all. Sam made a bad deal when he made that agreement with Gannon. The way I understand it, the only thing Sam could get out of it if Gannon sold to someone else or refused to renew the lease was what wasn’t built into the property: his gambling equipment, the tables, chairs, probably some of the kitchen stuff. All the rest of it is part of the building—the booths, bandstand, bar—and he’d be lucky to salvage ten G’s.”

  He glanced beyond Dave into some remoteness of his own and said: “Until a week or so ago there was a chance Sam might meet my offer. With what he had in his hand then plus what he could borrow he might have swung it because I’d made up my mind not to go much higher. The trouble was he ran into a run of the wheel that damn near broke him.”

  “I heard about that too,” Dave said.

  Willie’s gray glance came back and focused. He waved the cigarette holder.

  “But what’s the point in all this chatter? You may own the Club 80—the property—but as I understood that agreement, Sam still has the concession. He can buy—or could if he had the scratch—or he can continue to lease from you. So where are we?”

  It was Dave’s chance to carry the ball and he concentrated on the impression he hoped to make. His suggestion had no basis in fact but Willie did not know this, and so Dave talked to him as he would to a jury, with assurance and conviction. His dark-blue gaze was steady, his voice firm.

  “I’m a lawyer, Mr. Shear,” he said. “The key to this thing is the agreement. What I came here for is to find out if, in the event the agreement could be broken, you’d still be interested in buying.”

  Dave got his reaction. Willie sat up, his eyes narrowed and attentive.

  “Could it?” he said quietly.

  “Could it what?”

  “Be broken.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Suspicion flared in the narrowed gaze and a tightness grew around the thin mouth.

  “You said you were a lawyer. You’ve seen the agreement.”

  Dave had most of the information he had come for. He should have been satisfied to walk out and let it go at that. But having created an impression, even though it was a false one, he had to wind it up in proper fashion. He pushed back in his chair. He spread his hands.

  “Once,” he said. “I read it. It seemed in order. But at that time Gannon was alive and I had no idea that I was named in his will. To know whether an agreement can be broken you have to read it paragraph by paragraph, line by line, word by word. It takes time. I don’t know that it’s worth it.”

  With that, as startling as they were unexpected, two things happened, one after the other. Willie Shear was snubbing the butt out of his cigarette holder and he moved the ash tray again, enough so that the top half of the papers heretofore secured riffled in the breeze. That was when Dave saw the top copy of the agreement, not the one between Gannon and Resnik but the simple one he had drawn the afternoon before the murder.

  He was looking right at it as the breeze pinned it there. He recognized it because he had drawn it. He knew instantly that the last time he had seen it was when Gannon put it in the safe.

  Simultaneously Willie was on his feet and turning toward a small oil painting between the bookcases. Instead of hanging in normal fashion the frame was hinged, and when Willie lifted it, it stayed parallel with the floor to reveal a wall safe much like Gannon’s.

  Willie opened it, took out a thick sheaf of bills. Not bothering to close the safe he turned and tossed the bills on the desk. They were hundred-dollar bills held together with an inch-wide paper band. Initialed there in ink were the letters T.A.K.

  For the next second or two Dave could only stare. It was impossible for him to hide completely the shock of his discovery. The agreement and the same five thousand dollars Gannon had once let him hold. The blue car outside the motel last night.

  These were the only things he could think of as the sudden excitement hammered at his senses. When he looked up Willie was smiling at him but it was a smile without suspicion and Dave understood that Willie accepted the reaction as one of surprise rather than excited recognition. Dave concentrated oh his voice to keep it casual.

  “What’s that for?” he asked, nodding at the bills.

  “Call it earnest money, if you want. While you’re checking over that old agreement. If you think you can break it you’ve got some option money.”

  “Suppose I can’t break it?”

  “Why then”—Willie grinned but his inflection was unmistakable—“I think you’d better bring it back. Less, say, ten per cent for your trouble. Fair enough?”

  Dave reached for the bills. He put them in his pocket and took out a cigarette. When he had a light he reached toward the ash tray with the burnt match.

  What he did then was probably not very bright. If he had been ten years older and more experienced he most likely would not even have made the attempt. As it was there was all this excitement working on him and not much time to think things through. Instead he was concentrating on such things as odds and opportunity, and toget
her they seemed to add up in his favor. The rest of it was simply impulse.

  “I think I will have that drink,” he said as calmly as he could. “A light Bourbon if it’s handy.”

  Willie turned to the cellaret. He poured whisky into a glass, standing in profile so that Dave was still afraid to make a direct attempt to get the agreement. Had it been on top he might have done so but as it was he moved the ash tray and the breeze came in on cue.

  Papers started to skitter across the desk and from there to the floor. The agreement, clipped to its carbon, came into view and Dave reached for it along with some other sheets, dropping to his knees behind the desk as though to retrieve still more.

  His hands hidden from sight, he managed to fold the agreement roughly and stuff it inside the waistband of his trousers under his jacket. When he straightened he had a half dozen sheets in his hand. He stacked them and put them back under the ash tray, apologizing for his clumsiness.

  Willie put the highball on the desk and retrieved the rest of the papers which had been blown out of Dave’s reach. He said it did not matter, and put them under the ash tray.

  Dave drank his highball standing. It was short and strong and he needed it badly. Then Willie was smiling, taking his elbow in friendly fashion and leading him from the room and along the hall. As they came to the living-room door he stopped and looked across it to the porch. The dusk was thickening now but those outside were still visible: the two on the divan, the couple on the chaise who had drawn closer, the brunette, apparently Willie’s girl, sitting alone and pouting.

  “Sure you won’t change your mind, Barnum?” he said. “She’s a redhead. Very nice.” He grinned. “Or maybe you think I can’t deliver.”

  “I’m sure you can,” Dave said, his nerves jumping and his laugh forced. “Maybe some other time.”

  “Any time,” Willie said, still highly amused. He walked to the front steps. “Let me hear from you,” he said, and turned back into the house.

  Dave went down the steps stiffly, his muscles tight all over. He was never in a greater hurry and yet he forced himself to stroll easily along the drive in the half-light, past the two parked cars to his own. He found his keys, glanced idly about in case anyone was looking, and climbed in.

  Before he turned on the ignition he switched the folded agreement from his waistband to his inside pocket. Then he started the engine, pulled out into the drive, and circled back to the straightaway leading to the gate.

  He flicked on his parking lights and touched the accelerator lightly. He was never sure whether he actually heard the sound of the alarm or not. He was quite sure that there was no one in the drive, no one near the gates. Yet even as he approached them he saw them start to swing.

  He was then about forty feet away and now the panic hit him as he understood what was happening. He stepped hard on the throttle and the car bucked ahead. He leaned over the wheel, gripping it hard as though to help it forward while the perspiration broke out all over him.

  Actually he never had a chance and he knew it even then. The gates were swinging too fast and the bars were too solid looking. The gap narrowed so swiftly he had no choice but to jam on the brakes. When he skidded to a stop there was a space of about two feet between his bumper and the steel bars.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  FOR ANOTHER THREE OR FOUR SECONDS Dave Barnum sat perfectly still while the panic gave way to a strange sort of fear. It was not so much the things he had done that motivated this fear as it was the uncanny way those gates had blocked his escape and locked him securely in Willie Shear’s domain.

  He switched on his headlights but they did not help much in the gathering darkness. The gates stood out silent and formidable, representing the power of the man who had had them installed. The thought of this gave him a trapped and hopeless feeling and he accepted the thought that to make any attempt at escape would be futile.

  Then, suddenly, he chuckled aloud and the fear was gone. There was nothing sinister about the house. There was nothing sinister about Willie. Willie was a big operator and he had to take precautions against those who tried to outsmart him. A guy named Dave Barnum had made his play and muffed it like the amateur he was. Now it was Willie’s turn to deal the cards.

  The sound of running footsteps came to interrupt such thoughts and presently the door next to him opened and the thick-chested man in the T-shirt and yachting cap slid in on the seat beside him. At the same time a rear door opened and when Dave glanced around he saw a slim youth in a chauffeur’s uniform.

  “Back up, bud,” T-shirt said. “The boss wants a word with you.”

  Dave backed up until he was opposite the front steps. He cut the motor and the lights. When he slid from behind the wheel the chauffeur was right beside him and T-shirt was coming round to join them. Together and without a word they entered the house. The party was still going on out on the porch and no one paid them the slightest attention as they moved down the hall and into the study.

  Willie Shear was standing, a fresh cigarette in his holder. He looked Dave over and smiled, his gaze speculative over the flame as he puffed the cigarette alight.

  Dave grinned back, an unexpected anger beginning to germinate somewhere inside him. He said that was quite a gate Willie had.

  “Yeah,” Willie said. “Cute.” He glanced at his two employees and dipped his head in command. “Search him!”

  They reached for Dave and the anger that had only just begun to blossom erupted violently. There was nothing premeditated about the reaction and it was probably born of frustration. The roughness with which T-shirt spun him around may have been the final contributing factor but it was the festering rancorous thought of failure after having been so near success that was at fault.

  T-shirt was rough and Dave was young and proud and he was not used to being handled that way. He did not consider the consequences nor, at the moment, did he give a damn about Willie Shear.

  He spun round easily, hooking a solid, well-timed left smack against a blunt, bewhiskered jaw and, still moving in, laid on a right.

  They pleased him, those punches. He exulted in the shock that ran clear to his shoulders. He was elated with the results that knocked the face right out from under the disreputable yachting cap.

  T-shirt might have gone down if he hadn’t stumbled back against a chair and caught his balance. But that was all. Before Dave could turn, something hard hit him in the small of the back and the party was over.

  “All right!”

  The voice was Willie’s, commanding and incisive. Dave stood still and the quiet grew around him.

  “I don’t like rough stuff,” Willie said. “Pick up your cap, Saul. Now search him!”

  Saul flexed his jaw from side to side and his eyes were mean. He put on his hat and stepped close, the eyes daring Dave to make another move. He searched with swift efficiency and put Dave’s wallet, the agreement, and the five thousand dollars on the desk.

  “No gun,” he said and with that the hard round pressure on Dave’s spine was withdrawn.

  “Outside,” Willie said and stood waiting until Saul and the chauffeur had gone. Then he slid a doeskinned thigh across the corner of the desk and gave Dave his attention. He took his time, his gray eyes hard and probing. Finally he picked up the wallet and handed it back. After another moment he reached for the telephone.

  “You’re a lawyer,” he said. “Would you say that play of yours added up to larceny?”

  Dave stared at him, uncomprehending. He glanced down at the five thousand dollars and then at the agreement.

  “What did I steal, a sheet of paper?”

  “And five thousand bucks.”

  “Wait a minute,” Dave said. “You gave me that money.”

  “Who says so besides you? … I don’t operate in this precinct. The cops and I are pals. If I call them in now they’ll believe what I tell them. They’ll take you down. If I say so you’ll spend the night in the jug. If you don’t think so you can name your odds.”
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  Dave moved a step closer, his bony face darkly scowling and his feelings outraged and incensed. But he had been well trained in law school and he could think on his feet. The look he gave Willie was mildly contemptuous.

  “I wouldn’t take that bet at any odds, Willie,” he said, using the name for the first time. “Because I’ve a hunch you could swing it. But if you want a bet I’ll give you one: even money that you won’t.”

  Willie balanced the telephone on his thigh, half-closing one eye. “Won’t what?” he said.

  “Won’t put in that call.”

  “Why?”

  “Even money,” Dave said and reached into his pocket. “But something I can afford. Say ten dollars.” He put the bill on the desk.

  Willie looked at it and stood up, for this was language he understood. He produced a thick fold of bills. He had a hard time finding anything smaller than a fifty but he finally discovered a twenty. He put it down and pushed the ten aside.

  “You got a bet,” he said. “Why?”

  “Because to make the charge stick you’d have to offer the money and agreement as evidence of larceny. You’d be a sucker to take the chance after all the trouble you went to, to get them back from Gannon.”

  Willie considered the words, his eyes busy with thought. He glanced down at the telephone he had put aside. When he looked up again there was something new showing through the surface hardness. It might have been an incipient smile; it might have been respect.

  “You’re an almost smart guy, Barnum,” he said finally. “You had me fooled right up to the end. I’m still a little fooled, but I’ll get down to that later. On this one you win.” He picked up the ten and pushed the twenty toward Dave. He went round the desk to his chair and sat down.

  “In my business a guy develops sort of a sixth sense,” he said as Dave picked up the twenty with a word of thanks. “He has to if he’s going to stay near the top. I don’t know what you’d call it, maybe some sort of acquired instinct, but you either have it or you don’t last long. You learn to spot a phony, and a phony move. You finally made one but it took me a minute to spot it. Moving that ash tray, the papers blowing just when my back was turned.” He shook his head. “Not good, Barnum. Up to then, yes. When I found out what was missing, it was a cinch. The gate operates from here.”