Never Bet Your Life

by George Harmon Coxe

  He turned again, more slowly this time, and went into the kitchen. He made his drink at the sink, a dry martini which he stirred in a beer glass and then poured into a generous-sized cocktail glass. Foregoing the olive because there were none, he stood at the sink and drank it while distance grew in his gaze. Finally, his drink finished, he went to the Coffee Shop and had his dinner before the place became too crowded with transients.

  He was back in his chair by the window at twenty minutes after seven and he sat there in the gathering darkness, exploring the unlit, silent place of his mind and watching the activity outside: the later arrivals who had reservations and came to be shown their quarters, the almost unfailing trip, pitcher in hand, to the ice-house, a squarish, roofed structure resembling a well house into which was nightly dumped a wash tub full of ice cubes. Then there was the stroll to the Coffee Shop, the children playing on the lawn until their parents called them in. Finally the NO VACANCY sign flashed on and quiet came. It was then that he saw the two men walk up to Frank Tyler’s unit and knock at the door.

  He had not noticed the car and decided it had been parked along the highway since the men approached from the front. It was not quite dark, and while the distance was too great to reveal much about their faces, something about the way they walked held Dave’s attention.

  They wore dark suits and no hats. They kept step as they approached, marching rather than walking, looking neither to the right or left, one about average size, the other somewhat taller and broader. The tall one did the knocking. When the door opened he stepped inside immediately, followed by his companion.

  Without realizing it Dave had leaned forward in his chair; now he walked to his door and peered through the screen. Something, he did not know what, told him instinctively that these were not ordinary visitors intent on a social call. A half minute later, when the light went out in Tyler’s place ami the trio appeared, he was sure of it.

  They started marching again. Tyler was out of step, but they were marching just the same, the actor in the middle and slightly in advance. When they started toward the Coffee Shop and the road, Dave slipped out the door and climbed into the sedan. Just what he expected to learn he was not sure, but his curiosity was a driving force now as he backed out of the carport and rolled along behind the next bungalow and the units on that side.

  As he approached the highway he saw a car parked on the opposite side of the road and headed for the Club 80. The door on the driver’s side was just closing and when the car angled into the road he picked a hole in the oncoming traffic and followed along with only one car separating him from the one he was watching.

  They passed the club without slowing down and somehow this surprised Dave. A few minutes later he could see the lights of Vantine up ahead; just then the car directly in front of him passed the first one, and now he saw the automatic signaling device winking on the left rear fender.

  There was a street here that led to the beach, well built up with courts and small apartment houses and some efficiency units. Not wanting to follow too closely, Dave reduced his speed and when he saw the stoplights flash red on the car ahead he cut his own lights and pulled quickly into the curb.

  The other car had stopped about a hundred yards away in front of a two-story, rectangular building on the left-hand side of the street. When he saw the trio start up the walk, he crossed to the opposite side and hurried toward the beach. Only then did he realize that the building had no front entrance but actually faced a strip of lawn extending from front to rear. For that reason the entrances to the various units came from that side, the lower doors opening from the walk while those above were reached by separate railed-in stairs and landings, with small sun decks adjacent to each landing.

  Luckily the trio’s goal was the last apartment, otherwise Dave might not have known where they went. As it was he saw them climbing the rearmost flight of stairs, and the moment they disappeared he hurried along the walk.

  Looking up as he reached the stairs he saw that the windows and the glass door were of louver construction which meant that if the angles of opening were right he would not be able to see inside the room, but neither would anyone be able to look out. So he went up the steps on tiptoe, keeping close to the building, hearing voices now but unable to understand what was being said until he reached the landing. The louvers in the door were of opaque glass and had been cranked downward so he could not see in, but he knew now that this was Resnik’s apartment, for it was Resnik who was doing the talking.

  Resnik never talked loud but he talked distinctly. What Dave did not realize until very nearly too late was that the interview was almost over.

  Tyler had not been inside more than two minutes. There must have been some preliminary explanation or discussion, but now there was no other voice but Resnik’s as he said:

  “Let’s put it this way, Tyler. This is just a warning. There doesn’t have to be any trouble. It’s up to you. Open your mouth about Liza and I’ll take care of you. She’s a long way from the Coast and she wants to keep it that way. I understand you’re an actor.”

  There was a moment of silence but no answer. Resnik said: “Sort of a pretty one too, hunh? Well, get this. You get out of line with Liza and you’ll have trouble getting work. You may do all right on radio but you’ll never be on television, except maybe as Dracula. Is that clear?”

  The reply was mumbled and indistinct but apparently Resnik accepted it as an affirmative.

  “Be smart, Tyler,” he said. “Stay healthy…. All right. Take him back home.”

  With that the interview was over and there was a sound of movement behind the louvered door and Dave was caught flat-footed. He was not scared but neither did he want to be caught outside just then. As he stiffened and glanced down at the ground he heard the latch click. What saved him was the sun deck.

  The railing was no more than two feet high and he stepped over it silently and flattened himself against the wall, breath held and head turned.

  He heard the door open, the sound of feet. Light cut the darkness and spread across the landing and the lawn below. Then the door closed and the steps were going down. He stood as he was, stretched tall and immobile. He waited until he heard the car door slam. He relaxed and waited a minute or so longer. Then he stepped back on the landing and knocked at the door.

  It was the first time Dave ever saw Resnik register surprise. In that first instant when he recognized his caller, his gambler’s eyes could not quite cope with the discovery. They opened as his jaw sagged, working into a scowl before he could steady them again. After that, things were normal and there was no surprise in his voice.

  “Come in,” he said. And when he had closed the door: “Snooping?”

  “Sort of. I followed Tyler.”

  Resnik had apparently been getting into his nightly uniform. He wore tropical-weight dress trousers, patent-leather pumps and a soft, pleated shirt open at the throat. Now he took a cigarette from a silver box. While he lit it Dave glanced around, recognizing the layout as what was commonly called an efficiency apartment and impressed with what he saw. The huge room was tastefully furnished in the modern way, its pieces conservatively upholstered in neutral colors and comfortable looking. A glass-brick partition was topped by a composition counter and separated a small dining table from the small but complete kitchen. Through a partly open door he could see a sizable dressing room with built-in chests and beyond that the bath. The oversized couch in the corner would, he knew, become an oversized bed with the removal of its tailored cover.

  “Why?”

  Resnik was watching him over the still burning match.

  “I saw those two come for Tyler. They looked like hoods.”

  Resnik’s neat little mustache curved in a smile. “They wouldn’t like to hear you say that.”

  “I was curious.”

  Resnik examined the end of his cigarette, head slightly bent. He let his glance come up without moving his head.

  “Hear anything?”


  “Part of it.”

  “You do all right for an amateur. You ought to stay that way…. What do you think, now?” he said after a moment.

  “Tyler tried to make a touch from Liza this morning,” Dave said. “Maybe polite blackmail. She told you and you threw a scare into Tyler to keep him quiet.” He grinned but not with his eyes. “I imagine he was impressed. I know I would have been.”

  Resnik nodded and it was no longer possible to tell what he was thinking, so inscrutable was his gaze.

  “Anything else?”

  “A little,” Dave said. “It’ll take a while. I’ve told the story before but not to you.”

  With that he sat down and told about the empty sleeping capsules. He said he was convinced Liza was involved but he was not sure just how.

  “She’d do a thing like that for you because she loves you,” he said. “She could have done it for Gannon because it might appeal to his sense of humor as a very good gag. Now I’m wondering if she might have done it for Tyler.”

  Resnik sat down. He put his head back and, stared at the ceiling. When he spoke Dave thought the voice sounded concerned.

  “I hadn’t heard about the Mickey,” he said. “I’m not sure I believe it. I’ll ask her but I doubt if she’d pull a stunt like that for Tyler.”

  “He tried to blackmail her. He’s got some hold on her.”

  “Some. A matter of being a witness. There are some who want her to testify and others who don’t. She’s in the middle. I happen to be in love with her. We’re going to be married as soon as the new lease is signed and I can be sure I’m in business for another three years.”

  “She told me.”

  “I wouldn’t want her to get mixed up in anything,” Resnik said as though he had not heard, “because of some jerk like Tyler.”

  “Ask her about the capsules,” Dave said. “If she didn’t do it for Tyler, maybe she did it for you.”

  “Maybe she didn’t do it at all.” Resnik stood up and moved into the dressing room. He turned on the overhead light and began to put on his black tie, his chin high as he buttoned the shirt. “You sort of like me for the shooting, don’t you?”

  “I talked to Willie Shear.”

  Resnik made his bow and tugged at the ends. “You get around.”

  “He told me how it was with you and Gannon.” Dave stood up. “All I know,” he said, seeing no harm in saying what he thought, “is that unless the agreement can be broken—which I doubt—you’re sitting pretty. With Gannon alive you’d be out on the street with your furniture in about three more days.”

  Resnik wrapped a cummerbund about his slim waist. When he had it adjusted to his satisfaction he moved back into the room. He looked very neat, very smooth. He did not have Willie Shear’s quality or standing but then he was some years younger than Willie and he was on his way up. He moved toward Dave, feeling again for the ends of his tie and tightening the bow gently, and he apparently did not like what Dave had just said. The angles of his jaw were ridged; there were unpleasant glints in his gambler’s eyes.

  “You’re a pretty smart lad, Barnum,” he said. “Just stay smart. Don’t start playing detective.” He rose and balanced his weight on his toes. “That witness business, about Liza. Don’t let it get around unless you want trouble.”

  “You’re in love with her,” Dave said. “You wouldn’t want anything to happen to her.”

  “Now you’ve got it.”

  “Well, I’m in love with Betty Nelson. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to her either, but I’m a little worried.”

  “Betty? What could happen to her?”

  “Last night something almost did,” Dave said and then, though he had wearied of the telling, he gave another account to Resnik, who stood motionless, his pale face impassive, his gaze inscrutable.

  Dave did hot wait for any reaction or comment. When he had finished his story he turned and left the room.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  DAVE BARNUM was not sure just what time it was when he swung the sedan into the carport beside the darkened bungalow. He was still thinking of his encounter with Resnik and he paid no attention to the car that was parked a short distance ahead until its lights snapped on and he heard the door open. Then he saw the buggy-whip antenna, the siren, the oversized spotlight.

  Oh-oh, he thought, when he saw the uniformed officer move toward him.

  “Barnum?”

  “Yes,” Dave said.

  “Captain Vaughn wants to see you.” The officer was close now, a well-built young man wearing a cartridge belt and a holstered revolver. “Been waiting for you.”

  “Long?”

  “Not very. You can ride with me.”

  Dave started to walk along with the policeman, curious and oddly disturbed.

  “What’s he want to see me about?”

  “He’ll tell you.”

  They went a few steps farther and then Dave remembered the telephone call he hoped to get around ten o’clock. At the car door he glanced at his watch in the reflected light and saw that it was a minute or two after nine.

  “Do you think we’ll be long?” he asked.

  The officer continued in the same uncommunicative vein. He said he couldn’t say. He slid in behind the wheel and kicked the starter and then they were riding the gravel behind the right-hand units and turning left onto the highway with a touch of the siren.

  They did not go very far. The red police light flashed a warning to motorists in both directions and then, a second or so after he had shifted into high, the officer swung diagonally across the wrong side of the road and hit his brakes.

  Across on the right-hand side of the highway was a fruit stand, closed now, its front shuttered. Almost opposite this was a narrow road leading to the beach. The headlights picked out the sign by the side of it and Dave read it before they pulled past and slid to a stop.

  DEAD END. NO ENTRY.

  Dave had never noticed the sign before but he had seen the road which was black topped and overgrown with shrubs and creepers at the shoulders. What he learned presently was that it at one time led to one end of the public beach. There was a turn-around at the end on the small bluff overlooking this but a storm two years ago had undercut it, crumbling the foundation and rendering it useless. The same storm had washed away the sand at this particular point so that now the rocks were exposed well out into the water, rendering the bathing hazardous and forming a sort of barrier between the public beach and the one which joined that at the motel. The beach here was perfectly passable; it was just that no one ever swam there.

  Now, as they got out of the car, Dave saw the second policeman and he stood at one side while the two men exchanged words. The one who had been waiting stepped into the car and Dave’s companion started off on foot.

  “Down this way, Mr. Barnum,” he said. “It’s not very far.”

  Dave saw the lights as he started down the road. He could not tell what they were but they looked like car headlights and as he drew closer he realized that there were three cars in all, standing in line with no way out except to back. The first was a sedan with a doctor’s shield above the license plate. The next, he saw even before they had reached the sedan, was an ambulance. There was a gap just beyond it where some men had gathered on the road and then there was this gray Chevrolet sedan, its outlines stark and vivid in the glare of the headlights behind it.

  Until now Dave had not known quite what to expect. He understood in the beginning that whatever the occasion it was important. He knew it was urgent or he would not have been sent for.

  A growing apprehension and uneasiness had become harder to control as the minutes passed. He had been conditioned to expect almost anything but he could not keep out the fear that had started to gnaw at his insides, a fear born of imagination that could think only of the accident that had nearly happened the night before, the inadmissible but ever-present thought that it might happen again.

  For the last minute or so he had walked
along on wooden legs, his mind closed against the possibility. His nerves tightened with each step he took and there was a spasmodic irregularity to his breathing. He was afraid to ask questions, afraid to think. He concentrated on one thought alone and kept repeating it silently over and over again. Not Betty, not Betty …

  He made himself keep moving even when he saw the covered stretcher around which the men had gathered. He thought he recognized one as the doctor who had been at the bungalow the other night. He forced his glance upward. It was then that he really saw the gray sedan and only then did his mind find release and begin to function.

  A moment later he was ashamed of the almost over-whelming relief that swept through him and broke the icy grip of all that terrifying tension. Like that the answer came to him. For he had spent some time inspecting that gray sedan and even now the dent on the right rear fender stood out clearly in the bright glare of the lights.

  He began to sweat as he came to a stop, and his knees started to tremble. He looked at the stretcher and then away. He glanced from one face to the other until Captain Vaughn emerged from the shadows and came striding forward.

  Vaughn spoke bluntly, his drawl gone and exasperation riding his words. “Where were you?” he demanded.

  Dave started to answer and discovered he had to swallow before he could speak. He ignored the question.

  “Stinson?”

  “Stinson. You want to look?”

  “No.”

  “Come here.” Vaughn took him by the arm and led him alongside the gray sedan. He pointed inside. “We found him behind the wheel about a half hour ago. Some guy wanted to do a little night surf casting or he’d been here till morning.”

  Dave looked through the window but he did not see it. What he saw was George Stinson in his anger before he went to lunch. He heard in fancy the things that were said. He thought of his own suspicions and he remembered the Villa Greer and Stinson’s ambition to own it. They kept piling upon him, these thoughts, and suddenly he felt sick. He had to back away quickly and gulp and swallow fast. He stepped to the edge of the bushes, head back and taking deep breaths.