Black looked at Shayne intently, to see how much was real, how much bluff. People who played poker with Michael Shayne often wondered the same thing, and usually ended up broke.
“You wouldn’t be doing it for money,” Shayne said. “They couldn’t pay you enough. What else is there but blackmail? Tell me about it, and maybe in the course of other things I can take care of it for you.”
Shayne let him think it out by himself.
Black heaved a deep sigh, which made him seem much younger. “His name’s Vince Donahue. He said today wouldn’t happen again, but I’m not that innocent. I knew he’d call up next year, and the only way I could stop it would be to quit football. That’s why I was going to stick Colfax for the biggest bonus I could get. Do you think it was easy to miss those passes? I had a shot at the Conference record! I got a funny look from one of the guys. I had to say I had a muscle spasm, and not to tell anybody so it wouldn’t queer me with the Warriors.”
Now that it was coming, Shayne didn’t look at him or question him, but went on smoking in silence. A student on a bicycle approached. Black waited till he was past.
“Vince has a tape of a phone conversation. It’s all out of context. I said it, but it sounds worse than it was. He said he’d send it to the sports editor of the Miami News if I didn’t play along. And he would have, too. That was yesterday. If I’d known where he lived I might have-” He stopped, his fists clenched. “Well, it’s just as well, I didn’t, or I might be in an even worse jam.”
“Go back a way,” Shayne suggested. “Where did you meet him?”
“All the way back, in grammar school. We were in the Boy Scouts, we played football, baseball, basketball- you name it. He could have pitched in the majors if he’d stuck to it. He was a natural platform diver, a wonderful swimmer. But he didn’t have the desire. He kept changing from one thing to another. And then he had some bad luck. Do you want to know all this, Mr. Shayne?”
“Yes. Go on.”
“It was just after he got his driver’s license. It wasn’t Vince’s fault, the other car went through a stop sign, but he thought if he’d been on the ball maybe he could have got out of the way. His mother and father were killed. Every body felt sorry about it, but he didn’t let that go on for long. He always had a mean streak, even before the accident. He and his sister moved in with an aunt, and that woman was hard to get along with. I sympathized, but! He broke dishes and robbed her and did things like ordering eight rooms of furniture-that kind of stupid stuff. He was left end on the football team, and in the state semifinals he took one of my passes and ran the wrong way. That was the end of the friendship. He didn’t even pretend to be confused, he was yakking it up all the way. Next year he dropped out of school and nobody knew where he’d gone. But where would somebody like that, who didn’t give a good goddamn about anything, a good swimmer and diver, where would he go but Miami?”
“Where do you come from, Johnny?”
“St. Louis.”
Shayne gave him a piercing look.
“Does that mean anything?” Black said.
“I talked to the cops. They say two of the stickup guys came from there.”
Black groaned. “What a character. I don’t suppose it’s a coincidence?”
“Probably not, Johnny. Finish it up.”
“I made the team here my sophomore year. He saw my name in the paper and came out. The funny thing was, I was glad to see him. Most of the time he was an asset to have around. He was almost a student here for a while. He sat in on courses. Then he decided the hell with it, and went back to Miami. He still came out to see me, or he called me, and sometimes we talked football. Of course I had access to our scouting reports and I knew about injuries and so on. He always needed money that year. When ever I thought the point spread was out of line I’d let him know and he’d bet a hundred bucks. That was all there was to it, but if you listened to the tape! I never bet a cent myself. I have a scholarship and anyway I don’t believe in it, it’s too risky. That was two years ago. I saw him once last year after a game, with a girl singer from New York, and he was driving a Jaguar. He showed me the registration to prove it was his. He made a big mystery about what he was doing. He said I’d sleep better if I didn’t know. After that not a word, until yesterday, out of a clear sky. The coach got word on the grapevine that the Warriors were interested, for real money. I knew we could take Georgia, but this being my last game and all, I wanted to do it by a top-heavy score. He called me on the house phone and played the tape for me, right there with the brothers sitting around doing their homework. I was stunned, I guess, and he played it again. I had to say yes. I know you’re not supposed to do what a blackmailer tells you, but this wasn’t any ordinary blackmailer, it was Vince Donahue. I knew him!”
Shayne stubbed out his cigarette and started the motor. Black peered at him anxiously.
“I know the whole thing hangs on whether you believe what I say about the tape, that it was nothing but chitchat. I don’t know how I can prove it. Put me out of my misery. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to drop you,” Shayne said, “and I don’t think I’ll come in to say goodnight to Bus. Don’t sign with him tonight. If I decide your story’s true, or even ninety per cent true, you may still end up in the big money. I’ll let you know tomorrow. Now I want to ask you some questions about Donahue. You don’t know anything at all about how he makes a living?”
“Well, he used to claim that women gave him money, and I guess they did. The big hotels let him hang around the pools because he looked so good in trunks. If you want my honest opinion, I think he’d do just about anything, unless there was work involved.”
“You never had his address?”
“Two years ago he lived in a dumpy hotel in North Miami Beach, the Hotel Gloria. But it sure as hell didn’t go with a Jaguar or that girl I saw him with. He probably moved.”
“How about somebody who might know where I can find him?”
“I’m sorry. With Vince it was all one-sided. You didn’t ask him questions.”
“Yesterday was the first time he mentioned having the tape?”
“Yes. He wouldn’t have made it unless he expected to use it sometime, but he waited till the last possible minute.”
“One other question, Johnny. How smart is he?”
“Well-he always got lousy grades. I know that doesn’t mean anything because he hated the teachers. The brain’s a muscle, after all, or like a muscle-you have to exercise it. He didn’t seem to think he had to.”
Shayne pulled up in front of the Lambda Phi house. The party seemed one degree noisier than when they had left
“Don’t try to pull anything, Johnny,” Shayne said. “I can break any contract you sign, and the Warriors can stop payment on their check. Don’t go anywhere. I may want to call you.”
Black assured him that he would stay close to the phone. He apologized for hitting Shayne, and repeated that everything he had said was the absolute truth. He had a hard time finding the door handle; there was still something else he wanted to say.
“Mr. Shayne, about Vince. I know it’s serious. I know he’s been asking for it. But I hate to be the one to blow the whistle on him, I’ve known him so damn long. If you could see your way clear to give him a break-”
Shayne leaned across and unlatched the door. “I’ll give him a break if he deserves one. First I have to find him.”
6
The Hotel Gloria, two blocks from the bay near the Miami Beach city limits, had been built in a hurry, during one of the brief booms, using semiprofessional labor and second-rate materials. It was in bad need of maintenance. The upholstery on the lobby furniture was worn and dirty, marked by the backs of many heads. There was a musty smell.
Shayne asked the desk clerk, “Is a man named Vince Donahue registered here?”
The clerk was tall and cadaverous, wearing rimless glasses and a small goatee. His prominent Adam’s apple rose and fell as he looked the detective over.
“No, young Vincent hasn’t been in good standing here for months. You’re Mike Shayne, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. Did he leave an address when he checked out?”
