Win Some, Lose Some Read online

  Brett Halliday

  Win Some, Lose Some

  Chapter 1

  When the big highways came through downtown Miami, the old neighborhoods were ripped apart. Whole blocks were abandoned to the squatters and looters. Businesses failed or moved elsewhere.

  Eddie Maye’s saloon, in the shadow of the Interstate, no longer pumped enough beer to break even. Eddie kept it open because he needed the location. He had the loan-shark concession between North Miami Avenue and the waterfront, including the docks and warehouses of the Port of Miami. This end of his business, too, had been hurt by the changes. Few of the tenants in the new high-rises needed Eddie; in fact, they thought there was something demeaning and socially wrong about using a Shylock. Eddie was beginning to think there was an unfairness about the old territorial structure. He wanted to be allowed to pursue business, wherever it was.

  Eddie was a popular man in a profession where it is easy to make enemies. Of course, there is no use pretending a Shylock is Santa Claus. People came to him only if they were sure they would be turned down everywhere else. The vigorish was higher than at a bank or a loan office, but the nature of the transaction was exactly the same. He loaned money expecting to get it back. Being a pretty fair judge of human nature, he generally managed to recover. Every lender, from the trap-mouthed, tight-assed personal-loan officer in the First National Bank, to Eddie Maye, the affable proprietor of a Northeast Miami saloon, wants to see certain collateral. If the borrower defaults to a shark, however, the borrower himself knows that the boys are going to put him through a wringer. The basic truth about illegal contracts is that they are unenforceable in the courts. To turn the idea around, the borrower is in no position to claim the protection of the bankruptcy statutes. There are many wild tales about the ways a loan shark collects. In the folklore, the delinquent is visited by a couple of burly young men carrying hockey sticks. In real life, this rarely happens. It doesn’t produce money, and the deterrent effect is zero. Anybody willing to pay Shylock interest is already desperate enough not to be deterred by the thought of a beating, unless he belongs to that quirky tribe of people who don’t want the money—they want to be beaten for failing to pay back the money. The usury laws are seldom enforced. From a cop’s point of view, assault is much better. There the evidence is, in the form of the blood and the broken bones. Eddie would first attempt to foreclose on the collateral, whether it was real property, a relative with an income, a piece of some deal. If worst came to worst, like all lenders who make a mistake, he wrote it off. He couldn’t take it as a tax loss because he didn’t operate within the income tax system. But he didn’t pay taxes on his wins, either.

  At this time he had less than $75,000 on the street. And yet he had the usual payments, to cops, politicians, a political law firm. He finished doing his books one evening, on the back of an envelope—again this month his expenses were running ahead of his income—and a man named Lou DeLuca slid onto the stool beside him.

  Eddie showed him a big smile. DeLuca gave off a dim glow in return. He had started at about the same time as Eddie. He had either worked harder or connived harder, and he had become a fairly big man in town. He was a specialty accountant, and with all the paperwork these days everybody needs an accountant. He had actually studied for the exam and had the certificate. He was also a gym nut. He worked out four times a week—really worked. Eddie had a hard time trusting any city man in that good shape because you had to ask yourself, what was pushing him to be so perfect?

  “Hey, Eddie,” DeLuca said lightly, “I’ve got a friend outside wants to borrow a few bills. Take a ride with us and talk about it.”

  Eddie said sure. DeLuca drove a new cream-and-tan Continental without a fingerprint on it, a powerful piece of machinery. With DeLuca at the wheel, there was no doubt who was master. No friend was waiting in the car. Eddie knew instantly that this was either a threat or an opportunity. They went up on 95 and out to the Palmetto, merely cruising. DeLuca started by sounding Eddie out about his own situation. The questions showed that he was working from a scouting report and knew Eddie was restless and the regular payments were hurting.

  “The thing of it is,” Eddie said, wishing he hadn’t had two drinks after dinner, “everything’s thinned out in the neighborhood. If I have to stay in my old territory, I might as well give up. Even most of the longshoremen have their own houses now, two cars in the family, a mortgage. Good credit risks. So they go to the bank.”

  And he explained his idea. Loan sharking wasn’t a science exactly, but there was more to it than most people realized. What Eddie seemed to be good at was sizing up the prospects of those marginal little businesses that were constantly mushrooming up around town, using mostly Cuban labor, on very small capital. The banks were leery of helping, and the businesses often went under for a want of rainy-day money. But for Eddie to make a loan outside his assigned territory, he had to cut the deal so many ways it was uneconomic. The grease could be awful. A whole lot of that was unnecessary. It had grown up bit by bit over the years. What was needed now was a fresh look at the whole picture.

  DeLuca, his eyes sliding between the mirror and the highway, nodded gravely. “It could be I agree with you, Eddie. Where is this fresh look coming from?”

  “That’s the point.”

  “It’s beginning to seem to me,” DeLuca continued, “that a lot of us have been taking the wrong things for granted. We’ve been drifting, and when you drift, you end up in places you have no business to be. You’ve been reading those highway articles in the News.”

  Eddie certainly had because there were some major names involved, and he had a feeling that one of the names was going to be mentioned here in a minute. Big Larry Canada, generally conceded to be top man in illicit gambling when that was where the money was—the mob, they called it then, a word Eddie had never cared for—switched to highway construction at the start of the Interstate program. He had taken a lot of criticism, but his firm had built something like six hundred miles of highway at an average profit of $25,000 a mile. That multiplied out to $15 million in something like five years. You have to book a terrible lot of two dollar bets to get near that figure. In the opinion of DeLuca and a few others, however, not enough of this wealth had filtered back to the people who gave Canada the power base from which he had moved.

  “For instance,” DeLuca said, “this bind you’re in, did it occur to you to take it to Larry and get his advice on it?”

  “It occurred to me, Lou, but nowadays—”

  “Exactly. He’s got more important things, he’s busy having dinner with the politicians. I’ve gone to him time and again, and I’ve said to him, ‘Frankly, you’re making a big mistake. Loyalty is a two-way street. You’re not just in business to make money. You’re a leader, an influence. Sure, it’s a new day in a lot of ways, and as far as you personally go, Larry,’ I said to him, ‘no doubt you’ve cleaned up. But there are dangers in it. A time may come when you’ll wish you stuck more with your friends.’ He doesn’t thank me for pointing it out.”

  “Dangers?” Eddie said, picking out that one word, looking away.

  “Eddie, do you mind if I give you my ideas? I want to be totally frank.”

  “God, no, go ahead. I’m interested.”

  “The way we had it set up before the reorganization,” DeLuca said, “and I’m not saying I didn’t go along with that and support it, everybody knew where everybody else stood. When something came up, you knew where to go. I don’t want to be nostalgic or anything. What the hell, we all had our little angles on the side if it didn’t interfere. There was a lot of jockeying always going on, you’ll remember that.”

  “Lou, all I want to do is keep my own nose clean. I stay out of it.”
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br />   “And that’s the smart way to go, believe me,” DeLuca assured him. “The more responsibility, the bigger the headache. Larry offered me the job of secretary-treasurer of the road construction, and I turned him down cold. I could see what was coming. My argument with Larry has always been, what good is money if it’s just going to end up with the lawyers? This Tim Rourke, the reporter, the way I read those articles, he’s hinting he has evidence of larceny and collusion on an enormous scale, and did you see the editorial today calling for empaneling a grand jury? There’s already an investigation underway in Tallahassee. More headlines. More bad publicity.”

  “Right. But I don’t see—”

  “How it’s going to blow back on the rest of us. The highways are more or less a one-man operation, Larry’s baby. But he still has the old reputation, Larry Canada, number one guy. He’s been called that too many times. Organized crime,” DeLuca said with scorn. “I only wish to God it was organized. There’s no getting around it, a really big stink, with Larry’s face on the seven o’clock news every night for six months, will hurt everybody. The cops will stop talking to us till it dies down. What little organization there is now, out the window. And you know Larry. That ego. He’ll expect everybody to rally around and contribute. When the sad thing is, nobody but Jumbo and the politicians ever saw any of that ninety percent federal reimbursement.”

  It was clear by now why Lou DeLuca was looking up a medium-scale Shylock for a private conversation. He wanted to depose Canada before the hurricane struck, and he was lining up support. Eddie didn’t commit himself in that first talk because in matters like this there was a heavy penalty for guessing wrong. He decided finally that he couldn’t afford not to listen, keeping his options open. Several weeks later, feeling very, very uncertain he was making the right move, he agreed to talk to the other Shylocks on DeLuca’s behalf.

  He and Canada had once been friends. A couple of times in the early days, Canada would charter a boat to fish off the Keys and ask Eddie along. Eddie could remember every detail of those weekends, who had caught what. They had gone to the jai alai together. That was before Canada initiated a series of tricky maneuvers which ended up with a Canada stooge owning the fronton. They rarely met now. But if Eddie called him and said he had urgent personal business to talk over, Canada would have to see him. He would come alone, and he would arrange for the meeting to take place in some out-of-the-way spot. And Eddie realized, after the third or fourth session with DeLuca, that that was what DeLuca wanted him to do: set Canada up for a hit. Eddie was the ideal person to do it. Without Canada, the highway company would fall apart, the town would get back to normal. Eddie would have a solid in with the new people. DeLuca would go along with whatever he suggested, within reason.

  Still, he couldn’t decide. The feeling he got as he moved around town was that in a democratic election, with a secret ballot, DeLuca and Canada would break about even. Canada had enemies, but he also had friends. He was tough. He had proved that often enough. He had money to throw around, high-placed friends in both parties, judges. DeLuca, on the other hand, was hungry. There would be less innovation with him. It would be back to nickels and dimes, but the nickels and dimes would be spread among more people. Most of the cops up to the rank of sergeant were for DeLuca; above, for Canada. In a showdown, it could go either way.

  DeLuca was pushing him for an answer. Eddie asked for another twelve hours. Moving very carefully indeed, he arranged a meeting with Canada in a restaurant parking lot in Palm Beach and told him what was going on.

  Canada had always been a big man—six feet four. He started off heavy, and he had kept adding pounds over the years. Recently, for some reason, he had grown a full beard, making himself one of the most arresting sights in southern Florida. Eddie could see DeLuca’s point. Canada was just too visible, an easy symbol for the cartoons. He drove a big Cadillac with a hinged steering wheel that made it easier for him to get in and out, though it was never really easy.

  He didn’t seem surprised by Eddie’s news. “Lou always did have a burr up his ass. I’ve been expecting something. It’s been quiet a long time.”

  He had brought a package of chocolate chips. He threw a handful into his mouth. He promised to look after Eddie really well if he would keep seeing DeLuca and sneak Canada reports from time to time. To start with, he counted out four five-hundred-dollar bills. Eddie couldn’t remember the last time he had handled a five-hundred. DeLuca had given him assurances, but no cash. Eddie felt a surge of his old affection for the big man. At another interview, Canada suggested that for more of those five-hundreds Eddie might be interested in setting DeLuca up when the time came. Maybe, Eddie said doubtfully. If he had a choice, he would prefer to have it done to DeLuca. But bets aren’t paid off because the cashier happens to like your looks, only when your horse or dog comes in first. So Eddie continued to hedge. He told DeLuca that Canada must have heard something. Canada had called him in and offered to pay him for information. DeLuca went along with it. And by degrees, Eddie found himself playing the dangerous role of double agent. In books, and probably in life as well, this usually ends badly. Meanwhile he was making money. He was hearing a lot of promises.

  But he wasn’t getting much sleep, and nothing tasted the way he remembered. Sex had lost much of its edge. He had to work harder to accomplish less. At the most inappropriate moment, he would remember that any day now, any hour, either Canada or DeLuca would call him and tell him the shooters were in town. And he would have to stop wobbling and come down on one side or the other.

  Naturally he was watching his step, calling from public phones, looking behind him. He kept getting a prickly feeling. In his hopped-up state, that was a natural reaction, and he nearly decided it was all his imagination. Then he spotted the guy. It was a cop, Jack Downey, who kept what they called the Mafia file and handled the liaison with the FBI and Drug Enforcement. Two times might have been a coincidence. The third time was something to worry about. Eddie did some discreet checking and found that this was all after hours, on Downey’s own time. Now what the hell?

  Chapter 2

  The idea came to Werner French in the middle of the third martini. His second before-dinner drink usually made him gloomy. If he stopped there, he was sure to stay gloomy the whole evening. He always recovered on the third. As he tasted the cold gin poured over fresh ice, he felt that everything would undoubtedly turn out all right. He had a job, a car, a girl. Ninety percent of the population was willing to settle for that. True, it was a terrible job, the car was a rusted-out Chevy. But the girl was first-class—Pam Heller, a spirited blonde who could laugh him out of anything. A marvelous ass, and a mind that jumped like BB’s being shaken inside a tin can.

  He stood still in the middle of the room. Pam looked at him from the couch. The air-conditioning was laboring tonight, and she was wearing nothing but a one-button blouse.

  “I know that look,” she said. “You’ve come up with a solution.”

  He said slowly, “If we were willing to break the habits of a lifetime—”

  “Tell me.”

  “What you said a minute ago—that the only way I’m going to raise any money is from a loan shark. An electric bulb went on. Something I saw in the Times.”

  The New York Times, Werner believed, was the only newspaper in the country that contained any news, and he read the air-mail edition daily. Putting down his drink, he hunted through the drift of old papers until he found the item. A bookmaker in one of the New York boroughs had been abducted as he left for mass on a Sunday morning. The ransom demand was a modest $150,000. The kidnapped man’s family and friends had raised it by suppertime. They just happened to have it lying around.

  “One hundred and fifty thousand,” Werner repeated, “in the back of the coat closet.”

  Pam looked up, puzzled. “I don’t see it.”

  “A bookie. You notice they take a light tone. They don’t seem to think it was such a dastardly crime. A bookie is already on the wron
g side of the law. Anything that happens to him is sort of O.K. He’s fair game.”

  “Honey, that’s reading a lot into four paragraphs.”

  “No,” Werner insisted. “If he was a lawyer or a storekeeper, they’d be indignant because the hundred and fifty would be real money. But this was a bookie’s money, bail money. Not the same thing. Slick and fast. The FBI men don’t get called in for twenty-four hours. Up to that time, it’s the local cops. They wouldn’t care that much.”

  “Then let’s do it. Do you know any bookies?”

  Werner laughed and resumed his pacing. “A loan shark would be better. Cash always on hand. They’re unpopular with everybody.”

  “Do you know any loan sharks? I don’t suppose they advertise in the yellow pages.”

  “You don’t think I’m serious. Just because my old man peddles municipal bonds and I have a degree from Columbia School of Architecture, I’m doomed to stay honest. It doesn’t follow. I could do it easily.”

  “Baby, you know you couldn’t.”

  He sat down, no longer laughing. “Well, hell. Cocktail party conversation.”

  She was totally relaxed, balancing her glass on her stomach. “But we have to do something. I’ve got that great job answering the phone, and twice a day I’m given the enormous honor of doing a letter for the vice president in charge of young girls. Who gave in to a kinky impulse today and squeezed my breasts because I’d made the tactical error of going to work not wearing a bra—”

  “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “One tiny incident among many. It’s part of the atmosphere when you work in an office. Every day from somebody. If not a tweak, a look. Why is it all one way? How would he like it if I came up to him and squeezed his cock?”

  “He might like it.”

  “No, he’d fire me. So I quit. I’m going back to New York and take my chances.”

  Werner said stiffly after a moment, “It’s your privilege. We’re not married.”