Fourth Down to Death Read online

  “Are you busy otherwise?”

  “Very much so. I’ve just been given cocktails at a young lady’s apartment. We’re on our way to the Coq d’Or for dinner. And then if I have anything to say about it, we’ll head back to the young lady’s apartment. Don’t call me there because I doubt if I’ll have any hands free to pick up the phone.”

  Shayne heard a small disturbance. Rourke continued in a moment, “Not that I’ve got full clearance on all that yet. This is our first date. You may not realize that some chicks still consider it unladylike to go to bed with a man on the first date.”

  “Can you give me a moment when you get to the restaurant? You may not get a story out of it, but it could make you some dough.”

  “I’ve always liked the sound of that word. What’s going on?”

  “How are you betting the Miami game tomorrow?”

  “I’ve got five hundred on New York at seventeen points,” Rourke said promptly. “A hell of a big spread, I know, but New York’s got the scoring power, and with James in the hospital, what are we going to use for offense?”

  “I’ve been hearing about the game last Sunday. How did you do on that one?”

  Rourke groaned. “Dropped a thousand. Bad afternoon for everybody. That Boston son of a bitch almost tore Ronnie’s head off. I knew from the way he went down the first time that it wasn’t his day.”

  Shayne heard an exclamation in a girl’s voice, and the squeal of tires. “Tim? Take it easy.”

  “I’m all right,” Rourke said. “I was up on the sidewalk briefly. I’m not used to driving one-handed. What’s this sudden interest in football?”

  “All of a sudden I seem to own a small piece of the team. Is tomorrow’s game still on the board?”

  Rourke sounded alarmed. “As far as I know. You’re scaring me, Mike.”

  “You haven’t heard any rumors?”

  There was an instant’s pause. “Mike, I’ve been drinking martinis, remember. I may be a tick slow. You mean you don’t think the Miami linemen were trying last Sunday…?”

  “That’s one of the possibilities that’s been thrown at me. Have you heard that one of the commissioner’s security guys is in town?”

  Rourke whistled softly. “Checking up on our little boys? What’s his name, do you know?”

  “Stitch Reddick.”

  “I know him! Yeah—an ex-FBI man. He worked for the Bureau for something like ten days. Mike, I’ll call a couple of people and get back to you.”

  “What I want to find out is if anybody won really big last week. At the same time I don’t want to stir up anything, because I’d like to keep the action open to see what happens. Zacharias wouldn’t bring me in unless he thought it was serious. So let’s walk on our toes. Could you work it through somebody on the sports side of the paper? Not the football writer. How about Bob Lloyd—doesn’t he have gambling connections?”

  “That kind of informant likes to get paid. Is there grease available?”

  “If necessary, but try it the other way first. Tell Lloyd you know somebody who wants to raise some capital, and it’s a deal he can’t take to a bank. Has anybody been hot lately?”

  “With extra money to invest? I get the idea. Where will you be?”

  “Try the operator.”

  He broke the connection as a low yellow MG came through the toll barrier snapping its headlights. It went by with a roar. Shayne started his motor and followed.

  On the mainland, after turning right on Miami Avenue, the MG signaled and pulled over. Shayne parked. Cutting his motor and lights, he went forward to the MG. Mrs. Zacharias, at the wheel, was revving the motor, which raced and then idled, raced and idled. She seemed to be in somewhat the same condition herself.

  “Get in, Mike, get in. I’m as mad as a burned cat, and I’ve got to blow some of it off.”

  Shayne cramped himself into the low bucket seat. She jammed the stick into gear and spun her wheels getting away. Her face had a feverish glow. She was driving barefooted, her white jacket unbuttoned one button further down than when she had said goodnight to Shayne in the game room.

  “I brought some cognac for you. It’s in the glove compartment. I don’t want anything. I’m too high on adrenaline. Do you know what I’d like to do to Sid? I’d like to heat a pair of pliers and take off his skin in strips.”

  “What happened, Mrs. Zacharias?” Shayne looked in the glove compartment and found an unopened pint of the same cognac he had been drinking on Key Biscayne. “I thought he said he was going fishing.”

  She laughed angrily. “The minute you went out the door—” She shot him a quick glance. “I shouldn’t tell you this, probably, but what the hell. He accused me of making a play for you. You didn’t get that impression, did you, Mike? He’s really and truly sick.”

  “Did he see you give me the note?”

  “I don’t think so. Call me Chan. I, too, am a part owner of the Miami professional team, but I own two percent, isn’t that lucky? I was supposed to be rubbing my leg against yours, for heaven’s sake, and generally carrying on like a bitch in heat. Give me an honest answer. Did I at any time—”

  Shayne laughed and drank from the bottle.

  She glanced at him indignantly. After a moment, losing some of her charge, she said more naturally, “Other people’s marriages! Damn it, if I did bump you once or twice, it was purely by chance, and I don’t know why I’m involving you in a family fight. We’ve been married for nineteen years, and it’s wearing a little thin.”

  She braked to a stop at a red light. “I’ve changed my mind. Give me a jolt of that.”

  He handed her the open bottle and she dashed some cognac down her throat. She came down hard on the gas as the light changed, and they shot forward.

  “I do feel sort of aggrieved. It’s a common pattern. As soon as the husband makes his first five million, he starts wondering if he married the right wife. The idea is, Sid wants to go into politics. Am I the type to be gracious to Republican committeewomen? Quite frankly, I’m not. Now I’ll try to be a little more rational. You noticed that everything he said pointed you in the direction of Joe Truck.”

  She passed a slower car, cutting back in sharply. “Joe got married in college like most pro ballplayers. He’s pretty banged up now, but when he first came into the league he was a good-looking guy. And Sid got the idea—” She sawed at the wheel. “Which has nothing to do with anything, really, it’s all ancient history, but what I’m trying to tell you is that Sid may be hoping you’ll make the connection so he can use it in court. Divorce has been hinted at. I may be maligning the bastard, but I do know that something’s definitely going on that I can’t figure out. He wants to unload the club, have you heard that?”

  “I knew it was on the market last year.”

  “Football’s beginning to bore him. And no football owner yet has been elected to Congress, as far as I know. He hasn’t asked my opinion. I’m a two-percent owner, but I did ninety-eight percent of the work in the early days. I worked out the schedule, scouted players, sold tickets. And it was fun! Of course it’s different now, the computers are in charge. But I can’t see just dumping the whole thing for the capital gain, after all that work and sweat. And now here’s Stitch Reddick, and Sid’s afraid of a scandal that will tarnish the image and make the property harder to sell.”

  “What kind of scandal, a blown game?”

  “Maybe. We don’t have those long confidential talks any more, and I honestly don’t know what’s happening in the back of his mind. But I’ve been talking to owners in some of the other cities, and I know something I don’t think Sid does.”

  The ramp to the North-South Expressway loomed ahead, and the MG leaned into the long turn. As soon as they cleared into the high-speed lane the speedometer needle began to climb. Shayne drank again, letting her tell it at her own speed.

  “All I could get was hints,” she said, “but from the way it sounded, once or twice Reddick has picked up something that could have bee
n bad for everybody, and the owner was able to squash it by dealing with him direct, without going through the commissioner’s office.”

  “You mean he was able to buy Reddick off?”

  “I think that was what I was being told. So that may be something else you’ll be called on to handle while Sid’s swimming around underwater looking for fish.”

  Shayne reached behind him, unhooked the seat belt and fastened himself in.

  “I’m going too fast, as usual,” she said, and let the needle ease off to eighty. “Everybody says I’m a wild driver, but that’s the only way I stay sane. I’ll turn around in a minute. I’m about down to the nub. I’ve watched those films a few times, and the funny thing to me is that Ronnie didn’t really seem to sit down that hard. Not hard enough to put him in a six-day coma.”

  “Comas are hard to fake.”

  “I’d say impossible, unless he has the doctor working with him. And his doctor’s name is Prettyman. For your information, if you didn’t know it already, Ronnie James and Dr. Prettyman have often been seen drinking in the same nightclubs. They both like the looks of Miami Beach showgirls.”

  The 79th Street exit was approaching. She touched her brakes.

  “I know I’m reaching, Mike. But what a stunt if they could work it! Ronnie’s a bright lad, as every sports fan knows. He’s a quarterback, and you have to expect him to think like a quarterback. From the age of fourteen he’s been the hottest thing around, in high school, college and now the pros. That kind of life doesn’t make a person humble.”

  “Do you have anything more definite than that?”

  “Not really,” she admitted. “But Len Bishop, the club doctor, hasn’t been able to get in to see him. Of course Bishop’s a bone man. Still, he’s responsible for certifying injured players for the Tuesday list, and Ronnie’s doctor wouldn’t let him in the room.”

  She completed the long loop beneath the expressway, ending up headed south.

  “I’m not hoping to convince you. All I want to point out—Sid kept hammering away at Joe Truck, Joe Truck, and up to a point I have to agree that something was wrong with Joe in that game. But until I see it on videotape, I won’t believe he took money to miss a block. In the first place, what kind of moron would try to tamper with a lineman? And if anybody did, I think Joe would break him in two. He’s the old style of ballplayer. No sideburns. Prayers in the locker room.”

  “How did he play the rest of the game?”

  “Normal. Even very good, considering that he was going with a broken nose and a dislocated finger. Number sixty-six, the one who racked Ronnie up, left in the third quarter with a shoulder separation. He didn’t get that shaking hands.”

  “How’s Truck going to react when I ask him some questions?”

  “Well, Mike,” she said, “you’d better be diplomatic. He outweighs you.”

  He thought about what she had told him while she slid in and out of lanes. Their exit was just ahead, and she began shifting down.

  “I feel a little calmer,” she said. “Now I think I can go back and finish my conversation with Sid without using any four-letter words.”

  “Did you bet on last week’s game, Chan?”

  “You mean, did I, personally? My usual hundred dollars to win.”

  “Who’s your bookie?”

  “Sol Ambrosiano.” She smiled. “Are you going to check up on me, Mike?”

  “Sooner or later. Are you and Joe Truck still friends?”

  “I shouldn’t have told you anything about that! I just thought I’d better get in ahead of anybody else. Number one, it’s a long time ago. And Sid and I have a gentleman’s agreement. Tonight, for example, I know perfectly well that he isn’t going spear fishing. He’s seeing a girl.”

  Coming down off the ramp, she plunged into the regular Miami traffic, taking chances that would have been foolhardy in a less powerful car.

  “What do you think Sid will want to do if I find out some of his players have been working with gamblers?”

  “I honestly think he won’t want to know about it, Mike. But I definitely do want to know about it, and I hope you’ll feel that your smart move would be to tell me. I’m not going fishing. I’ll be home. That’s really the main thing I wanted to say. Remember I know more about some of these players than anybody, including the coaches.”

  “Where does Truck live?”

  “In North Miami. He’s in the phone book, spelled T-r-u-s-z-o-w-s-k-i.”

  They turned into the block where he had left his Buick. He unhooked the safety belt.

  “What’s your first move going to be, Mike? I’m curious.”

  “It depends on what the bookies are saying about last week’s game.”

  “In other words—mind your own business, Mrs. Zacharias,” she said philosophically. “Let me see—how to put this? I have—well, a rather raunchy reputation in some circles, I suppose not entirely undeserved. But don’t make any summary judgments until you hear my side of it, OK?”

  “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you are. The stories are ninety percent exaggerated, Mike. One final point. In the back of my dear husband’s mind, he knows Ronnie James is mixed up in this somehow. Sid took a huge amount of heat for signing Ronnie at that big bonus. Whenever Ronnie leaves training camp or misses practice, Sid’s always the one who forgives him. Ronnie’s a great vodka drinker and girl fancier, and I don’t think he believes in exercise. But still he wins games, and all the old-line people think that’s bad for football—including the commissioner. So Stitch Reddick will do himself some good with his employer if he can pin something on Ronnie. That’s what Sid wants to avoid. Will you call me?”

  “Sure.”

  “Take the bottle. If I walk in with an open bottle of cognac he’ll know I’ve been talking to you.”

  Shayne dropped the bottle in his side pocket and returned to his own car.

  CHAPTER 3

  The yellow MG zoomed off as though bound for another planet.

  The phone rang in Shayne’s Buick. “Mike?” the operator said, “Timothy Rourke.”

  “Goddamn it,” Rourke’s voice said an instant later, “you really loused up my evening, you know that? The chick I was out with doesn’t know one end of a football from another, and she didn’t want to learn. She got tired of sitting around while I talked to people on the phone about the point spread. So now I’m free, and I blame you, man.”

  “What are people saying about the point spread?”

  “Do you want the facts or the rumors?”

  “The facts first.”

  “Well, the big local winner last week—betting on Boston, not Miami—was a guy named Ted Knapp. You may know him. He’s some kind of insurance broker.”

  “I think so,” Shayne said, probing his pockets for a cigarette. “He ran one of the charity drives last year. When you say a big winner, how big?”

  “Fifty thousand, minimum. You suggested talking to Bob Lloyd. He knew the answer without phoning anybody. It’s being talked about. I don’t mean there’s a consensus, the bookies are just letting each other know that the Ted Knapp situation may bear watching. With Ronnie out of that game, there was no way Miami could beat the points. Any bookie who pays off on a bet like that is going to wonder if the guy had information, and maybe he’s somebody to be worried about in the future.”

  “Does Knapp have any connection with the club?”

  “He brokers their insurance. That’s not necessarily suspicious—it’s the business he’s in. He hears about injuries, but after they happen, not before.”

  “Was his bet last week higher than usual?”

  “It had to be. That’s my one hard fact. Now for the rumors, and there are plenty of those. The game tomorrow has been put in the circle—you know, off the boards—in a couple of places—Chicago, St. Louis. There’s a logical explanation. Nobody knows enough about the backup quarterback to set a firm line. The local bookies are jumpy, but if they take the home gam
e off the board, they lose a lot of action. The points are so pretty that plenty of money is still coming in on Miami. I couldn’t find out which way Ted Knapp is going this week. Bookies don’t like to talk about anything current—they’re afraid of starting a stampede. But go back two weeks to the New Orleans game. He won money on that. You remember—or maybe you don’t—that Ronnie threw an interception in the last quarter that made everybody in New Orleans very happy. They lost the game, but ended up on the winning side of the points. Cynical people always wonder whenever that happens. Was Ronnie tired? Professional athletes aren’t supposed to get tired. In the Kansas City game last year, did that elbow really hurt him? He hasn’t had trouble with it this year at all. None of this would matter, probably, except for his choice of companions. I know we don’t believe in guilt by association, but if he wants to associate with third-generation Italian-Americans in shaped suits, with no visible income, why doesn’t he do it in the privacy of his own apartment?”

  “I’ve seen those photographs.”

  “And then he enjoys himself. That’s suspicious in itself. Blond is his favorite color. He hasn’t ever raised money for crippled children.”

  “Did anybody you talked to suggest that he might be faking this head injury?”

  “My God, no!” Rourke exclaimed. “Is that what this is all about? You mean there’s a chance he may get in the game tomorrow? I’m going to ring off, Mike. I’ve got to call my bookie.”

  “Let’s find out a little more. If you want to help—”

  “I’ve got nothing better to do… unfortunately.”

  “I just talked to Chan and Sid Zacharias. They didn’t tell me much, but I got the feeling that something’s about to explode. Sid had to see me the minute my plane got in, and he made the terms so good that I wouldn’t mind starting work right away. That’s fine with me—I’m just coming off two very dull weeks in fun-filled Southern California.”

  “What’s your assignment?”

  “Very vague. Find out what Reddick’s up to, and buy him off or neutralize him. First I want to talk to Ted Knapp, if I can find him. Then there’s an old con man’s ploy I want to try. I can’t just call Truszowski and ask him if he took a payoff to get Ronnie smeared. He’d say no. You know people in different walks of life, Tim. Can you get me a pint of blood?”