Murder Spins the Wheel by Brett Halliday Page A

room over. There were two waitresses. One was brown-haired, with an apologetic manner. The other wore extravagant eye makeup and had prominent breasts and red hair. It was hard to tell about the breasts, but the color of her hair was probably not natural. When she came over to the bar with a tray of glasses Shayne grinned and said hello.
    “Hi!” she said cheerfully, and looked up at his red hair. “Copycat.”
    “I’ve had it all my life,” he said.
    They went on from there, and Shayne was about to ask his question about Donahue when the bartender came over.
    “To give an example,” the bartender said. “You didn’t tell me your name when you sat down, did you? I didn’t tell you mine, and that’s the way it goes. We were talking about not remembering people,” he explained to the waitress. “For some reason I don’t think he believed me. What was the guy’s name again?”
    “Vince Donahue,” the redhead said to the waitress. “A good-looking boy. A diver. He drove a Jag for a while. But I don’t suppose you remember him either?”
    “Gee—” she said regretfully.
    “I didn’t think so. Of course I might be bringing him news about a legacy, except that that kind of kid doesn’t get legacies.”
    He went back to his drink, and shook his head shortly when the bartender asked if he wanted another. He picked his change off the bar. Turning, he found the plainer waitress, the one with the brown hair, trying to make up her mind whether or not to speak to him.
    She said with a rush, twisting the belt of her apron, “I might be able to tell you something, but first you have to tell me why you want to know. Go over to one of the booths. I’m not supposed to sit down in my uniform, but I’ll put on a raincoat and come back.”
    Shayne paid for another cognac and carried it to an empty booth. In a moment the waitress came back through a door marked “No Admittance,” wearing a raincoat over her uniform. The bartender spoke to her. She shook her head stubbornly. Coming over to Shayne’s booth, she slid in across from him. The red-haired waitress brought her a mixed highball.
    “I hope you know what you’re doing, Rose.”
    Rose pulled nervously at her drink. “I’d better find out what I am doing. I hear you’re Mike Shayne. Why do you want to talk to Vince, Mr. Shayne?”
    Over the second cognac, Shayne had been thinking. Given what he already knew about Vince Donahue, which of the two waitresses would the boy pick? The one now sitting opposite Shayne would give him uncritical admiration, money when he needed it, sympathy when he needed that, she would always be waiting for him, she would pretend to believe his stories. To hang onto him she would do anything he demanded. She would probably feel flattered that he had any time for her at all. And giving her a closer look, Shayne saw something warm and appealing beneath her surface awkwardness. All she needed was to sit up straight and have a professional do something about her hair.
    He said carefully, “You won’t be too surprised to hear that he’s in trouble.”
    “Well, no,” she admitted.
    “He’s stepped on some people’s toes,” Shayne continued. “They’re middle-aged and settled. They wear white suits and neckties, and to somebody like Vince they probably look pretty harmless. They’re anything but.”
    “That sounds like him. He just doesn’t give a damn. But you’re going to have to be more specific.”
    Shayne continued feeling his way. At the first wrong approach, he knew the girl would take off her raincoat and go back to work.
    “He’s mixed up in a football fix,” he said. “He rigged something, or helped rig it, and it cost his friendly neighborhood bookie somewhere around a couple of hundred thousand bucks. I don’t mean Vince got all that, or even much of it. But so far he’s the only name I’ve heard mentioned.”
    “I knew it was something like that,” she said miserably. “Does that mean he’ll go to