Experiment in Crime (3 page)

"Is that straight?" she asked.

"I'm afraid," he said, coloring a little, "that we don't know each other, after all. I assumed you'd been one of my students at the University of Miami."

The drinks came. She made a feint at a toast, sipped, and said, "No, professor. I'm a--sort of hostess--around here. I went to college in the north for one dismal year.

Couldn't stand it. Came hack here--and couldn't stand the family, either. Gin rummy on the even nights and backgammon on the odd. I--took a job."

"My name is Burke--Martin Burke."

"And you were just looking around?"

He explained in some detail. She was amused, surprised--and, somehow, pleased.

"You're certainly right!" she said. "You shouldn't lecture without background.

Now, I tell you. When you're ready, I'll see that you get into the gambling room. If you want, perhaps I can fix it up for you to meet Double-O."

"You mean the notorious Double-O Sanders?"

"He's a lamb, really! Strictly a gambler. No rackets and no other angles. Some of the most important people in the United States come in, regularly." Miss Maxson finished her highball. "I've got to leave you. Thanks for the drink. Ask for Al in the foyer--and he'll show you to the "--she smiled--"'gaming room.'"

He thought--along Tennysonian lines--that she was a delightful creature. He found himself also repeating--along undergraduate lines--that she was a warm swarm. He watched her move among the tables until she was out of view.

Then he called for his check, paid it, tipped ten per cent, added fifty cents, and beckoned to the girl in doll-clothing for another cigar. A corridor led to the gambling room. Al held back the velvet curtain and the professor sauntered through.

He found himself entering a most luxurious room--a room with a lower ceiling and restrained decoration. There were three roulette tables, a cashier's window, two tables surrounded by men, troughlike affairs in which dice were bounding, and other games with which he was unfamiliar. Large floor vases of beige roses were set about. The air was cool and clear, in spite of the continual smoking of its hundred or so occupants. It was like an elegant drawing room--with this exception, he thought: the guests were hypnotized.

They stood around the tables, light reflected up into their faces from the green baize, the polished mahogany. Some were obviously nervous--their hands toyed with chips or twisted handkerchiefs. Some were strenuously nonchalant. Some were stoical and without expression. The women, he thought, seemed more eager and anxious than the men--a natural result of their more emotional natures. There were women of sixty--even seventy--in fur wraps, wearing jewels. There were young women, with and without jewels. The most continuous sound was the soft talk of the croupiers. The loudest sound was the clatter of fortune set up by the dance of the ivory pellets around the rims of surging wheels.

For a long time, he watched. No one spoke to him--no one seemed to mind his surveillance. He presently realized that there were other onlookers. He studied the game.

Roulette, he soon saw, was childishly simple. Hardly more complex than parcheesi.

He was not in the least tremulous when he went to the cashier's window and purchased twenty, two-dollar, or white, chips. His face was impassive when he returned to the table he had selected. He put two chips on Red. The wheel spun and the number was called. The croupier put two chips on his two. He left them where they were. After the next spin, he had eight.

He thought of a number. The number he thought of was nine. He put four chips on nine and four on black. Nine lost. He tried again. Nine came up. He was dumbfounded by the number of chips which were pushed into his possession.

It may be that the best system for winning at gambling is to play with the sincere purpose of losing--of losing a politely decent sum so that (for example) in future years one may warn one's classes, with a little personal anecdote as an illustration, against the folly of betting on the turning of a wheel. In any event, Professor Burke won. He soon noticed that some of his intent associates were waiting until he placed his bets--and following suit. He began to be embarrassed by the size of his pile of chips. He exchanged some for what he called "counters?' of a higher denomination. He thought up numbers--

and then deliberately bet on others, with the firm intention of defeating himself.

He did not know how long he stood there. An hour, perhaps. It might have been two. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned shamefacedly. It was Miss Maxson again.

"You're doing peachy, Professor!"

"I'm mortified."

"Mortified? Why, for heaven's sake?"

"I can't seem to stop this winning streak."

"Can't
stop
it!"

"Naturally--it's out of the question for me to make a profit on a venture of this sort. In my position. You can see that."

Miss Maxson picked up some of his chips. "Give us blues," she said to the croupier. "For the whole thing."

The trade was made. "You'll help me--play them in?" He seemed relieved.

"Professor, I'm going to get the money. This is your night. And it's your time to quit."

"But the money isn't mine!"

"It's as much yours as any money in this room is anybody's." They were attracting attention. She moved closer to him and whispered. "No fooling, Professor! Cash in the chips while you've got a lead! It's smart. The Club won't miss the money. I'm terribly glad you won. Please!"

Groggily, he picked up the chips and walked to the window. He was paid eight hundred and eighty-six dollars. When he put the bills in his wallet, his hands shook: it was by far the largest sum of money his wallet had ever contained. It was equal to two month's salary. Gambling money, criminal money, illicit gain--and he was accepting it because Miss Maxson insisted! Because, perhaps, he was accustomed to carrying out the orders of the opposite sex to the letter. It always saved trouble--he had learned that, long ago.

He looked up at Miss Maxson and she smiled.

He looked back at the table and the place where he had stood had been closed up.

They had forgotten him already--taken his departure, with his winnings, as a simple matter of course. He could not think what he was going to do. Keep the matter secret--

obviously. His whole evening's escapade had boomeranged!

"Buy me another drink?" She was still smiling.

"Of course!"

"We'll go back to the bar." They did not, however, go back to the bar. They started--and that was all.

A man in the uniform of a police officer came suddenly from the corridor. He was not holding a gun, but he was wearing a large gun. Behind him were what seemed to the professor a platoon, at least, of police.

The man shouted, "All right--everybody! Stop the wheels! Hold those dice! This is a raid!"

There was silence. Then funny noises began. Women escaped. Men swore.

Voices quickly rose up the scale. The place roared.

The police officer held up his hands and gestured at the sounds--as if they were tangible and could be pushed. "Listen, everybody!
Lissssen!
All we're taking is the wheels! Before any dame faints, or any damn fool guy tries to start anything--
lisssen!

We're not hauling you in. We're not even taking names. Just keep out of our way while we get the wheels--and then you can go quietly. I don't want any arguments"--he stopped for a man who had hurried up to him--"and I don't give a hoot how important you are!

This is a raid. The joint is closed!"

While this speech was being made, Professor Burke had been as aware of Miss Maxson as of the spectacular pandemonium. She had glanced--rather furtively--at her watch, when the police rushed in. It seemed an odd thing to do. Hysterical reflex, no doubt. She had grown rather pale, after that. He supposed, since she was a hostess, that she was going to be arrested. The idea annoyed him.

But now, keeping her eyes on the police--who were already pushing one of the tables toward the corridor--she said softly, "Stay here and wait for me, will you?"

"Certainly."

She tapped on an inconspicuous door and was let into the cashier's booth. From there, she vanished.

He turned with interest to the scene around him. One or two of the ladies lolled in chairs and their escorts fanned them. Half a dozen of the gentlemen were in states of apopleptic rage. Professor Burke felt this was uncalled for: the law was Right--ergo wrath was wrong. They were gambling; they had earned this their discomfiture.

At the same time, he felt intensely gratified that names were not to be taken. He could imagine the attitude of the Dean--the President--the entire Faculty--if the morning papers disclosed that he had been seized in a raid on a gambling establishment! The thought brought perspiration on his brow.

A passing policeman noted it. "Pull yourself together, Bud," he said amiably.

Miss Maxson, meantime, had entered the office of the owner. Double-O was sitting on, not behind, his desk. His eyes were like flint.

The Tip was there, too--looking frightened. Several other men--in tuxedos---stood about uneasily.

"They were an hour early," the girl said.

"Tell us something we don't know!" Chicago grated in The Tip's voice, this time.

Double-O Sanders looked toward her--his eyes seeming to see nothing. His lips moved. "It's a cross."

She swallowed.

His head turned slowly, so that his gaze was fixed on the safe. "They'll take all of us--and the operating dough--to Headquarters. I don't know who ordered this. But I do know they wanted to find the dough right here. They'll hold it for a cut. Maybe take it all." The faintest scorn sounded in his quiet words. "Legal confiscation. "

The Tip said, "Let's split it and lam." Double-O appeared not to have heard that.

"All of us--except you, Connie." He turned toward her again. "Those cops know you?"

"I don't know any policemen." She smiled faintly. "Except one traffic cop named McGuire."

He handed the envelopes to her. "Get going."

"If they don't see me coming out of here."

He walked to the safe, after a moment. He masked it with his body and spun its dials. The door opened. "Envelopes," he said. "Plain, white. Large. Top left drawer."

The Tip hurriedly procured them. Double-O took three. Into two of them he put unopened packages of bills--into the third, a partly exhausted package. The girl saw the denominations. She grew paler.

He handed the envelopes to her. "Get going."

She took two books from a case behind his desk. She put the envelopes between the books. She wrinkled her nose at him and the door closed behind her.

The Tip said, "No kidding, Double-O! A dame. . . !"

Mr. Sanders raised his adze-blade eyes.

The Tip looked away.

There was a knock on the door opposite the one Miss Maxson had used.

"Come in, boys," Double-O called. "Not locked."

Miss Maxson approached the professor--through the crowd. Most of the tables had been pushed out of the room now. Their legmarks showed in the deep carpets.

The officer looked in. "All right! Get going! We've taken the Club personnel--so you'll have to find your own cars in the yard. I've got a couple of men out there to unscramble you--but drive easy, and you won't get scrambled!"

The girl drew him deeper into the crowd. She handed him three hefty envelopes.

"Keep these for me, will you?"

He thrust them into his jacket pockets--two on one side, one on the other. They showed. She started to protest--and changed her mind. Maybe it was better that way.

She dropped the books on the nearest chair. "Would you take me home? I have no car."

"I'd be delighted!"

It seemed very warm out of doors. The Club Egret was near the sea and the night air smelled salty. They walked around to the parking yard. Cars were starting--motors accelerated as if in anger, headlights snapping on. It was confusing. He finally found his repainted coupe. She got in. He started the motor. A slow, gear-gnashing, bumper-banging defile moved indignantly toward the street. He drove to Collins and turned south.

"I'm sorry about the raid," she said.

He looked at her buoyantly. "On my account? I wouldn't have missed it for anything! Though I regret winning. However! It was a risk I chose to take. I'm most grateful to you!"

"You don't owe me--or the Club--anything!" She said it in a peculiar tone.
If he
knew what was in his pockets
. . . ! He would never know--she thought.

"Where do you live?"

"On Di Lido Island. That's one of the Venetian Islands. . . ."

"I know."

"The raid," she said, "was just window dressing. We ought to be open again in a day or two."

He was surprised. The car swerved a little--and he braked. He looked in his mirror to be sure he was not endangering traffic. "You mean those weren't police?"

"Oh--they were police, all right. What I mean is, we have raids early in the season and late in the season--before the big money arrives in Miami and after it goes--to satisfy the reform element." She explained the technique of the South Florida gambling raid--a gesture greatly satisfying to right-thinking citizens and of little hardship to casino operators.

Professor Burke listened while he turned right on Forty-First Street, went over the high, picturesque bridge and turned left on Pine Tree Drive.

Then he said, "I don't know whether it means anything or not, but there is a large sedan following us. It's been behind us ever since we started down Collins." He looked away, then, from the tunnel his headlights made between the Australian pines. She had not replied.

Miss Maxson appeared to be sick. She glanced back. She drew a couple of shaky breaths. She tried to light a cigarette--and used three matches. And at last she said, very earnestly, "Gee, Professor, I'm sorry I got you in this one! Those are--hijackers."

Most men who found themselves in Professor Burke's situation would have been alarmed. Miami Beach, through the center of which he was driving, advertises to the world its attractions and its distractions. It is more quiet about its civic detractions. Not the least of these is the boldness and the frequency of its robberies. Holdups of bejeweled, home-bound revelers, burglaries, and daylight stick-ups of cash-carrying citizens are almost a part of the local climate.