Marked for Murder ms-12

by Brett Halliday

  Shayne uttered a sharp oath and crushed the message in his hand. He said to Lucy, “It’s a message from Tim-evidently sent before he was shot in his apartment on Miami Beach. I’ve just about got time to get a taxi to the depot. Get that wire off to Gentry right away.”

  As he turned toward the door Lucy caught his arm and said earnestly, “Promise me you’ll be careful. You frighten me-looking like that.”

  “If that telegram had been delivered to me when it should have, I’d be halfway to Miami by now,” Shayne grated. Then looking into Lucy’s upturned face he said gently, “Don’t worry about me. Do the best you can with things here.” He kissed her lips and said, “Good-by”

  She followed him into the hall, calling, “When will you be back, Michael?”

  “When Tim Rourke’s murderer is in jail,” he flung over his shoulder, and long-legged it to the elevator.

  The afternoon was fading imperceptibly into the long tropical twilight period when Shayne stepped from the train in Miami. His clothes were rumpled and he was weary after more than 30 hours in a day coach, but his nostrils flared and his gray eyes brightened as he dragged in a deep breath of the warm evening air.

  With no luggage to delay him he thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets and strolled along the brick walk, his eyes straying around looking for a familiar face. Tourists poured from every car of the long train, and there were those waiting to greet friends, craning their necks, and some standing on tiptoe for a better view.

  The thought struck Shayne suddenly that he had few friends in Miami. It had been part of his job not to become widely known and to keep his picture out of the local papers. A muscle twitched in his angular jaw and his eyes grew bleak. Timothy Rourke had been the only close friend he had made in all the years he practiced here.

  He stopped strolling and looking around. His long legs swung out in a purposeful stride. Just before he reached the taxi area he felt a strong grip on his arm and turned to see the bronzed and smiling face of a trim Miami policeman.

  Shayne exclaimed, “Sergeant Jorgensen.”

  The young officer stepped back and gave a snappy salute before saying cordially, “Mike Shayne-welcome home. The chief sent me down to meet you. How does it feel to be back in God’s country?”

  “Plenty good.” Shayne fell into step with the sergeant toward a prowl car parked beyond the waiting taxis. “How’s Tim Rourke?”

  Jorgensen’s face was grave. “Not so good, I guess. I haven’t heard since noon. He was holding his own then.” He opened the door for Shayne, slammed it shut, and went around to get under the wheel. “We’re stymied on it with Painter in charge.”

  “Still strutting like a damned peacock and getting nowhere, eh?” Shayne’s voice was bitter.

  “Still keeps his nails manicured,” said Jorgensen sourly, “but I’m wondering if he’s keeping his hands clean, Shayne. There’ve been some pretty rotten deals over on the Beach lately.” He started the motor and as they drove away he added, “Painter’s not a bad dick when he wants to be. I guess he’s really doing his best on this case. I’ve an idea pressure is being put on him from all sides nowadays.”

  “He never liked Rourke,” Shayne reminded him grimly.

  “No. Tim used to get in his hair plenty. You and Tim both,” Jorgensen added with a chuckle.

  “No arrests yet?” There was sharp concern in Shayne’s voice.

  “Nope. The field’s wide open.” Jorgensen turned east on Flagler Street. “All of us on this side of the bay will be pulling for you.”

  Shayne sat slouched in the seat staring out at the familiar scenes he had not seen for nearly two years. He said gruffly, “Thanks-I know,” in answer to the sergeant’s offer.

  Memories, fleeting and queerly hurting memories, tugged at him as they rode down Flagler toward police headquarters. Nothing had changed. Miami was still the Magic City. It might have been yesterday that he and Rourke had chased a disappearing corpse around Miami’s streets.

  Sergeant Jorgensen made a sharp turn to the right and pulled up in front of police headquarters. “The chief’s waiting for you in the same old office.”

  “Thanks, Jorg. See you around.” He got out and circled the car and went in a side door. The dreary hallway heading to Gentry’s office retained its remembered odor, and the door was hospitably ajar as it had always been.

  Chief Will Gentry sat behind the same scarred oak desk, and Shayne received an immediate and fleeting impression that he was chewing on the same black cigar that had been in his mouth the last time he saw him. At least, it smelled the same. Gentry’s face looked a little heavier, a little more florid, but the twinkle in his eyes was the same, his handshake as firm as ever.

  Gentry rumbled, “It’s good to see you again, Mike, though I don’t like the way we had to bring you back to Miami.” He chuckled and added, “Anyway, I’m glad it’s Painter’s hair you’re getting into instead of mine.”

  Shayne grinned, then sobered, and asked, “How’s Tim?”

  “I just checked with Dr. Fairweather at the Flagler Hospital. Tim’s holding his own, Mike.”

  “Bad?” Shayne lowered one hip to the desk corner and lit a cigarette.

  “Plenty bad.” Gentry sank back in his swivel chair and purled on his cigar. “A thirty-two slug struck close to his heart and another one drilled a lung. Anybody but a black Irishman would be dead.”

  “What’s being done for him?”

  “Transfusions and injections. He’s in a coma-hasn’t regained consciousness at all. Dr. Fairweather assured me everything was being done, but he didn’t offer much hope, Mike,” Gentry ended solemnly.

  Shayne got up and paced the length of the office, came back, and pulled up a chair to face Gentry across the desk. Dropping his rangy body into it he asked, “What did you get from Painter?”

  “Had a talk with him yesterday morning and got everything I could without telling him who it was for.”

  Shayne grinned briefly in acknowledgment of the chief’s tact. “He won’t like me popping up.”

  “He won’t like it,” the chief agreed drily. “Particularly if you crack it while he’s running around in circles. He’s had it kind of quiet and easy with you in New Orleans.”

  “Let’s have what you’ve got,” Shayne said. Gentry took some scribbled notations from a drawer, glanced at them, and explained, “I’ll give you the bare facts first. A woman called the Beach police at ten-forty Tuesday night and told them to go to number 2-D at the Blackstone Apartment House in a hurry. She sounded frightened and hung up. When Painter’s men got there Tim was lying on the floor a couple of feet inside the door with two slugs in him. The place had been ransacked as though someone had searched for something. A woman had been there-fresh powder spilled on the lavatory and a piece of tissue with rouge where she’d wiped the excess off her lips.

  “Half-empty whisky bottle on the floor beside the sofa with the cork out. Two water glasses that had been used for whisky. Dishes in the sink showing one person had eaten bacon and eggs for dinner, and two people had drunk coffee. Woman’s fingerprints on the extra cup and on the dishes along with Rourke’s-as though he’d eaten and she cleaned up. Same prints on the extra glass in the living-room.

  “But they found another set of women’s prints all over the place. Looks as if the second one turned the place inside out. The gun was a Colt automatic, two empty shells found on the floor where they’d been ejected. And-that’s about it.” Gentry pushed the notations aside and spread out his pudgy hands.

  “Shot from close up?”

  “Close enough for powder burns.”

  “What about the position of the body and direction of the bullets? Was he shot by someone coming through the door or in the room with him?”

  “That’s hard to say. The medical examiner thinks he may have twisted and dragged himself a couple of feet. There was a lot of blood smeared around and there wasn’t a rug near the door. They couldn’t determine whether he moved toward the doo
r or away from it. Knowing Tim, I’d say he’d thresh around trying to do something as long as he was conscious.”

  “What about prints on the door?”

  “Both knobs were wiped clean of prints,” Gentry said with a deep sigh.

  “How close do they set the time?”

  “Around ten-thirty. Not more than ten minutes either way.”

  “Any witnesses who heard the shots?”

  “Painter hasn’t found anybody, yet,” Gentry rumbled.

  “What sort of apartment is the Blackstone? Tim wasn’t living there when I left.”

  “Two stories. No elevator. A back stairway leading up from the alley, and front stairs leading off the lobby. One man for manager, switchboard operator, and janitor. He was behind the switchboard when Rourke came in about four o’clock. Tim had been beaten pretty badly, Mike. Henty-that’s the manager-wanted to help him upstairs, but Rourke said he could make it. He had a black eye and a split lip that was bleeding. They found the bloody shirt and tie in his bedroom.

  “He had a visitor when he got home. A swell blond dish, according to Henty. She arrived about two-thirty and asked to be allowed to wait for Tim in his apartment. Henty claims he’d never seen this particular girl before. He didn’t see her leave, but from about ten-twenty to ten-forty Henty says he was in the back working on the air-conditioning unit. Anybody could have entered or left through the lobby during that time-and by the back stairs any time.”

  Shayne ground out his Picayune and lit another. He blew a puff of smoke toward Gentry. “That the only time she could have left the front way without him seeing her?”

  Gentry coughed into the puff of smoke, glared at the Picayune, and demanded, “What are they smoking in New Orleans these days?”

  Shayne grinned. “It’s only a Picayune. People down there like them better than tobacco. Was Henty in the lobby all the time from four until ten-twenty?”

  “Hell, no,” Gentry growled. “You know how it is with one man handling everything in a place like that. He admits to being in and out a dozen times-for periods varying from a couple to ten minutes.”

  “So the blonde could have left any time. On the other hand, Tim may have been beat up too badly to keep a blonde occupied long.”

  “He was pretty badly beaten,” Gentry said judicially, “but you know how Tim was about blondes.”

  “I know,” Shayne agreed. “Anything else?”

  “Not in the line of actual, known facts. Seems Rourke left the office about twelve-twenty after turning in his copy for the day. No one knows where he went or what he did between that time and four when he turned up at his place with a shiner and a bleeding lip. His heap is parked in front, but there are no bloodstains on it. Henty thinks he noticed Tim drive up and park about two o’clock, but when he didn’t come in, decided he must have been mistaken. Later, he decided it was Rourke’s roadster all the time.”

  Shayne dropped his cigarette butt on the floor and toed it out. His face was a grim, preoccupied mask. “If the blonde was a new number, who’s Tim been seeing lately?”

  “Another blonde,” Gentry told him with a grin. “He’s been living at the Blackstone about four months, and Henty says he has seen only one woman around 2-D all that time. He describes her as something of a looker, in her mid-twenties, and with plenty on the ball.”

  “No other dope on number-two blonde?”

  “No. Henty claims she hasn’t been around recently, or has been using the back stairway. That’s about all there is, Mike.”

  “It’s not a hell of a lot,” Shayne said shortly. “One blonde fixed his supper and drank coffee and whisky with him. Another blonde searched his room. Did the first one kill him and leave, and the other one arrive later and search the place? Or did she feed him and leave while he was still alive?”

  “That sounds best. Though the second one could have come in and found him shot, knew there’d be an uproar and an investigation, and searched the place in a hurry to get her letters or anything she didn’t want the police to find-and then put in the emergency call.”

  “It could add up that way,” Shayne agreed. “Damn it, Gentry, hasn’t Painter dug up any leads? The dispatch I read sounded as if Tim was putting on a one-man crusade to clean up the town and was shot on that account. And the telegram I had from him said there were three murders.”

  Gentry looked up, surprised. “Tim telegraphed you?”

  “Yeh. I got the message after I’d read about him being shot. He didn’t say anything about personal danger. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t seen the newspaper item.”

  “I’m coming to that,” Gentry said patiently. “I wanted you to get the physical picture in your mind before we started digging into possible motives.” He chewed thoughtfully on his damp cigar, took it out of his mouth, and tossed it aside at a brass spittoon. His aim was no better than it had been two years ago.

  “The attempt to murder Rourke actually goes back to three other murders, Mike. When you solve those you should know pretty well what happened in Tim’s apartment Tuesday night. Here’s the last story Tim wrote in the Courier. It was published Tuesday afternoon, and gives you a pretty fair background.” He passed a folded newspaper to Shayne and settled back with a fresh black stogie.

  Chapter Six: A TOUGH CROP TO FIGHT

  Shayne spread the newspaper out on Gentry’s desk and spotted Rourke’s by-lined story prominently displayed on the front page. He read:

  Three men have been murdered in Miami Beach during the past week. The murders have not been solved. No arrests have been made. No arrests are anticipated by those who know the record of the Miami Beach detective bureau under the leadership (sic) of Chief Peter Painter.

  In an exclusive interview with Chief Painter this morning, this reporter offered to furnish Miami Beach detectives evidence conclusively indicating that these three deaths are a direct outgrowth of the operations of a criminal ring which threatens to engulf the entire Greater Miami Area in a wave of terrorism unparalleled in our history.

  This information and assistance was refused by Chief Painter. With his own so-called “investigation” bogged down by a lack of clues and the chief’s stubborn insistence that there is no crime wave in his bailiwick, citizens of Miami Beach can look, forward to a continuation of these terroristic killings, encouraged and abetted by official complacency which refuses to look facts in the face.

  In these columns the Courier has repeatedly warned its readers of the dangers they face so long as certain selfish civic and business leaders continue to keep the lid clamped tightly on the truth, and continue to encourage the growing power of the criminal elements which threaten us.

  So that the public may know and be warned, the factual evidence offered to Chief Painter and refused consideration by him this morning is herewith presented in detail. Read the truth and draw your own conclusions.

  The first victim in this series of related murders was Peter Jordan, 42, a minor executive of one of the Beach hotels. Monday night, Peter Jordan drove unaccompanied to the Oceanview Club, one of the three recently renovated establishments on the Beach where large-scale gambling openly flourishes.

  During the evening, Peter Jordan was consistently lucky at one of the four ornate roulette tables which may be viewed by anyone who cares to visit the club. It was Mr. Jordan’s misfortune to win about $6,000,

  At approximately 11:30, he cashed in his chips and went into the large bar where suckers are assuaged with free drinks. There he was accosted by a young lady of striking blond beauty. This couple had a few drinks on the house and reached some agreement whereby they went out together in Mr. Jordan’s automobile.

  At 2:15, his car was discovered by the police, parked on Ocean Boulevard. Jordan’s body was in the front seat. He had been shot through the heart with a. 32 caliber automatic that had been pressed against his right side. His wallet was empty. The blonde had disappeared.

  So much for Mr. Peter Jordan, Number One of the three murder victims during the past w
eek. In their “official investigation” Chief Painter’s men have uncovered none of the facts cited above. They found a body in an automobile and no trace of the killer.

  Two nights later, among hundreds who swarmed into the swanky Sundown Club (under the same management as the Oceanview) was a lad named Jim Crowley. He was an honorably discharged veteran of this war, recently married, and visiting Miami Beach for a period of rest and rehabilitation.

  Jim Crowley had learned to shoot craps in the army. He was unfortunately lucky at one of the crap tables in the Sundown Club on Wednesday night, building up an original roll of less than $100 into a sum estimated by various envious witnesses to be about $9,000.

  Shortly past midnight, Jim Crowley drifted into the barroom for a nightcap on the house. He had several nightcaps and fell into conversation with a young lady of striking blond beauty. They left the Sundown Club together in a car which Crowley had borrowed from a friend for the evening. Two hours later the car was discovered by police, parked on an obscure side street less than ten blocks from the Sundown Club. Crowley’s body was in the front seat. He had been shot through the heart with a. 32 caliber automatic that had been pressed against his right side. There was a stain of lipstick on his mouth. His wallet was empty. There was no trace of the blonde.

  Jim Crowley was Number Two in this series of “unrelated killings” (a direct quote from Chief Painter). Because the bullets taken from the two bodies were not fired from the same gun. Chief Painter is not aware that Jim Crowley was gambling that night at the Sundown Club and had the misfortune to win a pile of money. He refuses to credit the existence of a blond girl.

  Murder Number Three occurred Friday night. The opening scene is at the very exclusive (you have to have a few dollars in your pocket to gain admission) Tip Top Club (under the same management as the Ocean-view and Sundown). The man marked for murder was Mr. Harvey J. Hazard, a business man from Miami, well known throughout the city as a wealthy widower and a “sport.”