Murder in Haste

by Brett Halliday

  And at that point in his reflections, his heel came down on an ice cube that had escaped from the drink he had spilled. His leg shot out at a sickening angle, his arms sawed the air, and he landed with a crash. Rose stooped over him with a little cry. She couldn’t have been more solicitous and helpful, but Painter thought he could see a faint quirk at the corner of her mouth. She would dissolve in mirth the moment he was gone.

  He felt his spine. Nothing seemed to be dislocated, luckily, but he needed help to get to his feet. He mumbled something, feeling his face prickle with embarrassment.

  “I’m terribly, terribly sorry,” she said. “Are you—”

  “Perfectly all right,” he said stiffly.

  “Don’t you think you’d better sit down for a minute?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Well—”

  As Rose opened the front door for him, Heinemann came out from the shadow of a tree and crossed to the Cadillac. Rose watched solicitously until Painter was in the back seat with the door closed.

  “Are you all right, Chief?” Heinemann said.

  Painter snapped, “What do you mean, am I all right?”

  “Nothing, except it looked like you were walking sort of funny.”

  Painter suppressed a strong impulse to massage the injured spot. “What’s holding us up, Heinemann? I want to stop at my apartment. Let’s go, damn it! Use the siren.”

  Chapter Two

  Pulling up in front of his apartment building, one of an impressive row on a cross street in the northern section of Miami Beach, Painter grated, “This would be a good time not to fall asleep, Heinemann. I’m in the phone book, and if anybody wants to find out where I live they can look it up.”

  “I’m wide awake, Chief,” Heinemann said.

  “Check the foyer.”

  Heinemann looked inside the vestibule and up and down the sidewalk. He kept one hand on his gun while Painter left the Cadillac and entered the building. Alone in the automatic elevator, Painter allowed himself to slump forward to ease the tension at the base of his spine. He probed the affected area, wincing. Worse than the pain was the recollection of the faint hint of amusement at the corner of Rose Heminway’s mouth. But he couldn’t really blame her. He hadn’t thought it was funny himself, but to an observer it had probably been one of the funniest pratfalls since Buster Keaton was in his prime.

  The elevator took him to the eighth floor. Determined not to let the pain slow him down, he walked briskly down the corridor, feeling in his pockets for his keys. He had a lot to do, if he was going to be ready by the time Mike Shayne appeared on the scene. He sorted out his door-key and half-raised it as he came to his door.

  He stopped, surprised. The door was slightly ajar. He reached for the doorknob, but checked himself, a wary expression on his face. He listened. He put his keys away, took out his .38 and snapped off the safety. He listened again, then gave the door a quick push and stepped back against the wall.

  Nothing happened. All the lights were on in his living room. Moving with great care, he slid around the edge of the door and stopped, appalled. Several drawers of his desk had been pulled out and dumped on the floor. The pillows had been pulled off the sofa and the chairs. Pictures had been yanked from the walls, the carpet had been thrown back. Looking around at this shambles, he felt a slow rage begin to build up inside him.

  He went through the door into the bedroom, moving according to the manual, slowly at first, then fast. This room too, had been visited by the same strong wind. The lock on his three-drawer filing cabinet had been forced, and the drawers had been pulled out. Even now, before he checked to see if the Sam Harris file was missing, his policeman’s instinct told him to look into the bathroom and the closets and to be sure that no one was concealed on the fire escape. Only then did he put away his gun and crouch beside the lowermost drawer. He had been swearing savagely under his breath, but now he had stopped. This was beyond the reach of words.

  Suddenly there was a low moan behind him.

  Painter dove to one side, very fast, and grabbed at the .38. He was in a bad position and the gun stuck in its holster. For an instant he thought it wouldn’t come out, and he felt the beginnings of panic. He was trapped! He worried at the harness with his left hand and went on yanking at the gun until it broke free. He was lying on his side near the foot of his bed. There was another moan, more nearly a sigh. Painter inched forward, pushing the gun ahead of him, and saw a man’s shoe.

  “Don’t move!” he said, his voice rising.

  He came to one knee. He was wound up tight. The bedding had been thrown off the bed and a man was lying behind the untidy pile, partly hidden by it. Painter straightened carefully, his trigger-finger tense, ready to fire. He went on moving until he could see the man’s face.

  It was pitted with tiny pockmarks. There was an ugly gash on one temple, and that whole side of his face was a mass of blood. His eyes were open, but they seemed glazed. Painter had never seen him before.

  He kicked the bedclothes aside. He could see both of the man’s hands now. One of the hands twitched and he said sharply, “I told you not to move, and that’s what I meant.”

  When he saw that both hands were empty, he went on taking a policeman’s precautions, patting the man in the various places where a gun can be carried. Then he returned his .38 to its holster.

  He went down into a crouch. “Who are you?” he demanded.

  The man breathed in and out with great effort. “Painter?” he whispered.

  “What about it?”

  “I’m—Gray. McNarney Committee.”

  His voice was so faint that Painter was barely able to catch the words. He rocked back on his heels. The McNarney Committee! At the moment the McNarney Committee was making headlines with an investigation of labor racketeering, but how in God’s name had they got wind of this? Apparently they could smell a front-page story all the way from Washington, D. C. Now Painter really had to hurry, or it would get away from him. He knew his limitations. He couldn’t compete with a standing committee of the United States Senate, with its access to the newspapers, unlimited funds, its staff of investigators and lawyers.

  “Who slugged you?” he said hoarsely.

  The man gestured with one hand. “Big. Rugged. Red hair.”

  “A redhead?” Painter exclaimed.

  Gray made a small hurt sound. He touched his temple, then looked at the blood on his fingers. He moaned again and tried to come to his elbows, but the effort was too much for him and he fell back.

  Painter gripped his shirtfront with both hands.

  “Now take your time,” he said urgently. “Tell me what happened.”

  Gray gathered himself to speak. “Door open.”

  “Yes?” Painter said impatiently when the injured man stopped to breathe heavily. “The door was open. Somebody was inside?”

  Gray gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Went in. Dumb, no gun. Man—behind door. Just one punch. Like kick of a mule. Fell. Hit my head.”

  “Now listen to me,” Painter said, tightening his grip. “I’ll get you an ambulance in a minute, but before I go off half-cocked I have to be a hundred percent sure. Was this guy six feet and a couple of inches, big shoulders—” He stopped. He had a vivid picture of Mike Shayne in his mind’s eye—he probably thought about the rangy private detective more than was good for his mental health—but describing him in a hurry was a hard thing to do. “Solid, all bone and muscle. Deep lines on his face. There’s a little gray in that red hair now. I don’t know, damn it—he’s the kind of man the girls go for, for some strange reason.”

  The man on the floor nodded, and the nod turned into a tremor that he couldn’t control. “Who is he?”

  “Who is he?” Painter cried triumphantly. “That’s Michael Shayne, man, and this is one time he’s going to wish he’d never tangled with me. Don’t die, please, Gray. Get well. I’m going to need your testimony.” He gave a happy little chortle. “When I’m done with the son of a
bitch, he’ll be selling live bait to the tourists in Bay Front Park.”

  He seized the phone and began to dial, but in his excitement his finger slipped and he had to start over. This time he did it right, and in a moment he was connected with Beach headquarters.

  “Painter,” he snapped. “I’m at home. I want Joe Wing and two men up here right away. And get out a pick-up call on Mike Shayne to all cars.”

  “Who, Chief?” the sergeant asked. “Shayne?”

  “What do you want me to do, spell it for you? Breaking and entering, and assault with intent to kill. I don’t want them to park outside his hotel and hope he’ll show up. I want them to look for him. He drives a black Buick. License number—” He thought for a moment and dictated a number, which was another of the numerous facts about Shayne that he kept in his head, in the hope that sometime they would prove useful. “I don’t want a single car to stay in the garage. Put it strong when you tell the boys across the Bay, because those bastards have been known to get forgetful all of a sudden where Mike Shayne is concerned.”

  “Ambulance,” Gray said weakly.

  “Yeah, and I want an ambulance,” Painter said.

  Suddenly he heard a heavy hammering noise from the street below. He exclaimed, “Was that a shot?”

  Gray’s head had lifted. Painter thrust his hand inside his coat. Before either of them could speak, there were two more sharp pistol shots and Painter threw the phone back on its cradle. Gray tried to fight forward, but he fell back and his eyes closed.

  “Shayne?” he whispered.

  “We’ll find out,” Painter said grimly, drawing his gun.

  He ran into the other room, hearing Gray call weakly, “Good—hunting.”

  He sprinted to the elevator. As always happened when he wanted it in a hurry, it was being used by somebody else. He kept his thumb on the button, hearing the soft, patient whir of the machinery. It rose to the top floor, stayed there for what seemed to Painter an incredibly long time, and started down at last, moving slowly and unhurriedly.

  When it finally arrived, one of his fellow-tenants was inside, an elderly maiden lady who gasped excitedly when she saw the bared gun.

  “Mr. Painter! Is anything wrong?”

  “Possible, madam,” he snarled. “Very possible.”

  The elevator resumed its calm descent. She wet her lips.

  “Perhaps you’d better let me off?”

  He exclaimed in annoyance, and his hand started toward the control panel. She said quickly, “No, on second thoughts. I wouldn’t ever forgive myself. Certain people I could mention are going to have a fit when I tell them about it. Who are you after, if I may ask?”

  “That’s neither here nor there,” Painter said gruffly. “Stand back, please. And don’t leave the elevator under any circumstances.”

  “Goodness!”

  The door opened. As Painter burst out into the lobby he crashed into an old man who was waiting. He untangled himself with difficulty. The old lady called out, “He’s chasing somebody, Henry! Did you ever expect a thing like that to happen right here in the Royal Palms?”

  “He’s being damned clumsy about it, I must say,” the old man said.

  Painter ran out to the street. Heinemann was nowhere in sight.

  “Heinemann!” Painter yelled.

  He was answered by another quick shot, coming from the direction of Collins Avenue. He dashed toward the corner, but checked himself abruptly and was careful going around it. He ducked into a store entrance.

  This was usually a busy part of town, but there was nothing moving on the sidewalk now but a solitary cat. Several people cowered behind benches on the surfside. On the road itself the usual night-time traffic continued to roll. Painter was about to leave his shelter when a tall, hatless figure ran toward a parked car with a gun in his hand. As he passed beneath a street light Painter saw the set of the broad shoulders and the red hair. Nobody, he thought, but Mike Shayne had shoulders like that, combined with hair that particular shade.

  Painter darted after him, but he realized almost at once that he couldn’t make it. His quarry jumped into the car. The motor came to life. It was a black Buick, and as it shot away from the curb, Painter saw the familiar license number. He levelled his gun, aiming at a tire. But before he could fire the Buick slid smoothly into the line of traffic. Painter swore and raced back around the corner toward his unattended Cadillac.

  “Heinemann!” he shouted again. “Goddam it, where the hell are you?”

  There was no answer. As he ran, he sorted out the duplicate ignition key from the others in his pocket. Giving one last frantic look around for his driver, he leaped in and fumbled the key into the ignition. The powerful motor responded with a full-throated roar. Painter wrenched at the wheel, hitting the gas hard. He touched the knob controlling the siren, but didn’t activate it. Not yet. If Shayne was held up at the next red light, Painter might be able to get on his tail and find out where he was going. If not, using the siren and the blinkers, he would run him off the road.

  He turned the corner on the outside of his tires, leaving a smear behind him on the pavement. A line of cars was waiting for the light. For a moment he thought the Buick wasn’t among them. He closed the gap very fast, and by edging over the double line down the middle of the street he saw the car he wanted, first in line.

  Painter chuckled to himself, leaning tensely over the wheel. Shayne had got away with some pretty tricky operations over the years, many of them at Painter’s expense. But not this time, Painter promised himself. Not this time. He was going to make the big redhead wish he had taken up some different line of work, and had never had the bad luck to run afoul of Chief-of-Detectives Peter Painter.

  Chapter Three

  A few minutes after five the next morning, Michael Shayne wheeled his Buick into a parking slot near his apartment hotel on the north bank of the Miami River. He looked at his watch and gave a relaxed snort of laughter. Five a.m. This had been a night!

  He switched off his lights, noticing that he hadn’t really needed the full beam for the last ten minutes. The sun was about due. He took the key out of the ignition and cranked up the windows. As he stepped out onto the street, slamming the door, a thin young man moved up against him swiftly and hit him in the lower ribs with the muzzle of a pistol.

  “Stand still!” he said almost eagerly.

  Shayne froze, his hands out in the dim light. From that position he could chop upward with his elbow at his assailant’s throat, but he could feel the young man’s tension, and he did what he had been ordered to do: he held still.

  Another man appeared around the front of the car. Shayne knew this one.

  “Joe Wing,” he said, and let himself relax slightly. “It’s nice to see a familiar face. I thought this was a stick-up.”

  “Don’t say anything, Mike,” Wing said.

  He was a lean lieutenant with a nervous manner and an emaciated-looking face, a good cop who in Shayne’s opinion deserved a better fate than having to work under Peter Painter. He went over Shayne carefully for weapons.

  “What’s the theory, Joe?” Shayne said. “I’ve gone to work for the Mafia?”

  Joe Wing stepped back. “When I said not to say anything, that’s what I meant. I want you to answer some questions. I don’t want you to ask any. Where have you been all night?”

  Shayne lowered his big hands. “Around,” he said. “But I’m not very good at answering questions when somebody’s pointing a gun at me. It makes me restless.”

  After a moment’s thought Wing nodded, and the gun went back in its holster. “Now I’ll say it again,” he said. “Where have you been all night?”

  “Playing poker,” Shayne told him.

  “Playing poker,” Wing repeated. “That’s a nice sociable activity. When did the game get underway?”

  “Come on, now,” Shayne said brusquely. “You’ve been working out of Painter’s office so long you’re beginning to sound like him. You’ve got the look o
f a man who’s been awake all night. I’ve been on all-night stakeouts myself, and I know they don’t improve the disposition. But it doesn’t improve mine to have a gun shoved in my ribs, either, especially when it’s a rookie who’s doing the shoving, and he’s a little tense. If the police department’s in trouble I’ll be glad to cooperate, but I’d like to be asked politely. Take me in, if that’s the way you want to handle it. You might be able to hold me as long as twenty-four hours, if you’re lucky, and you can ask a lot of questions in that time. I doubt if you’d get any answers. That’s one way. The other way is to come upstairs and have a drink and start fresh.”

  Wing pushed his hat off his forehead. He stared at Shayne for a long moment.

  “All right, Mike,” he said wearily. “I could argue about it, but we’d probably end up doing it your way, as usual. I Want those answers, and if the only way I can get them is by sitting down in a comfortable chair and drinking your liquor, I guess I’ll just have to force myself. Call in, Thompson,” he told the other detective. “The big manhunt is over. Tell them to locate Heinemann and have him report here.”

  “Manhunt, eh?” Shayne said. “Have I been keeping you up?”

  Wing didn’t answer.

  Another detective, a veteran named LaBanca, came out of a City of Miami radio cruiser parked across the street. Lieutenant Wing and the other Beach detectives were outside their jurisdiction here. They could only operate on this side of the bay with the approval of the Miami department. Will Gentry, the Miami chief of police, was a friend of Shayne’s, and the redhead knew that Gentry wouldn’t have given his approval unless it was something serious. His eyes narrowed.

  “Hello, Mike,” LaBanca said. “Nice to have you show up. Now maybe we can all go home and get some sleep.”

  Joe Wing said, “I wouldn’t count on that. First we’re going upstairs to Shayne’s room and see what he has to offer in the way of schnapps. I mean that’s what I’m going to do. I’d appreciate it if you’ll keep your hands free. If Shayne makes any wrong moves, I want you to hit him with something hard.”