Dead Man's Diary & A Taste for Cognac

by Brett Halliday

  “Yes. Except when he’s in court, of course.”

  “Was he in court last Tuesday?”

  “Tuesday? I’m sure he wasn’t.”

  “That’s queer. I tried to phone him twice during the day and he was out both times.”

  The woman frowned uncertainly, then her face cleared. “Tuesday! Of course. How stupid of me. He was out all day with a client.”

  Shayne lifted his hat and went out. He drove north on Miami Avenue to Chunky’s place and went in. A couple of men were seated halfway down the counter. Shayne took the stool by the cash register and Chunky drifted up to him after a few moments. He leaned his elbows on the counter, selected a toothpick from a bowl, and began picking at his teeth. He murmured, “Looks like somebody prettied you up las’ night.”

  “Yeah. Some of the boys got playful,” he said good-naturedly. “Look, I’m still hunting a line on John Grossman. Pug or Slim been in?”

  “Ain’t seen ’em. Grossman usta have a fishin’ place south of Homestead.”

  “Think he went up there after he was paroled?”

  “Good place to hole up,” said Chunky. “I know he stayed in town just one night.”

  Shayne got up and went out, leaving a dollar at the place where he had been sitting. There was a public telephone in the cheap hotel next door. He called Timothy Rourke’s home number and waited patiently until the ringing awoke the reporter. He said, “There’s about be a Caesarean operation.”

  Rourke gurgled sleepily, “What the hell?”

  “On that baby we were talking about in your morgue this morning.”

  “That you, Mike?”

  “Doctor Shayne. Specializing in obstetrics.”

  “Hey! Is it due to break?”

  “It’s coming to a head fast. Get dressed and hunt up Will Gentry if you want some headlines. Don’t, for God’s sake, tell him I tipped you, but stick to him like a leech.” Shayne hung up and drove to Renaldo’s saloon.

  Blackie jumped up nervously from his seat beside Renaldo’s desk when Shayne pushed the door open. He sucked in his breath and stared with bulging eyes at the result of his work on the detective’s face, while his hand instinctively went to his hip pocket.

  Behind him, Lennie leaned against the wall with his hand in his coat pocket. Lennie’s features were lax and his eyes were filmed like a dead man’s. The left side of his pallid face twitched uncontrollably as Shayne looked at him.

  Seated behind the desk, chewing savagely on a cigar, Henry Renaldo looked fearfully from the boys to Shayne. He said, “I don’t know what you’re up to, Mike. The boys didn’t much like the idea—”

  Shayne closed the door and laughed heartily. He said, “Hell, there’s no hard feelings. I’m still alive and kicking.”

  Blackie drew in another deep breath. He essayed a nervous smile. “We thought maybe you was sore.”

  Shayne said gently, “You got a pretty heavy foot, Blackie.”

  “Yeah.” Blackie hung his head like a small boy being reprimanded. “But you come bustin’ in with a gun, an’ Jeez! what’d you expect?”

  “That was my mistake,” Shayne admitted. “I always run into trouble when I pack a rod. That’s why I’m clean now.” He lifted his arms away from his sides. “Want to shake me down?”

  “That’s all right.” Renaldo laughed with false heartiness. “No harm done, I guess. The boys’ll forget it if you will.”

  “Whatcha want with us?” Lennie demanded thinly.

  “I need your help,” Shayne said bluntly. “I’ve run into something too big for me to handle, and after seeing you guys in action last night I think you’re the ones I need.”

  “That’s white of you,” Blackie mumbled.

  “I never hold a grudge if it’s going to cost me money,” Shayne told them briskly. “Here’s the lay.” He spoke directly to Renaldo. “I can put my hands on plenty of French cognac—same as the case you bought last night. And this won’t cost us a hundred a case. It won’t cost us anything if we play it right.”

  Renaldo licked his lips. “So the old captain did talk before he died?”

  “Not to me. I got onto it from another angle. Interested?”

  “Why are you cutting us in?” Renaldo protested. “Sounds like some kind of come-on to me.”

  “I need help,” Shayne said smoothly. “There’s another mug in my way and he’s got a couple of torpedoes gunning for me. I need a couple of lads like Blackie and Lennie to handle that angle. After that’s cleared up, I still need somebody with the right connections like you, Renaldo. I haven’t any setup for handling sales. You know all the angles from ’way back. And since you put me onto it in the first place I thought you might as well have part of the gravy. Hell, there’s plenty for all of us,” he added generously. “A whole shipload of that same stuff.”

  “Sounds all right,” Renaldo admitted cautiously.

  “I’m the only one standing in this other guy’s way,” Shayne explained. “So he plans to put me on the spot. I’ve got a date to meet him out in the country this morning, and I know he’ll have a couple of quick-trigger boys on hand to blast me out of the picture.” He turned to Blackie. “That’s where you and Lennie come in. I’m not handing you anything on a platter. This is hot, and if you’re scared of it just say so and I’ll find someone else.”

  Blackie grunted contemptuously. “Lennie and me can take care of ourselves, I reckon.”

  “That’s what I thought after last night. Both of you ironed?”

  “Sure. When do we start?”

  “Well, that’s it,” Shayne told Renaldo. “You sit tight until the shooting’s over. If things work out right we’ll do a four-way split and there should be plenty of grands to go around. I’m guessing at five hundred cases, but there may be more,” he ended casually.

  Renaldo took his cigar from his mouth and wet his lips. “Sounds plenty good to me. You boys willing to go along?”

  Both of them nodded.

  Shayne said briskly, “We’d better get started. I’m due south of Homestead at eleven o’clock.” He led the way out to his car and opened the back door. “Maybe both of you will feel better if you ride in back where you can keep an eye on me.”

  “We ain’t worryin’ none about you,” Blackie assured him, but they both got in the back seat while Shayne settled himself under the wheel.

  In the rear-view mirror he could see the pair conferring together earnestly. Both sides of Lennie’s face were getting the twitches and his hands trembled violently when he lit a cigarette. He took only a couple of drags on it, then screwed up his face in disgust and threw it out.

  Shayne said sympathetically to Blackie, “Your pal doesn’t seem to feel so hot this morning.”

  “He’s all right,” Blackie muttered. “Sorta got the shakes is all.”

  Shayne said, “He’d better get over them before the shooting starts.”

  Lennie caught Blackie’s arm and whispered something in his ear. Blackie cleared his throat and admitted uneasily, “Tell you what. He could use somethin’ to steady him all right. You know.”

  Shayne said, “Sure. I know. Any place around here we could pick up a bindle?”

  “Sure thing,” Lennie said, violently eager. “Couple of blocks ahead. If I had two bucks.”

  Shayne drove on two blocks and pulled up to the curb. He passed four one-dollar bills back to Lennie and suggested, “Get two bindles, why don’t you? One to pick you up now and the other for just before the fun starts.”

  Lennie grabbed the money and scrambled out of the car. He hurried up the street and darted into a stairway entrance.

  Blackie laughed indulgently as he watched him disappear. “You hadn’t orta give him the price of two bindles,” he reproved Shayne. “He’ll be plenty high in an hour from now on one. ’Nother one on top of it will pull him tight as a fiddle string. Like he was last night,” he added darkly.

  Shayne said, “I want him in shape to throw lead fast. Those boy who’ll be waiting for me
may not waste much time getting acquainted.” He lit a cigarette and slouched back in the seat.

  Lennie came trotting back in about five minutes. His pinched face was alive and eager and his eyes glowed like live coals. He slid in beside Blackie and breathed exultantly, “Le’s get goin’. Jeez, is my trigger finger itchin’.”

  Shayne drove swiftly south on Flagler, past Coral Gables and on to the village of South Miami, then along the Key West highway through the rich truck-farming section with its acres of tomatoes and bean fields stretching in every direction as far as the eye could see.

  By the time they reached the sleepy village of Homestead with its quiet, tree-shadowed streets and its air of serene dignity, Shayne began to feel as though he were the one who had sniffed a bindle instead of Lennie. There was a driving, demanding tension within him. It was always this way when he played a hunch through to the finish. He had planned the best he could and it was up to the gods now. He couldn’t turn back. He didn’t want to turn back. The approach of personal danger keyed him to a high pitch, and he exulted in the gamble he was taking. Things like this were what made life worth living to Michael Shayne.

  He drove decorously through Homestead and looked at his watch. It was a quarter to eleven. He stopped at a filling station on the outskirts of the village where the first dirt road turned off the paved highway to the left. He told Blackie and Lennie, “I’ll be just a minute,” and swung out of the car to speak to a smiling old man in faded overalls and a wide straw hat.

  “Does the bus stop here, Pop?”

  “Sometimes. Yep. If there’s passengers to get on or off. ’Tain’t a reg’lar stop.”

  “How about yesterday? Any passengers stop here?”

  “Yestiddy? Yep. The old sailor feller got off here to go a-fishin’.” The old man chuckled. “Right nice old feller, but seemed like he was turned around, sort of. Didn’t know how far ’twas to the Keys. Had him a suitcase, too, full of fishin’ tackle I reckon. Him an’ me made a deal to rent my tin Lizzie for the day and he drove off fishin’ as spry as you please. No luck though. Didn’ have nary a fish when he came back.”

  Shayne thanked him and went back to his car. That was the last definite link. He didn’t need it, but it was always good to have added confirmation. He wouldn’t have bothered to stop if he hadn’t had a few minutes to spare.

  He got in and turned down the dirt road running straight and level between a wasteland of palmetto and pine on either side.

  “This is it,” he told the boys calmly. “Couple of miles to where I’m supposed to meet these birds, but they might be hiding out along the road waiting for me. You’d both better get down in the back where you can’t be seen.”

  “We won’t be no good to you that way,” Blackie protested, “if they’re hid out along the road to pick you off.”

  “They’ll just pick all three of us off if you guys are in sight too,” Shayne argued reasonably. “I don’t think they’ll try anything till we get there, and I want them to think I came alone so they’ll be off guard. Get down and stay down until the shooting starts or until I yell or give you some signal. Then come out like firecrackers.”

  The two gunmen got down in the back. Shayne drove along at a moderate speed, watching his speedometer. It was lonely and quiet on this desolate road leading to the coast. There were no houses, no other cars on the road. It was a perfect setting for murder.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A narrower and less-used road turned off to the right at the end of exactly two miles. A wooden arrow which had once been painted white, pointed west, and dingy black letters said: LODGE.

  Shayne turned westward and slowed his car still more as it bumped along the uneven ruts. Sunlight lay hot and white on the narrow lane between the pines, and the smell of the sea told him he was approaching one of the salt-water inlets.

  The car panted over a little rise and saw the weathered rock walls of John Grossman’s fishing lodge through the pines on the left. It was a low, sprawling structure, and a pair of ruts turned off abruptly to lead up to it.

  Two men stepped into the middle of the lane to block his way when he was fifty feet from the building. This was so exactly what Shayne had expected that he cut his motor and braked to an easy stop with the front bumper almost touching the men.

  He leaned out of the window and asked, “This John Grossman’s place?” then opened the door and stepped out quickly to show that he was unarmed and to prevent them from coming to the car where they would see Lennie and Blackie crouched in the back.

  One of the men was very tall and thin, with cadaverous features and deep hollows for eye sockets. He wore a beautifully tailored suit of silk pongee with a tan shirt and shoes, and a light tan snap-brimmed felt hat. He had his arms folded across his thin chest. His right hand was inside the lapel of his unbuttoned coat close to a bulge just below his left shoulder. His face was darkly sun-tanned and he showed white teeth in a saturnine smile as he stood in the middle of the road without moving.

  His companion was a head shorter than Slim. He had a broad, pugnacious face with a flat nose spread over a lot of it. He was hatless and coatless, wearing a shirt with loud yellow stripes, with elastic armbands making tucks in the full sleeves. He stood flat-footed with his hand openly gripping the butt of a revolver thrust down behind the waistband of his trousers.

  Shayne stood beside the car and surveyed them coolly. He said, “I don’t think we’ve met formally. I’m Shayne.”

  Pug said, “Yeah. We know. This here’s Slim.” He jerked the thumb of his left hand toward his tall companion.

  Shayne said, “I thought this was a social call. Where’s Grossman?”

  “He sent us out to see you were clean before you come in.” Slim’s lips barely moved to utter the words. He sauntered around the front of the car toward Shayne, keeping his hand inside his coat. His deep-set eyes were cold and glittered like polished agate. His head was thrust forward on a long, thin neck.

  Shayne took two backward steps. He said, “I’m clean. I came out to talk business. This is a hell of a way to greet a guy.”

  Pug moved behind Slim. He was obviously the slower wilted and the less dangerous of the pair. He blinked in the bright sunlight and said, “Why don’t we let ’im have it here?”

  Slim said, “We do.” He smiled, and Shayne knew he was a man who enjoyed watching his victims die.

  Shayne pretended he didn’t hear or didn’t understand the byplay between the two killers. They had both moved to the side of the car now and were circling slowly toward him.

  Shayne said, “I brought along some cold beer. It’s here in the back.” He reached for the handle of the rear door and turned it steadily until the latch was free. He flung himself to the ground, jerking the door wide open as he did so.

  Slim’s gun flashed at the same instant that fire blazed from the back seat. Slim staggered back and dropped to one knee, steadying his gun to return the fire.

  Shayne lay flat on the ground and saw Pug spin around from the impact of a .45 slug in his thick shoulder, but Pug stayed on his feet and his own gun rained bullets into the tonneau.

  Slim fired twice before a bullet smashed the saturnine grin back into his mouth. He crumpled slowly forward onto the sunlit pine needles and lay very still.

  Pug went down at almost the same instant with a look of complete bewilderment on his broad face. He dropped his revolver and put both hands over his belly, lacing his stubby fingers together tightly. He sank to a sitting position with his legs doubled under him, and swayed there for a moment before toppling over on his side.

  There was no more shooting. And there was no sound from the back of the car.

  Shayne got up stiffly and began dusting the dirt from his clothes. He heard shouts and looked up to see excited men filtering through the trees and coming from behind the lodge to converge on the car.

  He saw that both Blackie and Lennie were quite dead. Blackie lay with his body sprawled half out on the running-board, his gun ha
nd trailing in the dirt. Blood trickled from two holes in his yellow polo shirt, and his mouth was open.

  Lennie was crouched on the floor behind Blackie and there was a gaping hole where his right eye had been. His thin features were composed and he looked more at peace with the world than Shayne had ever seen him look before.

  Will Gentry came puffing up behind Shayne, his red face suffused and perspiring. A tall, black-mustached man wearing the clothes of a farmer and carrying a rifle was close behind him. Other men were dressed like farmers, and Shayne recognized half a dozen of them as Gentry’s plain-clothes detectives. He saw Rourke’s grinning face and had time to give the reporter a quick nod of recognition before Gentry caught his arm and pulled him around angrily, demanding, “What the bloody blazes are you pulling off here, Mike?”

  “I? Nothing.” Shayne arched his red brows at the Chief of Detectives. “Can I help it if some damned hoods choose this place to settle one of their feuds?” He stepped back and waved toward the rear of the car. “Couple of hitch-hikers I picked up. Why don’t you ask them why they started shooting?”

  “They’re both dead,” Gentry asserted angrily after a quick survey. “And the other two?” He started around the car.

  “This one’s still alive,” Rourke called out cheerfully, kneeling beside Pug. “But I don’t think he will be long.”

  Shayne sauntered around behind Gentry. Blood was seeping between Pug’s fingers, but his eyes were open when Gentry shook him and demanded to know where Grossman was.

  “Inside. Cellar.” Pug’s voice was low and hoarse.

  “You—Yancy and Marks,” Gentry directed two of his men. “Stay here and get a statement from him. Find out what this shooting is about. Everything. The rest of you fan out and surround the house. Take it careful and be ready to shoot. The real criminal is in there.”

  Shayne took Gentry’s place beside Pug as Gentry moved away to direct the placing of his men around the lodge. He leaned close to the dying man and asked, “Where’s the girl, Pug? The girl. Where is she?”