Guilty as Hell

by Brett Halliday

  His eyes flickered at Shayne’s cast and his hand shot toward the glove compartment. Shayne raised the cast and waited. Jake touched the glove compartment button, the little door fell open, and Shayne moved the cast forward and upward, slapping him on the temple with the brass knuckles.

  He sat back, stunned. Shayne felt inside the glove compartment and brought out a Walther .38, one of the prettiest of the European handguns.

  Jake mumbled something while the detective lit a cigarette.

  “Take your time,” Shayne said. “I’m in no hurry.”

  He smoked in silence. Jake recovered gradually. He was functioning again by the time Shayne finished his cigarette and stubbed it out against his heel.

  Jake touched his forehead and looked for blood on his fingers. “What did you have to do that for? I didn’t do anything.”

  “I can’t really believe that,” Shayne remarked.

  Working the slide of the little Belgian automatic with one hand, he checked to be sure it was loaded. Then he brought it around in the flat of his right hand and slapped Jake with it.

  Jake yelped. He came down hard on the door handle and hurled himself sideward. Shayne raked out with the hook, which snagged in Jake’s pants. Jake didn’t understand what was holding him, and he went on trying to get away. The hook ripped through his pants and buried itself in the soft flesh of his thigh.

  “Close the door,” Shayne said coldly. “I’m feeling less good-natured every minute.”

  Jake eased back in, going with the pull. As he came all the way in the light went off. He put both hands on Shayne’s cast and tried to work it toward him. Shayne dropped his elbow and the hook dug in deeper.

  “Please,” Jake begged. “Shayne, don’t—that’s—they weren’t supposed to do anything to you last night but tap you a couple. When I get hold of that Whitey, I’ll break him in two.”

  “What about this setup with Deedee?”

  Jake’s weight shifted back against the door and the light blinked on. There was a look of intense alarm on his face.

  “Shayne, what are you, anyway?” he cried frantically. “How did you find out about that?” The light went off. “It’s not how it looks! Give me a break! Don’t pull so hard. It wasn’t a real frame. We didn’t play it to stick. She just wanted us to keep you wrapped up a few days.”

  “Who?”

  “Miss Morse! Miss Morse! Take the hook out, will you, please? Any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them.”

  “Whose idea was the whip?”

  “Hers. She mapped out the whole goddamn thing, the whip, the dialogue. I don’t claim to be any great brain.”

  “How long have you worked for her?”

  “Off and on. One year, two years.”

  “Fifty thousand bucks,” Shayne said. “April twenty-third.”

  “How would I know?” Jake demanded. “She wrote it down for Deedee to say on the phone. We figured it for a come-on, to make sure you showed up. Like that crack about murder. Who’s been murdered? What fifty thousand? The kind of dough I’ve been seeing is a hell of a lot less than fifty, believe me.”

  “April twenty-third,” Shayne repeated. “Think about it.”

  “I did think about it! I thought about it all afternoon. I planted Deedee on Jose Despard along around the first of April. If anything happened the twenty-third, I don’t know what. That’s six months back! The kind of memory I’ve got, I’m lucky if I remember last week.”

  “When you planted Deedee how?”

  “Well, I found out he likes them that age, so I asked at her high school if anybody might be interested. He thought he raped her—she’s only supposed to be fourteen. Shayne, I’m bleeding like a pig, you know that? You want me to bleed to death?”

  “It can’t be that bad yet,” Shayne said. “How soon did you take the pictures?”

  “Right away, right away. On the first night, when he thought he raped her. I’m no photographer, but they come out great. I thought it was strictly a one-shot, but when I turn over the pix, they tell me to string him along, Despard.”

  “That brings us back to the twenty-third of April.”

  “I’m telling you! Miss Morse pulled a date out of the hat, to make it sound better. Be human, can’t you, Shayne? With that hook in my leg, don’t you think I’d tell you if I remembered? There’s a main artery in there somewhere.”

  Shayne opened the door to turn on the light again. Jake was sweating in the chilly air. His mouth twitched as Shayne looked at the spot where the hook went into his leg.

  “I think I missed it by about a quarter of an inch,” Shayne said. “Don’t make me nervous. My hands shake when people lie to me.”

  Jake clapped both hands on top of Shayne’s cast to hold it steady. “I’m not lying! I’m down at the bottom of this operation. ‘Why’ is a question I never ask. All I ask is ‘How?’ and ‘How much does the job pay?’ If I started asking ‘Why,’ they’d get themselves somebody with a smaller mouth. Take for example, did Hal Begley or Miss Morse tell me why they wanted you jammed up with Deedee? Like hell they told me.”

  “I see we’ll have to sit here a while longer,” Shayne said. “I’m going to light another cigarette. Try not to move.”

  He shook a cigarette out of the package and lit it with the dashboard lighter. The hook changed position slightly and grated against bone. Jake whimpered.

  “Don’t tell them I told you,” he said hopelessly. “Those Begleys, I don’t like to be in the same town with them and be on bad terms. But I’m flesh and blood. They got me the job at the club, like the middle of April.”

  “What club?”

  “North Miami Country, tending bar. And they give me a list of names. They want me behind the stick so I can make book on certain members. In that location I know who’s in the club, when they come in, when they go out.”

  “Was Despard on the list?”

  “Sure. The whole bunch from that company. Langhorne—he’s on the board of governors. Hallam, Jr. The whole outfit. Jackson, Hill, Ringley. Christ, I don’t know—eight, nine. I still got the list at home. When one of those certain characters came in, I was supposed to mark it down. When he went out, mark it down.”

  “For how long?”

  “A week, ten days.”

  “All you did was clock eight or nine people in and out?” Shayne said thoughtfully.

  “That’s all,” Jake said without hesitation.

  The promptness of the reply told Shayne there was more to come. He continued to smoke. Jake glanced at him quickly, and glanced away. He stood it for one more moment, then burst out, “I had to check a certain locker!”

  “Yeah,” Shayne said. “Whose?”

  “An empty locker, it wasn’t rented to anybody. Miss Morse gave me the number and combination. When nobody was using the locker room, I ducked in and looked to see if a package was in that locker, and wrote down the time.”

  “That’s fine,” Shayne said with no change of expression. “And one day there was a package.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you take it out or leave it?”

  “I left it. They wouldn’t trust me with anything high level—I told you. I notified her.”

  “Is Begley a member of the club?”

  “He has a card. The next day, same thing. I kept checking the locker. No package. A while later, package. A while after that, no package again. I wrote it down.”

  “Now get set for the big question,” Shayne said.

  “Don’t ask me,” Jake said earnestly. “I don’t know the answer! But I know what you’re trying to establish—I didn’t just get in from the boondocks, after all. I know they’re in the spy business, and somebody from Despard’s put a package in the locker. Begley picked it up. Begley put a package of money in and somebody picked that up. But I don’t know who! They were coming and going all the time, both days. Oh, I ruled out a couple. Hill and Jackson I crossed off in my own mind, they weren’t in the club either day. I could make up a name fo
r you and get off the hook, but what good would it do? Off the hook,” he said sardonically, “funny joke, Fitch. When you found out I was faking, you’d come looking for me, and to face facts, I think you’d probably find me.”

  “Why did you stay at the club afterward?”

  “It’s a job. She didn’t want me to quit right away, so it wouldn’t look suspicious. That’s the whole bit, Shayne. Now the next thing we want to do is get this leg to a doctor’s, don’t we?”

  He made a small sound, and Shayne turned to follow his look, letting the overhead light blink off.

  Two men approached. Shayne recognized one of them. It was the vice-squad detective named Vince Camilli. He was tieless, but he wore a jacket over his gun, which he used far too often. He had a handsome dark face, a loose mouth. He was the department’s top scorer in both homosexual and prostitution arrests, and Shayne was sure that the total included many entrapment cases using fabricated evidence, as well as shakedowns that had failed to pay off.

  Camilli spoke to his partner, a weedy young man in a sports shirt, who was trying to raise a mustache. Shayne pulled the end of the sling down over the buried hook.

  The younger cop held back while Camilli came up to the driver’s side of the DeSoto and made a cranking gesture. Jake rolled down the window.

  “Something wrong, Camilli?” he said nervously.

  The detective reached in with his left hand, on which he wore a rough signet ring, and ground the ring against Jake’s face.

  “Next time check it out first, will you? We looked like a couple of bums in there.”

  “You had the right apartment, nine C?”

  “We had the right apartment. What do you think this is, Fitch, amateur night?”

  “I just got this tip, that’s all. I passed it on the way I heard it.”

  “The apartment’s rented to the vice-president of a manufacturing firm. His credentials are perfectly O.K.”

  Jake had his hand on the door. Without haste, Camilli pulled out his police special and slammed it down on the other’s fingers. Jake snatched his hand back inside the car with a cry.

  “A couple of people have won suits for false arrest lately,” Camilli went on, “and this town is full of lawyers.”

  He pulled the door open enough to trip the dome switch, and looked in. “Mike Shayne,” he said, surprised. “Well, well, Mr. Bill of Rights in person, the guy who thinks queers and floozies are covered by the United States Constitution.”

  “Back to work, Camilli,” Shayne said. “There are hustlers out all over town and here you are taking things easy.”

  Camilli scowled. “This begins to make sense. You think I can’t smell a frame when I stick my nose in it? Let me tell you something. I’m making a mental note, Shayne. The next time you want somebody taken care of, let me handle it for you. But bring me in on the planning, will you? Don’t spring it on me, just to get out of it cheap.”

  “You’re through here, aren’t you, Camilli?”

  “For the time being. I said to myself when I watched that performance of yours on TV tonight, I said to myself, what do you know? Shayne has been reached. Not that I expect you to tell me the ins and outs, because I’m only a poor, lowly copper.”

  He straightened, then stooped again to give Shayne a hard look. Shayne returned it. Camilli picked up his partner and they walked off together.

  “Now?” Jake said anxiously.

  “Let’s have your wallet.”

  Jake’s mouth twitched a protest, but he produced his wallet after a reminder from the buried hook. Shayne flipped it open and thumbed the bills out on his lap.

  “Leave me twenty,” Jake begged. “I’ll need it to pay the doctor.”

  Shayne flicked two tens back at him and fanned the rest. “Call it three-fifty even,” he said. “I’ll give you a receipt. It’s probably not enough to keep you in town, but it may help.”

  “Why wouldn’t I stay in town?”

  Shayne pulled an envelope out of the glove compartment and scribbled an IOU. Then he wrenched the hook out of Jake’s leg. Reaching over to the floor of the back seat, he gathered up Deedee’s clothing.

  “Shayne, it’s coming in spurts!”

  Shayne pushed the door open on his side. “No, it’s not. Get them to show you a chart at the hospital. The artery’s on the other side of the leg. Here.” He sorted out the girl’s underclothing, keeping only her dress and a pair of shoes. “Bandage yourself with this. If you think you need a tourniquet, use the bra.”

  He got out and slammed the door, leaving Jake whimpering for help inside. Before Shayne reached the entrance to the apartment building, the DeSoto went by him, already going very fast.

  CHAPTER 11

  The light was on in the basement room where Shayne had left the girl. She had opened a trunk to look for something to wear, so far without success. She whirled, protecting her breasts. Seeing Shayne, she dropped her arms and came toward him.

  “Hey, my dress. Did you see Jake?”

  “Yeah. He was very disappointed to hear you didn’t do better upstairs.”

  He tossed her the dress. She looked to see if he had anything else for her to wear underneath, then pulled it over her head and wriggled into it.

  “I don’t see how he can blame me,” she said. “You didn’t give me one minute to think.”

  He handed her a shoe at a time, and she hopped from foot to foot putting them on. She smoothed the dress over her hips.

  “Big improvement,” she commented sarcastically. “You can see right through it. I hope we’re not going anyplace in public.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  “Deedee’s my real name. I had to put up a terrific battle, but everybody calls me by it, finally.” She added, “My real name is Dorothy Pappas. Do I look like a Dorothy Pappas?”

  “Where’s your family live?”

  “What family? They booted me out when I thought I was preg.”

  He jerked his head. They went down the corridor to the elevator, passing the superintendent’s door. The super and his wife were watching television and they didn’t look around.

  In the elevator Deedee stood very close to Shayne, her breasts touching his arm.

  “I guess you don’t like me much.”

  “Not a hell of a lot,” Shayne told her.

  “I didn’t guess so.”

  Outside, he strode rapidly toward the spot where he had left his car. She clicked beside him, not quite keeping up. Jose Despard was waiting on the sidewalk beside Shayne’s Buick, his shoulders hunched, both hands deep in his pockets. He gulped when he saw the girl.

  She ran the last few steps, one hand out, but stopped before she actually touched him. “Honey, I’m so sorry it had to happen! As sorry as I can be. You know you weren’t supposed to be in on it.”

  His face contorted painfully. At a brusque signal from Shayne, she got in the Buick.

  “Wait here for me,” Shayne told Despard.

  Despard kept his head averted. While Shayne went through the pattern involved in starting the car with one hand, Despard said in a choked voice, “Don’t forget to put something on that cut.”

  “On my legs?” she said. “No, I’ll take care of it. I won’t see you again, will I, so—well, goodbye.”

  Despard didn’t trust himself to answer.

  Shayne turned onto Biscayne Boulevard, then pulled over to use the phone. On the third try he found a friend who said she would be willing to put Deedee up for the night.

  “Man or woman?” Deedee said when they were moving again.

  “Woman.”

  “And she’s probably just a bit dykey, huh,” Deedee said sullenly after another moment.

  Shayne glanced at her and she said with spirit, “Don’t look at me. I happen to be heterosexual and proud of it.”

  “You happen to be what?”

  “Heterosexual. That means—”

  “I know what it means.”

  He delivered her to a Northwest address
, promising to explain in the morning how he found himself the custodian of a high-school dropout wearing no underwear. He returned to the Buena Vista street corner. Despard, told by Shayne to stay put, hadn’t moved. He had pulled himself together to the extent of being able to fill and light a pipe. Shayne motioned him to the driver’s side.

  “You drive,” he said. “First, hand me the phone book.”

  Despard reached all the way over to the shelf behind the back seat. The detective looked up the address listed for Candida Morse.

  “Coral Gables. Avenue Muleta. Go over to North Miami Avenue and pick up the Expressway.”

  After knocking out his pipe, Despard made a U-turn to join the traffic on 4th Avenue. His narrow, balding head nodded and bobbed at the end of a stalklike neck. He was trying not to look at Shayne, but his head kept turning.

  “What do I do, thank you?” he said bitterly. “Or didn’t you arrange that? What kind of a hold do you have over her?”

  “I won’t try to figure out what you’re talking about,” Shayne said. “The cops probably gave you a rough time before they found out who you were. You happened to walk in at the wrong time, that’s all. But I doubt if you’ll have any more Wednesday-evening dates with the girl. Something’s missing there, Despard. Some vital little connection, and who’s responsible for it is none of my business, or yours either. If she had all the usual parts, she’d go out with teenage boys and be interested in whatever the hell teenagers are interested in nowadays. But then she wouldn’t have been interested in seducing you, would she?”

  “I’m the one who did the seducing,” Despard said miserably.

  “That’s what they wanted you to think,” Shayne said. “She was planted on you by Hal Begley Associates, working through a small-time crumb named Jake Fitch.”

  “Jake Fitch!” The pale face bobbed around again. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. He’s her father.”

  “They may be living together. He’s not her father.” For an instant Shayne thought Despard would lose control of the wheel. The Buick drifted across the line, narrowly missing an oncoming car. Sawing at the wheel, Despard brought it back. His Adam’s apple was working.