Fit to Kill

by Brett Halliday

  The rangy redhead started back toward the door, but stopped as he noticed a single suitcase standing on the counter beneath the placard “R-S-T.” He frowned. He had poured Rourke onto the plane after an all-night poker session, and because his friend had been having difficulty navigating, Shayne had carried his suitcase while somebody else carried his typewriter. This looked like the same suitcase. He checked the tag. It said: “T. Rourke, Flight 101, Miami,” and had already been passed by the customs.

  So the reporter must still be in the building. Shayne went along the counter and told the inspector: “Excuse me for interrupting, but that suitcase over there belongs to a friend of mine. I was supposed to meet him. Is he around somewhere?”

  “Must be,” the inspector answered. “He said he’d be right back.”

  “Thanks.”

  Shayne went back to the waiting room, where he found a phone booth and called his secretary, Lucy Hamilton, at her apartment.

  “Angel? I’m at the airport. Tim’s here, but I haven’t caught up with him yet. He must be working on a story. If I don’t call you again, I’ll bring him straight to your place.”

  “And what about the surprise he mentioned?” Lucy asked.

  Shayne laughed. “There’s no sign of her either. And don’t forget, Miss Hamilton—there are blondes and blondes. Maybe this one is more the librarian type. Give her the benefit of the doubt till you see her.”

  “The point is,” Lucy said, “will I see her? It was your idea to give Tim a welcome-home dinner, but how many places do I set? Three or four?”

  “To be on the safe side, set four. And don’t worry about having too much food on hand, if she doesn’t show up. I’ve just made us fifteen hundred bucks, and I’m hungry.”

  “I don’t believe in starving my guests, Michael. I have to go now. I’m about to put a batch of biscuits in the oven.”

  “Double the recipe, angel,” Shayne told her, smiling. “We ought to be there in half an hour.”

  While talking to Lucy, Shayne’s eye had been roving about the waiting room, hoping to spot Rourke’s gangling body in the crowd. But no one had come through from the customs room.

  Shayne could have waited at the customs counter till Rourke came back to claim his suitcase, but the detective’s curiosity was working. Rourke had planned to stay away for two more weeks. That morning Shayne had received an airmail postcard, of the usual tourist variety, saying that Rourke had made the acquaintance of some glamorous school teachers, and was enjoying himself. He hadn’t been planning to return when that had been written, two days before. Only two things could have brought him home ahead of schedule. One was a story, and it would have to be a big one. The other was the blonde with the shape he had been so ecstatic about in his cable.

  Shayne was acquainted with Rourke’s affinity for trouble, which sometimes went hand in hand with his affinity for blondes. For a moment the detective hesitated, tugging at the lobe of his left ear. Then it occurred to him that Jack Malloy, an old friend in the customs service, might know if there had been anything unusual about Flight 101. He went back to the corridor into the administration building, found a stairway, and took the steps two at a time. Malloy’s office, he recalled, was on the second floor.

  And as he came out into the second floor hall, he saw Rourke’s familiar figure shambling rapidly away from him.

  “Tim!” he called, and went after the reporter with long strides.

  Rourke’s step quickened. He was carrying his typewriter. Shayne had a strong impression that Rourke had heard him but was trying to get away. That seemed strange, considering his cabled request to meet his plane. There was no blonde in sight.

  Shayne’s stride lengthened, and he overtook Rourke at the turning of the corridor.

  “My God, Tim!” he exclaimed as he saw the reporter’s face and arm. “Who did that to you?”

  Rourke’s left arm, in a heavy cast from his knuckles to above his elbow, was supported in a sling. His face was bruised and scraped. Shayne thought he bulked larger than usual across the chest, as though there were bandages beneath his shirt. More than all this, he had an odd look in his eyes. It was both shifty and excited. His face looked hot and feverish. He refused to meet Shayne’s eye. The redhead smelled a faint aroma of whiskey, but he dismissed drunkenness as a cause of his friend’s furtive behavior.

  “I’ll tell you all about it,” Rourke said excitedly, “but not right now. I’m in a hurry. Listen, will you do me a favor, Mike? Where’s your car, in the parking lot?”

  “It’s back in town. I didn’t drive out.”

  “Wait outside for me, will you? Get us a taxi and I’ll join you in a minute.”

  “You skipped a few things,” Shayne said. “Such as, ‘I’m glad to see you, Mike. Nice of you to meet me.’”

  “Okay, okay,” Rourke said impatiently. “It was nice of you to meet me, and I’m deliriously happy to see you. Now are you satisfied?”

  Shayne stood rooted in place, his fists on his hips. “Where’s that gorgeous blonde you were bragging about at fifty cents a word? I’d like to see if she’s really as stacked as you said she was.”

  Rourke looked at him evilly. “I’ll tell Lucy you were asking about her.”

  “Kidding aside, you’re both invited to Lucy’s for dinner.”

  Rourke started off down the corridor, looking back over his shoulder wildly. “I’ve got more on my mind than food, brother. Be seeing you.”

  “I know what must have happened,” the detective speculated. “The dame’s husband showed up to meet her, and you didn’t even know she was married. Better let me tag along, Tim. It might turn out that you’ll need a bodyguard.”

  Rourke didn’t pause. Shayne fell in step beside him.

  “Yeh,” the reporter said sarcastically. “You’d like to tag along. Well not this time. Whenever you tag along, I end up with a front-page headline, which pleases my city editor very much, and you end up with the cash. Your bank account is fat enough already. Kindly leave this one to Timothy Rourke.”

  Shayne was jerking at the lobe of his ear. “I like what you say about cash. How much is involved?”

  “Not a great deal, really. Forget I used the word. This is my operation from the word go, and I see no reason for cutting anybody else in on it. I mean that, Mike,” he said seriously. “Let me alone before I sock you.”

  “With which hand?” Shayne said.

  He studied Rourke’s profile as he walked beside him. The reporter had a shifty, if not actually guilty, air. He was up to something, and Shayne had an instinctive feeling that it was dangerous and illegal. Rourke was not as tough as he thought he was, as Shayne knew from unhappy experience. In his present banged-up state he was even more vulnerable than usual.

  But Shayne didn’t make a habit of pushing in where he wasn’t wanted. Nothing serious could happen to his friend in the heart of one of the busiest airports in the world.

  “Haven’t you got the pitch yet?” Rourke muttered between clenched teeth. “I’m a big boy now. Get lost, will you?”

  “All right,” Shayne said mildly. “Anyway, let me have this before you drop it.”

  He tried to take Rourke’s typewriter. To his surprise, the reporter yanked it away, with unexpected violence.

  “Damn it, Mike! Will you please, please, leave me alone? Don’t you think I can handle anything by myself?”

  “Don’t push me for an answer,” Shayne told him bleakly.

  For a moment they both held onto the handle of the battered portable, facing each other. Then Shayne decided abruptly to let Rourke have things his own way. If he was so worked up and touchy that he wouldn’t even let Shayne carry a typewriter, he could go to hell.

  Shayne released the handle. Rourke fell back a step. Then he checked himself abruptly, looked thoughtful, and thrust the typewriter into the redhead’s big hand.

  “Hell—on second thoughts,” he said apologetically. “The damn thing was pulling my arm out of its socket. I’m just
out of the hospital, and I don’t know what I’m doing half the time today.”

  “Only half the time?” Shayne asked. He added roughly, “Take it easy, will you, Tim? Don’t try to outsmart or outfight anybody till you’re steadier on your pins. I’ll be waiting at the hack-stand.”

  He swung around on his heel and went back toward the stairs. He had a feeling that Rourke was standing looking after him, having second thoughts on other things than the typewriter. Shayne’s pace slowed, but he didn’t turn around. Rourke could either call him back or not, he thought angrily. Nevertheless, he glanced around as he reached the stairs. Rourke was gone.

  Outside, the detective waved a taxi-driver forward beyond the loading area. He put the typewriter in the back seat. Standing where he could spot Rourke the moment he came out of the terminal, he tried to make some sense out of that brief exchange with the reporter. After a moment he gave up. He didn’t have enough facts to go on.

  Rourke had said a minute. Five minutes passed. The driver had put down his flag, and the wait was costing money.

  Shayne finished a cigarette and tossed it away. He was in no frame of mind to do the reporter any favors, but if he brought out Rourke’s suitcase, it might speed things up a little. He told the driver he would be right back.

  The customs room was now completely empty. The little party of amateur smugglers was gone. So was Rourke’s suitcase. Apparently the reporter had gone out one door just as Shayne had come in another.

  The detective went back to the taxi, ready to let Rourke know that this was the last time he would be met by Shayne. And except for the driver and the typewriter, the taxi was empty. Shayne grunted, thoroughly exasperated. He decided to allow his friend exactly two more minutes, and then go without him.

  After three minutes, it was plain that Rourke had ducked out on him. From the first, he hadn’t intended to meet Shayne at the taxi. Swearing beneath his breath, Shayne viciously ground out his cigarette. A showdown was now on the schedule between him and Rourke, and he intended to make this a good one. He started to get into the cab, but checked himself with his hand on the door-latch.

  As irritated and impatient as he was, he couldn’t forget the impression that Rourke was in something over his head. He had looked ready to collapse. All anybody had to do was shove him lightly and he’d fall down and not be able to get up again without help. He had undergone a serious beating, if Shayne was any judge of the signs. The purpose of the beating seemed fairly obvious: to stop Rourke from doing exactly what he had been about to do when hailed by Shayne. He had been ordered to stay away from a girl, or to give up on a story, or to forget about a sum of money, and he had no intention of doing any of these things. He might not be let off so easily a second time.

  Shayne sighed. He had to find out what the reporter was up to, whether Rourke liked it or not.

  He had encountered Rourke on the second floor of the administration building, near Malloy’s office. Shayne decided to return to his original idea, and see if Malloy could throw any light on Rourke’s puzzling actions. If the customs official wasn’t around, that would be that, Shayne would have a quiet dinner with Lucy, and let Rourke get out of his scrape by himself.

  Going upstairs, he knocked on the door of Malloy’s office. A voice called to him, and he went in. Malloy was behind his desk, a telephone to his ear.

  “Hey, Mike,” he said comfortably. “What brings you out to our neck of the woods?” He waved at a chair. “Be with you in a sec.”

  He continued into the phone, “Then you’re all set on it? She’ll show in five minutes, at the outside. Use three cars, and for God’s sake don’t goof. I’ll be sitting right here, for as long as it takes.”

  He put the phone down and Shayne asked casually, “What’s all the excitement?”

  “Do I look excited?” Malloy said.

  Shayne grinned. “You look as though Washington’s about to offer you another promotion.”

  “I wouldn’t turn it down,” Malloy said, “the cost of living being what it is. What happened to your pal Rourke?”

  The detective concealed his surprise. “I thought you could give me the answer to that. He cabled me to meet his plane, and now he seems to be dodging me. He was hot on the trail of something, and he had that old gleam in his eye. But what he can do with only one arm is beyond me.”

  “It looked like he was stepped on by a bulldozer, didn’t it? I had to go out for a minute. He said he’d wait for me, but he wasn’t here when I came back.”

  Shayne hesitated. “He told me to wait outside in a taxi. It’s probably nothing serious, one of his usual blondes. But I’m curious. Could it be the blonde who came in with him on the plane?”

  Malloy’s eyes were suddenly cold. “I hope not. What do you know about her?”

  Shayne waited a moment before answering carefully, “Only what Tim told me. What was he doing up here in your office, anyway?”

  Malloy leaned forward, his hands flat on the desk. He was about to say something, but he changed his mind and stood up.

  “You know him better than I do, Mike. From what he told me, he made a play for this girl on the plane. He didn’t get anywhere, and the information we have bears that out. I picked her up when they landed, and he thought there might be a story in it.”

  “And was there?”

  Malloy waved a hand carelessly. “You can’t win them all, Mike. If Tim has gone off with some babe, it isn’t this one. I had the matron look her over, and she’s just getting dressed. Now I’m going to have to throw you out, Mike. I have a couple of phone calls to make.”

  “That’s okay,” Shayne said agreeably. “See you around, Jack.”

  His tone was light, but his jaw was set solidly and his gray eyes were bleak. Shayne had one piece of information that would have interested Malloy. Rourke hadn’t seen the girl for the first time on the plane. In the corridor, with Malloy’s door shut behind him, he took out the crumpled cable and read it again: “ARRIVING FIVE FORTY WITH SURPRISE IN SHAPE OF—” That had been dispatched from the airport, if not from the hotel. The clear implication was that Rourke would be paying for both tickets.

  For an instant Shayne wondered if there could be two different blondes, but he dismissed the possibility. He thrust the cable back in his pocket. To Malloy it would have meant just one thing: complicity between the girl and Tim, though he wouldn’t have sent it if he had thought he was doing anything illegal. Somehow she had persuaded him to act as though they were strangers on the plane. Apparently she had known she would be under surveillance. Perhaps Rourke had seen through her, and had only been pretending to go along, hoping to break up a smuggling ring single-handed, and get the News another Pulitzer Prize. Shayne thought back over his brief, crazy conversation with the reporter. He didn’t like the reference Rourke had made to money. But they had been friends for a long time, and the detective was willing to trust him until convinced otherwise—which wouldn’t, of course, be the case with Malloy.

  Shayne made a wry face, remembering Rourke’s weak and feverish appearance. But it was out of his hands. He had told Rourke he was having dinner with Lucy. The reporter knew where he could reach him if he needed help.

  “Mr. Shayne!” a voice said urgently behind him.

  He was crossing the waiting room. He turned when he heard his name.

  A plump young man with round glasses that went with his moon-like face was signalling frantically. Shayne recognized him. He was a legman on the News; Shayne had met him in a newspaperman’s bar near the News building on Biscayne Boulevard. He waited, hat far back and bushy red eyebrows raised quizzically, until the other pushed up to him through the crowd.

  “I’m Joe Roberts,” he said, his voice worried. “I don’t know if you remember me, Mr. Shayne, I—”

  “Sure,” the redhead said. “You work with Tim Rourke on the News.”

  “Not exactly with him. I’m as far down the ladder as a person can go. What’s wrong with him, do you know?”

  �
�He had some kind of an accident,” Shayne said. “I don’t know what. I only saw him for a minute, and I didn’t get much out of him.”

  “You talked to him?” the reporter said, relieved. “Then it’s not as bad as I thought. When I saw him there on the stretcher—”

  Shayne’s long arm shot forward and seized Roberts’ shoulder. “What stretcher?” he demanded.

  Roberts goggled at him. “I thought you said—”

  “He wasn’t on a stretcher when I talked to him. Where was this?”

  The reporter cringed away from the fierce grip Shayne had on his shoulder.

  “I—That hurts, Mr. Shayne.”

  “Sorry,” Shayne said gruffly. “Let’s get a little more elbow room. Come on over here.”

  Dragging the plump youth after him, he plowed through the crowd. He was heading for an open space to the right of the main entrance. There he let the reporter go and faced him, scowling.

  “Now talk,” he growled. “Where and when?”

  “It was only a couple of minutes ago,” Roberts said plaintively. “Not five minutes, at the most. I’m supposed to be interviewing a senator who just came in from Washington. I couldn’t get him to say much. Just that he was glad to be here, and—”

  “Never mind that,” Shayne snapped. “Get to Rourke.”

  “I am, Mr. Shayne, as fast as I can. I phoned the story in, if you can call it a story. It won’t get two sticks of type tomorrow. Then I saw this sort of disturbance in the crowd. I’m always on the lookout for anything unusual. I mean, you can’t ever tell when you’ll get the break that will make all the difference in your career, so naturally anything like that I investigate. That’s what they taught us at journalism school. People were getting out of the way because it was a stretcher. I cut across toward the door, in case it was anybody important, and by God, if it wasn’t Tim Rourke. He looked like hell, too. They had a sheet up over him. It looked to me like there was a cast on his arm, and it wasn’t till later that it hit me—how come they got a cast on his arm so quick?”