Fit to Kill

by Brett Halliday

  Shayne followed them. He heard running footsteps on the floor above. Still another Latin American appeared on the stairs. Shayne swung to meet him. Then Sammy, still groggy but on his feet, kicked him in the kidneys from behind.

  The pain nearly knifed the detective in two. He reeled toward the wall, gasping. One of the Latins swung an efficient-looking blackjack at Shayne’s face. Instead of trying to get away from it, the redhead threw himself forward, taking it on the side of his head before it picked up its full power.

  He flung his right fist upward and outward, hitting the Latin below the ear. The man screamed. Shayne caught the blackjack from his loosening grip as he went down.

  Shayne aimed the blackjack at one of the heads around him and felt the sickening crunch of flexible leather against a cheekbone. He was looking for Sammy, but a mist was rising around him. Objects were indistinct and in motion. He tried to shake it off.

  Suddenly he saw Sammy in front of him, too close to use the sap. Shayne dropped it. Stepping even closer, he drove lefts and rights into Sammy’s body. Shayne was hit repeatedly from behind, and the mist was closing in. He couldn’t last much longer.

  But there were too many trying to reach him, and they got in each other’s way. The pressure behind Sammy held him erect, although the pupils of his eyes had disappeared. The face with its smashed nose was against Shayne’s shoulder. Shayne pumped in two more hard lefts to the mid-section, one for Lucy and one for Rourke, and then threw Sammy off.

  Falling, Sammy opened a gap in the ring around Shayne. The detective plunged through. He went up the stairs with three of the men clinging to him, and at the top came face to face with the lithe young man who had opened the front door.

  He hit Shayne twice. The redhead had known this boy would be good, but not as good as this. Both blows seemed to explode at the base of his brain.

  He felt an enormous weariness. Somehow he stayed on his feet, but he was no longer part of the fight. He forgot why it had seemed so important to him to force his way upstairs. He opened both arms as though snapping a chain, and fell heavily against a door, which burst open.

  Two of the Latins fell on top of him. With a tremendous effort—it was his last—he stayed on one knee. A blackjack, probably the same one he had dropped downstairs, sang past his ear.

  “Luis!” a voice said sharply. “That’s enough.”

  Shayne peered up through the mist. He couldn’t see who had spoken.

  But he saw Tim Rourke. The reporter was sitting in an arm chair. His necktie had been loosened. He had a highball glass in his good hand. Shayne heard the ice cubes tinkle as Rourke sat forward, looking at him in amazement.

  “Mike!” he exclaimed. “What in God’s name are you up to?”

  Shayne fell forward and the mist closed in about him.

  CHAPTER 14

  When he returned to knowledge of what was going on around him, he was lying on a couch. He raised his head, but clasped his forehead in both hands and lay back.

  “Now take it easy, old buddy,” Rourke’s voice said from nearby. “You’re among friends.”

  “Friends!” Shayne said.

  “That’s what I said,” Rourke declared expansively. “These are wonderful people, and if you’ll stop being so tough for a few minutes, you’ll find they serve wonderful liquor.”

  The detective opened his eyes and focused with difficulty on his friend.

  There was a slight slur in Rourke’s speech. “Wonderful” came from his mouth as “wunnerful.” But even without that evidence, Shayne would have known at a glance that the reporter was a long way from sober. His face, which had been chalk-white when Shayne saw it at the airport, was agreeably flushed. His eyes were vague, and a lock of his black hair was draped untidily over his forehead.

  The reporter made a sweeping gesture with his glass, rattling the ice cubes.

  “You’re going to feel all right. They wanted to get you a doctor. Imagine that! A doctor for Mike Shayne! I told them you’re really rugged. You’re the original hard-head. All you need is a drink, and you’ll be ready to take on the whole University of Alabama football team.”

  The redhead rolled to one elbow. By gradual degrees, he swung his legs off the couch and sat up. There was a moment’s painful adjustment. Then the mist cleared away for good and he looked around.

  He was in an upstairs sitting room, warmly and pleasantly furnished. Shayne knew instantly that the old man across the room from Rourke was Professor Quesada. He was looking at the detective shrewdly and humorously. There were good-humored wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. His sparse white hair was carefully parted. He wore an inconspicuous hearing aid, a well-pressed flannel check, English cordovans, a sporting vest with a small green check, a well-fitting tab shirt and a necktie that had obviously been chosen and knotted with care.

  His eyes twinkled at Shayne. “You are a most impatient man. I was about to come down and have a look at you.”

  Shayne grunted. “It seemed like a good idea. I didn’t expect you to admit that Tim Rourke was here, so I thought I’d better look around by myself.”

  Quesada lifted one hand, on which a small ring sparkled. “And that you call looking around!”

  Gathering himself, Shayne reached out for a wine glass on a table in front of him. It was filled with a liquid that looked like cognac. He took a mouthful, carrying the glass carefully to his lips. It was cognac. Not just run-of-the-press cognac, but the very best.

  Rourke beamed at him. “I had them get everything ready,” he said. “Cognac and ice water. Best medicine in the world.”

  Shayne took another sip, and the pleasant warmth spread through his body. The pain began to recede.

  “What happened out at the airport, Tim?” he asked quietly.

  Rourke gave an embarrassed laugh. “That was one for the record books. I was in worse shape than I figured. How I kept going as long as I did I’ll never know.” He shook his head ruefully. “I had a couple of drinks on the plane, and they snuck up on me. Generally I subside gradually, but not this time. It was abrupt, I mean it. The floor came up and hit me.”

  “So it was the floor that hit you?” Shayne said with no inflection in his voice.

  “Period,” Rourke went on. “But before anybody could step on me, some kind gentlemen picked me up and got me out of harm’s way. And the professor’s been feeding me drinks ever since.”

  “Perhaps I can elaborate,” the professor said, smiling. “Mr. Rourke’s account is correct, but a trifle incomplete. It was not such a great coincidence that I was there at the necessary moment, as I had come on purpose to meet him. I received private advices that he was being deported, having incurred the Marshal’s displeasure. To be frank, we cannot overlook any opportunity for favorable publicity, as we get so little. I wished to offer my services, in case Mr. Rourke needed any additional information for his paper.”

  “And you took a stretcher along,” Shayne said, “in case he needed a little persuasion?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Professor Quesada said, puzzled. “When he collapsed, of course I summoned help from the stretcher service. I had Mr. Rourke put in my station wagon and rushed him to a doctor.”

  “There are doctors at the airport,” Shayne pointed out.

  “I get it!” Rourke cried, waving his glass. “Mike, you’re a worry-wart. You thought they slugged me, or something, and that’s why you straight-armed your way in here. Hell, no. They didn’t take me to the doctor at the airport because I fell on my flipper, right on the cast. I put a dent in the goddam plaster.” He showed Shayne where his cast had been chipped. “So the prof was afraid the bones got jarred and wouldn’t knit, and he had them X-ray me to see if they’d have to set it again. Turned out it was okay. So then they asked me what medicine I preferred, and I wrote my own prescription. And you know what Doctor Timothy Rourke, M.D., always prescribes, when in doubt. Whiskey, man, with a twist of lemon peel.”

  He stood up, swaying, and lurched to a sideboard. He se
t down his glass, dropped fresh ice cubes into it and then poured a generous portion of rye over the ice. All these operations took time, as he performed them with one hand.

  “How about you, my friend Shayne?” he said thickly. “A little more of that imported sauce?”

  “Not just yet,” Shayne said.

  Professor Quesada caught the detective’s eye and gave a deprecating shrug. When Rourke took it into his head to get drunk there was nothing anybody else could do about it, as Shayne knew from long experience. Usually, as Rourke had pointed out, after a certain degree of saturation he subsided gradually and fell asleep. That moment seemed to be rapidly approaching.

  He wavered back to his chair, smiling loosely. Shayne hated to have a stranger see Rourke this way. He lowered himself carefully, with drunken dignity, and when he was safely seated, he chortled with pleasure.

  “You didn’t think I was going to make it, did you? Mike, no kidding, the stuff this guy has been telling me! I’m going to be page one for weeks, if I can remember half of it. No point in taking notes—couldn’t read my own writing.”

  “I’ve just come back from a visit home,” Professor Quesada explained to the detective. “Sub rosa, of course. From our point of view, Mr. Rourke’s deportation is an excellent thing, and I hope you will not misunderstand me. I predict that his stories will have a strong diplomatic effect.”

  “Do you get the idea now, man?” Rourke said, taking over the explanation. “I never like to be kicked around after I’m lying on the floor, because what am I, for God’s sake, a masochist? Anything I can do to retire that crumb Gonzalez to private life, believe me—”

  “And this is an attitude,” Professor Quesada said, still smiling, “that we find extremely refreshing. Now,” he said, and as he looked directly at Shayne there was a noticeable cooling of the atmosphere, “may I ask you how you knew where to find Mr. Rourke?”

  The redhead sipped at his ice water. “We had an eyewitness report that Tim had been slugged and carried off in a stolen station wagon. Somebody saw a man with a broken arm being dropped off here. That filtered back to me.”

  “Mike, are you out of your mind?” Rourke demanded, his eyes round. “Anybody who tried to kidnap me would be in for a nasty surprise. They’d find out I’ve got exactly two dollars and forty-seven cents in the savings bank.”

  “But that’s the way it looked,” Shayne said peaceably, watching the professor. “I’m overdue for a dinner date. I’ve got just a couple of questions before I run along. I bumped into a guy named Harry Mann downstairs. He’s not supposed to be operating in the Greater Miami area, or anywhere near it. The cops won’t like it if they know he’s back in circulation. They might pay you a special call, just to shove him a little.”

  Professor Quesada said anxiously, “I wouldn’t like that. I’d like to explain something, if I may, Mr. Shayne. Any political movement is made up of diverse elements, and ours is no exception. Our expenses aren’t large, but of course we have no taxing power, and in the main our supporters are the dispossessed and impoverished. I assure you that I have made Mr. Harry Mann no promises that when I return home as head of the new government I will treat him any differently from anybody else. He knows that I have decided views on the subject of gambling. He chooses to think that I will alter those views, faced with the need for revenue to finance long-overdue reforms. He is a gambler, and he is gambling on this. I have discussed the question with my associates, and they concur in my decision to accept help from whatever source it is offered. The contributions from Mr. Mann, despite his unsavory connections and his prison record, may make the difference between success and failure.”

  Shayne shrugged. “That’s not my problem. But two men, one of Harry’s and one of yours, broke into my apartment tonight. I don’t like it. They also broke into my secretary’s apartment and left her tied up on the floor. I like that even less. I got a good description of one of them, whose name, it appears, is Sammy. The other is the boy who let me in downstairs. I’d like to know what they were looking for.”

  Rourke chortled. “Did they find any skeletons, Mike?”

  The old man, ignoring the reporter, leaned forward. “This happened tonight?”

  “Within the last hour and a half,” Shayne said.

  “I assure you, Mr. Shayne,” Professor Quesada said quietly, with great sincerity, “I know nothing whatever about it. Nothing.”

  The detective smiled pleasantly. “If that’s true, Professor, you’d better keep your eyes open. Somebody may be crossing you around here.”

  “May be crossing—” Quesada’s tone was bewildered. He concluded slowly, “I think perhaps I see. I will, as you advise, keep my eyes open. And now—”

  From a different part of the house there came a sudden thump, as though a chair had been knocked over. The professor listened intently, with a watchful expression. For the first time Shayne saw that he was a man who was capable of giving orders, and of making sure that they were obeyed.

  He looked back at the detective with an apologetic smile. “Your mention of the police makes me apprehensive, Mr. Shayne. It would be most unfortuante should Mr. Harry Mann be taken into custody at this address. It would give ammunition to our enemies.”

  “I doubt if he’s still in the house,” Shayne remarked. “He knows I wouldn’t walk into the lion’s den like this without telling the cops first.”

  The professor raised his eyebrows. “You really have most melodramatic ideas, Mr. Shayne. I was on the point of asking you about that young lady you mentioned. Miss Carla Adams. You have a message from her?”

  “A sort of message,” Shayne said. “I think I’ll have some more cognac first, if you don’t mind.”

  “By all means,” the professor said politely.

  Shayne studied the label on the bottle before he poured the cognac into his wine glass. It was very old and very good, but it would have to be his last drink from this bottle. It was time to see about getting out of here. Getting in hadn’t been easy, but he had a hunch that getting out would be harder.

  “Carla Adams,” Rourke said thickly. He smiled at the redhead foolishly. “My, oh, my. There’s a kid who’s got Sex with a capital X.”

  “Isn’t she a little young for you?” Shayne said sourly.

  “A little young?” The reporter’s jaw jutted out belligerently. “Keep out of this, Mike Shayne, with your mealy-mouthed preaching. I’ll take care of my own private life.”

  “How long have you known her, Tim?”

  The reporter looked at Shayne lewdly. “Abouty twenty-four hours. Need I say more?”

  “Have you seen Miss Adams?” the professor put in. “Is she a client of yours?”

  Shayne met his look steadily and improvised, “I’ve seen her, but she’s not a client. I ran into her at the airport. We were both looking for Tim Rourke, and that gave us something in common. When the flash came in that a man answering Tim’s decription had been seen in this neighborhood, she made the connection for me.”

  “I suppose she also gave you that cock-and-bull story about a kidnapping?”

  “No, she contributed another pipe-dream,” Shayne answered. “Something about an arms shipment. I didn’t listen too closely, because the girl is obviously nuts.”

  “Nuts!” Rourke exclaimed indignantly. “She’s as sane as you are, Mike. Which isn’t saying a hell of a lot, I grant you.”

  Without looking directly at Professor Quesada’s face, Shayne was watching for a reaction. At the mention of the arms shipment, a muscle flicked involuntarily beneath one of the professor’s eyes. Then the mask formed again quickly. But for the one fraction of an instant, Shayne got through. There might be something to that arms shipment, after all.

  “I wouldn’t say she’s crazy,” Professor Quesada said. “But she’s excitable, and sometimes her imagination carries her away.” He asked casually. “Do you know where she is now?”

  “I know where she was,” Shayne said. “But I’m not like Sammy. I didn’t
leave her tied and gagged.”

  He emptied his glass and set it down. “I’m glad to see you’re in good hands, Tim,” he told the reporter. “I’ll be getting over to Lucy’s. I’m late as it is. She’s probably having kittens.”

  The old man cleared his throat. “So few people understand the difference between cognacs, Mr. Shayne. I suggest that you remain with us a little while longer.”

  Shayne grinned at him. “I came in. I think I can go out the same way.”

  Professor Quesada seemed genuinely distressed. “Be realistic, Mr. Shayne. You are badly outnumbered, and we are prepared for you now.”

  “Be realistic?” Shayne said. “Marshal Gonzalez has all the big battalions, the army, navy and air force, as well as the cops. You’re outnumbered, Professor, so why not give up?”

  The old man wet his lips. “Your point is well taken. If you insist on making a fight, I suppose we’ll have to oblige you. But there is an easier way. Tell us where we can find Miss Adams, and you may go when you please.”

  “Why do you want to know where she is?” Shayne asked. “So you can kill her?”

  “Good heavens! What a romanaticist you are, Mr. Shayne. She has some documents of ours, which we would like to recover. She has chosen to leave our ranks. That is her privilege. But she has become embittered, and she is preparing to turn informer. By itself, her information would have no value, but supported by documents—she has made foolish threats. All we wish to do is recover our property.”

  It was weak, and he seemed to know it.

  “What do you think, Tim?” Shayne asked the reporter. “Should I toss Carla to the wolves?”

  “Are you still talking about wolves?” Rourke responded irritably. “I have a father’s interest in the babe, and that’s all. Come on, why let a blonde come between us at this late date? Sit down and have a drink. Don’t be so stuffy.”