Framed in Blood

by Brett Halliday

  “Maybe you didn’t and maybe you did,” said Gentry wearily. “You can get out of my way now and let me finish up here.”

  “If you find anything, let me know,” Shayne said. He tapped Rourke on the shoulder, and the reporter jumped as though suddenly awakened from a deep sleep.

  They went out together, closed the door, and as they walked silently to the elevator Shayne scowled in deep concentration. The cop took them down, and when they emerged from the building Rourke said, “I’ve got my heap here. Let’s find a bar where we can talk.”

  “Okay.” Shayne’s tone was stiff and his fists clenched. There were deep trenches in his gaunt cheeks when he walked around the press car and settled beside the reporter. He took off his hat and laid it on the seat as Rourke pulled away from the curb, leaned his head back against the cushion to let the night air from the open window blow across his face.

  After a moment of relaxation he became aware of an uncomfortable wetness against the back of his neck. Glancing aside he saw that Rourke had his head out the window watching for a place to stop. He sat up and ran his palm over the short hairs, then dabbed the back of his hand against the seat.

  From long experience he knew that the sticky, viscous stuff on his hands and neck was partially dried blood. He got out a handkerchief, wiped his hands, then sat rigidly erect to avoid contact with the seat cushion again.

  Shayne’s thought went bleakly back to another case when Rourke had jumped the gun in an effort to scoop a story and had received bullet wounds that nearly cost him his life. Now, there was every indication that he was mixed up in this one right up to his scrawny neck.

  Rourke slid the car to the empty curb before a dingy all-night bar. They got out and walked silently through the door, and it was not until they were seated with drinks on the table that Shayne frowned at the palm of his right hand and said, “Why in the name of God did you mention Bert Jackson to Gentry?”

  “Do you know that Bert hasn’t been home yet?” Rourke countered. “I phoned at two o’clock, and Betty said he wasn’t there.”

  “I don’t know and I don’t give a damn if he never goes home,” said Shayne angrily. “Do you?”

  “Of course I do,” said Rourke gravely. “Why in hell do you think I’ve been hunting all over town for him tonight?”

  Shayne took a drink and made a distasteful grimace before saying, “From what Betty Jackson told me, I assume it’s because you were afraid he was going ahead with the blackmail deal on his own without cutting you in on a share of the loot.” His voice was bitter and his gray eyes bleak.

  Rourke looked at him in astonishment. “For God’s sake, Mike! You don’t believe I’d go into a thing like that!”

  “I phoned you when Bert was with me,” Shayne reminded him. “You didn’t say no then.”

  Rourke swallowed half of his drink, set the glass down, and rested both elbows on the table. “What did Betty tell you?” he inquired casually.

  “A little about some incident on the News,” Shayne said, studying Rourke’s anxious face. “The way I got it, you pulled the same stunt Bert’s trying to pull, and Bert was in on it. You got him fired because he knew too much.”

  “Betty has it all wrong, Mike,” Rourke told him gravely. “She’s been listening to Bert.”

  “How was it?”

  “Lay off me,” Rourke grated. “Damn it, Mike, if you feel that way—”

  “How am I supposed to feel?” Shayne spread his right hand, palm up, showing the dark stain clearly. “Know what that is? It’s blood. Know where it came from?”

  Rourke leaned forward and squinted at the detective’s palm. “Where?”

  “From the back of the seat cushion in your car,” Shayne told him. “You say you were chasing Bert Jackson all over town tonight. You’d better level with me, Tim. Did you catch up with him?” He looked up and met Rourke’s eyes.

  Rourke moved his head uneasily under Shayne’s hard stare. “What in the name of God have you got on your mind, Mike?”

  “I don’t know,” he confessed wearily. “Betty Jackson was worried about what might happen if you and Bert met. I’m wondering if you did meet.”

  “Why? Why was Betty worried?” The reporter’s eyes were feverishly bright again.

  “Because of that thing on the News, I guess. Because she thinks you’re afraid Bert will bring it out into the open if anything happened while he was trying to pull the same stunt. For God’s sake, Tim!” Shayne exploded. “I can’t go on in the dark. Tell me where you stand and what this is all about. I keep thinking about the crack you made about Jackson in my office. Why pull that in front of Gentry?”

  “Because it hit me all of a sudden,” said Rourke slowly. “Someone killed the elevator operator and tore your place up looking for something. Could be the guy Jackson planned to blackmail—if Bert didn’t get to him tonight.”

  “Why would he tear up my place?” said Shayne. “I ran Jackson out—”

  “I know, you told me that,” Rourke broke in irritably. “But I got to thinking.” He paused, raking his fingers through his sparse hair and drawing them down over his bony face.

  “You got to thinking that I lied,” Shayne said in a fiat, toneless voice. “You decided that I threw in with Bert and that I lied to you to cut you out of your share of the blackmail. Damn it, Tim.”

  “Get off your high horse,” Tim shouted hoarsely. “We’ll get nowhere suspecting each other this way. I didn’t think anything like that. I did think maybe you’d got the kid to leave his story with you, and that maybe you’d stall him like I asked you to over the phone.” He stopped talking long enough to drain his glass, then flung the accusation.

  “That thing at your office looked exactly like what might happen if Bert had spilled everything. Now that he has disappeared, I wonder.”

  Shayne looked at the liquor in his glass, and his mouth tightened with distaste. “It’s what might have happened if he had turned his dope over to me.” He stood up. “Lucy and I will have a mess to clean up in the morning.”

  Rourke arose with him. “I’ll drive you over.” Neither of them spoke until Rourke drew up to the curb at the side entrance to Shayne’s hotel. The detective opened the door, got out, said, “Good night,” and turned away.

  Rourke hesitated, hunched over the steering-wheel. His face showed intense strain. Then he jerked his door open and followed Shayne in, hurrying up the stairs behind him. Catching up with him on the top step, he panted, “I’ll be damned if I’ll let it break off this way, Mike. We’ve been friends too long to let a couple of punk kids come between us.”

  Shayne shrugged and continued down the corridor. “You’re always welcome to a drink, but I don’t—”

  He stopped abruptly as he reached the door of his apartment. It sagged open, and the marks of a jimmy scarred the doorframe. He reached inside to switch on the lights and began to curse deep in his throat when he saw the wreckage.

  Chapter Four

  COVER-UP FOR A PAL

  TIMOTHY ROURKE WHISTLED SHRILLY. “Somebody is certainly looking for something,” he said with conviction.

  “That,” said Shayne grimly, “is the understatement of the year.”

  There were fewer papers here to be scattered, but the same intensive search as of his office was evidenced. The desk drawers were pulled out and the contents dumped on the floor; chair and couch cushions had been removed and tossed aside.

  Shayne stalked into the bedroom to find chests of drawers emptied and mattress and pillows from the bed piled on the floor. In the kitchen the same careful search had been made of cupboards and refrigerator. His gray eyes were bleak when he re-entered the living-room slowly, massaging his angular jaw.

  He made a sudden, savage gesture and went to the liquor cabinet muttering, “The bastards were in too big a hurry to drink my liquor, anyway. Rye, Tim?”

  Rourke, after quietly peeking into the bedroom, was straightening chairs and replacing cushions. He nodded assent, then said, “If Ge
ntry wasn’t convinced by your ransacked office, this will be the clincher that you’ve got something someone wants badly and in a hell of a hurry.”

  “Yeh. If Will saw it,” he agreed, moving toward his desk with two bottles and glasses. “I think I’ll keep this to myself.” He set the bottles and glasses down and gazed restlessly around the room. “I gave it to him straight, Tim. There’s not one damned thing in my office or apartment worth a dime to anyone. And no reason for anyone to believe there is. I’m not working on anything, and haven’t had a client for weeks.” He sat down heavily and creaked the swivel chair forward, poured two drinks, glanced at his watch, and noted that less than an hour had elapsed since Gentry’s call had wakened him, and went on absently. “They didn’t waste much time breaking in here after I left for the office.”

  Rourke drew up a chair, sat down, reached for his drink, and suggested, “They probably had you tagged when you went out.”

  Shayne scowled. “Do you know how the cops got onto my office so fast?”

  The reporter moved his head slowly and negatively. “I just got a piece of it over my car radio. When they said it was your office I beat it down there, even though I knew our man at headquarters would cover the regular angles.”

  Shayne took a long drink, thumped his glass down, and said, “See if you can get him on the phone and find out. I’ve a hunch it was a tip-off to drag me away so they could make a try here after they failed to get what they wanted at the office.” He leaned back with a look of fierce concentration on his rugged face while Rourke picked up the receiver and asked for a number.

  After a moment Rourke contacted his fellow-reporter, asked a couple of questions, hung up, and reported. “Your hunch is probably right, Mike. The cops had an anonymous call at one-thirty saying a man had been killed during the burglary of your office. They beat it down there and found the operator dead inside his cage.”

  “Knowing that I’d be called right away,” Shayne ruminated. “Which gave someone the opportunity to do this job in a hurry.” Again his angry gaze roamed over the wreckage. “In the name of God, why?”

  The strain that had threatened their friendship a few minutes before vanished with this new development. Rourke was silently thoughtful, his slate-gray eyes glittering in their deep sockets. “Do you suppose Bert Jackson might have slipped an envelope—or something—out of his pocket,” he suggested with some delicacy, “and hid it behind a cushion or somewhere while he was here?”

  Shayne nodded slowly, recalling the drink Bert Jackson had helped himself to, getting ice cubes from the kitchen. “He could have. But why? I’d turned his proposition down flat.”

  “He knew it was hot stuff,” Rourke argued. “If he planned to make his extortion pitch tonight, he might have wanted the stuff stashed in a safe place. It would be a lever to be able to say it was in your possession and that you’d take over if anything happened to him.”

  “Could be,” Shayne agreed. “He was drunk enough and excited enough to think that was smart. Call his house and see if he’s come home.”

  Rourke hesitated. “I can try. But if he isn’t there I doubt if Betty will be in shape to answer the phone. When I called at two o’clock she promised she’d take a couple of sleeping-tablets and go to bed.”

  Shayne said, “Try her,” in a curiously urgent voice, then relaxed deeper in his chair and sipped brandy, his eyes half-closed.

  Rourke dragged the desk phone toward him reluctantly and asked for a number which Shayne mechanically memorized for future reference After a long time Rourke hung up and said, “No answer. Betty must have knocked herself out with sleeping-tablets, and Bert evidently isn’t home. Damn it, Mike, I’m worried about him. I think we ought to put the whole thing squarely up to Will Gentry and get a search organized.”

  “Are you sure you want that, Tim?”

  “Why not?” The reporter’s tone was challenging.

  “We’d have to tell him the whole story,” Shayne said evenly. “Like myself, Gentry’ll wonder why Bert Jackson seemed so sure you’d be willing to go into that blackmail deal with him. Can you afford that?”

  “Damn it, Mike,” Rourke flared. “I told you the kid got that other deal all wrong.”

  “I know you told me. But the death of the elevator operator makes this a Homicide investigation, Tim. I’ve been on the inside of those before. Every damned bit of dirt from the past will come out, even if you and Will are old friends. Think it over carefully before I say anything that mixes you into it.”

  Rourke set his thin lips and stared down at clenched hands. Twice he started to speak, checked himself, then picked up his glass and drained it in spasmodic swallows. “I don’t believe there’s a man on earth,” he muttered, “who could justify everything he’s ever done. Do I have to for you?”

  “Not for me,” said Shayne promptly. “And not to the police if you let me handle this my own way and keep you in the clear. But I can’t go barging ahead in the dark, Tim. I’ve got to know the truth so I’ll know how much to suppress. First—all these places where you went and asked for Jackson tonight, did you get on his trail at any of them?”

  “He hadn’t been in any of the bars I went into. I finally tried the Las Felice apartments and hit pay dirt. Betty had told me about a woman Bert visited there, so I tried it about midnight.”

  “And?” Shayne was studying his hands and frowning at the dark smear of blood on the right palm.

  “There’s a doorman who goes off duty at midnight,” Rourke told him swiftly. “Five bucks bought a description of Bert from him. He remembered Bert arriving early in the evening, probably went directly there from here, and leaving about ten o’clock.”

  “Alone?”

  “Alone, and just about sober enough to stay on his feet. But an offer of ten bucks more wouldn’t buy the name of the woman he visits. There’s a self-service elevator, you see, and the doorman swore he didn’t know what floor Bert stopped on.”

  “And after that?” Shayne probed.

  “I drove straight to his house which is only a few blocks away. Betty was alone. Bert still hadn’t shown up.”

  “So you comforted her?” Shayne suggested.

  “The best I could,” Rourke admitted blandly. “Then I left to make the rounds of a few more places without any luck. Don’t you see what it adds up to, Mike? That woman at the Las Felice was egging him on—to get money for her. She must have worked on him plenty during those hours he was with her. I’d guess he made his contact by telephone from her apartment, and left at ten to keep an appointment to collect the swag.”

  “That’s just a guess,” objected Shayne.

  “But it ties in with what happened at your office and here.” Rourke gestured wearily. “What other theory does make sense? Even though you refused to go in with him he could, as I said, have used your name for a lever to threaten the guy. Say the stuff was in your possession and would be turned over to me for publication in case anything happened to him.”

  “Could be,” Shayne agreed moodily. “And in that case I should be hearing from Mr. Big, after he has failed to find what he wants. There’ll be that chance just so long as I don’t let the police in on it,” he continued swiftly. “Once it comes out in the open, any chance of a deal will be off. From what Jackson said, there’s enough money involved to make it worth waiting for an offer.”

  “Do you mean you’d make a deal with a man who had that night operator murdered?”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Shayne demanded. “It isn’t as though I’ve actually got anything to sell him. If he chooses to think I have and wants to pay me to suppress it, why shouldn’t I let him?”

  “Suppose he’s already murdered Bert Jackson, too?” Rourke burst out. “And that’s what I’m afraid has happened.”

  “Then I’ll get him for it and let him pay me for doing the job in the bargain. Don’t you see, Tim,” he went on persuasively, “it’s the only way we’ll ever find out who he is? Our only chance to get a lead is to
sit back and hope he’ll come to me.” He paused to drain his glass and pour another drink. “Unless you can give me the name of the man Jackson is after,” he ended casually.

  “All I know is what Betty has told me—what Bert has told her. He has never mentioned a name, or any specific details.”

  “But you could make a guess,” Shayne challenged. “If the thing is as big as Jackson claims, you’d have heard rumors.”

  “Miami’s full of rumors,” Rourke hedged. “Sure, I can make a guess. Half a dozen guesses. Without some facts I couldn’t pin it down closer than that.”

  “What about someone on the Tribune?” Shayne persisted. “Wouldn’t he have had to turn in some dope during the past few weeks that would give them a lead on what he was digging up?”

  “That depends on how cagey Jackson has been about it. Abe Linkle isn’t the kind of guy to give him his head too long without demanding something in the way of results.”

  “There’s a fellow named Ned Brooks who’s been working with Jackson on the story. Wouldn’t he know something?”

  “I think he’s been holding out on Ned, too. Something Bert got hold of and has been running down alone.”

  “What about the Tribune—and Jackson’s theory that they wouldn’t print the story if he turned it in? I thought newspapers lived by printing the news. The more sensational the better.”

  “There are angles and angles,” said Rourke cautiously. “Matters of policy that sometimes dictate a certain story is better killed. The Trib has backed the present city administration to the hilt. It would depend a lot on what the story was and who it would hurt.”

  Shayne took time out to sip brandy and stare absently at the wall. Then he set his glass down and held out his right hand, palm up. “Do you want to tell me how this blood got on the cushion of your car tonight?” he asked abruptly.

  Rourke stood up and began pacing the floor restlessly, combing his hair with thin fingers. He came back to face Shayne. “You’ve known me a long time, Mike. Will you take my word for it that I’m not a murderer?”