Weep for a Blonde

by Brett Halliday

  A bright red and white Chevrolet convertible passed him, and its brakes ground as the driver wavered to the curb down the block in a vacant space just beyond the lights of a bar. Shayne slowed his pace as a girl stepped out on the right side and was followed by a tall youth who obviously needed no more drinks that evening, but who flung an arm about the girl’s shoulders and let her half support him into the bar.

  Shayne moved up fast as they disappeared inside, knowing the chances were he was drunk enough to forget his ignition key and that he was unlikely to be coming out of the bar very soon to notice that his car was missing.

  He strolled around to the left side and glanced in to see the key in the lock. He slid under the wheel and started the motor, pulled away smoothly to the next corner where he turned right. He drove north at a moderate speed, checking everything he knew or had ever heard about a private detective named Earl Jenson.

  There was a girl mixed up with Jenson, he knew. He’d run into the two of them together just a few weeks ago. He remembered a hard face and brassy hair and lots of bust, but no name to go with them. But there had been something about the girl—something lewd or unsavory that had impressed itself on his memory at the time.

  He scowled as he drove northward, concentrating on the scene. It had been very late at night. In a dump out toward Coral Gables. They had come to his table just as he was finishing a drink and about to leave, and Jenson introduced the girl with a fatuous smile. And she’d pretended to be impressed by the redhead’s reputation and.…

  Hell! He had it now. He snapped his fingers in relief. They’d stood there waiting for him to leave the booth so they could sit down, and when he pressed past her to get out, she clung to him for a moment and whispered, “Come see me some time at Mama Rance’s.”

  He looked at the next street sign and speeded up to 23rd Street where he swung left. This was one of the older sections of the city solidly built up with fairly large stucco residences, many of which had been converted into apartments.

  A few blocks westward, he pulled into the curb in front of a three-story house with the lower floor completely lighted and most of the upper windows dark. A discreet sign said RANCE APTS, and beneath a smaller sign hung on two hooks told him NO Vacancies.

  He went up a short walk to the unlighted front porch and pulled the door open onto a wide hall leading the length of the house. Loud chimes sounded in a big well-lighted room to the right over the sound of voices and dance music, and as Shayne turned to the opening he was met by a tall, elegantly gowned woman with silvery hair and unlined features. She had the genteel appearance of a faded Southern belle, and the mechanical smile of welcome on her face was replaced by one of genuine warmth when she recognized her caller.

  “Michael Shayne?” she trilled. “I do declare if it isn’t! You-all come right on in and.…”

  Shayne said “Hi, Mama. I’m looking for a girl.”

  “Well, now, what other reason would you be coming here this time of night?” she pouted prettily, putting a soft, plump hand on his arm.

  “A particular girl,” he amended, drawing her back into the hallway. “I don’t know her name, but she’s a friend of one of your good customers. Earl Jenson. Know the one I mean?” He cupped his hands suggestively far out in front of his chest.

  Mama Rance’s delighted laughter was a girlish trill. “Mistuh Shayne! Would you be meaning Isabelle?”

  “I met-her with Jenson a couple of weeks ago.”

  “And she went for you plenty, I bet.” Mama Rance tilted her head coquettishly. “You know now, I do declare if I were twenty years younger.…”

  Shayne said, “This is damned important, Mama. Has Jenson been here tonight?”

  “Not tonight. But I’m afraid Isabelle is busy right this minute. Why don’t you-all come right in and relax …?”

  Shayne shook her hand off his arm impatiently. “Get Isabelle down here.”

  “I couldn’t do that, Mistuh Shayne.” She was horrified by the suggestion. “When one of my girls is entertaining.…”

  “I want to ask her one question,” Shayne said between his teeth. “Get her for me, Mama, or I’ll start opening every door in the joint.”

  She fluttered her hands helplessly and started to protest again, but Shayne turned her about roughly toward the stairway leading to the second floor and told her harshly: “I’ll wait here just two minutes, Mama. Then I start tearing the place apart until I find Isabelle.”

  She said doubtfully, “I’ll see. You wait here now, and I’ll see if.…”

  “Two minutes,” Shayne told her. He leaned against the wall and got out a cigarette, drew in a deep lungful of smoke while he watched her climb the stairs hastily.

  The two minutes weren’t quite up when she reappeared at the top of the stairs holding tightly to the arm of the girl whom Shayne had met with Jenson. She wore a flowered wrapper that failed to come together in front and her eyes were stormy as she ran down the stairs in front of Mama Rance, raging, “What the hell kinda stunt you and Mama pulling? I don’t care who you are or what the damned hell you want.…”

  Shayne said, “Where’s Earl Jenson tonight?”

  “That cheap no-good?” She stopped on the bottom step, trying without too much effort to pull the wrapper together. “I remember you now. Another dick like Earl. Well, I’m telling you.…”

  Shayne said, “Just tell me where Earl’s likely to be hanging out.”

  “Shootin’ craps, I guess,” she said sullenly. “Big Tim’s game. Either whorin’ around or shootin’ craps … that’s Earl Jenson for you.”

  Shayne said, “Thanks.” He spun on his heel and went to a telephone near the door and dialed a number with his back to the stairs. Isabelle started toward him, but Mama called to her urgently from the top of the stairs and with an angry shrug of her shoulders she went back up.

  A nasal voice answered the phone on the first ring, and Shayne asked, “Where’s Big Tim tonight?”

  “Basement of the Elite Garage on Northeast nineteenth. There’s a parking lot there and Jimmy’ll show you.”

  Shayne hung up. Both Mama and Isabelle were out of sight as he let himself out the door. He hurried to the convertible and pulled away fast, circled east and south to 19th Street and the Elite Garage with adjoining parking lot.

  The garage was closed and completely dark, but a floodlight showed a dozen or more cars in the parking lot, and, as Shayne turned in the entrance, a small, hunch-backed figure stepped out of a wooden sentry-box in front of his headlights.

  Shayne braked and cut off the motor. He got out and asked the hunchback. “Big Tim around tonight?”

  “Try the side door right over yonder.” The hunchback pointed with his forefinger. “I’ll park her for you.”

  Shayne said, “I’ll park it myself and keep hold of the keys.” He stepped back inside and slammed the door against the man’s protest, wheeled the convertible around into an empty space beside the side door.

  He got out again and walked to the wooden door, and it swung open in front of him just as he started to knock. A dim light showed stairs leading downward and a leather-jacketed man blocking the doorway. Both hands were thrust deep into slanting pockets of the leather jacket and he asked suspiciously, “Whatcha want?”

  Shayne said, “Some action. Isn’t Big Tim running here tonight?”

  The guard for the floating crap game had a jagged scar running from the left corner of his mouth all the way to his ear. The scar tissue showed white against the heavy tan of his skin and it twitched as he surveyed the redhead suspiciously. “Who’s Big Tim?”

  Shayne knew he was waiting to receive tonight’s password to the crap game before passing him down the stairs, and Shayne had no time to waste on arguments or discussion.

  He moved forward so that his chest was against the front of the leather jacket, saying mildly, “Would I be here if I didn’t know I’d be welcome? Get out of my way, punk.”

  Leather Jacket did not budge. His right h
and pressed deeper into the slanting jacket pocket and the muzzle of a gun pressed into Shayne’s ribs. He warned sibilantly, “Don’t start nothin’.…”

  Shayne’s left hand slammed down against the muzzle of the gun while his right fist swung up in a jolting uppercut that connected solidly with the point of the man’s scarred jaw.

  As he grunted and staggered back off balance, Shayne’s left hand drove into the slanting pocket while he smashed him again on the side of the jaw.

  Leather Jacket’s eyes became glazed and he sank to the floor in a rubbery heap. Shayne’s hand came out of his pocket gripping the corrugated butt of a .45 automatic. Shayne pulled the door shut behind him and stepped over the pile of unconscious flesh and went down wooden steps to another closed door at the bottom.

  He transferred the automatic to his right hand and opened the door onto a big concrete-floored room with cars in various states of repair parked in a circle with headlights gleaming on a dozen men kneeling about the edges of an Army blanket spread on the concrete. There were piles of money in front of each, and a mass of crumpled bills in the center of the blanket.

  One of the kneeling men who had his back to Shayne was shaking a pair of dice in his cupped right hand close to his ear and explaining to them in a sing-song voice that all he wanted from them was an “eighter from Decatur”. The rest of the players were leaning forward on their knees or hunched forward on their haunches, waiting for his throw.

  One of them directly across the blanket from Shayne looked up as the redhead closed the door silently behind him. He was a huge Negro, his face shiny black with perspiration, with a torso like a silo on a mid-western farm. He showed the whites of his eyes as he looked up at Shayne’s grim face and then down at the big muzzle of the automatic in his hand.

  The crap-shooter let the dice go and they rolled across the blanket and there were shouts of glee from the gamblers who had covered his bet and a scramble for their share of the money in the center as the dice stopped rolling with a six and an ace up.

  Shayne shook his head expressively at the Negro on the other side of the blanket and announced loudly, “Everybody sit tight. This isn’t a stick-up, but the first wrong move gets a slug.” He looked steadily into the black man’s eyes. “You tell them, Big Tim.”

  “Sure, Mister Shayne.” Big Tim rocked back on his heels and his voice was mellifluous. “Sit quiet, ever’body. Mister Mike Shayne an’ a big gun doin’ the talkin’.”

  The crap-shooters were like statues, only their heads turning slowly to survey him, keeping their hands very still and in plain sight.

  “You, Jenson.” Shayne curtly addressed the man who had just sevened out with the dice. “Leave your money where it lies and get up slow. Come outside with me.”

  Earl Jenson was an untidy, gaunt-faced man. His face had a yellowish tinge as he got slowly to his feet and faced Shayne. Speaking past him, Shayne told the others, “Some of you probably know I’m on the run from a murder frame tonight … but don’t get any ideas. Go right on shooting craps while I have a talk with Jenson. That way, nobody will get hurt.” He fumbled behind him for the doorknob, turned it and backed out, motioning with the automatic for Jenson to follow him. He pulled the door half-shut and rammed the muzzle of the gun into Jenson’s middle.

  “You know Mrs. Kane is dead?” he grated.

  Earl Jenson nodded without speaking, wetting his lips, hypnotized by the blued steel of the gun in his belly.

  “You did a tailing job for Richard Kane a couple months ago,” Shayne told him flatly. “I want the name and address of the man she was playing with.”

  “Look here,” protested Jenson hoarsely. “I have lots of clients. I’d have to check my records at the office.…”

  Shayne said flatly, “It’s just too goddamned bad for you tonight if you’ve got a bad memory, Jenson. If I go up these stairs without the man’s name … you’ll be carried up them feet first and with a slug in your belly.”

  Earl Jenson believed him. There was a madness in the redhead’s eyes that made him believe him. He gasped, “Roger Poole. On the Beach.” And he gave Shayne a street address not more than ten blocks from the Kane residence.

  Shayne relaxed his pressure on the gun muzzle and said pleasantly, “Go back inside and piss away the rest of your money on Big Tim’s crooked dice. Forget you saw me tonight … and tell those punks they’d best forget it, too.” He jerked the door open and gave Jenson a shove that sent him sprawling onto the concrete floor, then ran lightly up the stairs and stepped over the still unconscious guard into the night and into the conveniently parked Chevrolet.

  17

  The address Earl Jenson had given Shayne was a few blocks west of the oceanfront, just south of the Kane place. Shayne carefully watched the lights and stayed below the maximum speed limits crossing the Causeway and driving north on the Beach. The moon was high overhead now, and the strong breeze of earlier evening had died away so that silvered palm fronds hung lacy and motionless in the night air, giving an effect of unearthly serenity to the scene.

  Shayne’s mood did not respond to the serenity of the night. Time was fast running out for him, and this was the last card he had in his hand. Already, a stolen car report might be going out on the convertible he was driving, and any cruising police car that checked his license number might bring an end to his freedom of action.

  It wouldn’t matter after he had his talk with Roger Poole. If that failed, he’d be just as well behind bars as chasing his own tail around town on a lost scent.

  But he knew in his own mind that it couldn’t fail. Roger Poole was all he had. Roger Poole had to be the answer. Someone had gunned Lydia Kane … and the only someone in the picture other than Michael Shayne was Roger Poole.

  It was as simple as that, Shayne told himself as he drove sedately north toward the Poole address. It had to be that simple because that was the only solution likely to save the redhead’s neck.

  But way down deep, below the level of consciousness, Shayne knew it didn’t have to be that simple at all. For all he knew, the dead blonde might have had a dozen other jealous lovers in her past. Or a dozen other wholly unknown and unguessed motives might have led to her murder.

  But all of them were very likely to remain unknown and unguessed if this hunch failed and Peter Painter succeeded in putting him behind bars. Because Painter wasn’t going to look for them. Painter was going to be very well-satisfied with one good suspect.

  So it had to be Poole—or else.

  Shayne slowed and turned to the left on a west-bound street. The residences here were not quite so imposing as those directly on the ocean, though there were only three or four to each block, each set well back from the street beyond well-kept lawns.

  Lights showed in only a few of the houses at this late hour, and there were no moving cars on the street. Shayne drove slowly and found the number he sought on the right side with a gravel driveway leading up to an unassuming two-story house that showed a dim light behind curtains in a front, downstairs window.

  He relaxed and let out a pent-up sigh of relief as he turned in the driveway. At least he had got the stolen heap off the street where its license could not be seen by a police cruiser if there was a report out on it.

  His luck was still holding firm. He was going to have his interview with Roger Poole come hell or high water.

  He cut his headlights and the motor as he rolled up the driveway, braked quietly to a stop in front of closed garage doors beside the house.

  He felt curiously weary as he stepped out of the car and lifted the .45 from the car seat to ram it into a hip pocket. He wasn’t keyed-up or tense at all as he strode to the front door and pressed the button. A feeling of let-down, almost of lethargy, engulfed him. He was even able to feel faintly sorry for Roger Poole as he waited for the door to open.

  It opened and a woman was framed in the doorway with a dim light behind her. She wore shimmery red lounging pajamas and a Mandarin coat buttoned tightly about her th
roat giving her a sort of little-girl look. She had straight black hair in a Dutch cut with bangs across her forehead. She had a smooth, oval face with a rosebud mouth and wide blue eyes.

  She was very drunk.

  She swayed against the doorframe with her hands clasped together in front of her and said brightly, “H’lo there. You wanna drink?” She teetered on the threshold and giggled as Shayne put a big hand under her elbow to steady her, and blinked her eyes up at him and said casually, “Don’ know you, do I? Whasit matter? C’mon in an’ hava drink.”

  Shayne moved forward and she snuggled against him, moving his arm to press it about her slim waist, rubbing her cheek happily against his bicep. The front door opened directly into a living room with a driftwood fire dying lazily at the far end. A single shaded floor-lamp lighted the empty room. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and whiskey fumes.

  Shayne held his arm tightly around her and looked down at the glossy black head pressed against his arm, and asked, “Mrs. Poole?”

  “Course I’m Miz Poole. Who the hell you ’spect? Eleanor Roosevelt?” She giggled again and twisted in his arm to turn her face up to his. “Kiss me, huh?” She pouted her lips at him.

  Shayne said, “Where’s your husband?”

  “Rog? Don’ you worry ’bout him. ’Sall right. Perfec’ly safe.” She slid a softly rounded arm about his neck and pulled his head down.

  Shayne kissed her briefly. Then he held her at arm’s length and demanded, “Where is Roger tonight? I’ve got to see him. Do you understand? It’s very important.”

  “Nothin’ ’portant ’cept drink an’ kisses,” she told him. “You jus’ too damn’ sober. Thass all.”

  Shayne shook her, not too hard, and spaced his words slowly for emphasis. “Drink and kisses come after you tell me where Roger is. Do you understand that? Lots to drink and plenty of kisses. But … where … is Roger right now?”