“Him, I don’t know much about. He’s managed to stay out of the newspapers mostly. On the edges of some shady stuff, maybe, but what practicing attorney isn’t? He keeps his nose clean in public. As a matter of fact, I think he’s a fairly close personal friend of your old buddy, Will Gentry.”
Shayne said, “Yeh. Well, thanks, Tim. This has all been very helpful.”
“Wait a minute.” Rourke grabbed his arm as he turned away. “For all this inside information, what do I get in return? What sort of track are you on, Mike? Has this got anything to do with that Russian pistol you were excited about this morning? What was it Molly Morgan called it … Lenski something-or-other?”
“There’s a tie-in,” Shayne admitted cautiously. “I think it’s going to start hatching some eggs by tomorrow morning, but right now I’m going home to sleep on it. You know you’ll be in on it, Tim, the moment anything starts to break. Hang around home tomorrow until I give you a ring one way or the other.”
“Okay,” Rourke said doubtfully. “It’s a date.”
And with that Michael Shayne left him, headed for his hotel as he told the reporter … and what he hoped would be a solid night’s sleep.
14
The insistent ringing of his telephone awakened Michael Shayne from sound sleep the next morning. He instinctively rolled toward the edge of the bed, groaned and put his hand up to his neck when the pain struck him. The lump under his ear was half the size it had been the night before, but was just as painful to the touch.
His telephone kept on ringing and he swung his legs out of bed cautiously, stood up and padded into the sitting room, barefooted and in pajamas.
He lifted the telephone and growled, “Mike Shayne.”
A thick voice answered, “This is Roy Enders.”
Shayne looked at a clock across the room and saw it was a little after eight o’clock. He said, “I’ve been expecting a call from you.”
There was a brief silence as though the caller were taken aback by the reply. Then, “Well, I’m calling now to warn you to keep your nose out of things that don’t concern you.”
“Murder always concerns me,” Shayne said placidly.
Another brief pause. Then, “Yeh? How much talking did Captain Ruffer do last night before he died?”
“You know more about that than I do.”
“Look here, I wasn’t near his place last night. You were.”
Shayne didn’t bother to reply to this. He kept the receiver to his ear while he leaned over for a pack of cigarettes on the table and shook one out.
“Let’s don’t beat around the bush,” the thick voice said finally. “I know you stole the captain’s logbook.”
“But you’ve got it now,” Shayne said.
“All right. But what I’m wondering is how much you read before you lost it.”
Shayne said, “Keep on worrying.”
“Yeh.” The gruff voice became resigned. “Maybe we can make a deal, huh?”
“What kind of deal?” Shayne got a crumpled cigarette between his lips and struck a match.
“I hear you’re interested in fancy Russian pistols. How would you like to have a gross … delivered anywhere you say within a week? Factory-fresh and in the original packing cases.”
Shayne said, “A gross is peanuts.”
“Peanuts?” The voice thickened incredulously. “I thought you were hep. Know what they would bring? Spread around the country quietly with the kind of outlets you’re in a position to contact?”
Shayne said, “Fifty grand, maybe.”
“You call fifty grand peanuts?”
“In this case, sure. An even split should be worth five times that.”
“An even split?” The heavy voice was outraged. “What the devil makes you think …?”
“You’d better do some thinking,” Shayne said evenly.
He put the receiver down and went out into the kitchen in his bare feet and put hot water on the stove to boil for coffee. He was measuring ground coffee into the top of the dripolator when his telephone began ringing again. He disregarded it while he finished measuring out coffee. He fitted the top on the pot, and the water was beginning to boil, and he poured it in.
The telephone was still ringing when he strolled back into the sitting room and picked it up and asked with a scowl, “Have you done your homework?”
The same voice was somewhat plaintive now, “What makes you think you deserve an even split?”
“It’s not a matter of deserving,” Shayne told him happily. “I’m sitting in the driver’s seat. One call to the C.I.A. and you’re through. Kaput.”
“You’d never do it, Shayne. Because you’d be out in the cold, too. I know your reputation for never passing up a buck.”
Shayne said, “Don’t push me into something I’d rather not do. Fifty-fifty is one hell of a lot better than nothing.”
“Yeh.” For the first time the voice sounded uncertain. “Come out and we’ll talk it over, huh? Fifty-fifty is too much, but maybe we can make a sensible deal.”
“Where?”
“I’m holed up in my old lodge on the Keys. Take Number One seventeen miles past Florida City, and there’s an old paved road to your left. Follow that six and eight-tenths miles and turn right on a dirt road. There’s a sign.”
Shayne said, “I’ll find it.”
“Come alone in your own car. There’ll be guys watching after you make the last turn-off. If you try to pull anything we’ll both regret it.”
“Why should I try to pull anything?” Shayne asked amiably. “If I’d wanted to cut you out I would have started the ball rolling last night.”
“All right. Can you make it in an hour?”
“Hell, I haven’t had breakfast,” Shayne said irritably. “And I’ve got a couple of things to do. Make it eleven o’clock.”
“Come alone and unarmed.”
Shayne said, “I figure I’d be a fool to come any other way.” He hung up and went out to the kitchen for a mug of coffee.
After his coffee he showered and used an electric razor on his face, gingerly going around the strips of adhesive which he left in place, and glowering at his reflection as he did so.
When he was dressed he looked in the telephone book for Armin Lasher’s telephone number and found a listing in the swank Miami Shores district. He lifted the telephone to call the number, and scowled at the instrument in surprise when a brisk masculine voice answered from the hotel switchboard, “Good morning.”
Shayne hesitated, and instead of giving Lasher’s number, he asked, “Can you give me the time?”
He was told, “It is eight fifty-two.”
He hung up thoughtfully, got his Panama from a hook near the door and went down to the lobby. He crossed to the desk and leaned one elbow on it and looked past the day clerk at the switchboard where a brown-suited middle-aged man was alertly handling the plugs, and asked, “Where’s Mabel today?”
The clerk glanced back with him, and said, “Mabel was ill today and the employment agency sent him for a substitute.”
Shayne nodded and went out to the hotel garage for his car, drove to a drugstore on Flagler that was open, and went in and called Lasher’s number.
A feminine voice with a Swedish accent answered, “Mr. Lasher’s residence,” and Shayne told her urgently, “Get Mr. Lasher on the phone at once. It’s very important.”
“Well, I don’t know,” she said nervously. “He’s having breakfast and won’t like being disturbed.”
“Disturb him,” Shayne told her. “He’ll like it. Tell him it’s Mike Shayne.”
After a short wait, Lasher’s voice answered questioningly, “Shayne? Did the girl get it right?”
“She got it right. I want to see you … and Bull and Dixie. Can you have the two of them at your office in an hour?”
“Look. I told you last night, Mike.…”
“I know what you told me last night,” grated Shayne. “Things have changed since then. This is a damn
ed big deal and I need help. The kind of help your boys can give me. Have them there at ten o’clock and I’ll make you a proposition worth maybe a couple of hundred grand. But it’s got to be settled fast and it’s got to be those two. I’ll be there at ten.”
He hung up before Lasher could ask any questions, looked in the directory hanging on a chain and discovered that John Mason Boyd’s office was on Flagler only a few doors from where he stood.
He went out and found the office building with Boyd listed on the building directory on the 6th floor.
He went up and found a door chastely lettered: JOHN MASON BOYD—ATTORNEY-AT-LAW, and entered a small reception room. A tightmouthed, middle-aged woman seated at a desk looked up at Shayne inquiringly and then with unconcealed disapproval at the strips of adhesive on his face and the lump on his neck.
“Mr. Boyd is not in,” she informed him before he could ask her. “I don’t expect him before ten.”
Shayne said, “Perhaps you can help me. I’m from the police,” he lied blandly, giving her a glimpse of his private detective’s badge.
“From the police?” Her thin lips tightened. “I’m sure I don’t know how I can help you.”
“It’s about one of Mr. Boyd’s clients who was murdered last night. Mr. Boyd told us something about him last night, but there are a few details we need to have filled in.”
“You mean poor Captain Ruffer. Such a terrible way to die. He was such a nice man. So alone and … helpless.”
“Did you know him?”
“Only through seeing him here at the office occasionally. Is it true that he was actually tortured to death last night? Why would anyone do such a thing? Of course, I guess he had come into some money finally because I know he called Mr. Boyd yesterday and said he was going to be able to do something about the mortgage on his little house which was about to be foreclosed.”
“In what capacity did Boyd act for him as an attorney?”
“There wasn’t much … really,” she said vaguely. “He first came to us five or six years ago for help in collecting insurance on his boat that had been lost at sea. He put all of that, I believe, in his little house, and I actually believe he’s been almost destitute this last year or so. Behind on his mortgage payments and like that. I know Mr. Boyd worried about him, and I think he actually gave him small sums of money sometimes, just so the old captain wouldn’t go hungry. But he was independent … you know how stubborn old people get? What was it you wanted to ask me about him?”
Shayne said, “Just what you’ve told me. Thanks,” and lifted his hat to her and went out.
Downstairs there was a telephone booth in the lobby, and he dialed Timothy Rourke’s home number.
After the fifth ring, the reporter’s sleepy voice come over the wire and Shayne told him briskly, “Things are getting ready to pop, Tim. If you want one hell of a story, get on Will Gentry’s tail and don’t get off it.”
“What’s that? Mike? What the hell time of night is it?”
“Time you were on your horse and riding. Get down to Will Gentry’s office, Tim, and stick to him like a leech. Don’t ask him any questions and don’t, for God’s sake, let him know that I tipped you off. Just stay close to him this morning, and I promise you fireworks.”
Shayne hung up and went out onto the sidewalk. It lacked eighteen minutes of ten o’clock. Just time enough for a leisurely drive out to the Little Revue and a confrontation with the two hoods who had treated him so cavalierly the night before.
15
There were no cars in the public parking lot at the night club when Michael Shayne got there. He pulled up directly in front of the entrance and got out. The doors stood wide open, and inside an old man was industriously mopping the floor of the lounge.
He didn’t even look up from his task as the detective crossed the damp floor and went down the corridor to the stairway at the rear.
It was very still inside the building and he encountered no one else as he climbed the stairs and went toward Lasher’s office.
The outer door into the reception room stood open and it was empty this morning, with the ceiling light on.
The door to the inner office was closed. Shayne strode across to it and knocked lightly and then turned the knob. He had timed his arrival carefully so it was exactly ten o’clock, and as he pushed the door open Armin Lasher called out from inside, “That you, Shayne?”
He said, “Yes,” and stepped inside, confronting the gangster seated behind the big bare desk as he had been the night before, with Dixie and Bull standing stiffly behind his chair.
Lasher’s black eyes narrowed for a moment as he took in Shayne’s appearance, and then a faint smile flickered over his mobile face. “You’re not near as pretty as you were last night,” he observed sardonically. “Like I told you then, you don’t know when to keep your big mouth shut I guess.”
Shayne said evenly, “I guess not.” He glanced from the seated gangster up into the faces of Dixie and Bull, and he sensed real fear in their furtive expressions. He knew, then, that Lasher was not aware they had disobeyed him last night, and that he would have them on his side if he played it right. He touched the strips of adhesive on his cheek and said lightly, “One of the hazards of my job. Sometimes I run up against a guy tougher than I am, and I don’t hold a grudge if I get marked up a little.”
Lasher merely grunted, then he demanded, “What are we here for, Shamus? You got something to say … say it.”
“We were talking about Russian pistols last night,” Shayne reminded him. “The whole thing’s a hell of a lot bigger than I realized, and I need somebody with your connections to swing the deal. I know there are about a dozen well-heeled Cuban refugee groups in town who would be eager cash customers for the kind of goods I can deliver. In my position, I can’t contact them. You can. I know where the stuff is. You handle the selling end and we split fifty-fifty.”
“What is the ‘stuff’?” asked Lasher.
“An assorted shipment of Russian small arms. The Lenski pistols are a sample. There are six gross of them. At a hundred bucks each.…” He shrugged his shoulders expressively. “Automatic rifles … machine guns … with ammunition to match. All new and the very latest design. Exactly what the hotheads need to foment half a dozen revolutions in Cuba and the rest of Latin America.”
“Where is it?” demanded Lasher.
“That’s my secret,” Shayne told him evenly. “Are you interested?”
“Why not? Show me the stuff and we’ll deal.”
“There’s one hitch. There’s a mug standing between me and the shipment, and he’s got a couple of torpedoes gunning for me right now. I’ve got to stay alive to make delivery to you. That’s where your two boys come in. I need a couple of real pros like Bull and Dixie to handle that angle.” He raised his gaze and looked from one to the other with cold eyes. “From what I’ve seen of them, I figure they’re just the pair for the job. Give them to me for a couple of hours and we’ll be in.”
Neither of them said anything or moved. They looked back at him dispassionately and he had no idea what they were thinking.
“Right now?” asked Lasher.
“It’s got to be right now. I’m the only one standing in this other guy’s way and he’s putting me on the spot. I’ve got a date to meet him out in the country in about an hour, and I’ve got word he’ll have a couple of quick-trigger boys on hand to blast me out of the picture.
“I’m not handing you anything on a platter,” he went on harshly to Lasher. “It’s my hide I’m worried about. If Bull and Dixie can handle the job, I’ll owe you half the take. But there’s sure as hell going to be shooting, and you boys better shoot first,” he ended raising his eyes to them again. “Don’t throw in with me unless you’re as good as I think you are.”
“They’re good all right,” Lasher assured him. “Two of the best.” He leaned back in his chair with narrowed eyes and considered the proposal. “I don’t see why not. If it’s as big as you say,
Shayne.”
“It’s that big. You boys all ironed and ready?” Shayne asked them. “My car’s in front and we’re due south of Homestead for the showdown in less than an hour.”
Dixie said in a tight voice, “We’re ready if you are.”
“Sure,” said Bull with a swagger. “You show us who you want gunned … that’s all.”
Shayne said, “Let’s go then,” and turned on his heel and walked out.
They followed close behind, and Bull caught up with him at the head of the stairs and said earnestly, “Jeez! It’s real swell you ain’t got no hard feelin’s for last night Dixie an’ me, we just sorta got carried away.”
Shayne said lightly, “Why should there be any hard feelings? I guess I asked for it when I pushed you in front of Lasher. Important thing is, I knew where to come when I needed a couple of real tough lads. Anybody that can rough me up and get away with it … know what I mean?”
“Hear that, Dix?” said Bull over his shoulder happily. “Just like I tol’ you this mornin’. You take a pro like Mike Shayne … why should he get sore for a little slappin’ around? He’s handed out plenty his ownself, you can bet.”
16
With the two men in the back seat of his car, Shayne got onto the Palmetto Speedway and sped south to its intersection with Highway Number One, and made the 18-mile run to Homestead at high speed. At Florida City, Number One became a two-lane road leading south to Key Largo and eventually to Key West.
He drove through Florida City at exactly 10:30, and made the next seventeen miles in seventeen minutes, leaving the rich and heavily populated country behind him and entering a desolute area of scrub pine and palmetto as the road drew close to the coastline.
At that point he found an old paved road leading off to the left, and he swung onto it at reduced speed, checking his speedometer. It was a narrow, twisting roadway through hummocky wasteland with blazing sunlight overhead, no habitations on either side, and no cars travelling in either direction.
At the end of six miles of bumpy road, Shayne said over his shoulder in a conversational tone, “You two had better get down on the floor now and have your gats ready. I turn off on a dirt road in about half a mile. Keep your heads damn well down because I promised to come alone and unarmed. It will be somewhere along that dirt road. I expect two of them, and they won’t be amateurs. Keep out of sight until I stop, and I’ll try to get them both around to my side of the car, and I’ll jerk the rear door open. That should give you a jump, but for God’s sake start shooting fast when the door opens. They’re going to be tough cookies, and loaded for bear. Got that clear?”
A Redhead for Mike Shayne Page 12
