Pay-Off in Blood ms-41

by Brett Halliday

  “I know Ambrose left the restaurant in his car not later than nine-forty with a thick, white envelope in his pocket, containing documents that were worth twenty grand to him. He was shot in his own driveway, on the Beach, about thirty minutes later… and the envelope was missing when his body was found. I told Painter this much, though I didn’t admit standing by for the pay-off.”

  Will Gentry grunted noncommittally.

  “When I got back to my hotel from the Beach,” Shayne went on, “a couple of torpedoes were waiting for me in the lobby. They took me for a ride to room Four-Thirty at the Bayside Hotel.”

  He graphically described the meeting and the way it turned out. “That’s why I’d like to get a line on Jud and Phil and the Boss,” he ended morosely. “With just a little bit of a trifle of an edge on my side next time.”

  Will Gentry looked baffled. “It doesn’t make sense. Who got the money, if he didn’t? You say Ambrose was perfectly satisfied with the contents of the envelope he got in exchange.”

  Shayne said, “I’ve got one faint hunch. It doesn’t help us much, but it does add up to the only possible motive I can see for the doctor’s murder.”

  He paused a moment to clarify his thoughts. “The Boss is a professional blackmailer… with some sort of an organization which includes at least Jud and Phil. Maybe Crew-cut, too, who didn’t look like a hood at all, but would fit in better as a liaison man. Suppose he normally handled the pay-offs… the actual collections. So he’d have the stuff ready to trade with Ambrose while the Boss waited in the hotel room to set it up.

  “But he jumps the gun, phones Dr. Ambrose on his own and sets it up for nine-thirty. He gets the cash, all right, but now, by God, he’s on the spot. When the deadline passes at midnight and the Boss starts putting further pressure on Ambrose, the doctor will naturally tell him to go to hell. So it behooves Crew-cut to get the stuff back into his own hands, if he wants to go on living. So he follows Ambrose home and kills him and gets the envelope back.” Shayne spread out his hands. “He’s in the clear with twenty grand. The doctor is dead, and all the Boss can do is take out his frustration on the first private detective he can get into his hotel room under a couple of guns. Can you buy that?”

  Gentry agreed, “It makes sense that way.” He swung his attention to Timothy Rourke. “That picture you had Bayliss take might be important. Got a print of it with you?”

  Rourke shrugged unhappily. “I’m sorry it wasn’t my idea at all. Someone else hired him to do the job.” He repeated the story George Bayliss had told Shayne earlier. “The only person we can figure who had any use for a picture was Dr. Ambrose. The others didn’t need a picture of him. They knew whom they were blackmailing. But, if he did arrange it, certainly the guy who handed the fifty bucks to George would report it to the police after learning that Ambrose had been murdered.”

  “Maybe he has… to Painter,” suggested Shayne. “Would you check with him and find out, Will? Without giving it away that I saw the picture being taken?”

  Gentry nodded and lifted a telephone on his desk. Both men settled back and lit cigarettes while he conferred with the Chief of Detectives on the other side of Biscayne Bay. He hung up, shaking his bullet head. “Nothing like that has come in. Painter did shake the Seacliff down, of course, and has already got word about a flash-bulb going off at about nine-thirty. He doesn’t know why, and can’t connect it with the pay-off… which he still doubts took place,” he added to Shayne. “I think he’d like to prove you sent Ambrose home from your hotel with the money intact… followed him and killed him for it.”

  “He and the Boss both,” muttered Shayne. He shook his head very slowly, because a sudden motion still started bells ringing inside his skull. “How about the gun found beside the body?”

  Gentry said, “He didn’t mention it. He did say, though, that he wanted more talk with you this morning, and, if I happened to see you, I was to tell you to call him.”

  Shayne said, “So you’ve told me.” He hesitated, and then said slowly, “If Ambrose did arrange to have Bayliss take the picture… as some sort of precaution or insurance against further blackmail… then the only reason I can see why it hasn’t been reported is that the man who paid Bayliss fifty bucks for the plateholder has some idea of cashing in on it. He might figure it’s worth a good hunk of that twenty grand to Crew-cut to keep the picture out of circulation.”

  “Would he know how to reach him?” asked Rourke skeptically.

  “Probably not. Any more than I do.” Shayne stood up carefully. “I guess that’s it, Will. Right now we’ve got five people mixed up in this thing one way or another… without knowing who they are or exactly how they tie in. I’ll stop for a talk with Sergeant Fillmore, huh, and give him all I’ve got on all five?”

  Gentry said, “Do that, Mike. And don’t forget that I passed Painter’s message on to you.”

  Shayne said, “I’ll be seeing him before he gets too impatient,” and went out of the chief’s office with Rourke on his heels. In the corridor, the reporter stopped him on his way to the Identification Department. “I’d better get in to the paper and write my story, Mike. Uh? You want anything in on the Bayside Hotel last night?”

  “Christ, no! And nothing on Bayliss either… if he’ll keep his mouth shut.”

  “He will. I think he’s scared right now… that it’s mixed up with a murder. There’s nothing really wrong with what he did, but the paper is going to take a dim view of the fact that he was on the spot to witness a blackmail pay-off that turned into murder and hasn’t even got a picture for us to print. He’s not going to boast about turning his plateholder over to a possible killer.”

  Shayne grinned and agreed, “I guess not. Okay, Tim. Take it from there. I’ll be in touch the minute I’ve got something you can print.”

  “Mike.” Rourke’s anxious voice stopped him as he started to move on.

  “Yeh?”

  “Last night… did you get any inkling of what Doc Ambrose was scared of… what he was being blackmailed about?”

  “Not an inkle.”

  “Because, damn it, I still say he was a swell guy,” declared Rourke fervently. “Whatever he’d done in the past, don’t forget…”

  “I know,” Shayne cut in sardonically, “that he saved your worthless life a few years ago. I’m not forgetting that, Tim.”

  He swung away down the corridor, and pushed open a frosted door marked IDENTIFICATION DEPT.

  It took him fifteen minutes to give Sgt. Fillmore a careful description of the Boss and his two goons, Crew-cut, and George Bayliss’s rather vague description of the man he had encountered outside the Seacliff.

  The Boss and Jud and Phil were the only ones Shayne had any hopes about. Crew-cut, although probably a member of the same group, was less likely to have a police record, and the buyer of the plateholder was a completely unknown quantity at present.

  The sergeant promised to go through the M.O. files carefully and pull out anything he could find, which would go straight to Will Gentry’s desk, and Shayne left police headquarters feeling he had done everything he could in that direction.

  Rourke had driven him from the hotel, so Shayne walked the short distance back to his office on Flagler Street.

  Lucy Hamilton was at her desk behind the low railing across the reception room when he entered a few minutes after nine o’clock. She was reading the morning paper, and looked up with a frown at him. “How did you ever manage to get mixed up in a murder last night, Michael?” she demanded. “When you left here you swore that nothing could stop you from going straight home to bed.”

  “Is that what it says in the paper… that I got mixed up in a murder?”

  “It says you were questioned by Chief Painter in connection with the murder of a Dr. Ambrose on the Beach… and were released until your story could be checked.”

  She wrinkled her nice nose at him, and as he started to walk stiffly past her to the open door of his private office she suddenly caught si
ght of his head, and wailed, “What happened to your head, Michael? And why are you walking that way?”

  Without breaking stride, he said, “That’s what comes of getting mixed up in murder. Come in, Angel. I want to talk to you.”

  When she entered his office he was setting a bottle of cognac on his desk. He turned away to fit two sets of paper cups inside each other, and filled one pair from the water cooler. Turning back and setting the other two nested cups on the desk beside the bottle, he said cheerfully, “We haven’t got a damned thing on for today, have we?” He uncorked the bottle and poured out a couple of ounces of cognac.

  “One telephone call this morning, Michael. A sweet little old lady who’s worried about her son, Cecil.” Lucy gave it the English pronunciation. “Cecil, to you,” she added, using the long “ee.” “Seems he got mixed up in some sort of unpleasantness last night and you’re to rescue him.”

  “Uhn-uh.” Shayne shook his head decisively, forgetting to keep it easy, and winced with pain. He sat in the swivel chair behind his desk and took a drink and said judicially, “Let the Cecils of this world get out of their own jams. Besides,” he asked suspiciously, “how do you know she’s sweet or little or old?”

  “Because she sounded that way. Mrs. Montgomery. I promised you’d call her as soon as you came in. She did sound worried, Michael.”

  He said, “We’ve got other worries.” He leaned back and stretched out his long legs and contemplated the ceiling. “I want you to close up shop, Lucy. Go over to the Beach and check all the neighbors of the Ambroses. Make up some good cover story that’ll get you inside the houses, and get the inside dope on the doctor and his wife. You know… like you’re doing a survey for Better Homes and Gardens

  “What kind of inside dope am I supposed to get for you, Michael?”

  “What sort of home-life. How much money they spent… on what. How often her neighbors ever see Celia Ambrose sober.” Shayne waved a big hand vaguely. “The good doctor was being blackmailed and I’d like to get some idea what for. The police have already questioned them, of course, but you know how people clam up for the police.” He grinned at her reassuringly. “The one thing they’ll be eager to talk about this morning is the Ambroses.”

  “Michael. We can’t just close up shop. Mrs. Montgomery, for instance. I promised her you’d call.”

  “All right, call her,” he said impatiently. “Tell her I’ve got a fractured skull and it’s going to stay fractured until I catch a murderer.” He drank some more cognac and washed it down with plain water.

  “What are you going to be doing while I’m snooping into the private life of the Ambroses?”

  “I’m going to visit his office and try to persuade his nurse to patch up my head and maybe put a fresh bandage on my broken ribs. Then I’ve got a date with Painter, and… Tell you what, Angel. You get cracking, and we’ll meet for lunch? At the Doubloon, huh? That’s where they make those…”

  “I know perfectly well where the Doubloon is,” Lucy interrupted him icily. “What did you say about your ribs?”

  “My ribs? Oh, I got kicked last night. Look, Angel.” His voice softened. “That’s why I’ve got to work on Ambrose. I don’t want my other side kicked in. Twelve-thirty at the Doubloon?”

  Lucy Hamilton sighed and smoothed back the brown curls from her forehead with trembling fingertips. “Michael Shayne! You’re the most…” She paused and sighed again. “The Doubloon at twelve-thirty. But I will call Mrs. Montgomery first so she can get another detective, if she wants.”

  Shayne said, “Fine. If she wants to tell me what the trouble is, I’ll recommend someone.”

  He settled back to finish his drink while Lucy went out to her desk, and through the open door he could hear her dialling a number.

  But he didn’t hear her talking on the telephone, and after a short time she reappeared in the connecting doorway and reported, “Mrs. Montgomery’s telephone doesn’t answer this time. As a matter of fact, I’ll confess to you now that I don’t believe it would be exactly up your alley, Michael. She was pretty vague about Cecil’s trouble when I tried to pin her down, but I rather gathered that he got caught in some sort of compromising situation with another man last night, and the dear old thing wants it hushed up.”

  Shayne scarcely heard her. He said, “Then that’s allright. See you at twelve-thirty, Angel.” He finished his drink and swung his feet off the desk and prepared to follow his secretary out, leaving the office locked up behind him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  This morning, Shayne parked directly in front of the doctor’s office. He went briskly down the flagged walk and found the door closed. He turned the knob and discovered it was locked. There was an electric button beside the door, and he put his thumb on it. He could hear a buzzer sounding inside the office, but nothing happened.

  While he stood there in the morning sunlight, a young and pretty girl in a nurse’s uniform looked out at him from the open door of the adjoining office. “They’re not open today. Didn’t you read in the paper about Dr. Ambrose?”

  Shayne said, “Yes. But I thought his nurse would be here.” He turned away from the locked door toward her. “Do you know Belle? Miss Jackson?”

  “Oh, yes. Quite well. Isn’t it terrible about the doctor? He was such a nice, gentle man. I don’t see why anyone would do a thing like that.”

  “Do you happen to have Miss Jackson’s address?”

  “No. But I know it’s here on the Beach. She always came to work by bus. It might be listed in the telephone book,” she offered helpfully.

  Shayne asked, “Do you mind if I look?”

  “Of course not.” She turned away from the open door to the interior of a reception room similar to the one next door Shayne had glimpsed briefly the preceding night. She went behind her desk and leafed through the directory, and looked up and nodded. “Belle Jackson.” She started to read off the street address, and Shayne said, “If I could borrow a piece of paper…”

  She said, “I’ll write it down for you.” She did, and handed it to him, her eyes bright with curiosity. “You’re that famous detective from Miami, aren’t you? Michael Shayne?”

  He said, “I’m Michael Shayne,” and accepted the slip of paper. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Do you have any idea who did it? I remember I was still working when he left the office last night about seven. He smiled at me so nicely as he went past the door, and called out, ‘There are better things for a pretty girl like you to be doing of an evening.’ He was always kidding me about working so hard and not having dates.”

  Shayne asked, “Why don’t you?” as he backed out of the door.

  “Oh, I do. All I want. You tell Belle if there’s anything I can do, to just call me.”

  Shayne said, “I will, and thanks again.” He walked back to his car, glancing down at Belle’s address. It wasn’t very far. South of Fifth Street near the bay side of the peninsula. He got in his car and circled back, threading his way among narrow streets until he found the address. He frowned incredulously, and checked the number on the paper again to be sure he had it right. It was one of the very old buildings of Miami Beach, that had been built long before the Beach became an exclusive and luxurious resort center. A two-story building of crumbling stucco built around a patio with outside iron stairways leading up to private little balconies by which the tenants could go to and from the beach in dripping bathing suits without discommoding their neighbors. There were beach towels and bathing suits displayed on most of the balconies, and a squad of small children playing in the patio.

  It had been originally designed for cheap summer rentals where a family could come from the mainland and occupy cramped quarters near the Bay at weekly or monthly rates, and Shayne knew it was the sort of place now occupied mostly by permanent residents who worked on the Beach and could not afford the higher rentals farther north.

  A professional woman like a registered nurse, he thought, should be able to afford better living quarters
. What was it the doctor had said last night? Something about paying his nurse over six thousand dollars a year.

  He shrugged and opened the door to get out. Maybe Belle Jackson had a pair of crippled parents and a couple of small children to support. Or maybe she was a miser and preferred to live like this and hoard her money.

  He crossed the sidewalk to the main entrance, and went into a small, damp-smelling hallway that had rows of dingy mailboxes with names above them. He found one marked Miss B. Jackson, and the number I-F. He went out and started to circle the patio, finding, as he had guessed, that the first-floor apartments were numbered I and alphabetically.

  I-F was halfway down on his right. The children stopped their noisy play and stared at the stranger with bright, inquisitive eyes, and there was a curious sort of silence in the sun-drenched courtyard as Shayne stopped in front of I-F and knocked on the door.

  The door opened after a brief interval, and Belle Jackson faced him across the threshold. She wore her white nurse’s uniform this morning, and it bulged in the right places. Her hair was neatly coiled up in braids again at the back of her head, and though her eyes were red-rimmed, her face was carefully made up and she seemed placidly in control of herself.

  Her baby-blue eyes widened and she blinked at him, and then she said, “It’s Mr. Shayne, isn’t it?” She hesitated only momentarily, sucking in a full underlip between her teeth, and then stepped backward, saying formally, “Won’t you come in, Mr. Shayne?”

  He entered the dim coolness of a large, disordered room. A double bed, which could obviously be folded into the wall in daytime, occupied the left side of the room. It was unmade, with rumpled covers, and an open suitcase lay on the end of it, half-packed. Across the room, bureau drawers stood open, and a couple of dresses lay on the bed beside the suitcase. On the right, an archway opened onto a very small and very compact kitchenette, and there was a closed door on the left which Shayne assumed led into the bathroom.