Pay-Off in Blood ms-41

by Brett Halliday

  “I don’t know for sure. What does he look like, Abe?”

  The Probation Officer used much the same words to describe Fritz Harlan that George Bayliss had used early that morning.

  Shayne nodded. “That’s him. I think you’d better handle it, Abe. There’s a chance that he may have been mixed up in murder last night. The Ambrose kill on the Beach.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Lincoln said promptly. “He shudders at the sight of a gun.”

  “But maybe he wouldn’t shudder at the thought of fingering a guy for twenty grand,” Shayne suggested cynically.

  “Maybe not. Give me the pitch.”

  Shayne gave him the salient facts as he knew them. “All we’ve got against him,” he ended, “is the fact that he failed to meet Montgomery and turn over the picture.”

  “Knowing Fritz as well as I do, I’d guess he just got the piss scared out of him when he found out the thing had ended in murder. Remember, he’s on probation. My boys make a habit of keeping their noses clean.”

  “I hope he did. But check it out, Abe. Right away, huh?”

  “Sure. Reach you at your office?”

  Shayne stood indecisively, a fierce light beginning to burn in the depths of his gray eyes. “I’ve got another piece of business to settle first. But call my office anyhow, Abe, and leave word with Lucy. I’ll be calling her.” He went out with long strides, all trace of indecisiveness vanished, his heels hitting the floor solidly and hard.

  His first stop was at a small and dingy bar on Northeast 12th Street. The television set was on in the rear, and half a dozen beer drinkers were at that end of the room, watching it languidly. Shayne stood at the front of the bar as far removed from them as possible, and the bartender moved toward him with a grin of recognition on his wizened face. He paused to reach for a cognac bottle and an old-fashioned glass. He said, “Long time no see, Mike,” poured the squat glass half-full of cognac and placed a glass of ice water beside it. “People gettin’ killed all over the place, huh? Keeps you jumpin’.”

  Shayne’s big hand closed around the glass and he asked, “What’s hot at Hialeah this afternoon, Sam?”

  “Look here now.” Sam screwed his face up in patent disapproval. “Not you, Mike. Not in your old age, you ain’t gonna start buyin’ oats?”

  Shayne took a sip and grinned and asked, “How do you stay in business… discouraging possible cash customers?”

  “Business?” said Sam virtuously, waving his hand toward the beer-drinkers. “You know… a mug of suds here an’ a slug of cognac there. I make out.”

  “Sure, I know. Where do you little guys go these days to lay off a bet that’s too big for you to handle?”

  Sam studied the hard look on the detective’s face for a moment, and then said softly, “I ain’t no stoolie, Mike.”

  Shayne made an impatient gesture with his left hand. “This is important… to me, Sam. I can get the info a dozen places, but I don’t want to waste time going a dozen places.”

  “Well… you know… the Syndicate,” said Sam uneasily.

  Shayne said, “I’ve been out of touch. Would that still be Big Vic Cartwright?” He paused and recited a telephone number from memory.

  Sam nodded, obviously relieved that he wasn’t passing on any really secret information. “Still at the old stand.”

  “Bank of Bay Biscayne Building?”

  When Sam nodded again, Shayne put down the rest of his drink and chased it with a gulp of ice water. He put a ten-dollar bill on the bar and said, “That was good cognac, Sam. Keep the change.”

  He went out into the hot afternoon sunlight and got in his car, and five minutes later he was striding into the lobby of an office building on Flagler Street. He paused at the directory and found Cartwright Associates listed on the 5th floor.

  There was a small, neat reception room with a pert blonde at the end of it, seated in front of a large switchboard. She was manipulating plugs and murmuring into the mouthpiece hanging from her neck, and Shayne stood beside her for thirty seconds before she glanced aside and said, “Yes?”

  “I want to see Big Vic. Tell him it’s Mike Shayne. Important and personal.”

  She nodded and turned back to her switchboard. Shayne lit a cigarette and waited. She continued to flip plugs dexterously, and to murmur briefly into the mouthpiece, and in a short time she turned again and nodded. “Second door on your left, Mr. Shayne. Go right in.”

  The second door on his left was simply lettered, PRIVATE. He turned the knob and went in without knocking.

  There were four telephones on the big desk in the center of the big room. The man who sat behind the desk talking into one of the telephones was big enough to fit well into the setting.

  He nodded his bullet head at the detective, spoke softly into the mouthpiece and listened for a moment, scrawled a notation on a pad in front of him.

  Shayne sat down in a chair across the wide desk from him. Big Vic Cartwright replaced the telephone on its prongs and leaned his massive weight back in the swivel chair and clasped two hamlike hands at the back of a very thick and very short neck, and said genially, “It’s all right, Shamus. I’ll go quietly.”

  Shayne said, “Somehow, I doubt that, Vic. How’s business?”

  “So-so.” The right-hand telephone rang. He snatched it up and said, “No calls, Vergie.” He put it down and looked at Shayne benignly. “If it isn’t a pinch, what is it?”

  “I need some information, Vic.” Shayne frowned and tugged at his left ear-lobe. “I’ve got a client who’s got his teat really in the wringer. He’s in deep. ’Way over his head, Vic, to at least a dozen boys around town where he’s established credit over the years. But he’s had a real bad run of luck and they’re clamping down. Now, he can’t possibly pay off a hundred cents on the dollar. On the other hand, he’s a good Joe and doesn’t want to welsh. So he’s dug up a pretty fair bunch of dough which he hopes will get him off the hook. Instead of going around and trying to make separate deals with each one of the boys, he turned the thing over to me to see if I could clear it all off the books for him.”

  “How much?” demanded Big Vic.

  “Altogether, they’re holding markers for a little over thirty grand. I’ve got eighteen thousand of his money to make it right.”

  Cartwright shook his head sadly. “You know that ain’t kosher, Mike. This sucker expects a clean pay-off when he wins, doesn’t he? He’s always got it, hasn’t he? Fair and square, and cash money on the barrel-head. So now he comes crawling and wants a discount on his losses. You know that’s no decent way to do business, Mike.”

  Shayne said flatly, “I know that the boys around town will be damned lucky to divvy up his assets. They either take a share… or nothing.” He hesitated momentarily. “I don’t expect to make a deal with you, Vic. But I’ve heard around town that when a guy gets in deep like this there’s a sort of collection agency that takes over. They’re the boys who can deal with this. If I can’t convince them to take the short end of the stick, then it’s no skin off my ass. All the rough stuff in the world won’t get them any more money than my client has already dug up. But I want to lay it on the line… and all I want from you is where I go to lay it.”

  Vic Cartwright nodded and unclasped his hands from behind his neck. “Take your problem to Jess Hayden. If there’s that much cash involved, he’s probably already got the whole thing for collection. I don’t say you’ll get anywhere with him, Mike, but you can try.”

  Shayne shrugged his wide shoulders. “That’s all I want.”

  Cartwright opened the center drawer of the desk and looked at a pad. “Try the Splendide Hotel. Suite three-twenty. That’s out on Biscayne Boulevard…”

  Shayne said, “I know the place. Three-twenty? Jess Hayden. Thanks, Vic. If he’s inclined to be reasonable, we can do business together.”

  He got up and went out with a wave of his big hand. The Splendide was one of the newer and fancier gimcrack hostelries that had been erected du
ring the Fifties as one of Miami’s answers to the mushrooming tourist facilities on the other side of Biscayne Bay.

  Shayne had never set foot in the place before, and he felt a little overwhelmed by the rococo lobby, the squads of extravagantly uniformed bellmen hurrying about to fulfill every guest’s slightest desire, the bustle and confusion of a huge afternoon crowd representing the total population of the hotel which equalled that of a small city.

  With the unerring sense of direction of a homing pigeon, Shayne made his way among them to a quiet corridor at the rear of the registration desk and to a plain wooden door that was marked SECURITY.

  He knocked perfunctorily and turned the knob and entered a small office with an erect, white-haired man seated behind a cluttered desk. He was in his shirt-sleeves, wearing a neat bow tie, and was relaxed with his feet on the desk and a paperbacked novel in his hands when Shayne opened the door. He hastily dropped his feet to the floor and straightened up and slid the book down onto the chair beside him and said frostily, “This is a private office.” Then he opened his eyes wider and stared for a moment and said happily, “Mike Shayne, by God! What are you doing in a classy joint like this?”

  Shayne said just as happily, “Parson Smith! Last time I knew, you were a bouncer down in a little waterfront bar. Well, well! Congratulations are indeed in order.” He leaned over the desk and offered his big hand, and Smith took it in a hard grip and told him with a wide grin, “Sometimes I wish I were back there, Mike. It didn’t pay as well, but things did happen. Life is just about as dull as dishwater around this place.”

  Shayne said, “Maybe I can rectify that.”

  “Wait a minute, now. The management frowns on what you and I might consider good, old-fashioned fun. But rest your feet, Mike,” he urged hospitably. “Drink?” He leaned forward to pull open a drawer, but Shayne forestalled him.

  “Not right now, Parson. You’ve got a guest in Suite Three-twenty. Jess Hayden. Ring a bell?”

  “Not… right off the bat.” Smith turned to his left where there was a large panel covered with an intricate arrangement of numbered dials and different colored arrows that looked to Shayne like the control board of a machine shop.

  He twisted one arrow to point to a 3, used his forefinger to dial another number below the arrow, and relaxed proudly. There was a whirring noise from the back of the panel, and a moment later a white card popped up out of a slot in the desk in front of him. He picked it up delicately between thumb and forefinger, explaining with a grin, “Just a simple little system of electronics, Mike. Only cost a couple of hundred thousand to install and doesn’t get fouled up more than a dozen times a day. Let’s see what we have here.” He frowned and read from the card: “Three-twenty. Richard Dirkson. Three-Seven-One East Fifty-fourth Street, New York City. No luggage. Overnight bill paid in cash advance.”

  Shayne said, “That’s my man. I’m going up there, Par-son.

  “Expecting trouble?”

  Shayne said, “There’ll be trouble if Mr. Dirkson is at home.”

  “I’ll go along,” Smith said promptly.

  “No.” Michael Shayne shook his red head and his eyes were hot. “What facilities have you got for a quiet arrest and out the back way to the hoosegow?”

  “I’ve got six good men on duty, Mike. It’s my job to keep a thing like this quiet.”

  Shayne said, “I know what your job is. Come along up behind me with a couple of men. But stay outside Three-twenty until I’ve had my time at bat.” His blunt forefingers strayed up to touch the lumps on his head that were now subsiding. “This is sort of personal.”

  The Parson said, “I’ll give you two minutes.”

  Shayne said happily, “Make it three.” He got up and strode out of the office without a backward glance.

  An elevator was loading as he crossed the lobby. He got in and stood close to the door and said, “Three.”

  His floor was the first stop and he got out alone. He glanced at arrows on the wall with numbers underneath them, and went swiftly to the right in search of 320. He knew Smith wouldn’t give him much more than his allotted three minutes.

  He pressed the bell at 320 and stood flat-footed in front of the door waiting.

  It opened and Jud stood there. He had a highball glass in his left hand, and his mouth sagged open slackly when he recognized the detective. Shayne saw Phil rising from a chair behind him with a sudden pleased look on his face.

  Jud stepped back a pace and said, “Look who’s here!” He glanced over his shoulder at Phil who was coming forward, cat-footed. “Who d’yuh think we got for company, Phil?”

  Phil’s hand snaked his big revolver from a shoulder holster and he held it laxly at his side, pointing downward. He said, “I see him, Jud. I guess he likes the kind of games we play.”

  “Sure,” Jud agreed happily. “I bet he’s one of them mas-so-kists.”

  “What do you want here?” Phil paused close beside Jud, their shoulders touching, the two of them directly facing Shayne on the other side of the threshold about two feet away.

  He took one fast step forward and his two big hands swung up simultaneously on opposite sides of the two heads with palms wide open.

  Their two heads made a sharp cracking sound as they came together with terrific force. They crumpled to the floor like two rag dolls, and Phil’s gun dropped from his hand.

  Shayne pulled the door shut and scooped the gun up. He stooped over Jud and got his revolver from its shoulder harness. He heard a faint sound across the room as he straightened up, and he faced the Boss, standing in the doorway of an inner room.

  His thinning hair was disarranged so that the bald spot showed through, and he was in his undershirt and wearing black felt slippers.

  He spoke gratingly, “What do you want, Shayne?”

  Shayne said, “You.” He started slowly across the sitting room toward him.

  “You’ve got nothing on me,” Jess Hayden said placatingly. “Maybe that was a mistake last night. Mistakes can be paid for.”

  Shayne said, “That’s right. And you’re going to pay for yours right now.”

  Hayden backed away from him inside the bedroom, and Shayne stopped in the doorway and saw the room was empty. He moved inside and tossed both revolvers contemptuously on the bed, and laughed deep in his throat when Hayden dived desperately aside, scrabbling to get his hands on one of them.

  He cuffed the man back, so he stumbled to the floor beside the wall, then got him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him back into the sitting room, where Jud was beginning to stir and trying to sit up.

  Very deliberately, Shayne held Jess Hayden erect with the tips of the toes just touching the floor, his left hand tight around the neck, and smashed his fist into the man’s face.

  Blood splattered wetly and his features got all flat and disorganized. Shayne tossed him aside and strode toward the door, where Jud had waveringly got up on his hands and knees.

  There was a loud, authoritative knock on the door just at the moment that Shayne drew back his right foot and kicked Jud with all his strength in the side. He scowled at the door and said “Just a minute,” and turned to Phil, who still lay supine, and methodically kicked in half-a-dozen of his ribs, also.

  He heard a key in the outer lock, and the door was suddenly thrust open and Parson Smith stood on the threshold with two men close behind him. He looked at the two men on the floor, appalled, and breathed out, “My God, Mike!”

  Shayne said, “I’m just giving you a nice package… all wrapped up and ready to go.” He walked back springily to the Boss, who lay flat on his back with his face smashed in, deliberately placed the sole of his big foot on the bloody pulp and twisted hard.

  Then he told Smith, “Get them down to Headquarters and I’ll sign a complaint. And you can send me a bill for cleaning the blood off your rug.”

  His shoulders slumped suddenly as all the anger went out of him, and he felt tired and a little bit disgusted with himself.

 
He walked to the door, adding gruffly, “They had it coming, goddamn it, but right now I wish you’d opened that door thirty seconds sooner.” He went out, scowling.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Shayne stopped downstairs in the crowded lobby to call his office. Lucy Hamilton told him, “Two calls, Michael. Abe Lincoln, the probation officer. At first look, he’s pretty sure Fritz Harlan is in the clear. He’s checking further. One thing he thought might interest you: Harlan was once a patient of Dr. Ambrose’s… and recognized him at the Seacliff last night. He’ll call again as soon as he has something more definite.

  “Your buxom nurse on the Beach is the other one,” Lucy went on chattily and almost cattily, although Lucy didn’t have it in her to really be catty. “She wants you to come see her at once. She refused to confide in a mere secretary why she wants to see you, but dropped some mysterious hints intended to make me believe it’s something more important than your virile sex appeal… which I somehow doubt.”

  Shayne said, “I’ll get over there as fast as I can… in the hope your hunch is right. In the meantime, Angel: Call Will Gentry and alert him to the fact that the house dick from the Splendide Hotel is bringing three mugs in for booking. Tell him to hold them until I can get in to make charges… which are going to start with assault with intent to kill, and go on from there. Explain to him that they got roughed up a little by resisting arrest.”

  “Michael! Are you all right?” There was instant alarm in Lucy’s voice.

  “I’m wonderful.” Shayne grinned reassuringly at the mouthpiece. “Feel better than I have since I got my ribs kicked in last midnight. Take care.”

  He hung up and walked out of the lobby briskly. He did feel wonderful, by God! The mood of depression, that had momentarily possessed him in the hotel room upstairs, had vanished. The three of them deserved everything they’d got. God knows how many poor suckers they had manhandled in the past while collecting legally uncollectable racing bets.

  Twenty minutes later he walked springily up the walk to the Ambrose house and pressed the doorbell. The door was opened almost immediately by Belle Jackson, wearing her white nurse’s uniform and with a warning finger pressed against her lips. “I hoped it would be you,” she told him in a conspiratorially low tone. “Celia is resting in the bedroom. I don’t think she’s in any condition to be aroused, but you never can tell about… well, you know?”