Shayne refused to be drawn. “Here’s what she wants me to do. She’s lost some jewelry, and I’m supposed to go to Atlanta to get it back. The fee is fifteen hundred.”
“You’re actually going to Atlanta? I think it’s wonderful, but I thought—”
“I’m not going to Atlanta,” the redhead said. “You are.”
Lucy looked at him in amazement. “And leave you here while two gunmen are trying to hunt you down and kill you? I’ll do nothing of the kind, Michael Shayne.”
“I’m not asking you, angel,” Shayne said. “I’m telling you. But you have a right to know why. Has it occurred to you that you came pretty close to being killed last night?”
She looked away. “I saw the front seat of the Buick. We’ve been over this before. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
Suddenly a wave of great tenderness flooded the tall detective, but he forced himself to say harshly, “Maybe it hasn’t sunk in yet. If you’d come here to the hotel this morning instead of going straight to the office, they would have had a second crack at you. I know we’ve been over this before. I don’t quite have the sense to fire you and tell you to forget you ever knew me. But this time the danger is going to be concentrated within a limited period. So don’t give me any argument. You’re going to keep away from me until I get this guy or he gets me.”
“Michael, I—”
“So long as you’re around I’ll think first of you. That’s going to handicap me, and God knows I have handicaps enough already.”
“What do you want me to do?” she said quietly.
Shayne pulled at his earlobe abstractedly for a moment while she hunted in her purse, and took out a small engagement book and the tiny pencil that went with it.
“There’s no need to tell her I won’t be working on her case today,” he said. “Get the story from her. I think there’s a noon plane. Here are a few of the things to find out after you get to Atlanta.”
He tossed off the cognac. “The guy involved is a golf pro, and I’d guess he’s pulled the same scheme on other women before this one. Get any addresses where he might be located. Don’t go to the country club unless you have to, because I don’t want him to know anyone from Miami is interested in him. Try the society editors for his previous romantic history. They usually know what’s going on. Fifteen bucks apiece is enough for that information. Pick the most promising items, and run them down. You’ve been after me to give you something besides secretarial work, and this shouldn’t be too complicated.”
“What should I get from Miss Wiley?”
“A description of the jewelry, the insurance itemization if she has it. Try to get her to let her hair down about the guy. You’ll need a picture, and she probably has one.”
“Good,” Lucy said crisply. “When can I expect to see you?”
“You’ve got enough to keep you busy for a few days. If anything happens here it’ll make the Georgia papers. I’ll call you tomorrow. Stay at the Hilton, and leave word where I can reach you.”
She closed the little notebook and returned it to her purse. “One thing before I go, Michael. I know you don’t go in for being careful, and sometimes being careful may be the worst possible thing you could do. Just say you’ll be careful, so I won’t worry.”
“All right, angel, I’ll be careful. One of these days we’ll go back to the Seafarer and finish our dinner.”
She nodded, her eyes bright. “I forget what you ordered for dessert.”
“I couldn’t pronounce it,” Shayne said. “I just pointed at it. I thought we’d find out what it was when it got there.”
She came up on her toes to give him a glancing kiss, and went quickly to the door.
15
When Miriam Moore entered the furnished room, she found Clayton on the bed, his shoes off, reading the Daily News. A burning cigarette dangled from a corner of his mouth, and his eyes were screwed up against the smoke. He still wore the shoulder harness.
Neither of them spoke. Miriam went to the bureau and put down her purse. She took out her eye-tools and began brushing mascara onto her lashes, something she hadn’t had time to do earlier. When she was finished with that she removed the two hidden pins from her hair. She combed and brushed it and put back the pins. She examined her bruised cheek, and did what she could.
Her cigarettes were gone. She felt through a crumpled package on the bedside table, but that also was empty. Judging by the level in the whiskey bottle, Clayton had been drinking since he returned from his unsuccessful attack on Shayne. Miriam started to pour herself a drink, but after Shayne’s excellent cognac the cheap blended rye made her stomach turn over. She put the cork back in the bottle.
Clayton suddenly wadded up the newspaper in both hands and hurled it at the wall. “You double-crossing bitch,” he said savagely, “I’d like to—”
“To kill me?” she said sweetly. “You came pretty close this morning, you and your boy. Luckily for me, a tommy gun tends to climb, even when it’s handled by an expert.”
“Why couldn’t you keep out of it? Did you actually think that the minute I saw you I’d jam on the brakes and take off in the opposite direction?”
“Yes, naive little me.”
“Dear Christ! Don’t you know what it’s like to get wound up to do something? You can’t stop. But what’s the use trying to explain to a birdbrain like you? Once it was underway I couldn’t take my foot off the gas. Fran couldn’t take his finger off the trigger. Though naturally that didn’t occur to Fran.”
“Did it occur to you?”
“I’m not boasting about it. I let up on the gas for half a second, and that half a second damn near murdered us. It gave the cops time to get off some shots.” He seized the head of the bed and shook it violently, nearly tearing it loose from the frame. “He was standing right in the goddam doorway. Fran would have cut him in two.”
“And then would you feel better?” she asked.
“How do I know?” he said irritably. “Stay out of my goddam way, will you?”
“Let me ask you another question, but you don’t need to answer if it embarrasses you. How would you feel if Shayne hadn’t knocked me down, and your punk had taken care of both of us in one burst?”
Clayton answered with a savage oath, and made a quick motion. She jerked back, thinking he was going to hit her. But he was merely going for the whiskey bottle. She let him drink before she said anything more.
“You realize, don’t you, that after tonight we’re finished?”
He put the bottle down and said wearily, “Should I give a damn?”
“You really feel let down, don’t you?” she said. “How bad is it, exactly? Do you feel too low to go through with our money-making venture tonight?”
He drew back his lips. “I’ll go through with it. I’m still going to need that dough to pay off Fran after we catch up with Shayne.”
“You still think you’re going to catch up with Shayne? No, don’t tell me. What you do from now on is no concern of mine.”
Clayton gave a peculiar sigh, almost of regret. “If I miss him this next time, I’ve had it. He can go on living for all I care. I’m not superstitious, but if he walks away from this one—”
“I’m cured,” she said. “I won’t try to interfere. If I hadn’t butted in this morning, Shayne would be dead and we’d be drinking champagne instead of rotgut. Go ahead, damn you. Just be sure you show up at the St. Albans on schedule.”
He gave her a suspicious look. “Did you talk to him?”
“We exchanged a few words. When a man knocks a girl down and falls on top of her, simple politeness—”
“What happened?” Clayton snarled.
“Nothing actually happened. He took me to his room. You notice this rip in my blouse. I had to take it off to sew it up. But his secretary came in before we could really get acquainted.”
He studied her. “What story did you give him?”
“My God, I’m not going through that again. Once wa
s enough. He serves pretty good liquor, by the way.”
Clayton took hold of the head of the bed again, making an effort to control himself. “I suppose you had him eating out of your hand. It doesn’t surprise me. Did he—” He frowned. “Did he have any idea—”
“Who he’s up against? No, Clayt. I gathered he has a scheme for bringing you out in the open, but he isn’t wasting any time wondering who you are.”
There was a play of muscle along Clayton’s jaw. He seemed to be disappointed that Shayne didn’t know the identity of his enemy. The quicker she rid herself of this nut, Miriam told herself, the better.
“I phoned the airport,” she said. “We’ll take an extra five minutes to divide the money in the car. Obviously I’m not going with you. It was risky enough before, but it’s impossible now. You’re the one who made these complications, and you’ll have to pay for them. I cancelled one of our reservations and made another for you on a Havana flight twenty minutes later.”
Clayton shrugged slightly. “I thought you’d probably wait till tonight to break it to me.”
“Oddly enough, my feelings for you began to cool when I heard that tommy gun.”
“I’ll try to bear up,” Clayton said.
“Where’s Frank?”
“Out picking up a car.”
She thought about that. “It’s pretty early. We were going to wait till dark.”
“No point in leaving everything to the last minute. He’s going to try to get one out of a twenty-four-hour lot, so it won’t be reported.”
There was a new wariness in his manner. Apparently he was running this additional risk because they had to have a car for their next move against the redheaded detective. She decided to say nothing. Let them go hunting for Shayne; she had seen to it that they wouldn’t find him. He was either in Atlanta right now, or on his way.
Then another possibility struck her. “You wouldn’t be worrying about that man from New Jersey, would you?”
“What man from New Jersey?”
“Don’t pretend to be dumber than you are,” she said sharply. “I read the story in the News. Baumholtz, or whatever his name is, in front of the Seafarer. He called up while I was there, and Shayne said something about getting you to rise to the bait tonight. Didn’t it strike you that there’s something phony about that News story? Rourke’s a good friend of Shayne’s.”
“Baumholtz didn’t see me,” Clayton said patiently. “He saw a mechanic with grease on his face, from the Ace Garage.”
“All right, I made a resolution and I’m going to keep it. No more interference. But I know something you don’t know, dear. The cop in front of Shayne’s hotel got a look at our boy’s blonde hair. He happens to be one of those cops who take the FBI sheets home to read in bed. It seems that someone in California died last year after being exposed to a burp-gun, and that same mop of blonde hair, or one exactly like it, was seen in the vicinity. There was even a name to go with this gunman—Smith, or something like that.”
“I keep telling Fran to be more careful,” Clayton said, “but that’s the way he is. Sometimes I think he actually wants to get caught, but that would make him a psycho, wouldn’t it?”
“Clayt—” She bit her lip. She had given him enough warnings by now.
“Be serious,” he said. “Who could worry about someone with a name like Baumholtz?”
He smiled, and Miriam had the unpleasant sensation that he was one move ahead of her. Was it possible that Shayne hadn’t gone to Atlanta, and that Clayton knew where he was? She dismissed the thought and reached for the whiskey. It was terrible whiskey, but it was better than nothing.
Clayton looked at his watch. “Seven hours more, and I walk into the St. Albans loaded for bear. What are we going to do with all that time?”
“Wait,” she said.
“How sore at me are you?”
“I didn’t say I was sore. I said I was through.”
His hand snaked out and fastened on her wrist. “Through after midnight. How about in the meantime?”
“In the meantime, you can go to hell, Buster.”
He pulled her against him, his smile hardening. The butt of his gun hurt her breast.
“How about coming along?”
“Damn you, Clayt,” she said. “You’d be so nice if you weren’t such a damn fool. But you’re really crazy if you think you can get me to make love to you after what happened this morning. Let go of me.”
She twisted and struggled, trying to get her arm free so she could take some skin off his face. He forced her backward until she lay against the footboard with his body across hers.
16
When Lucy Hamilton phoned from the airport to say she was in time for the Atlanta plane, Shayne breathed more easily.
He picked his hat off the table by the door and went downstairs, where he was met by two of Painter’s detectives. Glancing around, he saw another at the elevator. There were probably two more outside.
“Would you mind coming along with us, Mike?” Squire said.
“What’s Petey want?” Shayne asked. “Another affidavit?”
“I don’t know, Mike. He probably has some more questions to ask you.”
“You mean the same questions,” Shayne snapped. “And he’ll get the same answers. Let’s go.”
The traffic outside had returned to normal. Several pedestrians were examining the bullet marks in the concrete and the broken window. They fell silent as Shayne appeared with the two Beach detectives. The redhead jackknifed his tall frame into the back seat of the two-door police sedan. Before Squire followed him in he went to the corner and nodded. A second sedan came around from the side entrance and fell in behind them as they pulled away from the curb.
“You found a stolen Chevy in Coral Gables, I hear,” Shayne said.
“Well, hell,” Squire answered uncomfortably.
“But there’s no reason to be discouraged. Patient, painstaking police work will catch the killers eventually.”
“Cut it out, Mike,” Squire said. “Maybe you think the boys goofed, but personally I think they did pretty good to get off three or four shots, considering the circumstances. It happened pretty fast.”
“They didn’t shoot any bystanders,” Shayne said. “That’s one thing.”
“Mike,” Squire said warningly.
Shayne had only half his mind on what they were saying. He was laying out a schedule. He had several important things to do before evening, and he didn’t intend to do them accompanied by an escort of Painter’s cops. It was nearly time to go back to his usual practice of operating alone.
They swung north to the MacArthur Causeway and crossed the bay, driving fast without sirens. At police headquarters on the Beach, they went down the ramp to the underground garage and took the elevator to the third floor, where Painter had his office off the detective squad-room.
As they came in, the little man closed a file and put it down on top of a Wanted circular.
“Nice of you to come in, Shayne,” he said acidly.
“Nice of you to invite me,” Shayne returned. “They tell me you’ve got some questions to ask me.”
“Yes, a few. Sit down.”
Shayne threw his hat onto Painter’s desk and dropped his two hundred pounds into his usual chair, a leather armchair against the wall, making Painter swivel around to face him. The redhead unobtrusively drew back his coat sleeve to check the time. He couldn’t rush this, but on the other hand he couldn’t give the detective chief more than an hour and still accomplish everything he had to do.
“It might save a little time if I give you a statement,” he said. “Then if there’s anything I haven’t covered, I’ll answer questions.”
Painter fitted a cigarette into a long holder. He nodded, and the stenographer at the end of the desk flipped open his notebook.
Shayne said, speaking not to Painter but to the stenographer, “I still don’t know who’s responsible for these attempts on my life. When that Chevy wen
t past this morning I was fully occupied keeping out of the way, and I had only one fast glimpse of the guy at the wheel. It seemed to me he had a mark of some kind on his face, a birthmark or maybe a burn. I doubt if it means anything. That’s absolutely all. I’ll repeat what I said last night. This can have no possible connection with anything I’m working on at present, for the very good reason that I’m not working on anything.”
Painter made a face. “Shayne, you can do better than that. What are we supposed to have in our heads, rocks?”
“Do you want me to answer that?” Shayne said.
Painter looked at him evilly. “A woman was talking to you when the shots were fired. You whisked her off to your room before my boys could question her. You had several telephone conversations in the next hour. If we had succeeded in monitoring any of those, I think we’d now have all we need to know, but my men didn’t think of the possibility until it was too late.”
He darted a reproachful look at Squire, who shrugged. Painter went on, “Somewhat later, your secretary, Miss Hamilton, arrived. She had a long conference with your client in the lobby. My people may be a little slow, but there’s nothing wrong with their eyesight. Miss Hamilton was observed taking copious notes. For the record, Shayne, do you still wish to maintain that you aren’t working on anything at the moment?”
Shayne drummed his fingers on the chair-arm. “I set eyes on the woman approximately fifteen seconds before the shots were fired. She had read in the morning paper that I was free at the moment, and unlike you, she believed it. She had a job for me. I took it, not because of the fee, but to get Miss Hamilton out of town until we can get a line on these killers.”
“What is this job, exactly?”
“She brought it to me because she didn’t want to take it to the cops,” Shayne said. “I’m not at liberty to supply you with any details.”
“The old, old story,” Painter commented, lighting the cigarette. “Does this woman have a name and address?”
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