Shayne pulled at his ear. “It can’t do any harm to give you that much. She’s a Miss Agatha Wiley of Atlanta, Georgia. She’s been staying at the Saxony.”
“If she can afford your services, she must be moderately well to do?”
“I’d say so,” Shayne said. “We spoke of a fee of fifteen hundred dollars.”
Painter howled, as though physically hurt. “For how much work? Never mind, never mind. Squire had a choice. He could question her or tail her, and he decided in favor of the tail. She took a taxi to South Miami. We were only using one car, which was all Squire could spare. He had no reason to believe she would suspect she was being tailed, or would know what to do about it if she did. But she changed taxis, in a highly professional manner, and lost us. We caught up to the second taxi a little later. The driver didn’t take her to an expensive hotel, Shayne. He let her off in a district of cheap rooming houses. Maybe she stayed there, maybe she didn’t. How does that fit in with your story? Not very well.”
“I told you she didn’t want the cops in on it.”
“In plain English,” Painter said with an exclamation of annoyance, “you haven’t made up your mind to cooperate with us, even now?”
Shayne said blandly, “I’ll cooperate with you to the full extent of my knowledge and ability. But we won’t get very far if you doubt every word I say.”
“I know you’re holding out on me, by God,” Painter cried.
“Cooperation ought to work both ways,” Shayne said. “Take that FBI circular on your desk. Would that be on the Los Angeles tommy gun killing?”
Painter made a dramatic moment out of deciding he could trust Shayne to see the flyer, which had gone to all police departments and post offices. He handed it over. The picture was vague and fuzzy, under the large headline: “WANTED FOR UNLAWFUL FLIGHT TO EVADE PROSECUTION (MURDER).” The name was Francis (“Boo-boo”) Smith. A complaint had been sworn against him by the sheriff of Los Angeles County. His age was given as 23, his race as white, his build as medium. He was armed and presumed dangerous. That was all the factual information the Los Angeles sheriff had been able to provide.
Shayne tossed it back onto Painter’s desk. “Not much. What I think I’d better do, Petey, is sit down with your records people. You can spend the rest of the day calling me a liar, but where will it get you? If I’m going to be here, I don’t want to waste my time.”
“You’re finally going to throw us some bones, Shayne? I never heard of anything more generous.”
Shayne helped himself to one of Painter’s cigarettes. “You know just as much about him as I do, Petey, and when you think about it, it’s quite a bit. He—”
“Make that plural. There were two men in the Chevrolet. All the witnesses agree on that.”
“True enough. But only one of them really counts, and I don’t think it’s this Smith or anyone like him. He’s too young. If he had a grievance against me, it would have to be something recent. I’d remember it.”
Painter made an impatient gesture, not liking to have anything so obvious pointed out to him when he hadn’t thought of it himself. “Well?”
“I think he’s been hired for the job. It’s the other guy we have to figure. Add up everything we know about him. He’s in a hurry. If he can afford to hire a professional killer, he has money to spend. He has access to explosives, which probably means he has underworld connections. The tommy gun points to the same thing. He has a certain amount of mechanical knowledge, a good sense of timing, considerable courage. His most likely reason for hating me is that I sent him up for something, which means he has a prison record. It all sounds to me like a professional stick-up man, a planner. When he posed as an auto mechanic, he was careful with his props. And there’s a psychological point which I think is important. He didn’t threaten me before he did it. That rules out a lot of people.”
“I don’t get that,” Painter said, his eyebrows raised.
“Nine tenths of the enemies I’ve made as a detective would want to be sure I recognized them before they killed me. Do you follow that? They’d walk up and say, ‘Remember me? I’m so-and-so. I told you I’d kill you to get even with you, you bastard, and I’m going to do it right now.’ And he’d do it. Ten seconds later it wouldn’t matter a bit, I’d be dead. But in that last ten seconds of my life, he’d want me to be sorry I didn’t pay more attention to that old threat. It doesn’t make sense, but I’m not talking about sensible people. And one other thing. It’s a man, not a woman. That reduces the field by half.”
As he ticked off the last point, he asked the stenographer, “Did you get all that?”
The cop smiled. “I think so, Mike.”
Painter said belligerently, “This is all very clever, assuming you aren’t mixed up in some monkey business I don’t know about. But that’s an assumption I refuse to accept.”
“You don’t have to accept it,” Shayne said carefully. “But damn it, it might be true. Do you have anything else to go on? I doubt it. I’ve thought back and made a list of the possibilities. I spent most of the night crossing off names and adding others, and I’ve got fifteen left. They’ve all been in prison. I’d like to find out which are still in, and which are out, and where they’ve been active lately. You’ll have some of that information. Washington will have the rest of it.”
Painter tapped his cigarette ash into an ashtray in the shape of a shrunken human head.
“Okay, Squire,” he said finally, “take him up to records and give him what he wants. It’s a red herring, in my opinion, but I’m tired of listening to him squawk. I want to see him when you’re finished.”
Shayne stood up. “Petey, if I didn’t know you so well, I might think you were finally beginning to take an interest in saving my life. If I’m coming back here, I’ll leave my hat.”
Painter snorted. The cigarette holder was back in his mouth, cocked at a jaunty angle. He put both hands palm-down on the desk, but he managed to keep his seat and watch in silence, fuming, as the redhead sauntered out of his office.
Squire said outside, “If you and Painter could spend a little less time snapping at each other we might get some place. He has his points, Mike.”
“Name three,” Shayne said.
The records were kept on the fourth floor. Squire took out a key case, selected a key and unlocked the door. They went into a large room divided into corridors by banks of green filing cabinets. Shayne gave the detective his list of fifteen names, and Squire started through it alphabetically, beginning with a man named Matthew Bonosky, who had killed a man in a holdup. Because of a shortage of evidence, he had been allowed to plead to manslaughter, and he had been free for some years, though he had made no attempt to reach Shayne.
Squire pulled open a drawer and flicked over the folders. He was an honest, conscientious cop, and Shayne had nothing against him except that he was somewhat too subservient to Peter Painter. He found the Bonosky folder and pulled it out. As he straightened, Shayne clipped him neatly with a right cross to the side of the jaw.
The blow landed with surgical precision on the blackout point. Shayne caught him around the waist and eased him down, laying him out neatly on the floor. The redhead was well aware that the penalty for slugging a cop was considerably more severe than for slugging anybody else. He was taking a large risk, but it was something he had to do. He felt in the unconscious man’s pockets for the key case. Shayne’s list was still in his hand, and the redhead left it there. He glanced at the Bonosky file. The man’s criminal history was arranged chronologically, in reverse order, the latest conviction on top. Two years earlier, Bonosky had drawn five to twenty years in New York State for robbery with violence. That left fourteen names for Painter to check while Shayne was busy elsewhere.
Before he left he yanked the telephone cord out by the roots and locked the door behind him. He tossed the keys into a litter-basket, strode down the corridor and signalled for the elevator. When it arrived there were two other men in it, strangers to Shayne, as well as the o
perator, an elderly Negro. Shayne thrust his hands into his pockets.
“All the way down,” he said as the Negro looked at him questioningly.
The two others left the car at the main floor, and Shayne continued down to the garage. He lighted a cigarette, and walked toward the dispatcher’s cage, waving out the match. Several prowl cars were drawn up near the foot of the ramp. Shayne nodded to the cops who were lounging near them. The dispatcher was a uniformed sergeant, close to mandatory retirement age. Shayne snapped his fingers silently, but he couldn’t think of the sergeant’s name.
“Hi,” he said easily, stopping. “When are they going to put you out to pasture?”
“A young buck like me?” the sergeant said genially. “I’m good for another twenty years. How about you, Mike? I’ve been hearing about you all day.”
“Yeah, somebody in town doesn’t seem to like me much. I wanted a look at the squad car that caught those forty-fives this morning. Isn’t it down here?”
“No, they towed her to the dead-line garage on Lincoln Road. As I got it, they’re going to have to do some body-work on her and put in a new fuel line.”
“Did you see the damage?” Shayne said.
“I didn’t myself, Mike. They told me about it.”
“I think I’ll go over and take a look. On Lincoln, right?”
The sergeant gave him a street address. Shayne thanked him and went up the ramp to the street.
17
Michael Shayne walked quickly to Collins Avenue, where he boarded a northbound bus. He left the bus in the low Sixties. He passed up several goldfish-bowl phone booths in favor of a drug store with the booths inside, in the old-fashioned way. He shut himself up in one of these and dialed the number of the Seafarer.
The bartender answered. Shayne asked for the manager. In a moment George was on the line.
“George?” Shayne said. “Michael Shayne. How did you like the plug I gave you?”
“What do you mean, plug?” George demanded. “You make me famous, absolutely, and now everybody thinks if they come to eat a nice fish dinner at the Seafarer, they get blown to pieces. I could choke on a few more plugs like that.”
“Didn’t you see the News?” Shayne said.
“I don’t spend the whole day reading newspapers,” George said. “We had the tourists for lunch. Not really hungry, you know, they just wanted to see where the private detectives get blown up. A half dozen clams and a bowl of free oyster crackers. Phooey.”
“Send somebody out for a News” Shayne told him. “I’ll hold on.”
“There’s one here at the bar. What do you want I should read?”
“Tim Rourke’s story. Do you see it?”
“Am I blind, that I wouldn’t see such a headline? Okay, Mike, as a favor to you, I read.” He mumbled for a moment, then exclaimed with pleasure, “‘Best food in greater Miami!’ Perfectly true, but you don’t hear people admit it very often. On the front page, too. This you did for me, my good friend?”
“To get you in the right mood to do me a favor.”
“Oh? Something costly, no doubt?”
“Not at all. I want the use of your place tonight. If everything goes well, the Seafarer will be on the front pages of all the papers again tomorrow.”
“I understand, I understand. I am reading this article of Tim Rourke’s. I’m feeling sorry for this Mr. Baumholtz. Another bomb is going off, but this time under Mr. Baumholtz’s seat of his pants. Mike, in my place, no. This would be covered by insurance, damage to fixtures et cetera, but what will my customers think? No.”
“Here’s all that will happen,” Shayne said rapidly. “Baumholtz will be sitting at the bar. The killer will come in and ask for him, and we’ll grab him.”
“Mike, Mike. Without any shooting? Impossible. All my customers for the three dollar and a half dinner, full of holes.”
Shayne grinned. “If I’m located in just the right spot and we all work together, there won’t be any shooting.”
“The right spot! The right spot is on the other side of town.” He paused, and said slowly, “No wait, Mike, I’m thinking. A man was in trying to sell me one of those look-through mirrors, do you know them? One side a mirror, the other side you look right out and see if your bartender is cheating on the cash register. I tell him no, my bartenders are as honest as a judge, and anyway I’d hurt their feelings putting in such a mirror. They think I don’t trust, they become unhappy, bad for business. But if you say I have to get this mirror—”
“And if I pay for it,” Shayne said.
“Yes, yes. Then the bartenders are not unhappy. Not my idea, Mike Shayne’s idea. Sure,” he said decisively, “I do it.”
“Where would you put it?”
“This man, he looked the place over. On the wall by pay office. Eh?”
“Can you get in touch with him right away?”
“He left his card. One bartender, and which one I don’t know, threw the card away. That gives me the idea maybe I need this mirror more than I thought. I remember the company, I look it up in the phone book. Maybe everything not so perfect by tonight, but the mirror covers up the edges of the hole, no? We make it pretty later.” He hesitated. “Is expensive, Mike. Seventy-five dollars.”
“That bartender isn’t the only bandit in your place,” Shayne said. “But it’s worth it. I’ll be over soon. If Baumholtz shows up before I get there, for God’s sake don’t let him get away.”
After he hung up he thought a moment. Then he looked up the number of the nearest car-rental agency and dialed it.
“This is Robert Raymond,” he said when a girl’s voice answered. “I’d like to rent a car for a day. What’s available?”
“We have Fords and Buicks, sir, in the most-wanted models, all under ten thousand miles.”
“Then I’d like to reserve a Buick, a Roadmaster if possible,” Shayne said. “Make it a sedan. A two-door’s all right.”
The girl took down the necessary information, and Shayne told her he would stop by to pick up the car in a few minutes. He took a cab to the address. A new Buick was waiting on the street. He went in and filled out the papers, paying with a check drawn on an account he maintained for these emergencies. He also carried documents in the Raymond name, but he wasn’t asked to show them. They all seemed very anxious for Mr. Robert Raymond to drive off in their valuable car.
He had one more errand, which took him across the causeway to a sporting-goods store in Northwest Miami.
He nodded to the clerk, who was busy with another customer, and went back to the rear of the store. The owner, a former Miami cop and an old friend of Shayne’s, a spry baldhead named Al Higgins, was cleaning a 16-gauge shotgun.
“Don’t tell me you’ve decided to start carrying a gun, Mike,” he said. “What can I sell you?”
“I need some blank forty-five ammunition,” Shayne said.
Higgins arranged the shotgun’s trigger assembly in an orderly pattern on the counter. “I can make some up for you, Mike. What’s the problem, exactly?”
“A drunk,” Shayne replied, “with no more sense than a four-month-old puppy. He’s carrying a loaded forty-five, and I don’t want to be anywhere near him when he starts waving it around. I’ll take it away from him if I have to, but I hope I won’t have to. I think I can get hold of it long enough to switch clips.”
“Does he know guns?” Higgins said.
“He doesn’t know which end the bullet comes out. That’s the trouble.”
“Still he might want you to teach him how it works, right? You don’t want blanks, you want dummies, to look like real bullets. What’s he got, a Colt?”
“I think so. He bought it in a pawn shop, and it’s probably a beat-up Army automatic. Better give me a Colt magazine, and if I’m wrong I’ll do a little sleight of hand.”
“Here’s what I’ll do,” Higgins said, “if you don’t mind waiting about fifteen minutes. I’ll take some dummy rounds, the ones the cops use for indoor target practice on
the twenty-five yard range. The projectiles are plastic, so they weigh less, but I can weight the clip to make it as heavy as the ordinary loaded clip. They can still do real damage at point-blank range. I’ll cut down the charge, use a little less powder. He’ll get less recoil but just as big a bang, almost, anyway.”
“Fine,” Shayne said. “He won’t know the difference.”
Higgins went into a back room. Shayne occupied himself by finishing cleaning and oiling the shotgun. He put it together swiftly, and brought it to his shoulder several times, as though for snapshots. It had a beautiful balance, and aimed itself.
Higgins came back, wiping a .45 magazine with a piece of oily waste. “That’s a nice weapon, Mike. If you’re thinking about doing some hunting—”
“I’m going hunting,” Shayne said, laying the shotgun on the counter, “but not for ducks.”
Higgins handed him the clip and several extra rounds. Shayne weighed the clip in one hand and examined the bullets. They looked real enough to fool a furniture salesman.
“But don’t try biting them,” Higgins said, “or you’ll leave teethmarks.”
After paying for the ammunition, the redhead dropped the clip and the loose rounds into the side pocket of his jacket, and returned to the rented Buick. He drove south on Biscayne Boulevard, planning his next moves.
He took a single cigarette out of an inside pocket. At a stoplight, he found the electric lighter among the gadgets on the unfamiliar dashboard. A traffic patrolman was operating the signal-control box on the corner, and Shayne turned his head. By now, he knew, every cop on both sides of the Bay would be on the lookout for Michael Shayne, who had broken out of police headquarters after assaulting a detective. Shayne found it easy to imagine Peter Painter’s state of mind at the moment. The little man would be breathing fire and smoke, and making life difficult for his subordinates. Shayne smiled momentarily at the thought. The smile didn’t reach his eyes, which remained cold and calculating. This time Painter had something on him, and he could make it stick. There was one way Shayne could stay in business in Miami, and only one; that was to get to the murderers of Terry Weintraub before the police did. If one of the murderers was also guilty of a tommy gun killing on the Coast, so much the better.
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