Target_Mike Shayne

by Brett Halliday

  Shayne rubbed his hands on his pants and started up. He saw two cops beyond Painter. One of them was Squire.

  “Glad to see you, Petey,” Shayne said easily. “I think I can use a little help here.”

  “Help! We’re going to help you to a nice roomy cell.”

  “Don’t be in a hurry,” Shayne said. “String along with me for a few minutes, and I think I can give you the murderer.”

  “You’ll give me the murderer!” Painter cried. “That’s a typical remark, the most typical it’s ever been my pleasure to hear you make. You’ll give us nothing, I repeat—nothing, except the pleasure of your company in jail. This is going to turn out to be the dumbest thing you’ve ever done, Shayne! I suppose you’re wondering how we found you?”

  “What difference does it make?” Shayne said, still coming.

  “We’re not entirely without resources, you know,” Painter said. “Your car was out of commission, so we checked all the car-rental agencies. Then we looked for the license plate of a Buick rented to a big redheaded heavyweight named Robert Raymond, who told the guy across the street some mumbo-jumbo about meeting a married woman for dinner.”

  Painter gave a little crow of triumph as Shayne reached him. “You thought you’d get away with it, didn’t you?”

  “Come into the office,” the redhead said. “I’ll explain. Sorry I hit you, Squire, but if your boss had a little more sense—”

  “I’ve got sense enough to know when I’m being hoodwinked!” Painter said. “What have you got in the office, a couple of hoodlums? This time we’re doing things my way.”

  Shayne planted himself solidly. “Can’t you forget this stupid argument for a minute? A boy was killed here last night. The killers are still loose. Sure, three of you ought to be able to take me in. There’s somebody here who can lead us to the killer, and he won’t still be here when you come back for him.”

  The second detective said uneasily behind Painter, “Chief, maybe we ought to—”

  “We’ll do what I say!” Painter snapped. “Not what Shayne says. I’ve had enough of his shortcuts and swindles, more than enough. Shayne, you’re under arrest for criminal assault on a police officer. I’ll hold you on till you decide to come clean and I mean clean! Somebody who can lead us to the killer! What an imagination! You’ve got a deal cooking here, and you wouldn’t have made that idiotic move this afternoon unless there was big money in it. But I’m going to spoil it for you! This is one time you aren’t going to make a cent. You’re going to be sitting on a hard iron cot while the police solve the murder. Not a goddam free-wheeling private clown. The police.”

  “I’ve told you the truth, Petey,” Shayne said. “All the way.”

  “I suppose you told me the truth about Agatha Wiley? Would it interest you to know that no Agatha Wiley, of Atlanta or anyplace else, is registered at any hotel, motel or rooming house in Greater Miami? Would you be interested to know that those fifteen hoodlums on that phony list are either dead or in prison or in the armed forces, on foreign duty? You don’t have a word of truth in you, and you never had. Take him,” he said to the detectives. “If he resists, take him feet first.”

  Shayne said desperately, trying to think of a story that would get the cops out of the restaurant, “I’ll tell you the real truth this time. You’re right, there’s money in it.”

  Painter stepped back, to give his companions more room. “Do your talking at headquarters. I want this on record, with your signature on it. You’ve lied to us before, but we don’t generally catch you at it.”

  Squire moved in. “Don’t give us any trouble, Mike. You’ll get it back with interest.”

  Shayne had no choice. Smith was probably nervous enough as it was, and a fight would scare him away. If Baumholtz stayed at the bar and went on drinking, perhaps Smith would still be here when the redhead finally convinced Painter he had made a mistake.

  He said quietly, “All right. Take me out the back way and I’ll go without any argument.”

  “Oh, no,” Painter snapped. “Not this time. Don’t think you can keep this quiet, Shayne.”

  Over Painter’s shoulder, Shayne saw a flicker of movement in the long mirror behind the bar. A young man at the table nearest the dining room entrance stood up abruptly. He had blond hair, carefully combed, and Shayne recognized him from the photograph on the Wanted circular. He had seen the cops. He was leaving, and leaving in a hurry.

  Now it didn’t matter if there was a disturbance, and Shayne promised himself that there would be a disturbance that would be remembered around here for a long time to come.

  He swung about very fast, bringing his elbow into Painter’s midsection. The little chief of detectives was knocked through the open door into the manager’s office. Squire said something angrily and started his swing without waiting to get set. Shayne stepped inside it and hit him hard with a left to the belly. Squire went gray. The second detective, reaching past Squire, got his hand on Shayne’s shoulder. The redhead nailed him with a high looping blow to the head. He went down. Squire was hurt but still on his feet. Shayne tried to break clear so he could shoot for a second time that day at the knockout point on the detective’s jaw. He jabbed Squire twice with the left, but Squire came back doggedly each time, and landed two light blows to the body before Shayne slammed his shoulder upward. This was not his usual style of fighting, but he didn’t have time to pay attention to the rules.

  He heard the crunch of tearing cartilage as Squire’s nose broke. Squire’s outstretched fingers grazed the redhead’s arm as he fell. He was unconscious before he hit the floor.

  Two more of Painter’s detectives, who had been stationed at the front door, were running toward him, feeling inside their coats for their guns. Shayne wheeled. Before he had taken more than a step, Painter, screaming, caught him around the waist from behind. The redhead tried to throw him off. It was ridiculous. Painter tipped the beam at 135 at the maximum, very little of which was muscle. Shayne could have picked him up in one hand and hurled him over the bar. But now, with the frenzy of desperation, Painter had his skinny arms locked about the bigger man’s waist, holding on with the tenacity of a biting insect. Shayne tried to pry the arms loose, but he couldn’t get a firm grip. All Painter had to do was hold on for another few seconds, and the two detectives would be there to help.

  Shayne swung Painter around, trying to dash him against the bar. People were shouting. A bar-stool went over.

  Suddenly Painter’s grip slackened. His breath came out in a long whispering sigh and he slipped to the floor. Shayne whirled.

  Baumholtz, an apologetic grin on his face, looked at him. He was holding the .45.

  Shayne wasted no time. He picked up a bar-stool and threw it at the detectives who were running toward him.

  They fell back. Shayne whirled again, and ran through a pair of swinging doors into the kitchen.

  Several waiters in shirt sleeves were sitting at the long serving-counter drinking coffee. Two dish-washers were busy at the sinks. The chef and one of his assistants were at the stove.

  “Hold them up for two minutes!” Shayne shouted. “A hundred bucks apiece!”

  Baumholtz was just behind him. Shayne pounded for the door. For an instant, no one in the kitchen moved. Then the chef’s assistant darted around the stove and threw himself at the swinging doors. He hit them at the exact second the detectives reached them from the other side.

  Shayne burst out into an unlighted alley. He raced for the street, hearing Baumholtz stumble against a garbage can, sending it over with a crash. Without slackening his pace, Shayne swung around the corner of the alley, slicing across the sidewalk to the street and racing along it, outside the line of parked cars. He broke his stride as he reached the avenue, then dodged from lane to lane until he was across. He leaped into the Buick, snapping on the ignition and parking lights as the attendant ran up.

  “Detectives were here asking,” he gasped, “and I had to—”

  Shayne hit the s
tarter without answering. He saw Baumholtz running toward him, shying away from on-rushing headlights. Reaching the sidewalk in safety, he wrenched open the door of the Buick and fell panting into the front seat.

  “I want to—”

  “Get out,” Shayne snapped.

  “No, I have a right,” Baumholtz began, and at that moment Shayne saw a pair of headlights emerge from the parking lot beside the Seafarer. He let out the clutch.

  “Close the door, damn it,” he told Baumholtz, and swung the wheel.

  The headlights had turned north. Shayne had the Buick moving. He saw a gap in the traffic. Judging his moment with care, he accelerated savagely and rocketed across into a northbound lane. He touched the brake lightly, a cold smile on his lips, and bulled his way in between two cars. A horn blatted behind him.

  “All right,” he told Baumholtz, “make yourself useful. It’s a red-and-white wagon. A Ford, I think. Two cars ahead in the next lane. I’m going to drop back and hold that interval. Don’t pay any attention to what I do, just don’t take your eyes off that wagon.”

  “I won’t,” Baumholtz said grimly.

  His breath was coming in great gasps. He leaned forward until his head nearly touched the windshield, shading his eyes against the glare of headlights. The station wagon cut recklessly from one lane to another, then slowed abruptly, stop-lights flaring, as they neared the traffic signal at Lincoln Road. The red light caught him. For an instant Shayne thought he was going through on red, but the opposing traffic was too heavy. The stop-lights continued to burn and the Ford came to a halt with its front wheels over the cross-walk.

  When the light changed, the Ford turned to the left, turning again to the right on Alton Road, toward the Venetian Causeway. The youth had apparently decided he wasn’t being followed. He drove more cautiously, keeping his own place in the moving traffic. But on the causeway, he pulled across the double line, and flashed past the Venetian Islands at seventy or over.

  Shayne let him go. Baumholtz hammered his fists against the dashboard.

  “Come on, Mike. A little more speed! You’re going to lose him.”

  “Watch which way he turns on Biscayne. I can’t keep too close to him here or he’ll spot me.”

  Shayne edged over into the outside lane, passing several cars on the right. As he reached the mainland, he had the toll ready in his left hand, and didn’t come to a complete stop at the toll station. He was changing lanes when Baumholtz called excitedly, “He went straight across.”

  Shayne speeded up, knowing that he had to make the light at the Boulevard. He slipped across on yellow. That had been close. Hurtling down 15th Street, he took several chances, and by the time he reached Miami Avenue he was again the third car behind the Ford.

  The youth could have made the light and left Shayne behind, but he missed the chance. After the light changed, Shayne followed him north on Miami.

  Baumholtz chuckled. “Did you see me bat that cop on the noggin? I never did anything like that in my life. You must get in fights all the time, Mike, so it’s old stuff to you. But you know me, I’m the sedentary type.”

  “You did fine,” Shayne assured him, concentrating on his driving.

  “Well, I had a decision to make. I knew we couldn’t spare the time to go down to police headquarters, so I thought, what if I tap him one? Then I didn’t know how hard to do it. I didn’t want to fracture his skull, after all.” An alarming thought occurred to him. “You don’t think I—killed him, do you?”

  “I hope not. I don’t like him much, but my life is complicated enough already.”

  “He certainly went awfully limp.”

  Shayne had no trouble now keeping the red-and-white Ford in sight, but he was alert for sudden turns or changes in speed. The Ford’s driver was giving the proper directional signals and keeping within the speed limit, even after the traffic began to thin as they entered the Northwest residential district. He seemed unaware of the Buick behind him.

  “I’ll pass him when he stops,” Shayne said. “Duck down out of sight so he won’t see you. I’ll take the next turn and hustle back. I’ll leave the motor running. Slide over as soon as I get out, and drive on to the second right. Make that turn and wait for me.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Baumholtz said.

  “No. It’s too quiet out here. If he hears the motor stop he’ll jump in the car and get out of the neighborhood, and we’ll lose him. This is my business, Walt. It has to be handled right.”

  “I’d like to be in on it,” Baumholtz said plaintively. “It doesn’t seem right, after I’ve come this far—” Shayne glanced at him, thinking he had heard a faint note of mockery in his voice. Baumholtz met his look with a frown of concern.

  “But if you say so, Mike. What is it, hydromatic? I don’t want to stall her.”

  A street marker flashed by. Shayne caught it—95th. They were on 37th Avenue, coming up into Hialeah. The station wagon made another turn, beginning to slow. They were in a neighborhood of small, orderly bungalows set in neatly-kept lawns, undoubtedly mainly retirement homes. Many of their elderly occupants were already asleep. Few cars were parked along the streets. There was little traffic.

  Suddenly, in front of a bungalow much like the rest, the stop-lights on the wagon gleamed brightly. Shayne pulled past as it stopped at the curb.

  Baumholtz pulled his head down so abruptly that he cracked it against the dash. Lessening his speed only slightly, Shayne signalled for a right turn. As he reached the corner, he unlatched the door to be ready to jump. In a moment, out of sight of the station wagon, he began applying the brakes gradually, not wanting any squeal of rubber, and eased the shift into neutral.

  The Buick came to a stop and Shayne pushed at the unlatched door. At that moment Baumholtz jabbed him hard in the middle of the back.

  “Hold it, Mike,” he commanded.

  “What are you—” Shayne began.

  “That’s a forty-five in my hand,” Baumholtz said, “as you ought to know. And the safety is off.”

  “What’s got into you, Walt?”

  The man beside him laughed harshly. “Walt, hell. I didn’t think it would make any difference to me, but it turns out that it does. I’d like you to know who I am before I kill you. I’m Bram Clayton.”

  19

  Michael Shayne turned slightly, moving with great care. He looked at the man beside him, and saw the same somewhat foolish face. But now there was a different look around the eyes. The voice, too, was different. His lips were drawn back, showing his teeth.

  “Also known as the Actor,” he said. “The toupee is a nice touch, don’t you agree? It’s so obviously a toupee.”

  Wasting no time on intervening links, Shayne’s mind accepted the incredible fact and leaped ahead to the necessary conclusions. If this man was the killer, Francis Smith, in the station wagon, was his hireling and accomplice. The .45 in Clayton’s hand was loaded with dummies, but Smith had a tommy gun that fired real bullets, probably a smaller hand-gun as well. Shayne knew he was going to be shot. He had to be sure that he was shot by Clayton.

  “What did you say your name was?” he said, genuinely puzzled.

  “Clayton, Clayton!” The voice sounded irritated, and the muzzle of the .45 dug into the redhead’s side. “Thirteen years I put in because of you, Shayne, and now you’re going to pay for it.”

  “Thirteen years for what?” Shayne said.

  “For armed robbery, you bastard!” Clayton said in a high voice. “My ninth big job, the first time anybody came close to catching me. First National Bank in Orlando.”

  Still it meant nothing to Shayne. He had been on retainer for a bonding company at that period, and he had handled several dozen embezzlement and robbery cases in all parts of the South. This must have been one of them.

  “If you’re going to shoot me,” he said, “go ahead. It won’t change the facts. That was a hell of a few years for country banks. The boys were knocking over a couple every week. My God, I had to canc
el my retainer because my bonding work was keeping me so busy I didn’t have time for anything else. Was there anything unusual about it, to make it stick in my mind?”

  “You’re lying!” Clayton said desperately. “Damn right it was unusual! You blackmailed a witness to testify against me. I had him in my goddam pocket, and you scared him so bad he changed his testimony. Don’t lie to me, Shayne. You wouldn’t forget a thing like that.”

  “That’s routine,” Shayne said. “When a witness had been terrorized into lying, it was my job to make him tell the truth. He did tell the truth, didn’t he?”

  “That’s not the point. If it hadn’t been for you, they wouldn’t have laid a finger on me.”

  “Any bonding company detective would have done the same thing,” Shayne said. “I won’t argue with you, but I’ll tell you this much. This morning I made a list of fifteen people I thought might have planted that bomb. Your name wasn’t on the list.”

  “What do you think you’re going to gain by lying? I promised you! I told you in court that day I’d get you if it was the last thing I ever did. I suppose you don’t remember that?”

  “Clayton, use your imagination,” Shayne said patiently. “How many people do you think have said that to me, in those exact word? Probably hundreds. Why should I pay attention? They never did anything about it.”

  “Until me,” Clayton said. “My first piece of luck in a long time. You stayed alive so I could kill you.”

  “I know you’ll have to do it,” Shayne said quietly. “You killed an innocent boy last night, and unless you kill me now, that other murder will be wasted. But I’d like to know how you worked it. You fooled me completely.”

  “It was easy, easy,” Clayton said in a high, excited voice. “I wanted to be around when the bomb went off. I wiped the grease off my face and chucked the mechanic’s shirt in the car we were using. I had this toupee and the mustache in my pocket and a white coat in the car. I picked up that scrawny chick in the bar—I don’t even know how I came to think of that, I just did it. The perfect prop, that dame. Who’d suspect a guy who thought a chick like that was worth any time or trouble? I said I saw something, so I could get in and find out what the cops had. And they had nothing! I heard you tell your doll to go home and you’d see her later. I latched onto her, and told her there was a car following me, to give me an excuse to get up to her apartment. Who saw the car? Nobody but Baumholtz. What a name—Baumholtz! I thought I’d get a bang out of making Shayne’s girl friend before I knocked you over, but she wouldn’t play. Then you brought those cops back with you. Frankly, I never thought Mike Shayne would let himself be bodyguarded by cops, but it’s lucky for you you did.”