Target_Mike Shayne

by Brett Halliday

  “Give her plenty of gas. There’s an extra low shift, but forget about that. Nothing to be scared of.” He switched on the ignition. “Starter on the floor. Kick it, angel.”

  She pressed down hard on the starter, and the motor came to life. She had to sit up very straight to see over the high steering wheel. The clutch came out too fast, and they started with a violent jerk. As she shifted into second, there was a clash of gears that put an expression of horror on her face. She looked contritely at Shayne.

  A bell was clanging on the front fender. Shayne looked back. Two white-clad men ran out of the hospital and looked after them, gesticulating. Lucy came down into high, more smoothly, and Shayne began hunting for the button that controlled the bell. He thought he found it, but that switch started the windshield wipers.

  “The hell with it, let it ring,” he said. “Get us over to the Beach the quickest way, and don’t stop for red lights.”

  Lucy’s face was serious and intent. She gripped the steering wheel tightly in both hands. She overhauled a truck, and when the trucked moved over to get out of her way she began to relax.

  “This is easier than I thought. Don’t I really have to stop for red lights?”

  “Just slow down.”

  A red light loomed up before them, at the intersection of Miami Avenue and NE 15th. Lucy’s foot lifted momentarily from the accelerator, but then she raised her chin defiantly and they went on through. Shayne grinned.

  “And don’t stop to pay toll,” he said.

  She picked an empty gate at the toll station and went through without slackening speed.

  “Where on the Beach?”

  “The St. Albans.”

  Their speed gradually increased until they were doing 75. Oncoming traffic moved over for their flashing red lights. Lucy’s right leg was stretched out as far as it would go, her toe pointed to reach the gas pedal, and she sawed at the steering wheel with both hands.

  “Sooner or later this silly pride of yours is going to be the end of you,” she said, swinging past a line of cars and narrowly avoiding a taxi, “These men are armed to the teeth. You’re not only unarmed, you can hardly stand up. How can you hope to take them on single handed?”

  “Not single handed, angel. I’ve got you.”

  “A lot of help you ever let me be. Why can’t we call in one single policeman, for heaven’s sake? You’re as stubborn as a mule.”

  Shayne’s head was resting against the back of the seat, rolling as she cut in and out of eastbound lanes. For a moment, with exhaustion welling up inside him, he couldn’t speak. But he knew she deserved an answer.

  “It’s not between me and the guy who tried to kill me. It’s between me and Painter. I didn’t want it that way. It was Painter’s idea.”

  He rested for a moment. “This time he’s got me. I had to slug a couple of his boys, one of them twice. That can be serious for anybody. It’s a lot more serious for a private detective.”

  “Michael, you didn’t!”

  “I did, though. Hey!” he exclaimed as she flashed past a truck with a tenth of an inch to spare.

  She said sweetly, “I thought we wanted to get there in a hurry?”

  “But all in one piece.”

  “I like driving something this big, I’ve decided.” She was as cool as if she had been sitting on her living room sofa. “What were you saying?”

  Shayne closed his eyes, seeing another red light ahead. “This time he can put me in jail. That won’t kill me. I might even be able to save my license. But there’s more to it. I’ve been fooled. Badly fooled. The only reason I’m alive now is that Clayton fooled me so completely, and put on such a wonderful act as a silly drunk that I switched clips on him so he couldn’t shoot me by mistake. By mistake! After that, if I have to let Peter Painter take care of my problems for me, I’m really through in this town. He has the whip hand now, and I can’t let him keep it. A detective doesn’t last long after he gets to be a laughing stock.”

  “You couldn’t ever be a laughing stock,” Lucy declared loyally.

  “Thanks, angel. I’m feeling so damn dumb right now, I can use a few compliments. Even if I don’t deserve them.” After a brief pause he said through set lips, “And if I let Clayton get away with this, every punk in the state will think it’s safe to take a shot at Mike Shayne.”

  Lucy drove with increasing self-confidence. The bandage on Shayne’s head seemed to have tightened. There were moments when he thought he was going under again, but he held on hard to consciousness. Thirty-sixth Street flashed by.

  And then suddenly Lucy slowed for the turn into the circular approach to the great hotel. Shayne snapped awake, with no memory of the intervening blocks. She pulled up in front of the main entrance and leaped out. Shayne opened the door, but the step seemed to move beneath his foot. He went down on one knee with a painful jolt.

  The doorman hurried forward. Lucy took his other arm. Between them they got him inside. Shayne looked around. There were probably fewer than a half dozen guests left in the great gilded expanse.

  “Is Maguire still on nights?” Shayne said.

  “Yes, sir,” the doorman told him. “Here, use this.”

  He went to an alcove inside the entrance, and pulled out a wheel chair which was kept there for ailing or incapacitated guests.

  “Hell with that,” Shayne grated.

  Mike Shayne in a wheel chair! He’d never heard a sillier suggestion. He took two steps unaided, and then his legs turned to rubber and he sank back into the wheel chair.

  “Maguire,” he said again.

  “Yes, sir. I saw him a minute ago.”

  The doorman wheeled Shayne rapidly across the lobby. Lucy ran beside him. They passed the mail desk and the cashier’s windows. Maguire, the St. Albans security officer, came out of the manager’s office as they approached. He glanced at the wheel chair casually. Then his eyes widened.

  “Mike Shayne! What fell on you, for God’s sake?”

  “I’m okay,” Shayne said shortly. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing much, why?”

  “I got a tip you were going to have a robbery.”

  Maguire’s eyes went automatically to the combination-boxes set into the wall behind the cashiers’ windows. “Everything’s quiet, so far as I know.”

  “Nothing unusual in the last hour?” Shayne asked, disappointed.

  “A few drunks, that’s all. We’ve been having a little switchboard difficulty, but I’m no goddam telephone mechanic. It’ll have to wait till morning.”

  Shayne’s hand went uncertainly to his earlobe. He couldn’t very well turn out all the hotel’s guests and inquire if they’d been robbed. He hadn’t expected this sudden dead-end.

  Lucy put her hand on his shoulder. “You’ve done everything you can, Michael. I’ll take you back.”

  “The hell you will,” he replied savagely. “How about complaints?” he asked the hotel detective.

  “Nothing but routine. I’ll get the report out if you want. A lady wanted a doctor. A couple tried to get by with paying single occupancy. Noise complaints. The usual.”

  Shayne was ready to grasp at any straw. “What kind of noise?”

  “Oh, TV too loud, and so on. The usual nuts. One dame said she heard firecrackers under her bed, woke her out of a sound sleep.”

  He laughed, but Shayne’s jaws tightened. “Tell me about that one.”

  “Firecrackers! I mean it. An old dame on thirteen. I looked around her room for her, and I found what I knew I’d find. Namely nothing.”

  Shayne remembered something else Maguire had said. “What’s wrong with the switchboard?”

  “It’s some kind of short, I guess. But it’s only on—” His mouth opened wider, and he swung around to look directly at Shayne. He continued, “Only on twelve. We can’t get incoming calls through, and outgoing are probably cut off too.”

  “Who do you have on twelve?”

  Maguire seemed suddenly evasive. “I’ll have
the girl get out the chart. Meanwhile, I think I’ll take a look around.”

  He started away.

  “Maguire!” Shayne said sharply. “I’m calling this, and you’ll go along with me unless you want to get hurt.” He repeated his question. “What’s on twelve? Beneath the lady’s room who put in the noise complaint?”

  “Well, Mike,” Maguire said uneasily, “I understand there’s a poker game up there. Don’t ask me, ask the manager. Pretty big stakes.”

  Shayne pushed against the right hand wheel, turning the chair toward the elevators. “Let’s go.”

  22

  Fran Smith, with the tommy gun, leaned against the doorframe between the sitting room and the foyer of Blackstone’s suite. His face was dead-white, and there was a bulge under his shirt where the blonde had contrived a crude but effective bandage.

  Clayton was in the outer doorway. With the electric drill which Smith had brought in his tool-chest, he drilled two holes into the frame, two more into the outer face of the door. Miriam was watching him from the open door of an elevator. He took out a four-inch angle-iron. Using a ratchet screwdriver, he attached it to the frame. He had timed himself in a dry-run of this operation, completing it in less than a minute. He was being more careful now, and he took a little longer.

  He called Smith. The boy looked around at the gamblers, and with startling abruptness gave an imitation of a child firing one of the guns he held in his hands: “Ah-ah-ah-ah.” He laughed crazily, and backed into the foyer.

  “Okay,” Clayton said, and Smith stepped out into the hall.

  Clayton had the final two screws ready. He pulled the door flush with the angle-iron and quickly drove home the screws. Smith was on his way to the elevator, the gun dangling from his shoulder by a strap, tool-box in one hand. His face was twisted with pain.

  The last screw tightened, Clayton smudged the angle-iron with a soft cloth. Picking up the canvas bag into which they had stuffed the money, he ran for the elevator. As he passed Smith he grabbed the tool-box. In the elevator, he began at once wiping fingerprints from the screwdriver and the drill, which they didn’t plan to take with them. Smith came in. Miriam punched the button for the lobby and the door closed.

  “How bad is it?” she asked Smith.

  “The slug’s still in there, and she’s beginning to stiffen up on me.”

  He crouched, opening the tool-box to put the tommy gun away. Clayton finished with the tools and looked at his watch. Not bad at all. It would be ten minutes before their victims would attract anyone’s attention, more than that before the door could be opened. There would be time to help Smith onto the train.

  Suddenly, between the fourth and fifth floors, the car stopped. Clayton turned quickly.

  Miriam was holding a gun on them.

  “I want the car-keys, Fran,” she said.

  “What car-keys?”

  As he crouched on the floor, his forehead was on a level with her automatic. He started to bring up the tommy gun. She shot him between the eyes.

  He pitched forward. In a swift reflex action, Clayton brought the edge of his hand down in a savage chop at the girl’s wrist, and the automatic fell.

  “Car-keys?” he said quietly, taking out his .45. “What is this?”

  Her face was ashen. “We didn’t need him, Clayt! With that bullet in him he—Now we can split even. Don’t!”

  He sneered. “Why should I kill you? That’s your gun on the floor, not mine.”

  “Clayt! Take me with—”

  He slapped her hard across the face with the .45. As she fell he reached for the control panel. Below, Shayne wheeled himself to a stop in front of the light-board that gave the location of the electronically-controlled elevators. A green light showed at twelve. Maguire was in the doorway of a waiting elevator.

  “You go ahead,” Shayne said, as the twelfth-floor light blinked off. “I wouldn’t be much help.”

  Maguire started up, and for an instant Shayne watched the lights.

  “Angel,” he said softly. “We’ll need a cop to make the arrest. I saw a beat policeman out on Collins. Get him for me. Hurry!”

  There was such urgency in his tone that she whirled and began to run. Maguire’s elevator reached the fifth floor, passing the car that was coming down. Shayne pushed himself up out of the wheel chair, moving so he was leaning on the handle. He looked back at the board. Maguire’s car passed seven. The light for the down car blinked out as it passed five. It didn’t come on again.

  Shayne stared at the board, waiting. The other car stopped at twelve, and the light remained on. Twenty seconds passed, thirty. Suddenly the light in the other column flashed on at four, and continued down. Shayne’s muscles tightened.

  The door opened.

  Bram Clayton stood facing him. He had a canvas bag in one hand. His other was hidden beneath his coat. For an instant Shayne thought he was alone in the car, and then he saw the bodies on the floor, one the blonde girl who had called herself Agatha Wiley, the other a youth with a bloody face.

  Clayton’s jaw dropped open and his face went pale. He looked with horror at the towering, bandaged figure in front of him.

  “Shayne!” he whispered, and Shayne propelled the wheel chair at him with all his remaining strength.

  The foot-rest struck Clayton below the knees. The gun inside his coat went off and he pitched forward into the wheel chair. He dropped the bag, flailing in an effort to keep his balance, but fell. Shayne stepped forward and kicked him as hard as he could in the head. It wasn’t hard enough to stun him.

  “I killed you,” Clayton said stupidly. “I put the gun against your head.”

  “It was loaded with blanks,” Shayne croaked, trying to see through the mist that was rising about him. “I switched clips.”

  He tried to kick Clayton again, but it was all he could do to stand. He wondered why Clayton didn’t get up. Perhaps, after all, he shouldn’t have tried to handle this alone. There was no cop outside on Collins; he had lied to Lucy. Clayton could still brush Shayne aside and make good his escape. The doorman was running toward them, but he wouldn’t interfere after he had seen the .45. Shayne noticed the tommy gun on the floor of the elevator. If he could get that before Clayton could club him with the .45—

  Clayton took his hand out from inside his coat and looked at it. It was red with blood.

  “You told me,” he muttered. “Should have left it on safe.”

  “It’s a dummy round,” Shayne said. “You’ll die in the chair.”

  Clayton gave a croaking laugh. “I reloaded. Two live shells. Two. This time, by God—”

  He tried to lift the heavy automatic in both hands, sweat streaming down his face It came up off the floor, wavering. Suddenly what Clayton had said broke through and made contact with the detective’s blurred brain. Two live rounds. With the first Clayton had shot himself when the wheel chair hit him. The second—

  Reaching down, Shayne hit at the automatic weakly. He missed, but tried again, and batted it out of Clayton’s grasp. A red bubble formed on Clayton’s lips, held for an instant and broke.

  “Here,” the doorman said behind Shayne.

  He pulled the wheel chair back and helped Shayne into it. As the doorman moved aside, Shayne saw the blonde girl on her feet, holding the tommy gun. She picked up the canvas bag.

  “Stay right there,” she said in a high voice. “Both of you.”

  Shayne had done everything he could. The girl came out of the elevator, watching Shayne and the doorman, then turned her back and walked quickly toward the front entrance, skirting the row of shops at the edge of the lobby. With the tommy gun cradled in her arms, she looked very efficient and deadly. Shayne realized that she was going to get away. She could use the ambulance that was parked outside, or perhaps she had a car waiting. And he realized something else, that he didn’t care. The two men he was after, one dead and one dying, lay on the floor of the elevator.

  At the revolving door, Miriam turned to face the lobby wi
th a final menacing flourish of the tommy gun. At that moment the door revolved. Lucy came through.

  “No!” Shayne tried to yell. Nothing came out of his mouth but a harsh whisper.

  Without hesitation, Lucy swung her purse and hit Miriam on the back of the head. Then she hurled herself at the blonde girl in a very good body block. Her shoulder struck Miriam in the small of the back.

  “No!” Shayne shouted again.

  He tried to get up, and the bright lights in the lobby spun around and the floor rose to meet him. He felt a violent explosion behind his eyes.

  He thought at first that he had never left the Angel of Mercy Emergency room, and only in his delirium had Clayton shot himself and Lucy tackled a girl armed with a tommy gun. He lay in the same narrow hospital bed. He felt the same heaviness weighing him down. The pain was the same, and Lucy was still sitting beside him.

  He turned his head. She took his hand and put her face against it. He could feel the tears. He tried to lift his other hand to touch her hair, but it was much too heavy.

  “Was I imagining things,” he said, “or did I actually see you—”

  Still keeping hold of his hand, she said lightly, “I’d been wanting to hit that blonde all day, ever since I saw her half undressed in your bedroom.”

  “Didn’t you have any trouble getting the tommy gun?”

  “Didn’t I! I want you to know, Michael Shayne, that I had a fight on my hands.”

  He smiled. “I learn something new every day. What about Clayton?”

  “They don’t know yet if he’ll live. Tim and I talked to a lawyer, Michael, Joe Riegelman. He doesn’t think you have anything to worry about. I couldn’t get much sense out of Painter, but Riegelman says if Painter charges you with assaulting policemen so you could get out to solve their murder for them, he’ll make monkeys out of the whole lot of them in court.”

  “Riegelman’s no Legal Aid lawyer,” Shayne said thoughtfully. “He’s going to cost an arm and a leg.” He thought a moment. “It doesn’t matter now, but I wish I’d stayed conscious long enough to take that money back to the twelfth floor. Hell, they were engaged in illegal activity. I suppose the cops confiscated it?”