Shoot the Works

by Brett Halliday

  Shayne started around the desk to take the telephone just as the broker spoke excitedly into the mouthpiece. “Hello. Is that Lola? Your name has entered the investigation of the murder of Mr. Wallace, and.…”

  Shayne leaped forward with an angry curse to grab the telephone as Martin replaced it, and the broker looked at him with startled eyes as he held it out. “She hung up before I could even ask her.…”

  Shayne held the phone against his ear and heard only the dial tone. He dropped it back on its cradle disgustedly and raged, “Of course she hung up. What the hell did you expect after telling her she’s suspected of murder?”

  “But I didn’t … I simply said.…”

  Shayne glared down at him, speechlessly, for a moment, then turned and started out of the room fast. Over his shoulder, he snapped, “Call Chief Gentry and give him that number. Ask him to trace it and get some one there fast before she takes off with your million bucks.” He went out the door and slammed it hard behind him before Martin could ask any questions. He had no real proof, of course, that the black-haired woman in the Flagler Street apartment was named Lola, but it seemed a reasonable assumption at the moment.

  He went out through the reception room fast, crossed to the elevator button and pressed it before even turning to look at the redhead behind the desk. She was looking at him with wide eyes, and he managed a grin for her and said, “All right, so it isn’t Jane after all. Alice fits you a lot better.”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but the elevator door opened at that instant and he stepped inside with a wave of his hand.

  He hurried through the crowded lobby and out to his parked car with a driving sense of urgency forcing him on. Traffic was heavy and he bucked it savagely, using his horn and his driving skill to make a way for him south and then westward, parallel to Flagler Street.

  With all his urgency and his knowledge of downtown Miami traffic patterns, a full ten minutes had elapsed before he reached the thirty-hundred block on West Flagler.

  He parked directly in front of the apartment building and hurried up the short walk. He trotted through the foyer to the elevator, had to press the button to bring it down from the fourth floor, and then got in and pressed the button for 3.

  The same dead silence and the same dank and shuttered smell greeted him on the third floor when he got off.

  He turned to his right to the door of 3-A and reached out his forefinger to press the bell when he became aware that the door was standing open a fraction of an inch.

  And through the tiny slit there came a new odor that started his blood racing and raised the short hairs at the back of his neck.

  It was the acrid smell of gunsmoke, and he shoved the door hard and went in fast as it swung open in front of him.

  The living room windows were closed, now, and the smell of burned gunpowder was strong inside the room.

  His former hostess lay half in and half out of the bedroom, twisted on her side with sightless eyes staring at him and with a round hole in the center of her forehead.

  Her right arm was outstretched, and just beyond the lax fingers lay a .32 revolver.

  Shayne stood very still, looking down at her, and through the closed windows above Flagler Street came the faint shrilling of a police siren that keened up to a high note and then faded to silence in front of the building.

  Michael Shayne stood exactly where he was, at least ten feet from the body of the dead girl, and waited for the police to find him there.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A few minutes later, Shayne heard the elevator start down, and it returned quickly and the door opened and hard heels pounded down the hall to the door standing open behind him.

  He turned to face a young uniformed patrolman who came to a fast stop in the doorway and surveyed him with cold eyes.

  “Well, what goes on here?”

  Shayne stood where he was and gestured calmly toward the dead woman behind him. “She was lying like that a few minutes ago when I arrived. The door was unlocked and I walked in.”

  “Dead, huh?” The young cop’s voice quivered slightly and he swallowed hard and narrowed his eyes, dropping his hand to the butt of a holstered gun. “Turn around and walk to the wall and put your hands flat against it over your head.”

  Shayne did as he was directed. The patrolman came up behind him and felt over him for a weapon. A blast of sound came from across the hall as the door opposite Lola’s apartment was opened, and when the cop stepped back and said gruffly, “All right. I guess you’re clean,” Shayne turned to see an elderly couple from the opposite apartment peering timidly in through the open door.

  “Trouble in here, Officer? Heard you running down the hall and we wondered.” The man was bald and had a scraggly, white mustache. Beside him, a fat woman was bare-footed and wearing a shapeless housecoat. From their apartment the sound of music came out and invaded the silence of the death room.

  “Homicide,” said the young officer officiously. “Go back inside and wait until I get help.” He moved forward and closed the door firmly in their faces, turned back to Shayne. “You reported this?”

  Shayne shook his head. “I heard your siren coming just as I stepped inside. I waited without touching anything because I knew you’d be right up.”

  “How’d you know that when you just heard my siren?” snarled the cop. “How’d you know I was headed here?”

  “Because I had this telephone number called into headquarters fifteen minutes ago and asked them to check it for trouble. I’m a private detective,” he added. “Shayne is the name. Hadn’t you better call in?”

  “Shayne, huh? Heard about you. Yeh, I guess I better had.” The policeman crossed to the telephone and dialed a number. “Garson here. I got a DOA. A dame.” He gave the address and apartment number. “And a big redhead standing over the body says he’s a private op named Shayne.” He listened a moment and said importantly, “Right. Henry’s down covering the front.”

  He replaced the instrument and turned slowly, went across to the body and knelt beside it to feel the wrist gingerly.

  He rocked back on his heels and muttered, “Still warm. Sure your prints aren’t on that gun, Shamus?”

  Shayne said, “I’m sure. Aren’t there powder burns around the wound?”

  “Yeh. She was shot close up, all right. Maybe suicide.” Garson got to his feet frowning. “You claim you called in fifteen minutes ago saying there was trouble here? That was before you got here, huh? Kinda psychic?”

  Shayne said, “I’ll answer all the questions when the homicide boys get here. Let’s let everything lie right now.” He crossed to the sofa and sat down and lit a cigarette.

  Lola was still wearing the same nightgown and robe she’d had on when he visited her earlier, and her face was still devoid of makeup, her long black hair still uncombed. The empty gin bottle lay on the floor where it had been, but her shoes and the articles of clothing on a chair were gone. There was no tray or glasses in the room either, and some of the ashtrays had been emptied of butts in the interim.

  The young patrolman stood stiffly near the door and waited, and there was an uncomfortable, oppressive silence between the two men.

  Garson relaxed with a look of relief on his face when they heard the tramp of footsteps coming down the hall. He opened the door and saluted smartly when Captain Linehan walked in followed by three detectives. “Garson, sir. Not a thing has been touched since my arrival.”

  The captain said, “Okay. You can wait in the hall.” He was a slender, dyspeptic-appearing man with a look of confirmed cynicism that came from many years of viewing scenes like this one. He let his sharp gaze slide across the seated redhead, and then he crossed to the body and knelt beside it. Behind him, also in silence, one of the detectives was setting up a camera tripod while the second opened a finger-printing kit and the third sauntered about, looking inside the kitchen and bathroom. There was no hurry or bustle about their actions. The woman was dead and would remain dead, and they
had all the time in the world to ascertain what the silent apartment could tell them about her death.

  Linehan stood up and brushed off his knees and moved over to sit down beside Shayne. “I know the chief’ll be here as soon as he hears you’re in on it. Save telling your story twice if we wait.”

  Shayne said, “Sure, Cap.” He took a final drag on his cigarette and leaned aside to mash it out in a tray. “How long you figure since she did it?”

  “You make it for suicide?”

  Shayne shrugged. “You boys are the experts.”

  “Ten minutes to an hour, I’d guess,” Linehan said casually. “That fit with what you know?”

  Shayne nodded slowly. “It’s well within the limits. It’s been just about ten minutes since I found her.”

  A flashbulb went off, and then there were voices in the hall outside and Will Gentry appeared in the doorway a moment later. The captain got up to confer with him briefly and Gentry listened to what he had to say and then moved in and sat in a chair near Shayne and said stolidly, “All right, Mike. Start at the beginning.”

  Shayne said, “So far as I know, Will, it started several days ago when she had lunch with Jim Wallace.” He told him briefly about Bob Pearce’s revelations early that morning, omitting the fact that Bob had come back and spent the afternoon with her, intimating that Bob had trailed her home.

  “So I came up this morning for a talk and found her nursing a hell of a hangover. Dressed just as she is right now. She insisted on starting another one with about a pint of gin, and didn’t make much sense, Will. She halfway denied knowing Jim Wallace, and I got a strong impression that she didn’t know or care that he was dead. I didn’t get too far along questioning her,” he went on with a grimace. “We were interrupted by the arrival of some guy with a suitcase whom she called Gene. Her husband, is my guess. He pulled his knife on me and I got to him with a good right just as he swung on her and they went out on the floor together.”

  He reached in his pocket for the switchblade and passed it over to Gentry. “I figured they’d better sleep it off, and left them like that. When I returned fifteen minutes ago, this is what I found.”

  The police doctor and two other detectives came in just then and Gentry nodded absently to them and said, “Headquarters had a call to get an address for this telephone number and rush a man up. I understand you made the call.”

  Shayne said, “Not I. It was Rutherford Martin who called, but he may have given my name because I told him to make it while I got here as fast as I could. I didn’t know at the time it was her number, but it figured and I didn’t want to waste any time. At that, I was too late.”

  Gentry leaned back and rolled a black cigar between his fingers. Curiously rumpled lids moved down to obscure his eyes. “Where’d you get the telephone number?”

  Here, Shayne knew he was skating on thin ice, but, while waiting for Gentry’s arrival, he had carefully planned an explanation that would avoid mention of the note he’d found in Wallace’s apartment and save Donovan’s neck for him.

  He said, “Martin and I found it written in a private address book in Wallace’s office desk while we were checking through his stuff. Just the first name, Lola, and no address. I didn’t know for sure that this woman’s name was Lola, but Martin had the impression there had been such a woman in his life recently … and like a damned fool I let him dial the number we’d found to try and learn her identity. I say ‘damned fool,’” he went on in disgust, “because I wasn’t quick enough to take the phone from him when she answered. Instead, he blurted out that she was wanted for questioning about Wallace’s murder and she hung up before we could get any more information. So I got here as fast as I could to try and stop a getaway … providing this was the right woman.”

  Gentry said, “If you’d given this address to headquarters instead of just the telephone number, our radio car could have beat you here by eight minutes.”

  Shayne said, “I realize that now, but I had no proof at all that the number belonged here. It was just a wild hunch. Besides, how could I guess she’d be so quick on the trigger?”

  “How about it, Doc?” Gentry asked as the doctor came to them from his examination of the body. “Was she?”

  “Was she what?”

  “Quick on the trigger.”

  “Suicide?” the doctor shook his round head. “I’ll leave that for your smart boys to determine, Will. From the physical evidence, could be, although most suicides prefer the barrel in their mouths.”

  “Is it the same gun that killed Wallace last night?” interjected Shayne.

  “Same calibre. I’ve got his slug for comparison.”

  “How long ago?” asked Gentry.

  “Twenty minutes to an hour. I can’t come much closer.”

  Gentry looked at Shayne. “Your phone call puts it closer, doesn’t it, Mike? You claim she answered her phone just before Martin called us?”

  “Someone did. Some woman, I guess. I didn’t hear her voice, but Martin would have mentioned it if it’d been a man, I’m sure. You can ask Martin.”

  “And you got here, say, ten minutes later? It’s not often we can cut it that close. Wait outside in the hall, Mike.”

  Shayne got up and sauntered out while Gentry conferred with Linehan.

  The young patrolman was standing at attention down the hall and the elderly couple were peering out excitedly from the open door opposite. Their television set was turned off and the fat woman had put a pair of slippers on her bare feet.

  Shayne stopped and asked, “Did you folks know the dead woman well?”

  The man opened his mouth to answer, but his wife cut in excitedly, “Well enough, I’ll say that. Listen, Mister.…”

  But Garson came up officiously and said, “Hold it, now. This man isn’t the police,” he warned the couple. “Better not do any talking except to the Chief.”

  Shayne grinned and said easily, “Right now, I’m a suspect along with you two. I just wanted.…”

  Garson took his arm and said firmly, “I said no talking. If Chief Gentry wants you to do the questioning he’ll say so.”

  At that moment the elevator stopped at the floor and Timothy Rourke trotted out of it. He hurried forward, exclaiming, “I got a flash you had a murder here, Mike. What gives?”

  Shayne ungently twisted his arm from Garson’s grip and muttered, “Ask Dick Tracy here. He seems to be in charge.”

  Garson flushed and before he could reply, Chief Gentry appeared in the doorway of 3—A and nodded to Rourke. He said, “Go on in, Tim, and get the dope from Linehan.” He stepped aside and waited stolidly until the reporter went inside, and then crossed the hall to speak pleasantly to the couple standing there, “I’m Chief Gentry and I’d like a statement from you.”

  This time the man got in before his wife, “Yes, sir, Chief. Anything we can tell you. Come right on in.”

  Gentry entered their apartment and Shayne followed him, disregarding the scowl on Garson’s face. Gentry paid no heed to the redhead standing behind him, but asked, “Did you hear the shot?”

  “Not that we’re sure of,” the fat woman said excitedly. “We had our TV on, you see, and we just didn’t.…”

  “Ida’s a mite hard of hearing,” said the mustached man. “She always turns it on so loud a man can’t hear himself think. It’s Mrs. Berger that’s dead, ain’t it?”

  “Good enough for her,” said Ida darkly. “I been telling Peter for months that we had a right to complain. I kept telling him this is a respectable house and a woman like that gives a neighborhood a bad name.”

  “A woman like what?” said Gentry mildly.

  “Having men up all hours of the night while her poor husband’s away, that’s what,” said Ida indignantly. “He just came home this morning after a week’s absence and what do you think? A great big fight, that’s what. We turned off the TV and listened and they went at it like cats and dogs. And so he walked out on her. And now she’s killed herself, I guess. Well, I mus
t say I’m surprised at her. I never thought she cared that much.”

  While Shayne stayed in the background and listened, Gentry’s careful questioning brought out clear facts from a mass of irrelevancies.

  Gene Berger was often absent and, during his absences, his wife, Lola, had been given to drunken orgies with different men who slipped in and out of the apartment at all hours of the day and night. The walls were thick in the apartment house and the neighbors across the hall hadn’t been able to listen in on the goings-on as satisfactorily as they might have wished, but they’d heard enough over the past few months, and seen enough, to thoroughly damn Lola as an immoral woman.

  A whole procession of men, Ida, who had done most of the spying and peeking insisted. Gentry finally got her back onto the main track—checking her husband’s return that morning and his hurried departure at noon time, after a real fight between the two, culminating in Mrs. Berger’s standing in the doorway and hurling insults at her husband while he hurried down the hall, carrying the suitcase he had just carried up a couple of hours previously.

  Listening to their account of the affair, while remaining strictly in the background, Shayne realized they were wholly unaware that he had been a visitor in the apartment prior to Gene’s arrival and that his presence had precipitated the husband-and-wife quarrel.

  Ida had just happened to be going out to the grocery store at the moment Gene Berger returned, and had exchanged a greeting with Berger in the lobby below. Some time later Ida and her husband had heard the quarrel, which had evidently followed Shayne’s departure, and ended in Gene Berger’s leaving shortly after noon.

  Neither Ida nor her husband had seen or heard another visitor to the Berger apartment, until their attention had been attracted by the police siren outside and Garson’s hard-heeled arrival.

  And that was really all that Ida and Peter could contribute to Gentry’s investigation of the affair. They were both quite vague about describing any of the various men whom they insisted Lola had entertained in her husband’s absence, and, when Gentry specifically described Jim Wallace, they were unable to say whether or not he had been one of her admirers.