The saturnine reporter nodded with a grin. “Just so you won’t be forced to steal any more transportation tonight. Down this way, Mike.”
He turned into a corridor that right-angled away from the other, and a moment later they walked out into the night and he indicated his car between two No-Parking signs. Shayne got in and Rourke went around to get under the wheel. He settled himself and muttered wonderingly, “What in the living hell has been going on tonight, Mike? There were all kinds of rumors floating around the station, but I didn’t get any one of them straight. You kill somebody… or what?”
Shayne sighed and said, “Mostly what, Tim.” He got out a cigarette and lit it, realizing, suddenly, that it felt good not to have handcuffs on his wrists.
Then he said, “It’s a long story, and we need liquor to wash it down with. Can’t we get the hell away from here? I’ve seen enough cops for one night.”
“Sure… Mike,” Tim told him soothingly. He started the motor and pulled away from the curb. “Home, James?” he asked cheerfully.
“Wait a minute. No. Drop me at the Encanto Hotel, Tim. And then forget you did.”
“You’re not running out on me, Mike? Not without telling me what this is all about?”
“No. I’ve got to pick my car up at the Encanto. About forgetting it… I just mean if anything comes up later. Look. I’m confused, Tim. I’ve got thinking to do. Save your questions, huh?”
“Sure,” said Timothy Rourke easily. “Will you be at the Encanto long?”
“Just long enough to get my car. Then I’ll meet you back at my place.”
The two men had been close friends for a great many years, and Timothy Rourke knew when it was not the time to ask questions.
He drove to the Encanto without speaking again, pulled up under the canopy, and said, “I’ll be waiting for you, Mike.”
“Sure. You’ve got a key. Use it.” Shayne got out and fumbled in his pocket for his parking stub to give to the doorman, and the reporter pulled away into the night.
9
While Shayne waited at the hotel entrance for his car to be brought around, he glanced inside and saw two house phones just inside the door. He hesitated, scowling uncertainly. Should he call Carla and warn her what had happened? He wondered whether Vicky had checked back with her mother, and whether she had returned safely to the hotel.
He stepped inside quickly and lifted one of the phones, but replaced it before giving the room number. Why worry Carla at this point? What the hell could he tell her? Simply that he had bungled the job and that her dead husband might turn up anywhere, at any time.
There would still be the matter of identifying the man, he realized. There was nothing about him at this point to connect him with Carla. Just the blanket that had the name of the hotel on it. But there was nothing to show what room it came from. No, he told himself. Carla and Vicky were safe enough at this point, if they just kept quiet and went on as though nothing had happened.
If the body were discovered in the trunk of the Ford a certain private detective named Michael Shayne was the only person who could be tied directly to it. Finding the blanket, the police would check the Encanto Hotel, of course, looking for a missing guest who answered the dead man’s description. They wouldn’t find one. It would take days to check every room in the hotel for a missing blanket… if they bothered to go so far.
There was no reason to worry about Carla and Vicky at this point. He was the only one who had things to worry about. He strolled back outside as his car was driven up by the attendant, gave the lad a half-dollar and got in.
He turned south on Biscayne Boulevard, drove to Southeast First Street and then west. He found Rourke’s car parked at the curb beside his hotel on the north bank of the Miami River, and he pulled up close behind it and shut off the lights and ignition. He hadn’t formulated any definite plans for the remaining hours of the night, but he was positive that he wouldn’t be going to bed and let matters take their natural course.
He went in a side door with a stairway leading up that by-passed the lobby, climbed to the second floor and went down the hall to his door which was standing ajar and showing a light inside.
Timothy Rourke was comfortably relaxed in a deep chair with a bourbon highball in his hand. He had set out a cognac bottle for his host, with an empty four-ounce glass beside it, and a tall glass of ice water for a chaser. His deep-set eyes were hooded, and they glittered with happy curiosity as the redhead strode into the room. He lifted his glass in wordless greeting and sipped from it as Shayne crossed to the table and poured himself a healthy drink. Still standing, he drank it in three swallows, automatically chased it down with a sip of ice water and said feelingly, “By God, I needed that!” He poured more liquor into the glass and then sat down and lit a cigarette.
“Just about two hours ago,” Rourke reminded him, “you tore yourself away from my scintillating company and refused another drink… which I offered to buy, by God, and swore you were coming straight home and to bed and ten hours sleep. What the devil have you been up to in those two hours?”
“What did you pick up at headquarters?”
“Not a whole lot. Just that you’d been arrested driving a stolen car and tried to bribe the two cops to let you go. And that you deliberately ran over some honest citizen who tried to stop you. Nothing really world-shaking for Mike Shayne spending a quiet evening in bed.”
Shayne grinned mirthlessly and clawed fingers through his hair, “Things do have a way of happening. Tonight it was a friend of Brett Halliday’s in town from Hollywood.”
“Good looking?” asked Rourke alertly.
“You know Brett.” Shayne made a gesture. “She had a run-in with a dead man, so who the hell should she call on but Brett’s old friend Mike Shayne?”
“It figures. Where else would tomorrow’s headlines come from?”
“This is going to be one hell of a headline,” growled Shayne. “If things don’t break right.” He took another drink and then got up from his chair and began to prowl up and down the room.
Rourke watched his friend for a moment, then asked, “Are you going to tell me about it?”
“I’m trying to decide how much to tell you,” Shayne confessed angrily. “It’s going to sound like hell when I put it into plain words. You’re going to sit back in judgment and ask why in hell I let myself get pulled into it. All I had to do was say no, God damn it. All I had to do was turn my back and walk out of the hotel room. Which is what any sensible human being would have done,” he added in a tone of deep disgust.
“But she was a friend of Brett’s,” Rourke reminded him.
“Yeh. God protect us from the friends of our friends. All right, Tim. Right now I’m not going to try and explain why I’m in this up to my neck. Take my word for it that it seemed like the least I could do at the time. If we get in a real jam and you’re questioned, the less you know the better it’ll be all around.”
“What kind of jam are we headed for?” Rourke asked him calmly, but with lively curiosity.
“We’ve got to steal a car for one thing.”
“My God! Haven’t you stolen enough cars for one night?”
“The same car,” Shayne told him. “Did you talk to that man, Duclos, at headquarters?”
“Owner of the stolen Ford? Yeh. I got the dope from him on his car.”
“Address and all?”
“Sure. I’ve got my notes right here. But he’ll be careful after it was stolen once. He won’t leave it parked in front of his house with the keys in it again. What the hell’s so important about that car, Mike?”
“It’s something I left in it,” Shayne hedged. “We’ve got to get it back before morning.”
Timothy Rourke stiffened in his chair and put a thin hand up over his eyes. “Oh, no,” he groaned sepulchrally. “Don’t tell me that. Not a dead man, Mike. You didn’t go off and leave a corpse in that stolen car. Locked in the trunk, huh?”
“Whatever would give you an
idea like that?” demanded Shayne, looking at his old friend incredulously and laughing, although not very heartily.
“Because I know you, damn it. Because I can put two and two together and it always comes out four where Mike Shayne is concerned. There’s this dame who blows into town and has a run-in with a dead man. There’s you who could have said no and turned your back and walked out of her bedroom… but didn’t. That’s two and two… see? And it adds up to a corpse floating around town in a stolen car. Right?”
“You have the damnedest imagination,” Shayne chuckled. “I wouldn’t tell you if you were right, Tim. What you don’t know, you may not have to perjure yourself about later. Let’s just leave it that we’ve got to steal that Ford back tonight and get something out of it that I mislaid.”
“We got to do that?” asked Rourke gently.
“We,” said Shayne firmly. “It’s a two-man caper, Tim. You’re elected.”
“Do you know what the penalty is for moving corpses around?”
“No one has said it is a corpse,” Shayne reminded him. “Even so… do you remember ever asking me that same question before?”
“No, I don’t. And if you think for a minute…”
“A couple of times, Tim.” Shayne moved around in front of him and grinned happily. “Actually, we never did find out the answer because we never got caught at it.”
“That was years ago,” Rourke protested feebly. “We were crazy in those days. Now, God damn it, we’re grown up.”
Shayne laughed at him. “Maybe you are. Hell! I thought I was… until tonight.” He paused, looking away from Timothy Rourke. He was using the same arguments that Carla had used with him. Well, why not? He had been persuaded by them.
He turned back and said slowly, “You’ve got to help me, Tim. I’m really in a spot this time.”
“I don’t see why,” muttered Rourke. “Hell, it may be days before that guy Duclos has any reason to open up his trunk. He probably drives it to work… parks it in a lot somewhere. What’s the reason for going off half-cocked tonight? Probably be plenty of chances the next day or so to get to the car unobtrusively and remove… well, whatever it is you left behind.”
Shayne said angrily, “What if he has a flat on his way to work tomorrow morning? How do we know his wife doesn’t drive him to work and bring the car home for the day? Can’t you see her driving into a supermarket tomorrow and buying three or four sacks of groceries… having a boy take them out to the car for her, and her saying, ‘just a minute while I open up the trunk and you can put them in there.’ Where would I be then?”
“Well, where would you be?” asked Rourke weakly. “How could anybody prove the body was yours?”
Shayne stopped pretending it wasn’t a body he was talking about. He said savagely, “How much proof would the cops need? Right now they know I had possession of the car tonight. So far as can be proven, I’m the only one who has had possession of it since it was stolen from in front of Duclos’ house. Me. Mike Shayne. The conniving private dick who has a reputation for putting it over on the police. So they find a corpse securely locked in the trunk. No. I agree with you, Tim. That’s not proof of anything. But it’s pretty damn good prima facie evidence that your best friend knows more about the corpse than is good for him to know.”
“But you are in the clear on it, aren’t you, Mike? The guy was dead when you came into the case… the way I put together the bits and pieces you’ve been tossing me. There’d be no real rap facing you even if they did prove you put the body there.”
Shayne turned away from the reporter, took two short steps to the table and poured himself a drink. “You’re right, Tim,” he agreed in a conversational tone. “I’d probably be able to talk myself out of a real rap if I came clean and told them exactly how it happened. I might get my license suspended… or even lose it… but, what the hell? I’m not broke. In fact, I’ve been promising Lucy I’d take a long vacation. Maybe this is a good time to do it.”
He held his drink up to the light and stared at it for a moment with a frown. “The only thing is, Tim, in order to clear myself I’d have to tell everything I know about that dead man. And that would ruin a couple of innocent lives. Is that what you want? Or are you going to get off your dead ass and go out and help me steal that Ford back tonight?” He tipped the glass to his mouth and drank deeply.
Timothy Rourke said, “You knew the answer to that before you asked it.”
Shayne said absently, “Of course I did. All we got to do now is figure how to pull it off.” He looked at his watch. “Ten minutes after one. Let’s get the local portion of the final newscast and see if there’s any change in the picture.” He stepped to one side and turned the switch on a portable radio.
In a moment they heard a glib voice saying, “And now for our final story of the evening… to send all of you to bed with a chuckle.
“There was an old saying long ago that when a man bites a dog, that’s news. That may have become somewhat trite these days, but there are variations on the theme which still ring the bell.
“How about this one for instance: Detective found in possession of stolen automobile assaults citizen who seeks to halt his getaway and attempts to bribe incorruptible police officers who apprehend him in the act?
“Yes, sir. That’s the story that comes out of Miami tonight. Michael Shayne is the detective involved in tonight’s comedy of errors… or, were they errors?
“Mike Shayne in person. The redheaded, two-fisted, hard-drinking private eye, glorified in numerous crime novels and on television was accused of just that tonight.
“Involved in a minor traffic accident in downtown Miami while driving a stolen Ford sedan belonging to George Duclos of this city, the terror of the television screen went berserk and brutally assaulted the driver of the other car whose identity remains unknown in a frantic effort to escape before officers of the law reached the scene.
“Foiled in this attempt by Officers Ernie Hale and Eugene Barkus, veteran members of Miami’s traffic detail, this man who is licensed by the State of Florida as a private investigator and who is sworn to uphold the law, offered a cash bribe to the officers which was promptly and properly refused on the spot, and the redheaded, fiery-tempered Mr. Shayne was hauled into police headquarters with handcuffs on his wrists like any ordinary felon to face the variety of charges placed against him.
“Due to his influence with some of the higher-ranking members of the Miami Police Department, it is the understanding of this reporter that Shayne was later released on his own recognizance… with a slap on the wrist as it were, and an admonition to go and sin no more.
“It is a moot question whether this is the end of the affair. Perhaps there are two different sets of rules in the city of Miami governing the actions of ordinary private citizens and of extraordinary private detectives. We will demand and expect a statement from Chief of Police Will Gentry early tomorrow morning concerning the disposition of this case.
“And, now this is your roving reporter, Earl Hodges, signing off…”
10
Michael Shayne flipped off the radio and turned to Rourke who was leaning back comfortably with a satanic look of glee on his emaciated face. “There’s your headline for tomorrow. A real, good, juicy one.” He smacked his lips approvingly. “We’ll have to work up some sort of story to counteract it in the News.”
Shayne sat down glumly and sipped his drink. “Right now we’ve got more important things to think about than unfavorable publicity. What’s that guy’s address, Tim?”
“Duclos?” The reporter took a notebook from his pocket and opened it. “Out in the Little River section. George Duclos. In the two hundred block on Northwest Seventy-seventh Street.”
Shayne said, “Finish your drink and let’s go out to have a look-see.”
Rourke sighed and said, “I’m beginning to think you’re serious. Look. If we get caught at it this time…”
Shayne said, “We won’t get caught, Tim. We’ll
just case the joint and see what the situation is. Shouldn’t be too difficult. All we need is a few minutes alone with that Ford.” He drained his glass and stood up decisively.
Rourke groaned audibly and followed him with feigned reluctance. They went down the hallway to the stairs, down those and out the side door into the night. Shayne strode directly to the reporter’s car parked in front of his and opened the door on the right side. “Better use your transportation,” he suggested casually. “Too many cops know my car and they might start wondering if they saw me prowling around that neighborhood tonight.”
Rourke went around and got in beside him. “Sure. Let’s take my car… and stick out my neck.”
Shayne grinned and lit a cigarette as Rourke started up and made a U-turn in the middle of the block. “There’s no law against you driving me around town. We won’t take any chances, Tim.”
“Ha-ha,” Rourke laughed hollowly. “Old cautious Mike Shayne. Sure. I know.” He turned east to the Boulevard and headed north. “You going to tell me any more about how you got yourself dragged into this mess?”
“I’ve already told you,” Shayne reminded him mildly. “This friend of Brett’s called me up…”
“From the Encanto Hotel?” demanded Rourke, hunched over the wheel and driving a moderate forty miles per hour over the almost empty Boulevard.
“From the Encanto,” agreed Shayne. “If you must know. She had a suite there with a corpse in her bedroom. Damn it, Tim. She hadn’t killed the guy. Her daughter had… just before she checked in from Hollywood. A sweet kid who’s scheduled to get married tomorrow. She panicked and left a note for mama and ran out.”
“How do you know all this?” asked Rourke cautiously. “There’s a good-looking dame who tells you a plausible story…”
“I read the note her daughter left her. I’ve got it in my pocket,” Shayne told him angrily. “For Christ’s sake, don’t work so hard being cynical, Tim. This is on the up-and-up. The girl shot him in self-defense when he came to the hotel room looking for her mother… and then attacked her. No jury in the world would ever hold her for that.”
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