The Corpse Came Calling ms-6

by Brett Halliday

  “Do you think Mace Morgan killed Lacy?”

  “He must have. Don’t you see? It must have been Mace. Who else would have done it?”

  Shayne straightened up and took his hands from her shoulders. He said, “Drink that liquor,” and stepped back to pick up his own glass.

  She sipped the cognac, watching him fearfully over the brim of her glass.

  “And you’re afraid you’re next on your husband’s list?” he asked after a moment.

  “I’m sure of it. If he found out-” She stopped abruptly.

  “That you and Jim Lacy were planning a way to get him bumped off,” Shayne finished for her lightly. “Yes. That is an angle. Some men are funny about things like that.” He emptied his glass and set it down, stretched his lean length in a chair, and took out a cigarette. Without looking at Helen, he asked:

  “How could Morgan have found out what you had in mind?”

  “I don’t know. That’s one of the things I don’t understand. He may have friends here-underworld contacts. Perhaps Jim spilled our plan to someone.”

  Shayne said, “U-m-m.” He shifted his gaze to her through a cloud of expelled smoke. “Where did you go after you left the Danube Restaurant?”

  She set her glass down so hard that some of the liquor slopped over the edge. “Wh-at?”

  “After you finished dinner tonight,” he amplified.

  She said, “Then he was one of your men?”

  “Who?” Shayne’s eyes became very bright.

  “The man at the restaurant. The one who said you wanted to see me.”

  Shayne settled back. “Tell me all about it,” he directed. “Everything.”

  She hesitated for only a second, then began rapidly. “A man came to my table as I was finishing dinner. I had never seen him before but he said he was one of your operatives and he was to take me to you at once. He had a car outside, and when he drove away he took great precautions to keep from being followed.

  “He was disturbed and angry when a taxi swung in behind us. He drove around several side streets and wouldn’t tell me anything except that he had to get rid of whoever was trailing us in the cab. I-somehow it seemed to me that he acted very strangely, and I found myself beginning to doubt that he really was one of your men. I got scared. He finally stopped along a deserted street. The cab stopped half a block behind us and he got out and went back to intercept it, telling me to sit tight and wait for him.

  “I was sure there was something wrong by that time. He acted more like a gangster than a detective. As soon as he left, I jumped out and ran up the street. I found a cruising taxi about half a block away and I came straight here. I’ve been waiting for you to come-hiding around the corner and watching your door.” She looked at Shayne with wide-open eyes as she ended. “Had you sent him to get me?”

  Shayne shook his head. Her story sounded straight enough, and it tied in with Phyllis’s note. He asked, “You didn’t see who was in the cab behind you-nor what happened when your driver went back?”

  “No. I didn’t look back. I was terrified. I don’t know why exactly, but there was something sinister about that man.” She shuddered. “Was he working for you?”

  Shayne said, “Describe him.”

  She described Leroy. Not too exactly, but with enough detail so that there could be no mistake.

  Shayne rubbed his uninjured jaw thoughtfully. Helen waited for him to speak. After a moment he asked, “What about Gorstmann?”

  Her look of bewilderment was good enough to convince Shayne that she had never heard the name before. “Who?”

  He shrugged irritably. “Never mind.”

  He got up and began prowling up and down the room. The girl sat relaxed, not looking at him. The bottom of her tight skirt had crawled above her knees and she didn’t seem to know or care.

  She emptied her glass, and Shayne refilled it silently. Tonight, he noted, she wasn’t making any fuss about downing the hundred-proof cognac without a chaser.

  He stopped near her chair and studied her for a moment, then asked, “Why did you come here tonight?”

  She rounded her eyes at him. “To find out whether you had sent for me-and to get you to protect me from Mace.”

  “I didn’t send for you.”

  “But you knew about me being at the Danube,” she countered, puzzled.

  “It’s my job to know things. Have you seen Morgan this evening?”

  “No.” Helen shuddered. “When I read about Mr. Lacy being killed I was afraid to go back to my apartment.”

  “What makes you so sure Mace Morgan killed Lacy? The police tried to hang it on me in the papers.”

  “But I knew it couldn’t have been you.” She looked at him with wide, guileless eyes. “I was right here when it was happening.” She paused, puzzled again. “He died in your office, the papers said. But they gave this same address. I suppose they got your office address mixed up with your apartment.”

  Shayne said, “The papers are always getting things mixed up.” He did not explain that he used an apartment on the floor below as an office.

  “The papers made it sound as though maybe you needed an alibi for this afternoon,” she said eagerly and hastily. “I will swear where you were if it’s necessary.”

  Shayne thought that her eyes challenged him. He said, “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.” He then demanded, “How do you know Lacy’s death had anything to do with you and Mace? Lacy was working on something else.”

  “I don’t know what made me feel so certain,” she confessed. “Because I’d just been here talking to you about it, I suppose.”

  “Because you had a guilty conscience and couldn’t see any other possibility,” Shayne snorted. He moved away restlessly. “It seems to me that this washes us up.”

  “What-do you mean?”

  He turned, gesturing widely. “Just what I said. If your husband is hep to your plan for getting him quietly bumped off, you’d better drop it.”

  “Please, Mr. Shayne.” Helen’s face became chalky. “You’re not going to desert me?” She stood up, trembling.

  “Count me out.”

  “But you can’t,” she whimpered. “Don’t you see? I have no one else to rely on. It’s a thousand times more important now than it was this afternoon. If Mace does know-”

  “Then you’re in a tough spot.”

  “He’ll kill me. Without mercy. Just as he killed Jim Lacy.” She moved upon him, staggering as she approached. Shayne put out his arm, and she collapsed against him. She pressed her face against his chest and sobbed, “You’re the only one who can help me. He’ll kill me unless-”

  “Unless I kill him first.” Shayne’s voice was harsh.

  Her supple body quivered while one arm crept up about his shoulders. She lifted her head, crushed her breasts against him, and her eyes were hot with something more than mortal terror.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “That’s it. You’ve got to kill him first You can’t stand by and let me be murdered. You know you can’t.”

  Sweat beaded Shayne’s face. “Why can’t I?”

  She tilted her head back. Her eyes were tightly shut. She strained her mouth upward to his. Her lips were parted, full and moist. She murmured, “You can’t, because you’re a man-and I’m a woman. Because you’re you and I am me. You’ll help me. I know you will.”

  “Kill your husband for you?” Shayne asked implacably.

  Her lashes fluttered up and her humid eyes held his. “It sounds terrible when you say it like that. But-yes. Yes. It’s the only thing that will save me now.”

  Shayne’s jaw was set. The beads of sweat ran together, trickled down. A muscle twitched in each lean cheek. He obdurately kept his arms at his sides. “Why should I save you?” he asked hoarsely.

  She clung to him tighter. Her eyes were not quite the same. “You know why,” she whispered. “You knew this afternoon. As soon as we saw each other-we both knew it would be like this with us.” Her breath came and went in little whi
mpering gasps. She nuzzled her wet mouth up to his lips. Both arms were around his neck, straining to drag his head down to bring their lips together.

  The telephone rang loudly in the bedroom.

  Shayne put two big hands on her shoulders and shoved her from him. She swayed back and dropped listlessly into a chair.

  Shayne strode to the telephone, snatched up the receiver, and said, “Shayne talking.”

  The eagerness went away from his lined and swollen face when a hearty voice rumbled, “Will Gentry, Mike. And this time you’ve got yourself in deeper than I can get you out.”

  “What cooks, Will?”

  “You’ll soon be, in a vat of oil-unless you can think of a lot of answers fast. There’s an FBI in my office.”

  “Pearson?”

  “Right. He’s got a lump on the side of his jaw and a yen to meet the guy who put it there.”

  Shayne said, “Listen, Will-”

  “You do the listening. For God’s sake, Mike, you can’t push Washington around. They’ll bury you under the Atlanta prison all wrapped up in red tape.”

  “All right,” Shayne sighed. “What does he want-an apology?”

  “I don’t think he’s interested in apologies. He wants to talk to you about Jim Lacy.”

  Shayne said, “Why not? I’d like to hear what he’s got to say, too.”

  “That’s fine.” Gentry sounded relieved. “We’ll be right over.”

  Shayne said, “Hold it, Will. Can’t you stall him for a little while?”

  “Why should I? You’ve got to come clean sooner or later.”

  “All I want is a few minutes. Time enough to get rid of a caller before you get here. Give me fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ll try. But no more than that. You can’t play hide the button with these guys.”

  Shayne said, “Thanks, Will. Fifteen minutes.”

  He cradled the phone and swung into the living-room. His eyes were hard and bright. He said, “Get up,” to the girl slumped in the chair.

  Helen got up slowly. Her shoulders drooped and she avoided his gaze. She had put all of herself into her passionate appeal for his help and she knew she had lost.

  “We’re having company,” Shayne said swiftly. “The law is coming up. Get in the bedroom and stay out of sight. Under the bed or in the closet. We’ll finish our talk after I get rid of my visitors. I’ve got a hunch I’ll have a lot of questions to ask you after I’ve talked to them.”

  He stood aside for her to enter the bedroom, his face hard and inscrutable. She hesitated as she went past him, half turned, and parted her lips to speak.

  When she met his unyielding eyes she compressed her lips and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Shayne swiftly set himself to the task of getting rid of all traces of his visitor. He rinsed out Helen’s glass and set it back in the cabinet. He checked the ash trays for rouged cigarette butts, even went so far as to plump out the cushions of the chair in which she had been sitting.

  When he finished he stood by the door and looked over the room with narrowed eyes. Everything was as it should be. The faint scent of heliotrope still hung in the air, and he opened the windows. Gentry would know damn well Phyllis didn’t wear heliotrope perfume.

  When he was sure everything was in order, he poured a moderate drink and paced up and down while he drank it. The lines in his face deepened as he mentally went over Helen’s account of the incidents that had followed her departure from the Danube Restaurant.

  Taken at its face value, which he was not quite sure was the right way to take it, Phyllis appeared to be in a bad spot. He was not certain, of course, that Phyllis had been in the cab that followed Leroy and Helen. But it seemed the only reasonable assumption. Nor did he have any real proof that Leroy had succeeded in grabbing Phyllis when he went back to investigate his tail. Helen professed not to know what had happened after she ran away.

  The only real indication of danger to Phyllis was that she had not returned or called in. That meant that she was unable to do either, for she knew he would be tortured with worry over her.

  So Leroy must have grabbed her on that deserted side street. Perhaps the driver of her cab was in cahoots with the gang. The senseless way in which he had tailed Leroy seemed to indicate collusion. Almost any driver with experience would know better than to pull in to the curb behind his quarry after Leroy parked.

  The only logical deduction a man could make was that Phyllis was now in the hands of the gang who were after Jim Lacy’s piece of cardboard.

  Sweat streamed down the deep trenches in Mike Shayne’s cheeks as he strove to put that thought out of his mind. He could not put it away. No man could. Not after what had happened in the apartment that afternoon. No man could forget the way Leroy had stood behind Phyllis’s chair, the lust in his voice as he had spread her robe apart, the glitter in his eyes as he started to untie the knotted belt holding the single garment covering her body.

  Shayne sagged into a chair, clenching his fists and pounding the cushions helplessly. God help Phyllis if she was in the hands of Leroy and Joe. Why in the name of God had he played smart that afternoon and refused to give them the torn scrap of cardboard he had taken from Lacy? The gangsters were convinced that it was in his possession and they had shown clearly that they would stop at nothing to get hold of it Why the devil was he hanging onto it? If he had given it to them-

  But no. He was tough. Too tough to be intimidated. A throaty snarl belched through his grim lips. He heaved himself forward and poured another drink. The stuff had no more taste than water as it trickled down his dry throat.

  No. He was Mike Shayne. A tough shamus on the make. Too tough to be pushed around. So they had Phyllis-and he, by God, still had the scrap of cardboard. He had sacrificed his wife for something that might not be worth an ersatz mark.

  Besides, he was bucking the local law and the FBI to keep possession of it, sticking his rough neck out all over the place-all because of a hunch. And because he didn’t like the idea of people getting shot on their way to his office.

  Hell, Lacy’s death hadn’t actually meant much to him. He had known Lacy. Sure. Ten years ago. And they hadn’t really been friends. He couldn’t justify his conduct on the grounds that he owed Lacy anything. It was his damned stubbornness. Nothing else. And Phyllis was having to pay for it.

  Michael Shayne sprang up from the chair and began pacing the floor again, lashing his thoughts away from his wife and her probable plight. Conversely, he lashed Phyllis with his tormented mind. The next time he had a case, by God, he’d lock her in a sanitarium for the duration.

  His pacing took him close to the bedroom door. He stopped and listened intently, then jerked it open to see if Helen had obeyed his instructions and hidden herself safely.

  He turned on the lights and a grunt of surprise jerked from his lips when he saw the outline of a body curled up beneath the bedcovers. He strode over with his jaw jutted and angrily demanded:

  “Will you tell me what the living hell you mean by this stunt?”

  Helen turned her blond head slightly. One eye came open and peered up at him. “I thought this was a swell idea,” she purred. “I’ll keep the covers up like this and you can tell them your wife is in bed with a headache, and if they’re gentlemen they won’t look too closely. Anyway, they don’t have to come in here, do they?”

  Standing at the foot of the bed, Shayne saw her clothes carelessly tossed over the back of a chair. Sedately parked beneath the bed where they showed beneath the edge of the spread were her shoes with a neatly rolled stocking nestled in each.

  Shayne put his hands on his hips and grated, “It was a bitchy idea. If I had time I’d roll you out of there and kick your naked pelt out my door.”

  “But, Mr. Shayne. I’m not naked. What an idea!” She pushed the covers back to show him she had appropriated one of Phyllis’s silk nightgowns. She was laughing at him now, shakily triumphant over the success of
her stratagem. “I thought you’d like me this way,” she pouted. “You will when you get used to the idea. You wanted a reason for helping me get rid of Mace. Well-I thought I’d give you one.”

  He growled, “I told you to get under the bed, not in it.”

  “But this is so much more comfortable.” She stretched out her bare arms and pretended to yawn. “Don’t you like me-even a little bit?”

  “I’d like to choke you,” Shayne grunted. “If they see you here-like this-” He choked over the words.

  “Don’t tell me you’re worried about your reputation. From what I’ve heard-”

  “I’m married,” he said stiffly.

  “Sure. Lots of men are. But that doesn’t keep them from-still being men.”

  “I happen to be in love with my wife.”

  She was frightened now. She tried to form her stiff lips into a contemptuous smile, but it was ineffectual.

  A knock sounded on the outside door. He turned away and muttered, “Cover yourself up and keep covered up and quiet.”

  He went out and closed the door firmly, then crossed the room to answer the knock. He stepped back with a sour grin and started to say, “Come in, Will,” but the grin faded away.

  Mace Morgan walked through the door holding a gun in his right hand. His low forehead was wrinkled and his upper lip was drawn back to show the gap in his front teeth.

  A look of incredulity, then of understanding flickered over Morgan’s face when he saw Shayne. He muttered, “So, it’s you again, huh? That was just a gag about Helen to cover up your snooping.” He paused, nudged Shayne with the muzzle of his gun. “Turn around slow while I frisk you.”

  Shayne said, “Sure.” He turned around slowly, lifted his arms, and let Morgan feel over him for a weapon. “What do you mean by a gag about Helen?”

  “That you was there to see her in her apartment. I might’ve known you were a lousy flatfoot. All right. I guess you’re clean. Walk on ahead of me and don’t get no funny ideas. I won’t trigger this gat if you don’t make me.”