Stranger in Town ms-26

by Brett Halliday

  “We hold off if a car comes from either direction. Drag him back into the borrow-pit and wait till it’s clear.”

  “Sure, Gene. I know. Just like you tol’ me.”

  Shayne heard the car go into gear and start backing away. He stayed hunched down and relaxed while the receding headlights fanned out to encompass them on the edge of the pavement.

  He doubted that Mule would have a gun. A man like Gene was unlikely to trust him with one. Not on a mission like this. Not when they couldn’t afford to have a bullet-wound found in a body to be left beside the road presumably the victim of a hit-run driver.

  The receding lights were some distance away now. Crouched as he was at Mule’s feet, Shayne’s eyes were wide open and shrewdly calculating.

  There was silence and darkness about them. They appeared to be on a deserted stretch of two-lane country highway, and the only headlights visible in either direction were those of Gene’s car as he backed away a sufficient distance to get up good speed before he reached them again.

  He had stopped now. Some three hundred yards back, Shayne judged. And almost immediately the lights moved again. Coming forward this time. Slowly and then faster.

  The swelling drone of the heavy motor became a roar in the night silence as the automobile rushed toward them at ever-increasing speed.

  Mule stooped down to pick up the inert body at his feet. The oncoming headlights were bright now, rushing toward them at eighty feet per second.

  Mule’s big hands gripped Shayne’s torso beneath the armpits from behind and lifted him easily.

  As he came erect, Shayne put everything into one twisting motion that jerked the hands loose and brought him face to face with the big man.

  This time his knee found the groin unerringly and Mule gasped and pitched forward off balance into the path of the speeding car.

  Brakes screamed as Gene’s headlights lighted the roadside struggle, but it was far too late to avert the collision now.

  The heavy car slewed violently, but Shayne’s shove from behind sent the big man directly in front of the bumper and there was a sickening, high-pitched scream of animal terror that was cut off abruptly by a bone-crushing thud of hurtling steel smashing into two hundred pounds of flesh and bone and cartilage.

  Shayne whirled away at the instant of impact and leaped into the shallow borrow-pit, clambered up the opposite bank and through a barbed wire fence into an open field without looking back.

  He ran swiftly and easily in the faint starlight, taking a course diagonally away from the road and back in the direction from which the car had come.

  There was utter silence behind him now, but in his ears there still lingered the inhuman cry of agony that had been wrenched from a man’s throat as he died in the manner Shayne had been supposed to die.

  2

  Shayne ran steadily across the fields for fifteen minutes, slowing to a dogged trot after his first burst of speed, then to a walk when he reached another barbed wire fence that bordered a dirt road running approximately parallel to the highway behind him.

  Dimly in the distance, some three or four miles, he judged, there was a faint glow on the skyline that marked the city lights of Brockton.

  At least, he supposed it would be Brockton. He hadn’t noted the exact time when he stopped at the bar for a quiet drink before dinner, but it hadn’t been quite dark and he imagined it must have been close to seven o’clock.

  It was fully dark now, and his watch told him it was a few minutes after eight. He had been in the bar not more than fifteen minutes, he thought, before the girl entered. So he couldn’t have been unconscious long enough to have been carried too far from Brockton. Not far enough, certainly, so he would be this close to another Central Florida town large enough to give off such a glow of light as was ahead.

  He had terrific headache, and the neck muscles on the right were so numb and bruised that he was forced to carry his head slightly askew to make the pain bearable, but that was the extent of the physical damage he had suffered as far as he was able to tell.

  There were farmhouses dotted along the dusty country road as he strode along toward the lights of the city, but he hesitated about going up to one of the houses and trying to arrange for a ride into town.

  He was in no great hurry to get back, he told himself grimly. He had a lot of thinking to do before he reached his parked car again.

  If it was still there in front of the bar where he had left it. And walking, any sort of physical exercise, was good for thinking.

  There were so many unanswered questions. Who-how- why?

  Who was the girl who fingered him in the bar? And the men named Gene and Mule?

  Mule was a type he knew well, and who could be dismissed from real consideration. First, because he was obviously a half-witted brute who would happily kill on orders from Gene; and also because Shayne didn’t think Mule was likely to enter into the picture again-not after the sound Shayne had heard of the impact between the bumper of the speeding car and Mule’s body.

  Gene was a different matter. Cold anger and a helpless sense of outrage sent a tremor up and down Shayne’s spine as he considered Gene. He had never, he told himself flatly, encountered an individual whom he so much desired to meet again. And the third man whom he hadn’t even seen?

  But it was difficult to keep his thoughts on Gene and the other man more than fleetingly. Inevitably and without his volition, they returned to the Girl.

  For now he was so thinking of her. With a capital G. Back and forth in his mind, he went over and over each moment that had followed her arresting appearance in the doorway.

  A girl of eighteen. An exquisite beauty. With every external sign of character and breeding. Yet she had deliberately come to that bar-room, had deliberately selected him sitting at the booth as her victim, had deliberately put the finger on him for two of the most murderously inclined gents he had encountered for a long time.

  Somehow, he couldn’t doubt that she had known exactly what she was doing. That she had known they were behind her, and that when she stopped and spoke to Shayne she was deliberately signing his death warrant.

  Looking back on it carefully, he couldn’t doubt that. Those fleeting impressions he had received from her face as she approached him. She had known what she was doing.

  But why? In the name of God, why?

  Even granting that somehow, someone had divined that he would be seated in that particular bar at that time, and granting also that somehow the girl had recognized him-still, why?

  He wasn’t working on any case. He had just completed a lazy week of vacationing with congenial friends in Mobile, and he didn’t know a reason in the world why anyone should want to waylay him. Sure, he’d made plenty of enemies among criminals during the past ten or fifteen years-but that was in the past. Anyone who had a killing grudge against him had had many, many much better opportunities to bump him off in Miami than this crazy set-up tonight.

  Twice he stepped to the side of the dirt road and concealed himself in the bushes to allow a car to pass. One in each direction. One of them could have been Gene still looking for him-and he didn’t want to meet Gene again quite yet. Not until he had oriented himself a little and gotten a gun out of the glove compartment of his car. Also, he was nearing the outskirts of Brockton now, and he still had more thinking to do before deciding how to play the queer hand of cards that had been dealt to him.

  There was one faint possibility, he decided. Could be something had come up in Miami after he left Mobile that morning. Some new client whom Lucy had told that he was driving back from Mobile and wouldn’t be back until late. Some case so important that someone had gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to stop him in Brockton before he reached Miami to handle it.

  A telephone call to Lucy would settle that, of course. Even if it did prove true-there was still the riddle of the Girl.

  The dirt road turned into macadam, and then into a city street with small houses dotted along either side. Shayne
turned off on the first side street he reached, which seemed better lighted and more thickly populated, and before he had walked two blocks was lucky enough to flag down a cab that had just dropped a fare at a house ahead.

  Shayne climbed in the back and gratefully relaxed against the cushions as the cab pulled away. The driver turned his head to ask, “Where to, Mister?”

  The question brought Shayne up with a jerk. Where to, indeed! How could he describe the bar-room where he had parked his car? He hadn’t noticed the name of the place, nor even the street it was on.

  He hesitated a moment, and then explained, “You’ll have to try and help me find it, I guess. I drove in this afternoon from Tallahassee… on the main highway.”

  The driver said, “Yeh?”

  “I don’t know the town at all,” Shayne told him. “I hit pretty heavy traffic and one or two stop-lights. I was looking for a bar to stop for a drink, and came to one on the right-hand side where I parked and went in. My car is still there… I hope.”

  The driver chuckled and said, “With a parking ticket if it’s been standing more’n an hour.” But he didn’t ask any questions except, “You want I should hit the highway about the center of town and take it slow till you see the place? Lotsa bars along there. Think you’ll know the one?”

  “I’ll know my car at least. A black Hudson sedan. Miami license plates.”

  He settled back and made his aching head as comfortable as possible until they reached the center of town and the cab swung into the highway leading through from Tallahassee.

  “I remember passing here,” Shayne told him. “Eight or ten blocks ahead, I guess.”

  The taxi driver spotted the sedan with Miami license plates first. “That it, Mister?”

  Shayne peered out as he slowed and saw his familiar tag on the rear. “That’s it.”

  The driver chuckled as he pulled in to the curb in front. “Got you a ticket under the windshield wiper awright. If there ain’t no cops hangin’ around, whyn’t you pull on out to Miami and forget it?”

  Shayne said, “Maybe I will.” He got out stiffly and gave the man a generous tip. Then he walked back to his car, unable to repress a wry grin at sight of the big, square parking summons under the wiper.

  Cops! he thought disgustedly. Right around on the dot to check up on overtime parkers, but let a man get slugged in a public place and dragged out on a murder ride, and where in hell are they?

  He stopped beside his car and opened the right-hand door. The flat. 45 automatic was where he had placed it that morning. He lifted it out and slid it inside his waistband and belt, snugly against his inner right thigh, then slammed the door shut and strode across the sidewalk to open the door of the bar-room he didn’t remember leaving more than an hour before.

  3

  Michael Shayne stopped just inside the door to look the joint over exactly, as the girl had done when she entered. Business had picked up considerably since he had been kicked into unconsciousness and dragged out. It was now crowded with fifteen or twenty customers. A jukebox in the rear was grinding out dance music, and a two-bit slot machine just to the right of the door, which Shayne hadn’t noticed before, was getting heavy play from three juvenile delinquents clustered in front of it.

  The two elderly men in leather jackets were still seated in the first booth, with beer mugs in front of them, but the bookie they’d been talking to was no longer there.

  Among the half dozen or more men seated at the bar, Shayne recognized one of the pair who had been there previously and witnessed the assault on him. He stood unmoving just inside the door for a long moment, studying all the faces he could see, then strolled back to the rear to get a close look at all those seated in the booths.

  When he moved back to the bar again, he was positive that only three customers and the bartender remained out of the seven who had seen the thing happen.

  Shayne pushed up to the rear end of the bar, and the fat man behind the mahogany recognized him as he came back to get his order.

  He stopped dead still with his mouth sagging open in the same ludicrous astonishment he had manifested on first sight of the girl in the doorway. His eyes narrowed and a distinct quiver of fear rippled over the folds of fat that made up his face.

  Then he stepped a pace forward and his right hand groped underneath the bar while slitted eyes remained fixed on Shayne’s face.

  He said hoarsely, “Better go on quiet, Mister. We don’t want no trouble here.”

  As though on signal, the jukebox chose to stop at the precise moment that the bartender began speaking. He had pitched his voice loud to carry over the noise, and consequently his words rang out clearly above the hum of talk.

  Everyone craned their heads to look at the tall redhead at the end of the bar, and all conversation ceased.

  Shayne was turned half to the front, his right forearm resting negligently on the bar with his hand inches from the butt of his gun. He still held his head slightly askew to relieve the pain of bruised neck muscles, and, although he wasn’t aware of it (not having yet encountered a mirror), a livid bruise showed on the right side of his face where he had taken Mule’s first unannounced blow, and his right eye was puffed and beginning to blacken.

  He said bleakly, so that every man in the room heard him: “That’s fine, Fatso. Neither do I want trouble. So bring your hand out from under the bar… empty.”

  For the space of ten seconds, Fatso hesitated. This was his bar and these were mostly his regular customers watching him and waiting to see how he would back up his warning. He had a certain reputation to maintain in Brockton and it wouldn’t do that reputation any good to back down before a man who’d been dragged out of the place unconscious an hour before.

  But Fatso did back down. Shayne’s negligent attitude didn’t fool him at all. There was something terrifying about that voice, about the faint hollows in the redhead’s cheeks and the quiet set of the jaw that brought the bartender’s hand out empty and put a false joviality on his face and in his voice.

  “Hell, Mister. That’s jus’ fine. Thought maybe you come back figgering to blame me for what happened while ago. This here’s a respectable place, see, an’ I don’t want no part of such doings.”

  Shayne said, “Now that we understand each other, I could use that drink that got spilled last time.”

  “You bet,” Fatso said effusively. “On the house.” He turned and bustled back to lift down the Martel bottle, and this time he selected a six-ounce glass.

  In the meantime, a low, disappointed hum of conversation started up again. Men continued to glance furtively at Shayne, though looking away when they caught his eye. Halfway down the bar, Shayne saw the shirtsleeved witness to the encounter whispering excitedly to the men on each side of him.

  The bartender waddled up with a full glass and set it before Shayne. “Was that soda or water, Mister?”

  Shayne said, “Water,” and lifted the glass to his mouth. He looked over the heads of the seated men and saw the two elderly beer drinkers in the front booth staring at him with avid interest.

  Fatso slapped a tumbler of ice water down in front of him and leaned two fat forearms on the bar. “Honest to God, Mister. What was it all about? Happened so fast I never did know how-come you and them tangled.”

  Shayne said, “Who was the girl that came in first?”

  “Gawd, I dunno.” The voice sounded truthful. “Some looker, huh? Friend of yours, I reckon. Went right to you at the booth.”

  Shayne said, “I know. Ever see her in here before?” He took a drink of cognac and lifted the water glass to sip from it.

  “Her? Gawd, no. We don’t get dames like that in here.”

  “And the three men that followed her in?”

  This time there was a hint of evasiveness. “Not them neither. Plumb strangers to me. Like I say, this here’s a respectable place and…”

  Shayne said in a low voice, “Don’t lie to me, Fatso.”

  “I swear to Gawd, I…”


  Shayne shook his head slowly though it pained his neck to do so. “I’m looking for them, Fatso. When I find them… and find out you’ve lied… I’ll be looking for you, too.”

  The bartender swallowed hastily and backed away a step. “I swear I dunno nothin’. You can’t blame me none.” He turned gladly to refill a beer mug and Shayne took another slow sip of his drink.

  Then, with glass in hand, he moved up to a position behind the man he had seen on first entering the bar, and tapped him on the shoulder.

  The shirtsleeved man turned slowly and reluctantly. He had a receding chin, and mild blue, frightened eyes. He said swiftly and virtuously, “I couldn’t do anything to stop them dragging you out that way. The big fellow that kicked you…” He shuddered at the recollection. “And when his buddy pulled a gun…”

  Shayne said mildly, “I’m not blaming you for not butting in. Would like to talk to you.”

  He took hold of the man’s arm and urged him off the stool, led him to the front booth where the elderly men watched their approach with interest. Shayne waved him into the booth opposite the men and seated himself beside him. The two older men looked like brothers, with lined, leathery faces, silvery hair, and work-roughened hands.

  They regarded Shayne gravely as he seated himself, and one of them said, “We saw it happen, Mister, but it wasn’t our place to git killed too, we reckoned.”

  Shayne took out his wallet and began selecting bills from it. He placed five twenties in a neat pile in front of him, and said quietly, “I don’t want to make trouble for anybody. It’s worth that much for me to get a line on the girl or the three men all of you saw. I’m a stranger in Brockton,” he added by way of explanation, “and have no idea who they were or why they jumped me.”

  They all muttered surprise at this announcement, but whether they believed him or not Shayne could not be sure. There was something guarded about their reactions, though three pairs of eyes rested greedily on the sheaf of bills in front of Shayne.