Shoot to Kill

by Brett Halliday

  “I’m not surprised,” Sutter told him. “You see, I received a call in my room immediately after I got back from talking to you. A man who refused to identify himself told me that he had the information in his possession… the documents concerning my client which I had come down here to buy. He quoted a paragraph from one of them which convinced me he was telling the truth, Mr. Shayne.”

  “And?”

  “He is willing to turn them over to me for payment of twenty thousand dollars. He is apparently aware that Ames’ price was twenty-five, but as an inducement for me to deal with him at once… he stressed it must be tonight… he will accept twenty… intimating that I could pocket the extra five and no one would be the wiser.”

  Shayne asked, “Why are you calling me?”

  “Because I don’t trust the man whoever he is. I am not accustomed to dealing with violence, Mr. Shayne. He set up a midnight rendezvous to which I agreed reluctantly. What assurance have I that he will not meet me and forcibly take my payment without delivering the documents?”

  Shayne said, “It has been done. How is the pay-off set up?”

  “He gave me definite instructions. At midnight exactly I am to walk out the front entrance of my hotel and hail a cab… the first one waiting in line at the cab-stand or the first one that cruises by if none is waiting. He warned me that I would be under observation from the moment I stepped out the door and got into the taxi, and that if it were followed by another car the deal would be off. He gave rather elaborate instructions to prevent the possibility of my being followed unknown to him, and I confess I cannot see how you can circumvent them. But I suppose private detectives have a great deal of experience in such matters and I hope you may arrange to be on hand when I turn the money over to him.”

  Shayne said, “Go on. What were his instructions?”

  “To proceed north from my hotel at a moderate speed to Sixty-seventh Street. Left on Sixty-seventh for five blocks, and I am to instruct the driver to slow down in the middle of the fifth block and pull into the curb on the right and stop there for at least a full minute. I am then to tell the driver I have changed my mind about getting out there, and for him to drive on to the next corner where he is to turn south and drive slowly in that direction until we are hailed by a car and directed to pull over and stop. He will be in that car with the documents.”

  Shayne had been jotting these directions down as the New York attorney gave them to him. Now he said, “I’ve got all that, Sutter. If you want to take that dope back to Murchinson in New York I advise you to do exactly as he says.”

  “And you?” asked Sutter anxiously.

  “Don’t worry about me. This is my town and this sort of thing is my business. Don’t look for me out of the cab. Don’t expect to see me following you. Remember that if you are able to see me, your man will too. Just have your driver do exactly what he told you lo. I’ll be in on the payoff, don’t worry about that, and you’ll be fully protected all the way.”

  “Very well. I confess I don’t see how… but that is your business, isn’t it? Shall I take the full sum with me, or only twenty thousand?”

  “All of it,” Shayne directed him. “In two envelopes will be best. You’re going to owe me the five if all goes well and you turn the twenty over to him.”

  “Yes, I… I was afraid you’d drive that sort of bargain,” said Sutter sadly. “But I don’t care. If I can just conclude this unsavory business successfully and get back to New York I shall be most happy.”

  “One more thing,” Shayne said sharply. “Have you been contacted by Sergeant Griggs?”

  “The policeman who came to the Ames house? Not since I came to the hotel. I understand that he had no further interest in me.”

  “That situation has changed,” Shayne told him. “He’s going to be looking for you to ask some more questions.” He looked at his watch and went on, “If you want to be certain to be free to leave your hotel at midnight, I suggest you get out of your room right away and stay out of it. There’s a cocktail lounge downstairs in the Costain. Go down there and settle yourself in a booth with a drink until twelve o’clock, and don’t pay any attention if you’re paged. Later on, if Griggs does contact you, you needn’t tell him I warned you to keep out of his way.”

  “Of course not, Mr. Shayne. But why on earth…?”

  “We’d better not waste time discussing it now. The sooner you get out of your room the better. Griggs is likely to be sending a man around for you at any moment.” Shayne hung up and sat back comfortably to finish his drink and to wonder who it was that had the Murchinson papers in his possession, and how he had come by them.

  13

  AT FIVE MINUTES BEFORE TWELVE A BELLBOY CAME through the cocktail lounge of the Costain Hotel in downtown Miami sing-songing, “Call for Mister Sutter. Mister Alonzo Sutter. Call for Mister Sutter.”

  Seated alone in a shadowed booth near the entrance, Alonzo Sutter turned his head slightly and put his left hand up to instinctively shield his face from the passing boy. He had a feeling that everyone in the bar was looking at him and wondering why he did not answer the summons, though he knew that was utter nonsense because no one in the lounge could possibly know his name was Alonzo Sutter.

  It was the second time within half an hour that he had been paged like that, and it gave him a guilty feeling to realize it must be the police who were looking for him. The two envelopes in his pocket containing five thousand and twenty thousand dollars added to his guilt feelings. He wasn’t accustomed to carrying large sums in cash, and the fact that the money was earmarked as a blackmail payoff made him feel like a furtive criminal as he sat in front of an untasted drink and waited for the final minutes to pass.

  It had been bad enough when he first accepted the assignment in New York, but at that time it had seemed a relatively simple matter to fly to Miami and deliver an envelope to a well-known syndicated columnist, with a return reservation at ten o’clock which he had deemed would give him ample time to conclude the unpleasant affair.

  He looked at his watch and sighed, realizing that he would have been in New York right now had things gone according to schedule. But there had been that infuriating delay at the Ames house when he arrived shortly before six. Wesley Ames’ secretary had admitted that he was expected to arrive from New York, although he implied he did not know the exact nature of Sutter’s business, but the man absolutely refused to disturb his employer’s privacy to announce Sutter’s arrival.

  He would simply have to cool his heels and await the great man’s convenience, he was informed, and both Conroy and Mrs. Ames had been vague about the time Ames could be expected to emerge from his study and make himself available. They had been kind enough to give him dinner and offer him a room for the night when it became apparent that he was likely to miss his return flight.

  In his irritation, Alonzo Sutter had drunk more cocktails than he was accustomed to before dinner, and had emptied his wine glass several times during the excellent meal.

  Then had come the disgraceful shooting affair, with the house filling up with private detectives and reporters and the police, and with Sutter’s realization that he had failed to accomplish his mission in Miami.

  And now it was one minute and thirty seconds until midnight, and he reluctantly began to slide out of the booth to keep his appointment with a blackmailer who was unknown to him. He had paid for his drink when it was served him, and he left a modest tip beside the still untouched glass. He nervously checked his watch again as he went from the dimness of the cocktail lounge into the well-lighted lobby, and he strolled toward the street door at a pace calculated to bring him out onto the sidewalk precisely at midnight.

  There was no doorman on duty at this hour and Sutter walked to the curb and stood there in the bright light of a street lamp and looked to his left toward the taxi-stand. There were no empty cabs waiting, but as he stood there he saw one approaching, and he waved to it and it pulled in and stopped in front of him.

&n
bsp; The attorney got into the back seat and closed the door, wondering nervously who was watching him from what vantage point, wondering if Michael Shayne was about, and where he was, and how he would manage his part of the assignment.

  His driver was slouched behind the wheel wearing a vizored cap tilted down over his eyes and with the butt of a cigar clenched between his teeth. Without turning his head to look at his passenger, he spoke around the cigar in a Southern drawl, “Whereabouts you-all wanta go, Mister?”

  “Uh… straight ahead driver. Due north to Sixty-seventh Street, and not too fast if you don’t mind. On Sixty-seventh I want you to turn west for a few blocks and I’ll give you further directions at that time.”

  The taxi jerked forward away from the curb, and the driver threw back over his shoulder in a surly voice, “Tell me where you wanta go, Mister, an’ I’ll take you the quickest way. We got through streets in this man’s town an’ I know how to beat the lights.”

  “Straight north to Sixty-seventh,” repeated Sutter firmly. “And not too fast, if you please. I’m a little early.” He turned to peer out the back window, wondering if the taxi was being followed, but he gave up the attempt after a moment, realizing that it really didn’t make any difference whether it was or wasn’t.

  Actually, he told himself, if he were either the blackmailer or Michael Shayne, he wouldn’t bother trailing the taxi away from the hotel. The instructions he had been given specified a one-minute stop on 67th in the fifth block west of 3rd Avenue, and that was where contact could most easily be made. He settled back as comfortably as he could, sniffing the unpleasant aroma from the cheap cigar his driver was smoking, and got a Perfecto from his own pocket and lit it to help quiet his nerves and offset the offensive odor from the front seat.

  The taxi moved steadily north at about thirty-five miles an hour. Sutter hoped and believed that pace would fit the “moderate speed” requirement given him over the telephone, and he congratulated himself upon having a driver who was willing to follow a fare’s instructions without argument. He shuddered to think what most New York taxi-drivers would do if asked to drive not too fast. He didn’t like Miami or anything he had seen of the city, but their taxi drivers, he thought, had a great deal to commend them.

  They were well out of the business section of the city now, and into the northern residential district, and the driver mumbled over his shoulder and past the foul-smelling cigar, “Sixty-seventh, you said, Mister? And you want I should turn left there?”

  “Left, yes. For a few blocks. I will tell you where to stop. And I appreciate the way you’re holding the speed down.”

  “All the same to me, Mister,” said the driver philosophically. “I got all night behind this wheel. If you ain’t goin’ nowhere special it’s a cinch I ain’t neither.”

  He slowed as he approached an intersection, made a left turn and Sutter saw the sign for 67th Street as they passed it slowly.

  He leaned forward and carefully counted the blocks. As they slid past the fourth intersection, he said nervously, “Slow down please. It’s in this block. On the right-hand side. There. Up beyond those two parked cars. Pull in to the curb, please.”

  His driver followed his instructions without comment, but as he reached forward to pull up his flag on the meter, Sutter said hastily, “Keep your flag down, driver. I’m not quite sure… that is… I’d like to wait here in the cab just a minute until I decide whether or not…” He let his voice trail off uncertainly, wondering what reason he could give the driver for pausing here and then driving on as he had been directed, but the man solved that problem for him by chuckling lecherously and ending his sentence for him, “… whether or not her husband’s home? Is that it, Mister? Lemme know when you make up your mind.” He belched comfortably and expelled a thick cloud of noxious smoke toward the rear of the cab.

  When the attorney was certain they had been stopped at least sixty seconds, he said, “I think I’ll just ask you to go on, driver. Turn left at the next corner, please, and head back toward town. But not too fast, please. I may change my mind after all. I can’t quite decide…”

  The cab pulled away from the curb slowly and evenly, but the driver’s good nature appeared to be lessening as he said in a surly voice, “Games we’re playing, huh? Okay by me. I got all night like I said.”

  Sutter sat tensely looking back as they approached the next corner, and he saw lights switched on in a car that was parked on the opposite side of the street behind them, and it moved out as they made the turn and started southward.

  But only one car had picked up the trail there. That would be the blackmailer, he had no doubt. Then where was Shayne? The detective had given his word to be present at the payoff, but Sutter was desperately afraid that Shayne had failed him somehow. He kept his head craned back, watching to the rear, and he saw the headlights of a single car swing around the corner behind them, also going quite slowly, but gradually increasing speed so it cut down the distance between them.

  Still there was no sign of the private detective. There was no other car at all moving in either direction on the empty street, and the one behind them was moving up now, and Sutter clenched his Perfecto tightly between his teeth and resigned himself to handling the situation as best he could with no help from Michael Shayne.

  The taxi continued to cruise south sedately in the righthand lane, and the following car was coming up fast. It swung out to go around the taxi on the left, and Sutter saw that the driver was a man, alone in the car. As he came abreast of them he honked his horn three times, shortly and sharply, and began to turn in to force the cab to the curb on the deserted street.

  His driver exclaimed, “Hey. What the hell?” twisting his wheel to the right to avoid a collision, and Sutter leaned forward and said hastily, “It’s all right, driver. A… friend who wants to talk to me. Just pull in and stop.”

  The taxi eased in to the curb and stopped, and the other car did likewise, nosed in at an angle in front of the cab.

  It was a late model Pontiac, and the driver leaped out as it came to a full stop, circled the back of his car and came up to the cab and jerked open the back door.

  “Is that you, Sutter?”

  In the dim light of a street lamp half a block away, Sutter saw a thin black mustache across the young man’s face peering in at him, and recognized Victor Conroy, the late Wesley Ames’ private secretary.

  He replied with some asperity, “Of course it is I. Who else do you expect to be cruising around this section of Miami at midnight in this fashion? Have you the documents we discussed over the telephone?”

  “Right here.” Conroy withdrew a thick envelope from his pocket. “What have you got for me in exchange?”

  “Exactly what I promised you I would have,” Sutter told him. He reached across the length of the back seat for the envelope Conroy held. “I’ll have to check the contents before we conclude our deal.”

  Conroy drew back his hand and said grimly, “You can check mine while I check yours. Let’s see the color of your money first.”

  At that moment the front door of the cab came open and the driver came out from behind the steering wheel all in one lithe movement. The man’s figure was no longer slouched, but was tall and broad-shouldered, and Sutter saw the glint of blued-steel in his right hand and heard a harsh voice come from his lips that held no trace of a Southern drawl:

  “All right, Conroy. Step back from the car with your hands in the air.”

  Before he had finished speaking the young man leaped at him. Perhaps he didn’t see the gun in Michael Shayne’s right hand, or perhaps he didn’t care. His rush carried both of them back into the vee formed by the front fenders of the taxi and the Pontiac, and the vizored cap went spinning from Shayne’s head, and Sutter saw his face and the red hair and realized for the first time who his driver had been.

  He saw the rangy redhead straighten with his back against the from fender of the taxi, saw Conroy raining furious blows on his face and body, and saw
Shayne swing the heavy automatic in his right hand against the side of the younger man’s head where it made a smacking sound in the night and caused him to stagger back from the attack, and then Shayne calmly measured him with a straight left to the jaw which sent him backward and down like an expertly axed ox.

  Shayne leaned down over him and impassively picked up the bulky envelope which had fallen from his fingers, and stepped to the open door of the taxi and leaned in to proffer it to the shaking attorney.

  “Let’s get this part of our business finished before Conroy comes around or anyone else turns up to start asking questions. Hand over the two envelopes you’ve got.”

  “But… but…” stammered Sutter.

  “No goddamned buts. I’ll take the money. See if your stuff is all in here.”

  Dazed and bewildered and frightened, Sutter hesitantly withdrew the two envelopes containing currency from his pocket and silently passed them over to the detective and seized the envelope Shayne had taken from Conroy in return.

  Shayne stepped back a pace and hastily thumbed through the contents of both envelopes, then wadded the money into his pocket and turned to kneel beside Conroy who was beginning to stir and groan on the pavement.

  14

  HE LIFTED THE LAX FIGURE OF THE SECRETARY AS easily as he would have lifted a rag doll, and draped him forward, face down, across the front fender and hood of the Pontiac while he shook him down carefully for a weapon.

  He found no weapon, but in his right-hand jacket pocket Shayne encountered a key with a heavy metal tab attached to it which he took out and held up to the light. The key had the number 25 stamped on it, and the metal tag was inscribed: Motel Biscay Rest, with an address on Biscayne Boulevard north of 79th Street.

  Shayne turned it over and over questioningly in his hands, then scowled down at Conroy’s unconscious body. He dropped the motel key in his own pocket and checked the man’s pulse, found it was strong but irregular, and that his breathing was steady.