The Private Practice of Michael Shayne ms-2

by Brett Halliday

  The man on Shayne’s left rolled a natural, and the redheaded detective stepped back as the houseman took in his last chip. Ragged red brows came down sharply when he intercepted a fleeting look of understanding between the roulette croupier and Phyllis Brighton’s escort.

  His brows stayed down, giving a somber touch of anger to his square-jawed face, when Phyllis dumped a pile of hundred-dollar chips in front of her and began betting them on number twenty-seven. Her outdoorsy-looking escort matched her play with ten-dollar markers.

  Shayne stood back from the crap table, dragging on a cigarette and watching the girl lose her money. She had not seen him, at least gave no sign that she saw him.

  The after-theater crowd drifted in, and another table went into action.

  In Shayne’s deep-set eyes brooding anger flamed. The wheel went around twelve times while he stood there, undecided. Phyllis Brighton had dropped twelve hundred dollars, slightly more than half the stack of chips in front of her.

  Shayne thrust knobby hands into his coat pockets and strolled noiselessly toward the door, big feet sinking into the rich red carpet.

  He met Chuck Evans and a female companion in the doorway. Chuck looked vaguely uneasy and uncomfortable in a well-fitted tuxedo and black tie. His blue eyes lit up when he recognized Shayne.

  “Leaving so early?” Chuck asked.

  “They took me.”

  Shayne glanced at the round face of Chuck’s companion. He did not smile. Every inch of her was dowdy, the direct antithesis of the elegant women who frequented Marco’s Seaside Casino, from her over-rouged cheeks to the lacy gown which revealed every lumpy contour of her short figure. Heavy breasts were inadequately hidden, but there was a flame of defiant bravado in her elongated eyes.

  Shayne said, “Hi, Toots,” through tight unsmiling lips.

  She said, “Hello, Red,” but her eyes slid evasively away from his and she brushed past him into the discreet magnificence of the inner room.

  “Well,” Chuck said nervously, “we’ll be seein’ you, I reckon,” and followed the woman.

  Shayne said, “Sure,” over his shoulder, and went on down a long hall. He kept his hands hunched in his coat pockets, and his lean, hard-jawed face immobile.

  At the end of the deeply carpeted hall a wide stairway curved upward. A youth with shifty eyes lounged against the balustrade. A cigarette dangled from his colorless lips.

  Shayne stopped in front of him and asked, “Marco upstairs?”

  “Yeh. Whaddo you want, an’ I’ll tell him?”

  “I’ll tell him myself,” Shayne said with good-natured contempt, and started up the stairway.

  “Hey,” exclaimed the youth, “you can’t do that.”

  Shayne went on up the steps without a backward glance. At the top he turned to the right down a narrower, paneled hallway, past the closed doors of private dining rooms, to the end where silver letters on a

  door read: NO ADMITTANCE.

  He turned the knob and pushed the door open soundlessly.

  A big man sat at a clean flat-topped desk, his back toward Shayne. Overhead lights shimmered on his oily bald head. He was pointing ah unlighted cigar at a girl wearing a red dress who sat across the office in a leather and chromium chair against the wall. Her thin legs were crossed and the red skirt fell away from her knees. Her short hair looked too alively new-copperish to be natural, and the tint was reflected in green-gray eyes. Her features were sharp and discontented, thin lips were twisted in moody disdain.

  The bald man with the cigar was saying,

  “-come out of it and act your age. God knows there are other men in the world. There’s Elliot Thomas-what’s the matter with him?”

  “Sure.”

  The girl’s eyes rested mockingly on Shayne’s angular face and bristly red hair. They slanted upward a trifle at the outer corners, or, perhaps, curiously formed brows made them appear to slant.

  “Mugs!” she spat out angrily.

  “Now, by God, Thomas isn’t any mug. You-”

  “I think the lady is referring to me,” Shayne interrupted.

  John Marco swung his heavy body about in the revolving desk chair at the sound of Michael Shayne’s voice. His cheeks were puffy without being soft and he had an incongruously tiny rosebud mouth. He stared at the tall detective for a moment with opaque china-blue eyes, then moistened his ridiculous little mouth with the tip of his tongue.

  “What are you sneaking around here for, Shayne?”

  “I walked in through the door, Marco.”

  “Well, walk out again. Can’t you see-?”

  Shayne said, “Go to hell,” very softly. He walked past John Marco, deliberately putting his back to the bald-headed man.

  The girl in the red dress clapped her hands merrily.

  A lot of the discontent had gone out of her face, and the reddish tint of her eyes was intensified.

  “Goody!” she cried, “you’re one of those hard-boiled he-men, aren’t you?”

  Shayne stopped in front of her, hands still deep in his pockets. He looked briefly down into her face, then lifted his left eyebrow in quizzical amusement, shaking his head.

  “I’m not really hard-boiled. Calling Marco’s bluff is no criterion. Any punk can do that and get away with it.”

  “By God, Shayne, do you want to go out on your own feet or be thrown out?”

  Shayne paid no heed to the booming voice behind him. He was looking into the girl’s eyes and she was looking back into his. She was about twenty-five, but her face was immature, almost childish.

  Shayne shrugged and turned slowly to face the big man whose fat hand was hovering over an electric button on his desk.

  “Don’t do anything you’re likely to regret, Marco,” he advised in a remotely gentle voice.

  He held Marco’s angry gaze serenely, hooked a toe around the chromium runner of one of the chairs and dragged it forward.

  Marco’s breathing was heavy through pursed lips. His fingers still hung over the electric button as though restrained from touching it by some mysterious flux.

  Smothered laughter sounded behind Shayne’s left shoulder.

  “This is all so frightfully melodramatic,” giggled the girl.

  “You’d better go, Marsha,” John Marco said thickly.

  “Not me. I’m going to stay right here. I’m waiting to see you throw this man out.”

  Marco’s hand reluctantly withdrew from the button. He said, complaining:

  “What’s eating on you, Shayne?”

  “Nothing.”

  Shayne frowned at the cigarette in his hand. He turned to look at the girl.

  “You must be Marsha Marco. Since your father won’t introduce us, I’m Michael Shayne.”

  Her green eyes widened, quirked up at the corners. “I’ve read about you. Have you come to pinch dad’s gambling joint?”

  Shayne smiled gravely. “No. He keeps his protection money paid up.”

  Merriment glinted in the eyes which had lost much of their strange red glow when her father said harshly, “Quit horsing around, Shayne. What do you want?”

  Shayne swung around to face the casino proprietor.

  “Just this. How long has Grange been capping for you?”

  “What business is it of yours?”

  “Don’t talk to me like that.”

  Shayne’s eyes were bleak. He started to get up.

  Marco paled a trifle. He held up a dimpled hand in protest.

  “What’s eating on you?” he asked again.

  Before Shayne could reply, Marsha asked breathlessly, “Who did you say, Mr. Shayne?”

  “Grange.” The detective didn’t look at her. “He’s got a girl downstairs right now, sucking her at the roulette table for more than she can afford to lose. A very young girl,” he added with emphasis.

  “Harry Grange?” There was dismay, almost disbelief, in the girl’s voice.

  Marco rumbled, “Yes, Harry Grange,” at his daughter.

  “Thi
s is as good a time as any to find out for yourself that he’s just a cheap front man.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Her chin was set, stubborn, her voice shrill. She came to her feet and took a long-limbed stride forward. “This whole thing is just a put-up job.” Her eyes flashed from John Marco to Shayne, low-lidded and suspicious. “It sounded rehearsed from the beginning,” she ended angrily.

  Marco said, “Shut up.”

  “I won’t shut up.” She moved past Shayne, her face working convulsively.

  Shayne lit a cigarette, watching her through squinted eyes all the while. The girl stopped in front of the desk, bending forward with slender fingers clawed close to her father’s face.

  “You’ve been running Harry down because you want me to hook Elliot Thomas. You don’t care the snap of your finger about me-about my feelings. All you care about is-”

  Without moving from his chair, John Marco slapped his daughter’s face. She shrank back, her face white, her mouth a tight rouged slit, her eyes all a dangerous red again. Her hand went up slowly to touch her cheek.

  John Marco said, “I told you to shut up.”

  A plump finger pressed the button now. A side door came open and a tall white-haired man entered. He had a pleasant benign face and crafty eyes. His glance slid over Shayne and past him to Marsha who was standing with both palms flat down on the desk as if to support her thin body.

  The man asked, “What is it, Chief?”

  “Take Miss Marco home.”

  He nodded, darting another glance at Shayne, then took the girl’s arm and said soothingly, “Come along, Miss Marsha.”

  She jerked her arm free from his grasp. Her left cheek was a mottled, angry red now. She glared at her father, hatred blazing. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. A vein throbbed fiercely in her thin neck. She turned and walked through the side door and the white-haired man followed her out.

  Marco expelled a long breath that came out a thin whistle, as if he had been holding it for some time. His small blue eyes were hard, like glass marbles.

  “What gets into girls?” he hurled at Shayne, distressed, as though he really sought an answer. “I give her every damn thing she wants and she hates my guts.”

  Shayne lifted his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “I was talking about Harry Grange.”

  “Well, what about him?” Marco pinched a dewlap beneath his chin with pudgy fingers.

  “That girl he’s dragged in is too young to know any better than to waste C-notes on your crooked wheel.”

  Marco slammed his palm down hard on the desk. “What the hell? Am I supposed to make them bring birth certificates with them?”

  Twin lines of smoke curled from Shayne’s nostrils. He said placidly, “You do enough business without paying men a percentage to drag youngsters into your joint.”

  “So you’re getting an attack of morals, huh?”

  Shayne crossed his long legs and retained his unruffled calm.

  “This girl happens to be a friend of mine.”

  “Then she ought to know the ropes.”

  “But she doesn’t, Marco. She’s foolish enough to believe Grange is losing his own money right along with her.”

  “Isn’t that just too bad? What the hell do you expect me to do about it?”

  “Exactly what I tell you to do. Call her up here and return what she’s lost.”

  “Holy hell! You don’t want much.”

  “No.” Shayne’s voice was dangerously gentle. “Just that, Marco.”

  “I’ll be damned if I will. I’m not running any charity games.”

  Shayne nodded. He dropped his cigarette butt onto the deep rug and ground it out with the toe of his shoe. He lunged to his feet with that peculiar animal litheness so at variance with his ungainly appearance of bony height. His face was bleak. He went past Marco without looking at him.

  Marco’s voice stopped him when his hand was turning the knob. There was a conciliatory tremor in it.

  “Where you going?”

  Shayne said, “Downstairs,” and jerked the door open.

  Marco jumped up and caught his arm as he stepped into the hallway.

  “Listen, you don’t need to Shayne stopped. He didn’t turn. He said, “Take your hand off my arm.”

  Marco’s fat fingers slid away. He was breathing hard through his rounded, too small mouth.

  “Come on back and we’ll have a drink and talk this over. I don’t want any trouble.”

  “You’re going to get it-and plenty.” Shayne’s gray eyes were hot. “You had your chance to level.”

  “Now see here, Mike, I-”

  “Don’t call me Mike.” Shayne’s voice was rough, edgy with impatience.

  “Hell! No use getting sore about it. You wouldn’t start anything downstairs where my patrons are enjoying themselves, would you?”

  A wolfish grin twisted the corners of Shayne’s wide mouth into a down-drawn snarl.

  “I’m going down there and take your joint apart, Marco.”

  “By God, can’t you take a joke, Shayne?” Marco whined. He pulled tentatively at Shayne’s coat sleeve.

  “Sure. I’m just laughing my head off.”

  Shayne went back into Marco’s office and sat in the chair he had just gotten up from. He leaned back and crossed bony knees, fixed a blank stare on the ceiling while Marco lifted a rubber mouthpiece from its hook and spoke into it briefly. He hung up and said with excessive good humor, “Everything’s fixed up. They were just leaving.”

  Shayne didn’t say anything. He didn’t look at the big man.

  Marco fidgeted and pulled an onyx desk lighter close to put flame to his cigar. In response to a light tap on the hall door, he said, “Come in.”

  The door opened to admit Phyllis Brighton and her ruddy, blond escort, Harry Grange, followed by the pallid-faced youth whom Shayne had encountered at the foot of the stairs. A cigarette dangled from his lips. Squinting through smoke, he asked, “You want me, Boss?”

  “No. Shut the door.”

  Shayne shifted his position to look at Phyllis Brighton. He grinned and said, “Hi, Angel.”

  Phyllis wore a silver-fox scarf flung loosely about her smooth shoulders. Her lips were very full, only slightly rouged. Her figure swelled the shimmering silver of her evening gown. It was impossible to tell from her expression whether she was surprised to see Shayne or not. She said, “Good evening,” in a low and beautifully modulated voice.

  Grange’s sun tanned face took on an anxious smile. He said, “Well, if it isn’t Michael Shayne,” striving for a heartiness that didn’t quite get over.

  Shayne ignored him. His eyes were probing at Phyllis, and she met his steady gaze with an odd admixture of helplessness and angry defiance.

  “This young lady,” Marco said heavily to Grange, “happens to be a friend of Shayne’s.”

  “Well, well. Is that so? I didn’t know that.”

  “Neither did I,” Phyllis said. Her small straight nose went up in disdain.

  Shayne sighed and looked away from her. She demanded haughtily, “Why have we been dragged up here? We’ve got other places to go.”

  “Not with that heel,” Shayne said sharply.

  The smile faded from Grange’s face. “See here. You can’t insult me like that.”

  “Can’t I?” Shayne leaned back and smiled insolently, meeting Grange’s eyes for the first time. “You’ve been insulted by lesser men-and taken it.”

  Grange’s eyes wavered, shifted away from Shayne’s steely stare. Standing close to him, Phyllis said furiously, “Come on, Harry. We don’t have to stay here.”

  She put her hand on his arm.

  Shayne said, “No,” and Grange transferred his nervous, questioning gaze to John Marco.

  The big man shrugged his massive shoulders.

  “Shayne has some sort of dopey idea that I’m paying you a percentage to bring in customers, Harry. Rather than have any argument, I am returning the lady’s money-whatever she lost down
stairs.”

  “I won’t accept it,” Phyllis said evenly. Red spots of anger burned high on her cheeks. “You’d think I was a baby,” she threw at Shayne. “I don’t need you to look after me.”

  Shayne’s chuckle was genuine. His eyes were very bright.

  “You’re going to be looked after whether you like it or not, Angel. This guy is just a come-on for half the cheap gambling joints in town. He comes back later and collects his percentage of the money that beautiful and dumb gals lose to the house. Be a sap if you want to, but for God’s sake don’t be a sucker.”

  “I don’t believe it. Why, Harry lost-right along with me.”

  “Sure. That’s the come-on. He gets his money back. Pick up your money from Marco and I’ll take you home.”

  “Your pardon, Shayne, but the young lady is with me,” Grange blustered. He flung his head and shoulders back and took Phyllis’s arm. “Miss Brighton hasn’t asked for your protection.”

  Shayne got up. He moved forward with big clenched fists swinging low and free.

  “You can get your neck broken by that sort of talk,” he said casually, “and you will get it broken if you don’t stay away from this girl.”

  Grange’s heroic attitude crumpled. He backed away from Shayne, holding up a protesting hand. With the other hand he fumbled for the doorknob and jerked the door open. Before backing through it, he stopped and spoke past Shayne to Marco, “How about that other matter we spoke about this afternoon? After eleven will be too late.”

  Shayne’s eyes traveled swiftly from Grange to Marco, but Marco shook his head and grunted, “No,” and the younger man went out, closing the door.

  Shayne spoke irritably to Phyllis.

  “Tell Marco how much they took you for downstairs and let’s go. Next time-” He moved slowly back toward the desk.

  Phyllis didn’t move. She contemplated the distance to the door with wary, half-closed eyes. Abruptly, she said, “You’ve no right whatever to try to boss me, Michael Shayne,” and slid past him like a flash and ran out the door after Grange.

  John Marco made the mistake of chuckling aloud. Shayne turned on him with an expression so terrible that Marco seemed to dwindle in size. He slumped low in his swivel chair.

  “I’ll take that money.” Shayne stood over him with fists doubled. “An even two grand will make it right.”