Murder in Haste

by Brett Halliday

  “What’s the matter with you, Joe?” Shayne said, smiling. “Don’t you trust me?”

  Wing blinked. “It’s five in the morning and I don’t trust anybody.”

  They went into the lobby together. Still another Beach detective was inside, looked as tired and irritable as the others. As the little party approached the desk, Pete, the night man snapped out of a light doze.

  “Oh, Mr. Shayne. There you are, finally. I don’t know if you want me to—”

  “What have I told you other times?” Shayne said mildly.

  “Yeah, that’s perfectly true,” Pete said, sitting back. “Maybe some day I’ll learn.”

  “You’ve got a message for Shayne, is that it?” Wing said.

  He reached across the desk and pulled several memo-pad sheets from a corner of the blotter. He read the top one aloud: “11:45 p.m. Shayne—call Mrs. Heminway when you come in.” The same message had been recorded earlier, at 10:20 and 8:15.

  “You’re a big help, Pete,” Shayne said.

  “Well, I’m sorry but she seemed so anxious to get in touch with you that I thought—”

  “That’s always a mistake,” Shayne said.

  “I guess so. Waking up out of a sound sleep like that, and I had it on my mind—that’s my only excuse.”

  Wing put the memo slips in his pocket. He said nothing in the elevator or going down the corridor to Shayne’s room. The big private detective unlocked the door and let them in, and then turned on one lamp beside the big leather sofa before he began getting out the liquor.

  “Two drinks or three?” he said.

  “Three,” LaBanca said promptly.

  “Two,” Joe Wing said. “What are we having?”

  “I’m having cognac,” Shayne said. “I’ve got Scotch, if you’d rather have that.”

  “Yeah, give me some Scotch. Go easy on the soda.”

  Shayne put ice cubes in a tall glass, covered them with Scotch and splashed in a small ration of soda. Then he poured cognac in a wine glass and made up a glass of ice-water for a chaser. The lieutenant sat on the sofa and Shayne took the chair facing him. LaBanca sat on the arm of the sofa and eyed the drinks thirstily.

  Wing drank half his Scotch in one pull, and gave a long sigh. “That’s better. It’ll never take the place of a good night’s sleep, but it helps. Now we’ll start over, Mike. I’ve accepted your hospitality, so I’ll say please. Please will you tell us in your own words just exactly where the hell you’ve been all night?”

  Shayne grinned. “Where do you want me to start?”

  “Let’s say at five yesterday afternoon.”

  Shayne drank. “Twelve hours ago. O.K., Joe. At five yesterday afternoon I was having a peaceful drink in the bar at the International Airport with my secretary, Lucy Hamilton. She’s gone to New Orleans for a few days to visit an aunt. Her flight was called a little after six. I waited till she took off, and then I picked up a pizza at a joint near the airport. How much detail do you want on this?”

  “Just the highspots for now. You were alone at that point?”

  “Yeah.”

  Shayne rubbed the day-old stubble on his chin, remembering. He had not only been alone, he had been the only solitary eater in the crowded restaurant. He had been painfully aware of the fact. The truth was, he had come to depend on Lucy Hamilton’s Company at the end of the day more than he liked to admit.

  He continued: “The place was jammed, and I must have been there—oh, maybe an hour. I was in no rush. I went back to the airport bar and had a few more drinks. Then I decided to kill some time at the movies.”

  “What movie?” Wing said quickly.

  “It turned out there wasn’t anything I wanted to see. I came in to the Beach and hit a few bars. When I ran into Tim Rourke it must have been around ten. Maybe nine-thirty, maybe ten-thirty, and it won’t do you any good to ask Tim, because that late at night he doesn’t keep track of the time. He wanted to play some poker. We rounded up a few people and went to his place. You’ll be happy to hear that I was the big winner.”

  Wing looked anything but happy. He was scribbling in a notebook. “Who were the other players besides you and Rourke?”

  Shayne told him.

  “Even Petey wouldn’t make you boys put in all this overtime without a good reason,” Shayne said. “Give me a specific time. Maybe I can be more definite.”

  Wing didn’t look up. “Let’s say between eight-thirty and nine.”

  Shayne frowned. “I’d say that would be about when I was in a place called the Three Deuces on the Beach, near Washington and Fifth. I haven’t given them any business in a long time. One of the bartenders used to be a good friend of mine. Gus Pappas. He might remember when I came in, but there was a good crowd there and I was moving around. I don’t think anybody would want to swear to the whole half hour. I wouldn’t swear to it myself.”

  Wing and LaBanca exchanged a look. Wing said, “What kind of transportation were you using, Mike? Your own car, or taxi?”

  “I had the Buick. I’d like a little information, Joe. Is somebody dead?”

  “People are dying all the time. When was the last time you saw Painter?”

  “That’s something else that happens pretty often,” Shayne said. “I hear a siren, and there he is. That man is getting siren-happy.”

  Wing started to smile, but he quickly suppressed it. “That’s not what I mean, as you probably know. Have you had any business with him lately?”

  “I haven’t had any business with anybody lately. I’ve been turning people away, or Miss Hamilton has been turning them away for me. I got pretty well knocked around on that last case, not that I was the only one. She’s been trying to get me to take a rest.”

  “Well, there’s a definite statement, finally,” Wing said. “Do I understand you to say that you aren’t working on anything at the moment?”

  “That’s right,” Shayne said easily. “Write it down.”

  “What about this Mrs. Heminway who’s been calling you?”

  “I’m supposed to see her in the morning.” He looked at his watch. “And unless you boys let me get some sleep, I’m not going to be very goddam bright-eyed. It’s your turn now, Joe. What happened last night between eight-thirty and nine?”

  “You really don’t know, Mike?” Wing said softly.

  He took his notebook to Shayne’s phone, and rattled until he woke up the clerk downstairs. He asked to speak with the detective in the lobby. When the man came on he relayed the names Shayne had just given him, and told him to find out if they’d run into Mike Shayne recently.

  “They won’t like that,” Shayne said. “They just got to bed about fifteen minutes ago.”

  Wing said into the phone, “Has Heinemann come in yet? … Send him up to Shayne’s room. Now tell the clerk to give me an outside line, and keep the switch open so you can make notes on the call.” He looked around at Shayne. “I’m going to dial Mrs. Heminway’s number for you now, Mike, if you don’t mind.”

  “Hell, yes, I mind,” Shayne said. “But I know that’s not going to cut any ice with you.”

  When Wing had a dialtone he looked up a number in the book beneath the table. “She said to call her when you came in. She didn’t say not to call her if you didn’t get in till five in the morning.”

  Shayne finished the cognac without hurrying. After dialing the number Wing handed him the phone. It rang several times, and a woman’s voice said sleepily, “Yes?”

  “This is Michael Shayne,” the redhead said. “I’ve got some cops here, and they thought I ought to call you. It wasn’t my idea. Go back to sleep, and I’ll call again at a civilized hour.”

  “Oh, Mr. Shayne,” she said. “No. Wait a minute till I pull myself together. Did you say something about—cops?”

  Shayne grinned across at Joe Wing. “The whole Beach detective force has been looking for me all night, it seems. I don’t know if that means anything to you. If it does we’d better talk about it later. When was our a
ppointment? Nine?”

  “Yes. But wait, Mr. Shayne. That’s what I wanted to tell you. My wits are all over the place. Mr. Painter wants me to put that off till afternoon. Could you make it at one instead?” She gave an exclamation of dismay. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that Mr. Painter asked me.”

  “One o’clock’s fine, Mrs. Heminway,” Shayne said quickly. “Maybe they’ll let me get some sleep before then.”

  He broke the connection. Wing took the phone and asked the detective in the lobby for Mrs. Heminway’s end of the conversation. He hung up sadly.

  “You haven’t really started cooperating yet, have you, Mike?”

  “I’ve had a few arguments with your boss on that point,” Shayne said bleakly. “If my clients want the cops to know about their problem, they don’t bring it to me. On top of that, I don’t like to have people listening in on my phone conversations.”

  There was a respectful tap on the door. Wing let in another detective Shayne had seen around Beach headquarters. He wore a strong look of resentment, as though he had a grievance against society, and an X of adhesive tape over a shaved place at the back of his head.

  “Take a good look at him, Heinemann,” Wing said.

  Heinemann stared at Shayne suspiciously, then walked around him in a half-circle. Shayne turned.

  “Do you want both profiles, or just one?”

  “He’s got the build,” Heinemann said doubtfully. “And the hair. But if you want to know if I can pick him out of a showup, Lieutenant, let’s say I’d like to think it over some more.”

  “That adhesive tape on your skull hasn’t had time to get dirty yet,” Shayne said. “When did you get slugged, between eight-thirty and nine?”

  “About ten of nine,” Heinemann said, “give or take a couple of minutes.”

  Joe Wing said sharply, “That’s enough of that. And if you don’t have the sense to keep your mouth shut, we may have to decorate you with more adhesive tape, in a new place.”

  “All I said was—” But he wilted under the lieutenant’s look, and didn’t go on.

  Wing helped himself to more Scotch. “I’ll ask you again, Mike, and this time I’ll leave off the please. Why does Mrs. Heminway want to hire you? And if you don’t feel like answering, we’ll get the State’s Attorney to repeat the question in front of a jury.”

  Shayne made a rude noise. “That’s Petey’s speech, Joe, and I’m surprised to hear it from you. The legal ground is very shaky. You can’t get me up before a grand jury in less than three days, and that’s the minimum. You wouldn’t have been waiting for me all night unless you were in a hurry.”

  “Goddam it, Mike, one of these days—”

  “That’s Painter’s speech, too,” Shayne said, breaking in. “And now that we’re on that unpleasant subject, where is Painter? How come he’s letting you ask the questions?”

  Wing looked at him narrowly. The phone rang and Wing picked it up. He listened for a moment.

  “Did you contact the bartender?” There was another pause, and he said, “Keep trying Rourke. Get a key from his superintendent and pull him out of bed if you have to.”

  Hanging up, he turned back to Shayne. “The poker game story seems to check, and for your sake I hope those witnesses haven’t had any coaching. Pappas, the bartender, thinks you made Three Deuces around eight, but he didn’t have you under observation every minute you were there. He gave us some leads, which we can’t check out till tonight. You could save us some trouble, you know, Mike. Isn’t it a fact that you left the Three Deuces sometime around eight-thirty and drove to Painter’s apartment house at the other end of the Beach?”

  Shayne’s eyes glittered. He uncorked the cognac bottle and refilled his glass. “Why would I do a thing like that?” he said gently.

  “That’s what I’d like to have you tell us. It has to be connected in some way with these calls you’ve been getting from Mrs. Heminway. And don’t give me one of those know-nothing looks. Painter left her house shortly after eight and went home to pick up something at his apartment. Heinemann was driving him. Mrs. Heminway says he asked her to postpone seeing you. What is all this, just a coincidence?”

  “I don’t go out of my way to see Petey,” Shayne said, drinking. “I see him often enough as it is. Now what about these searching looks I keep getting from Heinemann?”

  Wing hesitated. “All right, and God knows if I’m doing the right thing. You could be milking me, to find out how much we know. A few minutes after Painter went upstairs, Heinemann heard a gun go off down the block. He went to see who was shooting. As he went around the corner he got a quick glimpse of somebody running across the street with a gun in his hand. You’ve just heard him say that this person was your size and build, with red hair. Then he was rapped from behind. He woke up with a bad headache. He was lying in the foyer of one of the apartment buildings, tied up and gagged. An old dame from Painter’s building found him.”

  Shayne rolled the cognac around in his mouth and swallowed it, following it with a sip of ice water. “That’s pretty flimsy, Joe. Heinemann caught a fast glimpse of somebody who looked vaguely like me, and you mobilized the whole force and stayed up all night. What’s so important it can’t wait till morning? If you’re going to tell me, don’t dole it out a crumb at a time.”

  The room was quiet while Wing made up his mind.

  “If that’s how you want it, Mike. I don’t like to do it this way, because I’ve seen Painter try it and it never worked with him. I’ll give you one last chance. Cooperate, starting now, or we take you in and book you for resisting arrest.”

  “I haven’t resisted arrest.”

  “You will, Mike. You will.” The ice cubes were making too much noise in his glass, and he put it on the table. “We can hold you longer than twenty-four hours if we work at it. I don’t know how long will bother you. You’ll miss your appointment with Mrs. Heminway, for one thing. We’ll be working while you twiddle your thumbs. You tend to stick out of a crowd, Mike. Maybe somebody else saw you in Painter’s neighborhood at ten minutes to nine.”

  Shayne felt absently for a cigarette. “Somebody finally shot the little Napoleon?”

  “It’s no laughing matter,” Wing said.

  “I’m not laughing.” Shayne’s lighter flared. “But I’m not crying, either.”

  Wing leaned forward, his fingers tightly laced. “Where is he, Mike?”

  “How should I know?” Shayne said irritably. “Nobody appointed me Painter’s guardian, and if they did I’d refuse the appointment. You know how I feel about the little bastard. But it’s finally beginning to dawn on me that Painter’s missing. Who saw him last?”

  Wing answered reluctantly, “The same old lady who found Heinemann. They came down in the elevator together and he had his gun out. She saw him drive off very fast in his Cad.”

  “That bus sticks out of a crowd as much as I do,” Shayne said. “Even when he’s not playing the siren. Use some of the orthodox police methods Petey’s always talking about. You ought to be able to find it.”

  “We’ve found it,” Wing said heavily. “We found it on a secondary road off Route 9 about fifteen miles north of the city. But Painter wasn’t in it.”

  Chapter Four

  Shayne smiled grimly. “You have my sympathy, boys. I’m all broken up. How are you going to get along without him?”

  “Mike—” Wing said dangerously.

  Shayne held up his hand. “All right, let’s call it a tragedy, and I’ll try to take it seriously. But I’m not too surprised. He isn’t the most popular man in town. And there’s one orthodox police method he doesn’t use—he keeps things secret from his own staff. Sooner or later that’s bound to lead to trouble. Is this all you’re going to tell me?”

  Wing started to drink, but put the glass down. “At about twelve minutes to nine, a call came into headquarters. It was Painter, sounding very hopped up and happy. He wanted an ambulance, he wanted me, and he wanted a general pick-up call on Michael Shay
ne. He told the duty sergeant to cover the causeways and the main exits from town. He said something jumbled about breaking and entering, and assault. The sergeant didn’t get all of it. But one thing he did get—Painter wanted you, Mike, and I wouldn’t say that all he wanted was to find out if you had anything good in the Daily Double at Hialeah.”

  Shayne rubbed the reddish stubble along his jaw. “Who was the ambulance for—Heinemann?”

  “No, the sequence is wrong. Painter heard the shots while he was talking to headquarters. He seemed to be in his usual health when the old lady saw him a minute or so later, so he didn’t want the ambulance for himself. God knows who he wanted it for. Unless we’re completely off on the timing, he made the call from his apartment. I got the super to open it up. There was no indication that anybody had been there who was sick or hurt.”

  “Funny,” Shayne said thoughtfully.

  “And there’s something else that’s funnier. You know how neat the bast—Painter is. It’s a pathological thing with him. The place was presentable enough when I saw it, a lot neater than the way most of us live, but—well, for one thing, the books on the shelves weren’t lined up the way they usually are. When Painter sees a book a little out of line, he can’t sit still until he dresses it up. There were other things. He subscribes to a couple of magazines—Time, Reader’s Digest, and he always has them laid out on the coffee table just so, in chronological order. And you can stop grinning, Mike. We all have our quirks.”

  “Some have more than others,” Shayne said.

  “I don’t deny it. The layout was neat enough, but the dates were all higgeldy-piggeldy, October before June and so on. I’m wondering if he had a fight with somebody.”

  “This would be a fight that Painter won,” Shayne said skeptically.

  “That’s prejudice,” Wing snapped. “Maybe he caught somebody going through his apartment. He carried a gun. Maybe he sapped the intruder to make him hold still while he ran downstairs to find out about the shots. While he was gone, the man came to and straightened the room before he left. Don’t ask me why. If you have any better explanation to offer, I’m all ears.”