Fit to Kill

by Brett Halliday

  Shayne gave him a speculatiang glance. He was thinking that Rourke might not be as drunk as he seemed. And, as though guessing what was in Shayne’s mind, the reporter lifted his glass, winked broadly and took a long drink.

  Shayne turned back to the professor. “The chief of police is a pretty good friend of mine. He’ll be coming in after me in another half hour. I suppose my dinner date can wait that long.”

  “Then perhaps we’d better move somewhere else in the meantime, wouldn’t you think?” Quesada suggested.

  He tilted his head again, pointing his hearing-aid toward another part of the house. The listening expression had reappeared on his face. Shayne heard what seemed to be the sound of a struggle. There was a muffled cry.

  “This is not an ordinary evening, gentlemen,” Professor Quesada said. “Usually it’s almost too quiet in this part of town.”

  “Maybe somebody else is looking for Tim,” Shayne offered.

  “I hope not,” the professor said. “I’ve had enough excitement for one night. But if so, my colleagues will take care of it. Mr. Shayne, I’ll ask you once again—”

  Several voices, talking excitedly, were coming down the hall. They fell silent abruptly outside the door, and there was a discreet tapping. At a word from the professor, the slight youth who had admitted Shayne put his head inside. His face was unmarked, Shayne was sorry to see, which was more than could be said for his own.

  He spoke rapidly in Spanish. The professor cut him off with a swift gesture toward Shayne and Rourke, and stood up.

  “For a moment,” he said, “you must excuse me. Tomas will stay with you. He speaks English. Please replenish your drinks.”

  At the door he asked Tomas another low-voiced, worried question, and went out as soon as he had the answer. The youth put his back to the door, his arms folded.

  “Wonderful guy,” Rourke said. “Wonderful liquor.”

  “Yeh,” Shayne agreed. “What’s he trying to do, get you drunk?”

  “Trying? Hell, he’s succeeding.”

  Shayne took their two glasses to the sideboard.

  “You’ve got a nice right, Tom,” he told the Latin youth as he passed.

  “Yes?” Tomas said indifferently. “I have been told so.”

  “Not to mention a nice left.” Shayne poured whiskey into Rourke’s glass first, and then slopped cognac into his. He turned, holding the reporter’s glass out to him, and remarked casually, “Let’s drink a toast to your blonde.”

  “You can’t drink to her,” said Rourke thickly.

  “Why not?”

  “No gentlemen. That’s why. Only gentlemen prefer blondes, my fine-feathered friend.” He sucked greedily on his glass, leaned back in his chair and started humming a tune that was tauntingly familiar to Shayne though he couldn’t recall the title or the words.

  “You know what?” Rourke broke off his humming abruptly and studied his old friend through hooded eyes that suddenly didn’t look quite as drunk as Shayne thought him to be. “Who’s a girl’s best friend anyhow? An up-and-coming newspaper reporter or some lousy slob of a private dick? Now I’m asking you.”

  Shayne said good-naturedly, “Not being a gentleman, Tim, I guess I just don’t appreciate blondes the way you do. What are the words to that song you were humming?”

  “Whatsit matter what the words are? Forget ’em anyhow.” Rourke closed his eyes and picked up the tantalizingly familiar refrain again, and Shayne found himself deeing and daaing along with him.

  Rourke stopped abruptly, took a long swallow of whiskey and shuddered. “Throat’s mighty dry,” he muttered. “Whole damn country’s drying up. If we don’t get rain soon there’ll be no crops this fall. You realize that there li’le fact, Mike Shayne?”

  The redhead held his half-filled glass away from his mouth and laughed loudly, narrowing his eyes at Tomas, leaning against the door. Tomas yawned, and at that second Shayne threw his wine glass.

  It crashed against the wall by Tomas’ head as Shayne left his feet in a hard, flat dive. Tomas twisted, and brought his knee up into the detective’s face. Shayne crumpled.

  He was picking himself up off the floor when Professor Quesada came back. The old man looked sharply at Tomas, who had the bored expressin of a spectator at an unexciting sporting event. Rourke was humming the same tune he had been trying to sing.

  “Was that necessary, Tomas?” the professor inquired.

  “Don’t blame him,” Shayne said, “I was wide open.”

  “We’re both going about this all wrong,” the professor said regretfully. “This violence, this indiscriminate use of guns and fists—what can it lead to except more violence? When you forced your way in, Mr. Shayne, our first instinct was to reply with force. But I have had a moment to reflect. I hope you will tell me where we can find Miss Adams. But, if you refuse, there is nothing I can do. You are free to go, of course.”

  Shayne completed brushing off his clothes, concealing his surprise at this new turn.

  “And I must apologize sincerely,” the professor said. “I hope when we meet again we can start off on a different footing. Another drink, Mr. Shayne?”

  “Thanks,” the detective said. “I think I’ll be going.”

  “He never used to turn down a drink in the old days,” Rourke said, chuckling.

  Shayne looked at his friend, who suddenly seemed much drunker now that the professor was back in the room.

  “Coming?” Shayne said.

  “And leave all this lovely liquor?”

  The highball glass tilted dangerously. His head was swaying, and his facial muscles were slack.

  The professor extended his hand. “Again, I’m extremely sorry for this misunderstanding, Mr. Shayne.”

  Shayne winced as he shook hands; his knuckles were badly bruised. “You’ll call off your dogs?”

  “But of course.”

  The old man spoke to Tomas in Spanish, and the young man opened the door for Shayne politely. The redhead went out without a glance at Rourke, who was humming drunkenly. Shayne half expected to be jumped in the hall, but no one tried to stop him. He didn’t see Harry Mann or his boy Sammy.

  The back of Shayne’s neck was prickling, for he knew that Tomas had come to the top of the stairs and was watching him from behind. He didn’t look around.

  He closed the front door and started down the walk, humming the wordless tune that Rourke had planted in his mind.

  CHAPTER 15

  The cab that had been parked behind his sedan was gone.

  The detective slid behind the wheel and started the motor. But he waited a moment, letting the motor idle, before shifting into forward drive.

  One thing was clear, though he still had no idea what it meant. He forced his few facts into an orderly pattern. It was Carla Adams who had told him where he could find Rourke. She must have had a pretty good idea of what would happen when Shayne knocked on the professor’s door. She had probably come in the same taxi Shayne had seen, and had concealed herself amid the tangled, overgrown bushes in the professor’s yard. Having heard something about Shayne, she had known he would make a disturbance when they denied knowing anything about a certain battered Daily News reporter. He reflected bitterly that he had come through as expected. The disturbance he created had drawn men from all over the house, leaving the back door undefended. At that point, she could simply have walked in.

  Shayne had no doubt now that this had happened, from the noises he’d heard and from what followed. The professor made it clear that Shayne wouldn’t be permitted to leave unless he revealed Carla’s whereabouts. Then there was the sound of a struggle, the professor was summoned. His attitude toward Shayne, when he returned, was completely changed. He no longer wanted or needed Carla’s address. And yet, after a brief conversation, he had let her go. Her cab was gone. And why, after being so anxious to find her, would he dismiss her again so quickly?

  Scowling, Shayne turned on his headlights and pulled out from the curb. All the way to Lucy�
�s apartment he continued to worry at the problem. But as he turned into Lucy’s street from North Miami, he deliberately made his mind a blank, wiping out all the contradictions and confusion, and waited for the one key piece that would make the rest of the puzzle fall into place.

  He parked the sedan, and long-legging it into Lucy’s vestibule, gave his usual ring. Her answering click came quickly. She met him at the top of the stairs. She had a small frilled apron around her waist, over the toreador pants, and she stood on her toes to put her arms around his neck and kiss him.

  “Michael, I was so worried!” she whispered. “There’s ten minutes to go, but I almost jumped the gun and phoned Will Gentry.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t, angel,” he told her. “That would have balled things up even more than they are now, if possible.”

  She pulled back. “But the more I thought about it, the more foolhardy it seemed, for you to walk right into their headquarters without a gun. I ought to be getting used to the things you do by now, I suppose.”

  She drew him toward the door, and as she saw his face in the light from the foyer, she exclaimed angrily, “Michael! You said there wasn’t any risk! Look at you!”

  In his preoccupation with the motives of Carla Adams, and Rourke’s puzzling behavior, Shayne had forgotten how he must look. Lucy led him to the sofa and made him sit down, distressed by the marks she saw on his face, put there by a blackjack and fists. She hurried into the bathroom and returned with a basin of warm water and a washcloth. Easing his head back, she cleaned the blood and dirt off his face. His jaw was swollen, and his lower lip had puffed out at the corner. It seemed bigger to Shayne than it probably was.

  He tried to ask a question, but she refused to let him talk until she was finished. She stood back and looked at him with a sigh.

  “I’ve seen you looking a lot better, Michael, but on the other hand I’ve seen you looking worse. Goodness—I didn’t even ask you about Tim.”

  Shayne laughed. “Don’t worry about Tim. He’s feeling no pain. He’s enjoying himself more than any other kidnap victim I’ve ever seen.”

  “I’m glad,” she said simply. “I was really scared. Did you find out anything?”

  “I’m not sure,” the detective said slowly.

  Something was at the edge of his consciousness, clamoring for attention. He shook his head and asked Lucy, “Did you get anywhere with that Philadelphia call?”

  “I made contact, but that’s all,” she said. “The long distance operator had to work to reach Yoseloff, the name you gave me. I took him away from dinner, and I had to promise him a hundred dollars. And speaking of dinner—”

  “In a moment, Lucy,” Shayne said abstractedly.

  He saw that she had made more of the little canapés. A clean glass and the cognac bottle were waiting for him on the low table. He poured out a glass of cognac, but before tasting it he bit into a canapé.

  “Umm—good. And how about the News man, whatever his name is?”

  “Dirksen,” she said. “He left, to go to police headquarters, and I just missed him there. He’s on his way back now, and they’ll have him call when he gets in. Nobody else was any help. Tim took his regular vacation in August, so he must have been on some kind of assignment in Central America. Dirksen’s the only one who would know what it was. Michael, I have beef stroganoff all ready in the kitchen, and don’t you think—”

  “X-rays!” the redhead exclaimed suddenly.

  “What are you talking about?” Lucy said. “What X-rays?”

  Shayne leaned forward. “Tim told me that after they picked him up at the airport they rushed him to a doctor. They were so worried about his arm that they had it X-rayed. That was to show how considerate they’d been. He was pretty drunk, and I let it get by. But those people didn’t give a damn about Tim’s arm, angel. So why take an X-ray? They thought there might be something in the cast!”

  “In the cast, Michael?”

  “Sure,” he said, increasingly excited. He rapped his knuckles against his forehead. “God, I’m slow on the uptake today. Listen, what’s the name of this song?”

  He tried to think of the wordless tune Rourke had been humming. It had repeated itself over and over in Shayne’s head, all the way from Coral Gables, but now it was gone. He took a long drink of cognac, while Lucy watched wonderingly, and then it came back.

  He hummed it for her. She smiled tolerantly.

  “You never could carry a tune, Michael. I think I detect a faint resemblance—a very faint resemblance—to ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.’ From Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, isn’t it?”

  “That’s what Tim was trying to tell me. He even mentioned that gentlemen prefer blondes and asked who a girl’s best friend was.”

  “Diamonds,” Shayne said triumphantly. “Diamonds! That’s what they’re looking for. They knew Tim helped Carla get on the plane. The customs didn’t get anything from her, and the logical assumption would be that Tim brought it through for her, whatever it was. A newspaperman’s luggage wouldn’t be searched, especially when it was someone as well known as Tim. So they grabbed him. He didn’t have them on him, and they weren’t in his suitcase. It’s an old smuggler’s trick to carry jewels inside a bandage or a cast, and Tim’s so badly banged up that the inspector wouldn’t think there was anything phony about his broken arm. Diamonds would show up in an X-ray. Heroin wouldn’t.”

  “But diamonds, Michael! What would Tim Rourke be doing—”

  “The girl spent the night with him, angel. She could have planted them on him.”

  Lucy blushed slightly, and changed the subject. “So Malloy was lying to you about the narcotics?”

  “Maybe that’s the way the tip came in,” Shayne said. “The cops down there would know she’d get rougher treatment if narcotics were mentioned. It’s not illegal to take jewels out of a country, but it’s illegal to bring them in without paying a duty. This way, she’d be arrested in her own country. She couldn’t claim she was being persecuted or framed for political reasons.”

  “But they seem so different, Michael, revolutionaries and diamond smugglers. I know coincidences are always possible, but don’t you think—”

  “She could be using one as a cover for the other,” Shayne interrupted. “But I’m beginning to get another idea. So far it’s just that, an idea, but what if—”

  The ringing of the telephone broke in on him. Lucy crossed the room and picked it up before it could ring a second time.

  “Miss Hamilton,” she said in her secretary’s tone.

  She listened for a moment and then said, “Yes, Mr. Dirksen. Mr. Shayne is here now and perhaps he’d better talk to you.”

  She held out the phone, and the detective took it. He snapped his fingers and looked at Lucy.

  “Dirksen,” she supplied, moving her lips silently.

  He nodded his thanks. “Yeh, Dirk. This is Shayne. I’ll give you the good news all at once. I’ve seen Tim. He’s as well as can be expected with a broken arm, broken ribs and various bruises and contusions.”

  “By God, Mike!” the city editor exclaimed. “Who did it to him?”

  “He’s saving that for tomorrow’s paper. If he sobers up by then, and if he’s still alive, you’re going to have a hell of a story. He was carrying quite a skinful when I saw him.”

  “The bastard’s off on a drunk?” Dirksen demanded. “You mean he and that knuckle-brain Roberts faked up this kidnapping thing between them? Good God, Mike, I’ve got every cop in town out looking for him.”

  “He was kidnapped,” Shayne assured him. “But let’s wait to see how it breaks. He may not want to play it that way. He insists he’s not a kidnap victim, but a guest, and for some reason I couldn’t make out, he’s trying to convince the kidnappers that they’re getting him drunk. I only hope he doesn’t overdo it.”

  “That was a little too fast for me, Shayne. What do I do, call off the alarm we’ve got out for him?”

  Shayne’s ragged red brows dr
ew together. His forehead was furrowed.

  “It’s possible that there’s a cache of arms somewhere in Greater Miami, Dirk. Small arms, probably, from automatic pistols up to thirty caliber machine guns, maybe even a few fifties, with ammo to fit. If I’m right, it’s going out to the rebels tonight. That means checking piers and docks, and the small-boat berths in the river. It’ll take a lot of cops.”

  Dirksen whistled. “That’s quite an order. You think it’s already on the water?”

  “There’s no way of knowing. It would have been brought in by truck, so if they don’t find it, they’d better start shaking down the truck terminals. And there’s another lead you can pass on. Harry Mann is in on it somewhere. Remember him?”

  “Very well, Shayne. The cops’ll be surprised to hear he’s in town.”

  “The rest is all guesswork, but I’ll need your help on part of it. What assignment did you give Tim?”

  “It was open,” Dirksen said promptly. “We wanted him to dig around and see what he’d find. It was sort of a stunt. Tim’s a crime man, and there’s been a series of murders down there. Everybody knows who’s responsible. That’s Fatso, who runs the country. But we thought Tim might get something on it that hasn’t been printed. It was a chancy job, but Tim jumped at it. We haven’t had a good juicy killing around here for quite a time.”

  Shayne’s hand went again to the lobe of his ear. “Not one murder, but a series?”

  “It makes quite a list. Apparently if you open your yap against the big man, a couple of mornings later you turn up dead at the side of a road. It goes on all the time. The foreign desk has been keeping a file.”

  “The only people who are murdered are opponents of the government?”

  “There’s been some retaliation, but that’s been pretty well covered, and it wasn’t the story Tim was after.”

  “Give me some examples,” Shayne said.

  “Well, one was the leader of the banana workers’ union. One was a doctor who used to treat Professor Quesada, the de facto head of the exiles in this country. One was a student leader. And so on. The details were all pretty much the same. They were all unsolved. Actually Tim could have had a pretty good story just by putting together the known facts, without developing anything new.”