“I see most of it now,” Shayne said wearily. He turned off the ignition. “Don’t let me hold you up any longer.”
“No, I want you to see the whole thing. You never bothered to check with the furniture convention to see if Baumholtz was one of their delegates. But I had an answer ready for that, and I used it the next day when you couldn’t get me at the Sans Souci. I used a phony name, naturally! We tried to get you with the burper this morning, and when that didn’t work I can tell you I felt really lousy. And then I had this wonderful idea, and I called you up as Baumholtz. It was good, very good, absolutely foolproof. You set a trap for the murderer, using me as bait—and don’t think I fell for that crap about the danger to my wife and kiddies. You put me out there on a limb to save your own neck, not to speak of your babe’s. But the hell with that. I used the same trap, with Fran as the bait. The cops almost fouled us up at the last minute, but we took care of that, didn’t we, pal? Fran brought us out to this nice, quiet place—the bastard almost got away from us once, and I damn near had heart failure. Here we are. Any further questions?”
The station wagon’s horn blared impatiently.
“One thing I’m sorry about,” Shayne said, “I’ll never meet Mrs. Baumholtz. Why make that dumb play this morning, with two cops on the same block? Why not hold off a few weeks? What’s the deadline?”
“I need some dough,” Clayton said. “But you don’t have to know everything.”
The redhead knew he had to make it look real. He brought his right arm around in a chop at Clayton’s throat, twisting his body and trying to force the gun down against the back of the seat. His blow landed, but at that instant there was a muffled explosion and Shayne felt a searing pain in his side.
Waves of pain rose around him. He fell back against the seat, his left hand against his side.
“You—” he gasped.
“You didn’t think I was going to do it, did you?” Clayton said. There was no exultation in his voice; it was heavy and lifeless. “You really thought you could talk me out of it.”
Shayne’s eyes were partly closed, and he breathed heavily through his mouth.
Clayton made no move to get out of the car, but sat where he was, looking down at the gun, which he now held in both hands.
“Thirteen goddam years,” he said.
His face was sallow in the dashboard light. There were beads of sweat on his forehead. Shayne’s breath came more heavily. Letting his eyes nearly close, he slumped back in the seat, his muscles slack. The pain was still bad, but he knew now that he wouldn’t black out.
Savage curses ran through his mind. What was the bastard waiting for?
Still Clayton sat without moving. His lips worked, and Shayne had the crazy idea that he was praying.
Suddenly footsteps approached along the sidewalk. They stopped at the Buick.
“Hit him again, will you?” a voice said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Yeah,” Clayton said heavily.
“Get off the dime! You don’t take a chance on one shot in the body. Hit him in the head, in the head! You want him to walk into the St. A. with every cop in Miami?”
“He’s got one slug in the belly,” Clayton said. “Let him bleed to death.”
“He could live two days. Blast him, blast him. We aren’t just playing around here. You owe me nine grand. Come on, we’re half an hour late. She’s going to be chewing her fingers.”
“I don’t want to shoot him again,” Clayton said.
Shayne felt his heart beating rapidly. The door on his side was unlatched. Through his slitted eyes, he saw Smith’s hand. It had a .38 revolver in it. If Clayton wouldn’t deliver the coup de grace, Smith would do it for him. Shayne considered leaping from the car. He would take them by surprise but could he get as far as the line of bungalows before Smith fired? He rejected it as unlikely. Or he could try a grab for the .38. But Smith was no novice. He would merely pull back coolly and shoot Shayne in the face.
The calculations chased each other rapidly through Shayne’s mind. Even with the lowered powder charge, the dummy bullet, striking him in the temple, could easily kill him. But he had to stay where he was, feigning unconsciousness, willing Clayton to shoot.
“Let me do it if you don’t feel like it,” Smith said.
“No, it’s my—responsibility,” Clayton said.
Shayne’s muscles tensed. Smith rapped his revolver sharply on the door, and Clayton raised the .45, turning. Shayne saw the despair in his eyes. Clayton’s jaws clenched, and he fired.
Shayne didn’t hear the report of the gun. The night closed down around him.
20
A porch light flashed on in the nearest bungalow. Fran Smith holstered his .38 revolver and swung around as an old man in an undershirt, holding an open newspaper, appeared on the porch.
“What’s the trouble?” he called.
“A guy shot himself!” Smith cried dramatically. “Call an ambulance.”
The old man continued to peer at them confusedly, and Smith repeated sharply, “An ambulance! He’s bleeding like a damn pig.”
When the old man went back inside the house, Smith said urgently, “Get the lead out, Clayt. We’re going to hear some sirens in another couple of minutes.”
Bram Clayton knew he had to move. There was no time to lose. But he was exhausted, as though he had forced himself to go on running after his strength was gone. He seemed to have weights attached to his hands and feet. For thirteen years he had waited for this moment. He had expected to be filled with a feeling of release, of liberation. And now the burden seemed heavier than ever.
Shayne had been the most important thing in his life, and now it was gone. Shayne lay dead beside him, blood streaming from the wound in his temple. And at last Clayton realized his folly. Shayne hadn’t even remembered him!
Smith pulled open the door. Gripping Clayton’s shoulder, he yanked him out. Clayton had to swing his feet out of the car to keep from pitching sideward. “Don’t be such a damn baby,” Smith snapped. “Get going.”
He pushed at Clayton, and Clayton dropped the automatic. Smith picked it up for him and walked him around the corner to the station wagon. He opened the back door and thrust Clayton in. He got in himself, took a fifth of whiskey out of a paper bag on the front seat, and handed it back to Clayton.
“Have a nice nourishing swig of Lord Calvert,” he said. “You really bug me, Dad. Didn’t you ever knock off anybody before?”
“Shut up,” Clayton said, and followed that with a savage obscenity.
Smith laughed in his brainless way. He wheeled the wagon around in a U-turn and headed south for the River Drive.
Clayton took the cap off the whiskey and raised the bottle to his mouth. Smith had shifted into high and was accelerating, and some of the whiskey spilled. But Clayton choked enough down to burn away some of the weariness and disgust. He knew he had thrown away thirteen years in futile hatred of a man who wasn’t even aware of his existence. He had killed two people, and he couldn’t bring them back. But if he could get a thousand miles away, among strangers, perhaps he could shake off this deadness that had taken hold of him, and come half-alive again.
To do that, he needed money. All the preparations had been made. He moved mechanically, without thought. He threw off the dirty white coat and buckled on his pistol harness. A neatly pressed tropical-weight suit belonging to the man who went by the name of Justin Briggs was on a car-hanger, held by a vacuum cup to one of the windows. He peeled off his mustache and the silly toupee he had worn as Walter Baumholtz. After changing clothes in the lurching car, he transferred his wallet, containing his money and airplane tickets, and reached over in the front seat for the .45.
“How’s it go, Dad?” Smith asked, wheeling the car around a curb in the drive. “I’ve seen it take people that way, but it’s a funny thing. First time I ever gave somebody a well-needed push, I didn’t feel a thing.”
“You’re a special case,” Clayton said.
/> Smith was driving at fifty-five through the light traffic. He turned and looked at Clayton. “What do you mean by that?”
“Watch the goddam road. You’re special in a lot of ways, Fran. That’s why you charge a fee of ten thousand bucks.”
Smith brought the wagon back onto its proper course. “I’m going to enjoy not seeing so much of you, boy, because you’re beginning to drag me.”
“What a shame.”
Clayton released the clip of the .45, took two rounds out of his box of ammunition and forced them into place on top of the others. He replaced the clip. He worked the slide in an automatic gesture, to be absolutely sure the gun was loaded. A round kicked out onto the floor of the car. He pulled the safety lock and put the gun inside his coat.
Smith detoured south to the MacArthur Causeway, to avoid the toll station, and came onto the Beach at the southern end. He drove north by Washington instead of Collins, so they wouldn’t have to pass the Seafarer, which for the second night in a row would be alive with cops. Two blocks before Lincoln Road, he turned toward the ocean and pulled up behind an Oldsmobile convertible.
“Got the disguise on?” he asked Clayton. “No kidding, Clayt, what a load of crud.”
“Hurry up.”
Smith lifted a tool-box from the floor of the front seat and carried it to the Oldsmobile. It was heavy, holding, as it did, a tommy gun, an electric drill and several other basic mechanic’s tools. He went back to the station wagon for a suitcase, a large two-suiter in which he would transport his clothes, the tommy gun and his share of the money. He put the suitcase out of the way in the boot, behind the seat. Clayton’s and Miriam’s bags were already checked at the airport, but Smith wanted his with him. If they finished ahead of schedule, he would leave by bus from the Greyhound terminal on NE First, instead of going by train.
Clayton bundled his white coat and the lightweight slacks inside a newspaper, after checking the pockets a final time. He pushed them well down inside a public trash basket. He got into the Olds beside Smith and they drove north to the St. Albans.
They parked on Collins, in a prearranged spot. Smith took the keys out of the ignition with a nervous laugh.
“Damned if I’m not getting nervous now,” he said. “How about loaning me that mustache?”
“I threw it out on the causeway. And it wouldn’t go with your hair. What time have you got?”
They checked watches. They had picked up ten minutes by fast driving, and were only twenty minutes behind their carefully planned schedule.
“We’ll stick to the original timing,” Clayton said. “At eleven thirty on the button you go in and screw up the switchboard. You know what you’re going to say. Ad lib it. Noises been reported on the line, and you’ve got to check the board. I’ll see you ten minutes later. But another ten minutes won’t kill us. Do a good job, because we’ve got to be damn sure they don’t make any calls from that suite after we leave.”
“Okay, okay,” Smith mumbled. “I’ll take care of it.”
Clayton got out of the Olds, feeling a little better. There was no reason why he shouldn’t be airborne in another ninety minutes, carrying a fortune in cash. To hell with Miriam and Smith. To hell with the late Mike Shayne. Clayton didn’t intend to hang around for that funeral.
Smith had taken off his coat and was rolling up his sleeves.
“Have a drink,” Clayton advised the boy with a short laugh, and walked toward the hotel.
The doorman guided him through the revolving door into the gilded, air-conditioned lobby. This was one of the newest hotels, and the public rooms had been constructed on a magnificent scale. Beyond the elevators, a curving staircase went up to a cocktail lounge. A few vacationers sat around the lobby listlessly, not wanting to go to bed just yet. There was little activity at the desk.
Miriam, in an easy chair near the elevators, looked up from the magazine she was reading and caught Clayton’s eye. Clayton went over to her. Her stomach was probably knotted with tension, but she didn’t show it.
“I hope you won’t think I’m rude,” Clayton said, “but haven’t I seen you someplace? My name is Justin Briggs, of Amarillo, Texas. Have you ever been to Amarillo?”
“I doubt it,” she said, “Unless I was too drunk to know what I was doing.”
“Let me buy you a drink and tell you about it. Great little city.”
She studied him. “What kind of an evening did you have?”
“Big. Very big. I want to tell you about it. I’ve got an appointment upstairs, but if you aren’t doing anything later?”
“That would be nice. How soon will you be free?”
He looked at his watch again, his excitement rising, and checked it against the modernistic clock above the elevators. “Say quarter of twelve? Give or take a minute.”
“That’s fine with me. I’ll look forward to it, Mr. Griggs.”
“Briggs,” Clayton said, and went on to the elevators.”
Two ladies who might have been school teachers, up after their regular bedtime, came in with him, and exclaimed about the simplicity of the automatic controls.
Clayton punched twelve for himself, and looked at them inquiringly.
“Seven,” one said with a small giggle, and Clayton gave the automatic controls a further command.
The door closed. The women eyed him as the elevator ascended. He was using his Justin Briggs manner, dignified but definitely approachable, and he smiled and bowed as he held the door for them when the car stopped at their floor. Alone, the smile left his lips. He touched the gun under his armpit, his eyes narrowing.
He was smiling again when he rang the chimes at Blackstone’s 12th floor suite. The door opened, but not far. A dark, heavy-set man in horn-rimmed glasses looked out.
“Good evening, Mr. Briggs.” the guard said, and unhooked the chain. “How are you this evening?”
“Feeling lucky, Albert,” Clayton said cheerfully.
And that was true—he did feel lucky. He could feel the luck tingling all the way down to the ends of his fingers. Given time enough, he could bankrupt everybody here, even without the help of his .45. The strange feeling of letdown he had experienced after shooting Shayne was gone, replaced by a feeling of quiet confidence and certainty. He shook hands with Blackstone, a nervous gentleman in evening dress, who looked like a bank clerk with a concealed shortage in his accounts. He had a professional affability and a constant smile, which didn’t disguise the fact that he was a worried man. Clayton hadn’t been able to make out what worried him—perhaps the possibility of being robbed.
Clayton went on into the sitting room, a large corner room with a small balcony overlooking the ocean. Seven poker players sat around a drop-leaf table in the middle of the room. The dealer was a thin-faced, darkhaired professional, probably a Cuban. Clayton glanced at the piles of chips at each place. Not bad, he thought. Three of the players were familiar to him, including Big Ed Bradley, the Chicago vending-machine manufacturer. Bradley faced the front door, playing his cards close to his chin. Clayton looked at the other players carefully. They were nothing to worry about.
Three girls were sitting peacefully on the hotel furniture, doing nothing whatever but look beautiful. One, probably brought by Bradley, wore a diamond bracelet that looked very good from across the room. Clayton distrusted jewelry, but maybe he could stick Miriam with this bracelet in the division.
He went on into the bedroom. The beds were pushed against the walls to make room for the dice table. A folding bounce-board was screwed to the edge of the felt-covered table, and as Clayton came in the dice rolled and the stick-man called out, “A seven and the shooter loses.”
As usual, there were more people interested in the dice than in the poker. Clayton counted the house: thirteen, nine of them at the crap table. Only two of these were professionals, men who followed the horses and gambled whenever the horses were resting or exercising. The others were winter visitors, with only a sketchy knowledge of crap-odds. The stick-man wa
s a boy in his teens. For no reason except a gambler’s hunch, Clayton thought he might have more trouble with the boy than with anyone else in the crowd.
He put out his cigarette and drifted over to the self-service bar, where he made himself a highball, going very light on the whiskey. He exchanged a few remarks with a redhead in an evening dress which started a good distance below her chin. He then took his drink to the table and watched the play. The lucky feeling had been growing within him. There was no doubt in his mind that this was going to be his night. He bet twice against the shooter, winning both times. For the last night of a racing season, the play was heavy. A good percentage of favorites must have come in that afternoon.
The dice moved around the table to Clayton. He put down his weak highball and glanced at his watch before he took up the cubes and began to rub them between his palms. Eleven twenty-nine; he had plenty of time. He counted out ten twenty-dollar bills. They were quickly faded. He went on warming the dice until all the side-bets were made, and then he breathed on them gently and let them roll. The stick-man called a seven.
Clayton left the money on the table and added everything else he had with him: another two hundred. This was the best kind of gambling. Whatever happened, he couldn’t possibly lose. He rolled an eleven. After letting his winnings ride, he rolled a six which he hit again on the second roll. He had been taking side-bets, adding those winnings to the pile in front of him. He rolled and the dice rebounded from the board. Another natural. He had made four consecutive passes, and was doing fine.
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