This Is It, Michael Shayne

by Brett Halliday

  “All right,” said Gentry harshly. “So she sits in her room all day behind a locked door trying to reach Shayne. But at six-thirty she gives up trying. She’s convinced the threats mean business and she’s slated to die tonight. So what does she do then?” He pounded his fist on his heavy thigh and the veins in his red face were purple. “Failing to reach Shayne, does she condescend to call in the police? No! She sits down at her typewriter and writes Mr. Shayne a letter, begging him to catch her murderer after he bumps her off. Nuts! No sane person would sit there and wait for death.”

  There was a stillness in the room when Gentry finished his reasonable deduction and threw his slightly smoked and half-chewed cigar toward a wastebasket beside Shayne’s desk.

  “Sounds like she might’ve got herself into something she couldn’t quite face,” Rourke offered lightly.

  Gentry grunted sourly, and Shayne said, “Maybe she wasn’t sane. I never met her. But you have the evidence right there in your hand. She did exactly that, whether you like it or not.”

  “Where’s that secretary?” Gentry demanded again.

  “Probably passed out by this time, the way she was pouring stuff down when I left her. You have to admit that Sara Morton’s letter clears her.”

  “I don’t admit anything,” Gentry rumbled. “I want to talk to her. Now.”

  Shayne’s gray eyes glittered angrily. “What’s the matter with you tonight, Will? You’ve got proof enough—”

  “There’s no proof Morton actually wrote the letter at six-thirty,” Gentry broke in stubbornly. “Perhaps her watch was wrong. By God! It was wrong,” he roared, pounding his thick thigh with a fleshy fist. “Almost an hour slow. It was still ticking when we found her. If she timed the note by her watch—” He paused to consider the difference this would make.

  “An hour slow,” Shayne said mockingly, watching the triumph die out of the chief’s beefy face. “So if she went by her watch, it was actually seven-thirty when she wrote the note.”

  “Suppose the murderer pushed the hands back an hour,” Rourke suggested. “Maybe he tried to stop it at a certain hour to give the impression it stopped when she fell—to set the time of death in our minds, but it failed to stop.”

  “Either way you’re going to have a difficult time proving she wasn’t alive at least as late as six-thirty,” Shayne pointed out with growing impatience and anger. “And that definitely lets Miss Lally out.”

  “It could have been written earlier,” Gentry maintained, but there was no certainty in his tone now, then added weakly, “Maybe her watch is no good at all.”

  “Hell of a watch,” growled Shayne, “for an up-on-her-toes newspaper woman.”

  “She’d have hurled it on the floor and ground it to bits, diamonds and all, if it hadn’t kept perfect time,” Rourke said with a wicked chuckle.

  Shayne poured a small drink in his glass and downed it, turned to Gentry and said in a determinedly controlled voice, “Look, Will. Why don’t you settle this thing once and for all by calling the post office? That letter is stamped at the main post office at seven forty-two. Ask them what pick-up from the Tidehaven would fit that time.”

  Gentry nodded sourly, heaved his solid bulk up from the couch, and went stolidly to the telephone on Shayne’s desk, while Rourke added a slug of cognac to his stale drink and Shayne poured himself another. When Gentry cradled the phone he conceded, “The letter must have been dropped in the mail chute between six-ten and seven-fourteen. The seven-fourteen pick-up fits.” He rubbed a pudgy palm wearily over his eyes and forehead, then his heavy lids rolled slowly up, like miniature Venetian blinds, and his vein-streaked eyes were hard as granite when he said, “I want Miss Lally’s story. Tonight.”

  “You’re not going to get it,” said Shayne calmly.

  “What are you pulling, Mike?”

  “It’s my case,” Shayne told him stubbornly. “I don’t want you and your dumb clucks in homicide horning in. But I’ll give you something you can work on,” he went on, using another of his well-worn tactics. “Find Ralph Morton, Sara’s no-good husband whom she supports. He called Miss Lally this morning and said he’d just reached town and wanted an appointment with his wife. She hung up on him, but thinks she heard his voice in the next room this afternoon when she was typing.”

  Gentry eyed him suspiciously, asked, “Why would her husband want to stick a pair of shears in her throat?”

  “She’s divorcing him. That’ll probably end the five hundred a month she’s been paying him to stay out of her hair.”

  “So he kills her to stop her from paying him half a grand a month,” said Gentry with heavy sarcasm.

  Shayne was unbuckling the belt of his dungarees. “Maybe he’s legally entitled to half her estate or something. Here’s one more thing, if you’re interested. She was divorcing her husband to marry a punk several years younger than she. Name of Edwin Paisly.” Shayne described him with relish. “Just a bit swishy and with all the earmarks of being more interested in her money than in her. Ask him where he was between six-thirty and seven, and don’t blame me if you get your wrist slapped.” He had the dungarees unbuttoned and he held them up with both hands as he started toward the bathroom again.

  “Hold it, Mike.” Gentry’s voice was peremptory. “What else did you get from Miss Lally?”

  “Very little.” Shayne continued into the bathroom without turning his head.

  Gentry followed him to the open door. “No matter how little—I want it. And I want to question her.”

  Shayne shook his red head stubbornly. “You can question her tomorrow.”

  “Why not tonight, Mike? What the devil are you covering up?”

  “Nothing. But if I told you my real reason for keeping her away from you tonight, you’d have to horn in. Leave me alone and I’ll solve your damned case for you.”

  Will Gentry was silent for a moment while Shayne began lathering his face, then told him ominously, “You’re ’way out on a limb, Mike. Don’t try to push me around like you do Peter Painter over on the Beach.”

  “Then quit acting like Painter,” Shayne advised him irritably.

  Gentry’s beefy face became a deeper red. His lips parted but he closed them firmly, turned about, and plodded from the room without another word.

  Timothy Rourke got up after the outer door closed behind Chief Gentry and strolled to the open bathroom door with a scowl twisting his thin features. “I think you’re wrong on this, Mike.”

  “I haven’t asked for your opinion.”

  “But you’re going to get it just the same. If you’ve let that Lally doll go to your head so you don’t know who your friends are—”

  Shayne picked up his razor and said disinterestedly, “Go ahead and get it off your chest, but don’t mind me if I shave at the same time. I’ve got a hot date.”

  Rourke choked over what he was about to say. He glared at the detective with unconcealed disgust, then turned on his heel and strode out angrily.

  Chapter Five

  One Pinch Of Shamus

  SHAYNE STOPPED SHAVING and looked at his watch as soon as the door closed behind Rourke. The time was two minutes past eleven. He hurried out and turned on the small radio on the bedside table, switched to a local newscast and heard:

  “… death weapon was identified by Timothy Rourke, well-known reporter for the Miami News and close friend of the murdered woman, as a highly prized possession of Miss Morton’s, a testimonial gift presented to her by the Better Citizenship Bureau of Akron, Ohio, two years ago, in gratitude for her outstanding public service in exposing criminal conditions in that city.

  “At this time there are no new developments in this sensational case, but keep tuned to this station for on-the-spot bulletins for which we will interrupt any of our regular programs.

  “Police are still seeking Michael Shayne, nationally famous private detective of this city, and the dead woman’s private secretary, Miss Beatrice Lally, for questioning. It is known that Mr. Shayne an
d Miss Lally left the hotel together, shortly after nine o’clock, to search among her favorite nightspots for Miss Morton, apparently unaware that she was dead at that time. It is known that Miss Morton sought professional advice from Mr. Shayne shortly before her death, and police are confident that information in his possession will point to the identity of the killer as soon as he can be reached.

  “Do you wake up feeling irritable and sluggish in…”

  He snapped the dial and, returning to the bathroom, shaved hurriedly, showered, and padded to a chest of drawers in the bedroom as he toweled his rangy body. He was buckling a belt around the waist of gray flannel slacks when the telephone rang. He answered on the bedside extension: “Mike Shayne speaking.”

  A cultured masculine voice said, “Please listen carefully, Mr. Shayne. I’m calling from a public booth at a roadside tavern, so don’t try to trace this call. I will be miles away before anyone could get here if you notified them.”

  “Fair enough. Who are you and what do you want?”

  “I heard the eleven o’clock newscast,” the voice went on, “and learned that Miss Sara Morton has been murdered.” He spoke with breathless intensity and a note of desperation.

  “That’s right.” Shayne waited, tugging at his ear lobe, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he tried to identify the voice.

  “When was she murdered, Shayne? The newscaster didn’t say, and it is vitally important to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because—” His voice faltered, and Shayne could hear his heavy breathing; then he went on urgently, “Was she alive as late as seven o’clock?”

  “I don’t know why I should give out such information,” said Shayne impatiently.

  “Would you like to earn ten thousand dollars, Shayne?”

  “I wouldn’t turn it down.”

  “I didn’t think you would,” he said, “from what I’ve heard about you. Have you told the police what Miss Morton consulted you about today?”

  “No.”

  “And the secretary? Has she talked to the police since learning of Miss Morton’s death?”

  “I have her stashed away where the police can’t get at her until I say the word,” Shayne told him. He paused briefly, then added carefully, “I had a hunch you might be willing to pay a little something to keep this quiet.”

  “Then—you know who I am?”

  “I think I know your name,” Shayne lied tranquilly.

  “I assure you that I did not kill her, Shayne.” His voice broke on a falsetto key like the changing voice of a teen-aged boy.

  “But you have no alibi for before seven?” Shayne said.

  “Precisely. And even if that alibi is sufficient, you can readily understand that a police investigation would bring the whole story to light—and ruin me.”

  “Naturally.” Shayne scowled heavily, wondering how long he could keep the man talking without giving away the fact that he hadn’t the faintest idea what he was talking about.

  “If you and the secretary could be induced to listen to reason—that is, I infer the secretary knows all about it. She must have typed the script.”

  “I think I can handle Miss Lally,” Shayne broke in, “but there’s no use discussing a thing like this on the phone.”

  “My thought exactly, Shayne.” His tone held a hint of hope. “I suppose I’ll have to trust you to come alone. If you will give me your word of honor—”

  “That’s no good,” Shayne broke in again, harshly, and sweat dripped from his face. “If you make arrangements now and something goes wrong—the police get onto you from another angle or manage to follow me—you’d never believe I hadn’t turned you in… Let’s do it this way,” he continued, improvising swiftly. “Can you be in the barroom of the Golden Cock on Biscayne Boulevard in half an hour?”

  “I can just about make it. But if this is a trap—”

  “How can it be trap?” Shayne interrupted. He took a chance and added, “I don’t know what you look like, so it’ll be safe enough for you to go there. Do you know me by sight?”

  “I’ve seen your picture in the papers.”

  “I want to handle this so you’ll know I haven’t double-crossed you no matter what happens. The Golden Cock bar will be crowded, and I’ll mingle in the thickest of the crowds. The police may tail me and be watching. Don’t speak to me or give yourself away in any way. Have a brief note wadded up to slip into my right hand, telling me where to meet you. I’ll stay in plain sight after you give it to me, and won’t communicate with anyone until I go out to my car and read the note. You can follow me to make sure I’m not being tailed. Then you’ll know I’m on the level.” Shayne paused, feeling uncertain, yet hopeful. He knew it wasn’t very good, but it was the best he could think of on the spur of the moment.

  “That sounds like a lot of melodramatic hocus-pocus,” his caller complained.

  “That’s the way it has to be if you want to see me tonight,” he said flatly. “At the Golden Cock in half an hour.” He cradled the receiver before the man could make further protests.

  There was no rush now. The Golden Cock was only ten minutes away. Shayne selected a gray and red tie, tied it carefully, then put on a Palm Beach coat a shade darker than the slacks. He combed his wet hair and pulled a clean gray hat down over it, determined that the genial manager of the Golden Cock should not have to apologize for his appearance.

  In the living-room he poured a stiff drink and sat down to wait.

  The case was breaking even faster than he had anticipated. He wondered who the devil his caller was, frowning because he hadn’t been able to trick him into giving his name. But there was no way he could have found out without revealing the fact that he had not talked to Sara Morton.

  That was his one trump card, the supposition that he knew a great many things he didn’t know. If word got around that Miss Morton had been unable to reach him for consultation the case was apt to drag out interminably.

  He finished off the cognac and went down in the elevator and out through the side entrance without seeing any of Gentry’s men. He got in his car and drove leisurely to the Golden Cock, watching through the rear-view mirror, but seeing no car that appeared to be tailing him.

  He drove past the doorman and parked his car where he could find it in a hurry and as near the exit as possible, got out and sauntered back to the entrance.

  The manager hurried to greet him, saying, “Well, well, back again, Shayne. Miss Morton hasn’t showed up yet, but I have a nice table where you can—”

  “Thanks, Harold,” he said, “but I just dropped in for a drink. Miss Morton has been located.” He turned from the dining-room entrance and went into the crowded cocktail lounge, stopping just inside the doorway to light a cigarette and letting his gaze wander slowly over the faces toward him, hoping to spot the man who should be watching for him if he had already arrived. He nodded to several acquaintances who lifted a hand or voice in greeting, then moved into the room. He noted the presence of three plainclothesmen who had the unmistakable brand of homicide squad stamped all over them. He wondered idly whether they anticipated the coming contact or merely hoped to pick up information because Sara Morton was known to frequent the Golden Cock.

  He forced his way in as close to the bar as possible, caught the bartender’s eye, and held up two fingers. “Cognac coming up, Mr. Shayne,” he said with a smile of recognition, and less than half a minute later, Shayne stretched a long arm past two rows of shoulders to exchange two one-dollar bills for the double shot. He transferred the glass to his left hand and let his right arm dangle at his side with the palm turned outward as he moved casually into the crowd. Twice he paused to chat with friends, grinning to himself when the headquarters men followed him, keeping a wary eye on his movements, but not coming in close enough to prevent a note being slipped into his hand.

  Twice he stiffened and held himself ready to close his hand when knuckles touched his palm, but nothing happened. He relaxed and moved on to give t
he man a better chance to step in beside him unobtrusively.

  A girl in a red dress, with big breasts and hopeful eyes, caught his left arm and began chattering vivaciously:

  “Mike Shayne! Of all things! It’s been ages, darling. Still chasing murderers and blond gun-molls—and catching the molls?” She squealed with delight at her witticism.

  Her stooped, gray-haired escort said mildly, “Don’t mind Ethel, Mr. Shayne. She’s had six bourbons, and if I don’t get her out of here—”

  Shayne didn’t hear what he was saying. Two men stood close to his right side, their backs toward him. A waiter passed in front of them with a laden tray balanced precariously in his right palm. Both men stepped back to avoid him, bringing them in contact with Shayne’s hand.

  He felt the sharp corner of a wadded bit of paper pressed against his palm. One of the homicide dicks he had spotted stood in front of him and not more than three feet away, eyeing him with poorly concealed interest.

  Shayne suddenly developed a chummy interest in the chatter of the girl in the red dress and her gray-haired companion, not moving a muscle except to grip his right hand into a fist.

  He laughed heartily when the girl laughed, turned his head casually to glance at the two men who had been momentarily close enough to pass a note.

  One was tall with a hook-nosed profile and not much chin. All he could see of the other man was square shoulders and the round back of a partially bald head.

  Shayne excused himself, saying, “Nice to have seen you again, Ethel,” and began moving casually but definitely toward the exit, his right hand clenched at his side.

  Forcing himself to walk slowly as he neared the door, he was ready to step out and increase his speed through the lobby when a tall, quiet-faced man straightened from a lounging position against the wall and caught his right arm just above the wrist. At the same instant a bulky man pushed in on the other side to wedge him tight against his brother officer.

  “We can do this without any fuss,” the tall man said quietly, “or we can have fuss and cuffs.”