The Corpse Came Calling ms-6

by Brett Halliday

  “Sometimes I manage to collect a decent fee, but it’s always in line with the job I do and never more than my client can stand. We’ll discuss the fee after you’ve told me what you want done.”

  “One thing more. No matter what I tell you, you’ll keep it confidential? Will you give me your word of honor?”

  “Hell,” said Shayne in disgust, “if you don’t think you can trust me, you’d better leave right now.”

  A flush crept into her cheeks. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and lowered her lashes. She smoothed her skirt down over her knees and said tonelessly, “I guess I’m acting like a fool. I-you see-I–I tried to commit suicide yesterday.” She shuddered, with eyes downcast. “Everything looked so terribly hopeless. Then I met Mr. Lacy and he told me about you and, well-I was crazy enough to start hoping again.”

  Shayne said, “This isn’t getting us anywhere. You’re talking in circles and now you’ve got back to the starting point. See if you can’t start making sense for a change.”

  She glanced up angrily, then faltered, “I deserved that. The trouble is, I’ve been thinking in circles. I think I’ll take that drink you offered me.”

  “What’ll it be? There’s practically anything you want in the cabinet.”

  “Just-whatever you’re drinking.” Helen glanced at the cognac bottle timidly.

  “This is pretty potent stuff to take straight unless you’re used to it.” Shayne heaved his rangy body up and went to the cabinet, where he got a Seltzer bottle and a highball glass. He went into the kitchen, returned with three ice cubes in the tall glass. The girl watched in silent absorption while he poured cognac over the cubes and squirted Seltzer in. She accepted the glass gratefully.

  As Shayne settled back in his chair the wail of a police siren came through the open window behind him. It sank to a moan, then wailed high again, died to silence outside the apartment hotel.

  The girl asked, “Is that a fire engine?”

  “That, or the cops.” Shayne nodded toward her highball. “Does that taste all right?”

  She drank some and said, “It’s wonderful.” She was relaxed now, her left hand lying against the arm of her chair, her head comfortably back against the cushioned headrest. Her legs were uncrossed and stretched out in front of her, and her skirt had again crept above her knees. Shayne smoked idly and waited for her to begin.

  “You’re wonderful, too,” she told him suddenly. “I feel utterly tranquil sitting here. As though all my troubles were unimportant. How can you be so gentle and understanding when they say you’re tough and conscienceless?”

  Shayne chuckled. “It’s my bedside manner. I lull you into a sense of false security and you find yourself telling me things you wouldn’t tell your priest.”

  “That’s just what I’m ready to do now, but I can’t think how to begin.”

  “Let’s begin with Jim Lacy. I’m interested because I haven’t been in contact with him for ten years. What is he doing in Miami?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t know Mr. Lacy very well. That is-well, I did once. Some time ago. But we simply met here by accident. When he learned about my trouble he said if there was any man in the world who could help me it would be Mike Shayne.”

  “I can’t do anything without a few facts to chew on,” Shayne reminded her.

  “I know. It isn’t easy to get started. You see, I’m-not at all what I seem. Actually I’m terribly wicked underneath.”

  “Just what form of depravity are you addicted to?” Shayne asked her, grinning.

  “It isn’t funny.” Her voice was suddenly tight and harsh. “I’ve done some despicable things. And now they’ve caught up with me. Back in New York I was-what they call a decoy girl in a divorce racket.

  “I suppose you know how the racket is worked,” she went on tensely. “I was a show girl and jobs were hard to get when I met this lawyer at a party. He and Jim Lacy worked it together-getting divorce evidence for his women clients. Sometimes there was collusion and the men co-operated in setting up evidence of adultery that would hold in courts, but more often the husband was just a sucker whose wife was tired of him and wanted alimony.”

  She took a sip from her glass and compressed her lips, then went on bitterly. “I was the come-on girl. I got a commission for each bedroom scene I staged-each time I set things up for Lacy and a photographer and the indignant wife to burst in on. A professional corespondent, one judge called me.”

  “All right,” Shayne said. “I don’t need a diagram. Lacy was never too choosy about the sort of work he did. So what?”

  “So then-a couple of months ago I was introduced to a new fall guy. His name was-well, you might as well know everything-his name was Charles Worthing. He was nice-so damned nice that as soon as I met him I couldn’t understand why any woman would want to divorce him. It seemed to me it would be-heaven-to be Mrs. Charles Worthing.

  “So- I was the sucker.” Helen was sitting erect now, leaning forward tensely, talking fast. “I fell for him like a ton of brick. Funny! Me, the decoy girl! But it wasn’t funny because he, God help me, fell for me, too. I should have backed out right away. I saw it happening to us. I should have run like hell, but I–I couldn’t.

  “He was married to a woman who didn’t deserve a swell guy like him. And I kidded myself into believing I’d be right for him. I went ahead with it just like any other case. He came to my apartment one night. When we were in what the papers would call a compromising situation, Lacy and Worthing’s wife and the photographer busted in-just like the script was written.

  “Well, there was the usual scene and Charles was wonderful. He never suspected me for a moment. Poor darling, he wanted to protect me-protect my name from being smirched by a divorce suit. My name! Get it? That was a laugh, but I–I couldn’t laugh. He made me promise to marry him as soon as the divorce went through.”

  “And you agreed?”

  “Sure I did. What else could I do? Tell him the truth? Smash the last thing he believed in? He loved me. And I loved him. I didn’t see why it wouldn’t be all right-why he’d ever have to know the truth.”

  A single tear from beneath each of Helen’s eyelids rolled down her cheeks while she stared fixedly at the detective.

  He said, “Finish your drink and I’ll pour you another.” He lifted his own glass and emptied it. Helen turned hers up, too. She made a wretched attempt to smile as she held it out to him. She breathed, “Now you know the truth. Do you despise me? Do you think I should have thrown away the only chance I’ll ever have for happiness?”

  Shayne shrugged and poured cognac over the half-melted ice cubes in her glass. He splashed soda on top and handed the glass back to her. “Who am I to pass judgment? Everyone has to play the cards dealt them the way they see it.” He refilled his glass and sank back into his chair. “You haven’t told me anything very dreadful yet. What’s troubling you? Threats of blackmail from someone who knows about your career as a marriage buster-upper?”

  “Worse than that. You see-I’m already married.”

  Correctly interpreting Shayne’s look of astonishment, Helen explained, “I’m not as young as you probably think. I’m twenty-six. I married when I was seventeen-a heel named Mace Morgan.

  “We lived together only a short time. I found out he was a small-time crook after we were married. I left him and changed my name and went to work in the chorus.

  “I’d almost forgotten about Mace. About being married to him. Then, when Charles insisted that we get married as soon as his divorce went through, I realized I’d have to do something about Mace. I asked Lacy about it and he told me Mace was in the penitentiary on a long rap. I decided to come to Miami and get a quick divorce-no publicity-and Charles would never have to know.”

  “Now,” said Shayne patiently, “we’ve finally reached Miami. I’m still wondering what drove you to the verge of suicide yesterday.”

  “It’s Mace. He’s here. In Miami. He escaped from prison and found out about
Charles and me. He followed me here. I came home one night last week and there he was in my apartment. He’s still there.”

  “Finding out what he’s been missing all these years?”

  Her eyes blazed at him. “It’s a terrible situation. I don’t know what to do. Mace wants money and he knows Charles Worthing is very wealthy. He refuses to let my divorce go through here without his entering a counteraction and making a lot of publicity.”

  “That’d be a fool stunt,” Shayne grunted. “If he’s an escaped convict-”

  “But he’ll do it,” she argued. “He’s vicious enough to do anything. He threatens to bring out all the truth about me in New York. There’ll be a scandal and Charles will know-he’ll realize I was just hired as sucker bait by his wife. He’ll never be able to believe I actually do love him. It’ll be-well, it’ll be the end of everything for me.”

  “Turn your husband in,” Shayne growled. “All you’ve got to do is call a cop.”

  “No! He’ll tell everything if I do that. Don’t you see,” Helen pleaded with trembling lips, “that he has the whip hand and I’m helpless?”

  “What alternative does he suggest?”

  “That I go ahead and marry Charles without getting a divorce from him. Then he’ll have a real hold on me-on both of us-and can bleed Charles for money the rest of his life.”

  “Nice guy,” Shayne muttered. “Making a bigamist out of his wife for a blackmail setup.” He paused thoughtfully, then asked, “What do you and Jim Lacy figure I can do to ease the situation?”

  Helen lifted her glass and gulped twice. She wet her lips and asked, “Couldn’t you-that is, Mr. Lacy thought maybe you could arrange to get rid of him.”

  “Bump him off?” Shayne’s gaunt face was expressionless but his eyes were hard and bright. “That’s why you came to me?”

  “Well-Mr. Lacy said that you could do it without getting into any trouble. That you had the authority to arrest him, and if he resisted arrest, well-” She spread out her hands, looking at him hopefully.

  “Sure,” Shayne muttered. “It could be fixed all right, but no matter what Lacy told you about me, I’m not a torpedo for hire. On the other hand there are plenty of trigger boys in town who’d take care of him for a hundred bucks. Hell, I might even put you in touch with a gunsel-”

  “But he won’t leave my apartment,” Helen said with a catch in her voice. “He stays there-locked in-all the time. Lacy said that you, being a detective, could get to him without any trouble, and then-and then-”

  She stopped, moistened her lips. Her eyes glittered strangely

  “And then rub him out while I’m taking him to jail on the pretext that he tried to escape,” Shayne supplied for her evenly. “It has been done. You mean it, don’t you? Just like that?” He snapped his bony fingers. “The job you came here to see me about is having your husband murdered-in a nice quiet way so there won’t be any stink raised.”

  Helen shuddered and averted her eyes from his searching gaze. “You make it sound so horrible. It wouldn’t be murder. Not really. No more than an official hanging is murder. He’s got it coming. It’s the only way to prevent him from wrecking two lives.”

  “Women,” said Shayne angrily, “have the damnedest way of rationalizing the ugliest facts into something quite sweet and lovely. He’s your legal husband and you’re offering money to have him killed. Those are the facts. Why don’t you face them squarely?”

  “All right,” Helen cried. “That is what I mean. Stop torturing me. Will you do it, or are you going to sit up here and pretend to be shocked? Everyone in Miami knows you’ve done worse. They say you’ve never touched a case that you didn’t frame somebody-sit back and pull the strings and watch men die-at a profit to you.”

  Shayne’s lips came away from his teeth. “That,” he told her, “is an important point. At a profit. I always make death pay me dividends. The first question I ask about any case is what’s in it for me.”

  “You needn’t worry about that.” Helen fumbled in her large leather handbag. She withdrew a roll of bills. “I’ve only a few hundred right now,” she faltered. “Take it as a sort of retainer. I can get more from Charles later. I’ll pay you a thousand dollars after we’re married.”

  Shayne shook his head. He said, “Put your money away. I don’t want a retainer from you. At least, not yet.” He got up and went to the window, stood with his back to her, looking out.

  The sun was low in the west and the haze of early twilight was cloaking the whitewashed houses and swaying palms. There was a clean smell of flowers and the salt tang of the sea in the air. Michael Shayne breathed it deeply into his lungs, gazing toward Biscayne Bay with brows deeply furrowed. This was one of the times he wished he had chosen another profession.

  He turned back after a time and found Helen’s eyes pathetically intent upon him. He said, “Leave me your address and I’ll do some checking up. I’m not promising a thing, but I’ll see what I can work out.”

  She gave him the address of an apartment on the Beach. He wrote it down, then took her by the arm and led her to the door, saying, “I’d rather you weren’t seen leaving here. Go down that hall to the stairs and out the side exit.”

  She faced him in the doorway, put both her hands on his arm while her eyes searched him. “You won’t let me down,” she said simply, “I know you won’t.” She lifted herself on tiptoe and swiftly pressed her lips against his mouth, then turned out the door and hurried toward the stairway.

  Shayne turned back into the room slowly. There was the lingering scent of heliotrope perfume in the air. He went into the bathroom and rubbed a trace of rouge from his mouth, then came back tweaking the lobe of his left ear.

  He went out after a moment’s hesitation, walked to the end of the corridor and down the stairs to the ground floor and a private side entrance.

  He let himself out onto the sidewalk, strode briskly to the front of the building. Two police cars and an ambulance were parked in front. One of the police cars was from Miami’s sister city across the bay, Miami Beach.

  Shayne stalked into the lobby, whistling cheerily. The desk clerk tried to signal for his attention, but Shayne waved to him and went on to the elevators.

  The elevator boy’s eyes bugged at him when he stepped into the car. He breathed, “Gee, Mr. Shayne, what d’yuh think? The cops’ve been lookin’ all over for you.”

  Shayne grinned and said, “That’s nothing new, Henry.” He got out and strode down the hall toward the open door of his office.

  Two harness cops stood outside. He frowned and asked them, “What the hell’s going on?”

  One of the uniformed men said, “It’s Mr. Shayne himself,” and jerked his thumb toward the open door, muttering, “Watch your step, Mike. It’s Peter Painter inside and he’s on the warpath for sure.”

  Shayne winked at him and strode in. He stopped just inside the door, staring down at the corpse of Jim Lacy which lay just where it had fallen.

  In a pained voice, he asked, “Why doesn’t someone tell me these things?” He looked up and saw Phyllis pushing forward between a couple of Miami detectives, and he stepped over the body to gather her into his arms.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “What’s this all about, angel?” Shayne had his arms tightly about Phyllis’s shaking shoulders. “Who’s the stiff messing up my office? Did you blast him? For God’s sake, Phyl, what is this?”

  She relaxed against him, sobbing, pressing her face against his chest. He looked over the top of her head wonderingly at a group of detectives from the homicide squad, at the medical examiner who sat lazily in a deep chair with his physician’s bag beside him, and lastly at a slim, erect figure who strutted forward with an unpleasant gleam of triumph in his snapping black eyes.

  This was Peter Painter, chief of detectives from Miami Beach, and Michael Shayne’s pet aversion in the form of a law-enforcement officer.

  Painter stopped in front of the detective with both hands thrust deep into the slash
pockets of a belted sport coat. The threadlike black mustache on his upper lip quivered exultantly as he said:

  “It’s up to you to do the explaining this time, Shayne. You can’t kill a man and then just duck out-”

  “Wait a minute.” Shayne carefully kept his voice to a normal level. He looked past Painter to a Miami detective and asked, “Where’s Will Gentry?”

  “Gentry was out when the call came in. I left word for him to come up.”

  Shayne growled, “What’s Painter horning in for?” continuing to ignore the spruce detective chief. “This isn’t his territory.”

  The homicide man from Gentry’s office spread out his hands placatingly. “But it looks like it’s pretty much his case, Mike. He was in the office getting out a local pickup on the corpse when your wife phoned in.”

  Shayne transferred his gaze to Painter. “You wanted this guy?” He jerked his head toward the corpse.

  “For the FBI,” Painter told him with malicious relish. “I have a wire from J. Edgar Hoover saying that it’s a matter of supreme importance to detain him for questioning for a special agent who’s flying down from Washington.”

  Shayne looked down at Jim Lacy with no show of recognition. He demanded, “Who the devil is he? What’s he doing here? Who shot him full of holes?”

  “Those,” said Peter Painter precisely, “are the same questions we’ve been asking your wife. She has yet to give us a satisfactory explanation.”

  Shayne drew in a deep breath. He held Phyllis away from him and looked into her eyes. “Give it to me, Phyl. The truth. I’ve got to know where I stand.”

  Her eyes were frightened but she held her voice steady. “I’ve told them the truth, Michael. I was sitting here at my desk-” She stopped speaking as another man entered the room. It was Will Gentry, chief of the Miami Detective Bureau and a long-time warm friend of Shayne’s.

  Gentry was a big, stolid man with a beefy face which concealed a keen intelligence. He glanced at the corpse casually, then at Shayne and the others. “I came up as soon as I got the report. What is this, Mike?”