This Is It, Michael Shayne ms-19

by Brett Halliday

  “I see how that would work.” Shayne’s expression cleared. That was one thing that had bothered him about Harsh’s story. He hadn’t been able to reconcile Miss Morton’s turning down money from Gannet and at the same time trying to extort a similar sum from Harsh. Now he thought he understood. The Harsh story was a sort of sideline she had happened upon while pursuing the real story that had brought her to Miami, the one involving Gannet. There would be no loss of prestige in dropping the Harsh story, but failure to expose Gannet’s racket would be a blow to her reputation.

  “She must run on to a lot of stuff around the country that various guys would pay to keep out of the headlines,” said Shayne. “You heard any rumors about anything like that?”

  “Nobody gets very far in the newspaper business playing that way,” Rourke told him emphatically. “You may play certain things down in a story, or suppress them, but you don’t take money for it. Not and keep Morton’s reputation year after year.”

  “All right. But I may make you eat those words. Do you know Carl Garvin?”

  Rourke’s slaty eyes showed surprise. “Sure. I run into him now and then.” He grinned and added, “Morton and Garvin got along just like that,” holding up both index fingers and moving them apart the full length of his arms.

  “Why?”

  “She worried him. Garvin’s not a newspaperman. Just a glorified office boy for her syndicate. He’s probably a tenth cousin to a vice-president. He sits on his lazy butt and draws a fair salary for clipping an occasional story and rewriting it over the wire. I think he took a journalistic course in some swanky eastern college, and do those guys ever think they know their stuff,” he added with heavy sarcasm.

  “What control did he have over Morton?” Shayne asked. “What she did in Miami and what she wrote?”

  “Damned little. He was afraid she’d upset the status quo by sending out stuff so hot the syndicate would begin to wonder why he’d been sitting on it. Nominally, a job like his carries the responsibility of clearing syndicated stories, but I doubt whether Morton ever showed her stuff to Garvin.” He grinned again and added, “By refusing to co-operate he could have slowed her down some.”

  “What sort of guy is Garvin? Personally, I mean.”

  “A bit of a high-flyer. Lives on the Beach and moves with the society crowd over there. Going to marry some rich dame, I’ve heard.”

  “Burton Harsh’s daughter,” Shayne supplied casually.

  “Yeah?” Rourke emptied his glass.

  Watching him closely, Shayne saw no indication that the reporter connected Harsh’s name with the Morton case. “Then you don’t know much about the man’s character?” he said.

  “Very little,” Rourke acknowledged. “But I came here to get in on a story, Mike. So far all you’ve done is pump me. You got any new angles?”

  “I’m starting right now,” Shayne promised. He stood up and took a handful of coins from his trousers pocket, picked out several, said, “Order us a couple more drinks while I make a phone call.”

  He consulted the directory and found a Carl G. Garvin listed with a residence address on the Beach. The phone rang twice and was answered by the cultured voice of an elderly woman:

  “Hello.”

  “May I speak to Carl?” Shayne said.

  “My son isn’t in,” she said, “but I expect him soon.”

  “Could you tell me where I might find him?”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know. May I take a message? Or perhaps have him call you?”

  “This is Timothy Rourke,” Shayne said. “Tell Carl I’ll get in touch with him tomorrow.”

  She said she would be happy to, and Shayne hung up, went out to consult the directory again, and called another Miami Beach number.

  A man’s voice answered with a polite “Good evening-Red Barn.”

  “I want to talk to Mr. Carl Garvin. Have him paged upstairs.”

  “Please hold on. I’ll see if I can locate Mr. Garvin.”

  Shayne held on, scowling through the glass door of the booth and wondering what in hell he was going to say to Garvin when he answered.

  A new voice said dubiously, “I believe Mr. Garvin is in the manager’s office at the moment. Is the matter important enough to-?”

  “Sure,” Shayne cut in swiftly, a tingle coursing down his spine with the knowledge that his hunch had been right. “Switch me to Leo’s private wire.”

  After a few clicks and a buzz, Leo Gannet’s sanctimonious voice said, “Yes?”

  “Let me speak to Carl Garvin.”

  “Garvin left thirty minutes ago. Sorry, but-”

  “I’ve got to find him,” Shayne said urgently. “This is a friend of his and I’ve got some money that belongs to him. I promised to see him tonight, but I got tied up-” He let his voice trail off and listened hopefully.

  His hunch paid off. “I-see. You must be the one-” He paused, then said, “Did Mr. Garvin have a definite appointment to meet you tonight?”

  “Not definite.”

  “The reason I asked is that when he left here I was under the impression he was meeting someone who owed him money,” Gannet went on in his deep, resonant voice. “In fact, I expect him back in an hour or so. If you do see him, tell him I’ll be here until four o’clock.”

  “I’ll do that,” Shayne promised blithely. He hung up and went back to the booth, slid into the wooden seat opposite Rourke, and shook his head sadly:

  “It was a bum steer, Tim. I’m afraid I dragged you down here for nothing.”

  “That’s all right.” Rourke took a drink from his refilled glass and asked, “Did you happen to hear the midnight newscast?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I thought maybe you hadn’t,” said Rourke casually, “or you wouldn’t have made that crack about breaking the case while Gentry tried to.”

  Shayne had his glass halfway to his lips. He held it there and stared at the reporter for a moment, grated, “Give, Tim,” and downed a long drink of cognac.

  “You’ll get some credit,” Rourke assured him generously. “It was your tip that put Will on the right track.”

  “Give,” he said again.

  “Ralph Morton. If they haven’t picked him up yet, they soon will. Remember, you told Will to look for Sara’s good-for-nothing husband.”

  The strained tightness went out of Shayne’s face. “Glad my tip helped. What about Ralph Morton?”

  “I went down to our morgue after I left your place and dug up an old picture of Sara Morton’s husband,” Rourke explained happily. “We showed it around the Tidehaven, and sure enough, the doorman and one of the elevator operators identified him as a man they’d seen around the hotel about six o’clock.”

  “So?” Shayne waited with lifted brows, noting the exultant expression in the reporter’s eyes.

  “Then we were in luck. Covering the fourteenth floor, we found a guest who went down the corridor from his room at six-fifteen and saw Ralph Morton pounding on his wife’s door and calling for her to open up. He said the man was obviously drunk, and he hurried past so as not to get mixed up in any trouble, but he’s positive of the identification.”

  “Good work,” Shayne said with admiration.

  Rourke’s eyes looked puzzled at the note of genuine pleasure in Shayne’s voice. “Sure it’s good work,” he said stubbornly.

  “With Ralph Morton tagged for the job,” Shayne went on happily, “I suppose Will won’t bother about checking Edwin Paisly.”

  “Paisly?” Rourke frowned over the name, then grinned and said, “Oh- la Morton’s current heart-throb.”

  “Do you know him?” Shayne growled.

  “I remember running into him once at the Golden Cock when they were having cocktails. As a matter of fact, Will did check on him. Seems he had a dinner date with her at seven and he sat around waiting for her like a good little boy until around nine-thirty. He called her at the hotel to find out why she hadn’t come, and the cops answered. They invited him over, bu
t he didn’t accept.”

  “I know about that. Who is he?”

  “I don’t know anything about him except that when Morton introduced him that time she said he was an actor, but neglected to mention any roles he’d played. I imagine she picked him up and brought him to Miami to gigolo her around. She has a reputation for having handsome young men escorts. She had one a few years ago she’d gotten out of some sort of shady deal and was reforming him,” he ended with a grin.

  “He’s another one with an alibi from seven o’clock on,” Shayne muttered. “If we could prove Miss Morton didn’t know her watch was an hour slow when she wrote that note to me-they’d all three have alibis.”

  “I don’t know what three you’re talking about,” the reporter admitted, “but Ralph Morton is the boy who is really up the creek without any alibi.”

  “That’s all to the good,” Shayne said cheerfully. “And if it’s true, it’ll earn me ten grand just like that.” He snapped his fingers loudly and hurried on: “Now I can afford to buy you another drink.” He beckoned to the waiter and got out his billfold.

  When the waiter came over he said, “Bring Mr. Rourke anything he wants to drink. Nothing for me.” He laid a bill on the table and got up.

  “What’s your hurry, Mike? Don’t you think it’s a little late to keep that date with Bea now?” He grinned and added, “I imagine she and Lucy are sound asleep by now.”

  Shayne stopped in mid-stride and turned back to the grinning reporter. “What gave you the idea she’s at Lucy’s?”

  Rourke shrugged his thin shoulders. “Where else would you drop her off while you came to your apartment, knowing the cops would probably be there? You must have some sort of hex on Lucy to get her to take in your other women and then lie about it. She denied everything when I called and asked to speak to Miss Lally.”

  “My secretary never lies,” Shayne told him with a scowl. “She also goes to church on Sunday, is kind to her aged mother-and I’m going to get her an unlisted number so my idiotic friends won’t bother her with their gags.”

  He turned and strode out and down the block to his car, got in and drove directly to the Boulevard, then north to Lucy Hamilton’s apartment.

  It was well past midnight and the neighborhood was quiet, the windows dark, and Shayne sat behind the steering-wheel for several minutes before deciding to go in instead of telephoning to make certain Miss Lally was still with Lucy.

  He went in and pushed the button for three long, steady rings before the buzzer released the door latch. Sweat was streaming down his face when he grabbed the knob and went in and up the stairs.

  Lucy’s pajamaed and robed figure was outlined in the doorway, and he saw that she was looking past him with stony eyes as he approached. Her body stiffened when he put his hands on her shoulders, and she stepped back, folded her arms across her breasts.

  “So you didn’t bring her back with you,” Lucy said in a cool, detached voice, while burning anger replaced the stony stare in her brown eyes.

  Shayne went in and closed the door, demanded harshly, “Didn’t bring who back?”

  “That Lally woman! Your dear Beatrice. The next time, Michael Shayne, that you-”

  “Hold it, Lucy, for God’s sake,” he groaned. “What do you mean? Isn’t she here?”

  “You should know,” she spat at him.

  “Why should I know?” He caught her shoulders again and shook her roughly. “What’s this all about?”

  She ducked away from him. “She went to you fast enough when you whistled. Oh, no, I wasn’t to come. And that nasty-nice smile of hers when she told me coyly you’d warned her particularly not to tell me where you were meeting her.”

  Shayne sank down on the couch and asked hoarsely, “What happened, Lucy? Where did she go?”

  “Where you told her to, of course-and the minute she hung up the receiver after you telephoned. Wild horses wouldn’t have held her-and practically telling me to my face she was-”

  Shayne reached both arms out and pulled her down beside him. “Get hold of yourself, Lucy. This is serious. I didn’t phone her to come anywhere. Tell me exactly what happened.”

  Chapter Nine

  The Lady Vanishes

  Lucy pulled away from him and sat sideways on the edge of the couch to face him, seeing for the first time the worried lines in his gaunt face. “There’s nothing to tell,” she said, “except what you already know. You told her to meet you-”

  “If she said I told her to meet me some place, she lied,” Shayne cut in harshly. “I made that phone call for the benefit of another guy who was listening in and wanted to be assured she hadn’t talked to the police.”

  “I’m not talking about that call,” she said, the puzzled expression clearing from her eyes. “She told me all about that. It was the second call-half an hour later.”

  “Second call?” He stared at her in astonishment. “I only called once. Tell me about this other one-exactly what time was it?”

  “A little after midnight. We turned on the midnight newscast and listened to the first part, about the Morton case, then turned it off and I-”

  “Hold it,” said Shayne swiftly. “Was anything said that could have tipped off a listener that Miss Lally was spending the night here with you?”

  “No.” Lucy shook her head decisively. “The only mention of her was that the police hadn’t located her for questioning. It was mostly about Miss Morton’s husband-how he had been positively identified as being in her room at six-fifteen, and it seemed practically certain he had murdered her.”

  Shayne leaned back against the cushion and said, “All right. Now go on about the phone call. Place the time as close as you can.”

  “Between ten and fifteen minutes after twelve,” she told him. “Do you mean someone else called and pretended to be you-and lured her away from here?”

  “You should be able to recognize my voice over the phone by this time,” Shayne growled. “My God! Lucy, I thought I could trust you to take care of her.”

  “But I didn’t answer the phone that second time,” she snapped. “I didn’t even hear it ring. I was under the shower with a bathing-cap over my hair and ears. She answered it. You couldn’t expect her to recognize your voice-or was that a gag about you two meeting for the first time tonight?”

  “It wasn’t a gag, Lucy,” he said with weary impatience. “Tell me what happened without all these interpolations.”

  “I came out of the shower and opened the door a crack to let the steam out and some air in. She was just ending the conversation, and I heard her say, ‘Just as fast as I can get there.’ I stuck my head out the door and asked her who had called. That’s when she turned all nasty-nice and coy. She blushed and tossed her head with a certain gleam in her eyes and said it was you and she was to hurry and meet you right away.”

  “And?” Shayne demanded when she paused thoughtfully.

  “I was just thinking about the way she can use her eyes when she hasn’t got those awful glasses on,” she interposed, and seeing the scowl on Shayne’s face hurried on:

  “I said I’d throw on something in a hurry and go with her, thinking you wouldn’t want her to leave here alone, but she said oh, no! that you had said particularly she was to come alone. I decided-well-that you had your private reason for telling her that, so I didn’t argue with her, but I did ask where she was meeting you.

  “She really got defensively coy then and said she was so sorry but you wanted her to keep it a deep secret and not to tell me anything. So, what would you expect me to think or do? If you think I’m going to interfere with your making love to every-”

  “You should know me better than that,” he broke in irritably, suddenly sitting erect and looking into her troubled brown eyes. He laid a big hand over her interlaced fingers in her lap. “Don’t worry, angel. But we’ve got to think fast what to do about her.”

  She swallowed hard and said, “I guess I messed things up, but I don’t know what I could have done,
Michael. She’s bigger than I am, and I couldn’t have held her by force. I–I guess I could have followed her-if I hadn’t been so-so angry. Do you think she’s in danger? Do you think it was the murderer who pretended to be you on the phone?”

  “I think the only thing that’s really in danger is my collecting the first half of a ten grand fee,” he told her. “It was Will Gentry, of course. Gentry and Tim Rourke together. They probably had one of Gentry’s men make the actual call in case you answered the phone. Tim told me he called earlier but you refused to tell him anything.”

  Lucy nodded and her face brightened. “About eleven-thirty. I recognized his voice and simply denied that I knew anything at all about a Miss Lally. What do you mean about losing a fee, Michael?”

  “A man named Burton Harsh. I jockeyed him into laying five thousand on the line within an hour on my promise to keep Lally away from the police. The fool got tight and threatened to kill Sara Morton last night.” He gave Lucy a brief resume of Harsh’s story, added, “If Harsh learns that Gentry has Miss Lally before he deposits that down payment at my hotel he won’t deposit it.”

  He sat for a moment tugging at his left ear lobe and frowning, then muttered, “If they really do have Morton’s husband tagged for the job, there’s no reason Harsh’s threat need be made public. If I can reach Gentry and get him to listen to reason-”

  He swung up from the couch and started for the phone, saying, “How about a drink, angel, while I call Will.”

  He dialed headquarters and asked for Gentry when a strange voice answered.

  “The chief is out at the moment,” the man told him. “Can I help you?”

  “It’s a personal matter,” Shayne hedged, “having to do with Miss Beatrice Lally, a witness in the Morton case.”

  “Oh-yes. We want very much to get in touch with Miss Lally. If you have any information as to her whereabouts, please give it to me.”

  “I understood she had given herself up and was with the chief now,” Shayne said.

  “I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed. Hold on just a moment. By the way, who is this calling?”