Framed in Blood ms-20

by Brett Halliday

  “What’s Tim Rourke to you?” demanded Shayne.

  “Just-a good friend.” Color flooded her pale face under Shayne’s searching gaze, but she lifted her chin defiantly. “Tim has been like a brother to both of us.”

  “Does Tim buy you champagne?”

  “Sometimes,” she answered aloofly.

  Shayne studied her for a moment, allowing himself to wonder. He knew Rourke’s weakness for beautiful women. Then he made an impatient gesture and growled, “All this stuff about your personal life doesn’t interest me. Why did you come here?”

  “I want to find Bert.”

  “Start looking in the nearest bars,” Shayne advised her callously. “It’s not more than an hour since he left here. I doubt if he’s gotten far.”

  “Tim said he would check the places where Bert usually goes,” she said dubiously. “But we’re both afraid he’ll try to do-that other-by himself.”

  “You mean the extortion deal?”

  “Yes. He’s been getting up his nerve for weeks. I’ve tried to make him see how foolish it is, but he insists.” She paused, and again her voice rose hysterically. “It’s that other woman! She’s driven him to it-wanting money-offering to go away with him.”

  “That’s twice,” said Shayne patiently, “that you’ve mentioned some other woman in connection with your husband. He gave me the impression he wanted the money for you.”

  “Then he lied! All this last month-”

  Her mouth trembled, and she was making a supreme effort to control herself when Shayne got up and said, “Let me get you a drink.”

  “No thanks,” she said angrily, then added with heavy sarcasm, “You probably haven’t any champagne.”

  Shayne was at the liquor cabinet reaching for a bottle of cognac, his back turned toward her. He grinned briefly. Along with her beauty, he decided, Betty Jackson appeared to have spirit and courage. “No champagne,” he told her evenly, “but I could mix a cocktail. Sherry?”

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “Sherry will be fine.” She was relaxed with her hands folded in her lap when he came back with two glasses. He gave her the sherry and resumed his seat, took a sip of cognac, and nursed the glass between his palms.

  Betty Jackson sipped her sherry, then said, “I want to tell you everything and get your help. Tim says you’re perfectly wonderful.” A wan smile flitted across her lips and she added, “You know, we always call you Mike when we speak of you.”

  “Tim Rourke is full of blarney,” he replied. “Call me Mike if you like, and I have just fifteen minutes to listen before I have to go out.”

  She moved to the edge of the chair and leaned toward him, her eyes wide and hopeful, her lips parted, as though she considered her thoughts carefully before speaking.

  Her expression disturbed him. He said impatiently, “Let’s get down to cases. I gather you know about the scandal your husband has dug up and hopes to sell for a big price.”

  “Yes. He’s been gathering the data for weeks, but it’s only lately that he’s been talking about holding it back from the paper.”

  “Who’s the man in the scandal?” he asked bluntly.

  “I don’t know. But when I told Tim about it he said it was crazy and about as safe as playing with an atomic bomb. Tim says no matter who it is, if the man is mixed up in the sort of graft Bert claims, he’ll have all sorts of underworld connections who won’t hesitate to commit murder to keep the story quiet.”

  “Tim’s probably right,” Shayne agreed. “You’re afraid Bert will go direct to the man tonight after I turned down a chance to help him collect?”

  “Yes.” She shivered, then took a quick sip of sherry before saying, “I know that’s what he’ll do, Mike. He’s bewitched by that woman and by his insane jealousy of me.”

  Shayne glanced at his watch. It was almost time for him to leave to keep his dinner date with Lucy Hamilton. “If you really want to find your husband before he does anything foolish, why don’t you check with this woman you’ve mentioned? That’s probably where he is.”

  “But I don’t know who she is. That’s one thing Tim said you could do, find out her name and whether Bert is there tonight.”

  “How am I supposed to find out her name?”

  “Tim says you’re the best detective in the country,” she answered simply.

  “Yeh,” grated Shayne. “But how in hell does a detective find out the name of some woman you think your husband is in love with?”

  “I know where she lives,” she told him, eager and hopeful again, “At the Las Felice apartments on Northwest Sixty-Seventh Street. Tim said you’d know how to go there and check up on all the women and find out which one Bert goes to see.”

  “Tim says a lot of things,” Shayne growled. He glanced at his watch again, frowned, and hurried on. “Frankly, Mrs. Jackson, after meeting your husband this afternoon I can’t work myself up into a lather about what happens to him. I have an engagement.” He drained his glass and started to rise.

  “I wish you’d call me Betty,” she said wistfully, coming to her feet. Her face was tragic and full of despair. “You’re supposed to be Tim’s friend. You care about what happens to him, don’t you?” She took a few steps toward him, swaying a little.

  “What’s Tim got to do with it?” he demanded roughly.

  “He’s out looking for Bert right now. If he finds him while they’re both in this mood-I don’t know what might happen.”

  “Tim can take care of himself.”

  “But don’t you see that Bert is using the thing that happened on the News as a lever?” she cried out. “If anything happens to him and it all comes out-”

  She was weeping openly now, moving close to him. Shayne had to catch her in his arms to prevent her slipping to the floor as she flung herself upon him. Her arms went around his neck and she clung to him, sobbing convulsively.

  “Please, Mike. Don’t you see that Tim is determined to prevent that? I’m so frightened. If they should meet while they’re both angry and upset-”

  Shayne had both hands under her armpits to push her away when the door opened.

  “Pardon me, Mr. Shayne,” Lucy Hamilton said frigidly. “If I’d known you were entertaining a client I wouldn’t have dreamed of intruding. But the door was on the latch.”

  Shayne whirled about angrily, slipping his hands along Betty Jackson’s clinging arms to disengage them from his neck. He growled, “Skip it, Lucy. This isn’t a client. It’s Mrs. Jackson-a friend of Tim Rourke’s.” Lucy was cool and poised in a frosty-green cocktail dress, lace gloves, and a wide-brimmed hat. She looked down her straight nose at Betty’s tear-stained face and murmured, “How nice for Tim. I came up to save you the trouble of stopping by for me, Michael, but if you’re otherwise engaged-”

  “I’m not,” Shayne assured her. “Mrs. Jackson is on her way out.” He took her firmly by the arm and led her to the door, thrust her into the corridor without a word, and swung back to try to make his peace with Lucy.

  Chapter Three

  BLOOD MINUS BODY

  The insistent ringing of the telephone wakened Shayne. He lay in the darkness and mechanically counted the rings. On the tenth, he threw back the covers and turned on the light. A long-standing arrangement with the switchboard operator in the hotel gave him no hope that the phone would stop ringing until he answered. Not if the call was important. If the operator considered it unimportant he would let it ring three times, inform the caller that Shayne was not in, and break the connection.

  Shayne took his time, stretching and yawning widely. He looked at his watch. The time was seven minutes after two. He padded into the living-room, barefooted and gaunt-faced after less than an hour’s sleep. Lifting the receiver he growled, “Mike Shayne.”

  “Dead drunk-from the time it took you to answer.” Chief Will Gentry’s gruff voice rumbled over the wire.

  “Not yet,” said Shayne amicably. “Hold the line a minute, Will, while I pick up a bottle.”

 
“Damn it, Mike,” Gentry protested, before Shayne laid the receiver down and went across the room where he took a half-filled cognac bottle from the liquor cabinet. He drew the cork as he returned to the desk, took a long drink, grinning at the unintelligible snorts emanating from the prone instrument.

  Plunking the bottle down hard, he picked up the receiver and said, “What’s on your mind, Will?”

  “Your office, Shamus,” Gentry snapped. “Get down here as fast as you can.”

  “What about my office?” Shayne scowled at the wall. “What in hell are you doing there?”

  “I’ll expect you in ten minutes,” Gentry said flatly.

  The banging of the receiver rang in Shayne’s ears. He hung up, took another drink from the bottle, and tugged absently at his left ear lobe as he slowly returned to the bedroom.

  It took him five minutes to dress and only a few minutes more for his long-legged strides to carry him the few blocks to the downtown office building where he had rented a suite because Lucy Hamilton, his secretary, did not consider it proper to work in her employer’s apartment.

  Chief Gentry’s sedan and two radio cars were parked at the curb, and a uniformed patrolman guarded the entrance to the building. The officer intercepted Shayne as he swung into the doorway.

  “Nobody allowed in-” he began, then stepped aside. “It’s you,” he amended. “Chief’s waiting for you upstairs, Mr. Shayne.”

  Shayne strode to the elevator which was manned by another officer whom he didn’t recognize. He stepped inside, and the man fumbled with the controls to get the door closed, sent the cage jerkily upward to the third floor where Shayne got out and went down the corridor.

  He stopped in front of an open door that was scarred from jimmy marks around the lock and bore leaf-gold lettering on the frosted glass reading: Michael Shayne-Private Investigator.

  Detective Sergeant Riley stood just inside the reception room over which Lucy Hamilton presided from nine to five every day. Around her desk and the filing-cabinet papers were scattered over the floor.

  Shayne’s bleak gaze swept over the disorder and came back to the sergeant’s face. “What the hell goes on, Riley? If you guys wanted something-”

  “The chief’s inside,” Riley interrupted, jerking his thumb toward a closed door marked Private.

  Shayne set his jaw and stalked to the door, flung it open to a scene of devastating wreckage. The drawers of his desk were pulled out and piled on the floor. The compartments of a tall green metal filing-cabinet stood open, and piles of papers and cardboard folders lay haphazardly around it.

  Two men squatted on the floor, their backs toward Shayne, pawing through the papers. Shayne closed the door quietly and watched for a moment, his eyes smoldering dangerously.

  “If you’re looking for a drink,” he said, “I keep a bottle stashed in the top compartment.”

  Will Gentry turned his graying head slowly, grunted as he heaved his bulk upward, and turned to face Shayne; but his companion continued to squat on his heels, poking industriously through the papers.

  Shayne lounged forward and lowered one hip to a corner of his desk. He lit a cigarette and said, “Even if you’ve got a search warrant, Will, you might have called Lucy and asked her to get whatever you’re looking for. Sometimes she has a little trouble finding things, but she never has to go this far.”

  Chief Gentry was a big man with a normally ruddy and good-natured face. Now, purple veins stood out from the ruddiness, and his murky gray eyes were angry. “You know we didn’t do this,” he snorted.

  “What the hell am I supposed to think?” said Shayne. “I find the two of you squatting on your haunches going through my stuff.”

  “Cut it,” said Gentry wearily. He went to the swivel chair behind the desk and dropped into it. “Let it go, Morgan,” he said to the officer. “Go on out and wait with Riley. And close the door,” he added as the Homicide dick reluctantly arose and let the paper in his hand flutter to the floor.

  Shayne’s eyes narrowed when he recognized Detective Morgan. He waited until the door was closed before asking Gentry, “How does Homicide come into this?”

  “A stiff,” grunted Gentry. He took out an ugly blackish cigar, looked at it distastefully with slightly protuberant eyes, and returned it to his inside pocket. “When were you here last, Mike?”

  Shayne half-stood, turned, and lowered the other side of his buttocks onto the desk to face Gentry. “About four-thirty. Lucy and I closed up early. We had a dinner date, and she went home to doll up.”

  “Neither of you been back?” Gentry persisted.

  Shayne shook his red head slowly. “Who’s the stiff, Will? Give it to me.”

  “Can you prove you haven’t been here since four-thirty?” Gentry parried.

  “I had to doll up, too. You know how Lucy is. Do I need an alibi?” he asked impatiently.

  Gentry took the cigar out again, lit it, and said, “What you working on now, Mike?” He emitted a puff of noxious smoke and watched it float drearily through the airless room.

  “Nothing. That’s why we closed up early.”

  “No recent client?”

  “Look, Will,” said Shayne patiently, “if I had a client I’d be working.”

  “Put it this way, then. What have you got hidden in your office that somebody’d go to all this trouble to find?” He waved a plump, stubby hand over the wreckage.

  “Not a damned thing,” said Shayne promptly. “I mean it, Will. All this stuff is junk-stuff from old cases that are closed.”

  “A man was murdered tonight,” Gentry rumbled, “so that killers could get in here and go through your office.”

  “Who?”

  “The night elevator operator. Don’t hold out on me, Mike. It’s got to be a case you’re working on.”

  “I’m not working,” Shayne reminded him. “Mike Caffrey?”

  “That’s the name we found on his operator’s license,” said Gentry.

  Shayne ground out his cigarette in a desk ash tray. A muscle twitched in his angular jaw, and his eyes were bleak. An innocent old man who addressed him as “Mr. Shayne” and whom he always called “Mike” was dead. And a wide-eyed dame named Betty, a fanatic named Bert-and maybe Tim Rourke, plus a reporter named Brooks were probably responsible-plus a Mr. Big and a girl named Marie.

  He was brooding over the possibility when Gentry said, “We haven’t anything to go on, Mike. Just Caffrey with his head smashed to a pulp. Soon as we know what they wanted from your office we’ll have something to work on.”

  “I swear I don’t know, Will,” he said solemnly.

  “Can you tell if anything is missing?” Gentry demanded.

  Shayne looked at the piles of papers and said disgustedly, “Lucy might-after a month or so of straightening up and refiling. You know how I work. When I’m on a case I carry most of my stuff here.” He tapped his temple. “Lucy records the case afterward with whatever documentary evidence comes to light.”

  “That’s not good enough.” Gentry bobbed forward in the new, well-oiled swivel chair. “You must have some idea-”

  He was interrupted by a rapping on the door which opened immediately to admit the tall, emaciated figure of Timothy Rourke. He whistled expressively as he closed the door and said, “I just got home and was ready to park my car and turn in when I got the flash. What’s up, Mike?”

  “Ask Will,” said Shayne. “He’s telling the story. I’m on the side line this time.”

  “I doubt that,” said Gentry. “It has to be something important-worth killing for.”

  Rourke’s slate-gray eyes glittered in their cavernous sockets, and his nostrils flared. “Could it be the Bert Jackson deal, Mike?”

  “As I’ve told Gentry,” Shayne said calmly, “I have no idea what anybody could be after.”

  “Who’s Bert Jackson?” Gentry demanded, his half-closed lids rolling up like miniature awnings, his murky eyes fixed on Rourke.

  “A punk I threw out of my apartment
this afternoon,” Shayne interposed. “I told you that, Tim. I told you I wouldn’t touch his proposition with a ten-foot pole.”

  “Yeh. You told me that,” said Rourke. His eyes shifted feverishly from Shayne to Gentry and to the littered floor.

  “What sort of proposition?” rumbled Gentry.

  “What does it matter?” Shayne said hastily. “I’ve told you I turned it down flat.” He didn’t look at Gentry, but turned to study Rourke with brooding curiosity. He caught a glimpse of panic in the reporter’s expression before he turned away and slumped into a chair.

  There was a long silence between them. Gentry chewed his cigar across his mouth twice, then said, “You can go home if you’re not going to give us anything we can use.”

  Shayne slid from the desk and took a turn around the small private office. Rourke was sprawled in the one extra chair in the room, his head lolling against the back and his eyes closed.

  Stopping before Gentry, Shayne said, “You know I’d give if I had anything, Will.”

  “If you thought you wouldn’t pass up the chance to make a buck. Don’t lie to me.”

  “Have I ever lied to you?” Shayne demanded.

  “Hell, yes. Any time it suited you. And I think it suits you now, by God.” Gentry struck the desk resoundingly with the heel of his doubled fist. “When I prove it, you’ll lose your license. I’ve been lenient before, but I warn you that this time I mean it.”

  Shayne rubbed his angular jaw thoughtfully. “We’ve been friends a long time, Will.”

  “And I’ve taken a lot from you,” fumed Gentry. “What about this Bert Jackson? Rourke said-”

  “Why don’t you call Lucy and ask her?” Shayne interrupted.

  “I did call Lucy, before I called you.”

  “And?”

  “How do I know you hadn’t called her first and told her to keep quiet?”