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  A Redhead for Mike Shayne

  A Mike Shayne Mystery

  Brett Halliday

  MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

  1

  It was pitch dark inside the narrow confines of the dispatcher’s office in the big liquor warehouse, but Michael Shayne’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness during the two hours of more-or-less patient waiting that had gone before, and he could make out everything about him with fair clarity.

  Not that there was very much to see inside the small office. There was a telephone on the desk beside him, and a water cooler with nested paper cups on the other side of the open door leading out to the big padlocked back doors that opened wide during daylight hours to let the trucks back in on loading ramps. To the right of that same open door was a five-gallon electric coffee maker, and a china mug on the table near Shayne’s right hand held the dregs of the fifth cup of the strong black stuff he had downed since setting down for his lonely vigil at eight-thirty.

  It was the first routine stake-out job that the red-headed private detective had undertaken personally for a good many years, and he’d forgotten how tiring and boring such an assignment could be. But the Acme Bonding Company which had the contents of the warehouse covered against theft was one of Shayne’s oldest regular clients, and they had paid him a substantial annual retainer to look after their affairs in the Miami area for more years than he liked to remember. Indeed, back in those years of slim pickings when he was first establishing himself in private practice the Acme retainer had often meant the difference between paying office rent and not paying it, and he owed them enough loyalty to take on this onerous job tonight himself when he was unable to find another competent operative to handle it on short notice.

  It was the result of a vague inside tip that this particular warehouse was slated to be burglarized tonight. Two similar warehouses (neither covered by Acme) had been knocked off in Dade County during the preceding two months, both resulting in heavy losses and with no clues to the perpetrators.

  Both had been carefully planned and seemingly inside jobs, smoothly and daringly carried out under cover of weather conditions similar to those prevailing tonight.

  Because it was the hurricane season in Miami, and thus far during the autumn months the southern end of the Peninsula had been swept by the tag-end or side-effects of three vicious storms which had passed by at sea. At the height of two of those storms the warehouses had been raided. With winds of seventy miles an hour and occasional gusts reaching an intensity of ninety or a hundred miles, it was commonplace for power service to be disrupted in various sections of the area for periods of a few minutes to an hour or more before emergency crews could repair the damage, and the liquor thieves had taken advantage of this situation and the resultant confusion by selecting vulnerable targets in sections that were blacked out during the storms.

  It could have been, authorities conceded, mere chance that the two successful operations had taken place with only the assistance of natural forces, but it seemed much more likely that the thieves had carefully determined their target beforehand while the storm was brewing and cut the power lines at a strategic point at the height of the storm to black out the section surrounding the selected warehouse.

  This had the effect of not only giving them cover of darkness in which to operate, but also cut off the automatic alarm systems installed in the warehouses for protection.

  That is why Michael Shayne sat alone in the darkened dispatcher’s office tonight and moodily and uncomfortably waited for something to happen.

  For two days now, the course of Tropical Storm Fatima had been charted by government experts and reported to the residents of Miami in the newspapers and over the radio. Small-craft storm warnings were out from Key West to Jacksonville, and communities along the coast were comfortably battened down to withstand gale winds up to a predicted eighty miles per hour. Since early afternoon the skies over Miami had been sullenly overcast and the humidity had become increasingly oppressive. By early evening the wind was rising and heavy showers were sweeping the city. The rain had developed into a heavy deluge at seven-thirty when Shayne drove across the MacArthur Causeway to Miami Beach where the warehouse was located, and fifty-mile gusts of wind swayed his heavy car on the unprotected causeway. The height of the storm was predicted for eleven o’clock, and inside the well-constructed building there were creakings and groanings while a steady downpour of wind-driven rain assaulted the arched roof overhead.

  Inside the small office Shayne was as snug and comfortable as a man could be under the circumstances. The airconditioning system throughout the building was normally kept in operation twenty-four hours a day to provide a steady temperature for the wines and spirits stored there, the manager had explained to Shayne when he settled him in at eight-thirty after all the other employees had gone home, so he would be cool enough during the night and would have immediate warning if the power inside the building were cut off during the storm.

  The hum of the airconditioner and the flow of cool air from an opening overhead were steady and reassuring—and increasingly soporific. Shayne stirred in his chair and yawned widely, and lit another cigarette, grateful for the draft of forced air which would carry away the smoke and the telltale odor of tobacco if an entrance were attempted. He grinned wryly as he recalled other stake-out jobs in the distant past when such assignments were a routine part of operative’s job, when he had been carefully searched for cigarettes and matches before being planted in a spot like this for similar night-long vigils which had generally ended in frustrating failure.

  That was long ago when youth was daring and impatient, and preferred action to inaction at any cost. Tonight, Shayne admitted to himself comfortably and with another yawn, he would be perfectly content to have the storm pass overhead with no interruption, proving the tip of attempted robbery as baseless and allowing him to go home and catch a few hours sleep in his own bed.

  At that moment the steady hum of the airconditioner ceased. Shayne straightened alertly and snubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray. He had no way of knowing, of course, whether the power interruption was purely accidental or whether it had been carefully arranged. In any event, the burglar alarm system was now inoperative and the building could be broken into with impunity.

  Remaining quietly in his chair, the detective withdrew a short-barrelled .38 from his waistband and cocked it. With his left hand he got a powerful flashlight from his side coat pocket and rested it on his knee with his thumb resting lightly on the switch. His position just inside the open door of the office had been carefully selected strategically. Directly beyond the opening were the big back doors that would have to be unlocked from the inside and swung open before any major theft could take place.

  It seemed suddenly very quiet with the hum of the air-conditioning off. The creakings and the groanings of the building and the noise of rain lashing the roof were intensified with the absence of other sound.

  Shayne glanced down at his wristwatch and the illuminated hands stood at a quarter of eleven. It was the right time. If anything was going to happen it would begin happening in the next few minutes. One could never be sure how long it would take an emergency crew to locate the damage and repair the service on a night lik
e this. If the gang was well organized they would have men ready to enter the building as soon as the alarm system was put out of commission.

  He heard the faint tinkle of glass not far away and knew that a window had been smashed. They wouldn’t be careful of noise at this point. Speed was essential. It would be one of the ground-floor windows of the main offices down the hall, he thought, and he leaned forward in the chair to peer in that direction.

  He waited tensely and saw a dancing flicker of light play against the wall of the corridor. It steadied as he watched it, and almost immediately a flashlight, held waist-high, emerged from one of the office doors and swung down the corridor in his direction.

  He drew back so the light of the flash would pass him by and shine harmlessly into the interior of his hideaway as the man came closer, his own flashlight held ready, the first finger of his right hand firmly on the trigger of his revolver.

  He would wait as long as possible before exposing himself to the intruder. It was almost a certainty that the man had a duplicate key to the padlock on the back door, and if he felt he was alone in the building he would first unlock the doors to let a truck back inside.

  There would be two or three men with the truck, Shayne reasoned, to do a fast job of loading it, and if he were lucky he’d be able to take them by surprise and round up the whole gang.

  The light flashed through the door opening in front of him from a distance of twenty feet, casually showing the emptiness of the small office, flickered away to the right as the bearer of it hurried around the bend in the corridor with the beam directed toward the back doors.

  He passed within two feet of Michael Shayne, and was silhouetted momently against the reflected light of his flash, showing a medium-sized, slender, bareheaded man, bent forward slightly, and there was the glint of metal in his right hand as he approached the locked doors.

  He straightened in front of the doors and Shayne waited breathlessly for him to pocket the gun and produce a key to unlock the padlock.

  Instead, there occurred one of those inexplicable happenings which confound reason. Perhaps some sixth sense warned him of danger from behind. Perhaps there was some animal emanation from the detective who waited so tensely. Shayne was destined to never know what caused him to whirl about suddenly, sinking into a crouch and shining the beam of his torch directly into the detective’s face as he waited inside the open doorway.

  Michael Shayne’s left thumb and right forefinger reacted simultaneously. The powerful beam from his flash bathed the crouching figure in white light at exactly the same moment as the gun in the man’s right hand erupted in an ear-shattering series of explosions so closely spaced that they sounded like one long-drawn blast. And Shayne practically felt the bullets fanning the still air above his hair by the fraction of an inch.

  At the same instant, his own weapon punctuated the r-r-r-r-r-r of the other gun.

  The flashlight and the gun clattered to the floor, and the shadowy figure of the man swayed and then crumpled downward into a shapeless heap of lifeless flesh.

  The flashlight lay on the floor with its beam focussed on the wall four feet away. The gunman lay quiescent, unmoving.

  Shayne got up from his chair stiffly. Faintly, through the closed and padlocked doors, he heard the roar of a truck’s motor, the high-pitched whine of gears as it moved away in the blacked-out area, and he knew he had muffed the assignment to a certain extent.

  Only one of the gang lay dead in front of him. The others outside had heard the rattle of gunfire inside the warehouse and were escaping.

  He went through the door shining his light down on the recumbent figure. He was young and had a pallid, ratlike face. He wore a blue, rain-repellent jacket which was unzippered to the waist, showing a black-and-white checkered sport shirt beneath. A spreading stain of crimson showed in the exact center of the chest of his sport shirt. Six inches from the curled fingers of his right hand lay the weapon which had thrown the lethal bullets that had sung their song of death above the red hairs on Shayne’s head just a minute before.

  It was a curious and ungainly sort of hand-weapon, unlike any pistol Shayne had ever seen before. He held his light full on it for a long moment, then stooped and picked it up speculatively. It felt curiously light in his hand for its bulk and its demonstrated lethal potential, and he hesitated before dropping it into his coat pocket and then bringing his thoughts back to the necessities of the moment.

  He turned back from the dead man, went into the dispatcher’s office and lifted the telephone to see if it had been put out of operation with the disruption of power.

  He was rewarded by the welcome humming of a dial tone, and he dialled the Miami Beach police headquarters and reported who he was and where he was, and that he had a dead body for them to come and pick up at their convenience.

  Then he hung up and poured himself a sixth mug of coffee, sat down and lit a cigarette and waited for the police to come.

  2

  Michael Shayne grew restive as he sipped the hot coffee and waited. He might be in for a long wait, he realized, before the police got around to answering his call on a night like this. There were innumerable small emergencies to be coped with during a storm like this one. Branches of trees blocking city streets, cars skidding on rain-slicked pavements or stalled at intersections under the pounding of wind and rain, flooded basements and terrified housewives phoning in to report suspected prowlers in their yards.

  And the Miami Beach police force would not consider his call a real emergency. After all, he had reported the man dead and promised to wait for them to come and pick up the body.

  The other man’s flashlight lay on the floor outside where it had fallen, still burning brightly, and Shayne had lain his own on the desk beside him, so the interior of the office was now quite well illuminated. Outside, the storm continued to rage without seeming abatement, while inside the heat seemed heavy and oppressive due to the sudden cessation of forced cool air. Sweat formed on Shayne’s forehead and he wiped it away angrily. He knew the apparent rise in temperature must be purely psychological. It probably hadn’t risen more than a full degree since the airconditioning went off, but it seemed at least ten degrees hotter.

  He shoved the mug of hot coffee away from him while it was still half full, and suddenly recalled that he had promised to telephone the warehouse manager the moment there was anything to report.

  There was a slip of paper beside the telephone with his name and home number written on it. Shayne turned his flashlight slightly to better illuminate the instrument and paper, bent forward and dialled the number written there.

  A woman’s voice answered the third ring. “Hello.”

  “Is Mr. Ericsson there?”

  “Just a moment.” And then he heard her voice calling faintly, “John. It’s for you.”

  The manager’s voice came over the wire twenty seconds later, “Yes? Ericsson speaking.”

  “Mike Shayne, Mr. Ericsson. Maybe you’d better come down to the warehouse.”

  “What? Has something happened, Shayne? Did they …?”

  “The power went off ten minutes ago,” Shayne told him succinctly, “and a man came in through one of the office windows. I had to kill him. I’m waiting for the police now.”

  “Gracious! That’s terrible. If you could have captured him alive.…”

  Shayne interrupted wearily, “I couldn’t. He was too quick on the trigger for that. Might be a good idea if you were here when the police come to verify the fact that I was hired to do the job.”

  “Of course, I … as soon as I can make it in all this wind. I’ll come to the side door, Shayne. The office entrance. I’ll … ah … knock twice and then once to let you know it is I. Please wait for me.”

  Shayne said drily, “I have no intention of going anywhere,” and hung up. He stood up, then, his mind active and interested now that he knew Ericsson was on his way. He picked up his flashlight and swung the beam across the desk to the opposite wall and focuss
ed it on a series of six distinct round holes in the woodwork spaced not more than a quarter of an inch apart and almost exactly horizontal.

  They were no more than four or five feet above the floor, directly in line with the chair in which he had been sitting and the point from which the man had fired through the open door.

  Shayne winced as he leaned forward to examine them more closely, knowing the bullets could not have passed many inches above his head. The round holes looked awfully big to have been made by slugs fired from a handgun, and he recalled the impression of an almost continuous blast of explosions which had blurred together into what was practically a single loud and murderous roar just before he pressed the trigger of his own gun.

  He shook his head angrily at the recollection. His memory and his imagination must be playing tricks on him. There was no automatic weapon on the market capable of throwing lead that fast.

  Still frowning, he reached in his pocket and took out the weapon to study it again, more closely. It was some sort of foreign make, he guessed, though he couldn’t identify it by sight. There was a six-inch barrel mounted solidly on an oval-shaped metal frame which extended all the way from trigger-guard to muzzle. It was hammerless. The butt was solid metal and rectangular, slanting backward from the frame at an odd angle of ten or fifteen degrees which gave the weapon an ungainly appearance, but which contributed a wonderful feeling of balance as he hefted it curiously, and which, in turn, probably gave the illusion of weightlessness which he had noticed when he first picked it up from the floor.

  He looked from the gun again to the row of even-spaced holes in the wall, and knew that whatever it was it was certainly the most dangerous and deadly hand-weapon ever devised by man. And he knew also that death had never brushed him more closely than it had tonight.

  The airconditioner started to hum as he stood there. It was a welcome sound, meaning that power had now been restored to the building. He dropped the gun back into his side pocket and moved around the desk to switch on the office lights. Then he stepped outside and pressed another switch that lighted the truck entrance and loading platform, and stood there a moment looking somberly at the body of the man he had killed.