Weep for a Blonde Read online

The reporter perched himself on the edge of a straight chair and got out a cigarette. He asked mildly, “You want to fill me in?”

  “Nothing I’d like more. Shayne killed a woman and we’ve got him sewed up tight. Unless he can swim across to England, that is.”

  “Mrs. Kane?”

  “Mrs. Kane,” Painter said happily. “His paramour. Your story in the News about the fracas at lunch today isn’t going to help him any. Stubborn bastard, isn’t he?”

  “Mike?” Rourke leaned back and contemplated a wavering smoke ring above his head.

  “Mike Shayne,” agreed Painter grimly. “Why in hell didn’t he have sense enough to leave her alone after her husband warned him off twice like that?”

  Rourke said ruefully, “Mike never was very good at listening to warnings. You were going to fill me in.”

  Peter Painter filled him in while Rourke gravely made notes on a wad of paper he had extracted from his hip pocket. The phone interrupted the detective chief twice, and his intercom buzzer rang three times while he outlined the case against the private detective. He barked curt orders into the phone and intercom, throwing every available man on the Beach force into tightening a cordon against Shayne’s escape from the water, demanding full cooperation from Will Gentry on the mainland and getting the Miami Police Chief’s promise that all the redhead’s known haunts would be covered, and that all exits from the city would be guarded on the faint chance that the wanted man would somehow make his way across Biscayne Bay.

  Through it all, Rourke sat brooding and unbelieving in his chair, jotting down meticulous notes as Painter filled in the picture for him between interruptions. When he completed his bitter explanation of the manner by which Shayne had cunningly manoeuvered himself out into deep water away from shore while a quartet of Beach policemen watched him disappear beneath the surface and escape into the depths of the ocean, Rourke folded his notes and tapped them thoughtfully with his pencil.

  He snorted, “So you really haven’t got a damned thing on Mike. Just that Mrs. Kane was murdered by an unknown person while Mike was outside the house.”

  “Nothing on him?” Painter was incredulous with outrage. “It’s a known fact he was her lover … that he was meeting her on the sly, and.…”

  “Who knows that to be a fact?” demanded Rourke coldly.

  “Every, by God, man, woman and child who reads either of the Miami papers. He fought over her with her husband publicly last night and again at noon today. My God, Rourke! You were there yourself and wrote up the story.”

  “Sure I was there. I heard an insanely jealous husband accusing Mike of being intimate with his wife. That doesn’t make it a fact.”

  “He slipped out to see her behind Kane’s back tonight.”

  “Because she was afraid of her husband and wanted protection,” Rourke said coldly. “What about the previous lover she told Mike about? I’d be looking for him if I were chief of detectives.”

  “What other man?” sneered Painter. “Kane flatly scotched that lie of Shayne’s. He denies every word of that absurd story.”

  Timothy Rourke shook his head sadly. “Honest to God, Painter, I feel real sorry for you. Won’t you ever learn? You’ve gone out on a limb to hang something on Mike before, but this is the farthest you’ve ever gone.”

  “His escape is an admission of guilt,” Painter contended stoutly. “No innocent man is afraid to stand up in court and disprove charges against himself.”

  Rourke continued to shake his head lugubriously. “You gave him no choice. Since you’re determined not to look for Mrs. Kane’s murderer, Mike knew he had to do it for you. He couldn’t do it locked up in your lousy jail even if it did build up a hell of a case for false arrest.”

  “And he can’t do it while he’s swimming around in the Atlantic either,” exulted Painter, a trembling thumbnail brushing the thin line of his mustache.

  “He’s a pretty good swimmer,” said Rourke absently.

  “He needs to be tonight. Goddamned good. Admit you’ve been mistaken in the man, Rourke. Play it smart this time. Write your story from the facts.”

  Rourke stood up slowly and rammed his notes back into a hip pocket. His black eyes glittered in their sockets and his lined face was grayish and drawn.

  “I’ll write my story from what I know about Mike Shayne,” he said evenly. “You’re sick inside, Painter, and God help you for it. The worms are gnawing at your guts and working their way up into your brain. If one of your trigger-happy boys in blue guns Mike Shayne tonight on your orders, I’ll crucify you.”

  Painter said, “Get out of this office.”

  Rourke said, “With pleasure. It stinks in here.” He turned stiffly toward the door.

  The buzzer sounded on Painter’s desk. He flipped the intercom open and said hoarsely, “Yeh?”

  Timothy Rourke stopped with his hand on the doorknob and his back to the office. There was silence behind him broken only by Painter’s loud breathing. When he finally said, “I got that,” his voice was so thin and shaken that Rourke turned curiously to look back at him.

  Painter was slumped forward on his desk with one hand clawing at his throat. His face was white and his eyeballs looked swollen and distended. When Rourke took an instinctive step back toward him, he lifted his head and panted through bared teeth, “Get out of here, I said.”

  Rourke went out quietly and closed the door of the private office behind him. Down the hall, in the room in front, he got the story.

  Michael Shayne had done it again. Officer Grayson and his partner in a Beach patrol car that had been stationed at the Penguin Club to prevent Shayne’s escape had shamefacedly checked in at Miami Police Headquarters chained together with their own handcuffs and told how the redhead had crouched on the floor in the back of their police car holding one of their own guns on them and forced them to drive through a roadblock on the County Causeway set up by their unsuspecting fellow officers, and on to the mainland where he had stepped out of the car and disappeared into the night just short of Biscayne Boulevard.

  Grim-faced and silent, Timothy Rourke absorbed the news, and left the police station to get in his car and drive back to Miami.

  14

  Back in Miami, Rourke drove slowly past his apartment building, carefully studying the parked cars in the block and noting there were no police cars among them. He turned the next corner onto a side street and pulled into the curb, thinking it might be just as well if he didn’t advertise his presence by parking in front.

  Another car pulled in behind his as the reporter got out, and he glanced at it incuriously as he circled in front of his car to the sidewalk. Its driver was the only occupant, and he slid across the seat and out the right-hand door as Rourke sauntered past. He fell into step a few paces behind Rourke and his hard heels echoed in rhythm on the concrete as Rourke turned the corner toward his building entrance.

  The reporter continued on without looking back, turned in at the entrance and was conscious of the man turning in behind him. As he drew open the wide front door, he glanced casually back to see if he recognized one of the building’s tenants.

  The man wore a dark business suit and a snap-brim hat tugged low over the forehead of a fleshy face that Rourke had never seen before. He caught the swinging door before it closed behind Rourke, followed him across the small, deserted lobby to a self-service elevator at the rear. An indicator showed the car was standing at the 4th floor. Rourke pressed a button and red light glowed on the dial and the indicator turned back slowly to I.

  As Rourke waited for it he was uncomfortably conscious of the stranger standing close behind him. When he opened the door and stepped inside, the man followed him into the small cage. With his finger hovering over the row of buttons numbered I to 6, Rourke turned to look at him and ask, “Which floor do you want?”

  The man said, “Whatever you say, Mr. Rourke, is all right with me.”

  Rourke’s extended finger stiffened without touching a button. He asked, “Di
d you tail me from the Beach?”

  “That’s right.” The man spread out a beefy hand, palm up. “The Chief figured that with Mike Shayne on the lam he might contact you. I’ll be around if he does.”

  Rourke shrugged bony shoulders and pressed the button for 4. He said flatly, “Mike would know better than to come here.”

  “Maybe. I’m just carrying out orders.”

  Rourke compressed his lips and faced front to open the door when the car slid to a smooth stop. He got out and strode up the hall with a vast sense of relief as he neared his door and saw no telltale strip of light on the threshold underneath. Shayne did have a duplicate key, and Rourke wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find him waiting inside on his return. He got out a key-ring and unlocked the door, opened it so the man behind him could get a good look and see the room was dark, told him coldly over his shoulder, “You can do your waiting outside while I get a night’s sleep.” He closed the door firmly behind him and switched on the ceiling light. He touched a finger warningly to his lips when he saw Michael Shayne’s rangy body lounged comfortably in a deep chair across the room. The redhead wore a pair of old fishing slacks and a disreputable jersey that he had left in Rourke’s apartment a couple of years previously, and on his feet were a battered pair of sneakers a couple of sizes too large for the reporter. An uncorked cognac bottle and a tumbler of ice water stood on a table near Shayne’s right hand, and he was just setting down an empty glass. Smoke curled lazily from a cigarette in a corner of his mouth and he arched ragged red eyebrows as he caught Rourke’s signal for silence.

  The reporter crossed the room to stand beside his chair, and said in a low voice, “One of Painter’s dicks trailed me home from the Beach. He’s hanging around outside on the chance you’ll show. Thank God you had sense enough to leave the light off.”

  Shayne grinned happily and kept his voice low also. “Sometimes I’m almost smart. How’s Petey?”

  “Having kittens.” Rourke pulled his own chair close to Shayne’s so they could talk without being overheard through the closed door, got his highball glass that still held the remnants of ice cubes and a couple of fingers of diluted bourbon. He picked up a bottle from where it had stood beside his chair, splashed whiskey into the glass and drank greedily. He settled his bony body in the chair with his head a couple of feet from Shayne’s and asked, “Been listening to the radio any?”

  The detective shook his red head. He poured a moderate amount of cognac in his glass and took a sip. “Have I missed anything important?”

  “Nothing you don’t already know, I guess. Damn it, Mike. This time you really have torn it!”

  “I?” Shayne raised amused eyebrows. “Hell, I didn’t do anything, Tim, except.…”

  “Except swing the hell out on a limb and let Peter Painter cut it off behind you,” interrupted Rourke bitterly. “This business of knocking out the cops and holding a gun on them while they drove you over the Causeway! Even Will Gentry can’t laugh that off. You’re bullet-bait for every cop’s gun in Miami right now.”

  “Not the cops that know me,” Shayne reassured him.

  “How many real friends do you think you’ve got on the Force?” Rourke held up his two hands with fingers widely separated. “You can count ’em right there. Why didn’t you sit tight in the Kane house and let nature take its course?”

  “You know nature and me.” Shayne grinned engagingly. “I’m sitting here instead of behind Painter’s bars.”

  “Lots of damned good that does you. The minute you stick your red head outside you’ll get it blasted off.”

  Shayne said consolingly, “Maybe not. I’ve been around Miami a long time, and …”

  “That’s just it, Mike. You have been around a long time. I’m getting too old for this sort of thing. Ten years ago it was fun. Now I’m plain damned scared.”

  “Want me to get out?”

  “You know I don’t,” Rourke said wearily. He dragged a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and lit one. “I’m merely suggesting that if you’ve got an ounce of sense in that red head of yours, you’ll call in and give yourself up to Will Gentry personally. That way, you may stay alive.”

  “So will Mrs. Kane’s murderer.”

  “What can you do about it sitting here? The way I get the picture there’s not a single damned clue to work on. Unless you held something out on Painter.” Rourke’s eyes were bright and he leaned forward hopefully.

  Shayne shook his head. “I gave him everything. But he had me and couldn’t see anything else. That’s why I couldn’t afford to rot in his jail while he tightened the frame on me.”

  “What have you got, Mike? The only other possible suspect I see is Richard Kane. And the way Painter tells it, he’s the one guy in Florida with a perfect alibi. One that you give him yourself.”

  “That’s right, and because I do alibi him and he’s the only other person who seems to be personally involved, Painter is perfectly satisfied to leave it that way.”

  Timothy Rourke drank deeply from his highball glass and drew on his cigarette. “Who else is there?”

  “Some guy named Roger.”

  “Roger what?”

  “That’s what we’ve got to find out. Look, Tim. You know perfectly well there wasn’t anything between me and Mrs. Kane. But she did have a lover on the side. Name of Roger. Didn’t Painter tell you about him?”

  Rourke got his wad of notes out and glanced over a couple of pages of his scribbling. “He mentioned a man you say she said she’d been friendly with in the past. No name given. And he claims Kane scotched that story completely.”

  “So Kane did. But I’m the one she told it to … and I’m the one who says Kane is lying when he denies it.”

  “Why, Mike? Why wouldn’t he be as eager as you to turn in any information he has that might lead to his wife’s murderer?”

  Shayne shrugged. “I can think of several reasons. Foremost, to give the devil his due, I’ll concede that Kane may really think I shot her. He’s crazy jealous enough to think anything. You saw him at noon today. I think the poor guy actually believes I was two-timing him with his wife.”

  Rourke said drily, “He did give that impression.”

  “So he goes on from there to accept the fact that I killed her in a lovers’ quarrel,” Shayne argued. “A man has to really love his wife to be as jealous as Kane. That gives him two good reasons for denying a former indiscretion. To save her reputation, and to make damned sure that I don’t get away with murder. I don’t blame Kane for denying it,” Shayne went on harshly. “I do blame Painter for closing his eyes to the truth and taking his word against mine.”

  “All right. So maybe there was a Roger in her life. Does that mean he killed her?”

  “Somebody did the job,” Shayne reminded him. “An ex-lover … how ex we don’t know. A guy who has visited her surreptitiously in the past by way of the beach at low tide and the kitchen stairs. A guy who maybe has just as much reason to be as jealous as her husband when he read those two stories in the papers about Kane accusing me of having extra-marital fun with her. He’s all I’ve got, Tim.”

  “And how do you go about locating him while you’re cooped up here in my place afraid to stick your nose outside the door?”

  “A month or so ago, Kane hired a local private op to get the goods on Roger. I find out who did the job and get Roger’s last name. Then I pay a visit to this Roger and find out where he was tonight while Lydia was taking a bullet.”

  Rourke said, “You make it sound so simple. With a couple dozen private dicks in Miami.…”

  “But only five of them,” Shayne interrupted, “that are set up and eager for that kind of tailing job. Two of those are the big national outfits with branches in Miami. Worldwide and Continental. Then there’s Max Sentor, Earl Jenson and Dave Gatsby. That’s all, Tim. Just five. So, why don’t you start telephoning?”

  “Me?”

  “Not me,” Shayne said. “Hell, even the ones who�
�re friends of mine are legally obligated to turn in an escaped murder suspect.” He pointed to the telephone directory. “Start with Worldwide and Continental. They both have night men. If we cancel those out, I’ll give you a pitch to use on the other three.”

  Timothy Rourke shrugged resignedly, took another drink of bourbon and went over to the telephone to leaf through the directory to the classified section. He found a number and dialed it, said, “This is Tim Rourke on the News. Who is speaking?

  “Loomis?” He grinned over at Shayne with a nod. “Hi, Loomis. I’m trying to trace down a rumor. Has Continental had a client named Richard Kane on the Beach in the last couple of months?”

  He listened for a short time and said, “The same. Mike Shayne clobbered him today and I want a follow-up on the story. Just confidentially, Loomis, did you people do a job for him tailing his wife recently?”

  He listened again, shaking out a cigarette and lighting it. “Will you do that for me?” He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and told Shayne, “I guess he hasn’t heard tonight’s news. He’s checking the file to make sure, though he doesn’t think so.”

  He waited a little longer and said, “Thanks a lot, fellow. Ask me for a favor some time.” He hung up, shaking his head at Shayne and reporting in a low voice. “Not Continental. I’ll try Worldwide.”

  He looked up another number and dialed it, said, “Daily News calling. We’re checking a rumor that one of your recent clients is Richard Kane on Miami Beach. I realize that your files are confidential, and I assure you this isn’t for publication but merely to be used as background material for a story on Kane. Can you confirm the rumor?”

  He listened, cocking an exasperated eyebrow at Shayne. “Come on, honey,” he pleaded. “Just take a look in the K file. I swear I’ll never tell a soul.…” He paused, dragging deeply on his cigarette, then said briskly, “All right. Can you give me his home telephone number?”

  He got a pencil from his pocket, scribbled in the open telephone directory and said, “Thanks a million, darling. Remind me to buy you a drink some day.” He hung up and told Shayne glumly, “Some gal that doesn’t know up from down.” He mimicked a feminine voice, “Our files are all locked up at night and anyway I couldn’t possibly give out such information without an okay from our Mr. Gans.”