Guilty as Hell ms-56 Page 5

  “Sit down,” Candida said. “This is an expense-account evening. I’ll buy you both dinner.”

  “You won’t buy me dinner,” Rourke said. “I’m due on the other side of town half an hour ago and theoretically I’m supposed to have a clean shave when I get there.” He looked her over admiringly. “Baby, you’re terrific. I have the feeling I’ll see you again. Don’t let Mike scare you. He’s not as tough as he looks.”

  “You’ll join me, won’t you, Mr. Shayne?” she said, giving Shayne a slanting upward look as Rourke walked away. “You can eat Mr. Ahlman’s dinner.”

  Shayne moved the table and slid into the unoccupied chair. “What’s he having?”

  “Crabmeat thermidor. It’s supposed to be quite good here.”

  Albert loomed up at the other side of the table to find out if everything was satisfactory.

  “I was told you went out,” Candida said icily.

  “For a minute,” Albert told her without embarrassment “Would you care to order dinner, Mr. Shayne?”

  “I’m having the crabmeat that’s already ordered,” Shayne said. “Send me a double cognac in a wine glass. Miss Morse, another martini?”

  “I’ll wait for the wine.” When they were alone, she said to Shayne, “It would be stupid, wouldn’t it, after all we went through in that Pittsburgh Plate Glass business, not to use our first names?”

  Shayne shrugged. “All right with me.”

  “I caught a glimpse of Teddy Sparrow in my rearview mirror. I suppose that was your doing?”

  “I thought you’d probably spot him.”

  “That was the idea, wasn’t it, so I’d know I was being chivvied? We used Teddy for a small job once. Never again. I suppose I can look forward to the pleasure of his company for an indefinite period?”

  “The client’s paying for it.”

  “And who is your client, Mike?”

  “Despard’s. You know that.”

  “I suspected as much. Have they lost something valuable?”

  Her lips moved at the corners. She was leaning toward him slightly, her eyes alive. A bracelet sparkled as she revolved her martini glass. She had set out to charm him, and she obviously thought it was going to be easy. He decided to remove her smile.

  “Walter Langhorne’s dead.”

  The smile went. He was looking into her eyes, and he thought the shock there was real.

  “Walter.”

  “Hallam shot him in the face with a twenty-gauge shotgun at pointblank range.”

  The blood drained out of her face. Her eyes rolled upward, which gave her the look of falling forward. Then she actually did fall. He shot an arm in front of her to take her opposite shoulder, catching her before she was too far out of balance. From other parts of the terrace, heads swung toward them. Candida’s blonde hair partially concealed her face.

  “Sir? Is anything wrong with the lady?”

  It was the waiter, bringing Shayne’s cognac. Still gripping the girl’s shoulder, most of her weight on his forearm, Shayne reached over his own arm and fished an ice cube out of one of the water glasses.

  “She’s out cold!” the waiter exclaimed.

  “Yeah.”

  Shayne pressed the ice against the soft flesh behind the lobe of Candida’s ear. As the ice melted, the cold water ran along her jawline and down her neck. She shivered. When her shoulder tightened under his hand, he let her go.

  Her head continued forward a few inches, but she snapped the rest of the way out of her faint before she hit the table. Pushing back her hair, she looked from face to face, ending at Shayne’s. The intelligence was back in her eyes.

  “I fainted.” She made it an accusation.

  “Yeah, probably for the first time in your life,” he said. “Anybody can see you’re not the swooning type. If that was a fake, it was a good one. More cognac,” he told the waiter. “Two doubles. Here.”

  He held the glass to the girl’s bloodless lips. Taking it from him, she drained it in one long pull and breathed out with a cough. Although still pale, she was nearly back to normal.

  “You believe in body-punching, don’t you, Mike? That really jarred me. You must know I’ve been seeing Walter, or you wouldn’t have done it that way.”

  “It’s almost the only thing I do know,” Shayne said. “Young Hallam told me somebody saw you together at an art auction in Palm Beach. I didn’t think it meant anything. If you’d wanted not to be seen, you could have fixed something.”

  “Don’t forget the law of averages, Mike. It’s too small a world.” She drew another long breath. “I’m sorry about Walter.”

  “Another lost commission.”

  She gave him a straight look and said in a level voice, “There was no question of a commission. He’d already decided to stay where he was. You caught me off balance, but I’m beginning to ask myself a few questions. You wanted to scare me into thinking Hallam shot him because of his meetings with me. I don’t believe it. That was a typical duck-shooting weekend-whiskey and loaded shotguns. It was an accident, of course.”

  “Maybe,” Shayne said briefly.

  The waiter brought two more cognacs. Candida shook her head when he put one in front of her, and slid it toward Shayne. The detective drank.

  He went on, “What were you talking to Langhorne about at that auction-a higher-paying job with some other company, or a new kind of paint? I thought I might find out if I sprung it on you. It hadn’t occurred to me that you might actually like him.”

  “I liked him.”

  “All right. You’ll hear about it from Begley as soon as he’s sober. The senior Hallam and Langhorne were alone in a two-man shooting blind. Hallam’s a big taxpayer in that part of the world. He knows the sheriff’s first name. I think it’s probably gone in as an accidental shooting. But there are a couple of odds and ends you may want to know about. Langhorne had Scotch for breakfast this morning. If his flask was full when he started out, he drank nearly a pint between four-thirty and seven. The first thing the sheriff was going to do when he got the body to town was get an alcohol count. Hallam said they’d been arguing. If I’d done a little hammering in the first five minutes, I think he would have given it to me word for word. That was another thing I didn’t think was important. He was having second thoughts when we talked later. By that time it didn’t sound much like a shooting argument. What he was really doing was rehearsing his story for the sheriff. When he talked to the sheriff, he probably stepped it down another notch.”

  “Why do you say that this concerns me?”

  “A man’s been killed, Candida,” Shayne said patiently. “That always makes a difference.”

  He swung around so he could bear down on her. “Up to now I’m sure it’s all been wonderful fun. You have an adventurous job. You’ve been making money, eating in good restaurants, meeting fascinating men from St. Louis, setting up clandestine deals. Here’s the other side, all of a sudden. Who’s really responsible for Langhorne’s death? You are.”

  “Mike, you’re raving,” she said uneasily.

  “Hallam’s finger pulled the trigger. That’s the only thing there’s no doubt about. He kept making a funny remark. He said Langhorne fell toward the gun. Did Langhorne deliberately put himself in the way of the shot? Was the quarrel so tense and upsetting that they both forgot the loaded shotgun? Or did Hallam provoke it, to get Langhorne to rush him? I saw the duck go over. There was something wrong about the angle. Hallam should have been shooting more to the left, unless the gun went off before it was all the way to his shoulder. Those are the main possibilities, and you’re mixed up in every one of them.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Maybe your name wasn’t mentioned,” Shayne said softly, “but they were fighting about you. You haven’t started to think about it. If he was only a suit of clothes to you, you won’t be bothered by any of this. I doubt if you’re that far gone.”

  “Mike, outside of trying to make me feel like a heel, what do you want
from me, exactly?”

  “Begley drew a hundred and twenty G’s from United States Chemical during the spring and summer. We assume that was payment for the transfer of a three-hundred-page report on a new paint developed by my client. I want to know who supplied that report and how much he was paid. If you pried it out of him for nothing, I want to know what you used as a handle.”

  “That’s all.”

  He grinned at her. “For openers. And I’d really like to put your boss in jail. That may not be possible this time, but if it isn’t I’ll keep trying.”

  “Mike, you keep shifting ground. There are certain conceivable admissions Hal might make, but not at the point of a gun.”

  “I don’t agree with you,” Shayne said. “That’s the only way to get him to do anything. You know him better than I do. How much pressure do you think he can stand?”

  “I don’t think it’ll come to that. We’re in good shape on this, it seems to me. You’ve had a salutary effect on us, Mike. We’ve toned up our procedures. If you ever manage to subpoena our records again, you’ll find everything in order. On this consultant job for United States, we have the correspondence and a work schedule, and I don’t believe the courts would consider our fee excessive. What you can do in the way of pressure, if you’re willing to spend money, is scare off a few potential clients, like poor Clark Ahlman, who naturally don’t want their present employers to know they’re looking for a job somewhere else. I don’t think Hal will let himself be intimidated. In fact, we may close down the office temporarily and take a vacation.”

  “When you come back, don’t open up in Miami.”

  “The hell with you, Mike Shayne!” she said abruptly, pushing back her chair. “If you’re going in for low punching, you’d better get ready to take a few yourself. Hal wanted me to feel you out on a possible deal. I talked him out of it. I knew you wouldn’t be open to any reasonable arrangement. Tell Tim Rourke to have his lawyers check anything he prints for libel. We’d love to bring that kind of suit. Win or lose, the publicity would be divine.”

  Shayne stopped her momentarily by saying in an amused voice, “How old are you, Candida?”

  She made an angry exclamation, threw down her napkin like a grenade and stood up. She ignored the waiter, who was arriving with a large tray.

  “The lady?” the waiter said, looking after her retreating back. “Doesn’t she want her dinner?”

  “What did she order?” Shayne asked.

  “Veal in caper sauce. Very nice tonight.”

  “Leave it,” Shayne said. “I’m hungry.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Shayne sent back the wine Candida had ordered and asked for another cognac. He was having his second cup of coffee after finishing the two meals when Albert, the maitre d’, hurried toward him.

  “Mr. Shayne, is that your Buick in the parking lot? The black sedan? The phone’s ringing in it.”

  Shayne dropped several bills on the table to cover the check. He heard the muffled ringing of the phone as he strode rapidly toward his Buick. Pulling open the door, he snatched up the phone and said hello.

  There was no answer, but the kind of noises he heard told him he had caught the call in time; he had a live connection.

  “Hello?” he said again. “Mike Shayne speaking.”

  This time there was a low, vaguely human mumble.

  “Say it again,” Shayne said carefully. “Closer to the phone.”

  “Ehh-”

  It was little more than a groan, but when it was repeated Shayne recognized the voice that made it.

  “Teddy? O.K. Where are you?”

  Several deep breaths were taken at the other end of the connection while Sparrow gathered enough strength to bring out a word. It sounded like, “Woodlawn.”

  “Woodlawn Cemetery?” Shayne said. “Yes or no.”

  He was answered by a slurred vowel sound, an affirmative.

  “I’ll make it as fast as I can,” Shayne said.

  He swore savagely as he slammed down the phone and switched on the ignition. He reversed and came down on the gas hard, leaving twin smears of rubber on the blacktop. He swung out of the parking area with most of the Buick’s weight on the two inside wheels.

  On the causeway, he settled down to some serious driving, part of the time on the wrong side of the double line. He took the Boulevard south to 8th Street, then went straight out 8th until he reached the big cemetery in Southwest Miami.

  The main gates were locked. He cruised along the tall iron fence. On 32nd Avenue, across from Coral Park, he saw a lighted phone booth. It seemed empty at first. The door was closed, and he was almost past when he perceived that something was jammed against it from the inside.

  Bringing the Buick to a stop, he leaped out. The phone dangled to within an inch or two of Teddy’s misshapen felt hat. The hat was rammed down over his forehead. His heavy body completely filled the bottom quarter of the booth, as though stuffed into it forcibly from above.

  Shayne tried to open the door, but with Teddy’s two hundred and sixty pounds jammed against the center fold, he moved it only an inch.

  “Teddy!” he snapped. “Can you hear me?”

  The shapeless bulk didn’t stir.

  Noises were coming from the dangling phone. Shayne put his full weight against the door, producing enough of an opening to admit an arm. He managed to grasp Teddy’s jacket. He yanked at the unconscious figure, synchronizing his pulls with increased pressure on the door. He gave up after a moment. There was only one way to get Teddy out, and that was to pry off the door.

  He unlocked the Buick’s trunk and brought out the jackhandle, one end of which was flattened so it could be used on hubcaps. Shayne forced the flat end into the crack between the folding door and the frame of the booth, and leaned against it. The thinner metal of the door creaked and began to bend.

  This was a quiet part of town. So far no cars had passed. One was approaching now, but Shayne went on with what he was doing. A screw popped.

  The car slowed. It had a noisy motor and a noisier muffler.

  A voice called above the racket, “Stealing dimes out of the phone?”

  Shayne glanced around. There were three men in the front seat of a dirty cream-colored Plymouth. The speaker was a youth of eighteen or nineteen, with his hair in his eyes. The visible portions of his face were marred with patches of acne.

  “Man passed out in here,” Shayne grunted. “The door has to come off.”

  The boy stepped out. He proved to be six feet two or three, and looked as though he had been put on a rack and stretched.

  “Give you a hand, hey. Nothing like breaking up telephone-company property. Whitey, there’s a tire tool on the floor. Let’s help the man.”

  Leaving the motor running, the driver got out and felt under the front seat. He was stocky and muscular, with pale skin and hair and eyebrows so white he was nearly an albino.

  “I’m coming along fine, thanks,” Shayne said. “On your way, boys.”

  The long-haired youth stepped on the sidewalk, making a point of looking into the phone booth instead of at Shayne.

  “Can’t we even watch?”

  The third man, a heavy-set pockmarked Cuban, slid over and swung his legs out of the car but remained seated. He was older than the other two, with graying hair and sad cow’s eyes. The stump of a cigar was clamped between his jaws.

  “Passed out?” the youth said, peering in at Sparrow. “Clobbered out is more like it. Big-no wonder the door won’t open. How about breaking the glass?”

  He turned toward Shayne to ask the question. Shayne had been in circulation long enough to know there had to be a reason for three such dissimilar people to be cruising the streets in that kind of car, and he brought the jack-handle down and around to meet the youth as he drove in at Shayne’s midsection with a fist armed with brass knuckles.

  The knuckles glanced off the steel handle. Shayne continued the stroke with a vicious cut at the youth’s head. He missed by inc
hes.

  The follow-through carried them into a hard collision. Shayne swung one leg at the hinge of the boy’s knees, bringing his elbow up hard. He wanted to get this one out of the way fast, before he had to meet the other two.

  He felt and heard the crunch of cartilage as the youth’s nose was flattened against his face. Tripped by Shayne’s swinging leg, he was already on his way down. Shayne’s knee came up to meet him. He went over backward, arms and legs splaying in four directions. Blood spurted from the mess that had been his nose.

  The Cuban was out of the car, moving fast. Shayne had one more thing to take care of. He had a bias against people who swung on him with brass knuckles. The boy’s hand, palm upward, scraped the sidewalk as he fought to recover. Shayne’s heel came down hard and the boy screamed.

  Shayne was already turning to meet the Cuban’s rush.

  The Cuban dived beneath the jackhandle, grabbing the detective around the thighs. Whitey was running around the front of the car, a short taped club in one hand, probably the meat end of a baseball bat. Shayne was driving, and the Cuban couldn’t hold him. Shayne swung the jackhandle. Whitey pirouetted away like a dancer.

  Shayne staggered and nearly fell. Recovering, he jabbed the flat end of the handle downward twice at the Cuban’s kidneys. The Cuban’s grip on his waist loosened and Shayne twisted free.

  Whitey was now at the inner edge of the sidewalk, Shayne at the curb. Whitey darted in, faked a swing at Shayne’s knees, then struck upward, sending the jackhandle spinning out of Shayne’s hand.

  Shayne gathered up the Cuban and whirled him at his companion. The Cuban caromed off and hit the phone booth with such force that one of the corner uprights folded inward. Shayne ducked a whistling blow from the club and caught a second on his forearm.

  The youth on the sidewalk flung himself on Shayne from behind. Shayne fell. He began his roll even before he hit the sidewalk. The Cuban landed on him. Shayne struggled to throw him off while Whitey stamped around the edges waiting for a shot at Shayne’s head. The tall long-haired youth was also part of the melee but not doing much damage. The Cuban butted upward, and the top of his head collided with the knockout point in front of Shayne’s ear. The detective was hurt for the first time.