Guilty as Hell ms-56 Page 7

  “Something phony about this,” Shayne said, the thoughtful look still on his face. “I think somebody’s trying to sandbag me. I don’t like that to happen two days in a row.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Shayne wasted the afternoon on the phone.

  In Georgia, he learned from Jose Despard, the coroner, who also delivered the rural mail, had certified the death of Walter Langhorne as one of those unfortunate accidents that are more or less bound to happen if people insist on going shooting with a flask of Scotch after only two hours sleep. Despard sounded tired and hungover.

  “It was a rough day, Shayne. After the sheriff left, Hal-lam really hit the booze. He’s always been hard as nails, but one thing he never used to be is mean. He never was that sure of himself. I want to tell you his days are numbered. If he gets past the next board meeting, I’ll have to say he’s a wizard.”

  “He isn’t answering his phone.”

  “He flew to Washington. Taking the company plane, naturally. The rest of us had to wait for a commercial flight back. It’s a wild-goose chase, as I tried to tell him. He wants to talk to the Patent Office tomorrow about an infringement action. We don’t have a leg to stand on, but he won’t believe what the lawyers tell him because he thinks lawyers are one cut lower than garbage collectors. Prior use is the big thing. When we finally, at long, long last, get T-239 in the stores, we’ll be lucky if United States doesn’t sue us.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “No, they wouldn’t have the gall. It makes my blood sizzle. I told him, we all told him. When you have a revolutionary product, get it on the market first and ask questions afterward. We didn’t know it then, but we surely do know it now, the United States people were working their balls off all summer, excuse the expression. It’s a textbook case. Ossified management.”

  “Despard, did anything particular happen this year on April twenty-third?”

  “In what connection? I know Forbes figured the copy went out of the office sometime during the last two weeks in April. I don’t see how you could pin it down.”

  “Who do you think did it?”

  “Walter. He’d get my vote because he’s dead. If we can accept him, maybe everybody can shut up about it. The hell of it is, I can’t really talk myself into it, unless he was some kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

  The nurse was waiting when Shayne hung up. “Time for your bath, Mr. Shayne,” she said firmly.

  He grinned at her. “Let me get a few more phone calls out of the way first.”

  He dialed the WTVJ number and arranged for an interview on the subject of the previous night’s altercation. Tim Rourke came in while he was completing the arrangements. The reporter listened open-mouthed.

  “Mike,” he said sadly after Shayne put the phone down, “are you giving those TV creeps an interview? After all you and I have been through?”

  “I have to tell a few lies,” Shayne told him. “You wouldn’t want me to lie to the News, would you?”

  “Maybe not,” his friend said uncertainly, “and I don’t know what you’re talking about, as usual. Could you use a drink?”

  Shayne brightened. “Yeah.”

  Rourke gave a surreptitious look around and produced a pint of cognac, which he had carried past the front desk in a basket of fruit.

  “Booze,” Sparrow said with pleasure.

  Rourke closed the door so they wouldn’t be bothered by hospital personnel and poured drinks all around in paper cups.

  “I don’t think I’ll ask for ice,” he said. “They might think we were breaching regulations. Now a small explanation, Mike. The last time I saw you, you were sitting down to dinner with a bosomy blonde, and here you are with your arm in a cast. Did it turn out she knew judo?”

  Shayne described what had happened, finishing with an account of the puzzling phone call from the girl.

  “It sounds kosher to me,” Rourke said. “If you wanted to throw the book at those three baboons, you and Teddy, you could put them away for a year. It gives you something you can use. Tie them to the Begley firm, and you can do some damage. You and I know they use blackmail and muscle, but it might shake up some of their legitimate clients if it came out in the papers. Did you hear what I said?” He repeated, “In the papers! Not on TV. You have to get it in black and white or you don’t feel the impact. On TV it’s some jerk with bags under his eyes passing on gossip.”

  “I’m using the TV interview to get a message to the girl,” Shayne said. “I still don’t know. I had the feeling she was reading her lines from cue cards.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Rourke offered. “I’ve got both arms.”

  Shayne shook his head. “She’s skittish enough as it is. But I think I’ll look the place over before dark. Did you get any leads to people who knew Langhorne?”

  Rourke felt in all his pockets and produced an envelope on which he had jotted down a list of names and phone numbers. Replenishing his cup from time to time, Shayne worked his way down the list. The general feeling among Langhorne’s friends was that he had been frugal about things he regarded as unimportant, and lived within his income. He had been well liked, and he would be missed.

  A new nurse came in as he hung up after the final call. She was stout and red-faced, with a mustache, muscular forearms and a fierce baritone.

  “Miss Manners says you won’t eat, you won’t let yourself be bathed, you’re refusing medication. Very well, Mr. Shayne. You want to be fed intravenously, is that it?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Shayne said, swinging his legs out of bed, “I was just checking out”

  CHAPTER 8

  From the TV studio Shayne drove to Buena Vista. Shifting was his main problem. He had to hold the wheel with his knees while reaching awkwardly across to the gear panel with his right hand.

  He was wearing a light yellow pullover. Dr. Baumgartner’s multipurpose cast was surprisingly light, but so bulky that the nurse had had to slit the left sleeve before she could get it on him. He was carrying it in a full sling, with the knot in front where he could reach it in a hurry.

  He checked the number written on his cast and found the address the girl had given him. It was one of a line of apartment buildings, concrete and glass slabs. A sign in front announced that a few efficiency apartments were still available, all with terraces. After parking the Buick, Shayne fished in his side pocket for the watch he usually wore on his left wrist. It was ten minutes to six. The news program for which he had taped an exchange of questions and answers would go on in another ten minutes.

  There was no doorman. He checked the apartment directory. The 9-C slot was empty.

  He was standing at the locked inner door, a key in his hand, when a lady in a flowered dress came in from the court. He gestured ruefully with the key.

  “It can’t be done with one hand,” he said. “When you turn the key, you can’t turn the knob. When you turn the knob, you can’t turn the key.”

  “Oh, let me!”

  She used her own key and held the door for him. He thanked her and they rode up together. She left the elevator at eight. Shayne went on to nine and looked for 9-C. Here, too, there was no name over the buzzer. He checked the time again; it was a minute after six. If a TV set had been on inside the apartment, he would have heard it through the poorly fitted door. He rang the bell.

  There was no answer, and he went to work on the door. He had his regular assortment of lock picking equipment, but for most of it he needed two hands. He forced a succession of flexible shims between the latch and the metal strike-plate, building up the pressure slowly until the latch came back. Then he held the shims with the hook, shifted hands carefully and turned the knob. The hook shifted, digging a long splinter out of the wood.

  He entered and turned on the light.

  He was surprised to see a room with no curtains or carpets. There was a three-quarter bed, but no other furniture. Even the bed, a simple box spring and mattress, had no bedding except for a cotton mattress cover.
There were two naked pillows.

  There were signs that the room had been used, however-a filled ashtray on the floor by the bed, several crumpled tissues marked with lipstick, a pack of chewing gum, two empty glasses. Shayne picked up one of the glasses and sniffed at it. It smelled of gin.

  Bothered by the gouge he had left in the doorframe, Shayne unwrapped a stick of gum. He found the splinter on the floor. After chewing the stiffness out of a small piece of gum, he pressed it into the raw scar, then pressed the splinter on top of that. Hearing sounds farther down the hall, he let the door click shut.

  He snapped off the light and faded out to the little terrace. After a wait of several moments, he came back, turned on the light again and continued his inventory of the almost empty apartment. In the kitchen there was a saucepan, a teaspoon, two dime-store mugs, a jar of powdered coffee, in the bathroom medicine cabinet a jar of aspirin, a single toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste.

  He returned to the main room, his forehead furrowed with concentration. He could kill two hours in a neighborhood bar, or go back to his Buick and do some more phoning. Or he could depart completely from the girl’s instructions and wait here. Making up his mind abruptly, he took one of the pillows from the bed, turned off the ceiling light and went out to the terrace.

  Here he discovered the cramped little apartment’s single virtue. The terrace, though not much larger than a seat on a Ferris wheel, had a view across the bay to the strange and interesting shapes of the tourist hotels along Miami Beach. He closed the glass double doors and lit a cigarette. After smoking it, he flicked the butt over the concrete railing and watched its long downward arc end in the water. Then he sat down on the floor, jamming the pillow against the wall behind him.

  His wrist was aching. Time went slowly.

  At a little after seven he was lying on his back on the concrete, his wrist supported on the doubled pillow, when he heard a key being inserted in a lock. He sat up hurriedly. A door in the apartment opened. The ceiling light came on and two barred rectangles of light fell onto the terrace floor beside him.

  “Home sweet home,” a man said hoarsely. “What a pad. With his dough he could do better.”

  He was answered by the same voice Shayne had heard on the phone, the voice of a young girl. “His wife keeps him penned up, practically. He gave me a hundred to buy a couple of chairs, but you know me, Jake. There don’t seem to be enough minutes in the day.”

  She laughed. The man said, “How about a little fresh air in here before we pass out?”

  Shayne shifted his weight. Footsteps approached the terrace door. He fingered the outline of the short scalpel under its thin coating of plaster and made ready to jump. The door opened. He saw a hand and arm.

  “Deedee baby,” the man said, turning back, “start getting ready, will you? We’ve got time, but let’s not slice it too close.”

  “I said eight on the dot,” the girl replied, “and all about how I’d buzz if it was O.K. to come up, so what are we worried about?”

  “Because this is Mike Shayne,” the man said. “He can make you some fast moves. One against three last night, and you’ll notice he won.”

  “Now you’re getting me all goose-bumpy again! Right after you put a couple of hours into calming me down. This is going to blow up on us, I know it. I just know it. I told you how he was on the phone. He smelled something.”

  “He was woozy, kid. He just came out of the anesthetic. Now shut up unless you want a mouthful of knuckles. Get undressed.”

  “Jake! Golly, that’s what I don’t like-all the way down. Couldn’t I keep on my pants?”

  “No, you couldn’t keep on your pants. That’s not the idea. Will you hurry it up? I want to get out of here.”

  “You want to get out of here,” she said. “I can understand that, because I want to get out of here.”

  There were sounds that might have been made by a girl undressing. On the terrace, Shayne eased himself to his feet, cradling the cast in his good arm to quiet the throbbing.

  Jake remarked, “What a shape you’ve got on you for seventeen, no kidding.”

  “Glad you like me, Daddy,” she answered with a mock simper.

  “Lie down so I can mark you.”

  “I guess what has to be has to be,” she said, resigned. “But boy, what my girl friend’s going to say.”

  “Who the hell cares?”

  “I care, if you want to know. Some things, anybody in her right mind will draw the line.”

  The mattress sighed.

  “No,” she said suddenly. “No, I can’t! I know I said I would, but when you actually see it-”

  “Turn over, damn it.”

  “Jake, please! The rest of it, all right. The mob at school will think I had a little bad luck. With Mike Shayne involved it could even do me some good. But leave the whip out of it, I mean it. Or I swear I’ll get dressed and walk out. I’m a person.”

  “Deedee,” he said caressingly. “How many days did you go to that school the last month? About two. You’re over sixteen. They can’t make you finish. You know what I said, baby. New York! One night in the slammer. Tomorrow morning they let you out on bail. You jump bail and blow. You get a certain amount of page-one publicity, but not under your real name.”

  “I suppose you don’t think anybody’s going to be there with a camera and take my picture?” she said scornfully. “Page one! You said it, I didn’t. That kind of thing could stick to me the rest of my life.”

  “Think of the dough, baby doll! We won’t have to scratch and scramble when we get to the big town. Maybe I can buy a piece of a nice bar.”

  Suddenly there was a sharp cracking sound and a cry of pain. Shayne pulled the door out of his way, his eyes hard and dangerous. A little wristwatch alarm went off in the other room and stopped him.

  The girl was sobbing. “What did you have to do that for? It hurt.”

  “Baby, I’m sorry. But you know yourself-you’ll never make any headway if you go back on a deal.”

  “It’s in front.”

  “That’s O.K. Don’t rub it, let it bleed. It’s half past. I’ve got to get moving. Stop crying, baby. I’ll buy you something nice. You don’t think I like using a whip on you, do you?”

  “You seemed to.”

  “I did not. I think you’re so great, baby. It didn’t hurt much, did it?” He left the bed and crossed the room. “The whip goes in the closet. There’s blood on it. They’ll find it when they look for your clothes. Now I’m going to run through this one last time.”

  “Jake, we already rehearsed it so much it’s running out of my ears.”

  “One more time, and then you can relax for half an hour. I don’t know another doll in town who could do this, Deedee, I really mean that. One thing I want to change. If he comes in with the light on and sees you, his reflexes are going to take him out of here but fast. After you buzz, stick a Kleenex in the door so it won’t close. And go in the john, see. When he rings the bell up here, call to him to come in, you’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Come in, I’ll be out in a minute,” she said sullenly.

  “Yeah. Camilli and the other vice cop will be down the hall in the incinerator closet. Sex with whips is a hot pinch in this town.”

  “Did you tell them it’s going to be Shayne?”

  “Now how could I tell them that, baby doll? But the reason I picked Vince Camilli-he and Shayne have been sideswiping each other for years. Shayne won’t be able to buy his way out or talk his way out. All I said was I’d heard rumors about this apartment, and I’d check and let him know. He’s downstairs now. I’ll tell him you’re home and ready for business, and to come up and get in the incinerator. Then he’ll wait for the first John to show up. That way it don’t sound too much like a frame.”

  “Shayne’ll know it’s a frame, but excuse me for thinking.”

  “What Shayne knows and what Shayne don’t know is no skin off our ass. Can we hang it on him? In the long run, no, especially after
you jump bail. What we do is tie him up for a few days.”

  “So?”

  “So why ask me? There’s some kind of deadline.”

  “Jake, I know you’ll say no, but couldn’t you leave a dress in the closet, anyway? Just a dress, nothing underneath. Those ghouls on the vice squad! I’ll honestly die.”

  “I could leave you a full change of clothes. And Shayne would make you get dressed while Camilli breaks down the door. That wouldn’t be half as good. They’ll give you a jacket or something to put on. Keep thinking of money, kid. Oh, and don’t forget to mention Josie.”

  “I don’t know when.”

  “Play it by ear. Maybe going down in the elevator. Shayne’s going to want to find out who pulled it on him, you know, and that’s when you bring up the name. Kiss me, doll. Honest to Christ, you’re gorgeous.”

  “Jake.”

  “Think about how it’s going to be in New York. Baby, we’re going to make it big.”

  “Gee, Shayne’s going to be mad.”

  “Don’t worry. He’s got a broken arm. Get on your bicycle. Camilli won’t want to lose out on this pinch-he won’t wait more than a couple of minutes.”

  “And if Shayne catches up to me,” she said bitterly, “so much the better, huh? More blood, more broken bones. Well, it’s lucky I’m young. I can bounce.”

  “We’ll bounce all the way to New York, kid. Jesus, I love your skin. See you.”

  The door opened and closed. Shayne, on the terrace, heard the girl give a long sigh. The box springs rearranged themselves as she changed position.

  He stepped into the doorway.

  She was unwrapping a stick of gum. Her long black hair was almost to her shoulders, and her features seemed to be crowded into the center of her face by the abundant hair. She had nice breasts and hips. She was sitting on the edge of the bed in an unbecoming slump, her thin shoulderblades like undeveloped wings. The whip had left a slanting mark across her thighs.

  She mashed the gum between her teeth and dropped the wrapper to the floor. Then she looked up and saw him. Her reaction carried her back against the wall.