Pay-Off in Blood ms-41 Read online

  He dragged himself forward on the floor, crawling on his hands and knees, until he could reach up and get the glass in a firm grasp. He lifted it to his mouth and drank avidly. It was good Scotch, and he knew it must have been at least a double shot in the glass to leave the dregs so strong.

  He dropped the empty glass on the floor and got to his feet, located the bathroom door and stumbled in on rubbery legs to run cold water in the wash-bowl and duck his head into it repeatedly.

  He toweled his face carefully, wincing when he touched either of the lumps on his head, and finally knew that he was going to live.

  Back in the sitting room, he glanced around carefully, turned on the overhead light, and could see no sign of occupancy except the empty highball glass on the floor and two cigar butts in the ashtray by the chair where the slender man had been sitting.

  Shayne went to the bedroom door and turned on the light. Twin beds were neatly made, and there was no luggage or any evidence that the room had been used.

  His watch told him it was 12:48.

  He left all the lights on, and went out the door and down the corridor to the elevator. His hat remained behind him in the empty apartment because he knew it wasn’t going to fit those two lumps on his head.

  The elevator man regarded him dubiously as he rode down, but Shayne didn’t look at him. In the lobby, he stood for a moment looking around, and then made his way to an alcove beyond the desk where a long-legged, bald-headed man was relaxed in a leather chair with his head back and his eyes closed, snoring as blissfully as a small child.

  Shayne poked a thumb in his ribs, and he jerked erect, blinking his eyes indignantly and making mewling sounds. When he recognized the redhead, he muttered, “Mike Shayne? What the hell you think you’re doing?”

  “Hell of a Security Officer you are. Here I get clobbered in your goddamn hostelry and you sleep peacefully through it all.”

  “I wasn’t asleep. Just catching forty winks. Hey, Mike!” He sat up aghast with his eyes wide open finally. “You look like the devil.”

  “Which is exactly how I feel. Got a drink in your office?”

  “Sure, Mike.” He got up fast and took Shayne solicitously by the arm, leading him back behind the desk. “You got clobbered? How come?”

  “That… I don’t know… yet.” Shayne went into a small office with him and sank wearily into a chair while the hotel detective got a bottle out of a desk drawer and offered it to him with the top unscrewed. It was cheap, blended rye whiskey, but Shayne took a long pull out of the bottle and nodded his gratitude. “Suite Four-Thirty, Hank. Got anything on it?”

  “Nothing I know about.” Hank’s face was worried, his eyes alert. He pressed a button on the desk and spoke into an intercom, “What’s with Four-Thirty? I got a complaint.” While he waited, Shayne said, “I think they’ve skipped, Hank. I went up with two guns on me and got sapped. At least an hour ago.” He paused as a voice came from the intercom:

  “Suite Four-Thirty was rented at eight o’clock for overnight by Robert Jenson, Number Two-Three-Eight East Eighteenth Street, New York City. No luggage, cash paid in advance with statement he needed the suite for a business conference. No checkout.”

  “Mr. Jenson checked out all right,” Shayne said grimly, after Hank pressed the button. “Call the cops, Hank, and have them go over the suite for fingerprints. They’ll find some of mine. I’ll check with Will Gentry in the morning, and sign a complaint, but right now I’m passed out on my feet.” He got up and swayed a little, and Hank hurried around the desk to help him out the door and flag a cab for him at the entrance. Shayne gave the driver the name of his hotel and sank back, fighting off nausea until they arrived.

  He got out a dollar bill and made it through the lobby, shaking his head wearily at Pete as he stumbled past the desk.

  In his own apartment, he went straight through to the bedroom where he collapsed on the bed fully clothed, and sank dazedly into dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The telephone awakened Michael Shayne from his deep and dreamless sleep. He lay with his eyes closed for a long time listening to it. Vaguely, he knew, ’way down deep in his subconscious mind, that it was the private line beside his bed that was ringing. That meant, in all probability, either Will Gentry, Miami Chief of Police, Lucy Hamilton, his secretary, or Timothy Rourke. A few other people had this unlisted number, but not very many. And, none… thought Shayne… who would have the audacity to call him at this ungodly hour of the night.

  He opened his eyes for a moment, and then closed them quickly. Hell! It was broad daylight. The rays of the morning sun were streaming in through his window. There was a dull, continuing ache that permeated his head, and his left side felt as though it shouldn’t be there.

  He reached out for the offending phone and lifted it and pulled it over across his chest. Into the mouthpiece, he grated, “Go away, Tim, for God’s sake. It’s still the middle of the night, and I…”

  “Middle of the night, hell!” exploded Timothy Rourke’s unpleasantly cheerful voice in his ear. “It’s damn near eight o’clock in the morning, and all good citizens are up and at it.”

  Shayne growled, “I’m not a good citizen, Tim. I never claimed to be a good citizen or wanted to be one. For Christ’s sake, Tim…”

  “Thought you might want to meet us for breakfast,” effervesced the News reporter. “George Bayliss and me, that is. He’s got a story to tell, Michael. I think you’ll be interested.”

  Shayne held the receiver away from his aching head for a moment while he thought back. George Bayliss! The News photographer. Complete recollection of all the things that had happened since eight o’clock the preceding evening flooded back over him. He lowered the mouthpiece and said, “Bring him over here, Tim. As a matter of fact, I’m making breakfast for myself right now, and I’d like nothing better than some company.”

  He dropped the receiver on the prongs beside his pillow, and essayed to sit up in bed. To his amazement, he discovered that he was still fully dressed and lying under the top covers. To his further amazement, he discovered when he gingerly lifted his fingers to touch the painful lumps on his head that they were no longer the size of hens’ eggs. More the size of roosters’ eggs. He scowled at that point in his thinking, and asked himself whether roosters had eggs or not?

  He decided the hell with it, and threw back the cover and tried to throw his legs over the side of the bed. His left side refused to move with his right side. He sank back with a convulsive groan, and then gritted his teeth and clenched his fists and slowly pulled himself over the side of the bed and forced himself to sit upright.

  He sat there, breathing hard, and then unbuttoned his shirt and unbuckled his belt. He stood upright and let his pants slide down to the floor, painfully stripped down to socks and shoes. The entire left side of his body was an ugly bruise of deep blue, shading to lavender at the edges.

  He walked out into the living room and paused beside the center table to scowl down morosely and questioningly at the cognac bottle and glass he’d left sitting there last night. It took him about thirty seconds to make up his mind that a drink was definitely what he needed. He drank deeply from the bottle and then went on into the kitchen where he put water on the stove to boil and filled the top of the big dripolator with coffee.

  While the water heated, he went into the bathroom and got a wide roll of adhesive tape, tore off a dozen foot-long strips, and tightly taped up the bruised area where he was certain two or three ribs were cracked.

  He felt a lot better able to face the world after that was accomplished, and he slid into a terry-cloth robe and went back to the kitchen to pour boiling water into the top of the dripolator.

  Back in the living room, he was hesitating beside the cognac bottle again when there was a rap on the door. He went to it and pulled it open to admit Timothy Rourke and the News press photographer.

  George Bayliss had a sleepy, sullen look on his lean young face, but Rourke appeared res
ted and effervescent. He stepped inside the door and cocked his head in astonishment at sight of the twin lumps on Shayne’s head and exclaimed, “What happened to you? I thought you were so hell-bent on getting back here to bed last night.”

  Shayne said sourly, “I was. But three other guys had different ideas.” He shut the door and said crisply, “Tell you about it later, Tim. Right now I want some coffee and Bayliss’s story.”

  They went to the kitchen and got mugs of strong coffee.

  When they were settled in the living room, Rourke explained with a grin, “Don’t blame George if he isn’t his usual cheerful self this morning. I don’t think he got much sleep.”

  “You know damn well I’d just got home to change clothes when you called at seven-thirty.” George sighed deeply and took a sip of hot coffee. “She was some hot number.”

  Shayne said irritably, “We’re not interested in your sleeping arrangements. Just your extra-curricular activities with a camera.”

  “There’s no law against my taking a picture on my own time, is there?” bristled the young man.

  Rourke said, “Just tell Mike what you told me.”

  “Well, I got this phone call at the paper just before I was leaving last evening… a little after six, I guess. A man’s voice. He didn’t say much. Just asked was I busy for the evening. I told him I had a late date, about eleven, but nothing else, so he asked did I want to make a fast fifty bucks.

  “I told him, sure. What the hell? With what the lousy paper pays me I can use an extra buck any day. So he gave me this pitch. If he didn’t phone me at home before nine o’clock I was to go to the Seacliff Restaurant with a flash camera. He’d meet me outside. For one picture he’d pay fifty bucks.

  “He didn’t phone, so I got to the Seacliff about nine-twenty and this guy stopped me outside and asked was I George Bayliss.”

  “What did he look like?” Shayne asked when he paused.

  “Young, sort of. Under thirty. Fat-faced and plump. He asked if I knew you by sight and I said sure, and he passed me twenty-five bucks and said you’d be coming along soon with another guy and would go inside and sit down together, and I was to wait a few minutes and then drift in with my camera out of sight, and there’d be another guy join you two, and then those two would trade envelopes. He wanted a shot of them when they did. He said I was to come out fast after shooting the pic and he’d meet me with the other twenty-five.

  “It sounded okay to me, so I said all right, and he drifted off down the street a ways, and pretty quick I saw you and this fellow that Tim says was Doc Ambrose go in the restaurant together.

  “I followed in after a few minutes, just in time to see you getting up from the booth and this other fellow sit opposite the doctor. I moved on down the bar close enough, and got my shot while they were putting their envelopes away. I ran out and he grabbed my arm outside the door and hurried me down the street and said for me to give him the plateholder and he paid my twenty-five bucks. I got in my car and pulled out fast and that’s every damned thing I know. I didn’t even know about the doctor getting shot until Tim told me awhile ago.”

  “So he got the plate and you don’t even have a negative?” said Shayne in disappointment.

  “That’s right. I only took the one shot… as you know.”

  “So there it is, Mike,” Rourke said eagerly. “What does it mean? Who wanted a picture of whom?”

  “From the way George tells it, it still could have been Ambrose who arranged it,” growled Shayne. “The blackmailer knew who he was, all right, but he insisted he didn’t know the identity of the man blackmailing him.”

  “What good would a picture do him? You said he looked in the envelope and was satisfied with what he got in exchange for his twenty grand. Seems to me that ended it as far as he was concerned.”

  Shayne said, “It would seem so.” He drank black coffee and tugged at his left ear-lobe.

  “You’ve got something else I don’t know about,” challenged Rourke with bright-eyed intensity.

  “Yeh.” Shayne gingerly touched the two lumps on his head. “Plus two or three busted ribs. But they don’t add up to anything either.”

  “What happened after you headed home from the beach?”

  Shayne shook his head. “I’ve got to see Will Gentry just as soon as I get some clothes on. Come along and sit in, and I’ll just have to tell the story once.” He drained his mug and got to his feet. “Make yourselves at home. There’s more coffee and there’s liquor. I’ll get dressed.”

  He went into the bedroom and dressed slowly, and when he returned to the living room Timothy Rourke was sitting there alone with a half-empty glass of bourbon and water. “What did you think of our young friend, Mike?”

  “You know him better than I. What did you think?”

  “He made it sound straight enough.” Rourke frowned down thoughtfully at his glass. “I don’t know. George has always got his eye out for a buck. Would that picture be worth anything to anybody?” he ended abruptly.

  Shayne considered that for a moment, very carefully. The Boss knew, if he accepted Shayne’s story as the truth, that someone had double-crossed him by making a prior arrangement to meet Dr. Ambrose and collect the pay-off. Someone in his own organization most certainly. Someone who knew Ambrose had the cash ready for delivery that night and had telephoned the doctor on his own, setting up the meeting at the Seacliff.

  The trouble with this theory was that Crew-cut had delivered the incriminating documents to Dr. Ambrose in exchange for the money.

  How could he have got his hands on them? If the Boss were to be believed, he had expected to meet Ambrose between ten and midnight to make the exchange. This implied that he had the blackmail material in his possession in readiness for the pay-off.

  It was all damned confusing… particularly to a man with a few broken ribs and two lumps on his head so tender that he didn’t dare try to put a hat on.

  Shayne said, “I just don’t know, Tim. I’m beginning to get a crazy glimmer of an idea, but let’s let it lie until we sit down with Will Gentry and talk it over. He may have the whole goddamned answer right there for us… just from a set of fingerprints. Let’s go see. If you think you can make it all the way to his office without another drink to sustain you.”

  “I can make it fine,” Rourke assured him, draining his glass and setting it on the table with dignity. “I got a good night’s sleep,” he added virtuously. “I didn’t go tomcatting around with some dame whose husband swings a mean sap.”

  Shayne summoned up a wry smile and said, “Very, very funny, Timothy Rourke.” He went to the door and held it open and they went out together.

  As they went down the corridor toward the elevator, Shayne said, “I forgot to ask about last night at the doctor’s office. What happened?”

  “Nothing much. I got Painter and he came over himself and strutted around. I don’t think he believed either Belle or me one damned bit, but what could he do?”

  They stopped in front of the elevator door and Shayne pushed the button. “Any fingerprints?”

  “Nothing. Just the Doc’s and Belle’s… where they should have been. I took her home after Petey let us go,” Rourke added with a slow grin. “You made quite a hit with her, Mike. Really bowled her over with your masculine approach, as a matter of fact.”

  The elevator door opened and they got in. Shayne grinned reminiscently, “I bowled her over, all right. She’s a lot of woman.”

  “Damn right she is. Think she was carrying a torch for the doc?” Rourke added casually.

  Shayne considered this with interest as they crossed the lobby. “You read it that way?”

  “I dunno. If so, she’s in the market for another man this morning. I think you could take over, Mike.”

  Shayne said, “That’s something to think about,” and they got into Rourke’s car at the curb.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Miami’s Chief of Police, Will Gentry, looked up from his littered desk with a
faint smile on his blunt features when the redheaded detective and the reporter entered his private office. He removed the soggy butt of a black cigar from his mouth and rumbled, “I thought you’d show up this morning, Mike. What’s this thing at the Bayside Hotel last night?” He lifted a typewritten sheet of paper from a pile in front of him, glanced at it and dropped it back.

  Shayne ruefully touched the lumps on his head and then pulled up a straight chair into which he eased himself with a grimace. He said, “I’ve also got a few busted ribs that don’t show. Did anything come from a shakedown of the room, Will?”

  “Not a thing. Not even a partial fingerprint… except a few of yours.”

  Shayne said, “I was afraid of that, Those boys know the score. I’ve got a physical description that I’ll turn over to I.D., Will. I’d say it’s a professional extortion ring, and there must be a record, but maybe not in Miami. The Boss sounded distinctly midwestern.”

  “Does it tie in with Doc Ambrose?” demanded Rourke, settling his elongated body in a chair beside him.

  “Yeh. In a damn funny way.” Shayne spoke directly to Gentry, “Has Painter briefed you on that?”

  “Yeh. I’ve got it here.” Will Gentry put the cigar back in his mouth, drew in happily and then exhaled a cloud of black smoke. “He asked for a check on your hotel, Mike. We got a clean bill of health on you from the desk clerk for eight o’clock to eleven last night.”

  Shayne said, “Fine. Just between the two of us, Will, I’m not all that clean, but I’d just as leave Petey keeps on thinking so for a time.” He hesitated, frowning and tugging at his left ear-lobe. “You better know how it went, Will. It may shift over to this side of the Bay. In fact, it started here in Miami last night.

  “Tim sent Ambrose to see me last evening.” He went on to swiftly fill in the salient details of their meeting and the subsequent blackmail pay-off at the Seacliff, not omitting the picture shot in the restaurant by George Bayliss.