Brett Halliday

Murder Spins the Wheel

1

Pedro Sanchez, a slight, narrow-chested youth, his sallow face studded with patches of acne, pressed against the smooth bole of a palm tree. He wore a black sports shirt, black slacks. The night was dark, without stars. His heart hammered as he searched the shadows, and he shivered slightly, although a necklace of perspiration beaded his upper lip.

He was supposed to be taking his time, but the extreme quiet was making him jumpy. Action he didn’t mind. He had been fighting all his life, in gyms and on street corners. But he had grown up in a big city, and the outdoors was mysterious to him, full of unknown dangers. He didn’t like this sneaking from tree to tree. He would rather walk openly up the driveway, the metal plates in his heels crunching on the gravel.

The big house on Normandy Isle, in upper Biscayne Bay between Miami and Miami Beach, belonged to Harry Bass. Sanchez had been imported from another town, in another state, but he knew that Bass was the big man in book-making and casino gambling in this part of the world, which automatically made him a bad man to fool around with. But everything had been worked out to the split second. By the time Bass discovered what had happened to him, Sanchez expected to be a thousand miles away, starting to enjoy the $10,000 that had been deposited in his account in the Liberty Savings Bank in St. Louis. For the first time in his life-he was twenty-two years old-he had a savings account. Most people didn’t realize, he was sure, that if you left $10,000 in savings-bank money alone, it would grow by four or five hundred a year. Not that he expected to leave it alone. He had plans.

Taking a deep breath, he moved quickly from the palm tree to an ornamental shrub. Now he could see the Cadillac on the graveled turnaround by the front entrance. It was too big, too black, too shiny, and Sanchez was pleased to think that before much longer it would be nothing but a twisted pile of junk.

He crept cautiously along the spongy turf at the edge of the driveway, bent low and keeping the Cadillac’s bulk between him and the lights of the house. Before leaving the protection of the last bush, he checked his pockets and crossed himself furtively. In a half crouch, he darted across the gravel, dropping to one knee beside the Cadillac’s front fender, and whipped a small metal canister, the size of a pack of cigarettes, out of his shirt pocket. A powerful magnet was welded to the top of the canister. Reaching underneath the car, he slapped the magnet against the bottom of the oil pan. A short length of light cable ran out from the canister, ending in another magnet. Sanchez attached this to the inside of the front wheel. The instant the wheel started its first revolution, the cable would tighten and snap, activating a timing mechanism inside the canister. Exactly three minutes later, Sanchez and the others had been assured, the incendiary material inside the canister would ignite, fuming upward into the motor. In ten seconds, the front of the car would be on fire.

Sanchez ran back to the nearest bush, where he wiped grease off his fingers onto his socks. He slid his hand inside his shirt and touched the butt of the. 38, which he wore in a shoulder harness against his skin. He had been told it would be easy, and it had been easy. Now they had to wait till the man came out with the money. The waiting, Sanchez knew from experience, would be the hard part.

He made his way back to the fence, and to show that he was unimpressed by the rustlings and insect noises around him, he ignored the bushes and walked straight across the grass. Freeing the loose section of the fence, where they had cut the wires holding the tall cedar pickets together, he peered out carefully. Finding the street deserted, he stepped through, hooked the fence back together and angled briskly across the street. He slid behind the wheel of a fairly new Dodge sedan.

There were two other men in the sedan, and Sanchez no longer felt so vulnerable. If anything went wrong now, it would be somebody else’s fault.

He made a circle with thumb and forefinger. “Let’s hope the damn thing works.”

The big man in back said cheerfully, “If it don’t work, get up close to him, Pete, and I’ll shoot out a tire.”

“That’s a Caddy, man,” Sanchez replied. “If he sees us coming he’ll walk right away from us.”

The kid in front beside Sanchez lit a cigarette. He was calling the shots, he had organized everything and put up the capital, and to hear him talk, he was no stranger to the big time. It had a calming effect on Sanchez to see that his lighter flame was trembling.

“It’ll work,” the kid said, breathing out smoke. “It’s the same stuff they put in fire grenades in the Army. And don’t start shooting out tires, for God’s sake. Any other cars in the driveway?”

“No, just the Cad.”

They heard distant traffic noises, but this was a quiet part of town. They were parked on a short street, beginning at the Normandy Shores golf course and ending at the edge of the bay. After the kid finished his cigarette, sucking the smoke in hungrily, he started combing his hair. He jittered up and down and around, stretching his legs to ease the pull of his tight slacks, fingering his nose, checking the time, keeping the comb in motion. The more he twitched, the easier Sanchez felt. It stood to reason that the kid would be wondering how much he’d clear, and he was probably running over the list of the hundred and one things that could go wrong.

Sanchez hadn’t seen him for a couple of years. During that time he had picked up a nice tan and some terrific clothes. He was wearing a forty-dollar pair of shoes. If there was one thing Sanchez was a good judge of, it was shoes. The kid had been light-haired to start with, and after all the sun he had been out in, his eyebrows and lashes were so light they could hardly be seen at all. There were lines on his face that shouldn’t be there at his age, but he was still a good-looking guy. Sanchez, for example, had complexion trouble. People had always kept telling him it would begin to clear as soon as he turned twenty-one, but it seemed to be getting worse. And look at the kid-the smooth cheeks and forehead of a goddamn baby. It didn’t seem right. He always had all the dolls he could use, rich dolls with cars and suites at the best hotels. Sanchez was wondering, not for the first time, how come he let himself in for the headaches of a major stickup when there were so many easier ways to keep himself in those forty-dollar soft Italian shoes.

And then the kid’s nostrils flared, and Sanchez suddenly had the explanation: he was on junk!

Sanchez turned to check on the big placid man in the back seat, Pond, who was smoking a cheap cigar, completely relaxed.

“Oh, my,” Pond said easily. “The things people do to make a living.”

A car door slammed. The sound carried well in the night. A motor coughed softly and took hold.

The kid looked at Sanchez.

“That’s it,” Sanchez said, and switched on the ignition. “A sweet engine, the Cadillac.”

His wheels were already turned, ready to roll out. The kid craned forward beside him, steaming up the inside of the windshield, watching the Bass driveway. When Sanchez saw a flicker of headlights through the stockade fence, he eased away from the curb. The Dodge had an automatic transmission, which he didn’t like, and a slow pickup in second. He was afraid cornering would be a problem at high speed. After stealing the car in northeast Miami, he had discovered these faults too late, crossing the causeway. But if everything went according to plan they would keep within the speed limit, observe stop signs, and attract no attention.

The Cadillac turned onto the shore drive.

“How many with him?” the kid asked eagerly.

“Just the driver,” Sanchez said, making the turn smoothly. He checked lights and mirror: everything OK.

“Then maybe we can do it without shooting,” the kid said. “The driver-slug him so he stays slugged. But be careful with Bass. He won’t be carrying a gun. He’s an old man, for Christ’s sake. If the three of us can’t pick off his dough without blowing his head in we ought to go back to school.”

Now that the waiting was over he seemed calmer. He put his comb in his pocket and snapped on an eye-and-nose mask. Pond, in back, was now wearing a fake nose and a fake set of teeth. Sanchez was the only one who was going to be wearing his own face, but what did he care? Nobody knew him around here. He unbuttoned his shirt so he could get to the. 38 in a hurry.

As the drive curved, the Cadillac began to pick up speed. Sanchez kept fifty feet of open space ahead of his front bumper.

“I figured we could handle up to four,” the kid said. “But just Bass and the driver, how can we lose?”

If he didn’t know, Sanchez didn’t intend to tell him. The incendiary canister had been set to go off in three minutes, and surely, he thought, the Cadillac had been in motion longer than that already. There was no sign of smoke or fire.

“Come on, come on,” he said, slapping the steering wheel.

Then a quick plume of smoke gushed out from the Cadillac’s side, seeming to come from directly beneath the driver. The brake lights flared. Sanchez rapidly overtook the other car, veering out to pass. The whole front end of the Cadillac was hidden in thick billows of smoke. The driver burst out of the front seat as the Dodge came abreast. He was a stocky Negro, with a powerful wrestler’s chest, wearing a black suit and a white linen cap.

Sanchez swung over onto the left shoulder and brought the Dodge to a halt. Something had just occurred to him. What if the Cadillac exploded? Nobody had mentioned that as a possibility. He was already out, brandishing a portable fire extinguisher and shouting incoherently to the Negro. He ran around the front of the Dodge, reaching the Cadillac as the Negro released the hood catch and the hood sprang up. A tongue of flame licked out through the smoke at them.

The extinguisher Sanchez was waving was a small spray can, designed for use against less serious fires than this one. “Where’s it coming from?” he shouted.

Shielding his face with one arm, he pressed the button on the top of the can and directed a powerful stream of carbon tetrachloride into the smoke. When the Negro leaned forward over the radiator, Sanchez brought the can up and around, keeping the button depressed, and sent the stream into the man’s eyes.

The Negro screamed thinly and staggered back. Sanchez stepped around him and clubbed him at the base of the skull with the short barrel of his. 38. The screaming stopped. Sanchez slapped him hard with the side of the gun as he went down.

The smoke gushed upward, as though escaping under pressure, and there was a strong smell of burning oil and metal. The kid and Pond had had plenty of time to close in on Bass, but the gambler must have moved fast, starting the instant the other car pulled around him. As Sanchez started for the sidewalk, stepping over the unconscious Negro, a suitcase flew over the stone wall at the edge of the golf course. A bald-headed man in a Madras sports jacket scrambled after it, moving fast. Pond grabbed for his leg. From the top of the wall, Bass kicked out savagely, crushing Pond’s false nose against his real one. Pond spat out a mouthful of phony teeth, and went up and over. The kid was right behind him. He had his gun out. So there wasn’t going to be any shooting, Sanchez thought bitterly.

The wall was only five feet high, but there was nothing for the sharp toes of his shoes to dig into. He got over because he had to, but he scraped his shins and the gun gouged his chest. Smoke rolled over him, making him cough. As he dropped off the coping he heard a shot.

He landed badly. He was in dark shadow, which he didn’t want to leave. He hadn’t believed for a minute that Bass wouldn’t be carrying a gun when he was carrying that much money. It was three against one, but Bass had an advantage-every time anything moved, he would know it was an enemy.

Sighing, Sanchez took out his. 38 and crawled away from the wall.

2

Michael Shayne, the big redheaded private detective, came onto Normandy Isle from the Beach end. People in the gambling business are particular about what they say on the phone, and all Harry Bass had told him was that he wanted to see him. Shayne had done several routine jobs for Bass in the past, and had been paid well. Occasionally he spent a weekend duck-shooting at Harry’s lodge in North Carolina. Harry Bass broke the law every day of his life, but in Shayne’s opinion it was a hypocritical law, one that couldn’t be enforced, especially in a resort town. In any real showdown, Shayne and Bass both knew that they would end up on opposite sides, but that day might never come, and in the meantime, they were friends.

After crossing the Normandy Waterway, the drive began to curve. Suddenly Shayne jammed on his brakes. The road ahead was blocked by two cars. One, a long black Cadillac, seemed to be on fire.

Swerving far over, he stopped and jumped out. Both cars had their headlights on full, and at first glance he thought they had been abandoned. It was an odd scene-an empty street, empty sidewalks, two empty cars, one of them burning. Several long strides brought Shayne to the Cadillac. The hood was up. Thick white smoke was pouring out of the motor. He sniffed sharply. He couldn’t identify the smell. It was pungent and acrid, like the smell of burned gunpowder. There wasn’t much heat. The smoke seemed to originate somewhere underneath, perhaps in the oil pan.

His foot kicked against a portable fire extinguisher. He retrieved it and found the button controlling the spray. Before he could use it on the fire, he saw a man lying face down on the sidewalk. The back of his jacket was burning.

With a quick burst from the extinguisher, Shayne put out the flames. The man was a Negro, not big but solidly built. Shayne stooped to pull him farther from the burning car. His white cap fell off as Shayne lifted him. The back of his head was bleeding. Under his arm, the detective felt the strap of a gun harness.

He didn’t like this at all. Two cars meant a minimum of two people. Here was one of them. Where was the other? He didn’t recognize the Negro or either car, but Harry’s house was only a couple of minutes away and he knew there had to be some connection with the phone call from Harry twenty minutes earlier.

He was still bent over the unconscious Negro when he heard a grating noise behind him. He whirled. A big man with a grotesquely twisted nose dropped on him from the top of the wall. Shayne tried to twist out of the way but he tripped on the Negro and was carried to the sidewalk with the big man on top of him. He rolled, bringing one elbow up in his assailant’s face. The man grunted and slammed a fist the size of a small ham against the side of Shayne’s head.

Shayne’s reaction was instinctive. He rolled with the punch and lashed out with his foot at the big man’s middle. As his foot went home, air rushed out of the big man’s lungs, and Shayne knew he could take him.

Then a second man jumped off the wall, a suitcase in one hand and a gun in the other, and Shayne was clipped behind the ear with something much harder than a fist. The Cadillac’s headlights blurred and overlapped.

“OK,” a voice said urgently. “Cool him and let’s get out of here.”

Shayne grabbed upward through the blur and dazzle. His fingers closed on the big man’s shirt and dragged him down. He had no leverage, and for the moment there was no strength in his arms. He twisted his knuckles in the big man’s eye, to mark him so he would know him if he saw him again. The nose broke away altogether, and Shayne realized it was part of a broken mask.

“Let me,” another voice said with a sneer. “You don’t want to ruin those high-price shoes.”

Three of them, the redhead noted, and another small explosion went off inside his skull. His grip on the big man’s shirt front loosened. He was kicked twice more, and then they left him.

A door slammed. The noise echoed back and forth painfully inside Shayne’s head before dying away. He made himself roll on his side for a better look at the car: a gray Dodge sedan with Florida plates. Slowly and patiently, Shayne slid his hand inside the unconscious Negro’s jacket and tugged the gun out of his holster. But by the time he had it the tail lights of the Dodge were around the curve. The gun slipped away, and when he scrabbled after it he only succeeded in knocking it underneath the burning car.

The fire was now blazing with an intensity that brought Shayne to his feet. His mind was functioning in short bursts. He knew his way around these bay islands and it was possible that they didn’t. When they hit Normandy Drive, which way would they turn? Probably they would avoid Miami Beach, with its bottlenecks and its difficult traffic. They would turn right, crossing to North Bay Village on the 79th Street Causeway, then on into the Little River section of Northeast Miami. If he could force himself into motion and move fast, he might be able to catch them on the causeway.

He lurched against the Cadillac. The doorframe was hot against his hand. He careered away at a slanting angle. The pavement tilted violently, tilted again, and he brought up against his Buick. The door opened for him and the motor seemed to start by itself. Time was moving in jumps. In an instant he was doing fifty.

He straddled the double line between the two lanes until his head cleared. A slower car appeared in front of him. Without loss of speed he zoomed around it on a curve, his thumb on the hornbutton, trusting that if anybody was coming toward him they would have the sense to get out of his way. It was a chance he might not have taken before those knocks on the head. He was glad to see that his reflexes were working. When headlights flashed in front of him he slid back into his own lane without using his brakes.

At Normandy Drive he ran through a red light. The pain behind his eyes made it hard for him to see. The approaching headlights seemed much too bright and came straight at him, forcing him farther and farther toward the edge of the road.

It was better on the causeway. He built up his speed until he was doing seventy. The causeway straightened crossing Treasure Island and his speed kept climbing. Slower cars flashed past on his right, but he didn’t break his concentration. He was concerned with gauging gaps and distances. If one of the cars he was passing was a gray Dodge, he would find it out when he was across the bay.

He passed three cars in a bunch, cut back and touched his brakes as the lights of the mainland approached. At the end of the causeway he pulled over to let the cars behind him pass. He knew the odds were against him. He might have taken too long to get started. They might, after all, have had a reason for going into Miami Beach. And would he know the car when he saw it? The town was full of gray sedans.

At that moment it went by, one of the clump of three he had passed in his last reckless rush. There were only two men in it, one at the wheel and one in the back seat.

The man in back glanced at him as they passed. The eye Shayne had knuckled was red and swollen. The man was smiling happily, but the smile froze as he recognized Shayne.

Shayne blinked his directional signal and fell back into line, the second car behind the Dodge. His lips were drawn back in a savage grin. This was his town. His Buick had just come out of the garage with new valves and points, and everything tinkered up into racing condition. Unless the Dodge had a specially souped-up motor, he knew he had them.

They tried to hang him up on a red light at Biscayne Boulevard, but he bulled through, his horn going. When they took the curving ramp up to the North-South Express way, the Dodge leaned more than it should; probably there was something wrong with the front suspension. It came off the ramp too fast and barely recovered.

The big man shattered the rear window with a gun butt. Shayne dropped back, letting another car slip in ahead of him. He was watching for the buggy-whip aerial and markings of a police car. There were usually two or three patrolling this stretch. When he saw one across the divider, traveling north, he swung into the left-hand lane, honking his horn and snapping his headlights. They saw him, but they would have to go on a few miles, to the 79th Street connection, before they could turn. The Dodge was cutting in and out, doing eighty. Shayne stayed one or two cars back. The big man waited, on his knees behind the broken window, hoping for a shot.

When the lanes began to separate for the great 39th Street cloverleaf, one stream heading for the Julia Tuttle Causeway to Miami Beach, the other to the Airport Expressway, Shayne was not surprised to see the Dodge lean to the right, toward the airport. Shayne let it pull ahead, knowing he could come up with it again on the straightaway. He lost it for a moment. When he saw it again it had drifted to the left. The lean became more and more pronounced as the cloverleaf sharpened. The brake lights came on, too late, and the brakes grabbed unevenly. One wheel hit the low curb.

The Dodge stopped fighting the curve and plunged over a low embankment to another level, into a stream of traffic going the opposite way. Brakes and tires shrieked. Then came the inevitable rending crash.

Shayne was well past. He left his Buick on the approach to the 12th Avenue ramp, lights blinking, and worked his way back on foot along the divider, to see if there were any survivors. A siren screamed above on the Expressway. A crowd was beginning to gather when Shayne reached the wreck. By some miracle, it was only a one-car accident. The Dodge had rammed a concrete pillar, folding shut on the two men trapped inside. At some point the big man in the back seat had been jolted part way out the broken window, and the impact with the pillar had dragged him back in. He was beyond help. The concrete was slick with blood.

Shayne looked in at the driver. He was a boy in his early twenties, with a blotched complexion. He was skewered on the broken steering post.

Shayne went for his Buick. By the time he circled back to the scene the cops had arrived, including one he knew, a red-faced veteran named Squire. The redhead nodded to him.

“Anybody live through it?”

“God, no,” Squire said. “The one in front we’re going to have to take out with a can opener.”

“I suppose it’s a stolen car?” Shayne said casually.

Squire’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah. My partner spotted it right away. He’s a memory nut, thinks if he recovers enough stolen cars they’ll make him detective. Little does he know.” He fished out a cigarette. “You have anything to do with this, Mike?”

“I walked in on something out on the bay. I don’t know what, except that they didn’t want to be bothered. They got away from me there but I picked them up again on the causeway. Believe it or not, that’s all I know.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t believe you,” Squire told him. “As soon as we get an identification, if we do, we’d better talk about it some more.”

“Sure,” Shayne said. “I’ll call in.”

Squire started to say something, then nodded. “Make it tonight, though, will you? Don’t let it go till morning.”

3

On Normandy Isle, beach police were stopping traffic on Bay Drive and sending it around the golf course. Shayne wanted to find out what had been done with the unconscious Negro, but it would have to wait. Because of the unreasoning enmity of his old antagonist, Chief of Detectives Peter Painter, he had as few dealings as possible with the cops on this side of the bay.

He followed the directions of the red flashlights without objecting. A few minutes later he pulled into Harry Bass’ gravel driveway on the bay side of the island.

The house was lighted up. As he went up the front steps he heard a typewriter clacking busily inside. A chime sounded when he rang the bell. The typewriter stopped. In a moment a girl came to the door.

Harry had been married twice, and his second divorce had just become final. He had always had good taste in girls, and on the evidence of this one it seemed to be getting even better. She was blonde, probably in her late twenties, though Shayne was no longer much of a judge of women’s ages. She was wearing horn-rimmed glasses. A pencil with a large eraser was stuck in her hair and a light cashmere sweater was thrown carelessly over her shoulders. All Harry’s women had been sexy-looking. She was no exception, but she also looked interested and intelligent. That was new.

“You’re Michael Shayne,” she said, opening the screen door. “I’m Mr. Bass’s secretary, Theo Moore.” She looked at a small wristwatch. “He’ll be back in a minute. I’m supposed to find you a drink and make myself agreeable.”

She smiled at him when he stayed where he was. “Come in, Mr. Shayne. I won’t bite.”

“Does Harry still drive that Ferrari?” Shayne asked.,

She laughed. “No, these days he’s much more sober and sedate and respectable. They sold him a Cadillac, no less, with backseat television and a refrigerator. I was afraid it might change his personality, but he still seems to be the same man.”

Shayne said grimly, “Was anybody with him?”

She reacted immediately to his tone. “Yes, a man named Billy Wallace. Is anything wrong?”

“If Billy Wallace is colored,” Shayne said, “wearing a white cap and a gun, yeah, something’s wrong. Somebody slugged Billy and set the Cadillac on fire.”

She took a quick breath. “On fire! I heard the siren but it never occurred to me-Mr. Shayne, wasn’t Harry there?”

“No. It looks as though he’s been jumped. Do you know where he was going?”

She shook her head too quickly. “I really don’t.”

“I don’t want to waste time going up blind alleys,” Shayne said roughly. “You must have some idea.”

She hesitated. “I think he was taking money to somebody. I try not to know about that part of his business, but I can’t put stoppers in my ears. Apparently a football team won this afternoon when it was supposed to lose-or lost when it was supposed to win, I don’t know which. That’s why he wanted to talk to you. The phone kept ringing for two hours straight. I was in the office, typing up some things that have to be signed before Monday, but I did hear him say once, “How much do you need?’ He went up stairs and brought down a suitcase. Billy put it in the car. Mr. Shayne, what shall we do? The police-”

“Not yet. I want to check something first.”

When he started down the steps she came with him.

“Stay here in case the phone rings,” he told her.

She shook her head and said stubbornly, “No, I want to know what happened.”

She got in beside him. They were halfway down the driveway when a car turned in from the road.

“There he is!” Theo cried with relief.

Shayne backed up to the doorway, letting the other car into the turnaround from the opposite direction. It was a black Thunderbird. The man who got out wasn’t Harry Bass.

“Hey, baby,” he said to Theo as she stepped out of Shayne’s car. “Where’s the boss, inside?”

Shayne recognized him in the light from the porch. His name was Doc Waters. He had recently returned to Miami after several years in the Caribbean and had bought into the lucrative Collins Avenue bookmaking, a district that included the biggest hotels. He was a short man, overweight, with a bright resort wardrobe. Too much exposure to the sun had turned his face yellow. He had sharp, agile eyes and a narrow hairline mustache.

“Mr. Waters, did Harry talk to you?” the girl asked in a worried tone.

“Sure he talked to me. That’s the whole point.” He peered through the Buick’s windshield, his eyes narrowing. “Mike Shayne?” He put out his hand, which Shayne shook through the open window. “Glad to see you, man. It’s been years. And what goes on around here, please? Those cops on the road?”

“Harry had an accident,” Shayne said briefly. “Was he on his way to see you?”

Waters considered briefly, flicking his little mustache with his thumbnail. “An accident. I don’t like that. I knew when I woke up this morning it was going to be one of those days. Yeah, he was on his way to see me. I gave him an hour and then thought what the hell. He’s been getting very chintzy lately, since he moved up here-I’m supposed to stay strictly away, we conduct our business in automobiles. Common people like me would lower the real-estate values, right? Listen, honey,” he said to the girl in a more guarded tone, glancing in at Shayne. “How did Harry come out of this accident, OK or not?”

“I don’t know!” she said helplessly. “I don’t know anything about it yet, except that it happened.”

“You’re his secretary. You’ve got a right to talk to the cops and ask them. He was bringing me a package, understand. It could be wrapped up in paper, or in some kind of little suitcase. Watch for it. If you see it, kind of latch onto it, know what I mean? It’s Harry’s property, but if the cops get hold of it, ten to one Harry won’t see it again.”

“I don’t think I could do that,” she said.

“Then get a receipt for it,” he insisted. “In front of witnesses. Shayne, you advise her.”

Shayne grinned at him. He pressed the Drive button and they began to move. The girl called back, “The liquor’s on the terrace.”

Shayne remarked, “Doc hasn’t changed much since I saw him last.”

“I knew there was money in that suitcase. Harry doesn’t use names on the phone, but he has a special tone of voice when he’s talking to people like that.”

Shayne turned left at the foot of the driveway. She looked at him in surprise.

“The sirens were on the other side of the island.”

“They’re stopping cars,” Shayne told her. “I’m going in across the golf course.”

There was a Saturday night dance at the Normandy Shores clubhouse. The building was ablaze with light and activity, and surrounded by parked cars. A boy with a flashlight waved them into the parking lot. Shayne cut all the way through, stopping when his headlights picked up a line of battery-powered golf carts in front of the professional’s shop.

“I can’t walk in these heels,” Theo said doubtfully.

“Nobody walks in Miami,” Shayne said.

He took a three-cell flashlight out of his glove compartment and left his headlights on so he could see to start one of the little carts and back it out of line. The girl perched beside him. He saw red flashes in the sky from the revolving beacon on one of the pieces of fire apparatus, and he set his course by that.

“Do you think they-killed him?” the girl asked quietly.

“Maybe,” Shayne replied, steering around a tree. “People sometimes get themselves killed for a couple of bucks, and Harry must have been carrying a lot more than that. But he’s not that easy to kill.”

They jolted across a rough furrow. She grabbed the rail.

“If there was just Billy and the Cadillac, maybe they kidnapped him.”

“No, I followed their car and Harry wasn’t in it. They took a curve too fast. When the cops pry the car open they may find the money, but I doubt it. There’s a third man I haven’t accounted for, and he probably has it.”

“Mr. Shayne,” she said brokenly, “if anything really bad has happened-I’ve tried to tell myself gambling money was no different from other kinds. People can bet at the race tracks, it’s encouraged, for heaven’s sake! If the police really wanted to stop illegal betting they could do it in a minute, couldn’t they?”

“Sure. Don’t hold your breath till it happens.”

She turned toward him, her face pale in the reflected light from Shayne’s flashlight. “It sounded like a dream job when I heard about it. Something different all the time, quite a lot of responsibility. Good pay. It didn’t take me long to talk myself into it. I went into it with my eyes open. He’s a tremendous man. Oh, God, I hope he’s not-”

Cutting across the rough between two fairways, Shayne swerved to avoid a menacing hollow and Theo was thrown against him. She grabbed him to keep from falling. Shayne held her with one arm while he tried to keep the cart under control with the other. Her weight shifted as they hit another bump. His hand closed on her breast. It was the wrong way to be holding her on short acquaintance, but he couldn’t move his hand without letting her fall. The flash light bounded away. Shayne stamped at the floorboard, trying to find the brake, but it wasn’t in the logical place. She clung to him and he felt her breath on his cheek.

As soon as they were back on level ground she freed herself and returned to her seat. “Sorry,” she said in a small voice. “That was my fault.”

Shayne found the flashlight. It was still alive. “This seems to be my night for reckless driving,” he said. “What football game did Harry want to talk to me about?”

“Mr. Shayne, I just don’t know. He was watching it on television, and he kept calling me in to see what I thought. It looked legitimate to me, not that I know all that much about football. And there was a horse, too, at Tropical Park. I think the two things together made him think that neither one was entirely a matter of luck.”

Cutting his speed, he threaded his way carefully between sandtraps guarding the approach to a high green. Now they were approaching the stone wall near the burned-out Cadillac. Only one piece of fire apparatus remained, a small chemical pumper. The wind was blowing off the bay. The smell of scorched metal was strong and unpleasant.

Shayne cut the switch. As the motor died he heard a low moaning in the darkness between the cart and the wall.

Theo cried, “Harry?” and jumped down. Her heel went into the soft turf of the green. She fell. Swinging the flash light without getting down from the cart, Shayne began to rake the beam back and forth across the intervening space.

Something moved. The beam jumped toward the movement and picked up the figure of a man, with wildly waving arms.

Theo stumbled again and Shayne passed her. He flicked the flashlight across the face of the man staggering toward them. It was dirty and bloodstained, with staring eyes, but it was unquestionably Harry Bass. Shayne closed with him quickly. Harry swore and batted the flashlight away with a flailing blow. He aimed another swing at Shayne’s head, missed and went sprawling.

“Take it easy, Harry,” the redhead said in a conversational tone. “Mike Shayne.”

Harry came to one knee, panting. Recovering the flash light, Shayne pointed it at his own face. Then he turned it on Theo.

“You’re among friends.”

Harry said heavily, “Where the hell are we?”

“On the Normandy Shores golf course. I’d say about the eighth green. Did you have fire insurance on your Cadillac?”

Theo said quietly, “We have to get him to a doctor.”

“Hell with that,” Harry rumbled. “I need a drink. Been trying to climb that damn wall. Bastards over there wouldn’t listen to me.”

He came to his feet. Theo caught him, both arms around his chest, as he began to topple.

“I’m OK,” he said.

“Oh, yes, you’re fine.”

“How do you want to do it, Harry?” Shayne asked. “You can sit down and we’ll cover you up, and I’ll go back and call an ambulance. But if you don’t want to talk to the cops or sign a complaint right away, we’ll give you a nice bumpy ride out in a golf cart.”

“Mr. Shayne, be serious,” Theo said. “Look at him.”

Harry pulled away. “Not the first time in my life-”

Shayne caught him as he pitched forward. “All right, we’ll take the golf cart. You’ve put on some weight.”

“Hell I have,” Harry mumbled. “Maybe a couple of pounds.”

Shayne turned him so he could look at the flashlight. “How many lights do you see?”

Harry stared at the flashlight, then waved in disgust. “How can I count them when they keep moving around?”

Shayne laughed. “All you need is a couple of weeks in bed and you’ll be out here swinging a golf club.”

He supported the gambler to the cart and helped him up. Harry slumped forward, his head on his folded arms. Theo stood on the ledge behind him, to hold him in.

“How much did you lose, Harry?” Shayne asked before starting the motor.

For a moment he didn’t think Harry had heard him.

“Two hundred G’s,” Harry said softly.

4

Shayne stopped his Buick behind Doc Waters’ Thunderbird. Waters had been watching for them. He came down the porch steps, a drink in his hand.

“This surprises the hell out of me,” he said, looking in at Harry. “You let a couple of punks stick you up?”

Harry took Waters’ drink out of his hand and emptied it in a long swallow. He handed it back.

“I don’t remember asking you here, Doc,” he said evenly.

“Well, for God’s sake,” Waters said uneasily, “if I need an invitation after all these years-I waited a solid hour. I’m under pressure, Harry. I told you that.”

“You’re a rat and a son of a bitch,” Harry told him. “It’s your own fault you’re under pressure. You know what I’m talking about.”

His secretary and Shayne helped him out of the car and up the steps. Waters tried to get in on it but Harry twitched away.

“I don’t want your crummy hands on me.”

Shayne maneuvered his friend through the front door. He looked at Theo, who said helplessly, “Put him in here, I guess.”

Shayne steered him into the living room and lowered him onto a broad sofa. Harry touched his head and groaned.

“Give me another jolt of whiskey before that last one wears off. What happened to Billy?”

“He was on the right side of the wall,” Shayne said, “so he probably traveled by ambulance. Look at this cigarette.” He held a cigarette in front of Harry’s eyes. “Can you focus?”

After trying for a moment, Harry shook his head slightly. “OK, call a doctor. But I want to get you moving first.”

Waters said behind them, “I’ll call him, Harry. Who do you use?”

“Jason Goldstein, in Surfside.”

Theo ran in with a pan of warm water and towels, and knelt beside the sofa. “You look awful,” she said with an attempt at lightness. “Hold still, I want to clean you up a little so you won’t scare the doctor.”

“You’re a cute-looking kid, Theo,” Harry said. “Especially the one in the middle.”

She wrung out a washcloth and began sponging his forehead. “Don’t do too much talking.”

“Kiss me.”

Her hand stopped. “Now Harry.”

“Mike won’t mind. No, not there,” he said as her lips approached his cheek. “On the mouth.”

The expression on her face was hidden from Shayne. He lit a cigarette. Putting down the washcloth, Theo took Harry’s face in both hands and kissed him gently and thoroughly, without hurrying. Shayne had ample time to snap his lighter shut, to put it away, to examine the pictures on the walls. She lifted her head.

“I think I feel better,” Harry said. “Let the washing go for now, Theo. I’m clean enough. Get Mike some brandy. There’s a bottle of Cordon Bleu around somewhere.”

“He can wait a minute,” she said calmly, and finished sponging the blood and dirt from his face.

Harry’s hair, the small amount he had left, was graying over the ears. He had a rugged, outdoors face, with a quick smile and sun crinkles at the corners of his eyes. It was true, as Shayne had told him, that he was a few pounds over his best weight, but he had the arms and shoulders of a professional fighter.

“And a bourbon for me,” he added.

“No,” Theo said, “not till the doctor says so.”

“I know what the doctor will say-bouillon. I’ve got to tell Mike something, and I can’t do it without a drink.”

She looked up at Shayne.

“It won’t kill him,” Shayne said.

“All right, but it’s against my better judgment.”

Harry watched her leave the room. Her walk was lithe and athletic.

“There’s a real woman,” he said. “Mike, sit down. Here’s the problem.”

Shayne moved a straight chair closer to the sofa. “What do you want me to do with Waters, throw him out?”

“No, I’d better have him here where I can watch him.” His face twisted suddenly and he put his hand lightly against the top of his head. “I really think they may have busted something. I relaxed at the wrong time, Mike. One of them kept saying, ‘Don’t kill him, don’t kill him.’ I don’t know why he thought it mattered.”

“If it’ll make you feel better,” Shayne said, “two of them are dead.”

Harry looked at him questioningly, and Shayne told him about his chase of the holdup men and its abrupt ending on the 39th Street cloverleaf in Miami.

“That’s two out of three,” Harry said. “Never mind. Those were the troops. I want to know who’s behind it. That was no spur-of-the-moment job. It was planned. Somebody knew about Doc’s cash situation. The bastard has no margin at all. Sting him twice in an afternoon, and they knew he’d have to call on me for backing. A long shot at Tropical, a football game, a stickup. They could be three accidents, or they could be connected. I think they’re connected.”

“What’s your idea, Harry, that the real reason for the fixes wasn’t just to beat Doc, but to get your cash out where they could take a crack at it?”

“That’s my idea. I’m getting dizzier by the minute so I’ll say it fast. Florida Christian against Southern Georgia. We had Florida at eleven points. A rush of last-minute money came in on Georgia, most of it in Doc’s territory. You don’t get that kind of late action against the local team unless somebody thinks they know something.”

“What did the Christians win by?” Shayne said. “Six points, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Harry said bitterly, “six points. One more touchdown and we’d have been in. I watched the last half. It’s one of those stymie situations where both lines are so strong that nobody gains on the ground and it’s up to the quarterback to break it open with passes. And it seemed to me he was a tick slow about getting off his shots. They red-dogged him, sure. But a couple of times he had a receiver wide open and he let himself get blitzed with the ball still in his mitt. Other times he just missed the receiver.”

“That happens, Harry.”

“Yeah, but I’ve got a suspicious mind. If the betting had been normal, but it wasn’t. Well, we get taken once in a while, you know that, and what can you do? But I like to know what’s happening to me so it won’t happen again. That’s what I wanted you to look into, this quarterback. What kind of car does he drive? Does he have a safe-deposit box, and what’s in it?”

Shayne scraped his thumb along his stubbled jaw. “Harry, you’re talking about Johnny Black. He’s All-American. These days the pros are handing out bonuses of a hundred thousand and up, and he’s going to get offers. How much would you have to pay him to take that kind of chance in his last college game? Too damn much.”

“I could be wrong,” Harry admitted. “What time is it?”

Shayne looked at his watch. “Five of eight.”

“There’s a sports program at eight, highlights of the games. See what you think.”

Doc Waters came in from the hall. “Well, I had a hell of a time locating Goldstein, but he says he’ll be with you in fifteen minutes. Look, I know you’re feeling lousy, Harry, but before he gets here. I told you what I’m up against. There’s a time element.”

Harry’s head made a small rotating motion and his eyes closed for an instant. He blinked hard.

“I said I’d cover you. I consider that a contract. But don’t irritate me.”

Theo came in with bottles and glasses on a large tray. Shayne took the tray from her and put it on a low table.

“I couldn’t find the brandy he was talking about,” she said. “I hope this will do. Will you make your own?”

She poured a little whiskey in a tall glass, adding ice and considerable soda. “And I’m taking no responsibility for this, Harry.”

“Give that to Doc,” Harry said. “I’ll have mine straight.”

She looked at Shayne for support. When he didn’t give her any, she grudgingly covered the bottom of an old-fashioned glass with bourbon and handed it to her employer.

Doc Waters was fidgeting around without sitting down. “One thing I didn’t tell you, Harry, and it makes a difference. My big winner’s Al Naples. Anybody else I could maybe stall.”

“Don’t worry about Al. He’s retired.”

Doc drank some of the weak highball. “Maybe, but I don’t think I’ll take a chance on it.”

“Is this the Al Naples from Chicago?” Shayne asked.

Waters nodded. “And I wish he’d stayed there.”

“Harry, if you don’t need me right now,” Theo said, “why don’t I finish my typing?” She bit her lip and burst out, “I can’t just sit down, and have a drink, and pretend everything’s normal! The doctor said fifteen minutes, but when did a doctor ever come when he said he would? You ought to be in the hospital. You’ll need X rays, and why not have them now instead of later?”

“Let’s see what Goldstein says about X rays,” Harry said. “Get the typing out of the way, and if I have to go to the hospital you can come along. I won’t blast off at Doc any more. I’ll try to remember he’s human.”

Doc’s mustache jerked in annoyance. “I’m human. But who else?”

“Turn on the TV for Mike,” Harry said.

Theo touched Harry’s shoulder lightly, crossed the room and switched on the big set. Again Harry watched her leave, his eyes soft and vulnerable.

Shayne adjusted the volume. The announcer was delivering a razor-blade commercial, in a tone of great conviction. After that he went directly into a fast review of the Florida Christian-Southern Georgia contest, which the favorite had won but with little to spare. Shayne watched Johnny Black hit with two scoring passes in the first quarter, then suddenly lose his touch.

“I’d say there were four plays,” Harry said when the announcer shifted to a game in the Middle West. “He could have scored with any one of them. Heads or tails, and they all came up tails.”

“You think he threw it?” Waters said.

“That’s what I want Shayne to find out. Now tell him about the third race at Tropical.”

“Harry, where’s the percentage? There’s not a damn thing we can do but pay up.”

“Doc, give me some more whiskey.”

When Waters hesitated he said sharply, “So it’s bad for me. Do you care?”

Waters took his glass and poured him a strong drink. Harry was squinting, trying to keep things from overlapping.

“A couple of mugs stuck me up when I was eighteen,” he said. “They got a wristwatch and three bucks. That was the last time till tonight. I don’t like it. I also don’t like being clubbed with a pistol barrel. I think Mike will work on it for me if I pay him enough dough, but he has to know the facts. All the facts. What’s the name of the horse?”

“Ladybug,” Waters said reluctantly. “There’s no mystery. She’s a Naples horse, in his wife’s name, for tax reasons. In two years she never did a thing. Fifth, sixth. What do you want Shayne to do, Harry, walk in on Al Naples and ask him if he fixed the race? Sure he fixed it. He fixed it by hiding the mare’s speed. Why worry about how? There are ways. He fooled everybody, and she paid off at sixty-five to one. His wife couldn’t get to the track this afternoon. She had to have her hair done, and anyway she didn’t want to bet at the track, she said, because she didn’t want Al to know she was betting seven C’s on the mare, she liked her so much. That was her story, and what was wrong with it? They got four thousand down all told, here and there. I tried to call you, Harry, and where were you? We could have come back to the track with some of that, fed it into the machines. But you weren’t answering the phone.”

Shayne finished his cognac and poured himself some more. “If it was just the football game or just the horse race, would you still need Harry’s help to make the payoff?”

“He’s like my banker,” Waters said defensively. “I don’t keep that amount in a bureau drawer. Maybe I could have pieced it out, the football payoff, with a little squeezing. It’s the two hits at the same time that hurts. And what I’m trying to get a statement out of you on, Harry, is what the hell am I supposed to do now? Naples expects it, and what do I tell him? It’s me he’s collecting from, not you.”

His voice was rising. Harry cut him short.

“I said I’d take care of it,” he said, his eyes hard. “Mike, are you in?”

Shayne nodded. “With pleasure. I took a couple of cracks on the head myself, and I’d like to find the man and get an apology. I’ll start with Johnny Black, but don’t count on anything there, Harry. If he buttons up and stays buttoned up, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Use psychology, Mike. Do you want a retainer?”

“Can you afford it?”

Harry snorted and Shayne stood up. “If I find the dough, I’ll take ten percent.”

“Ten percent!” Waters exclaimed. “That’s high.”

“OK, Mike,” Harry said briefly, closing his eyes. “Call me. Maybe you’ll get lucky and I won’t have to knock myself out raising it.”

“Do what the doctor tells you,” the redhead said, looking down at him. “You’re not a kid any more.”

“Prime of life,” Harry said without opening his eyes.

The doorbell chimed and Theo went to answer it. It was a Beach patrolman, wanting to know if by any chance Mr. Bass was missing a Cadillac. The doctor arrived as Shayne was leaving. Theo accompanied Shayne to his car.

“I take it you’re going to be working for him. I’m glad.”

“He’s making pretty good sense,” Shayne said. “I was hoping those drinks would knock him out. If you can get rid of Doc Waters, so much the better.” He hesitated. “You might pass this on to the doctor. I was with Harry another time when he had a concussion. It was a freak accident-a dead branch fell off a tree when he was out hunting. He didn’t seem to be too badly hurt. But then somebody said something he didn’t like-nothing important, just a remark-and he went haywire. It took three of us to haul him off the guy before he committed a murder. That time there wasn’t any doctor around.”

She shivered. “I’ll certainly tell him. Did Harry say anything about-” She stopped. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say. But something’s been eating at him the last few weeks. He’s under some kind of strain. Well, I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”

Shayne put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it with the dashboard lighter as he went down the driveway. He stopped after turning onto North Shore Drive and put on the dome light, to check a road map for the quickest way to the Florida Christian campus. After putting away the map he waited another moment, smoking thoughtfully. Then he made up his mind and headed for the causeway.

5

Using the phone he had recently had installed in the front seat of the Buick, Shayne called the Accident Investigation Unit of the Miami police. After being shuffled from one extension to another, he was finally connected with Squire, the sergeant he had met at the wreck of the stolen Dodge.

“Glad you called, Mike,” Squire said. “You dropped a couple of remarks I want to follow up on. There were two guns in the car, and one of them had been fired. Chief Gentry thinks you ought to come in and tell us what you know.”

“I’d like to do it on the phone, if that’s OK,” Shayne said. “I’m still working on it. Here’s what happened. I had to pull up sharp to keep from hitting a Cadillac which was on fire. When I got out to see what I could do, I was jumped. A Negro was lying in the street. I didn’t have time to check him for bullet holes. This was on Normandy Isle, in Painter’s jurisdiction, and that makes it tricky. You know how I don’t get along with Painter. When you talk to him you’d better not tell him where the information comes from.”

Squire chuckled. “He’d probably arrest you for setting fire to an automobile.”

“Yeah. Since I saw you I’ve found out a little more. The guys who bushwacked me had just held up Harry Bass, and I’m told it was a very nice score. Maybe you better not mention that to Painter either. Harry won’t report it, and you know how Painter can complicate the simplest things.”

“This doesn’t sound too simple to begin with, Mike,” Squire said. “If it was up to me I wouldn’t tell Painter anything. God knows I’m not impartial on the subject. The Chief said to pass on what we have if you cooperated, and you seem to be cooperating more than you sometimes do. There was no important dough in the wreck. No luggage. Just a couple of hundred bucks personal cash in the guys’ pockets. They were both from St. Louis. Pedro Sanchez and Thomas J. Pond, Jr. Sanchez was carrying a pass book in a St. Louis savings bank, with one entry, a deposit of ten thousand bucks, dated last Thursday. We’re sending their prints to Washington, and that’s all. Mike, I still think you ought to come in.”

Shayne put him off, thanked him for the information, and then settled down to some fast driving.

Florida Christian was twenty-five miles from Miami, on the edge of the Glades. There was little traffic on the Trail, and Shayne made good time. He had been here often to football games, but that was all he knew about the institution. The stadium, of course, was the principal structure on the campus, a huge bowl illuminated by a necklace of lights. Shayne circled around it in widening arcs until he found a brightly-lighted two-block section that functioned as a downtown.

He cruised slowly, made a U-turn and came back, stopping when he saw two husky undergraduates, one wearing a football sweater. He called them over. He was right in assuming that they could tell him where to find Johnny Black. Black was a Lambda Phi. The Lambda Phi house was the third building from the end of fraternity row. Fraternity row was the first street to the right.

This being Saturday night after the last game of the season, the Lambda Phi’s were having a party. The house was big and rambling, with white columns and a screened-in porch. Shayne went all the way in, passing several clumps of young men and girls, before asking for Black.

“He’s here somewhere,” the boy he spoke to told him, “but where? Hold this.” He handed Shayne his beer can, cupped his hands around his mouth and called, “Johnny!” in a piping voice not intended to penetrate the din. He turned back with a mock shrug. “You’ll just have to look.”

Shayne went on. Somebody was playing a guitar in one room. In another there was a beer keg, but the Lambda Phi’s and their guests were using empty cans as mugs, holding the triangular punched opening under the spigot. Shayne asked several more youths for Johnny Black. They all assured him that Black was present, and to keep looking.

In the library, a room with a fireplace, numerous athletic trophies and leather furniture, he saw his first old grad. He was a short, nearly rectangular man, with a broken nose and receding hair. Alarm stirred in his eyes as they met Shayne’s. He had his back to a wall covered with framed photographs of football teams, and he wasn’t socializing with anybody.

Shayne went on asking for Black. Having seen him only from a distance on TV, in a football helmet, he knew he wouldn’t recognize him here. Presently the broken-nosed man made up his mind and came toward him. One of the teeth at the front of his smile had a corner missing.

“I’m Bus Colfax,” he said, putting out his hand, “and I’m trying to decide if I know you. Didn’t you use to line-back for the Packers?”

“Mike Shayne,” the redhead said, shaking hands. “Which Packers?”

Colfax laughed heartily. “Which Packers! That puts me in my place, all right. After all these years I ought to know an ex-pro when I see one. Can I use my influence and get you a beer? That’s what the kiddies are drinking, not that I don’t have a couple of pints of rotgut in the car. Which will it be, Mike?”

“Neither right now, thanks. I’m looking for somebody.”

Colfax laughed again. “Isn’t everybody?”

A dark girl with bangs almost down to her eyelashes came up through the haze.

“Excuse me,” she said to Shayne. “Are you the one who was asking for Mr. Black?”

Shayne told her he was, and that his name was Michael Shayne.

“Would you mind telling me what you wanted to see him about? If you’re a sportswriter he’s not giving any interviews.”

Shayne grinned down at her. “How about autographs? Tell him we have some mutual friends, and I’ll only take fifteen minutes.”

The girl looked doubtful, but brushed her hair back from her eyes and went away.

Bus Colfax had audited this exchange closely. “For three or four weeks at this time of year,” he said with sympathy, “they’re kings. You have to study their moods, play on their weaknesses and back out when you leave the room. But the minute they sign, they’re property like everybody else. That’s the way I console myself.”

He looked around quickly, shed his bantering manner and became all business. He tapped Shayne lightly on the forearm with the rim of his beer can.

“Shayne, I won’t make a guess at what club you represent. That would give away who I consider our chief competition. I’m down from the Warriors. I don’t have to tell you that I wouldn’t be here if we didn’t want the boy. I’m ready to spend money to get him. Frankly, I can’t give him the sky. Play it close to your vest, keep throwing in blue chips and maybe you’ll end up with Johnny Black on your roster, at some astronomical bonus figure which is sure to leak to the press. Then all the other All-Americans get a highly inflated idea about how much he’s worth. Or there’s the other possibility, that I’ll end up with Johnny Black at a similar figure, and you’ll end up sucking hind tit, with nothing to show for your expense account.”

Shayne was beginning to see a way to handle Johnny Black. He looked thoughtful.

“I see what you mean, but I don’t have much leeway.”

“You don’t realize how much leeway you’ve got,” Colfax said joyfully. “All you are is the man on the spot, and what the people in the front office don’t know won’t keep them awake nights. If you got here an hour later, I could already have inked the kid, and vice versa. Maybe we can save ourselves some headaches and save our clubs some dough. We both need a quarterback. That’s why we’re here. I don’t have to read your mind to know you could use a good lineman. From here I go to the University of Miami, and you know who I’m contacting there-Humboldt. I don’t care who you are, could you use Humboldt or couldn’t you? Bidding is what we want to avoid. How about if we talk it over, have a can of beer and a couple of shots, discuss our mutual needs and requirements, and decide which boy to go for. If we both have the same boy at the top of the list, then we bid for him, but only as a last resort.”

“And you want a passer?” Shayne said.

“We want a passer. Back away from Johnny, Mike, and as far as the Warriors are concerned you can have Humboldt at your own figure, and I’ll put that in writing.”

“Shayne?” a voice said behind the redhead.

He turned. Black was shorter than he had looked playing football, but he seemed just as powerful even without artificial padding. His hair was cropped close. He was chewing gum and smiling pleasantly, as though all his worries were far in the future.

“Johnny!” Colfax exclaimed, faking a blow to the muscle of his throwing arm. “I’m Bus Colfax, and I’m going to pull a little rank on my friend here. I’ve still got a long way to travel, and there’s an old saying, first come, first served. Let me outline a few points to you on behalf of the Warriors, then I’ll be on my way. Is that fair, Mike?”

“Bus Colfax,” Black said solemnly. “Mr. Colfax, you don’t know what this means to me. You’ve always been one of my-well, idols. I hope you don’t have to push on tonight. We can fix you up with a bed. Golly, when I tell the fellows who you are-”

Colfax cocked his head. “Johnny, to tell you the truth my schedule is flexible. There’s nothing I’d like better.”

“That’s great! The Warriors-Mr. Colfax, as far back as I remember it’s been my ambition to be a Warrior. I’ve just about made up my mind that it’s either the Warriors or med school. I’ll see what Mr. Shayne has on his mind and be right back. The things I want to talk about!”

Colfax beamed, and somebody handed him a newly filled can of beer. Still smiling pleasantly, Black moved away through the crowd with Shayne. He was greeted continually from all sides.

“Johnny boy.”

“Where you going, Johnny?”

“This is pretty public,” he said to Shayne. “We could go outside.”

“Yeah, we better go outside.”

“You’re in the private-detective business, right?”

Shayne nodded.

“I thought so,” Black said carelessly, replying to a girl’s wave. “It didn’t register on Bus, and that’s fine. I won’t ask you any questions right now, but I’ve got them, believe me.”

He took Shayne back to the porch, where he was caught up briefly in a group of new arrivals, and then down the steps. “Now,” he said in a low, intense voice, “I want to know what the hell this is all about.”

“Don’t choke up,” Shayne told him. “Who knows, everything may still be all right. Let’s ride around. You can show me the campus.”

He started toward his parked car. After only an instant’s hesitation the quarterback followed. Another girl called to him from the porch. He grinned, pointed to Shayne and shrugged helplessly.

He said nothing until they were under way. He tried to keep his tone casual, but Shayne could tell that it wasn’t easy.

“Now. Who’s in trouble, and what can I do for you?”

“A lot of money changed hands on the game this afternoon,” Shayne said. “The betting pattern was peculiar, and I’ve been retained to ask you a few questions.”

They turned off the street of fraternity houses. Black was sitting in an athlete’s relaxed slouch, hands clasped between his legs. Suddenly, without warning, he whirled and chopped hard at Shayne’s jaw. Shayne came forward and the blow landed behind his ear. He had been hit in that exact spot earlier in the evening, with the barrel of a gun.

He went away for a second. When he came back he found that his reflexes had taken over to do what was necessary. Without touching the brake, he had swung the wheel and headed for a telephone pole. At the same time he hurled himself sideward. Black was young and strong, a contact athlete in top condition, but Shayne doubted if he had done much fighting in the front seat of cars. The first surprise punch was the only one Shayne intended to allow him. He kept his own arms and shoulders in motion, tying Black up against the door. It was over in a moment. Black’s powerful neck and shoulders were tightly braced, as he tried to get Shayne to hold still for another shot at his jaw. The Buick rode up over the curb and banged into the pole, and at the same second Shayne yanked Black’s head forward and downward against the top of the dashboard. He felt the resistance melt out of the boy’s body. To make sure, Shayne turned him slightly and clipped him with a crisp, professional left. It didn’t have his weight behind it, but it went in where he wanted it. He could tell by the solidity of the contact that it was a knockout punch.

He pulled the boy back on the seat and let him recover. He backed away from the pole and drove on through the dormitory area until he found a place to park on a secluded, tree-lined block. The boy’s eyes were open, regarding him expressionlessly. He touched his face where Shayne had hit him.

Shayne said, “Is that the way you make people feel like doing you a favor? Or did you really think you could knock me out and sign with Colfax before I spoiled it for you? You wanted to know who was in trouble. You’re in trouble.”

Black’s face folded in on itself. “Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

“You can always go to medical school,” Shayne said without sympathy. “There’s a big shortage of doctors.”

“There’s a shortage of pro quarterbacks,” Black said. “That pays better.” He doubled up his fist and hammered his knee. Apparently he had swallowed his gum. “I could make it. I could make it my first year with the Warriors. The guy they’ve got throwing for them now is thirty-six years old. I could be the biggest-”

“Don’t cry about it,” Shayne said. “I meant it when I said it might still happen. It’s up to you. I’ll tell you what the situation is, Johnny. The cops aren’t going to figure in this, and neither is your dean’s office or your athletic department. My client wants to know who did it to him, so it won’t happen again. I wasn’t sure before you threw that punch, but I’m sure now. There was a big rush on Georgia just before game time, most of it with a bookie who happens to be short of cash. He had to call on my client for two hundred thousand bucks to make the payoff. Before the dough could be delivered there was a stickup. The two hundred thousand went down the drain.”

“Two hundred thousand,” Black whispered.

“I’m glad to see you’re listening. It all ties in. My client watched the last half of the game on television. He has a good sense of smell, and he smelled four plays.”

“My timing was off,” Black said sullenly.

“It was off four times, just enough to bring you home within the point spread. Even with the heavy action on Georgia, it might not mean anything. Add it to the stickup and it means a lot. I’m convinced you threw those four plays, Johnny, and that’s all that matters. Maybe a pro like Colfax could look at the films and spot little changes in your style that would give it away. It’s not necessary. The pro leagues are skittish about gamblers and people who know gamblers. All I have to do is tell Colfax my client’s name, and back it up with some betting totals, and it’s goodbye contract. I don’t need an airtight case, any more than Colfax has to give you a reason for not signing you. All he has to do is say thanks for the warm beer, and blow.”

Black’s face was rigid. He forced the word “Please?” through stiff lips.

“That’s a good sign,” Shayne said. “If you watch the old gangster movies on TV, you may think that Jimmy Cagney and George Raft will come out and work you over with baseball bats. Times have changed. Now they write it off to overhead. But naturally they don’t want it to get to be a habit. Tell me how it happened, Johnny.”

He shook his head shortly. “I can’t. It won’t happen again, I promise you that.”

Shayne made a rude noise. The boy said earnestly, “If I do go with the Warriors, it’s not a question of whether I’d want to, I couldn’t. No one person has that much control.”

“I’m not thinking about you,” Shayne said. “I’m thinking about your contact.” He picked up the phone from the little cabinet between them. “What’s the Lambda Phi number? After that quick con you gave him, I’m sure Colfax is still there.”

Black’s hand darted out and closed the switch. “What would you gain by it?”

“Nothing. I wouldn’t lose anything either, which is what makes it easy. This is just routine.”

Black looked at Shayne intently, to see how much was real, how much bluff. People who played poker with Michael Shayne often wondered the same thing, and usually ended up broke.

“You wouldn’t be doing it for money,” Shayne said. “They couldn’t pay you enough. What else is there but blackmail? Tell me about it, and maybe in the course of other things I can take care of it for you.”

Shayne let him think it out by himself.

Black heaved a deep sigh, which made him seem much younger. “His name’s Vince Donahue. He said today wouldn’t happen again, but I’m not that innocent. I knew he’d call up next year, and the only way I could stop it would be to quit football. That’s why I was going to stick Colfax for the biggest bonus I could get. Do you think it was easy to miss those passes? I had a shot at the Conference record! I got a funny look from one of the guys. I had to say I had a muscle spasm, and not to tell anybody so it wouldn’t queer me with the Warriors.”

Now that it was coming, Shayne didn’t look at him or question him, but went on smoking in silence. A student on a bicycle approached. Black waited till he was past.

“Vince has a tape of a phone conversation. It’s all out of context. I said it, but it sounds worse than it was. He said he’d send it to the sports editor of the Miami News if I didn’t play along. And he would have, too. That was yesterday. If I’d known where he lived I might have-” He stopped, his fists clenched. “Well, it’s just as well, I didn’t, or I might be in an even worse jam.”

“Go back a way,” Shayne suggested. “Where did you meet him?”

“All the way back, in grammar school. We were in the Boy Scouts, we played football, baseball, basketball-you name it. He could have pitched in the majors if he’d stuck to it. He was a natural platform diver, a wonderful swimmer. But he didn’t have the desire. He kept changing from one thing to another. And then he had some bad luck. Do you want to know all this, Mr. Shayne?”

“Yes. Go on.”

“It was just after he got his driver’s license. It wasn’t Vince’s fault, the other car went through a stop sign, but he thought if he’d been on the ball maybe he could have got out of the way. His mother and father were killed. Every body felt sorry about it, but he didn’t let that go on for long. He always had a mean streak, even before the accident. He and his sister moved in with an aunt, and that woman was hard to get along with. I sympathized, but! He broke dishes and robbed her and did things like ordering eight rooms of furniture-that kind of stupid stuff. He was left end on the football team, and in the state semifinals he took one of my passes and ran the wrong way. That was the end of the friendship. He didn’t even pretend to be confused, he was yakking it up all the way. Next year he dropped out of school and nobody knew where he’d gone. But where would somebody like that, who didn’t give a good goddamn about anything, a good swimmer and diver, where would he go but Miami?”

“Where do you come from, Johnny?”

“St. Louis.”

Shayne gave him a piercing look.

“Does that mean anything?” Black said.

“I talked to the cops. They say two of the stickup guys came from there.”

Black groaned. “What a character. I don’t suppose it’s a coincidence?”

“Probably not, Johnny. Finish it up.”

“I made the team here my sophomore year. He saw my name in the paper and came out. The funny thing was, I was glad to see him. Most of the time he was an asset to have around. He was almost a student here for a while. He sat in on courses. Then he decided the hell with it, and went back to Miami. He still came out to see me, or he called me, and sometimes we talked football. Of course I had access to our scouting reports and I knew about injuries and so on. He always needed money that year. When ever I thought the point spread was out of line I’d let him know and he’d bet a hundred bucks. That was all there was to it, but if you listened to the tape! I never bet a cent myself. I have a scholarship and anyway I don’t believe in it, it’s too risky. That was two years ago. I saw him once last year after a game, with a girl singer from New York, and he was driving a Jaguar. He showed me the registration to prove it was his. He made a big mystery about what he was doing. He said I’d sleep better if I didn’t know. After that not a word, until yesterday, out of a clear sky. The coach got word on the grapevine that the Warriors were interested, for real money. I knew we could take Georgia, but this being my last game and all, I wanted to do it by a top-heavy score. He called me on the house phone and played the tape for me, right there with the brothers sitting around doing their homework. I was stunned, I guess, and he played it again. I had to say yes. I know you’re not supposed to do what a blackmailer tells you, but this wasn’t any ordinary blackmailer, it was Vince Donahue. I knew him!”

Shayne stubbed out his cigarette and started the motor. Black peered at him anxiously.

“I know the whole thing hangs on whether you believe what I say about the tape, that it was nothing but chitchat. I don’t know how I can prove it. Put me out of my misery. What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to drop you,” Shayne said, “and I don’t think I’ll come in to say goodnight to Bus. Don’t sign with him tonight. If I decide your story’s true, or even ninety per cent true, you may still end up in the big money. I’ll let you know tomorrow. Now I want to ask you some questions about Donahue. You don’t know anything at all about how he makes a living?”

“Well, he used to claim that women gave him money, and I guess they did. The big hotels let him hang around the pools because he looked so good in trunks. If you want my honest opinion, I think he’d do just about anything, unless there was work involved.”

“You never had his address?”

“Two years ago he lived in a dumpy hotel in North Miami Beach, the Hotel Gloria. But it sure as hell didn’t go with a Jaguar or that girl I saw him with. He probably moved.”

“How about somebody who might know where I can find him?”

“I’m sorry. With Vince it was all one-sided. You didn’t ask him questions.”

“Yesterday was the first time he mentioned having the tape?”

“Yes. He wouldn’t have made it unless he expected to use it sometime, but he waited till the last possible minute.”

“One other question, Johnny. How smart is he?”

“Well-he always got lousy grades. I know that doesn’t mean anything because he hated the teachers. The brain’s a muscle, after all, or like a muscle-you have to exercise it. He didn’t seem to think he had to.”

Shayne pulled up in front of the Lambda Phi house. The party seemed one degree noisier than when they had left

“Don’t try to pull anything, Johnny,” Shayne said. “I can break any contract you sign, and the Warriors can stop payment on their check. Don’t go anywhere. I may want to call you.”

Black assured him that he would stay close to the phone. He apologized for hitting Shayne, and repeated that everything he had said was the absolute truth. He had a hard time finding the door handle; there was still something else he wanted to say.

“Mr. Shayne, about Vince. I know it’s serious. I know he’s been asking for it. But I hate to be the one to blow the whistle on him, I’ve known him so damn long. If you could see your way clear to give him a break-”

Shayne leaned across and unlatched the door. “I’ll give him a break if he deserves one. First I have to find him.”

6

The Hotel Gloria, two blocks from the bay near the Miami Beach city limits, had been built in a hurry, during one of the brief booms, using semiprofessional labor and second-rate materials. It was in bad need of maintenance. The upholstery on the lobby furniture was worn and dirty, marked by the backs of many heads. There was a musty smell.

Shayne asked the desk clerk, “Is a man named Vince Donahue registered here?”

The clerk was tall and cadaverous, wearing rimless glasses and a small goatee. His prominent Adam’s apple rose and fell as he looked the detective over.

“No, young Vincent hasn’t been in good standing here for months. You’re Mike Shayne, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. Did he leave an address when he checked out?”

The clerk laughed musically, showing a mouthful of decaying teeth that seemed to go with the hotel. “Anybody he wanted to see would know where to find him.”

“Is there a manager on duty?”

“I’m the night manager,” the clerk said coyly. “Come in during the daytime and you can speak to the day manager.”

“All right,” Shayne said patiently. “There must be somebody on the staff who knows where he moved to. Or how about another guest? Who knew him?”

The clerk put his fingertips on the counter and leaned forward. “Don’t private detectives usually offer a ten-dollar bill for such information?”

“Why should we?” Shayne said coldly.

“Well, I’ve got a brother-in-law in the police department here, and I happen to know for a fact that you never undertake a case unless you stand to clear thirty or forty thousand dollars. And he says that’s conservative! Per case! And maybe you wind it up inside of twelve hours. But of course you’ve got those terrific expenses. You go around to hotel people and restaurant people and lay out a ten here and a ten there, and at that rate you can spend as much as a hundred dollars an evening.”

“What’s eating you?” Shayne said.

The V-lines on Shayne’s eroded face were deeply etched. The clerk tried to look away, but Shayne held his eyes. The clerk didn’t like what he saw there. He took a half step backward.

“I’m warning you, if you hit me-”

Shayne made a disgusted face. “Would you have any objection if I bought a drink in your bar?”

The clerk moistened his lips and looked down. “Be our guest,” he murmured.

Shayne went into the bar through the lobby entrance. A line of unsmiling drinkers was watching a comic on television. The detective joined them, sliding onto a stool at the heel of the bar. When the bartender came over he said, “What’s the matter with the guy out there?” tipping his head toward the lobby and sketching a small beard on his chin.

The bartender laughed. “He’s like that. What’ll it be?”

Shayne told him, and the bartender brought him cognac in a four-ounce wineglass, with a glass of ice water on the side.

“All I did was ask him about a kid named Vince Donahue,” Shayne went on, “and you’d think I’d insulted the flag. You must have had Donahue in here. He probably stopped in for a nightcap most nights.”

“Donahue?” the bartender said thoughtfully. “To tell the truth I don’t get too many regulars. They come, they go. You can listen to a customer tell you his troubles every night for six months and in all that time you may never hear anybody call his name.” He met Shayne’s disbelieving look with a smile. “Excuse me. A man seems to want a beer.”

After drinking half his cognac and chasing it with a long sip of ice water, Shayne turned his back on the bar and looked the room over. There were two waitresses. One was brown-haired, with an apologetic manner. The other wore extravagant eye makeup and had prominent breasts and red hair. It was hard to tell about the breasts, but the color of her hair was probably not natural. When she came over to the bar with a tray of glasses Shayne grinned and said hello.

“Hi!” she said cheerfully, and looked up at his red hair. “Copycat.”

“I’ve had it all my life,” he said.

They went on from there, and Shayne was about to ask his question about Donahue when the bartender came over.

“To give an example,” the bartender said. “You didn’t tell me your name when you sat down, did you? I didn’t tell you mine, and that’s the way it goes. We were talking about not remembering people,” he explained to the waitress. “For some reason I don’t think he believed me. What was the guy’s name again?”

“Vince Donahue,” the redhead said to the waitress. “A good-looking boy. A diver. He drove a Jag for a while. But I don’t suppose you remember him either?”

“Gee-” she said regretfully.

“I didn’t think so. Of course I might be bringing him news about a legacy, except that that kind of kid doesn’t get legacies.”

He went back to his drink, and shook his head shortly when the bartender asked if he wanted another. He picked his change off the bar. Turning, he found the plainer waitress, the one with the brown hair, trying to make up her mind whether or not to speak to him.

She said with a rush, twisting the belt of her apron, “I might be able to tell you something, but first you have to tell me why you want to know. Go over to one of the booths. I’m not supposed to sit down in my uniform, but I’ll put on a raincoat and come back.”

Shayne paid for another cognac and carried it to an empty booth. In a moment the waitress came back through a door marked “No Admittance,” wearing a raincoat over her uniform. The bartender spoke to her. She shook her head stubbornly. Coming over to Shayne’s booth, she slid in across from him. The red-haired waitress brought her a mixed highball.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Rose.”

Rose pulled nervously at her drink. “I’d better find out what I am doing. I hear you’re Mike Shayne. Why do you want to talk to Vince, Mr. Shayne?”

Over the second cognac, Shayne had been thinking. Given what he already knew about Vince Donahue, which of the two waitresses would the boy pick? The one now sitting opposite Shayne would give him uncritical admiration, money when he needed it, sympathy when he needed that, she would always be waiting for him, she would pretend to believe his stories. To hang onto him she would do anything he demanded. She would probably feel flattered that he had any time for her at all. And giving her a closer look, Shayne saw something warm and appealing beneath her surface awkwardness. All she needed was to sit up straight and have a professional do something about her hair.

He said carefully, “You won’t be too surprised to hear that he’s in trouble.”

“Well, no,” she admitted.

“He’s stepped on some people’s toes,” Shayne continued. “They’re middle-aged and settled. They wear white suits and neckties, and to somebody like Vince they probably look pretty harmless. They’re anything but.”

“That sounds like him. He just doesn’t give a damn. But you’re going to have to be more specific.”

Shayne continued feeling his way. At the first wrong approach, he knew the girl would take off her raincoat and go back to work.

“He’s mixed up in a football fix,” he said. “He rigged something, or helped rig it, and it cost his friendly neighborhood bookie somewhere around a couple of hundred thousand bucks. I don’t mean Vince got all that, or even much of it. But so far he’s the only name I’ve heard mentioned.”

“I knew it was something like that,” she said miserably. “Does that mean he’ll go to jail?”

Shayne studied her. “There’s a law against blackmailing football players, and conceivably he might go to jail. But to be honest about it, I don’t know. People in the gambling business don’t like to let the courts handle their discipline problems. I might be able to influence what happens. If nobody cooperates I won’t have much of a chance. There was also a stickup, incidentally. I don’t know how much he had to do with that.”

She made a quick joyless grimace and drank some more whiskey. “Oh, that’s great. If he had anything to do with a stickup, it wouldn’t be a gas station or a delicatessen, would it? It would be somebody important.”

“That’s the picture of Vince I’m beginning to get,” Shayne said. “I still don’t know much about him.”

She drew a deep breath. “I-lived with him, Mr. Shayne. You’ve guessed that. Everybody in the hotel thought it was foolish of me. They think it’s foolish to go on feeling the way I do about him now, but that doesn’t mean I can turn it off, like a faucet. When you came in, everybody automatically protected him because I guess they feel sorry for me. I’ve done my share of protecting Vince Donahue and pretending I didn’t know where he lived. But now I’m beginning to think that maybe-well, maybe if it’s not too serious, a little time in jail-”

She met his eyes and said quickly, “Not because he walked out on me. I’m not trying to get back at him. But he has to realize! With most people, it’s easy to get into things and hell to get out. But Vince always manages to get out just as easily as he gets in. Nothing bad ever seems to happen to him. Maybe going to jail won’t work. I guess it doesn’t, usually. But it would get him away from Miami Beach before the roof caves in. He’s-terribly handsome, Mr. Shayne. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen him, but he’s one of the best-looking people. The way he moves. And if something goes wrong this time I’m afraid-” She stopped and drank unhappily. “He’s proud of his teeth. He had caps put on last year and they’re absolutely perfect. The way he looks is the only real thing he’s ever had. And I can see how it’s going to end-with one person holding him and another hitting him in the face with brass knuckles.”

“How what is going to end?” Shayne asked.

She hesitated. “He’s running around with a married woman.” She searched his face. “Well, I started and I might as well finish. She’s staying at the St. Albans. Vince met her there at the pool. She must be thirty-five and she has loads of money. I saw her once and she’s not too bad-looking for somebody that old. I’m not jealous. Oh, I’m jealous, but I always knew I couldn’t have one hundred percent of Vince, even fifty-one percent. It isn’t the money that’s the big attraction this time. It’s who she’s married to. Would the name Al Naples mean anything to you?”

Shayne kept his face carefully blank. “I’ve heard of him. I’d say Mrs. Al Naples was somebody to stay away from.”

“But you’re not Vince, are you? She’s not the first married woman staying at the St. Albans that Vince has gone to bed with. But nothing like this ever happened before. The others were all married to-I don’t know-stocking manufacturers from New Jersey, who wouldn’t know what to do even if they found out. And they probably wouldn’t be too interested in finding out.”

The red-headed waitress stopped at the entrance to their booth, still trying. “Don’t trust him, Rose. Be smart for once in your life. The way he gets business is to keep his name in the papers. He’ll notify TV and radio and Life magazine. Big brave private eye rounds up dangerous teenage thug with his bare hands.”

“No, he won’t,” Rose said.

“And why do you care what happens to that bastard, after what he did to you-”

“I wasn’t married to him, after all. He didn’t make me any promises.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“I wasn’t dumb enough to believe them. Please. You don’t know as much as you think.”

The redheaded girl flounced off.

Rose went on to Shayne, “Vince slept with her once, just once. She thinks that makes her the local expert on Vince Donahue. Everybody thinks I’m biased about him, but I know exactly what he’s like. You thought Grace was the one he’d go for, didn’t you? Yes, you did. You weren’t even going to ask me if I knew him. But she couldn’t give him what he needed. Everybody thought it was temporary with me. As I very well know, I’m not too terrific. I do all right in bed, but I can’t carry on a conversation about nothing, like some girls. And he told people it was just an in-between stand with me, the nice thing about it was that I didn’t make him work. That’s not why it happened. He needed somebody to listen to him who loved him. Who knew he was a heel in a lot of ways, but who loved him just the same. He told me about those other girls because he couldn’t boast about them to anybody else. And after a while he cut out the other girls. Well, I don’t want to fool myself. He’s like butter on a hot skillet, and he always will be. Mr. and Mrs. Al Naples-there was a combination I couldn’t beat. What would you call Al Naples? A mobster, I reckon. Vince couldn’t ever be that important himself, because you have to work your way up and he can’t stick to one thing that long. But he could get a tiny piece of it, do you see, Mr. Shayne? — through Naples’ wife.”

“How did she turn out?”

“She was very good,” Rose said without irony. “I mean sexually. She’d been so scared of her husband that she’d never had anybody before. Vince said it was like turning loose a skyrocket. They had some busy afternoons. Vince wasn’t exaggerating. I was in a position to know.”

“The more I hear about Vince Donahue,” Shayne said, drinking, “the less I expect to like him.”

“That’s the trouble with talking about him! I can’t explain him to you and I’m not going to try. I think the reason the sex part was so good with them, if you want me to go on, was that it was so dangerous. Naples almost walked in on them a dozen times. Boy! One time Vince had to hide in the closet. That sounds funny, but it isn’t so funny when you think that the husband’s Al Naples, and he used to murder people. They both knew what would happen if he caught them, and I couldn’t compete with that. So far they’ve been lucky, but there is such a thing as the law of averages.”

“And he can’t catch them together if Vince is in jail?”

“That. Other things, too.”

She finished her drink and shook her head when he looked at her to see if she wanted a refill. “I was so worried I tried to get him to stop seeing her. I never did that with any of the other women, doesn’t that prove I’m not really jealous? ‘Realistic’ is a better word. She gave him money to move out of here. He didn’t want to go, but I sort of made him. I thought if they had a place of their own to meet it might not be quite so risky. They can’t deliberately take chances. I told him not to tell me or anybody else his new address. He’s been making some new connections lately and I thought-well.”

“What new connections, Rose?”

“I can’t tell you everything. There’s a limit to how much trouble I want to get him into.”

“Did he have a gun?”

“Never! He was very snooty about people who went in for that kind of thing.”

“Do you know anybody named Pedro Sanchez or Tom Pond?”

She groaned. “Oh, no.”

“Does that mean you know them?”

“I met Pete once. I didn’t know he was in town. I have to stop talking now. I think it was all right to tell you about Mrs. Naples-you could have picked that up from any number of people. But I want to ask you a favor.”

“You don’t want me to tell him I’ve talked to you?”

“That’s right. I could have made you promise before, but I don’t pay too much attention to promises any more. I hope you won’t tell him. He divides the world into rats and non-rats, and I don’t want him to put me in with the rats. I’d like to wish things would have a happy ending. At the same time I’m pretty sure they won’t.”

She blew her nose into a Kleenex and said brightly, “That’s my big drawback. I take myself seriously.”

Shayne wanted to reassure her that happy endings sometimes happen, but in Vince Donahue’s case he didn’t think that one was likely. Reaching out, he brushed the point of her breast very lightly with his thumb,

“You’re a damned attractive girl, Rose.”

“No, I’m not.”

He left her crying into her Kleenex. He collected some dirty looks on the way out.

7

Returning to his car, Shayne called Harry Bass’s number. The line was busy. He drove south and tried the number again after several blocks. When he found it still busy, he turned off Collins Avenue onto 71st Street, leading to Normandy Isle.

There was no answer when he rang Harry’s doorbell, though the lights were still on in the house. He tried the door. It was locked.

After ringing again he walked along the porch to look into the front hall. The phone there was off the hook. Apparently Harry had been taken to the hospital for X rays.

He returned to the Buick and started off. But he kept the wheel over and circled back into the turnaround. Something had caught his eye as he was leaving: one of the compartments of the two-car garage, which had been open before, was closed now. Taking a flashlight, he went between the house and the garage and shone the light through the duty side window of the garage. One car was a little Volkswagen. The other was Doc Waters’ sleek black Thunderbird.

Frowning, Shayne went around the house and up on the flagstone terrace that overlooked the golf course. This side of the house was dark. Suddenly the beam from a flashlight as powerful as his own hit him in the eyes.

Doc Waters’ voice said, “The hardworking shamus. I might have known you’d look in the garage.”

“Get that light out of my face,” Shayne said evenly.

After an instant Waters turned off the flashlight. As soon as Shayne’s eyes adjusted he saw that the bookie was leaning back against the house in a chair without arms, with a rifle across his knees.

“How’s the investigation coming?” Waters said sarcastically.

“It’s coming. Where’d they take Harry?”

Waters hooted. “They didn’t take him. He went. Shayne, you’re going to be surprised. Nobody around here can lay their hands on that kind of cash on a Saturday night, so Harry got on a plane and went to New York.”

“Yeah, I’m surprised,” Shayne admitted after a moment’s silence.

He came up on the terrace. Seeing what looked like an array of bottles on a low table, he turned on his flashlight and found that one of them was the same bottle of cognac he had been drinking from before. He emptied the watery dregs of a highball from the only glass, and poured a drink. Then he turned off the flashlight and sat down on the stone balustrade.

“What shape was he in?” he said.

Waters waved. “Hell, it takes more than a bump on the head to stop old Harry. The doctor and that babe, they both told him to go to bed, but Harry knows his obligations. I’ll say that for him. And why not, for Christ’s sake? What else does he do for that two percent? It’s his own damn fault that he’s short. If you knew the businesses he’s been putting dough into lately! He owns a piece of a bank! Did you know that? I don’t mean the kind of bank where you go down and open up the vault when you feel like it. He’s a stockholder. He has to wait till nine A.M. Monday morning like anybody.”

“Who’s he seeing in New York?”

“We’ve got to keep some secrets, Shayne. It’s just up and back. You know these jets. Whoosh! They were going to try to get him on a nine-thirty flight. The babe drove him.”

Shayne drank, not liking this. Harry shouldn’t be walking around.

“Who’s the rifle supposed to be for?”

Waters, embarrassed, reversed the rifle and leaned it against the house. “I don’t know what to expect. Naples is giving a party to celebrate the big win. He wants me to be guest of honor. That’s what you call a sense of humor. First he busts me, then he wants me to get plastered with everybody in the St. A. standing around with a big grin on their face. And I’d have to make believe I enjoyed it. We’re supposed to have ice water in our veins, that’s what it says in the books. Ten o’clock, he said, with the cash. What’ll he do when I don’t show up? Send a couple of characters out looking for me? I don’t know what he’ll do. I know what he did in the old days, but has he changed? Seriously-what have you come up with, if anything?”

“Nothing conclusive,” Shayne said, picking his words. “But I begin to get the feeling that these stickup guys were after more than the dough.”

“What do you mean?” Waters said, worried. “If you take Harry’s word for it, they walked away with two hundred big ones. That would make it worthwhile.”

“First they beat you with a horse and a football player. Then they doubled the take with an armed robbery. Maybe it doesn’t stop there. What if the real object was to show that you and Harry can’t handle a big hit any more?”

“Thanks,” Waters said bitterly. “As if I didn’t have enough on my mind.”

Taking out a little plastic container, he shook a white tablet into his hand and swallowed it with a mouthful of club soda. “Tranquillizers,” he explained. “But I’ve got to go easy. You can’t gobble these things like potato chips. Want a theory? I’ll give you a theory. Maybe Harry stuck himself up. Think about it. He’s Daddy Warbucks around here. He’s supposed to keep a reserve. But he’s been getting so goddamn legitimate! The idea of that much cash lying around not earning interest, it would make him sick to his stomach. When you go legit you start thinking about those things. You put it in stocks or in real estate. He’s got it, understand. He’s not like me, I’m hurting and I don’t mind saying so.”

“You think he packed some phone books in a suitcase and paid somebody to set his Cadillac on fire and crack his skull with a gun?”

“Put it like that,” Waters admitted, “and it sounds hard to believe.” He added whiskey and ice to his glass of soda, rattled the icecubes and drank. “But look at the background. The small fry around town have been getting restless. It’s not only me. They want him to pay attention to their problems, and not be tied up with real-estate lawyers all the time. He’s getting shaky and he knows it. I put in a call for funds, which I have every right to do. He knows I’m just getting on my feet after the shellacking I took in the Caribbean. He has to get up that dough or questions will be asked. Burning up a Cadillac is a small price to pay. And who says he was knocked cold? He says. Anybody can stagger around and pretend to have a headache. The doctor? You know how doctors are. They don’t get paid to tell you you’re not sick.”

“I’ll keep that on file,” Shayne said skeptically. “Nobody ever told me what happened to you in the Caribbean.”

“I was flimflammed,” Waters said simply. “They asked me to come in and set up a casino, teach them how to run it. Eighteen months later, when the house was beginning to run in the black, they changed the goddamned government and nationalized me. No revolution or anything, just a couple of different colonels, and I see now it was in the back of their minds all along. I had to pay through the nose before they let me off the island. The State Department wouldn’t lift a goddamned finger. I got out with an extra suit of underwear, that’s about all. I had to hock my right ball, practically, to get back in the business of booking bets.”

Shayne drank thoughtfully. “Do you think Naples has any ideas about getting active again?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s used to running things. Back in Chicago, when he said jump, they jumped. Maybe he misses that. He’s got a stable of horses, a hot-looking wife, a boat. But is it enough? All I know is, if Harry and Al ever really tangle, I want to be somewhere else.”

“What happens if Harry doesn’t come back with the money?”

“He better,” Waters said blackly. “Now don’t quote me-” He interrupted himself and drank, then felt for the container of tranquillizers. “Well, I know you’ll probably quote me, but Harry knows as well as I do that if he can’t lay that cash on the line there’s going to be a little revolution right here in Miami. He’s getting so slow! Six months ago he would have dropped the points on Florida Christian, he would have spotted the play on Ladybug and laid it off. You can’t do that without communication, and communications around here have been getting terrible. When that babe went to work for him, that’s when I date it from. Four and a half percent from a savings and loan, he thinks now, is better than twenty percent in something illegal. All of a sudden some things go and some things don’t go. I’m tired of it, and I’m not the only one.”

Leaning forward, Shayne put his empty glass on the table. “I think it’s about time for me to talk to Naples. Before I forget it, have you run into a kid named Vince Donahue?”

Waters had been about to feed himself a tranquillizer. Slowly and deliberately, he put the cap back on the container, put it away and reached for the rifle. Shayne was on top of him before the barrel was all the way around. He pivoted, lifting, and twisted the weapon out of the bookie’s hands.

“Everybody’s jumpy tonight,” Shayne observed. “What were you going to do, blow a hole in me because I asked a simple question? If you don’t ask questions you don’t get any answers. Something’s happened to your sense of proportion.”

Waters sneered at him. “It’s my experience that certain people only listen when a gun’s pointing at them. All I was going to suggest, don’t mention Donahue’s name to Naples. The kid’s in the sack with the wife a couple of afternoons a week, according to my information.”

“What does he do mornings?”

“That’s all for now, Shayne,” Waters said wearily. “Talk about slow-those pills really slow you down. I’m going to put the phone back on the hook. Harry’ll be calling pretty soon. Why not wait for the call?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You know you’ll just stir things up? Al’s sure to be plastered and he’s a fast man at flying off the handle. The last thing Harry wants is Al Naples on his neck. He likes this quiet life.”

Shayne unloaded the rifle. Swinging it by the barrel, he brought it down hard on the balustrade, breaking off the hammer.

“What do you think,” Waters said in his mournful tone, “that I’d shoot you in the back, and let Harry explain what you’re doing on his lawn? I was about to make you an offer. Don’t you even want to hear it?”

“Keep it brief.”

“Twenty-five G’s,” Waters said, “to go out and get drunk.”

Shayne tossed down the useless rifle. “I thought you said you were broke.”

“I am broke! I’ll write you an IOU. I’m good for it.”

Shayne laughed. “Take another pill, Doc.”

“That’s the trouble with people,” Waters commented, without sounding surprised. “If you don’t have cash in your pocket, nobody trusts you.”

8

Michael Shayne pulled up at the St. Albans, a huge wedding cake of a hotel, standing between Collins Avenue and the ocean. The doorman stepped forward smartly with a half salute.

“Oh, it’s you, Mike,” he said, dropping his hand. “How you doing? Park it for you?”

“Can I leave it here in front so I can take off in a hurry? No more than ten minutes.”

The doorman saw no reason why not. Shayne moved farther along the approach drive and left the Buick beside a No Parking sign. He put his hand in his pocket when he came back, but the doorman waved him away.

“Hell, Mike. Do I ever tip you?”

Inside, Shayne checked with the bell captain and tried several bars and supper rooms before locating the Al Naples party in the Mozambique Room on the roof. The decorations, of course, were tropical, and there was a Latin band and a circular bar where the bartenders were kept busy putting together elaborate rum drinks. Al Naples was pointed out to Shayne, a stocky man in a dinner jacket, with grizzled hair which he wore in a crew cut. He was enjoying himself. He was at a round table for twelve, only partially occupied; some of his guests were dancing.

Shayne knew one of the men at the table, a well known ex-major leaguer who was now selling insurance. The women were all younger than the men, or looked younger at this distance. Naples was standing between two chairs. He concluded a joke with a bray of laughter that carried easily to Shayne, on the far side of the crowded room, then dropped his cigar in an ashtray and weaved out onto the dance floor, where he cut in on a handsome black-haired woman in a low-cut dress.

Shayne ordered a drink and waited for Naples to return to his table. Naples was an awkward but vigorous dancer. When the music stopped he ran into friends on the way back to his table. There he rearranged his guests according to his ideas of where they ought to be sitting, ordered more drinks and took over the conversation. Shayne could see he was going to be a hard man to interrupt.

Finishing his drink, he called the maitre d’ and produced a bill. A phone was plugged in beside Shayne and a waiter, instructed to say that Doc Waters was calling, carried a second phone to Naples’ table. Naples gave his braying laugh and picked up the phone.

“About time, Doc. Where’s my dough?”

“This isn’t Doc,” Shayne said. “I’m calling for him. I have a message.”

Naples laughed. “He’s having trouble scraping it up? Well, well. Who is this?”

“The name’s Shayne,” the redhead said. “We thought you ought to know. There’s an argument. Some people think he ought to hold payment until a few things are cleared up.”

The good humor faded out of Naples’ voice. “Until a few things are what?”

“You don’t want to talk about it on the phone.”

“I don’t want to talk about it period! I want Doc to get over here with that bundle, or I want him to tell me exactly where and when. Where are you?”

“At the bar.”

“Where?”

He looked across the room. Shayne held up the phone to identify himself.

“I’ll be goddamned,” Naples said. Then abruptly: “Come on over and I’ll buy you a drink.”

Shayne left the phone on the bar. Naples had started a fresh cigar by the time Shayne reached his table. He gave Shayne’s hand a quick shake without getting up.

“Move it over, honey,” he told the dark-haired woman beside him, the one he had danced with. “Mrs. Naples, Mr.-what did you say your name was?”

“Shayne.”

“Mr. Shayne. This is my baby’s birthday,” he explained. “That’s what the party’s about. You don’t want to be introduced to everybody, all that horse sh-” He caught himself with a look at his wife. “I’m trying to cut out the profanity, but it’s a habit, you know?” He waved at the waiter. “What are you drinking?”

Mrs. Naples had moved down to make room for Shayne between herself and her husband. Shayne told the waiter to bring him another straight cognac, with water on the side. “Oh, you’re Mike Shayne,” Mrs. Naples said with interest. “You recovered some stolen jewelry once for a friend of mine, and she said you could put away gallons of cognac and never turn a hair.”

“If that’s a compliment,” Shayne said, “thanks.”

“Oh, that’s not all she said,” Mrs. Naples told him, sparkling.

In age, she fell almost exactly between Al Naples and Vince Donahue. Shayne could see a network of lines at the corners of her eyes, not quite concealed by careful makeup, but she was still a striking woman. The low-cut dress showed off both a first-class figure and a first-class diamond necklace.

“Baby,” Al Naples said, leaning forward to speak across Shayne. “Turn around and talk to Stupid. This is one of those things you better not listen to. They think we pulled a fast one on them with the horse, how do you like that?” He laughed with satisfaction. “What do you want me to do, Shayne, send Doc to night school? He’s supposed to be a pro. Where I come from, when somebody outsmarts you, you don’t whine about it. Let him sweat.”

The waiter slipped Shayne’s drink deftly onto the table. The redhead picked it up.

“He’s sweating,” he said. “This comes at a bad time for him. He had to call on Harry Bass, and Harry went into the sock for two hundred grand. Then somebody stuck him up and he lost it.”

Shayne was watching Naples closely. His surprise seemed real. He took the cigar out of his mouth and gave another of his sudden hoots of laughter.

“You people seem to have a lot of crime down here.”

“And there’s a theory around that the stickup was your idea.”

Naples’ manner became more careful. “What crap.”

“I agree, but you can see how they figure.” Shayne revolved the wineglass between his fingers. “You put a lot of thought into setting up your mare this afternoon. The same kind of planning went into this stickup. Naturally Harry and Doc are wondering if it was part of the same deal.” He was addressing himself to Naples, but from the tension in Mrs. Naples’ bare tanned shoulder, he knew she was listening. “When you were the big man in Chicago, did anybody ever rob you?”

“You mean personally? Hell, no. There was one nut once, he wanted to get his name in the papers. When they checked up on him, it turned out he was on parole from the booby hatch.”

“That’s what I mean,” Shayne said. “It’s the same with Harry. You don’t stick up Harry Bass in Miami unless it’s one of two things. Either you don’t give a damn or you want to make the Number One man look bad.”

The ball player, returning from the dance floor, put his hands on Shayne from behind. “Mike! You look great. The climate agrees with you.”

Naples spoke the ball player’s name coldly. “We’re talking.”

“Al, I didn’t realize!”

He patted Shayne’s shoulder and moved out of earshot.

Naples sighted at the redhead over his long cigar. “I’ve been hitting the booze ever since the third race, and I’m half-smashed. I want you to come right out with it so I’m sure I get it.”

“Sure,” Shayne said, still twirling the cognac glass. “What part of it didn’t you understand?”

“Will you drink that drink, for Christ’s sake, or put it down? Why would I want to make Harry look bad? He’s my type of guy.”

Shayne drank off half his cognac. “I don’t know how much you’ve seen of him lately. He’s got a new girl and a new car and he’s been investing his money. He bought into a bank, for one thing. Some of his people don’t like it.”

“Why not buy a bank?” Naples said, puzzled. “There’s good dough in banks. I’ve got thirty percent of a bank in Indiana.”

“They think he’s losing interest in breaking the law. According to Doc, that’s the feeling all over town. The idea is that this would be a good time for somebody to move in and take over.”

“Don’t look at me,” Naples said. “I’ve got a suite with a terrace. I sit out on the terrace and watch the sea gulls.”

Shayne grinned skeptically.

Naples admitted, “OK, when you’ve seen one sea gull you’ve seen them all. Since I was a kid I’ve been on the jump, and sitting still all of a sudden-you’ll find out when it happens to you, Shayne. I got a bang out of how I handled Ladybug this afternoon. But that’s as far as it goes. Do you know how much you’d have to pay me to take Harry’s job? You couldn’t pay me enough. The headaches, I happen to know. The doctor says with my blood pressure not to get excited. When you’re sitting where Harry is, you’ve got to stay excited nine tenths of the time.”

He sucked at his cigar. “So somebody held up old Harry. I’ll be f-” He swallowed the rest of the word, looking past Shayne at his wife’s shoulder. “They walked right up to him with their bare faces hanging out? I wouldn’t want to do that myself, unless he’s really changed.”

“They wore masks,” Shayne said. “They stopped him by setting fire to his Cadillac. They pistol-whipped his driver and chased Harry over a stone wall. They were a lot younger than he is, in pretty good condition. They caught him and knocked him around. I think I’ve known Harry as long as you have. Anybody who thinks he’s turned into a cream puff is making a big mistake.”

“It could be I agree with you,” Naples said. “Maybe I get tired watching sea gulls, but that don’t mean I want any kind of trouble with Harry Bass.”

“I’m glad I don’t have to argue with you. He took a bad beating, and he ought to be in bed right now, under sedation. Instead of that he’s out beating the bushes for two-day money. He couldn’t find it in Miami so he went to New York. I might have been able to talk him out of it if I’d been there, but I wasn’t. He’s got a hell of a temper, as you probably know. One thing a concussion does is take off the brakes, and I hope everybody handles him with kid gloves. Naturally he’s going to be wondering who did this to him. He’s sure to be in a half-haze and not thinking too clearly, but somewhere along the line, on the plane going up or the plane coming back, it’s going to hit him-is it possible his old friend Al Naples-?”

He drank the rest of his cognac.

Naples said, “Hell, he can take my blood pressure. I’ll let him bring his own doctor.”

Shayne said seriously, “I’d like to get you to agree not to talk to him tonight at all.”

“I’ll hide under the bed,” Naples said. “Will that do?”

“I’m serious,” Shayne said. “Harry doesn’t go in for nonviolence. If he makes up his mind that you did it to him, he may come looking for you with a gun in his pocket.”

“For Christ’s sake! Give him credit for more sense.”

“I come back to what I said before,” Shayne said. He took out a cigarette and reached past Mrs. Naples to get a book of St. Albans matches. After lighting the cigarette he leaned forward again to toss the match into the ashtray. She was half-turned toward a paunchy little man with a head like a dried apple, but Shayne saw the small signs that meant he and her husband had her full attention.

He said deliberately, “It’s either somebody like you, with experience and confidence, plenty of funds and plenty of muscle. Or it’s somebody young and wild, without sense enough to be scared. I’ll tell you a few things I’ve picked up. Two of the stickup men died in a car crash. Both of them come from St. Louis.”

Mrs. Naples’ shoulder made a slight involuntary movement. The redhead went on, “St. Louis is close enough to Chicago so you’d know people there, but not too close. A third man got away. The money got away with him, but we’re hoping to find his fingerprints in the wrecked car. I have a lead to a fleabag hotel called the Gloria. I have another lead to a football fix. There are indications that that was planned here at the St. A.”

“What do I know about football?” Naples said.

“All you need to know is somebody who knows the quarterback. Harry hired me to look for the dough. I took the job before I knew you were involved. If this ends in a killing, if I find out who robbed Harry and the man is killed, I’m in line for an accessory rap. That could be serious if it happens here on the Beach, where the cops don’t like me. So I’m on a peaceful errand. I hope everybody will make up. Thanks for the drink. I don’t suppose you have any soothing message you want me to give Harry.”

“Tell him he has my sympathy,” Naples said. “I’ve been through it myself. If you see Doc, tell him I’m waiting for my dough.”

Shayne pushed back his chair and stood up. “Harry can’t be back from New York before one, so enjoy yourself. After that don’t answer the phone and don’t go to the door. I hope I can head him off. Nice to have met you, Mrs. Naples.”

She started and swung around. “Going, Mr. Shayne? It was a pleasure to meet you.”

The ex-baseball player made him stop and meet his new wife. Out of the corner of his eye, Shayne saw Mrs. Naples excuse herself and start around the dance floor toward the ladies room. He freed himself from the ex-ballplayer and his bride and took the elevator to the lobby.

9

“I didn’t think it would take that long,” he said to the doorman. “Everything OK?”

“Perfect.”

Shayne slid into his Buick and started the motor. He was gambling that Mrs. Naples wouldn’t be able to reach Vince Donahue by phone, or would want to talk to the boy in person, to warn him that Shayne was looking for somebody who formerly lived at the Hotel Gloria. Shayne pulled back his coat sleeve to check the time. If she didn’t come out in two minutes, he would have to go back and scare her some more.

In just under two minutes, an open red convertible shot out of the underground parking garage and turned north on Collins. Mrs. Naples had a gauze scarf over her hair, tied under her chin. She was driving rapidly, in a hurry to deliver her warning and get back to her party before she was missed.

Shayne joined the traffic behind her. Her scarf blew loose and she poked it back angrily with one hand. At 63rd Street, she swung sharply to the left and crossed the bridge to Allison Island, then turned again, over the canal to La Gorce. It seemed unlikely that Donahue would be living on this island of big estates. In a moment more she stopped near the mouth of a short lane leading to the bay. There was a lighted boathouse at the end of the lane. Several boats were tied up along both sides of a floating pier.

She unlatched the door hurriedly and started to get out, then checked herself and came back into the car. She removed the scarf and fluffed out her hair. Adjusting the mirror to check her lipstick, she caught the glint of Shayne’s headlights behind her. She whirled.

He blinked his lights at her and brought the Buick to a halt behind her convertible. He got out without hurrying. She waited for him, her lipstick raised as though to slash him with it. The boat at the end of the pier, he noted, a sixty- or seventy-foot cruiser, was brilliantly lit up.

He opened the convertible’s front door and got in beside her. She shivered and said in a low controlled voice. “I thought you were setting a trap for Al. You were setting it for me, weren’t you? And I walked right into it.”

“I meant part of what I told him,” Shayne said quietly. “I don’t want Harry to kill anybody. That includes Donahue.”

She made a distracted gesture with her open lipstick. “You don’t care about him and you know it.”

“That’s true,” Shayne said. “He kicked me in the kidneys a few hours ago, while one of his friends from St. Louis was rapping me behind the ear with a gun. That’s all right. I get used to it. But my client isn’t as understanding as I am. If Vince wants to live through this, he’ll turn over the dough and leave town fast.”

“You can’t really think that he robbed-”

“Sure I can. And so can you, Mrs. Naples, or you wouldn’t be here. He heard about Al’s plans for Ladybug from you, didn’t he?”

“Naturally.” She was trying to paste herself back together, and nearly succeeding. “Al said it was surefire. I saw no reason Vince shouldn’t benefit by it. He hates to take money from me.”

Shayne snorted. “I’m sure.”

She looked at him pleadingly. She seemed older than she had under the flattering lights of the Mozambique Room, but she was still a beautiful, passionate woman. She put her hand on his.

“I’m in your clutches to some extent. Apparently you’ve picked up some circumstantial evidence, but I know Vince! I know his strengths, his weaknesses. He couldn’t have done this. He’s too interested in having a good time.”

“The quarterback who shaded the points in the football game gave me a definite identification, Mrs. Naples. One of the dead hoods is an old acquaintance of your boy. Vince was the third man in the robbery, and we both know it. The money wasn’t in the wrecked car. That means he has it, or he knows where it is. I want it.”

She touched her diamond necklace. “I don’t suppose you’d settle for-”

“No,” Shayne said brusquely. “It’s true I stand to collect a ten-percent recovery fee, but that’s not the only reason I have to have it. I need it to slow Harry down. He’s walking around like a time bomb. If I can scare Vince into coughing up the dough, and get it to Harry before anything happens, I think I can control him. I won’t use any names. As far as I’m concerned, Vince can take off. I’ll even leave him a couple of thousand for traveling money.”

“You don’t know Vince,” she said unhappily. “He’ll spit in your eye.”

“That’ll be too bad,” Shayne said briefly. “Where is he, on the boat?”

He turned to get out. She caught his sleeve.

“Wait. He’s on the boat, yes. It’s ours. Some friends are letting us use their dock. We needed a captain, and Vince is good with boats. I said he could have some guests aboard tonight to celebrate Ladybug’s success. Let me talk to him first.”

“No, you go back to your own party.”

“I must,” she said distractedly. “But don’t you see, this has to be put to Vince in a certain way. He’s a proud boy. If you walk in, big, masculine, competent, you’ll antagonize him. With his friends egging him on, he’ll have to defy you. And he can be so stubborn. I know! You won’t come away with either money or information. If you’ll just give me a minute I know I can persuade him. I just have to repair my lipstick first.”

Shayne took the lipstick out of her hand and dropped it into her open bag. “Al’s going to want to know why you’re spending so much time in the ladies’ room. I needed to find Vince, and you’ve cooperated nicely. Goodbye.”

She brought her hands together in an imploring gesture. “Don’t tell him how you found him, I beg you. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Al isn’t trying to take over from Harry Bass. I’d know, really. We’re together half the day, for hours and hours and hours.”

“How much have you been seeing of Vince?”

“Oh, God, not enough! By plotting and planning and not thinking of anything else at all, I manage to meet him three or four times a week.”

She added in a low voice, “Don’t judge me. I’ve tried to break it off, but I can’t. I know it’s entirely physical. It’s the first time in my life I’ve been able to-” She broke off.

“You’ll outgrow it,” Shayne said, getting out of the car. After slamming the door he said casually, “If you only see Vince a few times a week I don’t suppose you know what he’s been doing for Doc Waters?”

Her eyes skipped away. “Nothing, I hope. I don’t trust that man.”

“Is Vince using narcotics?”

Her eyes opened wide. She pressed her knuckles against her mouth. “No,” she whispered. She shook her head violently. “No! He keeps himself in such wonderful condition, he takes such pleasure in his body, he wouldn’t do anything to damage it. What put that terrible thought in your mind?”

“A girl at the Hotel Gloria wants to put him in jail. She gave me a reason, but it didn’t sound good enough. If he’s getting started on a habit, a jail sentence might break it up.”

“You’re wrong.”

Seeing Vince as little as she did, she shouldn’t have been that sure, Shayne thought, but he let it go.

“If you want to be helpful,” he said, “go to bed soon, take the phone off the hook and keep your husband occupied. I don’t want any conversation between him and Harry Bass before tomorrow.”

He nodded and walked away. She called after him anxiously, “Be careful what you say to him. He’s so touchy.”

10

The moment Shayne stepped on the planking of the pier a voice spoke from the doorway of the boathouse.

“Wait a minute there, mister. Where do you think you’re going?”

A short, muscular man, wearing a blue boating cap pulled over his eyes, stepped out of the doorway and put himself between the detective and the bay.

“Is this private down here?” Shayne asked.

“Damn right it’s private,” the man said belligerently. “It’s a private island, practically. This is a private dock, private boats, and that’s a private party. No crashing tonight. I’m making no exceptions.”

“I’m not interested in the party,” Shayne said mildly. “I just want a couple of words with Donahue.”

“No exceptions. If you want to leave a message for him I’ll see that he gets it.”

“The trouble is, I didn’t bring a pencil,” Shayne said.

He gave the bill of the man’s boating cap a hard yank, jamming it down over his eyes. The man groped out with one hand while wrenching at the cap with the other. Shayne spun him around and sat him down hard in a wooden arm chair, which rocked back on its rear legs and came to rest against the front of the boathouse.

When the watchman forced his cap up from his eyes, he found the powerfully built redhead towering above him, his gray eyes cold in the dim light from the interior of the boathouse.

“Well, hell,” he said weakly. “If you’re going to get hard about it.”

“Who are you working for?”

“Various ones. Captain Donahue tonight, he gave me a ten-spot to keep out the crashers. He says every time he gives a party the whole public piles in on him. But I didn’t undertake to get my face bashed in for ten bucks. A good big man can always take a good little man, and you can tell him that if he asks you.”

“How long have you been sitting here?”

“Right along. And there wasn’t no big rush of people. You’re the first.”

Shayne took out his cigarettes and shook one out for the other man. In the flare of the lighter, the watchman’s face was alert and inquisitive. The redhead closed the lighter after starting a cigarette himself.

“I’ve been looking for Donahue all over town. Has he been aboard all evening?”

The watchman, like most people in solitary jobs, was glad to have a chance to talk. “They all have, the whole kit and kaboodle, and by the sound of it, they ain’t going to be leaving under their own locomotion. It’s been going on since the cocktail hour. And they were soused then. Captain Donahue, he had a breath on him you could start a swamp fire with. That’s why I didn’t feel like putting up more of a scrap. Why spill any blood when he won’t know the difference anyway? So go ahead.” He waved his cigarette. “Go on in.”

Shayne breathed out smoke. “What time do you mean by the cocktail hour?”

“Say half past five? And you know they’ve got young girls in there? I’m no puritan myself, I like a snort as well as the next man, but one thing I do hate to see is a girl soused under the age of twenty-one. They don’t know what they’re doing. They keep pouring it down, and the next thing you know-one more unwed mother. Now I’m not going to say for sure that’s what’s been going on, but if you go by the screeching they surely to goodness ain’t been playing scrabble.”

“Did the noise keep you awake?”

“That’s not the problem. I suffer from insomnia. That’s why I hire out for night work.”

“Would you be willing to take an oath,” Shayne said, “that Donahue’s been on that boat every minute since five-thirty?”

“I would,” the watchman said promptly, adding in alarm, “What do you mean, an oath? I never took an oath in my life.”

Shayne left him worrying about it. The first boat was a great mahogany monster from Newport, Rhode Island. The next berth was empty. Then came a fifty-foot ketch, and finally the Nugget, which sounded more like the name of a gambling house than a boat, out of Chicago, Illinois. Al Naples was not a man to go cruising in anything small. The Nugget sat high in the water, and underway probably carried a crew of three. Shayne went up the gangway. Most of the lights were on except on the stern. When a girl laughed, Shayne went in that direction.

“Do that some more,” a voice said in the darkness.

Coming around the curving end of the deckhouse, Shayne smelled the harsh, penetrating reek of marijuana. He saw a glowing spark at shoe top level.

“Vince?” he said.

There was a light fixture on the jutting overhang. Shayne found the switch, on the cabin wall near the companion-way. His foot touched something soft and a girl’s voice said, “Watch where you’re walking.”

The light flashed on. Two girls and a man were lying on the deck amid pillows and scattered clothing. One of the girls, thin and tired-looking, sat up and blinked. She was wearing a thin gold necklace and toenail polish but nothing else. At first she seemed angry, but her expression changed as she took Shayne in. Her pout changed to a whistle.

The man was lying on his side, mixed up with the second girl, whose face was hidden under a tangle of blonde hair. This girl gave no indication of knowing that a light had been turned on or that a stranger was watching. The man was Vince Donahue’s age, but unlike the descriptions of Donahue Shayne had been getting, he was pudgy and out of condition. He was untanned, his skin the color of the underside of a trout. His eyes were so glazed they seemed to fasten on Shayne’s by accident.

“That light, man, it’s murder.”

The girl slipped her naked foot inside the leg of Shayne’s pants and scraped her toenails against his calf. “Come on down. We need some new blood.”

Moving only his arm, the young man held out a brownish cigarette with a friendly smile. “Throw away that tobacco. Don’t you know that cigarettes can kill you? You’ll like this. It’s top quality.”

“I wouldn’t deprive you,” Shayne said. “As you were, everybody.”

He turned off the light, separated his leg from the girl’s foot and went back the way he had come. There was a patter of bare feet on the deck behind him. The girl leaped on his back like a jockey.

“No fair! You can’t show up like that and then just walk out.”

He pried her loose and forced her off his back, trying not to hurt her. She had little breasts and sharp hipbones, and gave off a dry, baking heat, like an open oven.

“I’m Lee Ewing,” she said. “I’m feeling left out so why don’t we-? Come on, please. Steve’s inside trying to straighten out the movies. It’s honestly OK. You don’t want me to turn into a dried-up old maid, do you?”

He took one of her wrists in each huge hand and made her hold still. “That’s the last thing I want. But business before pleasure. I just got here. Put on a few clothes and we’ll start over.”

“And just have to take them off again? I don’t see the sense-all right,” she said quickly, “I know people don’t like girls to make the first move.”

He released her wrists and she padded off toward the stern. Opening the nearest door, he entered a brightly lighted room. A youth with an unkempt shock of black hair-fully dressed, Shayne was glad to see-was pawing through a tumbled heap of movie film. There was a projector beside him, a small screen on the wall. He didn’t notice Shayne.

“You’re Steve, aren’t you?” Shayne said. “Have you seen Vince?”

“He’s around,” the boy said. He freed one hand to pick up a martini glass and drink. “Maybe you think you’ve seen dirty movies. Well, there’s a scene here somewhere, you never saw anything like it. All I have to do is get this organized. You wouldn’t be willing to give me a hand, would you?”

“After I talk to Vince.”

He tried a door. It led down to a small compact galley.

“My advice is,” the boy said, looking up, “wait till morning. There hasn’t been a peep out of them for hours. Listen, all I have to do is find the damn end. Any damn end. Get it back on the reel. It’ll make your eyes pop. I mean some of the things they do are impossible.”

“Vince won’t mind if I wake him up,” Shayne said, trying another door. This one was locked.

“Yeah, but can you? After Vince puts himself away, forget it. What I was thinking, if I had somebody to help I could string the film around the room and take out the twists, find the end that way.” He held up a section and looked through it. “Take a look at this. Of course you don’t get any detail, but this babe has one of the biggest and sexiest cans-”

Shayne took a strip of celluloid out of his wallet and forced it between the door and the jamb. Realizing what he was doing, the boy threw down the film and came over.

“You’d better have some reason!” he said.

Shayne looked around. “Sit down.”

“Oh,” Steve said, retreating. “Well.”

As the celluloid strip slipped between the bolt and the socket, Shayne stepped up the pressure. Slowly the bolt came back. In a moment the door sprang open.

This was the master cabin. It was furnished like a motel room, with an ordinary double bed and wall-to-wall carpet. The bed was in a state of extreme disorder, the bedclothes in a heap. No one was sleeping in it. On the bedside table were glasses and two bottles of Scotch, one still unopened and the other nearly empty, an untouched plate of cold baked beans, overflowing ashtrays. One light was on, over a dressing table next to an open window. A girl was studying her reflection in the triple mirror. She wore a lowcut bra and a half-slip. The bra hook was open. A cigarette dangled from her mouth.

She looked over her shoulder at Shayne. She had long untidy hair, over her forehead and down almost to her bare shoulders. Her eyes, in a pale face, were very large, with artificial lashes and green lids.

“Come in,” she said without surprise. “I was trying to decide if I’m getting too fat. The minute I decide I’m the teeniest bit overweight I’ll go on a diet, like that.” She snapped her fingers. “I don’t kid around.”

Steve had come into the doorway to look around. “Where’s Vince, Betty? This guy wanted to see him and I said it’d be OK. We don’t want to interrupt or anything.”

“Interrupt what?” she said bitterly.

Shayne glanced into the narrow bathroom and opened the sliding doors of the closet. Vince didn’t seem to be hiding in closets tonight.

“Somebody hook me up,” Betty said. “It keeps moving around.”

Shayne came back and hooked the bra.

“Thank you,” she said nicely, her eyes on her own reflection. “I’m full, but you couldn’t call me fat. God, I worry every time I wake up. I have to go straight to a mirror and find out.” She took the cigarette out of her mouth and smiled at herself. “No, I’m still cute. I’ve got good bone structure.” She added somberly, “And right now, what a headache.”

Her mood changed abruptly. “You know what I have to put up with Vince, Steve. You tell him.”

Steve blew out his breath. “Not again, Betty. You’ve got to start looking at the bright side. Nobody likes a chick who keeps spilling over all the time.”

“Are you referring to me?” she said icily. “I make it a point to never show my feelings, even when I’m crying on the inside.”

“Oh, brother,” Steve said, and went back to his own problem.

Betty swung around with a dramatic gesture which almost carried her off the backless bench.

“All they think about is their own kicks.” She smiled at Shayne and held out an empty glass. “Will you freshen up my drink? And look in the John for an aspirin. Then we’ll talk.”

Shayne made her a new drink, finishing the first bottle and opening the second. He found a tin of aspirin in the medicine cabinet. She shook a half dozen tablets into her palm. He picked out two and put them back.

“Most of these jerks,” she said admiringly, “I could swallow the whole bottle and they’d figure it was up to me.”

Shayne took a long drink of Scotch from the bottle and sat on the foot of the unmade bed. “What’s your idea about what happened to Vince?”

She giggled. “Do you realize I feel much better? I’m like that. I sort of press a button and count three and I’m normal again. Vince-he disappears on me all the time.” She looked puzzled. “What time is it?”

“About ten-thirty.”

She nodded. “He’s out rambling. Rambling and looking and trying to hustle some poor chick out of a couple of bucks. How good a friend of his are you?”

“I can take him or leave him.”

“He owe you some money?”

Shayne grinned. “Betty, you’re a mind reader.”

“Oh, that doesn’t make me such a wonderful guesser,” she said modestly. “He owes all over town. I’ve made him some loans myself. I’m a receptionist, I drag down pretty good money. When he starts paying off you know who’s going to be first in line, yours truly. And I’m supposed to tell people that’s going to be soon.”

“I hear he’s been making it with his boss’s wife. Why does he need money?”

“She doesn’t have too much you can cash in on.”

Shayne drank from the bottle again. “How long’s he been gone?”

“I didn’t even know he was! My trouble is, I get disgusted and I drink too fast and forget to eat anything. Things don’t look so screwed-up after a couple of drinks. And all of a sudden I’m out like a light.” She drank off her Scotch and held out the glass, confident that he would get up and fill it for her. “Sometimes I wake up somewhere else and I don’t know how I got there. What a feeling! I know I ought to eat, but ugh. We adjourned in here with those two nice bottles of Johnny Walker, compliments of Mr. and Mrs. Al Naples. Still wrapped up in tissue paper, like presents. What I wanted to do was go to bed, but Vince has been a flop in that department lately. So we opened the Scotch.”

Shayne handed her a new drink. “He’s on junk, isn’t he?”

She nodded slowly. “The person I’m in love with. I’m not like some people. I don’t jump in the hay with anybody. Before Vince moved up to H that was the one thing I didn’t like about him, the way he would do it with anybody. I don’t include Mrs. Naples. He has to make a living, I grant him that. But I was brought up different and I’m not about to change.”

Her mind skipped. “For instance, the minute you walked in I knew you’d be gentle. Those shoulders of yours. You look tough, but you’re not, are you? I like the way you get me drinks without making a big deal out of it. You don’t know how tired I get of these boys. I’m ready for somebody more mature.”

Her eyes misted over. “We’d be great! I know just the things I’d like to do with you.”

She was beginning to move about excitedly and she was breathing more quickly. She slid forward so her knees touched his.

“But I’m not going to do them!” she said, her eyes shining with excitement. “So never mind asking me. Because I love Vince! I don’t believe in cheating on the guy you love, with all his faults. But how I’d like to!”

He took hold of her knee to hold it still. Her flesh was cool and smooth under his hand, and she moved her leg between his so his hand slid along it. Using both hands, he closed her knees firmly.

“Betty, you and Vince came in here and locked the door. You made yourself a drink. What did he do?”

“What do you think he did?” Little lines of tension gathered around her eyes. “Why do they have to do it? Do you know? Shoot themselves full of that crap and pull out of the human race? I get a kind of-you know”-she seemed embarrassed-“sexy feeling when he puts in the needle, and what good does it do me? I know he’s going to be nodding in thirty seconds. What could I do but get stinking?”

“When was this, Betty, about seven or eight?”

“What’s the point of all the questions? We both know what happened. They sold him a bad bag. They cut it all the way down so it didn’t give him much of a charge. He woke up sick and he had to get dressed and go out looking for somebody with five or ten bucks so he could hunt up a connection and get himself right again. You want some advice about how long to wait? You know better than that. He could walk in this minute, or he might be gone a couple of weeks. That’s what it is with a junkie.”

“There’s a watchman on duty,” Shayne said. “He says nobody’s passed him.”

“A watchman? Don’t be dense, honey. He dozed off. Get me another drink. One more, and then I’m going to eat those baked beans if they strangle me.”

“And Vince didn’t get dressed,” Shayne went on.

He went back to the closet. One section was labeled “Hers,” the other “His.” He pulled a lightweight blue blazer off a hanger. It was longer, more narrow and more rakish than Al Naples’ clothes.

Betty said, “He was sick, he didn’t wear a jacket. Now you’re going to stop being polite? I’ll pour my own drink.”

She misjudged the corner of the bed and went headlong on the crumpled blue sheets. Shayne sorted through the slacks until he found a pair that was too long for Al Naples, with tapered legs into which the older man could never have forced his heavy thighs.

“And he forgot his pants,” Shayne said. “His shoes must be here somewhere.”

Betty groaned. “Why does he do those things? He’s always been so wild-”

“No, this was fairly intelligent,” Shayne said, “and maybe somebody else thought it up for him. He cooked his shot and put it in his arm, and he probably let out a groan to make you think he was getting a jolt of the real thing. It was probably only sugar. He knew you’d knock yourself out with the Johnny Walker as soon as he closed his eyes. And that’s what happened. He hung his clothes in the closet so they wouldn’t get wrinkled. Then he went out the window.”

Shayne pulled the sliding window open as far as it would go. A narrow rope ladder was fixed to two cleats beneath the sill.

“Yeah,” Shayne continued. “He wouldn’t want to dive because somebody might hear the splash. The south shore of Normandy Isle is about an eighth of a mile away. He didn’t have to hurry. The door was locked and no one would bother you. He could swim back half an hour later, unfasten the ladder and let it go. Then he’d dry himself off, get back in bed and give himself a real shot of heroin. He’d be in the clear all the way.”

Betty stared at him, the uncapped whiskey bottle in one hand. “Where is he, then?”

“Probably still in the bay, don’t you think?” Shayne said.

“Vince?” She gave a high giggle. “You’re so wrong. He’s a marvellous swimmer. He could swim to Palm Beach and back.” Her face changed. “Unless somebody-”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Shayne said.

He took the bottle out of her hand and drank from it. He gave it back and left her on the bed, looking after him with a dazed expression.

11

In the other room Steve was on his hands and knees, loops of loose film around his neck and across his back.

“I can’t find either end!” he cried. “It’s a nightmare.”

“It has to be there somewhere,” Shayne said.

“You promised you’d help me!” the boy called after him as he let himself out.

The other girl was waiting on deck for him. She was still barefoot, but she had put on a blouse, a skirt and lipstick. Her hair was up in a knot in back, and with her elbows out and her small breasts poking against the front of her blouse, she was shaping the knot and driving pins into it.

“Well?” she said.

“Well what?”

“I want to get you a drink and start over.” She jabbed in the last pin. “There. Now I look a little more civilized. Did I tell you my name? It’s Lee Ewing, and I know it was silly to jump on your back that way. What’s your name?”

“Mike Shayne,” he said abstractedly, listening.

He tried to get around her, but she sidestepped, putting herself between him and the gangway. “You don’t have to go. I want to tell you how that happened. I couldn’t see why for once two people couldn’t do something simple. Why waste a lot of time talking about the weather and the movies and who do you know and so on? What I forgot was that I was way ahead of you as far as whiskey consumption went.”

Shayne frowned. Something was bumping at regular intervals against the side of the boat.

“At least you’re thinking about it,” Lee said approvingly. “That’s a step. I won’t say another word until you’ve had a few drinks and we’ve taken care of the weather. Isn’t it a pleasant evening? Warm, and all that crap? What’s your favorite TV program?” She leaned her forehead against him. “Mike, you’re so big.”

“Yeah.” Shayne went around to the other side of the boat and looked over the rail. By leaning out he could see a few rungs of the rope ladder beneath the window of the main cabin, and below that, nothing but black shadow. The thumping sound came again.

Lee had followed him. “Honey?” She drew his arm against her breast. “Did I say anything wrong?”

“The big trouble is, Lee,” Shayne said, moving away from the rail, “we’re in different time zones. You’re relaxing. I’m working.”

“What kind of work?”

“I’m a detective.”

Gently but firmly he moved her out of his way. She let him go, but called after him, “And does that mean you’re not human?”

Steve was sitting helplessly on the floor, surrounded by film. “I’m licked,” he told Shayne. “My old man tells me never to start something and not finish it, but this-”

Shayne stepped over a loop of film and entered the cabin. Betty was back in front of the mirror, twisting from one side to the other, to get different slants on her stomach and hips.

“Fat as a pig,” she said with disgust. “And I hardly eat anything. I just nibble at a piece of dry toast for breakfast.”

Shayne looked for the light switches and turned them on. There was a tiny expandable tensor light on one of the bedside tables. Extended to its full stretch, it just reached the window.

“You decided to come back,” Betty said, recognizing him. “Tell me. You don’t have any axe to grind, one way or another. Am I too big back here?”

She slapped herself resoundingly. From the resonance, there was nothing but flesh under the half-slip.

Shayne directed the concentrated beam of the little lamp downward toward the water, without replying.

“All I want is an opinion,” she complained. “I didn’t say you had to flatter me or anything.”

A passing boat had sent out a long wake, which was now beginning to subside. The bottom of the ladder was taut where it went into the water, as though something was weighing it down. Shayne shifted the lamp’s beam. A long black shadow swam up from below, knocked lightly against the boat’s planking and sank out of sight.

Lee’s voice called from the rail, “What was that?”

Shayne waited, playing the light back and forth along the slick black surface. The shadowy object came up again. It was unrelieved black along its entire length. This time it barely nudged the boat, not quite breaking water before it was gone. It looked shiny and hard, and was about as long as a man’s body.

Shayne wedged one of the joints of the lamp over the sill and slipped off his jacket.

“Why not?” Betty said approvingly. “I’m not going to bed with you, and don’t try to persuade me. One man at a time is my motto, irregardless. But go ahead, take off some clothes. It’s stuffy in here.”

Shayne kicked out of his shoes and swung one leg over the sill. Betty watched open-mouthed.

As his foot found the top rung of the ladder and he swung his second leg after the first, she cried shrilly, “You don’t care how you upset people, do you? Come in here and say those things about Vince-I’m just beginning to forget I heard them. Then you come in again and climb out the window! How much can a person stand?”

Shayne redirected the lamp’s beam before starting down. His big rangy body cut off the light. When one of his feet went into the water he twisted aside, flattening himself against the boat, to let the beam thrust past him. The jet-black shadow glided up silently, grazed the planking and was sucked back down, twisting. Shayne’s teeth grated together. He reached down and tried to grasp it when it rose, but he was blocking the light again and he couldn’t see what he was doing.

His fingers slipped across a hard, rounded surface, cold and unpleasant. Under his touch, the object rolled in the water and a narrower shadow separated itself from the main bulk. It was a black-clad arm. Immediately the menacing shape changed into the figure of a man, clad in a black diver’s outfit, with a narrow canister of oxygen strapped to its back.

Shayne went down two more rungs, going into water up to his knees. When the body rose this time he caught it by one arm and brought it up. The other arm was hooked around a rung of the ladder, over and under. The fingers in their black glove were locked on the rope. With difficulty, wet to the thighs, Shayne rolled the body over on one side, supporting it across his knee while he tried to free the rope from the clutching hand. The further it came out of the water, the heavier it was. He decided against going back on board to look for a line. He was afraid he had dislodged the body just enough so the next swell would carry it away.

The face mask was ajar, and apparently the airtight suit had filled with water. For an instant the powerful beam struck a cold cheek and a staring eye. That was the only glimpse Shayne was ever to get of the face of Vince Donahue.

The beam danced away. Betty’s voice called, “Don’t! I’m scared!”

One of Shayne’s arms was hooked through the ladder. With the other he kept the black-clad body from sliding away. He said calmly, “Betty, point the light down here.”

Lee cried from the deck, “Is that a body?”

“Leave it alone,” Betty said hysterically. “Let somebody else find it.”

Shayne kept his voice level. “It’s Vince. I want to get him out and see if there’s anything we can do for him. Turn the light this way.”

“No,” Betty whispered in horror. “It’s not Vince.”

“I’ll do it,” Lee said. “Hold onto him, Mike.”

He heard her footsteps leaving the deck. As he shifted his grip he touched a slack line. Following it through the water, he found it looped around Vince’s wrist. Perhaps he could lash the body to the ladder until he could get something more substantial down from on deck. He hauled it in, working carefully with one hand. It came easily, and something came with it. In a moment he touched a floating bait bucket. He unclamped the lid knowing what he would find inside even before his hand went in and felt the packages of bills.

He fastened the lid again and picked at the knot at Vince’s wrist until it came loose. Passing the free end rapidly around the rung of the ladder, he slipped it through the bight and made it fast with a quick pull.

The girls were arguing at the cabin window above him. Lee said angrily, “He needs the goddamn light!”

The beam drifted back toward Shayne, then abruptly winked out.

There was a scrabbling sound from the window. Lee said, “Betty, help me find the plug. Or get out of the way.”

“It can’t be Vince,” Betty said harshly. “He can swim like a fish. It’s somebody else. I can tell you one thing, I’m not going to look at him.”

Shayne jacked the body another foot or so out of the water. The ladder kept twisting under him. Without a block and tackle be couldn’t get the body on board unless he could open the suit to empty out some of the water. He wrestled with it in the blackness, swearing savagely. The black rubber was as slippery as though it had been polished and oiled.

He freed the tab of the zipper under the chin, carefully levered the body on one knee and worked the zipper down. Water spurted out. For a moment the swell became stronger and the ladder swayed away. He tilted the body at a steeper angle. Already it felt much lighter. In another moment, he thought, he could begin manhandling it up the ladder.

The light came on again. Lee’s voice said, “Get back inside, Betty. You can’t see anything.”

The beam wavered violently, coming to rest on the back of Vince’s head.

“What did I tell you?” Betty said triumphantly. “It’s a Negro. We can’t help if he’s already drowned. Why let it wreck the party?”

“Betty, watch out or you’ll-”

There was a sudden cry. The ladder lurched convulsively in Shayne’s hand, and Betty lost her balance and fell on him, knocking him into the water. He swallowed a mouthful of bay water before he came up, sputtering. He still had contact with the rubber-clad body, but the suit was rapidly filling with water. The zipper was out of reach. Betty was splashing frantically several yards from the boat. He wrestled the body upright and pulled it against the ladder, trying to get one of the arms in over the rungs. The weight of the water carried it under. Every time his grip relaxed it slipped again.

Betty seized him around the neck from behind in a frantic clutch. Vince’s body slipped again, and for an instant Shayne almost lost his hold.

“I can’t swim,” she said complainingly.

He swore at her, trying to fight her off with one elbow without letting go of Vince. Above at the window, the lamp had pulled out again and Lee was calling, “Betty?” From the stern, the man and the girl who had been smoking reefers looked down idly.

Thrashing around, Betty pulled him under. He wanted to find out what had happened to Vince, and he didn’t really care what happened to Betty. But between a dead man and a live girl, he had no choice. The body was now entirely submerged. Betty’s throat gurgled in his ear. He forced the body back to the surface for an instant, looped the loose line around its chest and tried again to catch one of the arms in the ladder. When he let go, the body hung precariously.

He pushed off with a powerful backward kick. In the clear, he quickly broke Betty’s grip on his neck, bringing his shoulder up hard beneath her jaw to make her easier to manage. He brought her back to the ladder with one sweep of his arm. He yelled at Lee. The light came back on. The beam stabbed downward, and he saw the black shoulder slide past the ladder. He grabbed for it. His fingers slid across the hard surface without finding anything to fasten on. Then it went under.

He whipped the light line around Betty’s arm, fumbling the end into a loose knot. He tried to wedge her against the rope with her head out of water, but it couldn’t be done. He made a sweeping motion with one arm, groping down and away, reaching as far as he could without letting go of Betty. The tide was running strongly. He felt the pressure of the current against his spread fingers, but there was no doubt now that the body was gone.

He gave the line a tug to be sure the bait bucket was still secure. Then he hoisted Betty’s limp body on one shoulder and climbed toward the light.

12

He swung through into the cabin. Betty’s head knocked against the sill as he pulled her after him. But after what he had gone through on her account, he saw no reason to handle her gently.

Holding her like a partly open jackknife, her head down, he let the water she had swallowed drain out onto the carpet. He shook her, then dumped her on the floor to start artificial respiration. He took the lower part of her rib cage in both hands and came down hard. She spewed out more water, diluted with Scotch. He helped her expel one more breath. When her eyes opened he got up off his knees, leaving her to recover the rest of the way by herself.

She flopped over on her back, her wet slip clinging to her thighs. Her long hair was as stringy as seaweed.

She looked up at him accusingly. “Where’s Vince?”

“I thought you said it was a Negro,” Shayne said in a disgusted voice.

He went into the bathroom and returned with a large, rough towel. He rubbed his coarse red hair briskly. Lee watched him from near the window, her eyes wide.

“Was it really Vince?”

Steve put his head in the door. “What’s going on in here, may I ask? Vince said to be quiet. This is a ritzy neighborhood, somebody’s going to report us. Wait and see.”

“You drowned him,” Betty said flatly, staring up at Shayne. “You drowned him like a kitten.”

“Yeah.” Shayne tossed her the towel. “Dry yourself off. You look like a drowned cat yourself.”

She shook the towel off and came to her feet, her eyes blazing. “He had on his scuba suit. It was only a joke! He’s always doing things like that.” She whirled toward Lee. “Isn’t he? You know how he’s always popping out of the water to scare people.”

“He was just floating there,” she said doubtfully.

“He was fine! He had his oxygen! Then this guy jumped on him and opened up his zipper and held his head under water.”

“Now why would I do anything like that?” Shayne said reasonably.

“For the good of society! I know the way your mind works. Just because he can’t cope, just because he gives himself a shot once in a while, you think he ought to be drowned like a damn kitten!”

Ignoring her, Shayne sat on the edge of the bed and stripped off his wet socks. He dried his feet on a pillow case.

“Do you think I’m going to let you get away with it?” Betty was standing over him, her fists clenched. Suddenly she began beating him on the top of his head with both fists. “Why couldn’t you give him a break? What did he ever do to you?”

He caught her arms and moved her out of his way. She was sputtering incoherently. When she tried to kick him between the legs he turned her around and put her down emphatically on the bed.

“Goddamn it, if you hadn’t jumped on me-” He waved in disgust. “Will you shut up?”

He had one more thing to do before he left. Vince’s death would have to be reported, but first he wanted to pull in the bait bucket and get it out of sight.

“I don’t understand what happened,” Steve said, puzzled. “What did you say about Vince?”

The other couple, wearing a minimum of clothing, had floated in from the stern in search of entertainment. The man said, “Vince go for a swim?” He giggled.

Lee had been on Shayne’s side while he was in the water, but now she seemed to be wavering.

“I couldn’t tell, Steve, it was so dark down there. I saw him open Vince’s suit. He did hold him underwater.”

“I thought you’d decided to be friendly,” Shayne remarked.

“I can’t feel very friendly toward people who go around drowning-”

Shayne swung out over the windowsill. Betty flung herself at him.

“He’s going to swim ashore!”

She caught him by the hair, jerking him inward, and Lee hit him with the empty Scotch bottle. She hadn’t completely made up her mind about him, and checked her swing at the last instant. He fell in across the sill and slid back into the cabin. Betty was all over him, scratching, kicking, pummeling the back of his head. Shayne felt a blaze of anger. Coming to his feet, he gripped her by the wet hair and swung her around.

“Will everybody listen to me?” he said savagely. “Let’s hope it penetrates. There was a stickup on Normandy Isle at about seven-thirty tonight. Vince threw this party so a watchman could testify that he was on board at seven-thirty, and five other people could testify that he was in bed with Betty and a bagful of junk. Betty saw him-hold still, damn you-Betty saw him mainline the stuff with her own two eyes, and she was so disappointed in him that she packed away a fifth of good Scotch. But this one time Vince didn’t use heroin. There are his clothes.” He pointed the struggling girl at the open closet. “He swam across to Normandy Isle and two old friends from St. Louis picked him up in a stolen car. He pulled the job and swam back. Don’t ask me why he couldn’t haul himself up the ladder. If Betty had kept out of it, we’d probably know.”

“Vince didn’t ever stick up anybody,” Steve said scornfully. “It’s not the kind of thing he goes in for.”

“There’s a first time for everything. Now there’s something down in the water I want to get. Relax for a minute.”

He pushed Betty toward the bed. The instant he let go of her she whirled and attacked him again.

“Who are you, anyway? I never saw you before in my life. You’re no friend of his.”

Lee put in, “He said he’s a detective.”

The word was like kerosene on a dying fire. Steve howled, “You bastards, when are you going to start minding your own business? What harm did Vince do you? But you’ve got to make your arrest quota, don’t you? He’s never been pulled in before. Naturally he didn’t want you to take him in for possession! Naturally he jumped out the window! I thought there was something screwy about it when you jimmied the door.”

The third girl, reacting slowly, finally understood what they were saying about Shayne. “He drowned Vince?”

Steve turned toward her and explained, “Maybe Vince was too smoked-up to turn on his oxygen.”

Outraged, the girl burst past Steve and hit Shayne like a projectile. She had passed in an instant from relaxation to a state of uncontrollable fury. The other man came into the cabin, his fists raised in boxing position, and danced around behind the three girls. Shayne was borne backward and hit the wall. The empty Scotch bottle was jolted out of Lee’s hand, smashing the mirror.

Losing patience, Shayne picked up Betty and knocked the blonde girl down with her. Then he threw her at Lee. The boy aimed an elegant jab at Shayne’s head, or where he imagined Shayne’s head ought to be. The big redhead came in with a right, putting all his feelings about this situation behind it. The boy went over the bed, hit the wall, slid to the floor, and stopped moving.

Shayne gave Lee a warning look as she tried to get up. Everyone was accounted for but Steve. As Shayne went through the doorway looking for him, Steve jumped out and dumped the tangle of movie film over his head and shoulders.

The film writhed and coiled like live snakes. Steve pulled back his right fist and hit Shayne in the jaw, going off balance just as it landed. As a result it didn’t explode. Shayne raked at the film, trying to free at least one arm, and Steve tried again with a roundhouse left. Shayne saw it coming and ducked away, putting the back of his head directly into the downward path of the other Scotch bottle. It connected solidly, dropping him to the floor, still in the grip of the dirty movie.

He had to take a short count until the noises in his head subsided. He heard a chair go over. Somebody whipped a pillow case over his head like a hood.

“You’re going to get a lesson,” Betty’s voice panted. “Steve, get a rope! Get a rope! He can’t drown somebody and get a medal for it. Throw him in himself. See how he likes it.”

Her fingers stopped moving, and suddenly there was complete silence in the room except for hurried breathing. Shayne heard a siren. It was coming fast.

Steve’s voice said, “I knew we were making too much racket. These fancy bastards around here can’t stand a little noise.”

Somebody wrenched Shayne’s wrists behind his back and started binding them together with a torn strip of cloth. The siren died at the end of the lane.

“I don’t know about you people,” Steve said, “but I’m getting out of here.”

“No!” Lee’s voice said excitedly. “Everybody get a bottle. It’s a private party, what right have they got? They think they can do anything they damn please.”

There were scurrying sounds around the room. Shayne lay still, but kept a space between his wrists as they were lashed together. Heavy footsteps ran along the dock. He flexed his wrists until he could revolve his hands. Finding the knot, he began to pick it apart with his thumb and forefinger.

The cops, confronted with a silent but lighted boat, halted and conferred on the dock. They proceeded up the gangway with more caution.

“Hello?” a voice called. “Anybody aboard?”

“OK, Maguire,” a second voice said. “See if they’ve passed out or what.”

Shayne worked his hands free. There was a nervous laugh from somebody, immediately stifled. The cops stepped off the gangway, and Shayne heard them moving along the deck toward the lighted doorway. He still hoped that under cover of the confusion he could get down the ladder and cut loose the money-filled bait bucket. If necessary he could swim under the dock with it and wait till the boat was cleared. Once the money fell into Peter Painter’s hands, Harry Bass would have a hard time proving ownership. In the end it would probably escheat to the city.

“Hello?” the cop called again.

Shayne recognized Maguire’s voice. He was a tough, bullheaded veteran who was famous for extracting confessions from Negroes, and he had been commended frequently for shooting teen-age holdup men. It sometimes seemed to Shayne that Maguire only considered the season open on bandits under the age of twenty-one. An encounter with Betty and her friends, Shayne thought, would do him no lasting harm.

Maguire’s foot scraped in the doorway, and suddenly the storm broke. Shayne sat up quickly, ripped off the pillow case and began trying to divest himself of the film. The room was noisy with screams and curses. Maguire staggered to one knee. For an instant he and Shayne regarded each other on the same level. Maguire’s hat had been knocked off and his head was bleeding.

“Shayne?” he said wonderingly, and took out his gun.

Steve slapped at his wrist with a broken chair. The other cop, a plainclothes detective, was being belabored with empty bottles. His arms were raised to protect his head. The blonde girl stole around behind him and dropped him with a vodka bottle.

A man with a flashbulb camera darted in, made a picture and dived beneath the table.

Shayne stood up and started for the cabin where everything had started. He was trailing loops of film. Betty was knocked violently backward past him. A long welt had sprung up across her face. Rebounding from the wall, she threw herself at Maguire and buried her teeth in his fleshy neck. He screamed like an animal and tore her loose.

He bounded after her and hit her twice with his night stick. The first blow landed on her shoulder. The second all but tore off an ear. She collapsed at Shayne’s feet. Maguire had reached a state which wasn’t unusual with him, where he no longer knew what he was doing. He lifted the nightstick in both hands. His little eyes had contracted to red, angry pinpoints within their pockets of flesh.

Moving fast, Shayne caught the nightstick as it came down. A flashbulb popped.

“Out of this, Shayne,” Maguire grated.

He pushed Shayne and raised the nightstick again. Cords stood out on his neck. Betty stared up at him in terror. If he had succeeded in bringing the nightstick down, he would have split her skull to the brain.

Shayne hated to hit cops. It was rarely practical. He sighed, shook loose the last loop of film and nailed Maguire with a short right when he was wide open. As he sagged, the redhead took the nightstick out of his loosening hold.

“Let’s have it,” a third cop said, advancing.

With a joyful cry, Lee hit this cop in the face with a chair. She came around fast, snatched Maguire’s nightstick away from Shayne and whacked the cop with it before Shayne could stop her. She and the redhead struggled for the nightstick for a moment, and the photographer’s head popped up above the table. He made another picture, ducking out of sight as Steve scaled an empty film reel at him.

“Let go, Mike,” Lee said reasonably. “I’m going to beat his brains in.”

“Like hell you are.”

Shayne wrenched the club out of her hand. With a sideward thrust of his foot he moved Betty out of the cabin doorway.

And then, with the entrance of three more cops, he realized that the money would have to wait. They had arrived without sirens. They all had their guns out. Seeing three fallen comrades amid the broken bottles and tangled film, they were clearly in a good mood to shoot somebody. “Drop that,” the leading cop told Shayne. Shayne dropped the nightstick. Steve wavered up to the cop, ignoring the drawn gun, and tried to punch him. Missing, he fell down. The photographer popped up with a fresh flashbulb and made another picture.

13

Shayne was hustled along the dock with the others. The Beach cops used a modified Volkswagen bus for their riot calls, with two rows of facing benches. Except for Maguire, who had been driven off in an ambulance, Shayne knew only one of the arresting cops by sight, and if that man recognized him, he was careful to say nothing about it. Shayne made no attempt to identify himself or to ask for different treatment, which they wouldn’t have given him.

Betty had been permitted to put on more clothes, but her bag had been confiscated before she could comb her wet hair or do anything about her lipstick. The welt left by Maguire’s nightstick showed clearly, even in the dim overhead light, and she kept one hand cupped over her injured ear. She was rocking back and forth.

“I’m going to be sick,” she whispered.

The wagon got underway with a jerk. More police cars had collected, and the officer in charge had decided to go in using their sirens.

“Betty,” Shayne said.

He was sitting across from her, their knees almost touching. He took her free hand and made her meet his eyes.

“We’ll be there in a minute,” he said. “Listen to me without saying anything.”

The cop at the end of the wagon leaned forward. “Shut up back there. No talking.”

Shayne nudged Steve, who was slumped beside him, his face a mask of dejection. When he didn’t react at once Shayne nudged him again. He started.

“What do you mean, shut up?” he shouted at the cop. “This is supposed to be a democracy!”

Lee joined in, the cop roared at them both, and all the prisoners but Shayne and Betty began to sing defiantly, “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty-”

Under cover of the clamor Shayne went on quietly, “Don’t say anything to anybody about Vince. I want to find out what happened. I can’t do that if we’re tied up in jail. If it’s just drunk and disorderly I think we can get out in a couple of hours.”

She started to say something but he forestalled her. “How drunk are you?”

“Pretty,” she said weakly. “You hit that cop, didn’t you? You took his nightstick.”

“Yeah. Not only that, I didn’t drown Vince. When his body comes up we can find out what went wrong. The way the cops are going to look at it, you were together in a locked cabin, you had a fight and cracked his skull.”

Her eyes widened in protest.

“The way you’ve been waving bottles around,” Shayne said, “they’ll think it figures. I know it didn’t happen like that, but I have other things to go on, things they don’t know about. They’ll figure you put him in his scuba outfit and tipped him out of the window. It was just bad luck that he got tangled up in the ladder. You’re ideal for this, Betty. No money for high-powered lawyers, no connections. The heroin angle makes it bad. They’ll jump at it. I don’t think they can make it stick, but it could mean a pretty rough year and a half.”

She swallowed painfully. “I didn’t-”

He patted her knee. “Just take it as it comes.”

He opened his mouth and bawled with the others, “Land of the Pilgrims’ pride-”

They were still shouting and singing when they arrived at the police station. Their pictures were taken again as they emerged from the wagon. One of the photographers exclaimed, “It’s Mike Shayne!” and ran for a phone.

Inside, they were lined up and booked. Shayne was the only one to ask for a phone call, and for a moment he didn’t think he was going to get it. He called his friend Tim Rourke, the crime reporter on the News, and told him where he was and what lawyer he wanted.

“What did you do this time, Mike?” Rourke said happily.

“Let me see,” Shayne said. “It’s drunk and disorderly to begin with. Then inciting to riot, resisting arrest, striking a police officer, vandalism and malicious mischief. I may have left out one or two.”

“And you only need one lawyer?” Rourke asked.

Shayne laughed. “I’ve got things on the fire, Tim, so get moving.”

Shayne, Steve and the other boy in their party were taken to the open drunk tank, jammed with its usual Saturday evening crowd. Some were already asleep, several were fighting, an old man was sobbing in the corner. Others were sitting around hopelessly, on benches or on the floor, waiting for time to pass. The boy who had come with Steve and Shayne hung back at the grated door and seized the attendant’s arm.

“I want to make my phone call.”

“You had your chance,” the cop said surlily. “Inside.”

The boy held onto the grate and kept the door from closing. “I’m Tom Pike! You’ve got to-”

The nearby prisoners crowded around and joined the protest, and finally the attendant took Pike back to the phones.

“His old man’s the judge,” Steve told Shayne. “It might help.”

Shayne found an unoccupied section of bench. Presently Pike was brought back, looking subdued. He wouldn’t speak to Steve, and stayed at the gate, holding the grating.

Over the next half hour the quarrelsome prisoners began to quiet down, rousing up whenever the gate was opened and new arrivals were admitted. The smells accumulated. Shayne had been in worse jails, and he used the interval to go back to the beginning of the attempt on Harry Bass and sort out what he knew and what he didn’t know. The second category, as usual at this stage, was much larger than the first.

The dozing drunks reared up again at a disturbance in the corridor. Peter Painter strode around the corner, surrounded by a group of police officials. The news of Shayne’s arrest had taken longer to reach him than the redhead had expected.

The chief of detectives was wearing an immaculate white linen dinner jacket, a red carnation in the lapel. He was beautifully shaved, brushed, and powdered, and his little quirky mustache was at its best. A gloating smile played across his lips as he searched among the disreputable drunks for his old enemy, who had beaten him so often, Michael Shayne.

Those of the prisoners who were still awake stared at him sullenly, with open hostility. Those who didn’t know who he was were offended by his dinner jacket. A drunk near Shayne made an obscene suggestion about the carnation and Shayne laughed.

“Shayne!” Painter exclaimed triumphantly as his eye lighted on the big redhead, lounging between a sleeping derelict and a young delinquent in a dirty T-shirt and tight jeans.

Shayne stood up lazily and stretched. Steve watched anxiously from farther down the bench. Shayne winked at him and sauntered over to the grate. Painter’s pungent after-shave lotion could be smelled clearly among the other smells in the tank.

Painter’s smile broadened. “This is a night I’ll remember,” he said, and signed to one of his entourage to unlock the gate.

The officers around Painter were grinning except for Bob Sanderson, a lieutenant who had grown gray and drawn trying to keep the department functioning in spite of his chief’s mistakes. His hands deep in his pockets, he refused to meet Shayne’s eye.

“In here,” Painter said, indicating an interrogation room off the corridor. “Not that I’m superstitious, but I’ve solved some hard cases in this room. Sanderson, have you got the stuff the boys found on the boat?”

He took a manila envelope out of Sanderson’s hands and led the way. The interrogation room was cold and bleak, furnished only with a metal table, a typewriter, and several folding metal chairs. A pen, a blotter and a bottle of red ink waited on the table, as a reminder that the room’s main purpose was to produce signed confessions. The walls were unadorned cinderblocks, painted white. The single light, a harsh, powerful ceiling bulb, made even Painter look sallow and weary.

Painter let Sanderson and a stenographer into the room and shut the door on the others. He made a complete circuit of Shayne, to get an all-around view. Shayne’s shirt had dried on his back, but his pants were sodden and uncreased. Painter bent down and announced with glee, “No socks!”

Shayne let him enjoy his moment. It wasn’t often that Painter had a chance like this, and he meant to exploit it to the full. Shayne moved out one of the metal chairs and sat down. Sanderson gave him a cigarette and lit it for him. Painter alighted on the corner of the table, arranging his black trousers carefully.

“Organization,” he said with a chortle. “It pays off every time. My men have standing orders to let me know of anything involving Michael Shayne, no matter at what hour of the day or night. I confess this is one time I hesitated. It meant putting a very lovely lady into a taxi and sending her home alone. She was piqued, and she may refuse to see me again. But it’s worth it. The sight of you in that drunk tank has rewarded me a hundred times over.” His eyes hardened. “Shayne, I wouldn’t be surprised if this finishes you in this town.”

He lit his own cigarette after fitting it into a long holder. From long experience with the preposterous little man, Shayne knew that he had to let him crow for a time. In the end, if nothing happened to ruffle his feathers or make him lose his shaky hold on his temper, he might be willing to shut up and listen to something he hadn’t heard from his own men. He would have to be told about the robbery of Harry Bass and the drowning of Vince Donahue. Shayne had often concealed facts from Painter in the past, but there had also been times when he had had to forget his personal feelings about the man, to force him to behave in a semi-reasonable way.

“Three girls, three guys,” Painter said, still chortling. “I wonder which one was yours. That Betty’s really stacked, didn’t you think so, Sanderson?”

Sanderson went on smoking impassively, looking at the floor.

“She’s afraid she’s getting fat,” Shayne said.

“Nonsense,” Painter snapped. “Just right. Not my type, of course, too raucous, for one thing, but I can see how she’d appeal to someone with your limited background. Enough liquor and gage will cover a multitude of small imperfections, won’t they? I’m told that after one or two reefers all women tend to look about the same.”

He picked a brown cigarette butt and two unsmoked sticks of marijuana out of the manila envelope and laid them on the table. Then he went back into the envelope for a hypodermic needle.

“God, the headlines,” he commented. “Mike Shayne, rough-and-ready private eye! A drunken sex party on Al Naples’ boat! Mary Jane and horse! Semi-nude babes! Blue movies! This is one time I’m going to enjoy the morning papers. And it won’t be all text. It was pure luck a News photographer was hanging around when the call came in. We haven’t run off that sixteen-millimeter stuff yet. The boys looked at a few frames and they tell me it’s an adult-education course in various types of fornication, none of it what the statutes define as exactly normal. What’s wrong, Shayne? Usually by this time you’re trying to bluster your way out of it.”

“Are you ready to listen yet?” Shayne asked calmly.

“To your usual lies and evasions? No, I’m not ready to listen! Because I’ve got you this time, my corner-cutting friend! I’ve got you by the short hairs, and I’m going to heave the book at you, I kid you not! Dear God, have I been waiting! I knew that sooner or later you’d slip in a big way. Sure, everybody likes to relax and let down their hair now and then, but don’t you think this was overdoing it a little? The marijuana, the heroin, there’s the crowning touch. Something in the Bible, I forget how it goes, about how if you hang on long enough your enemies will be delivered into your hand.”

He clenched his fist slowly. Opening it again, he picked out an imaginary crushed insect, and crunched it between his small white teeth.

“You’ll never learn,” Shayne said. “You’ve tried that before, and it always gave you a bellyache.”

“But not this time,” Painter said smugly. “I don’t underestimate you. You’re the luckiest son of a bitch on the face of the globe, and I don’t deny that you have a certain dramatic flair. By lowering yourself to their level you’ve captured the allegiance of a few so-called gentlemen of the press. ‘Bums of the press’ would be a better name for them. As for the great moronic gum-chewing public, you can do no wrong. Maybe you can convince them that you were working on a research project tonight, trying to get at the sources of teen-age delinquency.” He leaned toward the unruffled redhead, and all at once his sharp little face became nasty. “The fact remains, whether or not you were smoking rope or screwing three girls at a time, you hit a police officer! You employed your usual method, violence, to resist arrest. My men were investigating a complaint from an influential taxpayer. You and your friends met them with a barrage of broken bottles. When Sergeant Maguire asked you to come along with him peacefully, you broke his jaw.”

“I thought I heard something crack,” Shayne said mildly. “Petey, will you simmer down? Maguire should have been kicked off the force years ago. He was about to kill a girl with a nightstick. If you’re surprised to hear that, you’re more out of touch than I think.”

“Maguire’s character and record, good or bad, have nothing to do with anything,” the angry little man snapped. “He’s a police officer. He was making a legal arrest. From the nature of his injuries, it’s fairly certain that you hit him with something harder than a fist. Unluckily for you, this time we have a witness you’ll have a hard time impeaching. The News photographer saw the whole thing and has given us a conclusive statement. I haven’t seen his pictures, but I know what they’ll show. You’re going to prison! And I’m delighted it’s on such an appropriate rap.”

“My lawyer will be showing up in a few minutes,” Shayne said, succeeding in keeping his temper. “I’ve got work to do.”

Painter smiled malevolently. “Not tonight, Shayne. Tonight you’re going to be our guest in the drunk tank. Oh, we’ll have the usual bleeding-heart army on our doorstep tomorrow morning, I have no doubt, but there’s a mountain of red tape to get out of the way when somebody slugs a police officer and sends him to the hospital. Don’t count on being back in circulation before the end of the afternoon.”

The redhead’s ragged eyebrows drew together. “Petey, I can see how your version appeals to you. But if you’ll give it one minute’s thought you’ll realize I was an extra wheel at that party. Did you talk to the watchman?”

Sanderson looked up, interested. “Was there a watchman on the dock, Mike?”

Painter broke in. “Never mind answering that. You don’t have to teach us the rudiments of police procedure. We’ll cover that in the morning.”

“I can see why you don’t want to cover it now,” Shayne said. “If he tells you I’d only been on the boat for half an hour you’d have to do some thinking. I know how hard that is for you.”

Painter started to speak, but Shayne decided it was time to raise his voice. “There were five people in the party when I got there, three girls and two boys. The third boy is dead. His name’s Vince Donahue. He’s the Nugget’s captain. I’m working for Harry Bass, and the reason I have to get out right away-”

“If you think you’re going to get out, you’re out of your mind.”

“The reason I have to get out,” Shayne repeated, raising his voice even more and speaking to Sanderson as much as to Painter, “is that Harry’s on the loose with a concussion. He has a bad temper and something to be mad about, and I want to get to him before he does anything that can’t be reversed.”

“I’ve been waiting for Harry to make a wrong move,” Painter said. “Nothing would please me more.”

“The political organization that put you in office,” Shayne said evenly, “gets a monthly contribution from Harry Bass, and I doubt if that’s news to you.”

The little man’s face was livid. “Are you accusing me-”

“Oh, knock it off, Petey!” Shayne exclaimed. “You didn’t just show up here from the back hills. This is a tourist town. Without gambling the hotel business would fall off by a third. If anything happens to Harry there’s going to be trouble.”

Painter smiled unpleasantly. “I cut my eyeteeth on trouble. I’ve let you have your say, and now you’ll listen me.”

He motioned to the stenographer, who opened his book. “We’re going to cut out the fooling and get down to business. Oddly enough, I’ve managed to inform myself on a few points. I know that an eight-passenger Cadillac caught on fire tonight not far from Harry Bass’s house on Normandy Isle. The license plates were destroyed, but we do know that Harry owns an eight-passenger Cadillac, which is not now in his garage. A Negro man named Billy Wallace was found on the scene with a fractured skull. The registration on his pistol gives his address as care of Harry Bass. You’re one of Harry’s cronies. All this is well known. I don’t really have cotton in my head, Shayne. When you show up at a party at Al Naples’ boat, with Harry Bass’s son Steve-”

Shayne looked at him sharply.

“Oh, he didn’t use his right name when he was booked,” Painter said, smiling. “Further, when a hypodermic needle is found under the bed in the main cabin, and adhering to the point are a few burned grains of a substance that will undoubtedly prove to be heroin-” He looked quizzically at Shayne. “Do you follow me?”

“Petey, I really don’t,” Shayne said candidly.

“OK,” Painter snarled. “If you don’t want to pick up a hint, see how you like it this way. Your public is going to eat up this orgy story. Unless you cooperate to the fullest extent, I’m going to play that deadpan. Laugh it off if you like, Shayne. It’s going to hurt. But I’m willing to compromise. I’ll put the lid on. I’ll see if I can quash the charges against you for hitting Maguire. It’s going to play hell with morale in the department, but I’ll go out on a limb, in the larger interest. If you want to be tough about it, it stands. I’ve finally got a club I can use on you, and don’t think I won’t use it unless you tell me all you know, and I do mean all.”

“About what, Petey?” Shayne said patiently.

“About that shipment of heroin.”

Shayne looked at him in surprise. He quickly added a mocking half-grin to make the surprise seem less real.

Painter said, “I see you know nothing about it. Of course not. Did you expect anything else, Sanderson? Frankly, I didn’t.”

“Refresh my memory,” Shayne said.

“I’ll tell you what little I know, so you’ll know precisely what gaps I want filled.” He moved around the table and sat down, tipping into balance on the back two legs of the chair. “My relations with the Bureau of Narcotics are currently not too good. We had a difference of opinion a few months ago. They thought I had something to do with the failure of a raid they had hopes for. Actually they bungled the affair themselves from start to finish. Well, I’ve had a tip from my own sources. This one I’m keeping to myself. When I’m ready for an arrest I’ll hand it to those slewfeet on a silver platter. They’re the experts on drugs, they think. Everybody else is nowhere.”

“Are you going to tell me about it?” Shayne said.

“Without interruptions,” Painter replied. “The tip comes from an export-import man who’s been feeding me information for years. He heard from connections in France that five hundred thousand dollars worth of heroin was on its way to Miami. That’s a retail figure, of course. Thanks to efficient police work, we have the drug problem under control here. It can’t be eliminated entirely, considering the comings and goings of travelers from New York and the Caribbean. All of a sudden heroin has become surprisingly simple to procure, excellent heroin at a non-panic price. I know that the shipment left Nice during a ten-day period in October. I cabled the French police to check hotel registrations. One of the Miamians who was visiting Nice at the time was Harry Bass.”

“Harry has nothing to do with narcotics,” Shayne said flatly.

“As a regular thing, of course not. He wouldn’t have public opinion behind him on it, which is unfortunately the case with bookmaking. But as a one-shot, to meet a sudden demand for capital? I wonder. The profits are enormous, and they can be realized immediately. We’re putting pressure on all our stoolies to find out about it, but it’s being handled very cleverly. We had our first break this afternoon. Sanderson, you tell him. He might not believe me.”

Sanderson said, “It’s second or third hand, Mike. Just a rumor that one of the big bookies is behind it.”

“I don’t pretend to have all the answers,” Painter said. “How about Steve Bass? Is he a pusher?”

Shayne ground out his cigarette on the floor. “This is all news to me.”

“Now Shayne,” Painter said pityingly. “The steno is taking this down. That statement’s absurd on the face. There are too many coincidences here.”

“Harry’s an extremist on the subject,” Shayne said. “He won’t do business with anybody who comes anywhere near narcotics.”

Painter teetered on the back two legs of his chair. “That kind of operator will always make an exception if the price is right. And how about you, Shayne? Your principles have a way of bending when there’s money involved.”

Shayne put both hands flat on the table. A pulse in his forehead was beginning to beat dangerously. “You think I’ve been going in for smuggling heroin?”

Sanderson put in, “Chief, maybe we ought to get back to that kid who was missing from the boat. Shayne says-”

Painter stopped him with a movement of his hand. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Shayne’s.

“If Harry Bass and Al Naples have a heroin deal going, they need a contact, somebody with a tough veneer to keep the small boys in line, somebody who can go back and forth with parcels without stirring up the narcotics people. I’m an admirer of your footwork. I may not be able to pin it on you. But I can make you stand still for this assaulting-an-officer rap, and that’s the deal I’m offering. A clean bill of health, in return for which you tell me everything you know on the subject of the Basses, senior and junior, Al Naples and his boat and half a million dollars worth of uncut heroin.”

Shayne came to his feet “You little pipsqueak, I wouldn’t give you the time of day! If I’m going to be slammed for hitting a cop, I think I’ll compound it.”

“Sanderson!” Painter piped.

Shayne picked up the bottle of red ink with one swipe of his big paw. Neither Sanderson nor the stenographer moved to stop him. As Shayne’s arm cocked, Painter shrank away from the blazing look in his eyes, and his chair went over backward.

The door opened and Tim Rourke and Harry Halstead, Shayne’s lawyer, came in.

“Captain Rourke of the U. S. Cavalry,” Rourke announced. “Hi, Mike. Been hitting cops again, have you? Where’s Painter?”

14

Shayne put the bottle of ink on the table and dusted his hands. Painter scrambled to his feet.

“You heard that, Sanderson!” he cried. “You heard him threaten me.”

“I did,” Sanderson said gravely. “And he called you a pipsqueak. That’s going to count against him.”

Painter darted him a suspicious look. “Well, I guess we’ve got enough on him already,” he said grudgingly. He glanced up at his big redheaded nemesis. “But if I was disposed to be lenient before, forget it. You want to do this the hard way. OK, that’s the way we’re going to do it.”

The wall phone rang. The stenographer answered.

“For you, Chief,” he said. “The lab.”

Painter came out from behind the table to take the phone. He listened for a moment, his face darkening. “OK,” he snapped, and hung up with a clatter.

“What did they do, test the end of the hypodermic needle?” Shayne asked. “What was it, granulated sugar?”

“Shut up,” Painter said with a vicious look.

Rourke laughed. He was long, thin and disheveled, with an offhand manner which concealed his loyalty to his friends and a passionate dedication to his profession. He waved a big envelope at Shayne.

“The trouble you get yourself into when I’m not around! Wait till you see these pictures. They’re the hottest thing since Sodom.” He slapped the envelope on the table. Picking up the stick of marijuana, he sniffed it. “Mike, you’re branching out.”

“Put that down!” Painter snapped. “That’s evidence.”

Halstead, a gray-haired, sleepy-looking man, observed, “Something you found in my client’s pocket?”

“No-o,” Painter admitted, “but if you think there aren’t various other things we can hang on him, you don’t appreciate the situation. Who let you in here, anyway?”

“To be candid, Peter,” Halstead said, “we had to pull some strings. It seems that one of the boys you picked up is Judge Pike’s son. That greased the skids a bit.”

“Shayne’s in for more than drunk and disorderly, counselor,” Painter said. “You can have young Pike. You can’t have Shayne until we get a medical report on Sergeant Maguire. That won’t be for twelve hours.”

Halstead smiled. “Tim?”

The lanky reporter slipped a sheaf of glossy five-by-eight photographs out of his envelope. “This is the sort of art that sells papers,” he said happily. “You missed the Sunday deadline, Mike, but you and your friends are going to be all over pages one, two, three and the split page on Monday. Believe me. I took one fast squint at the movie film, and I’m going to recommend that we pick out a few of the least lurid frames and use them as stills. I’m volunteering for the assignment. I don’t like to volunteer for anything usually, but I know I’ll enjoy this.”

He slid several photographs across to Shayne. Having been present on the scene, the redhead already knew that the girls at the party hadn’t been unduly hampered by clothes. Rourke pointed out one of Lee, her blouse unbuttoned all the way down, flourishing a gin bottle.

“We’ll have to paste a little strip of tape across that to keep the post office department off our necks. We’re a family paper.”

Shayne laughed. “That photographer deserves a combat ribbon.”

“I didn’t hear him complaining,” Rourke said. “Now I want to show you a sequence of three shots featuring Sergeant Maguire. When we heard what had happened to him we all shed a tear. We’ve followed his career for years, and when we heard his jaw had been dislocated, with a double fracture, we shed a quiet tear that it wasn’t worse.”

He arranged the three photographs in order. The first showed Maguire stooping above Betty, nightstick raised. Betty cowered away. Her face already showed the mark of an earlier blow. Maguire’s face was congested with fury. His eyes bulged. It was a classic photograph of a type of sadistic cop and his helpless victim, and it was sure to be reprinted all over the country. The next picture showed Shayne arresting the nightstick as it came down. In the third, Maguire was reeling back from Shayne’s blow.

“Of course she bit him on the neck first, as I understand it,” Painter said, “but you didn’t bother to take a picture of that.”

“Since when did Maguire need a bite in the neck to slug somebody?” Rourke asked.

Painter looked at the pictures again, one after another, then racked them decisively and tore them across. He slapped the pieces down on the table.

“They’re distorted. They’re one-sided. But I’m a realist, Rourke. They could crucify us. In one day you could destroy the image of the police that I’ve been trying to put across. Give me your word that you’ll withdraw them, and your redheaded pal can walk out of here.”

“And we want Maguire off the force,” Shayne added.

Painter snapped, “If I feel that Sergeant. Maguire has outlived his usefulness, that’s a decision I alone will make.”

Shayne exchanged a look with the gray-haired lawyer. Halstead said quietly, “In that case we’ll take a chance with a jury, Peter. If acquitted, and I assume Mike would be acquitted, I’d advise him to bring suit for false arrest.” In a less formal tone he added, “You know Maguire has been asking for this for a long time.”

Painter ripped the red carnation out of his buttonhole, tore it apart petal by petal and ground it on the floor under his heels.

“One of these fine days,” he warned the redhead, “you’re going to step over the line and I’m going to be standing there with a machete and chop off your feet. You’re shot full of luck, Shayne. If that photographer hadn’t been along, I’d have you. But there’ll be a next time. I’m working night and day on this matter. The minute I can tie you into it, I’ll have you back so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

“Mike,” Sanderson said, “you said something about the Donahue boy being dead.”

“Did I?” Shayne said. “It’s late, Bob. I’m tired. My brain doesn’t seem to be functioning too well.”

Sanderson gave a rueful smile. “I guess I don’t blame you, Mike.”

“What’s that?” Painter demanded. “What did you say? What do you mean by that?”

Sanderson put out his cigarette slowly. “Not a thing, Chief. Just talking to myself.”

“Well, don’t do it around me!”

Halstead said, “There’s no point in putting Mike back in the tank. You’ll be getting the papers in another few minutes. They’re being typed now.”

“No favors,” Shayne said firmly. “We all came in together and we’ll go out together.”

He kept his lawyer from protesting with a curt shake of his head. Tim Rourke fell in beside him as they went out.

“Mike, you’ll want a drink to get the taste of this place out of your mouth. By a strange coincidence I have a pint of cognac in my car. I’ll trade it for an explanation.”

“There are too many things I can’t explain myself yet, Tim. I may need some more help. I’ll meet you at your place if I can. Otherwise I’ll call you.”

“If you insist. Marijuana, granulated sugar, dirty movies. I look forward to it. First I want to get that chick’s phone number, the one in the picture. Lee something. Thin and wild is the way I like them.”

At the gate into the drunk tank he said, “Which of those dolls was yours, Mike? The one in the blouse and no bra, the one in the bra and no blouse, or the one in neither blouse nor bra?”

Shayne grinned at him and went in. The gate clanked shut. Steve was watching for him, his parted lips and quick breathing showing his anxiety.

“Do you mean to say you’re Mike Shayne?”

Shayne lifted a sleeping drunk off the bench beside him, and deposited him on the floor. The drunk didn’t wake up.

“You didn’t tell me your last name was Bass, either,” he said, sitting down. “I don’t think I’ve seen you since you had braces on your teeth.”

The boy groaned. “I told them I was Joe Taylor. I knew it wouldn’t work.”

In spite of the oppressive heat in the huge cell, the boy was shivering. The short ride in the patrol wagon and the shock of finding himself in jail had driven the gin out of his head. He kept picking at the crease in his slacks and yawning nervously.

“I haven’t any right to ask you,” he said, “after throwing all that film on you and socking you in the jaw and everything. But will you tell Dad I didn’t smoke any of the pot? I never even sampled it. I was scared to.”

“Right now Harry has other problems.”

Steve shook his head gloomily. “This is going to take precedence. I know from experience. He wanted me to go to college. He didn’t finish eighth grade himself, but he thinks there’s something sacred about having a B.A. So I went to college. I squeaked through. Now he wants me to get a job in some big company and sit in an air-conditioned office with the light on all day, and do what they tell me. And look glad. I just don’t see the point. I only have one life. I know I’m driving him out of his mind, but he’s driving me out of mine.”

“I want to ask some questions, Steve,” Shayne said. “Do you remember any of the things I said about Vince?”

His fingers roved uncertainly across his forehead. “Something about a stickup? Mr. Shayne, it’s not possible.”

“It’s not only possible, it happened. And then somebody drowned him, a hard thing to do to a semipro swimmer. How well did you know him?”

“He used to hang around the Lambda Phi house at college. He knew some of the brothers. The last couple of months I’ve been running into him all the time. I never went on a party with him before. That’s what I’ve got to convince Dad of. I guess somebody backed out at the last minute. He called up and wanted to know if I was busy. I didn’t know there was anything but liquor involved. But who’s going to believe that?”

“Your father may,” Shayne said. “He’s the one Vince and his buddies robbed. Vince wanted you at the party to give him an alibi. Not for the cops. For Harry. If you said you knew for a fact that he was locked in that cabin while the stickup was taking place, your father would take your word for it. That was the reason for the movies-so you’d stay put.”

Steve had begun shaking again. “I don’t know if you ever noticed Dad’s secretary?”

“Theo Moore? I met her tonight.”

“Those damn movies. Every time I think of the way I let myself get hypnotized-I can’t expect Theo to stop reading the newspapers all of a sudden. And that will be that.”

Remembering the kiss Theo had given Steve’s father, Shayne said carefully, “Have you been dating her?”

“I’ve been trying to. She puts in a lot of overtime. I doubt if she’ll be too impressed with somebody who puts in a whole evening looking at a dirty movie, when the real thing was right there under his nose. It isn’t healthy. She’ll think I’m some kind of creep.”

Shayne felt a grin trying to break through. He forced himself to say seriously, “I think I may have an out for you, Steve. Your father lost two hundred thousand bucks tonight, and naturally it rankles. If I can locate it and find out what happened to Vince, it’s going to take off a lot of the heat. In fact, I’d be willing to tell your father you worked with me on it. If he wants to figure that’s why you went to Vince’s party, I won’t disillusion him.”

Steve’s face cleared. “Mr. Shayne!”

“Wait a minute. If you actually contributed something, it would sound more convincing. I need to know who Vince has been seeing the last week or so. How about Betty? Would she know?”

“I can sure as hell ask her!” Steve said enthusiastically. “I don’t know if they were shacked up, but I think so. How should I go about it?”

“They’re going to turn us loose in a few minutes. Catch her before she disappears. Give her one drink and let her talk. If you find out anything, call me on my car phone-you can get the number from the mobile operator. Or try Tim Rourke. It’s the only Timothy Rourke in the book. I want to know about Vince’s drug habit-how long he’s had it, how much it’s been costing him, if he was pushing the stuff himself. I want to know if he’s been having conferences with anybody out of the usual run. This thing took a lot of planning, and it wasn’t worked out on the phone. They probably had to run at least one rehearsal. Nobody I’ve talked to seems to think that Vince did the staff work himself.”

“I don’t think he did either,” Steve said. “He wouldn’t want to go to that much trouble. That I’m sure of.”

15

As Michael Shayne and Steve BAsS came out of the station, an automobile horn across the street was tapped lightly. The sound came from a white Alfa-Romeo. There was a girl at the wheel.

“It’s Theo!” Steve exclaimed, and started toward her.

“Steve,” Shayne said, and the boy came back. “Betty’s going to be out in a minute. Don’t lose her.”

“Oh, God, that’s right. Do me a favor-ask Theo to drive you somewhere. If she sees me going off with Betty at two in the morning-”

“All right,” Shayne said.

“And if you talk to Dad before I do, I’ve found it pays to get your version out before he says anything. If you let him talk first, he thinks he’s got to stick to it to show he’s the master.”

Shayne thanked him for the advice and crossed to the white car.

“Mr. Shayne,” Theo said. “Can I give you a lift?”

“Sure.”

Shayne went around to the other side and squeezed into the bucket seat alongside her. “I have to talk to Harry, and the sooner the better.”

“Mr. Shayne, didn’t Doc Waters tell you? He flew to New York.”

“I know that, and he’s in no shape to be wandering around.”

“He certainly is not!” she said grimly. “I didn’t approve at all, but do you think he’d listen to me? I don’t understand why these people can’t wait forty-eight hours for their money, do you?” She shook the stick shift angrily. “He made me so mad! Can we go somewhere and have a drink? If I don’t talk to somebody I’ll burst.”

“I left my car on La Gorce Island,” he said. “We can talk on the way. Did he give you a New York number?”

She started the motor, then hesitated briefly. “I have the name of the man he’s seeing. It’s probably an unlisted number. It’s-well, damn it, it’s-”

She told him who Harry had gone to see. Shayne swore under his breath.

Theo said, “That was my reaction exactly.” She put the powerful little car into gear, accelerated sharply and took a corner with an expert flip of the wheel. “They had some business connection years and years ago. Harry couldn’t think of anybody who’d have that much cash on hand here in Miami. And on a jet plane, New York is just around the corner. Harry called him-he didn’t have to look up the number, he just dialed it-and then we had a mad scramble to put him on the plane.”

All at once, looking straight ahead over the wheel, she uttered a one-word obscenity.

“Excuse me, Mr. Shayne. I don’t use language like that as a rule, but it seems to me the situation calls for something.”

“I’ve heard the word,” Shayne said. “When’s he due back?”

“At four-ten, depending on how long it takes him to get in from the airport in New York, pick up the money and get back. He wants to put the whole sum in Doc Waters’ hands before breakfast.-Please don’t look at me that way, Mr. Shayne. I really tried to discourage him, but nothing worked. I know you thought those drinks would slow him down, and they did. But they wore off.” She glanced at him, worried. “Did the police beat you up?”

“No, that dates back to early tonight.” He pointed to two lighted phone booths, side by side on a corner. “Over there, Miss Moore.”

“Won’t you call me Theo? Miss Moore sounds so-” She turned in to the curb. “How could I have stopped him? Doc Waters was less than no help. I didn’t know how to get in touch with you. Harry made a half dozen calls around town first, and they were angry calls. There was one person he was sure was lying to him, and he was about to sail out and shake the money out of him. How would that have ended? I thought at least he could calm down on the plane, possibly get some sleep. Up to the last minute I thought he was taking me with him. But he absolutely refused. We had to depend on cancellations. There was one, only one, and that ended the argument.”

She leaned forward to look in the mirror. “Mike, there’s a car behind us. It stopped when we did. Are they following us?”

“Just a couple of Painter’s boys,” Shayne said without looking back. “We can lose them if we have to. How much change have you got?”

She opened her bag. “I don’t think enough for a New York call.”

They pooled their silver. Shayne shut himself in a booth and dialed the number of a New York private detective named Hawkins. The man Harry Bass had gone to see was the elder statesman of the gambling business, an oldtime bootlegger and slot-machine man who had lost most of his real power, but was still a headline figure. Hawkins had worked for him during a contempt-of-Congress proceeding.

The New York detective answered sleepily.

“Think nothing of it,” he said, when Shayne had identified himself and apologized for calling so late. “I’m always glad to take a call from you, Mike. Nine out of ten times it means money in the till.”

“I just want somebody’s phone number,” Shayne said, and told him the man’s name.

“Jesus, Mike. How important is it? He’s always in bed by midnight these days-he’s slowed down a lot. And would it mean any trouble? Believe it or not, and I know what I’m talking about, in the last eight or nine years he’s been more sinned against than sinning.”

Shayne assured him that his reason for wanting the number was to prevent trouble, not to cause any. Hawkins gave him the number without further objection. Shayne waited for a dial tone and used a dime to put in a person-to-person call, collect, to Harry Bass. He read the number to the operator.

The phone rang over and over in New York. Finally a hoarse, rasping voice said irritably, “Hello?”

Immediately after the first click, Shayne heard a second, as an extension was opened. There were subdued noises in the background, low voices and somehow the feel of tension.

The operator said, “A collect call for Mr. Harry Bass?”

“There’s nobody here by that name,” the voice rasped.

The phone was slammed down with a small controlled explosion, but the extension remained open. A man’s voice said quickly, “Operator, who’s your call for?”

“Mr. Harry Bass.’ Michael Shayne in Miami calling. Do you accept the charges?”

“Yes! Put him on.”

“Is this Mr. Bass speaking?”

“This is Sergeant Fino of the New York Police Department. We’ll accept the charges. Let me speak to your party.”

“Cancel the call,” Shayne said, and broke the connection. In a moment he lifted the hook again. Finding the line still open, he left the phone dangling and moved to the next booth, where he used his last dime to call Tim Rourke.

“Tim?” he said when the reporter answered. “Do something for me. I know I’ve got a lot to explain, but I can’t take the time now. Do you know anybody on a morning paper in New York? The Daily News would be best.”

“I have an intimate friend on the Daily News,” Rourke said promptly, “but if you want to know can I trust him, it all depends.”

“Give him New York rights to those pictures your man took, and he’ll cooperate. I’m trying to get in touch with a client. I called a New York number where he’s supposed to be, and a cop answered.”

He told Rourke the name of the New York man.

“Mike, you know you’re getting to be quite a name-dropper?” Rourke said.

“I want to know what the cops are doing there, and if it has any connection with Harry Bass.”

“A local name. This gets better and better.”

“Harry went up on a nine-thirty jet. If he had any trouble the cops won’t be making it public yet, but a good reporter ought to be able to smoke it out. Call me on the car phone as soon as you get anything.”

He returned to the other booth and hung up the receiver. The phone rang immediately. That would be the long distance operator, trying to complete the New York call. Shayne backed into the Alfa-Romeo, leaving the phone ringing impatiently.

“Mike, tell me this instant,” Theo said urgently. “There’s trouble, of course.”

Shayne’s voice was hard. “That New York junket had trouble written all over it, from the word go. Harry’s friend has cops in his apartment. I don’t know how long they’ve been there. Tim Rourke is checking.”

“Mike, please, please,” she said helplessly. “How could I have stopped him?”

“He may be all right,” Shayne said.

He motioned impatiently and she started the motor. They continued north on Collins. She was tightly wound up. If there had been more traffic Shayne would have suggested driving himself. She gripped the wheel so tightly that the tendons stood out on her hands.

“I know this is going to sound self-centered,” she said. “But the minute I heard where Harry was going I knew I had to quit. I’m over my head. I tried to tell him when I was putting him on the plane, but he looked so-so pale and collapsed.”

“He can take care of himself,” Shayne said, and hoped it was true. “How did you know where to find me?”

“I got your secretary out of bed, I’m sorry to say. She was nicer about it than I would have been. She gave me Mr. Rourke’s number. I’ve been hoping you found out something so Harry wouldn’t have to go through with that New York loan. He shouldn’t be linked with that man.”

“I’ve found out who pulled the stickup,” Shayne said, “and how it was worked. I don’t know why.”

“Why?” she said, puzzled. “Isn’t two hundred thousand dollars a good enough reason?”

“Sometimes.”

Following his directions, she crossed the canal to La Gorce Island and parked behind his Buick, at the end of the lane running down to the dock. The police car, which had followed, stopped a discreet distance away. Leaving the door of the Buick open, Shayne tried Rourke’s number. The line was busy.

Theo had left her car and was nervously lighting a cigarette beside the open door of the Buick. “Mike, if you’re just going to be waiting for a call, can I talk to you? I know I ought to wait, but you may not be available later. I need some advice.”

Shayne took a flashlight out of the glove compartment. “I have to pick up something from the boat. I’ll be back in a minute. Answer the phone if it rings.”

She hugged herself miserably and glanced around at the waiting police car. “Can I come with you? I don’t want to stay here alone.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

She walked beside him, taking two steps to his one. “My father’s a Baptist minister, and the big thing when I was growing up was going to camp meeting in the summer. It wasn’t much of a preparation for this.”

The watchman had gone to bed. Shayne and Theo went aboard the Nugget, picking their way through broken glass and pieces of chairs. The boat looked as though it had been visited by a freakish tornado. The repair bill was going to take most of Al Naples’ winnings on his mare, if he ever succeeded in collecting from Doc Waters. Theo was appalled.

“My God, Mike!”

“A small disturbance of the peace,” he said, looking around with satisfaction.

Working the dented movie projector out of the way so the door would open, he went through into the main cabin. Mirror splinters crunched underfoot. The footboard of the bed had been smashed. Torn bedding littered the floor. Sliding the frame of the broken window aside, he pointed his flashlight down toward the water.

“Aim this for me,” he said, giving Theo the flashlight.

He brushed broken glass off the windowsill, swung out onto the rope ladder and started down. When he was able to reach the light line attached to the bottom rung, he pulled it in hand over hand.

The bait bucket floated toward him out of the darkness. He hoisted it up and carried it back up the ladder. A bucket filled with money is heavier than a bucket with nothing in it but air, and even before he unsnapped the lid and looked inside, he knew by the way it handled that it was empty.

16

“Mike, please, I can’t stand not knowing,” Theo said. “Please throw me a few crumbs.”

“At one point this was full of bills,” Shayne said. “Somebody beat me to it. I need a drink.”

“I think I saw a bottle in the other room.”

That was where most of the fighting had taken place, and the debris was ankle-deep. Shayne tried the light, but the fixture had been pulled out of the ceiling. The beam of the flashlight moved about the floor, stopping on a bottle.

“Brandy!” she exclaimed.

Stooping, she came back up with a bottle of Courvoisier. Perhaps, Shayne thought, his luck was beginning to change.

“I don’t think we’ll find any glasses,” he said. “Have you had much experience drinking out of the bottle?”

“Absolutely none.”

He unscrewed the cork and offered her the bottle. She took it dubiously, then put it to her lips and took a long swallow.

“It burns!” she said, gasping.

“It’s supposed to,” Shayne said, and drank himself. “Let’s get back to the Buick. I want to try Rourke again.”

He stopped short as he came out on deck. A black limousine zoomed past the mouth of the lane, braking to a stop beside the police car. It looked like the showy Lincoln which Peter Painter had recently talked the city into letting him use as his official vehicle. Theo caught Shayne’s arm.

“Take it easy,” Shayne told her. “The night’s a long way from being over.”

He waited, his eyes hooded, his powerful body deceptively relaxed. He had no more time to waste on Painter tonight.

Watching the Lincoln’s rear door, he said quietly, “Do you see where we’re tied to the dock?”

The Lincoln’s door opened and the sleeve of Painter’s white dinner jacket appeared.

“Throw the lines off the cleats,” Shayne said sharply. “We’re going for a sail.”

“We aren’t!”

Painter and Sanderson and the two cops from the squad car, walking quickly, passed under a street light.

Shayne snapped his fingers. “Move, Theo! Or we’ll spend the rest of the night answering questions.”

She sprang onto the dock. Running to the forward cleat, she cast off. Shayne held the gangway while she cast off the second line and scrambled back on board. He gave the gangway a powerful thrust. Its loose end dropped into the water and the Nugget shot away.

They still had a going tide. In a moment the current caught the boat and they began to turn. Painter’s little group had reached the boathouse. One of the cops pointed to the end of the dock and broke into a run.

“Didn’t they let you go?” Theo protested in a half-whisper.

“He must have had some news from New York. I don’t like to have Painter tell me things I don’t already know.”

The boat was moving more rapidly now. Because of the light from the boathouse, they could see Painter and the rest of his party clearly, but the Nugget was probably no more than a faint shadow.

Painter shouted, waving his fist, “Shayne, come back here! This is your last chance. Come back in and I’ll give you the BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT!”

He bellowed the last few words. Grinning, the redhead felt his way forward, using the flashlight only after the curve of the deckhouse concealed him from the dock, and answered Painter by starting the motor. It choked, died, then took hold with a rude, deep-throated roar.

He switched on the navigation lights, swung the wheel and headed for mid-bay. Theo called something from the doorway. He couldn’t hear her over the roar of the motor. He took a long pull from the cognac bottle. After running a few minutes with the tide, he swung into the current and throttled down the motor.

Theo was perched on the corner of the plotting table, lighting a cigarette. She blew out a match and watched him study the radiotelephone, a four-channel unit mounted to the left of the wheel. He picked up the handset and depressed a button. Instantly a woman’s voice, clear but metallic, said, “Yes, sir?”

“I’m glad you’re still up. My name’s Mike Shayne. Can you get me a Miami number?”

There was a moment’s silence. “Mike Shayne,” she said breathily. “Excuse me while I pinch myself.”

Theo gave Shayne an amused look.

“Ouch!” the operator said. “I guess I’m awake. You’d think any number of interesting things would happen on this job, wouldn’t you, but no. It’s mostly routine. Like calling up somebody’s wife to tell her to get the martinis ready.”

He gave her Rourke’s number. He heard the stutter of the dial, then the busy signal.

“Can you try that for me every few minutes,” Shayne said, “and call me when you get it?”

“For Mike Shayne,” she said, “if you’re everything they say you are, I’ll be glad to.”

He hung the handset back with a rueful grin. Theo had taken off her glasses and was tapping them against one nylon-clad knee.

“I hope the line will stay busy while I talk to you,” she said. “Before Harry got on the plane tonight he asked me to marry him.”

Shayne’s expression didn’t change. He checked their heading. There was a lighted buoy to starboard, and he let the wheel fall off a point so the boat would hold the same position against the current.

“What did you tell him?”

“I haven’t told him anything yet. But I can’t marry him. I can’t! I don’t know how to get out of it without hurting him.”

“I’m the wrong person to come to for that kind of advice,” Shayne said. “I’m a friend of his.”

“That’s why you have to help me. Please hear me, Mike. I’m at my wit’s end. Don’t condemn me out of hand, but for the last three months Harry and I, I’ve been his-”

She couldn’t find any word for the relationship that she was willing to use. Shayne put in, “I got the idea from the way you kissed him.”

“Yes. He wouldn’t have asked me to do that if he hadn’t been so shaken. Don’t be so grim, Mike. It wasn’t grim at the beginning. I had a proper secretarial job in an insurance office, and it bored me to tears. The same thing over and over and over, with everybody acting as though I ought to be grateful for being permitted to work for such an imposing company. I met Steve Bass at a party. His father was looking for an executive secretary. My friends all said, ‘Don’t you know who Harry Bass is?’ Somehow that made it more attractive, Mike. He’s a wonderful, interesting man. I don’t have to tell you that. I worked late a few times and he took me to dinner, and inside of six weeks I was-” She hesitated. “Well. I was going to bed with him.”

“Harry never wasted much time,” Shayne said.

“No. He had a look in his eye the first time he interviewed me. I recognized it, and he knew that I recognized it, and I took the job anyway. Growing up as a minister’s daughter in a little Tennessee town-I know it’s a cliche that ministers’ children kick up their heels as soon as they get away from home, but goodness knows it happened with me. Harry was going to France for a vacation. He asked me to go with him. I jumped at the chance. I’d never been anywhere before. And I had a wonderful time. He bought me a car. Maybe I shouldn’t say it, but he-blossomed, Mike. His last divorce hit him hard. He must have known our arrangement was temporary! We never talked about it, I thought it was understood. He’s charming and fun to be with and generous and full of vitality, but I just can’t marry him!”

“Because of his age?”

“Partly. But the fact is, like it or not, I can’t close my eyes any more to the way he makes his money. Especially since we came back from Europe there have been-oh, hidden places in his days which I’ve known by instinct I shouldn’t ask him about. Conversations are broken off when I come into a room. I picked up the phone once when he was talking to somebody on the bedroom extension. That’s the only time he ever yelled at me.”

She stubbed out her cigarette. “I think I love him, whatever the word means. I want him to be happy. He says he wants to stop all the cloak-and-dagger conniving we have to go through to be together. He thinks it makes me feel sordid and humiliated, but it doesn’t at all. It’s simply not important. Mike, I know it’s asking a lot, but could you explain that to him?”

“No,” Shayne said unfeelingly. “I stopped delivering that kind of message years ago. That’s why I still have a few friends. This is between you and Harry. First you have to decide how you really feel.” He broke off. “The hell with it.”

He drank from the bottle. There was a quick buzz from the radio telephone. He picked it up.

“Yeah?”

“Mike,” Tim Rourke’s voice said soberly. “What’s with this marine operator? Never mind. I’ve got some bad news.”

“About Harry,” Shayne said flatly.

“Yeah. Do you want the worst of it first, or hear it in sequence?”

Shayne’s fingers automatically felt for a cigarette. “In sequence.”

“My man on the Daily News knows the duty sergeant in that precinct, and all it took was a phone call. You won’t like this, Mike. It’s a narcotics squeal.”

Theo’s head was close to the phone. The reporter’s brassy voice came through the instrument loudly enough for them both to hear. The color emptied out of her face.

“Where did the tip come from?” Shayne said.

“I don’t have that. These were detectives from the narcotics squad, not federal men. They were in the lobby of the Central Park West apartment house where the big guy lives, waiting for somebody in a head bandage to make a drug delivery. Harry showed up in a topcoat and a head bandage. The doorman checked on the house phone-was it OK to send up a man named Bass? He was told it was OK. The dicks wouldn’t be able to get upstairs to see the transfer, so they arrested Harry as he was getting into the elevator.”

“No,” Theo said distinctly.

“Mike?” Rourke asked.

“Go ahead,” Shayne said in a steely voice.

“The lining of his topcoat was loaded with uncut heroin. I’m sorry as hell, Mike. I know how you felt about the guy. You know how it is with heroin estimates-some pretty big figures are being passed around in dollars. They haven’t weighed it yet, but they will. They’ve got the coat.”

Shayne frowned. “They don’t have Harry?”

“I’ll say they don’t have Harry. I can’t swear to what happened. Apparently Harry was almost out on his feet to begin with, and when they found the heroin he caved in. It was a real collapse, because the narcotics boys are experts at making arrests. They do it all the time and they’re hard people to fool. They didn’t think they could take him in except in an ambulance. He was in a chair or on the floor, I don’t know which. One cop went to the phone and all of a sudden Harry came up like a rocket. He butted the cop who was watching him. I don’t know anything about his head injury, but it must have hurt like hell. Maybe the pain helped. He hit the other cop with a standing ashtray. The next second he was out the door. Now this is what makes it tough. The guy he hit with the ashtray has brain damage, and they don’t think he’s going to make it.”

“Harry, goddamn it,” Shayne said, half to himself. “You poor son of a bitch.”

“It’s still early. Until we actually get the flash there’s no law against hoping. But the cops assume they’re looking for a big heroin man who killed a cop, and that adds to the pressure. He got away in the cops’ car. This happened a couple of hours ago, maybe three-I couldn’t get an exact time. The News has a dozen men on it now. I get credit for starting it, so they’ll call me with developments as fast as they come in. I’d better hang up now so the phone will be open.”

“Yeah,” Shayne said bleakly.

There was a tiny pause. “God, Mike, did you ever think Harry would-”

“Don’t be dumb,” Shayne snapped. “Haven’t you been around long enough to spot a frame when you see one?”

17

He hung up.

“Here,” he said, extending the cognac bottle to Theo. “This may help.”

She almost dropped the bottle but succeeded in downing a mouthful of cognac.

“It’s not a frame-up,” she whispered. “The horrible thing is that it’s true.”

“True that Harry was selling heroin to get Doc Waters out of a hole?” Shayne said. “I don’t believe it.”

Her lips trembled. “I’m so sorry, so sorry. He hated the drug business. Mike, don’t you see? It must mean he was afraid he couldn’t raise the money on Monday. I knew things were bad, but not as bad as this. He’s lost money in grain futures. In the big real estate deal I’ve been working on there’s been delay after delay. I should have realized no one would loan him that amount of money without security, old friend or not. They don’t trust each other that much.”

“Theo, are you trying to tell me he kept a reserve of heroin to fall back on when he needed cash?”

She nodded slowly. “And I helped! Not knowingly, but there I am, right in the middle of it.”

“All right, Theo,” Shayne said. “Take your time.”

Suddenly her face went to pieces. It started quietly, but in a moment it took hold and she was weeping wildly. Shayne, one hand on the wheel, keeping an eye on the buoy, left her alone. As her sobs became more violent, she slipped off the table and crumpled to a heap on the floor.

He waited till the first paroxysm passed. Then he said harshly, with the brusqueness that is often more effective than sympathy, “Get up now, Theo. You must have known when you let Harry make love to you that it wouldn’t be simple.”

She took a despairing breath. “Why can’t it be?”

“The only time sex is simple is when you don’t see each other again after it happens, and that has drawbacks too. Get up and blow your nose. I want to hear what happened in France.”

She was quieter, but when she still didn’t move he said with deliberate roughness, “Get up, Theo. It won’t be pleasant for you, but it’s worse for other people. So long as that narcotics man is alive, Harry has a chance. Stop sniveling and tell me exactly what you know.”

She gave him one white, frightened glance, and came to her feet. Her glasses were askew and her face was streaked. She tottered against him. He gave her a little shake and kissed her lightly.

“All right?”

She reached out defiantly for the bottle. She took a long drink without coughing, then another. He took the bottle away.

“You can get drunk later.”

“I don’t think I was crying for myself,” she said in a low voice. “I suppose I was partly. Harry didn’t think he could get away from those policemen, Mike. He wanted them to shoot him. He knew he didn’t have a chance. He’d be sent to prison for a long time, for the thing he hated most. His friends would think he’d been a hypocrite all these years. What his friends thought was important to Harry.”

Some of her color had come back. She touched her temples with trembling fingers. She felt for a cigarette, and Shayne lit it for her. Then he turned back to the wheel, bringing it up a tick.

“He bought me that car in France,” she said behind him. “The Alfa. Even if I could have afforded it I wouldn’t have driven a car like that before I met him, I wouldn’t have had the courage. It’s custom-built. They kept installing new gadgets the two weeks we were there. Harry wasn’t as interested in sightseeing as I was, and I was off by myself part of the time. I was walking on the promenade-” She faltered.

“I’m listening,” he prompted.

“I saw him with two men at a cafe. One was the garage-man, the man who was working on the Alfa. The other-” She hesitated again, and went on with a rush, “I can’t describe him but oh, he was creepy-looking. There was a package on the table. I didn’t say anything to Harry. I don’t know why, I just didn’t. I suppose I knew that the package had money in it and he was paying the creepy-looking man for something he intended to smuggle back inside the Alfa. We came home separately. He flew and I came by boat, with my new car. And a few days after I was back something funny happened. I park on the street outside my apartment building. Late at night I felt like going for a drive, for no particular reason, just for the feeling of driving at night in a new white Alfa-Romeo. And it was gone! I didn’t call the police. I was afraid they’d ask me how I could afford a car like that on my salary. I called Harry. He said not to worry. He’d put the word around. If a local thief took it, it might come back by itself. And next morning there it was. I thought it showed the advantages of having such an influential friend. Now I know where it was that night-in a garage, being taken apart so they could get at the drugs inside it.”

She was silent for a moment, staring at her clenched hands. “The face of that man in the Nice cafe. Mike, I didn’t like that man’s face.”

Shayne swore to himself. “Well, maybe I’m wrong.” He swung the wheel, brought the throttle up and headed back toward the Miami Beach side of the bay. “I’d better see if Doc Waters is still at Harry’s. I think we can find a place to tie up on Normandy Isle.”

“I’d like another drink, please,” Theo said. “Don’t worry, I’m not getting drunk.”

He handed her the bottle. Over it she said brightly, “I’m sorry for Harry, but don’t think I’m not sorry for myself too, because I am. What am I going to say when the police talk to me? They must already know quite a lot, if they were waiting for Harry in New York. There’s no way out of it for either of us. No way.”

He glanced over his shoulder. She gave him the automatic smile of an efficient, self-possessed secretary. She began repairing her lipstick.

“I’m a newspaper figure from now on. Tim Rourke and his friends will have a field day. I don’t blame them-it’s their job. In plain English, I’m Harry’s mistress. He took me to the Riviera and bought me a five-thousand-dollar car and other expensive presents. I thanked him in the usual way. Will anyone believe I didn’t know there was heroin in the car? And the truth was, I had doubts about that disappearance and reappearance. I didn’t do anything about it so I wouldn’t have to put any serious questions to myself, such as what was I doing hanging around with these people? I wonder how long a sentence they’ll ask for. I wonder if my father and mother will want to attend the trial. They get so little diversion.”

Shayne didn’t like the hysteria in her tight voice, and, as he eased up on the wheel to make the turn around the buoy, he glanced at her again. She had a little automatic pressed beneath her left breast. Her eyes were tight shut, her arms and shoulders were rigid, and there was a look of concentration on her face.

He went sideward very fast. He gave her hand a sharp twist, as though turning a doorknob, and at the same instant he hit her shoulder, breaking her contact with the gun. There was a crisp explosion. She screamed and threw herself back on the gun before Shayne could get it out of her hand. She fired again. This time the bullet hit her. She staggered back against the table, gave a small cry, and all the rigidity went out of her body. He shook the gun out of her hand. The Nugget, coming about in the current, banged against the buoy, sending Theo into Shayne’s arms.

“Mike, it hurts!” she said accusingly.

“Don’t look at me. I didn’t do it.”

He lifted her into a seated position on the table, with her back to the wall. Blood was spreading across the shoulder of her dress, below the collar bone. He ripped the dress down from her shoulder. The bullet had gone in high, an upward angle. Possibly it hadn’t hit the bone.

“That was a stupid thing to do,” he said.

“It was stupid of me to miss.”

He went down for the gun, a little Belgian. 25, put it on safety and dropped it in his pocket. He ripped a piece out of her skirt, which he wadded up and handed to her. “Hold this against it as hard as you can.” He turned back to the wheel. The motor had cut out. He started it again. They had drifted off the buoy, but he could feel an underwater drag, as though he had fouled the rudder on the buoy cable.

“I don’t have any strength,” Theo said weakly, and slumped over to one side.

“I’ll take care of you in a minute.” Shayne reversed, backed all the way to the buoy and came forward at full speed. There was a wrenching and scraping underneath the boat. The motor labored and died. Shayne tried the starter. It ground on and on but the motor wouldn’t turn over.

“I thought I’d get you to a doctor,” he said, “but I guess not. I’m not much of a doctor myself. It’s lucky it isn’t much of a wound.”

“Lucky,” she said bitterly.

“I’ll see if I can find any bandages.” He took the flashlight to the main cabin. In a cupboard beneath the stainless-steel washbasin he found a first-aid kit and a box of sanitary napkins. Probably there were other medical supplies aboard, but he didn’t want her to lose any more blood while he looked for them. He filled an empty whiskey bottle with water.

When he returned he found her lying awkwardly across the table, her eyes closed. She was trying to hold the wadded cloth against the bullet hole, but she couldn’t maintain pressure; all it was doing was catching the blood as it came out. He moistened a sanitary napkin and sponged off her shoulder. There were two wounds, a tiny one in front, a larger one in back where the bullet had come out.

“People sometimes kill themselves with a. 25,” he said, “but you can do a better job with a larger gun. I won’t ask you how long you’ve been carrying this. Why didn’t you ever talk to Harry about what you thought had happened with your car?”

“I tried tonight. That’s when he asked me to marry him.”

Shayne folded one of the napkins and bound it tightly in place with a long strip torn from her slip. “You could have told him you wouldn’t marry him because you suspected him of smuggling heroin.”

She raised her head and said with surprising spirit, “I wouldn’t marry him even if he wasn’t!”

He bound the ends of the improvised bandage under her shoulder. She wanted another drink and he held the bottle for her so she could get it down.

He lifted the radiotelephone and summoned the operator.

“Mike Shayne again,” he said.

“I was wondering if you’d call. I’ve been sitting twiddling my thumbs.”

“I need the Coast Guard,” he said. “I seem to be hung up on a buoy at the entrance to the La Gorce canal.”

“Mr. Shayne! How did you manage to do that?”

“It was easy,” Shayne said with disgust.

18

After notifying the Coast Guard air station of Shayne’s predicament, the operator rang Tim Rourke’s number for him. The reporter answered.

“Nothing more, Mike,” Rourke said. “The AP here in town has the story, but just the lead. The New York guy won’t admit he was expecting Harry. Says he hardly knows him, hasn’t heard from him in years.”

“And I bet the cops believed that,” Shayne said.

“Steve Bass called me, Mike. Harry’s boy. He’s been talking to a girl named Betty something. Don’t forget I’m in the dark about this. I told him to bring her over and you’d show up sooner or later.”

“That’s fine. Don’t give the girl much to drink or she’ll pass out before I can talk to her. I’ll be in touch.”

He hung up. Theo said weakly, “Who’s Betty?”

“No one you know. She was in jail with me. It’s a long shot, but I’m playing the long shots tonight.”

She was breathing quickly. “Poor Mike. It’s embarrassing. Bumping into a buoy. And all for nothing, because next time I’ll make sure you’re not around to stop me. You know that, don’t you?”

“That’s your business. But if it turns out that somebody planted those drugs on Harry you won’t have to kill yourself, will you? Of course he’ll still have to answer for slugging the narcotics cop and I know you’re sorry about that. I doubt if you’re sorry enough to shoot yourself.”

“You’re not very sentimental, are you?”

“I hope not,” Shayne said.

He finished the bottle. He hunted for another, but apparently that was the only one that had survived the battle between Vince Donahue’s guests and the police.

A Coast Guard cutter came alongside, hooting. A young ensign leaped aboard to confer with Shayne. They decided to transfer Theo to the cutter, leaving a Coast Guardsman aboard the Nugget. They would return in daylight, with a diver to disentangle the rudder.

Three young sailors swung Theo across the rail. The cutter took them into Indian Creek and put them ashore near the 63rd Street bridge on Allison Island. St. Francis Hospital was a block away.

Shayne explained the situation to the interne on duty and helped fill out the police form required of every doctor treating a gunshot wound. While the temporary bandage he had applied to Theo’s shoulder was being replaced, he made two phone calls from a booth in the waiting room. The first was for a taxi. The second was to the Lambda Phi house at Florida Christian, where he had met the All-American quarterback, Johnny Black. It rang a long time, and finally Black himself answered. Shayne told him what he wanted.

“I signed with the Warriors at a nice bonus,” Black said. “I’ve got their check in my wallet, but I remember what you said about how easy it is to stop payment. I guess I have to do what you say. I’ll borrow a car.”

Theo came out, her lipstick a bright slash of color in her pale face. She had washed and brushed her hair, and even with her arm in a wrist sling she looked her usual neat, well-organized self. They had worked fast, for a hospital, but not fast enough for Shayne. His mind was racing.

“Let’s go,” he snapped.

She lived in a new high-rise apartment building in the low 70’s, two blocks from the ocean. As the taxi started she swayed over against Shayne.

“My head’s going around. Mike, hang onto me for a minute.”

He put his arm around her. “Did they give you sleeping pills?”

“Tons. And on top of that cognac-I don’t know.”

As the taxi turned onto Indian Creek Drive, she pivoted with it and nearly went off the seat. His hold tightened.

“You won’t give me my gun back, will you?” she said.

“No.”

“I promise I won’t shoot myself with it. I couldn’t stay awake that long.”

“You’ll have time later if you feel like it.”

A moment passed. “I can’t stop thinking of Harry,” she said. “When they came up on both sides of him and said they were narcotics agents.”

“When you wake up, Theo, go back over everything that’s happened. Start with the theory that somebody has been setting Harry up for this, and see if you can get it to fit.”

“If I only could.”

They stopped in front of her apartment house. Shayne told the driver to wait, and helped her into the lobby. “Can you make it from here?”

“Of course. Thank you, Mike. I’m sorry I had to put you through all this.” She found her key in her bag. She gave him a shimmering smile and touched his wrist. “It’s no use wishing we’d met in a different way. That’s not how the world works. Goodnight.”

She unlocked the door and walked toward the elevator. He waited, holding the door. After touching the elevator button she sat down on a bench and fell asleep at once.

Sighing, Shayne went in and picked her off the bench. The elevator arrived.

“I’m all right,” she mumbled, her head flopping against his shoulder. “Thank you for everything. I don’t mean for stopping me. For everything else.”

“What floor?” he said.

She smiled and murmured something, her eyes closing. He put her back on the bench and returned to the outer lobby to get her apartment number. By speaking loudly and forcefully, he penetrated the fog that was closing in around her and made her walk beside him into the elevator. She stayed on her feet, but she was nearly asleep. She lived on the ninth floor. He supported her down the hall and opened her bag to get the keys.

She was as unresisting as a doll. He found the light inside the door. Giving up the attempt to keep her in motion, he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. Her arm was around his neck. As he put her on the bed her grip tightened and she pulled him down with her.

“Oh, Mike,” she said without opening her eyes. “If everything wasn’t such a mess-”

Shayne freed himself. “Go to sleep, Theo. I’ll call in the morning.”

“Mike-”

It trailed off. He removed her glasses and shoes. That was all he had time for. He covered her with a light thermal blanket and left the bedroom quietly.

Using the phone in her living room, he called Rourke. The reporter’s voice was somber.

“More bad news, Mike. The cop Harry hit died in the hospital.”

Shayne had an unlighted cigarette between his lips. He bit it in two, and threw it across the room. “They don’t want to give the poor bastard any breaks, do they? Is he still on the run?”

“Yeah, and the cops’ car hasn’t turned up yet. I don’t know about on the run-he was in no shape for a long drive. They think they’ll find him conked out in it somewhere. I have Steve Bass and the girl here. She’s not my number-one pick of the three at the party, but she has her points, all of them nicely rounded. I’m rationing the booze, Mike. The wire services are bugging the paper, needless to say, and the paper’s bugging me-I’m the guy who’s supposed to be the expert on what Mike Shayne is up to, after all. Don’t you think it’s time we got together?”

“Just about. I’m going to Harry’s house on Normandy Isle. Doc Waters was there the last I knew, and I want to see him before the cops do. Meet me there, and bring Steve and the girl.”

“Are you still working, Mike? I thought it was out of your hands.”

“It will be as soon as they catch up with Harry.”

After breaking the connection, Shayne called several people Harry might get in touch with, in the unlikely event that he succeeded in making it back to Miami. He asked them to pass on a simple message to Harry: do nothing until he talked to Michael Shayne.

He looked into the bedroom before leaving. Theo was sleeping under the openwork blanket, her face serene and untroubled.

La Gorce Island, where he had left his Buick, was only ten minutes away, but he had a strong feeling that his time was running out. The taxi took him to Normandy Isle.

Only one light was on in Harry Bass’s house, in a bedroom upstairs.

“Hold your flag,” Shayne told the driver. “I may not be staying.”

He looked in the garage window. Doc Waters’ Thunderbird was still there. He went around the house and up on the back terrace, where he tapped lightly on the sliding-glass door.

“Doc, are you in there?”

There was no answer, but there was a quality to the silence which long experience in entering silent houses had taught him to distrust. He stepped inside. Using his lighter, he found the light switch. The overhead light flashed on. The rifle Doc had threatened him with, its hammer crushed against the stock, lay across a low table. Ashtrays around the room were choked with cigarette stubs. Shayne checked the level in the whiskey bottle. If Doc Waters was the only one who had been drinking from it, he had put away most of a fifth. The little plastic pill container had tipped over, spilling tranquillizers across the table.

“Doc?” he called again.

He went into the hall. He felt a sudden prickling at the nape of his neck, but the warning came too late. He swung around. Something small and hard was thrust against his stomach from the side.

“Hold it, Mike.”

The light came on. Harry Bass was facing him, but it was a Harry Bass he had never before seen, haggard and wild-eyed. He seemed smaller, thinner and many years older. The head bandage, which capped the whole top of his head above the ears, had slipped to one side, which gave him a dissolute look. His tie was gone and there was blood on the front of his Madras jacket.

He took a backward step and showed Shayne a. 45, so heavy he had to support his right wrist with his left hand. “And I’ll use it, Mike. I’m not kidding.”

“I believe you,” Shayne said. “Have you already used it on Doc?”

“Not yet.” Harry opened a coat closet. “Come out slow, Doc.”

Waters staggered out, his face bloody and battered. He peered at Shayne through a bloody haze.

“He’s gone crazy!” he said appealingly. “You tell him I had nothing to do with it.”

Harry’s upper lip lifted. He moved the. 45 in a short arc between the two men.

“Do this my way, Mike. Don’t try to jump me or I’ll kill you. All three of us are going to the front door together and you’re going to get rid of the cab.”

“Sure, Harry. I’ve got a few things to tell you, and some of them may surprise you.”

“Everybody move slow,” Harry said, swinging the gun. “No tricks.”

“No tricks,” Shayne agreed.

They moved down the hall. At the screen door Shayne called to the taxi driver, “You don’t need to wait. Will ten bucks cover it?”

He looked at Harry for permission and stepped out on the porch. Harry watched him through the screen, the gun at his side. Shayne wrapped a ten dollar bill around a fifty cent piece and pitched it down the steps to the driver as he came out of his cab. The driver caught it neatly and waved.

“Now inside, Mike,” Harry said. “No more interruptions.”

“Whose plane did you use?” Shayne said.

“From the old days,” Harry grunted. “Now put it in writing, Doc.”

“Honest to God!” Waters protested. “You know I wouldn’t frame you. If you weren’t out of your skull you’d see it doesn’t add up.”

While he talked, he was following the orders the. 45 was giving him. In the living room, Harry collapsed into an upholstered chair, the gun on his knees.

“There’s the pad. Start writing.”

Suddenly his face turned into a mask of pain. His eyes squeezed tight. Waters twitched toward him.

Shayne said, “You know better than that, Doc.”

Harry’s eyes opened and he straightened the gun. Waters stared at him for a moment, then sat down at the dropleaf desk. A ruled yellow pad was waiting for him. He turned toward the redheaded detective for one more appeal.

“Shayne! He’s got this crazy idea I planted H in his coat and tipped off the New York cops. And if I don’t put it in writing and sign it he’s going to murder me. I didn’t think he would at first, but look at him. He’s just nuts enough, even in front of a witness.”

Harry’s head was wobbling. A muscle jumped badly in his cheek. His eyes crossed for a minute. With a visible effort, he forced them back into focus.

“The cop died, Harry,” Shayne said softly.

The jumping muscle in Harry’s cheek was joined by others. “So the luck went sour. In one day. OK. But nobody’s going to send me up on a drug rap. Start writing.”

“What do you think heroin is?” Waters demanded. “The atom bomb? Anybody can get hold of it if you want to put out the dough. I’ll write it down if you say so, Harry, because Jesus, I don’t like the looks of that end of a. 45. But wouldn’t you rather have the truth, for God’s sake?”

“You’ve been handling it,” Harry said.

“I handled one shipment! I was busted, I had an opportunity offered to me and I jumped at it. I know your rules. But this was absolutely open and shut. No risk attached to it at all. Why not talk to the guy who brought me the deal? Wave a. 45 under his nose and see what he says. Give me ten minutes on the phone and I’ll get him for you.”

“If you’re talking about Vince Donahue,” Shayne said, “he’s somebody else who’s dead.”

Waters looked at him in real terror. “He can’t be dead! I need him to back me up. Shayne, cut the crap.”

“I’d say he died about fifteen minutes after he stuck up Harry,” Shayne said.

“And this was your boy, Doc?” Harry said dangerously. “It begins to make sense. You and Naples rigged that big win so you could pull my cash out of the safe where you could get at it.”

“Harry, for Christ’s sake.” Waters swung toward the redhead, then back to Harry. “I wouldn’t rob you.”

“You had to,” Harry said quietly. “You had to set it up so I’d be out of cash. Otherwise the boys wouldn’t go for that drug frame. Not for a minute. Nobody would who knew me. You’re the one who thought of New York, not me. You were alone when the doctor was here. I’ve only got that one coat. You had time to plant the stuff.” He hitched forward in his chair, all his muscles clenched with the effort to say what he had to say with his last spark of vitality. “You wanted the top job. You thought you could sneak your way in. Send me to jail on a dirty rap and then you could-” A spasm of pain raced across his face. “I can’t think any more. I want that confession.”

“How many things do you want me to confess? I planted heroin in your coat. I faked a loss to Al Naples. I had a kid stick you up. I wanted your job. Harry, I wouldn’t sit in that seat for a million bucks!”

Harry motioned with the gun and Doc’s ballpoint pen started to scratch across the pad.

Shayne said evenly, “Doc didn’t kill Vince Donahue, though, Harry. He was here in the house when it happened. Don’t try to think about it. I’ll fit the pieces together for you. The heroin came in in some kind of trick compartment inside the frame of Theo’s Alfa-Romeo. Vince Donahue has been sleeping with Al Naples’ wife. She told him about the fix on Ladybug. He manipulated Johnny Black, the Florida Christian quarterback, and Black’s on his way in to give you the details if you need them. Vince was the third man in the stickup. Everything had to be carefully timed. He didn’t have the brains to work out anything that complex. Neither does Doc.”

“I never claimed to be a genius,” Waters said sullenly. “Harry!” he screamed. “Don’t!”

Harry had stopped listening. His head came forward with a snap. The. 45 was pointed at Waters’ chest, and with his last strength he tried to pull the trigger.

Waters recoiled against the desk, holding the yellow pad as though it could deflect a bullet. All at once Harry pitched out of the chair and the gun slithered across the carpet. Waters was on it in one catlike motion. Shayne came out of his chair like a released spring and caught his friend before he was all the way down.

Waters pointed the. 45 at him. “Now we work fast, Shayne.” He ripped the top sheet off the pad, thumbed his lighter with one hand and set fire to the partial confession. “We stick him in my car and dump him. There’s going to be no connection between him and me. Give me any trouble and you’re going to be lying right there beside him.” His voice was high and hysterical, but the. 45 in his fist didn’t waver. “In fact, you know too damn much about that heroin, and I think I’d better-”

Shayne interrupted, “Doc, we just agreed that thinking isn’t the thing you do best.” He picked up Harry, one arm under his shoulders and one under his knees. “Haven’t you realized yet that I’m the one person who can get you out of this?”

“Shayne, damn it,” Waters said in a complaining voice, “I was asleep when he started slapping me in the face with that. 45. I don’t know what’s what any more.”

He looked at the unconscious gambler with something approaching affection. “This is the way he used to be. When he was younger he was a real bulldozer. I didn’t think he still had it. How about getting all the way back from New York, when you wouldn’t think he could make it around the block? You know what he was going to do when you walked in? Get my confession, shoot me and put the gun in my hand. Yeah! I could see it in his eye.-Now let’s get him out of here.”

19

Shayne carried Harry Bass to the front porch. Waters opened the screen door for him, sending agonized glances into the darkness. He overtook Shayne at the top step and nudged him with the. 45.

“I’ll get the garage doors open. We’re going to be working together, right? We’ve got a lot of picking up to do.”

Harry’s unconscious body was beginning to slip in Shayne’s arms. Shayne grunted and shifted his hold.

“He’s heavier than he looks. Damn it, give me a hand before I drop him.”

They were halfway down the steps. Waters caught Harry’s body as it got away from Shayne. The redhead’s hand came up from underneath, closed on the. 45 and wrenched it away. Then he eased Harry down onto the steps.

“Goddamn you, Shayne!” Waters exclaimed. “What are you shooting for here, that two hundred G’s?”

“I hope I’ll collect a fee,” Shayne said, “but Harry’s going to need the rest for legal expenses. If you’re not the one who planted the drugs in Harry’s coat, who did?”

“Why ask me? Maybe Vince Donahue. And how will you prove it?”

A voice said sharply, “Drop the gun, Shayne!”

Shayne opened his hand and the. 45 fell to the porch steps. He grinned bleakly.

“What’s been keeping you guys?”

A powerful flashlight came on, stabbing at Waters. “Cool it, Doc,” the same voice said as Waters came about, crouching.

Waters bunked in the powerful beam. “Who said I’m going anywhere? You want Harry Bass, right? Here he is.”

Two men in dark tropical suits came around a bush, ten yards away. Painter and Sanderson followed. All four were holding drawn guns.

Painter danced up to Shayne. “Did you go off the deep end this time! You don’t give aid and comfort to a fugitive from justice around here and get away with it! I’m going to nail you for conspiracy.”

“I doubt it, Petey,” Shayne said calmly, and looked at the two men in dark suits. “Which one do I talk to?”

The larger of the men, with a tanned face and a fair mustache, said, “I’m Nate Williams, Treasury Department. You can talk to me.”

“You saw him, didn’t you?” Painter said. “Helping his dear friend and buddy to escape. Don’t try to deny it, Shayne. I’ve got two outside witnesses this time.”

“All Harry did was hit a cop with an ashtray,” Shayne said. “To me that’s only a misdemeanor. It was a piece of bad luck that the cop died.”

“You heard what he said, I hope,” Painter said excitedly. “These men are narcotics agents. Harry Bass wasn’t transporting heroin from Miami to New York, I suppose. You’re not up on the late news, Shayne. They caught him red-handed!”

The second Treasury agent stooped over Harry. “This man needs an ambulance, Nate. He doesn’t look too good. I’ll phone from inside.”

“You can have Bass,” Painter said. “He’s all yours. Shayne is the one I want. It gives me great pleasure,” he said, looking up maliciously at his redheaded enemy, “to put you under arrest for accessory after the fact. Sanderson, put the cuffs on him.”

A car Shayne recognized as Tim Rourke’s turned in from the shore drive. It was hailed at once by two Treasury agents. After a moment it proceeded slowly up the driveway, the two agents walking alongside.

Shayne said, “I told a few people to meet me here. If you can get Petey to calm down for a minute, Williams, we can clear the air while we’re waiting for the ambulance. Harry won’t be hitting any more cops tonight.”

“You seem to think you’re in charge,” Painter said. “Let me tell you, you’re not.”

“I’ve heard Shayne gets results,” Williams said to Painter.

“Results!” Painter howled. “By blackmail and stunts and intimidation and pure stupid luck! And because people like you are willing to play footsie with him instead of putting him in jail where he belongs!”

“You don’t seem to like Shayne much,” Williams remarked dryly. “If we all try hard, maybe we can keep personal feelings out of this. I’m interested in pinching off this heroin pipeline before it gets into production, and I should think you would be too, Chief.”

Painter was momentarily silenced, and Shayne put in, “There isn’t any heroin pipeline. This was a one-shot deal. The aim of the whole thing was to get Harry Bass. It worked.” He looked down at his friend. If he lived, he would have to stand trial for killing a peace officer in front of two witnesses, a crime still subject to the death penalty in New York. He looked up and forced himself to say in a businesslike tone, “It would help if you’d send a man to pick up a white Alfa-Romeo, over on La Gorce, beside Brevity Lane. The keys are in it. That’s the car they used to smuggle the stuff in.”

After getting instructions from Williams, the two agents who had come up the drive with Rourke turned around and trotted away. Rourke left his headlights on, to light up the group on the steps and the gravel.

“This is the kind of spirit I like to see,” he exclaimed, coming out of his car. “Peter Painter breathing fire, with his gun showing.”

Sanderson sheepishly began to put his gun away, but Painter snarled, “Keep it out. Keep your eye on Shayne. He has something up his sleeve.”

Steve Bass ran up the steps and knelt beside his father’s body. “He’s been hurt! He needs a doctor! Did anybody send for a doctor?”

“He’s had a hard time,” Shayne told him, “but it’s nearly over. We’re getting an ambulance.”

Steve turned back to Rourke’s car. “Betty, come on out,” he called. “This is Mike Shayne. Tell him what you told me about Vince.”

Betty opened the door herself, but tripped coming out and ended up in Painter’s arms. The little man, embarrassed, tried to pass her on to Sanderson, who was looking another way. Finally Painter leaned her against Rourke’s front fender. She looked up with admiration at the big redhead, on the steps above her.

“Mike Shayne. You creamed that cop for me and I never thanked you.”

Steve said apologetically, “I tried giving her just ice and soda without any Scotch, but she could tell the difference. I’m afraid she’s pretty potted. Betty! Listen to me. Tell Mr. Shayne-”

“Results!” Painter commented. “Here’s a prime example. How much credence can we put in anybody in that condition? Potted? She’s blind!”

Betty ignored him. “Honey, I’d like to do something nice for you,” she said to Shayne. “Nobody ever socked a cop for me before. That’s what I call polite.”

“I can give you the gist of what she told me,” Steve said. “You wanted me to find out who Vince had been seeing the last couple of weeks, Mr. Shayne.”

“Vince who?” Painter demanded.

“I’ll tie it all up in a minute if you’ll hold your water,” Shayne said. “Go on, Steve.”

“That’s the way to talk to cops,” Betty said approvingly.

“Vince was seeing a new girl,” Steve said. “I don’t know how the bastard did it, it gave him a full schedule. Betty knew about Mrs. Naples. Her she didn’t mind, because that was where the money was coming from, but anybody else was too much.”

“Mrs. Al Naples?” Painter said incredulously.

“Chief,” Williams said, “let’s listen, shall we?”

Steve continued, “So Betty borrowed a car and a pair of binoculars and followed him. Six dates in six days. A couple of times Vince and the girl went off in the girl’s car. One day they spent the afternoon at the girl’s place on the Beach.”

Theo Moore’s white Alfa turned in at the end of the drive, one of the narcotics men at the wheel.

“So Betty broke it to Vince,” Steve said. “Which one did he want, Betty or the chick with the convertible and the fancy apartment? He got all red and said she was dreaming.”

“He blushed!” Betty said. “Can you believe it? Vince?”

“Then when she told him what she knew and how she’d found it out, how many hours he’d been spending with the girl-”

Betty interrupted indignantly. “Do you know what the crap artist told me? He said she was his sister!”

Suddenly, seeing the white Alfa, her mouth fell open.

“That’s the car!”

Theo Moore pulled herself out of the Alfa with her good arm. Betty pointed at her, her finger shaking.

“That’s the girl!”

Theo looked up at Shayne. “Was this your idea, Mike, bringing me here? I remembered I’d left the car unlocked. I suppose I’m out of a job now, and it’s my only asset. I didn’t want it stolen.”

“Girls as good-looking as you aren’t out of a job long, Theo,” Shayne said. “Yeah, it was my idea. When I was fishing out your door key I noticed that the keys to the Alfa weren’t there. I thought you’d be going for it just about now. You gave a good imitation of a sleepy girl, but I didn’t actually see you swallow any sleeping pills.”

“I think you’d better explain,” she said, puzzled.

Betty pushed away from Steve’s restraining arm and started for Theo. “I saw you through field glasses! I studied that face.”

Theo looked Betty over, still puzzled and apparently un-alarmed. “Do I know you?”

Shayne put in, “She’s just finished identifying you as Vince Donahue’s sister.”

“I didn’t say she’s his sister!” Betty said. “That’s just what Vince told me. I hope you don’t think I believed him.”

“Theo, let me ask you a question,” Shayne said. “What were you and Harry doing this afternoon between say two and three-thirty, when he started to watch the Florida Christian game?”

“Mike, what connection can that have with anything?”

“There’s a connection.”

“Harry and I were together. I don’t think I’ll go any further than that.” She looked around at the group. “What are all these people doing here?” She frowned as her glance stopped at the unconscious figure on the steps. “Is that Harry?”

“You know it’s Harry. You called the narcotics people to be sure they’d be here.”

He came down a step. Everybody else, even Peter Painter, had the sense to keep out of it. From now on it was between Theo and Shayne.

“Can you produce your father if you have to, Theo?” he said softly. “You said he’s a minister in a little town in Tennessee. What little town?”

“I don’t have to put up with this,” she said firmly. “I really don’t.”

“Well, it’s not the first time anybody ever invented a new set of parents,” Shayne said. “You needed that kind of background to make me believe in your suicide attempt. For the spur of the moment, it wasn’t bad. I might have believed the story, but I couldn’t believe in the suicide. You’re too competent a girl. You wouldn’t bungle a simple little thing like that unless that was the way you wanted it.”

She made a small gesture with her bandaged arm. “Why would I-”

“You’re playing for high stakes, Theo. When you come right down to it, a flesh wound with a. 25 caliber bullet isn’t much to pay for two hundred thousand bucks. And that two hundred thousand could have been only the beginning.”

“You’re mad!”

“I’m a little mad. Angry, not crazy.” Another car came into the driveway. This one was a swaying, rusted-out sedan with only one headlight and without a muffler. Everyone else turned to watch its noisy approach, but Shayne’s eyes remained on Theo’s face. His respect for the girl increased. Her puzzled, aloof expression didn’t change even when Johnny Black, the Florida Christian quarterback, stepped out of the car.

“Sorry I couldn’t make it sooner,” he said to Shayne. “The damn gauge doesn’t work and I ran out of gas.”

His eyes passed Theo’s face and jumped back. “Theo Donahue!”

Shayne laughed. “That one worked very well. Thanks, Johnny. Tim, if I know you, you’ve got a bottle in your pocket. Give the boy a drink.”

“No, thanks, Mr. Shayne,” Black said.

Rourke had produced a pint of blended rye. Shayne said, “I’ll have one before you put it away.”

Taking the bottle, he sauntered over to Theo’s Alfa. One of the narcotics agents had pulled out the back seat and was looking along the floor.

“Nothing yet,” he told Shayne.

“Keep looking.”

Painter said indignantly, “All I have to say is, it’s one hell of a way to run an interrogation. What’s the charge against this young lady?”

Shayne, a cigarette in his mouth, handed the bottle back to Rourke without the cap. When the reporter started to speak, Shayne stopped him with a quick wink. He stooped over as though looking for something on the floor of the Alfa’s front seat. His lighter flared. For an instant, concealed from everyone but the narcotics man in back, he let the lighter flame char the inside of the bottle cap.

He straightened with a pleased grin. He tossed the bottle cap in the air and caught it as it came down.

“At this point I’d better mention my constitutional rights,” Theo said. “I’m curious, I suppose we all are. What exactly is going on? What is any of this meant to prove? I told you a few things in confidence, Mike. I hope you don’t expect me to repeat them in front of strangers. I’m willing to answer any and all questions put by a properly constituted authority after I’ve consulted an attorney.”

Shayne grinned at her. “I don’t like some of the things you’ve done, baby, but I certainly admire your style.”

She went around the Alfa and said icily to the narcotics agent whose legs now protruded from the door of the little car, “If you don’t mind, I’ll be going home now. Or do you have a search warrant?”

“Oh, we don’t have a prayer of arresting you for smuggling heroin,” Shayne said cheerfully. “There hasn’t been any heroin in that car for weeks, and since we won’t go into court with this, the lack of a warrant doesn’t matter. This is for information. Interpol will want to check on the garageman who worked on it in Nice.”

“Here it is,” the agent said in a muffled voice. “And a damn professional job.”

There was a faint clink. He backed out and motioned to Shayne. He had taken off a long metal plate which had fitted exactly between two seams in the Alfa’s floor. The little dome light, augmented by the agent’s flashlight, showed a shallow well, several inches deep, extending across the Alfa’s body, like a false bottom in a trunk. It was filled with packages of bills.

Painter and Williams, the chief narcotics agent, peered in from the other side.

“I’ll be goddamned,” Painter said. “Those are twenties and fifties. There must be-”

“About two hundred thousand,” Shayne said casually. “Probably a little less.”

He motioned to the agent, and the man slid the metal lid back in place.

“I’m going to tell this in order, Theo. Feel free to interrupt.”

“I don’t think I will, thanks, Mike,” she said coolly. “It’s true that I’m Vince Donahue’s sister. That wouldn’t be hard to prove. As far as I know, it’s no crime to have a brother who’s been getting into messes since he was two years old.”

“And that’s about the only thing I will be able to prove,” Shayne said. “You’re a smart girl, Theo, and it’s a shame you couldn’t think of anything better to do with all that intelligence.”

Sanderson and one of the narcotics men had remained at the foot of the steps, beside the unconscious Harry Bass. The others, including Betty, had come over to the Alfa to gawk at the money. Shayne had an attentive audience.

“Johnny Black grew up with the Donahues in St. Louis,” he said. “He told me Vince and his sister moved in with an aunt after their parents were killed. I didn’t think about the sister again until I caught a trace of a St. Louis accent in something Theo said tonight. The way she pronounced the middle vowels in Miami. I’m no expert, but I once knew another girl from St. Louis who said it that way. The wheels started turning. I don’t know which Donahue got to Miami first. Vince drifted into small beach-boy swindles, but Theo was the one with the brain, and she wanted something bigger.”

“How do you know what I wanted?” she said.

“I’m guessing,” Shayne admitted, “but I do know you didn’t want to go on working in an insurance office. You arranged a meeting with Steve Bass. He liked you. Soon you were working for his father. He liked you. A girl with your looks and style, working in his house most of the time, would have no trouble getting an invitation to the Riviera. Vince found out the name of a man to see in France. He sold the deal to Doc Waters, and Doc scraped up the money to finance it.”

Williams looked around at Doc, who smiled lewdly and spread his arms. “Frisk me, fellows. Anybody who finds any junk gets a free cigar.”

“Theo made the connection in France,” Shayne went on. “She wangled this Alfa out of Harry and brought it back through the customs loaded with heroin. But you didn’t turn over the entire shipment, did you, dear? You took your pay in kind, and waited. Vince had a handle that could produce a football fix some day. When he found out about a mare that was going to win a horse race at a long price, you were ready to move. For the key hour and a half this afternoon, when Harry might have softened the blow by laying off some of the bets, you kept him busy. And you’re right, the Constitution says you don’t have to tell us how you did it. Harry wasn’t supposed to spot the football fix, but he did. Everything else went like clockwork. We thought at first that the big thing was the double fix, but that was only step number one. The stickup was step number two. Step number three was where it was supposed to end-with Harry being picked up in New York on a narcotics rap which he couldn’t beat. You had the run of the house. You handled Harry’s plans. You could plant the heroin in any one of a dozen ways, and the arrest could take place anywhere, even here in Miami. But New York was better. It’s chilly there at this time of year, and you could insist he wear his topcoat. After that, an anonymous call to the New York cops. He would have been tried up there, where the judges are hard on narcotics wholesalers. He wouldn’t be back in his home town for twenty years, if he lived that long.”

“I don’t get that part, Mike,” Rourke said. “What was her object?”

“To take over,” Shayne said quietly. “This girl has ambition. She knows the ins and outs of Harry’s business, legal and illegal. Probably not much of it is written down. In the first days after Harry’s arrest, everybody would have to turn to her.”

“Shayne, you’re a nut,” Doc Waters said flatly. “There’s dissatisfaction around, plenty of it, but who’d accept a woman?”

“You would,” Shayne said. “She’s a smart girl, and I think she could have pulled it off. Not all at once, step by step. Nobody likes a Donnybrook, with everybody brawling for the top spot. For a while she’d carry on as Harry’s agent, and after maybe two or three years people would realize how good she was. And let’s face it, she’s good. Look at the generalship that went into this thing tonight. She’d be the first, like the first woman astronaut. She’d be rich, famous, and a credit to her sex.”

“Oh, I’m so brilliant,” Theo said bitterly.

Shayne continued, “But Harry didn’t like the idea of going to jail for handling narcotics, and he didn’t stop to think it over. He blew. Theo didn’t know this, of course. Am I right so far? She went to her brother’s boat to look for a bait bucket filled with money. I’ll tell you more about that bait bucket in a minute. She emptied it and put it with the rest of the take in her Alfa. She was a little worried about me, I think, because I was pointed in the right direction. She was with me when we heard about New York. That was a bad blow. She turned pale and she cried. They were genuine tears. I tasted one to make sure. I think she thought I was kissing her.”

He grinned at her. She said acidly, “You’re a real bastard.”

“Yes, Theo. The tears weren’t for Harry, but for what had happened to her plans. She had an elegant chess solution all worked out, and Harry had kicked over the board. Now if I could talk to Harry before anything else happened, I might be able to convince him to go to the hospital and lie down. She must have considered shooting me. But she only had a small gun, and it might not have stopped me. So she shot herself. She knew exactly what Harry would do if he made it to Miami. He’d head for Doc Waters. Harry knew Doc wanted him replaced, and he knew that Doc had been dabbling in narcotics. Naturally he thought Doc was the source of the heroin in the lining of his coat. Theo wanted the meeting to take place. If Harry killed him, which came close to happening, he’d still be tainted with narcotics and he’d have a murder to answer for, regardless of what happened to the New York cop. She managed to hold me up for a couple of hours, and it was nearly enough. Another five minutes would have done it.”

“Mike,” Rourke said, “there’s one big hole in this-what happened to Vince?”

“Well, Vince. The poor guy was really hooked on heroin now, and you can’t rely on a heroin addict to show any stamina under police interrogation. He was her little brother, and she was probably fond of him in a way, but she decided he had to go. They had a good cover worked out for him during the time of the stickup, and she turned it into a murder device. He swam across from La Gorce to Normandy Isle, an easy swim, after supposedly knocking himself out with a strong fix of heroin. Her empty Alfa was parked near where he came out of the water. Theo herself was over here typing, on the other side of the island. He changed into his stickup clothes. He’d organized two back-home boys to help-he really did most of the work, when you think how little he got out of it-and after the stickup they dropped him and Harry’s suitcase beside the Alfa. That’s why I was able to catch them on the causeway. Vince stashed the money in the car and got back into his scuba suit. There was one change in plan which I think was his own idea. Maybe he didn’t trust his sister. He towed an empty bait bucket across from the boat, and he towed it back with money in it.”

Rourke said, “But if she was here in the house, how did she kill him?”

“Here I go on guessing,” Shayne said. “Underneath that chilly surface she has a heart. I think she left him a shot of heroin, along with the works to inject himself with, on the same principle that the bear in the circus gets a lump of sugar after he does a somersault. Vince would be very dry and nervous by this time, and how could he resist? He’d figure on being back on the boat before it took hold. And even if he waited he’d still be out of her hair. How? Simple. She left him an overdose.”

“She killed him!” Steve Bass exclaimed.

“Think of the complications, Steve, if he’d survived. Like everything else she did tonight, this was surefire. It absolutely couldn’t miss. If he went under in the water, a sad death by drowning. If he climbed out and died in bed, his habit killed him. Cops don’t ask questions about a death by overdose. That’s the big way junkies die. He made it as far as the rope ladder on the boat, and he died in the water.”

Shayne tossed the charred bottle cap to Rourke. “What’s this look like, Tim?”

Rourke lowered it into the beam of one of the head lights. “A junkie used it to cook up his fix! You found this in the front seat of her car?”

He tossed it back to Shayne, who held it out to Theo. She refused to touch it.

“Wouldn’t anybody as brilliant as you say I am, clean out the car?”

Shayne shrugged. Rourke said, watching him carefully, “You mean she’s in the clear, Mike? She murdered her brother, she organized a stickup, she smuggled drugs, she framed Harry and fooled him all along the line so he ended up by killing a cop, and there isn’t a thing we can get her on?”

“I don’t see how,” Shayne said. “This girl is really and truly one of the smartest I’ve ever met. Vince made all the contacts, and he’s not around to testify. Even the dough under the back seat isn’t going to hurt her. It hasn’t been reported stolen. I want twenty thousand, but the rest of it goes back to Harry. Any objections, Theo?”

“I’ll let you know in the morning,” she said with her usual coolness. “After I’ve consulted a lawyer.”

And suddenly there was the roar of a. 45. Theo was knocked against the fender of her little car. Her face looked astonished and disappointed. She clutched her stomach with both hands. She stared in dismay at Harry Bass, on one elbow on the top step, trying to steady the. 45 to get off another shot. Then she pitched forward on the gravel.

Shayne pounced on Painter as the little man raised his gun. Shayne paralyzed his forearm with a chopping blow, and the gun dropped. Harry twisted onto the. 45, and there was another roar. The impact of the heavy slug kicked him backward against the railing.

Shayne strode across the gravel and looked down at him. Harry’s eyes were clear and in focus, bright with tears. He gave a crooked smile and lifted one finger in farewell. Then his head fell back.

After the two hammering shots and the quick flurry of action, no one moved for a moment.

Then Rourke said, “That was careless of you, Mike. I saw he was listening to that whole last part, but I didn’t know there was a gun beside him. You usually notice those things.”

“Yeah,” Shayne said wearily. “Don’t I?”

Content

Brett Halliday
Murder Spins the Wheel

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