Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 33, No. 2, July 1973

Wary, silent, they drove through the hostile night, a red-headed dick named Mike Shayne and the one man who might have saved him from getting killed — except for the fact that he had already been a corpse for weeks!

I

The case was closed, money in the bank. It was a good feeling.

Michael Shayne wore a wide grin as he slapped Benjamin Ames, his Chicago contact, on the back and watched Ames leg it toward the huge jet plane. Ames had brought the case to the Miami private detective. Ames had needed help, desperately. Shayne had accomodated, and he now was $2,000 richer.

He also had his first solid hot meal in days waiting for him in his secretary’s apartment. Lucy Hamilton had promised it to him.

Shayne laughed low in his throat and strode out, a hulking figure with keen gray eyes, rugged features, and an air of purpose that made clusters of travelers part as if on silent command as his long strides moved through the terminal. Outside it continued to drizzle. The drizzle was little more than a mist, but it kept the early Miami evening soaked.

Shayne laughed again as he moved quickly toward the convertible. On occasion he liked a wet night. Especially one that promised the best cognac, good food, soft taped music, and a sometimes mischievous, sometimes deadly serious brownette with a twinkle in her eye and a flash in her smile.

He was forced to brake the powerful convertible slightly as a dark hearse eased on to the airport exit road ahead of him. Briefly he thought about throwing power to the convertible but the hearse moved out and settled into a fast-enough, safe pace for a rainy night.

The hearse turned onto LeJeune Road. Shayne cruised, keeping the twin tail lights far enough ahead so that a sudden stop would not result, in a smashed front end. But the man driving behind him obviously did not give a damn about a smashed radiator. He was riding close, headlights too bright, those lights occasionally dancing out, as if the driver was going to pass the convertible, then dodging back, as if the driver had had a quick change of mind.

The driver irritated Shayne. He scowled, slowed, putting more distance between himself and the hearse as he waited for the driver behind to pass. The headlights in the mirror hung tight.

The redhead lifted his foot from the accelerator, allowed the convertible to coast. The headlights hung for a few more seconds and then suddenly rolled up beside him. A sedan flashed past, continued on down LeJeune, riding the left lane and casting a thin sheet of spray that smeared against the convertible windshield.

Shayne turned his wipers to high speed. As the windshield cleared he saw that the sedan already had moved up beside the hearse. It dipped in toward the hearse and then straightened, and Shayne was instantly alert. The driver of the sedan seemed to be losing control.

The sedan dipped again and this time the hearse gave it the roadway. Red taillights of the hearse flashed brightly. Shayne yelled as the sedan and the hearse touched metal. He saw the back end of the hearse begin to sway dangerously but the sedan didn’t give an inch. It kept edging the hearse into the curbing.

Suddenly the hearse went over the curbing and nosed into a large palm tree. Its rear end came up. Shayne stomped reflexively on his brake as the wheels of the hearse left the ground. Then he became too busy to worry about the hearse.

He caught the convertible in a half skid, spun the steering wheel so that the nose of the car went into the slide. He rode the skid. The braked sedan loomed before him. Three guys had peeled out of the sedan and were racing toward the hearse.

Shayne glanced in his rear view mirror. No headlights immediately behind him. He jammed the brake and spun the wheel, purposely putting the convertible into the spin again. He figured it was the only way he’d miss the sedan.

The back end came around. Shayne gripped the steering wheel hard, grimacing as he waited for the right second to bring the car out of the spin. That second eluded him. The rear end of the convertible came on around and a wheel slammed against the curbing. The jolt brought an oath from the redhead. But there was no explosion of a blowout.

He was stopped, the motor still purring. He growled and rolled from the seat. The sight down the street stopped him in his tracks. Vision was distorted by darkness and the drizzle, but he knew what he was seeing. The only trouble was, he had difficulty believing.

One of the three men from the sedan brought something in his hand down hard on the skull of the hearse driver. The driver hit the street.

Another member of the trio had reached inside the open front door of the hearse and had captured the driver’s companion. He yanked the prone man halfway off the seat, then brought his knee up hard into the man’s face. The man went limp and the goon left him draped half in and half out of the hearse.

The third member of the trio had disappeared into the rear of the hearse. When he reappeared, he was dragging a corpse.

Shayne shouted and broke into a run. But the movement of one of the goons triggered warning bells inside his skull. He saw the guy swing out from the others and bring up his arm. The redhead launched himself in a flat racing dive as the gun in the goon’s hand roared. Shayne felt his hat whipped from his head.

He slammed into the wet pavement and skidded on his chest. Rolling, he pawed for the .45 snug in its shoulder rig against his left side. He rolled again and came up with the .45. The three goons were stuffing the corpse into the rear seat of the sedan.

Shayne triggered a shot. One of the trio howled and spun away from his companions. Then a slug bounced in front of the detective’s nose and whined across his ear. When he looked up again, the wounded man was being jammed into the rear seat of the sedan too.

Another slug whistled low over Shayne, forcing him to tuck his jaw. He heard tires howl a tortured song. The sedan was moving when he sighted it a second time. He put a slug in the back of the sedan but the car kept rolling.

There was confusion all around him. Headlights of stopped cars splashed, the wet street glistened, there were shouts, muttered oaths, the sound of running feet slapping against pavement.

And soon there would be screaming sirens and whirling red lights.

Shayne found his hat, bolted to the convertible and put it through a skidding, tire-protesting U-turn. The tail lights of the sedan were far down LeJeune now and growing smaller fast. He tromped on the accelerator and the convertible responded by seeming to leap a few yards and then settling into gathering speed.

The sedan whipped up on to South Dixie Highway. Shayne curled after it. He saw his speedometer needle roll up to 100 mph; edge beyond, but he didn’t seem to be gaining on the sedan. He put more pressure on the accelerator. The drizzle had turned to light rain. They were catching up with the back end of the storm that had passed over the city an hour earlier, and now the combination of the rain and the speed forced the detective to hunch low over the steering wheel and squint.

Shayne caught the City Limits sign as he flashed past. It registered. They were out of the city now, the lights of Miami fading fast behind him. They were out where there was some open space and the traffic had thinned considerably. The detective glanced at his gas gauge. He had enough gas to chase the sedan a hundred miles if necessary.

When Shayne looked ahead again, he saw the lights of the sedan ease off to the right and suddenly disappear. For an instant he thought the sedan had left the highway; then he realized the driver had curled onto an incline that dropped to an access road.

He eased up on the accelerator and concentrated on flying down the incline. The convertible took the drop smoothly. Suddenly he hit the brake in surprise. Up ahead, the tail lights of the sedan loomed much larger.

A crackling sound over his head made Shayne duck. Rain abruptly splattered him. He glanced up with an oath. The top of the convertible had been ripped, was continuing to split with a crackling sound all the way to the back window. He saw a spit of fire come from the sedan and the convertible window on the passenger side immediately shattered.

Shayne knew now why he was gaining rapidly on the sedan. The goons wanted him close. The first slug had ripped the convertible top, the second had shattered half the windshield.

The detective jammed a thumb against a dash button and the window at his side rolled down. Grabbing the .45, he poked his arm out the opening. The gun in his left hand was an awkward feeling, but he squeezed the trigger repeatedly.

The sedan began to sway crazily. Shayne threw the gun on the seat and concentrated on braking the convertible through the long skid as he attempted to keep the dark car ahead of him.

But the sedan abruptly pitched off the access road. Shayne saw it leave the ground briefly and nose back into earth as he slid past it, still moving fast. He rode the slide, finally regained control of the car, and eased it off the road onto a soggy ditch shoulder.

Rolling from the car seat, he went down on his palms against the road. He reached back across the seat and snapped up the .45. Then he wriggled in under the convertible and leveled the gun back toward the headlights that now were cocked skyward from the tilted sedan.

There was no movement back there.

He waited, breathing harshly, his chest heaving, feeling squashed in the flat space. Rain pelted the pavement. Still no movement at the sedan. Shayne wiggled on elbows and knees from under the convertible and dashed to the opposite side of the road. He was away from light reflection now, had stared at the sedan, watching for the smallest flicker of movement, the .45 ready. Behind and above him traffic whisked along the highway, but opposite him silence had settled on the sedan. He looked up and down the access road. No headlights. And there probably would be none. He knew it was a little used road. He approached the sedan cautiously, 45 leveled, and yanked open the driver’s door. The inside light showed him he no longer had trouble.

The driver of the sedan was slumped against the snapped steering wheel, his eyes popped and blood leaking from a comer of his mouth. Part of the steering wheel had penetrated his chest, allowing blood to leak there too. His companion had been pitched forward and his head had gone through the windshield. He seemed propped on jagged glass, his tongue out and his throat gushing. Shayne saw the dropped gun at the man’s feet.

The stolen corpse was on the back seat, a young man, maybe thirty, dressed in a blue suit, red necktie, white shirt, gold cuff links. The corpse looked very white, very waxy, and very dead.

On the floor beside the corpse was another dead man, spreading blood from a split skull.

Shayne figured it had been one of his .45 slugs that had split that skull. He stuffed the gun into his shoulder rig and frisked the three hoods. He didn’t recognize any of them, and he found empty pockets. Scowling, he stood tall again outside the sedan and sucked a long breath of fresh air.

The rain fell steadily, dripped from his hat brim. He felt soggy, bruised, skinned, and out of sorts with the world. He thought about Lucy Hamilton in her cozy apartment, the smell of good food scenting the air. Lucy would be prowling now, perhaps slightly irritated, wondering where he was. And she’d be very pretty in spite of the consternation.

Growling, Shayne reached into the back seat of the sedan and yanked the corpse out. He braced it against his front. The guy was stiff, didn’t want to bend. He lugged the corpse to the convertible and managed to fold him into the wet front seat. Then he stood back, scowling heavily.

Who was this dude? What made someone steal him?

Well, he wasn’t going to find out standing here in the rain.

He piloted the convertible back toward the city lights, jamming the dead man down on the seat so that he was out of sight. He didn’t need some car cop stopping him to ask why he was cruising around with a cadaver as a passenger.

Rain came through the split in the roof, kept him wet. He tried to light a damp cigarette, gave up. Rolling past the City Limits sign, he saw a public pay phone ahead and he debated briefly about calling in a report about the three goons. But they didn’t need help. All they needed was to be scraped up. Somebody could do that in the morning. Maybe it wouldn’t be raining in the morning.

The rain had eased off to a drizzle again when he reached LeJeune Road. He slowed and looked for the smashed hearse. He didn’t find it. Or even an indication that an accident had occurred on LeJeune that night.

He pulled into a curbing, sat drumming fingers against the wet steering wheel, a black scowl drawing the angles of his rugged face down as he realized he didn’t know the name of the funeral home that had lost a body.

Finally he snapped the convertible into gear and headed for police headquarters. His friend of long-standing, Will Gentry, chief of Miami police, was in Washington, testifying about gambling before some Senate subcommittee, but Jeff Collier had been left in charge. And the large Negro would listen, take the corpse, find the funeral home that had lost it.

Except...

When Shayne reached police headquarters, he found that someone had pitched a bomb inside the front door.

The bomb had exploded.

II

No one had the time or the inclination to talk to Mike Shayne. Police headquarters was in a turmoil. Two uniformed cops had been killed and three detectives had been injured in the blast. A soggy and irritated hulk of a private detective who claimed to have a stolen corpse in the front seat of his car was a nothing right then.

Shayne pushed through the debris, looking for Jeff Collier, the black man Gentry had personally tabbed to be an assistant chief of police was not to be found. Shayne finally spotted Sergeant Piper, who had been in charge of the Missing Persons Bureau for twenty years.

“Hey, Piper, hold it!”

“Get out of here, Mike. Can’t you see we’ve got enough trouble?”

“Piper, I’ve got a corpse outside. Where’s Collier?”

“On his way in. Man, he doesn’t sleep here! Now bug, Mike. We’ve got problems as you can plainly see. You got a stiff, go bury it!”

“Piper, I’m serious. Nobody’s called in about a missing dead guy?”

“Hey, pal, I’m in charge of finding live stiffs!”

Piper stomped off. Shayne stared after him, eyes hard, jaw jutting. Piper disappeared around a corner. Shayne whirled, saw a detective he knew.

“Reynolds!”

Reynolds ignored him, picked his way through the bombed front door and went outside to the drizzle.

“Mike?”

Shayne turned on the familiar voice and saw Tim Rourke approaching from the interior of the building. Rourke was a tall man, almost scarecrow thin, a hardbitten, cynical man who had been the police reporter at the Miami Daily News for years. There were not many men Shayne considered close, but Rourke was one of them. They’d combined talents to knock heads against crime for what sometimes seemed centuries.

Rourke stopped a couple of feet from Shayne, his experienced eyes inventorying minutely. “Who stomped on you?”

“Nobody,” the detective growled.

“You had a look at yourself in the last five seconds?”

“Tim, I’ve got a dead guy in the front seat of my car and no one here wants him.”

Rourke arched eyebrows. “Interesting.”

“I saw him hijacked.”

Shayne explained quickly. The reporter yanked at his nose. “Let’s have a look at this boy, Mike.”

“You can look at him all night, friend — after I roll him in the front door.”

“You given any thought to why somebody would snatch a corpse?”

“Not enough to keep him.”

“Hijacked cadavers are an every day occurrence, huh?”

Shayne snorted, looked around for a cop who would take a body.

But Rourke pressed, “Come on, Mike. Let’s have a look. Maybe I’ll recognize the guy.”

“Write about a bombing.”

“I already have,” Rourke said, heading out of the building.

Shayne stared after his friend for a moment, then grumbled resignation. Rourke was waiting for him on the wet sidewalk. They matched strides to the convertible. Rourke inventoried it from the exterior, touched the splintered windshield, fingered the split top. Then he opened the door and stared on the corpse. He stood jackknifed for a long time. Finally he straightened, snapped the door shut.

“I don’t know him. I saw you talking to Piper. What did he say?”

“Told me to go jump.”

“Well, some funeral home should be squealing like a stuck pig. You didn’t get the name of the home, huh?”

“I’m dumping the guy here, Tim.”

“I know a guy, Mike, who I think would put him on ice for us.”

Shayne gave his friend a sharp glance.

“Gentry is supposed to be leaving Washington tonight. Somebody called him home,” Rourke went on. “And you know Gentry will listen to you. How about salting this guy? At least overnight.”

Shayne hesitated, then got into the convertible. Anything to be rid of the stiff. Lucy Hamilton was probably pounding her thighs by now, pacing, heels digging.

Rourke squeezed into the back seat and directed Shayne into the shank of the city, a sea-oriented district stuffed with warehouses, boat repair shops, self-styled boat captains who hauled northerners on fishing excursions for a buck. It was a dreary, dark end of town, a good area in which to store a cadaver. There was only an occasional parked car and the sidewalks seemed deserted. But Shayne was having second thoughts.

Why hadn’t he dumped the stiff at police headquarters as he had threatened?

Rourke said from the back seat, “My friend’s got an ice factory. That’s it straight ahead, on the corner on the right side.”

Shayne braked at the curbing in front of the ice factory and Rourke squeezed out of the car.

“Jerry lives upstairs,” the reporter said. “Let me see if I can roust him.”

Shayne sat in the car with the stiff, staring on it as he drummed fingers against the steering wheel. Who are you, pal? he wondered again and why would anyone want to steal you, especially at the risk of getting killed? Which they had been.

He grunted and turned his thoughts to the three dead men he had left out along the highway. They hadn’t been Miami gunsels. Or if they had been, they were new, three guys who had moved into the city or up in the underworld recently. He knew most of the gunsels in town and those three hadn’t been among the acquaintances.

Had they been operating on their own or working for someone? Obviously, they had known where and when the corpse was due to arrive in the city. They’d been waiting at the airport.

But what was the value of the stiff?

Shayne meditatively massaged the lobe of his left ear between right thumb and forefinger.

Rourke came across the sidewalk through the drizzle with a stumpy, wide man at his side. Rourke opened the car door and displayed the corpse for his friend as he said, “Mike, Jerry Smith. Jerry, Mike Shayne. Jerry’ll take him, Mike. He’s a little goosey — about a hundred dollars worth — but he says he’s got some large cakes of ice out back we can pack around our boy.”

Shayne got out his wallet and fished a hundred dollar bill from it. They spent twenty minutes lifting and heaving and shoving blocks of ice around the dead man. Finally he was packed and out of sight. Shayne stood large and hulking and shivering. “How long you figure he’ll keep in there, Smitty?”

“A guy named Birdseye discovered the value of freezing, Mr. Shayne,” the stumpy man said sagely as they moved outside to the warmth and drizzle of the night.

Shayne flapped his arms as he savored the warm air. “We may leave him a couple of days.”

“No cops coming around?”

“No cops,” Shayne said grimly. “They don’t even know this dude exists.”

“Well, somebody does.”

The detective took another hundred dollar bill from his wallet and stuffed it in Jerry Smith’s shirt pocket. “You are goosey, aren’t you, pal?”

“It’s the times, Mr. Shayne,” Jerry Smith said with a lop-sided grin.

“Mike,” Rourke said as the redhead piloted the convertible back toward the downtown lights, “this ‘couple of days’ bit. That means?”

“It means I’ve got a two-hundred-buck investment and I’m going to protect it,” Shayne growled.

“Beautiful,” Rourke said, settling slightly in the seat.

Shayne didn’t look at his friend. He knew what he would see if he did. Rourke would be grinning.

Rourke had left his car at police headquarters. Shayne dropped him there. The newspaperman sat half in and half out of the convertible for a moment before he said, “And now?”

“Lucy may still be waiting,” the redhead replied.

“Tomorrow?”

“Sooner or later, somebody’s got to start yelling about losing a stiff.”

Rourke pondered briefly, nodded and left the car seat. “Gentry should be in his office in the morning.”

Shayne drove to Biscayne Boulevard and then north to the side street where Lucy Hamilton’s apartment was located between the boulevard and the bay.

She snapped open the front door as he kept a thumb on her buzzer. She was as he expected: perky, cute, irritated. But just the sight of her was silent salve for what had turned out to be a rough night. So he turned on a huge grin for her as he moved inside.

When he faced her again, the fire in her brown eyes had turned to curiosity and concern as her gaze swept his rumpled and dirty figure. But all she said was, “The meat loaf has kept this long, it’ll keep another thirty minutes. Is that time enough for a shower and a cognac?”

III

Tuesday morning was brilliant. Sun splashed the city, drying it quickly. Afternoon would be steamy again, but the morning exuded a freshness.

Mike Shayne drove to police headquarters in the rented car. He felt revived as he breathed deeply of the salt-tanged air. Lucy had been filled in. When he had arrived at her apartment, she had heard on television about the police station bombing and she’d thought he had been at the station when the bomber had chucked his missile. But now she knew about the hijacked corpse and she had gone to the Flagler Street office to open a new case folder.

The garage boys had been a little less understanding. It was the third time in four months the redhead had brought in the convertible and the garage boys were beginning to wonder if they had enough windshields in stock to keep the detective operating.

Repair men were at work at police headquarters too when Shayne arrived. They were rebuilding the entry. The detective moved through the workers and headed for Will Gentry’s office. While driving, he had listened to a radio newscast and had heard an item about three men who had been found dead in a wrecked car. But the newscast had been sketchy.

Gentry was not back in the city. He’d been fogged in Washington. No one knew when he was going to return. Shayne asked for Jeff Collier and got another shake of the head.

“He’s getting some shut-eye, Mike,” the detective named Reynolds said. “He was here all night. What’s with you? What do you want?”

Shayne thumbed his hat to the back of his head. He saw the suspicion in Reynolds’ eyes and the redhead debated. He wanted to ask about a missing corpse. On the other hand, he had a hunch Reynolds nor any of the other cops had heard about the stiff. Reynolds didn’t seem to be busy, for one thing. And the other cops still were jabbering about the bomber.

Shayne lighted a cigarette. “I heard three guns were found in a smashed car out along South Dixie last night,” he said.

“So?” Reynolds said, his suspicions deepening.

“I was wondering about them,” Shayne replied with a shrug. “Who are they? The guy on the radio didn’t say. Not locals, huh?”

“Don’t know. And I still want to know why you’re interested, Mike,” Reynolds said thoughtfully. He hesitated for a few seconds before he looked Shayne square in the eyes. “You didn’t happen to be out around International early last evening, did you?”

Shayne smelled the curve but he decided to play ball with Reynolds for a few moments, to see where it would lead. “As a matter of fact, I was.”

“What time was that? Roughly.”

“A friend of mine had been in town and—”

“This Benjamin Ames? From Chicago?”

“Yeah, and I took—”

“You and this Ames, you’re finished with—”

“Lieutenant, if you’ll quit interrupting I’ll fill you in. Ben was here looking for a runaway girl. We finally found her dancing naked in a two-bit house. Case closed. Ben went back to Chicago last night. I took him to International to catch the plane. It was an 8:15 flight, and it was on time.”

“How’d you come back into the city? What street?”

“LeJeune to the East-West Expressway.”

“You took the Expressway, huh?”

“Lieutenant—”

“A hearse hit a palm tree on LeJeune along about 8:30 or so last night,” Reynolds cut in. “I thought you might have seen it. But the accident happened south of the Expressway.”

“And if I had seen it?” the redhead asked.

Reynolds looked straight at Shayne, remained silent. He seemed to be thinking hard, attempting to fit pieces of a puzzle. The redhead pondered. Should he tell Reynolds about the chase, the corpse he had stashed? There didn’t seem to be any logical reason why he should not. On the other hand, if he gave up the corpse to the cops he could kiss two hundred bucks good-bye. The city wasn’t going to reimburse him for keeping a stiff overnight for them, but a funeral home might, if for no other reason than silence. Funeral home people probably wouldn’t relish publicity about losing a body. It could be bad for future business.

Reynolds shifted suddenly in his chair, picked up a pencil and dropped it on his desk. “Aw, hell, Mike, it’s too wild.”

“What’s too wild?” the rednead snapped, every sense abruptly alert.

Reynolds wore a crooked grin now as he flipped a hand over his hair.

“These three guns,” he said. “We figure two of them died in the crackup of their car. But the third guy, the guy in the back seat, well, a slug had opened his skull, and there were several bullet holes in the heap. It looks like these three boys were chased out of town, shot up, and—”

Reynolds let the words hang again as he fiddled with the pencil. Then he shook his head.

“Naw,” he said to himself. “Naw, it’s just too wild.” He looked up, fixed Shayne with a stare. “Mike, I’m trying to put a two and two together. But I keep coming up with six.” He hesitated. “Look, the Accident boys got a call to the hearse on LeJeune last night. The driver hit a palm, mashed up his front end a little. He was able to wheel the hearse away under its own power. Still, the Accident boys say some people out there at the wreck site were mumbling about hearing gun shots and seeing a stiff hijacked from the hearse.

“The Accident boys jumped on the hearse driver, naturally, but he said the people were crazy, just excited. He didn’t hear any gunshots and nobody had stolen a stiff from him.

“To make it short: The Accident boys said the people at the wreck claimed to have seen four guys haul off the corpse, but the hearse driver claimed he hadn’t lost a corpse. We checked with the funeral home later, Palm Acres Funeral Home, and they hadn’t lost a body.

“But I was thinking — well, you come in here this morning asking about three guns found dead along the road. Maybe those people at Palm Acres lied to us. God only knows why they would lie, but maybe they really did lose a body last night. And maybe those witnesses out at the wreck site were a little mixed up. Maybe they didn’t see four guys snatch a body. Maybe they saw three do the snatching and one chasing. LeJeune runs into Dixie. The chase could’ve gone that way, but — hell, Mike, see? It’s sure too wild to think about. Two and two make six. Get the hell out of here. We’ve got enough problems with a nut bomber.”

Shayne stood. He could level with Reynolds, lay it all out. He would with Gentry sooner or later. But maybe, just for the moment, he should find out why a funeral home had lied to the cops. Maybe such a discovery could be profitable to a private detective.

He said, “You got your bomber, huh?”

“Yeah, we got him,” Reynolds said sourly. “A nut. Just a damned nut who doesn’t like cops. He doesn’t even have an arrest record.”

Shayne drove to International Airport and asked about a corpse that had arrived on a Monday night flight. He didn’t get any good answers until he slid a twenty dollar bill under a sheet of paper. A young guy who liked twenties looked in a file. A casket had arrived from Lima, Peru. Destination: Palm Acres Funeral Home, Miami.

“Consignor?” Shayne asked.

The young guy turned on a smirk. “Second looks cost—”

“You want to keep your job or be out in the street?” Shayne growled. “I’ve already got you hanging, pal. All I’ve got to do is call a supervisor.”

The young guy hurriedly looked in the file again. “Shipped by Eternal Haven, Lima.”

Shayne drove to Palm Acres Funeral Home. It was a palatial layout with a long, U-shaped drive out front and a subdued air that reeked of riches taken from the dead. Inside, he got a sleek woman of forty who wore black-rimmed glasses, dark hair in a conservative bun, and a black dress that did subtle justice to a good figure. She also smelled good. Tiptoeing through the caskets, she probably was smooth-flowing sympathy, the detective thought.

“Yes?” she said, posing behind the tiny polished desk.

“Michael Shayne.”

She didn’t flicker a muscle. “Yes?”

“I’m looking for a body.”

She poised a new, needle-sharp pencil over a new, small pad of yellow paper. “The name of the deceased?”

“I don’t know his name.”

The new pencil dropped slightly and a penciled eyebrow went up, appearing over the black rim of the glasses.

“You people lost a stiff last night,” Shayne said bluntly. “I’ve got it.”

The polished woman winced slightly. Then a shudder ran through her entire body and she popped to her feet. Composure and efficiency were gone. Eyes darted. She looked as if she might like to run. Anywhere.

The redhead turned on a crooked grin. “Maybe you’d better give me a head man, honey.”

She produced an enormously fat man in his fifties who said his name was Forrest DuPree, a powdered and slick man who wore a worried look in spite of the slickness.

“Last night you people lost a stiff.”

DuPree was aghast. “I beg your pardon.”

“A body came in to International,” Shayne said. “It was picked up by some of your people.”

“Yes,” DuPree nodded.

“Your hearse was involved in an accident coming here from the airport.”

“Yes, there was an accident, but—”

“Three guys heisted the stiff.”

DuPree took a few seconds to adjust his vest. Then he turned on an expression of pained patience. “Mr. Shayne, I sincerely wish I could help you but—”

“I’ve got your corpse,” Shayne broke in.

DuPree’s fat lips twitched and his eyes took on a sudden gleam, but he remained silent as he fiddled with the vest.

“And I’ll deliver it for a price.”

DuPree said, “I do believe, my dear man, that I must call the police.”

“Okay.”

DuPree frowned.

Shayne turned to the desk, snatched up the phone receiver, began to dial.

DuPree said sharply, “What are you doing?”

“Calling the cops. I know the number.”

“Fine.”

Shayne did not dial the last digit. He had expected DuPree to make a move, snap a finger down on the receiver button, break the connection. But DuPree seemed to be waiting. He looked upset, but he appeared content to allow the call to be completed.

Shayne put the phone together. The ploy hadn’t worked. And he didn’t need cops. Not yet. He’d take Will Gentry when Gentry got back in town. Until then...

DuPree stared at him, then turned on an expression that very closely resembled a smirk. He said, “Please go, Mr. Shayne.”

His tone had softened. He looked sympathetic, as if he might be looking on a deceased.

Shayne walked out of the funeral home. No one accompanied or trailed him. He knew he had his teeth in something. But what? Why wasn’t DuPree admitting to having a corpse stolen?

Maybe if he found the two men who had been transporting the stiff from International to the funeral home, they’d talk. One had been slugged, the other kneed. But what the hell, they had to be DuPree boys. Both, Shayne figured, would stand before him with split lips and say they’d fallen against door knobs.

He got into the rented car, rolled, keeping a sharp eye in the rear view mirror, watching for a tail to pop to life. None did and his scowl deepened. He felt frustrated. Maybe he shouldn’t wait for Gentry. Maybe he should wheel across town to Jerry Smith’s ice factory, collect his stiff and deposit it at the City Morgue, be finished with the whole damn thing, write the two hundred off to a bad decision.

There was still another avenue...

IV

Mike Shayne drove into the city’s jungle. All of the animals were out. It was early afternoon of a nice day. The sidewalks were busy. Cruising, no one could believe that this was one of Miami’s festers. Everything looked calm, reasonably clean. The city sparkled. Rapists, burglars, arsonists, thieves, murderers, informers all lived in other cities. Other cities had problems. Not here.

None of these brightly clothed boys and girls walking and lolling on the sidewalks of the fester area were rapists, burglars, arsonists, thieves, murderers or would know anything about body snatchers.

Yet a corpse had been shipped into the city. The corpse had been snatched from a funeral home by three unnamed gunsels. The funeral home was not admitting the snatch or the loss. The gunsels were dead. Nobody would or could talk. But the gunsels had had a reason for snatching a stiff. And the funeral home had a reason for not admitting to a loss.

The cops had not been officially informed of the snatch. Why wasn’t some family screaming? Was there no family to scream, had the stiff been a loner in every sense of the word? Somebody had stolen from somebody. And informers heard about thefts. It wasn’t every day that somebody stole a corpse. This, of course, would up the ante of any information but then, what the hell, some types of information was worth more.

Shayne cruised, looking over the brightly clad boys and girls. He was in no particular hurry now. He was looking for the half dozen specials, the professional informers. The cops had their planted people, the Syndicate had theirs, and then there were the self-styled people with big ears. But he knew of only six pay-me-cash-now-professionals.

And he also knew that if he cruised long enough, inventoried enough streets he would be spotted. Thus, instead of the seeker, he would become the sought, from someone who had straight information.

Beady found him.

And Beady pleased Shayne. Because Beady was a pro.

It was early evening now. The detective had killed the entire afternoon exploring and allowing himself to be seen, asking a pointed question here and there, giving the word time to sift in and out of crannies. It had been a boring, inactive afternoon, but now it was about to pay off. He pushed change across the bar, and Beady ordered a beer.

“Mike,” the toothless, ferret-type man nodded. “How’s things?”

“Dead.”

Beady grunted a chuckle, drank beer, throwing his head far back, tipping the bottle high with long, gnarled fingers. Once those fingers had been deft, quick as an eyeblink. Once Beady had been an expert pickpocket. Then age and arthritis had set in.

“Yuh gotta look under the surface, Mike. Just because something is dead, that don’t make it worthless.”

“Tell me.”

Beady chuckled again. “Wish I could.”

Shayne put a fifty dollar bill on the bar. Beady shot him a glance. Shayne got out another bill, but Beady shook his head. “I ain’t got that much, Mike. A kid named Bird, that’s all.”

The fifty disappeared from the bar into Beady’s short pocket.

“A youngster,” the informer continued. “A kid coming up. He ain’t been hooked to nobody I know of. Just trying to pick up a buck here and there. Kinda on the loose, like you was this afternoon. A kid cruising here and there, asking about somebody that’s dead. Seems like this dead guy’s disappeared. That’s a hot one, ain’t it? A dead guy disappearing.”

“It could be, Beady.”

“Yeah, well, like I say, this kid Bird’s nosing ’round, wanting to know of anybody has a body for sale.”

“And?”

Beady shrugged. “That’s it. I told you it wasn’t much.”

“The kid’s unattached?”

“Always has been.”

“Has he got ready cash?”

“Doubtful.”

“If he hasn’t got cash and he isn’t working for somebody, how does he buy back a body?”

“He’s got a problem, ain’t he?”

“He’s been hired,” Shayne said bluntly.

“It’d figure,” Beady agreed.

“You heard of anybody new floating around, trying to make it big? Maybe somebody from out of town?”

“Nope.”

“Three guns were hit out along Dixie last night. They weren’t locals.”

“If you say so, Mike.”

Shayne gave the informer a side glance. “You know something about them?”

“Nope,” Beady said with a sly grin. “But you do. You said they weren’t locals. How’d you know that?”

“One of Gentry’s people mentioned it, I think.”

Beady grunted. “The cops don’t know who they are, but my sources tell me they’ve come up with a good Denver lead.”

Shayne digested the information and then said, “How do I find this kid, Beady?”

The ferret was silent for a few seconds, fiddled with the empty beer bottle, then took one of Shayne’s dimes from the bar and went to a phone booth. When he returned, Shayne had a fresh bottle of beer on the bar. Beady drank from it, wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

“You got a meet in twenty minutes. You sit in that heap you’re driving right where it’s parked. Bird says he’ll find you.”

Shayne sat. He started to light a cigarette, then thought better of the move. He stuffed the cigarette in his shirt pocket, touched the butt of the .45. He grunted, slouched lower behind the steering wheel.

The Miami night was warm, quiet. And the street and sidewalks ahead of him looked peaceful. Wandering people looked relaxed. But they were little more than shadows in the reflections of the neon and the street lamps. They could be simmering, waiting to pounce. It was that kind of neighborhood.

The detective thumbed back his hat and kept a sharp eye on the people. He didn’t like sitting where he was. For one thing, it was obvious that he was waiting or looking for someone. And that made people on this street nervous. But, more importantly, he could be an easy target, a pigeon with his head outlined against the street light.

He shifted in the seat and a voice at his open window said, “Just sit calm.”

Shayne froze, the fingers of his right hand curled reflexively as if gripping the butt of the .45. But he already knew one thing: he wasn’t going to be gunned down, not at the moment. The owner of the voice wanted something else.

“You’re Shayne?”

“I’m Shayne.”

The man remained outside the car and slightly behind the detective. “We talk straight, okay?”

“Straight, yeah.”

“I’m looking for a missing stiff, and I’m told you might have it.”

“Might, if I hear cash numbers.”

“Shayne, you go on breathing. That’s enough. No questions about how you got the stiff. No hard feelings about three boys who were knocked down.”

“Prepared speeches stink.” “Shayne?”

The detective heard the tick. He couldn’t see the gun but he knew a muzzle had been tapped against the side of the rent car.

“Consider,” said Shayne.

“Consider what?”

“Your boss. What does he want? A stiff shamus, or a stiff shipped in from South America?”

The shadow outside the car shuffled.

“There’s a pay phone inside the bar, Bird. I’ll take two thousand for the corpse, one for storage expenses, one for having to put up with you, and — well another big one just to make all of this come out in round numbers. Five grand. I think that’s round enough. You want to make the call? I’ll wait.”

“Shayne—”

The redhead started the motor of the rent car. Outside, the shadow danced, then snapped the gun muzzle down on the edge of the open window. “Okay! Hold it!”

Shayne turned off the ignition key.

“Bastard!” Bird hissed.

And then he moved swiftly around the front of the rented car and across the sidewalk, a tall, almost gawky figure who stuffed his gun out of sight just before entering the bar.

Shayne waited impatiently, the .45 pushed under his thigh now, the butt near his fingers. Two questions were answered: Bird was a hired man. And the corpse was valuable as hell to somebody.

Bird returned and got into the front seat of the car beside Shayne. “Okay, you get your five in cash. But we deliver the stiff. I go with you.”

Shayne grunted. “Did you leave your heater in the bar?”

Bird jumped, snapped his head around. He stared straight into the muzzle of the .45. Shayne grinned. “First class guns who get the drop frisk a man, Rookie. Who’s your boss?”

Bird was jerky but he didn’t frighten easily.

“Jump,” he snarled.

Shayne tapped Bird’s nose with the muzzle of the .45.

The kid had guts. He growled, “Hit me and what have you got?”

“All I want is a name, and you can fly, pal.”

Bird made an obscene gesture with his finger and clamped his jaws.

Shayne debated. He could open up the kid’s nose, spill blood. But where would he be? Bird was tough. He wasn’t about to talk.

“Okay,” the detective said, reaching inside Bird’s coat and snaking out the heater, “tell your man the ante just went up. It’s now ten. I’m in the phone book.”

He shoved the young hood out of the car and zoomed off. He knew he had stirred hornets. They’d be buzzing his way.

V

Mike Shayne drove to the apartment hotel where he lived. It was almost ten o’clock now. It had been a long afternoon and early evening, and he hadn’t eaten. He suddenly was hungry. He’d savor a couple of cognacs, shower, allow a steak taken from the refrigerator to thaw. He had some phone calls to make. He’d bring Lucy up to date and then fill in Rourke. The newspaperman probably was dancing like a puppet by now. Shayne grinned briefly on the thought. Rourke didn’t like dangling. The detective turned his thoughts to Will Gentry. He wondered if the police chief was back in the city.

Caught up in his thinking, he rolled down the ramp into the underground garage of the apartment building and into his stall. He locked the sedan, turned and stared at the large man who stood six feet away. The large man wore a dark suit, gold colored shoes and held a carbine.

And there was a strong smell of chloroform.

An arm snaked around Shayne from behind and a sponge was slapped against his nose and mouth. He had a brief look at a huge diamond ring and then he doubled forward with a snap, attempting to throw the weight that had slammed against his spine. He already knew the goon with the gun wasn’t going to trigger a shot. These boys wanted him alive.

The man on his back should have been a rodeo rider. He stuck. And the sponge remained glued against the detective’s face. He drove elbows back and found ribs, but all he got was a deep grunt. He went down, the guy riding him.

Shayne rolled onto his back, the attacker under him. The attacker locked strong thighs around Shayne’s middle, hooked his ankles. Shayne sat up, thrashing fiercely, flailing with his long arms. And, for just an instant, a face he recognized was before him, maybe twenty yards deep in the garage. Then the face disappeared behind a row of cars.

But Shayne knew how he had been marked. The face belonged to a two-bitter called Sneaky Pete. And Sneaky Pete would carve out a child’s eyes for a quarter.

Shayne concentrated on the hand holding the sponge. He clawed. His attacker yowled. But the guy continued to cling. And then Shayne felt himself pitching over on his nose again. He didn’t understand how the guy could have pitched him so easily, but he suddenly was finding relaxation in the chloroform fumes too. He breathed deep, dragging the fumes into his lungs.

After all, it’d been a long day.

He came awake slowly. Everything swirled. And there was a nauseating stench. He rolled, groaned.

The stench was choloroform. He finally recognized it. And slowly memory returned. Two goons, one with a carbine, another with a sponge. Strangers. And the face of Sneaky Pete. Not a stranger.

Shayne struggled up into a sitting position. But all he got was blurred images. He might be staring at a chair, he might not be. Maybe that other lump was a table, maybe not. And that long dark thing, what was that? A couch?

He shook his head savagely but he had to sit for what seemed an eternity waiting for the fog to lift. Gradually, he realized he was sitting on thick, pale green carpeting. And then he saw the gold-colored shoes. They were planted far apart and solid on the carpeting, the toes pointed toward him. He followed legs up to a seated man who sat in an expensive leather chair, a carbine across his lap. The man had a wide face, flat nose and dead eyes, but he looked freshly-shaved and manicured.

Shayne swung his eyes to the left, found another man. He was younger, dark hair long, neat in attire and body. He looked athletic, was tanned, and seemed relaxed as he sat with elbows braced against the arms of a leather chair, fingers interlaced and propping his chin. A large diamond ring and two dark eyes gleamed at Shayne.

Neither man said a word.

“Are you with it, Mr. Shayne?”

The voice came from his right and the detective twisted his head. The long dark object wasn’t a couch. It was a polished wood desk. And braced against the front of the desk, arms folded across his chest, was a medium-statured man of forty who might have stepped from a Playboy fashion ad. Everything about him, including a Van Dyke beard, reeked of modem wealth and comfort.

“Well?” he said. On another night, under different circumstances, his tone might have been considered pleasant.

Shayne shook his head. These boys sending a rookie like Bird out to find a stolen corpse? It didn’t figure.

“What does that mean?” asked the man at the desk.

“It means, pal, I’m not with it.” Shayne started to get up but a hand slammed against his shoulder from behind and plopped him back against the carpeting.

“Please, Mr. Shayne,” said the man at the desk without stirring, “remain as you are. Perhaps the carpeting is not the most comfortable seat in the house, but then I’m in no mood for providing comfort. You say you have in your possession a dead man. I want that dead man, Mr. Shayne.”

“I told you that, huh.”

The man at the desk sighed. “Nick.”

The butt of the carbine sliced in an uppercut against the back of Shayne’s skull, triggering flashing lights inside his brain and driving him obliquely forward.

He struggled to remain conscious. He bit down hard on his lower lip, seeking new pain that would dull that in his head. But there was no feeling in his lip and all he was conscious of was the ringing in his ears. Then fingers clawed his hair and yanked his head up.

“All you have to do, Mr. Shayne, is take me to the body and there will be no more pain.”

The man at the desk was still mouthing the words. He hadn’t moved an inch. Surprisingly, Shayne found the man to remain in sharp focus.

“We have all night,” the man said. “We have all day tomorrow, the next day, if you wish to prolong this. Nick and Jack don’t care. But I do think you’re going to get terribly tired of sitting there on that little piece of carpeting. And I know you’re going to grow weary of being bruised.”

“Okay, so show me my ten grand,” Shayne managed to growl.

“I beg your pardon?”

The man at the desk showed his first flicker of emotion. He looked mildly surprised and then he stood straight and shot glances at the two men behind Shayne.

“I told your punk messenger boy ten thousand and I produce. But first you show me cash,” Shayne said.

“Ten thousand dollars in cash in exchange for the body is what you’re asking?”

“Now who’s dilly-dallying, pal?”

“Nick.”

The gun butt slammed into Shayne’s kidney. He straightened with a grunt. Then he spun on his buttocks and lashed out with an arm. But Nick was nimble. He danced out of the path of the slash, brought the carbine down in a chop against the detective’s shoulder. Pain shot like electric currents out through Shayne’s body. The carbine came around, grazed his ear. He scrambled with an oath. The toe of a gold shoe came up against his chest, lifted him. He limply pitched forward and his nose crashed into a driving knee.

Then he was down, nose buried in the carpeting, fingers clawing. He was groggy. He wanted air. Fresh air. He sucked harshly. Fresh air would help clear his scrambled brain. But there was none. And he knew there would be none. He remembered that he was in a windowless den.

He was yanked into a sitting position. A flat hand cracked back and forth across his face. He caught the flashes of the diamond ring as his head whipped.

The he suddenly was free again, sitting by himself, no one working on him. But the gold shoes were nearby and when he looked up he saw the diamond ring still within striking distance.

The man at the desk wore a frown now. He tugged at his beard in silent speculation, eyes narrowed down as he stared at something unseen. Finally he said, “I think you are confused, Mr. Shayne. I think you are under the impression that you already have talked to some of my people, been made a cash offer. Neither is true. Who were you dealing with?”

Shayne didn’t have the answer to that question. But he had the smell of an answer to something else. It was shaping that this foxy dude and the three gunsels who had died out along South Dixie had not been pals. The three guns and the kid, Bird, were tied, but this foxy dude probably was on one side of a fence with Bird and his boss on the other.

More important, however, Foxy had shown Shayne possessed the stolen corpse. And if he wasn’t tied to Bird, it had to mean he’d gotten his information from Palm Acres Funeral Home.

Odd. A funeral home passing along that kind of info.

“Mr. Shayne?” Foxy said politely.

The detective squinted up. He had a bad headache now, and this dude was responsible for it. Shayne wanted to get his fingers in the Van Dyke only once.

“You’ve obviously made a deal,” said Foxy. “With whom?”

The detective clamped his jaws.

“I want names named,” said Foxy.

Shayne remained silent.

“I want to know exactly what your deal is. When you are to deliver, and where.”

The redhead wished he could work up enough saliva in his cotton-dry mouth to spit.

“Then I want you to take us to the body.”

Shayne moved his legs, flexed his fingers. He felt strong in spite of the beating and the chloroform. Anger was pumping life into his muscles. He knew he had been relieved of the .45. These boys weren’t rookies. But if he could somehow get his hands on the carbine held by Gold Shoes...

He looked up at Foxy. “Got a cigarette?”

“No.”

“I talk better when I smoke.”

“Smoke your own. You have cigarettes in your coat pocket.”

Shayne got out the crumpled pack, fished out a bent cigarette, stuck it in the comer of his mouth. “Got a light?”

“You have matches too.”

The detective got out the book of matches, yanked off a match, lit it — then touched the other matches in the book and pitched the flare at Gold Shoes.

He leaped to his feet and shot from a crouch toward Gold Shoes, who had recoiled. He stiffarmed Gold Shoes’ middle, sending the man reeling, the carbine suddenly held high as Gold Shoes stumbled backward off balance.

Gold Shoes tipped against the arm of a leather chair and went down with a yelp. Shayne launched himself in a flat dive and clamped huge hands on the carbine. He brought his knee up hard between Gold Shoes’ thighs. Gold Shoes howled and writhed as the detective wrenched the carbine from his grasp.

Shayne whirled into a sitting position, bringing the muzzle of the carbine down, his finger reflexively finding the trigger. Jack, the young hood, was in flight, coming down on Shayne in a dive. Shayne flicked the carbine muzzle against the exposed jaw, saw the skin split and blood spurt as Jack tumbled off to one side.

The detective rolled to his feet, went into a spread-legged crouch, the carbine tucked against his body now. He was prepared to pump slugs into Foxy, who surely would be drawing a gun.

But Foxy had disappeared.

Shayne whirled. Gold Shoes was struggling up. The detective slammed the butt of the carbine into Gold Shoes’ face, driving him back with a yowl. He saw Jack on one knee and he slashed with the carbine, sending the hood crashing into the front of the desk.

Shayne bolted, he had no intention of sticking around. The odds, three against one, were not conducive to questions and answers. Especially with Foxy out of sight and on the loose. Foxy could be off somewhere, gathering an arsenal.

Shayne shot out of the lit den into a black hallway. He had no idea where a door to the outside might be, but he savored the darkness. He bolted to his left, his eyes adjusting quickly to the shadows. He spotted a wide entry to his right and curved into it. Heavy, low shadows were scattered. He found a chair, squatted behind it in the blackness. Then, cautiously, he lifted his head and looked around. It suddenly was very still.

He figured he was in a living room. On an opposite wall were what seemed to be drapes. He went to them, parted the material and found french doors. The doors were locked. He fiddled with the handles, snapped a button and the doors opened. Warm night air bathed him.

Shayne ran through the night, the carbine at high port as he angled across what turned out to be a massive front lawn. He spotted a hedge and curved into its shadow. Then he squatted again and looked back on the house. He could not find light.

Suddenly there was action at the house. No light. But he saw three figures dash from the house to the black heap of a car. There was another flurry of quick movement and then the car motor came to life, purred briefly. Headlights popped on and the car moved fast.

Shayne trained the muzzle of the carbine on the moving car, following it down a long curving drive. But he resisted squeezing off a shot. All a shot would get him was a shootout or a chase.

The detective forced himself to wait five minutes before he dug up turf at the base of the hedge with clawed fingers. He buried the carbine. A man with carbine in hand, walking down a street in the middle of the night, could get nothing but trouble or cops. And he had decided he didn’t need either. The cops could come later. Will Gentry would be interested in the carbine. He might be able to trace it.

Shayne went through the hedge to the sidewalk and walked. He had no idea where he was. He inventoried minutely. It was a plush neighborhood, out where there was long distance between mansions. And the green things, walls and hedges across the front of the mansions, were plentiful, yards filled with what would be lush palms in daylight.

He finally hit a main thoroughfare and he grunted. He suddenly knew where he was. Traffic buzzed, even at midnight. He loped along a sidewalk, found a public phone booth, called a cab. Then he lolled beside the booth, smoking and waiting, headache pounding, but his mind was filled with images of Foxy, Gold Shoes and Jack. Who were they?

When the cab arrived, Shayne gave the driver Tim Rourke’s address over near Flamingo Park.

VI

Will Gentry was back in town. The Chief was in a sour mood. For one thing, he had found a Senate subcommittee a pain. Washington was a damn good place to be from — a long ways from. For another thing, he didn’t like bombers. And for a third, he had listened to Mike Shayne tell a tale about having a stolen cadaver stashed in an ice factory and hoods landing on the private detective from every direction.

Gentry jammed the stub of a black cigar into the comer of his mouth, leaned back in the swivel chair and stared out a window on another brilliant Wednesday Miami morning. Shayne shuffled feet, waited. Across the room Timothy Rourke cocked an eyebrow at the redhead but remained silent. Then Gentry growled, “Let’s have it, Mike.”

“The stiff is valuable. I don’t know why. And a funeral home is playing cute about not losing a corpse out of the back end of its hearse. There’s one gang against the other. Each wants the corpse. One has a chief honcho who seems willing to pay for goods received, the other: no pay. I’m saying No Pay is tied to Palm Acres.”

“And the stiff came in from Lima, huh?”

Gentry continued to stare on the morning, the cigar stub bobbing in the comer of his mouth. He was a rumpled, bulky man with grizzled eyebrows and blunt features, an incorruptible chief of police who would use all of the help he could get — from any source.

He swung the chair around and stared hard at Shayne, grizzled eyebrows low. “I’ve got a citizen named Dan Simpson who claims Palm Acres Funeral Home is giving him the run-around. Dan Simpson claims he had a twin brother, Delbert Simpson, who was touring South America and dropped dead of a heart attack four days ago. Delbert died in Lima, according to Dan, who also claims that he made arrangements with Palm Acres to have the body brought back to Miami. The problem is Dan hasn’t seen Delbert’s body and the people at Palm Acres say they never heard of either Simpson.”

“When did this live Simpson show?” Shayne asked.

“Early this morning,” Gentry growled.

“Where’s he been the last couple of nights?”

“Says he went out to Palm Acres Monday night, but was told there had been a delay in the shipment of his brother’s body. Says he talked to those people again yesterday and got the same answer. He tried again this morning, same reply. Then he got angry. Things didn’t smell right to him, so he came to us. We checked with Palm Acres and got this business about them never having heard of anyone named Dan or Delbert Simpson.”

“It’s adding up, Will,” Shayne said. “Body coming into International from Lima and picked up by a hearse from Palm Acres, then—”

“I want the stiff, Mike.”

Shayne shot a glance at Rourke. The newspaperman pushed from the wall and went to Gentry’s desk, picked up the phone receiver. “I better call or we might have two stiffs on our hands. My friend Jerry Smith doesn’t like surprises, especially cops descending on his place.”

“An ice factory!” Gentry snorted, shaking his head.

The cadaver was transferred from the blocks of ice to a slab in the morgue. And two hours later the value of the stiff had been established.

Gentry put the phone together. He looked grim. “That was the morgue. They found a slice across the stiff’s chest. He’d been hollowed out. Inside was a large package of cocaine.”

Dan Simpson was picked up and taken to the morgue, where he identified his twin brother. He also was enraged but after a long talk with Gentry agreed to delay raising public hell with Palm Acres Funeral Home.

Then a man named Arthur Hodge appeared in Gentry’s office. He was a well-constructed man, conservative in dress, manner and voice. He thanked Gentry for calling, then settled in a chair and listened as Gentry and Shayne talked. As the associate director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, he had learned there were few surprises when it came to moving narcotics into the United States. Cocaine inside a cadaver was novel but did not make Hodge demonstrative. He merely shifted slightly in the chair, uncrossed and recrossed long legs.

Then he said, “We know cocaine is being produced in hidden laboratories in Chili and Peru, then smuggled into this country. It looks as if we might have funeral homes on each end of the line tied into the operation. I’m guessing these boys Shayne encountered were hijackers. Somebody got wind that a shipment was coming into Miami, found out how it was coming, and attempted to lift it. We’ll check out the Simpson brothers, but I think we’ll find they had nothing to do with the shipment other than the deceased brother becoming a carrier. Meanwhile, I’d like to have Bird picked up, Gentry. He seems to be the lone link to the hijackers. Shayne, I want you to take me to the mansion where you were worked over. I think we’ll find everyone has cleared out, but I want to take a look.”

The mansion sparkled in the brilliant sunshine and from the U-shaped driveway the grounds looked freshly manicured. No one was in sight on the grounds and the house had a vacant air about it.

“What do you think, Mike?” Rourke asked from the back seat of Hodge’s sedan.

Shayne grunted and rolled from the car seat. He was joined by Hodge and Rourke. No one opened the front door as the detective stood with his thumb jammed against a button. Hodge walked to a comer of the house, looked around it.

“There’s french doors down this way.”

They moved to the doors. “This is where I broke out last night,” Shayne said. He tried the door knob, found that it turned. He pushed the door open and then stood looking at Hodge.

Hodge entered the house and called out. He did not get an answer. They were in a vast living room that was expensively furnished. Shayne guided them back to the den and the first thing he saw as he entered was his hat. It was on the carpeting. He jammed it on his head and stood looking around. They could have left his .45 too. But he didn’t spot it.

“This is it, Hodge,” Shayne said.

“Let’s look around.”

“I’ll take the second deck,” the detective said.

He wandered in and out of bedrooms. Each was spotless. He checked closets and dresser drawers. What he didn’t find bothered him and finally he stopped in one of the bedrooms and stood scowling out a window. He had the impression they had invaded a house that had not been occupied for a long time. The only trouble was he knew this was the right house. He had his hat.

He went downstairs and found Hodge in the living room.

“Nothing topside,” he growled.

Hodge nodded. “Do you have the impression this place has been unoccupied? With the exception of those french doors, I’m running into secured locks everywhere, including the front door.”

“If I didn’t know better,” Shayne said, “I’d say the occupants are off on a long vacation. Those closets upstairs—”

“Mike!”

Rourke’s shout from the depth of the house made Shayne whirl. Hodge trailed him. They found Rourke in a vast kitchen. He stood near a hall doorway. The hall went on back into the house.

“Down here,” Rourke said, his mouth twisted in a grim line.

The dead man was sprawled on a bed in a large room. Two pillows covered his head, but the blood that had soaked the bed told the story. Shayne carefully lifted one of the pillows and it became obvious how the guy had died. Someone had stuck a gun between the pillows and fired a shot into the man’s head, using the top pillow as a muffler.

Shayne lifted the bottom pillow. The dead man’s head had been shattered. The detective got down on his knees and squinted. He didn’t recognize the man. He shook his head. “He’s not one of my boys.”

“Then who is he?” Rourke wanted to know.

Shayne stood, yanked at his ear. “Housekeeper, butler, maybe a caretaker. What do you think, Hodge?”

The narc man said, “Could be.” He looked around. “And this could be his room.” He went to a dresser, picked up a wallet, looked inside. “I.D. for a man named John Martinson. Occupation listed: security.”

“He’s been dead a while,” Shayne said, scowling.

“Leave him,” Hodge said. “Let’s do some checking with neighbors.”

The nearest neighbor lived in a low, sprawling, patioed structure a hundred and fifty yards away. Although the house looked as if it had been put together by a kid playing with blocks, the yard had been laid out by slide rule with a miniature green forest between the two homes.

A sprightly, white-haired man named Lafranc — “Jules Lafranc, gentlemen, film director, retired,” — had put in the forest. “It isn’t that I don’t like my neighbor,” he said with a chuckle, “it’s just that I once fancied I had a green thumb, but my plantings got away from me. You say you came over here from the Bainbridge place? Is there something wrong over there? Frank and Marie are in Europe, you know, have been for about four months now, but John is on the place, or should be. Didn’t you find John? He’s been with Bainbridge for years. Good man, John Martinson. Wish I could find someone like him.”

“Do you know just where in Europe Mr. and Mrs. Bainbridge might be at the moment, Mr. Lafranc?” Hodge wanted to know.

“Well, not for sure,” the white-haired man frowned. “They were to visit their son in Paris and then go on to Switzerland. I think they planned to spend about six weeks with Bob — that’s their son — and then go on. I would guess they are in Bern. Why?”

“What is Mr. Bainbridge’s occupation?”

“Like me. Retired.”

“From what?”

“Lordy, from everything, Mr. Hodge. If you need specifics, go downtown, the Bainbridge Building. They could tell you. He had a hand in a lot of things.”

Later, in the car, Shayne said thoughtfully, “Did Martinson have a piece of the action or was he knocked off for another reason?”

“We’ll run him through our files,” Hodge said. “He may be just what I’m looking for. Where’s this carbine you buried? I want to run some tests on it.”

“And then what?” Shayne wanted to know.

Hodge navigated a green traffic light before shooting the detective a glance. “You’re out of this now, Shayne. You, too, Rourke,” he added over his shoulder. “We may have stumbled into a big operation. Worldwide. One thing is certain: we’ve got two factions squared off. And that could mean a ripoff. I don’t want outsiders involved.”

Shayne snorted. “And what do you think that was out along South Dixie Monday night?”

Hodge grunted. “Yeah, and there’s that,” he said, his voice flat, his tone suddenly sharp. “Did you have to kill those people, Shayne?”

“Hey, man, they—”

“They tell me you’re pretty free with the use of a gun.”

The redhead stared. “What’s with you, pal?”

“If I had my way about things, Shayne, guns would not exist. Guns are trouble. Period. And I especially don’t like guns in the hands of non-professional law—”

“Catch that empty slot at the curbing up ahead, Hodge,” Shayne interrupted angrily.

He left the car, slammed the door and walked off down the sidewalk, his strides long, heels pounding, rugged face drawn down in a black scowl.

Rourke finally caught up with him, grabbed his arm. “Cool it, Mike. The guy pitched you an opinion, that’s all.”

“Was that what it was?” the detective snapped. He shook off Rourke’s hand, waved a long arm at a cruising cab. He piled into the cab and looked outside at his friend. “Coming?”

“Where are you going?”

“Home — to put on my lace underwear!”

Rourke remained standing where he was. “I’ll phone you later today, Mike.”

Shayne told the cab driver to take him to his Flagler Street office. He had a spare .45 at the office. He’d holster it, might even strap on the holster over his coat. The hell with the Hodges of the world.

He didn’t make it to the .45. A kid named Bird was waiting for him on the Flagler Street sidewalk. Bird pushed away from the building with a smile. He looked very young in daylight, except for his eyes. His eyes were wary, crafty. Those eyes had seen a lot.

“Shayne,” Bird nodded politely.

The detective scowled. Gentry supposedly had a pickup out on this kid. Why hadn’t the net closed? Probably because the cops were sniffing around in shadowed alleys and rundown bars, while the guy they wanted was leaning up against a building in sunshine on a Flagler Street sidewalk.

Shayne grinned suddenly. “I’ll bet you’ve come around with my ten, huh, kid?”

“Not quite, Shayne,” the youth said, keeping his smile. “But I can lead you to it.”

VII

They drove to a Holiday Inn. The swarthy man who was waiting for them inside a ground floor unit looked forty and was a chain smoker. He smelled hood, borderline between punk and smoothie. What he needed most was a big take to put him on Gold Avenue, make him something to be reckoned with in the underworld.

Shayne liked what he saw. Borderline hoods were eager, took chances.

The redhead said flatly, “Who are you?”

The guy lit a fresh cigarette from a butt in his fingertips. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I’m the Pope,” said Shayne, keeping an eye on Bird who had fitted his shoulder blades against the room door. The detective figured Bird was healed. The nervous man probably was clean; Bird was his gun.

Bird said, “He didn’t give me trouble, Mr. Brown.”

The nervous mail shot the kid a dark glance, then looked at Shayne head-on. “You’ve given me a headache or two in the last couple of days, shamus. How come you had to poke a beak in something that didn’t involve you?”

Shayne made his grin cold and crooked. “Those three boys the other night, they belonged to you, huh?”

The man called Brown puffed hard on the cigarette. “I should let the kid take you out to a graveyard. He don’t like you either.”

“Birdie?” Shayne said, lifting shaggy eyebrows. He turned the grin on the youth. “You got a beef with me, Birdie?”

The kid attempted to keep his smile, but he had trouble as he shuffled in agitation.

Shayne squared on Brown. “Let’s get a couple of things straight. You’re a stranger in town. You come in here with three boys who like to play bang-bang. So they end up dead. Tough. No skin off my hide. Then you make a second mistake. You hire yourself a boy who still is wet behind the ears. Bird-boy doesn’t know siccum about this town, Brown. If he did, he’d have clued you. Your Uncle Michael Shayne didn’t come out of the gate yesterday. You want something from him, you deal direct. Like now. I’ve got a corpse. You got ten grand cash?”

Brown butted the half-smoked cigarette, lit a fresh one with a match. He was like a spring wound up tight. He wanted to strike out, kill, but he was greedy too.

“Produce,” he growled.

“When I see the money.”

“You bring the stiff here, shamus, then you get the bundle.”

Shayne attempted to act surprised. “You want me to haul a corpse out here in broad daylight and lug it into this room like it’s a suitcase?”

“I don’t care how you do it, Shayne, but I see the stiff before you get your green.”

“How come this corpse is so valuable?”

“Forget it, man! Deliver!”

“And if I don’t?”

“Hit him, Bird! Kill him!”

“Hold it!” Shayne put up a palm as the kid at the door yanked out a .38. “I’ll make the call.”

“You take Bird, and you go get the stiff,” Brown said, shaking his head. “No calls.”

“I make a call,” Shayne said flatly. “My partner will bring your treasure here. He’s tired of sitting up nights with a dead guy anyway; he’ll be happy to oblige.”

Brown debated.

“Look,” Shayne pushed, “you send Bird-boy with me and I’ll have him stretched out beside the other stiff in five minutes. I could’ve had him the other night, I could’ve had him today. I didn’t have to come here. I came because I’m not allergic to ten big bills. So I humored your boy. I let him bring me. Savvy?”

Brown was having a tough time figuring. He didn’t want to believe the savage looking redhead, but it was obvious he had doubts about Bird’s capabilities too. “How long will it take your friend to get here?” he asked.

“An hour.”

Bird said from the door: “Don’t trust him, Mr. Brown. He’s got a rep for—”

“Shut up!” Brown glowered. “You got the heat in your hand. What’s he gonna do against heat? Okay, Shayne, make your call. And tell your friend to snap his tail.”

Shayne turned to the phone, lifted the receiver. But the kid leaped at him, popped a finger down and broke the dial tone.

“Who are you calling?” he wanted to know.

Shayne slapped the youth’s hand from the phone, dialed Outside. He got a different dial tone, then his big fingers danced nimbly as he called Will Gentry’s private number at police headquarters. He sucked a breath. Come on, Will-boy, he thought, just this one time, be there.

Gentry’s growl brought a genuine grin to the detective’s mouth.

“Rourke?” he said. “Listen, and listen good. We’ve got the payoff in sight. But you have to bring the stiff here.”

Gentry didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then: “You in a corner, Mike?”

“I’ve got some people here who want to buy.”

“How many people?”

“Two.”

Shayne sensed the movement behind him and he stiffened. Then Brown yanked the phone receiver from his ear and glowered at him. “Cut the chit-chat, shamus. Tell him to get his tail out—”

“He doesn’t want to run into an army,” Shayne snapped. “My friend’s cautious that way. He figures if there’s an army here, he might not get his dough. He figures he might get dumped in a ditch instead.”

Brown snarled, “Tell him to move it!”

“Roll,” Shayne said into the phone. “This is what we’ve been waiting for. Tim.”

“Where?” Gentry snapped.

Shayne gave him the address and then he added, “How long you figure to get here?”

“Thirty minutes. Can you hang on that long?”

“That’s what I told these people. An hour. Okay, Tim, snap it. The green is here, but they’ve got to see the product before they buy. We’ll be waiting.”

He put the phone together, looked at Brown, who had puffed a cigarette down to the filter tip.

“You play gin?” the redhead asked innocently.

Brown told him to sit on the edge of a bed and shut up. Brown paced and smoked. Bird remained at the door, the .38 in his hand. Bird looked wary. He shuffled a lot and his eyes danced. Shayne wanted to be closer to the youth. He wanted to be within leaping range. Maybe Brown would allow him to pace, too. Later.

Brown stopped pacing and stared at the detective.

“Where the hell did you store a stiff, shamus?”

“In an ice house.”

Brown lit a new cigarette and resumed walking. He snapped a drape aside, looked out the window.

Shayne pondered. He wanted Brown to sit down, relax. He didn’t want him looking out windows. It was why he had told the nervous man the transportation of the body would take an hour. He wanted Brown to be in a chair, unprepared, when Gentry and his troops moved in.

Shayne said, “Show me the green.”

Brown snapped around from the window. He gave the detective a hard look. “In time.” He resumed pacing.

Shayne knew. Brown didn’t have ten thousand dollars. Brown had planned a rubout. He’d take his stiff and run while Bird did the dirty work.

Twenty-five minutes had passed when Shayne stood. Bird snapped away from the door, the gun in his hand came up. Brown looked up from lighting a fresh cigarette. “Cool it, Shayne.”

“My knees are getting stiff,” the redhead growled. He stretched long and hard, exaggerating the action. Then he went to the window, parted the drapes with his hands. He almost grunted his surprise. Gentry was outside. He was getting out of a dusty, unmarked sedan. He was alone. He raised his arms and stretched, acting as he’d just completed a long drive.

“Who’s out there?” Brown snapped.

And then Brown made a mistake. He joined Shayne, pushed the drape wider.

“Just some guy checking in next door, I guess,” the redhead said.

But Bird was alert. “How come we didn’t hear him drive up?”

Shayne grabbed Brown’s arm and whirled, spinning the surprised man toward Bird. And he got what he wanted. Bird raised the gun in surprise. The muzzle angled toward the ceiling.

Shayne followed Brown, slamming palms against his chest. Brown crashed into Bird, pinning the youth against the door. Shayne reached up and caught the gun in both hands, twisted viciously. Bird howled and Brown shouted a string of oaths.

Shayne shot a knee into Brown’s groin, doubling the man. Then he yanked Bird away from the door, flipped the gun from his fingers and sent him into a headlong dive into the bath. The top of Bird’s head crashed into the back of the stool. Shayne kicked Brown in the face and went after the kid. He slammed a heel down on Bird’s spine as the youth started to come up. Bird’s jaw caught the edge of the stool and he went limp.

Will Gentry said politely from the open front door: “You called, Mike?”

VIII

Brown wouldn’t talk and Bird didn’t know anything worthwhile. Brown professed to know his rights and all Bird could tell them was that he had been hired by Brown to find a corpse. Brown was from Denver. Bird knew that much, but he didn’t know why a stiff was so important to the Denver man.

Gentry had both hauled downtown by two detectives who had been a part of the army the police chief had moved in around the motel. Then Gentry walked out of the motel room and looked in the back seat of the dusty sedan. Mike Shayne saw the corpse and grunted.

“You brought him?”

“How’d I know how far we’d have to go with the play-acting?” Gentry growled.

Shayne grinned suddenly on an idea. “How about keeping it rolling?”

Gentry was instantly suspicious. “Now what?”

“You ready to concede that Brown was the force behind the hijacking?”

“It smells that way at the moment, yeah, but—”

“He tried to hit people at Palm Acres Funeral Home. Somehow, he got wind of the narcotics run. You could talk to him forever and never find out how. Not that it’s too important now. The point is, Palm Acres is involved.”

“Hodge is working on them. He isn’t leaning yet, but he’s doing some digging.”

“The hell with Hodge.”

Gentry gave Shayne a sharp look, then he said mildly, “Yeah, I heard he got under your hide. But the guy is an expert in his field, Mike. For instance, he’s already dug deep enough into the Bainbridge corporate structure to discover that among Bainbridge’s many enterprises is a string of funeral homes, located all over the world.”

Shayne snapped his fingers in sudden thought.

“That means?” Gentry said sharply.

“Let me haul the corpse out to the funeral home, Will.”

“Mike—”

“Let me dump it in their laps, then let’s see what kind of reaction we get when they discover the cocaine has disappeared. We could break all of this wide open in a flash.”

Gentry shook his head.

“Crazy,” he muttered.

“The promise of delivery worked with Brown. Delivery at Palm Acres, the absence of the narc, could trigger more fireworks.”

Gentry hesitated, thinking hard, weighing. Then he said, “Let me get on the phone to Hodge.”

“Who needs him?”

“This is federal business, Mike.”

Shayne shuffled. “Okay, call him. But let’s get rolling while we’re still hot.”

Gentry re-entered the motel room to use the phone. Shayne found himself alone. He looked at the stiff again, then glanced at the ignition switch of the sedan. No key, He shot a look at the motel room door. It was open, but no Gentry in sight. The detective quickly crossed wires and wheeled away from the motel. In the rear view mirror he saw Will Gentry standing spread-legged in the motel parking area waving his arms wildly.

At Palm Acres, Shayne walked inside, dragging the corpse behind him. He had a large hand fastened in the coat collar of the stiff and he deposited the body on the thick carpeting in front of the desk occupied by the sleek receptionist.

She came apart at the seams, leaped up, black-rimmed glasses flying, and ran from the room.

The fat man, DuPree, heaved into sight. He was wheezing. He stared at the corpse.

“I brought the body you people lost,” Shayne said. “He’s all yours; no charge.”

DuPree gulped and Shayne walked out. Gold Shoes appeared at his side as he moved out the front door. Gold Shoes had a gun in his hand and he jammed the muzzle in Shayne’s ribs.

The detective grunted. The stab hadn’t been a pleasure tap, but the grunt was one of satisfaction. He’d figured he would be spotted making the entry with the stiff, and he’d figured word would travel as if on a computer circuit throughout Palm Acres.

Gold Shoes took him around a comer to the back of the funeral home. They entered a wide doorway and were in a storage area. Everywhere Shayne looked, he saw caskets on wheels. Then Foxy appeared. He still was dapper, he still had the Van Dyke beard — and he still was angry.

Shayne stopped him. “Bainbridge.” It was all he said.

Foxy jerked. His eyes narrowed down.

“How’s things in Paris these days? Quiet?”

Foxy yanked the Van Dyke.

“It has to figure,” said the redhead. “Poppa owns funeral homes, son likes to dabble in narc. Poppa may be a whiz in business, but he can’t see another little business setup right under his nose. Poppa deals in bodies, son uses bodies. Poppa is on vacation, good time for son to bring a load into Miami — except, this time out, some jerk pulls off a hijacking. And then more problems: a nosey shamus breaks up the hijacking.

“Son is angry, uses Poppa’s house, has shamus brought to him. You want to know how I figured that house business, Robert? No forced entry. Son wheels up to front door. Security man surprised, but opens up. Why not? Junior is home. Expect Junior has John Martinson knocked off, then leans on shamus. Son figures he’ll get his narc and bolt, always can claim a house burglar hit the security man. How am I doing, Bainbridge?”

“The stuff, Shayne,” Robert Bainbridge snarled. “Where is it?”

“Ahh, you found an empty chest.”

“Hit him, Nick,” Bainbridge snapped.

Shayne dropped to his hands as the gun roared. The slug tore off his hat. He rolled under a casket, came up and shoved the casket. It crashed into Gold Shoes, pinned him against another casket.

Shayne went down again, and a second shot singed his hair. He crawled rapidly. The shot had come from behind him. It meant the other hood had to be back there somewhere. Diamond Ring, the boy with the flashing hand

Shayne scrambled under a casket toward Gold Shoes. Those shoes loomed.

And then a face loomed. Nick had squatted, was aiming the gun. The muzzle was about six inches in front of Shayne’s nose. The redhead slammed it aside as the blast of the gun closed his ear.

He swiped with an arm, cut the gold shoes from under Nick. The big man sat hard. Shayne bit his ear and wrenched the gun from his hand. He fired a shot into the fleshy area of Nick’s hip. Nick screamed and writhed.

Shayne flipped on his back. Down the line, under a row of caskets, was another set of spread legs. The shoes were black.

Shayne took careful aim and shattered a shin bone. A man crashed down with a howl, and the detective saw the diamond ring.

He leaped to his feet. Bainbridge was off to his left, dancing and dodging between caskets, maneuvering toward a narrow doorway. Shayne fired three rapid shots into the door, and Bainbridge suddenly became plastered against the wall beside the entry.

Shayne eased to him, keeping the gun ready. But Bainbridge didn’t move. He remained slapped against the wall, his body quivering. Shayne tapped the man’s skull with the muzzle of the gun. All he had wanted to do was bring Bainbridge out of his fear, but Bainbridge went down to the floor, where he moaned and squirmed.

Shayne put a foot on the back of the man’s neck. It stopped the moaning, but the squirming increased. Shayne reached down, jerked Bainbridge into a sitting position, then looped a hard uppercut against the Van Dyke beard.

Bainbridge crumpled, quiet.

“Peace,” said Shayne.

From the outside doorway, Will Gentry grated, “Enough, Mike!”

Shayne whirled. Gentry was moving toward him, face muscles taut. And behind Gentry was an army of men. Including a federal narcotics man named Hodge.

Mike Shayne tossed the gun in his hand to Hodge. “I took it away from a non-professional.”