A Redhead for Mike Shayne

14

The insistent ringing of his telephone awakened Michael Shayne from sound sleep the next morning. He instinctively rolled toward the edge of the bed, groaned and put his hand up to his neck when the pain struck him. The lump under his ear was half the size it had been the night before, but was just as painful to the touch.

His telephone kept on ringing and he swung his legs out of bed cautiously, stood up and padded into the sitting room, barefooted and in pajamas. He lifted the telephone and growled, “Mike Shayne.” A thick voice answered, “This is Roy Enders.” Shayne looked at a clock across the room and saw it was a little after eight o’clock. He said, “I’ve been expecting a call from you.”

There was a brief silence as though the caller were taken aback by the reply. Then, “Well, I’m calling now to warn you to keep your nose out of things that don’t concern you.”

“Murder always concerns me,” Shayne said placidly.

Another brief pause. Then, “Yeh? How much talking did Captain Ruffer do last night before he died?”

“You know more about that than I do.”

“Look here, I wasn’t near his place last night. You were.”

Shayne didn’t bother to reply to this. He kept the receiver to his ear while he leaned over for a pack of cigarettes on the table and shook one out.

“Let’s don’t beat around the bush,” the thick voice said finally. “I know you stole the captain’s logbook.”

“But you’ve got it now,” Shayne said.

“All right. But what I’m wondering is how much you read before you lost it.”

Shayne said, “Keep on worrying.”

“Yeh.” The gruff voice became resigned. “Maybe we can make a deal, huh?”

“What kind of deal?” Shayne got a crumpled cigarette between his lips and struck a match.

“I hear you’re interested in fancy Russian pistols. How would you like to have a gross… delivered anywhere you say within a week? Factory-fresh and in the original packing cases.”

Shayne said, “A gross is peanuts.”

“Peanuts?” The voice thickened incredulously. “I thought you were hep. Know what they would bring? Spread around the country quietly with the kind of outlets you’re in a position to contact?”

Shayne said, “Fifty grand, maybe.”

“You call fifty grand peanuts?”

“In this case, sure. An even split should be worth five times that.”

“An even split?” The heavy voice was outraged. “What the devil makes you think…?”

“You’d better do some thinking,” Shayne said evenly.

He put the receiver down and went out into the kitchen in his bare feet and put hot water on the stove to boil for coffee. He was measuring ground coffee into the top of the dripolator when his telephone began ringing again. He disregarded it while he finished measuring out coffee. He fitted the top on the pot, and the water was beginning to boil, and he poured it in.

The telephone was still ringing when he strolled back into the sitting room and picked it up and asked with a scowl, “Have you done your homework?”

The same voice was somewhat plaintive now, “What makes you think you deserve an even split?”

“It’s not a matter of deserving,” Shayne told him happily. “I’m sitting in the driver’s seat. One call to the C.I.A. and you’re through. Kaput.”

“You’d never do it, Shayne. Because you’d be out in the cold, too. I know your reputation for never passing up a buck.”

Shayne said, “Don’t push me into something I’d rather not do. Fifty-fifty is one hell of a lot better than nothing.”

“Yeh.” For the first time the voice sounded uncertain. “Come out and we’ll talk it over, huh? Fifty-fifty is too much, but maybe we can make a sensible deal.”

“Where?”

“I’m holed up in my old lodge on the Keys. Take Number One seventeen miles past Florida City, and there’s an old paved road to your left. Follow that six and eight-tenths miles and turn right on a dirt road. There’s a sign.”

Shayne said, “I’ll find it.”

“Come alone in your own car. There’ll be guys watching after you make the last turn-off. If you try to pull anything we’ll both regret it.”

“Why should I try to pull anything?” Shayne asked amiably. “If I’d wanted to cut you out I would have started the ball rolling last night.”

“All right. Can you make it in an hour?”

“Hell, I haven’t had breakfast,” Shayne said irritably. “And I’ve got a couple of things to do. Make it eleven o’clock.”

“Come alone and unarmed.”

Shayne said, “I figure I’d be a fool to come any other way.” He hung up and went out to the kitchen for a mug of coffee.

After his coffee he showered and used an electric razor on his face, gingerly going around the strips of adhesive which he left in place, and glowering at his reflection as he did so.

When he was dressed he looked in the telephone book for Armin Lasher’s telephone number and found a listing in the swank Miami Shores district. He lifted the telephone to call the number, and scowled at the instrument in surprise when a brisk masculine voice answered from the hotel switchboard, “Good morning.”

Shayne hesitated, and instead of giving Lasher’s number, he asked, “Can you give me the time?”

He was told, “It is eight fifty-two.”

He hung up thoughtfully, got his Panama from a hook near the door and went down to the lobby. He crossed to the desk and leaned one elbow on it and looked past the day clerk at the switchboard where a brown-suited, middle-aged man was alertly handling the plugs, and asked, “Where’s Mabel today?”

The clerk glanced back with him, and said, “Mabel was ill today and the employment agency sent him for a substitute.”

Shayne nodded and went out to the hotel garage for his car, drove to a drugstore on Flagler that was open, and went in and called Lasher’s number.

A feminine voice with a Swedish accent answered, “Mr. Lasher’s residence,” and Shayne told her urgently, “Get Mr. Lasher on the phone at once. It’s very important.”

“Well, I don’t know,” she said nervously. “He’s having breakfast and won’t like being disturbed.”

“Disturb him,” Shayne told her. “He’ll like it. Tell him it’s Mike Shayne.”

After a short wait, Lasher’s voice answered questioningly, “Shayne? Did the girl get it right?”

“She got it right. I want to see you… and Bull and Dixie. Can you have the two of them at your office in an hour?”

“Look. I told you last night, Mike…”

“I know what you told me last night,” grated Shayne. “Things have changed since then. This is a damned big deal and I need help. The kind of help your boys can give me. Have them there at ten o’clock and I’ll make you a proposition worth maybe a couple of hundred grand. But it’s got to be settled fast and it’s got to be those two. I’ll be there at ten.”

He hung up before Lasher could ask any questions, looked in the directory hanging on a chain and discovered that John Mason Boyd’s office was on Flagler only a few doors from where he stood.

He went out and found the office building with Boyd listed on the building directory on the 6th floor.

He went up and found a door chastely lettered: JOHN MASON BOYD — ATTORNEY-AT-LAW, and entered a small reception room. A tightmouthed, middle-aged woman seated at a desk looked up at Shayne inquiringly and then with unconcealed disapproval at the strips of adhesive on his face and the lump on his neck.

“Mr. Boyd is not in,” she informed him before he could ask her. “I don’t except him before ten.”

Shayne said, “Perhaps you can help me. I’m from the police,” he lied blandly, giving her a glimpse of his private detective’s badge.

“From the police?” Her thin lips tightened. “I’m sure I don’t know how I can help you.”

“It’s about one of Mr. Boyd’s clients who was murdered last night. Mr. Boyd told us something about him last night, but there are a few details we need to have filled in.”

“You mean poor Captain Ruffer. Such a terrible way to die. He was such a nice man. So alone and… helpless.”

“Did you know him?”

“Only through seeing him here at the office occasionally. Is it true that he was actually tortured to death last night? Why would anyone do such a thing? Of course, I guess he had come into some money finally because I know he called Mr. Boyd yesterday and said he was going to be able to do something about the mortgage on his little house which was about to be foreclosed.”

“In what capacity did Boyd act for him as an attorney?”

“There wasn’t much… really,” she said vaguely. “He first came to us five or six years ago for help in collecting insurance on his boat that had been lost at sea. He put all of that, I believe, in his little house, and I actually believe he’s been almost destitute this last year or so. Behind on his mortgage payments and like that. I know Mr. Boyd worried about him, and I think he actually gave him small sums of money sometimes, just so the old captain wouldn’t go hungry. But he was independent… you know how stubborn old people get? What was it you wanted to ask me about him?”

Shayne said, “Just what you’ve told me. Thanks,” and lifted his hat to her and went out.

Downstairs there was a telephone booth in the lobby, and he dialled Timothy Rourke’s home number.

After the fifth ring, the reporter’s sleepy voice came over the wire and Shayne told him briskly, “Things are getting ready to pop, Tim. If you want one hell of a story, get on Will Gentry’s tail and don’t get off it.”

“What’s that? Mike? What the hell time of night is it?”

“Time you were on your horse and riding. Get down to Will Gentry’s office, Tim, and stick to him like a leech. Don’t ask him any questions and don’t, for God’s sake, let him know that I tipped you off. Just stay close to him this morning, and I promise you fireworks.”

Shayne hung up and went out onto the sidewalk. It lacked eighteen minutes of ten o’clock. Just time enough for a leisurely drive out to the Little Revue and a confrontation with the two hoods who had treated him so cavalierly the night before.