A Redhead for Mike Shayne

16

With the two men in the back seat of his car, Shayne got onto the Palmetto Speedway and sped south to its intersection with Highway Number One, and made the 18-mile run to Homestead at high speed. At Florida City, Number One became a two-lane road leading south to Key Largo and eventually to Key West.

He drove through Florida City at exactly 10:30, and made the next seventeen miles in seventeen minutes, leaving the rich and heavily populated country behind him and entering a desolate area of scrub pine and palmetto as the road drew close to the coastline.

At that point he found an old paved road leading off to the left, and he swung onto it at reduced speed, checking his speedometer. It was a narrow, twisting roadway through hummocky wasteland with blazing sunlight overhead, no habitations on either side, and no other cars travelling in either direction.

At the end of six miles of bumpy road, Shayne said over his shoulder in a conversational tone, “You two had better get down on the floor now and have your gats ready. I turn off on a dirt road in about half a mile. Keep your heads damn well down because I promised to come alone and unarmed. It will be somewhere along that dirt road. I expect two of them, and they won’t be amateurs. Keep out of sight until I stop, and I’ll try to get them both around to my side of the car, and I’ll jerk the rear door open. That should give you a jump, but for God’s sake start shooting fast when the door opens. They’re going to be tough cookies, and loaded for bear. Got that clear?”

“Sure. We’ll take ’em,” Bull grunted happily, hunching himself down on the floor of the car directly against the left door.

Dixie got down beside him, and Shayne slowed still more, watching his speedometer and for a dirt road on the right. He saw it, and there was a faded wooden sign, LODGE, nailed to a pine tree at the turn-off.

He glanced swiftly over his shoulder as he turned to see that the hoods were properly hunkered down with drawn guns, and then proceeded along the rutted road between palmetto hummocks at ten miles an hour.

They were very close to the coastline and the smell of salt water was strong in the air. In less than a mile there was a sharp turn around a hummock over a small rise, and the weathered rock walls of a sprawling fishing lodge showed through a thin growth of pines in front of him and not more than a hundred yards away.

Two men stepped into the middle of the road fifty feet in front of him. He braked gently and muttered over his shoulder, “Two of them like I guessed. Wait till I open the door.”

He came to an easy stop with his bumper almost touching the pair who blocked his way. He put his head out the window and asked, “This Enders’ place?” And then stepped out quickly, holding his hands in the open and well away from his body.

One of the men was very tall and thin, with cadaverous, darkly tanned features and very white teeth which showed in a saturnine smile as he surveyed the detective. He wore a pongee suit and had his arms folded across his thin chest with his right inside the lapel where there was a formidable bulge.

Shayne knew that would be Slim Yancy.

His companion was a head shorter than Slim, bald-headed and perspiring. He was coatless and wore a wide leather belt with an open holster on his right hip… a big and curiously designed holster which would just about fit a Lenski twelve-oh-seven. He had his hand on the butt of the weapon and he stood flat-footed on the side of the road facing Shayne.

Shayne slammed the front door shut and surveyed them coolly. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Shayne.”

Pug Slezar said, “Yeah. We know. This here’s Slim.”

Shayne said, “I thought this was a social call. Where’s Roy Enders?”

“He sent us out to see if you were clean before you came in.” Slim’s lips barely moved as he uttered the words. He sauntered happily around the front of the car, bringing his hand out from under his lapel with a big Lenski gripped in it. His deepset eyes were cold, and glittered like polished agate. His head was thrust forward on a long, thin neck.

Shayne took two backward steps, holding his arms well away from his body, his right hand resting casually on the handle of the rear door as though to steady himself. “I’m clean,” he protested. “I came out to talk business. This is a hell of a way to greet a guy.”

Pug stepped forward in front of Slim, hand still on his holstered gun. He said calmly, over his shoulder, “Why don’t we let him have it right here?”

Slim said, “We do,” and moved up beside his shorter companion.

Shayne jerked the car door wide open and dived for the ground at the rear of the car at the same instant. He hit it rolling, and kept on rolling while the racket of gunfire blasted the silence behind him.

You couldn’t count the shots, but Dixie and Bull got theirs off first before the automatic Lenskis blasted like submachine guns.

Shayne lay flat on his belly with his head pillowed on his arms until the last racketing echo died away. Then he rolled over and sat up and saw Slim lying flat on his back with the hole made by a.45 slug in the middle of his face. Pug was sitting on the ground near him with a look of dazed bewilderment on his broad face and with the fingers of both hands laced tightly together in front of his belly. Blood came out between his fingers and he looked down at it disbelievingly. Then he toppled over on his side, moaning softly.

There was no sound from inside the car.

Shayne got to his feet stiffly. He dimly heard shouts, and looked around to see men running through the pine thicket toward them. He walked around to the right-hand door and opened it and peered inside.

Both men were cramped down on the floor in unnatural positions, and both were quite dead. Somehow, one or both of Enders’ men had managed to get off blasts from their Lenskis before they went down, and the 50-caliber bullets had created terrible havoc inside the car. The top half of Dixie’s head had literally been lifted off, and Bull’s chest was shredded with the heavy slugs.

Shayne closed the door hastily and went around the back of the car to meet Will Gentry who came puffing up followed by half a dozen men dressed like farmers, some of whom Shayne recognized as plain-clothes detectives from Miami. Directly behind Gentry was a tall, black-mustached man wearing a big revolver and a Sheriff’s star, and tumbling along behind him was Timothy Rourke.

Gentry glanced at the two men on the ground and peered inside the back of the car, then turned angrily on the redhead and demanded, “What in hell are you pulling off here, Mike?”

“I?” Shayne arched ragged red eyebrows at the unhappy chief of police. “Am I to blame if some damned hoods choose this place to settle one of their feuds?” He waved toward the rear of his car. “Couple of hitch-hikers I picked up along the way. How the hell was I to know they’d start shooting the minute I stopped the car. Why don’t you ask them?”

“They’re both dead,” Gentry said angrily. “Hitchhikers hell! You set this up, Mike…”

“This one’s still alive,” Rourke called out cheerfully, kneeling beside Pug. “But I don’t think he will be long.”

Gentry and Shayne went to him. Blood was spreading out behind Pug’s hands still gripped in front of his belly, but his eyelids were flickering.

Gentry bent over him and demanded, “Where’s Enders?”

“Inside. Cellar.” Pug’s reply was faint and strained.

Gentry straightened up and directed two of his men. “Smith and Parks. Stay here and get a statement from this dying man. The rest of you fan out fast and surround the lodge. The real criminal is still inside, Sheriff. I don’t know how many men he may have, but if they’re armed with the same kind of weapons these two were shooting, we don’t want to take any chances.”

Shayne knelt down beside Pug as Gentry and the sheriff moved away to direct the placing of their men around the lodge. He leaned close to the dying man and demanded, “Where’s the girl, Pug? The girl! Where is she?”

“Inside,” muttered Pug without opening his eyes.

Rourke grabbed his arm as he got up and started toward the lodge, and exploded happily, “Sweet God, Mike. When you promise action, you sure deliver. But for God’s sake, tell me…”

Shayne pulled away from him and stalked up the road toward the fishing lodge. Rourke hurried after him, expostulating, “Hold it a minute, Mike. Didn’t you hear the man? Roy Enders is still inside. Let Gentry and the sheriff smoke him out.”

Shayne paid no attention to the reporter. Unarmed, his face set in hard lines, he strode on toward the lodge.

Gentry was spacing his men around to cover all exits, and he saw Shayne and called out gruffly, “No need for anybody else to get hurt, Mike. Stay back and we’ll use tear gas.”

Shayne went steadily forward in the hot sunlight and the silence. He mounted the wide stone steps to the front door, his heels pounding loudly on the flagstones, pushed a sagging screen door open and went in to a wide hallway. There was a stale odor inside the house, and it was cool and very still. A wide arched opening led into a huge living-room on the right with a row of plateglass windows looking out over the ocean.

Molly Morgan was bound rigidly upright in a heavy chair fashioned from mangrove roots across the room beside the ten-foot fireplace. Her legs and arms were fastened to the chair with copper wire, and her mouth was sealed with adhesive tape. Her eyes rolled toward the detective as he stood in the arched doorway.

Against the wall on his right Shayne saw a jumble of water-soaked equipment which he recognized as skin-diving appurtenances… flippers and masks and oxygen tanks. Ranged alongside were several rusted metal packing cases which appeared to be sealed tightly. Three of them were long and slender, about three feet in length by one foot in width and depth; two others were in the shape of two-foot cubes, and one of these had been ripped open and stood with the metal top turned back, exposing the contents to view.

Shayne grinned across the big room at Molly Morgan and waved to her and said, “Hi,” and then he stepped over and looked down at the metal container that had been opened.

There were orderly rows of Lenski pistols inside, each one surrounded by a thick layer of grease in which it had been packed at the factory.

He strode on across to Molly who was bound in the chair, and dropped down beside her and started untwisting the wires holding her wrists and ankles, and he talked to her quietly as he worked.

“It’s okay now, Molly. I’m going to get your arms and legs loose first. There’ll be time enough to talk later. Right now, we’ve got to get your circulation back… those bastards really did a job on you.”

He twisted off the last piece of wire and then stood up and leaned over her. He put his left hand hard against her forehead and forced her head back against the back of the chair, looked deep into her eyes and worked his fingernails underneath the edge of the wide strip of tape over her mouth.

“I’m going to pull it off,” he warned her quietly. “It’ll hurt like hell, but…” As he spoke, he jerked.

The adhesive tape came away from her mouth and she slumped forward against him, moaning softly. He got his arm around her and lifted her from the chair, holding her yielding body tightly against him. Her legs wouldn’t support her as she tried to stand, and he held her upright, rubbing her wrists briskly and telling her, “You’ve just got to get your circulation back. Try moving your legs. Make them move. You’ll be fine. It’s all over now.”

“It’s been so terrible,” she was sobbing with her face pressed tightly against his shoulder. “I sat here and heard them planning to kill you, Mike. And then I heard the shooting outside…”

Shayne continued to move her slowly across the room with one arm tightly about her waist, and she mechanically started to put her weight tentatively first on one foot and then the other and her fingers tightened convulsively and then loosened on his arms, and suddenly Chief Gentry’s voice boomed at them from the archway:

“What the devil is going on in here, Mike?”

Shayne turned his head and grinned over his shoulder at the police chief. “I’m giving a lady a dancing lesson, Will.”

The tall figure of the sheriff loomed in the opening behind Gentry, and Shayne continued pleasantly, “Why don’t you two go down in the cellar and look for Enders? That’s where Pug said he was.”

Will Gentry scowled and crossed the room purposefully. “What kind of run-around are you trying to give me, Mike?”

Shayne held Molly Morgan away from him gently, and smiled down into her face. “All right, now?” he asked her. “I think you can make it on your own.”

She nodded, biting her underlip and moving back from him under her own power. “I’m all right,” she murmured, and she held tightly to one of his hands while she manoeuvered herself around to a rustic bench against the wall where she sank down with a sigh of relief.

“This is Molly Morgan,” Shayne said, stepping back from her and turning to Gentry. “You remember? You were asking me about her last night.”

“I remember all right,” Gentry was beginning to breathe heavily. “What kind of run-around is this, Mike?”

Shayne said innocently, “It was supposed to be a private party, but you invited yourself.”

“Damned lucky for you,” fumed Gentry. “Did you think you could handle this gang by yourself?”

Shayne grinned at him disarmingly. “I’ve done all right thus far. I admit you caught me unawares, Will. Next time you decide I’m holding out on you and decide to monitor the switchboard in my hotel, don’t send a guy with d-i-c-k written all over him.”

Will Gentry swallowed hard. “I wondered who sent Tim Rourke to me with a tip there’d be fireworks out here this morning. All right. You knew I’d cover you. So, why did you bring along a couple of guns to do your shooting for you?”

“Dixie and Bull?” Shayne shrugged. “They were headed for the electric chair anyhow, for the murder of a Lithuanian pawnbroker last night. And they owed me something too,” he added harshly, his fingertips going up to touch the strips of adhesive on his face. He paused and glanced aside at the gun-cases and skin-diving equipment on the floor. “How much of this have you got figured, Will?” he asked quietly.

“Most of it, I think. From six years back, I figured that Cap Ruffer was running guns to Roy Enders, here, which he was sending on to Cuba by helicopters. Did you know those two dead men down the road were his pilots?”

Shayne nodded. His gray eyes were very alert. They shifted from Gentry to two of his men who came in excitedly, and he listened while they reported, “Nobody in the cellar, Chief. Not a living soul in the house, and we’ve had it covered ever since the shooting started.”

“So?” Gentry swung angrily on Shayne. “Roy Enders has got away. He’s the important one. Damn it, Mike. If you’d kept out of this…”

Shayne said, “I don’t think Roy Enders has got very far. Send your boys back down into the cellar to look for some freshly turned dirt, and have them try digging there.”

“What makes you think…?”

“That Enders is dead?” said Shayne impatiently. “Hell, he has to be, Will. Nothing else makes sense. He’s been dead for at least a week.”

“You talked to him on the telephone this morning,” snapped Gentry.

Shayne shook his head. “Nuh-uh. Your man on the switchboard recorded the conversation correctly, but that wasn’t Enders talking.”

“Who was it then?”

“Your pal, John Mason Boyd,” Shayne told him harshly. “It had to be him, Will. He was the only one who made sense. With Pug and Slim, he’d knocked off Enders two weeks ago when the guy finally got paroled. That’s when Captain Ruffer decided he might as well start cashing in on the cache. Then, Boyd killed him last night when he put on too much pressure.

“Wait a minute.” Shayne held up a big hand warningly when Will Gentry started to explode. “It had to be that way, Will. Just answer one question before you blow up. Think back to last night. You and Boyd stopped at the Park Plaza looking for Miss Morgan here.” He indicated her with a wave of his big hand. “She wasn’t in her room… and you came to my place looking for her… right?”

“That’s right,” growled Gentry. “Though I don’t see…”

“After you were at the Park Plaza and before you came to my place… did Boyd make a telephone call?”

Gentry hesitated, rumpling his eyebrows. “As we were leaving the Park Plaza,” he admitted. “He said he wanted to call his wife and explain why he would be late.”

Shayne said, “He actually called Slim and Pug and told them to hurry over to the hotel and grab Miss Morgan when she came in. That’s the way it had to be, Will.”

Gentry turned his head as one of his men hurried into the room and reported excitedly, “There was fresh-turned earth in the basement, Chief. We dug in it and… found Roy Enders with his head caved in.”

Shayne said, “There it is, Will. Dumped into your lap. Have Boyd picked up for murdering Enders and Ruffer, and I’ll tell you exactly which lagoon you’re going to find the rest of this shipment of Russian guns still resting in.”