A Redhead for Mike Shayne

2

Michael Shayne grew restive as he sipped the hot coffee and waited. He might be in for a long wait, he realized, before the police got around to answering his call on a night like this. There were innumerable small emergencies to be coped with during a storm like this one. Branches of trees blocking city streets, cars skidding on rain-slicked pavements or stalled at intersections under the pounding of wind and rain, flooded basements and terrified housewives phoning in to report suspected prowlers in their yards.

And the Miami Beach police force would not consider his call a real emergency. After all, he had reported the man dead and promised to wait for them to come and pick up the body.

The other man’s flashlight lay on the floor outside where it had fallen, still burning brightly, and Shayne had lain his own on the desk beside him, so the interior of the office was now quite well illuminated. Outside, the storm continued to rage without seeming abatement, while inside the heat seemed heavy and oppressive due to the sudden cessation of forced cool air. Sweat formed on Shayne’s forehead and he wiped it away angrily. He knew the apparent rise in temperature must be purely psychological. It probably hadn’t risen more than a full degree since the airconditioning went off, but it seemed at least ten degrees hotter.

He shoved the mug of hot coffee away from him while it was still half full, and suddenly recalled that he had promised to telephone the warehouse manager the moment there was anything to report.

There was a slip of paper beside the telephone with his name and home number written on it. Shayne turned his flashlight slightly to better illuminate the instrument and paper, bent forward and dialled the number written there.

A woman’s voice answered the third ring. “Hello.”

“Is Mr. Ericsson there?”

“Just a moment.” And then he heard her voice calling faintly, “John. It’s for you.”

The manager’s voice came over the wire twenty seconds later, “Yes? Ericsson speaking.”

“Mike Shayne, Mr. Ericsson. Maybe you’d better come down to the warehouse.”

“What? Has something happened, Shayne? Did they…?”

“The power went off ten minutes ago,” Shayne told him succinctly, “and a man came in through one of the office windows. I had to kill him. I’m waiting for the police now.”

“Gracious! That’s terrible. If you could have captured him alive…”

Shayne interrupted wearily, “I couldn’t. He was too quick on the trigger for that. Might be a good idea if you were here when the police come to verify the fact that I was hired to do the job.”

“Of course, I… as soon as I can make it in all this wind. I’ll come to the side door, Shayne. The office entrance. I’ll… ah… knock twice and then once to let you know it is I. Please wait for me.”

Shayne said drily, “I have no intention of going anywhere,” and hung up. He stood up, then, his mind active and interested now that he knew Ericsson was on his way. He picked up his flashlight and swung the beam across the desk to the opposite wall and focussed it on a series of six distinct round holes in the woodwork spaced not more than a quarter of an inch apart and almost exactly horizontal.

They were no more than four or five feet above the floor, directly in line with the chair in which he had been sitting and the point from which the man had fired through the open door.

Shayne winced as he leaned forward to examine them more closely, knowing the bullets could not have passed many inches above his head. The round holes looked awfully big to have been made by slugs fired from a handgun, and he recalled the impression of an almost continuous blast of explosions which had blurred together into what was practically a single loud and murderous roar just before he pressed the trigger of his own gun.

He shook his head angrily at the recollection. His memory and his imagination must be playing tricks on him. There was no automatic weapon on the market capable of throwing lead that fast.

Still frowning, he reached in his pocket and took out the weapon to study it again, more closely. It was some sort of foreign make, he guessed, though he couldn’t identify it by sight. There was a six-inch barrel mounted solidly on an oval-shaped metal frame which extended all the way from trigger-guard to muzzle. It was hammerless. The butt was solid metal and rectangular, slanting backward from the frame at an odd angle of ten or fifteen degrees which gave the weapon an ungainly appearance, but which contributed a wonderful feeling of balance as he hefted it curiously, and which, in turn, probably gave the illusion of weightlessness which he had noticed when he first picked it up from the floor.

He looked from the gun again to the row of even-spaced holes in the wall, and knew that whatever it was it was certainly the most dangerous and deadly hand-weapon ever devised by man. And he knew also that death had never brushed him more closely than it had tonight.

The airconditioner started to hum as he stood there. It was a welcome sound, meaning that power had now been restored to the building. He dropped the gun back into his side pocket and moved around the desk to switch on the office lights. Then he stepped outside and pressed another switch that lighted the truck entrance and loading platform, and stood there a moment looking somberly at the body of the man he had killed.

He felt no remorse or compunction, only an irrational sense of irritation at the dead man for having forced the issue as he had. Put a gun into the hands of a punk like that, and he felt invincible. Particularly a gun such as the one he had brought on this job tonight.

Shayne shrugged his broad shoulders and turned away, went to the corridor and turned on more lights, then down to the office which had been entered and saw broken glass on the floor and two panes knocked out. Luckily, the wind was from the other direction and no rain was blowing into the office. He went out and down the hall to the side door which Ericsson had mentioned, unlocked it and turned the knob, bracing himself against the force of the wind.

It wasn’t blowing nearly as hard as he expected, and he let the door slam back against the wall and stood in the doorway, looking out into the night appreciatively. The rain had also lessened perceptibly and the heavily overcast sky had lightened since he had entered the warehouse. Directly in front of him a row of palm trees was outlined against the sky, fronds slanting eastward with the prevailing wind, but with their trunks not bending before the gale and threatening to uproot as they would be if the wind was more than fifty or sixty miles an hour.

The night air, too, was fresh and crisp and cool, in direct contrast to the oppressive humidity which had marked the late afternoon and evening hours, and Shayne breathed it deeply and gratefully into his lungs knowing the satisfaction that only a long-time resident of Miami can know when another tropical storm has passed by with no more actual damage than had been caused by Fatima.

The lights of an automobile turned into the driveway as he stood there, and a sedan drew up in front of him and a raincoated man slid out of the front seat and hurried toward him.

It was John Ericsson, pudgy-faced and unsmiling, panting heavily as he ducked inside the corridor to stand beside Shayne, exclaiming contritely, “I suppose I should have congratulated you on the telephone, Shayne, instead of seeming to complain. But I was taken aback. Death seems so… final and unnecessary.”

“I agree to both those terms,” Shayne told him unsmiling. “But the guy gave me very little choice. He started shooting before we could discuss the situation.”

“I understand, of course.” Ericsson shuddered and pressed his lips together firmly. “Is he one of our men, do you suppose?”

“I have no way of knowing. Why not come back and take a look at him before the cops get here?”

Shayne turned away, leaving the door open to guide the police inside when they arrived, and strode down the corridor on long legs with Ericsson pattering along beside him and saying distractedly, “I was saying to my wife this evening, while we were sitting in our living room all safe and snug from the storm raging outside waiting to receive a report from you, I was saying to her: ‘Why do men persist in breaking the law in times of comparative economic ease such as our country is now enjoying? There are jobs for all. Well-paid jobs. I have difficulty keeping a full staff even in a small operation such as this. If this man is one of our own employees, I shall feel responsible somehow. I shall feel I have failed to understand…”

Striding ahead of him, Shayne rounded the corner into the truck entrance and drew aside with a wave of his hand. “There he is. Take a look and see if you identify him.”

Ericsson went forward slowly and looked down at the dead man’s waxlike features. He sighed deeply and turned back, shaking his head. “I’m glad to say he isn’t one of our men. However, from your viewpoint I suppose that makes it more difficult, doesn’t it? We still have to assume he had inside help and information. Dear me, I simply don’t see…”

“Not necessarily,” Shayne told him. “A well organized gang such as these liquor thieves seem to be would have means of getting information… even duplicate keys. One of your men may have been indiscreet… talked out of turn to the wrong man…”

He broke off as the dying wail of a police siren came to them from outside over the sound of the storm.

“That’ll be the police now. Remember that even I don’t know where you got the tip that this place might be knocked off tonight. Tell them if you like, or merely tell them that you had a hunch because of the coming storm and the other two warehouses being robbed recently under similar circumstances.”

“Yes… I…”

But Shayne was already striding away from him down the corridor toward the open side door which was now lighted by a police spotlight from outside.

Two burly, raincoated patrolmen stomped inside, and Shayne was glad to recognize the florid, good-natured face of Jim Hogan as one of the pair. That made everything easier and a lot less official because Hogan had known Shayne for many years and was perfectly willing to accept the redhead’s explanation for the manner in which the homicide had occurred without officiously taking him in to headquarters as another cop might have been inclined to do.

Besides it was still a rough night and the pair in the radio car already had a half dozen calls on their agenda, and it was no time for formalities that could be dispensed with.

Shayne greeted Hogan with a handshake, was properly introduced to his younger partner who knew the redhead by reputation, and the pair went back to view the body while Shayne swiftly explained the circumstances that had brought him to the warehouse that night.

“And here’s Mr. Ericsson, the manager, who will verify what I’ve told you, Jim,” Shayne ended. “There’s the guy on the floor who broke in a window and started shooting at me while I was sitting inside this office here. He put a row of bulletholes in the wall behind the desk there, if you need any proof that I shot him in self-defense.”

Officer James Hogan looked at the dead man and at the bulletholes and at the chair in which Shayne had been sitting, and muttered feelingly, “Holy Mother of God, Mike, ’tis lucky your red hair was smoothed down slick tonight or I swear you’d of got a singe for free.”

At that point an ambulance drew up outside and two whitecoated men came trotting in with a stretcher and Hogan officially ordered the removal of the body to the morgue without waiting for an authorization from the medical examiner. He conferred briefly with John Ericsson, and made a note of the testimony of both Shayne and Ericsson, and dismissed them both with a wave of his hand.

“Come around to Headquarters tomorrow morning, Mike,” he directed the redhead gruffly. “You’ll have to sign a formal report as you know, and no doubt Petey Painter will want to know why in blazes you didn’t sit still in yon chair and get your head blown off instead of using your own gun. But you know how Petey is.”

Shayne said feelingly, “I know exactly how Petey is, Jim.” He clapped Hogan on the shoulder and said, “You’ve got things to do and I’ve got some sleep to catch up on.”

“Right you are. Early in the mornin’ at Headquarters, Mike. I’ve got your promise on that?”

“That you have, Jim.” Shayne went out with a wave of his big hand, happy to escape before some higher brass arrived on the scene and decreed that official protocol demanded that formal statement be made that night and that, at the very least, he should be locked up and held on an open charge until his claim of self-defense was fully substantiated.

He went around the corner to where he had parked his car earlier in the evening, got in and drove away swiftly, happy that the rain had ceased falling and there were only occasional gusts of strong wind to contend with.

The sky was clear and the stars were out brilliantly as he drove across the Causeway to the mainland. Whitecaps still rippled on the surface of Biscayne Bay, but the tropical night was unexpectedly serene in the aftermath of the storm, and Michael Shayne also felt unexpectedly serene after having taken the life of a fellow human being.

For, despite his profession as a private detective, the redhead had actually been responsible for the deaths of very few men during his long career. Normally, he never carried a gun on a case. Tonight had been an exception, of course, fully justified by the way things had turned out.

He resolutely put the affair out of his mind as he reached the end of the Causeway and turned down Biscayne Avenue toward his hotel on the north bank of the Miami River. What he needed now was a long drink of cognac and a few hours sleep. Tomorrow, he confidently expected to learn that the man who had died from his bullet tonight had a long record of violence and deserved no more pity than a savage beast of the jungle turned man-killer. Any man, Shayne told himself grimly, who sets out on a burglary job equipped with a hand-gun capable of doing the job that gun had done on the office wall tonight, is asking for whatever comes to him.

That gun! As he turned left off the Boulevard onto S.E. 3rd Street, Shayne was suddenly conscious of the weight of it in his side pocket. He hadn’t turned it over to the Miami Beach policeman. In fact, Jim Hogan hadn’t even asked to see the weapon which Shayne claimed had fired the shots into the wall of the office over his head. Shayne slowed his car as he approached 2nd Avenue, considering the matter carefully.

Hogan had been negligent in that respect. True, it had all been very hurried and very informal and he had been in a hurry to get on to other pressing calls, and his negligence would probably be overlooked under the circumstances, but Shayne hated to consider the possibility of Hogan being disciplined for his negligence.

He could, and he probably should, turn his car around and drive back to Miami Beach Police Headquarters, and turn the gun in tonight.

But that would entail all sorts of official explanations and the signing of detailed statements, and in the long run it might only serve to draw attention to the fact that Hogan had let him walk away with the gun in his possession without even asking to see it.

It might be better, Shayne decided gratefully, to forget the whole matter for tonight. He’d go to Beach Headquarters promptly the next morning, deliver the gun and take full blame by admitting that he had walked off with it in his pocket before either he or Hogan had realized what he was doing.

He turned the corner on 2nd Avenue toward the river and pulled into the curb in front of the side entrance to his hotel. He parked there and went in and climbed one flight of stairs, avoiding the lobby and the elevator.

In his apartment near the end of the hall, he turned on the overhead light and started to shrug out of his jacket, was suddenly conscious of the unaccustomed weights in both pockets and went to the table in the center of the room to empty them.

First, the flashlight from his left pocket, and then the large-caliber pistol from the right. Then his own.38 from his waistband where he always carried it on the rare occasions when he packed a gun because he had never owned a shoulder holster in his life.

He laid the three objects on the table in front of him and his gaze brooded down at them for a long moment, then he turned away into the kitchen where he ran hot water over a tray of ice-cubes and broke three of them loose, dropped them into a tall glass which he filled with water from the tap.

On his way back into the living room, he stopped by a wall cabinet and picked up a four-ounce wine glass and a half-filled bottle of cognac. He carried them to the center table, filled the glass with the amber fluid and settled himself in a deep armchair.

He lit a cigarette, took an appreciative sip of the mellow liquor and washed it about in his mouth to savor the taste after a long evening of only warehouse coffee to drink, then chased it down with a swallow of ice water.

He turned his gaze to the flashlight and the two guns on the table beside him, and considered them somberly. The familiar.38 had killed a man tonight. The other gun, unfamiliar and curiously designed, had tried to kill him. He stretched out one hand and turned it slowly so he was looking directly into the muzzle opening.

It seemed huge to him. As big as a.45? Bigger, he thought. But a.45 was the largest caliber pistol he knew. Of course, he wasn’t an authority on the calibers of foreign pistols.

He picked it up and turned it over and over in his hands, studying it curiously. The metal was dark, with no hint of chrome or of glisten to it. It looked brand-new, pristine, as though it had never been handled by human hands before.

It was a completely new design to him. Looking at it casually, he was unable to determine how it was supposed to work, where the cartridges were stored or how they were fired. He discovered three small push-buttons set in the butt of it where a man’s right thumb would normally rest, and he pressed each one of them, getting a faint click each time but no other result.

He shook his head disapprovingly and put it down and picked up the wine-glass to have another drink.

When he set the glass down he sat frowning at it, at the faint but very distinct fingerprints left on the clean outside surface of the glass. He rubbed the tips of his thumb and the first three fingers of his right hand together thoughtfully, and felt what appeared to be a thin film of oil on the skin.

He got out his handkerchief and wiped his fingertips carefully and discovered faint greasy smudges on the clean linen.

He looked from the stained handkerchief to the pistol on the table, and the faint glimmerings of a memory nagged at him. There was something about that gun. Something he should remember. He had seen it before somewhere. Or its counterpart. It should mean something to him.

But he didn’t know what.

He was tired. He had killed a man tonight.

He needed sleep.

He tossed off the rest of the cognac and drank half a glass of ice water, and got up decisively.

He turned out the living room lights and went into the bedroom, unbuttoning his shirt as he went.

Ten minutes later he was sound asleep.