A Redhead for Mike Shayne

3

Michael Shayne awoke at eight o’clock the next morning. He felt wonderfully relaxed and rested, and hungry as a bitch wolf suckling sixteen pups. The morning sun slanted into his bedroom with vivid intensity, yet there was also a caressingly cool breeze coming through the open window as a reminder of last night’s storm.

He lit a cigarette from the bedside table, got into a robe and slippers and went out into the kitchen where he ran hot water into a pot for the dripolator, measured six heaping tablespoons of coffee into the top, and then put an iron frying pan on another burner and arranged five strips of bacon in it.

By the time the water had come to a boil and dripped down through the powdered coffee, the bacon was crisp and toast was browned and buttered, and five eggs were lightly scrambled in the hot bacon grease.

He poured his first mug of strong black coffee and ate every scrap of the food unhurriedly and appreciatively there in the small kitchen, washing it down with the last of the coffee, then lit a cigarette and poured himself another mug, carried it into the living room and set it on the center table where he laced it liberally with cognac from the open bottle he’d left standing the night before.

His flashlight and.38 and the queer-looking pistol still lay on the table before him, and he studied the three objects through half-closed eyes while he took a tentative sip of coffee-royal.

That damned gun! He had dreamed about it in the night. Mixed-up, absurd dreams which were blurred and nonsensical now in his memory. But there was still, even stronger than he had felt it the night before, that nagging sense of familiarity as he looked at the weapon. Somewhere… somehow… he had seen just such a gun before. It hadn’t seemed important at the time, he thought. Just a passing glimpse which had not impressed itself on his conscious mind, but it was back there in his subconscious, eluding him, twitting him as he searched for it.

He blinked his eyes and firmly turned his gaze away, concentrated on the enjoyment of his cigarette and the pungent taste of his favorite eye-opener, switching his thoughts to the day that lay before him and things that he must do.

First: Miami Beach Headquarters to deliver the gun and make out a formal report on last night’s affair. There would be acrimonious questions to answer from Peter Painter, dapper Chief of Detectives on the Beach, who considered it an encroachment on his own private hunting preserve if a private detective was called in on a case from the mainland.

His telephone rang while he was mentally preparing answers to Painter’s acid questions.

Timothy Rourke’s voice came over the wire. “Mike. They tell me you had a little target practice over at the beach last night. What’s the story?”

“Just a punk trying to knock off another liquor warehouse.”

“One less punk, eh?” The reporter’s voice was cheerfully callous. “You gave him first shot, huh?”

Shayne said, “Yeh. Six of them to be exact.” Then he paused suddenly, holding the instrument away from his ear and turning his head to look at the pistol on the table. Things clicked into place in his mind.

He said quickly, “Maybe there is a special angle for a story, Tim. You had coffee?”

“Yeh,” said Rourke disgustedly, “my own lousy bachelor’s brew, and not even a wee drap around this dump to taste it up a bit.”

“You’re still at home?”

“Sure. Where else at this time of night?”

“I,” said Shayne happily, “have a fresh pot of my own brew on the stove with a bottle of cognac in readiness. Want to drop by?”

“Why else do you think I wasted a phone call? Keep it hot and the cork in the bottle for ten minutes.”

“Don’t hang up, Tim. You got copies of the last few papers around?”

“I guess.”

“Take a look about three days back. Maybe four. It was an inside story, Tim. Page two or three. Holdup man on the Beach that got blasted by a storekeeper. There was a picture taken at police headquarters of the arsenal he had on him. Remember that? A switchblade, gun and sap lying on a table with Painter pointing down at them.”

“Last Monday, I think it was.”

“Bring it along, Tim. It’s worth a double shot of French grapejuice in your coffee.”

Rourke said briskly, “I’m on my way,” and hung up.

Shayne drank off the rest of his coffee without lingering over it, then shaved and showered quickly and was emerging from the bedroom fastening the top button of a sport shirt at his throat when Rourke’s knock sounded on his door.

He opened it for the lean reporter who carried a folded newspaper in his hand and wore a look of hopeful anticipation on his gaunt face that was almost emaciated in its thinness.

He stopped inside the door to sniff the air happily, and the tip of his sharp nose quivered as he looked at the bottle on the table.

Shayne took the paper from him and said, “Pour yourself a mug and refill mine, Tim. It’s on the stove keeping hot.”

While Rourke hurried into the kitchen, Shayne walked slowly back to the center table, unfolding the paper to the news story and picture which had come back clearly to his mind as he talked to Rourke on the phone.

He hadn’t been mistaken. It was unmistakably a picture of the same gun that he had brought home last night. He spread it out and was leaning over it reading the story beneath the picture when Rourke returned from the kitchen with two steaming mugs of coffee with plenty of room below the brim for a healthy slug to be added. He set them down and picked up the bottle, hesitated with it in mid-air as his gaze was caught by the objects on the table in front of him. He glanced quickly at the newspaper picture and back at the pistol, then poured cognac in both mugs and said conversationally, “I see what you mean, Mike. You think Painter’s renting out firearms to hoods on the Beach?”

Shayne looked up from the story he was reading with a grin. “Not exactly. Though I wouldn’t put it past him if he’d known I was planted in that warehouse last night. But he didn’t, so we’ll have to skip that intriguing possibility. Ever see a gat even remotely like that one before?”

Rourke shook his head. “I’m no expert. About all I know about a gun is which end shoots. Foreign, isn’t it? Something like a Luger?”

“Something. Not much.” Shayne looked back at the paper. “This other man appears to have been a loner. New in town and no known record. He died before he could do any talking.”

“Is that bad?” Rourke pulled another chair closer to the table and sat down comfortably, his deep-set eyes bright and probing.

Shayne shrugged and said, “I don’t know. My boy died the same way last night. I hoped maybe we could tie them together somehow. That gun worries me, Tim. It’s a real son-of-a-bitch on wheels. There never was such shooting in this world before.” He dropped into his own chair and took a sip of coffee. “I was sitting in the dark waiting and he flung his light on me, Tim. Then there was one goddamned b-r-r-r-r-r… like that. Only loud enough to split your eardrums. I got off one lucky shot and that ended it, thank God. But when it was over, Tim, believe this or not, there was a row of six holes in the wall above my head. Evenly-spaced and every one the size of my thumb. Look at that muzzle. Six of them… all in the space of one b-r-r-r-r-r.” Shayne shook his red head slowly, still refusing to quite believe what his memory told him was true.

The reporter’s ignorance of hand-guns left him singularly unimpressed by his friend’s recital. He shrugged his thin shoulders. “One bullet from your gun was more than a match for his six. What’s eating on you?”

Shayne continued slowly shaking his head. “I don’t know… really. It’s just… There was something goddamned eerie about my experience last night. If you’d been there… if you’d heard what I heard…” He paused and ran knobby fingers through his coarse red hair and then grinned ruefully. “I sort of got the jitters over it,” he confessed. “I kept looking at this gun and trying to remember where I’d seen one like it before. Then I remembered this picture in the paper…” He broke off and took a long drink of coffee-royal.

“One thing you don’t have to be a gun-expert to notice, Tim. That gun on the table is spanking new. Like it just came from the factory. I don’t know whether that means anything, but… what about this twin in the picture? Did you happen to get a look at it? I wonder if it’s a virgin also.”

Rourke said, “I don’t know. I wasn’t on that story myself. I’ll check if you want.”

“No need,” Shayne told him decisively. “I’ve got a date with Peter Painter this morning, and I’ll have to turn this in to him. Merest oversight that I didn’t do so last night.”

“What about last night, Mike?” Rourke got out a wad of copy paper and a pencil. “The way I got it, you had a tipoff that warehouse was scheduled to be knocked off during the storm and you staked the place out. By yourself, huh? You want me to mention this particular gun in my story?”

“No,” Shayne told him vehemently. “Stay off that angle right now. I want to do some more checking. Just put it down that I got in a lucky shot last night. How’s your cup?”

Rourke lifted his mug to his lips and drained it. “Empty,” he sighed, setting it down in front of him. “Lousy service you got here, Mike.”

Shayne said, “I’ll speak to the management. In the meantime… how about a refill?”

“I’d love one, but I emptied the pot last time.” The reporter’s thin hand snaked out and closed around the cognac bottle. “I can still stand this stuff straight.” He tipped it over his empty mug and splashed in a couple of ounces, then held the bottle out toward his old friend. “Have one on the house?”

Shayne shook his head with a grin. “I’ve still got to beard Petey Painter in his lair and justify last night’s killing.”

He got out a cigarette and looked at his watch. “Joe Hogan is going to be on a spot if I don’t turn up pronto at Beach Headquarters to plead justifiable homicide.”

Timothy Rourke nodded, sipping his straight cognac from the warm mug with gusto. “Keep me informed, huh?”

Shayne nodded, getting up. He casually folded the newspaper Rourke had brought him, and then shrugged into a sport jacket. The reporter leaned back in his chair and watched interestedly while Shayne opened a center drawer of the desk and put flashlight and his own.38 inside, then picked up the other gun and dropped it into a side pocket. The folded newspaper went into the opposite pocket, and Rourke drained his mug and set it down regretfully.

He got to his feet and said, “Lunch?”

Shayne said, “Probably. At Tony’s. If I don’t show up, give Lucy a ring and she’ll know where I am.”

He turned to the door to go out and Timothy Rourke followed him.