Blood on Biscayne Bay

Chapter Three: THE STAGE IS SET

The manager of the play-mor club straightened quickly from his crouched position. His breathing was rapid and audible, but he managed to say with some dignity, “Shayne-what’s all this fuss about?”

At the instant Barbizon spoke the doorknob rattled on the outside and the bouncer’s gruff voice dimly penetrated the steel door. “What goes, boss? Should I bust in?”

Shayne shook his red head gravely at Arnold Barbizon. “You’d better talk with me privately,” he said. His eyes darted around the room. There was one other door to the left, an ordinary door with a Yale lock. He had no way of knowing whether it would open from the outside or not.

Barbizon moved forward, the gun steady in his hand and pointed at Shayne’s belly. He lifted his voice and said, “It’s all right, Smithy. Just an old friend pulling a gag on me.”

The gambler was a slim man of medium height with an olive complexion. His full lips were red, as though delicately rouged; his eyes were startlingly pale in color. He wore a carefully tailored Palm Beach suit, a tan shirt, and a four-in-hand tie to match. His cold pale eyes regarded Shayne steadily, but the fear had gone away from them. He said, “Well, Shamus?” His lips scarcely moved.

“Put down the rod and we’ll have a talk,” Shayne snapped.

Barbizon moved his head negatively and almost imperceptibly. “I like it better this way. What’s your gripe?” His voice was low and harsh.

Shayne took a deliberate step toward him. “I’ve got a couple of friends outside waiting for me. They know I’m here with you.” He kept moving forward, circling around the desk.

Barbizon’s red lips tightened against his teeth. He hunched forward a trifle more, then slowly sank into his chair. He laid the. 45 carefully on the desk and said, “So, we’ll talk.”

Shayne stopped and eased his right hip onto a corner of the desk. He said, “I just donated forty bucks to your crooked wheel.” He took out a pack of cigarettes, shook one loose and offered it to Barbizon.

The gambler accepted it with a murmur of thanks, produced a lighter from his pocket, lit Shayne’s cigarette and then his own. He leaned back and exhaled smoke through his nostrils and said in a tone of dry amusement, “You’re supposed to be dry behind the ears.”

“I’m supposed to be,” Shayne agreed.

Barbizon sighed heavily. There was a short silence between them, smoke rolling from the nostrils of each. Then the gambler slid his hand inside his coat pocket and brought out a billfold. He extracted four bills-a twenty, a ten, and two fives-shoved them toward Shayne and asked, “That fix it?”

Shayne said, “That’s generous of you.” He picked up the bills, creased them thoughtfully, flipped one five back. “I had a couple of cheap drinks and a swell dinner on you,” he explained.

Barbizon nodded pleasantly and put the five back in the billfold. “Are we through talking?”

“We haven’t started yet. I’ll take the ten-grand marker you’re holding on Christine Hudson.”

The suave gambler’s cigarette stopped a couple of inches from his parted lips. His hand was steady. A slight widening of his strangely pale eyes was his only indication of surprise. He said, “Come again.”

“Mrs. Hudson’s IOU for ten thousand. I want it.”

“The hell you do.” His lips smiled in faint amusement as he placed the cigarette between them.

“Make it easy on yourself,” said Shayne casually. His hand darted out and caught up the. 45. It was a double-action Colt. He broke it and pressed the plunger that dropped six cartridges into his palm. He pocketed the cartridges and laid the empty gun back on the desk.

Barbizon, leaning back comfortably in his chair, did not move, but murderous rage glittered in his eyes. He said, “You’ve got a way of making yourself at home.”

“I’ll take that marker,” Shayne growled.

“Is this a pay-off?”

“It’s a brush-off,” Shayne told him easily. He held out a broad palm. “Give.”

The gambler’s hand trembled when he tried to put the cigarette to his lips again. He ground it savagely in an ash tray.

“You can’t get away with this,” he said in a low and furious voice.

“My friends who are waiting for me,” Shayne told him quietly, “are an ex-cop and a newspaper reporter. We’ll do a job on this place if you want it that way.”

Barbizon drew in a long breath and exhaled slowly. “How do you figure in it?”

“Christine Hudson is a friend of mine,” Shayne told him. “She’s in a jam and I’m getting her out of it.”

Barbizon’s eyes narrowed a trifle. “What makes you think I’ve got a thing like that here?”

“The pay-off was set for tonight. Here.”

The gambler shrugged his padded shoulders, leaned forward and opened a drawer on the right-hand side of his desk. He took a key ring from his pocket and inserted a flat key in the lock of a long steel box. The top jumped open. He reached inside and drew out a doubled sheet of heavy note paper. His only expression was complete boredom as he pushed the paper toward Shayne.

Shayne unfolded it. Engraved across the top was “Mrs. Leslie Hudson, 139 Magnolia Lane, Miami Beach, Florida.” Below, written in blue ink, in a firm and clear handwriting, was “IOU $10,000.” It was signed, “Mrs. Leslie Hudson.”

Shayne studied it for a moment, then ripped it into thin shreds and dropped them into his coat pocket. He stood up and said, “Thanks.” Turning his back on Barbizon he went to the door, unbolted it, and walked out into the empty corridor.

He returned to the gaming room and stopped just inside the door to look around.

Business had picked up since be left. Two blackjack games had started, and another crap table was going strong. At the roulette table, he saw Timothy Rourke standing beside the frizzled blonde with the expensive perfume and the dress that did not fit her. He didn’t see the stocky man who had come in with her.

The blonde was pressed close to Rourke and talking earnestly to him.

After studying the crowd carefully and not seeing Angus Browne, Shayne stalked across to the door leading into the cocktail lounge. The lounge was filled with people and with cigarette smoke and loud talk. He strolled slowly along the bar, but neither Angus Browne nor the blonde’s earlier companion were present.

In the checkroom he got his hat, went down the stone steps to the curb where the doorman was assisting a couple from a chauffeured limousine. When the big car pulled away, Shayne asked the doorman, “Any chance of getting a cab?”

“As soon as one comes in with a load, sir. There’s one turning in now.”

Shayne stepped back when the taxi pulled up. A young sailor and a very young girl got out. They were both quite drunk. They refused the doorman’s assistance, and staggered away arm in arm. The doorman nodded to Shayne, who started toward the empty cab.

“Cab! Cab!” A shrill voice called from the top of the stone steps. The blonde was running toward the taxi, her face white in the dim light, holding the long skirt of her dinner gown up to make more speed.

“I’m sorry, Miss,” the doorman said. “This gentleman has already-”

The girl rushed on, crying, “I must have this cab,” and started to climb in.

Shayne stepped up to the driver and asked, “Any reason why you shouldn’t earn a double fare?”

“Okay by me,” the driver told him with a wide grin.

Shayne put a quarter into the doorman’s hand and got in beside the girl who was huddled in the far corner of the seat. “If you don’t mind sharing the cab with me,” he told her cheerfully, “I’ll be glad to drop you first.”

“But-hurry,” she said in a shaky voice.

The taxi wheeled around in a circle and went out under the archway. The driver asked over his shoulder, “Where to?”

“You first,” Shayne said to the girl.

She was sitting erect now, stiffly alert. “One thirty-nine Magnolia Lane,” she said. “Please hurry.” Her voice broke on the last words.

Shayne repeated the address aloud, “One thirty-nine Magnolia Lane,” frowning at the sound of it on his lips. The address engraved on the shreds of note paper in his pocket. The blonde was going to Leslie Hudson’s house.

He settled back in his corner and lit a cigarette, shielding the match in his big cupped palms to hide his face. The odor of her perfume had worn off somewhat and was not too strong inside the cab. The girl shrank back in her corner and did not look at him. He wondered why she had been in such frantic haste to leave the Play-Mor Club. He wondered who her earlier companion had been, and what connection, if any, there was between her and Timothy Rourke. She was not the type to attract Rourke, yet he felt sure that it had been Rourke and not himself she had stared at across the roulette table.

The taxi sped south past the Roney Plaza a short distance, then turned west toward the bay. There was a half-moon and brilliant stars twinkled in the dark blue sky. The taxi followed a winding course westward along palm-lined streets, finally turning south again on a street paralleling the east shore of Biscayne Bay. The driver slowed and pulled up in front of a tall hibiscus hedge that concealed the lower story of the house, but there were lighted windows in the upper story.

The girl was fumbling in her handbag when Shayne opened his door next to the hedge and stepped out. He held the door open and said, “I’ll be glad to take care of the fare, Miss.”

She moved over on the seat and slid out the door, breathing a tense, “Thank you very much.”

For an instant he caught a glimpse of her broad face in the moonlight. Her features were strained and tight, and she seemed to shrink away from him. She opened a wooden gate, left it ajar, and he could hear her heels clicking rapidly up the concrete walk.

Shayne said quickly, “Hold it here for me just a minute,” and went quietly and swiftly after her. He saw her swerve from the path and disappear around the side of the house toward the rear.

He stopped for a moment and listened, then went up the front walk to the porch where a night light burned, and pressed the electric button.

There was a brief wait. The door was opened cautiously by a middle-aged woman with a pleasant face and well-cushioned body clad in a simple print dress.

Shayne removed his hat and said, “I’d like to see Mrs. Hudson, I’m an old friend, and it’s rather urgent-”

“I’m sorry. Mrs. Hudson is not in.”

“Mr. Hudson, then?”

“Mr. Hudson isn’t in either. If you’d care to come in and wait-” She opened the door wide.

Shayne said, “Thanks. I’ll try tomorrow morning.” He went down the walk to the waiting cab, got in, and gave the name of his hotel in Miami.

The driver grinned as he pulled away. “That dame didn’t seem very friendly-you letting her ride in the cab, and all. I figured you and her didn’t know each other when you got in back there.”

Shayne said, “We didn’t,” shortly, discouraging further probing by the driver.

It was eleven o’clock when he reached his apartment. He glared at the half-packed Gladstone on the table, poured a slug of cognac, drank it neat, and went into the bedroom. Fifteen minutes later he was sound asleep.