Bodies Are Where You Find Them

FOUR

THE BOOTHS in the barroom were vacant at this early hour. Shayne led the way to one at the farthest end of the low-ceilinged room, stopping at the bar to order a bottle of cognac and two glasses.

They sat in complete silence for several minutes, sipping the amber fluid and glowering dejectedly at the crude walls and thatched roof. The inexplicable disappearance of Helen Stallings’s corpse disjointed everything. It didn’t make sense. It injected a sinister note of mystery into the affair which had, heretofore, appeared to be nothing more than a frame-up to throw the onus of a kidnap-killing onto Shayne and thus ensure Jim Marsh’s defeat at the Miami Beach polls two days hence.

“Who the hell could have wanted her out of there except you?” Rourke’s voice was a low groan.

Shayne stared, a black frown on his gaunt face. “Someone giving us a friendly lift,” he suggested with heavy irony. “Somebody took the job off our hands. Why should we kick?” He emptied his glass and poured another drink.

“You’re whistling in the dark,” Rourke charged. “As long as we knew where she was we had control — in a nebulous way. Now we don’t know what to expect — what to guard against.”

Shayne sighed and settled both elbows on the table, cupped his lean jaw in rough palms, and cocked one red eyebrow sardonically.

“It does begin to look interesting. For a while I was ready to believe Stallings strangled her himself to shut her mouth and to tie her murder around my neck. But he wouldn’t have taken her away after planting her in my apartment.”

“Who would?”

Shayne shrugged and said mildly, “My theory about a good Samaritan or a helpful elf is as good as any until we have more facts to go on.”

“Yeah — facts.” Rourke downed his third drink and squinted slaty eyes at the detective. “What did you mean when you called me at the paper and said you didn’t need the pictures to identify the girl?”

Shayne told him about the beaded bag gripped in the dead girl’s hand. “I’m positive she didn’t have it with her when she came to my apartment. The murderer might have brought it with him and left it in her hand so she would be quickly identified.” He paused, his frown deepening. “Maybe that’s a lead. Let’s have a look at those back copies you brought along.”

“She’s Helen Stallings, all right,” Rourke said. “Some of these pix are mighty clear for newspaper cuts.” He pulled a batch of newspaper sheets from his coat pocket and began sorting them out on the table. Turning them at a convenient angle for both of them to study, he said, “Here’s the first one I found. Little over a month ago. Snapped at the airport on her arrival from New York. There wasn’t any use looking farther back because this is her first visit to Miami. I suppose you know Stallings met the girl’s mother in New York. They were married there a few months ago, left the girl in college to finish the school term when they came down here, and Stallings built a mansion for his bride.”

Shayne studied a blurred halftone of a girl stepping from an air liner. “This is not too clear of her face,” he complained. “Looks like her, all right, but—”

“There aren’t any buts about this one.” Rourke selected another photograph, a front-page posed shot. “This was taken about a week later, the day after she filed suit against Stallings for alleged misappropriation of estate funds.”

Shayne nodded, disappointment clouding his face. The second picture was very clear in facial detail, unmistakably a picture of the girl who had staggered to his office and was later strangled in his bed.

“And here’s another one that’s just as clear,” Rourke went on. “Our regulars do a better job than the society photogs. This is a few days later, after she withdrew the suit against Stallings. Her mother had had a stroke in the meantime, presumably brought on by the girl’s action against Stallings, and was seriously ill. They had just moved from an apartment to that swanky new home on Swordfish Island.”

Shayne stared somberly at the two pictures. There was not the shadow of doubt as to the identity of the murdered girl. He shook his head slowly and admitted, “I thought for a moment there was a possibility that the handbag was planted for a false clue — so that the body would be identified as Helen Stallings. That’s the way with most neat theories,” he ended with deep disgust.

“Here’s some more.” Tim Rourke continued to spread out sheets of newspaper and pass them over for Shayne’s inspection. “She seems to have jumped into what the cliché boys would call a mad sporting and social whirl after deciding not to sue her stepfather. Surf-riding and golfing, cocktailing and dancing.”

Shayne glanced casually at each succeeding photograph offered for his inspection. “Who’s this lug hanging around her in all these? His face looks familiar, but I can’t quite place him.”

“That’s Arch Bugler. He cuts quite a dashing figure, don’t you think?”

“Arch Bugler?” Shayne snorted. “Hell, I didn’t know he’d stepped into society.”

“And how! He’s out of the slot-machine racket, you know. Ostensibly, at least. He opened a place on the Beach a few months ago. Made quite a flurry with it at first, but the cops clamped down on the back-room gambling, and he’s had to concentrate on selling food and drinks.”

“Sure. I know about his place on the Beach,” Shayne murmured, “but I didn’t know that qualified him for a place in society. Hell, Tim, everybody knows he’s a mobster — and one of the toughest ever to invade Miami and the Beach.”

“Mobsters are the latest social craze.” Rourke pointed out with a wry grin. “The blasé debs have found a new thrill. They get a perverted kick out of stepping with a known killer.”

“I wouldn’t know about that.” Shayne leaned back and drank deeply from his glass. “Still, I’d think Stallings would put his foot down. Didn’t he and Bugler have a run-in a couple of years ago on a labor-racketeering angle?”

“Yeh, but that’s all patched up now. They’ve been as thick as thieves since then, and Stallings was one of the biggest plungers when there was gambling at Bugler’s new joint.”

“I ought to take you into partnership,” Shayne growled. “I’d do less guessing if I had your sources of information.”

“It’s a reporter’s job to get around,” Rourke admitted modestly. He emptied his glass and reached for the bottle.

“Lay off. We’ve got things to do.” Shayne came out of a brown study. A look of grim alertness supplanted the bemused expression which had clouded his face since Rourke announced the disappearance of Helen Stallings’s body from his office.

“Such as what?” Rourke asked.

“A look-in at Arch Bugler’s place.”

“Not me,” Rourke stated flatly. “You don’t drag me into anything else. Not tonight.”

“We’ve got to learn all we can about Helen Stallings.”

“You’ve got to. I’m having another drink.” Rourke wrapped long, thin fingers around the bottle.

Shayne made no move to interfere, but he talked fast. “Don’t you see we’ve got to pick up a lead somehow? You don’t want it known that you left a dead girl unreported, do you? We’ve got to find out where she went when she left home at noon. Someone doped her to keep her from talking. Whoever killed her knew she was doped and unable to talk to me — else why would she have been killed? There wouldn’t have been any need to throttle her if she had already talked.”

“Your logic is perfect,” Rourke agreed. “I’ll bet you my grandmother’s wig you catch the guy, Mike. Give me a ring when the lead is ready.”

Shayne snorted angrily. “This case hasn’t even got hot.” He took the bottle from Rourke’s lax fingers and dropped it into his coat pocket, then wadded up the newspaper sheets and rammed them into the other, got up and grabbed his hat from a hook.

Rourke smiled sweetly and waved to him as he stalked from the booth.

Shayne had never visited Arch Bugler’s Miami Beach establishment. He knew the approximate location, and he saw the red neon sign half a block away: Bugle Inn.

Cars lined the curb in front. Expensive, sporty models that proved Arch Bugler wasn’t playing to a piker clientele.

Shayne nosed his battered convertible between a Rolls-Royce and a Packard. A high wall of pink coral rock surrounded three sides of the sprawling structure, running down to the beach at the rear. Bronze latticework gates were set in the wall, opening inward to a flagged path under an arched canopy leading to the front entrance. A uniformed doorman stood stiffly in front of the high bronze gates.

Sauntering toward the doorman, Shayne lit a cigarette.

A hot glint came into his eyes when the man stared at him suspiciously, then swung the gates shut and stood solidly in front of them.

Shayne stopped a foot from the doorman. His chin was level with the man’s eyes. He stared at him for a moment and then said, “Well?”

“I’m sorry, sir. White ties are required, sir.”

“I’m not wearing one.”

“I have strict orders, sir, to admit no gentlemen except those in formal attire.”

“I’m here on business — to see Arch Bugler.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I have strict orders.”

Shayne said, “Nuts.” He caught the man’s braided tunic and jerked him aside. The man whistled shrilly as Shayne shouldered the gates open.

Two men appeared from the other side of the wall and got in front of him. One of them exclaimed, “Jeez, it’s the dick from Miami,” and stepped backward. He had a big nose and a chin that fell away to nothing — the man who had trailed Shayne from his apartment hotel earlier in the evening.

The other bouncer was taller than Shayne, his shoulders inches broader. He had a flat face and a square head fastened onto his torso with no neck between. He scowled darkly and growled, “Outside.”

Shayne drove his fist into the middle of the man’s flat face. The force of the blow rocked him back on his heels, smashing a rubbery nose and thick lips that had been smashed before.

The smaller man sucked in his breath sharply and hit Shayne with a blackjack, saying softly, “Grab him, Donk.” Shayne staggered sideways, and the big man stepped in, caught his elbows, and pinioned them behind him.

“Outside,” the chinless man panted, “and keep it quiet, Donk. This is the bozo the boss said not to let in.”

Shayne’s head lolled limply as he was given the bum’s rush through the bronze gates. The blackjack had been swung expertly and should have knocked him out, but the redhead was tough. His legs were not functioning very well and a black cloud obscured a bright moon, but he clamped his teeth hard, doggedly hanging on to consciousness.

“Down to the corner of the wall, Donk,” the smaller man directed in a vicious undertone. “There’s a cab pulling up — They’ll think he’s just a drunk being bounced.” With Donk propelling him from behind, Shayne was rushed along the sidewalk to the north wall of the Bugle Inn property. Half a dozen unoccupied water-front lots separated the wall from the next building. The vacant space was thick with a growth of scrub palmetto.

Donk paused when he reached the end of the wall, and his companion ordered, “Drag him out in the middle of the clearing and we’ll work him over. He dodged me once tonight, but this time he won’t do no dodgin’.”

Strength was flowing into Shayne’s legs and awareness to his brain, but he let his feet drag in the sand until the chinless man ordered, “This is far enough. Nobody’ll notice us from the street. Is he out?”

“Acts like it.” Donk let go of Shayne’s elbows. The detective sprawled forward limply into a matted growth of pin-edged palmettos. “Yep,” Donk said with a faint note of regret, “he’s out cold. You shouldn’t orta hit ’im so hard, Johnny.”

“He’s supposed to be tough. Wouldn’t surprise me none if he was possumin’.” Johnny kicked Shayne in the ribs. Shayne gave no sign that he felt it.

“Turn ’im over,” Johnny ordered, “and I’ll stomp him in the face good. Arch said for us to work on ’im if he tried to crash the gate tonight.”

Donk bent down and got a hold on Shayne’s shoulder to turn him over. Shayne came half erect and drove his head into Donk’s belly with the force of a battering ram.

Donk grunted and stumbled back over a clump of sharp palmettos.

Shayne whirled and lunged at Johnny, ducking a vicious downswing of the blackjack. He drove his forearm against Johnny’s Adam’s apple, which protruded at a point where his chin should have been, and the smaller man went to his knees clawing at his throat.

Shayne grabbed the blackjack from his lax fingers and whirled to meet Donk’s lunge.

The larger man parried a blow with his forearm and laughed happily. He smashed a left to Shayne’s stomach and straightened the detective up with a looping right to the chin when he jackknifed forward. Shayne swayed backward with his feet seemingly rooted in the sand, his angular face turned up to the moon and the stars.

Donk planted himself and put two hundred and forty pounds behind a piledriver right to the detective’s unprotected jaw.

Shayne’s senses swam lazily into a mist of nothingness. The moon and the stars were again blotted out.

Johnny came to his feet still gasping and sputtering. “By God,” he chattered huskily, “it takes you to cool off the toughies, Donk.”

“He wasn’t so tough,” Donk disclaimed modestly. “When I give ’em the ol’ one-two they mostly stay down.”

Johnny picked up his blackjack and shoved it in his pocket. “We’ll leave him lay there,” he decided. “When he comes up for air he’ll be all outta the notion of seein’ the boss.”

The two men strolled off leaving Shayne quiescent, face downward in the soft sand.

For a long time Shayne lay still. Presently he stirred to get his face out of the sand. His breathing became stertorous, mingling with the swishing sound of waves flowing gently on the shore. He made two efforts to sit erect before achieving results, then linked his arms around his knees and shuddered with nausea.

His upper lip was cut, and there was the taste of blood in his mouth, gritty sand between his teeth. Nausea convulsed his body, and he retched on the sand. The spasm passed, and his head cleared.

With an effort he lifted himself to a standing position, then made his way unsteadily to the edge of the lapping waves. Bogging in the wet sand, he scooped up handfuls of water and dashed it over his face, poured another handful into his mouth to rinse out the sand.

Stumbling back to the walk, he stepped across it into the sand and passed behind the rows of cars to reach his convertible. Reaching through the window, he secured the bottle of cognac with trembling fingers and collapsed. For a few minutes he sat with his head lolling on his chestbone, then lifted the bottle and drank deeply. A warming glow began in his midribs and spread strengtheningly through his body. He emptied the bottle and stood up.

He still hadn’t seen Arch Bugler.

Stepping onto the sidewalk, he walked at a shambling gait toward the entrance to the Bugle Inn. The doorman watched his approach with narrowed, speculative eyes.

Shayne felt strong, but he feigned weakness. He bumped against the wall, righted himself as he neared the gates.

The doorman said, “Beat it, mister. You know all I got to do is whistle.”

Shayne hit him in the mouth before he could purse his lips to make the signal that would bring Donk and Johnny to his aid, dropping the man to the walk with his threat unfinished.

Pushing the gates open, he strode forward under the brightly striped canopy, looking neither to right nor to left. Three stone steps led into a thickly carpeted entrance hall. A tall man wearing a white mess jacket with a napkin over his arm hurried forward from an archway which led into a large, brilliantly lighted dining-room.

Shayne shook his head at the mess jacket and went to the left where the clink of glasses and boisterous laughter indicated a bar. Men and women in formal attire stopped drinking and laughing to stare at his disheveled wet hair and puffed lips when he entered the cocktail lounge, their eyes traveling down over his rumpled, bloodstained clothes.

Striding up to the bar, Shayne announced, “Just been in accident and need a drink.”

The patrons, their curiosity satisfied at the statement, turned back to the serious business of liquor and sex. A bald-headed bartender jovially inquired after his needs.

“A bottle of Martell cognac and an empty glass.”

“Yes, sir,” the man answered.

Shayne poured liquor into the glass and hunched his shoulders forward, resting both elbows on the bar, caressing the glass between his big hands to warm it. He sipped slowly, his nostrils expanding and twitching as the clean, pungent aroma drifted upward.

There were three bartenders on duty behind the long chromium bar. When the bald-headed man became momentarily disengaged, Shayne said casually, “You do a rushing business here.”

“Pretty good this time of the evening. It’ll slack off about midnight, and we don’t do much until after dark.”

“Open in the afternoons?”

“From one o’clock on. Not enough to keep one man busy, though.”

“Did you work a shift this afternoon?”

“Yep. We alternate. I go off at twelve.” Some of his wholesome joviality went. He looked at Shayne with a sudden suspicious leer, then glanced up at a clock on the wall.

Shayne saw his quick change of expression and laughed. “Lucky I had my accident convenient to a bar. This must be the place my girl friend told me about. She was here this afternoon. Maybe you remember her — pretty, with a lot of blond hair.”

The bartender shook his head. “Lot’s of those young dames drop in for cocktails. I don’t notice ’em much.” He turned to move away.

Shayne stopped him, his voice peremptory and hard. “You’d remember this girl. She left with a friend of yours — Michael Finn.”

The man turned slowly to stand in front of Shayne. His gaze was veiled and afraid. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think,” said Shayne, “you do.” He finished his drink and frowned into the glass, paying no further attention to the bartender, who remained standing uneasily in front of him.

When Shayne pushed the empty glass and bottle away and stood up, the man reminded him uneasily, “You haven’t paid for your drinks, sir.”

“Tell Arch to mark it up to profit and loss.” He strolled along the bar toward a rear door that said Gentlemen. It opened onto a corridor leading to the back of the building. The first door on the right was also chastely lettered Gentlemen. He went into a lavatory and washed his face and hands with soap, dried them meticulously, and combed his unruly red hair with his fingers. There was an ugly bruise on his left cheek, and both lips were badly swollen, but the cut on his upper lip had stopped bleeding.

A waiter passed him as he stepped into the hallway. He carried a tray with two highballs on it. Shayne watched him stop at a door near the end of the hall. The man knocked, then entered, leaving the door slightly ajar.

Shayne followed him, treading noiselessly on the rich hall runner. The door was marked Private. He heard Arch Bugler’s peculiarly sinister and purring voice, a soft sibilance acquired by the mobster to conceal the naturally harsh and guttural quality of his tone.

“Forget it, Marlow. I should be sore at you for barging in like this, but I don’t blame you for being upset. You can’t trust a skirt nowadays. Too bad you had to make a trip down here to find out how you stand. Put it down the hatch. It’s out of my private stock.”

A thin, shaky voice answered him. “I’m not going to believe it until Helen tells me so herself. There’s something screwy going on.”

Shayne stepped forward quickly as the door started to open inward. He strode nonchalantly down the hall without looking back, turned to the right at the end. An intersecting corridor led to a wide archway opening into a big square room which was deserted except for a couple of workmen busily polishing roulette tables and crap layouts. White cloth covers still were in place over other tables in the rear.

Stopping in the doorway, Shayne scratched a match noisily and put flame to a cigarette. One of the workmen glanced up without interest. Shayne grinned at him and asked, “Getting ready for the grand opening, eh?”

“Yep. That’s about it,” the man replied, and his companion added, winking broadly, “If the election turns out right.”

Shayne nodded and turned away. A deep crease furrowed his brow as he went back to the door marked Private. He turned the knob and went in without knocking.

Arch Bugler stared at him across a wide, flat-topped desk of shining mahogany. He was a squat man with tremendous shoulders and torso. His eyes were almost colorless and appeared opaque, slightly protuberant and unblinking, like the lidless eyes of a reptile. He had swart, heavy features and coarse black hair, and was about thirty years of age. He said, “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Shayne.”

Bugler appeared to be alone in the office, but as Shayne stepped forward he saw a pair of brown Oxfords protruding past the corner of the desk. He moved aside and looked down at the limp body of a young man who lay beside a straight, armless chair. Long fingers were clasped about an empty highball glass.

Bugler watched the detective from lidless eyes without speaking.

Shayne nodded toward the recumbent figure and slid one hip onto the desk. “You must have told the bartender to mix the next one stronger after the girl walked out of here under her own power this afternoon.”

Bugler purred, “You’re going to get your nose dirty, Shamus.”

Shayne nodded, his eyes bleak. “It’s one of my failings. Helen Stallings told me just enough before she passed out this afternoon to get me interested.”

Not a flicker of expression changed the stony coldness of Bugler’s swarthy features. He pressed a button on his desk with a blunt forefinger. “You’ve stayed out of my way a long time, Shayne. Better if you kept on being smart.”

Shayne’s gray eyes glowed hotly. “I’ve never stayed out of any man’s way. I’ve been waiting for you to stick your neck out.”

“And you think I have?”

“I know you have.” Shayne touched the bruise on his cheek and his cut lip. “It was a mistake for you to sick your gorillas on me.”

Bugler’s thick lips parted in an amused smile. “You ran into Donk, huh?”

A rear door came open, and Johnny stepped in, followed by Donk. Johnny stopped short and stared at Shayne, muttering in an awed tone, “Jesus God! There he is again,” and Donk blinked happily, moving forward with big fists swinging at the end of long arms. “If it ain’t my sparring partner. You must love to get bounced around and, God, how I love to bounce you!” His wide, flat face wreathed itself in a grin of sadistic anticipation as he moved closer.