Counterfeit Wife

Chapter Six

There was enough moonlight for driving without headlights, yet not quite enough, Shayne believed, to enable Perry to see the unlighted car a block and a half ahead.

Just as Perry’s headlights swung into the street behind him, Shayne took his foot from the accelerator and turned into a driveway leading to a vine-covered porte-cochere by the side of a small bungalow. He shut off the motor and let the car roll silently along the drive, braking it gently to a stop beneath the porte-cochere.

Perry’s car raced past the house, and the sound of it was presently swallowed up in the night.

Shayne sat very still, slouched low under the wheel, alarmed now by the thought of his naked body. The bungalow was dark and silent. If the family was at home it evidently had not been aroused by the sound of his tires.

He shivered as he sat there, not so much for lack of clothing as at the thought of some member of the household rousing and discovering his plight. That, he thought morosely, would be the crowning episode of the night’s crazy and puzzling adventure.

He became aware of a bundle on the other side of the seat-a fold of hard fabric. He sat up quickly and examined it by feel, unfolding and spreading it out. He found it to be a pair of mechanic’s coveralls, evidently left there by the owner when he finished work the preceding day.

Clutching the garment to him, he opened the door and got out, sidled to a corner of the porte-cochere where the vines were thick and stepped into the coveralls. They had been made to fit a short, stout man. The cuffs reached halfway between his knees and ankles, and the sleeves were well above his wrists. He gave a great sigh of relief as he fumbled with the metal buttons down the front.

As he gave a hitch to pull the coveralls more comfortably around his groin, he heard a metallic jingling. Thrusting his hand into the right-hand pocket, his fingers closed over a few coins. He drew them out and counted them by feel. Half a dollar, a quarter, and two nickels. He felt rich, and stopped thinking about the well-filled wallet he had left in the basement garage.

Sliding back under the steering wheel, he started the motor and backed quietly out of the driveway, made a left turn at the next corner and drove two blocks southward before turning on the headlights. He then turned west to Miami Avenue, and south again until he came to a lighted hole-in-the-wall drinking place. He parked and got out, crossed the sidewalk, and padded inside in his stocking feet.

There was a small bar with a skinny, hard-faced girl behind it. A man and a woman were seated on stools, bickering angrily. He was insisting that she had one up on him and refused to leave until he caught up with her. She accused him of having two up on her before they left home and intended to keep pace with him. He stated flatly that she was drunk before she left home, and she demanded to know how he thought she could take even a teaspoonful of his damned brandy when he kept the bottle marked every time he took a drink. He said that was easy because she snitched drinks and poured water in up to the mark. She called him a liar, and he called her a liar, and they went on drinking.

The skinny girl had a flat, unintelligent face, a tight mouth, and almost no chin. She turned from the quarreling couple and looked at Shayne without much interest as he slid onto the end stool. At that hour in the morning and at that spot on Miami Avenue, it was apparent that a customer with a cut lip and wearing a pair of undersized coveralls wasn’t out of the ordinary.

She moved toward him and said, “Yeah?”

Shayne looked at the rows of bottles behind the bar. He saw the label of a cheap domestic brandy that wasn’t too bad. “Gimme a slug of that,” he said in a tough drawl and added, “water on the side.”

She poured a shot of brandy and set a glass of ice water beside it. He put the half dollar on the counter, drank the brandy at a gulp, and washed it down with the full glass of water. She put a dime and a nickel in change on the counter.

Shayne asked, “You got a telephone in here?”

She said, “The booth’s right there,” pointing to the rear.

Shayne used one of his nickels to call Miami’s chief of police, Will Gentry, at his home. Gentry had been his loyal friend for many years past, and had never yet failed him.

He heard the phone ring three times before a woman answered. He asked, “Is Will there?”

She said, “Mr. Gentry is at his office. I imagine you can reach him there.”

Shayne said, “Thanks,” hung up, and used another nickel to dial the number of Gentry’s private office.

Gentry’s heavy voice heartened him as it boomed over the wire. “Hello.”

“What are you doing at the office this time of night, Will?”

There was a brief silence at the other end. Gentry’s voice lost its booming heartiness. He answered cautiously. “Sure, Mike. I’ll be glad to talk to you in about five minutes if you’ll call me back. Busy right now.” Gentry hung up.

Shayne opened the door of the booth and leaned against it, wiping sweat from his face with the palm of his hand. He was certain Gentry had recognized his voice, and just as certain that Will had a very good reason for not speaking his name aloud. Sure, Mike, could sound like a mere slang expression to whoever was listening in the chief’s office, but to Shayne it meant, Watch your step, Mike. I’ll get rid of this guy and be ready to talk to you in five minutes.

The men’s room was directly across from the telephone booth. Shayne went in and switched on the light, looked at himself grimly in the dirty mirror. His face was clean after the cupped-palm shower he had given himself, but his upper lip was badly swollen and there was clotted blood in the cut. He wet his hair and combed it with his fingers, then loitered in the room until he felt sure five minutes had passed.

When he called Gentry again, the chief of police sounded weary and worried and angry.

“Mike! Where in God’s name are you?”

“Out on North Miami Avenue.”

There was a long, indrawn sigh at the other end of the wire. “I just got Petey Painter out of here. I’ve spent the last hour proving to him that you were on a plane bound for New Orleans. How the living hell did you get back to town? And why?”

“I missed my plane again.”

“No, you didn’t. We checked with National. We know you were aboard when Flight Sixty-two took off tonight. The first stop was Palm Beach forty minutes later and there wasn’t any plane back. Even if you had quit the plane there and driven back the way you drive, you couldn’t possibly have reached Miami by one o’clock. That’s the only reason there isn’t a pick-up out for you right now,” Gentry ended.

“Why? What the hell is Painter trying to hang on me now?”

“It doesn’t matter much since you couldn’t possibly have been here. I suppose you did jump the plane at Palm Beach and drive back. Why, Mike? Why didn’t you keep on traveling away from here? Did you know you were sticking your neck out a mile? God in heaven! Less than three hours ago you were selling everyone on the idea you had to be on that midnight plane. Was that just a stall? Are you mixed up in this kidnaping? Is that why the fellow claimed he recognized you at the wreck where you couldn’t possibly have been?”

“Hold it, Will. What kidnaping? What fellow and what wreck?”

“The Deland kidnaping, goddamn it. There was an automobile wreck on Thirty-sixth at one-fifteen. A man and a woman in a gray sedan. The woman was cut and knocked out, and the man got away before anyone stopped him. One of the onlookers told police that he saw the man and swears it was you. Says he knows you well. Fellow by the name of Farrel.”

“Chick Farrel?”

“I don’t know. I’ve got his statement here. Edward H. Farrel.”

“That’s Chick,” Shayne told him. “He must have mistaken someone else for me.”

“Of course he did. That’s the idea I’ve been selling Painter. But when Petey finds out you did jump the plane in Palm Beach, he’ll figure you had an atomic rocket waiting to whisk you back, and even the discrepancy in time won’t convince him you weren’t in that wreck.”

“What would it matter if I were?” Shayne demanded.

“Plenty. The people in that car were the Deland kidnapers.”

“I haven’t heard of any kidnaping lately.”

“Neither had I until Painter came around an hour ago. They’re on the Beach, and it’s all been hush-hush until midnight tonight when the expected contact failed. The ransom was paid tonight. Fifty G’s. But the kid wasn’t returned by midnight as promised. They don’t know what went wrong. The contact man hasn’t showed either.”

“You say the couple in the wrecked sedan were the kidnapers? How do you know?”

“Because the girl’s body was crammed in the trunk of the sedan,” Gentry told him grimly.

Shayne’s belly muscles tightened. He asked, “Did the woman confess?”

“We haven’t got her,” Gentry rumbled. “She wasn’t hurt much. Just a crack across the head that knocked her out. She refused to go to a hospital, and an obliging cop drove her home and left her there.”

“After the body of the kidnaped girl was found in her car?” Shayne asked incredulously.

“It wasn’t found until later,” Gentry snarled. “None of them thought to look, of course. That would be too much to expect of the brainless wonders on my force.”

“If you know where she is or where she lives-”

“She’d skipped by the time anyone thought to go after her. What’s your interest, Mike? Are you mixed up in this thing?”

“Right up to my neck, Will,” said Shayne bitterly.

“How?”

“If I told you the truth, Will,” Shayne said soberly, “you’d have to arrest me. You couldn’t help yourself.”

Gentry breathed, “For God’s sake, Mike,” in a resigned whisper, and then was silent.

Shayne leaned against the side of the steaming hot telephone booth and thought rapidly. “Let me get this straight. Is Painter checking me on the plane?”

“That’s right. Even though the airline positively stated you were aboard, Petey figures you pulled some sort of trick to stay behind and get messed up in kidnaping and murder. You know how he is about you. As soon as your name was mentioned-”

“I know,” Shayne interrupted impatiently. “If he finds out I was aboard the plane when it left, what would he do?”

“He has already given orders to have you taken off at the next stop and brought back for questioning.”

Shayne said, “Fair enough. Let’s go on from there. Who was the blonde driving the death car?”

“I didn’t say she was a blonde and I didn’t say she was driving,” Gentry lashed out. “Look here, Mike-”

“I heard some men talking about the accident in this joint a few minutes ago,” Shayne lied glibly. “Of course, I didn’t know I was supposed to be the guy in the car, nor about the kidnaping. Who is she?”

“Gerta Ross. She runs a nursing home on West Fifty-fourth.”

“A nursing home? Any record?”

“No. We’ve had an eye on her for some time, but she’s smart. Probably a front for illegal operations, but nothing to pin on her.”

“You know Fred Gurney?”

“Better than I want to.”

“Know where he hangs out? What he’s up to these days?”

“We haven’t picked him up for months. Is he in this?”

“I’ve got a lead that points in his direction,” said Shayne cautiously. “Where would you look if you wanted him?”

“I’d ask around Papa La Tour’s. For God’s sake, Mike, give me something.”

“I can’t, Will, and don’t go looking for Gurney just yet if you want to do me a favor.”

His only hope, Shayne knew, was to get Fred Gurney and Gerta Ross before the police picked them up. If either of them spilled the truth about being with him at the Fun Club while Flight Sixty-two was winging toward Palm Beach-

Not that he could gain more than a little time, he realized as an afterthought. As soon as Dawson was taken from the plane and told his story, Shayne’s alibi would evaporate into thin air and Painter would never be convinced that he hadn’t intentionally stayed behind to take some part in the kidnap pay-off.

Gentry remained silent at the other end of the wire while these thoughts raced through Shayne’s mind. The detective gripped the receiver tightly and went on in a strained voice: “Have you heard anything about ex-Senator Irvin lately?”

“That old goat?” Gentry exploded. “No. He was around town about a year ago.”

“Do you want him?” Shayne asked sharply.

“Stinking up my jail?” Gentry asked indignantly.

“Any queer stuff been passed around lately?”

“Not that I’ve heard of. What-”

“Skip it. You might want to ask the senator about a dead man in his basement garage,” Shayne interrupted. “Here’s the address. The faster you get some boys out there the better.” He swiftly described the location of the house where he’d been held prisoner. “That’s about all. The senator has a gun-pal named Perry who might’ve had something to do with the killing. The less they’re allowed to talk after you pick them up the better it’ll be for a friend of yours named Mike Shayne.”

“I don’t get any of this, Mike. If you’re in the clear-”

“I’m not. I need a few hours on my own, Will.” Shayne hung up and pushed the door open. He was wet with sweat from head to foot, and his big hands were clenched into hard fists.

He went out of the place swiftly, got behind the wheel of the commandeered car and headed south on Miami Avenue.