Guilty as Hell

CHAPTER 10

“And just what is white slavery, may I ask?” Deedee said haughtily on the fire stairs. “If it’s what I think it is-”

Shayne grinned. “Ask your parents.”

“That’s a laugh. First I’d have to find them. What are you going to do with me?”

“What do you think I ought to do?”

She looked at him suspiciously, to see if he was serious. “Why, let me go, as soon as I answer the rest of your questions. I’m going to cooperate a hundred percent. You don’t want to have me arrested. All that red tape, Mr. Shayne, I know how busy you are-”

She trailed off when he failed to reply. Several more times on the way down she tried to continue the subject, but the grim set of his mouth discouraged her. Between the fourth floor and the third, she began to feel dizzy and told him she had to stop and sit down. He ignored her. She pulled his arm in hard against her breast.

“I’m about ready to flop! Honestly and truly. I don’t get enough exercise.”

Shayne still didn’t slow down.

They passed the first floor and continued to the basement. She went on revolving even after Shayne had stopped, reeling back in to clutch him with both hands, the robe flying. He put her aside, opened the door and looked out carefully.

The cinderblock corridor was dimly lit by forty-watt bulbs. Hearing footsteps, Shayne let the door swing nearly shut as a man in work clothes, carrying a mop and a pail, came out of the elevator, left mop and pail in a storage closet and entered another room. Through the open door, Shayne could hear TV voices, the sound of screeching tires, then gunfire. A baby was crying.

He pulled Deedee into the corridor and motioned to her to open a door. She did so. He felt for the light switch and turned it on. It was a storeroom, jammed with bikes, baby carriages, cots and luggage, with three windows high in the back wall.

“What was Jake going to do?” he asked. “Wait to see what happened?”

“Uh-huh. In case you didn’t show up, he’d have to lay a few bills on the cops, to keep everybody happy.”

“Where is he?”

“I guess in his car.”

Shayne snapped his fingers twice and she said hastily, “A new air-conditioned DeSoto, and it’s double-parked at the dead end if he didn’t move it. I’ll show you exactly where. Believe me, Mr. Shayne, I’m cooperating right down the line.”

He put out his hand. “Let’s have the robe.”

She pulled it together defensively. “I won’t try to get away. I won’t budge an inch.”

He continued to hold out his hand. She made a pleading face, but her sense of realism won. “Aah!” She shrugged out of the robe and gave it to him.

“Maybe I’ll walk out of here like this and get a taxi.”

“They’re scarce around here,” he said.

He looked into the corridor. The door of the superintendent’s apartment was still open. He hesitated. He didn’t want any trouble while the raiding party was still in the building.

“O.K., I’m going out the window. When I get out, turn off the light.”

“And what if somebody comes in for a baby buggy or something?”

“Hold still. They’ll think you’re a statue.”

He kicked a trunk into position beneath one of the windows and pulled out the screen. Pushing his cast ahead of him, he pulled himself up and out. The light winked off behind him.

He went around the building. Protected by a screen of low-growing shrubs, he spotted the DeSoto where Deedee had said it would be parked. There was a figure at the wheel.

After a moment’s reflection, Shayne returned to the back of the building and stepped down off the embankment onto the strip of hard sand at the water’s edge. He walked on to the canal, came back up on the embankment and approached the DeSoto from behind.

He pulled open the door on the passenger’s side and slid into the cool interior. The man at the wheel swung around.

Shayne left the door open slightly so the dome light would stay on and they could look at each other. Jake Fitch was swarthy and unshaven, with bushy eyebrows which almost met over a meaty nose. His forearms were hairy, and heavy black hair tufted out of the neck of his shirt, his ears, his nostrils. He was wearing a blue linen cap with some kind of insignia.

His eyes flickered at Shayne’s cast and his hand shot toward the glove compartment. Shayne raised the cast and waited. Jake touched the glove compartment button, the little door fell open, and Shayne moved the cast forward and upward, slapping him on the temple with the brass knuckles.

He sat back, stunned. Shayne felt inside the glove compartment and brought out a Walther. 38, one of the prettiest of the European handguns.

Jake mumbled something while the detective lit a cigarette.

“Take your time,” Shayne said. “I’m in no hurry.”

He smoked in silence. Jake recovered gradually. He was functioning again by the time Shayne finished his cigarette and stubbed it out against his heel.

Jake touched his forehead and looked for blood on his fingers. “What did you have to do that for? I didn’t do anything.”

“I can’t really believe that,” Shayne remarked.

Working the slide of the little Belgian automatic with one hand, he checked to be sure it was loaded. Then he brought it around in the flat of his right hand and slapped Jake with it.

Jake yelped. He came down hard on the door handle and hurled himself sideward. Shayne raked out with the hook, which snagged in Jake’s pants. Jake didn’t understand what was holding him, and he went on trying to get away. The hook ripped through his pants and buried itself in the soft flesh of his thigh.

“Close the door,” Shayne said coldly. “I’m feeling less good-natured every minute.”

Jake eased back in, going with the pull. As he came all the way in the light went off. He put both hands on Shayne’s cast and tried to work it toward him. Shayne dropped his elbow and the hook dug in deeper.

“Please,” Jake begged. “Shayne, don’t-that’s-they weren’t supposed to do anything to you last night but tap you a couple. When I get hold of that Whitey, I’ll break him in two.”

“What about this setup with Deedee?”

Jake’s weight shifted back against the door and the light blinked on. There was a look of intense alarm on his face.

“Shayne, what are you, anyway?” he cried frantically. “How did you find out about that?” The light went off. “It’s not how it looks! Give me a break! Don’t pull so hard. It wasn’t a real frame. We didn’t play it to stick. She just wanted us to keep you wrapped up a few days.”

“Who?”

“Miss Morse! Miss Morse! Take the hook out, will you, please? Any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them.”

“Whose idea was the whip?”

“Hers. She mapped out the whole goddamn thing, the whip, the dialogue. I don’t claim to be any great brain.”

“How long have you worked for her?”

“Off and on. One year, two years.”

“Fifty thousand bucks,” Shayne said. “April twenty-third.”

“How would I know?” Jake demanded. “She wrote it down for Deedee to say on the phone. We figured it for a come-on, to make sure you showed up. Like that crack about murder. Who’s been murdered? What fifty thousand? The kind of dough I’ve been seeing is a hell of a lot less than fifty, believe me.”

“April twenty-third,” Shayne repeated. “Think about it.”

“I did think about it! I thought about it all afternoon. I planted Deedee on Jose Despard along around the first of April. If anything happened the twenty-third, I don’t know what. That’s six months back! The kind of memory I’ve got, I’m lucky if I remember last week.”

“When you planted Deedee how?”

“Well, I found out he likes them that age, so I asked at her high school if anybody might be interested. He thought he raped her-she’s only supposed to be fourteen. Shayne, I’m bleeding like a pig, you know that? You want me to bleed to death?”

“It can’t be that bad yet,” Shayne said. “How soon did you take the pictures?”

“Right away, right away. On the first night, when he thought he raped her. I’m no photographer, but they come out great. I thought it was strictly a one-shot, but when I turn over the pix, they tell me to string him along, Despard.”

“That brings us back to the twenty-third of April.”

“I’m telling you! Miss Morse pulled a date out of the hat, to make it sound better. Be human, can’t you, Shayne? With that hook in my leg, don’t you think I’d tell you if I remembered? There’s a main artery in there somewhere.”

Shayne opened the door to turn on the light again. Jake was sweating in the chilly air. His mouth twitched as Shayne looked at the spot where the hook went into his leg.

“I think I missed it by about a quarter of an inch,” Shayne said. “Don’t make me nervous. My hands shake when people lie to me.”

Jake clapped both hands on top of Shayne’s cast to hold it steady. “I’m not lying! I’m down at the bottom of this operation. ‘Why’ is a question I never ask. All I ask is ‘How?’ and ‘How much does the job pay?’ If I started asking ‘Why,’ they’d get themselves somebody with a smaller mouth. Take for example, did Hal Begley or Miss Morse tell me why they wanted you jammed up with Deedee? Like hell they told me.”

“I see we’ll have to sit here a while longer,” Shayne said. “I’m going to light another cigarette. Try not to move.”

He shook a cigarette out of the package and lit it with the dashboard lighter. The hook changed position slightly and grated against bone. Jake whimpered.

“Don’t tell them I told you,” he said hopelessly. “Those Begleys, I don’t like to be in the same town with them and be on bad terms. But I’m flesh and blood. They got me the job at the club, like the middle of April.”

“What club?”

“North Miami Country, tending bar. And they give me a list of names. They want me behind the stick so I can make book on certain members. In that location I know who’s in the club, when they come in, when they go out.”

“Was Despard on the list?”

“Sure. The whole bunch from that company. Langhorne-he’s on the board of governors. Hallam, Jr. The whole outfit. Jackson, Hill, Ringley. Christ, I don’t know-eight, nine. I still got the list at home. When one of those certain characters came in, I was supposed to mark it down. When he went out, mark it down.”

“For how long?”

“A week, ten days.”

“All you did was clock eight or nine people in and out?” Shayne said thoughtfully.

“That’s all,” Jake said without hesitation.

The promptness of the reply told Shayne there was more to come. He continued to smoke. Jake glanced at him quickly, and glanced away. He stood it for one more moment, then burst out, “I had to check a certain locker!”

“Yeah,” Shayne said. “Whose?”

“An empty locker, it wasn’t rented to anybody. Miss Morse gave me the number and combination. When nobody was using the locker room, I ducked in and looked to see if a package was in that locker, and wrote down the time.”

“That’s fine,” Shayne said with no change of expression. “And one day there was a package.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you take it out or leave it?”

“I left it. They wouldn’t trust me with anything high level-I told you. I notified her.”

“Is Begley a member of the club?”

“He has a card. The next day, same thing. I kept checking the locker. No package. A while later, package. A while after that, no package again. I wrote it down.”

“Now get set for the big question,” Shayne said.

“Don’t ask me,” Jake said earnestly. “I don’t know the answer! But I know what you’re trying to establish-I didn’t just get in from the boondocks, after all. I know they’re in the spy business, and somebody from Despard’s put a package in the locker. Begley picked it up. Begley put a package of money in and somebody picked that up. But I don’t know who! They were coming and going all the time, both days. Oh, I ruled out a couple. Hill and Jackson I crossed off in my own mind, they weren’t in the club either day. I could make up a name for you and get off the hook, but what good would it do? Off the hook,” he said sardonically, “funny joke, Fitch. When you found out I was faking, you’d come looking for me, and to face facts, I think you’d probably find me.”

“Why did you stay at the club afterward?”

“It’s a job. She didn’t want me to quit right away, so it wouldn’t look suspicious. That’s the whole bit, Shayne. Now the next thing we want to do is get this leg to a doctor’s, don’t we?”

He made a small sound, and Shayne turned to follow his look, letting the overhead light blink off.

Two men approached. Shayne recognized one of them. It was the vice-squad detective named Vince Camilli. He was tieless, but he wore a jacket over his gun, which he used far too often. He had a handsome dark face, a loose mouth. He was the department’s top scorer in both homosexual and prostitution arrests, and Shayne was sure that the total included many entrapment cases using fabricated evidence, as well as shakedowns that had failed to pay off.

Camilli spoke to his partner, a weedy young man in a sports shirt, who was trying to raise a mustache. Shayne pulled the end of the sling down over the buried hook.

The younger cop held back while Camilli came up to the driver’s side of the DeSoto and made a cranking gesture. Jake rolled down the window.

“Something wrong, Camilli?” he said nervously.

The detective reached in with his left hand, on which he wore a rough signet ring, and ground the ring against Jake’s face.

“Next time check it out first, will you? We looked like a couple of bums in there.”

“You had the right apartment, nine C?”

“We had the right apartment. What do you think this is, Fitch, amateur night?”

“I just got this tip, that’s all. I passed it on the way I heard it.”

“The apartment’s rented to the vice-president of a manufacturing firm. His credentials are perfectly O.K.”

Jake had his hand on the door. Without haste, Camilli pulled out his police special and slammed it down on the other’s fingers. Jake snatched his hand back inside the car with a cry.

“A couple of people have won suits for false arrest lately,” Camilli went on, “and this town is full of lawyers.”

He pulled the door open enough to trip the dome switch, and looked in. “Mike Shayne,” he said, surprised. “Well, well, Mr. Bill of Rights in person, the guy who thinks queers and floozies are covered by the United States Constitution.”

“Back to work, Camilli,” Shayne said. “There are hustlers out all over town and here you are taking things easy.”

Camilli scowled. “This begins to make sense. You think I can’t smell a frame when I stick my nose in it? Let me tell you something. I’m making a mental note, Shayne. The next time you want somebody taken care of, let me handle it for you. But bring me in on the planning, will you? Don’t spring it on me, just to get out of it cheap.”

“You’re through here, aren’t you, Camilli?”

“For the time being. I said to myself when I watched that performance of yours on TV tonight, I said to myself, what do you know? Shayne has been reached. Not that I expect you to tell me the ins and outs, because I’m only a poor, lowly copper.”

He straightened, then stooped again to give Shayne a hard look. Shayne returned it. Camilli picked up his partner and they walked off together.

“Now?” Jake said anxiously.

“Let’s have your wallet.”

Jake’s mouth twitched a protest, but he produced his wallet after a reminder from the buried hook. Shayne flipped it open and thumbed the bills out on his lap.

“Leave me twenty,” Jake begged. “I’ll need it to pay the doctor.”

Shayne flicked two tens back at him and fanned the rest. “Call it three-fifty even,” he said. “I’ll give you a receipt. It’s probably not enough to keep you in town, but it may help.”

“Why wouldn’t I stay in town?”

Shayne pulled an envelope out of the glove compartment and scribbled an IOU. Then he wrenched the hook out of Jake’s leg. Reaching over to the floor of the back seat, he gathered up Deedee’s clothing.

“Shayne, it’s coming in spurts!”

Shayne pushed the door open on his side. “No, it’s not. Get them to show you a chart at the hospital. The artery’s on the other side of the leg. Here.” He sorted out the girl’s underclothing, keeping only her dress and a pair of shoes. “Bandage yourself with this. If you think you need a tourniquet, use the bra.”

He got out and slammed the door, leaving Jake whimpering for help inside. Before Shayne reached the entrance to the apartment building, the DeSoto went by him, already going very fast.