Guilty as Hell

CHAPTER 5

Shayne sent back the wine Candida had ordered and asked for another cognac. He was having his second cup of coffee after finishing the two meals when Albert, the maitre d’, hurried toward him.

“Mr. Shayne, is that your Buick in the parking lot? The black sedan? The phone’s ringing in it.”

Shayne dropped several bills on the table to cover the check. He heard the muffled ringing of the phone as he strode rapidly toward his Buick. Pulling open the door, he snatched up the phone and said hello.

There was no answer, but the kind of noises he heard told him he had caught the call in time; he had a live connection.

“Hello?” he said again. “Mike Shayne speaking.”

This time there was a low, vaguely human mumble.

“Say it again,” Shayne said carefully. “Closer to the phone.”

“Ehh-”

It was little more than a groan, but when it was repeated Shayne recognized the voice that made it.

“Teddy? O.K. Where are you?”

Several deep breaths were taken at the other end of the connection while Sparrow gathered enough strength to bring out a word. It sounded like, “Woodlawn.”

“Woodlawn Cemetery?” Shayne said. “Yes or no.”

He was answered by a slurred vowel sound, an affirmative.

“I’ll make it as fast as I can,” Shayne said.

He swore savagely as he slammed down the phone and switched on the ignition. He reversed and came down on the gas hard, leaving twin smears of rubber on the blacktop. He swung out of the parking area with most of the Buick’s weight on the two inside wheels.

On the causeway, he settled down to some serious driving, part of the time on the wrong side of the double line. He took the Boulevard south to 8th Street, then went straight out 8th until he reached the big cemetery in Southwest Miami.

The main gates were locked. He cruised along the tall iron fence. On 32nd Avenue, across from Coral Park, he saw a lighted phone booth. It seemed empty at first. The door was closed, and he was almost past when he perceived that something was jammed against it from the inside.

Bringing the Buick to a stop, he leaped out. The phone dangled to within an inch or two of Teddy’s misshapen felt hat. The hat was rammed down over his forehead. His heavy body completely filled the bottom quarter of the booth, as though stuffed into it forcibly from above.

Shayne tried to open the door, but with Teddy’s two hundred and sixty pounds jammed against the center fold, he moved it only an inch.

“Teddy!” he snapped. “Can you hear me?”

The shapeless bulk didn’t stir.

Noises were coming from the dangling phone. Shayne put his full weight against the door, producing enough of an opening to admit an arm. He managed to grasp Teddy’s jacket. He yanked at the unconscious figure, synchronizing his pulls with increased pressure on the door. He gave up after a moment. There was only one way to get Teddy out, and that was to pry off the door.

He unlocked the Buick’s trunk and brought out the jackhandle, one end of which was flattened so it could be used on hubcaps. Shayne forced the flat end into the crack between the folding door and the frame of the booth, and leaned against it. The thinner metal of the door creaked and began to bend.

This was a quiet part of town. So far no cars had passed. One was approaching now, but Shayne went on with what he was doing. A screw popped.

The car slowed. It had a noisy motor and a noisier muffler.

A voice called above the racket, “Stealing dimes out of the phone?”

Shayne glanced around. There were three men in the front seat of a dirty cream-colored Plymouth. The speaker was a youth of eighteen or nineteen, with his hair in his eyes. The visible portions of his face were marred with patches of acne.

“Man passed out in here,” Shayne grunted. “The door has to come off.”

The boy stepped out. He proved to be six feet two or three, and looked as though he had been put on a rack and stretched.

“Give you a hand, hey. Nothing like breaking up telephone-company property. Whitey, there’s a tire tool on the floor. Let’s help the man.”

Leaving the motor running, the driver got out and felt under the front seat. He was stocky and muscular, with pale skin and hair and eyebrows so white he was nearly an albino.

“I’m coming along fine, thanks,” Shayne said. “On your way, boys.”

The long-haired youth stepped on the sidewalk, making a point of looking into the phone booth instead of at Shayne.

“Can’t we even watch?”

The third man, a heavy-set pockmarked Cuban, slid over and swung his legs out of the car but remained seated. He was older than the other two, with graying hair and sad cow’s eyes. The stump of a cigar was clamped between his jaws.

“Passed out?” the youth said, peering in at Sparrow. “Clobbered out is more like it. Big-no wonder the door won’t open. How about breaking the glass?”

He turned toward Shayne to ask the question. Shayne had been in circulation long enough to know there had to be a reason for three such dissimilar people to be cruising the streets in that kind of car, and he brought the jack-handle down and around to meet the youth as he drove in at Shayne’s midsection with a fist armed with brass knuckles.

The knuckles glanced off the steel handle. Shayne continued the stroke with a vicious cut at the youth’s head. He missed by inches.

The follow-through carried them into a hard collision. Shayne swung one leg at the hinge of the boy’s knees, bringing his elbow up hard. He wanted to get this one out of the way fast, before he had to meet the other two.

He felt and heard the crunch of cartilage as the youth’s nose was flattened against his face. Tripped by Shayne’s swinging leg, he was already on his way down. Shayne’s knee came up to meet him. He went over backward, arms and legs splaying in four directions. Blood spurted from the mess that had been his nose.

The Cuban was out of the car, moving fast. Shayne had one more thing to take care of. He had a bias against people who swung on him with brass knuckles. The boy’s hand, palm upward, scraped the sidewalk as he fought to recover. Shayne’s heel came down hard and the boy screamed.

Shayne was already turning to meet the Cuban’s rush.

The Cuban dived beneath the jackhandle, grabbing the detective around the thighs. Whitey was running around the front of the car, a short taped club in one hand, probably the meat end of a baseball bat. Shayne was driving, and the Cuban couldn’t hold him. Shayne swung the jackhandle. Whitey pirouetted away like a dancer.

Shayne staggered and nearly fell. Recovering, he jabbed the flat end of the handle downward twice at the Cuban’s kidneys. The Cuban’s grip on his waist loosened and Shayne twisted free.

Whitey was now at the inner edge of the sidewalk, Shayne at the curb. Whitey darted in, faked a swing at Shayne’s knees, then struck upward, sending the jackhandle spinning out of Shayne’s hand.

Shayne gathered up the Cuban and whirled him at his companion. The Cuban caromed off and hit the phone booth with such force that one of the corner uprights folded inward. Shayne ducked a whistling blow from the club and caught a second on his forearm.

The youth on the sidewalk flung himself on Shayne from behind. Shayne fell. He began his roll even before he hit the sidewalk. The Cuban landed on him. Shayne struggled to throw him off while Whitey stamped around the edges waiting for a shot at Shayne’s head. The tall long-haired youth was also part of the melee but not doing much damage. The Cuban butted upward, and the top of his head collided with the knockout point in front of Shayne’s ear. The detective was hurt for the first time.

The bat descended. Whitey was trying to connect with a short slashing blow to make Shayne hold still for the real one to follow. Shayne saw the moving shadow and jerked aside. The club hit the Cuban. Shayne came into a crouch, bringing the dazed Cuban up with his left hand. He brought him around against the iron pickets of the cemetery fence, nailing him with a powerful right as he hung there. The click as it landed told him the Cuban was through for the night.

He looked for Whitey, who turned as Shayne turned. The club was already on its way down. Shayne slanted upward to meet it, and the club slammed him across the back of the neck.

“You got him!” the youth cried. “You got the bastard. Spill his brains on the sidewalk.”

Whitey growled, “Back in the car.”

“Back in the car! Look at my hand. Give me that.”

“This is Mike Shayne, meathead. Did Jake say to kill him? We didn’t get paid that kind of dough.”

Shayne lay face down, his knees in the gutter. He could hear the voices, but the words were unclear. The Plymouth’s motor panted noisily beside him. Unconsumed gases washed over him from the leaking muffler. The blow at the top of the spine had cut his communication with his arms and legs. He strained to move. He could feel drops of sweat break out on his forehead. Willing his shoulders into motion, he lifted his head a few inches.

Whitey dragged the unconscious Cuban past and thrust him into the car. The boy, one arm dangling, kept on begging for the club.

“Just one lick!”

“Leave him be, goddamn it,” Whitey snarled. “In the car, in the car!”

Shayne raised his head another inch and sank his teeth in the boy’s ankle.

The boy was wearing white jeans with pipe-stem legs, which stopped halfway down his calves. Shayne bit down hard, trying to sever the Achilles tendon. The boy gave a high bubbly cry.

“Will you come on?” Whitey cried. “I said to leave him alone!”

With a choked obscenity, the youth took a step and snatched up the jackhandle. Whitey grabbed his arm as it came down. Shayne’s teeth unclenched and he rolled out of the way. His arms and legs were answering now, but sluggishly.

The youth pulled out of Whitey’s hands and ran to the driver’s side. The door there was open. He leaped in. Whitey wrenched the door open on the near side as the car careened recklessly backward. Twenty yards away it reversed and came back at Shayne.

The detective commanded his body to roll, but he could count the seconds before the movement started. The youth with his one usable hand and Whitey with two fought for control of the wheel. The Plymouth swerved, mounting the curb, then rocked back to the street before veering onto the sidewalk again. Shayne, his head on a level with the front bumper, saw the wheels begin to turn toward the street, but in one frozen quarter-second he could see that the correction wouldn’t be made in time. He struggled to bring his arm against his body. The car whooshed past, and he felt a blazing pain in his forearm.

There was a rending crash. The Plymouth’s front fender hooked the phone booth and knocked it over.

The car bounced away, swung all the way across the street and shuddered to a stop. Whitey burst out of the front seat and ran around to take the wheel.

Hitching forward in a crablike crawl, Shayne reached the overturned booth. The Plymouth starter was growling.

Shayne wrestled himself around, braced his feet against the booth and began to pull Teddy out through the bottom.

It was painful work, and he was no longer really sure what he was doing.

The Plymouth’s sudden stop had flooded the carburetor. The starter ground on and on, beginning to weaken. The open phone in the overturned booth buzzed and crackled, and Teddy moaned. Amid the confusion of noises Shayne thought he heard a siren.

The carburetor cleared and the motor took hold with a roar. Black smoke billowed from the exhaust. Shayne gave up the attempt to free Teddy and crawled in with him, pulling open his jacket. His hand fastened on the butt of the. 38 in the shoulder holster.

The gun resisted. The Plymouth wheeled over the opposite curb and moved away, accelerating. Shayne fought the. 38. Apparently the holster had a security spring to keep the gun from being drawn by anyone else but the wearer.

He changed his grip. The gun jumped into his hand and he fired without aiming.

The Plymouth was rounding the corner into 16th Street. Shayne’s snap shot blew out a rear tire. The back end careered through a ninety-degree arc and smashed against a utility pole.

Shayne fired again, aiming carefully, and drilled a hole through the safety glass in front of the driver. Whitey understood the message, and stayed where he was.

Shayne propped the gun on the large man’s buttocks, holding the front sight steady on the thug’s unnaturally white hair. He was in the same position when the police arrived. He still had the gun in an iron grip, and pressure on the trigger would have sent a slug through Whitey’s head. But Shayne was unconscious.