Murder and the Wanton Bride

17

Shayne stopped at the first lighted drugstore he came to, and called Timothy Rourke at the Daily News. He asked swiftly, “Can you meet me at Conway’s Grill in about six minutes?”

“Important?” Rourke asked tersely.

“There’s a headline building up. Six minutes, Tim. And bring that clipping with Buford’s picture.”

Rourke said, “Will do,” and broke the connection.

Conway’s Grill was a short distance west on the Tamiami Trail. Shayne had chosen it for a rendezvous because it put up a respectable front but was frequented by gamblers and other members of the sporting fraternity and was well-known up and down the East Coast as a place where close-mouthed men foregathered to discuss private affairs without much fear of police surveillance.

It was a rambling stucco structure with a large, well-lighted barroom in front, a parking area in the rear with three unobtrusive entrances leading into small dining rooms partitioned off from the front bar where excellent food was served for high prices by tight-lipped waiters.

Shayne found a parking slot just beyond the neon-lighted entrance and pulled in. His watch told him that four and a half minutes had elapsed since he made the phone call to Rourke, and it still lacked four minutes of eleven-twenty.

He relaxed behind the wheel momentarily, and leaving the motor running, lit a cigarette, coldly calm now that the chips were down and a face-to-face meeting with the escaped convict was imminent.

For he had little doubt that Whitey Buford would keep the appointment. One of Shayne’s three contacts would almost certainly know how to contact Buford if he had returned to the city from Denham (as Shayne was certain he would have done after firing that one shot at the Carson house), and if Buford was playing the sort of game Shayne suspected he wouldn’t miss the opportunity to pick up a message from Belle Carson.

Getting out of the car with the pistol he had wrested from Harvey Barstow sagging in his pocket, Shayne had no compunction about what he planned to do. Buford was a kidnapper and a killer. Right now, he was as dangerous as a mad dog running through the streets of the city, and he deserved no better break than a mad dog.

A taxi pulled up fast with protesting tires in front of Conway’s, and Shayne saw the tall, unkempt figure of Tim Rourke hop out and thrust a bill at the driver. He slowed and moved against the side of the building as Rourke crossed the lighted area of the sidewalk, and said quietly, “Right here, Tim.”

Rourke turned and slowed his plunging stride, shoved his hat back on his forehead. His deepset, black eyes glittered with excitement as he exclaimed, “All hell is popping on the Beach, Mike. Painter is out for your blood this time and every cop on both sides of the bay is alerted to pull you in. What in hell have you been up to?”

“Staying two jumps ahead of Painter all day,” Shayne said drily. He held out his hand. “Got the clipping with you?”

Rourke unfolded a sizable piece of newsprint and put it in his hand. Shayne glanced at the picture and nodded. The thin, predatory face looking at him was a younger version of the man whom he had glimpsed in the moonlight in Denham a few hours earlier. He folded it with his left-hand and thrust it into his pocket. “Get back off the sidewalk between those two parked cars, Tim. I want you to witness this and be able to swear it was self-defense, but there’s no point in your stopping a stray bullet.”

“Tell me what in hell...”

“Afterward,” Shayne said quietly. Another taxi was drawing close, slowing to stop in front of the Grill. He put his right hand deep into his coat pocket and gripped the butt of Harvey Banker’s Special. “I’ve got a hunch this is it. Get away from me, Tim.”

The tone of his voice sent Rourke across the sidewalk to sidle between two cars parked at the curb.

The taxi passenger got out and paid the driver, turned to walk into the lighted area while he tugged the snap brim of a black felt lower on his forehead.

When he was two paces from the door Shayne straightened from his lounging position against the wall and said loudly, “This is it, Whitey. Here’s the message from Belle Carson.” He kept his hand in his pocket, but the short-barrel of the gun did not push out the fabric.

Whitey Buford stopped in mid-stride. He was less than ten feet from the redhead. He stood like a statue for a moment before his right hand darted inside his coat toward a shoulder holster.

Shayne waited until his gun was clear before shooting him in the mid-section. Buford pressed the trigger of his own gun as he fell forward, but the bullet went wild.

Shayne leaped forward and was bending over him before he hit the concrete. He snatched up Buford’s gun and dropped it in with his, hoisted the bleeding man onto his shoulder and turned away fast as the door of Conway’s Grill opened cautiously and a man peered out into the night.

Shayne had chosen the spot well for his purpose, because no one from Conway’s came charging out to investigate the two shots just outside, no one challenged him as he trotted back to his rented car carrying Buford on his shoulder and jerked out to Rourke, “You drive, Tim. We’ll ride in the back and I’ll try to keep this guy alive to give him to Painter.”

He jerked open the back door and piled Buford onto the seat while Rourke ran around to the front and got in, gunned the motor and pulled away fast without asking questions.

Kneeling on the floor in the rear, Shayne stretched Buford’s limp body out on the back seat, spread his coat open and jerked blood-soaked shirt-tail and undershirt out from under his belt to examine the wound inflicted by his .32 caliber bullet. There was a small hole just left of center leading into the convict’s intestines, and blood was oozing out of it.

Whitey Buford opened his eyes and wet his lips and peered up at the redhead as he pressed a folded handkerchief against the wound, pulled the undershirt down tight over it to hold it in place.

“You’re Shayne,” he said thinly. “The quick-gun Shamus’ Watson figured to hire when he heard I’d busted out and was headed this way.”

Michael Shayne rocked back on his heels and looked down at the escaped felon grimly. “You’ve got a bullet in your guts, Buford. You may live to get the chair and you may not. Want to talk about it?”

“What’s there to talk about? You had all the advantage... waiting for me like that.”

“You had all the advantage in Denham tonight,” Shayne reminded him coldly. “Who were you gunning for... Belle or me?”

“You, goddamn it. Why’d I shoot Belle?”

Shayne said, “That’s one of the things I wondered. You said Watson a moment ago. Didn’t you mean Carson?”

“The sonofabitch was named Watson when he lammed with that fifty grand and left me holding the bag. After setting up the whole caper and talking me into grabbing the kid.”

“Watson?” Shayne repeated the name wonderingly, and then suddenly it hit him and he wondered why he hadn’t realized the truth sooner.

Of course, Banker Carson of Denham was merely the reincarnation of Richard Watson of Atlanta, head bookkeeper for the Barnett Lumber Company, the quiet man who had disappeared so completely after driving away from home at dusk with a shabby suitcase in his car.

It all added up, Shayne realized. The appearance of Walter Carson in Denham a short time later with enough money to buy out the controlling interest in a small country bank.

The ransom money for the Barnett boy which must have been in that suitcase Mr. and Mrs. Pease saw him carry out the back-door.

That was why none of the money had ever been recovered — why Buford had denied receiving any of it. He hadn’t ditched it in Miami, and he hadn’t broken jail and headed for Miami to recover it. Instead, he had broken jail burning with a desire for revenge on the man who had double-crossed him and sent him to jail years before.

Somehow, through underworld connections while inside the penitentiary, he must have learned that Watson was posing as a respectable banker in Denham — and somehow Watson must have been warned that he knew.

So, Belle hadn’t committed bigamy after all. She had merely waited for her legal husband to establish his new identity, followed him to Denham where they had played out the farce of a whirlwind courtship before remarrying.

Whitey Buford groaned and closed his eyes. Little bubbles of spittle formed on his lips. Shayne leaned close and demanded harshly, “Why did you kill Watson last night? To prevent him from coming to me with his proposition for me to hunt you down and kill you before you could expose him?”

Buford’s eyes stayed shut. His lips parted slightly and Shayne had to lean very close to hear the wheezing whisper, “Didn’t kill him. Wanted... my share. Was gonna... collect...” The voice ended in a sibilant sigh. Shayne bared his wrist and found the pulse. It was slow and somewhat weak, but quite regular.

He lifted his head and looked out the window, saw they were on the Causeway rushing toward Miami Beach at about seventy miles an hour.

Hunched over the steering wheel of the rented car, Rourke saw his head lift in the rear-view mirror, and called over his shoulder cheerfully, “He die on you, Mike?”

“I think he’ll live for the electric chair if we get him to a doctor fast.” Shayne got out a cigarette and slumped down on the floor with his back against one door and his feet against the other.

“Sure you want to go in to Painter, Mike?” Rourke’s voice was sharp with anxiety. “The way we’ve been getting it, he’s got enough on you to put you behind bars for the rest of your life.”

“I want to deliver Whitey Buford to him alive,” said Shayne inflexibly. “And I’ve already given him Carson’s murderer, so he shouldn’t be too tough to handle.”

“Buford didn’t do that job?” Rourke asked incredulously, slowing to a sedate fifty as they neared the Beach end of the Causeway. “I just heard him identifying Carson as Watson. Know what that means, Mike? When I checked into Buford and the kidnapping story this evening, I ran across the name of Watson. Grapevine had it at the time that he was the pay-off man for the ransom money. The money that never was found. If Watson did disappear with the fifty grand and changed his name to Carson...”

“That’s what he did, Tim. And his wife waited almost a year before following him to Denham and remarrying him under his new identity. I don’t know how she traced him, but the poor devil must have felt like he’d gone from the frying pan into the fire when she traced him to Denham. Pull up close to the side entrance where Doc Crandal has his emergency room,” he directed as they neared the Miami Beach police station. “I don’t want to start arguing with Petey or any of the boys until the doc gets to work on him.”

Rourke pulled into the parking area in rear of the station and passed a dozen police cars to head in toward a door with a nightlight burning over it.

He switched off his motor and headlights, leaped out to help Shayne drag Buford’s unconscious body off the back seat and get it draped over Shayne’s shoulder. Then he hurried ahead of him to open the door, announcing loudly, “Got a customer for you, Doc.”

The small room was brilliantly lit and antiseptically white, equipped with an operating table and emergency equipment, and Doctor Crandal was in an easy chair reading a paper-backed mystery with a bottle of beer close to his right hand.

He got up and yawned when Shayne came through the door and stretched Buford out on the table. “So it’s you, Mike?” he said in a pleased tone. “Mr. Painter will be very happy to know you’re here. And if that’s a stiff you’re stretching out on my table...”

“He isn’t stiff... yet.” Shayne jerked the undershirt up and displayed the wound. “Just a little thirty-two slug, Doc.”

“U-m-m, yes. But you missed his belly-button, Mike,” he said in a tone of gentle reproof.

Shayne said apologetically, “It was a lousy short-barreled Banker’s Special.” He stepped back toward a door leading into the police station and Timothy Rourke joined him as the doctor examined the wounded man.

“He should be okay,” he said after a time, glancing at the two men with mild curiosity. “I’ll have to tell Painter you’re here, Mike.”

Shayne smiled and said, “I’d rather have the pleasure of telling him myself, Doc. Coming, Tim?”

“God yes. This, I must see.”

Shayne opened the door and they stepped into an empty corridor leading back from the charge room. They turned to the right and went side by side past two closed doors toward an open door on the left that both men knew led into Painter’s private office.

As they approached it, they heard a gruff voice explaining apologetically, “But Shayne had beat it before we got there, Chief. This punk claims he beat him up for no reason at all.”

“That’s one more charge to throw at him.” Painter’s voice was gleeful. “I’ll bet any of you ten bucks that he’s fifty miles from here right now... running like a hound dog with his tail between his legs.”

There were guffaws of pleased laughter from inside the room, and Shayne paused to take out his billfold and extract a ten-dollar bill. Holding it outstretched, he walked into the office and said, “I’ll take that ten dollar bet, Painter.”