Murder in Haste

Chapter Seven

Captain Prideaux saw him coming at a run, and had the motor turning over when he reached the boat. They left the dock in a long easy curve, the engine throttled down all the way. Other boats were passing, one with a noisy outboard, and in another moment Shayne thought it was safe to open up.

He nodded to Prideaux, and the powerful boat shot toward its home pier. The redhead checked the time as they went, wondering if five minutes was cutting it too close. Prideaux cut the power and brought the boat in along the charter docks, and at that moment Shayne heard the siren from the causeway. He leaped onto the dock and sprinted for his Buick.

A minute or so later he was pulling into the plaza at the end of the causeway. He made a full U-turn, ending up pointing away from the bay. He could follow the wail of the siren as the police car raced along the causeway and down onto the Bay Harbor islands. When the black Ford showed up in the line of traffic, coming fast, Shayne eased forward and parked.

He unfolded a road map. He had his face behind it when the Ford pulled past him. Shayne threw the map aside and followed. A Pontiac, leaving the toll station, crowded in ahead of him, but it didn’t matter. Scared by the shots and the siren, the Cuban in the Ford was taking his time, keeping within the speed limit.

He made the turn onto Collins. Shayne kept him in view, without doing anything to attract attention himself. On Dade Boulevard, the Ford dropped out of the traffic and parked near a large drugstore. The Cuban was careful to feed the parking meter after leaving the car. Shayne pulled up in an open space by a fire hydrant, and when the Cuban went into the drugstore, Shayne got out, unlocked his trunk and opened a suitcase he kept there for occasions like this one.

He took off his checked jacket and replaced it with an inconspicuous gray tweed. He had a light straw hat in the back seat, and he put this on. As soon as a legal parking slot opened up ahead of him, he moved into it, after which he strolled past the drugstore, spotted the Cuban leaving a phone booth inside, and went back to the Buick.

Then he waited.

A few minutes passed. The Cuban emerged and went to the corner of Alton Road, where he stepped off the curb and began waving at taxis. An empty cab slowed for him. Timing his moves, Shayne was the second car behind the taxi as it went along Collins and some minutes later turned in at the St. Albans, one of the big new hotels. The Cuban thrust a bill at his driver and walked briskly through the revolving door. Shayne knew the doorman here. He jammed on the emergency brake.

“Take care of it, will you, Frank?” he said, giving the man a dollar. “And I may want to put my hands on it in a hurry.”

“Sure, Mr. Shayne.”

Shayne went into the vast modernistic lobby, under the golden dome. This was the tail-end of the tourist season and the big conventions were underway; the St. Albans was usually rented to capacity at this time of year. Shayne began to circle, looking for the Cuban.

“Mike!” somebody called.

Shayne waved amiably and pushed through the crowd. He spotted the Cuban waiting for an elevator with several short, fleshy men, each of them wearing a large lapel badge shaped like a truck-tire. The Cuban had seen Shayne run out of Mrs. Heminway’s house, and though he had had only that one rapid glimpse, the detective didn’t want to use the same elevator. There was no way it could be avoided, however, and he crowded in with the rest, letting his shoulders slump and keeping his chin in against his chest. There were no women in the car, and he kept his hat on. This elevator served the floors from ten to fifteen, and the Cuban got off at twelve. Three others got off with him, one of them Michael Shayne.

There were more of the big lapel badges in the corridor, and Shayne had had a chance to study one in the elevator. These were delegates to the convention of the I.U.D.T.H., initials which stood for International Union of Draymen, Truckers and Handlers. As Shayne followed the Cuban, his thoughts were busy. Albert Cole, who had been pointing a gun at Rose Heminway just before the ceiling fell in on him, had carried a membership card in this same union, which was noted, among other things, for the ex-convicts among its organizers and officials. Apparently the entire 12th floor had been taken over by the delegates, and not many had brought their wives. From the looks of things, Shayne wasn’t the only one here who had been up all night.

Three delegates came out of a room with drinks in their hands. They were friendly, in fact over-friendly, and they wanted the redhead to join a quartette to sing the old favorites. By the time Shayne untangled himself the Cuban was gone.

There were three doors he might have used. The first was locked. Shayne tried the next. A man wearing pajama bottoms sat up in bed and roared, “Get out of here! I want a little privacy!” The woman in bed with him giggled. Shayne retreated and tried the next room.

This was the sitting room of a one-bedroom suite. There were four men in shirt sleeves sitting around a low coffee table. They all had drinks. One was thumbing through a card-index. Another, with a sheaf of papers attached to a clip-board, seemed to be checking names.

They all looked at Shayne.

“They don’t knock around here?” one of them said.

“Looking for a friend of mine,” Shayne said, and started for the bedroom.

One of the men got up so fast his chair went over. He had a large bald head, but his features were crowded together near the middle of his face, with not enough space between them. His shoulders and chest bulked very large.

“Uh-uh,” he said.

Shayne smiled agreeably and kept going.

“Who is this mouser?” the man with the clipboard said.

“Hell, it’s Mike Shayne!”

The fourth man hooted. Getting up off the sofa, he gave the redhead a friendly blow on the muscle of his nearest arm. He was built close to the ground, broad, compact, and as solid as a truck, and until Shayne caught the blow on his muscle he hadn’t recognized him. This had been an old habit of Harry Plato, who had just put in a turbulent two-year term as president of the international. He had changed since Shayne saw him last. His hair was snow-white and his face had been deeply seared by time and trouble.

“I forgot you operated in this town, Mike,” he said. “Long time no see, huh? This is Shayne, the private badge,” he explained. “A good guy. Maybe he don’t look it, but plenty of stuff up there under that red fuzz. He handled a case for me once when I had the New Orleans district. Earned a nice piece of scratch for himself, as I recall. What brings you, Mike? You wouldn’t be looking for business, by any chance?

“Have you got some for me?” Shayne said, looking past him into the bedroom.

“I’ll always find a spot for a good man. Who’s this friend you’re looking for?”

“Al Cole,” Shayne said.

There was no visible reaction among the four men, but Shayne thought they were being too careful not to look at him. He went on, “But I shouldn’t have said he was a friend. The last I heard, he was lugging a gun around Baltimore. I can see I’ve got the wrong room. See you around, Harry.”

“I’ll be here all week,” Plato said heartily. “Drop in and I’ll buy you a drink. And if I can assist you with anything, anything at all, just say the word, Mike.”

“I’ll do that, Harry,” Shayne said, stepping back. “While I’m here, mind if I use your bathroom?”

Plato moved to intercept him, and his hand closed on Shayne’s arm. “Be my guest. But now I remember something else about you, Mike. You never refused a drink, no matter if it was before breakfast or what. Whizzer,” he said to the bald man who had blocked Shayne when he came into the room. “Get my pal here a little of that hundred-proof medicine in a tall glass without much water.”

“Some other time, Harry,” Shayne said, looking down at the fingers wrapped around his arm. “And if you’re remembering things about me, maybe you remember I don’t like to be handled.”

“Now,” Plato said. “Don’t get offended so easy, Mike. This is one of those habits with me. I see somebody I like, I just sort of naturally grab hold.”

He let go. Shayne went into the empty bedroom. The bathroom was also empty, but there was a door from the bedroom to the corridor, and by now the Cuban had had plenty of time to use it. The redhead returned to the sitting room. Plato came to the door with him.

“Sure you won’t change your mind and have that drink?”

“Yeah,” Shayne growled. “How long have you been down in Miami?”

“Couple of days.” He groaned and clasped his head. “It’s a rat race, Mike, and I’m getting out of it. Did you hear that yet?”

“Out of the union?”

Plato laughed, and barely kept himself from slapping Shayne’s shoulder. “I’m not a rich man, for God’s sake. Can I retire at my age? I’m running for top dog in the Welfare Fund, and I can’t see any reason why I shouldn’t get it. I’ve had enough of this president merry-go-round. The headaches! You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. This is one tough outfit, Mike, and I want to tell you it’s like trying to stay on a pair of waterskis when you’re tied to three different boats. I’ve aged in this office. I don’t know if you noticed?”

He looked at Shayne hopefully, expecting to be told that he looked as young as ever. Shayne said bluntly, “I hardly recognized you, Harry.”

“Oh,” Plato said, disappointed. “Well, is it so surprising? Those newspaper jerks. You’d think I was Al Capone, Jr., or somebody. And those Senators! Who are they, God Almighty? Two years is about all I can take.”

He followed Shayne to the corridor, where he looked around carefully and lowered his voice. “What are you looking for Cole for?” he said in a serious tone, with none of his earlier false joviality. “And how come up here?”

“I thought I saw him,” Shayne said. “He was with a dark-haired guy, a little mustache, maybe a Cuban. He went into one of the rooms along here.”

“Is this — well, frankly, I’d appreciate it a lot if you’d tell me, because the beanballs they keep throwing at me, I’ve got to be ready to bail out. Is it union business?”

“Not as far as I know, Harry. But he belongs to one of your Baltimore locals, and it’s lousy public relations to have people at your convention carrying Lügers. It gives the public the wrong idea.”

“Well, if Cole is carrying a gun,” Plato said carefully, “and I don’t know why the hell he should be, he probably has a permit.”

“Maybe in Baltimore,” Shayne said. “Not in Miami. And they don’t give out permits for silencers, even in Baltimore. But don’t worry about it, Harry. I took it away from him.”

The marks on Plato’s face deepened. “Don’t worry about it! I’m worrying about it, don’t worry. This kind of headline is all we need.” He lowered his voice still further. “Did anybody get shot with it?”

“Luckily, no,” Shayne said. “When you say you’ve been having trouble, have you had any with Peter Painter?”

“With who?”

“Painter, Chief-of-Detectives here on the Beach.”

“Oh, yeah, he’s the guy you keep having those run-ins with. I read about it somewhere. No, I haven’t been bothered by any of the local cops this trip, knock on wood. Do you want to tell me why you ask that question?”

“I don’t think so, Harry. When’s the convention start?”

“We come to order at—” He looked at his big watch, from which, if he wished, he could also learn the day and the date. “Jesus, we came to order fifteen minutes ago. I ought to get down there, not that much happens today. Tomorrow’s our big day, elections. Now I’ve got to operate, Mike. I’ve got a screwy feeling, and I wish I didn’t have it, that you and I are going to be in touch.”

He was about to open the door when Tim Rourke came charging up the corridor, calling, “Harry! Mr. Plato!”

To his friend Michael Shayne, Rourke looked as though he had just crawled out of a compost heap. He was never exactly dapper but today his clothes had a slept-in look, which was probably deserved. His eyes were being held open with difficulty. His long bony fingers trembled. His face was the color of ashes, and his voice came out in a hoarse croak.

Harry Plato looked at him in disgust. “What do you want?”

“Give me a minute, give me a minute,” Rourke said. “Collect my thoughts. And as for you, Mike. That’s kind of a high point, giving a guy as a character reference at four in the morning.”

“Five,” Shayne said, grinning.

Plato looked from the reporter to Shayne. “You know this poison-pen artist, Mike?”

“Don’t call me names,” Rourke begged. “Usually I just shrug it off, but I’m not up to witty repartee this morning. Harry, what’s this about you and Luke Quinn? I hear he’s supporting somebody else for the big money job.”

“Wait till the votes are counted,” Plato said coldly.

“Do you want me to quote you that there’s nothing to it?”

“I don’t want to say a goddam word to you, jerk,” Plato said.

He stalked back into the room and slammed the door. Rourke winced at the sound.

“Why does everybody have to shout?” he said.

“I thought you’d report sick this morning,” Shayne said. “But here you are, bright and cheerful, hard at work as usual.”

“Don’t give me that, you bastard. What about this four-in-the-morning jazz? When somebody calls up and says a friend of mine claims he spent the night at my place, naturally I’ll back him up: I expect him to do the same for me. But what was so goddam urgent it couldn’t wait till a decent hour?”

“Tim,” Shayne said patiently, “nobody was asking you to perjure yourself. I did spend the night at your place, or most of it. We played poker, remember?”

“Sure we played poker. But if you think I can tell you who was there most of the time, you’ve got the wrong idea about the evening, kid. Hold it. Don’t disappear. It’s important.”

He walked away from Shayne, slipping between two knots of Trucker delegates, and cut off a tall, ruddy-faced man of about thirty-five, who was too well dressed to be anything but a union official. He wore dark-rimmed glasses, a preoccupied expression, and a conservative suit with a small stripe, which Shayne guessed had retailed at several hundred dollars. His breast pocket handkerchief was carefully folded.

Shayne heard Rourke call, “Can I have a minute, Mr. Quinn?”

The redhead went down the hall. The next door after Harry Plato’s was locked. The door after that was marked with a red light, and led to the concrete fire-stairs. He returned to Rourke.

“Okay, okay,” Rourke was saying impatiently. “Play it cagey. I understand things are subject to change and you don’t want to commit yourself. But if something breaks, will you call me? You’re a local boy, and that ought to mean something. Don’t give it to the wire services first, give it to us and we’ll give it to the wire services. Anything you want in the way of pictures we’ll supply, within reason. You’ll get better space that way.”

“That’s good of you, Tim,” Quinn said, in a surprisingly gravelly voice. “But it’s delicate, you know?”

He glanced at Shayne, nodded and moved on.

Shayne said, “Luke Quinn? Do I know him?”

“This used to be his stamping ground,” Rourke said. “But he went up in the world, fast. He’s a big man in the international now, and he’s never even been booked for simple assault, what do you think about that?”

“I thought he looked familiar,” Shayne said. “He didn’t wear glasses when I knew him.”

“His eyesight’s probably o.k. The glasses are for class, to go with the suit. There’s a story here, Mike, I can smell it.” He gestured with both hands. “And if I can get it, it’s the Pulitzer, believe me. This union’s big news.”

“What kind of story?”

Rourke started to speak, but checked himself. There were too many delegates within earshot.

“I’ve got about sixty questions to ask you, and after last night I’m in poor health. I don’t like to do it, because they tell me it’s habit-forming, but I need a drink. How about you? You couldn’t have got much sleep either.”

“I didn’t get any. But the bar wouldn’t be open yet.”

“Hell, man, it’s been years since I paid for my own booze at a convention. When the Truckers are in town, you don’t wait for a bar to open.”

He walked into the nearest room. Several delegates were lounging about with drinks in their hands.

“Do you boys have a drop to spare for a couple of thirsty gentlemen of the press?” Rourke said. “I can’t sit through all that old-fashioned oratory without a little old-fashioned lubrication.”

“Don’t blame you a bit,” one of the men said. “Help yourself.”

Rourke found two glasses that were not in use, dumped the dregs of somebody else’s stale drinks on the carpet, and made two warm rye highballs. He gave one to Shayne. He thanked the men and noted down their names and home locals, for possible inclusion in his convention story. Outside in the corridor, he led the way to the fire stairs.

“You got to watch your step with this bunch,” he told Shayne confidentially. “Nicest guys in the world if they happen to like you. And if they don’t happen to like you, you might as well be out in a hurricane on roller skates. What’s this crap about Painter?”

“That’s a broad question,” Shayne said with care. “If you want to pick up gossip about Petey, don’t come to me. He’s not one of my big interests.”

Rourke gestured expansively with the drink. “If you please, my dear fellow. Something’s up. Some female screwball has been bothering the paper lately about this Sam Harris who’s going to get singed this week. He’s innocent, and so on. So the boss told one of the boys to get a comment from Petey, which we figured would be a typical sample of his typical picturesque prose. And the bastard’s not available. Now when was the last time Petey wasn’t available to anybody in the newspaper business, at any hour of the day or night? And he didn’t come to work this morning. What do you think of that, man?”

“Do I have to think anything?” Shayne said. “He doesn’t punch a timeclock.”

“Mike. His home phone doesn’t answer. We find out with one call to an off-duty cop who owes the paper a favor that there was a general pick-up out on Mike Shayne last night. The same source tells us there was shooting in Petey’s neighborhood, at about the same time. The legmen are out working on it now. And on top of that, I was waked up out of a sound sleep at four in the morning to be asked a dumb question by one of the Beach detectives, and he wasn’t up that late because it was his own idea. What do you think, Mike? I don’t know how to add?”

Shayne drank some of the cheap blended whiskey. “You’d better get it from Joe Wing. I’ll call him and prepare the way.”

“Do that. And what are you doing at the Convention of the International Union of Draymen, Truckers and Handlers, if I may ask?”

Shayne said irritably, “I don’t know what I’m doing, and you know better than to push me, Tim. I tailed somebody here and lost him.”

“You lost him?” Rourke made a superior sound with his tongue. “I didn’t know that happened to Mike Shayne.”

“It happens,” Shayne said.

“How chintzy are you going to be with me?” Rourke said after a moment, peering at him suspiciously. “I don’t print everything I hear, for God’s sake. There isn’t room in the paper. Are you going to tell me what’s going on, or are you going to be a real son of a bitch? In which case, the hell with you, and when Lucy gets back I’ll tell her I had to give you an alibi for the hours between midnight and four a.m.”

Shayne laughed. “You don’t have to go that far. I’m working for a lady named Rose Heminway, and don’t ask me what she was doing between midnight and four, because I don’t know. Did you read those clips you got out of the morgue for me yesterday?”

“Read them? I wrote them... No, I know what you mean, and anything you’re interested in, I’m interested in too. So I refreshed my recollection. Rose Heminway would be the dead man’s widow, right? What’s she want to do, take back the identification?”

“Something like that,” Shayne said. “And you can’t expect Painter to like it. But talk to Wing. I don’t know how much they want to give out right now.”

Rourke squinted at Shayne. “And the tie-up with the Truckers?”

“That I really don’t know, Tim, and there’s a lot more I don’t know. I only took the case a couple of hours ago.”

Rourke finished his drink in two long swallows. He shuddered. “Well, that’s a little better, but I still don’t feel human. How do I look?”

“You don’t look human, either.”

“Compliments. That’s what I need in the shape I’m in. I was planning to spend the day with these guys, making contacts and drinking their booze, but now I don’t know. I don’t like the Painter angle. I hope he keeps the hell away from this convention, because anything he’s in on gets bolloxed for fair. And I’d really like to get this story. Plato’s running for head of the Welfare Fund. That’s not supposed to be public knowledge yet.”

“He just broke it to me.”

“Do you know how much dough there is in that fund? There’s so many goddam zeroes it looks like the Federal budget. When you’re playing around with something that size, and when you don’t have too many scruples to start with, and when you’ve got a loyal membership that figures you deserve a little gravy after all your hard work, and they’d take just as much if they happened to be in your thirty-buck shoes — well, that’s a job there’s some percentage in battling over.

“Plato’s got his heart set on it. Not that he didn’t do okay as president. Big house, big car, big boat. But big trouble to go with it, especially since these Senators have been nipping at him. Why, the way things are going, Mike, people are getting the idea. God forbid, that he’s no better than a crook. He wants a little peace and quiet, and he thinks he’ll get it, along with a few extra bucks, in the Welfare Fund. Right now it’s touch and go. Maybe he’ll make it, maybe not.”

“Where’s Luke Quinn come in?”

“Plato needs Quinn’s backing to put him over. That’s the way I hear it, and I’ve got a couple of pretty good contacts in the so-called rank and file. There’s a dozen different districts in the union, all with their own favorite sons. The wheeling and the dealing lately has been fierce. You stick a knife in the man from New England, you buy off the man from the Southwest, you wheedle, you charm, you promise, you use your muscle. Get the general picture?”

Shayne was worrying his earlobe. “And if Quinn backs him, Plato’s in?”

“That’s about it. There’s a rank-and-filer in the argument and they’re letting him stay in, so people will know what a democratic union this is. There’s one real candidate besides Plato, from the West Coast. Whichever way Quinn leans, that man’s got it. So Quinn is being wooed. This is the situation that gets me up here when I would rather be convalescing in a comfortable bed from late hours and too much bourbon. Because how do you woo somebody like Quinn? He’s only been in the upper echelons a couple of years, so you can’t promise to get him one of the top jobs. He’s got to mature first. You can’t use muscle on him, because he’s got muscle of his own, and plenty of it. What would you suggest, Mr. Shayne?”

“Money,” Shayne said.

“Money is the correct answer,” Rourke said. “You’ve been coached. That’s what my sources say, anyhow. Mike, if I could get the real lowdown on what’s happening here, and prove it, honest to God — it wouldn’t just be local news. It’d make page one in every paper in the country. Of course,” he added, “I don’t want to get the story and end up on the obituary page in the same day’s paper. I keep telling myself to be careful. Some of these guys give me goose pimples, or is that melodramatic?... I need another drink.”