Shoot the Works

Chapter eighteen

He tried his office first. Knowing Lucy so well, and knowing the almost unreasoning devotion to duty that lay behind her absolute insistence that the office must never be left empty between nine in the morning and five in the afternoon lest an important call be missed, he knew it had to be something extremely important that had caused her to break her rule today, and that she would almost certainly have left some message for him, explaining her absence.

Somehow though, he was unable to actually believe Lucy wouldn’t be there to greet him with her bright smile until he stood in front of the locked, outer door and got out a key to open it.

It was the first time since he had installed Lucy in this office as his secretary that he had needed a key to get in during office hours.

And when he opened the door, the emptiness and the silence of the reception room struck him with such force that he had a leaden feeling in his belly.

He stood inside the door and looked across the low railing at Lucy’s neat desk, noting that her hat and her handbag were missing from their accustomed places, and noting also (with a faint and almost subconscious sense of relief) that there was no sign of disturbance or struggle in the outer office, nothing at all out of the way to indicate that Lucy had left hurriedly or under duress.

He strode across the small room to look down at her desk and typewriter without finding the message he was looking for, then turned and went into his private office on the left.

It was there on his desk. He knew it was a note from Lucy the moment he stepped through the doorway and saw the sheet of paper lying in the exact center of the desk.

He leaned forward with both palms flat on the mahogany surface and read the neatly typed words:

Michael Shayne read the whole message through twice without blinking his eyes. Then he straightened slowly and closed his eyes tightly. “Don’t worry. I’ve gone to meet Mrs. Wallace. Don’t worry. I’ve gone to meet…”

The trenches in his cheeks deepened and he doubled both hands into big fists, holding them out in front of him stiffly. He opened his eyes and studied his fists bleakly.

Then he moved like an automaton around the desk to a filing cabinet against the wall. He pulled out the second drawer and reached behind cardboard folders to lift out a bottle of cognac. He uncorked it as he went to the water cooler at the end of the room. He carefully fitted one paper cup inside another and filled it with cognac. He ran ice water into another cup, carried them both back to the desk and placed them side by side in front of the swivel chair with the bottle beside them, and then sank into the chair.

He lifted the two cups fitted together and drank half the contents, then took a sip of water. Staring straight ahead across the emptiness of the office, with the silence beating against his eardrums, he lit a cigarette and then lifted the telephone and dialed Chief Will Gentry’s private office number.

When Gentry’s voice came over the wire, he said: “I’m in my office, Will. Your hunch is right. A note from Lucy says Mrs. Wallace phoned her and Lucy has gone out with her.”

Gentry said briskly, “Don’t worry, Mike. We’ve already got a pick-up on Mrs. Wallace. I’ll put another one through, urgent.”

Shayne said, “Thanks, Will.”

He hung up. Don’t worry. Of course not. Why should he worry? Lucy Hamilton was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, wasn’t she? Well, wasn’t she? And Myra Wallace was Lucy’s very good friend… wasn’t she?

Myra Wallace couldn’t possibly have killed her husband and Lola Berger… could she?

Of course not. The idea was preposterous. Why was it preposterous? Because a very smart private detective named Michael Shayne had decided it was… that’s why. A red headed, hard-boiled shamus named Michael Shayne who knew more than the chief of police and the whole damned Miami police department. That’s why.

So… don’t worry. Lucy has just gone out for an innocent ride with a bereaved widow who happened to be the mother of one of Lucy’s very best friends. That’s all.

Shayne drank the rest of the cognac in the paper cup with cold deliberation. He sat for a long time enveloped in brooding silence while he reviewed every facet of the case and waited for the telephone to ring and bring him Lucy’s lilting voice over the wire or a gruff reassurance from Will Gentry.

But the telephone did not ring and the brooding silence continued.

He stood up after a time and went out through the door into the empty reception room and out to the elevator.

The pert redhead on the fourth floor of the Weymore looked up in pleased surprise when he strode toward her desk five minutes later.

“I don’t know how you ever found out my name is Alice, but…”

Shayne said, “Tompkins in?”

“Mr. Tompkins?” She flushed faintly at his abrupt tone, and dropped her eyelids defensively. “Not at the moment, Mr. Shayne,” she told him in a formal voice. “But Mr. Martin is.”

Shayne nodded and went past her to open the door and stride down the hall to Martin’s office. The broker was seated at his big desk making pencilled notations on some papers, and he looked up petulantly at Shayne’s unannounced entrance. “I’ve wondered where you were, Shayne. No news about the money?”

“No news about the money.” Shayne stood flat-footed in front of the financier, his bleak gray eyes boring into his. “Where is Tompkins?”

“I believe he had an outside appointment. See here, Shayne. I feel that you blame me, somehow, for that unfortunate girl’s suicide. I assure you that when I made that telephone call to her, I had no idea in the world that…”

Shayne brushed his explanation aside with a savage gesture. “Has Tompkins told you privately what sort of alibi he has for last night?”

“His alibi? No. That is…” Martin paused with a troubled frown. “I don’t believe it is a breach of confidence to say it concerns a married woman with whom he spent the night.”

“Do you have a photograph of Wallace that I could take around to Lola Berger’s place to try for an identification?”

“A photograph?” Martin repeated helplessly, moistening his lips and glancing about the office. Then his eyes lighted and he got ponderously to his feet and went toward a large framed picture on the wall which he lifted down and offered to Shayne.

“Here is one of the three of us taken four years ago when we first formed the firm. They are quite good likenesses, and…”

They were very good likenesses of all three of the partners, Shayne saw as he looked down at the framed picture. He tucked it under his arm and said, “I want you to stay here in your office, Martin, until I come back. And if Tompkins comes in or calls in, I want him to be here, too. I think I’m going to locate your million dollars for you.”

“That’s wonderful, Mr. Shayne. But I don’t understand…The broker’s words were wasted on Shayne’s hastily disappearing back as the detective hurried back to the elevator, hugging the framed picture under his arm.

Fifteen minutes later he parked in front of the Flagler Street apartment house again.

Traffic on the street was light at this hour of the afternoon, and there was no outward sign to indicate that violent death had occurred on the premises a short time earlier.

For the third time that day Shayne went through the empty foyer to the elevator at the rear and pressed the third floor button.

There was the same dank smell in the air when he got out, and the only difference this time was the uniformed figure of a policeman standing in front of the Berger apartment.

He straightened briskly as Shayne approached, and said, “You’re Shayne, aren’t you? I’ve got strict orders…”

Shayne said, “Skip it, Bud.” He turned his back on the patrolman and pressed the bell of the door opposite Lola’s.

The door opened after a moment and the bald man with the scraggly, white mustache peered out cautiously. His rheumy eyes brightened when he recognized Shayne. “Come in, Mister. Come on in. I know who you are now. Mike Shayne, huh?”

He turned back and said excitedly, “It’s that private detective that was here before, Ida. You remember?”

“’Course I remember.” Ida’s triple-chinned smile was happily welcoming. “I told you I bet he was the one that’d solve it, didn’t I, Peter? Just like in the private eye pictures on TV. I can’t say I thought so much of that chief you was here with last time,” she sniffed to Shayne. “Always interrupting a body like he didn’t really care what was what. The things I could of told him about Miz Berger…”

Shayne said, “That’s why I came back without him this time, I consider you and your husband the most important key witnesses in the case. Take a look at this picture, please. Look at the three men.” He held the framed photograph out for the couple to look at. “Have you ever seen any of them before?”

“That one.” Ida unhesitatingly pointed to Tompkins. “I’d know him any time, anywhere. I’ve seen him slipping in and out of the apartment across the hall plenty of times. You have too, Peter, and don’t you deny it. I know what you told me before,” she went on with a toss of her head. “That it doesn’t sound so good to admit that we peeked out the keyhole sometimes and through a crack in the door to see what was going on, but, like I told you, this is important police business and we’ve got our duty as common, ordinary citizens to tell the truth. So you up and tell Mr. Shayne, Peter. That’s one of her men all right.”

“Yes, it is for a fact,” said the bald-headed man reluctantly. “I recognize him, all right.”

“What about the other two?” Shayne’s voice was quietly insistent. “Look at them closely. Have you ever seen either of them here? Any time? Even once?”

They both leaned forward and studied the features of Wallace and Martin avidly and hopefully. But both shook their heads after a time and confessed regretfully, “Neither one of the other two. But that young, slim one. He was in and out a lot.”

“Last night? Did you see him last night?”

They both hesitated, looking at each other speculatively, and then the husband said apologetically, “We’re plumb sorry to admit it, but we just didn’t bother to look out last night. No, sir. We just didn’t. Is it real important? Did he kill her?”

Shayne said, “We don’t know yet whether anyone killed her or if she committed suicide, but your identification of the man in this picture is an extremely important clue and I’ll see that you get full credit for it in the newspapers when the whole story comes out.” He hurried out before they could waste his time with further questions.