Shoot the Works

Chapter three

It was exactly eight minutes later when Shayne strode briskly into the lobby of his apartment-hotel on the north bank of the Miami River. The desk clerk was at the night switchboard as he entered, and he waved to the detective when he turned his head and saw him.

“A call for you, Mr. Shayne,” he called out as the redhead increased his pace. “It’s Miss Hamilton. You can take it on the house phone there.”

He manipulated plugs and Shayne lifted the indicated instrument and said, “Lucy?”

“I’m so glad I caught you, Michael. I’m at Mrs. Wallace’s apartment. Mrs. James Wallace. Remember? Helen Pearce’s mother?”

Shayne said, “I remember. What’s up?”

“It’s Mr. Wallace, Michael. He’s been murdered. I’ve called the police, but they haven’t come yet. It’s on Northeast Fortieth.” She gave him the street number of the apartment house.

Shayne said, “Sit tight. I’ll be tied up for a short time, but I’ll get there as fast as I can.”

He hung up and the clerk turned from the switchboard with the headset still on. “Trouble, Mr. Shayne? I couldn’t help hearing…”

For once, Shayne was glad that the clerk took so much interest in his affairs and had a propensity for monitoring the telephone. If the police did have occasion to ask any questions, Dick could testify that Lucy had called him after notifying the police.

Shayne nodded, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. “James Wallace has been murdered. One of his partners is a Rutherford Martin. Got a phone book there, Dick?”

“Right here, Mr. Shayne.” Dick picked it up, eager to be helpful.

“See if you can find Martin’s address and number.” The clerk flipped through the pages. “Rutherford Martin.” He read off the street address Mrs. Wallace had supplied Shayne, and added a telephone number. Shayne jotted them down on a sheet of hotel stationery, and glanced at his watch. “It’s a little late, but… try that number, Dick.”

“You bet.” The clerk turned back to the switchboard and Shayne leaned a negligent elbow on the desk, getting out a cigarette and lighting it, then lifting the receiver of the house phone as Dick nodded over his shoulder to him.

A distant telephone was ringing steadily. It stopped ringing and a woman’s voice said, “Yes?”

“Is Mr. Martin at home?”

“He’s retired. Who is calling?”

Shayne hung up without replying. The clerk looked at him with a dropped jaw and said, “Jeez, she’ll be wondering…” Shayne grinned and waved a big hand as he started out. “Part of the technique, Dick. Keep ’em wondering.”

He drove north on the Boulevard again, slowing as he passed 40th Street to glance toward the Bay. The lights of a police cruiser were blinking at the curb a block and a half away. He speeded up to 79th Street, swung left and then to the right after a few blocks. It was a fairly new residential section of substantial homes with large, well-kept lawns. Most of the houses were dark, but there was an automobile parked in front of the Martin residence, the porch light was on and the front windows showed light behind drawn curtains.

Shayne parked behind the other car, strode up the walk and rang the bell. After a brief wait the door opened cautiously and a placid-faced, middle-aged woman looked out. She frowned and said, uncertainly, “Yes?”

Shayne dragged off his hat and smiled. “Mrs. Martin?”

“Yes. I’m Mrs. Martin. What is it?” Her voice was sharp.

He said, “My name is Shayne. I have to see your husband on a very important matter.”

“At this time of night? He’s been asleep for hours. I’m afraid…”

“What is it, Ella?” another woman’s voice asked from behind her.

She turned her head, holding onto the knob tightly. “Some man to see Rutherford. A stranger, and I don’t…”

“I’m a private detective, Mrs. Martin,” Shayne said quietly. “I assure you I wouldn’t be here like this if it weren’t extremely urgent.”

“Did he say his name was Shayne, Ella? That must be Michael Shayne. My goodness! Is he as big and redheaded as they say?”

Shayne pushed the door gently but firmly and Mrs. Martin reluctantly stepped back. She was a large woman with frankly gray hair and a small, pouting mouth. The woman standing directly behind her was tall and bony, at least ten years younger than Mrs. Martin, with snapping black eyes and wearing jangling bracelets on both wrists. Beyond the two women, in the sitting room, Shayne saw a card table in the middle of the floor with cards strewn on top and four coffee cups. Two other women still sat at the table looking toward the door with undisguised curiosity.

The bony woman pressed Mrs. Martin aside and looked him up and down avidly. Her thin cheeks were flushed and he realized she was a little bit drunk.

“You are Mike Shayne,” she announced excitedly and happily. “Think of it, girls.” She turned her head and tittered. “Maybe he’s come to arrest us for gambling.” Shayne turned his left shoulder to her and told Mrs. Martin gravely, “I’m sorry to disturb you like this, but it’s imperative that I see Mr. Martin before the police get here.”

“The… police?” Her eyes widened and her mouth made a round O.

“They’ll be ringing your bell shortly,” Shayne told her. “One of your husband’s partners has been murdered.”

“Mr. Tompkins? Oh, dear. I don’t know…”

“I’m sorry to disturb your husband if he’s asleep, but…”

“He’s been asleep for hours,” she said vaguely and somehow defensively. “He detests bridge games. He always says…”

Shayne took her well-fleshed arm firmly. “Which way is his bedroom?”

“Down this hall.” She let herself be turned away from the living room and the excited chatter of the others. “I suppose Rutherford would want to be wakened. But I think I should call him and explain. You could wait in the study here.” She paused doubtfully before an open door on the left, but Shayne said urgently, “There’s no time to waste. Which is your husband’s room?”

“At the end of the hall.” She gestured weakly to the right, and he let go her arm and walked ahead briskly and rapped on the door before thrusting it open.

The bedroom was dark, with two open windows letting in the night breeze. Shayne heard a creak of bedsprings and a grunting noise from one of the twin beds as he found a wall switch and flipped it. Subdued light sprayed the room from a rose-tinted ceiling fixture.

A bulky figure sat up abruptly in bed and stared at him, blinking his eyes and moving his lips in and out soundlessly.

He wore maroon pajamas and his thick gray hair was in wild disarray and his eyes protruded slightly.

The detective pulled the door shut and said rapidly, “I’m Michael Shayne, Mr. Martin. We’ve met a couple of times though you may not recall it. I’ve got bad news for you.”

“Shayne? Yes, I… the detective, of course. Bad news?”

“Jim Wallace has been murdered.”

“Jim… Wallace?” He closed his eyes tightly and sank back against the pillow, then raised himself aggressively. “Murdered? When? How? Good heavens, man. Do you mean it?”

“I mean it. Tonight. In his apartment. When did you see him last?”

“In the office this afternoon. I still can’t believe…”

“The police will be here in a few minutes, Mr. Martin. My secretary is with Mrs. Wallace and I need the answers to a few questions.”

“But she’s in New York,” the broker protested. “Tommy and I were joshing Jim about it just this afternoon. About her coming back tomorrow and how he’d have to get rid of all his blondes and all.”

“How many blondes, Martin?”

He snorted and shook his head. “None, of course. Not old Jim. It was just in fun because he’s the last man in the world to slide off the straight and narrow while his wife’s away. Now if it were Tommy…” Martin shook his head again. He swung his legs out of bed and reached for a silk robe at the foot of it. “God! I just can’t believe it,” he muttered. “Who would murder Jim? Of all people.”

“If you’ll answer some questions truthfully we may find out. Was Wallace planning a trip?”

“No. Not to my knowledge. He was looking forward to Myra’s return tomorrow. Why do you ask that, Mr. Shayne?”

“His apartment looks as though he was packing for a long trip when a bullet between the eyes interrupted him.”

“I can’t believe it.” Martin closed his eyes again and squeezed his heavy jowl with one hand. “You must be mistaken,” he said flatly. “We had a very important conference for tomorrow morning. Jim had set it up himself.”

Shayne said just as flatly, “On the other hand, there is definite proof that he planned to be a long way from Miami tomorrow. Think back,” he urged strongly. “Wasn’t there any indication of this when you saw him this afternoon? What sort of mood was he in? Nervous or excited?”

“Jim? He was never nervous or excited. Steady as the rock of Gibraltar. Now you take Tommy…”

“Do you mean Tompkins?” Shayne interrupted, glancing at his watch.

“Yes. Now Tommy is different. Volatile, you know, and…”

“I’d like to talk to him,” Shayne interrupted. “Where will I find him?”

“At the hotel. The Weymore. We have our offices there and he has a suite.”

Very faintly, from beyond the closed bedroom door

Shayne heard the unmistakable ring of a doorbell.

He said swiftly, “That will probably be the police now. Is there a back way out?”

“Why, yes. Through the kitchen which is directly ahead when you go out that door.” Martin’s florid face expressed quizzical disapproval. “But why are you ducking the police?”

“Just to keep one step ahead of them, if I can.” Shayne backed toward the door. “Tell them I’ve been here… but was in too much of a hurry to wait and greet them. I’ll be in touch with you.”

He opened the door and slid out, heard Mrs. Martin’s voice from the front door, “… a detective is with him right now. If you’ll come this way…”

Shayne went swiftly down a narrow passage to an open door leading into the kitchen. He closed the door behind him and felt around in the semi-darkness until he found a locked door leading out the rear. He stepped out into the night and circled the rear of the house and into the adjoining yard and thence to the sidewalk. A radio car was parked in front of his car and the other car that had been in front of Martin’s house prior to Shayne’s arrival.

Shayne walked past it briskly, noting that it was empty, slid under the steering wheel of his own car and pulled away smoothly. He drove to 79th and Miami Avenue, and south on the avenue to 4th, where he turned left to the Weymore Hotel, an unpretentious residential hotel near the Boulevard.

He parked in front and went in the large, old-fashioned lobby and stopped at the desk to ask a bored night clerk the number of Mr. Tompkins’ room.

The clerk had a very thin, fawn-colored mustache and he lifted it in the suggestion of a sneer as he shook his head and appeared happy to say, “I’m afraid Mr. Tompkins is not in just now.”

Shayne said, “Ring him and see.”

The clerk continued to shake his head with an oddly patronizing air. “Mr. Tompkins had a call which he did not answer less than five minutes ago.”

“Any idea when he will be back?”

“I’m sure I couldn’t say.” The clerk yawned delicately to indicate that he simply didn’t give a damn either.

Shayne got back in his car and drove up the Boulevard to 40th Street again. He turned off and pulled in to the curb in front of the Wallace’s apartment building behind a radio car and two other police sedans, one of which he recognized by the license plates as Chief Gentry’s personal car.

A uniformed cop stood inside the small foyer in front of the inner doors that stood ajar as Shayne walked in. He was methodically chewing a wad of gum and he regarded the detective with a jaundiced eye and remained stolidly in front of the open doors.

“You live here?”

Shayne shoved his hat back on his red hair and said, “A friend of mine does. Jim Wallace on the fourth floor.”

“Friend of Wallace’s, huh?” The cop made it sound like at least a felony. “Pretty late to be visiting.”

Shayne said, “I always visit my dead friends on the stroke of midnight. Call upstairs if you want and tell Will Gentry I’m here. Mike Shayne.”

“You’re Mike Shayne, huh? Heard a lot about you.” The patrolman continued to chew his gum ruminatively but made no move to withdraw from his strategic position in front of the entrance.

Shayne made a disgusted noise deep in his throat and turned to search for the button on the wall with Wallace’s name beneath it. The cop said good-naturedly, “No need to ring if you wanta go up. Chief said it was okay.”

Shayne turned and asked, “Why didn’t you say so?”

The man grinned amiably and said, “You didn’t ask.” He stepped aside and Shayne went in. Both elevators were above, and Shayne rang one of them down. He got in and went up to 4, and saw another policeman lounging in the hall outside of the open door to the Wallace apartment.

He recognized Shayne as the redhead approached him and motioned inside with his thumb. “Hi, Mr. Shayne. Chief said it was okay.”

Shayne went past him and stopped in the archway. Lucy and Mrs. Wallace sat side by side on the sofa as they had been when he left. Beyond them, Timothy Rourke lounged in a deep chair with one thin leg cocked up over the arm of it, his deep-set eyes quizzically bright in a face that was thin to the point of emaciation. Shayne glanced from the Daily News reporter to the other figure in the room.

Police Chief Will Gentry stood flat-footed in the center of the rug, facing the two women on the sofa. His ruddy face was impassive and he was rumbling, “… just as soon as I get a couple of things straight, Mrs. Wallace. I want you to think back to New York this morning when the airline notified you that they had a vacancy to Miami. I want you to tell me…”

He broke off as he noted the eyes of both women turned to look at Shayne. He turned his head slowly, rolling a cigar between his lips with manifest satisfaction.

“Little late getting here, aren’t you, Mike?”

Shayne shrugged. “Could that be a crack?”

“Not at all. Merely an observation, Mike.” Chief Gentry’s voice was sardonic. “It’s just a welcome relief to answer one homicide call in Miami and not find you sitting on the case when I get here.”

Shayne tugged at his left ear-lobe and said mildly, “I made it as fast as I could after Lucy phoned me.”

“So now you’re here, and now you can sit yourself down and keep quiet while I conduct an investigation for once in my life without wondering how many important clues you’re holding out on me.” He turned back to Mrs. Wallace and cleared his throat. “Now, Ma’am. This morning in New York. I was asking you…”

The telephone rang in the bedroom. He paused, and in the silence they could hear a man answering it in the other room. A few moments later a member of the Homicide Squad appeared in the doorway and his face became blank as he saw Shayne. He spoke stiffly to Gentry:

“Sergeant Harkson reporting from the Martin residence, sir. He thought you’d want to know that Mike Shayne got there ahead of him to question Martin and ran out the back door when Harkson went in the front. Mr. Martin refuses to divulge the questions he was asked by Shayne.”

Gentry said, “Thanks. Get on with it, Morris.” He sighed and glanced at Shayne, who was seating himself negligently in a chair near the archway. “We’ll have a talk afterward, Mike. The only reason you’re staying is because Mrs. Wallace has stated that you have been retained by her. That doesn’t give you any special privileges, and if I learn, by God, that you’ve been running around instructing witnesses it won’t keep you out of jail.”

He turned back to the widow. “Now, Ma’am…”