The Corpse Came Calling

CHAPTER FIVE

Shayne didn’t go into a complete blackout. He kept drifting away toward nothingness and jerking himself back from the abyss. The thought of Phyllis, gagged and bound in the chair as he had seen her when he entered the room, kept him from going completely under. He knew both the men were strangers. His one glimpse of their faces before the sap cut him down told him they were not members of any local mob. They looked like big-time boys. And that reminded him of Jim Lacy. His disconnected thoughts told him there must be a connection.

They were rolling him over, shaking him roughly. He kept his body limp and quiescent. His jaw felt as though it was broken, but he didn’t think it was. His head ached like hell but that didn’t worry him. It was a good tough head, and had weathered harder blows in the past.

Then they left him lying sprawled out with his face pressed down into the rug. He could hear voices and the scraping sound of furniture being moved about. As though they were searching for something.

The scrap of cardboard he had taken from Lacy’s clenched fingers!

That must be the answer. He wondered what would happen when they didn’t find it in the apartment. He held himself there on the floor without moving, simulating unconsciousness, waiting for strength to come back to his body.

There was a long period of that drifting away and returning to partial consciousness. Then, surprisingly clear and close, he heard a thin voice say, “No use wasting any more time looking. How hard did you sap this mug, Joe?” A toe nudged Shayne’s bare ribs.

“I guess I musta cold-cocked him that last time right,” a thicker voice admitted. “From what they say about him around here he’s easier handled that way than when he’s still on his feet.”

“He don’t look so tough now.” The toe went away from Shayne’s ribs, then came forward with careless force. He sucked in his breath sharply under the impact but made no movement to indicate he felt the kick.

“We got to get him out of his dope and make him talk,” the thin voice complained. “The paper said Lacy was still alive when he got to Shayne’s office.”

“Yeh.” Joe chuckled with malicious good humor. “An’ the cops can’t figure anything but that Shayne or his wife musta been in on the kill. That’s a hot one, hey, Leroy?”

“Let them keep on thinking that. If Lacy got to him alive, he spilled the whole lay. There wasn’t anything in the paper about the cops finding a funny-looking piece of cardboard on Lacy. That means Shayne stashed it before he called the cops-and he wouldn’t have done that ’less he knew why Lacy was carrying it. Let’s go to work on him and make him sing a song.”

That settled the question that had been bothering Shayne. His mind was alert now, hitting on all cylinders. He listened carefully for a further clue to the enigma of Jim Lacy’s death.

But Joe sidetracked the conversation. “What about the dame, Leroy?” His voice held a hopeful leer. “It’d be lots more fun workin’ on her than on him. She ain’t wearing nothing under that fancy robe.”

Leroy snarled. “Lay off the dame. She’s just right like she is with her mouth taped shut. Dames ain’t got any sense. She’d start screeching her tonsils out if we took that tape off.”

“Yeah. Reckon you’re right, Leroy.” Joe sounded disappointed. He insisted, “But it would be fun.”

“We’re not here to have fun. Help me turn this mug over so we can go to work on him. He’s been around. He’ll know better than to start anything-as long as we’ve got his frail tied up where we can make passes at her.”

“That’s an angle,” Joe exulted. “We wake him up and make him watch us go after her while she’s tied up. Sure, that’ll snap him out of it.”

Four hands got hold of Shayne and rolled him over on his back. He kept himself limp, eyes closed. A beer and garlic breath flowed into his nostrils. Close to his face, Joe muttered doubtfully, “I dunno, Leroy. Sometimes I don’t know my own stren’th when I swing a sap.”

“He’s still breathing,” Leroy said crisply.

They drew aside and held a whispered conversation. Shayne braced himself for whatever was coming. They were afraid to question Phyllis, and as long as they thought he was unconscious they’d probably leave her alone. But there’d be hell to pay if they once got his eyes open.

He heard stealthy movement beside him, then a glass of cold water was unexpectedly dashed in his face.

“That did it,” Leroy chuckled. “I swear I saw him jump. He’s playing dead. I know how to fix that.”

Shayne heard the scratch of a match. Heat came close to his left eyelid, unbearably close, singeing his shaggy brows. His head jerked involuntarily. He sat up and opened his eyes.

Leroy stepped backward and produced his. 45. The barrel was sawed off close to the cylinder, making it a handy and deadly pocket gun. Leroy’s eyes were ruthless, the eyes of a killer who delights in his work. He surveyed Shayne coldly and said, “I don’t want to use this. I won’t unless you make me.”

Shayne turned his head to look at Phyllis. She had stopped struggling to free herself. Her black eyes were dilated, luminous with encouragement. The top part of her robe had spread apart, revealing her smooth throat and the beginning swell of young breasts.

Shayne wrenched his eyes away from hers. Joe stood close beside him with a grin on his brutal face. He swung a short, leather-covered blackjack suggestively.

Shayne said, “All right. It looks like your party, boys. What the hell do you want?”

Leroy smiled thinly. “That’s using your head for something besides a target for Joe’s sap. All we want is what Jim Lacy handed you this afternoon.”

Shayne waggled his aching head and tenderly felt the lump on the side of his jaw. He muttered, “My brains still feel like hash. How’s for a drink to straighten me out? There’s a bottle on the table-and have one yourselves.”

“Sure. Pour him a drink,” Leroy directed. “But you lay off the stuff, Joe. This mug’s supposed to be pretty smart and we don’t want to make any more mistakes.” He moved back a pace and settled himself in a chair, balancing his baby cannon carefully on one knee and not taking his eyes off Shayne for an instant.

Joe went to the table and picked up the bottle of cognac. He scowled at the label and said, “Maybe there is a trick to it, Leroy. This ain’t no drinking liquor I ever heard of. Says cog-nack on the bottle.”

“That’s stuff the Frenchies make out of wine,” Leroy explained. “Pour him a slug of it.”

Shayne took the glassful Joe offered him and drank it down gratefully. He hunched forward and drew his feet up under him, sat cross-legged. He said, “A cigarette is all I need right now.”

Leroy nodded. “We’re not bad guys if you play it smart. Light him a cig, Joe.”

Joe gave him a lighted cigarette. Shayne inhaled deeply. Smoke trailed thinly from his nostrils as he said, “I haven’t seen you boys around before.”

“No,” Leroy agreed. “I guess you haven’t.”

“Sure you’re not making a mistake by barging in this way and getting rough?” Shayne persisted.

“We’re not making any mistake, shamus. You’ll be making a bad one if you don’t fork over that hicky Lacy gave you this afternoon.”

Shayne shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You better find out pretty quick.”

Shayne said, “Lacy was dead when he reached my office.”

“We won’t argue that angle. Maybe he was. Then you took it off him before the cops got there.”

Shayne shook his head again. “The cops got to him before I did. Read the papers.”

“Don’t stall us,” Leroy advised him with cold ferocity. “The cops found less than ten bucks on him. We know he was carrying folding money. Whoever lifted the jack lifted something else at the same time. We don’t give a damn about the money. We want that something else.”

“What?” asked Shayne with interest. Bare-legged and bare-torsoed, he looked peculiarly mild and harmless as he sat on the floor hunched forward, squinting at Leroy, but Leroy’s gun did not relax its vigilance for an instant. “What,” Shayne repeated, “did Jim Lacy have on him that you boys want so badly?”

“You know damn well,” Joe broke in heatedly. “We want his part of-”

“Shut up,” Leroy snarled. “If Shayne’s got it, he knows what it is we’re after. If he hasn’t got it, there’s no good in wising him up.”

“Try the cops,” Shayne suggested. “They’re the ones who went over Lacy and cleaned him.”

“The paper didn’t say anything about them finding what we want.”

Shayne laughed in Leroy’s face. “And the paper reported he had only about ten bucks on him, too,” he jeered. “Hell! get wise. Just because a man wears a uniform doesn’t mean he hasn’t got sticky fingers.”

“Maybe so,” objected Joe. “But the cops wouldn’t of known-”

“Shut up,” Leroy snarled again at his burly companion. “We didn’t come here for an argument,” he told Shayne. “Maybe you didn’t get to Jim Lacy first. Maybe you don’t know what we’re after.” He got up slowly, holding his gun level. “But we’re not leaving here till we’ve found out for certain. Stand behind him, Joe, and let him have it if he makes a move or lets out a yelp. Easy, though. I don’t want him passed out this time. I want him to keep his eyes open and see this.”

Joe took a spread-legged stance behind Shayne, his eyes glittering humidly as Leroy moved around behind Phyllis’s chair. Shayne’s head pivoted slowly, his eyes following the gunman’s movements.

Phyllis’s eyes were wide and staring. They implored her redheaded husband to remain calm and not consider her.

“She’s a cute little trick,” said Leroy softly. He patted Phyllis under the chin, then tweaked the top of her robe into a wider V.

“Mighty nice stuff for a lousy private dick to stake out all for himself,” he went on in a dangerously soft voice. “Why not divvy up with your pals, shamus? Maybe that’s what you’re going to do, huh? Joe and me, now, we don’t get a look at anything this nice very often.”

Sweat streamed from Shayne’s rocklike face. He remained hunched forward, motionless, but muscles writhed beneath the bare skin of his back like a litter of snakes in the hot sun. He could hear Joe breathing loudly behind him with a sharp, slobbering sound. Phyllis’s eyes held his. Without speaking, she was crying out to him that she didn’t matter, that they couldn’t hurt her.

“Watch him, Joe,” Leroy counseled sharply. “He’s not going to take much more of this. How about it, Shayne? Do you talk, or do I untie this gal’s belt and really give Joe a look? Joe’s funny. He’s not like you and me that can take a woman or leave her alone. Once Joe gets started-”

Shayne’s body lunged forward. Joe’s blackjack was a split second slow. It thudded against his shoulder as he whirled and drove a fist into Joe’s face. Joe stumbled backward, and Shayne swung toward Leroy.

The gunman stepped from behind Phyllis’s chair, crouched with the. 45 in front of him. “Don’t do it, Shamus,” he panted. “I’ll blast you, so help me.”

Shayne’s lips came back from his teeth in a grin that was more animal than human. He took a step forward and his eyes were mad. “You’ll have to blast me, Leroy. There’s no other out.”

He kept moving, very slowly, directly toward the muzzle of Leroy’s. 45.

Leroy moved backward. He panted, “Don’t come any closer.”

Shayne kept moving. He laughed shortly, and the sound vibrated eerily in the silent room. “You’ll have to pull that trigger, Leroy. I’m going to make you pull it. That’ll bring the cops-and the party will be over.”

Leroy took another backward step. Shayne was even with the center table when he saw the gunman’s eyes shift nervously and he sensed movement behind him.

He whirled and his hand shot out to get hold of the cognac bottle.

Joe was on his feet, circling forward. Shayne threw the bottle at Joe’s head. Joe ducked and the bottle sailed over him, through the open bedroom door where it smashed against the bedside table and toppled it over.

Leroy leaped forward as the bottle left Shayne’s hand. He swung his short gun in a vicious sideswipe against Shayne’s head. As the redhead swayed backward under the impact, Joe stepped close and measured him coolly. He swung the blackjack in a lazy arc and it tore the lobe of Shayne’s right ear loose from the scalp.

Shayne got to his knees with blood streaming from the side of his head. He teetered crazily back on his heels like a Russian dancer.

“What’s the matter with you bastards?” he taunted them.

Leroy called him a son of a bitch and kicked him in the face.

Shayne reeled back to the floor. Slowly he pushed himself up. He licked his lips and laughed again. “You lads had better tighten up your diapers and go to work. I can take a lot of this stuff.”

“Okay.” Leroy sighed. “He likes it, Joe. He must be one of these goddamned masochists you read about. Slug him, but easy. He wants us to knock him cold so he won’t have to watch his wife get raped. Cross him up-slug him easy so he don’t pass out.”

Joe slugged Shayne easy. The detective went flat on his face with arms and legs spread out. He drew in great gasping breaths, then painfully began to draw himself up again.

Running feet pounded down the corridor outside the apartment. A fist thundered on the door and rattled the knob. A hoarse voice shouted:

“Open up in there before we break the door down.”

Leroy said, “Sounds like cops-but how the hell? Come on, Joe! Out the fire escape.”

They ran through the kitchen to the fire escape while the pounding went on. Shayne was still working on the job of getting to his feet. He lurched to the door and jerked it open, sagged back against the wall while two red-faced policemen burst in, followed by the desk clerk.

Shayne pointed to the kitchen and muttered, “They went that way.”

The cops ran through the kitchen and a moment later were clattering down the fire escape.

Shayne drew in a deep breath and grinned weakly at the clerk. “The telephone, eh? When I threw the bottle it knocked the phone to the floor.”

“That’s right, Mr. Shayne. I was on the switchboard and I could hear noises and voices. I knew something must be wrong. There were two policemen still in the lobby, so I thought-”

“Didn’t a couple of thugs ask at the desk for me?”

“No, sir.” The clerk shook his head emphatically. “They must have slipped in the side door and up the stairs.”

Shayne nodded. He stumbled away from the wall and made the distance to Phyllis. He pulled her robe together, and the clerk helped him loosen the tape binding her mouth and limbs while he clucked solicitously and asked anxious questions which Shayne did not answer.

Phyllis tried to laugh and drew Shayne’s battered head to her bosom when she was released. Through lips that were sore and swollen from removing the tape she cried, “Oh, Michael! I thought I’d die. Sitting here unable to move-”

Shayne muttered, “I was afraid I wouldn’t” He lifted his head and said over his shoulder to the clerk, “Thanks a hell of a lot, bud. I guess you’ve done about all you can do right now.”

The clerk stammered, “Yes-I guess I have, Mr. Shayne,” and went out hastily.

It was very quiet in the apartment. Shayne was on his knees with his arms around his wife, and he kept his head pressed against her for a long time. Then he drew away and said, “I’m getting your robe bloody, angel.” He got up, steadying himself with one hand on the table.

Phyllis covered her face with her hands and began crying.

Shayne said, “It’s all right, Phyl. Some good cognac spilled-that’s all the real damage. And we’ve learned something important. A while ago we were wondering whether the scrap of cardboard meant anything. We don’t have to wonder about that angle any more.”

Phyllis took her hands away from her face. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. “C–Couldn’t you-have thought of an easier way to find out?”

Shayne fingered his swollen jaw, the lump on the side of his head, and his bleeding ear. “I’ve always done things the hard way. And,” his voice hardened, “I’ve never yet taken a beating that someone didn’t pay for later.” He leaned over and caught her face between his palms. “Don’t think those birds won’t pay for this.”

Phyllis shivered and caught his wrists. “Can’t you drop the case, Mike? Give the police that piece of cardboard-tell them the whole truth?”

Shayne stood up. He took a backward step and dragged air into his lungs. He asked, “Do you want me to quit, Phyl?”

She looked at him with tears still streaming down her face. His bare flesh was bruised and crimsoned with his own blood. Through her dimmed eyes she saw him as he had been when he inexorably stalked Leroy and the menace of his gun. It seemed to her that she could still hear the sound of his laughter ringing through the room. Terrible laughter. She shuddered and closed her eyes.

“Shouldn’t you-this time?” she pleaded. “You’re pitting yourself against the federal authorities, the police-and against those horrible thugs. If the G-men were after Lacy, don’t you suppose it was because of the piece of cardboard? Shouldn’t you co-operate-just this once?”

Shayne asked more gently, “Are you sure that’s what you want, Phyl?”

Against her will, she felt compelled to open her eyes. She saw his face, bruised and bloody, but still set in lines of grim determination. Her gaze wavered for a moment, then searched his eyes. Her tears stopped flowing and she shook her head slowly. A smile that had in it something of maternal anguish touched her lips briefly. She said:

“No, Michael. I don’t want you to quit-ever.”

He leaned over and kissed her lips. “Thanks, angel,” he said. “And now you’d better get the stickum from that tape washed off with alcohol. I’m going to the bathroom to see what cold water will do for my face.”