What Really Happened

Chapter eight

SHAYNE DROPPED onto the couch beside Sheila with glass in hand. He slid one arm around her shoulders and pinched her cheek, and waited for Gentry’s knock to be repeated, muttering in her ear, “Play it up the best you can, darling. We’re both tight and plenty sore at being interrupted.”

Sheila didn’t reply, but pressed his hand hard against her cheek. She was warm and she smelled good, and Shayne wondered how much she loved her husband.

Will Gentry knocked again, and more insistently, and the deep rumble of his voice penetrated the door. “Open up, Mike. It’s Will Gentry.”

Shayne drank half his cognac, gave Sheila a final pat, and said angrily, “It’s the chief of police, honey. I’ll have to open up. You sit tight.”

He got up and started toward the door as Gentry pounded on it again. Shayne growled, “All right! Damn it. You don’t have to break the door down.” He turned the knob and opened the door about six inches, holding it firmly against Gentry’s thrust and peering out with an angry scowl.

“What in hell’s the matter, Will? You might let a man know—”

Gentry said, “Want to ask you a couple of questions.” His gaze went from the glass in the detective’s hand to his disheveled appearance and the smear of lipstick on his mouth “Sorry if I interrupted anything important,” he added gruffly, “but you do choose the damnedest time for your tomcatting. Send your floosie in the bedroom if you’re ashamed for Tim and me to see her. If she isn’t already there,” he ended.

Shayne drew himself up, pretending outraged dignity, hiccuped, and said, “She’s no floosie, and this isn’t what you think at all. It’s just your foul mind.” He threw the door open grandly as Gentry plodded through, and the redhead gave Timothy Rourke a broad wink, and continued, “Certainly don’t want you to think I’m ashamed of introducing my friends.” He closed the door and said, “Sylvia, meet Chief Will Gentry, and Mr. Rourke from the Daily News.”

She was lolling against the couch with a cigarette dangling from her mouth. Tossing her head, she giggled, “Glad to make your acquaintance, I’m sure.”

Gentry nodded curtly and asked Shayne, “Can’t she go in the other room for a few minutes? This is important.”

Rourke had acknowledged the introduction with “Hi, Sylvia,” and stood to one side, appraising Sheila Martin with saturnine approval.

Shayne tossed off the rest of his cognac and waved a big hand vaguely. “Make yourselves right at home. Fix Will a drink, Tim — and help yourself.” He went to the couch, wavering a trifle but holding himself erect, leaned over Sheila, and said tenderly, “’Scuse us for a minute, sweet. Gotta talk business with the cops.”

He caught her hands and helped her up, went with her to the bedroom and steered her inside, half-closed the door as he switched on the light. She turned and pressed herself against him, pulling his face down, saying, “Let’s make it look good.”

Shayne held her tightly and again she kissed him with parted, moving lips. They were both trembling when he released her and stepped back. He considered her gravely for a second, then nodded and went out without speaking, pulling the door shut behind him Will Gentry was seated solidly on the couch with his hands resting on his knees. “Are you sober enough to answer a couple of questions, Mike?”

“Perfectly sober. Ask your questions, for God’s sake, and then beat it.”

“Sure, sure,” said Gentry soothingly. “If you’d told Tim or me you had a date, I wouldn’t have bothered you this way.”

“I wasn’t aware,” Shayne snapped, “that I was supposed to clear my dates through official channels.” He lurched as he reached for his glass, recovered himself, and filled it with exceeding care.

Rourke came in from the kitchen with two long, cold drinks, and handed one to Gentry. “It was Will’s idea to bust in on you like this, but you shouldn’t be so damned cagey, Mike. Hell, I thought you were spending all your extra time with Lucy these nights.”

“Lucy is a nice girl,” said Shayne seriously. “And so is Sylvia a nice girl. Here’s to nice girls.” He lilted his glass high, waited until the others took a drink, took a couple of swallows from his glass, and sank into a chair. “What are your questions, Will?”

“You told me tonight you’d never met Wanda Weatherby. Didn’t know anything at all about her except the one phone call asking you to see her. Is that right?”

“Something like that,” Shayne told him placidly, “because it happened to be the truth.”

“Then why did she pay you a thousand bucks yesterday?”

“Did she?”

“You know damned well she did.”

“I know nothing of the sort,” Shayne contradicted him flatly.

“The final stub in her checkbook, dated yesterday, shows a check made out to Michael Shayne for one grand — and a notation saying ‘Retainer.’”

Shayne shrugged and reminded the chief, “Lucy told you that Wanda tried to call me twice during the afternoon, and then said she was writing me a letter. Even a dumb cop should be able to deduce that just possibly she enclosed a retainer with the letter.”

Gentry’s face turned an angry red. “All right, damn it, that may be the answer. But here’s another question. What took you straight to the Sportsman’s Club from her place to ask Jack Gurley about her? How did you know about her connection with Gurley?”

“Is there a connection?” Shayne stopped pretending to be drunk. He was sure the by-play with Sheila had gone over and that neither of the men suspected she was anything more than a drinking companion.

“You must have thought so when you went there.”

“Maybe I wanted a free drink, or felt like tossing away a few bucks on Gurley’s crooked wheels.”

“Cut it out, Mike,” roared Gentry. “I know you jumped him about Wanda.”

“Did he tell you so?”

“As good as. The moment I braced him he got sore and growled, ‘So that damned shamus shot off his big mouth, eh?’”

“There are other detectives in Miami,” Shayne countered. “And my mouth isn’t so big as to make that a positive identification.”

Gentry’s agate eyes were cold. “Give me a straight answer to a straight question,” he demanded, “if you want to get back in the bedroom tonight. What sent you to Gurley?”

“I’ll trade,” Shayne offered cheerfully. “Tell me what tipped you off and I’ll tell you mine.”

Will Gentry hesitated, knowing the redhead’s stubbornness from long experience, and his disinclination to give information under pressure. Right now, the dead woman’s attempt to see Shayne before she died and her letter to him, now in the mail, were the only angles he had to work on. He said cautiously, “If I go that far will you promise not to make any trouble about me reading your mail in the morning?”

Shayne considered for a moment, conscious that the reporter was listening and awaiting his reply, conscious of the check in his pocket — the retainer he had accepted from Ralph Flannagan on condition that his name be kept out of the murder investigation. He sighed and said reluctantly, “After I read it first.”

“With me watching you open it to see I get it all?” pressed Gentry.

“Sure. You know I wouldn’t hold out anything important, Will.” He glanced at Rourke, keeping his face blandly impervious to the angry disgust the reporter showed.

“That’s a direct promise,” said Gentry heavily, “and I’ll hold you to it. Okay. Among the papers in Wanda Weatherby’s desk we found a series of newspaper stories from a clipping bureau that were all about Gurley and his family. That’s why I went to him.”

“How did he explain them?”

“I didn’t tell him — Wait a minute,” the chief expostulated. “This was a horse trade.”

“You didn’t tell him about the clippings?” Shayne said angrily. “You went away from there with him believing I was the one who sent you? Damn it, Will, you really put the finger on me that time. Of all the lousy tricks to play on a guy who’s supposed to be your friend!”

“I didn’t put the finger on you,” roared Gentry, his face purpling with anger. “Gurley jumped to that conclusion himself.”

“And you left him believing it. Don’t forget that if I wake up dead from lead poisoning tomorrow.”

“You fingered yourself by going to him first,” Gentry flared. “Don’t forget that. If you’d keep your nose out of my homicide cases you wouldn’t be asking for trouble.”

“Maybe it’s kind of my case, too, Will. She did call me for protection instead of going to the police when she was in fear of her life. Why? Answer me that.” He leaned forward and pointed an accusing finger at the chief. “Because your lousy homicide department has such a stinking reputation, that’s why. You ought to be damned glad there’s someone a tax-paying citizen can turn to for help when they need it instead of giving me hell for solving your cases for you.”

Chief Will Gentry took a drink of rye and water, and choked over it. He lowered his glass, sputtering with rage.

Timothy Rourke leaped into the breach with conciliatory words. “Shut up, both of you. Before you say any more that you don’t mean. You’re drunk, Mike.”

“Like hell he’s drunk,” shouted Gentry. “He’s just trying to get me sore enough to forget what I came here for. I’m waiting for that trade, shamus.”

Shayne hesitated, his gray eyes bleak, the trenches deepening in his gaunt cheeks. He said, “It’s been a long time since a friend of mine called me shamus.”

Gentry said stubbornly, “I’m still waiting.”

Shayne sighed. “Okay, Will. So we forget the friendship. I got the same tip you did. That Wanda Weatherby was collecting clippings on Gurley. And like you, I wondered why.”

“How did you know about the clips?” Gentry demanded.

“I discovered her body and called in,” Shayne reminded him evenly. “It was a few minutes before anybody got there. Do you think I sat down and twiddled my thumbs while I waited?”

“Hell, no. I’m sure you went through everything you could find and carried away anything you thought might help you solve the case and prevent us from doing it.”

“I left the clips for you,” said Shayne dryly.

“How did Gurley explain them to you?”

“He didn’t.”

“What did he say about them?”

“Why, just like you, Will, I didn’t think it was good business to spring them on him right then.”

“How else did you explain your interest in the Weatherby woman — your reason for going to him?”

“That wasn’t included in the trade,” said Shayne calmly. “But I assure you I didn’t put anyone else on the spot by intimating that he had sent me around.”

Gentry opened his mouth to reply, but checked himself with an effort. He set his half-emptied highball glass down and heaved his bulky body up from the couch, asking gruffly, “You coming along, Tim?”

“I think maybe I’ll stick around a few minutes,” Rourke answered slowly, avoiding Shayne’s eyes. “I’ll finish this drink and find out if his blonde has a friend.”

Gentry snorted and started for the door. The telephone rang, and the police chief stopped and turned back to listen while Shayne answered.

A girl’s excited voice came over the wire. “Is this Michael Shayne? The detective?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t know me, Mr. Shayne, but I’m Mary Devon. Helen Taylor’s roommate.”

“Yeh?” he repeated when she paused. He glanced sardonically at the reporter and police chief who were listening intently.

“Something terrible has happened,” the girl’s voice resumed and grew panicky as she hurried on. “Helen — I’m afraid she’s dying, Mr. Shayne. I’ve called a doctor, but she keeps mumbling your name over and over. And something about Wanda Weatherby. I can’t understand it at all, but maybe you’ll know. You’d better hurry over here because I’m afraid — oh — that must be the doctor now.”

“Where are you?” Shayne demanded.

She named a small hotel on Miami Avenue, gave him the room number, and Shayne said, “Right away.”

He slammed the receiver down and leaped to his feet muttering angrily, “This is a hell of a mess. Sylvia’s husband. He’s on his way here now. You two guys can stay if you want, but I’m getting out of here fast.”