crossed bony knees, fixed a blank stare on the ceiling while Marco lifted a rubber mouthpiece from its hook and spoke into it briefly. He hung up and said with excessive good humor, “Everything’s fixed up. They were just leaving.”
Shayne didn’t say anything. He didn’t look at the big man.
Marco fidgeted and pulled an onyx desk lighter close to put flame to his cigar. In response to a light tap on the hall door, he said, “Come in.”
The door opened to admit Phyllis Brighton and her ruddy, blond escort, Harry Grange, followed by the pallid- faced youth whom Shayne had encountered at the foot of the stairs. A cigarette dangled from his lips. Squinting through smoke, he asked, “You want me, Boss?”
“No. Shut the door.”
Shayne shifted his position to look at Phyllis Brighton. He grinned and said, “Hi, Angel.”
Phyllis wore a silver-fox scarf flung loosely about her smooth shoulders. Her lips were very full, only slightly rouged. Her figure swelled the shimmering silver of her evening gown. It was impossible to tell from her expression whether she was surprised to see Shayne or not. She said, “Good evening,” in a low and beautifully modulated voice.
Grange’s sun tanned face took on an anxious smile. He said, “Well, if it isn’t Michael Shayne,” striving for a heartiness that didn’t quite get over.
Shayne ignored him. His eyes were probing at Phyllis, and she met his steady gaze with an odd admixture of helplessness and angry defiance.
“This young lady,” Marco said heavily to Grange, “happens to be a friend of Shayne’s.”
“Well, well. Is that so? I didn’t know that.”
“Neither did I,” Phyllis said. Her small straight nose went up in disdain.
Shayne sighed and looked away from her. She demanded haughtily, “Why have we been dragged up here? We’ve got other places to go.”
“Not with that heel,” Shayne said sharply.
The smile faded from Grange’s face. “See here. You can’t insult me like that.”
“Can’t I?” Shayne leaned back and smiled insolently, meeting Grange’s eyes for the first time. “You’ve been insulted by lesser men-and taken it.”
Grange’s eyes wavered, shifted away from Shayne’s steely stare. Standing close to him, Phyllis said furiously, “Come on, Harry. We don’t have to stay here.”
She put her hand on his arm.
Shayne said, “No,” and Grange transferred his nervous, questioning gaze to John Marco.
The big man shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Shayne has some sort of dopey idea that I’m paying you a percentage to bring in customers, Harry. Rather than have any argument, I am returning the lady’s money-whatever she lost downstairs.”
“I won’t accept it,” Phyllis said evenly. Red spots of anger burned high on her cheeks. “You’d think I was a baby,” she threw at Shayne. “I don’t need you to look after me.”
Shayne’s chuckle was genuine. His eyes were very bright.
“You’re going to be looked after whether you like it or not, Angel. This guy is just a come-on for half the cheap gambling joints in town. He comes back later and collects his percentage of the money that beautiful and dumb gals lose to the house. Be a sap if you want to, but for God’s sake don’t be a sucker.”
“I don’t believe it. Why, Harry lost-right along with me.”
“Sure. That’s the come-on. He gets his money back. Pick up your money from Marco and I’ll take you home.”
“Your pardon, Shayne, but the young lady is with me,” Grange blustered. He flung his head and shoulders back and took Phyllis’s arm. “Miss Brighton hasn’t asked for your protection.”
Shayne got up. He moved forward with big clenched fists swinging low and free.
“You can get your neck broken by that sort of talk,” he said casually, “and you will get it broken if you don’t stay away from this girl.”
Grange’s heroic attitude crumpled. He backed away from Shayne, holding up a protesting hand. With the other hand he fumbled for the doorknob and jerked the door open. Before backing through it, he stopped and spoke past Shayne to Marco, “How about that other matter we spoke about this afternoon? After eleven will be too late.”
Shayne’s eyes traveled swiftly from Grange to Marco, but Marco shook his head and grunted, “No,” and the younger man went out, closing the door.
Shayne spoke irritably to Phyllis.
“Tell Marco how much they took you for downstairs and let’s go. Next time-” He moved slowly back toward the desk.
Phyllis didn’t move. She contemplated the distance to the door with wary, half-closed eyes. Abruptly, she said, “You’ve no right whatever to try to boss me, Michael Shayne,” and slid past him like a flash and ran out the door after Grange.
John Marco made the mistake of chuckling aloud. Shayne turned on him with an expression so terrible that Marco seemed to dwindle in size. He slumped low in his swivel chair.
“I’ll take that money.” Shayne stood over him with fists doubled. “An even two grand will make it right.”
“Sure, sure.”
Marco pried himself up from the chair and went to a huge safe in one corner, opened it, and came back with two thousand dollars in fifties held in an outstretched hand.
“That makes everything all right, don’t it, Mike?” he said placatingly.
Shayne was counting the money. He growled, “I told you not to call me Mike,” without raising his eyes.
Marco mopped his face with a silk handkerchief and sank into his chair. He said, affably, “You should try being a father, Mr. Shayne, and then you’d know you can’t talk reason to a girl so young. There’s something about Harry Grange that gets them all that same way. Look at Marsha-much as I’ve told her about him. Sit down and have a drink. I’ve got some nice Napoleon cognac that came over on the ‘Mayflower.’” He chuckled hollowly.
Shayne folded the bills, slipped them in his wallet and said, “Thanks,” shortly; then strode out without glancing back to see Marco’s lips curled out and his eyes stony with hatred.
Chapter Three: RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH
Shayne stopped at the checkroom for his hat. The girl looked at his ticket and spoke a number into a microphone which was connected with a loudspeaker at the casino parking lot, then handed his Panama to him. He thanked her, tossed a quarter on the counter, and went out to the door where a tall man wearing a gold-braided uniform touched two fingers to his plumed hat and said, “Good evening, Mr. Shayne.”
Shayne nodded, standing beneath a striped canopy leading out to the curb. He cupped his hands to light a cigarette against the balmy night breeze blowing in from the Atlantic.
He asked, “Did Harry Grange just drive away?”
“I believe he did. Yes, sir.”
“Did he have a girl with him?”
Shayne spun the match away, watching the doorman’s expression keenly.
The man wrinkled his forehead doubtfully.
“Well, sir, now that you mention it, it was sort of funny. I remember a girl came hurrying out after Grange,” he went on candidly, “just as he was starting to drive away like he was in a big hurry, and she called out to him and he pulled up a little way and stopped. Right then a car came up and I went out to attend the patrons, and I sort of thought I noticed another girl too-and when I looked around again they were all gone.”
A long-nosed limousine purred to a stop at the entrance. The doorman muttered an excuse and hurried forward to open the rear door for an ermine-coated dowager and a man in tails and a silk hat. The dowager was very drunk, and her hauteur in attempting to appear sober amused Shayne who lounged against a pole watching. The woman staggered and would have fallen if the doorman had not caught her elbow, but she shrilly announced to
