market for one?”
Shayne said, “I could be.” He kept his voice pleasant, and moved forward between the two cars toward Blackie. “That’s what you wanted to see me about, wasn’t it?”
“Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t. How’d you know to come snooping here?”
“Followed my nose.” Shayne was close to him now, ten feet away. The barrel of the. 45 was wavering. “You don’t have to keep that thing pointed at me. I don’t talk business over a gun barrel.”
Blackie looked down at the heavy weapon as though surprised to see it in his hand. Shayne’s thumbs were hooked inside his coat pockets. “I don’t figure you,” Blackie said in a worried tone. “If I’d got slugged like you did-”
“I never let a slugging interfere with profits.” Shayne was closer now. Six feet away. “Why did the Rajah change his mind about the bracelet after it was offered to him?”
Blackie looked up, surprised. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered. “I think you better go in the house-”
“Let’s settle this right here. Just between you and me.” Shayne’s right hand crept deeper into his pocket. He stood poised on the balls of his feet. He asked, “Why did you have to kill Mrs. Dustin?”
The. 45 was a double-action, uncocked, but Blackie’s forefinger was tight on the trigger. At Shayne’s words, he swung it up with an oath, but the detective leaped forward and closed his big hand over the top of the firing- chamber as the hammer came back. It snapped forward harmlessly on the soft flesh between his thumb and forefinger at the same instant his right hand came out of his pocket and described a sweeping arc upward.
The flat side of Shayne’s automatic slammed against Blackie’s head and his knees gave way. The. 45 fell from his hand as he slid to the concrete floor.
Chapter Fifteen
Blackie was tough. He stayed on his knees with both hands planted on the floor to support his weight. He breathed heavily through his open mouth and shook his head like a wounded and dazed animal.
Shayne dropped his automatic into his coat pocket and cocked the hammer of the double-action. 45 with his right hand.
Blackie began to push his torso laboriously upward. His eyes were fixed on the cocked gun in the detective’s left hand. Shayne said, “I like you better on the floor.” He put the sole of his big shoe in Blackie’s face and shoved. Blackie sprawled backward and lay there for a moment.
When he pulled himself slowly to a sitting position, he grunted, “Evens us up. Who’d you say was killed?”
“Mrs. Mark Dustin.”
“I don’t know any Mrs. Dustin. I ain’t killed nobody. Not recently,” he amended, clearing his throat and turning his head to spit.
“Did you send someone over to keep your date with her?”
“What date you talking about?”
“The one you made by telephone,” said Shayne irritably. “After you tried to kill my secretary and pretended it was me talking over the phone.”
“Look, shamus, I don’t know what in hell you’re talking about. So I slugged you tonight-by mistake. So, all right. Now you slugged me. So we’re even. I don’t know about this other stuff.”
“I suppose,” said Shayne angrily, “you don’t know anything about a ruby bracelet.”
“That’s right.” Blackie folded his bare arms across his chest and sighed. “I got to sit here all day?”
Shayne said, “What about a busted fender on the limousine?”
“Sure. I got a busted fender fixed up at Mickey’s.” He ran a thick tongue over his thick lips. “Me an’ the Kid took the big job out without the boss knowing about it and scraped some paint off. I was getting it patched up when you barged in.”
“How do you mean you slugged me by mistake?”
“I must of got mixed up on the phone,” Blackie explained readily. “I thought you was sticking your nose in my business and trying to shake me down by threatening to tell the boss about the busted fender.”
“So you called him up to find out what to do?” Shayne jeered.
“I just pretended to call up,” Blackie explained swiftly. “To see what you’d do. You fell for that gag, huh?”
His story, Shayne realized, had been well rehearsed. When the boss had changed his mind, for some unknown reason, about dealing with the insurance company on a reward for the return of the rubies, he had realized it had been a tactical error to have Shayne slugged. So, he had evidently ordered Blackie to shoulder the full responsibility for that error.
“I know you’re lying right down the line,” Shayne told him dispassionately. “As you say, we’re even on the slugging, but we’re still not even on a couple of other things. I don’t like mugs who come in my apartment and answer my phone-and slap my dolls around.”
“Honest to God,” Blackie protested, “I’ve never been inside your apartment.”
“That’s easily checked. Get up.”
“I sort of like it here on the floor.”
Shayne said, “You’ll have a chance to stay there forever if you don’t start moving.” He gestured toward the door with the cocked. 45.
His tone convinced Blackie that the discussion was ended. He lumbered to his feet and Shayne said, “Walk out that door and straight down the drive to the street. Then turn to the right to the corner and then to the left. My car is parked halfway down the block. We’re going for a ride together, and if you make one goddamned move or sound I don’t like I’ll blast your guts with your own gun. The cops would thank me for doing it because I’ve got you framed right in the middle of a murder rap, and they can use a fall guy. Get going.”
Blackie got going. Shayne followed him out the door and down the drive to the street. The sun hung like a red ball of fire behind the misty clouds above the rim of the ocean. Birds were singing in the shrubbery, and the new day held a clean warmth that promised muggy heat within a few hours.
They encountered no one on their walk to the corner and to the detective’s car. “Get under the wheel and drive,” Shayne ordered. “To the County Causeway and then turn left on Biscayne Boulevard. I’ll be resting easy in the back seat with a gun on you.”
Blackie opened the front door and got in. Shayne eased himself into the back seat and tossed the keys across to the driver.
Blackie drove carefully and expertly, and at slow speed. Shayne kept his eyes on the back of his head and let his mind wander into the unknown equations that were beginning to unravel. Blackie would talk soon enough. He was grimly sure of that. As soon as Lucy identified him as her attacker and he realized the spot he was in. His denial of Mrs. Dustin’s murder had sounded genuine enough, and he might have been telling the truth.
It was plausible to presume that Blackie had made contact with his employer after the telephone call and sent him to keep the appointment with Mrs. Dustin which had resulted in her death. In that case, Blackie might well have been honestly surprised to learn that she had been murdered.
That was all the more reason why he would talk when he realized how neatly he had been framed for the job. If he were guilty, he might continue to deny obstinately any knowledge of the telephone call, but if innocent, he would be a fool if he didn’t spill everything he knew.
One thing troubled Shayne as they turned down Biscayne Boulevard. He felt positive he held the key to recovery of the bracelet, but if he let the policeman on guard at his apartment hear Blackie’s confession, the secret would no longer be his and any possible reward would slip out of his hands like hot butter.
He had an angle figured by the time they reached the foot of Flagler Street. He said to Blackie, “Swing over to Second Avenue and then toward the river. I’ll show you where to pull up just this side of the drawbridge.”
When the car was parked, Shayne took the keys and said casually, “We’re going in through the hotel lobby
