He let her go abruptly and stalked across the room to get his hat. The telephone rang before he reached the door.
“It’s probably for you, Michael,” she said. “You’d better wait.” She answered the ring, listened for an instant, then covered the mouthpiece with her palm to ask, “Shall I say you’re not here? It’s some man.” Shayne recrossed the room speedily, took the instrument, and said, “Shayne speaking.”
“I called your hotel, Mr. Shayne,” a man said, “and was given this number as one where I might possibly reach you.” The voice was smooth, cultivated, pausing inquiringly on the last words.
“All right. You caught me.”
“Am I correct in assuming that you have the documents from Bert Jackson in your possession, and that the police have not been told about them?”
“The police don’t know anything about them,” said Shayne flatly. “They weren’t in my office or apartment, so you can assume whatever you wish.”
“Then I judge they are still for sale,” said the voice confidently.
“Are you making an offer?” Shayne countered.
“Is the price still twenty-five thousand?”
“The value has not depreciated. In fact-”
“No. Of course not,” the voice broke in hastily. “If you will bring all of Jackson’s material to the Beach at once, the money will be waiting for you.”
“Where on the Beach?”
“Do you know whom you’re speaking to, Mr. Shayne?”
“Frankly, no. I felt that the sales value would be higher if I didn’t break the seals and dig into something that’s actually no concern of mine.”
“Good. I’ve always heard you were a square dealer, Shayne,” the voice said with weighty relief, then went on vigorously. “Drive across the County Causeway to Collins Avenue. Then turn north. Take it slow as you approach the old Firestone estate. If you’re alone and not followed, I’ll contact you thereabouts, and we can close this up fast.”
“I’ll start rolling right away,” Shayne said. He dropped the receiver on the hook and turned to Lucy Hamilton, took one look at her pale face and round, frightened eyes, looked past her, and said, “I guess this is it. They’re ready to pay cash since they didn’t find the stuff stashed in my office or apartment.”
“Who is it, Michael?” Lucy gasped.
“I still don’t know. This is my one chance to find out.”
“It’s a trap, Michael,” she cried, her voice sharp with fear. “Why should anyone pay you money and trust you to keep quiet? Wouldn’t it be more sensible and safer for them to just-k-kill you, too?”
Shayne pretended not to notice her small clenched fists and the sudden pallor of her face. He grinned reassuringly and said, “Of course it’s a trap. But you know how I am about traps, angel, unless-”
“You won’t go, Michael-not until you call Will Gentry and set a trap of your own.”
“Will and I decided to go in different directions this trip. I’ll bait the trap myself,” he said, his voice cold and remote. “How in hell else can I hope to win?”
“You’re a crazy, quixotic fool, Michael,” she cried, throwing her arms around his neck and clinging to him, tears flooding her eyes and bitterness in her tone. “You just love walking into danger and you don’t care what happens.”
“That’s not true, Lucy. It’s the only way I know how to handle a thing like this. If I sit back on my dead butt and demand a police escort to protect me-”
“But you don’t even have an excuse,” Lucy Hamilton persisted tearfully. “You don’t have a client. You don’t even have a prospect of a fee.”
Shayne gathered her in his arms and, with his lips bent close to her ear, said, “Don’t forget-I have a friend.”
Lucy relaxed and stood very still for a brief moment. Then she drew away from him and said, “Tim,” looking up into his gaunt face and bleak eyes.
“Do you still have that thirty-two automatic I gave you?”
She smiled. “It’s in my top bureau drawer, Michael.” She held the smile until she turned her back. Her mouth was tight and her eyes wide with fright when she glanced in the mirror before opening the drawer and taking the pistol out. Deliberately she composed her features, turned with her shoulders set and her head high, and went back to the living-room.
“Here it is, just the way it was when you gave it to me.”
Shayne said, “Thanks,” and pressed the catch that released the clip, slid it out far enough to make certain it was fully loaded, then replaced the clip and drew the slide back to throw a cartridge into the firing-chamber. He pushed the safety on and dropped the weapon into his coat pocket.
Turning toward the door he said gruffly, “Don’t worry about me. You’ve got a job of your own to do. Call me as soon as you can get anything sensible out of Betty Jackson.”
Lucy watched him stride to the door, open it, go out, and close it without looking back. Then she went into the bedroom and got dressed, feeling certain that she would be the first customer in Burdine’s department specializing in nurses’ uniforms.
Chapter Eleven
Shayne felt physically refreshed from the cognac-laced coffee, satisfied with the arrangement for Lucy to act as nurse to Betty Jackson, alert after the telephone call from Mr. Big, the mystery man, but he couldn’t yet see how anything had been gained by Bert Jackson’s murder.
He pulled the brim of his Panama low to shut out the sun’s glare when he got in his car, gunned the motor, and drove away, a worried frown between his ragged brows.
The telephone call was the break he had anticipated, his sole justification for keeping important facts from the police. So long as he could keep up the bluff that the incriminating documents were actually in his possession he felt fairly safe. Mr. Big would be a fool to have him knocked off until the papers were actually produced.
But why kill Bert Jackson?
Had the reporter played his cards badly? Or had someone else blundered in handling the assignment? Someone whose finger was a little too fast on the trigger of a. 22? The small caliber of the murder weapon in itself was a strong indication that the bullet had come from some source other than the man Bert was blackmailing.
The sort of man and the sort of big-time graft that Jackson had implied was sure to include professional gunmen, and such hoodlums didn’t bother with. 22’s. The brutal bludgeoning of the elevator operator was more in their line.
Inevitably the thing he was trying to ignore came back to torment him. There was no escaping the fact that Timothy Rourke did own a. 22 target pistol and that his claim of its being stolen and the theft unreported to the police was too thin for serious consideration.
Shayne jerked himself angrily erect and thrust that line of thought from his mind as he hit the traffic circle at 20th Street, deserted at this early hour, and rounded it to speed past silent warehouses and docks eastward onto the causeway. He held to the middle of the three right-hand lanes, pressing hard on the accelerator and watching the needle climb to 75. The high speed matched his mood, and he had a sudden feeling of suffocation, a lack of air.
He leaned across to crank the right-hand ventilator open and let the salt-tanged air blow in. When he straightened he frowned heavily at the sight of a car in the rearview mirror coming up behind him fast. A glance at his speedometer showed eighty, and the heavy old sedan wasn’t capable of more than that.
Shayne reacted instinctively and from years of experience, realizing that it might be coincidence. Although he was far from the appointed meeting-place, he pushed the accelerator down and grimly watched the car come on. The showdown might be coming sooner than he expected. There was no real reason why it should wait until he
