Shayne scooped it up, swung it with precision and cruel force. It struck Tiny between the eyes, and he went down like an ox felled by the blow of an ax.
Without another glance at the recumbent figures, Shayne picked up the jammed automatic, dropped it into his pocket, and scrambled up the embankment to the highway. Moving painfully, driving his tortured muscles, he went to the Cadillac, opened the door, and saw that the keys were in the ignition. He got in and sat for a moment drawing in deep breaths to ease the fast beating of his heart. In the mirror he saw blood oozing down the left side of his face and dripping onto his ripped shirt. Sand stung his eyes and was caked on his face and clothes. He blinked watery lids until most of the sand washed out of his eyes, then turned the keys in the ignition, gunned the motor, made a U-turn, and headed back to the mainland.
Slumped wearily behind the wheel, he drove slowly until he slid into the curb at the side entrance of his hotel. When he reached for the keys to turn off the ignition he felt a hard object slide against his thigh. He removed the keys and turned to look at the object on the seat.
It was a short length of one-inch pipe with connection threads on one end. Careful not to touch the exterior, he explored with a forefinger, found one end open, and slid his finger all the way in to lift it. Scowling at its heaviness, he discovered upon close examination that the threaded end had been poured full of melted lead, as vicious a small weapon as he had ever encountered. The heavy end was covered with dried blood that contained a few hairs and bits of flesh and skin. The other end was clean. He slid his finger out and left the weapon on the seat while he got out and opened the rear car door to look inside.
Pushed close against the back of the front seat was the Tommy gun.
His mouth was grim when he closed the door and turned back to retrieve the short length of pipe. Balancing it carefully on his finger, he crossed the walk and dragged himself wearily up one flight of stairs to his apartment.
He paused as he neared the door. He distinctly remembered closing it and hearing the latch click when he went out. Now, it stood partly open, and in spite of the bright sunshine outside, light from the electric fixtures in the living-room streamed through into the darkened hallway.
Setting his teeth hard he thought of the jammed and useless automatic in his pocket, then glanced at the lethal weapon impaled on his finger. To use it on the intruder meant getting a firm hold on the clean end and destroying whatever prints might be on it and replacing them with his own.
Weary, and with his sore muscles aching, he muttered an oath and strode angrily through the doorway.
He looked balefully, but without surprise, at the bulky figure of Chief Will Gentry seated solidly in a deep chair.
Shayne let his gaze travel slowly around the still-disordered room as if seeing it for the first time, then growled, “Damn it, Will, you might at least straighten up my place after you get through tearing it to pieces.”
Chapter Twelve
Gentry’s beefy face expressed a ludicrous combination of consternation and surprised anger as he stared steadily at Shayne’s appearance.
“My God, Mike,” he rumbled slowly. “What have you been doing?”
Shayne looked down at his torn and bloody clothing, put the fingers of his free left hand tenderly to the side of his head where Tiny’s blackjack had torn the top of his ear from the surrounding flesh, said, “Out doing a job for your Homicide Squad-as usual.” Stalking over to his desk he laid the pipe down carefully, extracted his finger, then glared around the room and muttered, “I hope you had a search warrant when you did this.”
“It was like this when I came in half an hour ago. What do you mean about doing a job for Homicide?”
“What I said,” Shayne snapped. “If you’re not responsible for this, who in hell is?”
“You tell me,” exploded Gentry. “The same man, I suppose, who tore up your office. I thought you probably found it like this when you came back earlier, and I’ve been waiting, swearing I was going to throw you in the can for not telling me when I called you about Bert Jackson.”
“Why wouldn’t I have told you?” Shayne demanded. “I’d like to know who it was as much as you would.”
“Maybe it was Mrs. Jackson,” Gentry returned with heavy irony, “looking for divorce evidence you turned up against her.”
“Might be.”
“I’d say Mrs. Jackson is a very determined woman,” Gentry commented, settling back in his chair.
“What sort of weapon killed the elevator operator last night?” Shayne asked.
“A round heavy object. Not too big in diameter,” Gentry told him cautiously.
“Something like this?” He pointed a knobby finger at the pipe.
“Something like that,” he conceded, slowly chewing a dead cigar to the other side of his mouth.
Shayne said, “There are a few hairs and skin stuck to the dried blood in the threads. Your smart boys can compare them with samples from the operator. You can also probably get prints from the other end that will match one of two guys you’ll find on the bay sand off the south side of the causeway near the beach.
“One of those two,” he went on sourly, taking the jammed. 32 from his pocket and laying it on the desk beside the pipe, “has got a bullet from this lousy gun between his eyes. His partner may be dead, too. The damned gun jammed before I could shoot twice, so I’m not sure.”
“Who are they, Mike?” Gentry asked in a dangerously low rumble. “What are you giving me?”
“A couple of killers.” He started to shrug out of his coat, winced with pain, then stepped over to Gentry and said, “Help me off, will you? I’m afraid I’ve got a couple of cracked ribs.”
Gentry pushed himself up and helped him ease the coat off. “Give me the rest of it fast,” he demanded gruffly. “How did you come to tangle with them?”
“They tangled with me,” Shayne told him. He limped across to the liquor cabinet, poured four ounces of cognac into a glass, limped back, and eased one hip onto the desk.
“Crossing the causeway in my car,” he continued. “A big black Cadillac came up behind me and forced me into the bay. A driver and a Tommy-gun artist. You can find the place by a hole in the guard fence and my car upside down in the water. I drove the Cad back,” he added casually. “It’s parked downstairs at the side entrance. Tommy gun in the back.” He took a long drink of cognac and began unbuttoning his shirt.
“Why? What were they after?”
Shayne’s sore face muscles rebelled at an attempt at a wry grimace. “I don’t know any more about it than I do about my office and apartment being ransacked. Help me get this shirt off, Will. I’m getting under the shower so I can take a look at what’s left of me.”
Will Gentry eased the shirt off, one sleeve at a time, ejaculating, “My God, Mike,” when he saw the lacerations and bruises on the detective’s torso. He began easing the straps of the undershirt from one shoulder, then the other, and stripped the garment down to the waist.
“Thanks, Will. I can manage the rest.” Shayne went stiffly through the open bedroom door and into the bathroom.
Gentry went to the telephone and barked a number into it. He was sitting in the big chair with a highball glass at his elbow when Shayne returned fifteen minutes later wearing a pair of shorts and a patch of adhesive tape on his ear. Spreading areas of red and purple showed all around his torso, and his jaw was bruised and swollen.
“Nothing broken as near as I can tell,” he announced cheerfully. “In fact, I’d say I’m in damned good shape for the hard life I lead.” He padded across the room barefooted and picked up his drink, again carefully lowering one hip to the desk.
“I got in touch with the Beach police,” Gentry told him. “You must have slugged the second one harder than you thought. They’re both dead, and Peter Painter was getting ready to drag the bay for your body after checking the license plate.”
“Hopefully?” said Shayne.
“When I told him you were here and alive he ordered me to arrest you on a charge of double murder.”
