possessions back from another uniformed man who took him in tow.
It was almost ten o’clock before he sat in his car again, parked in the rear of the police station, and was free to drive away, to put the smell of Brockton and their efficient police force behind him.
Instead, he had gotten directions to the Manor Hotel, and he drove directly there. It was a large, six-story modern building on Main Street, and his spirits rose when he saw a liquor store with its doors open for business directly beside it. He maneuvered the Hudson into a small parking lot in front of the hotel, got out and handed his keys over to an impressively uniformed doorman.
“Two bags in the back seat,” he told him. “I’ll be right in to register.”
He found a bottle of Monnet in the liquor store, returned to enter the cool, modernistic lobby with it tucked securely under his arm. His head had almost stopped aching, and he had learned to turn his head slowly and gingerly so it didn’t feel that it would fall off each time he did so. The world was distinctly a better place to live in than it had been two hours ago.
The room clerk had a sandy mustache and a deferential manner. His manner became almost effusive as he studied the registration card Shayne filled out and the detective asked him for a suite.
“Yes, indeed, Mr. Shayne. From Miami, eh? In our little town on business?”
“Certainly not for pleasure.”
“Indeed… yes.” His toothsome smile stayed in place, though very slightly awry. “I can give you a lovely suite, Mr. Shayne. Double bedroom and a lovely sitting room. Will you be with us long?”
Shayne shrugged. “No longer than it takes me to clear up a few things.”
“A pity, Mr. Shayne. We in Brockton pride ourselves on our hospitality to strangers within our gates. We are a small community of home-lovers, but friendly we like to think. Front!” He struck a bell on the desk sharply.
A neatly uniformed young bellboy took Shayne’s bags up to the fourth floor. Shayne took the bottle out of its paper wrapping as the boy bustled about opening windows and checking towels. He gave him a dollar and said, “Bring up a pitcher of ice, please. I’ll leave the door unlocked because I may be in the shower.”
As the boy nodded and started to leave the room, Shayne stopped him with another dollar bill in his outstretched hand. “This is for not explaining how friendly Brockton is to strangers.” He turned away and started shucking off the clothes he had slept in the night before.
The pitcher of ice cubes waited for Shayne when he emerged naked from the bathroom ten minutes later. He padded across to the cognac bottle, opened it and poured a water glass half full. With two ice cubes tinkling in the glass, he lit a cigarette and sat down beside the telephone. He gave the hotel operator the number of his Miami office, and drank half the contents of the glass while he waited to hear Lucy’s voice lilting over the wire.
5
But Lucy’s voice sounded unlilting and strained when it finally came over the wire: “Michael Shayne. Private investigations.”
He said, “You sound queer, angel. Could it be you’re worried about me?”
In a very brief silence he heard her swiftly indrawn breath at the other end of the wire. Then, “I’m not just sure about that, Mr. Johnson. Will you hold on please while I go into Mr. Shayne’s private office and see if I can find the memo?”
Shayne said, “Sure,” and the knuckles of his left hand became white as he gripped the receiver hard. Sweat started creeping down the trenches in his cheeks as he waited. In about thirty seconds, Lucy’s cautiously lowered voice came over the line again:
“Michael! Where are you? I expected you back last night and I waited up late at my place with a bottle of cognac expecting you to call me, and…”
“What’s all the hush-hush about?” he interrupted harshly.
“There’s a man in the outer office, Michael. He was waiting in front of the door when I came in this morning. He… gives me the creeps. Won’t give any name or say what he wants, except to see you. I told him I expected you back any moment, and he just settled down in one of the chairs and there he sits. Smoking cigarettes and watching every move I make from under the brim of his hat. Do you know…?”
“Describe him,” Shayne interrupted.
“He’s just sort of medium. Honestly, Michael, he looks like a fugitive from a private eye program on television. Like he’d modeled himself after one of those gunmen they’re always showing. And Michael… I’m sure he does have a gun. Once or twice when he twisted in his chair I’m positive I saw a bulge inside his coat like a gun. Where are you? At home? I just thought I’d slip in here where it’s private to warn you so you wouldn’t walk in the door and be caught unawares.”
“I’m in a town called Brockton, Lucy. In the middle of the state.” Michael Shayne’s tone was peremptory. “I may be stuck here for a day or so… so listen to me carefully.”
“Brockton? What on earth…?”
“It’s a long story, angel. I stopped in here at a bar on my way home last night for a drink before dinner… and there was this girl. She came into the bar and… well, hell, Lucy, it’s too long a story and too crazy for you to understand.”
“But you did spend the night in Brockton on account of her?” Lucy Hamilton’s voice was suddenly icy.
Shayne grinned and took a drink of cognac from the glass in his right hand. “That’s right, honey-chile,” he drawled. “I sure did. All on account of her. And I’m sticking around for awhile hoping to get another look at her.” His voice became crisp. “Tell me this fast. Anything come up there at the office after I phoned you yesterday morning? Any new clients? Anyone whom you told I was driving back from Mobile who might have made a guess at my itinerary?”
“No. There’s been nothing at all. Until this man who showed up this morning. Is it trouble, Michael? Are you mixed up in… something?”
“I’m plenty mixed up,” Shayne told her grimly. “Write this down. The Manor Hotel in Brockton. Number four- ten. And, angel… that goon in the front office may be part of it.”
“Part of what?” wailed Lucy.
“That’s what I’d like to know. As soon as I hang up, you stay in my office and call Will Gentry. Tell him I’m out of town and you’ve got a suspicious character in the front office. Have him send a couple of men up to pick the guy up and go over him. Find out who he is and why. Then you go back to your typewriter and distract him until Will’s boys get there.”
“All right, Michael. Please… be careful.”
“In Brockton,” said Shayne, “it doesn’t seem to help much. Call Gentry now.”
“He probably isn’t what I think at all. It may just all be my imagination, Michael.”
“I know. But if it ties up with this thing here last night, he’ll be playing for keeps. Good luck.” He slammed down the phone and stood up. He had planned to phone down for a decent breakfast while he dressed leisurely in fresh clothes, but all thought of food was driven from his mind by this development.
He hurried to a suitcase and unstrapped it, got dressed swiftly and went out, leaving the cognac bottle standing uncorked beside the telephone. He had only one faint clue to work on. The Girl whose picture had been in the newspaper a few days previously. The local newspaper, he presumed, though the man from the barroom hadn’t stated specifically.
Downstairs the doorman directed him a block and a half down the street to the building housing the Brockton Daily Courier. It was a large, modern brick building with presses in the basement, advertising and make-up on the first floor, editorial offices on the second.
Shayne climbed a stairway and explained what he wanted to a spectacled girl on the switchboard and information desk. She motioned to a long table at one side where a week’s issues of the Courier were neatly stacked up.
Shayne started with yesterday’s paper, turning them swiftly and glancing at each front page for the picture he sought. If that didn’t work, he’d start back, going through the inside pages also.
But it worked. Her picture leaped out at him from the front page of the preceding Friday’s issue. Not too good a likeness in the somewhat smeared newsprint reproduction, but good enough for Shayne in whose mind her
