Pay-Off in Blood

“Sure,” Jud agreed happily. “I bet he’s one of them mas-so-kists.”

“What do you want here?” Phil paused close beside Jud, their shoulders touching, the two of them directly facing Shayne on the other side of the threshold about two feet away.

He took one fast step forward and his two big hands swung up simultaneously on opposite sides of the two heads with palms wide open.

Their two heads made a sharp cracking sound as they came together with terrific force. They crumpled to the floor like two rag dolls, and Phil’s gun dropped from his hand.

Shayne pulled the door shut and scooped the gun up. He stooped over Jud and got his revolver from its shoulder harness. He heard a faint sound across the room as he straightened up, and he faced the Boss, standing in the doorway of an inner room.

His thinning hair was disarranged so that the bald spot showed through, and he was in his undershirt and wearing black felt slippers.

He spoke gratingly, “What do you want, Shayne?”

Shayne said, “You.” He started slowly across the sitting room toward him.

“You’ve got nothing on me,” Jess Hayden said placatingly. “Maybe that was a mistake last night. Mistakes can be paid for.”

Shayne said, “That’s right. And you’re going to pay for yours right now.”

Hayden backed away from him inside the bedroom, and Shayne stopped in the doorway and saw the room was empty. He moved inside and tossed both revolvers contemptuously on the bed, and laughed deep in his throat when Hayden dived desperately aside, scrabbling to get his hands on one of them.

He cuffed the man back, so he stumbled to the floor beside the wall, then got him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him back into the sitting room, where Jud was beginning to stir and trying to sit up.

Very deliberately, Shayne held Jess Hayden erect with the tips of the toes just touching the floor, his left hand tight around the neck, and smashed his fist into the man’s face.

Blood splattered wetly and his features got all flat and disorganized. Shayne tossed him aside and strode toward the door, where Jud had waveringly got up on his hands and knees.

There was a loud, authoritative knock on the door just at the moment that Shayne drew back his right foot and kicked Jud with all his strength in the side. He scowled at the door and said “Just a minute,” and turned to Phil, who still lay supine, and methodically kicked in half-a-dozen of his ribs, also.

He heard a key in the outer lock, and the door was suddenly thrust open and Parson Smith stood on the threshold with two men close behind him. He looked at the two men on the floor, appalled, and breathed out, “My God, Mike!”

Shayne said, “I’m just giving you a nice package… all wrapped up and ready to go.” He walked back springily to the Boss, who lay flat on his back with his face smashed in, deliberately placed the sole of his big foot on the bloody pulp and twisted hard.

Then he told Smith, “Get them down to Headquarters and I’ll sign a complaint. And you can send me a bill for cleaning the blood off your rug.”

His shoulders slumped suddenly as all the anger went out of him, and he felt tired and a little bit disgusted with himself.

He walked to the door, adding gruffly, “They had it coming, goddamn it, but right now I wish you’d opened that door thirty seconds sooner.” He went out, scowling.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Shayne stopped downstairs in the crowded lobby to call his office. Lucy Hamilton told him, “Two calls, Michael. Abe Lincoln, the probation officer. At first look, he’s pretty sure Fritz Harlan is in the clear. He’s checking further. One thing he thought might interest you: Harlan was once a patient of Dr. Ambrose’s… and recognized him at the Seacliff last night. He’ll call again as soon as he has something more definite.

“Your buxom nurse on the Beach is the other one,” Lucy went on chattily and almost cattily, although Lucy didn’t have it in her to really be catty. “She wants you to come see her at once. She refused to confide in a mere secretary why she wants to see you, but dropped some mysterious hints intended to make me believe it’s something more important than your virile sex appeal… which I somehow doubt.”

Shayne said, “I’ll get over there as fast as I can… in the hope your hunch is right. In the meantime, Angel: Call Will Gentry and alert him to the fact that the house dick from the Splendide Hotel is bringing three mugs in for booking. Tell him to hold them until I can get in to make charges… which are going to start with assault with intent to kill, and go on from there. Explain to him that they got roughed up a little by resisting arrest.”

“Michael! Are you all right?” There was instant alarm in Lucy’s voice.

“I’m wonderful.” Shayne grinned reassuringly at the mouthpiece. “Feel better than I have since I got my ribs kicked in last midnight. Take care.”

He hung up and walked out of the lobby briskly. He did feel wonderful, by God! The mood of depression, that had momentarily possessed him in the hotel room upstairs, had vanished. The three of them deserved everything they’d got. God knows how many poor suckers they had manhandled in the past while collecting legally uncollectable racing bets.

Twenty minutes later he walked springily up the walk to the Ambrose house and pressed the doorbell. The door was opened almost immediately by Belle Jackson, wearing her white nurse’s uniform and with a warning finger pressed against her lips. “I hoped it would be you,” she told him in a conspiratorially low tone. “Celia is resting in the bedroom. I don’t think she’s in any condition to be aroused, but you never can tell about… well, you know?”

“Drunk?” Shayne asked bluntly, stepping inside and keeping his voice low.

“Well,” said Belle delicately, “she’s been nipping anyhow. And now I hope she’s asleep.” Belle moved close to him, so she could keep her voice low. “I called your secretary, Mr. Shayne, because I made what I think is an important discovery and I wanted to tell you instead of that stupid policeman, who came to the office last night.”

Shayne grinned at her characterization of Peter Painter. “What is it, Belle?”

“I want to show you in a minute. It’s in the bedroom and that’s why I hope Celia stays asleep. But tell me this one thing first: was it Doctor’s own gun that was used to murder him? This morning you said you hadn’t got the official report yet.”

“Yes. It was his gun all right. And a careful chemical analysis of the glove compartment of his car gave no indication at all that it had been carried there recently.”

“I wondered about that,” she said sibilantly. “Whether they would be able to tell for sure where a gun had been. How do they know?”

Shayne shrugged. “I don’t know anything about that end of the business. Ultra-violet rays, I guess. Stuff like that. Why are you so interested in the gun, Belle?”

“You’ll see.” She linked her big, solid arm closely with his and led him across the carpeted floor, moving with that same soundless grace he had observed in her before.

He followed her example by keeping on the balls of his feet, and she guided him to the right, down a hallway off the living room and into a large bedroom that was cool and dim with heavy draperies carefully drawn at the windows. There were twin beds in the room, and one of them was occupied by Celia Ambrose.

The bed was made up, and she lay on her back on top of the silk spread, fully clothed, as Shayne had seen her earlier.

Her eyes were closed and her mouth was open, and small, wheezing sounds came out of it with her breathing. There was a faint smell of alcohol in the room, and an overturned highball glass lay on the rug beside the bed just underneath the trailing fingers of her left hand.

An open door on the left led into a large bathroom, and beyond that was another closed door.

Shayne let Belle lead him quietly across the room to the closed door, which she opened. This was a smaller bedroom with a three-quarter sized bed, and with masculine appointments. The draperies were tightly drawn here, too, and Belle drew the connecting door shut behind them before switching on an overhead light.