that showed behind tight, thin lips.
“Mike Shayne? Ox and me, we got no talk for you. C’mon, Ox. We’re going out with the others.” Three of them hurried past Shayne through the door with averted faces, and Ox made a guttural sound deep in his throat and came behind them with big fists belligerently swinging at the end of long arms. Timmy was close behind him, and the sixth player unhappily brought up the rear.
Shayne’s eyes narrowed and he shifted his weight to his left foot. He gauged the distance carefully, swung his right foot up and planted it with ramrod force in the big man’s belly. Ox grunted and doubled forward, and Shayne smashed a right to his jaw as he went down.
Timmy ducked his head and attempted to dart past the redhead to safety. Shayne blocked him halfway through the doorway, put both hands around his neck and lifted him bodily, flung him back into the room. He held the door open and said to the last man, “Beat it,” and he scampered through the door without looking back.
Shayne closed it behind him, found a key conveniently in the lock and turned it. He dropped the key into his pocket and turned around to see Timmy on his hands and knees staring at him fearfully. Ox lay on his side groaning, trying fitfully to raise up to a sitting position.
Shayne disregarded him and told Timmy, “I guess you know who I am, and why I want to talk with you. You two killed a man last night.”
“God, no.” Timmy was trembling frantically. He sank back to sit on the floor with his hands on both sides supporting him, shaking his head from side to side. “You got it all wrong, Shamus. Me and Ox, we never hurt nobody. Not in our whole lives. I swear it on a stack of Bibles. Maybe we rolled a drunk, huh, but we never put a hand to him. I swear we didn’t.”
“What did you slip into his drink at the Sporting Club before you followed him out?”
“Nothing. I swear it, Mister. The guy was tight. What the hell? He was ready to fall flat on his face. We never touched a finger to him. I swear we didn’t.”
“You read in the paper about him being found dead this morning?”
“Sure, we read about it, and naturally we felt bad. We figure somebody else come along and slugged him. There was somebody in a car,” Timmy went on eagerly. “He come along slow, kind of creeping along like he was looking out for him. That was right after he staggered off the road and fell down.”
“After you and Ox snatched his money and that ring off his hand?”
“All right. I ain’t gonna kid you. That damn Barney,” breathed Timmy indignantly. “He musta put you wise. After him taking half all the time…” Ox was now grunting loudly and had worked himself up to a sitting posture. Shayne studied him coldly with bleak eyes, then stepped forward and kicked him with precisely calculated force on the side of the head. Ox toppled sideways and lay still.
“Okay,” said Shayne conversationally to Timmy. “Let’s get this straight. Were you and Ox in the Club last night when Fitzgilpin showed up about eleven o’clock?”
“I don’t know whether we was or not. We got there maybe eleven. About then. Barney give us the high-sign. That there was a sucker down to the end of the bar maybe we could take. We didn’t push right in,” Timmy said virtuously. “We had us a drink and waited. Oh, maybe half an hour or so. There was this three or four people back there together. Talking and kiddin’, you know. One or two dames and a couple guys. You couldn’t tell who was with who, but it didn’t matter to us. Then this little guy comes stumbling out an’ Barney he gives us the office. Nobody’s with him, so we just went on out behind and there he is in the moonlight staggering down the street. We trailed along figurin’ he’d pass out any minute. Ox, he wanted to tap him a little, easy-like, but I said what the hell? Give him a little minute an’ we wouldn’t even hafta.
“So, I’m right. He makes it about a block, going from one side of the road to another, an’ then falls flat on his face. So we lifted his wallet and he never knew it. And Ox took a fancy to a ring he had on, and snatched that. But we never touched a finger to him, I swear it. We figured if we didn’t get it, somebody else would.
“Then he kind of comes to for a minute and gets up an’ staggers on. And there’s a car comin’ real slow, and Ox and me we slips off to the side and hides behind a oleander bush. And we watch while this car comes along slow with him in the headlights, and then he goes off the pavement into the ditch and the car pulls up just beyond him and stops and the lights go off. So we figure it’s a friend of his from back at the Club and they’ll find out he’s been rolled, so we beat it back fast and get in our jalopy and take off. And that’s all to Christ and hell I know about the whole deal, and when Ox comes back to his senses he’ll tell you the same damn thing. We never touched a finger to him, and I swear we didn’t.”
Ox was groaning and trying to sit up again. Shayne stared down at the pair with unconcealed disgust, and told Timmy, “You’ll have a chance to convince the cops that you’re clean on the killing. Before you do that… think hard and straight and tell me one thing: Did you ever know a gambler named George Nourse?”
“Sure.” A crafty look came into Timmy’s eyes. “He was a big-shot here… two-three years ago. He really did have a pair of educated dice. Gawd! I seen him one night take three grand in a game with seven straight rolls.”
“When did you see him last?”
“Nourse? Not for the last year or two. I heard tell he was out on the West Coast… and doing all right, too.”
“You’re positive you didn’t see him at the Sporting Club last night?”
“George Nourse?” Timmy looked honestly surprised. “Is he back in town? I hadn’t heard it around.”
“All right,” Shayne said disgustedly. “Get your muscle-bound friend in shape to take a ride. I’m calling for the meat-wagon.”
He turned to the door and unlocked it, opened it and called out to the proprietor. “Call the cops and tell them I’ve got a couple punks that want free taxi service to police headquarters.”
11
After Timmy and Ox had been bundled off to jail, Shayne took time out to grab some much-needed nourishment, his first of the day. Thus, it was almost an hour after the two muggers had been locked up when he reached headquarters. He found Timothy Rourke closeted with Peter Painter in the latter’s office, and the reporter looked up with an approving grin as the redhead entered.
“From what I hear you must have gone back to the Sporting Club after we got thrown out.”
“Those two punks? Yeh, the bartender finally decided to come clean. How do you like them, Painter?”
“For a cheap little rolling rap, fine,” Painter said condescendingly. “For a big rap, they’re out. We’ve put them through the mill and all we’ve got on them is they followed a drunk out of a bar and snatched his roll.”
“After maybe slipping some sodium amytal in his drink first so he’d be an easier take,” Shayne suggested, pulling up a chair and seating himself without waiting for an invitation.
“Not a chance,” snorted Painter. “While you’ve been chasing all over town after those two-bit punks, I’ve been finding out some things about that redhead widow you were cuddling up this morning.”
“That so?” Shayne lifted ragged, red eyebrows in surprise and busied himself lighting a cigarette.
“It is a truism in police work that the most obvious answer is generally the true one. Your trouble, Shayne, is that you can’t see the woods for the trees. Give me a husband-poisoning and I’ll give you a two-timing wife ninety- nine percent of the time.”
“Linda Fitzgilpin?” Shayne frowned sourly and shook his head. “She seemed a hell of a fine woman. A loving wife and devoted mother. Lucy Hamilton knows her quite well, and that’s her opinion.”
“Maybe I should put Lucy on the payroll as psychological advisor,” said Painter sarcastically. “These loving wives and devoted mothers,” he sneered. “When I see one of them stacked like that widow is stacked… married for years to a meek little man without too much on the ball… I start digging. And if you dig far enough and intelligently enough you generally find paydirt. I’ve only gone back a couple of years this far, and I’ll lay ten to one I’ll find plenty more as I go back further.”
“What have you got so far?”
“Plenty to build a case against her. She had a red-hot affair with a tin-horn gambler about a year and a half ago. Asked her husband for a divorce and he refused to give her one. This isn’t for publication yet, Tim,” he went on to the reporter who was busily taking notes, “though I’ve got all the proof I need. Fitzgilpin went to an attorney at
