He was lucky enough to get another operator this time, and the man didn’t even glance at him as he stepped in and said briskly, “Lobby, please.”
The big lobby was almost empty when he stepped out. Two men stood near the front door talking together, and Shayne felt a little knot of unease form in his stomach when he recognized the hotel detective, John Russco, talking to Timothy Rourke.
Both of them looked over and saw him get out of the elevator, and both watched him curiously and in silence as he approached them.
Russco said heartily, “Mike Shayne, by all that’s holy!” and held out a big hand to him exactly as though they hadn’t seen each other for weeks or months.
Shayne shook hands with him and said, “Hi, John,” while Rourke observed the passage between them with a faintly ironic smile.
“Funny to see you here, Mike,” Russco said effusively. “Tim was just asking if I’d seen you around tonight. You two aren’t cooking something up behind my back, are you?”
“Why, no,” Shayne told him blandly. “Nothing like that. You got nothing to hide from the Press, have you?”
“Of course not,” Russco replied too quickly. “Not a damned thing happening around here tonight. Not even a good girlie party I can send you two lechers up to.”
“Tim and I do have a little business to discuss,” Shayne told him pointedly, taking the reporter’s arm and drawing him away.
The hotel detective grinned weakly and said, “Yeh… well… don’t take any wooden nickles,” turned his back and sauntered away.
“Two things,” Shayne said rapidly when Russco was safely out of earshot. “You stick here, Tim. Use the phone booth and call an anonymous tip into headquarters. Have a radio car investigate a parked Ford on 64th Street between the boulevard and the bay. Registration in the name of George Duclos. And, Tim, tell them to be sure and check into the trunk of the car even if they have to break the lock and force it to get in.”
“Good God, Mike,” breathed Rourke uneasily. “I thought the last thing in the world you wanted was to have the cops look in that trunk.”
“Things are different,” Shayne told him. “Make that call right away… and you might even tell them it has some connection with the Alabama bank robbery, just to put them on the right track. Then make another call to headquarters using your own name. Get Homicide and tell them you’ve got an anonymous tip that something important is due to break at the Encanto Hotel. Get a couple of plainclothes dicks over here and have them wait inconspicuously here in the lobby while you hang around out in the entrance foyer. If I do come back here I don’t want to show in the deal at all.”
“What the hell kind of brew are you cooking up, Mike?”
“I’m not quite sure. I think I’m going to light a fire and start things boiling over. Before I forget it, Tim. You’d better have this. Make use of it if things break that way.”
He thrust his hand in his pocket and pulled out the folded sheets of hotel paper containing the handwritten murder confession signed “Vicky,” and pushed them into Rourke’s hand.
The reporter took them with a puzzled frown. “What is it? You’re leaving me ’way out on a limb…”
“You can catch up on your reading matter after you make those two telephone calls,” Shayne told him. “You know all you need to know… and none of this came from me. You haven’t seen me since you drove me away from headquarters after I got loose on that stolen car rap.”
He squeezed Rourke’s shoulder tightly and hurried out through the front doors and around the hotel to the alley.
His car stood where he had left it. He got in and pulled away fast and drove directly to his hotel where he parked on the side as before and climbed the stairs to the second floor.
His room was still lighted, and again he unlocked the door and walked in with a reassuring grin for the woman he had left sitting there more than an hour before.
She didn’t jump to her feet this time. She sat erect, staring at him with frightened eyes which managed to look hopeful at the same time.
“Is everything all right?” she asked tremulously. “Did you get the money for him? Who was he, Mike? What happened? I’ve been sitting here wondering and frightened and… praying, I guess. Thinking about all the things that could go wrong.”
“Nothing went wrong,” Shayne told her. “He was just a guy on the make. He won’t bother you with any more telephone calls.”
“Oh, God. Is it really over? Can I relax now?”
“Sure. Relax,” he told her comfortingly. “Maybe you’d like to call Vicky and tell her it’s okay. Use the phone, if you want to.”
“Why should I… I’ll just waken her. She isn’t worried, Mike. I told you she went off to sleep thinking everything was absolutely all right. She doesn’t even know I’m gone.”
“That’s right,” he said absently. “Sure. You’re right, of course. No need to bother her with a phone call. Better for you to go on back right away and she need never know any of this has happened.”
“What did happen?” she asked nervously, lacing her fingers together in her lap. “What did he have, Mike? Whatever it was he said belonged to Al and that he thought was worth all that money? I’ve been thinking and racking my brains all the time you were gone. I just can’t imagine.”
“Oh, that,” he said casually. “I don’t understand that part of it yet. But he seemed to think it was important and so I played along and didn’t admit we didn’t have the slightest idea what he was talking about.”
“Did you get it? What was it?”
“Oh, I got it all right. Maybe it’ll mean something to you although I don’t see how it can, if you’ve been out of touch with Al all these years.”
“What is it? I’m consumed with curiosity.” Shayne shrugged and reached in his pocket and withdrew the torn piece of cardboard he had taken from Duclos’s clenched fist. He crossed over to her and held it out, watching her face carefully as she took it and turned it over and over in her hands.
A puzzled frown corrugated her smooth forehead. “It looks like… well, it looks as though it should be familiar. I mean…”
“I think I know what you mean,” Shayne agreed quietly. “Isn’t it half of a torn claim check for baggage?”
“Of course.” She looked up at him with brighteyed expectancy. “But why just half of it, Mike? What good’s half to anyone?”
“Nothing that I can see,” he responded broodingly. “Unless he had the other half to match up with it. Then he’d have to know where it was checked before he could claim whatever it represents.” He held out his hand for the piece of cardboard, and after a moment’s hesitation she dropped it into his palm reluctantly.
He said cheerfully, “I’ll hold onto it, if you like. Maybe something will come up in the future that will explain what it’s all about.”
She laughed nervously. “After all, it does belong to me, Mike. I paid for it. That is… it was my money you used. Don’t you think I ought to have it… just for a souvenir at least?”
“Well, sure. It’s no good to me. I just thought…” Shayne shrugged his broad shoulders and handed it back to her. “As you say, I certainly haven’t any claim on it. I didn’t spend any of my money…
“I know most of the cash actually was yours, Mike,” she said, instantly contrite, although her fingers closed tightly over the cardboard. “But it was just a temporary loan. You’ve got my IOU, you know, if I try to renege on paying it.”
Shayne said, “Yeh. I know,” his gaunt features expressionless. He stepped back and said, “Wouldn’t you like to get back to the hotel now? If your daughter should wake up and find you gone…?”
“Oh, yes. I must get back.” She stood up, smoothing down her dress and brushing cigarette ashes from the front of it.
Shayne stooped down to pick up her handbag from the floor beside the chair. With his back half-turned to her, he unsnapped it and dropped her room-key inside. Then he held it out, saying:
“Don’t forget your bag. I’ll drive you back.”
She accepted it carelessly. “You don’t have to do that. I’m sure I can get a taxi.”
“I left my car on the street,” he told her. “Have to put it in the garage for the night anyhow.” He took her
