car.”
The bartender came out, drying his hands on his apron. There was no doubt that this was a family business. He was six or seven years older than Pete, just as blond and powerful, but without the tattoos.
“Don’t look at
“That was just to get in,” Shayne said easily. “My name’s Michael Shayne, and if you want to sell drinks the full twenty-four hours it’s OK with me. I’m trying to locate a guy. From the way your sister is acting, I think he was in here earlier.”
Oskar jerked his thumb toward the door. “Outside.”
“In a minute,” Shayne said lazily. “You probably have to pay the precinct a good percentage of the gross to stay open this late. But is that kind of street-level protection going to help you if a United States Senator has any trouble in here?”
Reaching out, he squeezed Oskar’s knuckles, which were scuffed and inflamed. Oskar jerked his hand away, wincing.
“Better put some iodine on that,” Shayne said. “It’s recent, isn’t it?”
“What are you talking about, a United States Senator?”
“Tom Wall is his name,” Shayne said, “and it’s true he doesn’t look like a Senator. Very wound up and jerky. Little mustache.”
“No Senator come in here,” Olga said sullenly.
Pete had moved into position beside his brother. The resemblance between them was very marked.
“Let’s heave this guy,” Oskar said. “He don’t want to use his own legs, he wants to make it tough for himself.”
“Before you throw me out,” Shayne said, “I’d like to ask your sister a few questions about a diary.”
Olga gasped. “Oskar, maybe we ought to-” she began, but her brother cut her off.
“No questions,” he said savagely. “This is my place, and I make the rules.” To Shayne: “Get out. On your own steam or Peter and me help you.”
Shayne reached inside his coat. Pete twitched toward him. Moving slowly, the redhead took out his wallet.
“I want to pay for Eddie’s drink.”
He put a dollar on the table. Oskar said, “That’ll be two and a quarter.”
“Pour him a dollar’s worth,” Shayne said, standing up. Olga, nervously plucking at her white collar, refused to meet his eyes. The jukebox was still playing, but no one was dancing.
“I’ll tell you what I think happened,” Shayne said. “I think Wall barged in here with his mustache going up and down and tried to get Olga to tell him what happened with Mrs. Masterson’s diary. That seems to be a hot subject around here. Maybe he didn’t tell you he was a Senator, or maybe you didn’t believe him. You told him to shut up and go home. No Senator likes being talked to like that. They take themselves seriously. So you probably had to slug him, didn’t you?”
“There wasn’t any Senator,” Olga repeated.
“OK, there wasn’t any Senator. Give Eddie his drink.”
“Why don’t you go on ahead?” Eddie said. “I’ll stick around and enjoy it.”
Shayne shook his head curtly. He was badly outnumbered, about to be bounced, but Eddie stood up without hesitation. Oskar returned to the bar and filled a shot-glass with whiskey, which Eddie knocked back in one swallow. Pete went with them and waited till the cab was moving before going back inside.
“I told you,” Eddie said. “You have to be careful with those guys.”
“I was careful. Let’s look around. Just cruise.”
“You really think they bounced a
“They bounced somebody. The blood on his knuckles isn’t dry yet. That happened in the last half-hour.”
Eddie drove slowly to the corner. At a signal from Shayne he turned off into Ninth Street. Shayne studied the cheap storefronts and hallways. Two middle-aged women holding beer cans sat on a low stoop, talking. A drunk lay curled up on newspapers in front of a dark candy store. Eddie turned again at the next corner.
“They wouldn’t bring him this far.”
Shayne pointed to a narrow opening between a warehouse and a blighted tenement. “What’s in there?”
“Don’t ask me. And I’m not going in to find out.”
“I want to take a look. I’ll need your headlights.”
Eddie maneuvered the cab around and flicked his lights up to high beam when they pointed into the opening. It was five feet wide, littered with bottles, old tires, parts of cars and other debris. Ten feet or so in, Shayne saw what seemed to be a long heap of rags.
“If you get in any trouble,” Eddie said as Shayne got out, “don’t expect me to wait for you. I’m taking off.”
The detective’s enormous shadow filled the opening. A huge gray rat leaped at him from the shadows, scraped his leg, and was gone. His foot clanged against a rusty oil drum. As he moved closer to the pile of rags it turned into a man’s body, fully dressed but without shoes. One of the feet pointed straight upward, the other was twisted at an awkward angle.
Shayne had been in the presence of violent death often enough so he knew at a glance that this was no sleeping drunk. Glass crunched under his feet. The smell of liquor was very strong. He squatted beside the body, taking his lighter out of his coat pocket. He spun the wheel and a little flare of light fell on the dead man’s face.
It was Ronald Bixler.
CHAPTER 13
3:35 A.M.
Shayne’s eyes were hard and dangerous. If he had moved faster, if he had told Bixler flatly to be satisfied with what he had cleared and not try for any more, the little man might still be alive. Shayne checked his watch to see how much time had passed since he left Bixler being sick in the bathroom. Half an hour at the most.
Bixler’s face was bruised and there was a smear of drying blood beneath one eye, another bloody area on the side of his head. Shayne brushed his fingers lightly across the temple, turning the head so he could examine the wound. It was several inches long, with clearly marked edges, deep enough to have driven bone-splinters into the brain. It had been inflicted with something long and flat, with a blunted cutting edge.
He moved the lighter. The dead man’s pants pockets had been turned inside out. A pale stripe around the wrist of one of the outflung arms showed where his watch had been. The redhead searched all the pockets carefully, finding nothing.
He stood up, letting the lighter flame wink out. Eddie was on the sidewalk watching. Behind him the cab’s motor idled loudly.
“Senator Wall?” the driver said hoarsely as Shayne reached him.
“No. Now I need a phone.”
“Is he dead?”
“Yeah,” Shayne said wearily, getting into the front seat of the cab.
Eddie came around and got in beside him. “Hacking nights, you run into things. But I’ve got a policy-go to sleep and forget it. Why don’t we let somebody else find him?”
“A phone, Eddie,” Shayne repeated. “He didn’t die of smoking cigarettes. Somebody killed him. This is for the cops.”
“Well, sure, as a rule. But do you have any idea of the red tape you can get involved in? The company will have to know I knocked off back there for a drink. That’s one example.”
“Eddie,” Shayne said more sharply.
“OK, but do you mind telling me who you are? I know you’re a pro, but who do you work for?”
