“He’s been begging for that for a long time, Will. Did the little twerp tell you he was trying to lock me up in his stinking jail when it happened?”
“Sure. But resisting arrest and assaulting an officer in pursuit of his duty is what makes it so bad, Mike. I’ll have to pick you up if you show your mug in Miami.”
“All right, Will.” Shayne sounded weary and beaten. “I guess I do have a way of making it tough on my friends. You’ve gone the limit for me plenty of times and I know it. I’m calling from Twentieth and Biscayne if you want to send a car to pick me up.”
“Aw, now, you know how it is, Mike. I’ve got a job of my own to look out for. I can’t just outright refuse to pinch a man because he happens to be a friend.”
“I know it, Will. I’m a heel for expecting friendship to stretch that far.” Waiting tensely at his end of the line, Shayne heard a smothered curse come over the wire. His lips slowly twisted into a grin as Gentry spoke again:
“You know I’d do anything within reason for you. Take the Thrip boy, for instance. Did you hear about him being picked up in an alley beat half to death by an unidentified mob-and robbed?”
“Yeh. I heard about that, Will.” Shayne’s voice was warm. “That was white of you. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d grabbed me for that. I’m not squawking. I know when I get out of bounds. Come on and pick me up and get the credit for it. There’ll be plenty of credit. The morning papers will say I’ve gone berserk. Maybe I have. I just wanted to stay out of jail long enough to find Phyllis and bring her back home, but-I guess the cards are stacked against me this time.”
“Phyllis? Your wife, you mean? What in God’s name has happened to her, Mike?”
“I don’t know,” Shayne groaned hollowly. “A fate worse than death maybe. You know how impulsive she is. Well, she-but, hell! You can’t worry about that at a time like this.”
“Damn it, you know I’m worried, Mike. I love that girl like she was my own. What are you covering up?”
“Nothing, Will. She’s probably all right. You know how jittery a man gets.”
“I never knew you to be jittery before.” Will Gentry’s voice was very stern. “If your wife’s in some trouble-”
“She’s just a kid. Doesn’t know what the score is. Dumb enough to think her husband isn’t a murderer and to try and help him prove it. That’s why it’s going to hurt like hell while I lie up in Painter’s jail knowing that whatever happens to her will be on account of her being so lamebrained as to love a louse like me.”
“Quit your stalling,” Gentry snapped impatiently. “If Phyllis is in any danger, let’s do something.”
“Yeh. I’d better tell you before they lock me up so you can do what you can. She left me a note this morning saying she was going out to help me solve the Thrip case. She went straight to Carl Meldrum without knowing that he’s a maniac. She’s so damned innocent, Will-” Shayne’s voice faltered convincingly.
“Meldrum? That’s the bird at the Palace Hotel on the Beach. I’ve got a man waiting to pick him up now.”
“Yeh, but he and Phyllis went off together before your man got there and they haven’t come back. I think I know where I can find him tonight, but hell! that won’t do me any good if I’m in jail.”
“You’re not in jail yet, you damned fool. I can’t arrest you if I can’t find you.”
Shayne said, “Well-but-”
“No buts about it. Duck out of there and forget you called me.”
“You’ve got your job to think about,” Shayne reminded him, “and Painter will be riding you hard.”
Will Gentry cursed him fervently, then ended with a snarl: “I was running this department when Painter was wearing a safety pin instead of a belt buckle. Just keep out of sight, Mike.”
“Well, if you want to know where not to look,” Shayne suggested, “I’m on my way out to the Tally-Ho.”
“Good. That’s outside the city limits. I don’t think the sheriff is looking for you yet.”
Shayne said, “All I ask is a few hours, Will.” He hung up and hurried out to the curb, stepped in his car, and sped north on the boulevard.
It was too early for much of a crowd to be at the Tally-Ho when Shayne turned off the boulevard to the right toward neon lights showing through lacy palm fronds. The night club was backed up against the western shore of the bay, alone and secluded in the midst of a palmetto-grown strip which had been subdivided during the boom, but never built up.
The floodlighted parking-lot wasn’t more than a third full of cars and the dimly illumined tropical gardens surrounding the two-story stucco structure were deserted at this hour of the early evening.
Inside the clubhouse, an air of subdued magnificence was calculated to overawe the unwary and loosen their purse strings to meet the high cost of the entertainment offered.
Shayne traded his trench coat and hat for a check and a smile from a blonde behind the check counter, strolled to the door of the main downstairs dining-room for a quick gander inside, then went back through a well- lined bar to the gaming-rooms in the rear which were occupied mostly by croupiers and dealers waiting for the late play to begin.
After a leisurely circuit of the rear he came back through the bar, went on to the dining-room without seeing a familiar face. He knew there were private rooms upstairs where anything could and did happen, but he saved an investigation of them until later when they were more likely to be in use.
The headwaiter didn’t recognize the detective, but, his eyes lighted with recognition for the twenty-dollar bill in Shayne’s hand when Shayne asked:
“Do you know Carl Meldrum by sight?”
“Yes, sir. He’s one of our regular patrons. It’s a little early for him.”
“Is Miss Thrip here?”
“Miss Thrip? I don’t know the young lady by name, sir.”
Shayne nodded shortly and moved toward a vacant table near the door, disregarding the waiter’s suggestion that he could arrange a ringside seat for the floor show which was soon to begin.
Shayne said, “This will be all right,” and selected a chair backed against the wall where he could see every person who entered and survey the entire dining-room.
A waitress, appropriately attired in a short red hunting-jacket, pink tights, and patent leather boots, approached his table at once to place the Tally-Ho’s menu sheet before him.
Without glancing at the menu, Shayne said, “Four sidecars and a planked steak for two. Make it hot on both sides but not in the middle.”
When she went away, Shayne leaned back and lit a cigarette, began a careful study of the half hundred or more couples at the tables next to the roped-off square where the floor show would be held.
He had finished less than half of his keen survey of faces when a girl glided up to his table. She had black, square-cut bangs and a white-toothed smile. She was sheathed in a tight evening gown of emerald green biased by darker stripes which reminded Shayne of garden snakes. Its V-front ended alarmingly close to her navel.
The girl asked, “Waiting for someone, big boy?” and started to pull out a chair.
Shayne said, “Yes,” and she hesitated, then cajoled:
“No use being lonesome while you’re waiting. How’d you like to buy me a drink?”
Shayne said gently, “Go sell your bill of goods to some sucker, sister.”
The waitress brought Shayne’s sidecars and ranged them in front of him just as the ceiling lights dimmed, leaving only the dim bulbs of cleverly designed coconut-shell lamps glowing on individual tables.
The orchestra struck up a two-four time medley and twin floodlights covered two short flights of steps down which a bevy of nude young girls tripped in a rhythmic dance.
Shayne gulped down half of one sidecar and settled back with his left arm crooked over the back of the chair, holding the glass in his right hand. From a distance and in the soft glow of varicolored sprays of the spotlights, the girls were alluring, claiming his attention. They appeared entirely nude except for silk triangles apparently held in place by nothing at all.
They paraded around the square, dancing, holding out their arms, coyly inclining their heads to flirt with the males whose tables crowded close to the ropes.
Shayne looked on through half-closed eyes for a time, then swore to himself because the lights were too dim to see the faces of the couples who entered the dining-room and were led to tables by waiters.
The girls were trooping back toward the twin flights of steps. The leaders swerved, and instead of dancing up the stairs to the dressing-rooms, tripped up side steps leading out among the tables scattered all over the room.
