him with her cheeks flushed and her eyes alight.
Leaning forward with her elbows on the table and her chin cupped in her palms, she asked, “Are you still angry with me for coming here, Tim?”
“Not after tasting this food.” He took a swig of coffee and wondered why the devil he couldn’t make it taste right. “If your husband catches you here I’ll tell him I’m giving you a tryout for a job as my cook.”
She frowned and her eyes were grave for a moment. Then she laughed and said, “He can’t possibly know I’m here. I waited until he went back to the office, and I parked my car on the side street and came up the back stairway. No one saw me.”
Rourke scraped up the last of his eggs and pushed the plate back with a satisfied sigh. “Bronson is the least of my worries,” he said. “Just so you’ve got his gun safe. Is there more coffee?”
“Plenty.” She took his cup into the kitchen for a refill, came back, and said tenderly, “I’ll take it in the living- room where you can be more comfortable.” She preceded him through the archway, drew up a small table beside the couch for him, then went back to gather up the dishes and put them in the sink.
Rourke rolled a cigarette and enjoyed his second cup of coffee. Muriel came back and sat on the floor beside him, looked up into his eyes, and said, “I love you, Tim. I wish you wouldn’t doubt that.”
The white line of her throat was as smooth and clean as a young girl’s. He put his knuckles against her cheek and laughed. “Up from your position of adoration, woman. Is this a proposal?”
“It could be,” she said quietly. She sprang up and went lithely toward the bathroom, holding herself proudly erect.
Watching her, he thought that life was sometimes funny as hell.
Chapter Five: SHAYNE NOSES OUT THE NEWS
Lucy Hamilton looked up from her typewriter when Michael Shayne stalked into the reception room of his office in downtown New Orleans. She was smiling and her red lips formed to call a cheery greeting.
Instead, she pushed her chair back, half-arose, and cried, “What on earth, Michael? Why are you looking like that?”
Shayne’s face was set in harsh and strained lines. His gray eyes were cold with a blank, unseeing expression. A folded newspaper was crushed in his big right hand. He advanced to the wooden railing separating Lucy’s desk from the rest of the reception room and ordered curtly, “Get the airport. See about a plane to Miami.”
“What’s happened? What is it?” she asked, her right hand reaching into the top desk drawer and bringing out the telephone directory. She rapidly thumbed through the pages for the number and picked up the receiver. Dialing, she asked, “When shall I say you’re going, Michael?”
“On the very first plane that can take me,” Shayne told her. “Tell them it’s police business.”
When the airport answered and Lucy made an urgent plea for a seat on the first plane leaving, she kept her anxious brown eyes upon her employer’s grim face.
Shayne relaxed his fingers on the newspaper and smoothed it out. His gaze brooded down on the small headline on the second page: Crusading Reporter Near Death. The paragraph below was a wire service item datelined Miami, Florida.
Lucy sighed and cradled the receiver. “Not a chance this week. They’re booked solidly.”
“Try the railroad.” Shayne’s voice was flat and even, warding off further questions and stifling her sympathy.
Lucy bit her lip and swallowed the words she was going to say. She looked up another number, dialed it, while Shayne stood flat-footed before her, waiting, reading the words of the short item over and over, though he already knew them by heart.
Lucy talked a little longer over the telephone this time, but when she hung up she said, “Nothing for at least two weeks unless there happens to be a last-minute cancellation. Do you want me to-?”
“When does the next train leave?”
“There’s one in twenty minutes, but you can’t possibly get a reservation. I even asked about the day coach. They doubt whether there’ll be a seat.”
Shayne said, “I’ll take my chance on that. Twenty minutes? I won’t have time to pack anything.”
Lucy stood up, her tall slim body very straight, her eyes soberly studying the detective. She said severely, “You’re not going to dash off to Miami like that. You can’t do it. Mrs. Caruthers is waiting in your office. She had a nine o’clock appointment. And you’re to see Mr. Heinz today about that theft. And there’s the Erskine case-” Her voice trailed off when she realized that he wasn’t listening to her, that he was looking through her as though he didn’t know she was there. He had walled himself off from everything in the world except the newspaper in his hand.
Shayne shifted the folded paper to his left hand and worried his left ear lobe between right thumb and forefinger. “You take care of things here, Lucy,” he said absently. “What time does that train reach Miami?”
“Six-thirty tomorrow evening. But I can’t take care of things. You know you’ve-”
“Take a wire,” Shayne snapped. Chief of police Will Gentry, Miami, Florida. Arriving six-thirty tomorrow evening. Have all dope on Rourke ready. Mike Shayne. “Got that?”
“All dope on Rourke?” Lucy looked up from her notebook questioningly.
He spelled the name for her and added in a strangely gentle voice, “You remember Timothy Rourke. The reporter who flew that stuff here on the Margo Macon case.”
“Of course I remember. Is he-?”
Shayne nodded. “Shot last night. He isn’t expected to live.” He looked down at the newspaper as if for confirmation.
“Oh-I’m sorry. But do you have to dash off like this? Can’t the Miami police-?”
The door opened unceremoniously and a telegraph boy entered. He said, “Telegram for Michael Shayne.”
Shayne took the message and tore it open. He read: Crime popping Miami Beach. Three murders. Can you take over. Urgent. Tim Rourke.
Shayne uttered a sharp oath and crushed the message in his hand. He said to Lucy, “It’s a message from Tim-evidently sent before he was shot in his apartment on Miami Beach. I’ve just about got time to get a taxi to the depot. Get that wire off to Gentry right away.”
As he turned toward the door Lucy caught his arm and said earnestly, “Promise me you’ll be careful. You frighten me-looking like that.”
“If that telegram had been delivered to me when it should have, I’d be halfway to Miami by now,” Shayne grated. Then looking into Lucy’s upturned face he said gently, “Don’t worry about me. Do the best you can with things here.” He kissed her lips and said, “Good-by”
She followed him into the hall, calling, “When will you be back, Michael?”
“When Tim Rourke’s murderer is in jail,” he flung over his shoulder, and long-legged it to the elevator.
The afternoon was fading imperceptibly into the long tropical twilight period when Shayne stepped from the train in Miami. His clothes were rumpled and he was weary after more than 30 hours in a day coach, but his nostrils flared and his gray eyes brightened as he dragged in a deep breath of the warm evening air.
With no luggage to delay him he thrust his hands deep into his trousers pockets and strolled along the brick walk, his eyes straying around looking for a familiar face. Tourists poured from every car of the long train, and there were those waiting to greet friends, craning their necks, and some standing on tiptoe for a better view.
The thought struck Shayne suddenly that he had few friends in Miami. It had been part of his job not to become widely known and to keep his picture out of the local papers. A muscle twitched in his angular jaw and his eyes grew bleak. Timothy Rourke had been the only close friend he had made in all the years he practiced here.
He stopped strolling and looking around. His long legs swung out in a purposeful stride. Just before he reached the taxi area he felt a strong grip on his arm and turned to see the bronzed and smiling face of a trim Miami policeman.
