with which Bates had menaced him the preceding night. He slid it into his hip pocket, then poured his glass full of cognac, glanced at Rourke, and said, “Hold out your glass, Tim. I’ve got lots of credit here, haven’t I, Bates?”
“What credit?” growled Bates.
“Don’t you remember? I left something behind last night,” said Shayne cheerfully.
“A phony C-note,” the square man charged.
“But a sweet job. You said so yourself. Worth at least forty bucks in the open market, and I only had a couple of drinks out of it.”
Bates folded the fingers of both hands together and didn’t say anything. Shayne moved back to sit in one of the cane-bottomed chairs, and Rourke folded his stringy body into the other.
Shayne set the uncorked bottle on the floor beside him, took a sip of cognac from his glass, then asked Bates, “Heard anything from the senator this morning?”
“I don’t know any politicians,” said Bates stoically.
“Senator Irvin.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Could be you think his name is really Greerson,” Shayne admitted. “The big shot to you.”
Bates sat stolidly silent, his mouth a closed vise and his cold eyes slitted.
Shayne lifted himself and leaned forward with his left hand supporting his weight on the desk between them. With his open right hand he slapped Bates’s square face. The blow sounded loud in the office.
Bates cursed in a low tone, shoved back his chair, and stood with knotted fists in an attitude of self- defense.
Shayne remained leaning forward with both hands on the desk. He said, “Getchie got himself killed last night. Sit down in that chair and start talking before something like that happens to you.”
In a voice choked with impotent rage, Bates said, “You can’t slap me around like that, damn you.”
“The hell I can’t.” Shayne straightened up and started to move around the desk.
Bates dropped back into his chair. His face was darkly flushed, and he was breathing hard. He looked down at the papers in front of him and said thickly, “I read in the paper about the fire last night. I swear it’s the first I knew what had happened after Perry and Getchie took out after you last night. I was just-”
“Obeying orders,” Shayne prodded him. “I know that. How did you recognize that bill you took off me?”
“Serial number,” mumbled Bates. “Look, I didn’t know what I was mixin’ up in,” he went on rapidly and earnestly. “I thought you were just one of the mob. If I’d known you were a dick I wouldn’t of jumped you like I did.”
“How’d you find out I was a dick?”
“Somebody that was in here last night after you beat it. Said you were Mike Shayne. God! how was I to know?”
“You know now,” Shayne reminded him sharply. “Give me the low-down on Irvin and the counterfeit racket.”
“I don’t know anything about that. I swear I don’t. I got this steer about a month ago, see? If any of the queer turned up, I was to call that telephone number like I did last night.”
“You’re a liar. You called Perry by name and asked for the big shot,” Shayne raged. He returned to his chair and picked up his drink.
“Yeh. Perry was the one that tipped me off. Told me to call that number and ask for the big shot.”
Shayne took Bates’s. 45 out of his pocket and rested the muzzle on the edge of the desk. His eyes were bleak and his voice harsh.
“I know all about the racket and the queer stuff. How the mob has played it smart for a couple of years by planting wads of it in dumps like this where it can be shoved in a hurry onto a sporting crowd. I know they’re about ready to start an operation in Miami and that you’re one of the shovers. Was the stuff being rockered in that Thirty-eighth Street house?”
Bates looked blank. “I don’t know anything about that. I only know-”
“That you’ll get a hole the size of my fist blasted in your belly if you don’t talk,” Shayne interrupted savagely. “Never mind that last question. I’m pretty sure it was being worked at Irvin’s place, because that would account for the repair shop in the basement without any repair equipment-a cover-up for running a rocker. That doesn’t matter. You spoke to Irvin about the fifty grand he was looking for.”
“That’s it,” said Bates desperately. “That’s what I’m telling you. About a month ago it was, Perry dropped in and says there’s fifty grand in C-notes that may be dumped any time. Consecutive serial numbers, and he gave me the numbers so I’d know the stuff right away. For my own protection so I wouldn’t get stuck with any of it.”
“Nuts,” said Shayne. “The truth of it is the mob was worried sick for fear it would begin turning up here in Miami before the date set for the heavy shoving to start. That would have warned the Feds to be on the lookout. That’s why Irvin was so damned anxious to get hold of any of it that showed up. That’s why you had orders to use a gun, if necessary, to hang onto the guy passing the phony bills.”
“Might’ve been that way,” said Bates hurriedly. “I didn’t ask too many questions. But from something Perry said, I figured it’d be one of the gang passing it, and that’s why I was rough with you last night. Honest to God I didn’t know you were the law.”
Shayne grunted sourly and returned the. 45 to his pocket. He drank the rest of his cognac and pulled on his ear lobe for a moment. He asked suddenly, “How much of the stuff were you going to take when the time came?”
“I swear I wasn’t taking any. I don’t mix in anything like that. You can’t prove anything like that on me.”
“Probably not,” Shayne agreed. He turned to look at Rourke’s glass. “Want another shot, Tim?”
“Sure. Why not? It’s free, isn’t it?” He extended his empty glass.
“It’s free,” Shayne told him, filling the glass, and repeating the process with his own. “Bates is happy to see us enjoying ourselves.”
“Go right ahead,” Bates said uneasily. “I didn’t mean to get mixed up in any trouble. A man’s got a right to kick about having bad money passed on him,” he added righteously.
“That’s right. And I bet you’ve got a permit to carry this gun.” Shayne emptied his glass and stood up. He took the. 45 from his pocket, broke it and pushed the plunger and extracted six cartridges which he dropped into his pocket. He laid the empty gun on the desk and turned to Rourke. “Let’s get going.”
When they reached the car and got in, Rourke stretched out his thin legs and, after a moment’s silence, asked Shayne doubtfully, “Do you think he was telling the truth?”
“To a certain extent.” Shayne put the car in gear and wheeled it out of the driveway. “I think he’s in with the counterfeit gang and was slated to shove a bunch of the stuff when the right time came. The way it adds up,” he went on meditatively, “is that somewhere along the line those five hundred consecutive bills turned up missing. Maybe the big boys didn’t know whose fingers were sticky; and maybe they guessed. Anyhow, they didn’t want the stuff to show up here in Miami before they started their own cleanup. So word was passed around to everyone who could be trusted, and I picked the wrong place to break one last night.”
“Could Hale have got hold of the counterfeit somehow in New York?” asked Rourke. “Without even knowing it was queer, maybe?”
“Not from any bank,” Shayne assured him grimly. “As for his not knowing it, don’t forget the list of serial numbers he handed over to Painter.”
“Maybe he switched the money after he got it from the bank,” suggested Rourke.
“Maybe. I’m hoping Gentry will have an answer for that by the time we get there.”
He drove east to Miami Avenue, turned south to Fifth Street, and went west around the traffic circle that skirted the west side of the courthouse. Across Flagler, he parked opposite police headquarters and Rourke got out with him to go into Chief Gentry’s office.
Gentry looked up with a grimace when they entered his office together. He craned his head suspiciously, as though trying to see out in the corridor behind them, then grunted, “Well, where’s the corpse this time?”
Shayne said, “We checked it outside.” He walked on and eased one hip down on the chief’s desk. Rourke crossed the room and slumped into a chair.
“I called your apartment ten minutes ago,” Gentry said. “A couple of things have popped.”
Shayne tugged at his ear lobe and waited.
“They finally got Gerta Ross’s stomach pumped out. When she sobered up, she told a very interesting story,
