“I told you I didn’t have.”
The waiter shook his head and said finally, “I must take to office.”
“Get that cognac before you go,” Shayne ordered.
The waiter thought that over and evidently decided it was a reasonable request. He nodded and went to the bar, brought the drink back to the table, then crossed the room and knocked on a closed door on the other side of the room.
Mrs. Dawson mixed and stirred her fresh drink, then said, “I’m plenty worried about him and I guess you know why.”
Shayne grinned and said, “You must at least wear a brassiere.”
Her eyes glittered. “When this business is over-”
“Boss say you see him in office,” the waiter interrupted, his frightened eyes staring at Shayne.
“What the hell? Isn’t there a hundred dollars in change in this dump?”
“Tony not know,” he answered, jabbing a forefinger against his chest to indicate that he was Tony. “Boss say you see him.” He pointed nervously toward the office door.
Shayne picked up his glass of cognac and went across to the door, which stood slightly ajar, pulled it open and went in.
A square-faced man faced him across a bare desk. The office was small, with a bright unshaded globe suspended from the ceiling. The room was shabby and dirty, with two cane-bottomed chairs placed in front of the desk.
The square-faced man had large ears that protruded at a sharp angle from his head, and a large vise-like mouth. He wore a cream-colored shirt opened at the first button, revealing a thick, ruddy neck. He waited until the detective advanced close to the desk before asking, “Mind telling me where you got hold of this bill?” His voice was rasping, but not particularly unfriendly.
Shayne frowned and took a drink from his glass before setting it on the desk. He sat down on one of the chairs and asked, “Why? Isn’t it any good?”
“I’m asking you,” said the proprietor of the Fun Club patiently, “where you got it.”
“I don’t think it’s any of your damned business.”
“I’m making it my business.” The square-faced man’s voice remained rasping, yet not particularly unfriendly but colder, and he spoke more deliberately.
Shayne shrugged and admitted, “Printed it last night myself. Thought I did a pretty good job.”
“It is a good job, pal. One hell of a sweet job. You’ll save yourself a lot of trouble by telling me where you got it.”
Shayne emptied his cognac glass and set it down with a thump. “I don’t see why you’re playing puzzles, but I’m tired of it. I cashed a check at the bank this afternoon.”
“The bank didn’t give you this bill.”
“I say it did.”
“The cops won’t believe you, pal.”
“Why don’t you call them and we’ll see?”
“I think I’ll do that little thing.” There was a smirk on his thick lips and his slate-gray eyes stared coldly at Shayne. He picked up the desk telephone with a square left hand, laid it down and dialed a number with the first blunt finger of that hand. His right hand slid from the desk into his lap.
Shayne’s eyes narrowed at him. “You didn’t dial police headquarters. The number is-”
“I know what number I’m calling, pal. Just sit tight where you are.”
The muzzle of a. 45 inched up over the edge of the desk and rested there, leveled at Shayne’s mid-section. The square-faced man lifted the telephone with his left hand and said, “Perry? Put the big shot on.”
Shayne sat very still with his hands folded in front of him. He wondered if the big blonde in the outer room had finished her drink.
He studied the bill lying on the desk between them, then reached out and picked it up by one corner. The proprietor watched him with no change of expression, the gun steady in his square right hand.
Shayne studied the bank note carefully, frowning and turning it over in his hands. It looked genuine enough to him, though he wasn’t an expert. He said so, and the man across the desk grunted something unintelligible.
Shayne laid the bill down and folded his hands again. Juke-box music came softly through the open door behind him.
Chapter Three
“This is Bates, proprietor of the Fun Club,” the man at the desk finally said. “I got a C-note from that batch of fifty G’s you been huntin’.”
He listened for a moment, his face impassive, his gaze and the muzzle of the gun steady on the detective.
“Yeh. I got him here. He ain’t sayin’ where he got it. Yeh. Tough-like. Oh, he’ll stick around till the boys get here. I got a gun on him that says he’ll sit quiet. Sure. That’ll be fine.”
Bates pronged the receiver, picked up a half-smoked cigar from an ash tray, and settled back as comfortably as he could in the straight-backed chair.
Shayne kept his hands straight in front of him. He got up easily, careful to make no sudden motion. “That gun of yours,” he told Bates quietly, “is going to make a hell of a noise if you trigger it in here. I don’t believe you want all your customers to see you shoot an unarmed man.” He backed slowly toward the open door. A deepening of the trenches in his cheeks was the only evidence that he was under any undue tension. “I’m going to turn around and walk out,” he went on evenly. “I’m keeping my hands where you can see them so you won’t have any excuse for blasting me in the back.”
He turned in the doorway, dropping his hands limply at his sides. The interior of the Fun Club was just as it had been before, except that the somnambulistic dancers had collapsed in chairs at one of the tables and were wearily sipping drinks. A big fat man and a short plump woman had taken their place on the dance floor, and the man was slowly pumping the woman’s arm up and down to a dismal tune from the juke-box.
Mrs. Dawson turned her head to look at Shayne as he walked out of Bates’s private office. He went slowly toward her, his hands still hanging limply. He hadn’t formulated any plan but he knew he was fairly safe as long as he remained out in the open in sight of the customers of the Fun Club and until reinforcements arrived for Bates. He didn’t know how soon that would be nor what form they would take.
Right now he wanted to get close to the big blonde. She was his only contact with Dawson-the man who had slipped him the two hundred-dollar bills in exchange for passage to New Orleans. He had to work fast, gain her confidence somehow-
Shayne eased himself into the chair opposite her. She emptied the second half of the drink he had bought her, staring steadily at him over the rim of her glass.
Then she set it down, ran her tongue over her lips, and asked, “What’s all this monkey business about? I know Dawson was trying to get a plane out of town at midnight. If he’s run out on us-”
“I’ve got a couple of minutes,” Shayne interrupted her harshly. “Shut up and listen to me.”
Her eyes widened. “A couple of minutes?”
“Before some gunmen come in after me.” He turned his head to look at the open door of Bates’s office. He couldn’t see the proprietor but knew he was being watched from inside the room.
“That isn’t long enough to tell you what you want to know about your husband,” he said rapidly.
“My husband?”
“Sure. Only he told me his name was Parson.”
She said, “I haven’t got any husband.” Her eyes narrowed as she concentrated her gaze on his face. “I get you now. You were at the airline ticket office while I was asking about him.”
Shayne nodded impatiently. “I trailed you here in a taxi. Do we go somewhere and talk things over?”
