his ear.
“This way, bud. Keep it quiet.”
Shayne turned slowly and saw a big black sedan parked on the other side of the bridge with headlights burning brightly. He knew by the intonation and by the feel of the gun that he couldn’t bluff this off as he had bluffed Bates.
On his way to the black car he thought, morosely, that he had encountered three very chummy guys within a couple of hours. He had been called “brother” and “pal” and now “bud,” and two of these chums had held pistols on him, and one had stuffed two, probably counterfeit, hundred-dollar bills into his hand.
He hoped the woman wasn’t badly hurt.
Chapter Four
They reached the side of the black sedan, and the man with the gun swung an ape-like arm past Shayne to open the rear door. He stood back and said, “Get in.”
Shayne got in; the man followed, closing the door.
The man in the driver’s seat wore a stiff straw hat tipped far back on his head. Shayne could see the profile of a flat, black face, but that was all.
The man beside Shayne said, “Get rolling, Getchie,” and the car moved smoothly forward.
The man sat quietly for a moment, then said, “I reckon you’re not carryin’ anything or you would’ve showed it. But I’m not taking chances. Twist down with your face against the seat and put your hands behind you. If you move, I’ll split your head open.”
Shayne followed directions and got his hands clasped behind his neck with an effort. His left shoulder had been wrenched in the accident. At first it had felt numb, but in this uncomfortable position it began to ache. His head ached, too. The blood on his face was beginning to clot, and it itched.
He lay very still and tried not to think about things. The car was being driven smoothly on paved streets, making a lot of turns which Shayne made no effort to memorize. He wasn’t familiar with this northeast section of the city, and he had a feeling that he wasn’t going to have any particular desire to retrace the route even if he did have a chance to do so later.
It wasn’t more than fifteen minutes later that the car turned off the street and went down a steep incline into a place that smelled strongly of grease and gasoline. Shayne guessed that it was a basement garage. The man beside him said, “End of the line, bud. Get out that door.”
Shayne sat up and unlatched the door and got out. They were in a big concrete-walled and concrete floored room and there were half a dozen other cars parked around the walls. A twenty-watt, fly-specked bulb in the ceiling gave off a dim light.
The man with the gun followed Shayne out of the car; the driver came around to stand beside him. The gun was poked in Shayne’s ribs, and he was told to go straight up the stairs.
The stairs were wooden and shaky, ending at a small landing faced by a closed wooden door with a bar across it. Shayne lifted the bar and stepped into a narrow, dark passageway. The men stayed close behind him and the gun stayed against his back. He bumped into another door in the dark, found a knob and opened it onto a brightly lit room with a Persian rug on the floor and overstuffed furniture around the walls. The men closed the door when they entered, and Shayne turned to look at them.
The driver, Getchie, was a Negro. His nose had been smashed flat against his broad face, and he had a long grayish scar on one cheek. His forehead was low, and he looked mean and sullen.
His companion was white, rather tall, and fairly bulky. He gestured toward a davenport with his. 38 and said, “Sit down there an’ I’ll tell the boss you’re here. But wait a minute,” he added, as Shayne started toward the long couch. “Shake him down, Getchie.”
Shayne stopped and lifted his right arm high. But his left arm balked when pain shot through his shoulder. The Negro frisked him carefully, stepped back with a grunt and a negative shake of his head. “He ain’t totin’ nothin’, Mistuh Perry.”
Perry nodded. “Watch him, Getchie.” He went to a door at the end of the room, opened it and called, “We got that guy from the Fun Club, boss.”
He stood in the doorway until a bulky man came in belting a black silk robe about his protuberant middle. He was bald with a fringe of gray hair around the back of his head. His face was plump and rosy and he had the placid, satisfied manner of a pastor of a wealthy congregation. He scuffed in past Perry, wearing a pair of rope sandals with heavy cork soles.
When he saw Shayne, the man stopped suddenly, his bleary eyes staring in blank amazement.
Shayne stared back at him and grinned. The grin broke the dried blood on his face into innumerable little cracks. He said, “Senator Irvin, by God.”
The ex-state senator said, “Shayne!” in a high, squeaky voice apparently gone completely out of control. His florid face became mottled with anxiety. He clasped his pudgy hands together over his belly and forced his voice down the scale by several notes when he asked, “What are you doing here?”
The grin stayed on Shayne’s face. He said, “I heard that you’d beat that Raiford rap, Senator, but I didn’t think you’d have guts enough to show your face in Miami again.”
“Mike Shayne,” Perry said softly. “That tough shamus I been readin’ about in the papers? Maybe you want Getchie should soften him up, boss?”
“Wait a minute, Perry.” The senator scuffed forward and seated himself in a comfortable chair opposite Shayne, who sprawled on the davenport. “Bring us something to drink, Getchie. Mineral water for me. Scotch, Shayne?”
“If you haven’t any cognac.”
“I’m afraid it’ll have to be Scotch.” The senator got a white linen handkerchief from a pocket of his robe and blew his nose resoundingly as the Negro left the room. “I’m really amazed, Shayne. I had no idea when Bates telephoned-But you’ve been hurt,” he went on with concern. “I’m sorry-”
“He got that in a car crack-up,” Perry said sourly. “Some blonde dame at the Fun Club took him for a ride and piled up on Thirty-sixth.”
“But I understood Bates to say he would hold the man for your arrival,” the senator said in a tone of extreme irritation.
“That Bates,” Perry spat out. “He don’t know which way is up. This mug walks out on him with the dame ’fore we get there.”
Getchie came back into the room with a wooden tray containing a decanter of mineral water, a bucket of ice cubes, a bottle of Scotch, two glasses, and a siphon of soda. He set it on a table, put ice cubes and water from the decanter in one glass and handed it to the senator, put two ice cubes in the other glass, and took the cork out of the whisky bottle.
“A steady hand does it. I’ll say when,” said Shayne, leaning forward as the Negro began pouring. The glass was full to the brim before he said, “When,” and then added, “never mind the soda,” as the man looked questioningly at the siphon.
Shayne drank half of the whisky and felt a lot better. “Nice of you to have me here at this time of night,” he told the senator.
“How do you figure in this, Shayne?” Irvin asked.
Shayne said irritably, “In what?”
The senator sighed and looked at Perry. Perry stepped forward to hand him a hundred-dollar bill. Irvin smoothed it out on his knee. “Bates says you tried to buy some drinks with this.”
“What’s the matter with it?” asked Shayne.
“I didn’t say anything was the matter with it. I simply want to know where you got it,” Irvin countered.
“I cashed a check at the bank this afternoon.”
“Perhaps. But the bank didn’t give you this bill.”
