He twitched and jerked and moaned, then sat up suddenly with his eyes wide, grunting, 'I'm drowning. Turn it off, I tell you.'
Shayne moved the head so the spray took Paulson squarely in the face. He blinked and shuddered and put his hands up, then squirmed to a kneeling position and turned his back on the tormenting water.
Shayne turned it off and reached in to gather up a handful of Paulson's water-soaked coat between the shoulder-blades. He pulled the sodden man upright and slapped him viciously, first on one cheek and then the other.
Paulson cried out in surprise and hurt, then cursed thickly and twisted away.
Shayne let him go and stepped back grimly. Paulson slid to a crouching position, opening and shutting his mouth without uttering a sound, his eyes gleaming madly.
Shayne leaned forward and slapped him again. He asked coldly, 'Can you hear me, Paulson? Understand what I'm saying?'
'I'm c-cold. I'm f-freezing.'
Shayne said, 'To hell with that. Let's see if you can stand up.' He got a grip on his arm and heaved. Paulson helped himself a little and made it to his feet. Shayne dragged him over the edge of the tub, gave him a hard shove through the doorway. He staggered and went fiat on his face on the bedroom floor.
Shayne followed and rolled him over on his back, jerked him up to a sitting posture. The madness was going out of
Paulson's eyes, being replaced by fear.
Shayne got the whisky bottle and uncorked it. He held it up to Paulson's open mouth and ordered, 'Swallow.'
Paulson swallowed two gulps. He coughed and retched and then looked up miserably.
'Tou're Shayne?' His voice was thick but he sounded rational. 'Where's Nellie?'
'We'll know after you answer some questions.' Shayne moved aside to pick up the. 45 automatic. He stood over Paulson with the heavy weapon negligently in his hand. 'Hesitate just once,' he said pleasantly, 'and I'll break this over your head. Now then. When you reached Jacksonville from Detroit, you found your sister gone. Is that right?'
Paulson nodded dumbly.
'And you nosed around and discovered she had run out on a badger game rap that she'd been pulling with some guy who she pretended was her brother. Right?'
Again, Paulson nodded. He looked down and his fingers scrabbled for the whisky bottle where Shayne had dropped it on the floor. He got it to his mouth with difficulty and drained it. Then he threw it away and put his hands in front of his face and said brokenly, 'My fault. All my fault. If I hadn't gone off and left her alone-'
'Shut up and listen to me,' said Shayne inexorably. 'WTiile you were away, she'd been living with some man and passing him off as her brother. Who was he?'
'Don' know.' Paulson's head weaved from side to side. 'I don' know. Hired detective to find her. Then I came here-'
'And had a car accident and broke your glasses as you neared Miami,' Shayne filled in for him. 'You had your sister's room number, and when you reached the Hibiscus you went straight up. And you saw this blonde come running out of her room and you thought it was Nellie afraid to face you because of what she'd done, although you actu ally couldn't recognize her in that dim light without your glasses.'
'Was Nellie,' Paulson insisted stubbornly. 'I told you-'
'I know what you told me,' Shayne cut him off fiercely. 'If you'd come clean in the beginning and told me it wasn't her brother who'd been living with her in Jacksonville, a hell of a lot of things would be different right now. Including one dead girl who might well still be alive.'
'Nellie?' Paulson cringed away from Shayne's hardhitting words. 'You mean she's dead? My little sister?'
'Frankly,' said Shayne, 'I don't know who's dead at this point. But we're going to find out. Get on your feet and let's go to headquarters.'
'Can't stand up,' groaned Paulson, sinking back on his elbows. 'Gotta-be sick.'
'Then get the hell in the bathroom and be sick.' Shayne stood back and swung a number twelve shoe. The toe of it crunched into Paulson's ribs.
He grunted with pain and rolled over and was sick on the floor.
Shayne stood back, gimlet-eyed and restless, until the retching subsided somewhat. Then he reached down and hauled Paulson up impatiently, half-marched him and half-supported him to the door. Little puddles of water and a pile of foul vomit lay on the floor behind them as they went out.
TWENTY-FOUR: 11:53 PM
Chief of Police Will Gentry was deep in conversation with a tall blond man when Shayne unceremoniously shoved the hulking bedraggled figure of Bert Paulson into his office at headquarters.
Gentry looked up disapprovingly, and then his eyes widened as he saw the scar on Paulson's cheek. He said, 'So you found him, Mike? What the hell have my men been doing?'
Shayne said wearily, 'I had the jump on them. It finally came to me that he mentioned he and his sister had always stayed at the Tropical Arms when they were in Miami.' He jerked his thumb savagely toward Paulson who had subsided into a chair and sat there with a vacant expression on his face. 'Meet Bert Paulson in the flesh. Will.'
'You're wrong, Mike.' Gentry shook his head and turned to the man seated beside him. 'Meet Lieutenant Neils from Jacksonville. Mike Shayne. He brought down a picture of the girl and her brother.' He gestured toward a blown-up eight-by-ten photograph lying on his desk. 'Looks a lot more like the bird we pulled out of the bay than this guy.'
Shayne leaned over his shoulder and studied the picture of a smiling girl and a young man in bathing suits with their arms intertwined about each other. The man whom he had dragged out of the Tropical Arms definitely did not resemble the one in the picture. He couldn't be so sure about the girl. The sun was in her face and she was squint ing as she smiled and her image was blurred a trifle.
Shayne said flatly, 'I realize that's the guy you're after. Lieutenant, but you're mistaken thinking his name is Paulson. Bert will tell you the whole story,' he went on impatiently to Gentry. 'Right now, I want to know just one little thing. That girl in the park. What sort of purse did she have, Will?'
'Purse?'
'Handbag. You know.'
'Hell, it was just a bag, I guess. The kind of bag any girl carries around with her.'
'What color?' Shayne demanded savagely. 'Red or black?'
Gentry pursed his lips thoughtfully. 'I don't know. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I even saw her bag. They had all the stuff out of it looking for identification-'
As he paused uncertainly, Shayne reached past him and snatched up his telephone. He gave Lucy Hamilton's number, and this time she answered before it rang twice.
'Lucyl Think a minute before you answer this. What sort of handbag was the girl carrying when she came to your place?'
'Why-I don't know for sure, Michael. I-'
'I told you to stop and think it over,' he exploded. 'Was it red or black? Damn it, you ought to remember a simple thing like that. Start thinking about it while I'm on my way over.'
'Don't you dare come here at this time of night, Michael. I won't let you in if you do. I'm going to get some sleep. As far as the bag goes, it was black suede. Good night.'
Her voice rang in his ears for seconds after he heard the decisive slam of her receiver breaking the connection.
He replaced the phone slowly, shaking his head and glancing at his watch. It was still five minutes to midnight. What the hell had got into Lucy?
