made of hopsacking with black yarn hair and the semblance of eyes, nose and mouth stitched on in the same black yarn. It was stabbed through the chest with a black-headed pin.
“Voodoo doll,” Shayne said idly. “What public spirited citizen sent you this, Henny?”
“That’s what I want you to find out, Mr. Shayne.”
The redhead took a sip of brandy, unwound his legs slowly and swung them to the floor. He put the glass down, reached out with one long, knobby finger and pushed the pin deeper into the doll.
Henlein’s quick intake of breath made a small rasping noise. “Don’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s ’sposed to be me, see? Somebody wants to kill me.” Henlein disgorged the words as if the thought were beyond belief, but the sweat on his face and his terrified eyes showed that he believed it nevertheless.
Shayne said dryly, “I can’t imagine why anybody would want you harmed, Henny.”
“Neither can I. But you gotta find out who does.”
The redhead shrugged. “As long as the curse is already on you, I guess I can’t help.”
“You can find out who sent it,” Henlein exploded. “You’re a detective, serving the public. I’m part of the public. I got money to pay.”
“I couldn’t be less interested in what happens to your kind,” Shayne said coldly and turned back to the window.
“Whadda ya mean, my kind?” The hoodlum bristled. “I’m human, ain’t I? If someone kills me he’s got to take the rap the same’s if he killed you-or-ah-the President of the United States.” It was deep thinking for Henny Henlein and his acned forehead wrinkled with the effort.
“Not unless he gets caught.”
“That’s the point. I want to hire you to catch him.”
“Before or after?”
“Look, Mr. Shayne, this might be funny to you-” the muscleman ran a thick tongue over his dry lips-“but it ain’t to me. Whoever it was sent me two dolls. Here’s the other one. With a noose!”
Henlein removed a second doll from his pocket and laid it carefully on the desk as if he felt that this construction of cloth and yarn which symbolized his body were actually a part of it. His hand shook as he drew it back.
The redhead picked up the second doll. Except for the noose with the seven-times-around hangman’s knot, made with the common sort of heavy brown twine department stores use to tie boxes, this doll was identical to the first-crudely made, stuffed with a sort of cellulose which, at one loose seam, was visible; the yarn hair ragged and carelessly applied; the eyes, nose and mouth formed with only a few deft stitches.
He put it down, saying, “The only way it can hurt you is if you die of fright. You afraid of little dolls, Henny?”
“It ain’t the dolls, I told you. It’s the guy who sent them.”
“Well, why don’t you work him over? Break his jaw, cave in some ribs, give him the knee! You’re a muscleman, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know who sent them!” Henlein shouted. “If I knew would I be here wasting my time?”
“Probably not. Don’t waste any more. I won’t take the case.”
Shayne lit a cigarette, coolly blowing smoke just past Henlein’s face. There was sardonic humor in the idea of a professional killer trying to hire a detective to protect him against the sender of a couple of tiny dolls. Although Henlein’s fear was genuine, the situation was too incongruous to seem real. If it should be something more than a morbid prank, however, then sending the dolls had been a sly stroke on someone’s part, for this was a kind of menace outside Henlein’s experience. A “do this or else” threat he could have taken in his stride. A beating with a lead-filled sap or a gun barrel he could understand. The threat of annihilation with gun lead he could have brushed off. But this mysterious way of heralding murder, these dolls with their other-world implications, were terrifying to his dim, slow-witted brain.
Henny Henlein’s stupidity was known to mobsters and police alike. He did what he was told to do like a robot, but in any situation requiring thought he was lost. His head, like his body, was only fat, muscle and bone. His bosses didn’t often trust him with a gun, unless they told him exactly what to do with it, but the police, and others who had reason to be interested, were convinced that some of his muscular activity had added up to murder. The only way he had beaten these raps was by staying mute and letting the mob’s mouthpiece talk for him.
Henlein shook his head in genuine puzzlement. Suddenly something like a ray of hope crossed his heavy features. “I know what’s eating on you, Shayne. You been hearing too many stories about me. Lies. All lies. I never gunned nobody in my life. I’m a muscleman, not a enforcer. See?”
“There’s a difference?” Shayne asked sourly.
“Hell, yes. I only move around, collecting, and like that for legitimate rackets, and maybe ‘working’ somebody once in a while that gets out of line, ya know?”
“What’s the difference if you kill a man quick or cripple him so he dies slowly?”
“Huh?” Henlein stared vacantly. “Look, Mr. Shayne, I’ll pay. Plenty.” His hand moved to his breast pocket and came out with a fistful of green. “I’m working for D. L. now. I’m rolling in it.”
“Keep rolling. I don’t want it.”
“Don’t want-money?” The hoodlum’s mouth opened in stark disbelief. “You gotta take it!”
“I don’t have to do anything,” Shayne snapped, “especially work for one of De Luca’s hoods. I’ve never liked the loan-shark racket and I like the hired thugs who go around beating up idiots who can’t pay his usurious rates even less.”
“That ain’t what I do for D. L. I only collect-”
“I know. Blood or money.”
“It ain’t that way. It’s a legitimate racket.”
Shayne swung out of his chair, walked to the door and held it open. “You rather go out by the window, Henlein? It’s three floors to Flagler.”
Henlein rose reluctantly and walked slowly past Shayne. He seemed to have shrunk since he came in and deep lines had formed beside his mouth. At the door he made a final, despairing effort. “Think about it, Mr. Shayne. Please! Whatever you say, I’ll pay. If you change your mind give me a call. At D. L.’s will get me.”
“I won’t change my mind.” Shayne moved along with him to the outer door.
“Look, Mr. Shayne,” Henlein began accusingly, “if anything happens to me-”
The redhead pushed him through the door and shut it.
Lucy stopped typing and looked up reproachfully. “How could you turn him down, Michael? I don’t care who he is, that poor man was terrified.”
Shayne said tightly, “I draw the line, Lucy, at keeping a professional murderer from being murdered. I know the law doesn’t, but I have a code of ethics which I don’t think it would hurt the law to embrace.”
“Even so, he’s human-”
“That’s what he claimed. I’m inclined to doubt it.”
“Sometimes I wonder whether you are. It’s only human to make an effort to keep a man from being killed.”
“Lucy, do you have any conception of what that man does to make a living, day in and day out? He breaks bones like you do pencil leads, coldly and deliberately. Nothing I charged him with in there was exaggerated. It would nauseate you if I went into detail. Anyhow, why so indignant?” Shayne bent, resting his cheek on Lucy’s hair. “Don’t tell me you believe in those little dolls.”
She softened. “Not exactly. But someone sends them and that someone wishes you dead, and if he wishes hard enough and long enough, maybe you will be!”
“Nothing surer than that,” the redhead agreed, “except taxes. And they don’t need wishing either. I’m going fishing, angel.”
Lucy sniffed and went back to her typing.
2
