“You’re clean with the police. I’ve checked. And you explained last night how legitimately you’re operating here.”
“Who wants to be mixed up with the police anyway?”
“If you don’t, keep talking! Because since I left you last night another man’s been murdered-this time a friend of mine.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Shayne.” Her voice took on its deep timbre. “I suppose he had one of my voodoo dolls in his pocket,” she added in a hurt tone.
“No, but I think he was murdered by one of your regulars-Ed Woodbine, better known in Detroit as Slug Murphy.”
“You must believe me! I don’t know anything about it.” She sat down slowly and looked directly at him without provocativeness, but with a kind of suspended fear. When she spoke it was as if she were talking to herself.
“He told me there was no risk when he set me up.”
“Who told you?”
She shrugged fatalistically. “I was doing a mind-reading act in a second-rate club in Vegas, and a gentleman who asked me to have a drink with him one night suggested this. His name was John Smith.”
Shayne snorted. “Captain John Smith, no doubt.”
“I knew it was a phony, but what difference did it make? He gave me cash-more than I’d ever seen-and told me to come here and rent a house and start the seances. All I’d ever have to do, he said, aside from my regular business, was to work certain numbers into my spirit messages. He didn’t tell me what they were for, and I didn’t ask.”
“Where do you get the numbers?”
“If he’s got me into trouble,” she said through clenched teeth, “I’ll find him and squeeze him dry!” She paused, continuing after a moment with weary resignation. “They come by mail written on a plain sheet of paper in a plain envelope. The postmark is New York City.”
“How are they written?”
“Typed, and in the order to be given.”
“Has John Smith,” Shayne emphasized the name disdainfully, “given you more money since?”
“Yes. Cash sometimes, in the envelopes.”
“What do you think the numbers are for?”
She shrugged again. “I suspect I’m a go-between for some sort of Syndicate deal. Policy numbers maybe, or race-track betting. It could be anything, I guess. I don’t know and I don’t want to know.”
“Have you had any dealings with De Luca?”
“No.”
“Did John Smith put any restrictions on you?”
“No-o-Except to keep the seances light entertainment and not to gouge the customers.”
“Do you know why that was?”
“He didn’t want to attract the attention of the police to his other operation, I guess-whatever it is.”
A police siren shrilled outside. The girl’s face turned whiter. “I’ve leveled with you, Shayne. I’ve told all I know.”
The redhead rose as two policemen entered. He indicated the wounded man with a curt nod. “He took a shot at me. Have him fixed up and then let Will Gentry shake him down. See if his tongue’s looser then. I’ll be in later to lodge a formal complaint.”
“Right, Mr. Shayne.” The policemen helped the man out.
Shayne turned to Swoboda. She stood up, swaying toward him. “Thanks, redhead.”
“We’re not through yet, babe.”
“No?” She widened her eyes provocatively and moistened her full lips.
“You’re not to leave town,” he said harshly. “Understand? And I want you to run another seance tonight.”
“Why?” She put out her slim hand and touched his cheek gently, invitingly, and moved closer.
“Because I say so,” he snapped, picked up his hat and went out the door.
Outside, he leaped into his car and sped to the News building. There were no tails behind him and it seemed almost lonesome.
He parked, entered the building, strode through the lobby and took the elevator up to the editorial floor, long- legging it through the desk-filled room till he reached Timothy Rourke’s office.
The gangling reporter was typing with two fingers, a green eyeshade on his forehead and a cigarette dangling from a corner of his mouth.
“I’d like to listen to that tape you made last night, Tim,” Shayne said.
“O.K.” Rourke stopped typing, opened a drawer and handed Shayne the spool.
“Where can we play it back?”
“Here, if you want.” Rourke’s bony hands swept a clear place on the desk. He rose, lifted a compact recorder-player from a precarious balance on top of a file case, and brought it over. He inserted the spool of tape and plugged it in. They rewound it quickly, then snapped it on “play” and bent together over the machine.
Once again the voice of Madame Swoboda came, rasping and mechanical on the imperfect pick-up. The words were recognizable, however, and the sound intelligible. First the intoned psalm to set the spiritual atmosphere as eerie as it had been last night… He hath done marvelous things… then the message from beyond… Sharon, my marriage was a mistake… and finally Jimsey’s voice speaking to Mother and Daddy… it is so far… for two hours and thirty-six minutes I have traveled… through the forty-eight outer worlds… I am happy-but when I lay dying Friday night I spoke your names eight times…
“Same old gobbledegook it was the first time,” Rourke observed cynically.
“I’m not so sure it’s gobbledegook.”
The redhead played it through once more, listening with strained and sober attention. Rourke went back to his typing, looking up as Shayne snapped off the recorder and rose with a faint, grim smile of satisfaction. “Guard that tape with your life, Tim. It might be Exhibit A.”
“What’s cooking?”
Shayne strode across the room. “Haven’t time to explain. Tell your boss to keep the presses open. The News might get one hell of an exclusive. Oh-and Tim-” He stopped half through the doorway-“Meet me at Swoboda’s a little before eight.”
“That tape recording must have been good,” Rourke said as the door swung shut.
Shayne stopped at a bar, ordered a double cognac and carried it with a tall glass of ice water to the phone booth where he dialed Will Gentry’s private number.
“Did the mug I sent you open up, Will?” he said when the connection was made.
“He was open. You did a good job.”
“He’s not dead, is he?”
“No, just a few shattered ribs.”
“What’s the dope on him, Will?”
“He’s no one on record.”
“Who hired him to go gunning for me?”
“A stranger came up to him in a bar and bought him for the tailing job-he said.”
“That’s the story he told me.”
“He really seems to be some sort of screwball independent as he claims,” Gentry said. “There’s no Syndicate affiliation that we’ve been able to uncover, at least. He claims he shot at you in self-defense. How about that?”
“Nuts!”
“O.K. Suppose you brief me a little, though. How come it happened in off-hours at a spook house? What was it-a love triangle? Are you courting the Madame?”
“Not exactly, but it’s an idea.” Shayne paused, took a sip of cognac and followed it with water. “You might have a man at tonight’s seance, Will. Just in case.”
