important?”
“I think so.”
“And those who knifed you, or who caused you to be knifed. They will believe that you are now harmless.”
Shayne had forgotten how quick the Pakistani was. “That’s the main thing.”
Rashid considered. “I think I will do it, but you must allow me to go through certain motions. There is so much paperwork. If I admit you for a smashed leg, I must treat you for that. And that way there will be less lying. No one will X ray you to see if it truly happened. When you wish to leave, we can take off the cast. I have been wondering all evening how you would prove the falsity of that listing.”
“What listing?”
“Your name among the other payments by the dead man, Geary. A difficult problem.”
Shayne looked at him. “Rashid, are you serious? You don’t think Geary paid me that money?”
“I consider it highly unlikely. Are you a blackmailer? No, certainly not. Do you take bribes? I would doubt it very much. Are you a political go-between? Why should you accept such disagreeable low-paid work? A fixer of dog races?”
Shayne laughed. “Rashid, do you realize that you may be the only person in Dade County who gave me the benefit of the doubt?”
“The story was carefully designed to convince. The question then becomes, is it a forgery by the police?”
“I saw the book. I don’t know Geary’s handwriting, but it looked legit.”
“Then Geary himself, for some private reason, mixed your name in with the rest. He is dead. How do you find out what was in his mind? Indeed, a most difficult problem. So if I can help you with a small deception, I am happy to do so. You are losing blood, Michael. Is there anything else?”
“Yeah. Call WCGN. That’s the news station. Tell them Mike Shayne has been treated at St. Francis emergency for wounds incurred in the gunfight at Surfside. Give them some technical details about what kind of cast you put on. That ought to do it.”
Chapter 9
Frieda Field was in her late twenties, trim, blackhaired. She was the widow of a private detective, killed a few years before as a result of not having been quite careful enough. Frieda had decided to continue the agency, and with occasional help from Shayne, she had managed to do fairly well in a business where women usually type the letters and answer the phones. Shayne started using her because he had worked with her husband, and continued because she turned out to be very good. She also became one of his best friends.
He called her as soon as Rashid finished with him. The phone in her apartment didn’t answer. He was considering whom to get instead, when she walked in, in a long dress and silver earrings, with a pint of cognac, not one of the medicines dispensed in even the best-run hospitals. She kissed him.
“I heard it on my car radio. Mike, when there are three of them, and they all have guns and all you have are your fists, what’s wrong with waiting for reinforcements? You don’t have to prove anything. I’ll still like you.”
“I didn’t know there were three. I only knew about two, and I thought I had one of them taken care of. I’ve been trying to call you. I’ve got a job for you. Martell’s, I see. Get some glasses.”
She went to the bathroom and came back with two tumblers. “How bad is it, Mike? That radio announcer makes a big point of sounding semihysterical, but I didn’t think you’d be up to cognac tonight. This was for tomorrow. They aren’t letting anybody in to see you, supposedly. That was to discourage Painter?”
“I couldn’t take that guy twice in twelve hours. But the news you heard was a little exaggerated. True, they were shooting at me, but everybody missed.”
She looked at the cast on his left leg, running all the way from ankle to hip. “You didn’t do all that just to get out of talking to Painter.”
“Only partly.” He drank some of the cognac, and waited for the pleasant explosion. “See if you can tell me what the radio said.”
“Mike Shayne, implicated in dog track scandal, seriously injured in gunfight in Surfside men’s room. At St. Francis’s, leg smashed. There was a statement from the Surfside safety director, some Italian name, but he didn’t say much. What’s the bandage on your arm, more window dressing?”
“One of the guys had a knife, and he didn’t miss. Did you bring a gun?”
“A gun. I think I’m beginning to see. No, I hardly ever bring a gun when I visit somebody in the hospital. I have one in the car.” She stood up and looked down at him seriously. “Are you really up to this, Mike?”
“I think so, but I’m not going to try to prove it to you by doing pushups. It has to be tonight, Frieda, not tomorrow. Right now they’re feeling dumb and mad. That’s when mistakes happen. Somebody sent three men after me. That costs big money and he won’t be happy it fizzled. Now they have to go back and tell him they blew it. He may think they didn’t try hard enough, and it could be dangerous, depending on who the guy is. They probably have another payment coming, on completion, and they won’t get that. When another job comes along, they’ll be passed over. So when they hear I’m lying in a hospital bed, after a hard operation, won’t it occur to them that hospitals are easy places to walk into? Maybe they can correct their mistake and skip all the hassle.”
“That’s enough. I’m persuaded.”
She went for her gun. Rashid stopped in a few minutes later.
“I’m a little worried, Michael. You know it will be bad publicity for the hospital if anything goes wrong. Two of them left out of three. Are you sure you can handle two?”
“They’ll only use one. Attendants don’t walk around a hospital in pairs.”
“How would he get the number of the room?”
“Call the switchboard and say he’s sending over flowers. That’s not classified information.”
“Well, this is your profession, after all, and you know these people. I’ll tell the duty nurse on this floor to be busy somewhere else. I will watch the stairs, and give you a telephone ring when-if-someone appears. And if there is more than one, I will be very official and ask what they are doing here.”
“Rashid, stay out of it. Frieda and I will both have guns. If I had any serious doubts I wouldn’t have brought her in.”
That wasn’t entirely true. Frieda had made it clear from the start that if she was going to be working as a private detective, she couldn’t expect special treatment because she was a woman. At first that had been hard for Shayne to accept, but they had been in some dangerous situations together, and she had behaved with extreme coolness. He now trusted her completely.
Rashid nodded and left the room. Shayne had been put in a room in the accident wing, in a bed that was rigged to be used by a patient in traction. There were rotating pulleys overhead, and two on the facing wall. When Frieda returned, they made up the bed with pillows to look like an anesthetized man, and ran a line through two of the pulleys, ending in a noose on the floor.
Then they turned off the lights and began the wait. Fifteen minutes later, the phone tinkled a warning. “All right?” Shayne said quietly.
“Ready. You make the first move.”
Shayne had one end of the rope doubled around his hand and elbow. He braced himself for the pull. He was listening intently, but he couldn’t hear Frieda breathing.
A heel scuffed on the cork floor of the corridor. The door handle turned, and a figure entered.
“Mike?” a man’s voice said cautiously. “Asleep?” Shayne was already in motion. The noose tightened around the man’s leg, and Shayne’s weight jerked him off his feet. Frieda slammed the door and stepped out with her gun. The light flashed on.
It was Tim Rourke. Only his shoulder blades were still on the floor; everything else was airborne.
“Now we know it works,” Shayne said.
He came forward, and Rourke’s legs returned to the floor.
“What the hell?” he said weakly when he had his breath back. “I guess I was lucky it wasn’t a gun trap.”
“Let’s get that rope off,” Frieda said. “We’re expecting somebody.”
