Brett Halliday: Mike Shayne's Torrid Twelve

Shayne left his car parked half a block away and walked to 912. He waited, saw no one watching, and melted into the shadows along the board fence of the junkyard. Whitey’s shack was one story, probably four rooms. Toward the rear he saw light seeping out under a drawn shade. He moved quietly back, found a rear porch, saw the shade of the window facing it up a couple of inches. Then he ducked back just in time as the rear door opened.

It was Whitey, who dredged into the old icebox on the porch, took out two bottles of beer and went back inside, slamming the door. If they were drinking beer there was no hurry. Shayne eased back onto the porch and squatted down beside the window that overlooked the grimy little kitchen.

Shorty, in shirt sleeves, sat in a kitchen chair holding the glass Whitey had just poured. Whitey was pouring a drink for himself.

“We got him here safe,” Shorty was arguing. “Now we ain’t going to hurry things. It’s still only eleven. We’ll wait until midnight to let things get good and quiet. Then we’ll sneak him on your boat and head out to sea. We’ll make him take us there and we’ll mark the spot. You’re a good diver, you can go down and check.”

“How do I know how deep it is?” Whitey grumbled, gulping beer noisily. “What about them sharks and barracuda? I need me a real outfit.”

“For five million bucks you can take a chance. Anyway, I read sharks and barracuda don’t attack unless they smell blood. This is how we got to do it. Mark the spot, then raise dough for equipment. And keep our mouths shut!”

“You don’t think I’d gab, do you?”

“You like to talk when you’re around girls. Make out you’re a big shot. Well, you’ll be one — if you keep your mouth shut.”

Sullenly Whitey drained his beer, his thin features ugly. Shayne could see that the two were keyed up. He had an idea Whitey would keep his mouth shut because as soon as Shorty knew Captain Tolliver’s secret, he’d shut Whitey’s mouth for him.

“All right.” Whitey wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ll just go in, and make sure the old coot is tied tight.”

He put down his glass and opened the door which led toward the front of the shack. The room beyond, a bedroom probably, was pitch dark. He disappeared into it — and Shayne saw a finger of scarlet flame slice the darkness.

The shot boomed like a cannon in the little shack. Whitey gave a gurgling scream and somewhere in the darkness pitched to the floor. The detective could hear him flopping there like a dying fish.

Shorty jumped up. For an instant he stood in the doorway, staring into the dark room, befuddled. A second shot rattled the boards of the shack. Shorty took the bullet in his chest, slammed backward across the little kitchen, hit the window sill with his hips, and the upper half of his body went through the glass. Then he lay there, bent backward in the middle, balanced on the window sill like a broken teeter-totter, blood coming down under his collar and pouring over his face.

Even before Shorty hit the window Michael Shayne was at the back door. He swept it open, stepped inside, reached for the string and pulled out the overhead light in one fluid motion. Then he took a stride toward the doorway into the bedroom and waited, his gun ready.

The shack was completely dark now. The tinkle of broken glass had stopped, and Whitey had quit his fish-flopping. In the bedroom Shayne could hear heavy breathing. Then footsteps broke in the opposite direction. The front door slammed open and a figure darted out and away into the shadows. The redhead followed as far as the front door and stopped. His first job was to rescue Tolliver. He turned back and swept the beam of a pencil flashlight around the room.

It picked out a figure sprawled on an old daybed, bound and gagged. The light reflected from bright blue eyes in a lined, leathery face. Shayne put the light out and got out a knife. “I’m Shayne,” he said, as he slashed the ropes binding Tolliver’s hands and feet. “The real one this time.”

He untied the gag and helped the little man sit up. Beside him Tolliver tentatively stretched his arms and legs. “That feels good,” he said. “I guess you came in what they call the nick of time. Wasn’t you who killed them fellers, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t me. How do you feel? Can you walk?”

“Always been able to since I was a year old.” Tolliver struggled to his feet. “Didn’t think it was. This other feller was in here anyway five minutes, waiting, before the shooting. He whispered something to me. Sounded like he said, ‘Don’t worry, old man, I’m not interested in you. Just those back there.’ Couldn’t hear his voice real clear but it didn’t sound like yours.”

“It wasn’t. Take my arm if you want, but let’s go. We’ll talk some place else.”

“Always done my own navigating,” Captain Tolliver said stubbornly. “Just lead the way.”

“Come on.”

Shayne led the way to the back door. They passed Whitey lying jammed up in a corner of the room. Shorty was still balanced on the window sill. The redhead led Tolliver through the shadows to the front of the house and paused for a look.

All up and down the street the shacks had an air of tense expectancy, as if a hundred eyes were watching. Radios and TV sets had suddenly become quiet. But nobody had come out to investigate. Nobody would, until someone surreptitiously called the police.

Michael Shayne led the way to his car, and they left Bayard Street with its dead men behind them.

“Good Lord!” Hugo Mollison said helplessly. He pattered across the room to stub out a cigarillo in an ash tray, and came back mopping his high pink forehead with an imported linen handkerchief. “This — this killer just slipped into the house while you were lying there, Captain, waited until one of your kidnapers came into the room, then shot him, shot the other one, and ran?”

“That’s it.” Tod Tolliver nodded. He sat upright on the edge of an easy chair, as erect as a bantam rooster, his seamed, leathery features serious.

Shayne sat back in an arm chair, watching them all, while Tolliver and Hugo Mollison, a softly plump man with large, mournful brown eyes, talked. From time to time his gaze went to Sandra Ames. She sat in a straight-backed chair with her fingers interlaced tensely in her lap. She was tall and full-bosomed, a fact which the light silk shantung dress emphasized. In her dark eyes, as she watched Tod Tolliver, banked fires burned.

The fifth member of the little group gathered in the living room of one of the Flying Pelican’s most deluxe units had been introduced as Pete Ruggles. Pete, with the fresh, ingenuous features and crewcut of a college boy, had straddled a chair backward and was listening with rapt attention to Tod Tolliver’s account of his kidnaping and rescue.

So far Michael Shayne had said as little as possible. He preferred to listen and try to appraise the setup. No one had said exactly what the deal was that these three were making with Captain Tod Tolliver. But the idea of treasure — sunken Spanish treasure — still hung in the air.

Shorty and Whitey had believed it was Spanish treasure they were after. But they were cheap thugs who had apparently stumbled onto something without knowing what it was. And now they were dead for their pains.

The killer who had removed them from the scene gave Shayne a lot more to think about. He had shot them down deliberately, as if his only intention was to rescue Tod Tolliver. But then he had tried to take no advantage of the fact. Or had the redhead simply surprised him too quickly?

On the other hand, was he merely a random factor in the equation — some thug settling an underworld argument? So far, there weren’t enough clues to tell. Hugo Mollison turned to Pete Ruggles. “What do you make of it, Peter?” he asked. Hugo was about fifty, a pouter pigeon type of man, with his pink face, high forehead, and the nervous manner of a suburbanite who finds himself mixed up in a neighborhood quarrel.