Jay Carroll - Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 4, August 1957 (British Edition)

“On the mezzanine!” She put her hand over his and tried to push it from her shoulder. “In the photo booth. Julius has a door there that leads to the elevator. Please. Sam!”

He released her, and she stepped back, sitting down on the bed and rubbing her shoulder.

She looked up at him. “What are you going to do?”

“None of your business. Just keep out of my way, that’s all I ask.”

She started to get up from the bed and her fingers brushed the flat open box. By the quick intake of her breath as she picked up the box, he could tell she had seen the imprint where the revolver had lain against the cardboard.

“Sam!” Her hand flew to her mouth. “What was in this box?”

Turning from her, he moved toward the door. She ran after him, catching his arm and trying to stop him.

“No, Sam!” she said. “No!”

He pushed her away, but she grasped his arm again. Her eyes, staring up at him, were round and tremendous, and there was terror in her voice.

“Listen to me, Sam! You’ll never get in! If you do, they’ll kill you!”

Her fingers dug into the tweed of his coat like small hooks, and he had to bend her wrist to dislodge her.

“Listen to me!” she cried. “Racine talked to the shipyard — your old job’s there waiting for you. That’s what I came here to tell you. You can be a shipwright again. So don’t be a fool, Sam! Don’t be a fool!”

Her words were sharp, but they could not pierce the shield of four years of waiting, four years of hating.

“I’ll get in,” he said, “and I won’t kill him right away.” He looked down at his heavy prison shoes.

He stepped quickly into the hotel hallway, slamming the door behind him to muffle the sounds of her crying. He walked down the carpeted steps and through the drab lobby, out to the sidewalk. Several cars were parked at the curb. Not until he passed it, did he realise one was an official city car. The driver’s door opened, and, from the edge of his eyes, he saw Racine, the District Attorney’s assistant, get out.

He speeded his steps, trying to lose himself in the afternoon shopping crowds, but Racine would not be shaken off.

“All right,” said Racine, catching up with him, “Let’s not make a gallop out of it. I want to talk to you, Hranek.”

“Get away from me,” Hranek said.

“Go on — act tough,” said Racine. “Act like a big ex-con.”

“You don’t scare me.” Hranek turned a corner, saw a cruising red-and-white cab and hailed it. “You’ve got nothing on me.”

“I can have you in a cell in five minutes on a weapons charge,” Racine said. “There’s a bulge in your hip pocket as big as a street-car. Now, do you slow down and talk, or do I call my assistant?”

Hranek stopped walking. As he faced Racine and looked into the hard, shrewd eyes, he felt a new burst of anger and frustration, and his hands became fists, hanging at his sides. He shook his head at the cab driver, and the cab pulled away from the curb.

“That’s more like it,” said Racine. “Did Nina tell you about the job at the shipyard?”

“You know where you can put that job,” Hranek said. “I’m not forgetting you’re the one who sent me up.”

“The jury went by the evidence,” said Racine. “All they had was your word that Julius framed you. You could have gotten worse than manslaughter.”

“Evidence!” Hranek said. “Phony evidence! Julius shot Shafton because Shafton was Number One. And Julius had to get me out of the way, because I wouldn’t play ball. So he got rid of two at once, setting it up so it looked like I shot Shafton. He testified he had to stomp me to get the gun away, but that was a lie. He stomped me, figuring I’d be so punchy afterward I’d never be able to testify. It was a fix, Racine, and you know it.”

“All right, it was a fix,” said Racine. “Forget it, and listen to me. You’ve heard Julius is Number One now? You’ve heard how he’s enlarged the Spin-A-Line operation?”

Hranek nodded.

“He’s paying off six of the councilmen,” said Racine. “That’s how he keeps the game open. We know he has records somewhere of those payments, because he uses those records to keep the councilmen in line. But we’ve never been able to get into his office to look for them. And that’s where you come in, Hranek.”

“I won’t do it,” said Hranek.

“Don’t be stubborn, Hranek. You don’t even know what I want you to do. Get those records for us, and we’ll wipe the slate clean — we’ll restore your citizenship and get you a pardon from the Governor.”

Hranek laughed a short bitter laugh. “Wipe the slate clean? Racine, who do you think you’re kidding? Wipe out four years of sitting in a stinking cell for something you didn’t do, four years of being an animal with a torn face, four years of walls that made me want to blow my top? No paper will wipe out those years, Racine! Now get out of my way!”

He shouldered Racine aside, feeling the hatred rise big again, not wanting to delay any longer, wanting to get to Julius and get it over with.

He dodged past people to the kerb, where another cab was pulling up.

“Wait!” called Racine.

Hranek opened the cab door, got in and told the driver to hurry. When they were out in the stream of traffic, he looked back and saw Racine standing angrily at the Kerb. He told the driver to take him to the amusement pier.

At the gaudy entrance to the pier, Hranek paid off the driver and walked rapidly along the plank sidewalk which led over the surf toward the great wooden hills and valleys of the roller coaster. He did not look around him at the break-the-balloon concessions, or the knife-throwing booths, or the popcorn-and-taffy booths.

When he drew near the broad red gates that led to the coaster box-office, he glanced up briefly at the weatherworn sign, Hranek’s Cyclone Racer , remembering the proud day his father had nailed it there. Then he crossed to the penny arcade.

From a position just outside the arcade, he could look through plate glass windows into the huge adjoining Spin-A-Line building. The Spin-A-Line lobby was thronged with people going in to gamble their quarters on the steel balls which tumbled into numbered slots. It took him nearly a minute of careful observation to find the guard.

He was a small, faded, blond man in a sports jacket, and he wasn’t stationed near the doors of the self-service elevator, because that would have been too obvious. Instead, he was leaning against a wall at approximately the middle of the lobby, In a position to intercept anyone moving toward the elevator.

Hranek entered the arcade and walked past rows of pinball machines and penny pitching stands, to the stairs at the rear. He wondered if there was a mezzanine entrance to the elevator as Nina had said. He wondered if Nina wasn’t setting him up for another trap.

The mezzanine was not crowded. He walked slowly among the amusement devices, stopping to play a baseball machine, working his way toward the Take it Yourself for 25 Cents photo booth against the rear wall. As far as he could tell, there was no one on the mezzanine who even faintly resembled one of Julius’ guards. But it did not pay to take chances.

He returned to the baseball machine and played another game. He felt calm, calmer than he had been all day. As the small metal figures behind the glass pitched batted and fielded the ball, he remembered the years long before, when he and Julius and the other kids of the concession-owners had played baseball on the beach beside the roller coaster. Julius had been too fat even then to play well, but he had been good-natured and fun to have around.