Brett Halliday - Shoot the Works

“I’m trying to get a time-table for all of you yesterday. Tompkins claims he was here after a long luncheon… and that Wallace was playing golf. Do you concur?”

“I do believe it was one of Jim’s golfing days. I don’t recall seeing Tommy during the afternoon, but that’s not at all unusual. We each have our own clients and appointments, of course. Is it important?”

“It might be. What about yourself?”

“I was quite busy with paperwork and had lunch sent up,” declared Martin. “Later, I had a three o’clock appointment on the Beach, and returned about four-thirty in time to clear my desk for the day.”

“Was your appointment with James Richards?”

Martin shook his head, frowning slightly. “No. With a Mr. Poindexter. Who is James Richards?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I’m afraid I don’t, Mr. Shayne. See here,” he went on impatiently, “is any of this putting us any closer to recovering our million dollars?”

Shayne sighed and said, “I can’t promise a damned thing. I had hoped you or Tompkins could throw some light on the identity of James Richards.” He paused a long moment before asking, “Who is Lola, Martin?” Again, he was careful to be studying the other one intently when he spoke the name.

And again, he was conscious of an immediate and definite response, although Martin’s was as determinedly veiled as Tompkins’ had been. Like the young man, he repeated, “Lola?” and Shayne had the same impression that he was fencing as he received from Tompkins’ identical response.

Shayne nodded soberly and repeated, “Lola.”

Martin said, “I don’t believe I know anyone named Lola.”

“Ever heard Wallace or Tompkins mention her name?”

“I don’t… believe so. Not that I recall. Why do you ask?”

“Here’s why.” Shayne produced the note written in green ink again, and leaned half out of his chair to toss it on the desk in front of Martin. “Read that and see if it jogs your memory.”

Martin read the note, taking less than a third of the time in the process than Tompkins had consumed. He pushed it back with a frown.

“To whom was this written?”

Shayne said, “To Jim Wallace presumably. I found it hidden away in a bureau drawer of his.”

“Jim?” he shook his gray head and clucked disapprovingly. “Rather proving your thesis that he must have been entangled with some woman to have yielded to temptation?”

“Rather,” agreed Shayne. “You’re certain you never heard Wallace mention her name?”

“I can’t be certain. Yesterday I would have said it was inconceivable that Jim was carrying on any sort of affair. Today… I simply don’t know what to think. You say you found this note in Jim’s apartment? Then I was right in assuming you had gained access before Chief Gentry ordered that you should be kept out? I tried to tell Tompkins that you were a man of many talents and could be trusted to get results. But you didn’t find the money?”

Shayne shook his head. “I’m convinced it isn’t in the apartment. This note is the only thing I found that seemed important.”

“And I agree with you that it may be very important, Mr. Shayne.” Martin arose excitedly. “She may well be the key to the whole affair. Come to Jim’s office with me. We may be on the track of something vital.”

As Shayne followed him out and down the corridor, he explained rapidly, “I don’t know whether we’ll find it there or not, but Jim always kept in his desk a small address book with private telephone numbers that had no connection with the business. I’ve seen him refer to it in the past quite often.”

He hurried to the door opposite Tompkins’, with its neat lettering, “Mr. Wallace.”

It was larger than the offices of the other two partners, but it was not a corner room. Otherwise, it was much the same as theirs.

Shayne followed Martin inside and watched him seat himself in the chair of his dead partner and pull open the top, right-hand drawer of the desk.

He triumphantly lifted out a small, leather-bound address book and asked the detective, “What is her last name?”

Shayne said, “All I know about her is the note I found. Just Lola.”

Martin pursed his thick lips and began turning through the pages slowly. “I don’t know…” He paused and the tip of his tongue showed between his lips as he stopped turning pages.

“It’s right here,” he said excitedly. “The last entry under L. Lola.” He read a telephone number aloud, and Shayne recognized it immediately as the same number Tompkins had dialed a few minutes before, when he believed himself safely alone in his office.

“But there’s no address,” muttered Martin. “And no other name. Isn’t there some method you detectives have for getting a name and address just from a telephone number? Or is that just a figment of the imagination of fiction writers?”

“The telephone company has a cross-reference file,” Shayne agreed. “But…”

“Of course,” said Martin happily, “I remember my mystery reading now. Why not dial the number and see who answers?”

Shayne said, “That’s fastest sometimes.” He started to reach for the telephone on the right side of the desk, but Martin interposed quickly, lifting the other one instead.

“That goes through the switchboard. This is a direct outside line.” He pursed his lips with the address book open in front of him, dialed the number carefully.

Shayne started around the desk to take the telephone just as the broker spoke excitedly into the mouthpiece. “Hello. Is that Lola? Your name has entered the investigation of the murder of Mr. Wallace, and…”

Shayne leaped forward with an angry curse to grab the telephone as Martin replaced it, and the broker looked at him with startled eyes as he held it out. “She hung up before I could even ask her…”

Shayne held the phone against his ear and heard only the dial tone. He dropped it back on its cradle disgustedly and raged, “Of course she hung up. What the hell did you expect after telling her she’s suspected of murder?”

“But I didn’t… I simply said…”

Shayne glared down at him, speechlessly, for a moment, then turned and started out of the room fast. Over his shoulder, he snapped, “Call Chief Gentry and give him that number. Ask him to trace it and get someone there fast before she takes off with your million bucks.” He went out the door and slammed it hard behind him before Martin could ask any questions. He had no real proof, of course, that the black-haired woman in the Flagler Street apartment was named Lola, but it seemed a reasonable assumption at the moment.

He went out through the reception room fast, crossed to the elevator button and pressed it before even turning to look at the redhead behind the desk. She was looking at him with wide eyes, and he managed a grin for her and said, “All right, so it isn’t Jane after all. Alice fits you a lot better.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but the elevator door opened at that instant and he stepped inside with a wave of his hand.

He hurried through the crowded lobby and out to his parked car with a driving sense of urgency forcing him on. Traffic was heavy and he bucked it savagely, using his horn and his driving skill to make a way for him south and then westward, parallel to Flagler Street.

With all his urgency and his knowledge of downtown Miami traffic patterns, a full ten minutes had elapsed before he reached the thirty-hundred block on West Flagler.

He parked directly in front of the apartment building and hurried up the short walk. He trotted through the foyer to the elevator, had to press the button to bring it down from the fourth floor, and then got in and pressed the button for 3.