Brett Halliday: A Redhead for Mike Shayne

It was pitch dark inside the narrow confines of the dispatcher’s office in the big liquor warehouse, but Michael Shayne’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness during the two hours of more-or-less patient waiting that had gone before, and he could make out everything about him with fair clarity.

Not that there was very much to see inside the small office. There was a telephone on the desk beside him, and a water cooler with nested paper cups on the other side of the open door leading out to the big padlocked back doors that opened wide during daylight hours to let the trucks back in on loading ramps. To the right of that same open door was a five-gallon electric coffee maker, and a china mug on the table near Shayne’s right hand held the dregs of the fifth cup of the strong black stuff he had downed since settling down for his lonely vigil at eight-thirty.

It was the first routine stake-out job that the red-headed private detective had undertaken personally for a good many years, and he’d forgotten how tiring and boring such an assignment could be. But the Acme Bonding Company which had the contents of the warehouse covered against theft was one of Shayne’s oldest regular clients, and they had paid him a substantial annual retainer to look after their affairs in the Miami area for more years than he liked to remember. Indeed, back in those years of slim pickings when he was first establishing himself in private practice the Acme retainer had often meant the difference between paying office rent and not paying it, and he owed them enough loyalty to take on this onerous job tonight himself when he was unable to find another competent operative to handle it on short notice.

It was the result of a vague inside tip that this particular warehouse was slated to be burglarized tonight. Two similar warehouses (neither covered by Acme) had been knocked off in Dade County during the preceding two months, both resulting in heavy losses and with no clues to the perpetrators.

Both had been carefully planned and seemingly inside jobs, smoothly and daringly carried out under cover of weather conditions similar to those prevailing tonight.

Because it was the hurricane season in Miami, and thus far during the autumn months the southern end of the Peninsula had been swept by the tag-end or side-effects of three vicious storms which had passed by at sea. At the height of two of those storms the warehouses had been raided. With winds of seventy miles an hour and occasional gusts reaching an intensity of ninety or a hundred miles, it was commonplace for power service to be disrupted in various sections of the area for periods of a few minutes to an hour or more before emergency crews could repair the damage, and the liquor thieves had taken advantage of this situation and the resultant confusion by selecting vulnerable targets in sections that were blacked out during the storms.

It could have been, authorities conceded, mere chance that the two successful operations had taken place with only the assistance of natural forces, but it seemed much more likely that the thieves had carefully determined their target beforehand while the storm was brewing and cut the power lines at a strategic point at the height of the storm to black out the section surrounding the selected warehouse.

This had the effect of not only giving them cover of darkness in which to operate, but also cut off the automatic alarm systems installed in the warehouses for protection.

That is why Michael Shayne sat alone in the darkened dispatcher’s office tonight and moodily and uncomfortably waited for something to happen.

For two days now, the course of Tropical Storm Fatima had been charted by government experts and reported to the residents of Miami in the newspapers and over the radio. Small-craft storm warnings were out from Key West to Jacksonville, and communities along the coast were comfortably battened down to withstand gale winds up to a predicted eighty miles per hour. Since early afternoon the skies over Miami had been sullenly overcast and the humidity had become increasingly oppressive. By early evening the wind was rising and heavy showers were sweeping the city. The rain had developed into a heavy deluge at seven-thirty when Shayne drove across the MacArthur Causeway to Miami Beach where the warehouse was located, and fifty-mile gusts of wind swayed his heavy car on the unprotected causeway. The height of the storm was predicted for eleven o’clock, and inside the well-constructed building there were creakings and groanings while a steady downpour of wind-driven rain assaulted the arched roof overhead.

Inside the small office Shayne was as snug and comfortable as a man could be under the circumstances. The airconditioning system throughout the building was normally kept in operation twenty-four hours a day to provide a steady temperature for the wines and spirits stored there, the manager had explained to Shayne when he settled him in at eight-thirty after all the other employees had gone home, so he would be cool enough during the night and would have immediate warning if the power inside the building were cut off during the storm.

The hum of the airconditioner and the flow of cool air from an opening overhead were steady and reassuring — and increasingly soporific. Shayne stirred in his chair and yawned widely, and lit another cigarette, grateful for the draft of forced air which would carry away the smoke and the telltale odor of tobacco if an entrance were attempted. He grinned wryly as he recalled other stake-out jobs in the distant past when such assignments were a routine part of an operative’s job, when he had been carefully searched for cigarettes and matches before being planted in a spot like this for similar night-long vigils which had generally ended in frustrating failure.

That was long ago when youth was daring and impatient, and preferred action to inaction at any cost. Tonight, Shayne admitted to himself comfortably and with another yawn, he would be perfectly content to have the storm pass overhead with no interruption, proving the tip of attempted robbery as baseless and allowing him to go home and catch a few hours sleep in his own bed.

At that moment the steady hum of the airconditioner ceased. Shayne straightened alertly and snubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray. He had no way of knowing, of course, whether the power interruption was purely accidental or whether it had been carefully arranged. In any event, the burglar alarm system was now inoperative and the building could be broken into with impunity.

Remaining quietly in his chair, the detective withdrew a short-barrelled.38 from his waistband and cocked it. With his left hand he got a powerful flashlight from his side coat pocket and rested it on his knee with his thumb resting lightly on the switch. His position just inside the open door of the office had been carefully selected strategically. Directly beyond the opening were the big back doors that would have to be unlocked from the inside and swung open before any major theft could take place.

It seemed suddenly very quiet with the hum of the air-conditioning off. The creakings and the groanings of the building and the noise of rain lashing the roof were intensified with the absence of other sound.

Shayne glanced down at his wristwatch and the illuminated hands stood at a quarter of eleven. It was the right time. If anything was going to happen it would begin happening in the next few minutes. One could never be sure how long it would take an emergency crew to locate the damage and repair the service on a night like this. If the gang was well organized they would have men ready to enter the building as soon as the alarm system was put out of commission.