Brett Halliday - Six Seconds to Kill

“Are you convinced?”

“I didn’t say that. I said what a story. Because what’s it based on? A long series of guesses.”

“Up to a point. He’s prosecuted enough murder cases to know the importance of physical evidence. There’s one gap in the story the way it stands. If she fired five live rounds and missed with all five, what happened to the slugs?”

Rourke looked thoughtful. “That would certainly be asked. They couldn’t all fly out an open window.”

Shayne stood up decisively. Leaving the dais, he strode to the television platform.

“I may need your testimony, Tim, so pay close attention. Publicity is the key to this. You know he’d make sure the cameras were pointed the right way. All three networks are going to be here tomorrow. After he’s seated and while he’s speaking he’ll get full security coverage, and she wouldn’t be able to shoot more than once or twice. For Crowther’s purposes, the best time for the shooting to take place would be during the first minute or two after he gets off the elevator. A crowd will be milling around. He’ll want to be looking straight at the cameras when it happens, so people can see how calm and unruffled he is. That means the assassin ought to be standing just about here.”

He indicated a spot in the corridor, outside the arched entrance to the ballroom. There was a cigarette-shaped burn in the carpet, possibly put there as a marker. The burn pointed toward the elevators.

Rourke’s undernourished frame was coiled forward. “Goddamn it, Mike, you mean you’ve found some bullet holes?”

“Two,” Shayne said. “There may be others, but two would be enough. He wouldn’t want to have more holes than shots. If she fires twice and the unfired rounds turn out to be blanks, whoever loaded the gun made a mistake, that’s all. Here’s the line of fire.”

He extended his arm, an imaginary gun in his hand. Rourke followed the line down the corridor. Beyond the elevators, the corridor turned sharply. He examined the wall at the turn.

“Hell, I don’t see anything.”

“She fired high.”

Rourke peered up doubtfully. “I see a couple of black dots-”

Shayne brought him a chair from the ballroom. “Look closer.”

Rourke clambered up on the chair and straightened gingerly. The plaster was painted a dull green. The two holes were several inches apart, a foot or so below the molding. Shayne opened his pocket knife and passed it up to him.

“Dig one of them out.”

Rourke twisted the point of the knife in the hole. A moment later he stepped down with a bullet in his hand.

“There’s a time warp here. The gun that fired this bullet isn’t scheduled to go off till tomorrow morning. Mike, I’d say this is conclusive. But dear God, it’s extraordinary! On the basis of a goofy…”

He looked at his friend curiously. “Unless you put it there yourself?”

“That’s a dumb suggestion.”

“It’s just so goddamned extraordinary! On the basis of a goofy theory you decide there are going to be two bullet holes in a wall seventy-five feet away, nine feet from the floor, and sure enough, there they are.”

Shayne said impatiently, “There’s only one place she could stand so the TV cameras could get Crowther’s expression. Bullets travel in a straight line.”

“I suppose this slug was fired by the same gun she’ll be using tomorrow?”

“I think so. I also think there’ll be a silencer on it. I agree it’s extraordinary. That doesn’t mean it was especially hard to arrange. Crowther stayed in this hotel last week. Anybody can get off the elevator at this floor and look around. After one or two in the morning he’d have the place to himself. Again, there was no risk. No risk at all. If the rest of the scheme didn’t pan out, nobody would notice the holes until the next time the place is painted.”

“Well, it’s fantastic.”

Rourke tossed the bullet in the air and caught it as it came down. Shayne asked to see it.

“Twenty-five caliber,” he said. “That closes another loophole. It’s hard to buy twenty-five caliber ammunition in this country. If she fired the gun by accident, she couldn’t reload it.”

“Fantastic,” Rourke said again. “And we’d better call a meeting right away, because I can name a few people you won’t be able to convince in a hurry. Peter Painter, for one.”

“I don’t intend to tell Painter.”

Rourke went back to the ballroom, where he headed for the whiskey bottle. He replenished his glass and sat down.

“Now I want to see if I really heard that. You don’t intend to tell Painter?”

Shayne held the cognac bottle to the light to check the level, and poured himself another drink.

“I don’t think we’ll find Camilla Steele tonight. Before Crowther shows up tomorrow, we can clear the public out of the corridor and saturate it with plainclothesmen. As soon as Camilla appears, we grab her before she can fire. The gun will be loaded with blanks, but she’ll get the publicity as a potential assassin, and probably a hospital commitment. How many people will believe that Crowther arranged it? I’m willing to make a statement, but would your editor be willing to print it?”

“Hmm,” Rourke said. “Those bullet holes. But if she’s really off her squash, maybe she did that herself, to make us think that Crowther-” He stopped. “In fact, Mike, while we’re talking about possibilities, isn’t that one? She sneaked in late one night, put the holes in the wall, sent herself the gun, and then tomorrow-wait a minute till I work this out-some smart head like Mike Shayne would find the holes and spread the wild tale that Crowther put them there. His career would be damaged, and she wouldn’t go to jail for murder.”

Shayne was shaking his head.

“A guy named Paul London has been following her for a few days, and she wasn’t in New York this morning checking a suitcase on a Miami flight. That could have been worked. But the main thing that’s wrong with the idea is that it doesn’t fit her condition. She’s not a politician and a manipulator, like Crowther. This is a Crowther type of thing. Her doctor has been seeing her three times a week for a year. He says she isn’t capable of carrying out anything complicated alone. She needs support all the way.”

Rourke objected, “I know psychiatrists who’ve made some really lousy diagnoses.”

“So do I, but this guy impresses me. He likes her and he’s worrying about her. He won’t make any prediction about her future, except that it can go either way. If something good happens, he thinks she could get well in a hurry. But if she has a setback at this point, if something she’s been counting on falls through, she’s gone. Think about it. She worked herself up to kill somebody, and the damn gun was loaded with blanks. She’ll realize that Crowther tricked her, made a fool out of her. In psychiatric language, she’s suffering from a poor self-image, and this would reinforce it. Suicide or permanent depression. That’s why I said Crowther can’t lose.”

“Then for Christ’s sake, let’s break it up. Tell him you found a couple of inconspicuous little holes in the plaster on the eighth floor of the St. Albans. He’ll call everything off. She can’t shoot him if he isn’t here.”

“He wouldn’t take a phone call from me.”

“Tell Abe Berger and let him pass it on. It would be a great moment for Abe.”

“No, I don’t think I’ll bother either of them. Here’s the scene as I see it. She must have a ticket to the luncheon under a different name. That part of the corridor, in front of the cameras, will be jammed with people. As Crowther comes out of the elevator she fires four or five shots. They all miss, but never mind, she’ll have the satisfaction of knowing she actually pulled the trigger.”