Brett Halliday - The Violent World of Michael Shayne

His customers were hurrying out. Shayne closed the door and put his back against it. Everyone was trying to talk at once. Shayne smiled good humoredly and raised his voice.

“You don’t want to attract attention by piling out of here all at once. Settle your tab and leave two or three at a time.” He picked the four bar-customers who looked most sober, and took their names and addresses. They didn’t like it, but they weren’t backed by the management; Oskar left them to Shayne. Oskar had gone back behind the bar and was flexing his shoulders nervously. His sister, at a table for two, stared hopelessly at her blunt fingernails.

Oskar waited till all the customers had left, then burst out, “Where did you find him?”

“On Fortescue.”

“On Fortescue! We left him right down the block, outside the movie.”

“Not that anybody would believe you,” Shayne remarked. Oskar grunted. “What did you say your name was?”

“Michael Shayne. I think I’m working for Senator Hitchcock, but I haven’t been able to get through to him recently to find out. The guy who was in here, Bixler, used to investigate for Hitchcock’s committee. Everybody in the joint saw you walk out with him, and you weren’t being too gentle, were you?”

“We tagged him, sure,” Oscar said uneasily. “He started calling Olga names-Polack, Hunky, and like that. Nobody gets away with that stuff in here. That don’t mean we killed him.”

Shayne looked at the cab driver. “I appreciate your help, Eddie. Ten bucks ought to cover it. Now Oskar’s going to pour you a nightcap on the house.”

Eddie protested, “I thought I was going to find out what this is all about.”

“You don’t want to know,” Shayne told him. “Bixler knew, and look where he ended up.”

“Something in that,” Eddie admitted.

He tossed off the whiskey Oskar poured him, said goodnight, and left. Shayne pointed to a bottle of cognac on the back bar. Oskar served him, leaving the bottle within reach. His upper lip was beaded with sweat.

“I’m not running a tearoom,” he said. “I get a good class of customer, government people, and the way I keep them, I slam down fast when anybody gets noisy. This guy, we didn’t land on him too hard. He passed out, more. He was carrying a load when he walked in here. All I wanted to do was jolt him, keep him walking, and he caved in on me.” He reached for a shot-glass and a bottle of sour mash and went on. “What was I supposed to do then, give taxi service? Pete and me, between us we walked him down to the corner. They have a kind of iron gate in front of the movie, we left him against that, sleeping like a baby.”

“Which means,” Shayne said, “that somebody was watching, probably from a car, and as soon as you were out of sight they picked him up, whacked him hard enough to make sure he wouldn’t go on sleeping like a baby, and drove him a couple of blocks and dumped him. He wasn’t likely to be found before morning, if then. OK. You heard how it sounds. Do you think the cops are going to buy it?”

Oskar filled the shot-glass with whiskey, his hand steady. “Why not?”

“Because anything like that might get them involved with important people. I mean Senators, a big lobbyist, the president of an airplane company. You’re the perfect quick solution. No toes stepped on, nothing much gets in the papers. You’ve got a Polish name. You run an illegal joint in a bad neighborhood. The jury wouldn’t be out more than thirty seconds. That’s why you’ve got to talk to me.”

“I’m talking,” Oskar said.

“And why your sister has to talk to me.”

“No!” He drank the whiskey and looked down into the empty glass before setting it back on the bar. “Olga, she has nothing to do with it.”

Olga exclaimed impatiently and came over to the bar.

“I have nothing to do with it? I have everything! The bad thing, Mr. Shayne, the way it started, I took the money from Bixler last year, that three thousand dollars. I knew I shouldn’t. But I did. And now see.”

3:55 A.M.

“Olga, you go to bed,” Oscar said. “We’ll handle this.”

“Yes, the way you handle that little man! You only know one thing, you and Pete. Throw him on the sidewalk, beat him. That’s all you know, beat, beat.” She turned to Shayne. “My brother Oskar, he comes out of prison. He got in fist fight about some cheap girl, the other fellow died. He was in three years. Now, who will believe he takes this Bixler out and only just taps? I don’t believe!”

Oskar raised his hand. “Olga, by the memory of our mother, I’m telling you-”

Olga sniffed. “It was all right when I took his money. That was fine. Now he wants to talk to me, you take him out and kill him.”

Her other brother said warmly, “I was there, for Christ’s sake! I put a newspaper under his head! Oskar didn’t kill him and I didn’t kill him.”

Shayne put in, “Will everybody please stop talking? Personally I think you’re telling the truth, Szep. But if your own sister won’t believe you, don’t be too surprised if a jury won’t. We’ve got a little time before they pick you up. Are you with me so far?”

“I better get in the car and start moving, huh?”

“Not just yet. There’s no identification on the body. No shoes. He’s covered with dirt and blood. He looks like a bum and smells like a bum, and they won’t bother about him much until they take his prints in the morning. They may not hurry with that, but they’re sure to know who he is by noon. I’m beginning to get a few faint ideas, but I need some cooperation, in fact all the cooperation I can get. You can help, Olga. Will you try to remember exactly what Bixler said when he came in?”

She moved a stool out from the bar and sat down, her chin on one hand. “Do we have champagne, and will I drink some with him. I said my brothers don’t allow. Then he said why do I go away from town last year. I said I was scared. He said did anybody else ever ask me about the diary. Then Oskar came over.”

“What did he pay you the three thousand bucks for, a look at Mrs. Masterson’s diary?”

Olga nodded. “That was her name then.”

“What do you mean-she married again?”

“Uh-huh, to that Senator, I forget his name.”

“Redpath?” Shayne said sharply.

“That’s right, Redpath. I saw her picture in the paper.”

Shayne tapped his fingers on the bar and fitted another piece on the puzzle into place. “How long did you work for her?”

“How long, Oskar? Maybe a year. Good pay, but she had so many dinners. Eighteen, twenty people. They never sat down before eight-thirty, it was twelve when you finished the dishes. An hour to go home. Back at eight the next morning. I said to her once, I better sleep at her house the nights she has a party. There’s maid’s room. She said no. I know why-then I might find out who came back to sleep with her after everybody went home.”

“I didn’t want Olga to take that job,” Oskar said, “but try telling Olga.”

“Why did she fire you?” Shayne asked.

“She said I didn’t keep the house clean. Those floors sparkled! The silver, always A-one condition. The bathrooms-perfect.” She gave an indignant sniff. “One night I get home to my house and forget the key. I must go all the way back in a taxicab, or sleep on the sidewalk. You think I try to find out who she has in her bedroom? She can have fifty men if she wants to. I don’t care. I go in by the back door. I know where I leave the key, on the drainboard by the sink. And Mrs. Masterson comes stamping downstairs very mad, in her bathrobe. Oh, she was so mad. What am I doing, spying on her? Some people. She did have a man up there, I see his hat in the hall, one of those army hats.”