Brett Halliday - Never Kill a Client

“But why, Mike?” protested Gentry. “Why the devil would anyone go to all that trouble and expense to get you out of town for a couple of days?”

“Adding up both plane fares, it must have set somebody back a couple of grand,” Rourke put in.

Shayne spread out his big hands. “Doesn’t it begin to explain the penitentiary records showing that Mike Shayne visited this guy twice recently? Someone impersonating me visited him,” he went on angrily. “From where I sit right now it looks as though that same someone wanted to set things up to be in my office when O’Keefe was released, still impersonating me… and where in hell does that put Lucy?”

“Right behind the eight-ball,” Rourke exclaimed feelingly. “They had to use some ruse to get her away from the office, too. Probably put another woman in at her desk to pretend to be your secretary.”

“But why in the name of God?” demanded Gentry again.

“That’s what we’ve got to figure out. This O’Keefe? What was he in for? Was he mixed up with a mob? Was he a danger to somebody important as soon as he got out of jail?”

“Nothing like that. He was doing time on an embezzling rap from four or five years back. In Jacksonville, wasn’t it, Tim?”

“Yeh. It was a one-man job the way I remember it. O’Keefe was a bookkeeper or something, and he confessed. It was a big hunk of money, I think, and he’d wasted it all on wine, women and the bangtails. I don’t see how that could make him a danger to anybody after he was pardoned.”

“Hell of a long way around just to knock a guy off anyhow,” protested Gentry. “Why would anyone plan to pull the job in your office?”

Shayne shrugged and admitted, “I don’t say that’s the answer. It was just an idea.”

“To get you blamed for the job,” suggested Rourke. “You and Lucy both. Who hates you enough to go to all that trouble and expense?”

“A lot of people hate me,” Shayne growled. “None I know to that extent.”

“How about another case you’re working on?” Rourke guessed again. “To prevent you from getting on with it and maybe turning up some information somebody doesn’t want turned up?”

“I haven’t any other case at present. Not a single thing pending. In fact I had thought about going fishing yesterday until that Special arrived and I got sucked into a trip west.”

“I wouldn’t mind getting sucked into something by that gal,” said Rourke pensively.

Shayne disregarded that, and asked, “Haven’t you got any leads, Will? Nobody that saw him go into my office, or Lucy leave?”

“Everything negative so far. He wasn’t discovered until after eight, and by that time all the offices in the building were empty. Elevator man doesn’t particularly remember Lucy leaving… or you either for that matter. We’ll go through the full routine as soon as people begin reaching their offices. In the meantime we’re checking O’Keefe’s background, pals in the pen and so on. And we’re trying to trace his movements after he was released to see if he came direct here or contacted somebody outside.”

“Does the name Rexforth mean anything to either one of you?” Shayne hesitated, searching his memory. “Reginald Dawes Rexforth Third?”

They both shook their heads and Gentry asked, “Should it?”

“Tim asking about other cases we had on hand reminded me that there was a new client supposed to be coming in yesterday morning. Lucy had made the appointment the day before. He’d been very insistent that he see me. Life and death, he told Lucy.”

“So you just walked out without keeping the appointment?” Gentry demanded disbelievingly.

Shayne shrugged. “Half my clients think their cases are matters of life and death. Let’s see if we can find Rexforth listed in the phone book.” He reached for a directory on the desk and thumbed through it with a frown. “Six Rexforths. None of them with the right initials. Lucy didn’t mention whether he was local or not.” He hid a yawn behind his big hand and stood up. “I haven’t been to bed.”

“Neither have I,” said Gentry. “Where do you think you’re going, Mike?”

Shayne looked at his watch. “Not much to be done until about nine o’clock. I figure you’ll want to take a crack at Elsa’s story, and I’ve a strong hunch you may get more out of her without me around. She hates my guts,” he confided, “because I turned down her pure white body last night.”

“My God,” breathed Rourke. “That pure white body? I bet it’s something.”

“Juicy,” Shayne told him with a tired grin. “You don’t want any more from me right now, do you, Will?” he added innocently, turning toward the door.

“Wait a minute, Mike,” Gentry said sternly. “Don’t think I’m buying your story whole hog. Visitors to the penitentiary have to sign the register, and I’ll have those signatures of yours checked. I’ll also check the flight personnel on United’s noon flight yesterday. Just don’t do one thing.” His voice remained friendly, but it had the bite of steel in it. “Don’t walk out of this door leaving any lies behind you that can be disproved by the facts. Right now is the time to come clean if you’re covering anything up.”

Shayne said mildly, “You know I never tell a lie that can be disproved.”

He opened the door and started out, and Rourke said hastily, “I’ll go with you, Mike. Grab an eye-opener of cognac, huh?”

He hurried out after the redhead and caught his arm as he went into the empty waiting room. “Where are you headed?”

“How do you know I’m headed anywhere special?”

“Because I’ve been on too damned many cases with you not to know when you’ve suddenly thought of something and want to check it on your own.” Rourke went down the steps with him. “That your car at the curb?”

“Yeh. Where’s yours?”

“Headquarters. I rode up with Will.”

Shayne got under the steering wheel and said, “I’ll drop you there.”

“After you’ve checked whatever’s on your mind.” Rourke settled himself firmly in the seat beside the redhead.

Shayne said, “Okay. We’ll have that eye-opener at the office. I think there’s still a bottle of Cordon Bleu left over from my last case.”

“Yeh, there is,” Rourke agreed as Shayne pulled away from in front of the morgue. “Couple of snorts lighter than it was yesterday.”

“You and Will hit it?”

“Just a couple of small ones last night while the boys were checking the office. I knew you’d want me to act the gracious host… with you away and all.”

“He went over everything carefully, huh?”

“With a fine-tooth comb. I don’t know what you hope to find there that they didn’t.”

“There happen to be one or two very small things about my business that you and Gentry don’t know,” Shayne told him acidly. “What about fingerprints?”

“Mostly inconclusive, I guess. They dusted everything. O’Keefe’s prints were plainly inside your office… in the right place for him to have left them while he sat in the client’s chair and talked to you.”

Shayne nodded and muttered, “Which makes it look more and more as though someone was there pretending to be me. No prints to indicate that fact?”

“I wouldn’t say a positive no.” Timothy Rourke hesitated. “You know how it is. Prints get messed up and blurred. And they weren’t looking for proof of anything like that at the time, Mike. We all supposed you and Lucy had been there all day. No reason to think otherwise.”

Shayne grunted a surly acknowledgement of this. He turned into the light early-morning traffic of Flagler Street and drove a block and a half to pull up in front of the office building that had housed his business for many years.