Brett Halliday - Never Kill a Client

Shayne nodded and emptied his paper cup. He sat erect, crumpling the empty cups in a big fist and throwing them toward a wastebasket in a corner.

“You said there was a lot of money involved?”

“Quite a hunk of dough as I recall the case.” Rourke shrugged. “Fifty or a hundred grand? Something in that neighborhood.”

“Much of it recovered?”

“I don’t remember. I don’t think so. As I recall he was offered a lighter sentence if he returned the money, but he stubbornly insisted he’d spent it all.”

Shayne got to his feet and suggested, “Why don’t you check your old file on the case? Nothing else we can do here. I’ll drop you off at headquarters to pick up your car, huh?”

“Where are you headed all in a hurry?” Rourke demanded suspiciously as he followed him out.

“Home and a shower and lots of coffee,” Shayne told him. “Until nine o’clock when I’ll call Jacksonville and see if I can get any dope on Reginald Dawes Rexforth Third.”

“Want me to tell Will about him?” Rourke asked while they waited for an elevator to take them down.

“Keep it under your hat,” Shayne growled. “If it gave us any real lead in Lucy’s direction, sure. I’d hand it to Will on a platter. But all it does is point up more strongly that Julius O’Keefe was headed straight for my office as soon as he was released, and Will already halfway suspects I’m lying about that. Damn it! He should know by this time that he can trust me.”

Timothy Rourke grinned, crookedly as the elevator stopped for them and they got in. “You’ve given him some bad times in the past, Mike.”

“But I’ve never told him an outright lie… not in a murder case,” Shayne defended himself morosely.

“Maybe not outright, but I’ve sure as hell seen you skirt the truth… particularly if there was a buck involved. Or a lot of bucks,” he added hastily.

Michael Shayne stopped in front of police headquarters to let Rourke out so he could get his own car, and the reporter hesitated with his hand on the door handle.

“You want me to call you after I’ve checked our old file on the O’Keefe case?”

“Sure. Do that. I won’t be asleep,” Shayne assured him with a wry smile. “While you’re at it, see if any mention of a bonding company is made in connection with the case.”

Rourke got out and Shayne drove away, headed for his hotel which was only a few blocks distant. He had driven about three blocks eastward when, on a sudden impulse he decided to continue on to Biscayne Boulevard and take a look at Lucy Hamilton’s apartment himself.

True, Rourke had told him over the telephone in Los Angeles that he and Will Gentry had already checked her apartment and found nothing amiss there, but they didn’t know Lucy and her habits as well as he did… and he had at least an hour to kill before he could check on Rexforth.

He continued eastward and drove directly to Lucy Hamilton’s apartment house on a side street between Biscayne Boulevard and the bay.

He stopped inside the small foyer to pick out the key which Lucy had given him many years before and which he had used only a couple of times in somewhat similar circumstances, went in and climbed one flight to her door where the same key admitted him.

He switched on the overhead living-room light and stood at the entrance to the familiar room and looked searchingly about.

Everything appeared to be in perfect order. Every ashtray and the glass top to the coffee table was clean and polished. Shayne walked across the room slowly, pausing at the telephone desk to glance at the scratch pad beside it, then turning to look into the immaculate bathroom, and thence into the bedroom where the bed was neatly made, the closet door closed, and everything in perfect order.

It was exactly as Lucy left it every morning in the world when she departed for work. He knew because he had dropped by from the office often enough for a drink or to relax while she freshened up to go out to dinner with him.

He went slowly back into the living room with a preoccupied, almost a listening look on his gaunt face, moved on automatically to the kitchen where he switched on another light and found it in the same perfect order as the rest of the apartment.

Still moving with a peculiar, automatic sort of precision, Shayne reached up to open a cupboard door on his right and take down a bottle that was a little more than half full of cognac. He pulled the cork and set it on the drainboard, got a tray of ice cubes and put two in a tall glass which he filled from the water tap. He poured cognac into a four-ounce wineglass to the brim, and carried the two glasses into the living room and set them on one end of the coffee table. He sat on the sofa in front of them and deliberately lit a cigarette, then slowly drank half the cognac and held the clean, biting taste in his mouth for thirty seconds before taking a sip of ice water.

He was deliberately slowing himself down, forcing himself not to think, swallowing back the sour taste of fear that was in his stomach.

He smoked the cigarette down deliberately until it began to burn his fingers, crushed it out in an ashtray, emptied the wineglass and took a big drink of cold water. Then he got up and crossed to the telephone stand, wrote the date and “8:30 A. M.” on the clean pad, added below it, “I’m back in town. Mike,” tore off the top sheet and took it over to the coffee table where he placed it beneath the empty wineglass. Then he turned out all the lights and went out, moving deliberately but not slowly.

It was only a few minutes’ drive to his hotel. He stopped in front and went into the lobby carrying his briefcase. Fritz, the night man, was on duty behind the desk and Pete stood beside him, evidently just coming on duty.

They both looked up in surprise to see Shayne striding toward them, and Pete exclaimed, “Jeez, you made a fast trip out to Hollywood and back, Mr. Shayne. I was just telling Fritz…”

Shayne dropped his briefcase in front of the desk and demanded, “Why didn’t you tell Fritz last night when you went off duty, Pete? I understand the police were here looking for me and no one could tell them where I was.”

“They sure were,” Fritz said feelingly. “All over the place. Made me unlock your room like they thought you might be hiding up there.”

“I just didn’t mention it to Fritz when I went off,” Pete said unhappily. “I didn’t know there was any special reason to say anything.”

“There wasn’t,” Shayne relented. “I don’t blame you, Pete. But I’m surprised they didn’t roust you out at home to ask you questions.”

Pete had a shamefaced smile for that. “They tried to all right. Trouble was, I wasn’t home when they came around looking for me. I was out on a hell of a toot, and boy have I got a head this morning.”

“What was it all about somebody getting himself killed in your office, and them looking for Miss Hamilton, too, and not being able to find her either?” asked Fritz eagerly. “Gee, I hope she’s okay.”

Shayne said, “I do, too. No word from her since I left, huh?”

Both men shook their heads lugubriously. Both were long-time employees of the hotel where Shayne had maintained a suite for many years, both knew Lucy Hamilton personally and admired her extravagantly.

Then Fritz said, “But there is this man’s been trying to reach you ever since early last evening.” He turned to reach into a cubbyhole behind the desk and pulled out three telephone messages. He glanced at one of them and said, “Name of Rexforth. First one’s marked six-fifteen…”

Shayne reached out his hand for the three slips. The first one said merely, “Mr. Shayne. Call Mr. Rexforth at once,” and gave a local telephone number and an extension.