Brett Halliday - Pay-Off in Blood

A lone man came through the doorway from the street and paused near the upper end of the bar. He was bareheaded, with a crew-cut, and a smooth, unlined face. He wore a light tan sport jacket over a white sport shirt that was open at the throat, and there was really nothing about his appearance to distinguish him from any one of a dozen or more tourists who had entered since Shayne and Dr. Ambrose had sat down.

Yet, to Michael Shayne there was a difference. An almost indefinable aura of excitement about him. A tightness of the muscles. A feral, searching gleam in the blue eyes that were just a little too cold, just a little too inhuman.

He moved forward slowly, hands lax at his sides, glancing inside the first two booths with studied indifference as he moved.

Shayne drained his cocktail glass and put it down and waited. The man stood beside their booth and looked at him. He said, “Shayne?” and the redhead nodded.

“I’m Michael Shayne.” He slid out of the booth, standing for a moment, towering at least four inches over the bareheaded man.

He said pleasantly, “I guess maybe you two have got business together,” and moved backward slowly to an empty spot at the bar, keeping his gaze fixed on the pair.

The man sat in the seat just vacated by Shayne. He paid no further attention to the watchful detective. He said something which Shayne couldn’t hear across the table to the doctor, and Dr. Ambrose nodded and reached inside his coat pocket to withdraw the long, white envelope he had shown Shayne at his apartment.

At the same time, Crew-cut reached inside his inner coat pocket and withdrew a similar envelope. For a moment the two men regarded each other thoughtfully across the table, and then simultaneously they exchanged envelopes.

Shayne leaned back with his elbows behind him on the bar supporting his weight, his right hand dropping casually into his coat pocket, which sagged under the weight of his revolver.

Both men had turned slightly toward the wall, shielding their envelopes from view, and were tearing them open. If anything was going to happen, now was the moment for it.

A long thirty seconds passed while each of them carefully inspected the contents of the other’s envelope. Then they turned back toward each other and both of them nodded. The churning stopped in Shayne’s stomach and his muscles relaxed, but he didn’t take his hand off the gun in his pocket.

The two men at the table each turned back the lapel of his coat to pocket his envelope.

At that precise moment, a flash-gun exploded with brilliant white light a few feet up the bar from Shayne. He jerked his head to catch a glimpse of a wiry, young man with lank, black hair, lowering a press camera with a flash attachment. It was only a glimpse, because he turned and ran for the door as he lowered his camera. Shayne could have shot him, but didn’t. Shayne had seen that face before.

He stood very still with his big hand bunched around the butt of the.38 in his pocket, and looked at the booth.

Dr. Ambrose and Crew-cut sat exactly as they had sat a moment before, each with a long, white envelope half inside his coat pocket. Both their faces were turned toward the fleeing photographer, mouths slightly open and a look of blank surprise on both faces.

The tableau held for a long moment and Shayne waited tensely to see if something would explode between them.

It didn’t. They turned back toward each other and each pocketed his envelope. Shayne pushed himself away from the bar and strolled forward, getting two dollar bills from his pocket to drop on the table in payment for their drinks.

He asked, “Ready to go, Doc?” and Dr. Ambrose nodded and looked at him in agitation and said, “Yes, it’s… all right. But I… did that man take a picture?”

“It looked that way,” Shayne said cheerfully. “God knows what for. Maybe you and God, huh?” He transferred his gaze to Crew-cut.

The man shook his head and appeared honestly puzzled. “Not me. I swear I never saw him before.”

Shayne shrugged and stepped back so Dr. Ambrose could get out. “If you’re all set,” he said indifferently, “I don’t see it matters.” He took hold of the doctor’s arm and walked firmly to the door with him without looking back. They had driven to the restaurant in the doctor’s car, and it was parked half a block away.

Shayne led him rapidly toward it in the cool night air, and asked, “Get what you wanted?”

“Oh, yes. Why did you do that, Mr. Shayne? How did you arrange it? In the name of heaven, why? I hoped tonight would be the end of this affair. I certainly don’t want…”

Shayne stopped beside the doctor’s late-model sedan and pulled the door open. “I’d get going, if I were you. I didn’t arrange anything, goddamit.”

“But that photographer.” The doctor hesitated, half in and half out of his car. “If you didn’t have him there… who did? Why would anybody want a picture of us?”

Shayne said, “I don’t know. For a moment, I thought maybe it was your idea. You not knowing who your blackmailer was and all.”

He waited stolidly, but Dr. Ambrose merely got in behind the steering wheel, shaking his head in a puzzled manner. “I can only hope there are no repercussions. Mr. Shayne… ah… I will expect a bill from you for your services.” He turned the key in the ignition and drove away.

Michael Shayne stood on the sidewalk looking after his departing car with anger building up inside him. Damn Tim Rourke, anyway! What in hell was the matter with the reporter? He’d never pulled a stunt like that on Shayne before. Goddamit! If he wanted a picture of the blackmail pay-off for reasons of his own, why in hell hadn’t he warned Shayne in advance? That photographer might easily have got himself shot. Shayne’s finger had been tight on the trigger when he whirled, after the flashbulb went off.

He turned and strode away through the night toward his hotel on the north bank of the Miami River, still boiling with rage at Timothy Rourke.

Everything had been beautifully set. Everything had gone off on schedule, without a hitch. A perfect blackmail pay-off… in front of a lot of people, none of whom suspected anything. Twenty thousand dollars in a sealed white envelope exchanged for the incriminating documents in a similar white envelope. Everybody satisfied, and the whole thing washed up. Except for the photographer. That might be a complication. And Shayne had agreed to accompany Dr. Ambrose tonight… as a favor to Tim Rourke… simply to see to it that there weren’t any complications.

He damned Timothy Rourke again as he approached the side entrance to his apartment hotel. He’d been all set for a quiet evening at home and an early jump into the hay when Rourke had intervened.

Shayne went in the side door and up the two flights of stairs, bypassing the lobby, seething with rage. He rammed the key into his door and strode to the center table and dropped his short-barrelled.38 into the open drawer before pouring four ounces of cognac into the waiting wineglass and drinking half of it.

The ice cubes had melted in the tall glass on the table. Shayne carried it into the kitchen and emptied the glass, put in more ice and fresh water. He sloshed it around to get it cool and drank off half the glass, then carried it back into the living room and asked Pete for Timothy Rourke’s home number. He listened to the telephone ring seven times at the other end of the line before hanging up.

Then he called the News and got the City Room, and was told that Mr. Rourke was not in and they didn’t know where he could be reached. Before the newspaper connection was broken, Shayne asked hurriedly, “Is George Bayliss around?”

There was a long wait while people checked. Then he was told that Bayliss was also out of the office, “Off duty,” so he was informed.