Brett Halliday - Pay-Off in Blood

He held on doggedly and asked for George Bayliss’ home telephone number. He had to identify himself before he got it. Then he hung up and told Pete to try that number.

Again, he listened to the phone ring seven times without getting an answer. He slammed it down angrily, tossed off the rest of his drink and poured himself another.

He sipped the top off the glass so he could carry it without spilling any, and took it into the kitchen. He put water on to boil for the dripolator, methodically measured four heaping tablespoons of coffee into the top, and put a heavy iron frying pan on the stove with the heat turned high.

He tossed half a cube of butter into the pan, got out the pound of ground chuck and mashed it up in his hands, sprinkling both sides liberally with Lawry’s Seasoned Salt and working it into the meat with his fingers.

The coffee water was boiling, and the butter had melted in the frying pan and was sizzling and brown. He reduced the heat, mashed the pound of meat flat between his palms into a thick patty, and dropped it into the hot grease.

He poured the water into the top of the dripolator and drank half the cognac, got out a spatula and turned the gas flame high for a moment, then turned the hamburger and lowered the flame, and sipped at the rest of his drink.

He got out a dinner plate and slid the beautifully-browned-on-both-sides and still-red-in-the-middle hamburger onto it, carried it into the living room, and returned to get a mug of strong, black coffee.

He ate the entire pound of meat with gusto, washing it down with coffee, carried the empty plate back to the kitchen sink and poured another mug of coffee to which he added a couple ounces of cognac in the living room.

He settled back comfortably with a cigarette and the coffee royal, and let himself think blissfully about bed.

A good ten hours of shut-eye was what he needed. If it hadn’t been for Tim Rourke’s interference, he would have been asleep at least an hour ago.

He yawned widely and carefully forced himself not to think about Rourke. Tomorrow would be time enough for that.

He drained the coffee mug to its delectable dregs, got another cigarette going, and dragged himself to his feet. He turned out the living room lights and began shedding clothes on his way into the bedroom.

He was naked down to his shoes and socks when he reached the bed, and he threw back the covers and sat on the edge, unlaced his shoes and kicked off his socks.

He padded across to the window and opened it wide, went back and turned off the light and slid under the covers with a sigh of contentment.

The telephone beside his bed began to ring. It was an unlisted number which only a very few people very close to him had.

He dragged his mind back to awareness, groped in the darkness for the telephone and lifted it to his ear and muttered, “Hello?”

He came fully awake and mad as hell when he heard Tim Rourke’s voice saying urgently, “Mike! Listen to me, Mike.”

“You listen to me,” he grated. “What the goddam hell did you mean…?”

“Did you go with the doctor, Mike? Make the pay-off?”

“You ought to know,” he roared. “Goddamit, Tim…”

“He’s dead, Mike.”

Shayne held the telephone away from his ear and shook his head angrily. He put it back and asked, “Who’s dead?”

“Doctor Ambrose, poor bastard. Gunned down in his own driveway on the Beach.” Rourke gave him the street address. “I just got a flash from the office. See you there.”

The reporter hung up.

Michael Shayne lay very still for at least a full minute, staring upward into the darkness while unanswered questions churned through his mind. Ambrose dead? In the name of God, why? He’d made the pay-off in front of Shayne. Everyone had been satisfied. Maybe his death had nothing to do with blackmail, of course, but that was just too damned coincidental.

Yet it couldn’t be worth risking a murder rap for the blackmailer to get the stuff back from the doctor. He must realize that the twenty grand he’d gotten tonight had bled his victim dry.

The photograph? He hadn’t seemed particularly perturbed about it in the restaurant. Even if he had suspected that Ambrose had arranged to have the picture taken in order to identify him, he hadn’t kicked about it.

Of course, there was a good chance that the man who received the money was just a go-between… that the real blackmailer had stayed in the background. In that case, the incident would have been reported back to him. And…?

At that point in his thinking, Shayne sighed and reached out and turned on the bedside light. God! the bed felt good. He was dead for sleep.

He threw back the covers and swung his legs over the edge, got a fresh undershirt and shorts from the bureau and put them on. He picked up his slacks from the floor where he had shed them only a few minutes before on his way to bed, grabbed a fresh sport shirt and finished dressing fast.

The Miami Beach address meant that Peter Painter was in charge. That meant that Shayne was going to have a lot of questions to answer when he showed up on the murder scene. The longer he delayed making his appearance, the worse it would be.

He went out of the apartment hurriedly, and down in the elevator. Pete was alone in the lobby behind the desk. He looked curiously at the detective and said, “Hey, Mr. Shayne. I thought you was bedded down for the night. When you came in at eight o’clock, you said that all hell couldn’t pull you out of your room tonight.”

“That’s what I thought.” Shayne broke his stride to pause momently at the desk. He recalled, now, that he and Ambrose had gone down the stairway when they left because the doctor’s car was parked on the side street, and that he had returned the same way. Thus, Pete was not aware that he had already been out once since coming in at eight. It might be a good idea to keep it that way.

He said, “At least I grabbed a couple of hours, Pete. Any calls come for me, I’m over on the Beach consorting with a dead man.”

“Sure, Mr. Shayne.” Pete’s jaw dropped as he watched the rangy redhead hurry out the front door.

Shayne got his car from the hotel garage where he had carefully parked it for the night, earlier, and gunned it to the Boulevard and then north toward the Causeway to Miami Beach.

He found Dr. Ambrose’s house on a quiet side street in one of the older residential sections of Miami Beach without difficulty. There were several police cars parked along the street, and an ambulance was backed into the driveway with spotlights brilliantly lighting the doctor’s sedan that stood directly in front of a closed double garage beside a neat, white stucco house.

Shayne pulled into the curb behind the police cars and got out. He walked up the sidewalk toward the driveway, and encountered a uniformed policeman who was shunting curious householders from up and down the street away from the scene.

Shayne stopped beside the harassed policeman and asked, “Has Tim Rourke got here yet?”

“That Miami reporter? Yeh. You got business with him?”

Shayne said, “More with Chief Painter, I guess. He here, too?”

“Sure. What kind of business, Mister? There’s been a murder committed, you know.”

Shayne said, “I know.” He started down the drive toward the group of men on the lawn at the left side of the doctor’s sedan.

The policeman called out, “Hey, you! Wait. I didn’t say you could…”

Shayne kept on walking toward the group. A tall, lanky figure standing in the background and peering over the heads of some others, turned and saw him approaching. Timothy Rourke moved back swiftly and exclaimed, “Mike! What happened with you and the doc?”