Brett Halliday - Pay-Off in Blood

“Just what you set up,” said Shayne irritably. “Tell you about it later. What’s the dope?”

“Just got here myself.” The reporter shook his head despondently. “But they say it looks like he was ambushed here when he drove up. Took a bullet in his heart when he got out of his car to open the garage.”

“When?” Shayne demanded.

“I don’t know that yet. I just got here…”

Another, shorter, figure detached itself from the group and moved toward them. Chief of Detectives Peter Painter was a slender man who appeared to bounce on the balls of his feet as he walked. He was immaculately dressed, as always, and the pencil-line of his mustache was very black against his upper lip in the glare of the ambulance floodlights. He said, “Rourke… and Mike Shayne. What do you two want here?” He stopped on the grass in front of them, squaring his shoulders belligerently.

Rourke said, “I’m after the story, Chief. I called Mike as soon as I got the flash from my paper.”

“Why?” demanded Painter, rocking back on his heels. “Why did you call Shayne?”

“Because he thought you might be able to use some help,” Shayne told him harshly. “If you don’t need any information… if you’ve got the case all solved and wrapped up tight… that’s just fine with me. I’ll go back to bed where I belong.”

He started to turn away, but Painter said stridently, “Wait, Shayne! If you’ve got any relevant information, I demand that you give it to me. You can’t just walk away…”

“The hell I can’t,” grated Shayne through set teeth. “I jump out of bed and break the speed limits to get over here like any good citizen to help you out, and, by God.…”

“Wait a minute, Mike,” groaned Timothy Rourke. “I called him because I knew he saw Doctor Ambrose earlier this evening,” he told Painter.

“How did you know that?” demanded Painter suspiciously.

“Because I sent the doctor to see him. I don’t know whether that has anything to do with what happened here, but I thought you ought to know about it.”

“What did happen here?” asked Shayne quietly.

“When did you see Ambrose?”

“He came to my apartment about eight-thirty. Damn it, Petey,” Shayne went on impatiently, “I’m willing to cooperate, but I want some idea of what I’m walking into. When was he killed?”

“A few minutes after ten o’clock, the best we can place it.” Painter thumb-nailed his mustache and peered up at Shayne’s rugged face suspiciously. “That mean anything to you?”

Shayne looked at his watch. It was shortly after eleven o’clock. He said truthfully, “It could mean a lot… if the time is right. Any witnesses to swear to it?”

“The next door neighbor noticed his car turn into the driveway a few minutes after ten. He didn’t think anything of it until about half an hour later when he took his dog for a walk and noticed the car still standing here in front of the closed garage, headlights still on and engine running. He also noticed the overhead light on inside the car, indicating that a door had been left open. He came over to investigate. Dr. Ambrose was lying beside the open left-hand door, shot once through the heart. Now, what does that mean to you?”

Shayne said, “He was being blackmailed. He had an appointment to make a twenty grand pay-off at the Seacliff Restaurant in Miami at nine-thirty. If he kept that appointment, it looks as though he drove straight here without any stops along the way.” He paused briefly and then said, “At my place he showed me a thick white envelope which he said contained twenty thousand dollars. Did you find it on him?”

Painter shook his head. “Nothing like that at all.”

Shayne said quietly, “Then he must have kept the appointment at nine-thirty and got rid of it.”

“Now wait a minute, Shayne. Why did he come to you in the first place?”

“Tim sent him. He had a crazy idea of hiring me to go along as a sort of bodyguard while he made the blackmail pay-off.”

“It wasn’t crazy at all,” retorted Rourke. “Sounded like a lot of sense to me. Nobody was likely to start anything with you backing his play. Damn it, Mike! Didn’t you go with him as I asked you to?”

Shayne looked at his old friend expressionlessly. “You know how I feel about blackmail and paying them off,” he growled.

“But I asked you as a personal favor…”

“Let me get this straight,” Chief Peter Painter broke in importantly. “You claim you refused to help him, Shayne?”

“I told him, goddamit, that I could lose my license by aiding and abetting blackmail. I told him I considered it immoral and unethical,” Shayne added truthfully and righteously. “I also warned him that it never worked. That no blackmailer was ever satisfied, but always came back for more. I advised him to refuse to pay, and to go to the police for protection.”

“Mike!” protested Rourke, aghast. “You let that innocent, little guy go off alone to meet a blackmailer with twenty grand in his pocket?”

“It certainly doesn’t sound like you or your methods, Shayne,” commented Painter suspiciously.

“He got my goat with his holier-than-thou attitude,” said Shayne angrily, and, again, truthfully.

“I asked him what he did when a woman came to him needing an abortion desperately just because she’d made one tiny mistake in the past. Know what he said?”

“Being a reputable physician,” said Painter with unction, “I’m sure he would have refused.”

“Exactly,” Shayne blazed at him. “He washed his hands of the whole thing. All right. I happen to be a reputable private detective. I want nothing to do with blackmail pay-offs. I told him so.”

“Mike,” groaned Rourke again. “If you’d listened to me…”

“How did he react to that?” interrupted Painter.

“He insisted on going through with it.”

“Did he?”

Shayne said, “When he left my place at about nine-fifteen he was headed for the Seacliff Restaurant to keep a nine-thirty appointment with his blackmailer.” He chose his words carefully as he spoke, saying the exact truth, though certainly not the full truth.

“Who was he meeting?” demanded Painter.

“He refused to tell me. As a matter of fact, he insisted he didn’t know the man’s identity. I don’t know whether he was holding out or not,” Shayne continued truthfully. “He didn’t want me to interfere either before or after the pay-off, and claimed that all he had was a telephone number… which he also refused to turn over to me.”

“He told me the same thing,” muttered Rourke. “When he came to me about it, I advised him the same way you did, Mike. But he was determined to make the pay-off tonight and end the affair. I thought he would be safer accompanied by you than going it alone. That’s why I sent him over to your place. And you turned him down cold, Mike?” Rourke’s voice was troubled, wondering. “Even when I told you the way I was indebted to him? That’s what sticks in my throat. That’s what I’ll never forgive you for. If you’d done as I asked, damn it, he might not be lying here dead.”

“What do you think that has to do with it?” Shayne demanded angrily. “If he made the contact and passed on the money…”

“But we don’t know he did,” Rourke pointed out. “When you refused to help, maybe he decided not to chance it alone. If he came home carrying that money with him, it would have been a perfect motive for murder.”

Shayne said, “That’s theorizing. It couldn’t take him an hour to drive from my place here. The timing is right to indicate that he made the contact at nine-thirty, and then drove here.”

Peter Painter was listening restlessly to the irritated exchange between the two men who had always been the closest of friends. Now he decided it was time to assert his authority.