Brett Halliday - The Private Practice of Michael Shayne

“You haven’t-goddam you, Shayne, what are you up to?”

“I’m putting the heat on,” Shayne told him in a flat, remote tone. “When you call your house back, tell them not to put too much trust in locked doors. Tell them to look in the bedroom-and out the window where Marsha crawled down a sheet.”

Marco’s face turned the color of an under-ripe orange. He lifted the telephone again and called his home. This time his voice was strident. He spoke harshly, gripping the receiver in a trembling hand while beads of sweat formed on his forehead and made rivulets down his cheeks.

Shayne leaned back and expelled smoke lingeringly toward the ceiling. From an open east window the sluff-sluff of waves upon the beach came in to mingle with John Marco’s labored breathing.

He stiffened in his chair as words came over the telephone. He asked hoarsely, “But you’re sure she was there when the man left, eh? About twenty minutes ago? I see. No! Don’t do anything. Don’t say a word to anyone.” He slowly replaced the receiver and stared at Shayne thoughtfully.

“You can’t get away with a snatch. That’s one thing even you can’t get away with. Sit right where you are until I can call the police.”

Shayne said, “Gladly, but aren’t you going off half-cocked? This isn’t any snatch. I didn’t carry the girl piggy-back down the sheet. I haven’t seen her since I left her room.”

“But you know where she is. You got in there by claiming to be a doctor and you talked her into beating it. You told her where to go to hide out.”

“Maybe. What of it? She’s twenty-one. Maybe she’s in love with me. You can’t make a kidnaping out of that. You can’t lock a girl up to keep her quiet.”

Panic showed in Marco’s eyes.

“What did she spout off about? You can’t pay any attention to her. She was raving-hysterical-”

“And had some very interesting information,” Shayne interrupted mockingly.

Marco’s tongue came out to wet his lips. “What do you want, Shayne?”

The red-headed detective flicked cigarette ashes on the thick carpet.

“What every man wants-money. I don’t make mine as easy as you do-with wired wheels and loaded dice.”

“And that’s extortion,” Marco pointed out triumphantly. “Whether you snatched her or not, you admit you’re holding her for ransom.”

“Don’t be a damned fool. I’m not holding the girl. I’m offering my services as a private detective to find your daughter and see that she returns safely to your loving arms. You can’t turn that into extortion. Until you retain me-with a nice fat retainer-I’m not obliged to turn my hand to help you get her back.”

“You can’t get away with it,” Marco shrilled. “Maybe the police won’t hold you. I don’t have to call the police to handle you.”

He jabbed vindictively at the button on his desk. Shayne lit another cigarette from the butt of the one he had just finished.

The side door came open to admit Whitey and the pallid-faced youth who had tried to stop him from coming upstairs last night.

Whitey’s right hand was bunched in his coat pocket and the youth’s hand was suggestively near a flat bulge just in front of his left armpit.

“You want us to take this guy, boss?” Whitey asked hopefully.

“Work him over,” Marco snarled. “Take him into the back room and stomp his guts out. Call me when he’s worked over to where he’s ready to talk.”

Shayne stood up.

“You’re making a bad mistake,” he told Marco mildly. “I figured I might be detained here and I told Marsha what to do if I didn’t meet her in half an hour. I’m the only man on God’s earth that can keep her from-”

“Shut up,” Whitey snapped. His fist came out of his pocket holding a blunt. 38. “C’mon, kid, let’s-”

“No. Wait.”

Marco’s shuddery voice stopped them. His eyes were wide, tinged yellowish with fear.

Shayne got up and strolled toward the door.

“Be thinking it over,” he adjured pleasantly as he passed Marco’s desk. “I’m easy to get along with-if you treat me right. I’ll be at my hotel for the next few hours.”

He sauntered out and closed the door, went downstairs unhurriedly and out to his car and drove northward on the shore drive.

Approaching Seventy-ninth Street from the south, Shayne took it slow. There were few shore-line estates behind the Bath Club. The strip of land between the drive and ocean was grown over with scrubby palmetto and creeping thorn vines, pierced at intervals by deep sand ruts where bathers drove off the pavement to park and make it on foot to the beach.

By daylight it was difficult to determine which was the last dead-end street before coming to Seventy-ninth, and Shayne passed the turnoff before he was certain it was the spot where Grange had met his death the night before.

He pulled his right wheels from the pavement when he saw there was no other street turning off ahead, parked and got out to saunter back along the sandy shoulder.

Cars passed him from both directions, but no one paid any attention to him. With his hands in his pockets, he strolled into the ruts deeply cut by the ambulance and police cars last night, back to the spot where the death car had been standing backed up to the cliff overlooking the sea.

He knew that Peter Painter would have made an exhaustive search of the vicinity that morning, so he didn’t waste any time looking for clues he was not likely to find.

Shayne scowled at the matted growth covering the low sand dunes between the street and the shore. It would be a miracle if any object was ever found in it. Searching among the thorn-pronged palmettos was hazardous to shoes and clothes and hands.

He look a position near where Grange’s car had stood, stepped back a few paces, picked up a stone calculated to weigh about the same as a. 32 automatic. He pitched the stone with all his strength, watched it sail through the air and clump down to the stubby undergrowth.

Fixing his eyes on the spot until it was definite in his mind, he walked back to the pavement and waited. It was not long before a car slowed to park. A man and a woman got out, wearing bathing suits and carrying blankets.

Shayne approached the man and said, “I wonder if you would give me a little assistance? I’m a detective investigating a murder that occurred here last night.”

“Of course.” The man was plainly flattered. “I hadn’t realized this was the spot. We always stop here to go swimming.”

Shayne nodded and led the way in long strides to the murder spot.

“I’ve got a hunch about the death gun,” he explained. “I’m going to look for it, and I want a reputable witness who will testify to its position and condition if I find it.”

“Of course.”

The man was curious and expectant, entering into the game with the zest of a small boy playing cops and robbers.

Shayne was careful to start out on an aimless course to the point where his rock had fallen. The man searched diligently, unmindful of his scratched legs, pawing into clump after clump of palmettos, tearing away the treacherous vines. Shayne stayed close to him, and when at last he saw the weapon said nothing until the man let out a triumphant whoop.

“Here! Here you are!”

“Swell!” Shayne commended. “Say, you ought to be doing the detecting instead of me, mister.”

He dropped a handkerchief over the pistol and picked it up, examined it closely while the man looked on with keen interest.

“Look-its jammed,” the man pointed out, his eyes popping with enthusiasm. “Say-maybe-”

“I’d like to have a sworn statement to what you’ve witnessed here,” Shayne said. “My name is Shayne, and you may have seen by the papers that they’re trying to hang this killing on me. You can understand why I wanted a witness to prove this pistol was actually found here.”