Brett Halliday: The Private Practice of Michael Shayne

Larry Kincaid lifted a haggard face to Shayne.

“Maybe it’s them I’m thinking about. I hung up my shingle six months ago, and do you know how many clients I’ve had? Just two. One was a title on a truck farm, the other was a will. Elliot Thomas is a millionaire. I can make a thousand bucks at one crack on this case-and you, of all people, want me to turn it down. It doesn’t make sense.”

Shayne’s hand slid into his breast pocket and came out with a wallet.

“Why didn’t you say you were hard up? I promised to see you and Helen through here until you had a paying clientele established. All you have to do is yell when you run short.”

Larry waved the offer away.

“I don’t want any more money from you. I’ve had too much already. I’m going to stand on my own feet. If I handle this case for Thomas just right, I’ll be in the big money. A word from a man like him is worth something.”

Shayne put his wallet away. His head waggled from side to side.

“You’re all mixed up, Larry.” He paused to light a second cigarette from the first, then shot a sudden question at the younger man. “Where did you meet Harry Grange?”

“Grange? Why-just here and there.” He avoided Shayne’s piercing, gray gaze.

Michael’s ragged red brows came down in a frown.

“That won’t wash, Larry. Rising young barristers don’t just run into men like Harry Grange here and there.”

“What are you getting at?” Kincaid flared. “Do I have to answer to you for where I spend my time when I’m not sitting in this furnace waiting for clients who don’t know I’m alive?”

Shayne looked baffled. “I’m just trying to point out what it leads to. When you associate with cheap grafters like Grange, you give the impression that that’s your true level. Then, when they have a crooked deal to put over, they naturally turn to you with it.”

“I don’t know that Harry Grange is such a cheap grafter,” Kincaid protested heatedly. “He’s pretty much of a sport, if you ask me.”

“I’m not asking you,” Shayne rumbled. “I know Grange’s kind. He and hundreds like him flock to Miami and Miami Beach in the winter and put up a swell front, dragging down a percentage from the gambling houses by bringing suckers in to lose their money.”

“Well, all I’ve got to say is that Grange certainly puts it over with a bang.” Kincaid’s tone was growing nasty. “He’s got that Brighton girl on the string right now.”

“Who?”

“Phyllis Brighton. The pretty heiress you took to your paternal bosom when she was accused of murdering her mother last month. Lots of people think…”

“Damn what people think!”

Shayne’s eyes were dangerously bright. He reached out to crush his cigarette butt in a tray on the desk, muttering: “So, Grange has got his hooks into her?”

“Sure. You can see them together almost any night at Marco’s Seaside Casino on the beach,” Kincaid told him triumphantly, “and she’s getting rid of her money plenty fast at the roulette tables.”

Shayne waved a big hand impatiently.

“She’s too young to know any better. You’re not, Larry. Drop this idea of making a lot of money fast. Playing with extortion is like kicking dynamite around.”

“It’d be perfectly safe if you’d come in with me. Perfectly legitimate, too. Thomas is unjustly accused in a certain matter, and Grange, by chance, got his hands on the evidence that will clear Thomas’s reputation. Grange is holding out for a big price, threatening to sell the information to another party who will suppress it entirely.”

“All that is beside the point.”

Shayne got up and sat on a corner of the young attorney’s desk. He laid a hard hand on Kincaid’s thin shoulder and went on persuasively:

“Keep clear of it, Larry. God knows, I know what I’m saying. I was once just where you are. I didn’t have the guts to wait for success. Like you, I thought it was a hell of a lot more important to make a gob of money at once. Well-look at me now.”

“I’m looking. You’re sitting on top of the heap-with a reputation that lets you pick your cases.” He stared up into Shayne’s somber, rocklike visage.

“Yeah. A lousy private dick,” Shayne persisted. “You can-hell! you can be governor or senator or any damn thing you want if you’ll sit tight and not take the wrong turn.”

Kincaid’s chuckle was bitter.

“To get to be either one requires a course in crooked procedures,” he snapped.

Shayne was stumped. There was a long heavy silence between them. The small office grew unbearably hot as the streaming sun reached across almost to the desk.

Shayne picked up a small framed picture from the desk and gazed at the likeness of Helen Kincaid holding a very small boy by the hand. He nodded toward it and said: “You’ve got them to think about.”

Kincaid’s shoulder twisted out from under Shayne’s hand. He got up and strode to the open west window and stood with his back turned, staring out, then swung around and faced Shayne with set lip and projected jaw.

“I’m thinking about them,” he burst out. “You don’t know Helen very well. She nags about money all the time. She hates it out in that neighborhood where the cheap rent is the best I can afford. She’s always after me for God’s sake to do something to make some money. Well-I’ve got that chance, and I’d be a damned fool to turn it down. You can help me if you will-and if you’re so interested in Helen and the boy.”

The last words were almost a snarl, as though he challenged Shayne to deny something.

Shayne refused the challenge. He shook his head slowly. “I won’t touch it, Larry.”

“All right then. I’ll handle it myself.”

“If you insist on being a goddamned fool, go ahead.”

Kincaid thrust thin hands deep into his pants pockets, sauntered forward with an unpleasant smile.

“So, this is what your friendship actually means. I might have known. The first time I ask a real favor you turn me down flat.”

Shayne said, “Don’t say anything you’ll be sorry for.”

But the younger man went on hoarsely, “All right. Then that’s the way it is. It’s time I found out I can’t bank on you in a pinch. Don’t think I can’t guess why you come sucking around my house.”

Shayne slid off the desk and lunged forward, his face bleak and hard. He caught Kincaid’s wrist and exclaimed urgently, “Don’t say it, Larry. You’re-”

Kincaid jerked his arm away. A spot of color burned high in each pallid cheek.

“I’ll say any damned thing I please. You were in love with Helen before I married her. That’s why you urged me to come to Miami.”

Shayne laughed shortly and turned his back on the distraught young man. His fingers trembled a trifle as he lit a cigarette. He picked up his Panama and jammed it down on his head, turned toward the door.

With his hand on the knob, he swung about and asked: “Is this the way it has to be? You’re sure?”

“Goddamn sure,” the young man asseverated sullenly. “I’ve just waked up to the sort of friend you really are. I was a fool to ask you to help me. You want me to stay broke-just to show me up to Helen.” His upper lip trembled as it curled in a snarl. “Well, I won’t, damn you. I don’t need your help. I’ll handle this myself.”

“Okay,” Shayne answered in a curiously gentle voice. “If that’s the way you want it.”

He went out through the reception room where the girl stared wonderingly at the bleak grimness of his face and down to his white-knuckled fists. He grinned at her, and his hands relaxed. For a moment he stood, undecided, then went on through the outer door and down a dingy hallway to the rickety elevator serving one of Miami’s oldest office buildings.