Brett Halliday: Stranger in Town

He eeled out of the hammerlock and drove his right fist into the bulbous red face beside him. The burly cop staggered back with blood spurting from his nose, and the younger man stepped in calmly and sapped Shayne behind the ear with his blackjack.

For the second time in Brockton that evening, Shayne went out like a candle in a hurricane.

Michael Shayne awoke quite early the next morning. He lay on his back on a rough army blanket folded to cover a built-in bunk of iron lattice-work. His coat was rolled up under his head for a pillow. He was in a small, iron-barred cubicle, dimly lighted by a 25-watt ceiling bulb in the corridor outside.

Shayne lay as he was without trying to move for several minutes which he devoted to cursing himself and his goddamned crazy temper that had betrayed him into this situation. He clearly recalled all the events leading up to the point where he socked the older policeman in blind rage. After that, there was hazy memory of being pushed and pulled around, of voices questioning him and of somewhat incoherent replies on his part.

His head ached dully and steadily, and for a long period of minutes he didn’t dare try to lift it for fear neck muscles wouldn’t respond. It was very quiet in this cell of the Brockton jail. He got up strength finally to lift his arm and squint at his wristwatch. 6:30. It would be hours yet before there’d be any chance of talking his way, or paying his way, out of jail.

“And when that chance comes,” he warned himself grimly, “keep your goddamned big mouth shut, Mike Shayne. Take every insult like a little man, and speak only when you are spoken to. Apologize for living, if necessary, and plead guilty to whatever they throw at you.”

Much as he hated to admit it even to himself, it was basically his own fault that he was in a cell right now instead of luxuriating in a soft bed in the Manor Hotel. Couldn’t blame the two cops too much, he admitted grudgingly. Sure, they had been over-tough and officious, but most cops are. They get that way after dealing with criminals and drunks night after night. It’s an occupational disease.

And no one knew that better than Michael Shayne. That’s why it was his fault more than theirs. The pair who had picked him up hadn’t known, of course, about what had happened inside the bar earlier. They didn’t know he was already boiling with anger because no official cognizance had been taken of the unprovoked attack on him.

So, all right. So, the thing now was to get out of jail. Meek and submissive, that was the ticket. Until he got free. After that-well, he thought maybe he’d be around Brockton for a short time at least, and chances were he might run into the two cops again under more propitious circumstances.

The thought invigorated him enough that he temporarily lost his caution and sat up suddenly.

A groan escaped his lips before he could repress it. Sledgehammers began pounding inside his skull, and his neck and shoulder muscles on the right side were a mass of agonizing pain.

He stayed sitting up, head held askew in the only position that wasn’t sheer torture, gritting his teeth and moving it a tenth of an inch from this side to that to work some of the stiffness out.

No wonder the guy was called Mule. Probably nicknamed that by some other victim whom he had kicked around.

Shayne fretfully began wondering what and why again, then sternly stopped that guessing game and concentrated on massaging the soreness out of his neck. Because it couldn’t be anything but a guessing game until he accumulated a few facts to go on.

He thought about his brown-haired secretary instead. Lucy Hamilton in Miami-expecting his return last night. He remembered the one faintly plausible hypothesis for the affair that he had come up with last night. If it was a new case that someone didn’t want him to work on, he’d been effectively prevented from taking it all right. At least for one night. But he wasn’t lying in the morgue yet, the victim of a hit-run driver. That was one consolation.

He found a crumpled pack of cigarettes in his pocket and lit one. He was smoking his third and had worked the stiffness out to a point where he could turn his head a couple of inches in both directions when a sad-faced turnkey came down the corridor with the breakfast Brockton jail served its guests for free.

There was an aluminum pie-plate with a thick piece of tough fried ham and a mound of boiled grits with meat fat poured on top. And a slice of bread. And there was a big aluminum mug of muddy coffee so sweet that it set Shayne’s teeth on edge.

These were slid through a small hole in the bars at floor level by the turnkey and Shayne sat on the edge of his bunk and thanked him as though it were a serving of crisp bacon, fluffy scrambled eggs, golden toast and steaming black coffee.

The turnkey was obviously unused to such fulsome gratitude, and he rocked back on his heels with a snaggle-toothed grin.

“Ain’t no Waldorf Astoria, but ain’t nobody never starved tuh death here yet. You that tough private shamus they was talkin’ about from Miami?” He regarded Shayne with open-mouth interest.

“Not so tough,” Shayne told him wryly. “Pass the word along, huh? Maybe I thought I was till I tangled with those two boys of yours last night, but they sure as hell taught me different.”

Snaggletooth chuckled delightedly. “Brockton ain’t so such-a-much fer a fact, but I reckon our police force does stack up purty good. Burke and Grimes, now, they sure ain’t a pair to take no foolin’ when they goes to make a pinch.”

“You’re telling me,” said Shayne fervently. He gingerly picked up the aluminum pan and balanced it on his knee after trying a sip of the liquid in the mug. “What’s the routine here in Brockton? How soon can I pay a fine and get out?”

“City judge sits downstairs at nine. Them that’s got sense and pleads guilty gen’ally gets out fast.”

“How much,” asked Shayne humbly, “do you think my fine will be?”

The turnkey considered this judiciously. “Way I heard it, you socked Grimes good. Dependin’ how drunk you was, I reckon. An’ how Judge Grayson’s liver’s actin’ up this mornin’. Fifty an’ costs, maybe, if he feels good. I gotta go now.”

“Thanks for everything,” Shayne called after him. “Any chance of me getting in first to see his honor I’d appreciate it.”

He gagged over a spoonful of the lumpy grits as Snaggletooth disappeared. How To Win Over Turnkeys and Influence Judges by Michael Shayne, he thought disgustedly. But right now Snaggletooth would be spreading the news that the tough private eye from Miami had more than met his match in the Brockton police force. That he was penitent and submissive after a night in one of their cells.

All right, he told himself angrily. Keep it up. Be penitent and submissive if you don’t want to spend thirty days eating hawg and hominy.

And-it paid off for once. Snaggletooth appeared at his cell-door a few minutes before nine o’clock jingling a huge brass ring with keys strung on it. His features were still sad, but it was a jovial sort of sadness.

“All out for the honorable butt-kissin’ court. Take yuh down first, huh, tuh see how Hizzoner feels this mornin’.”

Shayne said, “Fine. Thanks,” with more heartiness than he felt.

He came out of the small cell with a faint sigh of relief as the door opened, waggled his head cautiously backward and forward as he followed his jailer down a short corridor to stairs leading downward.

The early morning hearings conducted by Judge Grayson were quite informal. There was a small anteroom at the rear of police headquarters with a desk and a swivel chair behind it, and one straight chair drawn up at one side. The judge sat behind the desk with crossed American flags behind him. A bored clerk sat beside him with pen poised over a large, open ledger. Standing stiffly at attention along one wall, in uniform, were the two traffic officers who had arrested Shayne the night before.