Brett Halliday - Too Friendly, Too Dead

“Who was buying them for him?” demanded Shayne. He added in an aside to Elston, “Fitzgilpin had an aversion to paying out good money for hard drinks in a bar.”

“Well, I don’t know about that. Maybe somebody was buying.”

“He was staggering when he left your bar,” Shayne charged. “Practically out on his feet. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice that much.”

“Well, I guess he maybe was pretty well lit up,” admitted Barney sourly. “But I figured it was just from switching from beer to hard liquor. If anybody fed him a Mickey, it sure wasn’t me,” he ended virtuously.

“Now you’ve admitted he was here and was drunk when he went out,” Shayne pointed out harshly. “That’s a big jump from denying you’d ever seen the man. Give us the rest of it. Who followed him out? Was he flashing a roll at the bar? Who saw him… and decided he was an easy mark?”

“I didn’t see him flashing no roll. Maybe he was, but I didn’t see it. I do recollect now that that Timmy the Twist and Ox Yokum were hanging around about then. I didn’t for sure see them follow him outside, but I guess maybe I didn’t see them around the bar no more afterward.”

“Timmy the Twist and Ox Yokum,” exclaimed Elston in an outraged voice. “You let a pair like that hang out downstairs? Goddamnit to hell, Barney. You know my orders. What the hell do I hire you for? This isn’t any mugger’s hangout.”

“Timmy the Twist and Ox Yokum?” said Shayne with interest. “They’re new to me.”

“Just a couple of chiseling, small-time punks,” snarled Elston. “They couldn’t buy a drink in half the decent bars on the Beach. And now, by God, I find out they’re headquartering at my place.” He looked across the desk wonderingly at Barney. “What else has been going on downstairs that I don’t know about?”

“Nothing, Boss. I swear it. It ain’t like they headquarter here. Come in sometimes is more like it. Last night I guess they was in. That’s all. If this fellow was rolled after he went out… well, maybe they done it.”

“Where will I find them?” Shayne asked grimly.

“I dunno. They’re the kinda creeps that stay inside while it’s daylight.” Barney spread out his hands with a placating smile. “They’re no friends of mine.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Elston venomously. “I’d look for them down around South Beach,” he told Shayne in an aside. “Depending how much your man was carrying. Was it real money?”

“Couple of hundred.”

“They wouldn’t take it on the lam with that. But you can put it in your hat, Shayne, those two would roll a drunk, sure, but the way I get it… this was murder. You can count those two punks out on that score.”

“Sure. That’s right,” agreed Barney earnestly and righteously. “That’s why I never thought to mention them right off. Them two would run like hell from a killing.”

Shayne said, “All right. I’ll have a talk with them. Now then. Do either one of you know a man named George Nourse?”

Both looked at him blankly and slowly shook their heads.

“A gambler,” Shayne amplified. “Hasn’t been around town for maybe a year or so.”

“Nourse?” Pete Elston frowned. “Wait a minute. I think I make him. A smooth type. Plenty hot with his own pair of dice in floating crap games. Strictly illegit. Sure, Barney. George Nourse. He was on our list a couple years ago. We were off-bounds to him along with all the other straight places on the Beach.”

“Nourse? Maybe,” conceded Barney. “Tall guy? Pretty much the ladies’ man?”

“That would be Nourse,” agreed Shayne. “He’s back in town. Was he in last night?”

“I’ll swear he wasn’t. I remember him now. I’d of made him fast if he’d showed last night.”

“You lied to me once before,” Shayne reminded him icily. “Don’t make the same mistake again.”

“Listen to the man,” Elston told him. “If you’re holding out one Goddamned thing…”

“I swear I’m not. I’ll ask around,” Barney went on hastily. “If he is back, some of the boys’ll know.”

“Pass the word around,” Shayne told him. “I want Nourse. I want him bad.”

Elston said, “I’ll see the right people get the word, Shayne. Anything else you want from Barney?”

“I guess that’s about it.”

“All right. Get back down to the bar,” snarled Elston at his bartender. “You and I’ll have a long talk later on today when business eases off.”

Barney nodded unhappily and went out.

“How do you like that?” exclaimed Elston wonderingly. “By God, you just don’t ever know, do you? Here, I try to run a clean straight joint downstairs. Keep the suckers happy so they won’t mind dropping a few bucks at the tables. One thing that’d ruin me would be a reputation for running a clip-joint. And so, by God, what does my bartender do? Lets characters like Timmy the Twist and Ox Yokum hang out downstairs. How the hell do you like that?” He thumped his fist solidly on the desk.

“It’s tough trying to make an honest dollar,” agreed Shayne with a grin. He tossed off his cognac and chased it with a sip of ice water, stood up purposefully. “If I get Nourse I may have this thing cleaned up without pulling the Club into it.”

“In the meantime you gotta go after those two punks? If they just rolled him, maybe…” said Elston anxiously.

“I’m going after them,” Shayne said. “Sooner we turn Nourse up, maybe the better.” He went out of the gambler’s office with a wave of his big hand.

It took Michael Shayne slightly less than an hour to locate Timmy the Twist and Ox Yokum. He went about the job methodically, starting on South Beach as Elston had suggested, working his way up and down the street, buying a drink here and there and asking questions in the right places.

He had no difficulty immediately getting a line on the pair. They appeared to be fairly well-known by others of their ilk, and were regarded with a sort of amused tolerance by others slightly higher up on the criminal scale than they. Timmy was the brains of the pair, Shayne soon learned (although no great shakes at that) while Ox supplied the muscle for their small-time operation which consisted mostly of rolling drunks for any sum from five bucks up, a spot of pimping on the side, and an occasional go at peddling marijuana.

They had been seen around that morning, and it was generally agreed that they must have made some sort of hit the preceding night, though no one professed any knowledge of how it had come about.

Shayne finally came up with them in a crap game in the back room of Renaldo’s. Joe Renaldo himself gave him the office when Shayne dropped into the dingy bar and ordered a drink of California brandy, the best the place could offer. Joe served him, and leaned over the bar to say out of the side of his mouth, “Word’s got around that you’re looking for a confab with Timmy the Twist and his partner.” Shayne nodded and sipped the brandy.

“Back there. Craps.” Renaldo jerked his head toward a closed door at the rear of the bar. “Keep it quiet, huh? You could of got the info a dozen other places.”

Shayne said heartily, “Sure. That’s why I dropped in.” He slid a ten-spot on the bar which Joe’s hand covered quickly, and pushed back the rest of his brandy. For the benefit of three patrons a few bar stools removed, he said loudly, “That’s lousy brandy, Joe. I was told there was a little game in back where a real hot dice shooter might pick up some easy dough.”

“You feelin’ hot today, Mike?” Renaldo picked up his cue faultlessly.

“That, I am.” Shayne strolled back past the trio who had overheard the exchange, opened the door and walked into a small room murky with smoke. There were half a dozen dice players squatting and kneeling in a circle around a blanket spread out on the floor. There were crumpled bills and silver in front of each man, and a half a dozen dollar bills were in the middle of the blanket while the shooter tried to make his point.