Brett Halliday - The Body Came Back

“Yeh. God protect us from the friends of our friends. All right, Tim. Right now I’m not going to try and explain why I’m in this up to my neck. Take my word for it that it seemed like the least I could do at the time. If we get in a real jam and you’re questioned, the less you know the better it’ll be all around.”

“What kind of jam are we headed for?” Rourke asked him calmly, but with lively curiosity.

“We’ve got to steal a car for one thing.”

“My God! Haven’t you stolen enough cars for one night?”

“The same car,” Shayne told him. “Did you talk to that man, Duclos, at headquarters?”

“Owner of the stolen Ford? Yeh. I got the dope from him on his car.”

“Address and all?”

“Sure. I’ve got my notes right here. But he’ll be careful after it was stolen once. He won’t leave it parked in front of his house with the keys in it again. What the hell’s so important about that car, Mike?”

“It’s something I left in it,” Shayne hedged. “We’ve got to get it back before morning.”

Timothy Rourke stiffened in his chair and put a thin hand up over his eyes. “Oh, no,” he groaned sepulchrally. “Don’t tell me that. Not a dead man, Mike. You didn’t go off and leave a corpse in that stolen car. Locked in the trunk, huh?”

“Whatever would give you an idea like that?” demanded Shayne, looking at his old friend incredulously and laughing, although not very heartily.

“Because I know you, damn it. Because I can put two and two together and it always comes out four where Mike Shayne is concerned. There’s this dame who blows into town and has a run-in with a dead man. There’s you who could have said no and turned your back and walked out of her bedroom… but didn’t. That’s two and two… see? And it adds up to a corpse floating around town in a stolen car. Right?”

“You have the damnedest imagination,” Shayne chuckled. “I wouldn’t tell you if you were right, Tim. What you don’t know, you may not have to perjure yourself about later. Let’s just leave it that we’ve got to steal that Ford back tonight and get something out of it that I mislaid.”

“We got to do that?” asked Rourke gently.

“We,” said Shayne firmly. “It’s a two-man caper, Tim. You’re elected.”

“Do you know what the penalty is for moving corpses around?”

“No one has said it is a corpse,” Shayne reminded him. “Even so… do you remember ever asking me that same question before?”

“No, I don’t. And if you think for a minute…”

“A couple of times, Tim.” Shayne moved around in front of him and grinned happily. “Actually, we never did find out the answer because we never got caught at it.”

“That was years ago,” Rourke protested feebly. “We were crazy in those days. Now, God damn it, we’re grown up.”

Shayne laughed at him. “Maybe you are. Hell! I thought I was… until tonight.” He paused, looking away from Timothy Rourke. He was using the same arguments that Carla had used with him. Well, why not? He had been persuaded by them.

He turned back and said slowly, “You’ve got to help me, Tim. I’m really in a spot this time.”

“I don’t see why,” muttered Rourke. “Hell, it may be days before that guy Duclos has any reason to open up his trunk. He probably drives it to work… parks it in a lot somewhere. What’s the reason for going off half-cocked tonight? Probably be plenty of chances the next day or so to get to the car unobtrusively and remove… well, whatever it is you left behind.”

Shayne said angrily, “What if he has a flat on his way to work tomorrow morning? How do we know his wife doesn’t drive him to work and bring the car home for the day? Can’t you see her driving into a supermarket tomorrow and buying three or four sacks of groceries… having a boy take them out to the car for her, and her saying, ‘just a minute while I open up the trunk and you can put them in there.’ Where would I be then?”

“Well, where would you be?” asked Rourke weakly. “How could anybody prove the body was yours?”

Shayne stopped pretending it wasn’t a body he was talking about. He said savagely, “How much proof would the cops need? Right now they know I had possession of the car tonight. So far as can be proven, I’m the only one who has had possession of it since it was stolen from in front of Duclos’ house. Me. Mike Shayne. The conniving private dick who has a reputation for putting it over on the police. So they find a corpse securely locked in the trunk. No. I agree with you, Tim. That’s not proof of anything. But it’s pretty damn good prima facie evidence that your best friend knows more about the corpse than is good for him to know.”

“But you are in the clear on it, aren’t you, Mike? The guy was dead when you came into the case… the way I put together the bits and pieces you’ve been tossing me. There’d be no real rap facing you even if they did prove you put the body there.”

Shayne turned away from the reporter, took two short steps to the table and poured himself a drink. “You’re right, Tim,” he agreed in a conversational tone. “I’d probably be able to talk myself out of a real rap if I came clean and told them exactly how it happened. I might get my license suspended… or even lose it… but, what the hell? I’m not broke. In fact, I’ve been promising Lucy I’d take a long vacation. Maybe this is a good time to do it.”

He held his drink up to the light and stared at it for a moment with a frown. “The only thing is, Tim, in order to clear myself I’d have to tell everything I know about that dead man. And that would ruin a couple of innocent lives. Is that what you want? Or are you going to get off your dead ass and go out and help me steal that Ford back tonight?” He tipped the glass to his mouth and drank deeply.

Timothy Rourke said, “You knew the answer to that before you asked it.”

Shayne said absently, “Of course I did. All we got to do now is figure how to pull it off.” He looked at his watch. “Ten minutes after one. Let’s get the local portion of the final newscast and see if there’s any change in the picture.” He stepped to one side and turned the switch on a portable radio.

In a moment they heard a glib voice saying, “And now for our final story of the evening… to send all of you to bed with a chuckle.

“There was an old saying long ago that when a man bites a dog, that’s news. That may have become somewhat trite these days, but there are variations on the theme which still ring the bell.

“How about this one for instance: Detective found in possession of stolen automobile assaults citizen who seeks to halt his getaway and attempts to bribe incorruptible police officers who apprehend him in the act?

“Yes, sir. That’s the story that comes out of Miami tonight. Michael Shayne is the detective involved in tonight’s comedy of errors… or, were they errors?

“Mike Shayne in person. The redheaded, two-fisted, hard-drinking private eye, glorified in numerous crime novels and on television was accused of just that tonight.

“Involved in a minor traffic accident in downtown Miami while driving a stolen Ford sedan belonging to George Duclos of this city, the terror of the television screen went berserk and brutally assaulted the driver of the other car whose identity remains unknown in a frantic effort to escape before officers of the law reached the scene.

“Foiled in this attempt by Officers Ernie Hale and Eugene Barkus, veteran members of Miami’s traffic detail, this man who is licensed by the State of Florida as a private investigator and who is sworn to uphold the law, offered a cash bribe to the officers which was promptly and properly refused on the spot, and the redheaded, fiery-tempered Mr. Shayne was hauled into police headquarters with handcuffs on his wrists like any ordinary felon to face the variety of charges placed against him.