Brett Halliday - The Body Came Back

“Well…” She studied her glass doubtfully. “I guess I might’s well at that.” She got to her feet carefully. “Sure you won’t have something? Glass of beer, maybe?”

“No, thanks. You go ahead and get one for yourself.” Rourke stood with his back to the mantel and watched her navigate a calculated course out of the room and into the kitchen. When she was safely out of sight, he turned and snatched up the cardboard folder, closed it and thrust it down inside the waistband and belt of his trousers, buttoning his unpressed jacket across in front of it.

Then he crossed to the front door where he waited until Mrs. Duclos came back from the kitchen carrying a full glass happily in front of her.

He pulled the door open and apologized, “I’ve got to run now and keep a date with a deadline at the paper. When Mr. Duclos comes in, ask him to call me at the Miami News, huh? Timothy Rourke. Just ask them for Tim Rourke. I’ll talk to him on the telephone.”

“Well, all right,” she agreed uncertainly. “If you’re sure you don’t wanta wait.”

He said, “I’m afraid I can’t,” and went out the door and closed it gently behind him.

Shayne was waiting in the car when he hurried around to the driver’s seat and got in. The detective growled, “Took you long enough. Duclos there?”

“No. She hasn’t seen him or heard from him since he went down to pick up his car. Expects him home any minute though.”

“You and she take time for a quick lay?” Shayne asked with obvious irritation.

Rourke laughed shortly. “If you could have seen her! Listen, Mike. I’m onto something. I don’t know what the hell it is yet, but it’s something. Listen. There was a picture on the mantel. Mrs. Duclos and a guy she says is her no-good brother. Mike! That guy is in the news. Last few days. God-damn it! I don’t know how or what.” In frustration, Rourke beat his doubled fist against the steering wheel.

“But I know it in my bones. That guy is a fugitive. He’s wanted. Let’s pick him up first, and then find out what it’s all about.”

“What do you mean? Pick him up?”

“She tells me he showed in Miami today. Broke and hungry. So her husband took him down to a local bistro on the corner of Miami Avenue for a beer after dinner, and he came back about ten but the brother didn’t.”

Rourke turned on the lights and started his motor and pulled away slowly. “Presumably the brother is still down at the corner bar sopping up free drinks. We stop by and pick him up, Mike. You’ll get a headline for tomorrow that will put your stolen car caper in the shade.”

He went around two corners and headed back for Miami Avenue. Shayne still didn’t wholly comprehend what he was talking about. He said, “We pick up this woman’s brother? What the hell for?”

“I told you I don’t know. But I do know he’s wanted by the law… and bad. We take him in and we’ll find out. Mike Shayne comes through again. Nabs desperate fugitive single-handed.” Rourke turned the corner on Miami and nodded toward neon lights glowing a block ahead on the right-hand side. “That’ll be it.”

He found a parking place in front of the tavern and stopped, turned his head to look at Shayne’s face. “You don’t look real happy,” he complained.

Shayne said helplessly, “I just don’t get it, Tim. You just saw this guy’s picture. Your intuition tells you that he’s a wanted man. Ergo: We walk in and arrest him. On what charge?”

“You’re a detective,” said Rourke cheerfully. “You’ve got the authority. Look. Have I ever let you down, Mike? Don’t you know that I know what I’m talking about?”

Shayne grinned and said simply, “You always have, Tim. Okay, I’ll ride with you. What does he look like?”

Rourke unbuttoned his jacket and pulled out the photograph he had stolen from the mantel. He showed it to Shayne. “There he is. I still can’t place that mug, but… he’s wanted, Mike. I’ll swear to that.”

Shayne took the picture of Mrs. George Duclos and her brother, and studied it carefully in the glaring light of the neon sign.

Then he said grimly, “We’re not going to find him inside that bar, Tim.”

“How do you know we’re not? She says he and her husband came here after dinner for a beer… and as far as she knows he’s still here. If he’s left, we can maybe show the picture around and find out where he’s gone.”

Shayne shook his red head firmly and said, “It just happens I know where he is, Tim. Inside the trunk of the Duclos Ford… rolled up in a blanket I snitched from the Encanto Hotel.”

“For God’s sake, Mike! You sure about that?” Rourke turned to stare at his companion with glittering eyes in which the excitement of a few minutes ago was intensified.

“I ought to be sure. He and I were pretty intimate there for a few minutes. So he’s George Duclos’s brother-in-law,” Shayne said thoughtfully. “Let’s see where the hell that fits in. He was driving George’s Ford when he went to the Encanto…”

“Is that where you got hold of it?” interrupted Rourke. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“Yeh. I found the parking stub in his pocket and thought as long as I was moving the body I might as well get his car away at the same time… without knowing it was stolen, of course. Which maybe it was or maybe it wasn’t,” he added.

“You mean maybe Duclos loaned it to him… and then later when the cops called he got scared and looked out the window and reported it stolen?”

“It’s an old dodge. If so, it must mean that Duclos knew he was hot… or at least that he might be headed for some sort of trouble at the Encanto. In that case he must be wondering like hell how I come to turn up driving the car he’d lent his brother-in-law.”

“We don’t know he did lend it, of course. The way Mrs. Duclos explained it, the two of them came down to the corner bar for a drink after dinner. Her husband came back alone, saying her brother, Al, was sticking around for a time. Could be that Al just waited until George got safely inside the house, then slipped back and copped the car… knowing it was sitting outside with the keys in it.”

“Sure it could be either way.” Shayne tugged at his left earlobe impatiently. “You called him Al. That’s the name of Carla’s husband all right. What else did she tell you about him?”

“Carla?” asked Rourke.

“Brett’s friend I told you about. The one who phoned me. She claimed she hadn’t seen the guy for ten or fifteen years… thought he was dead. He’d done time in the pen at least once, and she’d heard he’d been shot in a holdup after he was released.”

“Sounds like our Al, all right. Mrs. Duclos said he had a way of popping up unannounced like a bad penny after she hadn’t heard from him in years. I wish to God I could place that face, Mike. I know I’ve seen a picture of that mug in the last few days, and I know that he’s wanted for some recent crime. Not local, I think. Something must have come over the wires… His voice trailed off. Then he opened the car door decisively. “A couple of drinks may bring it back to me. Why in hell are we sitting out here? I think it’s time you told me a little more about how you got acquainted with the guy.”

“He was dead when I met him.” Shayne got out somewhat reluctantly, though he realized he could also stand a drink at this point.

They went inside the noisy bar which was still crowded this late on Saturday night and had a jukebox in one corner that added to the drunken din of voices.

They found a vacant booth at the extreme end of the room where they couldn’t possibly be overheard, and waited until drinks were put in front of them by a hard-faced, big-breasted waitress who was in a hurry to get back to a conversation she was having at the bar with two men who took turns patting her butt while she leaned between them.