Brett Halliday: Murder Takes No Holiday

“If we had a good solid tip on him, Mike,” Malloy said grimly, “we’d put him under the microscope. We’d get him up in the morning and put him to bed at night. We’d dog him around every minute he was in this country, and if he tried to take delivery on an illegal shipment, we’d grab him. This way, he paid a small fine to get us to forget about him.”

“Is there anything to indicate that, or is it just a hunch?”

“So far just a hunch,” Malloy admitted. “We have as many hunches as lady horse-players, only they don’t lose us any money if we’re wrong. This time the hunch is that those watch movements have been traveling back and forth a long time. The more I think about it, the stronger it gets. I’ve had two men digging up background on Slater, and they’ve put together quite a dossier. He’s perfect for the part. He runs a little import business in gift and novelty items in St. Albans. He travels a lot around the Caribbean, picking up local junk, most of it native-made, that he sells to gift shops. Baskets, costume jewelry, that kind of stuff. He comes through Miami once a month or once every two months. He doesn’t make a hell of a lot or money. And he’s careful. His standard of living is about right for his legal income. A good reputation with his jobbers. Not very aggressive or high-powered, but people seem to like him. No sign of anything offbeat in his private life.”

“Very logical,” Shayne commented skeptically. “You didn’t find anything, so that proves he’s a crook.”

“The watch movements, Mike,” Malloy reminded him. “He was out of line there.”

“I suppose you’ve checked his shipments?”

“Sure. We’re putting everything through the scope. Nothing’s turned up so far.”

“More and more suspicious,” Shayne said.

“Mike, you’re going to get me sore in a minute. We gave him a scare. Naturally he’ll be extra careful for a while.”

“It’s still your problem, not mine,” Shayne said. “If he slipped something past you, I can see how you feel. But it’s too late to do anything about it now. And what makes you think he’ll do it again. In other words, where do the fifty thousand bucks come in?”

“Sometimes when they think of a new angle they give it a dry run, to see if it works, and make the real push the next trip. But I told you the money’s not the big thing here. As it happens, Slater’s been married six years, happily, as far as anybody knows. Do you remember Fred Baines, Mike? Remember he had a wife?”

The lines on the redhead’s face were deeply etched. He nodded slowly. “That’s why the name sounded so familiar.”

“I was in Fred’s division when I was on the force,” Malloy went on. “I saw quite a bit of them at one time. When Fred got plugged, Martha must have been all of twenty or twenty-one. She and Fred didn’t have any kids. You couldn’t expect her to stay a widow the rest of her life, and she married Paul Slater a couple of years later. The name didn’t click with me until I was going through Slater’s file and came to his wife’s name. I remember you worked on that case. Does that change things at all?”

Shayne was looking at him thoughtfully, and Malloy went on, “We’ve got time for another drink.”

Shayne watched him pour the cognac. He had been with Martha Baines that long-ago afternoon when four cops-tongue-tied and miserable, but doing what they had to do-had brought her husband’s body home. She had seemed very young to Shayne then, too young to have such a thing happen to her. Under Shayne’s eyes in the days that followed, the scared kid had turned into a mature, tragic-faced woman. Her husband, a plainclothes detective, had been shot by a thief he had surprised in the act of robbing a jewelers’ exchange. Shayne, on contingency fee from an insurance company, had brought in the killer and recovered most of the stolen jewelry. The murderer’s death sentence had been commuted, largely on the strength of a plea for clemency made by the young widow.

During the trial and afterward, Shayne had come to feel a deep admiration for Martha Baines. He had seen the color return to her cheeks, and on one occasion he still remembered clearly-he had taken her to a jai-alii fronton-he had watched her eyes light up with excitement for the first time since her husband’s death. Not long after that, he had met Lucy Hamilton, and from then on no other woman could mean anything to him.

He picked up his glass and took a long swallow. “You really think Slater’s mixed up in something important?”

“Yes,” Malloy said quietly. “I’m sure as it’s possible to be without absolute proof. Maybe Watts was actually killed in a barroom brawl, but is it likely, Mike? And there’s one other point I haven’t mentioned. I’ve had a number of little tips that stuff is coming into St. Albans for re-shipment to the States.”

Shayne tugged at one ear lobe. “If you’re right, if Slater got by with something this last time, he’ll try it again. Sooner or later you’ll catch him and put him in jail, and that’ll be hell on Martha. All right, I’ll talk to her. It’ll be a painful conversation, God knows, but she can probably convince him-”

Malloy put in quickly, “I wish you wouldn’t, Mike. Of course I can’t stop you. That’s one of the risks I’m running by putting my cards on the table. What if she does persuade him to quit? They’ll get themselves another boy. If the gimmick still works and the new courier makes money, Slater will be sore that he let her talk him out of it. The next time he gets an offer he’ll take it, and he’ll be back on the merry-go-round. Let’s put the main people out of business, Mike. Then he won’t be tempted. I’ve been looking for a chance like this. We pick up the couriers now and then, and our seizures just about cover expenses. We never touch the higher-ups. We don’t even hurt them financially. There’s a bunch of ethical businessmen in Amsterdam who write insurance covering smuggling losses.”

A fair young man in pilot’s uniform came down the aisle. “Can’t hold her much longer, Jack. The control tower’s getting salty.”

“Just going,” Malloy said. “This is Mike Shayne, Captain Connors.”

“Hello, Mr. Shayne,” the pilot said, shaking hands. “I’ve heard about you.”

“Can you stall for two minutes more?” Shayne said. “We’d appreciate it.”

“Sure. But that’s about all.”

When the pilot left, Shayne said angrily, “I don’t know a soul on the island. I don’t know the ground rules. I’m only hitting on three cylinders, and if somebody gives me a gentle nudge in the ribs, I go back to the hospital for another few weeks. And how about this program you’ve laid out for me? All you want me to do is break up a smuggling ring, solve a murder, keep Slater out of trouble unless he happens to turn out to be the murderer, and at the same time see to it that the next shipment, whatever it is, goes through with another courier so you’ll get credit for a seizure and I’ll get a fee. They’ll be in a hurry now, so how much time do I have for all this? A couple of days?”

Malloy grinned. “I had an idea you’d do it.”

“Don’t expect any miracles, that’s all,” Shayne said, still angry.

“Well, I’ve seen you pull some surprising rabbits out of hats in your time, Mike. There’s only one lead I can give you, and frankly it’s not too hot. I’m told that some of the high-duty stuff coming into St. Albans from Europe ends up with a character named Luis Alvarez, also known as the Camel. A Venezuelan. He runs a tourist trap called The Pirate’s Rendezvous.”

“Any connection with Slater?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Wait a minute,” Shayne said as Malloy turned. He worried at his earlobe for a moment longer and said, “This may not work, but I’m going to need something. Get a flier printed up. ‘Wanted for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution’-one of those. You can pick up a picture of me in one of the newspaper morgues. Not the News, because I don’t want Tim Rourke to know about this. Print up a half dozen with my description and some nice interesting crime and rush them down to the St. Albans cops on tomorrow afternoon’s plane. Special delivery. Urgent. You have information that this man has left the country, heading for the Caribbean.”