Brett Halliday - Blood on the Stars

He drove across the County Causeway swiftly, turned south on Biscayne Boulevard, and parked his damaged sedan a few minutes later in the hotel garage.

Only the night clerk was on duty when Shayne crossed to the elevator. The man blinked sleepily at the uninjured side of the detective’s face and muttered, “G’night, Mr. Shayne,” and settled back in his chair.

The elevator boy widened his eyes and rolled them sideways until only the whites showed when he saw the lump on Shayne’s jaw, but swallowed his questions and took him up to the third floor.

The door was unlatched, and Shayne was surprised to find his living-room light on when he went in. He had forgotten Lucy’s promise to wait there for him no matter how late he was, but he remembered it when he saw a pair of pink mules on the living-room floor.

Closing the door quietly, he stood tugging at his ear-lobe for a moment. He pursed his lips in a soundless whistle, went quietly across to the bedroom door and bent his head to listen attentively. He could hear no sound from the closed room. She had probably grown sleepy and weary of waiting, and had decided to take a nap.

He turned away and removed his hat and coat, went into the bathroom and grimaced at the reflection that looked back at him from the mirror.

Cold water took all the blood away, but it didn’t help the puffed bruise much. He then went into the kitchen and filled a tall glass with ice and water, carried it into the living-room with a smaller empty glass. After filling the smaller glass with Monnet, he lit a cigarette on which he puffed slowly between alternate sips of water and cognac.

Except for his throbbing chin, he had never felt better and more at peace with the world. His gaze kept straying to the pair of pink mules on the floor. Lucy had probably become discouraged over the little game she had been playing all evening, and he thought of her curled up on the big double bed, asleep.

The cognac glass was half empty and he was working on his second cigarette when a rap sounded on the outer door.

Shayne sat very still. The knock was repeated. It wasn’t loud, yet it didn’t have a furtive sound. It was a light, casual rap yet persistent, indicating that his caller knew he was at home and expected him to answer the summons.

He got up quietly, picked up the bedroom slippers, and tiptoed into the kitchen where he slipped them into a drawer. There were two more raps on the door as he finished taking this precaution. He went to the door and opened it blocking the entrance with his body for a moment, then took a backward step when he recognized his visitor.

Timothy Rourke strolled over the threshold with a quizzical look at Shayne’s bruised and cut jaw. “I saw the light under your door and knew you must be home. Painter hang that one on you?” He crossed to the center table and nodded approvingly at the cognac bottle, went to a wall cupboard and got out a tall, thin-stemmed glass without waiting for an invitation.

The reporter was tall and loosely put together. He had regained some weight and a great deal of his former buoyancy since his long period of hospitalization, though his face was still thin and his eyes were deeply sunken in his face.

Shayne closed the door and came back to resume his seat while Rourke poured himself a drink of cognac. He said, “Make yourself right at home, Tim. I can only think of a few thousand people in Miami I’d rather see right now than you.”

Rourke took a sip of cognac and studied Shayne’s face over the rim of his glass. “Expecting someone else?”

Shayne said, “No. I was thinking about bed.”

“You’ve still got a half drink left in your glass. I had an interview with Painter after he left the Sunlux tonight.”

“And?”

Rourke shrugged his thin shoulders and slumped deeper in his chair. “He doesn’t outright accuse you of fixing the ruby snatch. Just lays it on the line that you’re the only guy with motive and opportunity.”

“Did you come here to get a statement from me?”

Rourke grinned and waved a thin, tobacco-stained hand in the air. “I thought I’d follow up some angles. Thus far,” he complained, “I haven’t got anything. Dustin is back from the hospital but he isn’t seeing reporters. I’ve called Walter Voorland’s house half a dozen times, but he isn’t in. Earl Randolph’s telephone doesn’t answer at all. What’s doing?”

Shayne shook his head wearily. “I don’t know, Tim.”

Rourke’s eyes studied the lump on his jaw again, bright and probing. “Painter says you’ve been warned to stay out of it. He says that if you try to collect a reward he’ll throw the book at you. He says for once he’s got you where the hair is short and you won’t dare make a deal with Randolph.”

Shayne lit a fresh cigarette and took a sip of cognac. He grinned amiably and said, “What are you doing here if Painter says all that?” He leaned back comfortably and looked across at the bedroom door. It was decidedly pleasant to think of Lucy sleeping in there.

“Because I know nothing on God’s earth will keep you out of it now,” Rourke explained. “And it looks like you’ve been leading with your chin, as usual.”

“Knucks,” Shayne told him. He hesitated, then added, “I’ve been out of circulation too long, Tim. Who could have pulled that job on Dustin?”

“I haven’t the ins I once had, either,” Rourke confessed. “You know how it’s always been here. They drift in and out from the north. Earl Randolph should know more about it than anyone else.”

“Ever hear of a couple of local boys called Blackie and the Kid?” Shayne described the two men he had encountered in Mickey’s Garage.

“I don’t think so. They the ones that worked you over?”

Shayne nodded, his eyes bleak. “I left myself wide open,” he confessed. “I figured all I had to do was to make contact and sit back and wait for the approach. Things have changed since the old days. What in hell goes on? Both Voorland and Randolph say the rubies can’t possibly be cut up and fenced. How come I get slugged when I suggest a deal?” His tone was morose and aggrieved, like that of a lobbyist who unexpectedly encounters an honest congressman in Washington.

“Things must be getting tough,” was Rourke’s pleasant comment. “Those lads you propositioned-how’d you get a line on them?”

“I followed a hunch.”

“Sure it was a right hunch? Maybe they didn’t savvy the sort of fix you offered.”

“They understood, all right. There’s something damned screwy going on, Tim. Something I can’t put my finger on.”

Rourke sat up straighter but masked his eagerness with a casual tone, though his eyes glowed brightly in their sockets and his nostrils twitched like a blood hound’s on the scent. “Something phony about the heist itself? Inside angles?”

“I don’t know. I’d take Walter Voorland’s word any time and any place on the value of the stuff. And Earl Randolph issued a policy on the full purchase price.” Shayne frowned deeply and drew on his cigarette.

“Dustin’s the only unknown factor,” Rourke pointed out. “From the west, isn’t he?”

“The west sticks out all over him. But he did get smashed up in the heist, and there’s no angle in it for him,” Shayne exploded. “He can’t recover more than he paid for the bracelet.”

“Sometimes a guy figures it’s nice to have the stones and the insurance money, too.”

“Only if the damned things will bring a fair sum under the counter,” Shayne reminded him. “That’s what makes this thing so crazy. Star rubies can’t be fenced like other stuff. And if there’s anything wrong about Dustin, he must know it’ll come out in the investigation that’s certain to be made. No insurance company is going to pay out a wad of dough like that without checking back on him closely, no matter where he lives. No, as near as I can see, Dustin is out.”