Brett Halliday - Blood on the Stars

“What do you want from me if I agree?”

“Your promise not to turn me in. At least not right away. You’re the only one who knows this horrible net of circumstances I got mixed up in. If you have me arrested now, I’ll never be able to fix up a reward deal-not from behind bars while I’m accused of murder.”

The telephone rang. Shayne stalked to it and lifted the receiver, said, “Mike Shayne.”

A voice said, “This is last call for bids on a ruby bracelet.”

Shayne tugged at his earlobe. He glanced aside at Earl Randolph, grimaced, and said, “Twenty grand.”

A chuckle came over the wire. “Get wise, shamus. We know twenty percent is regular.”

“There’s got to be something in it for me.”

“Why not? Say six grand to you. That’s good pocket money.” The voice became harsher. “Thirty grand. In cash on the line. Today.”

“Wait a minute. I’ll check and see-”

“If you can trace this call?” the voice broke in sarcastically. “Don’t waste your time. I’ll call back in fifteen minutes. Have an answer ready then.” There was a click at the other end of the wire.

Shayne hung up and told Randolph flatly, “That was it. We can deal for thirty thousand.”

“That leaves six for you.” Randolph’s voice was trembling. “If you leave me free to make the arrangements. That’s not much, I know, but I’ll add ten grand of my own. Give me a break, Mike. I swear I’m not guilty, but I can’t afford such a charge against me. Even if I do beat the rap, my reputation will be shot to hell.”

Shayne crossed the room and poured himself a small drink. He sipped it reflectively, then went into the bedroom, leaving the door open. Lucy Hamilton was asleep again, and Miss Naylor was playing solitaire with the cards spread out on the empty side of the bed.

Shayne stood looking down at the injured girl with a queer expression on his gaunt features. A look of tortured indecision. Miss Naylor glanced up at him and said quietly, “Doctor says she is out of danger. I imagine she can be moved to a hospital tonight.”

“Why can’t she stay here?”

Miss Naylor slapped a red queen on a black king. “I thought it would be a lot of bother to you.”

Shayne said, “She isn’t any bother to me.” He went back into the living-room and asked Earl Randolph gruffly, “How long will it take you to get authorization and possession of the cash?”

“A few hours,” Randolph told him eagerly. “Say two o’clock this afternoon.”

“I’ll need some cash to pay my secretary’s doctor and nurse bills. Get out of here and be back at two o’clock sharp with the thirty grand in old twenties. I’ll take my sixteen grand in thousands, if you don’t mind.”

Randolph bounded to his feet. “God, Shayne. You don’t know how I feel about this.”

“Don’t think you’re buying immunity with ten thousand lousy dollars,” Shayne said savagely, “after half-killing my secretary. All bets are off if she has a relapse.”

At one-thirty that afternoon, Michael Shayne and Timothy Rourke were in Rourke’s office in the News Tower. For the last half-hour they had been going over the telegraphic and telephoned reports from three operatives of the Worldwide Detective Agency in New York, Ohio, and Colorado.

Shayne shoved the mass of data aside and scowled angrily across the desk at the reporter. “It all adds up to nothing,” he growled. “Not a lead worth a damn on any of the three. I can’t get over King and Kendrick completely vanishing from sight almost immediately after collecting their insurance money. No trace of their bodies, even. And it doesn’t appear that anyone made any effort to trace them.”

“That’s not too extraordinary,” Rourke pointed out. “Take James T. King. He broke all his home ties with friends and relatives after inheriting that unexpected wad of dough. He simply shook the dust of Ohio off his feet and started out to have himself a hell of a time. He and his wife went high-hat and deliberately cut themselves off from their old life. They could be right here in Miami today and we wouldn’t know it.”

“All right for Mr. and Mrs. King,” Shayne agreed. “Roland Kendrick wasn’t a poor man suddenly made rich. All these reports from New York indicate that he had plenty of jack and was used to spending it. Men like that don’t deliberately cut themselves off from everything just because they collect on an insurance policy. Neither one of them made any profit on the ruby deals.”

“There are some explanatory angles in the Kendrick case, too,” Rourke insisted. “Don’t forget that Mrs. Kendrick was murdered in the hold-up. And all those people contacted in New York and Westchester County appear to have been more casual acquaintances than real friends. None of them knew the Kendricks more than two years. If we could find out where they came from, what their past history was, I imagine we could put our hands on Kendrick without any difficulty.”

“If,” Shayne echoed morosely. “They seem to have popped up suddenly as though they’d both crawled, full-grown, from under a flat rock.”

“When people have as much money to spend as they did, no one bothers much about their antecedents,” Rourke observed sagely. “Like the Dustins.”

“I was thinking about those reports from Denver,” Shayne said. “If he were to disappear today, we’d be up the same tree we are in trying to trace Kendrick. None of their friends in Denver seem to know much about their past, either. Why? It’s one more odd coincidence that doesn’t hook up.”

“Not so odd about a mining operator like Dustin,” Rourke soothed him. “They move around a lot. Foreign countries and all that.”

Shayne shuffled the papers on Rourke’s desk and glared at them. “It’s almost as if both Kendrick and Dustin were intentionally hiding their pasts. That could be more than mere coincidence.”

“Still, I don’t see what it gets us. Mark Dustin hasn’t disappeared yet, and King, who did disappear, certainly led a blameless life until his lucky break in inheriting money.”

“If we can trace the California lawyer who handled the estate of his uncle, we might get a line on King,” Shayne grumbled. He looked at his watch. “It’s time Mathews called in from Los Angeles.”

The telephone rang as he finished speaking. Shayne said, when the operator reported, “Put him on,” and nodded to Rourke. He settled back in his chair. “Mike Shayne at this end, Mathews. Had any luck tracing King’s attorney or the uncle who died?”

A frown gathered between his rugged red brows as he listened to the West Coast operative give his report. After a time, he said curtly, “Keep on trying there. I’ll make one more attempt to pick up something at the other end and call you back if I get a lead.”

He hung up and said to Rourke, “Mathews isn’t having any luck at all. Nothing in the nineteen forty-three newspapers and nothing in the Los Angeles court records.”

“We’re not sure it was Los Angeles,” Rourke reminded him. “That was just the impression of some of his Massillon friends, and you know how people are. Mention California and they immediately think of Los Angeles. It ain’t necessarily so.”

Shayne nodded weary acquiescence. He lifted the phone, got long distance, and asked for a number in Massillon, Ohio. When he was connected, he said, “Mike Shayne in Miami again, Perkins. This is the last time I’ll come back at you, but we’re still unable to trace that California inheritance of King’s. I wonder if-”

He stopped talking, and as he listened, his expression slowly relaxed. “Good!” he exclaimed after a time. “Good work. I certainly would like to speak to him personally.” He waited, covering the mouthpiece with his hand and told Rourke, “This is our first real break. Perkins has dug up a next-door neighbor who met the lawyer and heard him discussing the estate with King in forty-three.”