Brett Halliday - Heads You Lose

“That’s right. And step on it. Bartel will be there, won’t he?”

“Why… he often works at night since I’ve had to be away from the office.”

“Alone?” Shayne asked grimly.

“Yes… at night. I have a boy who helps in the daytime. What…?”

“Faster,” Shayne interrupted, glancing at the speedometer. “I’ll take care of any cops.”

Mr. Carlton licked his lips and demanded with asperity, “What is this about Bartel… and my printing plant?”

“In the first place, his name is not Bartel. He’s Donald Frazier, an ex-convict.”

“Bartel! An ex-convict?”

“That’s right. He’s done a lot of time for counterfeiting. This time he’ll do a lot more,” Shayne ended grimly.

“But I… I don’t understand,” Carlton stammered.

“He’s been using your plant to run off forged gasoline ration books. Hell, it was perfect, being there alone at night.”

“But… are you positive?” Carlton quavered. “I don’t… why, I trusted Bartel implicitly.”

“I knew I’d seen his mug somewhere,” Shayne explained. “I checked his fingerprints. Can’t you, for God’s sake, get any more speed out of this bus?”

“I’m going fifty,” Carlton said with dignity, but he pressed the speedometer harder. “Does that mean that you suspect him of having a hand in that murder last night?”

“That’s something I want you to think about,” Shayne urged. “Visualize that car speeding past you last night. Could Frazier, I mean Bartel, have been one of the men?”

“I believe he could,” Carlton said excitedly. His hands shook on the wheel and the coupe swerved sideways. He righted it and rounded a corner leading into a Coral Gables business street. “I’ve had a tantalizing feeling of familiarity all the time,” he went on miserably. “That’s one reason why I was so loath to say I could make a positive identification. I felt I should know, yet I didn’t.”

He slowed the car and Shayne asked sharply, “How much farther?”

“Middle of the next block.”

“Do you have a gun?”

“Yes. There’s one in the glove compartment. I always carry it in the car.”

Shayne opened the compartment and felt among some papers and tools, drew out a tiny pearl-handled automatic which he regarded with disgust.

“A twenty-five. If you want to hurt a guy I suppose you crack him on the head or throw it at him.” He dropped the pistol onto the seat beside him as Carlton pulled up to the curb in the middle of the block.

“He’s not here,” Carlton said. “That’s the office.”

At that instant lights came on behind a wide plateglass window across the sidewalk from them. Through the window they saw the tall figure of the ex-convict turning away from a drop-cord dangling from the ceiling light. The street door was open.

Shayne slid out and without a word started across the sidewalk to the open door. There was a plain business office with a high board partition all the way across the back. Frazier was on his way toward a door in the partition when Shayne stepped inside.

Frazier, alias Bartel, looked at Shayne, smiled thinly and asked, “Looking for me?”

Shayne heard Carlton coming across the sidewalk. Shayne said, “That’s right, Frazier,” and started forward slowly.

Frazier’s gaze darted past Shayne. His smile went away. He hunched his shoulders and stepped swiftly toward a desk.

“Look out!” Carlton yelled, “he’s going to…”

There was a light spatting sound… as though the publisher had clapped his palms together.

Frazier swayed in his tracks, dropped to his knees, then toppled sideways to the floor and lay very still.

Shayne strode to the body and stood over it. He said, “I’ll be goddamned,” and turned to look at Carlton.

Carlton was staring stupidly at the baby automatic hanging limply in his hand. A thready wisp of white smoke curled upward from the muzzle. He whispered hoarsely, “It… went off.”

“Right between the eyes,” Shayne grated. “That would be shooting, if you’d meant it.”

Carlton began to tremble violently. He rubbed the back of one hand across his eyes. “I guess I did mean it… sort of. When he started for that desk I remembered that he always kept a gun in the drawer. I… I didn’t know what to do.”

Shayne said, “I’ll never call one of those a plaything again.” He stepped over Frazier’s body to the desk, asking, “Which drawer?”

“His gun? In the top right-hand, I think.”

Shayne opened the top right-hand drawer and pawed around, then tried the other drawers, but came up with only a handful of Hammond Bond typewriter paper. “I don’t find any gun, but here’s some of the same paper those anonymous letters were written on.”

“But I know he always kept a pistol there,” Carlton persisted in a quavering voice. “Said it made him feel better working alone at night.”

“What caliber was it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know much about guns.” He looked at the. 25 in his hand and shuddered. “Some larger than this one.”

“A thirty-two is the next size larger,” Shayne told him. “Clem Wilson was killed with a thirty-two.” He went to the telephone and called Gentry’s office. Giving him the address of the printing plant, he added, “There’s a dead ex-con lying on the floor here. He matches those fingerprints I gave you today.”

He listened for a moment, then said impatiently, “I didn’t gun him. We’ll have to give Mr. Carlton credit for that. Have somebody case this joint carefully for evidence that ration books have been forged here. And how about that pick-up on my car?”

“Your car is located,” Gentry told him. “Empty gas tank. Near the Coral Gables entrance gates.” He specified the exact location.

“Things are speeding up,” Shayne warned him. “And I’m still going to need those men. I’ve got one more call to make before we pull the curtain down.” He hung up and said to Carlton:

“I’ve got things to do. Stay here until the police come and tell them just how it happened.” He strode out before the publisher could protest, hurried up the street to a taxi and got in, directing the driver to the location of his car.

A radio car was parked beside his deserted sedan when the taxi drew up. Shayne got out and paid the driver, approached a grinning policeman at the wheel of the police car.

“You’ll be calling on us to find your hat for you next, Mike,” the officer chuckled.

Shayne grinned agreement, “Or my badge. You got some of those emergency cans of gasoline in this hack?”

“Standard equipment since rationing,” he said.

“This is an emergency. Let’s have it.” Shayne unscrewed his tank top.

The officer got out and brought a full gallon can, poured the contents into Shayne’s tank, and reminded him, “I’ll have to take a receipt for that.”

Shayne scribbled his name on a blank pad the policeman held for him, thanked him, and got into his car. It took only a few minutes to reach the small stucco bungalow where he had left Mrs. Wilson some fifteen hours earlier. There were lights in the front windows.

Mrs. Wilson opened the door to Shayne’s knock. She was alone in the small, cheery living room, and explained, “Sarah’s lyin’ down in back. I told her she could just as well take it easy while I’m here to do for her.” Her tragic eyes searched Shayne’s face anxiously as she spoke.

He took off his hat and tangled his red hair, said, “That’s just as well. My news isn’t very good, Mrs. Wilson.”

She steadied herself with one blue-veined hand on the back of a chair. “You… ain’t found the man that shot Clem?”

Shayne didn’t look at her. “I know who he is.” He paused, then added gently, “I’m sorry.”