Brett Halliday - Heads You Lose

Edna looked at him searchingly for a time, then asked, “Would you like a drink?”

“Not now. I want to relax and forget there are such things as murder and racketeering in the world.”

She moved to the couch and sat down at one end of it, folded her arms, and leaned forward to gaze pensively at the white fluff of ashes on the hearth left by the burnt driftwood.

“Things could be so different, Michael… if you’d just let them be.” Her voice was troubled.

“I’m in a mood to let them be right now.” He went over and lowered his body to the couch a couple of feet from her, then carefully and painfully arranged his torso on the couch, draping his knees over one end and letting his head down on her lap. He closed his eyes and lay still.

He felt her thigh muscles tighten under his head. Then she relaxed and her lap was soft and warm.

When she spoke after a time her voice was troubled again. “Why do you drive yourself so, Michael? One would think you expect every hour to be your last.”

He mumbled, “I never know.”

“But you can’t go on that way forever. Always in the present… just for the moment.” One of her fingers lightly traced the line of a deep groove in his cheek downward to the point of his chin.

“I don’t expect to go on forever.” His voice was relaxed. “As long as I can have moments like this…”

“You don’t trust me, do you?”

“I don’t trust any clever woman.”

“That isn’t fair, Michael.” Her voice throbbed with sincerity. “Don’t you see what we could be to each other? What we could accomplish working together?”

He opened his eyes and looked up into her face, said gravely, “There you go away from the present.”

She tried to smile, but her eyes were tortured in the dim light streaming from the bedroom. “I suppose I want too much.”

Shayne closed his eyes again. He said, “All women want too much.”

Her muscles tightened beneath his head again. He felt her slowly leaning downward, was conscious of the flat, hard warmth of her stomach pressing his cheek. Her fingers tangled his hair, tightened suddenly, and a tremor shook her. Her voice was low and clear when she said, “I love you, Michael. Do you hear me! I love you. What are we going to do?”

Shayne said, “This,” without moving his lips.

“Can’t we go away together?” A hot tear splashed down on his face, “Now… tonight!”

Shayne heard an automobile coming into the driveway. He pulled himself up and away from her, eased his feet off the end of the sofa to the floor. He said, “You’d better turn on a light. We’re going to have company.”

“Company?” She shrank back from him.

“I invited a few people to meet me here.” He turned away without looking at her, stepped around the couch and switched on the two ship’s lanterns swinging from the overhead beam.

She remained where she was while he went to the front door and opened it. Chief Gentry and three detectives were getting out of a police sedan with Mr. Brannigan and Dennis Kline.

Shayne called, “Come on in.”

Brannigan entered first, pale and fuming. “It’s you, Shayne. Is this your idea of a practical joke?”

Shayne grinned and shook his head. He said, “Hello, Kline,” as the other man stepped in behind Brannigan.

Kline appeared, as he had that morning, wholly unperturbed. He said, “My pal,” and clasped his hands behind his back as he wandered in and looked about the unusual room with interest.

Gentry said to his men, “You boys spread out around the house. No one leaves till I say so.” He nodded to Shayne and stepped in heavily. “Couple of other boys are fetching Carlton.”

Shayne said, “We won’t need him at the moment.” He started to close the door when a coupe rattled into the drive and parked behind the police car.

Timothy Rourke fell out of the door and ran up the walk. “A hell of a guy you are,” Rourke complained. “If Gentry hadn’t tipped me off…”

“I was just going to phone you.” Shayne grinned. He closed the door and turned to survey the gathered crowd.

Brannigan had gone directly to the couch, and his vice-president had risen and was talking with him in a low tone. They both looked at Shayne.

Brannigan squared his shoulders and said querulously, “I presume this meeting is the result of your decision to accept my offer of the morning, Mr. Shayne.”

“What offer?”

“To accept a position as special investigator for the Association… on the new membership basis you mentioned.”

Shayne said shortly, “You don’t need an investigator.”

“But I assure you…”

Shayne shook his red head. “The last thing in the world your association can stand is investigation.” He turned to Gentry and explained, “The Motorist Protective Association is nothing but a racket. I don’t know all the details, but you can sweat them out of Brannigan.”

“That’s a libelous statement,” Edna Taylor said crisply. “You’ll be held accountable for it.”

Shayne said, “I’ll do better than that. I’ll prove it.” He addressed Gentry again. “They work through selected filling stations, though whether they actually furnish the bootleg stuff or not I don’t know. It’s a beautiful set-up. They get members by posing as a benevolent organization offering legal advice on rationing problems too complex for the average citizen to comprehend. They have men who contact these members, talk things over with them, and find the ones who are eager to chisel a little. These people are given a list of filling stations handling Black Market stuff. Their membership card assures the bootlegger they have been investigated and can be trusted not to talk.”

Gentry nodded. “Sounds all right the way you tell it.”

“It’s a pack of nonsense,” Edna Taylor said heatedly. “You haven’t a particle of evidence.”

“I’ve got plenty.” He went on to Gentry: “They have other field men who go around sounding out service-station operators. Edward Seeney was one of those men.”

“So that’s why Miss Taylor shot Eddie Seeney,” Gentry growled.

“That’s right.” Shayne didn’t look at Edna. “Remember that list of names Eddie was carrying? I haven’t checked them all, but all whom I’ve contacted run service stations. Remember, Gentry? Two names on that list were crossed out. Others were checked.”

Gentry nodded. “Clem Wilson was one of the men crossed off.”

“And you know how Clem stood on bootlegging gas. Clem’s dead now. The other name was Felix Ponti. I talked to Ponti and found him the same type as Clem Wilson. On the other hand, the names that were checked were all sympathetic, but none of them would let me have gas without a coupon.”

“You’re contradicting yourself,” Miss Taylor said quickly, “If those checkmarks meant anything…”

Shayne stopped her with a short laugh. “Let me finish. They wouldn’t sell me any illicit stuff until I flashed a Motorist Protective Association membership card. That made the difference and they weren’t afraid of me.”

He glanced at Edna and met a venomous glare from her hazel eyes. He said, “Don’t blame yourself for giving me that card. After all, you could hardly refuse without arousing more suspicion. I had already guessed the angle and it simply made proving it easier.”

“How about Seeney?” Gentry put in impatiently. “Did he kill Clem Wilson?”

“I’m coming to that. When Brannigan read about Wilson’s murder last night he was scared. He didn’t know whether one of his men had found it necessary to kill Wilson or not. If not, it meant there was another gas racket operating in town in competition with him. In either case he was damned anxious to know who’d killed Wilson… and how much I knew.