Brett Halliday - Heads You Lose

Unlatching a rear door leading out onto a fire escape, he went out and down one flight to the kitchen door of his office-apartment. He unlocked the door with a key from his ring, went through the kitchen to the living room and lifted the receiver of the wall telephone. When Tommy answered, Shayne said:

“That was a false alarm, Tommy. Those boys are a couple of cops sent here to prevent something I don’t want prevented. They think I’m still in the apartment opposite them, but I sneaked down here. Now listen carefully, Tommy. I’m going to stay here, and I don’t want those bird dogs to be pointing at this door. But if anyone else comes, shoot them up here. But call me first, see? If you go off duty before anything breaks, tell the day clerk what the deal is.”

“Sure, Mr. Shayne,” Tommy breathed into the phone. “You don’t want the cops to know about the other apartment?”

“No. Let them amuse themselves up there. That’ll keep them busy and out of the way.”

Tommy chuckled. “And I’ll call you if anything happens.”

Shayne hung up and put his revolver on the center table. He looked at his watch. The time was a quarter to three. The ice cubes were melted in the water glass. After replenishing the ice cubes and pouring another drink, he settled himself in a chair and lit a cigarette, moving the gun so that the butt was in a position to be grabbed without fumbling. He stretched his legs out and relaxed, his head lolling comfortably against the cushion, lighting one cigarette from the glowing butt of another and sipping, alternately, cognac and ice water.

The procedure kept him awake. He did a lot of thinking without reaching any definite conclusions. There wasn’t much to go on. The facts and the theory of Clem Wilson’s death pointed to some kind of gasoline racket. Approached with any sort of proposition, Clem wouldn’t have left any doubt about his position.

It was a cinch his murderers weren’t professional killers. Men who lived by killing didn’t employ a. 32 for their work. There wasn’t anything else to put your finger on. They must have suspected Clem was reporting them, and they had no way of knowing how much he had told over the phone before a bullet silenced him.

That was his only trump card.

Blurred, grayish light pressed against the living-room windows. Shayne’s half-closed eyes stared as objects in the room swam into cloudy view out of the darkness. There was the desk near the door, the filing case for which he had no use. Sleepily he recalled that a man had died on the floor just inside the threshold, and at his left was the studio couch on which he had slept that first night while he hid Phyllis from arrest in his bedroom.

That was a long time ago.

The strident ringing of the telephone brought him to his feet. He reached it in two long strides.

Tommy said, “There’s a messenger boy on his way up, Mr. Shayne. He acted funny. Said he had a letter to deliver to you personally and wouldn’t leave it at the desk. I gave Joe the wink to stall him in the elevator while I called you.”

Shayne said, “Good work, Tommy,” and hung up.

He took his gun and went to the door, unlatched it, and left it open a crack. The elevator doors clanged in the hall as he pressed back against the wall beside the door. He held the cocked gun in his right hand.

Footsteps approached his door and stopped. There was a light, hesitant knock.

Shayne said, “Come in.”

Nothing happened for a moment. The immediate response appeared to have startled the messenger. Then the door was cautiously pushed open and a peaked face peered in.

Shayne gave a snort of disgust and lowered his gun. The boy was about nineteen, thin and ill clad, with a limp cap pulled low on his pimpled forehead. His teeth chattered when he saw Shayne’s grim visage and the gun in his hand. He gave a violent start and almost dropped a white envelope clutched in one grimy hand.

Pocketing the gun, Shayne said, “Come on in,” and closed the door.

“Gee, Mister,” the lad whined, “what was you pointin’ that gun at me for? I ain’t done nothin’.”

“I was expecting someone else,” Shayne explained, and held out his hand for the letter. “That for me?”

“Is your name Shayne?” The boy looked around the room with bulging eyes and ejaculated, “Gee, looks like you been settin’ up all night.”

Shayne took the envelope from his lax fingers. “Where’d you get this?”

“Feller give it to me on the street while ago. Give me a buck to deliver it an’ get a answer.” The boy strode insolently past Shayne to the table and clutched a cigarette which extended from the opened pack. He struck a match to it and wandered to the windows to peer out while Shayne tore the envelope open.

“Gee, you got a good view here,” the boy said, his back toward Shayne.

Shayne was turning a blank sheet of paper over and over in his big hands. He scowled and looked inside the envelope again, but there was nothing more inside. He turned on the light and held the blank sheet up to it to make certain he wasn’t missing any trick writing.

The paper was completely blank.

Shayne asked angrily, “What’s the gag?”

The boy whirled around with a bewildered expression on his face. “What kinda gag? I was s’posed to get a answer.”

“Do you know what was in the envelope?”

“Nope. I sure don’t. It was all sealed up.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“Down on Flagler.” He gestured vaguely out the window and as he did so, a spasm of coughing shook his thin body. “I slep’ in the park an’ was wonderin’ could I find a joint open where I could get a cup of Java when this guy walks up to me an’ ast me did I wanta make a buck. Did I wanna make a buck!” An attempt to laugh choked him again, and he finally sputtered, “He gimme that an’ tol’ me to deliver it to you personal and get a answer.”

“What did he look like?”

“I dunno. Sorta medium, dressed good, but I didn’t see his face so good,” he ended defensively.

“Where are you supposed to meet him to give my answer?”

“Same place… right there on Flagler.”

Shayne said, “I don’t get it.”

“Me neither, Mister. Gee, I dunno. Is anything wrong?”

“Maybe I’m nuts,” Shayne told the boy, scowling heavily. “Go on back and tell him that’s my answer.”

The youth’s jaw sagged. “Did you say you’re nuts, Mister? You want I should tell him that’s what…”

“It’s as good as any. Go on. Tell him that.”

The ragged boy edged toward the door, watching Shayne with round, frightened eyes, darted out and ran down the hall.

Shayne waited until he heard the elevator stop and start again. He then raced down the hall to a stairway and down to a side entrance. He stepped out on the sidewalk and checked his speed, sauntering toward the corner around which was the main entrance to the apartment building.

He heard the roar of a motor as he neared the corner. A sedan shot past in low gear, careened north on Third Avenue. The license plate was splashed with mud and was indecipherable.

Shayne ran around the corner and into the lobby. Tommy blinked and looked at him with excited eyes.

“Gee, Mr. Shayne,” he said breathlessly, “something awful funny just happened. That kid that went up to your room… he came down, and when he went out a guy grabbed him and threw him in the back of a car that was parked in front of the door. It dashed away like a bat out of Bimini.”

“Yeh. I saw it,” Shayne said absently. His eyes were on the lobby clock and the time was five forty-five. “Keep on keeping your eyes open, Tommy,” he grinned, and went to the elevator.

In his apartment he hesitated about taking another drink and decided against it. He studied the envelope and blank sheet of paper, but they told him no more than they had before. He yawned and rubbed his hand over a sprouting stubble of red whiskers.