Brett Halliday - Dolls Are Deadly

“Let’s have it.”

“It’s interesting, and disturbing. When Painter checked on the three men he discovered they had all been under observation by his office. They’re criminals of record, and they’ve all served time, but they checked in at the police station like good boys when they arrived, the way the rules say. They’re here on a vacation, that’s all-”

“According to Painter!” Shayne put in angrily.

“I know. But this is what I thought so curious. They arrived in Miami at about the same time and from different parts of the U. S. Yet they’ve been inseparable since.”

“What criminal records do they have?”

“They’re all ‘syndicate’ men, but there’s nothing to show that they ever worked with each other before, or even knew each other.”

“What are they working at here?”

“Apparently nothing. Painter had them watched for a few days, thinking they had a job lined up. But they just go fishing, that’s all. Painter thinks they’re setting up a time-and-place alibi here for something that’s happened or is going to happen somewhere else.”

“Sylvester wasn’t somewhere else,” Shayne said bleakly. “Neither was Henny Henlein. And Clarissa and Dan Milford aren’t either.”

“You think it’s all connected?”

“I’m not sure. It seems to be.”

“He was such a good little man,” Lucy said, as if Shayne had spoken only of Sylvester. Indignation at the violence that had been done to his friend had never been buried far beneath Shayne’s words.

“I’ve got to go now, angel. I’ll keep in touch.”

The redhead hung up, fished for another coin and dialed Peter Painter.

“I’ve just talked to Lucy,” he said when the Detective Chief answered. “She told me what you reported about Sylvester and our three prime suspects.”

“What else do you want to know?”

“Have any of the three contacted De Luca since they’ve been here, or hobnobbed with any of his hoods?”

“No, not to our knowledge-and I think we’d know. They’ve kept their noses clean in this town. Fishing, just fishing.”

“Has your office dossiers on them? What about their back-home specialties?”

“Just a minute. I’ve got it here.” Shayne heard the rustle of papers. “The one signed on the hotel register as Collins from Philadelphia-he’s from Philly all right-is known there as Tony ‘Slim’ Rizzo. Stolen-car racket. Served three stretches when he was younger, but now has connections. Used to be good at working on engines. He’d do the work himself, remodel and resell-”

“That’s enough. What about Vince Becker?”

“In Arizona he’s Joe Arminetti. He’s got a boatyard on Cougar Butte Lake. A front for a race-wire room. Also in slot machines and numbers.”

“Can he handle a boat?”

“That’s his sport. Yes.”

“Ed Woodbine?”

“Slug Murphy in Detroit. Ed ‘Slug’ Murphy, labor slugger and union organizer. You know what kind of unions.”

“Any of them ever known to do any fishing before?”

“Not as far’s I know.”

“What about Ed’s wife?”

“She is. He’s married to her, that is. Edna Appinger, an old-time con woman.”

“Lucy says you didn’t hold any of them.”

“What am I going to hold them on? There’s no police pick-up on them from anywhere. And, like I say, they’ve kept their noses clean here.”

“Except for that little item of murder.”

“The fact that they had been chartering Sylvester’s boat”-Painter’s voice rose-“was enough to bring them in for questioning. It certainly isn’t enough to book them for murder. We’ve gone over their persons, their cabanas and the boat. They’re all clean.”

“The wharf wasn’t clean,” Shayne said grimly, “where Slim Collins gutted the fish.”

“He explained about that. The blood was on the wharf when he came down to get the fish. He didn’t want to make any more mess than necessary, so he cleaned his fish where the other blood was-fish blood, he assumed.”

“And you bought that?” Shayne asked icily.

“In the absence of motive or any other incriminating evidence, yes,” Painter flared. “We bought it.”

“How much blood do you think a fish makes?”

“I didn’t see it.”

“I did.”

“Then round up some other evidence to go with it, and maybe you can make something out of it.”

“I’ve been under the vague impression that was police work.”

“We’ve made our investigation. We’re satisfied.”

“Did any of your men,” Shayne asked acidly, “notice that a new engine had been put in Sylvester’s boat? And, if they did, did they ask themselves why? Or where a poor Cuban got the money? Or if he didn’t get the engine himself, who got it for him? And dirtied it up to look like an old one?”

“Look, Shayne, if you knew all these things why didn’t you tell me this morning?”

“I had trouble getting you to listen to what I did tell you. Your three hoodlum vacationers put that engine in Sylvester’s boat. Sylvester thought it was because they liked him.”

“Maybe it was. You’ve been shamusing for so long you’ve forgotten that the milk of human kindness does run in the veins of some people.” Painter laughed dryly.

“Is that why you have a tail on me? To protect me-out of kindness?”

“I haven’t, you egotist. You asked me that before. What do I care where you go? Just keep out of the way of police department investigations.”

“I’ll do better than that. You can sit back in your swivel chair and wait while I do your job for you.”

Shayne hung up, his gaunt face bleak and deeply trenched.

Three men, engaged in different and unconnected criminal operations, had come to Miami at the same time from three different parts of the country, had chummed up and pretended to go fishing and had murdered Sylvester. One of the men, conveniently, was an expert mechanic and he had put a new engine in Sylvester’s boat; another was adept at handling a boat. Shayne had seen him bring the Santa Clara to berth with nearly as sure a touch as Sylvester’s. The third, genial Ed Woodbine, seemed to have served no function as yet.

Things seemed to funnel from diverse directions to one point-Madame Swoboda. Ed Woodbine had attended a seance; Clarissa Milford and Henlein had both received voodoo dolls.

Shayne stepped on the starter abruptly and turned south toward the Miami River and the last decaying house on a moldering street.

The gray Buick held a wary distance behind him, passing as he parked in front of Swoboda’s. It didn’t come back. Shayne stepped out of his car to the deserted street and strode toward the rotting yellow house.

By daylight it looked even more precariously placed than it had the night before. The stilts which supported it on the river side were sagging and covered with slimy moss. One piling had split and, in a makeshift effort to keep the house still standing, someone had bound it with rope. The rope stretched and creaked as the water lapped at the piling.

This was the only occupied house on the block. The others, in only slightly more disrepair, stood empty, condemned, their windows gaping and broken, eyeless, in a sort of mute envy of the flicker of life which still existed around them.

The redhead strode back, took a. 38 from the glove compartment of the car and dropped it into his side pocket, then again crossed the sinking flagstones with an animal litheness at variance with his bony height. Though the sign beside the heavy pine door still read Walk in, he pushed the button.

Nothing happened. He flattened his thumb on the bell button and held it there. Finally the door was opened by Madame Swoboda. Her ebony hair lay smooth and shining in a long pageboy bob and her skin was ivory white against it. The gray, black-lashed eyes looked even more beautiful in the light of day than they had last night.