Brett Halliday - Guilty as Hell

“I need a phone,” Shayne growled.

“Uh-uh,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re supposed to take it easy till noon.”

“What time is it now?”

“Twenty to,” she admitted.

He snorted, beginning to feel better.

“All right,” she said reluctantly. “I’ll bring you a phone and you can make one call. Then I have to take your temperature and give you a bath and bring you breakfast.”

Shayne grinned at her. He had hopes of being back in action before anybody washed him by hand. She left. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, but before he could dismount, the room whirled and he pitched forward against Sparrow’s bed.

“Play it cool, Mike,” Teddy told him. “I’d get up and help if I didn’t have troubles of my own.”

With the help of the hook attached to his cast, Shayne clawed his way back to his own bed and fell in as the nurse returned with a phone.

“The switchboard has a call for you,” she said. “What’s the matter?”

“A little dizzy.”

She helped him into position against the pillows. He made a whirling signal with his good hand and she cranked up the head of the bed. As it rose, the objects around him swam back into focus. She plugged in the phone and handed it to him.

“Shayne,” he said.

“Oh,” a girl’s voice said hesitantly. She sounded young and scared. “Gee, Mr. Shayne, I hope you didn’t get banged up too bad.”

“Who’s this?”

“Nobody. I mean I don’t want to tell you my name. This is strictly my own idea. But what do I care? And don’t try to keep me talking so you can trace the call.”

“You can’t trace dial calls,” Shayne said. “Say what you have to say and get the hell off the line.”

“Well, if I don’t watch my step, what happened to you last night will happen to me, only a heck of a lot worse. One of those three fellows, and I’m not going to tell you which, happens to be a good friend of mine. He just did what somebody else said, so why should he go to jail for it and the other persons be walking around as free as the breeze?”

“Yeah,” Shayne said. “There’s no justice. I already know who hired them. That wasn’t meant to be a secret.”

“And maybe you don’t know as much as you think you do, too. This isn’t just last night. I believe in keeping my ears open. People make phone calls after they think other people have gone to sleep. Does the date April twenty-third mean anything to you?”

“No. What happened on April twenty-third?”

“Nothing much. Not a great deal, really. A certain individual got fifty thousand clams from somebody named Bagley or Babcock or something, that’s all. Are you digging me, Daddy?”

Shayne pushed himself up in the bed. “Go on.”

“I thought you’d be interested. I don’t know can I trust you, is the trouble. If I give you some information, will you promise you won’t bring charges against those three guys last night?”

“Sure, you can have all three. I’ll gift-wrap them for you.”

“And your friend,” she said suspiciously, “the fat one, will he make the same deal? Huh?”

“He’s right here. I’ll ask him.” Shayne looked across at Teddy. Without covering the mouthpiece he said, “A girl wants to know what you’re planning to do about the assault last night, anything?”

“Forget it,” Sparrow said promptly, taking the cigar out of his mouth. “I’m supposed to be able to take care of myself. What kind of image do I come out with if I go bawling to the cops? If anybody asks me, it was too dark to see who was doing what.”

“Did you hear that?” Shayne said into the phone. “Do you want me to put him on?”

“I guess not,” she said doubtfully. “How do I know you won’t say one thing now and do something different later?”

“Let me think about it,” Shayne said. “Do you want to come here?”

“To the hospital? Are you crazy or something? These people don’t kid, or didn’t you realize that yet? Tonight. After dark. I wouldn’t set foot anywhere near that hospital. If you’re still in, we’ll have to make it tomorrow.”

“You name the place and time. Before we go any farther, you’d better understand that all I can control is the assault rap. They were driving a stolen car. If you want to make an arrangement on that, you have to make it with the D. A.”

She gave a faint moan. “I wouldn’t know how to begin. I thought you could-”

“I can put in a recommendation. They don’t always do what I tell them.”

“Damn it! I didn’t think they’d pay attention to a little thing like a car when they can get somebody for murder.”

“As far as I know,” Shayne said with no change of expression, “nobody’s been murdered.”

“That shows what an expert you are. That’s my last word on the subject.”

Shayne scraped a thumbnail across the reddish stubble on his jaw. “How would this be? I’ll make a statement for the six-o’clock news, strong enough so I can’t pull it back tomorrow without looking dumb. Six o’clock-WTVJ. The boys there owe me a favor. If it doesn’t sound good enough, don’t show up. Where do you want me to meet you and when?”

She swallowed. “I wish I knew how to do this!” After another long hesitation, she poured it out in a quick rush. “Eight o’clock. In Buena Vista. Four ninety-seven Bayview Drive. Apartment nine C.”

“Wait a minute.”

Shayne snapped his fingers at Sparrow, and the other detective tossed him a ballpoint pen. Shayne had the girl repeat the address, and he wrote it on his cast.

“At eight,” she said. “Now listen. Ring the bell just once, longer than you would usually. But not too long! If I don’t happen to be alone, I don’t want the other person to think it’s funny. Eight on the button, so I’ll know it’s you. When I buzz for the door, I’ll give one long buzz if it’s O.K. One buzz, come up. Three or four short buzzes, don’t. Get sort of lost. I’ll come out as soon as I can. I’ll stand on the front doorstep and fix my stockings so you’ll know it’s me. God, I’m scared.”

She clattered the phone back on the hook. At the other end of the broken connection, Shayne scraped his jaw thoughtfully with the phone before putting it down.

“That’s one difference between me and you,” Sparrow observed. “When I’m on a case, I can sit looking at the phone for days and days, and nobody calls me.”

“Something phony about this,” Shayne said, the thoughtful look still on his face. “I think somebody’s trying to sandbag me. I don’t like that to happen two days in a row.”

Shayne wasted the afternoon on the phone.

In Georgia, he learned from Jose Despard, the coroner, who also delivered the rural mail, had certified the death of Walter Langhorne as one of those unfortunate accidents that are more or less bound to happen if people insist on going shooting with a flask of Scotch after only two hours sleep. Despard sounded tired and hungover.

“It was a rough day, Shayne. After the sheriff left, Hal-lam really hit the booze. He’s always been hard as nails, but one thing he never used to be is mean. He never was that sure of himself. I want to tell you his days are numbered. If he gets past the next board meeting, I’ll have to say he’s a wizard.”

“He isn’t answering his phone.”

“He flew to Washington. Taking the company plane, naturally. The rest of us had to wait for a commercial flight back. It’s a wild-goose chase, as I tried to tell him. He wants to talk to the Patent Office tomorrow about an infringement action. We don’t have a leg to stand on, but he won’t believe what the lawyers tell him because he thinks lawyers are one cut lower than garbage collectors. Prior use is the big thing. When we finally, at long, long last, get T-239 in the stores, we’ll be lucky if United States doesn’t sue us.”