Brett Halliday - Guilty as Hell

“That brings us back to the twenty-third of April.”

“I’m telling you! Miss Morse pulled a date out of the hat, to make it sound better. Be human, can’t you, Shayne? With that hook in my leg, don’t you think I’d tell you if I remembered? There’s a main artery in there somewhere.”

Shayne opened the door to turn on the light again. Jake was sweating in the chilly air. His mouth twitched as Shayne looked at the spot where the hook went into his leg.

“I think I missed it by about a quarter of an inch,” Shayne said. “Don’t make me nervous. My hands shake when people lie to me.”

Jake clapped both hands on top of Shayne’s cast to hold it steady. “I’m not lying! I’m down at the bottom of this operation. ‘Why’ is a question I never ask. All I ask is ‘How?’ and ‘How much does the job pay?’ If I started asking ‘Why,’ they’d get themselves somebody with a smaller mouth. Take for example, did Hal Begley or Miss Morse tell me why they wanted you jammed up with Deedee? Like hell they told me.”

“I see we’ll have to sit here a while longer,” Shayne said. “I’m going to light another cigarette. Try not to move.”

He shook a cigarette out of the package and lit it with the dashboard lighter. The hook changed position slightly and grated against bone. Jake whimpered.

“Don’t tell them I told you,” he said hopelessly. “Those Begleys, I don’t like to be in the same town with them and be on bad terms. But I’m flesh and blood. They got me the job at the club, like the middle of April.”

“What club?”

“North Miami Country, tending bar. And they give me a list of names. They want me behind the stick so I can make book on certain members. In that location I know who’s in the club, when they come in, when they go out.”

“Was Despard on the list?”

“Sure. The whole bunch from that company. Langhorne-he’s on the board of governors. Hallam, Jr. The whole outfit. Jackson, Hill, Ringley. Christ, I don’t know-eight, nine. I still got the list at home. When one of those certain characters came in, I was supposed to mark it down. When he went out, mark it down.”

“For how long?”

“A week, ten days.”

“All you did was clock eight or nine people in and out?” Shayne said thoughtfully.

“That’s all,” Jake said without hesitation.

The promptness of the reply told Shayne there was more to come. He continued to smoke. Jake glanced at him quickly, and glanced away. He stood it for one more moment, then burst out, “I had to check a certain locker!”

“Yeah,” Shayne said. “Whose?”

“An empty locker, it wasn’t rented to anybody. Miss Morse gave me the number and combination. When nobody was using the locker room, I ducked in and looked to see if a package was in that locker, and wrote down the time.”

“That’s fine,” Shayne said with no change of expression. “And one day there was a package.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you take it out or leave it?”

“I left it. They wouldn’t trust me with anything high level-I told you. I notified her.”

“Is Begley a member of the club?”

“He has a card. The next day, same thing. I kept checking the locker. No package. A while later, package. A while after that, no package again. I wrote it down.”

“Now get set for the big question,” Shayne said.

“Don’t ask me,” Jake said earnestly. “I don’t know the answer! But I know what you’re trying to establish-I didn’t just get in from the boondocks, after all. I know they’re in the spy business, and somebody from Despard’s put a package in the locker. Begley picked it up. Begley put a package of money in and somebody picked that up. But I don’t know who! They were coming and going all the time, both days. Oh, I ruled out a couple. Hill and Jackson I crossed off in my own mind, they weren’t in the club either day. I could make up a name for you and get off the hook, but what good would it do? Off the hook,” he said sardonically, “funny joke, Fitch. When you found out I was faking, you’d come looking for me, and to face facts, I think you’d probably find me.”

“Why did you stay at the club afterward?”

“It’s a job. She didn’t want me to quit right away, so it wouldn’t look suspicious. That’s the whole bit, Shayne. Now the next thing we want to do is get this leg to a doctor’s, don’t we?”

He made a small sound, and Shayne turned to follow his look, letting the overhead light blink off.

Two men approached. Shayne recognized one of them. It was the vice-squad detective named Vince Camilli. He was tieless, but he wore a jacket over his gun, which he used far too often. He had a handsome dark face, a loose mouth. He was the department’s top scorer in both homosexual and prostitution arrests, and Shayne was sure that the total included many entrapment cases using fabricated evidence, as well as shakedowns that had failed to pay off.

Camilli spoke to his partner, a weedy young man in a sports shirt, who was trying to raise a mustache. Shayne pulled the end of the sling down over the buried hook.

The younger cop held back while Camilli came up to the driver’s side of the DeSoto and made a cranking gesture. Jake rolled down the window.

“Something wrong, Camilli?” he said nervously.

The detective reached in with his left hand, on which he wore a rough signet ring, and ground the ring against Jake’s face.

“Next time check it out first, will you? We looked like a couple of bums in there.”

“You had the right apartment, nine C?”

“We had the right apartment. What do you think this is, Fitch, amateur night?”

“I just got this tip, that’s all. I passed it on the way I heard it.”

“The apartment’s rented to the vice-president of a manufacturing firm. His credentials are perfectly O.K.”

Jake had his hand on the door. Without haste, Camilli pulled out his police special and slammed it down on the other’s fingers. Jake snatched his hand back inside the car with a cry.

“A couple of people have won suits for false arrest lately,” Camilli went on, “and this town is full of lawyers.”

He pulled the door open enough to trip the dome switch, and looked in. “Mike Shayne,” he said, surprised. “Well, well, Mr. Bill of Rights in person, the guy who thinks queers and floozies are covered by the United States Constitution.”

“Back to work, Camilli,” Shayne said. “There are hustlers out all over town and here you are taking things easy.”

Camilli scowled. “This begins to make sense. You think I can’t smell a frame when I stick my nose in it? Let me tell you something. I’m making a mental note, Shayne. The next time you want somebody taken care of, let me handle it for you. But bring me in on the planning, will you? Don’t spring it on me, just to get out of it cheap.”

“You’re through here, aren’t you, Camilli?”

“For the time being. I said to myself when I watched that performance of yours on TV tonight, I said to myself, what do you know? Shayne has been reached. Not that I expect you to tell me the ins and outs, because I’m only a poor, lowly copper.”

He straightened, then stooped again to give Shayne a hard look. Shayne returned it. Camilli picked up his partner and they walked off together.

“Now?” Jake said anxiously.

“Let’s have your wallet.”

Jake’s mouth twitched a protest, but he produced his wallet after a reminder from the buried hook. Shayne flipped it open and thumbed the bills out on his lap.

“Leave me twenty,” Jake begged. “I’ll need it to pay the doctor.”

Shayne flicked two tens back at him and fanned the rest. “Call it three-fifty even,” he said. “I’ll give you a receipt. It’s probably not enough to keep you in town, but it may help.”