Brett Halliday - Guilty as Hell

At 6:30 that evening, the phone clanged in Michael Shayne’s Buick. Shayne and his friend Tim Rourke, a reporter on the Miami News, were parked in front of a fire plug on Biscayne Boulevard, talking quietly. Rourke had a big square Speed Graphic camera on his lap. He was slumped deep in his seat with his bony knees up against the dashboard. Extremely thin, unshaven, his clothes wrinkled and spotted, he gave no indication that he was actually extremely hardworking and very difficult to fool. He had won one Pulitzer Prize for local reporting and had been cited three other years, usually in connection with stories he had worked on with Shayne.

Shayne picked up the phone.

“Teddy Sparrow,” a voice said. “The Morse dame. She’s having dinner at Larue’s with a date.”

“Who’s the man?” Shayne asked.

“I never saw him before, Mike. He hasn’t got much of a tan. Good clothes-I think he’d be tanned if he lived here year-round. He’s driving a Hertz Chevy. I peeked at the card on the steering column.”

“Good, Teddy. Wait there. I’ll be with you in five minutes.”

He hung up and started the motor. Rourke dropped his cigarette to the floor and ground it out.

“How hammy do you want this to be, Mike? I take it the girl isn’t too stupid.”

“She’s probably smarter than both of us put together. We’re not trying to fool her. This is pressure.”

“The funny thing is,” the reporter said thoughtfully, “it would actually make a very nice series. These headhunters haven’t had much publicity yet. There’s a couple of others in town besides Begley. Miami’s logical place. A guy can come down and a personnel man can meet him. It’s really a job interview, but the theory is that everybody’s just on vacation.”

Shayne drove south on the Boulevard, turning left after a dozen blocks to a long ramp which took him onto the MacArthur Causeway. Halfway across the bay, he dropped onto Poinsettia Island and parked near a small French restaurant that had recently opened there, with a long private dock for customers who came by boat from the Miami Beach marinas.

Teddy Sparrow shambled up as Shayne got out. He was a mountainous, hopelessly inept private detective who seldom handled anything except open-and-shut divorces or tracer jobs for collection agencies.

“They got their table, Mike. They had one martini at the bar, one at the table. How do we handle this?”

“I handle it, Teddy,” Shayne said. “She’ll probably come out alone. See where she goes. She may have spotted you by now, but that’s not too important. Just don’t lose her.”

“I don’t get flimflammed too often,” the other detective said confidently. “Then I call you on the car phone, right?”

“Right.”

“I wish I had one of those phones in my car,” Sparrow said wistfully. “Throw me some more business, Mike, and damn if I won’t put my name on the waiting list.”

Shayne and Rourke entered the restaurant. “What’s the name of the maitre?” Shayne said. “George, isn’t it?”

“Hell, no!” Rourke said, shocked. “Albert. Imagine forgetting anything that important. You could end up at a table next to the kitchen.”

A dark man in a tuxedo came out of the crowd that was overflowing from a small bar.

“Mr. Shayne!” he exclaimed, glad to have the well-known detective to dress up his room. “A table. Certainly.” He looked at Rourke with less enthusiasm. “For two?”

“Not right now-Albert,” Shayne said. “You know Tim Rourke, don’t you? Of the News.”

“Of course,” Albert said with more warmth.

“We won’t give you any trouble,” Shayne said. “We want to get a picture. If the paper uses it, Larue’s will be mentioned.”

“Whatever you wish, Mr. Shayne. And if you could mention the location? Poinsettia Island.”

Shayne explained what they wanted while Rourke shut himself in a public phone booth and dialed Larue’s number. The phone rang in an alcove between the bar and the main dining room. After answering, Albert-dispatched a waiter to tell Candida Morse that she had a phone call from Pride’s Landing, Georgia.

Shayne, meanwhile, worked his way through the crowd in the bar. He came out at the far end as Candida Morse crossed the room and picked up the phone.

She had been given one of the desirable tables on the glassed-in terrace, with a view of the lights of downtown Miami. The man she was with had close-cut hair and black-rimmed glasses. He seemed pleased with himself. There was a tiny American Legion pin in his buttonhole. He was somewhat overweight, but expensive clothes took care of the problem. He was thinking pleasant thoughts as he fingered his martini, which had been served on the rocks in an old-fashioned glass.

His eyes met Shayne’s as the detective passed his table.

Their eyes held for an instant. Shayne gave him a half-nod of recognition, then turned back after a step and studied his face.

“Your name wouldn’t be Stanley Woodward, by any chance?”

The other man smiled. “Case of mistaken identity. Sorry.”

“From New York,” Shayne said. “Stanley J. Woodward. Cashier, Guaranty Trust Co. Butch haircut, horn-rims, always has an American Legion insignia in his buttonhole.”

The man glanced down humorously at his own buttonhole. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, I assure you.”

“For your sake I hope so,” Shayne grated, “because the man I’m thinking of beat his bank out of forty-odd thousand in cash.” He flipped open his leather folder to give the man a fast glimpse of his private detective’s license. “Your identification, please.”

“Look here-” the man started to protest, but broke off and took out his wallet. “Driver’s registration. Diner’s Club. Social Security card. Take your pick.”

Shayne looked at the data on the Missouri driver’s registration. The man’s name was Clark Ahlman. He lived in St. Louis, where he worked for a large lead company.

“I may have made a mistake, Mr. Ahlman,” he said more politely. “That’s the trouble with these condensed descriptions-they fit too many people. That American Legion button did it.”

“No harm done,” Ahlman said. “I’m sorry to hear a fellow Legionnaire’s an embezzler.”

“It’s Michael Shayne,” Candida’s voice said coolly at Shayne’s elbow. “The line was dead, which seemed odd. Now I understand it. You two know each other?”

“We just met this minute,” Shayne said cheerfully, returning Ahlman’s wallet.

He stepped aside. Tim Rourke, who had followed Candida back through the dining room, crouched with the big Speed Graphic to his eye and shot a picture of Ahlman pulling out her chair so the girl could sit down. She was wearing a low-cut black dinner dress. The exploding flashbulb caught her with an expression Shayne had never seen her without: cool, withdrawn, faintly amused. It went with her careful makeup and well-groomed hair.

Ahlman said threateningly, scowling, “What is this? What are you people trying to pull?”

“It’s on the nature of a practical joke,” Candida said, seating herself. “I wouldn’t worry about it. I won’t introduce you because they aren’t staying.” She brought a waiter to the table with a flick of her finger. “Will you ask Albert to step out here, please?”

The waiter disappeared.

“Practical joke, hell,” Rourke said, unscrewing the blackened flashbulb. “We’ve been trying for a picture of Candida Morse in action for a couple of weeks. And it wouldn’t be any good without the guy’s name.”

“Candida,” Ahlman murmured, “I think on the whole-”

“Sit down, Clark. Mr. Shayne and friend are merely trying to rattle me in connection with something altogether different. We’re within the Miami Beach city limits, aren’t we, Mr. Shayne? I believe so. And it’s well known that you’re not popular with the Beach police. I’ll call them if you like, but it would be simpler if you just went away. Take Tim Rourke with you.”