Brett Halliday - Armed… Dangerous…

“All about the sudden death of an ex-cop? Yeah, I read it on the ferry. There were a couple of Tim Rourke touches there I liked.”

“That’s not what I mean.” He reached into the back seat for a Daily News, which was folded open to an inside page. “And this one ran in all copies of all editions.”

Frowning, Shayne took the paper. It was a small item, alone on a page with a department-store ad and headlined, SPURNED COP SLAYS SELF. Sergeant Herman Kraus, 33, the police department’s chief property clerk, had been found in his Bronx apartment, his service revolver beside his bed, a bullet in his brain. He had been in the department nine years, a sergeant for three. He had served two years in the Army. He was survived by a married sister in Ashtabula, Ohio. Friends said that Kraus, a bachelor, had been despondent since becoming estranged from his fiancee. They had quarreled over her friendships with other men.

Shayne let out his breath in a soundless whistle.

“Yeah,” Rourke said. “Quite a coincidence. He’s the guy who handled the bookkeeping on the narcotics evidence. When an envelope went to court, he signed it out. When it came back, he signed it in. He had charge of the whole operation tomorrow. The key man, in short. This all comes from Power. One important thing he didn’t tell me. Apparently there’s a suicide note. I’m a friend of yours, so I must be reasonably kosher, but I’m also a newspaperman, and he’s keeping that in mind. But it happens I know a rewrite man on the News, I’ve known him for years. He told me about the note.”

“What’s in it?”

“Mike, you know the way the cops are when another cop knocks himself off. It’s usually not because of sweetheart trouble, and the lid goes on. They call in the department heads, and decide how much has to come out. Preferably nothing. Then they let it out with an eyedropper, one drop at a time. They’re saving that note till they see how it goes.”

Shayne read the uninformative little story again. “Nobody in his right mind would try anything like this tomorrow without an inside man. And my Michele is definitely in her right mind. Quite a coincidence is right.”

“That’s the impression I get,” Rourke said. “Maybe Kraus sold it to her, and then got cold feet at the last minute. Maybe somebody else found out about it and gave him the gentleman’s choice-suicide or a public jam.”

“Power can’t hope to sit on it forever.”

“No, but through tomorrow? The way I get it, and you never did start with A and go right through to Z, he wants the stickup to go off without a hitch. The wrong kind of newspaper story would kill it. It’s bad enough as it stands. If your babe has really been doing business with Kraus, she’s going to stop and do some hard thinking. What if he blew the whole thing to somebody before he pulled the trigger?”

Shayne considered. “Did it make all the papers?”

“Not the Times or the Trib. It’ll be in the afternoons. Oh. I see what you’re getting at. She didn’t see the News. If you can keep her occupied, so she doesn’t look at the papers-yeah. Now how will you manage that, I wonder?”

“Maybe I can think of something.”

Rourke grinned. “Is it too late to change places? You be Melnick, the diamond man. I’ll be McQuade.”

The phone rang. The reporter was wound up tight; he leaped at it and got it before the ring was complete.

“Rourke.” He listened for only a moment. “Tell it to Shayne. He’s right here.”

He passed the phone to Shayne. “Go ahead,” the detective said.

“Jamieson. I’ve lost her, and what am I supposed to do now?”

Shayne felt a sudden pounding behind his eyes. “What do you mean, you’ve lost her?”

“She’s in a building, and I can only cover one exit at a time.”

Shayne swore under his breath. “Where are you?”

“Downtown. We came down on the Eighth Avenue. She went in a bank on William Street, across from the Chase Manhattan. Geneva Credit and Deposit. That was at ten-twenty. It’s a funny bank, Shayne-you go in and there’s a kind of living room, with easy chairs and a fireplace yet. This senior citizen sitting at a desk with black cuffs. No sign of the woman. I told him I was looking for a place to cash a check and pulled the hell out.”

“How many exits?”

“One other I can’t see. But there are tunnels everywhere in this part of town. If she wants to leave me sitting here, God knows she can do it. She did some hanging around looking in windows before she went in. Whether she spotted me or not, I couldn’t tell you.” He added abruptly, “Here she comes.”

The phone clattered in Shayne’s ear. He looked at his watch.

“Get anything?” Rourke asked.

“An address. What’s Power’s number?”

Rourke told him. “That’s a direct line. He doesn’t want any news from you or me coming in through the switchboard.”

Shayne gave the mobile operator the number. In a moment Power’s crisp, controlled voice said hello.

“Mike!” he exclaimed when he heard Shayne’s voice. “Wait a minute, I want to close the door.”

A moment later he was back on the line. “It’s getting so I don’t even trust myself. Everything under control?”

“Everything’s fine,” Shayne told him. “We’ve got a tentative address for the banker. Jamieson can give you the details. About Kraus.”

“Oh, you saw that? Did she see it?”

“Not yet.”

“I don’t know how you’re situated, Mike, but if there’s any chance of keeping her in the dark, for God’s sake do it. The name shouldn’t mean anything to anyone else. So far it’s not much of a story. The trouble is, he left a confession. I’m doing my damnedest to keep it from the press, and so far I’ve succeeded.”

“Does he mention Michele?”

“Luckily, no. But we know he was feeding her information, because we’ve seen them together. The proverbial bad apple. He’s been living well over his income, and the note explains where he’s been getting the money. Do you have time for this, Mike?”

“A couple of minutes. Go ahead.”

“He’s been stealing drugs from the case files. Steamed open the envelopes and substituted cornstarch for heroin. I doubt if it amounted to much in terms of volume, but once he took that first step they could put on the pressure and he had to go along. Last night he apparently decided he couldn’t go through with it. The note doesn’t mention the robbery. He must have thought his suicide by itself would take care of that, we’d have to cancel the shipment to check through to find out how far the substitutions went.”

Shayne said, “Is there any chance that it wasn’t suicide?”

“A chance,” Power said doubtfully. “He wouldn’t be the first informer to end up with a hole in the head instead of ten percent of the loot. It’s an idea, Mike, but we’ll have to put it aside for the time being. Is there anything I ought to know about tomorrow?”

“No, except that it looks damned good. As far as I can see, she’s thought of everything.”

“I hope not everything,” Power said.

He wished Shayne luck and the detective put back the phone.

“Mike, to finish up about Kraus,” Rourke said. “I talked to the Bronx legman who phoned in that story and I picked up a few points. The girl’s name, for one thing.”

“You mean the fiancee?”

“That’s too big a word. They were going together, that’s all. They had a date last night. I thought I might go up and talk to her, but I really meant it when I said we ought to change places. Getting the feel of this kind of situation isn’t one of the things I do best. Hell, I’ll do what I can.”

Shayne thought about it, his hand on the door latch. “I might be able to get out tonight, late. Could you bring her over to Staten Island? There’s an intersection down the road from the house. A tavern, a couple of stores. Don’t be surprised if I don’t show up. It depends on how it goes.”