Brett Halliday - Murder Spins the Wheel

“In here,” Painter said, indicating an interrogation room off the corridor. “Not that I’m superstitious, but I’ve solved some hard cases in this room. Sanderson, have you got the stuff the boys found on the boat?”

He took a manila envelope out of Sanderson’s hands and led the way. The interrogation room was cold and bleak, furnished only with a metal table, a typewriter, and several folding metal chairs. A pen, a blotter and a bottle of red ink waited on the table, as a reminder that the room’s main purpose was to produce signed confessions. The walls were unadorned cinderblocks, painted white. The single light, a harsh, powerful ceiling bulb, made even Painter look sallow and weary.

Painter let Sanderson and a stenographer into the room and shut the door on the others. He made a complete circuit of Shayne, to get an all-around view. Shayne’s shirt had dried on his back, but his pants were sodden and uncreased. Painter bent down and announced with glee, “No socks!”

Shayne let him enjoy his moment. It wasn’t often that Painter had a chance like this, and he meant to exploit it to the full. Shayne moved out one of the metal chairs and sat down. Sanderson gave him a cigarette and lit it for him. Painter alighted on the corner of the table, arranging his black trousers carefully.

“Organization,” he said with a chortle. “It pays off every time. My men have standing orders to let me know of anything involving Michael Shayne, no matter at what hour of the day or night. I confess this is one time I hesitated. It meant putting a very lovely lady into a taxi and sending her home alone. She was piqued, and she may refuse to see me again. But it’s worth it. The sight of you in that drunk tank has rewarded me a hundred times over.” His eyes hardened. “Shayne, I wouldn’t be surprised if this finishes you in this town.”

He lit his own cigarette after fitting it into a long holder. From long experience with the preposterous little man, Shayne knew that he had to let him crow for a time. In the end, if nothing happened to ruffle his feathers or make him lose his shaky hold on his temper, he might be willing to shut up and listen to something he hadn’t heard from his own men. He would have to be told about the robbery of Harry Bass and the drowning of Vince Donahue. Shayne had often concealed facts from Painter in the past, but there had also been times when he had had to forget his personal feelings about the man, to force him to behave in a semi-reasonable way.

“Three girls, three guys,” Painter said, still chortling. “I wonder which one was yours. That Betty’s really stacked, didn’t you think so, Sanderson?”

Sanderson went on smoking impassively, looking at the floor.

“She’s afraid she’s getting fat,” Shayne said.

“Nonsense,” Painter snapped. “Just right. Not my type, of course, too raucous, for one thing, but I can see how she’d appeal to someone with your limited background. Enough liquor and gage will cover a multitude of small imperfections, won’t they? I’m told that after one or two reefers all women tend to look about the same.”

He picked a brown cigarette butt and two unsmoked sticks of marijuana out of the manila envelope and laid them on the table. Then he went back into the envelope for a hypodermic needle.

“God, the headlines,” he commented. “Mike Shayne, rough-and-ready private eye! A drunken sex party on Al Naples’ boat! Mary Jane and horse! Semi-nude babes! Blue movies! This is one time I’m going to enjoy the morning papers. And it won’t be all text. It was pure luck a News photographer was hanging around when the call came in. We haven’t run off that sixteen-millimeter stuff yet. The boys looked at a few frames and they tell me it’s an adult-education course in various types of fornication, none of it what the statutes define as exactly normal. What’s wrong, Shayne? Usually by this time you’re trying to bluster your way out of it.”

“Are you ready to listen yet?” Shayne asked calmly.

“To your usual lies and evasions? No, I’m not ready to listen! Because I’ve got you this time, my corner-cutting friend! I’ve got you by the short hairs, and I’m going to heave the book at you, I kid you not! Dear God, have I been waiting! I knew that sooner or later you’d slip in a big way. Sure, everybody likes to relax and let down their hair now and then, but don’t you think this was overdoing it a little? The marijuana, the heroin, there’s the crowning touch. Something in the Bible, I forget how it goes, about how if you hang on long enough your enemies will be delivered into your hand.”

He clenched his fist slowly. Opening it again, he picked out an imaginary crushed insect, and crunched it between his small white teeth.

“You’ll never learn,” Shayne said. “You’ve tried that before, and it always gave you a bellyache.”

“But not this time,” Painter said smugly. “I don’t underestimate you. You’re the luckiest son of a bitch on the face of the globe, and I don’t deny that you have a certain dramatic flair. By lowering yourself to their level you’ve captured the allegiance of a few so-called gentlemen of the press. ‘Bums of the press’ would be a better name for them. As for the great moronic gum-chewing public, you can do no wrong. Maybe you can convince them that you were working on a research project tonight, trying to get at the sources of teen-age delinquency.” He leaned toward the unruffled redhead, and all at once his sharp little face became nasty. “The fact remains, whether or not you were smoking rope or screwing three girls at a time, you hit a police officer! You employed your usual method, violence, to resist arrest. My men were investigating a complaint from an influential taxpayer. You and your friends met them with a barrage of broken bottles. When Sergeant Maguire asked you to come along with him peacefully, you broke his jaw.”

“I thought I heard something crack,” Shayne said mildly. “Petey, will you simmer down? Maguire should have been kicked off the force years ago. He was about to kill a girl with a nightstick. If you’re surprised to hear that, you’re more out of touch than I think.”

“Maguire’s character and record, good or bad, have nothing to do with anything,” the angry little man snapped. “He’s a police officer. He was making a legal arrest. From the nature of his injuries, it’s fairly certain that you hit him with something harder than a fist. Unluckily for you, this time we have a witness you’ll have a hard time impeaching. The News photographer saw the whole thing and has given us a conclusive statement. I haven’t seen his pictures, but I know what they’ll show. You’re going to prison! And I’m delighted it’s on such an appropriate rap.”

“My lawyer will be showing up in a few minutes,” Shayne said, succeeding in keeping his temper. “I’ve got work to do.”

Painter smiled malevolently. “Not tonight, Shayne. Tonight you’re going to be our guest in the drunk tank. Oh, we’ll have the usual bleeding-heart army on our doorstep tomorrow morning, I have no doubt, but there’s a mountain of red tape to get out of the way when somebody slugs a police officer and sends him to the hospital. Don’t count on being back in circulation before the end of the afternoon.”

The redhead’s ragged eyebrows drew together. “Petey, I can see how your version appeals to you. But if you’ll give it one minute’s thought you’ll realize I was an extra wheel at that party. Did you talk to the watchman?”

Sanderson looked up, interested. “Was there a watchman on the dock, Mike?”

Painter broke in. “Never mind answering that. You don’t have to teach us the rudiments of police procedure. We’ll cover that in the morning.”