Brett Halliday - Killers from the Keys

“Jeez, Mr. Shayne, am I glad to see you. I just got the word a little while ago and I hurried right over because I didn’t want you to think I wouldn’t be more than pleased to say hello again. You know. It’s been a long time, huh? So, how’re tricks?”

Shayne said, “Sit down, Joe. You know Tim Rourke… of the News.”

“Yeh, sure. That is, well, I heard of him plenty. Hi-ya, Tim.” He slid down into the booth beside the reporter, and Shayne went on smoothly, “And this is my secretary. Little Joe Hoffman, Lucy. I appreciate your coming, Joe.”

“No trouble at all. Glad to oblige any time. Nothing to drink for me, thanks,” he told the waiter who stood by with empty tray.

Shayne said, “I want a straight answer to a straight question, Joe.”

“Sure, Mike. You know me.”

“Where’s The Preacher?”

“What’s that, Mike?” Little Joe Hoffman seemed completely taken off balance by the question. He wrinkled his forehead and his brows met solidly over the bridge of his prominent nose. “I guess I don’t follow you.”

“The Preacher,” Shayne repeated patiently. “Your pal from back in Chicago before you ducked out on the Syndicate. I know he’s in Miami, and I know what he’s here for. So give him a message from me.”

“But wait a minute, Mike. I don’t get you. The Preacher, sure. We were teamed up for awhile in Chi. But here in Miami? Unh-uh, Mike. You got your wires crossed.” He shook his head solemnly from one side to the other. “I can’t get a message to him, Mike.”

“Why not? Even if he hasn’t looked you up, you know whom he would go to for help on a job here.”

“Why not, the man asks me?” Little Joe screwed up his face and looked in amazement from Rourke to Lucy. “Because The Preacher’s dead, that’s why.”

“Don’t lie to me, Joe.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Mike.” The little man with the big nose was almost crying. “He’s dead, that’s what. Six months ago. Sure. Eight months maybe. I and some of the boys chipped in for flowers.”

Outside the booth the five-man combo was beating it up to a frenzy while the stripper went into her finale. Inside the booth was flat silence.

It was interrupted by Sloe Burn’s sudden appearance in the opening. “Mister Shayne! They told me you was here. I’m scared something bad’s happened to Freddie. Ralph, too, maybe. It’s right on time for our dance number and he ain’t back yet. I don’t know what’s happened.”

Shayne got to his feet and caught the distracted girl by the wrist. “Tell me about it.”

“Freddie was here tonight… about an hour ago. And them two other men came… the ones I tol’ you about. I slipped Freddie out back fast an’ told Ralphie to take him back home. Then I come back to my table, but they never showed up no more. So I guess maybe they did see him, and maybe went out and caught Ralphie taking him away or somethin’. I just don’t know. He said the Pink Flamingo, so I called there awhile ago an’ the man said there wasn’t no Fred Tucker there… an’ never was registered there. So I’m bad scared.”

Shayne said over his shoulder to Rourke, “Take Lucy home, Tim.”

He was on his way as he finished speaking.

The Pink Flamingo Motel was less than two miles from the Bright Spot, and Shayne remembered having seen the sign on the highway pointing off to it. When he arrived minutes later, there were not more than ten cars parked in front of cabins, indicating occupancy. Only three cabins showed lights inside. In the exact center of the half-moon of cabins was a red neon light that said OFFICE, and the word VACANCY beneath it.

Shayne braked to a fast stop in front of the light and jumped out. Inside was a small room with a breast-high counter across it. There was a man behind the counter with bushy hair and a wizened face. His eyes looked slyly evasive as he held his head cocked slightly on one side with only the top of his shoulders showing above the counter. Shayne strode up to him and demanded, “Where is Fred Tucker?”

“Tucker? Why you asking?” The eyes glittered with more than ordinary interest and the manager’s tongue flicked out to wet his thin lips.

“Police business.” Shayne made his voice harsh and authoritative. He flipped open his wallet to flash his private license, and Peterson glanced down at it and then slyly upward to Shayne’s face. “Number Three.”

Shayne started to turn, paused to demand over his shoulder, “Why did you deny he was here over the phone half an hour ago.”

“Because he asked me to when he checked in.” Peterson made his voice a servile whine. “No law against that, is there, if a man wants privacy?”

Shayne went outside and glanced at the numbers on the cabin doors. No. 9 was next to the office on the right, and No. 8 beyond it. Shayne strode around the arc to Number 3. A late model, light sedan stood in front of the cabin. Light streamed out through an unshaded window. Shayne knocked loudly on the door.

He twisted the knob when there was no response. The door opened and he stepped over the threshold and saw the body of a man lying on the floor at the foot of the bed. He wore a white shirt and dark trousers, and lay face down in a pool of blood. The back of his head was smashed in like an eggshell. A blood-smeared whiskey bottle lay on the floor a couple of feet from his head.

Shayne’s experienced first glance told him the man couldn’t possibly still be alive, but he instinctively leaped forward and knelt beside the body. He touched his shoulders first, and then put his knuckles against the flesh of his cheek. There was body warmth still beneath the surface, but not the warmth of life. The man had been dead for half an hour perhaps.

Shayne sank back on his haunches and looked down broodingly at the corpse. He looked to be above medium height, and thin for his age. His dark brown hair was matted with blood in the back. Shayne didn’t attempt to move the man’s head so he could see his features clearly, but without doing so it was plainly evident that he was clean-shaven.

Where then, was the newly-grown mustache that Sloe Burn had mentioned as a characteristic of her Freddie?

Still kneeling beside the body, Shayne patted both hip pockets without finding a wallet, and wormed his hand successively into each side pants pocket and found them empty. He got to his feet slowly and looked about the room without seeing a discarded jacket. There was a light tan summer suit on a hanger inside the open closet beyond the end of the bed, with a closed brown suitcase sitting beneath it.

His brooding gaze went on around the room and was arrested by a framed photograph on the bureau. It was a picture of Mrs. Renshaw and two small children. A younger Mrs. Renshaw than the woman who had visited his office that afternoon, but unmistakably the same woman. He studied it for a long moment, and then turned his head slowly to look all about the rest of the room.

There was no sign of a struggle. The faucet dripped monotonously in a sink in the far corner, and there was a two-burner gas plate on an oilcloth-covered table to the right of it, and on the left the door of a refrigerator stood open. It was an old refrigerator, and the open door was causing it to run loudly. From where he stood, Shayne could see a carton of eggs and a bottle of milk on the top shelf. Below were two avocados and a quarter pound of butter in a chipped saucer, and there were half a dozen oranges on the bottom.

On the floor, halfway between the dead man and the refrigerator, were the two halves of a long loaf of French bread that had been roughly torn apart.

Outside, Shayne heard a car start up and pull away hastily. He strode to the open door and stepped out. The car had come from behind the arc of cabins, and it swung around the side of No. 1 as he stood there, and into the winding road leading out to the Trail.