Brett Halliday - The Corpse Came Calling

Shayne stood up. He took a backward step and dragged air into his lungs. He asked, “Do you want me to quit, Phyl?”

She looked at him with tears still streaming down her face. His bare flesh was bruised and crimsoned with his own blood. Through her dimmed eyes she saw him as he had been when he inexorably stalked Leroy and the menace of his gun. It seemed to her that she could still hear the sound of his laughter ringing through the room. Terrible laughter. She shuddered and closed her eyes.

“Shouldn’t you-this time?” she pleaded. “You’re pitting yourself against the federal authorities, the police-and against those horrible thugs. If the G-men were after Lacy, don’t you suppose it was because of the piece of cardboard? Shouldn’t you co-operate-just this once?”

Shayne asked more gently, “Are you sure that’s what you want, Phyl?”

Against her will, she felt compelled to open her eyes. She saw his face, bruised and bloody, but still set in lines of grim determination. Her gaze wavered for a moment, then searched his eyes. Her tears stopped flowing and she shook her head slowly. A smile that had in it something of maternal anguish touched her lips briefly. She said:

“No, Michael. I don’t want you to quit-ever.”

He leaned over and kissed her lips. “Thanks, angel,” he said. “And now you’d better get the stickum from that tape washed off with alcohol. I’m going to the bathroom to see what cold water will do for my face.”

The telephone rang while Shayne was painfully getting into a clean shirt. Phyllis was in the tub having her long-delayed soaking, and Shayne sat on the edge of the bed to take the call.

Will Gentry said, “I’ve got some news for you, Mike. We’ve turned up a line on that Jim Lacy killing this afternoon.”

Shayne growled, “Painter won’t thank you if it takes the heat off me.”

Gentry made an uncomplimentary remark about the detective chief from Miami Beach. “A man and a woman appear to have witnessed the shooting,” Gentry explained. “They were driving across the County Causeway from the Beach about four o’clock when they saw a car ahead of them cut in sharply on another car headed this way, and force it to the guard rail. Two men jumped out of the first car and ran back to the one they had stopped. This couple drove past slowly and realized there was some sort of an argument going on, and they got the license number of the car with the two men, but didn’t stop. They didn’t want to get mixed up in anything because the woman is married, but not to her companion.”

Gentry paused, and Shayne asked, “Lacy was in the second car?”

“There was one man in it, and their description of him fits Lacy to a T. After they had gone on about a hundred yards they thought they heard two or three shots behind them, but weren’t positive it wasn’t a car backfiring. A few minutes later Lacy passed them, hunched over the wheel and driving like hell. So they decided it must have been backfires instead of shots, and agreed not to make any report of the incident. But when they read about Lacy’s death they realized they must have actually witnessed the shooting without realizing it. So they came in and told their story. It sounds straight enough.”

“What about a description of the two men?”

“Very vague. One was heavy-built and one was slim. Not much there.”

Shayne didn’t tell him how well the sketchy description fitted his two late visitors. He asked, “Have you had time to check the license number?”

“Yep. But it’s no good. A rental car that had been reported stolen from Miami Beach a little before four o’clock. And it was picked up a short time ago on Flagler Street. No prints. It was probably just snatched to pull the Lacy job, then ditched.”

“Who reported it stolen?”

“Fellow who had it rented. Name of Gorstmann-headwaiter at the Danube Restaurant on the Beach. It was stolen from in front of the restaurant.”

Shayne said, “Thanks for tipping me off, Will.” He hesitated, then asked, “Have Clancy and Bates reported in on the call they made to my apartment a short time ago?”

“Not yet. Something important?”

“Not a bit. That’s the hell of it.” Shayne forced a laugh from his bruised lips. “Just a family brawl. Don’t pay any attention to their report-and, for God’s sake, don’t let the newsboys get hold of it. As a matter of fact, Phyl felt playful and bounced some chinaware at me. I got sore and tied her up in a chair until she cooled off. The phone was knocked over in the excitement and the desk clerk heard the goings-on and sent Clancy and Bates up. I hated to air my family troubles to a couple of harness bulls, so I gave them a song and dance about a couple of thugs escaping by the fire escape. The boys chased after them, but when they didn’t see anyone they got suspicious and came back to check up. I stuck to my story, but I don’t mind having you know the truth, Will.” Shayne laughed hollowly.

There was a moment of silence at the other end of the wire. Then Will Gentry sighed wearily. “More hocus-pocus. All right, Mike. I’ll kill the report if that’s what you want.”

“You sound,” Shayne complained, “as though you don’t believe me. You don’t know Phyl when she goes on a rampage. She’s got the damnedest temper.”

Gentry said, “Shut up,” and hung up.

Shayne replaced the telephone and looked up, startled. Phyllis was regarding him belligerently from the bathroom door. She wore an old kimono and a fresh-scrubbed look.

“Who were you talking to,” she demanded, “about my fierce temper?”

“It’s this way, Phyl. That was Will Gentry. I didn’t want any headlines about our playful visitors so I stalled him with a yarn about you getting sore and throwing things at me.”

“You-you lug. What will Mr. Gentry think of me when he sees you all battered up?”

“I don’t think it’ll change his opinion of you, angel. He didn’t sound completely convinced,” Shayne admitted ruefully. “Hurry and slide into some glad rags. We’ve got a dinner date.”

Phyllis’s expression softened. “Let’s have something sent up-or I can open a can. You look like the wrath of God even if you don’t realize it. If you’re going around telling people I did that to you, you’d better stay home until you heal up.”

Shayne grinned. “People are used to seeing me pasted together. I feel like going out for dinner.”

“You’ve got something up your sleeve,” Phyllis charged. “You never want to go out when I want to.”

Shayne poured a small drink from the decanter which had been refilled since the melee. He took a sip and explained. “I’ve got a hankering to take on a load of hasenpfeffer. You know how it is when you get a hankering for some special dish. Nothing else will do. And the only place they really know how to make it is at the Danube Restaurant on the Beach. Come on,” he cajoled. “Slip into something and let’s go.”

Phyllis studied him a moment with compressed lips. “You’re still up to something,” she asserted. “But I may as well go along to pick up the pieces as to stay at home worrying myself sick.”

“You may as well,” he agreed cheerfully. The side of his face and jaw was swollen and the lobe of his ear was taped down with a bit of adhesive, but otherwise he felt pretty good. He sipped his cognac and waited until Phyllis was nearly ready, then fastened his soft collar and put on a tie, meekly let her persuade him to wear a double-breasted blue coat with his flannels, and they went down through the lobby and out into the springlike softness of Miami’s tropical night.

The perfume of flowers and of lush tropical foliage blew in from Bayfront Park as Shayne drove north on Biscayne Boulevard, and when he turned east on the winding causeway across the bay there was the tang of salt air to lift a man’s spirits and make him know it was good to be alive.