Brett Halliday - The Corpse Came Calling

The scrap of cardboard he had taken from Lacy’s clenched fingers!

That must be the answer. He wondered what would happen when they didn’t find it in the apartment. He held himself there on the floor without moving, simulating unconsciousness, waiting for strength to come back to his body.

There was a long period of that drifting away and returning to partial consciousness. Then, surprisingly clear and close, he heard a thin voice say, “No use wasting any more time looking. How hard did you sap this mug, Joe?” A toe nudged Shayne’s bare ribs.

“I guess I musta cold-cocked him that last time right,” a thicker voice admitted. “From what they say about him around here he’s easier handled that way than when he’s still on his feet.”

“He don’t look so tough now.” The toe went away from Shayne’s ribs, then came forward with careless force. He sucked in his breath sharply under the impact but made no movement to indicate he felt the kick.

“We got to get him out of his dope and make him talk,” the thin voice complained. “The paper said Lacy was still alive when he got to Shayne’s office.”

“Yeh.” Joe chuckled with malicious good humor. “An’ the cops can’t figure anything but that Shayne or his wife musta been in on the kill. That’s a hot one, hey, Leroy?”

“Let them keep on thinking that. If Lacy got to him alive, he spilled the whole lay. There wasn’t anything in the paper about the cops finding a funny-looking piece of cardboard on Lacy. That means Shayne stashed it before he called the cops-and he wouldn’t have done that ’less he knew why Lacy was carrying it. Let’s go to work on him and make him sing a song.”

That settled the question that had been bothering Shayne. His mind was alert now, hitting on all cylinders. He listened carefully for a further clue to the enigma of Jim Lacy’s death.

But Joe sidetracked the conversation. “What about the dame, Leroy?” His voice held a hopeful leer. “It’d be lots more fun workin’ on her than on him. She ain’t wearing nothing under that fancy robe.”

Leroy snarled. “Lay off the dame. She’s just right like she is with her mouth taped shut. Dames ain’t got any sense. She’d start screeching her tonsils out if we took that tape off.”

“Yeah. Reckon you’re right, Leroy.” Joe sounded disappointed. He insisted, “But it would be fun.”

“We’re not here to have fun. Help me turn this mug over so we can go to work on him. He’s been around. He’ll know better than to start anything-as long as we’ve got his frail tied up where we can make passes at her.”

“That’s an angle,” Joe exulted. “We wake him up and make him watch us go after her while she’s tied up. Sure, that’ll snap him out of it.”

Four hands got hold of Shayne and rolled him over on his back. He kept himself limp, eyes closed. A beer and garlic breath flowed into his nostrils. Close to his face, Joe muttered doubtfully, “I dunno, Leroy. Sometimes I don’t know my own stren’th when I swing a sap.”

“He’s still breathing,” Leroy said crisply.

They drew aside and held a whispered conversation. Shayne braced himself for whatever was coming. They were afraid to question Phyllis, and as long as they thought he was unconscious they’d probably leave her alone. But there’d be hell to pay if they once got his eyes open.

He heard stealthy movement beside him, then a glass of cold water was unexpectedly dashed in his face.

“That did it,” Leroy chuckled. “I swear I saw him jump. He’s playing dead. I know how to fix that.”

Shayne heard the scratch of a match. Heat came close to his left eyelid, unbearably close, singeing his shaggy brows. His head jerked involuntarily. He sat up and opened his eyes.

Leroy stepped backward and produced his. 45. The barrel was sawed off close to the cylinder, making it a handy and deadly pocket gun. Leroy’s eyes were ruthless, the eyes of a killer who delights in his work. He surveyed Shayne coldly and said, “I don’t want to use this. I won’t unless you make me.”

Shayne turned his head to look at Phyllis. She had stopped struggling to free herself. Her black eyes were dilated, luminous with encouragement. The top part of her robe had spread apart, revealing her smooth throat and the beginning swell of young breasts.

Shayne wrenched his eyes away from hers. Joe stood close beside him with a grin on his brutal face. He swung a short, leather-covered blackjack suggestively.

Shayne said, “All right. It looks like your party, boys. What the hell do you want?”

Leroy smiled thinly. “That’s using your head for something besides a target for Joe’s sap. All we want is what Jim Lacy handed you this afternoon.”

Shayne waggled his aching head and tenderly felt the lump on the side of his jaw. He muttered, “My brains still feel like hash. How’s for a drink to straighten me out? There’s a bottle on the table-and have one yourselves.”

“Sure. Pour him a drink,” Leroy directed. “But you lay off the stuff, Joe. This mug’s supposed to be pretty smart and we don’t want to make any more mistakes.” He moved back a pace and settled himself in a chair, balancing his baby cannon carefully on one knee and not taking his eyes off Shayne for an instant.

Joe went to the table and picked up the bottle of cognac. He scowled at the label and said, “Maybe there is a trick to it, Leroy. This ain’t no drinking liquor I ever heard of. Says cog-nack on the bottle.”

“That’s stuff the Frenchies make out of wine,” Leroy explained. “Pour him a slug of it.”

Shayne took the glassful Joe offered him and drank it down gratefully. He hunched forward and drew his feet up under him, sat cross-legged. He said, “A cigarette is all I need right now.”

Leroy nodded. “We’re not bad guys if you play it smart. Light him a cig, Joe.”

Joe gave him a lighted cigarette. Shayne inhaled deeply. Smoke trailed thinly from his nostrils as he said, “I haven’t seen you boys around before.”

“No,” Leroy agreed. “I guess you haven’t.”

“Sure you’re not making a mistake by barging in this way and getting rough?” Shayne persisted.

“We’re not making any mistake, shamus. You’ll be making a bad one if you don’t fork over that hicky Lacy gave you this afternoon.”

Shayne shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You better find out pretty quick.”

Shayne said, “Lacy was dead when he reached my office.”

“We won’t argue that angle. Maybe he was. Then you took it off him before the cops got there.”

Shayne shook his head again. “The cops got to him before I did. Read the papers.”

“Don’t stall us,” Leroy advised him with cold ferocity. “The cops found less than ten bucks on him. We know he was carrying folding money. Whoever lifted the jack lifted something else at the same time. We don’t give a damn about the money. We want that something else.”

“What?” asked Shayne with interest. Bare-legged and bare-torsoed, he looked peculiarly mild and harmless as he sat on the floor hunched forward, squinting at Leroy, but Leroy’s gun did not relax its vigilance for an instant. “What,” Shayne repeated, “did Jim Lacy have on him that you boys want so badly?”

“You know damn well,” Joe broke in heatedly. “We want his part of-”

“Shut up,” Leroy snarled. “If Shayne’s got it, he knows what it is we’re after. If he hasn’t got it, there’s no good in wising him up.”

“Try the cops,” Shayne suggested. “They’re the ones who went over Lacy and cleaned him.”

“The paper didn’t say anything about them finding what we want.”

Shayne laughed in Leroy’s face. “And the paper reported he had only about ten bucks on him, too,” he jeered. “Hell! get wise. Just because a man wears a uniform doesn’t mean he hasn’t got sticky fingers.”