Brett Halliday - Tickets for Death

Shayne said, “Hello, Foots,” to a fat Negro and received a nod and a white-toothed grin.

“You-all’s moughty early tonight, Mistah Shayne. Ain’t hahdly got the tables unkivered.”

“Is Chips in his office?”

“Yassuh, he sho is. Mistah O’Neil am busy right now layin’ out de money fo’ tonight’s play.”

Shayne went down a carpeted hall past an archway opening into a huge square room where men were taking covers from roulette tables, crap layouts, and curved blackjack set-ups. He went through an open door and at the end of the hall said, “Hi, Chips,” to a tall black-haired man who squatted on the floor in front of a large safe.

Chips O’Neil turned his head and said, “Hello there, shamus.” He stood up with neat bundles of bills in his hands, arching iron-gray eyebrows ironically. He complained, “Don’t tell me I’ve got to start paying off the private dicks along with the regulars.”

Shayne grinned. “This isn’t a jerkdown-unless my check bounces.” He took a checkbook from his pocket and sat down at a desk. “Can you let me have a grand?”

“Sure. How do you want it?”

“Make it twenties.” He made out a check to Cash and signed it.

“A ransom payoff?” O’Neil asked curiously as he counted out a stack of twenties.

Shayne smoothed the bills and folded them into a wallet. “Nothing like that. Just a little matter of business. Thanks, Chips.”

Chips O’Neil said, “That’s okay, shamus,” and Shayne went out to his car. He nodded to Phyllis as he stepped on the starter. “I got the money. When I spread this stuff out in front of Mayme Martin she’ll tell me everything she knows.”

He drove on down Second Avenue and parked opposite the Red Rose Apartments. When Phyllis started to unlatch the door on her side, he said, “Better stay in the car, angel.”

“But I want to come in,” she protested. “Why are you always trying to make me stay back or get out of the room when something interesting is about to happen?”

“In this case, because I’d hate to have anyone see me taking you in there. They might get the wrong idea. This dump,” he went on, jerking his head toward the flashy front lights of the building, “is what the Herald would chastely describe as a house of ill fame. After all, Phyl-unless you want to lose your reputation-”

“Oh!” Phyllis sank back against the cushion. “Why don’t people tell me these things?”

“Because you’re so sweet and innocent.” Shayne pinched her cheek and got out. “Mayme may still be so polluted she won’t be able to talk coherently. In that case I’ll be right back.”

He went across the street and into the entrance hall. Curtains were drawn across the brightly lighted lounging-room and loud voices and laughter followed him up the stairs to No. 14. The door was closed and no light showed through the transom.

He hesitated a moment with his knuckles doubled to knock, then tried the knob instead. The door opened easily.

A musty odor, part gin and part human, struck him in the face. Mingled with it was a stale smell of indefinable sweetishness which caused the hairs at the back of his neck to prickle. He fumbled for the light switch, found it, but stepped back to close the door before turning on the lights.

Light flooded a disordered room which was occupied only by himself. He stood back against the door while his eyes searched every nook and corner for the thing he expected to see.

It wasn’t there. He went forward warily, glanced into the empty kitchenette, then went to the closed bathroom door. He hesitated for a moment, standing back from a little pool of blood that had seeped under the door. His face hardened into grim, gaunt lines as he took out a handkerchief and covered the doorknob.

The sweetish smell of fresh human blood was strong when he opened the door. He found the bathroom light switch and snapped it on, stood staring somberly down at the corpse of Mayme Martin. Her body lay twisted on one side and there was something indecent in the sight of her naked legs below the hem of her slip.

He stood rigidly in the doorway and took in every detail of the scene with cold, searching eyes. Mayme Martin’s throat was slit from ear to ear and the pool of blood on the floor was turning brown.

There was an odd look of contentment on her features, which had been so distorted with anger and fear a short time before. There was nothing to indicate that she had struggled while the lifeblood drained from her body. A safety razor blade lay on the tile floor beneath the un-flexed fingers of her right hand.

Shayne left the light on and closed the bathroom door with his handkerchief-filled hand. He mopped sweat from his face and stood staring around the living-room. His toe struck an empty gin bottle on the floor and it rattled loudly against the leg of a chair as he moved slowly forward.

The hatbox which had been half packed on his previous visit was now empty and toilet articles and clothing were scattered over the floor as though thrown aside by someone hastily searching through them.

Shayne went to the door without touching anything. He used his handkerchief to rub the inside knob clean, scrubbed the electric switch, then turned out the light and stepped into the hall. Here he carefully removed his fingerprints from the outside knob. There was no use trying to preserve the fingerprints of whoever had entered the room before him. His own prints had obliterated them.

The doors of rooms along the hall were closed except the one at the head of the stairs where the redhead had accosted him in the afternoon. He dragged the brim of his hat low on the left side of his face, tucked his chin down, and went down the stairs. He bumped into a man coming through the front door and the fellow squared off with a surly curse, but Shayne brushed past him and out to his roadster.

“What happened?” Phyllis asked eagerly as he got under the steering-wheel. “Was Mayme’s information worth coming for? Did she tell you anything important?”

Shayne moved his head shortly and negatively, then relaxed behind the wheel and shoved his hat back from his forehead.

A cry of dismay escaped Phyllis’s lips when she saw his face. “What is it, Michael? What happened up there?”

“Mayme Martin isn’t going to do any talking-ever,” he said harshly. “She’s dead.”

“Oh-” Phyllis pressed her hand against her mouth.

“It looks like suicide on the surface,” he went on slowly, “but I think it was fixed to appear that way.”

“You mean-murder?”

He nodded and leaned forward to turn on the ignition. “We’d better get away from here in a hurry.”

“But shouldn’t you tell the police, Mike? It might be hours before anyone will find her.”

“Mayme won’t mind,” he muttered.

“But, Michael! Just think-”

He said, “No,” with savage intensity and swerved around a corner toward Biscayne Boulevard.

Phyllis shrank away from him and he drove fast, looking straight ahead.

“She’s dead,” he said after a time. “Nothing can change that. Can’t you see the spot I’d be in if I reported it?”

“I suppose so. Still-no one could blame you.”

He laughed shortly, swinging into the boulevard northward. “I’m damned glad Mayme Martin wasn’t murdered on Peter Painter’s side of the bay. Of course, I know Will Gentry wouldn’t suspect me of murder. But he’d want the answers to a lot of questions-answers I can’t give him right now. I wouldn’t blame him for not believing me. My story sounds screwy as hell, and he knows I never tell anything if I think I can make a fee by keeping still. He’d have to hold me, Phyl, and in the meantime there’s a job to be done in Cocopalm. We’ve got to get back there so fast no one will suspect we’ve been away-and sit tight until this thing is cleared up.”