Brett Halliday - Tickets for Death

“Were you?” Shayne asked guilelessly.

“Why should I deny it? And why the inquisition? Are my morals involved in a counterfeiting case?”

“I don’t know,” Shayne answered truthfully. “I am interested in knowing why you broke off with Miss Martin.”

“Because she got to sopping up more gin than was good for her. She was pickling her brains and her intestines with the stuff and she got sore when I told her she was beginning to look like an old hag-which she was.”

“What happened to her after she moved away from next door to you?”

“She gravitated to the gutter,” Matrix said bitterly. “Last time I saw her she was cadging drinks out at the Rendezvous and had a grudge against the world in general and me in particular. I’d still like to know where the hell she fits in.”

Shayne sighed and carefully eased ashes from his cigarette onto the floor. “So would I.” He cocked his ear to the sound of firm, authoritative steps climbing the echoing wooden stairway. “You’re about to have another visitor,” Shayne pronounced. An interested gleam came to his gray eyes.

Matrix nodded sourly. He jammed his hands deep into his pockets and paced the narrow confines of the office and back. He shouted, “Come,” when the footsteps stopped outside and a knock sounded on the door.

A rotund, ruddy-featured man of medium height came in. He carried a stiff straw hat in his hand and had a rosy, perspiring bald head with a fringe of gray hair all the way around. He wore a Palm Beach suit with a gaudy shirt and gaudier tie. A round pot-bottom belly preceded him importantly into the newspaper office. He stopped, evidently abashed, and looked inquiringly at Shayne, then pursed his full pink lips and spoke in a rounded tone, “Ah-Mr. Matrix-I hoped to find you alone.”

Matrix said, “Come on in, Mr. Payson. I’ve just been having a few words with the detective. Mr. Payson, this is Mr. Shayne, from Miami.”

“The detective, eh?” Payson asked heartily. He followed his belly toward Shayne and held out a fat, perspiring palm. Shayne lounged to his feet and shook hands while Matrix explained:

“Mr. Payson is one of the largest stockholders of the dog track and chairman of the board. He has been having apoplexy since the counterfeiting, which accounts for his rosiness.”

Payson said, “Ahem,” with a deprecating sidelong glance at Matrix. “I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Shayne. We depend upon you, sir, to diagnose this unusual case. I may say that the entire community is depending upon you to take immediate and drastic steps. I need hardly point out what a calamity it would be to Cocopalm if the track were forced to shut its gates. It’s one of our greatest tourist attractions, not to mention the hundreds of local families supported directly or indirectly by our payroll.”

“And not forgetting the dividends-which have been sadly curtailed,” Matrix put in with a sardonic grin.

Payson chuckled. “Ha ha. Amusing fellow, isn’t he, Mr. Shayne? He flaunts a determined cynicism while actually he’s one of our most aggressive civic boosters.”

Shayne said, “If you want to talk privately to Mr. Matrix, I’ll be going along.” He dragged his big frame up from the desk.

“No, don’t go,” Matrix interposed. “Payson and I can talk in the back room. There’s something else I want to take up with you before you go.”

“Don’t leave on my account,” Payson concurred. “My business with Gil will take only a moment. I don’t wish to slow the-er-wheels of justice, shall we say?”

He followed the editor through the door leading into the printing-shop and closed the door. Through the single wall Shayne could hear the older man talking at length in a low, guarded voice, but could distinguish no words.

At length Matrix said sharply and disagreeably, “All right, Payson, but it’s against the principle that has made the Voice what it is. You know our slogan-all the news without fear or favor.”

Payson’s voice droned again placatingly, until Matrix interrupted, “I told you I would-let it go at that,” and jerked the door open.

Payson came back into the office smiling in some constraint. He mumbled something to Shayne and went out the front door, closing it firmly behind him.

“The old goat,” said Matrix viciously. “A pillar of the church, by God, and he practically controls the bank that holds my mortgage.”

Shayne grinned at the dynamic little editor’s vitriolic emphasis. “Suppressing a juicy bit of scandal?”

“Exactly. The old so-and-so has a good wife and two fine kids here in town, but he has evidently got himself tangled up with a wench in Miami. I was in Miami on business this afternoon and saw him on the street. Now he’s in an uproar because I was going to print the news as a local item. Seems he told his wife he was making a business trip up the coast. If I had that mortgage paid off I’d print it whether or not. That’s the sort of small-town stuff I’m running up against all the time here.”

Shayne said, “This Payson-is he the brother of the proprietor of the other print shop in town?”

Matrix nodded and dropped into the chair before the desk. Shayne resumed his position, one hip on the corner of the littered desk.

“That relationship,” Matrix continued, “cost me a nice juicy contract for printing the dog-track tickets last fall. I’m morally certain they opened my bid first, then arranged that the Elite bid a few dollars under my price.”

Shayne said, “Hardeman told me that Payson and he divide the responsibility of getting the genuine tickets printed without a leak.”

“That’s right. If the old goat didn’t own stock at the track I’d suspect him of having counterfeits printed.”

“As it is,” said Shayne casually, “how do you think the counterfeiters get hold of the new design each day in time to get their forgeries out? Hardeman claims that Boyle guards the printed tickets personally until they’re delivered at the track.”

“Humph. Who guards Boyle?” Matrix asked cynically. “That’s the crux of the whole affair. Hardeman is just a trusting fool. He refuses to recognize the obvious fact that Boyle is only a tool for Grant MacFarlane.”

“You hate MacFarlane?” Shayne asked softly.

“I don’t deny it.” Matrix glared at him, his thin face working. “I hate what MacFarlane stands for-the rottenness and filth our youth are taught to take for granted when they frequent a cesspool like the Rendezvous. Any man who preys on adolescents makes a business of warping immature minds and is the greatest menace in modern society.”

Shayne nodded, swung himself to a standing position and said, “It’s time I took a look-see at MacFarlane’s sink of iniquity.” He paused with his hand on the knob, half turned back into the room.

“You don’t happen to know the name of Payson’s light-of-love in Miami? Did you see him with her?”

“No, and he naturally didn’t divulge any details.”

Shayne said, “Naturally not. But if you have any way of finding out I’d like very much to know the lady’s name.”

He went through the door as Matrix stared after him in open-mouthed amazement.

Shayne crossed the street to his roadster, still parked in front of the hotel. With his hand on the doorlatch, he hesitated and turned to look toward the entrance into the lobby where he had left Phyllis. Then he frowned, took a step forward, and stopped. Equally unaccountably, he grinned, turned back to the car, got in, backed away from the curb, and drove north through the business district of Cocopalm. Tall, clean-trunked royal palms lined the highway, their graceful fronds silvered with the pale light of a quarter moon.