Brett Halliday: Tickets for Death

The little whiplash of a man chuckled fiendishly behind the chief. “You’ve plugged a pair of our most reputable citizens,” he said with sharp irony. “I figured you’d give us action, Shayne, but I wasn’t expecting it so soon.”

“Neither was I,” Shayne retorted. He whipped the necktie around his collar and let it hang. “Are you Hardeman?”

“Good Lord, no. I’m Gil Matrix, editor, owner and publisher of the Voice. Prints all the news that’s fit to print and a lot that isn’t. Let me be the first to welcome you to our city.” Matrix pushed forward and held out his hand.

Shayne took it, grunting sourly, “I’ve already been met by a reception committee that can probably be traced to the front-page stuff you ran this afternoon.”

Matrix’s grin was unabashed. “I meant to stir things up. Lord,” he muttered, his eyes going again to the dead figures on the floor, “and did I ever! Chief Boyle here has been sitting on the lid too long and it was time the powder keg exploded.”

“That’ll be enough from you, Gil.” Chief Boyle stepped angrily into the center of the room, shouldering the undersized editor aside with his great bulk. He glared down at Shayne, who now nonchalantly tied his tie. “What have you done with Mr. Hardeman?”

Shayne shot him a quick curious glance. “Hell, I haven’t got him.” He got up slowly and nodded toward the two dead men. “I thought one of those was Hardeman.”

Boyle’s eyes were hot with incredulity and disbelief as he stepped back a pace. “You thought one of them was-”

“On my right lies Pug Leroy,” Gil Matrix said in a loud voice, his hands thrust deep in his trouser pockets as he circled the thick-bodied man on the floor. He shrugged heavy, slightly hunched shoulders which made his short body seem incongruous.

“Leroy,” he went on dramatically, “has been working toward murder through the gentler stages of crime for a couple of years. His demise won’t be excessively mourned.

“And this other lad is Bud Taylor, a local product.” He spoke in a harsh, rasping voice, looking down at the thin-faced, youthful gunman who could not have been more than twenty-two.

There was utter silence in the room.

The little man dominated the scene as his owlishly round eyes slowly challenged everyone in the room, beginning with Chief Boyle, who was standing to one side with the hotel detective, passing on to the subdued assistant manager, and finally stopping when they rested upon Phyllis, who shrank deeper into her chair. The doctor, whose back was turned, silently closed his medical bag and stole from the room.

“Bud Taylor,” Gil Matrix repeated, “one of those unfortunate weaklings easily led astray-a product of his environment, let us say. A youth who could have taken the right turn, but was induced to take the wrong one. We are all responsible for the Bud Taylors of this world,” he went on fiercely. “Every one of us ensconced in our citadels of smugness who tolerate a festering growth in our community that sucks in a lad like Bud Taylor with the glamour of easy money. Easy money,” he repeated in a strange whisper. “We shall all be judged,” he jerked out, “I say-”

“Cut out the oration, Gil.” Chief Boyle produced a handkerchief and mopped his sweating face. “This ain’t the time or the place for a sermon.”

“There’ll be no better time or place,” Matrix told him wrathily. “You ought to be down on your knees asking God to pity the citizens of Cocopalm who entrust their security to your supine hands-”

“Maybe the parson’ll let you preach the funeral sermon,” Chief Boyle snapped angrily.

The interruption left Matrix undismayed. His round eyes were bleak as he waved a hand and continued: “So long as you allow the Rendezvous to flourish under police protection on the outskirts of Cocopalm, just so long will we have the spectacle of our youth turning into gangsters and gunmen-and worse.”

“Now see here, Gil,” Boyle roared, “you know damn well the Rendezvous is out of the city limits and out of my jurisdiction.”

“Yes, and I also know that Grant MacFarlane is your brother-in-law,” Matrix lashed back. “You can’t deny that Bud Taylor has been hanging around out there getting himself inoculated with the idea that the law is something to beat, to be scoffed at-which, by God, it is here in Cocopalm-and that he-”

“Shut up, Gil.” Chief Boyle’s voice was loud with authority. His face was the color of raw beef.

Shayne’s amusement at the scene was wearing thin. He came impatiently to his feet and said, “I’m inclined to agree with the chief. I’d like to get your ideas later, Matrix, but right now I’m wondering why Mr. Hardeman wasn’t here in this room to keep his appointment with me. While you fellows are throwing the gab around he might be heeding help.”

The assistant manager came to life, shook his head vigorously, and deftly caught his big-rimmed Oxford glasses as they flew from his nose. He readjusted them and glanced around the room with officious, but nevertheless nervous eyes. “Mr. Hardeman doesn’t seem to be here at all. I happen to know that his engagement with Mr. Shayne was important. He gave orders that the detective was to be shown up immediately, and I’m quite positive he hasn’t gone out since dinner.”

Shayne’s keen gray eyes traveled around the room to notice that three doors led away from the large bedroom. One, in a corner behind the bed, stood slightly ajar, while another, across the room, was tightly closed as was the one leading to the hall. He saw, also, that Phyllis sat drawn back in her chair, her big dark eyes filled with questioning and wonderment. He shook his head at her and motioned toward the front door. Phyllis moved her own dark head slightly and negatively. Her soft round chin was set.

Shayne frowned and turned his attention to the two other doors. He strode to the closed one and jerked it open. It led into an empty tiled bathroom. His brows came down in a puzzled frown. Then he whirled about and went to the other door in the corner.

Jerking it open, he peered inside, then stepped back with a wide gesture. He said calmly:

“Come and see if this is Hardeman.”

Matrix’s nose quivered. He was the first to reach Shayne’s side while the others crowded up. “That’s John Hardeman, all right,” he chortled, “neatly done up in a knot.”

Shayne looked steadily down at Hardeman for a moment and then stepped back, drawing the editor with him. Chief Boyle and Gleason dragged the bound and gagged race-track manager out of the spacious closet.

His body was long, big boned and heavy shouldered, but not fleshy. His forehead was of the high sort that is popularly supposed to be intellectual. His face was deeply suntanned, and his hair and eyes were gray. At the moment, indeed, his eyes rolled upward and around the room wildly. Gleason bent over him and struggled with the knot of the handkerchief at the back of his head; Chief Boyle took out his knife and cut the cords binding his arms.

Hardeman came slowly to his feet, sputtering incoherently and spitting a wad of cotton from his mouth. “This is ghastly,” he complained, “a ghastly experience, to lie helpless in the closet and hear two assailants cold-bloodedly plan Shayne’s murder. I must say you handled the situation masterfully.”

He seized Shayne’s hand in a bone-numbing grip and shook it. “I was terrified when I heard the telephone ring and one of them answer it. Pug Leroy it was. He simulated my voice almost perfectly. Those were moments of sheer agony when I listened to them take their places beside the door and wait to hear you knock.” He paused to pluck a small piece of cotton from his tongue. Shayne wondered if that accounted for the high-flown manner in which he spoke and concluded that it didn’t. “When the shooting began I couldn’t conceive how you might escape with your life. If they had succeeded in killing you, I would certainly have been next.”