Brett Halliday - Tickets for Death

“Certainly he knew it. He simply wanted to create a sensation, and when it backfired into an attempt on your life, he gave the only excuse he could think of.”

Shayne’s eyes glinted. “I see. That’s a point I’ll take up with Matrix direct. Now, I presume I’m keeping you from the track.”

“Yes. I should have been in my office before this.”

Shayne went to the door and opened it. “I’ll get right to work,” he promised. “I’ll let you know as soon as I begin to get results.”

“Don’t hesitate to call on me for any information I can supply,” Hardeman requested as he turned and went down the hall.

Shayne closed the door and turned to see Phyllis flying noiselessly across the deep carpet. “There, now,” she exclaimed ecstatically, “aren’t you glad I’m such an efficient secretary? Twenty thousand dollars!”

“I haven’t earned it yet, angel.”

“But you will. Oh-I almost forgot-how is your side?” She caught his arm and urged him toward the bedroom.

“It’s not bad,” he declared. “A bullet picks on a tough customer when it whizzes in my direction.” He grinned reassuringly. “Of course, a little drink-”

“I know. Your brain cells need stimulating, but you’re not going to have a drop until you change suits.” She got behind him and shoved him into the bedroom. “Blood is all caked on that one.”

When he started undressing she went back to the living-room and picked up his glass, took it to the bathroom for a refill. She returned sober-faced and anxious. “Promise you’ll be more careful, Michael. Everything depends on where a bullet hits.”

Shayne buckled the belt of a fresh pair of trousers and said casually, “There’s no danger now. This case looks too open and shut. I’m afraid of it-but I think the hoodlums will lay off of me from now on.”

“You suspect Mr. Matrix, don’t you? Everybody else does.” Shayne put on his coat and she followed him into the living-room, where he sank into a chair and set his glass on a table near by.

“I always begin a case by suspecting everybody,” he said.

She snuggled down beside him in the big chair. “Don’t you think Mr. Hardeman suspects the editor?” she persisted.

Shayne rumpled up his forehead and answered, “Hardeman hates Matrix,” absently. He took a long sip of cognac and started across the room.

“What did you mean by asking about Mayme Martin?”

“Just wanted to find out. Miss Martin offered to crack the case for a grand, and I put her off. I might have made twenty grand by betting one that she was telling the truth.”

Phyllis caught her lower lip between perfect white teeth, her big dark eyes round and thoughtful. Thinking made her look extremely young-younger than her twenty years. She said, “The chances are Mayme Martin knows a lot if she has been Mr. Matrix’s mistress. If I were anyone’s mistress, I’d not hesitate to listen in at a keyhole.”

Shayne chuckled. His steel-gray eyes softened upon his young wife. “Mayme may be on the level,” he said, then resumed his vacant stare across the room. He cracked his knuckles audibly.

“Every day that passes while you’re solving the case costs you three thousand dollars,” Phyllis reminded him sweetly.

“All women are mercenary,” Shayne grinned. He sobered immediately and added, “A thousand bucks paid to Mayme Martin would net me two if her information would save me a day.” He eased her head from his shoulder and stood up. “Let’s go for a ride, angel.”

“To Miami-to see Miss Martin?”

Shayne nodded. “We can make it there and back in an hour. We won’t be missed from Cocopalm. No one needs to know we’ve gone.”

He waited impatiently while she got a fur chubby from the closet and slipped into it. He jammed a hat down on his head and they went through the hall together.

Chief Boyle stepped from the open door of Hardeman’s room to intercept them.

Shayne’s fingers tightened on his wife’s arm. He stopped in front of the chief and asked curtly, “What’s on your mind now?”

Boyle stood his ground, glowering, a pugnacious jaw outthrust. “Where are you going?”

Shayne said, “Out.”

“I can’t have a man just walk in here and shoot up the town, kill two men, without holding him responsible,” the chief protested. He frowned weightily.

Shayne smiled. “Are you going to arrest me for being an old meanie and not standing around with my hands in my pockets while your brother-in-law’s thugs blast my guts out?”

“I’m not saying the shooting wasn’t justified,” the chief admitted gravely. “But that’s something a coroner’s jury will have to decide. I’ll have to ask you not to leave town until after the inquest tomorrow.”

Shayne said, “All right, you’ve asked me.” He steered Phyllis forward. The chief backed away a step but did not move aside.

“Not so fast there. You haven’t said you’d stay.”

Shayne’s lips curled away from his teeth. He put Phyllis gently aside, but she clung to his arm, her face white with strain.

“Don’t dive in over your depth,” Shayne warned Boyle. “I’ll smash any man who stands in my way tonight.” His big hands balled into fists. He shifted his weight to a fighter’s stance.

Phyllis breathed, “Please, Michael,” and tugged at his hard arm. She appealed to the chief, “Don’t be absurd. My husband isn’t going to run away from any inquest. He has a job to do, and-”

“Don’t make it easy on him,” Shayne said angrily. “I’m not asking his permission to do anything.”

“Well, now,” Boyle said placatingly, “if the lady gives me her word I guess that’s good enough. You folks go ahead, but I can’t guarantee to give you protection if you don’t tell me what you’re going to do.”

Shayne snorted and strode past him with his wife clinging to his arm. She smiled up into his sultry eyes as he stalked to the elevator.

“Why do you insist on being so tactless, Michael?” she asked with a catch in her voice. “You could avoid all sorts of complications if you would just leave a man like that a little corner to back into. He’s sort of pathetic,” she ended thoughtfully.

Shayne laughed suddenly and in a wondering tone said, “You’re marvelous, Phyl. I’ll never understand how I got along all these years without you.” He squeezed her arm with rough tenderness, then lifted her into the elevator as it stopped in front of them.

The sky was clear and duskily blue from the pale light of a quarter moon when they got into the roadster. There was little traffic going south, and in spite of the parade of racing cars traveling north toward the race track, Shayne reached the outskirts of Miami in thirty minutes. He glanced at his watch as he slowed for the traffic signal at 79th Street, then swerved to the right off the boulevard.

He said, “I’ve got to find some place where I can get a check cashed, angel,” in response to a silent inquiry in her dark eyes. “The Lucky-Seven Club will just about be opening for business and that’s my best bet to pick up a thousand dollars at this hour.”

They bumped across the F.E.C. tracks at Little River, turned left on Northeast Second Avenue. A dozen blocks farther south he turned into a graveled circle drive leading through tropical shrubbery to the front of a solid stucco structure set unobtrusively back from the street. The neon light was not on over the entrance, but curtained windows glowed with lights from within.

Shayne stopped in front of the door and got out. “I’ll only be a minute,” he promised, striding around the car and up flagstone steps.

He put his finger on the electric button and held it down. After a few seconds a bulb glowed above his head and a panel in the door slid back. A pair of black eyes set in white orbs rolled at him through the slit, then the latch clicked and the door came open.