Brett Halliday: The blonde cried murder

She said eagerly, "Could you take me there?" Her fingers nervously clutched a black suede handbag in her lap. "I can pay you-I'll be glad to pay."

The driver said, "It's only a few blocks on ahead now. If the other lady don't really mind-?"

"Go right ahead, driver." A crisply amused voice came from the girl's companion. "I honestly haven't decided yet where I want you to drop me."

"Okay then." The driver passed brightly-lighted Flagler Street and turned right at the next corner. A few moments later he drew up in front of an apartment hotel on the north bank of the Miami River and reached back to unlatch the left door. "You go right in here. Miss, and ask at the desk for Michael Shayne. Nobody's going to bother you any in here."

Starting to get out, the girl drew in a deep breath and told her companion, "I can't thank you enough. I–I just can't explain, but you've been wonderful to let me share your cab. I'll give the driver enough to cover wherever you want to go."

"That's not necessary. It's been a real pleasure-and very exciting."

As the girl slid out in front of the hotel, she pressed a five-dollar bill into the driver's hand. She breathed, "You've been wonderful."

He looked at the bill and pushed his peaked cap back to scratch his forehead as he watched the girl hurry inside the lobby. "Screwy dames," he muttered. "It sure takes all kinds-" Then he shrugged and settled his cap down firmly, turned to ask formally, "Where to now, Miss?"

The running man slid angrily to a panting stop half a block north of the Hibiscus Hotel as the taxi ahead of him gathered speed and the red taillights grew dimmer and then disappeared around a comer.

He gritted his teeth together hard and slammed one fist into an open palm in a gesture of frustrated anger. In the light from the street lamp at the comer ahead where the taxi had stopped to pick up its passenger, he had seen the name of the taxi company and the car's license number.

He hesitated only a moment, then turned and strode back to the hotel behind him. Entering the lobby, empty except for the desk clerk and switchboard operator whispering together excitedly, he glanced around and went directly to a telephone booth near the door with a local directory on the shelf outside.

He looked up the street address of the taxi company he sought, made a notation of it and went out to a car parked at the curb just south of the entrance. He got in and drove to the address he had written down, on Northwest 8th Avenue, and found it to be a large garage with taxis filling all the parking spaces in front.

He parked up the street and returned, found a large, lighted office on the ground level with drivers lounging about in front, half a dozen others seated in chairs against the wall inside.

Beyond, there was a large desk with a burly, red-faced man seated behind it talking into a telephone. Beyond him, in a cubby-hole, a thin, faded blonde was talking in a bored voice into a microphone suspended from the wall in front of her.

The lounging drivers looked at him curiously as he entered and went directly to the desk. The burly man put down the phone and called back over his shoulder, "Number two-oh-three, Gert. Pickup at one-forty-seven Brickell," and looked up to ask, "Want a taxi, Mister?"

"Not exactly." The tall man with the scarred face frowned and leaned forward with his palms flat on the desk. "How much chance is there to get in touch with the driver of one of your cabs-if I can give you his license number?"

"Not much. If you've got his name or the nimiber of his hack-"

His telephone burred. He scooped it up and said, "Yeh?" listened a moment and said, "Right away," looked over at one of the seated drivers and said, "You better take it, Tom. The Starbright Club. He sounded tight enough for a good tip.

In the meantime the man in front of the desk had gotten out his wallet. He drew out a ten, hesitated, and added another ten to it on the desk. He said, "You must have records showing the license number of each cab."

"Sure we got records," grunted the burly man. "But helll It's late and there's only a skeleton staff in the office." He jerked his head to the left where an open door showed two girls working at desks inside.

The man said, "It's really very important. Matter of life and death, you might say, for me to find about a fare this cab picked up near the Hibiscus Hotel about twenty minutes ago." He reached for a piece of paper and wrote down the license number he had memorized.

The man at the desk shrugged and said, "That makes it easier. Hibiscus, twenty minutes ago." He pushed back his chair and went back to confer with the blonde radio dispatcher, and they consulted a chart together and he made some notations on the paper with the license number.

Then he went into the other room and gave the paper to one of the girls with brief instructions, and returned to his desk, grunting, "Should have it in a few minutes."

His phone continued to ring at intervals, while the man stood stiffly in front of the desk, waiting.

It was almost ten minutes before the girl came in and put the paper in front of him. He glanced at it and said affably, "That's Archie. Number sixty-two. That what you wanted?" His thick fingers gathered up the two ten-dollar bills.

"I want you to get him over his radio. Find out where he took the woman he picked up in the street near the Hibiscus half an hour ago."

Blunt fingertips drummed thoughtfully on the desk. "That ain't regular, Mister. You want to wait around till Archie checks in. Then if he wants to bother going back over his trip schedule for you-"

"I need it now-fast," the man said impatiently. "It's my sister, see? And she's in bad trouble. I've got to find her in a hurry. Isn't twenty enough for a small favor like that?"

The big man shrugged. He put the twenty in his pocket and said coldly, "You paid that for Archie's name and cab number." He held out the slip and gestured toward a gate in the low railing beside his desk. "Go back and talk to Gertie if you want. None of my business what she puts over the mike."

The man with the scarred face compressed his lips, picked up the paper and strode back to stand beside the dispatcher. She completed a message, pressed a button and looked up at him appraisingly.

He asked, "Can you call Archie in number sixty-two on that thing?"

She said, "That's what it's for."

"Will you do it and ask him where he took the young lady he picked up in the street a block from the Hibiscus Hotel about half an hour ago?"

"Gee, Mister. I dunno. We're not supposed to send any personal messages over the radio. That's company regulations."

"But this is very important. I've got to locate my sister. She's-" He drew in a deep breath and went on, "Well, she's in real bad trouble. Danger, maybe. Might save her life if I get to her fast."

The blonde screwed her face up in a troubled manner and turned to call past him to the man at the desk. "What you think, Bert?"

He shrugged without turning his head. "You're on your own, kid. I never know what you say over that mike."

The man was getting his wallet out again. The dispatcher watched him covertly as he reluctantly withdrew another ten.

Then she punched a button and droned, "Calling car sixty-two. Sixty-two. Come in, Archie." She pressed another button and leaned back with her head-phones to wait.

After thirty seconds, she said, "Archie. There's a man here wants to know where you took a lady fare you picked up a block from the Hibiscus half an hour ago."

She listened and then asked her questioner: "Which way from the Hibiscus? North or south?"

He thought quickly, closing his eyes to remember and orient himself. "Tell him north. Just the first block north."