Brett Halliday - Dividend on Death

He stiffened when Gordon’s hand slipped inside his coat, and relaxed when the hand came out bearing some folded papers. Gordon sorted the papers over and handed a small but very distinct photograph of a spare, middle-aged man, with a high forehead and a clipped mustache.

“There’s your man.”

Shayne studied the photograph. “I can have copies made. Is he likely to disguise himself and try to slip in? In other words-does he know the finger is being put on him?”

“Mr. Henderson,” Gordon told him, “is one of the best-known art critics in the United States. He’ll not be after any publicity, but I don’t think he’ll try to slip in.”

Shayne nodded glumly. “It’s a job. I’ll put some good men on it right away. And that’ll cost you plenty.”

“How much?” Gordon’s hand went inside his coat again. This time, Shayne didn’t stiffen. Gordon laid a flat wallet on the table and looked at Shayne with heavy eyebrows lifting in a straight line toward the roots of his hair.

“I’ll take a grand for a retainer.”

Gordon’s eyebrows stayed up in a straight line across his forehead. “I’m not hiring you to bump the President.”

Shayne stood up and said, “What the hell? This isn’t piker stuff. You’re wasting my time.”

Gordon stood up, too. His face was unsmiling, square-cornered. “You’re pretty tough.”

“Tough enough.” Looking past Gordon, Shayne saw the sleek youth lounging in the inner doorway with a look of greedy hope on his face. Thin fingers were clawing toward the bulge under his left arm.

Shayne turned his back on the young man. His lips came back from his teeth wolfishly, and he said, “I’ve changed my mind. It’ll be two grand.”

Gordon began to smile. It was a curious and complicated process. His lips spread open and the upper portion of his face seemed to lift away from mouth and jaw, making not unpleasant crinkles in the hard flesh.

He said, “You and I’ll get along,” and lifted two one-thousand-dollar bills from his wallet.

Shayne accepted them without emotion. He had Henderson’s picture in his left hand. “Let me get this straight. You don’t want this guy hurt or detained? You want him tailed as soon as he hits town-and word sent to you?”

“That’s it.” Gordon went toward the door. “I don’t want him bothered at all except I don’t want him to communicate with anyone in Miami until I have a talk with him.”

Shayne lit a cigarette and muttered, “It would help a hell of a lot if I knew where he was likely to go when he arrives.”

Gordon stared at him for a moment, then came to a decision. “Henderson will likely register at a hotel first. He might not. He might go directly to the Beach or stop to telephone the Brighton residence over there. That two grand is to keep him from doing that.”

“Why the hell didn’t you say so at first?”

When Gordon opened the door without replying, Shayne went on. “The Brightons? Rufus Brighton? That’s where they had a murder last night.”

“So it is,” Gordon agreed curtly. He was holding the door open.

Shayne went out, saying, “I’ll be around when I need more expense money.”

Gordon stood in the doorway and watched him go down the hall. He closed the door when Shayne stopped at the elevators and pushed the button.

In the ornate lobby, Shayne turned to his right from the elevators and went into a cubbyhole of an office with no sign on the door. He said, “Hello, Carl,” to the fleshy man who sat behind a littered desk.

Carl Bolton was the house dick on duty. He was bald, and had a pleasant, vacuous face. He leaned back and lifted a pudgy hand. “Hi, Mike.”

The redheaded detective draped his long body on a corner of Bolton’s desk. “What about six-fourteen?”

Bolton said he didn’t know anything about 614 but he could find out. Shayne said he wished he would, and Bolton went out through an inner door. He came back presently with a slip of paper.

“They checked in this morning from New York.” He read from the slip. “Mr. Ray Gordon, his daughter, and a secretary. Secretary’s name is Dick Meyer. Why? Something phony?”

“The secretary,” Shayne told him, “is a torpedo. The daughter is too damned pretty to be just a daughter. Keep your eyes open, guy.” He stood up.

“Wait a minute. What’s the dope, Mike? You got something on ’em? Give.”

“I’ve got nothing on them-yet. I’m just tipping you.”

“Look,” Bolton complained, “don’t I always play ball with you?”

“Sure.” Shayne strolled out, saying over his shoulder, “They’re clients of mine, heavy with sugar. That’s all I can give you. Call me if anything breaks.”

It was twelve-thirty as he walked out of the hotel. He went to Flagler Street and turned west, stopped at a delicatessen when he thought about Phyllis and lunch. With a paper bag containing sliced meat, cheese, rolls, and some fruit, he went on to his apartment hotel and in the front entrance. The clerk said there hadn’t been any more calls for him, which was all right. He was whistling unmelodiously when he got off the elevator and went down the corridor to his door.

He stopped whistling when he saw his door standing wide open. He hesitated and started to put down the food, then squared his shoulders and walked on in.

Passing through the doorway he noted that the lock had been jimmied to force the door open. He showed no surprise as he met the gaze of the two men awaiting him in easy chairs.

Will Gentry took the cigar from his mouth and grinned mirthlessly at Shayne. Peter Painter didn’t grin. His face was flushed, his eyes angry. He was sitting stiffly erect and he didn’t move as Shayne entered.

Shayne said, “Hello,” as though it was the most natural thing in the world to find them there. The living-room showed no evidence of having been searched. The bedroom door was closed. Shayne circled the two men and went toward the kitchen with his paper bag.

Gentry asked, “How goes it, Mike?” Painter didn’t say anything. His hot eyes followed the detective’s lounging figure into the kitchen.

The breakfast dishes had been washed and neatly put away. Shayne set his bag down on the kitchen table. Without a glance behind him he put water on the electric stove to boil, measured coffee into the Dripolator.

“Where is she, Shayne?” The words came incisively, like small pellets flung from a tiny gun.

Shayne looked over his shoulder at the Miami Beach chief of detectives, standing spread-legged in the doorway. The smaller man’s body was tense with anger. Shayne turned away without answering, carefully fitting the top back on the coffee can.

“You’re going to talk or else.” Painter’s words came more softly but with an undertone of shrillness. “You can’t give me the run-around, Shayne!”

Shayne kept his back turned and began whistling softly, lifting down a long loaf of French bread and getting a knife from the drawer. The wooden-handled butcher knife came first to his hand, and his whistling lips twisted into an ironic grin as he began slicing bread with it under Painter’s gaze.

He heard a funny gurgling noise behind him. Then Gentry’s lumbering footsteps and his soothing voice.

“Getting apoplexy won’t help, Painter. Let me talk to Mike.”

The detective continued to slice bread with his back to them, cutting each slice uniform and thin, pleased with the razorlike edge on the knife.

Gentry spoke placatingly at his shoulder. “I’m trying to keep you out of trouble, you dope. But you’ve got to help a little. Mr. Painter’s not used to being treated like this.”

Shayne stopped slicing bread. He turned and scowled at Gentry. “Isn’t that just too bad?” he grunted sarcastically. “What am I supposed to do in order to please Mr. Painter? Want me to get down on my knees and apologize for leaving my door locked and causing you two imitation yeggs the trouble of using a jimmy to get it open?”