Brett Halliday - Marked for Murder

At 2:15, his car was discovered by the police, parked on Ocean Boulevard. Jordan’s body was in the front seat. He had been shot through the heart with a. 32 caliber automatic that had been pressed against his right side. His wallet was empty. The blonde had disappeared.

So much for Mr. Peter Jordan, Number One of the three murder victims during the past week. In their “official investigation” Chief Painter’s men have uncovered none of the facts cited above. They found a body in an automobile and no trace of the killer.

Two nights later, among hundreds who swarmed into the swanky Sundown Club (under the same management as the Oceanview) was a lad named Jim Crowley. He was an honorably discharged veteran of this war, recently married, and visiting Miami Beach for a period of rest and rehabilitation.

Jim Crowley had learned to shoot craps in the army. He was unfortunately lucky at one of the crap tables in the Sundown Club on Wednesday night, building up an original roll of less than $100 into a sum estimated by various envious witnesses to be about $9,000.

Shortly past midnight, Jim Crowley drifted into the barroom for a nightcap on the house. He had several nightcaps and fell into conversation with a young lady of striking blond beauty. They left the Sundown Club together in a car which Crowley had borrowed from a friend for the evening. Two hours later the car was discovered by police, parked on an obscure side street less than ten blocks from the Sundown Club. Crowley’s body was in the front seat. He had been shot through the heart with a. 32 caliber automatic that had been pressed against his right side. There was a stain of lipstick on his mouth. His wallet was empty. There was no trace of the blonde.

Jim Crowley was Number Two in this series of “unrelated killings” (a direct quote from Chief Painter). Because the bullets taken from the two bodies were not fired from the same gun. Chief Painter is not aware that Jim Crowley was gambling that night at the Sundown Club and had the misfortune to win a pile of money. He refuses to credit the existence of a blond girl.

Murder Number Three occurred Friday night. The opening scene is at the very exclusive (you have to have a few dollars in your pocket to gain admission) Tip Top Club (under the same management as the Ocean-view and Sundown). The man marked for murder was Mr. Harvey J. Hazard, a business man from Miami, well known throughout the city as a wealthy widower and a “sport.”

Like his predecessor, Mr. Jordan, Harvey Hazard was unlucky at the roulette table, winning several thousand which swelled his large original investment to well over $10,000. With this sum in his pocket, Hazard visited the bar and hoisted a few on the house, speaking jovially to various acquaintances.

A few of them noticed him in intimate conversation with a young lady of striking blond beauty.

They left the Tip Top Club together at a few minutes before two o’clock in Mr. Hazard’s convertible roadster.

Less than an hour later, Mr. Hazard’s convertible roadster was found parked near the Beach entrance to the Venetian Causeway. Hazard’s body was slumped under the wheel. A striking dissimilarity from the two previous killings was noted by the alert Beach detectives in that Hazard had been shot twice with a. 32 automatic pressed against his right side. One of the bullets had penetrated his heart. His money was gone. And so was the ubiquitous blonde. Neither of the bullets matched either of the two death slugs dug out of the hearts of Peter Jordan and Jim Crowley. Thus, it is obvious to Chief Peter Painter that none of the three murders are in any way related.

These are the facts. They are easily ascertained by anyone aware that the Oceanview, Sundown, and Tip Top Clubs are operating openly on the Beach in defiance of (or in connivance with) the authorities pledged to stamp out such illegal practices. The truth of the above statements can be verified by anyone who cares to examine the affidavits in this reporter’s possession.

Chief Painter is not interested in these facts. He blandly denies the existence of the three clubs named in this column. He is not aware that a man named Brenner manages these three establishments for the syndicate that financed them.

The Courier makes no accusations. It presents the facts for the information and the consideration of any persons who may be interested. We believe in Miami and we believe in the future of the Greater Miami Area. That great future lies in the hands of the public, and not in the hands of a selfish few who condone murder as an inevitable concomitant of the way of life they would force upon us.

Shayne finished reading the story with a low whistle. He leaned back and muttered, “The Courier ran this the day Rourke was shot?”

“In the Blue-Flash edition. The first one to hit the street about two-thirty. And only in that one edition,” Gentry added with a slow grin. “The managing editor caught the story and killed it in all the later editions.”

“Had Rourke been writing much stuff like this?”

“He’s been pounding on that line for several days,” Gentry admitted. “Needling Painter and hinting that those three murders were tied up with the new and growing gambling racket on the Beach. Nothing like this last story,” he added hastily. “This was the first time he took his gloves off and named names, or gave any of those facts he’d dug up.”

“The damned fool,” Shayne muttered hoarsely. “He should have had sense enough to know they’d go gunning for him if he started giving names and descriptions to the paper before the murders were solved. What’s got into him, Will? Was he imagining things, or is it getting that bad?”

“It’s getting bad, Mike,” Gentry told him soberly. “We’ve had our hands full the last few months. It’s been getting bad,” he repeated. “We’ve held things down pretty well on this side of the Bay, but you know the Beach has always been inclined to wink both eyes at stuff like that. You can’t blame Painter too much. He’s got a job to hang onto.”

Shayne lit another Picayune, disregarding Gentry’s shudder of revulsion. “So Rourke had been riding this line for days, and then suddenly comes up with this broadside. No wonder they killed the story after one edition.”

“The way I get it,” said Gentry, “that story was a sort of slap in the face for Walter Bronson, the managing editor. He and Rourke have tangled several times in the past when he tried to hold Tim down, and it seems he read the riot act to Tim Tuesday morning. So Tim faked a tame story for his okay and sneaked this one in instead. He knew it’d be the last he’d write for the Courier, so he made it good and hot.”

“Walter Bronson,” said Shayne meditatively. “I thought Wilcox was the Courier editor.”

“They fired Wilcox about a year ago and imported Bronson from New York. He’s a big shot, I guess. I never met him myself, but I’ve heard Tim’s gripes. He bought a big place on the Beach, makes speeches at the Chamber of Commerce-” Gentry waved a beefy hand to indicate more of the same.

“No wonder he tried to gag Rourke.”

“Jimmy Dolan says Bronson was sore as hell about that story. Rushed out to fire Rourke and found a note in Tim’s typewriter telling him where to stick his job.”

Shayne chuckled. “Tim never did give a damn. I’ve had to hog-tie him a couple of times to keep him from going off half-cocked with a front-page story before the time was ripe. Always sticking his neck out.”

“Seems to me,” said Gentry, “I remember your neck being on the block a couple of times-and the ax raised.”

Shayne arched a bushy red brow at Gentry and went on gravely, “You say this thing hit the streets at two-thirty? Sometime between noon and four o’clock Tim took a hell of a beating. And by ten-thirty that night he had a couple of slugs inside him.”