Бретт Холлидей - Death Has Three Lives

Shayne nodded his red head a quarter of an inch and wheeled to precede Rourke into the room.

Chief Will Gentry stood flat-footed in the center of the rug with an unlit black cigar in his blunt fingers. Moving in from the door, Shayne saw him put the cigar carefully in his mouth and then fumble inside his right vest pocket. Instead of producing a match, he drew out a small slip of paper, folded once, and held it out to Lucy.

“Is that your handwriting?”

Lucy took the paper timidly, glancing up imploringly at Shayne but getting no response from him. Her fingers shook as she unfolded the paper and saw her name and street address written on it in ink. She shook her head and frowned in perplexity. “No. I didn’t write it.”

“Looks like a woman’s handwriting,” persisted Chief Gentry.

She nodded hesitant agreement. “But it’s not at all like mine.” She held the paper out to Shayne for confirmation. “Is it, Michael?”

He glanced at the slip and shook his head at once. “Of course not. What is this hocus-pocus, Will?”

“Do you have any idea who might have written it, Lucy?” persisted the chief.

“If you mean do I recognize the writing — no. Any one of lots of people might have written down my name and address, I suppose.”

Will Gentry shrugged burly shoulders and looked around for a comfortable chair. He lowered himself into one carefully and began to search his pockets for a match. Timothy Rourke moved past Shayne toward a seat on the divan beside Lucy, tilting a hand toward his mouth expressively and lifting black eyebrows.

Shayne nodded and started toward the kitchenette, asking Gentry, “Want a drink while you’re being mysterious, Will?”

“Beer,” sighed Gentry, “if Lucy has any on ice.” He had found a kitchen match, and now struck it on the sole of his shoe, put flame to end of his cigar.

He was placidly emitting clouds of noxious black smoke when Shayne returned with an uncapped bottle for him, bourbon and water for Rourke. The reporter was sitting upright beside Lucy, his gaze fixed on the trailing end of the loose telephone cord behind the chief’s back. His black eyes glittered with interest and with some amusement up at the redhead when Shayne handed him the drink. “Been trying to date some gal right here in front of Lucy?”

Shayne glared at him for silence and disregarded the question. He sat at his end of the divan and asked, “Ready to tell us what it’s all about, Will?”

Gentry approvingly drank half his bottle of beer. “That slip of paper with Lucy’s name and address on it was found on the floor beside a Miami telephone book open at the H’s. As though someone had looked up her number.”

“I had her change to an unlisted phone six months ago,” explained Shayne. “Too many cranks know she works for me. So you found this on the floor. Where?”

“In a rooming-house on Eighteenth Street.” Chief Gentry flicked ashes on his paunch and drank more beer from the bottle.

“That’s very interesting,” said Shayne in exasperation. “Certainly explains everything. Look, Mr. Bones, what was particular about the paper that you came into it and brought it here?”

“The most interesting thing of all,” said Gentry placidly, “was that the body of a dead girl lay on the floor, too. She’d been strangled.”

Sound was wrenched from Lucy’s throat. She started forward, her face worked convulsively, but Shayne put in sharply, “Some friend of Lucy’s? Is that it?”

“I don’t think so.” Gentry’s veiled eyes hadn’t missed Lucy’s involuntary start, but he disregarded it and answered Shayne matter-of-factly. “We don’t know too much about the dead girl yet, but offhand I wouldn’t pick Trixie for anyone Lucy’d give her address to. Handwriting doesn’t jibe, either, with samples we found in her room. What I am guessing is that the man who killed her had the address in his pocket and dropped it accidentally.”

“That sounds like a reasonable deduction,” said Shayne scornfully. “You don’t suspect Lucy of being intimate with a murder victim, but with the murderer. Any particular reason for thinking that?”

“Why, yes,” said Gentry comfortably. “It does seem reasonable when we know from a taxi driver that a young fellow flagged him half a block from the Eighteenth Street address soon after we figure the girl was killed, and had him drive to this building. He acted nervous and funny in the cab,” Gentry went on slowly, “and after he got out the driver noticed a blood smear where he’d been sitting.”

“I get it.” Shayne sat back and nodded. “The man Sergeant Loftus was looking for. Did he find him?”

“Not here. The trail was maybe an hour cold. He searched every apartment in the building,” Gentry went on heavily, “except this one. Claims you objected so he laid off.”

“Did he tell you why I objected?” Shayne demanded hotly. “When your damned storm troopers learn some manners they’ll get along better in police work.”

“Loftus told me about it,” grunted Gentry. “Don’t blame you much, Mike, but things would look a hell of a lot better if you hadn’t interfered. Too bad Loftus didn’t know about this name and address when he was here.”

“If he had,” said Shayne, “I’d have invited him in to look for himself. As it was—” He spread out his big hands with the palms upward.

“Sure. But it’s going to look bad if the papers get hold of it.”

Shayne grinned and glanced aside at Rourke. “So you brought a reporter along with you?”

“To give me the chance to cover up for you — as usual,” said Rourke. He yawned and unwound his lean body from the couch, strolled casually toward the open bedroom door that sagged inward on loose hinges behind Gentry.

Lucy started involuntarily and put her knuckles to her mouth, but Shayne’s eyes followed the reporter with only casual interest and he called out, “Men’s room is on the right.”

Light footsteps came running up the stairs at that instant, and a trim young officer paused in the open outer doorway panting excitedly.

“Thought you’d want to hear this, chief. Just got a flash over the radio from headquarters. An anonymous telephone call about half an hour ago identifies the Eighteenth Street killer as Jack Bristow from New Orleans. With a description and a report that he is shot in the stomach, confirming the taxi driver about his coming here.”

“Shot in the stomach, eh?” muttered Gentry. “There wasn’t any gun or blood in the room.” He was turned in his chair to listen to the man in the doorway, and didn’t see Lucy stiffen and turn fear-drenched eyes on Shayne, or note Shayne form the words with his lips: “Recognize the name, but take it slow.”

Gentry said, “Thanks,” dismissing his driver with a nod. When he turned back, Lucy was leaning forward nervously, lacing her fingers together while she frowned in apparent deep thought.

“I know that name, Chief Gentry,” she began faintly. “New Orleans made me think of it. Arlene Bristow’s brother. She worked with me before I met Michael. I met Jack once. Years ago.”

Chief Gentry was all attention. “That must explain it. Does she know your present address?”

“Arlene? Oh, yes. We correspond every few months. I suppose she might have given it to Jack if he was coming to Miami.”

“But he hasn’t been in touch with you recently?”

“She’s telling you,” said Shayne angrily. “My God, Will. If Lucy has any important dope on a murderer she won’t hold out.”

“Describe him,” ordered Gentry, getting out a pad and pencil.

Hesitantly, Lucy described Jack Bristow, and at Gentry’s insistence gave him Arlene Bristow’s New Orleans address.

Rourke came lounging in from the bedroom with his hands thrust deep in his pockets and a peculiar glitter in his deep-set eyes, just as Gentry finished getting all the information he could from Lucy, and got to his feet, saying, “The man must have come here hoping you’d hide him out and help him on account of his sister. You being here must have scared him away, Mike. Too bad you couldn’t have been a little later and walked in on him. I’ll phone this in to headquarters and have them check with Miss Bristow in New Orleans.” He turned toward the telephone with pad and pencil in his hands, but Timothy Rourke forestalled him swiftly by leaping forward and grabbing the useless handset, putting one foot on the trailing cord to hide it from Gentry’s eyes, and beginning to dial feverishly.