Бретт Холлидей - Murder in Haste

“Yeah, I really did.”

“I wish I’d been here to see it You must have made quite a splash.”

Shayne backed his Buick out of the garage. Rourke let him pass, and followed. Speeding down Biscayne Street with Rourke’s headlights gleaming in his rear-view mirror, the big redhead went back over everything he knew about the case, skirting the large gaps in his knowledge and those places where experience told him that he had been listening to lies. Harry Plato, he knew, would kidnap a policeman only if it was absolutely vital to him, but the conviction was growing in Shayne that his sudden hunch had been right, that Plato, a stranger in town, surrounded by enemies, could find no better place to hide his prisoner than aboard a boat And at that point Shayne put the unanswered questions aside for consideration later, and with characteristic concentration, planned the search.

At the corner of Collins Avenue, Tim Rourke blinked his lights and turned to the right. Shayne continued all the way north on Collins, making good time in the light traffic. Reaching Haulover Beach Park, he parked and walked over to the bayfront, where he began the slow, laborious process of checking marinas. He would walk casually past on the promenade, keeping to an easy saunter, as though he was a guest at one of the big hotels further south, unable to sleep and out for a stroll in the moonlight. One eye was cocked for a tall white boat with a mast and a tuna-rig. Part of the time the moon was behind clouds, but when it was out the visibility was good. He saw white boats of the shape Rourke had described, he saw radio masts, he saw several of the awkward tuna platforms, looking like afterthoughts, but he didn’t see them all together.

He went back to the Buick and moved it down to Bal Harbour. Here there were fewer possibilities and he made better time. Passing the 79th Street Causeway, he parked again and walked the short block to the water, where he knew he would find one of the largest and best-equipped marinas in the North Bay. There was a large clubhouse in the middle of a plaza, with four long docks sticking out in the water like the outstretched fingers of a hand.

He went to the water’s edge and his eye ran along the long rows of berths, all but a few of them filled. The boats were every size and shape and color. His eye was caught by a white boat near the end of the northernmost dock. The silhouette was right, but there was no tuna platform. He looked past, but kept coming back. Those platforms could be unbolted and stowed, and perhaps, Shayne thought, it had been taken off after Plato’s arrival in Miami. Certainly this pretentious monster was just the kind Harry Plato would choose when he was shopping for boats.

Shayne moved on to the north, avoiding the clubhouse. Again he looked out over the water. Clouds were scudding across the moon. He was too far away from the white boat to make out her name, but he saw the capital P, counted letters and saw the rise of the “t” and “h” in the middle. Panther!

He threw away his cigarette and crossed the street at an angle, heading for the place where he had left his Buick. He passed between two parked cars. As he came out on the sidewalk, two men stepped in against him from either side, and one of them hit his injured side with the muzzle of a gun. The redhead straightened his arms in an instinctive reflex, getting both hands out in the moonlight where they could be seen.

One of the men said, “Do something stupid and we’ll use you for target practice. I’m going to get your billfold. Keep your hands where they are.”

Shayne turned his head carefully to look at the man who had spoken. He was about Shayne’s size, six feet two and built as solidly as a professional football tackle. There was a ridge of scar tissue over his eyes. The other was the bald man Shayne had seen in Plato’s sitting room. He kept jabbing Shayne’s side with the gun. The door of a parked car opened and somebody else came out. The redhead didn’t look that way, but saved him for later.

“Stop pushing me with that thing,” Shayne said evenly, “or you’ll have to shoot me with it.”

“I won’t mind,” the man told him.

The big man patted Shayne lightly on the hips and under the arms, slid one hand inside Shayne’s coat and took out his wallet. The man holding the gun stepped backward while the other held the wallet to the moonlight.

“I told you it was Mike Shayne,” he said.

“You boys owe me ten bucks apiece,” a voice said behind Shayne. He looked around and saw a small, neatly dressed man with a badly eroded face, who was smiling cheerfully. “When I heard you were in on this I knew you’d turn up, Shayne. Just a matter of time.”

“Yeah, but how in God’s name did he—” the man with the gun said.

“Maybe I tipped him off so I could collect the twenty bucks,” the small man said. “What difference does it make? Do you like boats, Shayne? We’re having a little party aboard. I know you’ll enjoy it.”

“I’m in no mood for a party,” Shayne said.

The big man with the gun grinned. “The party’s in the mood for you.”

“Turn around, Shayne,” the small man said. “There’s three of us, and you’re the only one here without a gun-Draw your own conclusions. Keep holding your hands just that way.”

Shayne said, puzzled, “I don’t get it. How much money is in this Welfare Fund Harry’s trying to get hold of?”

“Plenty. Stick it in his ribs again, Whizzer. Give him a jab with it now and then. One thing I’ve heard about him, he’s not too impressed with being on the short end of the odds.”

Whizzer started forward, and Shayne said quickly, “Somebody’s been telling lies about me. I’m realistic. Put the gun away.”

He stepped off the curb, between the cars. This was the only chance he’d get to deal with them one by one. He stumbled and went headlong, landing on his hands. Twisting, he lashed out with one foot and caught the man named Whizzer in the soft flesh above the knee. In the same motion he doubled forward, coming underneath the gun as it swung down at him. His big hand glanced from the barrel and knocked it skyward, and his other hand fastened on Whizzer’s wrist.

Shayne’s powerful body uncoiled in one continuous, fluid movement, driving upward beneath the gun, and slammed a hard right against the side of Whizzer’s jaw. The blow had started from the pavement, picking up speed as it went Whizzer went sideward against the front grill of the nearest car, making a sound like air escaping from a balloon. Shayne still had him by the wrist. He swung him like a door, aiming at the big man, who was trying to get in position to make his size and weight count.

“Grab him, Jack!” the small man cried.

Whizzer’s feet left the ground. He crashed into Jack, the big man, who tripped against the curb and went down. Shayne whirled. The small man had danced away. He had a gun out and was waving it back and forth.

“Stand still, you dumb Mick,” he said softly.

Shayne snarled. The big man had thrown Whizzer off and was coming up at him. Shayne sidestepped, to get the man’s bulk between him and the gun. He evaded a high punch to the head, blocked another to the body, and catching the other around the waist, wrestled him backward, trying to force him against the gun.

“Don’t try to out-slug him, Jack!” the smaller man shouted. “Just hang onto him.”

The big man, cursing steadily, wrapped one of his long arms around Shayne and began working on his mid-section with his right. The small man darted past and cracked Shayne’s head sharply with the flat of the pistol. The big man drove two more hard rights against Shayne’s body. The redhead’s strength was beginning to go. Then the man with the gun reversed it and brought the butt-plate down on Shayne’s skull.