Бретт Холлидей - Murder in Haste

“Find it?” the Cuban said on deck.

Another voice called from the engine room. “Water coming in to beat hell!”

Shayne could feel the difference in the trim of the boat Whitey’s voice asked. “What do we do with Klipstone?”

“Take him,” the Cuban said. “And Whizzer. Luke can use them.”

The Panther was settling fast. Shayne picked up the unconscious Painter and walked him to the door. He lifted him to get him past Gray’s body, and as he did so, Painter’s head snapped forward. He opened his mouth to complete the yell he had started before Shayne punched him. Shayne held his fist in front of his eyes, and he closed his mouth again, giving the redhead a look of extreme hatred. Shayne kept a firm grip on him as they went up the stairs.

“Going fast!” the Cuban cried. “Untie!”

Shayne kicked off his shoes. He couldn’t take off his pants without letting go of Painter, whose eyes were darting in panic from one side of the companionway to the other. The boat lurched sharply to starboard. Shayne held Painter on the step next to the top, restraining him from running out on deck.

“No!” Painter cried clearly. “Let me—”

Shayne clapped his hand over the little man’s mouth. “Do that again,” he whispered, “and we’ll both be killed.”

Whitey’s voice called from the other boat, “Did you hear that, Juan? Somebody—”

“Nah,” the Cuban said scornfully. “Start up the motor.”

The Panther righted herself for an instant, but her decks were awash. Shayne started to count. He got as far as six, and then the boat seemed to rush away beneath his feet. He had to use both hands to hold Painter, who was struggling like a cat being drowned. Water poured in through the companion doorway. Shayne thrust Painter ahead of him and pushed off hard.

They rode the bubbles to the surface. Shayne had one hand around Painter’s mouth. He stroked hard with the other arm, coming up at an angle in the hope of being beneath the dock when they surfaced. But Painter was fighting too hard, and he didn’t quite make it Their heads broke water. He heard a cry from the Cuban’s boat, and at the same instant, a siren.

He rolled on his side, shifting his grip to Painter’s chin, and pulled hard for the dock. Painter floundered behind him, trying to get his arms around Shayne’s neck. Shayne held him at arm’s length. His wet clothes slowed him down, but he reached the dock before anyone on the Cuban’s boat could get out a gun. Four more swift strokes carried him beneath the cross-walk. There were two sirens now, coming fast. The engine of the Cuban’s boat was idling. Shayne noted the name on the stern as it swung toward him. Someone shouted in Spanish.

“Gotta get him!” Juan shouted. “Or Luke—”

“Hell with Luke,” somebody answered. “Those are cops.”

“Cops, cops. Hold it right here, or by God I knock you out of the boat with this forty-five.”

Shayne pushed Painter against a piling. He heard the Cuban’s feet on the cross-walk.

“Hang on,” he whispered.

Painter reached for him desperately as he swam away, Then snatched at the piling, wrapping both arms and legs around it. Shayne surface-dived silently and breast-stroked toward the Cuban’s boat. He groped ahead of him in the black water. When his fingers touched a piling, he surfaced slowly, easing up to avoid a splash.

He heard the voice from the boat, low but penetrating, “Juan, they’re coming, they’re coming.”

The Cuban made a sharp sound above Shayne, five feet toward the shore. Shayne moved quietly past the piling, grazing it lightly with his fingertips. He saw something move on the water — a long pointing shadow. Juan was leaning far down, his gun ready, watching and listening intently. Shayne sank beneath the surface, turned in the Cuban’s direction and planted his feet solidly against the piling. He straightened his knees, kicking backward, and shot upward through the water.

He had misjudged his distance slightly, but as he flashed into the open he changed direction with a powerful flip of his body. His hand fastened on the Cuban’s arm. He heard a shout from the boat. The Cuban grunted and tried to turn the gun, but he was half over the edge, and his balance was wrong. Shayne twisted, kicking, and dragged the Cuban into the water.

He took him down, concentrating on the gun. The Cuban stabbed at Shayne’s face with the rigid fingers of his free hand. Shayne’s legs scissored around the Cuban’s waist. Still they went down. Shayne had filled his lungs before he attacked, but the Cuban had been caught by surprise. Another moment, and he was no longer trying to hurt Shayne, but to get away.

They were down in muddy water, roiled by the settling of Plato’s boat. The Cuban dropped the gun and clawed upward. Instantly Shayne pushed toward the surface. The Cuban hit at him when they broke water. Shayne clipped him behind the ear, but not hard enough to stun him. He continued to struggle. Shayne tried to maneuver him around to get a clear shot at a knockout point, but his arms and legs were heavy and the frantic Cuban was hard to control as a fighting salmon. Shayne pushed him back against the nearest piling and banged his head until he felt the lithe body go limp in his hands.

Men were running out on the dock. The Cuban’s boat swung out into the bay, its throttle opened up full. Shayne towed the Cuban to where he had left Painter. For a minute he thought the little man had let go, choosing to drown himself in preference to being saved by Michael Shayne.

“Painter!” he shouted. “Goddam it—”

But he had made a mistake in the half light. He saw Painter clinging to the next piling.

“I’m never going to forget this, I warn you!” Painter said. “You deliberately let them sink that boat. You thought you were going to get rid of me, didn’t you?”

Suddenly Shayne was filled with cold fury. “You got yourself into this all by yourself, and I wish I’d let you get out of it. You found some evidence that would save a man from execution. It must have been pure luck, but you found it. And then you held it up so you’d get more personal publicity out of it. You fell for the oldest dodge in the book, you were so goddam anxious to get something on me—”

“And I’ll get it yet, don’t worry!”

“Who really robbed the Beach Trust, Petey? Luke Quinn?”

Painter howled. “No, you don’t! You think you can grab the spotlight now, after everything I’ve gone through? No, sir. I’m way ahead of you.”

Shayne suppressed an impulse to drag him into the water. “Have it your own way,” he said wearily.

“And don’t you forget it!”

The dock above them reverberated to the sound of footsteps. Tim Rourke’s voice called, “Mike Shayne, are you down there?”

His head appeared upside down at the edge of the dock. A gun went off, but the escaping boat was beyond pistol-range. Other heads appeared beside Tim’s, and one of the cops played a flashlight into the shadows. Shayne swam toward the light, towing the Cuban. Rourke reached down, Shayne reached up and their hands joined.

“I called the cops when I found your car,” Rourke said. “That’s not the Panther out there. What the hell happened?”

Other hands came down and dragged Shayne and the Cuban out of the water.

“And that’s not Petey!” Rourke exclaimed.

A voice sounded faintly from beneath the dock. “What do you bastards think you’re doing? Get a rope down here or you’re going to be back walking a beat, a lot of you, and by God, I mean it!”

Rourke made a face. “Stupid of me, I know. But I was kind of hoping he might be different.”

Tim Rourke raced back to his car, returning with a Japanese camera loaded with fast film. He arrived just as one of the cops was reaching down for Painter. But Painter hated to relinquish his grip on the piling, and the cop couldn’t quite touch his chief’s outstretched fingers until Shayne and a second cop held him by the legs. Rourke was ready. As Painter came over the side, sputtering, Rourke made the picture, which appeared on the front page of that day’s News .