Brett Halliday - Michael Shayne's Long Chance

“This here guy,” said Bart, “claims he’s lookin’ for a dame that’s got lost.”

The dick stopped five feet from Shayne and looked him over coldly. He unbuttoned his double-breasted coat and opened it to give the redhead a flash of his city badge. “Better not start anything in here, bud.”

Shayne laughed shortly. “Did Denton send you?”

The dick jerked his thumb back over his shoulder and said, “Beat it.”

Shayne hunched his shoulders and turned back to Bart. “I’m headed this way.”

“That’s private,” Bart said. “’Less you got a special card.”

Shayne took a step forward.

The burly man stepped back and said, “Okay, buddy,” in a resigned tone.

The dick came up behind him swiftly as he reached for the doorknob. He felt the muzzle of a gun boring into his left side. The dick said, “You better not—”

Shayne whirled and knocked the gun down with his left forearm while his right fist made a short arc to the dick’s jaw. As the man went down, pain struck savagely at the base of Shayne’s right ear. His knees gave way, and the bottom fell out of the world.

Shayne found coming back from the dead a disheartening and painful process. It was a lot easier to remain in the void where there was no pain, no physical discomfort. Each effort of his mind to return to consciousness brought unendurable agony, and he swam again into oblivion. Why should he encourage consciousness of the mind when his body was dead?

Lying stretched out on the floor in a semicoma, each resurgence to reality made his head a solid mass of pain circled by constricting bands of flame.

But there was something else. Something urgent. He couldn’t quite get hold of one thought before it frayed away and was replaced by another one. He kept seeing a girl’s face. First she was Lucile, then she was Margo. The girl was beckoning to him, her lips parted and her eyes sad with perplexed entreaty. Two girls who trusted him, and he was letting them both down.

He set himself for the final struggle. He knew it wasn’t going to be easy. He was pleasantly conscious of his own strength and determination as he grappled with the tenuous edge of reality. One strong wrench and he would be back.

He became conscious of the hard floor and of an unbearably bright light overhead which made it impossible to open his eyes. He was aware of voices, voices that were like hammers, pounding against the constricting bands around his head, producing a vicious ringing inside that made the words unintelligible.

Then he heard his own name spoken, and it was as though a brazen gong clanged against his brain, and he could hear again.

“—Mike Shayne don’t know when to lay off.” The voice was heavy, strangely familiar to Shayne.

“Why not get rid of him? I don’t see—”

“We can’t do that, Rudy. Not with things like they are. That’d mean getting rid of the girl, too. And it still wouldn’t take the pressure off the other murder. We got to fix it to clean things up so the investigation’ll stop right now.”

Shayne recognized the voice as Captain Denton’s. And Denton had called the other man Rudy. That would be Rudy Soule.

“I’m not worried about an investigation. I’ve paid out plenty for protection and I mean to be protected.” Soule’s voice was thin and silken. The men seemed to be very close, not more than 15 feet away.

Shayne lay quiescent, listening intently, and the pain subsided to a dull throb at the base of his ear.

“We’re in this together, Soule. You don’t know Shayne when he gets started. He’s hell on wheels.”

“There’re ways to stop him.”

“I tell you another murder won’t do right now — not one hooked up with the Margo Macon killing. Shayne’s got friends in this town. He wouldn’t be fool enough to come here without turning over what he’s got to some of them.”

“You don’t mean Chief McCracken?” This was a new voice, one with a twangy whine.

“Shut up,” Soule commanded. “What do you think he’s got, Dolph?”

“That’s what I want to know!”

“Who steered him here?”

“That fellow named Drake, maybe. The one Henri brought here before he got picked up by Quinlan.”

“Maybe you’re making a lot out of nothing,” Soule scoffed. “He might’ve just dropped in for a place to bring the frail for a thrill.”

“Shayne don’t just drop in,” Denton said viciously. “See if you can wake him up, Bart. If you hadn’ve hit him so damn hard—”

“I didn’t hit ’im hard,” a surly voice protested.

The man moved, dropped to his knees behind Shayne. “I know a li’l trick. Seen it worked in Chi onct. If a guy’s still alive it’ll bring him up sure.”

Shayne forced his eyes open and sat up slowly. Bright overhead lights pierced his eyes with lances of fire. A surge of pain nauseated him and everything whirled in a blur. He gritted his teeth and kept his eyes half open until the room swam into focus again.

The burly man called Bart rocked back on his heels with a grunt of satisfaction. “What’d I tell yuh? I didn’ hit ’im no more’n easy-like.”

Shayne forced his face muscles to form a grin. He said, “Hello, Captain,” to Denton, who was leaning forward in a straight chair beside a desk.

Dolph Denton’s face was ugly with wrath. He said thickly, “You asked for it, shamus.”

Shayne’s gaze went on to the man sitting behind the desk. Rudy Soule had a thin, arrogant face with high cheekbones and a wispy black mustache. He looked immaculate and cool in white flannels and a pale-yellow sport shirt. His eyes were half hidden by drooping lids and he appeared faintly amused.

Henri Desmond regarded Shayne sullenly from a lounging position against the wall behind Soule’s desk. He shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other as Shayne looked at him.

Shayne said to Denton, “You’re the one who’s worried.” The small room held only the desk and three chairs. There was no sign of Lucile Hamilton. Shayne drew his legs up to sit crosslegged and was pleased to find that they worked. The throbbing had stopped at the base of his ear, leaving a steady, annoying ache.

Denton said, “Start talking.”

“What do you want me to talk about?” Shayne took a cigarette from a pack and lit it.

Rudy Soule leaned back and clasped long fingers behind his head. In a silken-smooth voice, he observed, “Don’t try to hold out on us. We’ve got the girl, too. She’s still out, isn’t she, Henri?”

The sullen-faced young man nodded. “She was, the last time I looked.”

Shayne puffed thoughtfully on his cigarette. He couldn’t quite figure the setup. There was something screwy about the whole thing. If he could put his finger on that screwiness—

“I never knew what hit me downstairs,” he complained. “How’d you get wise to me?”

“I saw you come in,” Denton growled. “If you’d drunk your Tom Collins like the girl did you wouldn’t have needed a bust on the head.”

“So — that was it. I should have known from the taste of the damned thing.” He looked at Henri. “You haven’t thanked me for bringing Lucile.”

Henri Desmond was startled. He said, sullenly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Things were beginning to come clear to Shayne. Denton had recognized him as soon as he entered. It looked as though Henri had kept his mouth shut about his part in it as soon as he learned the identity of Lucile’s escort.

“The hell you don’t,” Shayne said. “Why did you invite us here in the first place?”

Both Denton and Soule turned to stare at Henri. Henri pushed his lips into a deeper pout and whined, “That crack on the head Bart gave you must of knocked you cuckoo.”