Brett Halliday - I Come to Kill You

“O.K. I hope you’re feeling persuasive, because this won’t be easy. I borrowed some money he was going to use to buy his wife a birthday present, and I dropped it at the dog races. But he’s the only one we can trust.”

“He’ll talk to me,” MacDougall said confidently.

“And don’t do it on the phone, because he has a leak in his office. You’ll have to tell him a piece of this, but try not to mention my name. Tell him if he wants to find a dead man who’s been shot in the head with a.45, the body is anchored in the Atlantic about seven miles out.”

“Seven miles, Mike — how are we going to find it?”

“I’m coming to that. What you have to do is talk him into going alone, just the two of you. Take a bearing of forty-one degrees northeast from the Oceanfront Auditorium in Lummus Park. I can’t give you the exact distance. Seven miles is a very rough guess. Somewhere around there you should see a large yellow stain in the water. If you don’t find it right away, you’ll have to call in a Coast Guard helicopter. The body’s tied to a bundle of life jackets. Now, here’s the important thing, and it’s goddamn important. You have to get out there before that stain dissolves, but I want this kept absolutely quiet until I say to open it up. If anybody knows Gentry was out in that general area, tell him he’ll never find out how it happened, because your informant will be dead.”

“Couldn’t I do this alone, Mike?”

“No, we need somebody with a badge. He won’t recognize the corpse, because there isn’t much face left, but you can tell him it’s a big one.”

“Mike, if he asks how long I want him to sit on it…”

“Maybe twenty-four hours. Everything’s breaking much too fast. I hope I can control it, but I already see that this isn’t a long-range operation. I’ve got to be ready to jump.”

“All right, Mike. I’ll get back here to the phone as fast as I can.”

The pharmacist had five ampules ready, small disposable hypodermic syringes, with their needle ends protected by small cardboard collars. He packed them carefully in a cotton-lined box.

“In the buttock would be the best place. Allow about ten minutes. I’m giving you five because you can’t be sure how long each shot will last, depending on body size and alcohol intake and God knows what. To be comfortable, come back with another shot every four hours. It’s safe, supposedly, just an extra strong sedative. Don’t forget to get me that prescription.”

Shayne, on the cockpit deck, saw Dominick De Blasio on the open terrace with binoculars. There had been three men on the boat when it left, and he wanted to see how many were coming back. Shayne lifted his fist in an insulting gesture. De Blasio lowered the glasses.

“Mike, the thing we were talking about,” Carl said. “About the future. I know it’s too soon to get any meeting of the minds on it, so keep it in the back of your head, will you?”

Without answering, Shayne jumped down onto the dock with the bowline. After tying up, he started for the garage. The older De Blasio gestured and came down from the terrace to cut him off.

“Mike, where are you going?”

Shayne waited for him, smiling slightly. “Seven hundred and fifty bucks. That has to be your cheapest contract in thirty years.”

De Blasio came up, breathing hard. “How did it go, O.K.?”

“Everything was fine. Have you got the money on you? I’m picking up my girl and cutting out.”

“Let’s talk first.”

“Who the hell do you think I am, De Blasio? Some peasant from the old country with his mouth full of sheep dung? That phony Mafia act stopped impressing people years ago. You’re a cheap thief and a cheap killer, with the emphasis on ‘cheap.’ Man of respect! You’re living in a dream world. The only reason you won’t end up on welfare is because there’s no social security for hoods.”

He was shouting and waving his arms. Without looking away from De Blasio, he was aware that there were now six men in view — two on the terrace, two more on the driveway, coming around the house. The gardener had dropped his hose and brought out a pistol. Skeets, the youth who was guarding Sarah, stepped out of that doorway, and he too had a gun. Carl was running along the dock.

De Blasio said, “No reason to get so hysterical, Mike. Come inside and talk over some refreshment.” Shayne gave the boss a shark’s grin, pulled his pistol, and rammed it into the older man’s stomach. De Blasio grunted and stepped backward, making a swatting gesture with one hand.

Carl yelled, “Shayne, quit it!”

Shayne sidestepped, putting De Blasio’s bulk between him and the others. “The safety’s off. Start walking backward.”

De Blasio searched his face to find out how serious he was. “Are you out of your head?”

“There’s a guy behind you with a gun. Skeets. Tell him to get rid of it.”

“Put the gun away, Skeets,” De Blasio called, keeping his eyes on Shayne. “No shooting.”

“I want the girl and the money,” Shayne said. “You know you got a bargain. Tell somebody to bring out the paper with an elastic around it, and toss it to me. I don’t want anybody within ten feet. You’re coming with us. And if everybody’s sensible and no shots are fired, I’ll put you out at a cab stand.”

Drops of sweat glistened on De Blasio’s forehead. He kept moving backward, prodded by the gun.

“Stay in step, for Christ’s sake,” Shayne said irritably.

“Do what he says,” Carl called. “He’s doped to the eyeballs.”

“Doped to the eyeballs,” Shayne said sarcastically. “Keep moving.”

“Mike, it’s the wrong idea, the wrong way. If you want to leave, leave. But if you want to make some money—”

“Somebody else you want hit?”

“You’re a private eye. I’ll hire you. I know we conned you a little, but I’ll explain that, we had to. Five thousand. To find out who killed Meister.”

Shayne jabbed him sharply with the pistol, and De Blasio sat down in the gravel. Shayne followed him down, keeping the gun jammed into the soft folds of his stomach.

“Everybody in town knows who killed Meister.”

“I swear to you we had nothing to do with it,” De Blasio said. “It hurt us. What do you want me to say, I owe you an apology? You want me to humble myself? We had to take care of Musso fast. He was too high in the administration. An old hand like that, would he turn his back on Carlo unless we told him Mike Shayne had to be done away with?”

Shayne’s eyes shifted suddenly, and he said in a complaining voice, “Everybody likes to be treated like a human being. Why didn’t you say honestly, ‘Shayne, here’s what we want you to do’?”

“Because you wouldn’t take any part of it!”

After a moment Shayne nodded. “You could have a point there. And now if I stand up I’ll get a slug in my head. I could use the money, but the only way I can see is to take you with me. Get up.”

“Carlo!” De Blasio shouted. “Skeets. Everybody. This is a misunderstanding. Mike Shayne is a guest. The fault is mine. Do you all understand?”

Shayne looked around. “Wait a minute,” he said as De Blasio started to get up. “Let’s talk about that money. Well, hell. With a gun in your gut? It’s not the way I usually do business.”

He stood up, thrusting the pistol inside his belt. De Blasio embraced him affectionately, in the Italian manner.

“Do you know the last time somebody had a gun on me? A long time ago, Mike, a long time. I forgot what it felt like.”

Carl called, “Mike, take it easy, will you?”

Shayne and De Blasio returned to the house arm in arm, if not yet cousins, friends. At the bar in the game room, where they had had their earlier conference, the boss patted his stomach.