Brett Halliday - Michael Shayne’s Triple Mystery

Shayne said coldly, “Maybe that’ll help your memory.”

Renaldo took another step backward and sank down on the red divan. He got a handkerchief from his hip pocket and wiped at his cut lip. He moaned, “Before God, Mike—”

Shayne rasped, “Where are your two gunmen?”

“Blackie and Lennie? How should I know?”

“They grabbed Miss Hastings from her hotel half an hour ago.”

“I don’t know anything about it.” He looked at the blood on his handkerchief and shuddered. “I haven’t seen them for two hours.”

“Didn’t you have them tail me when I left your place?”

“What if I did? But I didn’t tell them to grab any girl.”

Shayne narrowed his eyes. Renaldo sounded truthful. Shayne said, “I’ll search this dump anyhow.”

Renaldo got up slowly. There was a certain dignity in his bearing as he objected. “This is my house. If you haven’t got a search warrant—”

Shayne said, “I’m not the police.” He turned toward a passageway leading to the rear of the house.

Renaldo moved in front of him and folded his arms stubbornly. “My wife and kid are asleep back there.”

Lennie’s voice rapped out behind Shayne. “We’ll take care of him, boss.”

Renaldo’s eyelids twitched and his eyes showed frantic terror. “I told you to stay in the kitchen, Lennie.”

“To hell with that. Drop that gat, shamus,” he rasped.

Shayne dropped the gun on the rug. He turned slowly and saw Lennie hunched forward and moving toward him from an open door. Blackie sauntered through the door after him.

Lennie had a heavy automatic in his right hand and his eyes glittered. His face was twisted and tiny bubbles of saliva oozed from between his tight lips. He was coked to the gills and as dangerous as a maddened snake. He glided soundlessly across the rug, the muzzle of his.45 in line with Shayne’s belly.

Renaldo said, “Hold it, Lennie. We don’t want any trouble here.”

Lennie’s hot eyes twitched toward the tavern proprietor. “He come here lookin’ for trouble, didn’t he? By the sweet God—”

“Hold it, Len,” Blackie said coolly from behind him. “Stay far enough back so’s you can blast him if he starts anything.” He moved around Lennie on the balls of his feet, one hand swinging his blackjack in a short, lazy arc.

Shayne jerked his head back and it struck him on the side of the neck just above the collarbone. The blow was paralyzing, and he hit the floor before he knew he was falling. He heard Renaldo cry out, “Watch it, Blackie. Keep him so he can talk. If he croaked the old man he’s maybe got some info.”

Blackie said, “Sure. He’ll talk.” He drew back his foot and kicked Shayne in the face.

Shayne saw the kick coming but he couldn’t move to avoid it. He closed his eyes and lay inert.

Blackie kicked him again in the face, and the pain brought knots in his belly. It also drove away the paralysis that had numbed him.

He sat up with blood streaming from his face and pulled his lips away from his teeth in a wolfish grin. He asked thickly, “Didn’t you bring your pliers along this time, Blackie? I’ve got ten fingernails to work on.”

Blackie hit him viciously with the blackjack again. Shayne toppled over and he heard Lennie laughing thinly as though from a far distance.

When he came to, water was being poured over his face. He lay quiescent and listened to Renaldo and Blackie arguing fiercely about him. Renaldo gave Blackie hell for knocking him out so that he couldn’t talk, and Blackie angrily reminded Renaldo of Shayne’s reputation for being tough. Lennie put in an aggrieved voice now and then, begging for permission to finish him off.

It was all foggy, but Shayne didn’t hear any of them mention the girl. He gathered that they had followed him from the tavern to the little house on Eighteenth Street and had seen the police arrive. If they had followed him back to his hotel and tailed Myrna from the fire escape exit, it was evident that they were keeping that fact from Renaldo for reasons of their own.

“We gotta get him out of here,” Renaldo said at last. “You boys’ve messed hell out of this whole thing, and the only way I see now is to finish him off.”

“He pushed his face into it,” Blackie muttered.

“Sure he did,” Lennie said eagerly. “Don’t worry about him none, boss.”

“We’ll take ’im out through the kitchen to our car.” Blackie was placating now. They withdrew a short distance and began talking further in low voices. Shayne kept his eyes closed and gathered together the remnants of his strength.

They came back after a time and he heard Lennie saying happily, “Once in the heart to make sure is the best way. We don’t wanna muff this.”

Shayne saw the glitter of a knife in Lennie’s hand as he uncoiled and rose from the floor. He saw Blackie’s mouth drop open just before he hit him in the belly with his shoulder. They went to the floor together and Shayne kept on rolling toward the kitchen door. He stumbled through it just as Lennie’s gun roared in the living room behind him.

With a rush, Shayne jerked the back door open and staggered out into the night. He leaned against the side of the house and hoped Lennie or Blackie would follow him out. A light came on in the house next door and an irate voice bellowed, “What’s going on over there? Was that a shot I heard?”

Shayne tried to call back, but his throat muscles were queerly knotted and he couldn’t utter a sound. He shambled down the alley to the street where he had left his car and got in. He started the motor and drove away, made a circle back to Miami Avenue and drove to his apartment hotel. He didn’t feel like tackling the side stairway, so he went in through the lobby to the elevator.

The clerk hurried out from behind the desk when he saw the detective’s condition. He exclaimed, “Good God, Mr. Shayne! What happened? Here — lean on me.”

Shayne put his arm gratefully around the clerk’s shoulder and croaked, “It’s okay, Dick. More blood than anything else.”

Dick helped him into the elevator and rode up to his room with him. Shayne was an old and privileged client in the apartment hotel and the clerk had seen him in bad shape before, but never quite in this condition. He took Shayne’s key ring and unlocked the door, then stared around in amazement when he turned on the light.

“Good Lord!” he ejaculated, “did the fight start here in your room, Mr. Shayne?”

Shayne looked around the room with dazed and bleary eyes that refused to focus on any object. Things seemed to be in a sort of jumble but he didn’t understand why the clerk was so excited. He let go of the clerk’s steadying arm and staggered past him toward the center table and stared stupidly at the drawer that was pulled all the way out. He remembered having left it closed — with the things he and Myrna Hastings had brought from Captain Samuels’s house.

His fingers closed around the neck of the brandy bottle which was still sitting where he had left it. He used both hands raising it to his mouth. He let the Monnet gurgle down his throat and felt his muscles relax and his eyes clear a little. He looked around the disordered room, and then at the clerk.

“Have I had any visitors since I went out, Dick?”

“Just that tall white-haired man who was with Chief Gentry. He came back right after you went out. He didn’t stop at the desk, but went straight up. He came back almost immediately and went on out and I thought he’d come back hoping to catch you and found you’d already left.”

Shayne took another slow drink of cognac. It brought warmth and relaxation to his tight belly muscles. “Was he up here long enough to do all this?” He motioned around the room.