Brett Halliday - Michael Shayne’s Triple Mystery

Renaldo licked his lips. “So the old captain did talk before he died?”

“Not to me. I got onto it from another angle. Interested?”

“Why are you cutting us in?” Renaldo protested. “Sounds like some kind of come-on to me.”

“I need help,” Shayne said smoothly. “There’s another mug in my way and he’s got a couple of torpedoes gunning for me. I need a couple of lads like Blackie and Lennie to handle that angle. After that’s cleared up, I still need somebody with the right connections like you, Renaldo. I haven’t any setup for handling sales. You know all the angles from ’way back. And since you put me onto it in the first place I thought you might as well have part of the gravy. Hell, there’s plenty for all of us,” he added generously. “A whole shipload of that same stuff.”

“Sounds all right,” Renaldo admitted cautiously.

“I’m the only one standing in this other guy’s way,” Shayne explained. “So he plans to put me on the spot. I’ve got a date to meet him out in the country this morning, and I know he’ll have a couple of quick-trigger boys on hand to blast me out of the picture.” He turned to Blackie. “That’s where you and Lennie come in. I’m not handing you anything on a platter. This is hot, and if you’re scared of it just say so and I’ll find someone else.”

Blackie grunted contemptuously. “Lennie and me can take care of ourselves, I reckon.”

“That’s what I thought after last night. Both of you ironed?”

“Sure. When do we start?”

“Well, that’s it,” Shayne told Renaldo. “You sit tight until the shooting’s over. If things work out right we’ll do a four-way split and there should be plenty of grands to go around. I’m guessing at five hundred cases, but there may be more,” he ended casually.

Renaldo took his cigar from his mouth and wet his lips. “Sounds plenty good to me. You boys willing to go along?”

Both of them nodded.

Shayne said briskly, “We’d better get started. I’m due south of Homestead at eleven o’clock.” He led the way out to his car and opened the back door. “Maybe both of you will feel better if you ride in back where you can keep an eye on me.”

“We ain’t worryin’ none about you,” Blackie assured him, but they both got in the back seat while Shayne settled himself under the wheel.

In the rear-view mirror he could see the pair conferring together earnestly. Both sides of Lennie’s face were getting the twitches and his hands trembled violently when he lit a cigarette. He took only a couple of drags on it, then screwed up his face in disgust and threw it out.

Shayne said sympathetically to Blackie, “Your pal doesn’t seem to feel so hot this morning.”

“He’s all right,” Blackie muttered. “Sorta got the shakes is all.”

Shayne said, “He’d better get over them before the shooting starts.”

Lennie caught Blackie’s arm and whispered something in his ear. Blackie cleared his throat and admitted uneasily, “Tell you what. He could use somethin’ to steady him all right. You know.”

Shayne said, “Sure. I know. Any place around here we could pick up a bindle?”

“Sure thing,” Lennie said, violently eager. “Couple of blocks ahead. If I had two bucks.”

Shayne drove on two blocks and pulled up to the curb. He passed four one-dollar bills back to Lennie and suggested, “Get two bindles, why don’t you? One to pick you up now and the other for just before the fun starts.”

Lennie grabbed the money and scrambled out of the car. He hurried up the street and darted into a stairway entrance.

Blackie laughed indulgently as he watched him disappear. “You hadn’t orta give him the price of two bindles,” he reproved Shayne. “He’ll be plenty high in an hour from now on one. ’Nother one on top of it will pull him tight as a fiddle string. Like he was last night,” he added darkly.

Shayne said, “I want him in shape to throw lead fast. Those boy who’ll be waiting for me may not waste much time getting acquainted.” He lit a cigarette and slouched back in the seat.

Lennie came trotting back in about five minutes. His pinched face was alive and eager and his eyes glowed like live coals. He slid in beside Blackie and breathed exultantly, “Le’s get goin’. Jeez, is my trigger finger itchin’.”

Shayne drove swiftly south on Flagler, past Coral Gables and on to the village of South Miami, then along the Key West highway through the rich truck-farming section with its acres of tomatoes and bean fields stretching in every direction as far as the eye could see.

By the time they reached the sleepy village of Homestead with its quiet, tree-shadowed streets and its air of serene dignity, Shayne began to feel as though he were the one who had sniffed a bindle instead of Lennie. There was a driving, demanding tension within him. It was always this way when he played a hunch through to the finish. He had planned the best he could and it was up to the gods now. He couldn’t turn back. He didn’t want to turn back. The approach of personal danger keyed him to a high pitch, and he exulted in the gamble he was taking. Things like this were what made life worth living to Michael Shayne.

He drove decorously through Homestead and looked at his watch. It was a quarter to eleven. He stopped at a filling station on the outskirts of the village where the first dirt road turned off the paved highway to the left. He told Blackie and Lennie, “I’ll be just a minute,” and swung out of the car to speak to a smiling old man in faded overalls and a wide straw hat.

“Does the bus stop here, Pop?”

“Sometimes. Yep. If there’s passengers to get on or off. ’Tain’t a reg’lar stop.”

“How about yesterday? Any passengers stop here?”

“Yestiddy? Yep. The old sailor feller got off here to go a-fishin’.” The old man chuckled. “Right nice old feller, but seemed like he was turned around, sort of. Didn’t know how far ’twas to the Keys. Had him a suitcase, too, full of fishin’ tackle I reckon. Him an’ me made a deal to rent my tin Lizzie for the day and he drove off fishin’ as spry as you please. No luck though. Didn’ have nary a fish when he came back.”

Shayne thanked him and went back to his car. That was the last definite link. He didn’t need it, but it was always good to have added confirmation. He wouldn’t have bothered to stop if he hadn’t had a few minutes to spare.

He got in and turned down the dirt road running straight and level between a wasteland of palmetto and pine on either side.

“This is it,” he told the boys calmly. “Couple of miles to where I’m supposed to meet these birds, but they might be hiding out along the road waiting for me. You’d both better get down in the back where you can’t be seen.”

“We won’t be no good to you that way,” Blackie protested, “if they’re hid out along the road to pick you off.”

“They’ll just pick all three of us off if you guys are in sight too,” Shayne argued reasonably. “I don’t think they’ll try anything till we get there, and I want them to think I came alone so they’ll be off guard. Get down and stay down until the shooting starts or until I yell or give you some signal. Then come out like firecrackers.”

The two gunmen got down in the back. Shayne drove along at a moderate speed, watching his speedometer. It was lonely and quiet on this desolate road leading to the coast. There were no houses, no other cars on the road. It was a perfect setting for murder.

A narrower and less-used road turned off to the right at the end of exactly two miles. A wooden arrow which had once been painted white, pointed west, and dingy black letters said: LODGE.