Blood on the Stars (14 page)

Shayne said, “Go ahead. And keep your mouth buttoned up. This is a Secret Service investigation.”

“Secret Service?
Jeez. Is he one of them communist spies or
somethin
’?”

“Something
like
that.” Shayne stepped back and waited until the milk truck had made one more stop, then turned the corner. When it was out of sight, he strolled forward and followed a wide gravel drive leading into a double garage about thirty feet to the right and at the rear of the house.

The double doors of the garage were padlocked. Shayne studied the locks in the reddening light of dawn, got out his
keyring
, and went to work on the simplest lock. It opened after a few trials, and he slid the door back enough to squeeze through. The door creaked on the metal runway, and he stepped inside the dark interior, stood there without moving for a full three minutes and listened intently.

When he heard no sound, he turned to the two cars inside the garage. On the right was a shiny Cadillac coupé. The other car was a black limousine. He struck a match to look at the license plate on the limousine, and wasn’t surprised to see a different set of numbers than those he had memorized in Mickey’s Garage. They would have been fools not to take the precaution of using stolen license plates for the job they had done the previous evening. He bent over and examined the bolts and nuts holding the plate. They were clean and not rusted, though the metal bar to which they were attached was streaked with mud.

He struck another match to examine the right front fender. It showed no sign of damage. The workmen in Mickey’s Garage knew their business.

He dropped the match on the concrete floor and stepped on it. Overhead lights flared, and an unpleasantly familiar voice said, “Looking for more trouble, shamus?”

Blackie was standing in the open portion of the doorway. He was bareheaded and his dark hair was tousled as though he had just awakened. He wore a sleeveless polo shirt, white trousers, and canvas sneakers. His bare arms were furred with thick black hair. He held a .45 caliber revolver in his right hand and it was pointed at the exact center of Shayne’s belly.

Shayne said, “I didn’t mean to wake you up.” He stood very still beside the right front fender of the limousine.

“There’s a buzzer in my room upstairs.” Blackie scowled and took a step forward. “What you doing in here?”

“I heard you’d been trying to get in touch with me. I wasn’t sure I had the right address and was checking the car to make sure before I woke you.”

“I’ve
been wanting
to see you, for a fact.” Blackie’s scowl lightened, but the muzzle of his gun remained steady. “That was sort of a mistake tonight when I slugged you.”

“A bad mistake,” Shayne told him. He was relaxed, his right hand resting on the fender, inches from the automatic weighting his coat pocket.

“
Yeh
.
No hard feelings, huh?”

“Is the bracelet for sale?”

“Look here—I didn’t say anything about a bracelet.” His scowl was replaced by a look of cunning.
“You in the market for one?”

Shayne said, “I could be.” He kept his voice pleasant, and moved forward between the two cars toward Blackie. “That’s what you wanted to see me about, wasn’t it?”

“Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t. How’d you know to come snooping here?”

“Followed my nose.”
Shayne was close to him now, ten feet away. The barrel of the .45 was wavering. “You don’t have to keep that thing pointed at me. I don’t talk business over a gun barrel.”

Blackie looked down at the heavy weapon as though surprised to see it in his hand. Shayne’s thumbs were hooked inside his coat pockets. “I don’t figure you,” Blackie said in a worried tone. “If I’d got slugged like you did—”

“I never let a slugging interfere with profits.” Shayne was closer now.
Six feet away.
“Why did the Rajah change his mind about the bracelet after it was offered to him?”

Blackie looked up, surprised. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered. “I think you better go in the house—”

“Let’s settle this right here.
Just between you and me.”
Shayne’s right hand crept deeper into his pocket. He stood poised on the balls of his feet. He asked, “Why did you have to kill Mrs. Dustin?”

The .45 was a double-action,
uncocked
, but Blackie’s forefinger was tight on the trigger. At Shayne’s words, he swung it up with an oath, but the detective leaped forward and closed his big hand over the top of the firing-chamber as the hammer came back. It snapped forward harmlessly on the soft flesh between his thumb and forefinger at the same instant his right hand came out of his pocket and described a sweeping arc upward.

The flat side of Shayne’s automatic slammed against Blackie’s head and his knees gave way. The .45 fell from his hand as he slid to the concrete floor.

A FRIEND IS A STRANGER

BLACKIE WAS TOUGH. He stayed on his knees with both hands planted on the floor to support his weight. He breathed heavily through his open mouth and shook his head like a wounded and dazed animal.

Shayne dropped his automatic into his coat pocket and cocked the hammer of the double-action .45 with his right hand.

Blackie began to push his torso laboriously upward. His eyes were fixed on the cocked gun in the detective’s left hand. Shayne said, “I like you better on the floor.” He put the sole of his big shoe in Blackie’s face and shoved. Blackie sprawled backward and lay there for a moment.

When he pulled himself slowly to a sitting position, he grunted, “Evens us up. Who’d you say was killed?”

“Mrs. Mark Dustin.”

“I don’t know any Mrs. Dustin. I
ain’t
killed
nobody
. Not recently,” he amended, clearing his throat and turning his head to spit.

“Did you send someone over to keep your date with her?”

“What date you talking about?”

“The one you made by telephone,” said Shayne irritably. “After you tried to kill my secretary and pretended it was me talking over the phone.”

“Look, shamus, I don’t know what in hell you’re talking about. So I slugged you tonight—by mistake.
So, all right.
Now you slugged me. So we’re even. I don’t know about this other stuff.”

“I suppose,”
said
Shayne angrily, “you don’t know anything about a ruby bracelet.”

“That’s right.” Blackie folded his bare arms across his chest and sighed. “I got to sit here all day?”

Shayne said, “What about a busted fender on the limousine?”

“Sure. I got a busted fender fixed up at Mickey’s.” He ran a thick tongue over his thick lips. “Me an’ the Kid took the big job out without the boss knowing about it and scraped some paint off. I was getting it patched up when you barged in.”

“How do you mean you slugged me by mistake?”

“I must
of
got mixed up on the phone,” Blackie explained readily. “I thought you was sticking your nose in my business and trying to shake me down by threatening to tell the boss about the busted fender.”

“So you called him up to find out what to do?” Shayne jeered.

“I just pretended to call up,” Blackie explained swiftly. “To see what you’d do. You fell for that gag, huh?”

His story, Shayne realized, had been well rehearsed. When the boss had changed his mind, for some unknown reason, about dealing with the insurance company on a reward for the return of the rubies, he had realized it had been a tactical error to have Shayne slugged. So, he had evidently ordered Blackie to shoulder the full responsibility for that error.

“I know you’re lying right down the line,” Shayne told him dispassionately. “As you say, we’re even on the slugging, but we’re still not even on a couple of other things. I don’t like mugs
who
come in my apartment and answer my phone—and slap my dolls around.”

“Honest to God,” Blackie protested, “I’ve never been inside your apartment.”

“That’s easily checked. Get up.”

“I sort of like it here on the floor.”

Shayne said, “You’ll have a chance to stay there forever if you don’t start moving.” He gestured toward the door with the cocked .45.

His tone convinced Blackie that the discussion was ended. He lumbered to his feet and Shayne said, “Walk out that door and straight down the drive to the street. Then turn to the right to the corner and then to the left. My car is parked halfway down the block. We’re going for a ride together, and if you make one goddamned move or sound I don’t like I’ll blast your guts with your own gun. The cops would thank me for doing it because I’ve got you framed right in the middle of a murder rap, and they can use a fall guy. Get going.”

Blackie got going. Shayne followed him out the door and down the drive to the street. The sun hung like a red ball of fire behind the misty clouds above the rim of the ocean. Birds were singing in the shrubbery, and the new day held
a clean
warmth that promised muggy heat within a few hours.

They encountered no one on their walk to the corner and to the detective’s car. “Get under the wheel and drive,” Shayne ordered. “To the County Causeway and then turn left on Biscayne Boulevard. I’ll be resting easy in the back seat with a gun on you.”

Blackie opened the front door and got in. Shayne eased himself into the back seat and tossed the keys across to the driver.

Blackie drove carefully and expertly, and at slow speed. Shayne kept his eyes on the back of his head and let his mind wander into the unknown equations that were beginning to unravel. Blackie would talk soon enough. He was grimly sure of that. As soon as Lucy identified him as her attacker and he realized the spot he was in. His denial of Mrs. Dustin’s murder had sounded genuine enough, and he might have been telling the truth.

It was plausible to presume that Blackie had made contact with his employer after the telephone call and sent him to keep the appointment with Mrs. Dustin which had resulted in her death. In that case, Blackie might well have been honestly surprised to learn that she had been murdered.

That was all the more reason why he would talk when he realized how neatly he had been framed for the job. If he were guilty, he might continue to deny obstinately any knowledge of the telephone call, but if innocent, he would be a fool if he didn’t spill everything he knew.

One thing troubled Shayne as they turned down Biscayne Boulevard. He felt positive he held the key to recovery of the bracelet, but if he let the policeman on guard at his apartment hear Blackie’s confession, the secret would no longer be his and any possible reward would slip out of his hands like hot butter.

He had an angle figured by the time they reached the foot of Flagler Street. He said to Blackie, “Swing over to Second Avenue and then toward the river. I’ll show you where to pull up just this side of the drawbridge.”

When the car was parked, Shayne took the keys and said casually, “We’re going in through the hotel lobby and up to the third floor. There’s a Miami cop in my apartment. Figure things out for yourself. If you’d rather keep this whole thing private, just between you and me, use your head and I’ll tell him you’re a friend. We’ll get rid of the cop and talk it over after he’s gone. If you want to make it tough I’ll take you in with a gun on you and hand you over to him on two charges: Murder and attempted murder.”

Blackie turned a swollen and frightened face toward Shayne and said hoarsely, “Honest to God, I’m not hunting
no
trouble. I don’t know what all this stuff is about murder, but I’d rather do my talking outside bars than behind them.”

“Fair enough, but don’t forget I’ve got two guns on me. Let’s go.” He thrust the revolver inside his trousers waistband and buttoned his coat over it, then led the way around to the front entrance and they entered the lobby.

The night clerk was still on duty. He yawned and watched the two men approach with red-rimmed eyes. Shayne stopped by the desk and said, “You know my friend don’t you, Jim? He was up to see me last night when I was out.”

The clerk studied Blackie’s face intently. He said, “I don’t believe I do, Mr. Shayne. Is Miss Hamilton going to be all right?”

“I’m on my way up there now. Dr. Price thought she was okay when I left a few hours ago.”

The elevator was waiting, and when they got in, Shayne said to the operator, “Take a good look at this man. Ever see him before?”

“Listen—” Blackie began to protest, but Shayne silenced him with a look.

“I don’t know as I have or not,” the boy said reflectively. “I might
could
remember better, Mist’ Shayne, was you to tell me jest when I saw ’
im
.”

Shayne said, “We’ll skip that for the moment.” They got out of the elevator and started for his apartment.

“I’m telling you,” said Blackie doggedly, “I never been inside this building before. You can see neither one of them identified me.”

“There’s a side entrance and stairs,” Shayne said shortly. He stopped in front of his door and knocked. It was opened by a tall young man wearing the natty uniform of the Miami police force. He had his service revolver in his hand, and he peered out suspiciously until he recognized the redhead.

“It’s you, Mr. Shayne. I’m Edmund. I had orders to admit no one but you.” He stood aside and the two men entered.

Miss Naylor sat in front of the card-littered center table. She looked as prim and efficient and wide-awake as when Shayne left. She said, “The patient has been quiet all night, Mr. Shayne. I’m sure she’s going to make a splendid recovery.”

“That’s fine.” To Blackie he said, “Pull up a chair and I’ll pour some drinks. Will you have one, Edmund? Miss Naylor?”

“No thanks,” said Miss Naylor. “I’m not allowed to drink on duty.”

Blackie sat down in the middle of the couch, holding himself erect, his hands folded in his lap. Shayne went to the liquor cabinet and asked, “Cognac or whisky?”

“I really can’t take anything,” Edmund told him. “I was ordered to stay on guard here until—”