Blood on the Stars (7 page)

He got the traffic bureau and said, “I’m checking on an accident this evening. Anything reported in the last couple of hours?”

He listened a moment, hung up, came back with an ugly scowl on his heavy features and both hands planted deep in his pockets.

“You’re lying, Shayne. What’s the big idea?”

Shayne shrugged and said, “It could have something to do with a ruby bracelet.”

The kid’s eyes widened with anxiety. Blackie’s scowl grew deeper yet. He muttered, “Wise guy, huh?”

“I’m just trying to tell you that I’m back in business and I’ve got the same in with the insurance people that I always had. If you know anybody that’s got a ruby bracelet for sale, I’m ready to make an offer. Just pass the word around. That Mike Shayne is in the market and can be reached at the same old place.”

“Jeez, Blackie,” said the kid uneasily. “I don’t think—”

Blackie said, “Keep your trap shut and watch him.” He went back to the telephone and dialed another number. This time he put his mouth close to the mouthpiece and talked in a low mumble which Shayne could not hear.

He hung up after a time and came back to the detective with a pleased smile on his dark features, pushing his Panama hat up on his forehead.

Shayne said, “No hard feeling. I don’t blame you—”

Blackie’s left hand came out of his pocket in a swinging arc. Light was momentarily reflected from a pair of brass
knucks
before they connected solidly with the side of Shayne’s chin. He went down and out under the smashing impact.

WHAT IN HELL GOES ON?

A HEAVY HAND ON SHAYNE’S SHOULDER shook him back to consciousness. He was slumped over the steering-wheel of his own car and moonlight was shining in the window. There was a heavy stench of cheap whisky inside the car.

The side of his jaw felt as though it had been kicked by a mule, and his belly was sore. He straightened up groggily and turned to look into the broad face of a uniformed policeman leaning in through the open window.

“
H’lo
, officer,” he muttered. “Where am I? What—?”

“Mike Shayne!” the cop said with incredulity. “Passed out, by God, like a high-school kid. You feel all right?”

“I feel like hell.” Shayne lifted his hand to tentatively waggle his jaw. “Did a house fall on me?”

“You must
of
got that lick on the jaw when you ran off the road and hit this culvert.” The policeman turned on a flashlight and sent the beam forward to show Shayne the front end of his sedan crashed against the concrete abutment of a culvert. “Probably would
of
broke your neck if you hadn’t been drunk as a coot when it happened.”

Shayne shook his aching head and groaned and moved cautiously from behind the wheel to step out. The uniformed man supported him with a hand under his elbow as he swayed dizzily. The night air was cool and it drove the fumes of the whisky away. The front of his clothing was still damp where the liquor had been poured over him. He turned slowly, staring round him, and again asked, “Where am I? You’re Jim Rawson, aren’t you?”

“
Yeh
.
I’m Rawson. You’re on Delaware Road close to the Bay. Do you remember crashing into the culvert?”

Shayne shook his red head slowly from side to side.

He reached in his shirt pocket for a cigarette, but his pack was soggy with whisky. Rawson offered his pack, and struck a light when Shayne put a cigarette between his lips. “Lucky I happened to drive by this way,” Rawson said. “I didn’t know there was enough liquor in the world to pass you out cold like that.”

Shayne laughed shortly and blew his breath in the officer’s face. Rawson put his hand on his shoulder and said, “Hell, you haven’t been drinking. What the devil—?”

“I got myself slugged—but good.” Shayne made a savage gesture with his big right hand. “Somebody planted me there in my car while I was out, and poured whisky all over me.”

“Where’d it happen? Who did it?”

Shayne’s brain was clearing. Slowly he began remembering everything. He decided the boys had taken turns kicking him in the stomach while he was knocked out on the concrete floor of the garage. He said, “I’ve always buried my own dead, Rawson. Do you have to make a report on this?”

“Well, I guess I don’t have to,” the policeman answered uncertainly. “If you don’t want to sign a complaint—”

“We’ll skip the whole thing.” Shayne stood erect and drew in a deep breath, wincing with pain as his bruised body muscles protested. “Let’s see how bad the damage to the car is.”

Officer Rawson switched on his flashlight again and they went to inspect the condition of the car. It looked about the same as it had back in Mickey’s garage. “Axle may be knocked out of line, but I don’t believe the steering rods are bent,” Rawson said after a cursory examination. “Looks like it’d drive okay.”

“What time is it?”

“Little past midnight.”

“Know any all-night garage where I might get it fixed?”

“There’s one down on South Beach stays open at night.
Mickey’s Garage.
Only one I know of on the Beach. It’s at—”

“I know where it is,” Shayne growled. “In fact I’ve got
a cash
deposit up there I might as well use.” He turned and stalked back to the open door of his car.

The patrolman followed him, shaking his head dubiously. “You sure you can drive?”

Shayne said, “No.” He set his teeth together hard against the pain as he folded his long legs behind the wheel. His key was in the ignition. He turned it on and started the motor. The officer closed the door and stepped back. “Back it out easy and take it slow,” he advised. “I’ll follow along to see it goes all right.”

Shayne said, “Thanks. You’re a pal. I won’t forget this, Rawson.” He backed away from the concrete abutment, drove forward, and took the first turn to the left toward South Beach.

The neon sign in front of Mickey’s Garage was dark when he reached it. He parked in front of the entrance, clambered out and crossed to the night bell which he held down for several minutes without getting any response. He then tried to slide the wooden door open, but it was locked.

Returning to his car, he got in and drove north until he reached an all-night bar. He went in and slid onto a leather cushioned stool and asked, “Have you got any decent cognac?” when the bartender approached.

The man looked curiously at the ugly cut and lump on the side of Shayne’s jaw, but the expression on the detective’s face didn’t invite comment, so the man looked discreetly away and said they had Courvoisier and Mon-net.

Shayne said, “Three fingers of Monnet—in a water glass.”

The bartender brought him a water glass a third full of cognac. Shayne drank it down in three avid gulps and immediately felt better. He laid a five-dollar bill on the counter and told the bartender to repeat the dosage, then went back to look in the classified telephone book and found a number for Mickey’s Garage. He dialed the number and listened to the garage telephone ring ten times before hanging up.

He went back to his stool and found a dollar bill beside the water glass, which was nearly half full this time. He pushed the bill aside, rested both elbows on the bar and sipped the French liquor gratefully while his thoughts went around in circles and always came back to the one wholly inexplicable event of the evening.

Why had Blackie slugged him?
After talking on the phone, presumably to his boss.
It was to be inferred, of course, that he had received orders to slug him.
But why?

Shayne scowled and sipped the cognac, and always came back to that baffling question. If he wasn’t on the right track, if the limousine hadn’t been the one used in the jewel robbery, why would they bother to slug him and get him out of the garage?

No. Shayne didn’t believe he had been mistaken about the limousine.
That far, his hunch had been right.
Then why in the name of God had Blackie received orders to put him out of the way? Shayne was the contact they needed. Their only chance to make a decent profit from the stolen bracelet—if
Voorland
was right in stating that the star rubies would be almost worthless if cut into smaller stones so they could be safely disposed of.

In retrospect, he went over and over the brief dialogue in the garage, seeking a clue to the irrational denouement. He had certainly made his own position clear enough. Blackie couldn’t possibly have misconstrued his words sufficiently to get the impression that Shayne was threatening the safety of the mob. There was a definite way in which such matters were always handled, and Shayne’s reputation certainly assured them that they need have no fear of a double cross from him.

He hadn’t, of course, expected a definite and outright offer over the telephone. Such delicate negotiations were never carried on baldly and openly. The go-between didn’t expect nor wish to know the identity of the person with whom arrangements were made. That way, there was never any proof of collusion. A device that Shayne had used in the past was to park his car, unlocked, at a prearranged spot and time with an envelope thrust down behind the seat containing the agreed upon sum in large bills.
After conscientiously leaving it unwatched for fifteen minutes, one expected to return and find the envelope gone, mysteriously replaced by the stolen gems.
A particularly wise precaution to observe in a case like that was to have a witness present when the jewels were found in the car, thus defeating any suggestion of prearrangement. Once, Shayne recalled, he had had the pleasure of using Peter Painter himself as the witness to prove that Shayne had been inside a bar a block away when the stolen property was being returned.

It was because of this very definitely understood procedure that Shayne was now so puzzled by Blackie’s reaction to his telephone call tonight. Even if the mob planned to use some other intermediary for collecting an insurance reward there was no good reason to get sore at a man merely because he offered his services. The more he puzzled over it, the angrier he became. It could only be construed as a clear warning for him to keep his nose out of the affair. The second such warning he had received in the course of a few hours, he reminded himself sourly.
First, Painter.
Then the man whom Blackie had designated as the Boss.

Shayne didn’t like warnings. He didn’t react to them very well. He drained his glass and set it down, carefully touched the livid swelling on his jaw with rough finger tips, then got up and left the bar.

He drove across the County Causeway swiftly, turned south on Biscayne Boulevard, and parked his damaged sedan a few minutes later in the hotel garage.

Only the night clerk was on duty when Shayne crossed to the elevator. The man blinked sleepily at the uninjured side of the detective’s face and muttered, “
G’night
, Mr. Shayne,” and settled back in his chair.

The elevator boy widened his eyes and rolled them sideways until only the whites showed when he saw the lump on Shayne’s jaw, but swallowed his questions and took him up to the third floor.

The door was unlatched, and Shayne was surprised to find his living-room light on when he went in. He had forgotten Lucy’s promise to wait there for him no matter how late he was, but he remembered it when he saw a pair of pink mules on the living-room floor.

Closing the door quietly, he stood tugging at his ear-lobe for a moment. He pursed his lips in a soundless whistle, went quietly across to the bedroom door and bent his head to listen attentively. He could hear no sound from the closed room. She had probably grown sleepy and weary of waiting, and had decided to take a nap.

He turned away and removed his hat and coat, went into the bathroom and grimaced at the reflection that looked back at him from the mirror.

Cold water took all the blood away, but it didn’t help the puffed bruise much. He then went into the kitchen and filled a tall glass with ice and water, carried it into the living-room with a smaller empty glass. After filling the smaller glass with Monnet, he lit a cigarette on which he puffed slowly between alternate sips of water and cognac.

Except for his throbbing chin, he had never felt better and more at peace with the world. His gaze kept straying to the pair of pink mules on the floor. Lucy had probably become discouraged over the little game she had been playing all evening, and he thought of her curled up on the big double bed, asleep.

The cognac glass was half empty and he was working on his second cigarette when a rap sounded on the outer door.

Shayne sat very still. The knock was repeated. It wasn’t loud, yet it didn’t have a furtive sound. It was a light, casual rap yet persistent, indicating that his caller knew he was at home and expected him to answer the summons.

He got up quietly, picked up the bedroom slippers, and tiptoed into the kitchen where he slipped them into a drawer. There were two more raps on the door as he finished taking this precaution. He went to the door and opened it blocking the entrance with his body for a moment, then took a backward step when he recognized his visitor.

Timothy
Rourke
strolled over the threshold with a quizzical look at Shayne’s bruised and cut jaw. “I saw the light under your door and knew you must be home. Painter
hang
that one on you?” He crossed to the center table and nodded approvingly at the cognac bottle, went to a wall cupboard and got out a tall, thin-stemmed glass without waiting for an invitation.

The reporter was tall and loosely put together. He had regained some weight and a great deal of his former buoyancy since his long period of hospitalization, though his face was still thin and his eyes were deeply sunken in his face.

Shayne closed the door and came back to resume his seat while
Rourke
poured himself a drink of cognac. He said, “Make
yourself
right at home, Tim. I can only think of a few thousand people in Miami I’d rather see right now than you.”

Rourke
took a sip of cognac and studied Shayne’s face over the rim of his glass. “Expecting someone else?”

Shayne said, “No. I was thinking about bed.”

“You’ve still got a half drink left in your glass. I had an interview with Painter after he left the
Sunlux
tonight.”

“And?”

Rourke
shrugged his thin shoulders and slumped deeper in his chair. “He doesn’t outright accuse you of fixing the ruby snatch. Just
lays
it on the line that you’re the only guy with motive and opportunity.”

“Did you come here to get a statement from me?”

Rourke
grinned and waved a
  thin
,  tobacco-stained hand in the air. “I thought I’d follow up some angles. Thus far,” he complained, “I haven’t got anything. Dustin is back from the hospital but he isn’t seeing reporters. I’ve called Walter
Voorland’s
house half a dozen times, but he isn’t in. Earl Randolph’s telephone doesn’t answer at all. What’s doing?”

Shayne shook his head wearily. “I don’t know, Tim.”

Rourke’s
eyes studied the lump on his jaw again, bright and probing. “Painter says you’ve been warned to stay out of it. He says that if you try to collect a reward he’ll throw the book at you. He says for once he’s got you where the hair is short and you won’t dare make a deal with Randolph.”

Shayne lit a fresh cigarette and took a sip of cognac. He grinned amiably and said, “What are you doing here if Painter says all that?” He leaned back comfortably and looked across at the bedroom door. It was decidedly pleasant to think of Lucy sleeping in there.