Michael Shayne's Long Chance (3 page)

She made a face at the glass. “I don’t like tea,” she hazarded with distaste.

Shayne laughed. “You’re a lousy crystal gazer.” He set the glass down and swung from the railing, stepped inside and got the cognac bottle. Returning, he leaned over the railing and handed it to her. “The last of my private stock.”

Her eyes widened as she accepted the bottle. “I guessed it would be cognac, but I didn’t hope for Monnet. Should I get a glass or may I drink from the bottle?”

“Go ahead,” Shayne said, “it would be nice to share your diseases.”

She put the bottle to her lips and took three swallows, exhaled a long breath of satisfaction, and her eyes sparkled at Shayne. She held the bottle up and looked at it. “I hope I didn’t take too much.”

“Help yourself. It’s a pleasure to find good cognac appreciated. We can pick up a few more bottles.”

“Not in the Quarter. Not Monnet.”

Shayne emptied his glass and held it out to her. “We may as well split what’s left.”

She studied the liquor line carefully, poured an inch in the tumbler and said dreamily, “This is the way things should happen in the Quarter—and don’t.”

“It’s happening now,” he reminded her.

She took a small sip from the bottle. “Is it—is this really happening, Mike? Won’t I wake up after a while and find some greasy fat man leaping over the rail to paw me?”

“Not while I’m around to ward them off,” he told her confidently.

She closed her eyes and took another sip from the bottle. “Will you ward them off, Mike?” A shiver passed over her tanned body.

“Is it that bad?”

“Worse.” She shivered again and curved her full lips in a smile of self-contempt. “Oh, what a heel I am. Something perfectly lovely happens and I—” she clenched her fingers tightly around the bottle as though it represented some cherished thing.

Shayne got out a pack of cigarettes and shook one partly out and handed the pack over. She nodded and said, “Light it for me and I’ll get your diseases this time.” She was laughing again.

Shayne lit the cigarette. She got up and stood at the railing. When he handed it to her she caught his hand and held it for a moment, then put the cigarette to her lips and puffed quietly.

Twilight was coming on. Shayne smoked and sipped his drink, waiting for Margo to say something. When she didn’t, he said, “Let’s finish off the drinks and talk.”

Again she took three long swallows from the bottle, and again her eyes sparkled with delight. Shayne drained his glass and set it down, offered to take the empty bottle and dispose of it, but she said, “No. I’m going to keep it,” and cradled it in her arms. “It’s crazy,” she went on softly, her blue eyes dreamy, “the way things happen. A month ago I didn’t care whether I lived or died.”

“And now?”

“A month in the sunlight does strange things to people,” she said after a moment. “I can see now how impossible it is for one to be a failure at twenty-three. How utterly juvenile to think so.”

“A failure?” Shayne arched ragged red brows.

“You see, I thought I could write. I’ve always thought so. Then suddenly I found out I couldn’t.” She looked up at him with an odd little smile. “Now I’m convinced that I can’t do it. A month here under the most perfect conditions and I haven’t written a word. But the payoff is that it doesn’t matter. Not any more. I simply don’t care. Does that make sense?”

“Plenty.” Shayne was unsmiling. “Writers need something to write about. After you’ve done a little living—”

“Are you a writer?” she asked eagerly.

Shayne shook his head. “No.”

“And you’re not a tourist,” she mused. “Now let me see—you drink Monnet and wash it down with ice water, of all things! You might be a sculptor—those hands of yours—” She laid a small brown hand over his left one.

Shayne held out his big right hand and studied his long knobby fingers. “They come in handy for a lot of things,” he said, amused. “Why should I be a writer or sculptor?”

“Well, some kind of artist. Why else would you be here in the Quarter wasting your good cognac on a gal you’ve never seen before, and expecting only conversation in return?”

“Maybe I expect more than conversation in return.”

She laughed impishly. “Maybe you’re one of those devils who plan their seductions carefully and lull their victims into false security during the preliminaries. But you look like a forthright scoundrel.”

Shayne said, with a big grin, “You’re too young to be talking so airily about seductions.”

She said scathingly, “After a month in the Quarter?”

Shayne took a final drag on his cigarette and ground it out with the toe of his shoe.

“You changed the subject very cleverly,” she charged. “We were talking about you and why you are here.”

“I’m a detective,” he said gravely.

“Really?” She laughed scornfully. “As though you’d say so if you were.”

“Yeh,” he agreed lamely, “I guess that doesn’t go over so well.” He turned to face her squarely. “Suppose I give you an opportunity to find out more about me. You might show me some of the high spots around the city. I’ll foot the bills and you can play your little guessing game. How about starting tonight?”

“Oh, I’d love it,” she breathed, “but—” She sighed and a shadow crossed her face. “I have an engagement tonight. Tomorrow night, maybe. I should be getting dressed right now.”

“Enter the boy friend,” Shayne growled.

“No—nothing like that.”

“Then break the date.”

“I’m having a couple of girls in to dinner. They won’t stay late. If you’re still footloose after ten-thirty or eleven—”

Shayne said, “I’ll be around.”

“Grand,” she cried, “I’ll get rid of them early.”

Shayne was leaning negligently against the railing. Margo laid the cognac bottle gently in the chair, whirled around suddenly and extended her arms across the short distance separating them. She caught Shayne’s angular face between her palms, bent her body tensely forward and pressed her soft, full mouth against his. Then she danced away from him, picking up the cognac bottle and calling gaily from the doorway,
“That
was to seal our date for tonight—so you wouldn’t let yourself be picked up by some hussy.”

“I won’t,” he said huskily. He turned away from the gathering shadows of twilight and went into his room and turned on the lights.

His eyes held a bleak look of anger as they ranged over to the photograph on the dresser. He shrugged and muttered to himself, “You’re a hell of a detective, Mike Shayne, letting that girl get under your skin.”

He stripped off his shirt and bathed his face, put on a clean shirt and knotted a tie in the soft collar, got his hat and went out.

Downstairs, he gave the girl at the switchboard the number of Mr. Little’s Miami hotel and asked her to get Joseph P. Little as soon as possible. “I’ll take the call in one of the booths,” he told her.

“The center booth,” the operator directed.

Shayne waited near the booth. When the phone rang he went in and closed the door, lifted the receiver and heard the operator say, “Your call to Mr. Little in Miami is ready, Mr. Shayne.”

“Shayne! You are prompt. I’ve been sitting by my phone hoping you would call.”

“I’m at the Hyers Hotel in the French Quarter,” Shayne told him. “I’ve just talked to her and she’s all right.”

“Are you sure, Mr. Shayne?”

“As sure as a man can be after talking to a girl for thirty or forty minutes. She’s off the junk. You can quit worrying about that angle.”

“Off the—junk?”

“Dope—drugs—morphine, whatever she has been taking.”

“Don’t be too sure. She’s clever about concealing things. If the urge overcomes her again—”

“I’ll check every angle. I’m going out now to dig up what I can on the traffic here in the Quarter.”

“I wish you wouldn’t leave her alone, Shayne.”

“She’s all right,” Shayne growled. “I’ve got a room where I can keep tabs on her—directly opposite her apartment.”

“That’s fine. I feel so much better with you on the job, Mr. Shayne.”

“Stop worrying and leave it to me, then. She’s having a couple of girls in to dinner, and I’m going to see her later tonight.”

“That’s good news. I’m leaving for New York at once. I have just a few minutes to catch my train. My sister—you remember I told you—passed away this afternoon.”

Shayne said, “I’ll call you in New York if anything comes up,” and hung up.

AT POLICE HEADQUARTERS Shayne inquired as to the location of Chief McCracken’s office and was directed to an office near the end of a long corridor. The door was slightly ajar, and Shayne knuckled the glass as he pushed it open.

Chief McCracken lifted a face which was smooth and round all the way to the crown of his head where a few wisps of yellowish hair were plastered down. His bald head and colorless brows and lashes gave him a naked look. There were folds of flesh beneath his chin, but he didn’t look soft. He stopped the gurgling of a short-stemmed brier and looked at Shayne without curiosity. He said, “Yes?”

Shayne lounged forward and pushed some papers from a corner of the desk, lowered one hip to the cleared spot, and pulled off his hat. He said, “It’s been nine years, Chief.”

Chief McCracken leaned back in his swivel chair and studied Shayne calmly with cold blue eyes. Then a smile twitched the corners of his mouth. He leaned forward and held out a squarish hand. “By God, you’re Mike Shayne,” he rumbled.

Shayne took his hand in a hearty grip, looked at the stubby brier, and said in a wondering tone, “Nine years and the same goddamned pipe.”

The chief laughed. He pressed a callused forefinger in the bowl and put the stem between his lips, leaned back and clasped his hands over his thick stomach. After the second gurgle, he said, “We’ve been wondering about you, Mike. Heard a lot about your activities in Miami. So they finally ran you out?”

Shayne grinned and lit a cigarette. “I’m in town on business. You’ve done right well, John. I didn’t know an honest cop could get ahead in this town.”

McCracken chuckled. “They haven’t got onto me yet. Don’t tell anybody I’m honest. Going to be around long?”

“I don’t know yet. I closed up shop when I left Miami. I may light here in New Orleans for a while.”

“That’s fine,” said the chief warmly. “Things are just about the same. Come out to the house tonight for dinner.”

“Not tonight, thanks. I’m going to be busy. Thought maybe you could help me out a little, John.”

“Sure. Anything, Mike.”

“If a stranger in the Quarter wanted to pick up a few bindles, who would he see?” Shayne asked.

“You mean—?”

“I mean, who’s running the dope racket in the Quarter?”

“That’s a hell of a question to ask me.”

“Who else would I ask?”

“Unofficially?”

“Sure. Unofficially.”

The chief studied Shayne for a long moment. There was shrewd sympathy and cold-blooded appraisal in his blue eyes. He said, “You’re not experimenting, are you, Mike?”

Shayne laughed and let smoke filter through his nostrils. “Not yet. Take it this way. A gal who has been on the stuff and is trying to stay off hits town cold and holes up in the Quarter. There might be a bastard who wants her back on. He’d be lined in with whatever local lads are supplying the demand right now. I want to cut corners and get to him—if he’s in town.”

Chief McCracken nodded. He knocked a cold heel from his pipe into a wastebasket and refilled the bowl from a can of cheap tobacco. “You wouldn’t know Soule,” he mused. “No—he was after your time. He started peddling it in back alleys and has been working up. We’ve dragged him in plenty, but never got a conviction. I’d say Soule.” He was thoughtful, then suddenly brightened. “Why don’t you have a talk with Denton? That’s his precinct.”

“Denton?” Shayne’s nostrils flared as though the name stunk as it came from his lips.

“Captain Denton.” McCracken stressed the title. “You remember Dolph Denton.”

Shayne said, “Yeh, I remember. He was pounding the Rampart beat that night I got walked out by Masketti’s mob. He found it convenient to look the other way while I took what they dished out.” A muscle twitched in his lean cheek and his gray eyes were bleak.

“That was nine years ago. Dolph’s been coming up since then. He’s got friends at City Hall—and among important people around town.”

Shayne said, “I’ll drop around and talk with him.” He studied the tip of his burning cigarette a moment, then asked, “Soule, eh?”

“Rudy Soule. He may be hard to reach, but Denton might be able to line things up for you. You know how those things go, Mike.”

“I have a hunch how they’re going with Dolph Denton running the Quarter.” Shayne’s voice was hard. “Hell, he’s the guy I’ll do my talking to.” He lifted himself from the desk. “Thanks a lot, John.”

“Don’t mention it, Mike. If you can make it out to dinner tonight—”

“I’m working. Some other night. Give Mrs. McCracken my regards.”

“Sure. Come any time. And don’t throw too much weight at Denton,” the chief warned. “He can help you if you handle him right.”

Shayne said, “I don’t doubt he’s got a payoff list of every fink in the Quarter. Be seeing you.”

Half an hour later Shayne was ushered into Captain Dolph Denton’s private office by a hulking sergeant. The office was located in the rear of the precinct station, and Denton was talking on the telephone.

A fat cigar filled one corner of his mouth and he cursed into the mouthpiece on the other side. He ended with: “No! And that’s final.” He slammed the instrument down hard, growled, “All right, Parks. What is it now?” after wasting only a fleeting glance on the tall redhead.

“This man says he’s an old friend of yours, Captain. I told him you were busy, but he said he had to see you.” Denton chewed on the cigar and stared at Shayne from beneath bushy black brows. He stopped chewing on the cigar and said, “Okay, Parks.” He waved the sergeant from the room and barked at Shayne, “I thought we’d seen the last of you when Masketti ran you out of town.”

“I came back to congratulate you on your promotion, Captain.” Shayne rubbed his angular jaw, then pulled up a chair and sat in front of the desk. “I suppose you got your start by looking the other way on Rampart that evening. Masketti pulled a lot of weight in those days.”

“Masketti still pulls a lot of weight.” The flat words were a warning.

Shayne ignored the warning. “And you’re still looking the other way when you figure it’s worth while.”

“To hell with that stuff, Shayne,” Denton growled.

Shayne said, “All right. To hell with it. I want a line on the boys who deal the junk off the elbow here in the Quarter.”

Denton scowled and asked, “Working?”

“Sort of.”

“What’s your angle?”

“Put it this way,” said Shayne. “If a stranger was looking for dope in the Quarter, where would he go?”

“That’s a hell of a question—”

“To ask you?” Shayne interrupted with a grin. “Who should know more about it than the precinct captain?”

“You won’t get very far pulling one of your fast ones here, Shayne.” Denton’s black eyes were angry and his black mustache wriggled as he worked the cigar to the other corner of his mouth.

Shayne said evenly, “This isn’t a fast one. I’m not the Chamber of Commerce. I know how things are run in this town—and every other town. Either you make it easy for me or I make it tough on you.”

Denton said furiously, “You left New Orleans once with your tail between your legs.”

“And now I’m back—and I’m not wagging it for you.” Shayne leaned back and continued easily, “I’m harder to take than I was nine years ago, Denton. Tell Masketti that if he’s interested.”

“Masketti,” said Denton, “won’t be interested. He’s a big-shot contractor now. Government jobs.”

Shayne said, “To hell with Masketti. Let’s forget all this old stuff. All I want is a little information.”

Denton’s heavy brows drew apart and the scowl went away. He said heartily, “That’s all right, then. What kind of job you working on?”

“Girl stuff. She’s new here. She’s been a hoppy and may be getting back on it. I want to find out whether she’s made any contacts in that direction.”

“Wait a minute.” Denton stabbed his soggy cigar butt at Shayne. “Sounds like the same record I heard yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Shayne’s red brows shot upward.

“Yeh. There was a fellow in here asking the same line of questions. Says he’s trying to locate a girl living here under a phony name. Figures she might have tried to buy some stuff and he can get a line that way. I gave him the brush-off, naturally.”

“Why did he want to find the girl?”

“Claimed he was her uncle. Name of Drake or something like that. I dunno. You know how it is. You get a hunch. Mine was that he wasn’t leveling. Something screwy about it.”

Shayne sat up a little straighter. He asked, “Can you describe the man?”

Denton’s lids dropped over his black eyes for a moment and he drummed stubby finger tips on the desk. “Didn’t pay much attention,” he muttered. “Bald headed. Fifty, maybe.”

“Sloppy clothes?”

“No. That
was
something. Dressed up like a Christmas tree—spats and all. Not loud, see. Like he had a valet, maybe, to fix him up. The way you and me couldn’t look if we spent a grand on one outfit.”

“Name was Drake?”

“Yeh. Think so. Look, does this bird tie in with what you’re looking for?”

“He might,” Shayne said slowly. “Did you take him for a dope-head?”

“N-No. Hell, you know how it is. Nobody can pick one for sure. Not that kind. The punks, sure. The ghouls that hit it steady. But him—I dunno. Why? Do you think he was giving me a line? Trying to work me for a line on where to buy the stuff?”

Shayne grinned slowly at Denton’s wrath. “I doubt whether he was after that, but if he’s the guy I think he was, he didn’t intend any good for the girl he was trying to find. You know where I can find Drake?”

“I believe he said he was at the Angelus Hotel if I got anything for him.”

“The Angelus,” Shayne repeated. “And now, how about Soule?”

“Rudy Soule? I thought you’d been out of town for nine years.”

Shayne said, “I have, but I just had a talk with John McCracken.”

“And he told you that Soule and me was like that?” Denton extended his right hand with the first two fingers fitted snugly together.

Shayne shook his head and said placidly, “He mentioned Soule’s name and said this was your precinct.”

“Well, I hear things, of course,” Captain Denton admitted. “Maybe Soule is in the racket. I wouldn’t know.”

“All I want,” Shayne explained, “is to get a line on the setup. A word from you in the right direction might help.”

“The hell you say,” Denton snarled. His heavy features were suddenly contorted with rage. “The chief sent you, huh? And I’m supposed to fall for that. I’ve had enough of his stoolies trying to hang something on me. Get out—and stay out of my precinct, Shayne. Think up a better story than the one you just handed me before you come back.” Denton jabbed a button on his desk. He was breathing hard and his face was very red.

Shayne said, “I’d watch that blood pressure if I were you, Captain Denton.”

Sergeant Parks and a patrolman came in.

Denton snarled, “Take a good look at this redhead. He’s an out-of-town shamus stooling around our precinct to hang something on us. Show him the way out and pass the word along that if anything happens to him there won’t be any comeback.”

Shayne stood up. His eyes were bleak with anger and his teeth showed between drawn lips. He said, “If that’s the way you want it, Denton.”

Denton said, “Don’t be too rough with him here in the station, boys.”

Shayne started out. The sergeant and the patrolman got out of his way as he stalked past them with long-legged strides. He heeled the door shut behind him and went out past the desk into the open air.