Shoot to Kill (13 page)

The attorney got into the back seat and closed the door, wondering nervously who was watching him from what vantage point, wondering if Michael Shayne was about, and
where
he was, and how he would manage his part of the assignment.

His driver was slouched behind the wheel wearing a vizored cap tilted down over his eyes and with the butt of a cigar clenched between his teeth. Without turning his head to look at his passenger, he spoke around the cigar in a Southern drawl, “Whereabouts you-all wanta go, Mister?”

“Uh… straight ahead driver. Due north to Sixty-seventh Street, and not too fast if you don’t mind. On Sixty-seventh I want you to turn west for a few blocks and I’ll give you further directions at that time.”

The taxi jerked forward away from the curb, and the driver threw back over his shoulder in a surly voice, “Tell me where you wanta go, Mister, an’ I’ll take you the quickest way. We got through streets in this man’s town an’ I know how to beat the lights.”

“Straight north to Sixty-seventh,” repeated Sutter firmly. “And not too fast, if you please. I’m a little early.” He turned to peer out the back window, wondering if the taxi was being followed, but he gave up the attempt after a moment, realizing that it really didn’t make any difference whether it was or wasn’t.

Actually, he told himself, if he were either the blackmailer or Michael Shayne, he wouldn’t bother trailing the taxi away from the hotel. The instructions he had been given specified a one-minute stop on 67th in the fifth block west of 3rd Avenue, and that was where contact could most easily be made. He settled back as comfortably as he could, sniffing the unpleasant aroma from the cheap cigar his driver was smoking, and got a Perfecto from his own pocket and lit it to help quiet his nerves and offset the offensive odor from the front seat.

The taxi moved steadily north at about thirty-five miles an hour. Sutter hoped and believed that pace would fit the “moderate speed” requirement given him over the telephone, and he congratulated himself upon having a driver who was willing to follow a fare’s instructions without argument. He shuddered to think what most New York taxi-drivers would do if asked to drive not too fast. He didn’t like Miami or anything he had seen of the city, but their taxi drivers, he thought, had a great deal to commend them.

They were well out of the business section of the city now, and into the northern residential district, and the driver mumbled over his shoulder and past the foul-smelling cigar, “Sixty-seventh, you said, Mister? And you want I should turn left there?”

“Left, yes. For a few blocks. I will tell you where to stop. And I appreciate the way you’re holding the speed down.”

“All the same to me, Mister,” said the driver philosophically. “I got all night behind this wheel. If you ain’t goin’ nowhere special it’s a cinch I ain’t neither.”

He slowed as he approached an intersection, made a left turn and Sutter saw the sign for 67th Street as they passed it slowly.

He leaned forward and carefully counted the blocks. As they slid past the fourth intersection, he said nervously, “Slow down please. It’s in this block. On the right-hand side. There. Up beyond those two parked cars. Pull in to the curb, please.”

His driver followed his instructions without comment, but as he reached forward to pull up his flag on the meter, Sutter said hastily, “Keep your flag down, driver. I’m not quite sure… that is… I’d like to wait here in the cab just a minute until I decide whether or not…” He let his voice trail off uncertainly, wondering what reason he could give the driver for pausing here and then driving on as he had been directed, but the man solved that problem for him by chuckling lecherously and ending his sentence for him, “… whether or not her husband’s home? Is that it, Mister? Lemme know when you make up your mind.” He belched comfortably and expelled a thick cloud of noxious smoke toward the rear of the cab.

When the attorney was certain they had been stopped at least sixty seconds, he said, “I think I’ll just ask you to go on, driver. Turn left at the next corner, please, and head back toward town. But not too fast, please. I may change my mind after all. I can’t quite decide…”

The cab pulled away from the curb slowly and evenly, but the driver’s good nature appeared to be lessening as he said in a surly voice, “Games we’re playing, huh? Okay by me. I got all night like I said.”

Sutter sat tensely looking back as they approached the next corner, and he saw lights switched on in a car that was parked on the opposite side of the street behind them, and it moved out as they made the turn and started southward.

But only one car had picked up the trail there. That would be the blackmailer, he had no doubt. Then where was Shayne? The detective had given his word to be present at the payoff, but Sutter was desperately afraid that Shayne had failed him somehow. He kept his head craned back, watching to the rear, and he saw the headlights of a single car swing around the corner behind them, also going quite slowly, but gradually increasing speed so it cut down the distance between them.

Still there was no sign of the private detective. There was no other car at all moving in either direction on the empty street, and the one behind them was moving up now, and Sutter clenched his Perfecto tightly between his teeth and resigned himself to handling the situation as best he could with no help from Michael Shayne.

The taxi continued to cruise south sedately in the righthand lane, and the following car was coming up fast. It swung out to go around the taxi on the left, and Sutter saw that the driver was a man, alone in the car. As he came abreast of them he honked his horn three times, shortly and sharply, and began to turn in to force the cab to the curb on the deserted street.

His driver exclaimed, “Hey. What the hell?” twisting his wheel to the right to avoid a collision, and Sutter leaned forward and said hastily, “It’s all right, driver. A… friend who wants to talk to me. Just pull in and stop.”

The taxi eased in to the curb and stopped, and the other car did likewise, nosed in at an angle in front of the cab.

It was a late model Pontiac, and the driver leaped out as it came to a full stop, circled the back of his car and came up to the cab and jerked open the back door.

“Is that you, Sutter?”

In the dim light of a street lamp half a block away, Sutter saw a thin black mustache across the young man’s face peering in at him, and recognized Victor Conroy, the late Wesley Ames’ private secretary.

He replied with some asperity, “Of course it is I. Who else do you expect to be cruising around this section of Miami at midnight in this fashion? Have you the documents we discussed over the telephone?”

“Right here.” Conroy withdrew a thick envelope from his pocket. “What have you got for me in exchange?”

“Exactly what I promised you I would have,” Sutter told him. He reached across the length of the back seat for the envelope Conroy held. “I’ll have to check the contents before we conclude our deal.”

Conroy drew back his hand and said grimly, “You can check mine while I check yours. Let’s see the color of your money first.”

At that moment the front door of the cab came open and the driver came out from behind the steering wheel all in one lithe movement. The man’s figure was no longer slouched, but was tall and broad-shouldered, and Sutter saw the glint of blued-steel in his right hand and heard a harsh voice come from his lips that held no trace of a Southern drawl:

“All right, Conroy. Step back from the car with your hands in the air.”

Before he had finished speaking the young man leaped at him. Perhaps he didn’t see the gun in Michael Shayne’s right hand, or perhaps he didn’t care. His rush carried both of them back into the vee formed by the front fenders of the taxi and the Pontiac, and the vizored cap went spinning from Shayne’s head, and Sutter saw his face and the red hair and realized for the first time who his driver had been.

He saw the rangy redhead straighten with his back against the from fender of the taxi, saw Conroy raining furious blows on his face and body, and saw Shayne swing the heavy automatic in his right hand against the side of the younger man’s head where it made a smacking sound in the night and caused him to stagger back from the attack, and then Shayne calmly measured him with a straight left to the jaw which sent him backward and down like an expertly axed ox.

Shayne leaned down over him and impassively picked up the bulky envelope which had fallen from his fingers, and stepped to the open door of the taxi and leaned in to proffer it to the shaking attorney.

“Let’s get this part of our business finished before Conroy comes around or anyone else turns up to start asking questions. Hand over the two envelopes you’ve got.”

“But… but…” stammered Sutter.

“No goddamned buts. I’ll take the money. See if your stuff is all in here.”

Dazed and bewildered and frightened, Sutter hesitantly withdrew the two envelopes containing currency from his pocket and silently passed them over to the detective and seized the envelope Shayne had taken from Conroy in return.

Shayne stepped back a pace and hastily thumbed through the contents of both envelopes, then wadded the money into his pocket and turned to kneel beside Conroy who was beginning to stir and groan on the pavement.

HE LIFTED THE LAX FIGURE OF THE SECRETARY AS easily as he would have lifted a rag doll, and draped him forward, face down, across the front fender and hood of the Pontiac while he shook him down carefully for a weapon.

He found no weapon, but in his right-hand jacket pocket Shayne encountered a key with a heavy metal tab attached to it which he took out and held up to the light. The key had the number 25 stamped on it, and the metal tag was inscribed: Motel Biscay Rest, with an address on Biscayne Boulevard north of 79th Street.

Shayne turned it over and over questioningly in his hands, then scowled down at Conroy’s unconscious body. He dropped the motel key in his own pocket and checked the man’s pulse, found it was strong but irregular, and that his breathing was steady.

He turned his head as the New York attorney emerged from the back seat of the taxi, and exclaimed, “You certainly did give me a surprise, Shayne. I had no idea you were impersonating the driver. Is the young man hurt badly?”

“Just knocked out. He’ll come around soon enough. You get your stuff all right?”

“Yes. All the papers seem to be in order. What are you going to do with Conroy? Will he have to be charged with attempted blackmail, with me subpoenaed as a witness? After all no harm has really been done. I have the papers I came for. If this entire affair can possibly be kept quiet you will be doing my firm and our client a great service, and I assure you that adequate payment will be made.”

“I’ve got a fairly adequate payment in my pocket already,” Shayne told him bluntly. “I’ll consider that my fee if I can keep this quiet. Unfortunately, though, it may be evidence against Conroy for murder, and you may be required to testify.”

“Murder? I don’t understand. I thought that was all settled.”

“I told you things had changed. Here’s what I advise you to do,” Shayne went on swiftly. “Can you drive Conroy’s car?”

“I presume so. It seems a standard model.”

“Then get back to your hotel right away. No. You’d better stop some place. At another hotel lobby on the way where you can address that envelope and get some stamps for it. Put it in the mail for New York before you go to the Costain. Then leave the Pontiac parked a block or so away and go in and straight up to your room. The cops will either be waiting for you, or they’ll be around soon. They’ll be asking you questions about the period you were in the Ames house before he was shot, but we’ll hope they have no lead on this and won’t question you. Don’t volunteer anything. Be evasive about where you’ve been since checking in at the Costain. If I can clear up Ames’ murder in the meantime, there’s no reason this blackmail caper has to enter into it. Just sit tight and hope you’ll be allowed to take a morning plane to New York. Get in that car and drive it away so I can get out of here,” he went on gruffly, turning back to Conroy and getting the limp body onto his shoulder.

He carried the man around to the other side of the taxi and thrust him into the front seat where he huddled down in a crumpled heap, breathing stertorously but with his eyes still tightly closed.

Sutter was behind the steering wheel of the Pontiac starting the motor when Shayne hurried around and got into the cab. He got the other car moving, and headed sedately southward toward downtown Miami, and Shayne made a left turn in the taxi at the next corner and drove to Biscayne Boulevard where he turned north.

Victor Conroy began to stir and make funny noises, and try to lift his head on the seat beside him. Shayne watched him out of the corner of his eye while he drove at moderate speed in the right-hand lane of the almost deserted Boulevard. They were past 79th when Conroy managed to pull himself up and turn his head and blink dazedly at his companion.

“Wha… where are we? What happened?” he managed to blurt out. “You’re… Mike Shayne, by God. You were driving that cab. I remember now.”

“Keep right on remembering,” Shayne said grimly. “You’ve got a lot of talking to do, Conroy.” Ahead of them on the right, a high, arched neon sign spelled out BISCAY REST, and beneath that in smaller letters, Sorry—No Vacancy.

“My head,” moaned Conroy, hunching forward and trying to retch, putting both hands up to his forehead. “What did you hit me with?”

“First a gun and then my fist,” Shayne told him stolidly. He slowed to turn in to the motel entrance, drove past the darkened office to a U-shaped courtyard lined on three sides with connecting motel units. Parked cars stood in front of most of the doors, and at least ninety percent of the units were dark. Shayne checked the numbers on the doors and found 25 with an empty parking space in front of it and a night light on over the door.

Conroy lifted his head from his hands to look around apprehensively when the taxi stopped and Shayne cut off the motor. “Where are we?” he demanded, his voice thin with rising hysteria.