Tickets for Death (3 page)

Chapter Three:
FRONT-PAGE NEWS

THE TROPICAL HOTEL HOUSE DETECTIVE and an assistant manager made quick work of clearing the room of ogling bellboys and hysterical guests.

The house detective was a fat man with rosy cheeks and a pleasant expression. His slightly bulging eyes were grave as he bent over first one body and then the other. He made mumbling noises to himself, but spoke no intelligible words aloud. When he stood up, his gaze swept around the room as if seeking to place proper blame upon whoever had entered his premises and disturbed the even tenor of his way.

The assistant manager was tall and twittery and somewhat distinguished by perfect attire and Oxford glasses which failed to remain astride his prominent nose in coordination with his nervous gestures. He stood in the center of the room, plainly dismayed, yet apparently determined to reveal himself as an official of the hotel.

“This sort of thing is appalling, dreadfully appalling,” he said finally to Shayne. He caught his glasses in midair and settled them firmly on his nose. “We have the hotel’s reputation to think of.”

The entrance of a physician through the open door cut short further reproval by the assistant manager. Behind him, Phyllis appeared with her hands behind her. All eyes were on the doctor as he bent over the bodies with a stethoscope which he took from his hip pocket, and no one paid any attention to Phyllis as she crossed the room to sit beside her husband on the bed. Her eyes were still dilated with fright and her face white, but her fingers were steady when she pulled the cork.

Shayne took a long drink and grinned at her. He said, “Thanks, angel,” and winced as he inadvertently moved the injured portion of his body.

Watching him narrowly, Phyllis caught her breath at the sight of blood on the spread between them. She sprang to her feet and cried out to the doctor:

“My husband—Doctor, he’s injured. He is bleeding to death. Do something!”

The doctor looked up mildly into her dark agitated eyes, folded the stethoscope tenderly, and returned it to his hip pocket. “I can’t do anything for these men,” he said. “They’re dead.” He stood up and went to Shayne. “What happened to you? Did you stop a bullet too?”

“Here,” Shayne said, indicating the spot. He lay back across the bed with his hand holding the wound.

The doctor deftly disinfected and bandaged the wound while Phyllis looked on in an agony of terror. Suddenly she ran from the room and returned with a clean undershirt and a fresh shirt. The doctor smiled gravely at her pale face when Shayne growled:

“There’s no time for that.”

“But, Michael, you’re all blood,” she cried.

“You can change suits later,” the doctor told him amiably, and assisted Phyllis in disrobing Shayne’s torso and getting him into a clean undershirt.

Shayne did not resist them until his gray eyes strayed to the door as two men entered. “Damn,” he muttered, and grabbed the top shirt and put it on unassisted.

One of the men was a burly fellow with a black felt pushed far back on his forehead. A silver star sagged from his open coat and the word
Chief
was engraved on it. He wore a movie-cowboy cartridge belt with a .45 swinging rakishly low in an open holster. He heeled the door shut and spoke harshly and authoritatively to the hotel detective:

“What’s going on here, Gleason?”

Before Gleason could reply, the little man who entered with the chief chuckled happily and said: , “It looks like big city methods have come to Cocopalm, Chief Boyle. This is Michael Shayne or I miss my guess.” He jerked a bushy, oversized head toward the tall detective sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Shayne? Damned if I like this.” Chief Boyle thrust a belligerent, double-chinned jaw toward Shayne.

“I don’t care a hell of a lot for it myself,” Shayne drawled.

Phyllis stood by patiently holding his necktie in her hand. He reached up and took it from her, saying under his breath, “Go on back to your room, angel. This is no place for you.”

Her eyes flashed defiance. She didn’t say anything, but stepped back into a corner and sank into a deep chair, her eyes very bright and angry on Chief Boyle, who scowled down at Shayne’s automatic lying on the floor.

He asked, “Is this your gun, Shayne?”

Shayne said, “Yes. I’ve got a permit to carry it.”

“But no permit to go around killing people.” The chief frowned. “I’ve heard about the rough stuff you pull in Miami, but it won’t go here in Cocopalm.”

The little whiplash of a man chuckled fiendishly behind the chief. “You’ve plugged a pair of our most reputable citizens,” he said with sharp irony. “I figured you’d give us action, Shayne, but I wasn’t expecting it so soon.”

“Neither was I,” Shayne retorted. He whipped the necktie around his collar and let it hang. “Are you Hardeman?”

“Good Lord, no. I’m Gil Matrix, editor, owner and publisher of the
Voice.
Prints all the news that’s fit to print and a lot that isn’t. Let me be the first to welcome you to our city.” Matrix pushed forward and held out his hand.

Shayne took it, grunting sourly, “I’ve already been met by a reception committee that can probably be traced to the front-page stuff you ran this afternoon.”

Matrix’s grin was unabashed. “I meant to stir things up. Lord,” he muttered, his eyes going again to the dead figures on the floor, “and did I ever! Chief Boyle here has been sitting on the lid too long and it was time the powder keg exploded.”

“That’ll be enough from you, Gil.” Chief Boyle stepped angrily into the center of the room, shouldering the undersized editor aside with his great bulk. He glared down at Shayne, who now nonchalantly tied his tie. “What have you done with Mr. Hardeman?”

Shayne shot him a quick curious glance. “Hell, I haven’t got him.” He got up slowly and nodded toward the two dead men. “I thought one of those was Hardeman.”

Boyle’s eyes were hot with incredulity and disbelief as he stepped back a pace. “You thought one of
them
was—”

“On my right lies Pug Leroy,” Gil Matrix said in a loud voice, his hands thrust deep in his trouser pockets as he circled the thick-bodied man on the floor. He shrugged heavy, slightly hunched shoulders which made his short body seem incongruous.

“Leroy,” he went on dramatically, “has been working toward murder through the gentler stages of crime for a couple of years. His demise won’t be excessively mourned.

“And this other lad is Bud Taylor, a local product.” He spoke in a harsh, rasping voice, looking down at the thin-faced, youthful gunman who could not have been more than twenty-two.

There was utter silence in the room.

The little man dominated the scene as his owlishly round eyes slowly challenged everyone in the room, beginning with Chief Boyle, who was standing to one side with the hotel detective, passing on to the subdued assistant manager, and finally stopping when they rested upon Phyllis, who shrank deeper into her chair. The doctor, whose back was turned, silently closed his medical bag and stole from the room.

“Bud Taylor,” Gil Matrix repeated, “one of those unfortunate weaklings easily led astray—a product of his environment, let us say. A youth who could have taken the right turn, but was induced to take the wrong one. We are all responsible for the Bud Taylors of this world,” he went on fiercely. “Every one of us ensconced in our citadels of smugness who tolerate a festering growth in our community that sucks in a lad like Bud Taylor with the glamour of easy money. Easy money,” he repeated in a strange whisper. “We shall all be judged,” he jerked out, “I say—”

“Cut out the oration, Gil.” Chief Boyle produced a handkerchief and mopped his sweating face. “This ain’t the time or the place for a sermon.”

“There’ll be no better time or place,” Matrix told him wrathily. “You ought to be down on your knees asking God to pity the citizens of Cocopalm who entrust their security to your supine hands—”

“Maybe the parson’ll let you preach the funeral sermon,” Chief Boyle snapped angrily.

The interruption left Matrix undismayed. His round eyes were bleak as he waved a hand and continued: “So long as you allow the Rendezvous to flourish under police protection on the outskirts of Cocopalm, just so long will we have the spectacle of our youth turning into gangsters and gunmen—and
worse.”

“Now see here, Gil,” Boyle roared, “you know damn well the Rendezvous is out of the city limits and out of my jurisdiction.”

“Yes, and I also know that Grant MacFarlane is your brother-in-law,” Matrix lashed back. “You can’t deny that Bud Taylor has been hanging around out there getting himself inoculated with the idea that the law is something to beat, to be scoffed at—which, by God, it is here in Cocopalm—and that he—”

“Shut up, Gil.” Chief Boyle’s voice was loud with authority. His face was the color of raw beef.

Shayne’s amusement at the scene was wearing thin. He came impatiently to his feet and said, “I’m inclined to agree with the chief. I’d like to get your ideas later, Matrix, but right now I’m wondering why Mr. Hardeman wasn’t here in this room to keep his appointment with me. While you fellows are throwing the gab around he might be heeding help.”

The assistant manager came to life, shook his head vigorously, and deftly caught his big-rimmed Oxford glasses as they flew from his nose. He readjusted them and glanced around the room with officious, but nevertheless nervous eyes. “Mr. Hardeman doesn’t seem to be here at all. I happen to know that his engagement with Mr. Shayne was important. He gave orders that the detective was to be shown up immediately, and I’m quite positive he hasn’t gone out since dinner.”

Shayne’s keen gray eyes traveled around the room to notice that three doors led away from the large bedroom. One, in a corner behind the bed, stood slightly ajar, while another, across the room, was tightly closed as was the one leading to the hall. He saw, also, that Phyllis sat drawn back in her chair, her big dark eyes filled with questioning and wonderment. He shook his head at her and motioned toward the front door. Phyllis moved her own dark head slightly and negatively. Her soft round chin was set.

Shayne frowned and turned his attention to the two other doors. He strode to the closed one and jerked it open. It led into an empty tiled bathroom. His brows came down in a puzzled frown. Then he whirled about and went to the other door in the corner.

Jerking it open, he peered inside, then stepped back with a wide gesture. He said calmly:

“Come and see if this is Hardeman.”

Matrix’s nose quivered. He was the first to reach Shayne’s side while the others crowded up. “That’s John Hardeman, all right,” he chortled, “neatly done up in a knot.”

Shayne looked steadily down at Hardeman for a moment and then stepped back, drawing the editor with him. Chief Boyle and Gleason dragged the bound and gagged race-track manager out of the spacious closet.

His body was long, big boned and heavy shouldered, but not fleshy. His forehead was of the high sort that is popularly supposed to be intellectual. His face was deeply suntanned, and his hair and eyes were gray. At the moment, indeed, his eyes rolled upward and around the room wildly. Gleason bent over him and struggled with the knot of the handkerchief at the back of his head; Chief Boyle took out his knife and cut the cords binding his arms.

Hardeman came slowly to his feet, sputtering incoherently and spitting a wad of cotton from his mouth. “This is ghastly,” he complained, “a ghastly experience, to lie helpless in the closet and hear two assailants cold-bloodedly plan Shayne’s murder. I must say you handled the situation masterfully.”

He seized Shayne’s hand in a bone-numbing grip and shook it. “I was terrified when I heard the telephone ring and one of them answer it. Pug Leroy it was. He simulated my voice almost perfectly. Those were moments of sheer agony when I listened to them take their places beside the door and wait to hear you knock.” He paused to pluck a small piece of cotton from his tongue. Shayne wondered

 if that accounted for the high-flown manner in which he spoke and concluded that it didn’t. “When the shooting began I couldn’t conceive how you might escape with your life. If they had succeeded in killing you, I would certainly have been next.”

“It’s lucky for you they left the door open a crack so you wouldn’t smother,” Shayne interposed gravely when the man stopped for a long-drawn breath.

“You can’t imagine my relief,” Hardeman continued, “when I heard the others enter the room and I gathered that you had actually turned the tables on those murderous rogues. I must confess, though, no one seemed unduly curious as to my whereabouts,” he ended with a reproachful glance at the men standing around the room.

“Did the thugs do any talking that made sense?” Shayne demanded. “Could you gather who or what was behind the attack on me?”

“Very little.” Hardeman pursed his lips, spat out another small piece of cotton, then shook his head. He whipped out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. “They assured me that I would not be harmed if they succeeded in their designs on you. I didn’t put any trust in their promise. The motivation behind the attack was evidently your appearance here in Cocopalm to investigate the counterfeit racing-tickets.”

“It seems a reasonable assumption,” Shayne conceded dryly. “And I think I can thank our crusader editor for arranging things so neatly in my behalf. His front-page story was an invitation for something like this.”

“Don’t thank me,” Matrix protested with a thin smile. “It was printed as a public service. Hardeman has been reluctant to take the bull by the horns and call in outside help, and I forced his hand by making you front-page news after he agreed to ask for your help.”

“And making it impossible for me to get any line on who was behind the attack,” Shayne pointed out harshly. “Instead of having those directly interested know I was coming, you made it common knowledge.”

“I certainly had no intention of broadcasting it,” Hardeman avowed. He shot a malevolent glance at the editor. “I might even suggest that Matrix hoped for some such result when he printed the story.”

“You’ve got to admit it worked, if that
was
what I wanted,” Matrix chortled. “This little affair is going to sell a lot of papers tomorrow.”