Then, some forty minutes later a tall man and a short one had turned up at the Park Plaza Hotel and escorted Molly Morgan out into the night.
How could Bull and Dixie have known where to find Molly?
More important, why did those two hoods want to find her? Who knew that she was mixed up in the affair at all? Shayne had met her for the first time at Tony’s at noon, and she’d been waiting for him in his room later where she had taken the telephone call from Papa Gonzalez.
They had gone directly to the pawn-shop together, arriving after the killers had left… and had gone directly to the captain’s house from there.
Then back to Shayne’s hotel, where Molly had slipped out the back door and down the fire escape to avoid an interview with Chief Gentry.
Where, in any of those events, was there anything to have sent Armin Lasher’s men to the Park Plaza to pick Molly up immediately after her return?
There was one faint possibility, Shayne realized. If Lasher were aware of Shayne’s interest in the Lenski guns, and if Bull and Dixie had seen and recognized Shayne in the car they almost ran down, it was possible that Lasher had sent them to stake out Shayne’s hotel when they returned without having got the information they wanted from Captain Ruffer.
In that case they might have arrived in time to see Molly coming down the fire escape and followed her to her hotel.
It was very thin reasoning and based on a lot of “ifs,” but it was the best answer Shayne could come up with at the moment.
And, whether or not they were the two who had taken Molly away, Shayne still had some questions to ask them and their boss. Without positive identification from Mrs. Wilshinskis (who hadn’t seen their faces) there was no proof that they had killed the pawnbroker, of course.
Shayne got up abruptly and started for the door.
12
Armin Lasher was a product of the Prohibition days and had first turned up in Miami as one of Al Capone’s bodyguards. Later, he disappeared for a time, or at least made himself inconspicuous for a period following Capone’s conviction in Federal court, but in the early forties his power began to be increasingly felt in the backwash of Miami’s turbulent underworld, and within a decade he was reputed to be the largest individual vice operator in the area outside of members of the Organization.
He was a ruthless man with a small army of Enforcers on his pay-roll, and competitors who tried to horn in on his territory had a way of disappearing without a trace. Even the Organization had evidently decided to leave him strictly alone after a couple of bloody gun-fights.
He had his fingers in gambling and prostitution and narcotics, and he managed his small empire efficiently from his headquarters in a perfectly legitimate and well-run night club on the western outskirts of Miami, just beyond the city limits. There was no gambling and no vice or rough stuff tolerated at the Little Revue, and you could rub elbows there with bankers and their wives as well as with known killers who parked their shoulder holsters before entering.
When Shayne turned into the floodlighted parking lot there were at least a hundred cars in orderly rows, and he was waved into an open slot far removed from the entrance by a uniformed parking attendant.
He got out and walked back through the lighted area toward the big two-story building, entered a tastefully decorated lounging-waiting room with a dim cocktail bar on the right and the main dining room on the left. He shook his red head at an alert maitre d’ at the entrance to the dining room, crossed to a well-lighted hallway leading toward the rear, and went down it to a carpeted stairway at the back.
There were restrooms on the right and left at the top of the stairs, and closed doors on both sides of the corridor in front of him.
Shayne went to the second door on the left which was marked PRIVATE, turned the knob and stepped inside. There was a small anteroom with a desk in the center of it and a man behind the desk. He was a big man with steely eyes and a crew-cut, and he wore a well-cut sport jacket of Italian silk. He looked at the redhead speculatively and asked in a grating voice, “Looking for someone?” He didn’t add “Buster” but somehow the appellation was implied.
Shayne said, “Lasher.”
“He expecting you?”
“No. But he’ll see me.”
“What makes you think so?” This time the implied “Buster” was more pronounced.
Shayne said, “Nuts,” and started past the desk toward an unmarked, closed door behind the big man.
He was on his feet instantly and in front of the redhead, growling deep in his throat, “Hold it, Bud. I say who sees the boss and who don’t.”
His eyes were level with Shayne’s, and big biceps muscles bulged inside his imported jacket.
Shayne half-turned to the right as though he were backing away, dropped his left shoulder and drove it hard against the man’s solid chest.
He stumbled backward, struggling to maintain his footing, and Shayne kept on moving and put his hand on the knob of the inner door.
The man was six feet away when he straightened himself and his hand darted under the left lapel of his carefully fitted jacket where a very faint bulge was visible.
Shayne looked at him over his shoulder and shook his red head half an inch from right to left, and said reprovingly, “No rough stuff, Buster. You know the boss doesn’t like it.” He opened the door and stepped inside and closed it tightly behind him.
The inner office was large, at least twenty by thirty feet, and was luxuriously furnished and decorated to fit a television producer’s dream of what a big-shot gangster’s office should look like. The desk in the center was an eight by ten foot expanse of gleaming mahogany with three telephones ranged in front of the man who sat erect behind it. There was wall-to-wall carpeting a couple of inches thick with foam rubber beneath that, and soft, indirect lighting, and cushioned settees ranged along two sides of the room. There were ostentatiously framed and individually-lighted paintings of reclining nudes in the center of each of the four walls, and the final, perfect, decorator’s touch was the four shining brass spittoons which stood in each corner.
Armin Lasher was in his middle-sixties and appeared to be at least twenty years younger. If you didn’t know better you might have suspected it was due to clean living on his part. He had high cheekbones and bronzed hard features, liquid black eyes that were alert and intelligent, a firm mouth and strong chin.
He looked across the shining surface of his desk at the redhead with his left eyebrow quirked, and then at the door which Shayne had closed behind him.
It was jerked open as he looked at it, and Crew-cut from the outer office came lunging in with a.380 automatic in his right hand which he flourished at Shayne while he said rapidly, “This bastid shoved right on in, Chief. I didn’t get no chance to ring you.”
Lasher said coldly, “Beat it, Tiny. Try to do better next time.” He moved his gaze to Shayne and a faint smile flickered over his hard mouth. “Still doing things the hard way, Shamus? Last time you were in my office it cost me ten grand.”
Shayne shrugged and moved forward to a deep chair upholstered in green leather in front of the desk, and sank down into it. He said, “I’m not taking up a collection for a widow this time, Lasher.” He paused to consider his words with a frown. “Or… maybe I am at that. I hadn’t thought about that angle.”