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.
“Because I know nothing on God’s earth will keep you out of it now,” Rourke explained. “And it looks like you’ve been leading with your chin, as usual.”
“Knucks,” Shayne told him. He hesitated, then added, “I’ve been out of circulation too long, Tim. Who could have pulled that job on Dustin?”
“I haven’t the ins I once had, either,” Rourke confessed. “You know how it’s always been here. They drift in and out from the north. Earl Randolph should know more about it than anyone else.”
“Ever hear of a couple of local boys called Blackie and the Kid?” Shayne described the two men he had encountered in Mickey’s Garage.
“I don’t think so. They the ones that worked you over?”
Shayne nodded, his eyes bleak. “I left myself wide open,” he confessed. “I figured all I had to do was to make contact and sit back and wait for the approach. Things have changed since the old days. What in hell goes on? Both Voorland and Randolph say the rubies can’t possibly be cut up and fenced. How come I get slugged when I suggest a deal?” His tone was morose and aggrieved, like that of a lobbyist who unexpectedly encounters an honest congressman in Washington.
“Things must be getting tough,” was Rourke’s pleasant comment. “Those lads you propositioned-how’d you get a line on them?”
“I followed a hunch.”
“Sure it was a right hunch? Maybe they didn’t savvy the sort of fix you offered.”
“They understood, all right. There’s something damned screwy going on, Tim. Something I can’t put my finger on.”
Rourke sat up straighter but masked his eagerness with a casual tone, though his eyes glowed brightly in their sockets and his nostrils twitched like a blood hound’s on the scent. “Something phony about the heist itself? Inside angles?”
“I don’t know. I’d take Walter Voorland’s word any time and any place on the value of the stuff. And Earl Randolph issued a policy on the full purchase price.” Shayne frowned deeply and drew on his cigarette.
“Dustin’s the only unknown factor,” Rourke pointed out. “From the west, isn’t he?”
“The west sticks out all over him. But he did get smashed up in the heist, and there’s no angle in it for him,” Shayne exploded. “He can’t recover more than he paid for the bracelet.”
“Sometimes a guy figures it’s nice to have the stones and the insurance money, too.”
“Only if the damned things will bring a fair sum under the counter,” Shayne reminded him. “That’s what makes this thing so crazy. Star rubies can’t be fenced like other stuff. And if there’s anything wrong about Dustin, he must know it’ll come out in the investigation that’s certain to be made. No insurance company is going to pay out a wad of dough like that without checking back on him closely, no matter where he lives. No, as near as I can see, Dustin is out.”
“Who does that leave?”
“No one.”
Rourke emptied his glass and got up. He went across to the bathroom and inside, leaving the door ajar. From beyond the door he said, “I can ask around about the two boys who worked on you. Might pick up a line on them some way.”
“I’ve got a lead of my own,” Shayne said, “but I can’t start on it until tomorrow.”
Rourke came out of the bathroom, and watching him from beneath lowered lids, Shayne said, “Well, guess I’ll turn in.” He started to yawn, but his sore chin stopped it.
“I can take a hint,” said Rourke with a grin. He went out and closed the door.
Shayne stood for a long moment before the bedroom door before going in to get his pajamas. When he finally opened it, he stood with his hand on the knob staring at the bed. Moonlight came through the window and lay softly upon the form of the girl curled up under the sheet.
Lucy Hamilton lay on her side. Her dark hair was fluffed out on the pillow and her right arm was outside the covering, her fingers seemingly clutching the edge of the mattress.
Shayne closed the door and drew the sheet from the other side of the bed back a little to slide his body underneath. Lucy did not stir, and her breathing was so even and faint he could not hear a sound as he lowered his head to the pillow beside hers.
He lay like that for a moment, stiffly embarrassed and suddenly angry with her for going on sleeping.
His left hand touched her brown hair gently. He sat up quickly and looked at his fingers in the bright moonlight. Something thick and sticky clung to them. He dropped his other hand on her shoulder and called to her urgently. Her body was wholly lax under his touch like the body of a jointless rag doll.
Chapter Nine
Shayne sprang from the bed and switched on the light, caught Lucy’s limp wrist to feel for her pulse. He first thought there wasn’t any, and his blunt finger tip moved frenziedly around the spot where it had to be. He cursed himself for sitting outside drinking cognac and talking with Rourke while Lucy lay on the bed possibly with the life ebbing out of her.
Then he felt a faint beat, regular and reassuring, but scarcely discernible under his touch.
Racing to the telephone, he called the switchboard and asked for the house physician’s apartment. It seemed hours before the doctor in 482 answered.
“Mike Shayne-in three-oh-six,” he said rapidly. “I need you fast. Don’t bother to dress. An accident-emergency.”
“I’m already dressed,” said Dr. Price peevishly. “I’ll be right down.”
Shayne was still barefooted, but he had got into his underwear and pants when he heard the elevator stop down the hall and brisk footsteps coming toward his door. He had the door open before the doctor reached it, caught him urgently by the arm and pulled him toward the bedroom, explaining swiftly: