“Don’t point that at me.” The bartender’s face went ashen. “I know you’re Mike Shayne. I’ll tell you anything.”
“Start talking, then. About the girl you fed a Mickey Finn. Know who she was?”
“Sure. It was the Stallings girl. I’d seen her around lots.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. Who told you to give her a knockout slug?”
“Nobody. I — didn’t know what to do with her. She’d drunk a lot of cocktails and then started raving out loud about her stepfather and Arch. There were a lot of other people there and I didn’t know what she might say next.”
“Was she alone?”
“Yes. I didn’t see anybody with her. She came in asking for Arch about two-thirty.”
“And he wasn’t there?”
“No. I told her he wouldn’t be in till evening but she said she’d wait. She acted funny, and after she had a few drinks she got loud and started cursing like a trooper.”
“She made a phone call, didn’t she?”
“Yeah. After she was pretty drunk. Must have been around five.”
“Who did she call?”
“I don’t know. I swear I don’t. She went in a booth. But when she came out she asked me how to get to a — a hotel in Miami.”
“What hotel?” Shayne’s voice was like the lash of a whip.
Preston told him, adding nervously, “I knew that was where you hung out. I didn’t know what she might do. I mixed her one last drink before she left — and fixed it.”
“But not strong enough,” Shayne commented dryly. “You need a supply of special drops for these tough debutante guzzlers. All right. I want it straight. Who’d you call when she left?”
“I telephoned Mr. Stallings. I thought he ought to know. I–I told him she had started for your place but I didn’t think she’d make it.”
“Is that all you know about it?”
“That’s all. I swear to God it is. I told Arch as soon as he came in — about six-thirty. I thought he might be sore because he’s been carrying the torch for her. He wasn’t, though. He said I done just right.”
Shayne slid the gun back into his pocket. Lounging to his feet, he crossed to the windows and draw the shades down again. “Go ahead with your beauty sleep. I may want you to repeat this before witnesses later. Don’t forget any of it.”
Outside the darkened room he nodded reassuringly to Mrs. Preston who was loitering in the hall with the gurgling toddler in her arms. “It’s okay, Mrs. Preston. Your husband isn’t in any trouble. But I advise you to have him lay off work a day or so and stay close to home. He’ll be safer here than at the Bugle Inn.”
Back in his rented car again, Shayne hesitated for a few minutes, then made up his mind and drove to the south end of the Beach, the Coney Island of the resort city; a section of bathhouses and hamburger joints, shooting galleries and other carnival concessions.
He went into a beer parlor and arched his brows at the bartender, got a nod that sent him to a back room where he knocked twice before going in. The room was large and airy with rows of empty cane-bottom chairs lined up facing a huge blackboard on the rear wall. The board was divided into sections, and each bore the name of a well-known race track operating in the United States. There was a large desk in one corner of the room with half a dozen telephones lined up in front of six chairs. A man was seated at the desk talking into one of the phones. He jerked a rosy head at Shayne and kept on talking with his lips close to the mouthpiece.
Shayne pulled one of the chairs away from the desk and tilted it back against the wall, sat down and lit a cigarette.
Joe finished his conversation and hung up. He mopped his face with a silk handkerchief and complained, “This business will be the death of me, Mike. Nothing but crooks and two-bit punks yapping when their ten-to-one shots don’t come home. It makes a man want to puke.”
Shayne said, “Yeh? Well, I’ve got another worry for you. I won’t have a chance to get to the bank and pick up the two grand I laid on Marsh last night. I guess you’ll have to carry me for it.”
Joe Parkis had broad, flat features with a bilious tinge. He squirmed uneasily in his chair, looking away from the redheaded detective. “Can’t get to the bank, huh? It’ll be open pretty quick now.”
“Yeh, but I’m going to be pretty busy. Expect to be tied up most of the day. I just wanted to tell you I didn’t think I could make it.”
Joe glanced at him sharply and then away again. It seemed to Shayne there was a look of relief on his face. “You know I got to run my business on cash, Mike. I’d go broke in a week if I started taking markers from every sport that wanted to lay a bet. I got a strict rule—”
“I’m not ‘every sport,’ God damn it,” Shayne interrupted harshly. “You know I’m good for two lousy grand.”
“It ain’t that, Mike,” Joe held up a placating hand. Sweat was forming on his forehead and trickling down his flat features. “Sure you’re good for it. I’m not saying you wouldn’t pay off cash on the barrelhead if Stallings wins. But if I take a marker from you and somebody else finds it out, then they think I ought to take theirs. See what I mean? Once you get started it’s hell to stop. I run on a strictly cash basis,” the bookmaker reiterated doggedly.
Shayne’s eyes narrowed unpleasantly. “All right, Joe. I’ve got ways of making things tough on you, too.”
Joe Parkis mopped his face and begged, “Don’t get sore, Mike. Hell, if you want to borrow a couple of grand—” He made a gesture of generosity.
Shayne said, “I don’t want to borrow two grand. I only want to lay it on Jim Marsh. Make it easy on yourself.” He tilted the chair forward and got up.
“Wait, Mike. For God’s sake, wait a minute. I’m trying to give you a tip-off, see? You’ve always leveled with me. I’d be a hell of a friend if I let you walk into something. I’m telling you to lay off the election.”
Shayne hesitated, dropped back into the chair. “What’s on your mind?”
“Take my word for it,” Parkis pleaded. “I see all sorts of funny things in my business. I got things I can’t talk about just like you got things on your clients you keep under your hat. But I’m telling you to lay off. I don’t want to see you drop two grand. You’d be sore if you found out afterward I knew the fix was on and didn’t tip you.”
Shayne lit another cigarette. His nostrils flared, and smoke dribbled out. Suddenly he looked happy. “So the fix is on? I get it, Joe. Maybe I can change that. I’m still willing to bet two grand I can.”
“Money on the nose ain’t no better than counterfeit if your nag don’t break away from the post,” Joe Parkis warned him sententiously.
Shayne nodded cheerfully. “I see what you’re driving at. But I’m on the inside, too, Joe. Don’t believe everything you hear. Thanks for tipping me, but my bet stands.”
“Don’t be a schlemiel,” Joe groaned. “You been around enough to know that when the owner lays heavy sugar on another horse he’s pretty sure his ain’t going to run.”
“So,” said Shayne thoughtfully, “it’s that way?”
Parkis wriggled in his chair and mopped his face. “All right, so you’ve got the picture. Now will you lay off?”
“How much has Marsh bet against himself?”
“Plenty. That’s what knocked the odds down yesterday. Damn it, Mike, I ain’t got no right to spill this.”
“It won’t go any farther.” Shayne leaned forward, his eyes boring into Joe’s. “That funny stuff last night — about no bets being off if Marsh withdrew — that was his idea, too? Eh?”