“I need this phone, Will. You’ve got a two-way radio at the curb that’ll do your job faster. Have a heart,” the reporter urged as the chief hesitated between anger at his impudence and a willingness to co-operate. “I’ll hold off on this other stuff. Just a flash to hit the Bulldog with his name. From an anonymous informant.”
He said, “Gimme rewrite,” into the dead phone, and Gentry nodded sourly and lumbered to the door. “Anything to get you out of my hair, Tim. But you’ll have to bum your own ride back. Anything else happens, let me know, Lucy.”
He went out, and Shayne got up carefully to cross the room and close the door on the night-latch.
Rourke dropped the phone on its prongs and wiped sweat from his face. “That was a close one. Pour me another drink, Mike, and then you children settle down and tell papa exactly the sort of games you’ve been playing with telephones and bedroom doors and such.”
Chapter Six
Michael Shayne grimaced sourly and growled, “All right, Bright-Eyes. That was fast thinking when you grabbed the phone in front of Will, though not really necessary. We’re not hiding anything. Not much, anyhow,” he amplified with a glance at Lucy.
She smiled back at him with an effort. “I’m afraid I’ve got you in an awful mess, Michael. Though I still swear I can’t make myself believe Jack Bristow can be guilty of anything like murder.”
“An old boy friend of Lucy’s,” Shayne explained to Rourke with a shrug. “He never-strangled her, and she refuses to believe he’d go that far with any other woman.” He gathered up his and Rourke’s empty glasses, got an angry shake of her head from Lucy when he glanced at hers, and went into the kitchen for refills.
Timothy Rourke dropped onto the divan beside her and covered one hand with his. “Don’t,” he said in a low voice, “pay too much attention to Mike. He’s sore and jealous, but when it comes to a showdown he’ll be riding out in front of you like a knight on a white charger.”
Lucy smiled miserably at him. “I’ve got him in a horrible mess, Tim. You see, Jack did come here to hide from the police. And I didn’t tell Michael. I was afraid—”
“Let me do the talking, angel,” Shayne cut in sharply from the kitchen doorway. He brought in fresh drinks for Rourke and himself, settled back on the divan, and warned the reporter, “Don’t go off half-cocked on any of this. Lucy hadn’t seen Bristow for years until he busted in on her a couple of hours ago with a slug hole in his stomach and a crazy story about being shot by a dead man and needing help. She didn’t know it was murder, but she did refuse to cover up for him, and tried to call me.”
Shayne broke off to gesture at the telephone. “He jerked the cord loose when she tried to phone me, then locked himself in her bedroom. I showed up just then,” Shayne went on, improvising swiftly, “and before she could tell me about it, this Sergeant Loftus and his goon squad came charging in and got me sore. So I kicked them out without knowing Bristow had been here, and I admit I felt like a fool when Lucy told me a minute later that he was here. I broke down the door,” Shayne went on swiftly, “but it was too late anyhow. He’d got out the window and down the fire escape in the meantime. They were already onto him being in this building and I saw no reason to drag Lucy into it by telling her part when it was too late to do any good. That’s all there is to it.”
Rourke’s black eyes were fever-bright. “But you did make that call in to give his name and description?”
“Sure,” Shayne conceded readily. “It was too late to do anything else by that time. If the fool hadn’t dropped the slip of paper with Lucy’s name, she’d never have come into it. And by the time we knew about that, it was too late to start telling Will Gentry the truth.”
“I can see all that.” Timothy Rourke sank back and took a long pull at his bourbon and water. Lucy avoided meeting Shayne’s eyes because she didn’t dare let him see the gratitude shining in hers for the way he had twisted the truth to cover up for her.
“How badly was Bristow hurt, Lucy?” Rourke asked after a moment.
“I honestly don’t know. It was in his side right here.” She indicated the spot beneath her ribs with a forefinger. “It wasn’t bleeding much outwardly and he seemed pretty good. He claimed a dead man had shot him,” she added with a shudder. “I don’t know what to think now. Is there any real evidence that he killed the girl on Eighteenth Street?”
Rourke shook his head slowly. “Nothing definite, I guess. They don’t know much of anything yet. The girl in an adjoining room found Trixie’s body. Gladys Smith, she’d signed the register,” he added, “but the other girls call her Trixie. She’s new in Miami, and new to the racket, too, I guess. Looks about sixteen and — well, a girl has to be pretty new in it to get herself strangled. About Bristow. The only thing tying him to it thus far is the taxi driver who picked him up a block away at the right time and brought him here. That, and the paper with your address on the floor.”
Shayne tossed off his cognac and got up to stride up and down the floor. “Will Gentry,” he argued, “said there wasn’t any blood in the room. No gun. Hardly looks like he was shot by the girl in self-defense.”
“He could have carried the gun away with him after she plugged him,” parried Rourke. He finished his drink and yawned, then suggested casually, “Let’s quit telling fairy stories and get down to the truth. What did happen here tonight?”
Lucy straightened up with a gasp of alarm but Shayne continued his pacing without breaking stride and declared flatly, “That’s all of it, Tim. Don’t blame Lucy too much. She thought the guy was still there in the bedroom, of course, when the cops came — and the cop at her door didn’t give her a chance to tell him anything. In fact,” Shayne went on with a twisted smile, “I sort of took the play away from her when the bastard tried to push in and got insulting.”
“Wait a little minute,” said Timothy Rourke wearily. “This is me. Remember? Not Will Gentry. Not the cops. I don’t mind covering up for you two nice people, but I’m waiting to hear you say which one bumped the guy.”
It was Michael Shayne who reacted this time instead of Lucy, who didn’t catch the full import of the reporter’s words. He stopped abruptly and demanded, “What guy, Tim? What in hell are you talking about?”
“The guy under Lucy’s bed,” said Rourke. “Jack Bristow at a guess, from the quick look I grabbed.”
Lucy sank back with a little stricken cry, and Shayne slowly turned hotly questioning eyes on her. “Is Tim kidding, Lucy? Before God—”
“How do I know?” she cried brokenly. “I’ve told you the truth. I left him lying on the bed. You’re the one who looked and said he’d slipped away down the fire escape.”
Rourke was sitting erect, looking from one to the other with intense interest when Shayne whirled about and went back into the bedroom on hard heels. Lucy was on her feet at once, her face chalk-white, and Rourke caught her arm as she swayed. “Take it easy, Lucy. If you’re telling the truth—”
“But... if it is Jack—” She was trembling violently, and Rourke supported her toward the open door through which they could see Shayne kneeling beside her bed with the blood-smeared towel still protecting the spread.
The redhead rocked back on his heels and looked up at them grimly. “How’d you come to notice him lying here, Tim, when I didn’t?”