“That’s all.”
He grinned at her. “For openers. And I’d really like to put your boss in jail. That may not be possible this time, but if it isn’t I’ll keep trying.”
“Mike, you keep shifting ground. There are certain conceivable admissions Hal might make, but not at the point of a gun.”
“I don’t agree with you,” Shayne said. “That’s the only way to get him to do anything. You know him better than I do. How much pressure do you think he can stand?”
“I don’t think it’ll come to that. We’re in good shape on this, it seems to me. You’ve had a salutary effect on us, Mike. We’ve toned up our procedures. If you ever manage to subpoena our records again, you’ll find everything in order. On this consultant job for United States, we have the correspondence and a work schedule, and I don’t believe the courts would consider our fee excessive. What you can do in the way of pressure, if you’re willing to spend money, is scare off a few potential clients, like poor Clark Ahlman, who naturally don’t want their present employers to know they’re looking for a job somewhere else. I don’t think Hal will let himself be intimidated. In fact, we may close down the office temporarily and take a vacation.”
“When you come back, don’t open up in Miami.”
“The hell with you, Mike Shayne!” she said abruptly, pushing back her chair. “If you’re going in for low punching, you’d better get ready to take a few yourself. Hal wanted me to feel you out on a possible deal. I talked him out of it. I knew you wouldn’t be open to any reasonable arrangement. Tell Tim Rourke to have his lawyers check anything he prints for libel. We’d love to bring that kind of suit. Win or lose, the publicity would be divine.”
Shayne stopped her momentarily by saying in an amused voice, “How old are you, Candida?”
She made an angry exclamation, threw down her napkin like a grenade and stood up. She ignored the waiter, who was arriving with a large tray.
“The lady?” the waiter said, looking after her retreating back. “Doesn’t she want her dinner?”
“What did she order?” Shayne asked.
“Veal in caper sauce. Very nice tonight.”
“Leave it,” Shayne said. “I’m hungry.”
CHAPTER 5
Shayne sent back the wine Candida had ordered and asked for another cognac. He was having his second cup of coffee after finishing the two meals when Albert, the maitre d’, hurried toward him.
“Mr. Shayne, is that your Buick in the parking lot? The black sedan? The phone’s ringing in it.”
Shayne dropped several bills on the table to cover the check. He heard the muffled ringing of the phone as he strode rapidly toward his Buick. Pulling open the door, he snatched up the phone and said hello.
There was no answer, but the kind of noises he heard told him he had caught the call in time; he had a live connection.
“Hello?” he said again. “Mike Shayne speaking.”
This time there was a low, vaguely human mumble.
“Say it again,” Shayne said carefully. “Closer to the phone.”
“Ehh-”
It was little more than a groan, but when it was repeated Shayne recognized the voice that made it.
“Teddy? O.K. Where are you?”
Several deep breaths were taken at the other end of the connection while Sparrow gathered enough strength to bring out a word. It sounded like, “Woodlawn.”
“Woodlawn Cemetery?” Shayne said. “Yes or no.”
He was answered by a slurred vowel sound, an affirmative.
“I’ll make it as fast as I can,” Shayne said.
He swore savagely as he slammed down the phone and switched on the ignition. He reversed and came down on the gas hard, leaving twin smears of rubber on the blacktop. He swung out of the parking area with most of the Buick’s weight on the two inside wheels.
On the causeway, he settled down to some serious driving, part of the time on the wrong side of the double line. He took the Boulevard south to 8th Street, then went straight out 8th until he reached the big cemetery in Southwest Miami.
The main gates were locked. He cruised along the tall iron fence. On 32nd Avenue, across from Coral Park, he saw a lighted phone booth. It seemed empty at first. The door was closed, and he was almost past when he perceived that something was jammed against it from the inside.
Bringing the Buick to a stop, he leaped out. The phone dangled to within an inch or two of Teddy’s misshapen felt hat. The hat was rammed down over his forehead. His heavy body completely filled the bottom quarter of the booth, as though stuffed into it forcibly from above.
Shayne tried to open the door, but with Teddy’s two hundred and sixty pounds jammed against the center fold, he moved it only an inch.
“Teddy!” he snapped. “Can you hear me?”
The shapeless bulk didn’t stir.
Noises were coming from the dangling phone. Shayne put his full weight against the door, producing enough of an opening to admit an arm. He managed to grasp Teddy’s jacket. He yanked at the unconscious figure, synchronizing his pulls with increased pressure on the door. He gave up after a moment. There was only one way to get Teddy out, and that was to pry off the door.
He unlocked the Buick’s trunk and brought out the jackhandle, one end of which was flattened so it could be used on hubcaps. Shayne forced the flat end into the crack between the folding door and the frame of the booth, and leaned against it. The thinner metal of the door creaked and began to bend.
This was a quiet part of town. So far no cars had passed. One was approaching now, but Shayne went on with what he was doing. A screw popped.
The car slowed. It had a noisy motor and a noisier muffler.
A voice called above the racket, “Stealing dimes out of the phone?”
Shayne glanced around. There were three men in the front seat of a dirty cream-colored Plymouth. The speaker was a youth of eighteen or nineteen, with his hair in his eyes. The visible portions of his face were marred with patches of acne.
“Man passed out in here,” Shayne grunted. “The door has to come off.”
The boy stepped out. He proved to be six feet two or three, and looked as though he had been put on a rack and stretched.
“Give you a hand, hey. Nothing like breaking up telephone-company property. Whitey, there’s a tire tool on the floor. Let’s help the man.”
Leaving the motor running, the driver got out and felt under the front seat. He was stocky and muscular, with pale skin and hair and eyebrows so white he was nearly an albino.
“I’m coming along fine, thanks,” Shayne said. “On your way, boys.”
The long-haired youth stepped on the sidewalk, making a point of looking into the phone booth instead of at Shayne.
“Can’t we even watch?”
The third man, a heavy-set pockmarked Cuban, slid over and swung his legs out of the car but remained seated. He was older than the other two, with graying hair and sad cow’s eyes. The stump of a cigar was clamped between his jaws.
“Passed out?” the youth said, peering in at Sparrow. “Clobbered out is more like it. Big-no wonder the door won’t open. How about breaking the glass?”
He turned toward Shayne to ask the question. Shayne had been in circulation long enough to know there had to be a reason for three such dissimilar people to be cruising the streets in that kind of car, and he brought the jack-handle down and around to meet the youth as he drove in at Shayne’s midsection with a fist armed with brass knuckles.
The knuckles glanced off the steel handle. Shayne continued the stroke with a vicious cut at the youth’s head. He missed by inches.
The follow-through carried them into a hard collision. Shayne swung one leg at the hinge of the boy’s knees, bringing his elbow up hard. He wanted to get this one out of the way fast, before he had to meet the other two.