His eyes flickered at Shayne’s cast and his hand shot toward the glove compartment. Shayne raised the cast and waited. Jake touched the glove compartment button, the little door fell open, and Shayne moved the cast forward and upward, slapping him on the temple with the brass knuckles.
He sat back, stunned. Shayne felt inside the glove compartment and brought out a Walther. 38, one of the prettiest of the European handguns.
Jake mumbled something while the detective lit a cigarette.
“Take your time,” Shayne said. “I’m in no hurry.”
He smoked in silence. Jake recovered gradually. He was functioning again by the time Shayne finished his cigarette and stubbed it out against his heel.
Jake touched his forehead and looked for blood on his fingers. “What did you have to do that for? I didn’t do anything.”
“I can’t really believe that,” Shayne remarked.
Working the slide of the little Belgian automatic with one hand, he checked to be sure it was loaded. Then he brought it around in the flat of his right hand and slapped Jake with it.
Jake yelped. He came down hard on the door handle and hurled himself sideward. Shayne raked out with the hook, which snagged in Jake’s pants. Jake didn’t understand what was holding him, and he went on trying to get away. The hook ripped through his pants and buried itself in the soft flesh of his thigh.
“Close the door,” Shayne said coldly. “I’m feeling less good-natured every minute.”
Jake eased back in, going with the pull. As he came all the way in the light went off. He put both hands on Shayne’s cast and tried to work it toward him. Shayne dropped his elbow and the hook dug in deeper.
“Please,” Jake begged. “Shayne, don’t-that’s-they weren’t supposed to do anything to you last night but tap you a couple. When I get hold of that Whitey, I’ll break him in two.”
“What about this setup with Deedee?”
Jake’s weight shifted back against the door and the light blinked on. There was a look of intense alarm on his face.
“Shayne, what are you, anyway?” he cried frantically. “How did you find out about that?” The light went off. “It’s not how it looks! Give me a break! Don’t pull so hard. It wasn’t a real frame. We didn’t play it to stick. She just wanted us to keep you wrapped up a few days.”
“Who?”
“Miss Morse! Miss Morse! Take the hook out, will you, please? Any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them.”
“Whose idea was the whip?”
“Hers. She mapped out the whole goddamn thing, the whip, the dialogue. I don’t claim to be any great brain.”
“How long have you worked for her?”
“Off and on. One year, two years.”
“Fifty thousand bucks,” Shayne said. “April twenty-third.”
“How would I know?” Jake demanded. “She wrote it down for Deedee to say on the phone. We figured it for a come-on, to make sure you showed up. Like that crack about murder. Who’s been murdered? What fifty thousand? The kind of dough I’ve been seeing is a hell of a lot less than fifty, believe me.”
“April twenty-third,” Shayne repeated. “Think about it.”
“I did think about it! I thought about it all afternoon. I planted Deedee on Jose Despard along around the first of April. If anything happened the twenty-third, I don’t know what. That’s six months back! The kind of memory I’ve got, I’m lucky if I remember last week.”
“When you planted Deedee how?”
“Well, I found out he likes them that age, so I asked at her high school if anybody might be interested. He thought he raped her-she’s only supposed to be fourteen. Shayne, I’m bleeding like a pig, you know that? You want me to bleed to death?”
“It can’t be that bad yet,” Shayne said. “How soon did you take the pictures?”
“Right away, right away. On the first night, when he thought he raped her. I’m no photographer, but they come out great. I thought it was strictly a one-shot, but when I turn over the pix, they tell me to string him along, Despard.”
“That brings us back to the twenty-third of April.”
“I’m telling you! Miss Morse pulled a date out of the hat, to make it sound better. Be human, can’t you, Shayne? With that hook in my leg, don’t you think I’d tell you if I remembered? There’s a main artery in there somewhere.”
Shayne opened the door to turn on the light again. Jake was sweating in the chilly air. His mouth twitched as Shayne looked at the spot where the hook went into his leg.
“I think I missed it by about a quarter of an inch,” Shayne said. “Don’t make me nervous. My hands shake when people lie to me.”
Jake clapped both hands on top of Shayne’s cast to hold it steady. “I’m not lying! I’m down at the bottom of this operation. ‘Why’ is a question I never ask. All I ask is ‘How?’ and ‘How much does the job pay?’ If I started asking ‘Why,’ they’d get themselves somebody with a smaller mouth. Take for example, did Hal Begley or Miss Morse tell me why they wanted you jammed up with Deedee? Like hell they told me.”
“I see we’ll have to sit here a while longer,” Shayne said. “I’m going to light another cigarette. Try not to move.”
He shook a cigarette out of the package and lit it with the dashboard lighter. The hook changed position slightly and grated against bone. Jake whimpered.
“Don’t tell them I told you,” he said hopelessly. “Those Begleys, I don’t like to be in the same town with them and be on bad terms. But I’m flesh and blood. They got me the job at the club, like the middle of April.”
“What club?”
“North Miami Country, tending bar. And they give me a list of names. They want me behind the stick so I can make book on certain members. In that location I know who’s in the club, when they come in, when they go out.”
“Was Despard on the list?”
“Sure. The whole bunch from that company. Langhorne-he’s on the board of governors. Hallam, Jr. The whole outfit. Jackson, Hill, Ringley. Christ, I don’t know-eight, nine. I still got the list at home. When one of those certain characters came in, I was supposed to mark it down. When he went out, mark it down.”
“For how long?”
“A week, ten days.”
“All you did was clock eight or nine people in and out?” Shayne said thoughtfully.
“That’s all,” Jake said without hesitation.
The promptness of the reply told Shayne there was more to come. He continued to smoke. Jake glanced at him quickly, and glanced away. He stood it for one more moment, then burst out, “I had to check a certain locker!”
“Yeah,” Shayne said. “Whose?”
“An empty locker, it wasn’t rented to anybody. Miss Morse gave me the number and combination. When nobody was using the locker room, I ducked in and looked to see if a package was in that locker, and wrote down the time.”
“That’s fine,” Shayne said with no change of expression. “And one day there was a package.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you take it out or leave it?”
“I left it. They wouldn’t trust me with anything high level-I told you. I notified her.”
“Is Begley a member of the club?”
“He has a card. The next day, same thing. I kept checking the locker. No package. A while later, package. A while after that, no package again. I wrote it down.”
“Now get set for the big question,” Shayne said.
“Don’t ask me,” Jake said earnestly. “I don’t know the answer! But I know what you’re trying to establish-I didn’t just get in from the boondocks, after all. I know they’re in the spy business, and somebody from Despard’s put a package in the locker. Begley picked it up. Begley put a package of money in and somebody picked that up. But I don’t know who! They were coming and going all the time, both days. Oh, I ruled out a couple. Hill and Jackson I crossed off in my own mind, they weren’t in the club either day. I could make up a name for you and get off the hook, but what good would it do? Off the hook,” he said sardonically, “funny joke, Fitch. When you found out I was faking, you’d come looking for me, and to face facts, I think you’d probably find me.”