“That’s something I want you to think about,” Shayne urged. “Visualize that car speeding past you last night. Could Frazier, I mean Bartel, have been one of the men?”
“I believe he could,” Carlton said excitedly. His hands shook on the wheel and the coupe swerved sideways. He righted it and rounded a corner leading into a Coral Gables business street. “I’ve had a tantalizing feeling of familiarity all the time,” he went on miserably. “That’s one reason why I was so loath to say I could make a positive identification. I felt I should know, yet I didn’t.”
He slowed the car and Shayne asked sharply, “How much farther?”
“Middle of the next block.”
“Do you have a gun?”
“Yes. There’s one in the glove compartment. I always carry it in the car.”
Shayne opened the compartment and felt among some papers and tools, drew out a tiny pearl-handled automatic which he regarded with disgust.
“A twenty-five. If you want to hurt a guy I suppose you crack him on the head or throw it at him.” He dropped the pistol onto the seat beside him as Carlton pulled up to the curb in the middle of the block.
“He’s not here,” Carlton said. “That’s the office.”
At that instant lights came on behind a wide plateglass window across the sidewalk from them. Through the window they saw the tall figure of the ex-convict turning away from a drop-cord dangling from the ceiling light. The street door was open.
Shayne slid out and without a word started across the sidewalk to the open door. There was a plain business office with a high board partition all the way across the back. Frazier was on his way toward a door in the partition when Shayne stepped inside.
Frazier, alias Bartel, looked at Shayne, smiled thinly and asked, “Looking for me?”
Shayne heard Carlton coming across the sidewalk. Shayne said, “That’s right, Frazier,” and started forward slowly.
Frazier’s gaze darted past Shayne. His smile went away. He hunched his shoulders and stepped swiftly toward a desk.
“Look out!” Carlton yelled, “he’s going to…”
There was a light spatting sound… as though the publisher had clapped his palms together.
Frazier swayed in his tracks, dropped to his knees, then toppled sideways to the floor and lay very still.
Shayne strode to the body and stood over it. He said, “I’ll be goddamned,” and turned to look at Carlton.
Carlton was staring stupidly at the baby automatic hanging limply in his hand. A thready wisp of white smoke curled upward from the muzzle. He whispered hoarsely, “It… went off.”
“Right between the eyes,” Shayne grated. “That would be shooting, if you’d meant it.”
Carlton began to tremble violently. He rubbed the back of one hand across his eyes. “I guess I did mean it… sort of. When he started for that desk I remembered that he always kept a gun in the drawer. I… I didn’t know what to do.”
Shayne said, “I’ll never call one of those a plaything again.” He stepped over Frazier’s body to the desk, asking, “Which drawer?”
“His gun? In the top right-hand, I think.”
Shayne opened the top right-hand drawer and pawed around, then tried the other drawers, but came up with only a handful of Hammond Bond typewriter paper. “I don’t find any gun, but here’s some of the same paper those anonymous letters were written on.”
“But I know he always kept a pistol there,” Carlton persisted in a quavering voice. “Said it made him feel better working alone at night.”
“What caliber was it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know much about guns.” He looked at the. 25 in his hand and shuddered. “Some larger than this one.”
“A thirty-two is the next size larger,” Shayne told him. “Clem Wilson was killed with a thirty-two.” He went to the telephone and called Gentry’s office. Giving him the address of the printing plant, he added, “There’s a dead ex-con lying on the floor here. He matches those fingerprints I gave you today.”
He listened for a moment, then said impatiently, “I didn’t gun him. We’ll have to give Mr. Carlton credit for that. Have somebody case this joint carefully for evidence that ration books have been forged here. And how about that pick-up on my car?”
“Your car is located,” Gentry told him. “Empty gas tank. Near the Coral Gables entrance gates.” He specified the exact location.
“Things are speeding up,” Shayne warned him. “And I’m still going to need those men. I’ve got one more call to make before we pull the curtain down.” He hung up and said to Carlton:
“I’ve got things to do. Stay here until the police come and tell them just how it happened.” He strode out before the publisher could protest, hurried up the street to a taxi and got in, directing the driver to the location of his car.
A radio car was parked beside his deserted sedan when the taxi drew up. Shayne got out and paid the driver, approached a grinning policeman at the wheel of the police car.
“You’ll be calling on us to find your hat for you next, Mike,” the officer chuckled.
Shayne grinned agreement, “Or my badge. You got some of those emergency cans of gasoline in this hack?”
“Standard equipment since rationing,” he said.
“This is an emergency. Let’s have it.” Shayne unscrewed his tank top.
The officer got out and brought a full gallon can, poured the contents into Shayne’s tank, and reminded him, “I’ll have to take a receipt for that.”
Shayne scribbled his name on a blank pad the policeman held for him, thanked him, and got into his car. It took only a few minutes to reach the small stucco bungalow where he had left Mrs. Wilson some fifteen hours earlier. There were lights in the front windows.
Mrs. Wilson opened the door to Shayne’s knock. She was alone in the small, cheery living room, and explained, “Sarah’s lyin’ down in back. I told her she could just as well take it easy while I’m here to do for her.” Her tragic eyes searched Shayne’s face anxiously as she spoke.
He took off his hat and tangled his red hair, said, “That’s just as well. My news isn’t very good, Mrs. Wilson.”
She steadied herself with one blue-veined hand on the back of a chair. “You… ain’t found the man that shot Clem?”
Shayne didn’t look at her. “I know who he is.” He paused, then added gently, “I’m sorry.”
“You mean… Bob, don’t you?” Her voice was flat, devoid of any emotion.
Shayne asked, “Did you know all the time?”
“I didn’t, Mr. Shayne. I was scared…” Her voice broke. She recovered and went on strongly, “I won’t protect him if that’s what you’re thinking. I would from desertin’, no matter how shamed I was. I guess any mother would. But not if he killed his own father.”
Shayne dropped into a chair and took out a cigarette. “You better tell me all about it now.”
Her thin lips worked in a spasm, as though she urged them to speak. Presently, she began:
“It started when that Army man come out an’ told us Bob had run away… deserted. Clem was that mad he swore Bob wasn’t no son of his no longer. He cut his picture off that’n of Bob and Joe on the wall. And he swore to the officer he’d turn Bob in like any other deserter if he showed his face at home.” She paused and covered her face with her hands.
After a moment she continued, “Two days ago a man come out an’ talked to Clem. I didn’t hear what was said, but Clem told me. The man said Bob was in Miami hidin’ from the Army. Bob was afraid to face Clem hisself, but told the man to say he’d be all right an’ wouldn’t get arrested if Clem would agree to sell his station for most nothin’. Well, Clem told him plenty, I reckon. Said to tell Bob he’d have no truck with him an’ he’d give Bob one chance to give hisself up to maybe make it easier on him. He gave him till midnight last night.”
Her voice broke again. She wiped tears from her eyes with the back of her hand and went on in a hushed voice:
“An’ it was right on to midnight when Clem come in mad an’ wantin’ to call you. I got to thinkin’… after a while it was when it come to me… I got to thinkin’, what if it was Bob out there? If he saw his father go to the phone… but I couldn’t believe it. Not my boy. An’ Clem had allus been so good to his younguns. Bob was wild, but he wouldn’t… he couldn’t do that. I knew he wouldn’t.”