He said abruptly, “See if Will Gentry’s in, angel.”
“And…?” She paused in the doorway looking over her shoulder at him.
“Tell him to stay in for fifteen minutes. I’ll be over.”
3
Miami’s Chief of police, Will Gentry, was in a relaxed and genial mood when he greeted Shayne in his office at police headquarters a short time later. He was chewing on the soggy butt of one of his favorite, evil-smelling cigars, and it was near the end of a day that had been comparatively crime-free, and there were no pressing cases to keep Gentry away from a quiet evening at home with his family.
“What’s with you, Mike?” He waved a beefy hand at the redhead. “And your beautiful secretary?”
“Lucy sends her greetings.” Shayne settled his rangy body in a straight chair beside the chief’s desk, and lit a cigarette. “That’s a mighty smug look you got on your face, Will.”
Gentry lowered rumpled lids over his eyes and held them closed for a moment. Then he rolled the lids back up like miniature Venetian bunds, and warned his visitor, “If you’re the bearer of bad tidings, just turn around and go out quietly, Mike. Clients pay you to handle their troubles for them, not to dump them onto the department.”
“I’m not dumping anything. Not yet. Just want to know what you intend to do about foreign guns walking the streets of Miami planning a kill.”
Chief Gentry sat very still behind his desk. Then he took the soggy cigar butt out of his mouth and looked at it as if surprised to find it there. In a deceptively mild tone, he said, “First I heard about it. What sort of guns would you be referring to, Mike?”
“Syndicate boys. From Chicago. Two of them to be exact. Moving in here as though they have reason to expect the same sort of protection from your men that they buy in their home-town.”
Chief Gentry clamped his teeth back over the cigar. His ruddy complexion deepened a trifle and his voice became less mild:
“Have you any information about Syndicate payoffs in Miami?”
“Not directly. But I hate to see them get started here, Will. Let them pull one job and get away with it… and next thing the whole mob will be moving in.”
“Give it to me, Mike.”
“All right. I’ve got it pretty straight that a couple of Syndicate enforcers are in Miami on the trail of a scared little guy who ran out on a gambling debt in Chicago. Goddamn it, Will, he came to Miami because he thought this town was closed up tight and he’d be safe here.” To get under the chief’s skin, Shayne injected a note of righteous indignation into his voice that made Gentry wince. “This was after the goons splashed his young daughter with acid on a street corner in broad daylight while she was walking home from school.”
Shayne leaned forward and clenched his fist on Gentry’s desk, his eyes and voice hard. “That’s the sort of thing that’ll be making headlines in Miami if we don’t stop it fast.”
“One isolated case, Mike. You can’t make a Syndicate invasion out of that.”
“But you’ve spent years putting the fear of God into them,” Shayne reminded him harshly. “The word’s been out to stay away from Miami. What’s changed that suddenly? Why has the Syndicate decided it’s safe to send a couple of boys into your territory to do a job now?”
Chief Gentry reacted exactly as long experience had taught Shayne that he would. He snatched the cigar butt from his mouth and glared at it balefully, then flung it angrily at a spittoon in the corner.
“If you’re intimating, that we’re opening up… it’s a lie. The lid’s on just as tight as ever, Mike.”
“Prove it,” Shayne challenged wolfishly. “Stop them before they get started. You know that’s the only way to handle a grass-fire.”
“Sure I know it. And even if you are sitting there egging me on to pulling your chestnuts out of the fire for you, I’ll do it just to keep Miami clean. Who are these two characters you’re talking about?”
“Hell, you don’t expect me to provide names and complete descriptions do you? All I know is they’re here… walking the streets openly and ready to gun down this scared little citizen who thought he’d get protection by coming here.”
“If he wants protection why hasn’t he come to us?” thundered Gentry.
“He’s afraid to,” said Shayne sadly. “Living in Chicago, you know what sort of opinion he has of the police.”
“Then what can I do?”
“Pick those two goons up.” Shayne pounded the desk with his fist. “Put the fear of God in them so they’ll never come back to Miami. You’ve got a couple thousand men walking the streets, and you’ve got a pretty complete file of all the known Syndicate hoods on the Chicago payroll. Get the word out. Hell, if your men are half as efficient as I think they are, they’ll have that pair hogtied in twelve hours.”
Again, his carefully calculated blarney had exactly the effect Shayne hoped to produce in his old friend.
“Don’t worry about my men,” he growled in a mollified tone. “But what have we got to go on? We can’t go around shaking down every tourist from Illinois walking the streets.”
“I’ve got a vague description of them, and within a few hours I can probably give you more details. Take this down for a start: One is big and tough and mean-looking. I know that’s not much,” Shayne defended himself hastily as Gentry snorted, “but coupled with a description of his partner they make an ill-assorted pair that might mean something to your goon-squad. The other is thin and sorta sad… wears a black suit like a preacher.”
Will Gentry jotted down this meager information and grunted noncommittally, pressed a button on his desk and said into the intercom, “Send Jackson in.” He took a fresh cigar from the center drawer and rolled it under his nose, sniffing disdainfully, then bit one end off and put fire to it.
A young, intelligent-looking man with a balding head entered through a side door and stood quietly at attention beside his desk.
Gentry billowed out a cloud of noxious smoke and said, “You know Mike Shayne, Jackson.”
“Yes, sir.” Jackson glanced across the desk at the redhead and nodded slightly.
“He’s got word that a couple of Syndicate enforcers are in town from Chicago to do a job on a guy that ran out on a gambling debt. Here’s the only description our brilliant Shamus can give us, but he figures you’re smart enough to go through the files and get a make on them.” He handed Jackson the sheet of paper on which he had scrawled the information Sloe Burn had given Shayne about the two men who had been in the Bright Spot looking for her Freddie. “Think you can?”
“It’s pretty vague, sir.”
“Do what you can. And get out a departmental memo. Every known hood from the Midwest to be pulled in fast and grilled. Throw a charge at any one with any hint of Syndicate connections.”
“We keep a pretty close file, Chief,” Jackson began diffidently, “and I don’t recall…”
“I don’t care what you recall. Keep a closer track. If the Syndicate thinks it can send hired gunmen to Miami, it’s up to us to show them different. Get going.”
Jackson said, “Right away,” and faded out through the side door.
“Now then, Mike,” Gentry said heavily. “Give me the whole story. If you really want to protect your client, you know we’re in a position to do a hell of a lot better job of that than you are.”
“I wish it was that easy, Will,” Shayne told him honestly. “I’d put him right into your hands for protective custody if I could… even though it meant violating a confidence by doing so. All I know is what his wife told me this afternoon. His name is Renshaw and he phoned her three days ago from Miami saying he was in hiding here under the assumed name of Fred Tucker.”
He went on to give Gentry the gist of what Mrs. Renshaw had told him, holding back only the information he had received from the young dancer from the Florida Keys. In telling it, he managed to give the impression that the vague descriptions he had given Gentry had come from Renshaw’s wife, and he ended by spreading his hands wide and saying honestly, “That’s everything the woman could tell me, Will. You can see why I came to you for help.”