Shayne said, “I see what you mean. The tempo is a little slower in Miami.” He tossed the card into a waste-basket the other side of the railing and said crisply, “Now that you’ve sized me up, what have you decided about letting me in on your good thing?”
“Ha-ha. That was just a manner of speaking, Mike. Before you ever walked in that door I knew for sure you were right down my alley. You know why?” He winked broadly and nudged Shayne in the ribs. “You got what it takes to keep a secretary like Lucy around, you sure enough got what it takes for Baron McTige to hook up with you.”
Shayne said mildly, “Believe it or not, she can type, too.” He grinned past the man at Lucy who stuck out her tongue at him, took McTige firmly by the arm and led him toward the door of his inner office. “We’ll be more private in here.”
“Sure, if you like it private, Mike.” McTige laughed loudly and glanced back over his shoulder. “For my ownself I wouldn’t mind if Lucy wants to come and take dictation. She can sit on my knee, if you got no extra chair for her.”
Shayne was holding the door open and he gave the detective a little shove into the room and pulled the door firmly shut behind him.
Quite undisconcerted, the proprietor of the WE-NEVER-SLEEP DETECTIVE AGENCY thrust both hands into the patch pockets of his tweed jacket and strolled across the room on the good carpeting, pursing his blubbery lips around the black cigar and nodding approvingly at the decor of the inner office. “You got it fixed up real nice, Mike. The little woman’s touch, huh? Lucy let you keep a bottle around?”
Shayne went behind the desk and sat down. He placed both palms flat on the oak surface in front of him, and said harshly, “Come to the point, McTige.”
“Huh?” He turned, looking surprised and disappointed. “I just wondered could I get a drink here.”
Shayne said, “I’m particular whom I drink with.”
“Now, look here…” McTige blustered, but Shayne cut him off coldly without raising his voice:
“If you’ve got business to discuss with me, start discussing it. If you haven’t… get out.”
“Well, say now…” There was a look of childish consternation on McTige’s face. “I come in here all friendly-like and offer to cut you in on the hottest damn thing you’ll have dumped in your lap in a month of Sundays, and you start right off making tough. What kind of way is that for one Eye to treat another?” He sounded genuinely injured and his face had a sullen droop to it like a small child who feels he has been unjustly reprimanded.
Shayne compressed his lips firmly, and then said, “You’ve been doing a lot of talking without saying anything.”
“All right, so you think I’m shooting off my mouth,” said McTige belligerently. “How’d you like to pick up five grand for a few hours work?”
“I’d like it fine. What sort of work?”
“Something that ought to be easy as falling off a log for Mike Shayne if half the things they say about you are true. All I want you to do is find a rabbit for me that’s hiding out from his wife.”
“And that’s worth five grand to her?”
“There’s a hell of a lot of property involved.” McTige hitched up a chair and sat down. “Papers that got to be signed or a big deal won’t go through. Take my word for it, Mike, there’s five thousand bucks in cold cash for you if you turn this rabbit up fast.”
“Who is he and what leads have you got?”
“It don’t matter who he is… best you don’t know that… he’s using a phoney monicker here. Fred Tucker. I got a picture of him here.” McTige reached inside his jacket and drew out a 3x5 glossy print of a man and dropped it face up on Shayne’s desk. “Hells bells, if I had any good lead you think I’d be here cutting you in? They say Miami’s your town, Mike. If I was in Chi, now, I wouldn’t be asking help from no one. You’d be coming to me, most-like.”
“You expect me to go out with this picture and find the man in a few hours?” demanded Shayne incredulously.
“You know you got contacts, Mike. Pigeons all over that can start asking questions around. Like, f’rinstance at the real hotspots where a gink with lotsa money burning his pockets and all the time in the world on his hands might drift into.”
“Places like the Bright Spot?” asked Shayne harshly.
McTige goggled at him and his mouth opened so the half-smoked cigar almost fell out. He caught it between his teeth hastily, and said in an admiring voice, “Now that’s pulling a real fast one out of the bag. How’d you come to glom onto that right off?”
“Don’t you remember,” said Shayne sardonically, “Miami’s my town, McTige. What does the Bright Spot mean to you?”
“Nothing much,” averred the Chicago detective hastily. “One of the joints I been covering the last two days. There’s a young kid dancer out there I’d like to cover a little closer,” he went on with a confidential leer. “Maybe you could start on her and get some place… knowing the town like you do.”
Michael Shayne got up from his swivel chair with a preoccupied air, went around to the water cooler behind him and took out two paper cups which he nested together. He filled the inner one with ice water, carefully nested two more together and went back to place them on the desk in front of him and sit in his chair again.
While Baron McTige watched with open interest, he opened the bottom right-hand drawer and lifted out the cognac bottle Sloe Burn had tapped a couple of hours previously.
McTige lumbered to his feet, licking his lips, as Shayne uncorked the bottle and poured amber liquid into the empty paper cup. Moving toward the water cooler, McTige said happily, “Now you’re cooking with gas, Mike. Whyn’t you break out that bottle sooner?”
He took a paper cup from the container and came back to Shayne’s side, holding it out eagerly.
The anticipatory look on his face faded to one of complete bewilderment as Shayne firmly recorked the bottle and returned it to the drawer.
Shayne leaned back comfortably in his chair and took a generous swallow of cognac and reminded the detective sardonically, “I told you I’m particular whom I drink with.”
“Yeh, but…” McTige looked down at the empty cup in his hand with a bemused expression, and then back at Shayne. “You and me are in business together,” he reminded the redhead defensively.
Shayne shook his head and took another sip of cognac, smacking his lips in what he hoped was a gratuitously offensive manner.
“You’re mistaken, McTige.”
“What about?”
“About us being in business together.”
“You don’t wanta pick up five grand fast?” demanded the Chicago Eye incredulously.
“I like money as well as any man. But that’s pretty heavy sugar for just locating a man in a civil case. It smells bad.”
“All money smells the same to me.”
“I imagine it does.” Shayne’s voice became harsh and peremptory. “Level with me, McTige. What’s your real reason for wanting to locate Fred Tucker fast?”
“Well, I’ll tell you, Mike.” He hesitated and looked down at the empty cup in his hand and at the corked bottle in the drawer beside Shayne. Shayne finished off his own drink and took a sip of ice water, blandly disregarding the hopeful look on McTige’s face.
“It’s like this, see.” He set the empty cup on the desk and moved back to settle his bulky body in the chair again. “This rabbit’s in trouble, Mike. Like I say, there’s a big hunk of money involved, an’ there’s crooks on the other side of the fence that’ll stop at nothing to prevent him going back to his wife and signing them papers. Not even murder. That’s why he’s hiding out. He’s scared to show his face, Mike, and he’s got a right to be. They got hired guns lookin’ for him right now.”
“Like The Preacher?” asked Shayne sardonically.
Again, as when he had mentioned the Bright Spot, McTige’s mouth fell open widely. This time the cigar dropped out and fell to the rug with a soggy plop. McTige squinted down at it and put his crepe-soled shoe over the smouldering end and crushed it into the rug. He closed his mouth and swallowed hard, and stammered, “What’s that? About a preacher?”