“I need a little information,” Shayne said. “You won’t have it at your fingertips. You’ll probably have to pull the case record. It’s just a routine M.P.”
“On who?”
“A guy named William Whitney, missing about ten days.”
Gentry looked at him curiously. “What makes you think it’s just a routine missing persons?”
Shayne hiked shaggy eyebrows. “Isn’t it?”
“It’s an M.P., all right. But not routine. What’s your interest?”
“His father hired me to find him. What’s yours?”
Gentry said heavily, “Know what we found in his place?”
“Sure,” Shayne said. “Some Horse and a rig. So he’s a user. Since when have you taken over narcotics cases personally?”
The chief said, “Not just a user, Mike. Maybe he was, and maybe he wasn’t. But mere users don’t keep two hundred papers around.”
Shayne emitted a low whistle. “How heavy were they?”
“Ten grains a pop. Cut ten to one with powdered milk as usual, of course, so the actual heroin content only amounted to two hundred grains in all. About six hundred dollars worth at the going retail price.”
Shayne tugged at his left earlobe. “So he was a pusher, huh?” he said thoughtfully. “That changes things.”
“It sure does,” Gentry agreed. “If it was a voluntary disappearance, he wouldn’t have left the junk behind. That would have been asking for it. We think he’s dead.”
After considering a moment, Shayne reluctantly nodded. “You could be right, Will. If it was a gang payoff for some kind of double-cross, he’s probably wearing concrete overshoes on the bottom of the bay. Got anything at all on it?”
Gentry shook his head. “Not even an indirect lead. The guy didn’t seem to have any friends.”
“His employer mentioned some night-club photographer,” Shayne said. “A girl.”
Gentry snorted. “Yeah. A girl named Rose Henderson over at the Club Swallow. We talked to her. Says she had three dates with him, and knows nothing about him — beyond the color of his eyes.”
Punching out his cigarette, Shayne rose. “Well, thanks for nothing, Will.” He tugged at his earlobe again. “Why do you suppose a guy like that would go in for pushing?”
“How do you mean, a guy like that?”
“His father seems to be loaded. Owns his own company in New York. He couldn’t have needed the dough.”
“It wouldn’t be the first rich man’s kid in the business, Mike. Maybe his dad wanted explanations when he tried asking for too much. And it’s an expensive habit.”
“Yeah,” Shayne said slowly. “Which probably means he was a user too. It’s a standard way to pay the toll.”
As he turned toward the door, Gentry said, “Bet you don’t find him before we do, Mike.”
From the doorway the redhead threw him back a sour grin. “Bet you don’t find him before I do either, Will. Bet neither one of us ever finds him.”
He pulled the door closed behind him from outside.
II
The supervisor of the building where William Whitney rented an apartment was a lank, elderly man with a perpetually sad expression. He told Shayne his name was Melvin Cling. Shayne asked him if Whitney had many visitors and if he could describe the people he’d seen coming and going.
The old man shook his head. “Never had a single caller that I saw. Funny, too, after what the cops found in his place. Feller was peddling dope, you know.”
“Yeah, I heard.”
“You’d think customers would have been coming in and out at all hours. But I never saw nobody call. He must have peddled ail of the stuff on the outside.”
Shayne said, “How about a look at his apartment?”
When Melvin Cling looked dubious, the redhead pulled a bill from his wallet and held it out. The dubious expression disappeared. So did the bill.
“Rent’s paid till the end of the month,” the supervisor said. “I can’t move his stuff out till then. But since the cops don’t think he’ll be back, no reason I can’t show the place to prospective tenants.”
He let the detective into Whitney’s apartment with a pass key and followed close on Shayne’s heels as the redhead moved from room to room. There were three rooms and a bath. The sole circumstance of interest Shayne noted was a purely negative one. There was no sign of hurried departure, and no indication that Whitney had packed any clothing. Even his shaving equipment and toothbrush were still in the bathroom.
“Sure looks like he meant to come back, don’t it?” the building supervisor commented.
“Yeah,” Shayne grunted.
All the evidence corroborated Will Gentry’s theory that it hadn’t been a voluntary disappearance.
When Shayne left the apartment building, he returned to his Flagler Street office. His only lead, the nightclub photographer at the Club Swallow, wouldn’t be at work until evening, so there was nothing more he could do at the moment. He spent the rest of the day dictating a few letters, at five went home for a shower and change of clothes, and arrived at the Club Swallow a few minutes after seven.
Club Swallow was a run-of-the-mill supper club and night club, neither exclusive nor a dive. The prices were average, and so were the food and entertaintment.
A pert little brunette behind the checkroom counter looked over Shayne’s rangy frame with interest when he handed her his hat. “Aren’t you Michael Shayne, the detective?” she asked.
“Uh-huh,” Shayne said.
“I’m Pauline Frazier. You got my boy friend out of a jam once. Only he wasn’t my boy friend then.”
“Oh?” Shayne said. “Who was that?”
“Bob Withers.”
Shayne furrowed his brow.
“He was up on an armed-robbery charge,” she prompted him. “You found the fellow who really did it.”
“Yes, I remember now,” the redhead said. “About three years back. How’s Bob doing?”
“Wonderfully. He’s got his own filling station now, you know. As soon as he finishes paying off the mortgage, we’re going to be married.”
Shayne smiled at her. “Wish you happiness, Pauline. Give Bob my regards.”
Pocketing his check, he moved on into the dining room. A handsome, black-haired headwaiter with a thin black mustache moved forward and gave him a deferential bow. “Alone, sir?” he inquired.
Then, as the detective nodded, the headwaiter’s eyes momentarily narrowed. “Aren’t you Michael Shayne?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Shayne said with a frown.
It was not unusual for strangers to recognize him but he was surprised and startled by the head-waiter’s reaction. The man’s tone was definitely wary, even hostile. Sometimes the detective encountered wariness in people he knew, particularly when he ran into some underworld character he’d clashed with in the past. But strangers usually exhibited friendly interest when they met him, and sometimes acted downright thrilled. Shayne was sure he’d never seen this man before. But he was equally sure the head-waiter was upset by his appearance.
The man led him to a table against the wall, snapped his fingers at a waiter and disappeared. When the waiter came over, the redhead ordered dinner and told him to bring a double cognac with ice water behind it first.
While sipping his drink, Shayne looked around for Rose Henderson. He spotted her across the room taking a picture of a table of two couples. She was a well-formed blonde in her late twenties, he noted, with regular features and a pleasant smile. She wore an off-the-shoulder evening gown which exposed smoothly-rounded shoulders and a flawless back.
He made no attempt to catch the young lady’s eye, knowing she would get to him eventually. He had finished dinner and was smoking a cigarette over coffee when she finally did.