Shayne nodded, rubbing his blunt, whiskered chin. “You’re to phone him at nine?”
“In exactly two minutes,” said Dr. Ambrose with another glance at his watch.
Shayne nodded and yawned widely. “Set it up for as soon as you can. Nine-thirty, if possible. I’m sleepy as hell. Tell me one thing, Doc,” he added casually, opening the center drawer of the table beside him. “You’re not packing a rod, are you?”
“I?” The doctor’s eyes widened. “Of course not. Why would you suspect that I would be… ‘packing a rod’?” The intonation he gave the three words put quotation marks around them.
Shayne grinned wryly and said, “Some amateurs get strange ideas. I’ll have a gun, but I don’t want you messing things up by pulling one on your own.” He reached inside the open drawer and withdrew a short-barrelled.38 which he laid on the table. “Better make your phone call, hadn’t you?”
Dr. Ambrose hesitated, pursing his lips and looking down at the rug. “That goes through the switchboard, doesn’t it?” He nodded toward the telephone at Shayne’s elbow. “To make a call from here I have to give the number?”
“Sure,” said Shayne. “But what the hell? Pete, downstairs, isn’t going to keep track of a number you call.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that, Mr. Shayne. I would be happier if you did not know the number either.”
“What the hell?” grated Shayne. “Don’t you trust me?”
“Not entirely,” said Dr. Ambrose. “You made it very clear to me that you disapprove of this… as you call it… pay-off. I trust you to go with me and see it through, as you have offered to do. But, also, Mr. Shayne, I have read enough detective novels to know that you have ways of tracing a telephone number… and, after this matter has been concluded satisfactorily, I would not want you to do any further investigating. I trust you understand me?”
Shayne stared at the plump, little doctor for a long moment with lifted eyebrows and with a sardonic look on his rugged face.
Then he chuckled unexpectedly. “I get you. It’s nine o’clock,” he went on. “The telephone in the bedroom is a direct outside line. Go in there and dial your number. But I want to hear what you say over the phone. I don’t trust you a damn bit more than you trust me.”
“Very well,” said Dr. Ambrose. He got up from his chair and went into Michael Shayne’s bedroom. The detective leaned back and sipped from his cognac glass while the doctor dialled, making no attempt to identify the numbers dialled because he had learned long ago, while practicing his profession, that it was humanly impossible to do so.
He did, however, get up from his chair and stroll forward to the open bedroom door to hear Dr. Ambrose say:
“Hello. It is nine o’clock. I have the envelope ready and will be at the Seacliff Restaurant in exactly half an hour to deliver it.”
There was a brief pause. Dr. Ambrose went on. “I will be accompanied by the well-known private detective, Michael Shayne, whose only interest in the matter is to see that a fair exchange takes place. We will be seated together in a booth along the wall if there is one vacant, or at a table together.”
Another pause. Then: “Well, you know Michael Shayne, don’t you? His picture has been displayed often enough in the Miami newspapers.”
Another pause. Then: “That is correct. Nine-thirty at the Seacliff. Mr. Michael Shayne and I will be together.”
Dr. Ambrose broke the connection and came out of the bedroom. Shayne said, “Okay, Doc. I’ll grab a fast shave and we’ll take off.”
CHAPTER THREE
The Seacliff Restaurant in downtown Miami was big and brightly lighted, and did a heavy business in early dinners with a special, low-priced children’s menu which attracted family groups.
At this hour of the evening, the rush was over and not more than a quarter of the tables were occupied. There was a long row of booths along the right-hand wall as you entered, opposite the bar on the left, and Shayne and his companion found the third booth empty.
Shayne slid into the seat facing the entrance, and Dr. Ambrose sat opposite him. A waiter spread two huge menus in front of them, but Shayne pushed his aside and said, “We’re just having some drinks. A sidecar for me. With Martell, and go easy on the cointreau. Harvey’s Bristol Cream for you, Doctor?”
Dr. Ambrose looked uncertain. “A small sherry perhaps?”
Shayne nodded to the waiter and reassured the doctor. “That’s what you were drinking at my place. Relax.” He grinned across the table at the fidgety, plump little man who had removed his spectacles and was cleaning them nervously with his napkin. “It shouldn’t be long now.” He looked at his watch. It was nine twenty-five.
“I hope not,” murmured Dr. Ambrose fervently. “I confess I’m nervous. I’ve never done this sort of thing before. If you weren’t here to give me moral support, I don’t think I could possibly have gone through with it.”
“Still time to change your mind,” Shayne suggested. “If you duck out fast. I’ll stay here and let your man brace me. Could be I might get your stuff back without you paying the bastard a dime.”
“Oh, no,” shuddered Dr. Ambrose. “I… I’d never feel safe again.”
“Have it your own way.” Shayne settled back with his shoulder-blades against the back of the booth while the waiter placed a brimming cocktail glass in front of him and a smaller glass of darker fluid in front of the doctor.
Shayne tasted his drink and found it good. Despite his apparent nonchalance, he was keyed-up to the limit and his hooded gaze suspiciously studied each new customer who entered the restaurant. It was so easy for something to go wrong with a deal like this. From long experience, Shayne realized this fact much better than the doctor. Twenty grand was a pretty fair hunk of cash even in these days of inflation, and a man who would stoop to blackmail was not exactly a trustworthy type in Shayne’s book.
However, the doctor had chosen well in setting the time and place for the pay-off, and Shayne had to admit to himself that he had been smart to insist that the redhead accompany him. It should go off all right… if both of them were playing it straight and were prepared to make a fair exchange. Knowing that Michael Shayne was sitting in on the deal should keep the blackmailer in line. And he didn’t think the doctor would be fool enough to try and pull a fast one without the full amount of money in the envelope.
A lone man came through the doorway from the street and paused near the upper end of the bar. He was bareheaded, with a crew-cut, and a smooth, unlined face. He wore a light tan sport jacket over a white sport shirt that was open at the throat, and there was really nothing about his appearance to distinguish him from any one of a dozen or more tourists who had entered since Shayne and Dr. Ambrose had sat down.
Yet, to Michael Shayne there was a difference. An almost indefinable aura of excitement about him. A tightness of the muscles. A feral, searching gleam in the blue eyes that were just a little too cold, just a little too inhuman.
He moved forward slowly, hands lax at his sides, glancing inside the first two booths with studied indifference as he moved.
Shayne drained his cocktail glass and put it down and waited. The man stood beside their booth and looked at him. He said, “Shayne?” and the redhead nodded.
“I’m Michael Shayne.” He slid out of the booth, standing for a moment, towering at least four inches over the bareheaded man.
He said pleasantly, “I guess maybe you two have got business together,” and moved backward slowly to an empty spot at the bar, keeping his gaze fixed on the pair.
The man sat in the seat just vacated by Shayne. He paid no further attention to the watchful detective. He said something which Shayne couldn’t hear across the table to the doctor, and Dr. Ambrose nodded and reached inside his coat pocket to withdraw the long, white envelope he had shown Shayne at his apartment.