Until that moment everything had been slow-paced and deliberate. The bartender was trying to get out from behind the bar, but the crowd was densely packed there and wouldn’t move to let him through. Suddenly the action speeded up. The girl seized the tall man’s arm and tried to pull him away. He went on hitting Petrocelli as he slid, and then brought up his knee hard into Petrocelli’s soft middle.
Shayne finished his cognac and set the fat little glass on the bar with a sigh.
Two fast strides took him to the tall man. Petrocelli was all the way down now, and his assailant was kicking him. Brushing the girl aside, Shayne took the tall man by the upper arm and twisted savagely, bringing him back from Petrocelli and all the way around, into the corner between the jukebox and the wall. The arm was as thin as a stick, and felt almost as brittle.
“The fight’s over,” Shayne announced.
The tall man struggled for breath. His eyes were insane. He drove the four stiffened fingers of his right hand at Shayne’s face. The detective went beneath it, taking it on his forehead. He wanted to end this fast. He dropped his shoulder, faked with a left and a movement of his eyes, and brought his right into the other’s body, below the heart. The long body folded and began to sag. The dark girl leaped at Shayne, her arms windmilling, and began kicking the backs of his knees. As Shayne turned to deal with her, the back of his hand collided with the lower part of her face. It was unintended, but the movement was swift and decisive, and knocked two front teeth out of her mouth.
She pitched forward, her mouth wide, showing the bloody gap. Shayne heard gasps of dismay in the crowd. Somebody shouted. Three men closed in on him from three separate directions and nearly brought him down.
He took care of one with a swinging elbow, and managed to pull another into a chopping left that sent him wandering backward, dazed. The third man was still hanging on, one arm clamped around Shayne’s neck. Shayne ran him back hard against the bar. The curved lip of the bar jarred the breath out of the man’s body and loosened his grasp so Shayne could work one hand inside the hold and break it.
There was a sound of glass being broken.
That changed the nature of the fight. The customers nearest the door drained into the street. The tall man, facing Shayne in a knife-fighter’s crouch, had a jagged beer bottle in one hand. The jukebox was silent.
“Why don’t we stop this before somebody gets hurt?” Shayne said reasonably. “I asked you to point somebody out for me. You did it. Thanks.”
Two of the men were advancing on Shayne, less eager to jump him now. The tall man said jerkily, “No, boys, I want to take care of him myself. Boys. Let me. Did you see the way he slugged Sandy?”
The girl lay on the floor in an obscene tumble, her skirt above her waist. Blood gushed from her mouth.
“That was an accident,” Shayne said. “It looks worse than it is. Just a couple of teeth. Why don’t we call this off so we can get her to a doctor?”
“You’ve got something coming to you, mister,” the tall man said.
Shayne’s hand lay on the bar, palm up. He was hoping the bartender would have the sense to put a sap in it. On the floor, Petrocelli crawled toward him, but he was going to be no help.
The tall man glided forward, his right foot advanced, the bottle low. Shayne wished he knew how drunk he was. Even without the bottle he out-reached Shayne by inches. The bottle, unlike a knife, could only be used in a forward direction, and if he moved as deliberately as when he was swinging at Petrocelli, there was nothing to worry about.
Shayne felt something hard in his hand. He was looking into the man’s eyes. They were a pale watery blue, without depth, with tiny pupils. They changed slightly.
Shayne brought the club around as the man struck with the speed of a snake, aiming to the right to catch Shayne’s abdomen if he moved that way. Shayne had him beaten, and he was only going to be allowed the one move. Seeing the club whirl toward him, the man lurched and brought the jagged bottle upward toward Shayne’s face. If Shayne had been without a weapon, he would have had to parry it with his hand. He deflected the blow with a hard flick of the billy, then brought the wood in against the tall man’s head.
There was a solid clunk. That was that.
“Can you stand up?” Shayne said to Petrocelli.
Petrocelli moved his head. “No.”
“Try,” Shayne told him.
The short wooden club discouraged the tall man’s friends. Petrocelli clawed himself up with the help of the bar and stared blearily at Shayne. This time the fight was really over. To make it official a siren sounded. It was on Collins, coming fast.
Shayne grunted. He wasn’t welcome on this side of the bay. Peter Painter, the Miami Beach Chief of Detectives, was an old enemy, who loved to harass the detective and would give a week’s pay for the chance to book him for knocking out a woman’s teeth in a fight in a bar. He had tied Shayne up for as long as twelve hours on a traffic violation, and this time, through pure chance, he had something more serious.
Shayne was moving the point of the short wooden club in an arc. With his other hand under Petrocelli’s arm, he started along the bar in the opposite direction from the street.
“Leave the nightstick,” the bartender said behind him.
“In a minute. Tell the cops I was an innocent bystander here. If they have any questions I’ll call in tomorrow.”
The drinkers fell away in front of him. When he reached the serving door he dropped the club on the bar. He pulled Petrocelli into a small unoccupied kitchen, through another bare room into an alley.
When they reached the end of the alley the siren was dying. Shayne looked up carefully. Three cops jumped from the cruiser and entered the bar through the front entrance.
CHAPTER 5
Petrocelli was nearly strong enough to walk by himself.
“They’ve got nothing on me,” he said, resisting Shayne’s pull. “I didn’t start that fight.”
“You weren’t even in it.” Shayne continued to walk him toward the Buick. “That’s not the point. By the time they get everything straightened out it would be this time tomorrow night. I suppose that was Jerry’s girl you were with?”
“He may think she’s his girl. That’s not what she told me.”
Shayne opened the car door and put Petrocelli inside. Petrocelli touched his head.
“The sons of bitches got my cap.”
Shayne started the motor and took the next right. Another right brought them to Collins. He headed south.
“I’ve had that cap a long time,” Petrocelli said. “I just about had the bastard broken in.”
“Tough,” Shayne commented.
“Now wait a minute,” Petrocelli said more strongly. “I don’t know who you are, or where the hell you think you’re going-”
“I’m Mike Shayne, a private detective. I didn’t walk into that because I get any pleasure out of fighting six-and-a-half-foot drunks with broken beer bottles. I want to ask you why the De Rhams fired you, and I didn’t want him to rupture your kidneys first.”
Petrocelli groaned. “That’s right, remind me.” He prodded his midsection. “He was kicking me, wasn’t he?”
“Just with loafers,” Shayne said. “Do you want a drink?”
“Man, I’m dying for a drink.”
There was no convenient place to park in Miami Beach any more. Shayne pulled into a hotel parking lot, paying heavily to be allowed through the gates. The instant he cut his lights and the ignition Petrocelli started to get out.
“They won’t let you in a bar with that much blood on you,” Shayne said. Switching on the dome light, he reached over and opened the little refrigerator built into the back of the front seat. “Is whiskey all right?”