"Because he's a fool. Like any man I ever met, he falls all over himself for a smile and a sad story any girl wants to dish out. And by God, how I love to make suckers out of them. I'll tell you all about it because, you know, you're never going to repeat a word of it to anyone. I promise you that. Just something for you to think about, dearie, while I'm waiting for that phone call."
Lucy sat straining stififly against her bonds. Get her talking! That was it. Keep her boasting and talking about what she had done. She might finally get hysterical and blow her top completely.
"I want to get it absolutely straight about the telephone call you're expecting," she said as placatingly as she could. "So I won't make any bobbles that'll get you mad at me. Is it someone named Lanny whom you expect to call?"
"That's what I said, isn't it?"
"But when you made your calls I heard you ask for someone named Bert Paulson. And leave word for him to call his sister here. But if it's really someone named Lanny you want, will he ask for his sister if he calls?"
"Never mind about whose sister I am or anything." The girl on the sofa turned sullen. "Johnny, what I said about answering the phone. If it's Lanny and if he asks for his sister or Nellie, or- Well, if he just says it's Lanny, you give it to me quick."
She fumbled in her bag, took out the knife and studied it fondly. Then, unexpectedly, she giggled. "Oh shucks, why don't I tell you who I really am, and Lanny and all? Just show you how dumb your silly Michael Shayne really is. Take this note he wrote to you to begin with-"
SIXTEEN: 11:20 PM
"By God!" said Will Gentry violently as Shayne reported what Lucy had said on the phone. "By God, Mike. So that's the way you protect your client. Turn her loose to go out on the town and keep a tryst with a killer gunning for her with a forty-five?"
"How was I to know she wouldn't stay put once she was safe with Lucy? As for keeping any trysts with a forty-five- I'm damn sure that isn't why she went out. If you'd seen how frightened she was of meeting him at my place-"
"Playing God again." Chief Gentry's fist thudded down angrily on his desk. "If you'd come clean with me in the beginning, she'd be safe right now. You know that, don't you?"
"Sure, but-"
"But, hell!" raged the police chief. "You never change, do you, Mike? You've got some kind of goddamned God-complex that makes you pull things like this. High-and-mighty Michael Shayne sitting back and pulling the strings. Manipulating people like puppets to make 'em jump the way he thinks they ought to jump. If for once in your life you'd come down to earth and co-operate with the police, things would be one hell of a lot better for everybody concerned."
"All right," said Shayne grimly. "So hind-sight says you're right. But things are no worse ofiE right now than you thought they were ten minutes ago before I told you I had her stashed at Lucy's. You've got a pick-up on both of them. Chances are you'll have them both before he can get to her."
"But it won't be your doing if that's the way it happens. Goddamn it, Mike-"
"This isn't getting us anywhere," interposed Shayne. "You can sit here on your dead butt and rave all you want to, but we'll still be going around in circles in the dark. Let's take this systematically. From what we know now, do you believe the dead man was seen by Nellie Paulson in the Hibiscus at nine-thirty and then shoved out the window into the bay?"
Gentry had another cigar out and was chewing on it savagely without lighting it. "That's my guess. Even if some dame did try to place him alive in the Silver Glade at ten."
"All right. Taking that for a starter. Are you assuming that my scar-faced friend is actually Charles Barnes from New York, that the dead man is Bert Paulson as his sister insisted-and that Barnes switched identification after killing Paulson in his sister's room?"
"How else do you read it?"
Shayne shrugged. "I'm just looking at all the possibilities. I guess we might assume Barnes was slated to be the next sucker in the Paulsons' brother-and-sister act, and he objected with a sharp knife. That the way you see it?"
"It's all theorizing at this point," grunted Gentry. "Without any solid facts to go on-"
"But all we can do right now is theorize. I keep going back to what Nellie Paulson told me in my room. Why did she claim she and her brother were staying at the Roney when we know she'd had that room at the Hibiscus for two weeks? And where's her brother been staying these two weeks?"
"You tell me. You're so damned pat with the answers."
Shayne tugged at his ear-lobe and frowned. "If Barnes is the killer, it would explain why he was so anxious to get his hands on Nellie-why he pretended to me he was her brother so I'd hand her over to him-and why he hurried back to the Hibiscus and tried to contact her there, still playing the brother angle."
"Because she's the only one who's actually seen the body," agreed Gentry gruffly. "The only person alive who can testify there was a body in three-sixteen tonight. Sure. That makes sense. But how do you add in the other girl who tried to finger a dead man as being alive in the Silver Glade half an hour after he'd been dumped in the bay? Who the hell is she and how does she come into this?"
Shayne said, "She's the one piece that doesn't fit into our pat little theory." He shook his head irritably, running his hand through bristly red hair. "Yet she's got to fit. She's the key-piece right now. It wasn't coincidence that put her in my hotel with that picture at ten o'clock."
"Find her then," grunted Gentry. "Find her among the few hundred thousand people in Miami, and let's ask her. For God's sake, Mike, you didn't even take the trouble to ask her name when she was right there in front of you. Hell of a way to play detective."
"I didn't know she fitted into the picture. Hell! At that point, I didn't know there was any picture for her to fit into. Remember, that was before I'd even talked to Nellie. I took her for another jealous wife trying to pin down some divorce evidence."
"Maybe she is at that. Maybe Paulson is married-or was-and she's the wife-or widow, now."
Shayne shook his head stubbornly. "Then what made her think he was in the Silver Glade when we know he was more likely floating in the bay at that moment?"
"None of these questions are any good at this point," snapped Gentry. "Maybe she'd made a date earlier in the night to meet him there and just assumed that's where he was. And maybe she killed him and was trying to give herself an alibi by playing you for a sucker, expecting you to come along later just as you did and swear the guy was still alive at ten o'clock. To hell with all this," Gentry ended flatly. "Get out and hunt up some answers to the questions you've been asking. You know both of them by sight. That's more than any of my men have got. You messed everything up by playing it smart and letting the girl get away from Lucy, Get out in Miami and find her before she ends up with her throat cut or a forty-five slug in her belly."
"Yeh," said Shayne, "I guess you're right. It is my baby now." He pushed back his chair and stood up, rubbing his angular jaw thoughtfully. "I'll be calling in, huh? You ought to have a fingerprint report on the corpse soon. And New York might have something interesting to tell us about Barnes. How soon will the Jacksonville dick get here with pictures of the Paulsons?"
Will Gentry looked at the big electric clock on the wall behind him. "Any time now. Good hunting, Mike. But goddamn it, if you'd just-"
Shayne said grimly, "I know. Don't rub it in. If anything happens to that girl now, it'll be bad enough without you rubbing my face in it."