Brett Halliday
The Careless Corpse
ONE
Lucy Hamilton was on the telephone when Michael Shayne returned to his office after lunch. She sat at her desk beyond the low railing with the receiver held to her ear, a little frown of resignation ruffling her forehead as she listened.
She turned her head as Shayne entered, lifted her left shoulder a trifle and said into the mouthpiece: “I’ve explained it will be impossible for me to promise that Mr. Shayne will come to see you unless you give me some idea of your business. He is a very busy man, and…”
She paused, wrinkling her nice nose at the instrument and then at Shayne, who grinned widely as he tossed his hat on a wall-hook and lounged closer to lower one hip onto the railing near her.
“I understand all that,” Lucy said, firmly. “And if you wish to see Mr. Shayne in his office, I will be glad to arrange an appointment. But I’m afraid that…”
She was interrupted again by a voice Shayne could hear crackling over the wire, and, when it stopped, she said flatly, “Yes. I did get your name correctly the first time, Mr. Peralta. But I’ll still have to insist…”
“Hold it, Lucy!” It was her employer who interrupted her this time. The rangy redhead was sitting erect with a gleam of interest in his gray eyes. “Would that be Julio Peralta?”
“One moment, please,” Lucy said into the mouthpiece. She covered it with her hand and nodded to Shayne’s question. “He seems to think you should jump through hoops when he speaks. I’ve told him…”
“It’s okay, angel. Tell him I’ve just come in, and switch him inside.”
Shayne rose and took three long strides to the open door into his private office. He crossed to the flat desk in the center and scooped up the phone, said, “Hello? Shayne speaking.”
“Mr. Shayne.” Peralta’s voice was precise and demanding, tinged with relief. “I’ve been explaining to your secretary that I must see you at once. Please come to my place immediately.”
Shayne said, “I’m tied up for a time, Mr. Peralta. In a couple of hours?” He glanced at his wrist watch. “Say four-thirty.”
“If you can’t possibly make it sooner. This is an extremely important matter that won’t brook delay.”
Shayne said, “Four-thirty it is. You’re on the Beach, aren’t you?”
“I am.” His caller gave him an address on Alton Road. “I’ll expect you here no later than four-thirty, Shayne.”
“I’ll be there,” Shayne promised. “With bells on,” he ended sotto voce as he replaced the receiver. He straightened and stood for a moment, tugging at his left ear-lobe and looking across the empty office with ragged, red brows arched a trifle.
The questioning expression faded to a slow grin as Lucy’s voice came indignantly from the outer office:
“After all the times you’ve told me, Michael Shayne, that a client must state his business before you’ll see him! I was just building you up as an important guy, darn it, when you spoil it all by saying, meekly, ‘Yes, Mr. Peralta. Whatever you say, Mr. Peralta.’ Who the devil is Mr. Julio Peralta anyhow?”
Shayne’s grin widened as he went back to the open door and leaned against it. “You should read the papers, Lucy. Particularly the crime news.”
“I do read the papers,” she defended herself. “I don’t remember anything…”
“About three weeks ago,” Shayne cut in. “There was a jewel robbery on the Beach.”
“Oh.” Lucy Hamilton put her doubled fist against her mouth and looked contrite. “Something about a fabulous emerald bracelet-and the story was garnished with striptease pictures of a distraught female. You would remember that case.”
“Just a couple of intimate snapshots of Mrs. Julio Peralta in her boudoir that morning after, pointing out exactly where she had tossed the bauble the preceding night.”
“But this was Mr. Peralta on the phone,” Lucy reminded him acidly. “He won’t be greeting you in a filmy negligee.”
“Probably not,” Shayne muttered. “But the bracelet was insured for a hundred and ten grand, angel. And there hasn’t been a single lead turned up in three weeks.”
“So you’re going to find it for him?”
Shayne shrugged. “If I just collect a retainer on a job like that, it won’t be chicken-feed.”
He turned away from the door, adding over his shoulder, “Get Miami Beach Headquarters on the line for me. Detective Division.”
When his desk phone rang a few minutes later, he picked it up and Lucy told him formally, “Detective Furness is on the wire, Mr. Shayne.”
He said, “Hello, Ed. How’re things?”
“As usual. How’s with you, Shamus?”
“I need a little information from you boys. Can you tell me who is handling the Julio Peralta robbery?”
“Just a minute, Mike.” Ed Furness sounded suddenly wary. “Hang on, will you?”
Shayne hung on. It was at least a full minute before a voice rasped over the wire, “That you, Shayne? What’s your interest in the Peralta case?”
Shayne winced at the voice of the chief of detectives in his ear. With assumed heartiness, he protested, “Furness needn’t have bothered you about this, Painter. I simply wanted to know…”
“It was his duty to bother me,” Peter Painter informed him. “I’m handling the Peralta case personally. What is it you want to know?”
“Just the low-down,” growled Shayne, knowing he wasn’t going to get it now. “What leads you’ve got thus far. What the chances are for…”
“And what is your interest, Shayne?”
“I thought I might take it on,” said Shayne, easily, “since you’re apparently not doing so well handling it personally.”
There were a few seconds of silence. Shayne grinned, imagining he could hear Painter grinding his teeth together in rage. When the chief’s voice did come over the wire again, it was a vicious snarclass="underline"
“You keep your goddamned big nose out of the Peralta job, Shamus.”
“Why?” asked Shayne, innocently. “Don’t you think you could use a little help after three weeks’ horsing around with it?”
“You try to horn in on that case, Shayne, and, so help me God, it’s the last one you’ll ever louse up. If I hear the slightest rumor of a pay-off on that case, you’ll lose your license and end up in a cell.” There was a decisive click as the detective chief hung up.
Shayne replaced his phone thoughtfully and got up to stroll to one of the windows overlooking Flagler Street. This could only mean that Painter felt he was on the verge of solving the case by an arrest. His savage insistence that Shayne stay clear of it hadn’t been feigned. Yet, in the past the Beach chief had not been averse to turning his head the other way while discreet arrangements were being made with an insurance company to recover stolen articles for a fraction of their insured value. Not that Shayne had any particular reason to think such an arrangement might be possible in this case. That had been Painter’s idea entirely.
Shayne shrugged and turned away from the window, glancing at his watch. He went to the outer hall and took down his hat, told Lucy Hamilton, “Close up whenever you like, angel. I don’t think I’ll be back this afternoon.” He pulled the hat low on his bristly, red hair and went out with a wave of his big hand.
Timothy Rourke was lolled back in an aged swivel chair with his feet cocked up on a battered desk when Shayne entered the Miami News City Room a short time later. The reporter’s eyes were placidly closed and his partially open mouth emitted a rhythmic snoring sound despite the loud clatter of teletypes and the rattle of typewriters filling the room.
Shayne crossed to Rourke’s corner with a grin, nodding greetings to other reporters who hailed him, pulled up a straight chair in front of the attenuated, sleeping figure and sat down. He lit a cigarette and said quietly, “Tell me about the Peralta thing, Tim.”
Rourke’s cadaverous features twitched. His mouth closed, then opened again into a wide yawn. One eyelid lifted cautiously, but he made no other movement.