The gunman’s eyes darted toward the bathroom. He jerked his head negatively at Phyllis and his finger tightened suggestively on the trigger of his cocked gun.
“It’s a-all r-right, Mike,” Phyllis managed to stammer. “Take all the time you want. Don’t you want to-to shower before you come out?”
The man with the gun nodded his approval. He had thin lips and sharp, pallid features. He wore a belted coat and white flannels, neither of which had been recently pressed.
“What occasions this sudden change of heart?” Shayne asked suspiciously from the bathroom. “What about these weeks on end when I haven’t been able to take a bath because I could never get the bathroom to myself long enough?”
“D-Don’t be silly,” Phyllis reproved him shakily. “Go ahead and take all the time you want. I’m going to smoke a cigarette in the living-room.”
The gunman moved backward out of the doorway, motioning Phyllis to follow him. She took a step forward, then threw herself sideways with a desperate grab for his gun hand.
He threw her off with a surprised oath, driving his left elbow against her chin. She cried out sharply as she reeled back against the door casing.
“What the devil goes on out there?” Shayne called. “Sounds like you’ve been into my cognac again. You know you’re too young to get the habit.”
The man was crouched before her with a warning snarl on his thin lips. Behind him Phyllis glimpsed another burly figure moving forward. She forced herself to laugh and called out:
“How do you know I’m not up to some of your tricks? I might be entertaining a couple of men friends while you’re all lathered up and can’t come out.”
Shayne’s appreciative laughter boomed from the bathroom. “Just so you don’t let me catch you at it, angel.”
The burly man circled Phyllis and put a hairy hand over her mouth. He swung her off her feet and carried her to a deep chair while his slighter companion pocketed his gun and followed, unwinding a roll of adhesive tape.
Phyllis tried to scream but it was too late now. She was thrust down into the chair, where she kicked and squirmed helplessly while her mouth was being efficiently taped shut, her wrists bound to the arms of the chair, and her bare ankles taped back securely to the legs.
“Hey, Phyl!” Shayne’s voice drifted into the living-room placatingly. “Where the devil have you hidden my clean undershirts? Here’s a dozen pairs of shorts but I can’t locate a single damned undershirt anywhere.”
The two intruders straightened up and moved silently toward the bedroom door. Phyllis’s eyes rolled after them but she was utterly helpless.
When he didn’t receive an immediate reply, Shayne complained, “I used to have plenty of undershirts.” His voice came closer to the doorway. “And don’t crack wise by reminding me I’m supposed to be a detective and should be able to find my own clothes. I used to do all right before you came along and started hiding my things.”
The men had separated to either side of the doorway. The thin-featured man drew his gun, and his burly companion pulled a short blackjack from his hip pocket.
Phyllis had to watch in silent agony while Shayne walked into the trap. He growled, “Why don’t you answer me, Phyl?” as he padded through the doorway naked except for a pair of shorts clinging to his narrow hips.
He stopped with a grunt of surprise when the muzzle of a. 45 was rammed into his belly. At the same instant, the blackjack chopped down viciously just behind and above his left ear.
He swayed and fell forward to his knees, getting the palms of his hands flat on the floor.
Both men stepped back and waited for him to go flat on his face. He didn’t. He remained bowed forward as though in silent genuflection, and his labored breathing was loud in the room.
His head began to come up in slow jerks, and the muscles beneath the bare skin of his back writhed as he fought to make them obey his will and lift his weight.
The man with the gun sucked in his breath and watched Shayne’s efforts to rise with professional interest. He said, “He’s tough, sure enough. Better sock ’im again, Joe.”
Joe leaned down and slammed his sap against the side of the redhead’s chin. This time Shayne went prone and stayed that way without moving.
CHAPTER FIVE
Shayne didn’t go into a complete blackout. He kept drifting away toward nothingness and jerking himself back from the abyss. The thought of Phyllis, gagged and bound in the chair as he had seen her when he entered the room, kept him from going completely under. He knew both the men were strangers. His one glimpse of their faces before the sap cut him down told him they were not members of any local mob. They looked like big-time boys. And that reminded him of Jim Lacy. His disconnected thoughts told him there must be a connection.
They were rolling him over, shaking him roughly. He kept his body limp and quiescent. His jaw felt as though it was broken, but he didn’t think it was. His head ached like hell but that didn’t worry him. It was a good tough head, and had weathered harder blows in the past.
Then they left him lying sprawled out with his face pressed down into the rug. He could hear voices and the scraping sound of furniture being moved about. As though they were searching for something.
The scrap of cardboard he had taken from Lacy’s clenched fingers!
That must be the answer. He wondered what would happen when they didn’t find it in the apartment. He held himself there on the floor without moving, simulating unconsciousness, waiting for strength to come back to his body.
There was a long period of that drifting away and returning to partial consciousness. Then, surprisingly clear and close, he heard a thin voice say, “No use wasting any more time looking. How hard did you sap this mug, Joe?” A toe nudged Shayne’s bare ribs.
“I guess I musta cold-cocked him that last time right,” a thicker voice admitted. “From what they say about him around here he’s easier handled that way than when he’s still on his feet.”
“He don’t look so tough now.” The toe went away from Shayne’s ribs, then came forward with careless force. He sucked in his breath sharply under the impact but made no movement to indicate he felt the kick.
“We got to get him out of his dope and make him talk,” the thin voice complained. “The paper said Lacy was still alive when he got to Shayne’s office.”
“Yeh.” Joe chuckled with malicious good humor. “An’ the cops can’t figure anything but that Shayne or his wife musta been in on the kill. That’s a hot one, hey, Leroy?”
“Let them keep on thinking that. If Lacy got to him alive, he spilled the whole lay. There wasn’t anything in the paper about the cops finding a funny-looking piece of cardboard on Lacy. That means Shayne stashed it before he called the cops-and he wouldn’t have done that ’less he knew why Lacy was carrying it. Let’s go to work on him and make him sing a song.”
That settled the question that had been bothering Shayne. His mind was alert now, hitting on all cylinders. He listened carefully for a further clue to the enigma of Jim Lacy’s death.
But Joe sidetracked the conversation. “What about the dame, Leroy?” His voice held a hopeful leer. “It’d be lots more fun workin’ on her than on him. She ain’t wearing nothing under that fancy robe.”
Leroy snarled. “Lay off the dame. She’s just right like she is with her mouth taped shut. Dames ain’t got any sense. She’d start screeching her tonsils out if we took that tape off.”
“Yeah. Reckon you’re right, Leroy.” Joe sounded disappointed. He insisted, “But it would be fun.”
“We’re not here to have fun. Help me turn this mug over so we can go to work on him. He’s been around. He’ll know better than to start anything-as long as we’ve got his frail tied up where we can make passes at her.”
“That’s an angle,” Joe exulted. “We wake him up and make him watch us go after her while she’s tied up. Sure, that’ll snap him out of it.”