Gil Matrix chuckled. “You’d better have your gun greased for a quick draw with MacFarlane He’s not going to like what happened to those two punks upstairs tonight.”
“You shut up, Gil.” Chief Boyle worried his underlip with his teeth. “You can’t prove Leroy and Taylor were working for Grant tonight. They could’ve been hired by anybody that wanted Mr. Shayne out of the way. Grant can’t help it if fellows like that hang around his night club.”
“I reiterate,” Matrix returned ironically, “Shayne had better be ready to duck more lead if he insists on looking MacFarlane up tonight.”
Shayne said, “I haven’t asked for advice. I just want to know where I can find the man.”
“He’ll be at the Rendezvous, just north of the city limits,” Matrix informed him.
“But you better not go out there,” Boyle interposed. “No need to stir up any more ruckus. Besides, I calculate it’s my duty to see you don’t go out of this city until there’s a coroner’s verdict on those two killings.”
Shayne said, “The only way you can keep me away from the Rendezvous is by putting me in your jail.”
“Well, now, maybe I’ll do that.” Boyle stepped back a pace, his eyes shifting away from Shayne’s hard gaze.
The big detective laughed softly, his lips drawing back from his teeth. “It’ll be one of the toughest pinches you ever made, Boyle.”
“I don’t want any trouble with you, Shayne,” the big chief said. “But I guess I can round you up in case I want you.” He turned and hurried down the street.
“You’re what Cocopalm has been needing,” Matrix said to Shayne as the chief passed out of sight. “There’ll be more headlines after you and MacFarlane shoot it out.”
Shayne warned, “You’ll print one headline too many one of these days,” but the editor only laughed and trotted across the street on his thin, short legs.
Shayne stood beside his car and watched Matrix with narrowed, speculative eyes.
A sign in a lighted second story window directly opposite blatantly proclaimed: The Voice of Cocopalm. North from the two-story building were the three vacant lots which Hardeman had described.
A tall, stoop-shouldered man passed in front of the lighted window as Shayne watched Matrix begin climbing a stairway leading up from the sidewalk. The man moved back into view as the editor entered the office. Shayne stood on the curb and watched them talking together. Matrix was gesticulating excitedly and the stoop-shouldered man kept nodding. Presently he took off a canvas apron that was tied around his waist and put on a hat and coat.
Shayne strolled across the street and intercepted the man as he came hurrying down the stairs. The detective deliberately lurched against him, grinned widely, and put a hand on his arm. “Hiya, pal. Lishen, I got shome newsh-”
“Not now.” The man put him off impatiently. “Tell it to the editor upstairs.”
Shayne sagged back against the building and hiccoughed gently. He watched while the Voice employee got into a Ford parked at the curb and drove southward to the intersection where he made a sweeping U turn and drove swiftly north. When he was out of sight, Shayne muttered, “H-m-m,” and climbed the echoing wooden stairs. He pushed a door which opened into the lighted front office.
The office was small and untidy, with a littered desk, a steel filing-cabinet, and a typewriter stand in the corner. Matrix was not in the office, but an open door led back into a rear room through which light shone.
Shayne went to a north window and looked down across three vacant lots to the ground-floor Elite Printing Shop. He was standing at the window when he heard soft footsteps behind him. He turned slowly and saw Gil Matrix in the doorway regarding him with a twisted, unpleasant smile.
“What are you snooping around here for?”
“It’s a good place for snooping,” Shayne countered mildly. He turned away from the window and swung one leg over a corner of the editor’s desk. Matrix entered with short, jerky steps, his shoulders hunched slightly forward. “I thought you were in an all-fired hurry to have it out with Grant MacFarlane,” he said in a flat, grouchy tone.
Shayne moved his head slightly and negatively. He took a cigarette from a pack in his breast pocket, lit it, and flipped the match away. He grunted, “I didn’t want to surprise him. You can never tell what fool thing a man will do when he is surprised and on the defensive. If I give him time to get ready for me the results will be more predictable-and fewer people are likely to get hurt.”
“So that,” Matrix mused, “is why you spouted off to Chief Boyle and told him where you were headed. I confess I thought it was a dumb trick-at the time. I was beginning to wonder whether you were as smart as you were rated.”
Shayne smiled. “You think Boyle will warn MacFarlane I’m on my way out there?”
“I’m sure of it. One will get you a hundred that MacFarlane has already been told.”
“I never bet against a sure thing.” Shayne hesitated, drawing on his cigarette, his eyes slitted and inscrutable, then suddenly he asked, “What came between you and Mayme Martin a few months ago?”
Matrix swore softly and in complete surprise. His round eyes narrowed upon Shayne. “What do you know about Mayme Martin?”
“Not much. I understand you used to be quite intimate with her and broke off quite recently-and suddenly.”
“So-that’s where you were-getting acquainted with our pious psalmsingers here in Cocopalm,” Matrix snarled. His strange eyes were full of venom. “Because Miss Martin and I were old friends and lived in adjoining apartments the lecherous-minded citizens added up two and two and immediately put us in bed together.”
“Were you?” Shayne asked guilelessly.
“Why should I deny it? And why the inquisition? Are my morals involved in a counterfeiting case?”
“I don’t know,” Shayne answered truthfully. “I am interested in knowing why you broke off with Miss Martin.”
“Because she got to sopping up more gin than was good for her. She was pickling her brains and her intestines with the stuff and she got sore when I told her she was beginning to look like an old hag-which she was.”
“What happened to her after she moved away from next door to you?”
“She gravitated to the gutter,” Matrix said bitterly. “Last time I saw her she was cadging drinks out at the Rendezvous and had a grudge against the world in general and me in particular. I’d still like to know where the hell she fits in.”
Shayne sighed and carefully eased ashes from his cigarette onto the floor. “So would I.” He cocked his ear to the sound of firm, authoritative steps climbing the echoing wooden stairway. “You’re about to have another visitor,” Shayne pronounced. An interested gleam came to his gray eyes.
Matrix nodded sourly. He jammed his hands deep into his pockets and paced the narrow confines of the office and back. He shouted, “Come,” when the footsteps stopped outside and a knock sounded on the door.
A rotund, ruddy-featured man of medium height came in. He carried a stiff straw hat in his hand and had a rosy, perspiring bald head with a fringe of gray hair all the way around. He wore a Palm Beach suit with a gaudy shirt and gaudier tie. A round pot-bottom belly preceded him importantly into the newspaper office. He stopped, evidently abashed, and looked inquiringly at Shayne, then pursed his full pink lips and spoke in a rounded tone, “Ah-Mr. Matrix-I hoped to find you alone.”
Matrix said, “Come on in, Mr. Payson. I’ve just been having a few words with the detective. Mr. Payson, this is Mr. Shayne, from Miami.”
“The detective, eh?” Payson asked heartily. He followed his belly toward Shayne and held out a fat, perspiring palm. Shayne lounged to his feet and shook hands while Matrix explained:
“Mr. Payson is one of the largest stockholders of the dog track and chairman of the board. He has been having apoplexy since the counterfeiting, which accounts for his rosiness.”
Payson said, “Ahem,” with a deprecating sidelong glance at Matrix. “I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Shayne. We depend upon you, sir, to diagnose this unusual case. I may say that the entire community is depending upon you to take immediate and drastic steps. I need hardly point out what a calamity it would be to Cocopalm if the track were forced to shut its gates. It’s one of our greatest tourist attractions, not to mention the hundreds of local families supported directly or indirectly by our payroll.”