He wasn’t ready, yet, to tell about the telephone calls that had preceded Wanda’s, and he didn’t want company when he went to discuss Wanda with Rourke and his friend, Ralph Flannagan. That might come later, but right now he was in the middle of something without the slightest idea how he’d gotten there. Until he learned more about Wanda Weatherby and why she wanted to see him it was quite possible that he would be violating the confidence of a prospective client by giving information to the authorities about those three calls.
He listened with interest while Will Gentry spoke into the telephone. “That you, Lucy? Will Gentry. Sorry to bother you, but is Mike there?”
Gentry listened a moment, then rumbled placatingly, “No, I’m not taking over the morals squad. And it’s not that late, anyhow. No reason Mike mightn’t have stopped in for a drink. When did you see him last?”
He listened again, then explained. “It’s about a woman who is supposed to have called his office this afternoon. Wanda Weatherby. Do you know if Mike talked to her?” He listened for another interval, then said, “Okay, Lucy. If you hear from Mike ask him to check with me.” Shayne was grinning widely when he hung up.
Gentry said sourly, “You’ve got Lucy well trained or else you’re telling the truth for once. She says this Weatherby woman called at two and again at four-thirty. Wouldn’t say what she wanted except that it was personal, and she sounded worried. The last time, she told Lucy she was writing you a letter and mailing it.”
“You want to search me for a thirty-caliber rifle before I go?” Shayne asked. “I guess my time of arrival could fit, couldn’t it, Doc?”
The doctor was closing his bag. “Anywhere from half an hour to an hour and a half.”
Will Gentry made an impatient gesture. His ruddy and normally pleasant face wore a scowl. “Quit horsing around, Mike. I’ll be at your office when the mail arrives in the morning.”
Shayne said, “Fine. And I’ll show you Wanda’s letter if I feel like it.” He turned and strode out, angry with himself for having been jockeyed into a position at cross-purposes with Gentry, yet stubbornly certain that he had a much better chance of turning up the truth about Wanda’s death if he went at it his own way without interference from the police.
Jack Gurley’s Sportsman’s Club was located on the shore of Biscayne Bay in the Sixties. Shayne pondered over the clipping in his pocket as he drove swiftly to the club. He knew Gurley slightly and, in a sense, respected the man. “The Lantern” had been one of Capone’s minor mobsters in prohibition days, and had parlayed a fast trigger and cold-blooded disdain for human life into a small fortune and a position of semirespectability in the course of twenty years.
His Sportsman’s Club was actually a club — with a membership strictly limited to men who were in the big money and enjoyed spending it lavishly. The annual dues paid by each member were rumored to be five thousand dollars, but for this sum free food and liquor were available at the club twenty-four hours a day every day in the year. Admittance was by card only, but guests of members were welcomed at a modest assessment of one hundred dollars a day, billed to his host at the end of the month. Since it was a private club and, strictly speaking, he sold no food or liquor on the premises, Gurley was not hampered by licensing-restrictions or closing-hours. If his sporting members and their guests enjoyed gambling, it was available to them on the second floor in luxurious surroundings, also on a twenty-four-hour basis and with a monthly settlement of wins and losses which made the losing of money just about as painless as possible.
Shayne had never been inside the club, since he had no intimate friends who were eager to press a hundred-dollar-a-day guest card on him. It was a large, three-story wooden building directly at the dead end of a street, with a large parking-lot on each side, and a modest canopied entrance with an alert young man to open the door of one’s car and drive it away for him.
The attendant was waiting when Shayne drove to the club and braked his car. Shayne got out, gave his name, and said, “Spot it close. I only expect to be here a few minutes.”
The young man said, “Certainly, Mr. Shayne.”
The detective walked up beneath the canopy where a suave individual wearing a dinner jacket bowed and said quietly, “Your card, sir?”
Shayne said, “I haven’t any card. Send word to Jack Gurley that I’m here. Michael Shayne. It’s business.”
“I’m not sure that Mr. Gurley will be immediately available, sir. If you’d care to wait here—”
“I’ll wait, but tell him to make it fast.”
The man nodded and went to speak to a confrere who stood beside glass doors that opened into a cocktail lounge. There were maroon-covered settees in the small anteroom. Shayne sat down and stretched out his long legs to wait.
As he had anticipated, the wait was short. He hadn’t quite finished his first cigarette when another clean-cut young man, much like the one who had taken his car, appeared unobtrusively from a side door leading off the anteroom. He said, “Mr. Shayne? This way, please.”
Shayne followed him through the door and up a carpeted stairway to a door on the third floor. It stood open, and he entered a large, simply furnished office.
He faced the owner of the club across a wide gleaming expanse of clean mahogany desk. Gurley wore a loose tweed suit and a soft white shirt. He had a square, impassive face, with tufted gray brows and short black hair sprinkled with gray. His big hands were folded on the desk, and he surveyed Shayne with interest, but without friendliness. He had gotten his nickname of The Lantern from a complaint made early in his career as proprietor of the Sportsman’s Club that it was impossible to find honest men for his gambling-tables.
“If you’re looking for a job, shamus,” Gurley said with a faintly derisive smile, “I can use a head bouncer.”
Shayne tossed his hat on the desk and pulled up a chair to face Gurley. He said casually, “Still carrying the lantern, eh?”
“Still carrying it. I’ll blow it out if you go to work for me.”
Shayne grinned and shook his head. “I’d rather stay honest. What I dropped in about was to ask you what the hell you meant by having one of your goons bother me with that telephone call this evening.
Chapter four
J. PIERSON GURLEY unfolded his lingers and carefully placed the tips of them together. He said pleasantly, “Get up to date, Shayne. I graduated from the goon period in my life. I’m a legitimate businessman now.”
“They’re still goons to me, no matter if you call them vice-presidents,” Shayne told him evenly. “And I don’t like anonymous threats over the telephone.”
“You want a thing done right,” said Gurley with a sigh, “do it yourself.” He opened a drawer and took out a sandalwood box of cigars and offered one to Shayne.
Shayne declined the offer, and got out a pack of cigarettes.
Gurley took a cigar and bit off the end with strong teeth. He asked wearily, “Why come to me about some telephone call?”
“Because I like to do my talking to the top guy.”
“What makes you think I’m the top?”
“Stop batting it around,” said Shayne impatiently. “It was a fool move, trying to warn me off Wanda Weatherby. A legitimate businessman ought to know better.”
“Have you talked to Wanda?” demanded Gurley.
Shayne said, “No.”
“Don’t.” Gurley drew a silver table lighter toward him and put the flame to the cigar. “And if you’re smart you’ll tear up that letter without reading it.”
“Sometimes I guess I’m not very smart.”
“How right you are. I can have you run out of Miami, shamus.”
“I doubt that.”