Dead Man's Diary & A Taste for Cognac (13 page)

Shayne said, “Don’t kid yourself that he swallowed it. He knows damned well it wasn’t coincidence that put me at the scene of the murder.” He turned the logbook upside down and shook out a yellowed and brittle newspaper clipping from the
Miami Daily News
dated June 17, 1930. There was a picture of a big man in a nautical uniform with the caption: SAVED AT SEA.

Shayne read the news item swiftly. It gave a dramatic account of the sea rescue of Captain Samuels, owner, master, and sole survivor of the auxiliary launch
Mermaid
which was lost in a tropical hurricane off the Florida coast three days before the Captain was rescued by a fishing craft. He had heroically stayed afloat in a life preserver for three days and nights.

“Where,” asked Shayne, “was the book when you found it?”

“In a small recess in the rock wall at the head of his bed. The bedding was all mussed up as though the room had been hastily searched, and the bed was pulled away from the wall. That’s how I saw the logbook. Normally, the wooden headboard must have stood against the wall, hiding the recess.”

Shayne began thoughtfully flipping the pages of the log. “This seems to be a complete account of Captain Samuels’s voyages from—”

The ringing of the telephone interrupted him. He got up and answered it. The voice of the night clerk came over the wire:

“The law is on its way up to your apartment, Mr. Shayne. You told me once I was to call you—”

“Thanks, Dick.” Shayne hung up and directed Myrna tersely: “You’d better get out—through the kitchen door and down the fire escape. Take your two glasses to the kitchen and close the door behind you. The key’s on a nail by the outside door.”

Myrna jumped up. “What—?”

“I don’t know.” Shayne heard the elevator stop down the hall. “Better if Gentry doesn’t find you here. He’s already suspicious. Go home and go to bed and be careful. Call me tomorrow.”

Shayne breathed a sigh of relief when Myrna went out quietly. Most women would have argued and asked questions. He opened a drawer and thrust the logbook, clipping, and ticket stub inside. A loud knock sounded on the outer door of his apartment and Will Gentry’s voice rumbled, “Shayne.”

Shayne darted a quick glance behind him and saw that Myrna had closed the door as she went into the kitchen. He sauntered to the outer door and opened it, rubbed his chin with a show of surprise when he saw Gentry and the tall figure of Mr. Guildford waiting in the hallway. He said, “It’s a hell of a time to come visiting,” and stepped aside to let them enter.

Will Gentry moved slowly and steadily past him to the center table to look with suspicion on the two glasses. He went to the bedroom door, opened it, and stepped inside, turned on the light, then looked in the bathroom.

Shayne grinned as Gentry doggedly went on to the kitchen door, opened it, and turned on the light. He stalked heavily back and sat down across the table from Shayne.

“Where is she, Mike?”

“I told her she’d better go home and get some sleep. She was quite upset, you know. Seems she was rather fond of the old sea captain—though she’d known him only a couple of days,” he added hastily.

“She isn’t in her room. Hasn’t been all evening.”

“How did you know where to look for her?” Shayne asked.

“I called Tim Rourke. He told me she was stopping at the Crestwood, but she’s not in.”

Shayne said, “You know how these New York dames are. Why come to me?”

“I hoped I’d find her here,” Gentry admitted, “knowing how New York dames are, and knowing you.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Will.”

Mr. Guildford said, “May I?” He cleared his throat and looked at Gentry.

The Chief nodded. “Go ahead.”

“Knowing your reputation, Mr. Shayne,” Guildford said in a professional tone, “I suspect you withheld certain information tonight.”

Shayne said, “It’s illegal to conceal murder evidence.”

“To hell with that stuff,” Gentry put in impatiently. “What did you and Miss Hastings find before we got there?”

“You know I wouldn’t hold out on you, Will, unless there was something in it for me. And who could possibly profit by the death of an old man like that? He looked to me as though he’d gone hungry for weeks.”

“That’s true,” Guildford said. “I happen to know he was in dire straits. Our appointment tonight was to discuss a payment long overdue on his mortgaged house.”

“But the poor devil was obviously tortured,” Gentry said. “Death resulted from shock due to his poor physical condition. Torture generally means extortion.”

“Which makes us wonder if he harbored some secret worth money to someone,” Guildford explained. “We found none of his private papers, but we did find evidence that the house had been burgled.”

“So you think I did it?” Shayne fumed.

“Wait a minute, Mike,” Gentry rumbled soothingly. “You see we found that the bed had been pulled back and there was a sort of hiding-place exposed. Mr. Guildford suggested that you may have discovered the cache and taken the papers away to examine them privately.”

Shayne snarled, “The hell he did! What’s his interest in it?”

“As Captain Samuels’s attorney and now his executor, I have a natural interest in the affair,” Guildford snapped.

“Come off it, Mike,” said Gentry wearily. “If you’ll tell me what you were doing there I won’t be so sure you’re holding out.”

“I told you—rather Miss Hastings did.”

“That doesn’t wash, Mike. Rourke told me she didn’t hit town till this afternoon. How could she have met Samuels and learned about the shipwreck story?”

“Ask her.”

“I can’t find her. I’m asking you. Did you get any stuff from the bedroom?”

“I didn’t go in the bedroom.”

“But Miss Hastings did,” said Guildford triumphantly. “And I suggest
she
found his papers and looked through them while we were in the other room with you and the body. I further suggest that was how she learned about the shipwreck and her agile mind framed the excuse she gave us for your presence there.”

Shayne stood up and balled his big hands into fists. “I suggest that you get out of that chair so I can knock you back into it.”

“Lay off, Mike,” Gentry groaned. “You’ve got to admit it’s good reasoning.”

Shayne swung around and faced Gentry. “I don’t admit anything,” he said angrily. “Is a two-bit shyster running your department now?”

Guildford said, “I resent that, Shayne.”

Shayne laughed harshly.
“You
resent it?”

Gentry said, “I’m running my department, but I don’t mind listening to advice. Are you willing to swear you and Miss Hastings just dropped in on the dead man by accident?”

Shayne said, “Put me on the witness stand if I’m going to be cross-examined.”

Gentry compressed his lips. He started to say something, but instead, tightened his lips further and got up. He and Guildford went out of the room.

Shayne stood by the table until the door closed behind them, then strode to the telephone and asked for the Crestwood Hotel. He frowned, starting across the room, and tugged at his left earlobe while he waited. When the hotel answered he asked for Miss Myrna Hastings. Without hesitation the clerk said, “Miss Hastings is not in.”

“How the hell do you know she isn’t?” Shayne growled. “You haven’t rung her room.”

“But I saw her go out just a moment ago, sir,” the clerk insisted.

Shayne said, “You must be mistaken. I happen to know she just went to her room.”

“That’s quite right, sir. She came in and got her key not more than five minutes ago, but she came downstairs almost immediately with two gentlemen and went out with them.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive, sir. I saw them cross the lobby from the elevator to the front door.”

“Wait a minute. Did she go with them willingly?”

“Why, I certainly presumed so. She had her arms linked in theirs, and I didn’t notice anything wrong.”

“Can you describe them?”

“No. I’m afraid I didn’t notice—”

“Was one of them short and the other one tall?”

“Why, now that you mention it, I think so. Is something wrong? Do you think—?”

Shayne banged up the receiver and stalked into the bedroom. He got a short-barreled .38 which he dropped in his coat pocket. Then he went to the kitchen and tried the back door. Myrna had locked it after she slipped out.

He turned out the kitchen light and strode across the living room, jammed his hat down on his bristly red hair, and went out.

Ten minutes later he parked in front of Henry Renaldo’s tavern. He shouldered his way through the swinging doors and found half a dozen late tipplers still leaning on the bar. Joe was in the back with a mop bucket, turning chairs up over the tables, and the paunchy bartender was still on duty in front.

Shayne went up to the bar and said, “Give me a shot of Cognac—Monnet.”

The man shook his head. “We got grape brandy—”

Shayne said, “Monterrey will do.”

The bartender set a bottle and glass in front of the detective, his eyes secretively low-lidded. Shayne poured a drink and lifted it to his nose. “This stuff is grape brandy,” he said angrily.

“Sure. Says so right on the bottle.” His tone was placating.

Shayne shoved the glass away from him and said, “I’ll have a talk with Henry.”

“The boss ain’t in,” the bartender told him hastily.

“How about his two ginzos?”

“I dunno.”

Shayne turned and went along the bar to the back. Joe pulled the mop bucket out of his way and turned his head to stare wonderingly at the set look on Shayne’s face.

He knocked on the door of Renaldo’s office and then tried the door. It opened into darkness. He found the light switch and stood on the threshold looking around the empty office. He went to the rear door through which the two gunmen had entered earlier, and found it barred on the inside. It opened out directly onto the alley.

Back at the bar, he found the bartender lounging against the cash register. He said, “I tol’ you,” and backed away in alarm when Shayne bunched his hand in his coat pocket over the .38.

“Where,” asked Shayne, “do Blackie and Lennie hang out?”

“I dunno. I swear to God I don’t. I never seen ’em in here before tonight.” He was frightened and he sounded truthful.

“Where will I find the boss?”

“Home, I reckon.”

“Where?”

The bartender hesitated. He pouched his lower lip between thumb and forefinger and said sullenly, “Mr. Renaldo don’t like—”

Shayne said, “Give it to me.”

The bartender hesitated briefly, his eyes wary. Then he wilted and mumbled an address on West Sixtieth Street.

Shayne went out and got in his car, sat there for a moment, got out, and went back into the tavern. The bartender looked at him with naked fear in his eyes and put down the telephone hastily.

“Don’t do it, Fatty. If Renaldo has been tipped off when I get there I’ll come back and spill your guts all over the floor. The name is Shayne, if you think I’m kidding.”

He went out again and swung away from the curb. He drove north a dozen blocks and stopped in front of a sign on Miami Avenue that read: CHUNKY’S CHILI. The place was crammed in between a pawnshop and a flophouse.

He went in and said, “Hi, Chunky,” to the big man behind the empty counter.

Chunky said, “’Lo, Mike,” without enthusiasm.

“Any of the boys in back?”

“Guess so.”

Shayne got out his wallet, extracted a ten-dollar bill and folded it twice lengthwise, and held it toward him. “Blackie or Lennie in there?” he asked.

Chunky yawned. He took the bill and said, “Nope. Ain’t seen either of ’em tonight.”

“Working?”

“I wouldn’ know. Gen’rally hang out back when they ain’t.”

Shayne nodded. He knew that. Chunky’s chili joint was a screen for a bookie establishment in the back that served as a sort of clubroom for the better known members of Miami’s underworld. He asked, “Seen John Grossman around since he was paroled?”

“A guy what’s on parole don’t hang out much with the old gang. Not if he’s smart,” Chunky told him.

“Have you seen him around?” Shayne persisted.

Chunky picked up a toothpick and chewed on it placidly. Shayne got out his wallet again and Chunky watched him fold another bill and hold it out. He took the bill and suggested, “Might ask Pug or Slim. They usta work for John some.”

“Are they in back?”

Chunky shook his head. “Went out ’bout an hour ago.”

Shayne said, “Tell them I’m passing out folding money.” He went out and got in his car, drove north to Sixtieth and turned west.

Henry Renaldo’s address was a modest one-story stucco house in the center of a block containing half a dozen such houses. It was the only one with lights showing through the front windows.

Shayne drove past it to the end of the block, swung around the corner, and parked. He got out and walked back, went up the concrete walk lined with a trim hedge on either side, and rang Renaldo’s doorbell.

He took the gun out of his pocket while he waited.

He showed the weapon to Henry Renaldo when he opened the door. Renaldo was in his shirtsleeves, his vest hanging open. The cigar in his mouth looked like the same one he had been chewing on some hours previously. He blinked wrinkled lids down over his eyes when he saw the gun in Shayne’s hand. He backed away, lifting his hands palms outward and mumbling, “You don’t need to point that at me.”

Shayne followed him in and heeled the door shut. The living room was small and crowded with heavy overstuffed furniture. There was no one else in the room.

Shayne gestured with his gun and asked, “Where’s Miss Hastings?”

Renaldo rolled up his wrinkled lids and looked at him stupidly. “Who?”

“The girl who left your place with me.”

“I sure don’t know anything about a girl,” Renaldo told him earnestly. “Look here—”

Shayne’s eyes were dangerously bright. He palmed the gun and took a step forward, hit Renaldo in the face. Renaldo staggered back with blood oozing from a cut lip.

Shayne said coldly, “Maybe that’ll help your memory.”

Renaldo took another step backward and sank down on the red divan. He got a handkerchief from his hip pocket and wiped at his cut lip. He moaned, “Before God, Mike—”