The Body Came Back (9 page)

“Well, all right,” she agreed uncertainly. “If you’re sure you don’t wanta wait.”

He said, “I’m afraid I can’t,” and went out the door and closed it gently behind him.

Shayne was waiting in the car when he hurried around to the driver’s seat and got in. The detective growled, “Took you long enough. Duclos there?”

“No. She hasn’t seen him or heard from him since he went down to pick up his car. Expects him home any minute though.”

“You and she take time for a quick lay?” Shayne asked with obvious irritation.

Rourke laughed shortly. “If you could have seen her! Listen, Mike. I’m onto something. I don’t know what the hell it is yet, but it’s
something.
Listen. There was a picture on the mantel. Mrs. Duclos and a guy she says is her no-good brother. Mike! That guy is in the news. Last few days. God-damn it! I don’t know how or what.” In frustration, Rourke beat his doubled fist against the steering wheel.

“But I know it in my bones. That guy is a fugitive. He’s wanted. Let’s pick him up first, and then find out what it’s all about.”

“What do you mean? Pick him up?”

“She tells me he showed in Miami today. Broke and hungry. So her husband took him down to a local bistro on the corner of Miami Avenue for a beer after dinner, and he came back about ten but the brother didn’t.”

Rourke turned on the lights and started his motor and pulled away slowly. “Presumably the brother is still down at the corner bar sopping up free drinks. We stop by and pick him up, Mike. You’ll get a headline for tomorrow that will put your stolen car caper in the shade.”

He went around two corners and headed back for Miami Avenue. Shayne still didn’t wholly comprehend what he was talking about. He said, “We pick up this woman’s brother? What the hell for?”

“I told you I don’t know. But I do know he’s wanted by the law… and bad. We take him in and we’ll find out. Mike Shayne comes through again. Nabs desperate fugitive single-handed.” Rourke turned the corner on Miami and nodded toward neon lights glowing a block ahead on the right-hand side. “That’ll be it.”

He found a parking place in front of the tavern and stopped, turned his head to look at Shayne’s face. “You don’t look real happy,” he complained.

Shayne said helplessly, “I just don’t get it, Tim. You just saw this guy’s picture. Your intuition tells you that he’s a wanted man. Ergo: We walk in and arrest him. On what charge?”

“You’re a detective,” said Rourke cheerfully. “You’ve got the authority. Look. Have I ever let you down, Mike? Don’t you know that I know what I’m talking about?”

Shayne grinned and said simply, “You always have, Tim. Okay, I’ll ride with you. What does he look like?”

Rourke unbuttoned his jacket and pulled out the photograph he had stolen from the mantel. He showed it to Shayne. “There he is. I still can’t place that mug, but… he’s wanted, Mike. I’ll swear to that.”

Shayne took the picture of Mrs. George Duclos and her brother, and studied it carefully in the glaring light of the neon sign.

Then he said grimly, “We’re not going to find him inside that bar, Tim.”

“How do you know we’re not? She says he and her husband came here after dinner for a beer… and as far as she knows he’s still here. If he’s left, we can maybe show the picture around and find out where he’s gone.”

Shayne shook his red head firmly and said, “It just happens I know where he is, Tim. Inside the trunk of the Duclos Ford… rolled up in a blanket I snitched from the Encanto Hotel.”

“For God’s sake, Mike! You sure about that?” Rourke turned to stare at his companion with glittering eyes in which the excitement of a few minutes ago was intensified.

“I ought to be sure. He and I were pretty intimate there for a few minutes. So he’s George Duclos’s brother-in-law,” Shayne said thoughtfully. “Let’s see where the hell that fits in. He was driving George’s Ford when he went to the Encanto…”

“Is that where you got hold of it?” interrupted Rourke. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“Yeh. I found the parking stub in his pocket and thought as long as I was moving the body I might as well get his car away at the same time… without knowing it was stolen, of course. Which maybe it was or maybe it wasn’t,” he added.

“You mean maybe Duclos loaned it to him… and then later when the cops called he got scared and looked out the window and reported it stolen?”

“It’s an old dodge. If so, it must mean that Duclos knew he was hot… or at least that he might be headed for some sort of trouble at the Encanto. In that case he must be wondering like hell how
I
come to turn up driving the car he’d lent his brother-in-law.”

“We don’t know he did lend it, of course. The way Mrs. Duclos explained it, the two of them came down to the corner bar for a drink after dinner. Her husband came back alone, saying her brother, Al, was sticking around for a time. Could be that Al just waited until George got safely inside the house, then slipped back and copped the car… knowing it was sitting outside with the keys in it.”

“Sure it could be either way.” Shayne tugged at his left earlobe impatiently. “You called him Al. That’s the name of Carla’s husband all right. What else did she tell you about him?”

“Carla?” asked Rourke.

“Brett’s friend I told you about. The one who phoned me. She claimed she hadn’t seen the guy for ten or fifteen years… thought he was dead. He’d done time in the pen at least once, and she’d heard he’d been shot in a holdup after he was released.”

“Sounds like our Al, all right. Mrs. Duclos said he had a way of popping up unannounced like a bad penny after she hadn’t heard from him in years. I wish to God I could place that face, Mike. I
know
I’ve seen a picture of that mug in the last few days, and I
know
that he’s wanted for some recent crime. Not local, I think. Something must have come over the wires… His voice trailed off. Then he opened the car door decisively. “A couple of drinks may bring it back to me. Why in hell are we sitting out here? I think it’s time you told me a little more about how you got acquainted with the guy.”

“He was dead when I met him.” Shayne got out somewhat reluctantly, though he realized he could also stand a drink at this point.

They went inside the noisy bar which was still crowded this late on Saturday night and had a jukebox in one corner that added to the drunken din of voices.

They found a vacant booth at the extreme end of the room where they couldn’t possibly be overheard, and waited until drinks were put in front of them by a hard-faced, big-breasted waitress who was in a hurry to get back to a conversation she was having at the bar with two men who took turns patting her butt while she leaned between them.

“Al Donlin,” Shayne said after he took the first sip of his drink. “That’s his name. Ring a bell?”

Rourke shook his head. “Mrs. Duclos didn’t mention his last name. No, it doesn’t, Mike. Could be he was using an alias… if he’s got a record.”

“Yeh. It could be. Carla evidently didn’t know anything about that… him being mixed up in something recently and being wanted. Maybe she would have reacted differently, if she had known. But I guess not. It wouldn’t really have changed anything. He was dead… and her daughter had shot her own father.” He made a grimace. “Where do we go from here? Where in
hell
is Duclos?”

“Let’s put ourselves in his place. Assume that Al did confide in him that he was in trouble and on the lam and needed money desperately, and was headed for the Encanto Hotel to brace his wife for some… that’s what he was after, I suppose?”

“She doesn’t know, of course. Remember, she didn’t even see him alive. He pushed in on the girl, completely unknown to her, demanded her mother, and said, ‘You must be Vicky.’ Naturally, she didn’t know what it was about. They had a struggle and she grabbed up a pistol that fell out of her suitcase and shot him. He probably did go there for money, though.”

“Wait a minute. If he just hit town today… and they’ve been out of touch for years… and you say she just flew in from Hollywood tonight… how in hell did he know to go straight to her suite at the Encanto?”

“Carla wondered about that, too. But I found a newspaper clipping in his pocket torn out of yesterday’s
News,
with a picture of the daughter and a story about her wedding and the statement that her mother was flying in today… or yesterday, that is,” he added with a look at his watch. “It was a hell of a coincidence, but he must have figured God was being good to him.”

“All right. Back to Duclos. We’re assuming that he let Al take his car to go to the Encanto to try and get hold of some dough. An hour or so later, the police call to ask about the Ford registered in his name. He figures there’s been trouble, and quick says his car has been stolen. He still doesn’t know what has happened when he gets to the police station and discovers that a private detective has been picked up driving his car. No sign of Al. No word about him at all. What in hell can the guy do? He can’t ask questions without getting involved. He must be in a hell of a dither right now wondering where the devil Al is… what happened at the Encanto… and particularly, how come Mike Shayne ended up driving his Ford. So, what does he do? Go home and to bed?”

“Well, we know he didn’t do that.” Shayne morosely drained his glass and began making moisture rings with it on the formica table top.

“None of this makes any real difference to my problem,” he pointed out impatiently. “That body is still floating around town wrapped up in a blanket from the Encanto Hotel… in a car the police know I was driving earlier. I’ve still got to get my hands on that corpse, Tim.”

“I know. Sure.” Timothy Rourke lit a cigarette and frowned thoughtfully through the blue smoke across the table at his friend. “If we knew what Al was mixed up in it might help. Maybe he has known associates in Miami. Maybe Duclos knows about them and is trying to contact them… hoping to find Al or learn what became of him.” He looked down at his empty glass. “Maybe another drink will help.”

Shayne shook his head and growled, “We’d better both go slow on the drinks until we find out where we stand. How about you going back to the office and checking crime stories for the last few days? Won’t you find it that way?”

“Probably.” Rourke pushed the empty glass away reluctantly. “I hate to admit my memory is slipping. I always said I never forgot a face that had news value.”

“You’re getting older,” Shayne chided him. “You pointed that out to me very forcibly tonight Why not go to the office and give your jaded memory an assist?”

He left two bills on the table and they went out of the noisy tavern into the quiet of the night.

With Rourke behind the wheel, Shayne suggested, “Let’s make one last swing back by the Duclos house. Maybe George has finally showed up.”

But another drive past the house on 77th Street showed it still lighted as before and no Ford yet in evidence.

Rourke speeded up after they passed, turned up to 79th and swung back east to the Boulevard.

They drove south in brooding silence for a time, each busy with his own thoughts and secure in the knowledge that communication between the two of them did not require words at this point.

Shayne roused himself from his reverie when Rourke began to slow for the turn off the Boulevard that would take him to the newspaper office.

“Keep on going,” he directed. “I think you’d better drop me off, Tim.”

“You sure? If I’m lucky it won’t take me very long to get all the dope on Al. I
know
it’s right there, Mike.”

Shayne said, “I’d better get back to my place. It occurs to me that Duclos may be trying desperately to get hold of me right now… and God knows I’d like to reach him.”

“That’s supposing he knows it was Al who had his car tonight, and he’s worried about what happened.”

“Yeh. And it also crossed my mind that even if Al didn’t confide in his brother-in-law it’s possible he has other friends here who knew he was stealing that car to drive to the Encanto. Maybe they were waiting for him to come back with some dough. So they’ll be worried and wondering, and maybe try to reach me.”

“How would they know you had anything to do with Al’s disappearance?”

“There was that one o’clock newscast,” Shayne reminded him. “Private dick caught driving automobile stolen from George Duclos. Anyone who knew Al was supposed to be using that car would start wondering when he heard that”

“I guess so.” Rourke continued on south past Flagler Street, and turned off to pull up in front of Shayne’s hotel. “Can I get you here as soon as I dig up that information?”

“I’ll call you at the office if anything comes up before you call.” Shayne got out and went in to the empty lobby of the small hotel while Rourke pulled away behind him.

Pete, the night clerk was on duty. He was a longtime employee of the hotel, a confidant of the detective, and the sharer of many of the redhead’s secrets.

He grinned widely from behind the desk as Shayne approached, and assumed a conspiratorial manner. “Hi, Mr. Shayne. After that one o’clock newscast I wondered did they have you under the jail or what. That’s what I told the dame when she came looking for you. I says to her, ‘Well, it’s okay for you to go up and wait for Mr. Shayne in his room because he always told me I wasn’t to say no to any female if she was under seventy and still had her own teeth. Make yourself at home,’ I told her, ‘but I sure can’t guarantee when he’ll be back.’ And she said she’d take a chance on that, and I sent her on up with a boy to unlock your door.”

Shayne leaned on the counter and lifted ragged red eyebrows in astonishment. “A dame, Pete?”

“Yeh. And she’s plenty under seventy and they sure look like her own teeth. She acted scared stiff and mighty anxious to see you. You in real trouble with the law this time?”

Shayne said, “No more than usual, Pete. They’re yapping at my heels, sort of. I guess I can handle it.”

“I bet you can,” said Pete worshipfully. “Why’d any cop be dumb enough to think you’d steal a car?”

Shayne grinned and told him cheerfully, “I’ll call you for a character witness.”