Shoot to Kill (4 page)

He cut his motor and leaped out, and heard a loud shout and something that sounded like a crash from inside the house as he sprinted toward the front door.

It opened inward onto a large square living room that was brilliantly illuminated like a stage setting.

A man lay on his side ten feet in front of the door, struggling up to a sitting posture, his mouth ludicrously open although no words were coming out, and pointing a trembling finger toward the stairway at the rear.

A silver tray lay on the floor in front of the stairway, and there were broken glasses and bottles strewn around it. A small, white-coated figure was running up the stairs as Shayne lunged in through the front door with Rourke close behind him, and he disappeared at the top and Shayne heard a door slam loudly on the second floor.

Shayne ran toward the stairs, skirting the broken glass and bottles, and mounted as fast as he could with Rourke pounding close at his heels.

Half-way down a wide carpeted corridor at the left the white-coated man was pounding a small fist on a closed wooden door while he ineffectually twisted the knob with his other hand. A printed “Do Not Disturb” sign hung from the knob. He turned a frightened, brown, Puerto Rican face over his shoulder to look toward Shayne as the redhead reached the top of the stairs, and he jabbered something in Spanish while he continued to pound on the door.

Shayne reached him in four long strides and clamped a big hand on his shoulder to thrust him aside from the door, then drew back and lowered his shoulder to drive his weight at it.

Before he could make a lunge a muffled shot sounded beyond the closed door. Shayne hesitated momentarily and then hit the door with his shoulder.

It shuddered with the impact, but did not give a fraction of an inch.

There was silence inside the room as Shayne stepped back for another try. Somewhere down the hallway a door opened, and the Puerto Rican houseman was slumped back against the wall, his eyes wide and round and staring and his mouth making small whimpering sounds.

Shayne hit the door again with his bruised shoulder, this time lower and closer to the lock, and there was the protesting screech of screws being torn from wood and the door burst open, almost catapulting the detective forward on his face.

He caught the door-jamb and straightened himself slowly. It was a large room, fitted up as an office or study, with a big flat-topped desk set squarely in the center of it and a dead man slumped sideways, half-in and half-out of an armchair behind the desk.

A thin intense-faced young man with a lock of black hair slanted across a high forehead stood flat-footed at the side of the desk and a few feet away from it. He was in his shirtsleeves with a black tie dangling loosely. A .38 caliber revolver dangled from his right hand and a thin wisp of smoke still drifted upward from the muzzle. He frowned at Shayne in a puzzled manner and said in a perfectly reasonable voice:

“You didn’t have to break the door in. I would have unlocked it after I killed the son-of-a-bitch.”

Michael Shayne drew in a deep breath and expelled it slowly. He went toward the young man, holding out his hand, “Better let me have the gun.”

“Sure.” A twisted grin crossed Ralph Larson’s face and he jerked his head to toss the lock of black hair away from his eyes. He took the barrel of the .38 in his left hand and ceremoniously offered the butt to Shayne. Then he looked past the redhead and said indifferently to Rourke, “Hello, Tim. You know I told you I was going to kill him. So I did, by God.”

Timothy Rourke said tightly, “I know.” He moved slowly into the room behind Shayne.

The detective slid the gun into his hip pocket and turned to look at the dead man. At that moment the wail of a police siren came to their ears. It rose to a banshee shriek as it approached the house rapidly, and then died to a low moan and silence in the driveway outside.

“He laughed at me, Tim,” Ralph Larson said earnestly, as though it was terribly necessary to explain things and justify himself. “He sat right there in the goddamned chair and laughed in my face when I told him I was going to kill him. He just couldn’t believe it, you see. His goddamned ego just wouldn’t allow him to accept the fact that I meant what I said. He was Wesley Ames, you see. He was immune from the fate that overtakes ordinary mortals. So he didn’t take me seriously. He laughed at me. Well, he knows better now. He’s not laughing now, by God. Because the joke’s on him. I’m the one who’s doing the laughing.”

And he did. He threw back his head and laughed. High, shrill laughter that cut through the silence in the room like a knife. Then he put his hands over his face and sank slowly down to sit cross-legged on the floor and his laughter turned into sobbing.

Outside the room there was the loud purposeful tramp of feet on the stairway, and voices, and Shayne turned to the open door to confront the police officers who had responded to Lucy’s telephone call too late.

THE FIRST MAN THROUGH THE DOOR WAS BULKY AND blue-coated, with a big protruding paunch and dull-witted, porcine features. He waved a service revolver menacingly, breathing heavily through open mouth; and he narrowed close-set eyes at Rourke and at Shayne, and then at the sobbing man seated on the floor and finally at the murdered man behind the desk.

“What’s going on here, huh? Stand still all of you. Nobody make a move.” He swung his revolver around, pointing it at first one and then the other, pouting his thick lips and drawing himself up with an air of ponderous authority on wide-spread flat feet.

“Been a shooting, huh?” He sniffed the air with satisfaction, nodding his head slowly. Behind him a younger officer peered over his shoulder, and in the hallway behind him Shayne could see the man whom they had passed in the living room downstairs and the houseman, and another round-faced man who had appeared from nowhere. The trio were drawn together in a little knot, speaking anxiously to each other in low voices.

“Yep. Been a shooting, all right,” the first officer announced with finality. “You, there!” he snarled suddenly at Michael Shayne. “What’s that I see in your hip pocket?”

“It’s a gun,” Shayne told him quietly. He dropped his hand to the butt of the .38 to pull it out, but the policeman shouted, “None of that. Keep your hands
up,
hear me?” He swung his revolver around so the barrel was leveled at the redhead’s belly and said, “There’s been enough shooting. Just keep your hands up and turn around slowly, Mister, and face the wall.”

Shayne turned slowly as he was directed, and Timothy Rourke burst out impatiently, “For God’s sake, Officer, that’s Mike Shayne. We came here…”

“I don’t care if he’s Jesus Christ, and I figure to find out why you came here. You just keep your mouth shut while I handle this here according to regulations. Step forward about three feet from the wall,” he directed Shayne, “and lean forward and put your hands out flat so they’re holding up your weight.”

Shayne followed his instructions silently.

“Now then, Powers,” the big cop ordered his companion with satisfaction, “you step up there and take that gun off his hip while I keep him covered.”

He stepped aside and the younger man passed in front of Rourke to lift the .38 out of Shayne’s pocket.

“Hand it over to me,” the bulky man directed, and he took the revolver and smelled the muzzle of it and announced, “Been fired just recently all right. I guess we got the murder weapon, Powers. You better take a look at that man behind the desk,” he added as an afterthought. “He looks dead enough from here, but in a case like this we got to make sure.”

Shayne pushed himself up erect from his awkward position and folded his arms across his chest and watched sardonically while Powers circled the desk and knelt down to take the victim’s dangling left wrist between his fingers and feel for a pulse. “He’s shot right square through the middle of the chest,” he announced. “There’s a hole and some blood but not very much it looks like to me. He’s dead all right, Griffin.” He let go of the wrist and rocked back on his heels and averted his eyes from the corpse. “What do we do now?”

“What you’d damn well better do,” Shayne grated savagely between his teeth, “is get down to your radio and call in to Headquarters. This is a job for Homicide and nothing should be touched in this room until they get here.”

“You telling me how to handle this?” Griffin swung a broadly amazed face toward the redhead.

Shayne said, “I’m telling you. And you’d better listen if you don’t want to go back to pounding a beat.”

“Is that so, Mister? And just who in hell do you think you are?”

“I told you who he was,” said Rourke disgustedly. “He’s Mike Shayne. And I’m Rourke from the
News
for Chrissake. We’re the ones who called in the report in the first place and tried to get here in time to prevent a killing.”

“I think that redhead
is
Mike Shayne, Griff,” said Powers anxiously. “You know, the private dick that’s such good friends with Chief Gentry. We should call in to Homicide, I guess.”

“I don’t care whether he’s a private dick or not, or who he’s friends of,” said Griffin ominously. “I know we got a dead man here and him with a gun that was still smoking in his pocket. Sure, go down and call in to Homicide,” he decided magnanimously. “Tell ’em we got their killer rounded up and dead to rights.”

The younger officer got to his feet and hurried out of the room, the three men still clustered in the doorway drawing back to let him pass.

“Now then,” said Griffin importantly. “You there, sitting on the floor with your face in your hands. What do you know about this. Come on, speak up,” he added impatiently as Ralph Larson took his hands from his face and looked up at him dazedly. “Were you a witness to the shooting?”

Shayne squared his wide shoulders, then stepped over beside Larson and reached down to take hold of his arm and help him stand up. “Don’t answer any questions,” he advised the young man. “You’ll just have to repeat your answers later when Homicide gets here. All of us,” he announced firmly, “should get out of this room and leave it exactly as it is. You know that much, Griffin. Quit throwing your weight around. And just so you won’t look like a complete fool when Sergeant Griggs gets here to take over, this is Ralph Larson standing beside me. He’s a reporter on the
News
with Tim Rourke who is standing behind me. Tim and I got here about sixty seconds too late to prevent him from shooting Wesley Ames. Two of those men in the hallway will tell you the same thing. I don’t know who the other one is or how much he saw. Now, can we all go downstairs and rustle up a drink, maybe?”

“Why didn’t you tell me all this in the beginning?” demanded Griffin. “How was I supposed to know…?”

“You aren’t supposed to know anything,” Shayne told him disgustedly. “Come on Ralph, and Tim.” Still holding firmly to Larson’s arm he went toward the door that was sagging inward on its hinges, and Griffin moved aside uncertainly to let him pass.

In the hallway, Shayne nodded to the three men there who had drawn back in a huddle and told them, “We should all go downstairs and wait for the arrival of the Homicide Squad. They will want statements from all of you, but in the meantime I advise you to keep quiet. Mr. Ames is dead,” he went on with a shrug of his shoulders. “We can’t do anything for him up here.” He went toward the head of the stairs with Ralph wavering along beside him and Rourke on the other side of the reporter.

After a moment’s hesitation the three men followed along behind them, and Officer Griffin appeared in the doorway of Ames’ study to announce loudly, “I’ll stay on guard here to see that nothing’s disturbed. None of you are to leave the premises, do you understand?”

None of them bothered to reply to him as they went down the stairs. Suddenly, Michael Shayne had assumed control of the situation and was tacitly accepted as the one in authority despite his lack of uniform or badge.

Downstairs the silver tray, broken glasses and two bottles still lay on the floor where they had fallen. Shayne stopped beside them and looked down at the two corked bottles. One was Scotch and one was bourbon. The white-coated Puerto Rican knelt beside the tray and began picking up pieces of glass. Rourke went on across the room with Larson toward a settee, and the other two men hesitated at the foot of the stairs behind Shayne.

Shayne asked the houseman, “What’s your name?”

“Alfred, sir.”

“As soon as you pick up the bigger pieces of glass, do you suppose you could find us some fresh ones in the kitchen… with some ice?”

Looking past him at the two men to whom he hadn’t been introduced and to whom he hadn’t spoken previously, Shayne went on pleasantly, “I don’t see any reason we should stand on ceremony. We’ll all have to give statements to the police when they arrive, but I don’t think a drink will hurt any of us. I’m Michael Shayne, by the way.”

One of the men stepped forward with hand outstretched. He was tall and in his forties, with a deeply lined face and an engagingly diffident smile. He said, “I felt I recognized you when you sprinted past me while I was lying on the floor a few minutes ago. I’ve seen your pictures in the papers, Mr. Shayne. I’m Mark Ames. Wesley’s brother.” His handshake was surprisingly warm and strong. “If I had reacted more effectively, my brother would still be alive,” he said ruefully. “But I was bowled over, you might say, and I was that, literally, when that young man burst into the room waving a pistol in his hand and with murder in his eye. I tried to stop him, but…” He shrugged expressively. “I wasn’t very good at football even in college.”

“I’m completely in the dark about all this,” the pudgy, round-faced man standing behind Mark Ames declared unhappily. The strong odor of whiskey came from him and his eyes were bloodshot behind rimless glasses which were settled firmly on his bulbous nose. “I was upstairs resting in my room waiting for Alfred to bring me a drink when I heard all this commotion downstairs and then in the hallway. A shocking affair. Disgraceful,” he told Shayne firmly. “Citizens shot down in cold blood in the privacy of their own homes. A commonplace in Miami, no doubt. Certainly it would not be countenanced in a civilized community. I am told you are a detective, Mr. Shayne. Who
is
that vicious young murderer across the room?”

Shayne said gravely, “His name is Ralph Larson. What’s yours, by the way?”

“This is Mr. Sutter, Shayne,” interposed Mark Ames quickly. “An attorney from New York City. He flew down this afternoon to consult Wesley on some legal matter and I’m afraid he’s gotten a poor idea of our mores here in Miami.”

“There have been murders committed in New York, I believe,” Shayne commented drily. He turned away as Alfred got to his feet with his burden of broken glass and scurried toward the rear, presumably in the direction of the kitchen.

The outer door opened and Patrolman Powers stepped inside. He looked around the living room and at the five men in some surprise to see them there, and announced loudly, “The Homicide Squad is on the way. Everyone is to stay put until they get here.”

“You stay down there, Powers, and keep an eye on them and see that they don’t get their heads together and make up any stories,” came Griffin’s voice booming down from the head of the stairs. “I’m standing guard at the scene of the crime to see that nothing is touched… the way it says in Regulations.”

Powers called back loudly, “Yes, sir. I’ll see to it.” He stood with his back against the door and his thumbs hooked inside his pistol-belt, and looked them over sternly. “Just take it easy the way Officer Griffin says,” he advised them. “That way, everything will go smooth and we won’t have any trouble.”

Shayne grinned at him and then crossed the wide room to the settee where Timothy Rourke was seated beside Larson. The younger man sat bolt upright and defiant. He asked bitterly, “What’s all this silly rigmarole about? I killed Ames, goddamnit. He deserved killing and I’m glad he’s dead. So why in hell don’t they put the handcuffs on me and take me off to jail?”

“There’s a certain protocol to be followed,” Shayne told him. “Take it easy. You’ll end up in jail all right. In the meantime, relax. This is probably the last drink you’ll have for a good long time,” he added as Alfred reentered the room stiffly carrying his silver tray with a pitcher of ice cubes and a carafe of water and an assortment of unbroken glasses on it, in addition to the two bottles of liquor which Alfred had retrieved unharmed from the floor.

Shayne beckoned to the houseman, and asked over his shoulder, “Scotch or bourbon, Ralph? And how do you like it?”

The young man shuddered and shook his head. “I couldn’t touch a drop. I think I’d vomit.” He hesitated with his young face working queerly. “I keep seeing him
sitting
there grinning at me,” he burst out. “I
wanted
to kill him. I
enjoyed
pulling the trigger. But now…” He shook his head dazedly and buried his face in his hands.

Michael Shayne took two cubes of ice from Alfred’s proffered pitcher and dropped one of them in each of two tall glasses. He lavishly poured bourbon in one glass and Scotch in the other, added a dollop of water to each and took one glass in each hand, waving Alfred on to the others. He handed the bourbon highball to Rourke who continued to sit beside Larson, and muttered obliquely, “Don’t take it so hard, Tim. You did your best, damn it.”

“None of that whispering,” said Powers sternly from his military stance in front of the door. “I guess it’s all right for all of you to have drinks, but there’s to be no private communications between suspects until you’ve each made your statements.”

Shayne shrugged and turned away from the two reporters with a glass of watered Scotch in his hand. On the other side of the room Mark Ames had refused a drink, but the New York attorney was eagerly pouring Scotch with a shaking hand into a tall glass containing two ice cubes. He filled it nearly to the top and set the bottle back on Alfred’s tray, and lifted the glass to his mouth with both hands gripping it tightly.

Shayne grimly watched him lower the contents by a good two inches before he took it away from his mouth, and he wondered whether Lawyer Sutter was going to still be sober enough to make a statement when Homicide arrived. Not that it mattered much, he told himself. Nothing that Sutter had to tell them could possibly change anything.

Then he heard the low, discreet whine of a carefully controlled siren from the distance on Biscayne Boulevard and knew they hadn’t much longer to wait before the efficient technicians from Will Gentry’s Homicide Squad took over.