The Private Practice of Michael Shayne (7 page)

“I’m Doctor Shayne,” the detective told her brusquely. “Which is Miss Marco’s room?”

The maid stopped chewing. Her jaw sagged a trifle as she regarded him with dull bovine eyes.

“This here’s her room.” She indicated a closed door behind her. “But Mr. Marco said—”

“Mr. Marco would fire you like that if you kept the doctor away from his daughter.”

Shayne snapped his fingers to indicate the speed with which she would be discharged. He moved quickly to the door, but the maid got to her feet to intercept him. A key hung from a piece of white tape around her neck, and she held it up in front of Shayne, saying placidly, “Wait, and I’ll unlock the door.”

Shayne stood back to let her unlock the door, then pushed past her into the darkened bedroom, closing the door behind him, saying, “I don’t want to be disturbed while I’m diagnosing the case.”

He looked at the bed, saw the covers were thrown back. It was empty. He swiftly crossed the room to a closed door and rapped on it, then turned the knob and opened it.

It was a bathroom, also empty.

A clothes closet offered the only other place of concealment. He pulled the door open, calling Marsha’s name, then pressed the dresses and coats back on their hangers to assure himself the girl wasn’t hiding against the wall.

Emerging from the closet, he started toward the door. His eyes were wary, anxious. He stopped with his hand inches from the knob, wheeled and went swiftly to the shaded windows near the head of the bed.

The end of a twisted bedsheet was knotted to the caster and led out the center window. He lifted the shade and found the screen swinging loose on hinges. He thrust his head out and looked down at two twisted sheets tied together and almost touching the ground.

He lowered the shade, turned to look around the room uncertainly, then started talking in a low persuasive voice, “Now, Miss Marco, you mustn’t adopt that attitude. I can’t diagnose your case unless you’re entirely frank with me,” all the while crossing to a littered vanity where a note lay beneath a comb. He picked it up and read:

“I can’t stand this. I’d rather be dead. I’m going where you’ll never see me again.

“MARSHA.”

He folded the note, slipped it into the side pocket of his jacket. Then he explored the drawers of the vanity, lifting his voice a trifle so it would carry across the empty room to the hallway outside.

“I understand, Miss Marco. I’m inclined to feel that your case isn’t quite as serious as Doctor Holcomb intimated. I’ll have to ask you a few more questions.”

He continued a rambling, low-toned conversation, interspersed with frequent pauses, while he carefully rummaged through the room, wondering irritably where the devil a girl like Marsha Marco would keep her handkerchiefs hidden.

He passed over a pink satin folder in the long center drawer at first, but making a second round, he lifted the top and found layers of folded handkerchiefs neatly arrayed, with a couple of tiny sachet bags nestled among them.

He studied each one dubiously, and finally picked up a frilly square of sheer linen that looked an exact duplicate of the one he had taken from Grange’s lifeless fingers. Closing his eyes, he sniffed the delicate fragrance, trying to remember the scent of the other handkerchief, realizing with deep disgust that he was probably the poorest connoisseur of perfume in the world.

He had a hunch that it was the same perfume, but it was no more than a hunch.

A hard lump beneath the handkerchief folder attracted his attention. Lifting the holder, he stared down at a .32 automatic. He took it up and smelled the muzzle, getting only an odor of oil which indicated the pistol had been cleaned since last being fired.

He slid the automatic and handkerchief into his jacket pocket, closed the folder and replaced it, moved to the center of the room where he stood in scowling indecision for a moment, then stepped noiselessly to the clothes closet where he looked through the hangers until he found a light silk jacket. On a shelf was a small felt toque to match.

He unbuttoned his shirt and slid those two articles of Marsha’s wearing apparel down in the front, distributing them so they would not bulge, then went toward the door, saying aloud, “I understand perfectly, Miss Marco. I’ll have a consultation with Doctor Holcomb, and I’m sure you’ll begin to respond to treatment at once.”

He opened the door as he finished the sentence, turned to block the entrance with his body and said, “Good day, Miss Marco,” and closed the door firmly behind him.

The maid was standing close to the door, twiddling the key, a curious look of uncertainty on her broad, stupid face.

“Is she—she’s awake, huh?”

“Partially.” Shayne watched her alertly from beneath drooping eyelids. “She’s not quite herself, I’d say. Don’t disturb her until she calls.”

“Yessir.” The maid was obviously relieved.

As Shayne turned away, he heard the click of a key in the lock behind him.

He had to restrain himself to keep from taking the stairs two at a time, holding his body erect and dignified as be imagined a physician would do. He drew a deep sigh of relief when he reached the front door without encountering the housekeeper again.

SHAYNE DROVE slowly away from the Marco residence. He unbuttoned his shirt and transferred the articles of clothing to the side pocket of his car, tossing the automatic in after them.

At Ocean Drive, he turned to the left and drove directly to Marco’s Seaside Casino, turning in the curving driveway and parking his roadster at the curb directly behind a glittering limousine.

Tall royal palms with trunks like columns of gray concrete shaded the gambling casino. Its appearance was desolate by daylight. There was no uniformed and beplumed doorman on duty, and the grilled front doors stood open.

Shayne heard the voices of cleaning women drifting out from rear rooms as he strode down the long hall to the stairway and went up to the second floor. A door directly in front of him came open as he reached the top, and he was confronted by the tall white-haired man who had taken Marsha Marco out of her father’s office last night.

His crafty eyes glittered as he recognized Michael Shayne, and he asked in a soft voice, “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Shayne said, “Right here for the moment, Whitey. When did you get out of Raiford?”

“Last month, if it’s any of your damned business.”

“It isn’t,” Shayne conceded mildly. “Marco got to the parole board, eh? Do they know you’ve got your old job back here at the casino?”

“No. They got crazy rules about such things. You know how it is.”

Shayne said, “Yeh, I know. They’d bounce you right back to Raiford if they knew you were working in a gambling joint, wouldn’t they?”

Panic flickered in Whitey’s eyes. “They don’t know, see? And I don’t think nobody’s going to tell ’em.”

“Maybe not,” Shayne agreed carelessly. “What did you do after taking Marsha Marco home last night?”

“I didn’t—say, what the hell are you trying to find out?”

“ Just that.”

Shayne turned and walked down the hall to Marco’s private office, jerked the door open and found the Miami Beach councilman leaning over a litter of papers and account books on his desk.

Marco said over his shoulder, “Is that you, Whitey? We’ve got to do something about that second roulette table. It got jammed up last night.”

“Paid off to some of the suckers, eh?” Shayne said in a tone of shocked condolence. “You’ll certainly have to do something about that.”

John Marco swung his heavy body sidewise in the swivel chair and stared at the detective through opaque blue eyes.

“So, it’s you again,” his little, pursed mouth snarled. Shayne nodded amiably and moved past the desk to drop his long body into a leather and chromium chair. “It’s me—horning in where I’m not wanted.”

“How’d you beat that Grange rap?”

Shayne grinned.

“Not your fault that I did. You didn’t skip the chance to put in your two-bits’ worth.”

Marco pulled out his cheeks.

“It was my civic duty to give the information in my possession to the authorities.”

Shayne laughed harshly and lit a cigarette.

“You’ve always been a heel, Marco. Getting yourself elected to the City Council hasn’t changed you. You’ve always hated my guts, and I consider it a compliment. But you’re getting too damned big for your pants. You shouldn’t have tried to hang a frame on me last night. I would have let you alone if you hadn’t been so goddam’ dumb.”

“What do I care whether you leave me alone or not? Get out of my office unless you’ve got something to say.”

Shayne leaned back comfortably and puffed on his cigarette.

“I’ve got things to say,” he drawled. “Things you’ll be listening to after I start talking.”

“Start then.” Marco waved a pudgy hand toward the papers in front of him. “I have work to do.”

“I’ll take your mind off that in a hurry,” Shayne promised. “What would it be worth to you to know where your daughter is?”

“Marsha? You’re crazy. She’s at home.”

“Locked in her room,” Shayne amplified. “That’s what you think, Marco. Guess again.”

For a moment, Marco’s cold blue eyes studied the detective. Shayne returned his gaze serenely. With an impatient exclamation Marco lifted the telephone on his desk and called a local number.

“If you’re calling your house,” Shayne suggested, “ask the housekeeper—”

Marco silenced him with a wave of his fat hand. Shayne subsided to silence and waited impassively while Marco carried on a brief conversation over the telephone. He hung up, saying triumphantly, “I knew better than to fall for a stall like. that. Marsha’s right in her room where she should be.”

Shayne nodded happily.

“With the door locked on the outside and a bigchested bohunk on guard. Sure. But you should have asked the housekeeper about Doctor Shayne who just visited the patient.”

Fear leaped into Marco’s cold blue eyes, crawled down his puffy cheeks and brought a drooling slobber to his rosebud mouth.

“You haven’t—goddam you, Shayne, what are you up to?”

“I’m putting the heat on,” Shayne told him in a flat, remote tone. “When you call your house back, tell them not to put too much trust in locked doors. Tell them to look in the bedroom—and out the window where Marsha crawled down a sheet.”

Marco’s face turned the color of an under-ripe orange. He lifted the telephone again and called his home. This time his voice was strident. He spoke harshly, gripping the receiver in a trembling hand while beads of sweat formed on his forehead and made rivulets down his cheeks.

Shayne leaned back and expelled smoke lingeringly toward the ceiling. From an open east window the sluff-sluff of waves upon the beach came in to mingle with John Marco’s labored breathing.

He stiffened in his chair as words came over the telephone. He asked hoarsely, “But you’re sure she was there when the man left, eh? About twenty minutes ago? I see. No! Don’t do anything. Don’t say a word to anyone.” He slowly replaced the receiver and stared at Shayne thoughtfully.

“You can’t get away with a snatch. That’s one thing even you can’t get away with. Sit right where you are until I can call the police.”

Shayne said, “Gladly, but aren’t you going off half-cocked? This isn’t any snatch. I didn’t carry the girl piggy-back down the sheet. I haven’t seen her since I left her room.”

“But you know where she is. You got in there by claiming to be a doctor and you talked her into beating it. You told her where to go to hide out.”

“Maybe. What of it? She’s twenty-one. Maybe she’s in love with me. You can’t make a kidnaping out of that. You can’t lock a girl up to keep her quiet.”

Panic showed in Marco’s eyes.

“What did she spout off about? You can’t pay any attention to her. She was raving—hysterical—”

“And had some very interesting information,” Shayne interrupted mockingly.

Marco’s tongue came out to wet his lips. “What do you want, Shayne?”

The red-headed detective flicked cigarette ashes on the thick carpet.

“What every man wants—money. I don’t make mine as easy as you do—with wired wheels and loaded dice.”

“And that’s extortion,” Marco pointed out triumphantly. “Whether you snatched her or not, you admit you’re holding her for ransom.”

“Don’t be a damned fool. I’m not holding the girl. I’m offering my services as a private detective to find your daughter and see that she returns safely to your loving arms. You can’t turn that into extortion. Until you retain me—with a nice fat retainer—I’m not obliged to turn my hand to help you get her back.”

“You can’t get away with it,” Marco shrilled. “Maybe the police won’t hold you. I don’t have to call the police to handle you.”

He jabbed vindictively at the button on his desk. Shayne lit another cigarette from the butt of the one he had just finished.

The side door came open to admit Whitey and the pallid-faced youth who had tried to stop him from coming upstairs last night.

Whitey’s right hand was bunched in his coat pocket and the youth’s hand was suggestively near a flat bulge just in front of his left armpit.

“You want us to take this guy, boss?” Whitey asked hopefully.

“Work him over,” Marco snarled. “Take him into the back room and stomp his guts out. Call me when he’s worked over to where he’s ready to talk.”

Shayne stood up.

“You’re making a bad mistake,” he told Marco mildly. “I figured I might be detained here and I told Marsha what to do if I didn’t meet her in half an hour. I’m the only man on God’s earth that can keep her from—”

“Shut up,” Whitey snapped. His fist came out of his pocket holding a blunt .38. “C’mon, kid, let’s—”

“No. Wait.”

Marco’s shuddery voice stopped them. His eyes were wide, tinged yellowish with fear.

Shayne got up and strolled toward the door.

“Be thinking it over,” he adjured pleasantly as he passed Marco’s desk. “I’m easy to get along with—if you treat me right. I’ll be at my hotel for the next few hours.”

He sauntered out and closed the door, went downstairs unhurriedly and out to his car and drove northward on the shore drive.