Mike Shayne's Torrid Twelve Read online

  MIKE

  SHAYNE’S

  TORRID

  12

  Edited by LEO MARGULIES

  A DELL FIRST EDITION

  an original volume

  CONTENTS

  FOREWORD by Brett Halliday

  DEATH DIVES DEEP by Brett Halliday

  THE TOY-HEAD MAN by Franklin Gregory

  THE FIFTH ONE by D. E. Forbes

  THE RITES OF DEATH by Hal Ellson

  THE PATSY by Frank Kane

  WATER’S EDGE by Robert Bloch

  MOONFLOWER by Hope Field

  A HOOD IS BORN by Richard Deming

  THE RIGHT KIND OF A HOUSE by Henry Slesar

  THREE WIVES TOO MANY by Kenneth Fearing

  SUNDAY’S SLAUGHTER by Jonathan Craig

  THE MUSICAL DOLL by Helen Kasson

  FOREWORD

  by BRETT HALLIDAY

  The twelve stories in this volume have been carefully chosen by Leo Margulies, publisher and editor of the Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, as the best that appeared between its covers during the first four years of its publishing life… prior to 1960.

  I agree wholeheartedly with Leo’s selections, and thus I will go farther out on a limb and say that I consider them to be as fine as any published in an American magazine during that four-year period.

  There are stories here to satisfy every reading taste. If you like them tough, there’s “Sunday’s Slaughter” by Jonathan Craig and “The Patsy” by Frank Kane. If you’re one of those readers who normally turns up his nose at “women writers,” I warn you not to disregard “The Musical Doll” by Helen Kasson or “The Fifth One” by D. E. Forbes.

  “Three Wives Too Many” by Kenneth Fearing is a superb example of this noted writer’s fine craftsmanship, and “Death Dives Deep” I can modestly recommend as one of Mike Shayne’s most interesting personal adventures… one of which appears in every issue of the monthly magazine.

  In asking me to write this introduction to his collection, Leo Margulies insisted that I stick my neck all the way out and name my personal favorite.

  Fortunately, this is not difficult for me. My vote goes unreservedly to “A Hood Is Born” by Richard Deming. This is fine writing in anybody’s league. Richard Deming is a versatile and prolific writer whose name appears frequently in the top magazines, and on the covers of books. This story is quietly written and beautifully put together. It carries a terrific impact that will haunt your memory long after you put it aside. It is written with understanding and compassion around a theme that is as timely as the headline in today’s newspaper.

  So, Leo Margulies and I sincerely hope you’ll enjoy reading every story in this collection from the pages of the Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, and that it will serve to introduce those of you who are not already fans to the high caliber of fiction available to you each month in the magazine.

  DEATH DIVES DEEP

  by BRETT HALLIDAY

  Her name was Sandra—Sandra Ames. She was young, and she was beautiful. Black hair dropped to her shoulders, and unplucked black eyebrows arched above dark eyes that stared at Michael Shayne with calm speculation.

  The redhead approved of unplucked eyebrows. He liked the rest of Sandra Ames too. Only her mouth disturbed him. It was an attractive mouth, not too heavily lipsticked. But it was also a hungry mouth, and he wondered what the hunger was that twisted it so subtly as she spoke. She was young, she was beautiful, her clothes showed she had money and knew how to use it to enhance her loveliness. But she wanted something, wanted it fiercely, desperately.

  “Then you’ve no particular prejudice against accepting such a job?” Sandra Ames leaned forward a little in the chair beside Shayne’s desk. “A job where you have two employers, and must keep an eye on both, to see that one doesn’t try to double-cross the other?”

  The redhead leaned back, crossed his legs, and grinned at her. “No prejudice at all,” he said. “Umpires do it every day of the baseball season.”

  “Yes, that’s it.” She nodded. “You’d be a sort of umpire. But you’d have to be prepared to—well, perhaps to take action if one of the two parties did try to cheat the other.”

  “Okay, if the possibility is recognized and made absolutely clear from the beginning,” Michael Shayne told her. “Would you be one of my employers?”

  Sandra said without hesitation, “Yes, I am. You’ll hear from the other in about—let’s see, it’s five now. In about an hour.”

  The redhead put his hands behind his head. “Would the other party be named Captain Tod Tolliver by any chance?” he asked.

  Surprise flared in Sandra Ames’s eyes for an instant. “I’d rather not say yes or no,” she answered. But it was obvious that she had recognized the name. “You’ll still be here at six—maybe a little after?”

  “I’ll be here,” he assured her. He stood up as she rose, and held the door for her. It was just as well, he thought, that Lucy Hamilton was taking a week’s vacation, visiting a friend in New Orleans. Lucy would have misinterpreted the hunger that unconsciously expressed itself in the set of Sandra Ames’s lips. He himself had no romantic illusions on that score.

  She gave him a smile, not at all impersonal and for the barest instant he told himself she just possibly might be a little hungry that way too.

  “I feel sure I’ll be seeing you again soon, Mr. Shayne,” she said. “After the other person has had a chance to talk to you. Until then, good-by.”

  When she had gone, the redheaded detective went slowly back to his desk. He opened a drawer and took out a bottle of Coronet and a glass. He filled the glass to the brim. Then, after putting away the bottle, he took out of the same drawer a small cardboard box which had come in the afternoon mail, unregistered.

  From the cardboard box he took a Spanish gold piece, somewhat worn and tarnished, but still clearly showing the mint date, 1670. It had a satisfying weight in his hand and it was obviously genuine. With it there was a crudely penciled note.

  Dear Mr. Shayne: Please be in yr office abt 6 pm I may need yr help. There’s more where this came from.

  Capt. Tod Tolliver.

  Holding the Spanish gold piece, Shayne felt his pulse beat slightly faster. He knew that beneath the waters of Florida were many fortunes in pirate gold, but most of that submerged treasure was so deeply buried in sand and coral at unmarked spots along the coast that no one would ever find it. Simple deduction suggested that Captain Tod Tolliver—whoever he was—and Sandra Ames were engaged in a treasure hunt.

  But which of them was afraid of being double-crossed by the other?

  An hour later, and ten miles further up the Miami waterfront, two men waited in a dingy room above a waterfront restaurant. The smell of frying shrimps, strong and greasy, filled the room with an invisible fog.

  “By grab, I’m gettin’ fed up with this waiting,” the tall, blond man said, and yawned, lying back on an old Army cot.

  The short, plump man with black hair shuddered. “After three days of smelling nothing but fried shrimps, I can’t stand to look at the ocean,” he said. “Stand by your rig. The girl is just leaving. The old coot is going in his shack. He may make a call.”

  “Three days he ain’t made no call,” the other said. “Why should he make a call now?”

  “Who knows, Whitey?” The short man lifted binoculars to his eyes. Sitting in an old rocker just back from the window, he was invisible but could clearly see the old shack on a point of sand across the dirty water of the little cove.

  In the cove itself half a dozen boats were tied up at rotting wharves, and a lone fisherman in a rowboat with an outboard was put-putting in toward the wharf of the restaurant underneath them. This was a dingy backwash o
f the Miami waterfront life, where dimes were as important as dollars were a couple of miles away.

  “We found out about this New York dame and her syndicate from putting a tap on his wire, didn’t we?” Shorty argued after a moment.

  Through the glasses he watched the sleek convertible pull away from the old shack, sand spinning under its tires. Driving it was a girl, tall and slender, with raven black hair that came to her shoulders. She was wearing dark glasses. The car had a New York license plate.

  “Describe her to me again,” Whitey said, his eyes shining. “Big black eyes that got that burnin’ look in them, like she wants something real bad but ain’t ever been able to find it. Long black hair a man could twist in his fingers and—”

  “Knock it off,” Shorty grunted. “Pretty soon you can get back to that Ireneabelle cutie in the beauty shop you keep talking about. And when we get what we’re after you can take your pick of any dame in Miami. They’ll be stacked three deep, waiting for you.”

  “That’s for sure,” Whitey murmured, nodding in agreement. He sat up abruptly. “Listen, Shorty,” he said. “Where do we stand, anyway? I’m not so easy in my mind about this business of a New York syndicate approachin’ the old coot. We’ll be cut out yet. What I say is, let’s just grab him and get on my boat. We’ll go us a mile to sea and he’ll tell us what we want to know.”

  “Maybe. And maybe not. He’s a tough old rooster. He won’t crack easy. Besides, just his telling us won’t be enough. He’ll have to show us.”

  “He could draw us a map.”

  “And maybe fake it? Anyway, you miss a thing like that by a couple hundred feet and you may never find it if you live to be a hundred. We’ll grab him if we have to, but first I’m hoping we’ll get a break that will make grabbing him unnecessary.”

  Whitey rolled his eyes upward. “Treasure!” he sighed. “Sunken Spanish treasure! That’s what it’s gotta be, if it’s worth five million dollars! Old Cap’n Tolliver has sure as hell found the wreck of an old Spanish treasure ship—”

  “Shh!” Shorty leaned forward with the glasses. “He’s in the living room, picking up the phone. Maybe this is it, Whitey.”

  The box on the floor beside the cot gave a buzz. Whitey already had earphones on, and Shorty came over to stand beside him. Shorty turned one earphone outward and, heads pressed together like a pair of vultures, they listened. They heard the click of a phone lifted, then a voice. “Michael Shayne speaking.”

  “Mike Shayne, the detective?”

  “Right. Just who is this?”

  “You don’t know me, Mr. Shayne. I’m Captain Tod Tolliver. Did you receive something in the mail today?”

  “If you’re referring to a sample of antique Spanish metallurgy, yes.”

  Tolliver’s laugh was like a string of firecrackers going off. “That’s a cute way to describe it. I sent it. To get you interested.”

  “I’m interested, Captain Tolliver.”

  “There’s more where that sample came from, Mr. Shayne. If you want to know the details, I’ll come to see you—ten o’clock tonight. I want to hire you to help me on a little job.”

  “We’ll talk about that when I see you. I’ll be waiting for you at ten o’clock.” Shayne’s voice was crisp.

  With a double click, the line went dead. Whitey took off the earphones.

  “Now what does that get us?” he grumbled. “Now he’s ringing in this Mike Shayne, the private eye. From what I’ve heard he’s tough as raw leather, not afraid of cops or crooks.”

  “Luckily I’ve got brains enough for both of us,” Shorty said. “This is the break we’ve been waiting for. Come on, we’ll see Ireneabelle, that beauty-parlor cutie of yours. We’ve got a little business with her.”

  2

  Michael Shayne lounged in his worn leather armchair, occasionally sipping brandy, and flipping the Spanish gold piece in the air, catching it as it came down. It was nine-thirty, not yet time for Captain Tod Tolliver to arrive. In the intervening hours he had learned a little about the captain, but not much. Tolliver was a retired shrimp fisherman who lived on a small income left him ten years before by an uncle in New England. He’d never been mixed up in anything unsavory. That was all.

  Abruptly the redhead’s apartment buzzer whirred. Shayne put the gold piece away and stood up. Tolliver was early.

  With long strides the redhead crossed to the door. A small, plump man with thinning black hair stood there. He wore a pair of shiny blue pants, an old blue jacket with brass buttons, and held a battered yachting cap marked Captain in his hand.

  “Captain Tolliver?”

  “Coming aboard, Mr. Shayne,” the little man said heartily. His voice sounded younger than it had on the phone. “I figgered maybe ten o’clock would be a bit late, so I caught the first tide and came early.”

  He stepped in and looked around as Shayne closed the door.

  “Drink?” the redhead asked.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” the small man agreed.

  Shayne was reaching for the bottle and glasses when the buzzer sounded again. “I’ll see who it is,” he said, and opened the door.

  Standing framed in the doorway was a tall man with red hair—a man who might, at a distance, be mistaken for Michael Shayne by someone who didn’t know the detective well.

  He had a gun in his hand. “All right, Shayne,” he said. “Put ’em up and keep quiet.”

  Slowly Shayne raised his hands. The tall man’s eyes followed them. Shayne brought up his knee sharply, and caught the other’s gun hand. The hand flew up and the gun flew out of it. The visitor gave a grunt of pain. Shayne was reaching for him when the top five floors of the building fell on his head.

  “Damn it, Whitey,” Shorty grumbled, putting the blackjack back into his pocket and looking down at the crumpled figure on the floor. “He almost took you, and you with a gun on him! I told you this shamus lad was tough. Lucky I was right in back of him. Now come on, get out that adhesive tape. We got half an hour to get set before Tolliver gets here.”

  Michael Shayne opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the electric clock on his bureau. It said nine fifty-five. He turned his head painfully, knowing he’d been sapped from behind by the short man posing as Captain Tod Tolliver. They’d taped his ankles together, taped his wrists behind his back, slapped tape over his mouth, and dumped him on his bed.

  Now they were standing in front of the mirrored bathroom door. The tall man had shucked the nondescript clothes he’d been wearing and was attired in one of the private detective’s Palm Beach suits. He was admiring himself while his short companion fussed with the open-necked shirt they had taken from Shayne’s wardrobe. “That’s it, Whitey!” he said. “Why, hell, you’re a regular man of distinction now.”

  The levity went out of his voice. “Now listen carefully. Tolliver’ll be here in a minute. If he wants a bodyguard, you’re it. If he doesn’t, you suggest it.”

  “You just leave it to me,” the other grinned. “You got brains, all right, putting a tap on th’ captain’s phone like you did. Now he’ll take us right where we want to go. Hey!” He whirled. Shayne closed his eyes fast, but Whitey had seen him in the mirror. “Big Boy is awake!”

  “He is, is he?” Shorty strode over and slapped the detective hard with his open hand. “Quit faking, shamus. We know you’re awake.”

  Shayne opened his eyes and looked up at Shorty. Shorty nodded with satisfaction.

  “You ain’t hurt bad,” he said. “Whether you get hurt worse depends on how you behave.”

  Whitey slipped a five-inch switchblade knife from his pocket and snapped it open suggestively. “Why should we fool around? Lemme slip him Little Joe here and he won’t bother us none—now or ever.”

  “I said wait! No use killing if we don’t have to. We’ll see how things go. Now get out there. I’ll wait in here with the door open, so I can listen. And you’d better lemme have the knife—just in case.”

  Whitey handed over the knife and went
out into the other room. Shorty pulled up a chair beside the bed, snapped out the light, closed the door except for a crack, and sat down beside Shayne.

  “All right, shamus,” he said. “Play it smart and nothing worse will happen to you. All we want is a little information from Tolliver. You can’t make any noise—but when he comes, don’t even try.”

  He touched the redhead’s throat with the point of the knife and chuckled.

  There was nothing to say, and Shayne said it. In the other room he could hear Whitey pouring a drink. Beside him Shorty’s breathing was slow and deep.

  A minute passed. Two. Then the buzzer shrilled. They heard Whitey open the door.

  “Mr. Shayne?” a voice asked. “I’m Captain Tod Tolliver.”

  “Come in, Cap’n, I’ve been expectin’ you.” The door shut. A chair scuffed. Springs squeaked. “Drink, Cap’n?”

  “Not for me, thanks. I don’t drink when I got navigatin’ to do. And I reckon I’ve got some important navigatin’ ahead of me tonight.”

  “Goin’ after th’ treasure, Cap’n?”

  Tolliver chuckled. “Well, mebbe I’m going after treasure tonight. I’m not saying yes, I’m not saying no.”

  “That’s right, Cap’n, play it safe,” Whitey agreed. “I’m not meanin’ to be inquisitive. But what was it you wanted to see me about?”

  “I need some help from an honest detective,” Captain Tod Tolliver said bluntly. “Judgin’ from everything I heard about you, you’re tough and you’re honest.”

  “Thank you, Cap’n, I take that right kindly.”

  “Now it’s like this,” Captain Tolliver said. “I got a big deal in hand and I need somebody to help look after my interest, so—” He paused, as if his attention had been diverted. “Say,” he continued after a moment, “Mr. Shayne, that’s a mighty nice shirt you got on.”

  “Kind of like it myself,” Whitey said.