Read Online Pay-Off in Blood by Brett Halliday - Free Book Online Page B

that this was a lot of female… that if she gave herself to a man she’d give every bit of herself. With no reservations.
    He released his grip on her shoulders and stepped back from her, knelt down in front of the metal strongbox and studied it carefully without touching it. It had a hinged top like a bank safe-deposit box, and a strong, well-made lock in front that would require a small flat key to open it. There was no indication that it had been forced open. He asked Belle over his shoulder, “Did you have a key to this?”
    “Oh, no. Doctor had the only key… so far as I ever knew. He carried it on his car key-ring… along with his office and house-key.”
    Shayne rocked back on his heels and looked up into her face with narrowed eyes. “Let me get this straight… fast. You were at home and heard on TV that your employer had been murdered. He had previously instructed you to take possession of this locked box and dispose of it with contents intact if anything happened to him?”
    Belle Jackson nodded wordlessly when he paused. Her face was composed again, though tears rolled in a stream down both cheeks.
    “So you hurried down here,” said Shayne dispassionately, “unlocked the outer door with your own key and came in… to find the box lying on the floor, opened and empty?”
    “Yes. I…” She paused, biting her full lips and darting a glance aside at Timothy Rourke . “And then you slammed through the door and knocked me down. If you’re really a detective like Mr. Rourke says…”
    “All right,” said Shayne wearily, getting to his feet. “I guess we were all too late. Tim. Call the police. Get Painter if he’s back yet. Tell him to get over here. You and Miss Jackson wait, and don’t touch anything until they get here. Tell them the exact truth except about me. Better just say you drove by the office out of curiosity or something and saw a light. When you investigated, Miss Jackson opened the door and told you about the box.”
    “Where’ll you be?”
    “Home and in bed… I hope and sincerely trust.” He sidled past them toward the door. “Miss Jackson. It’s been a pleasure meeting you, and next time we roll on the floor together I hope it’ll be because we both want to.”
    He went out into the reception room fast, and through the outside door into the night, hurried down the flagged walk and around the corner where their cars were parked.
    Shayne got in his own car, and pulled past Rourke’s shabby coupé, and stepped hard on the accelerator across the Causeway and south on Biscayne Boulevard to Southeast First Avenue, where he turned west across Second Street to the hotel garage where he parked the sedan for the second time that night.
    He walked back up the street with dragging footsteps to the lobby and went in. Only a few lights were lit, and it looked completely deserted except for Pete behind the desk.
    Michael Shayne was headed past him toward the waiting elevator with no more than a glance and a good-night nod, when Pete’s sibilant voice slowed him to a halt.
    “Hey, Mr. Shayne?”
    He swung his head toward the desk with a weary scowl. “Not tonight, Pete. This time I’m really rolling in the hay, and I don’t care who wants me…”
    “Happens we want you, Mister.”
    The curt voice came from his left, close at hand, and Shayne swung about in surprise to blink at the two goons who had materialized from the shadowed lobby to stand uncompromisingly between him and the elevator.
    They were two of a kind. Cut from the same pattern which Shayne knew so well. Medium height and slender, and about thirty. With thin, hawk-like faces that looked as though they saw little sunlight, wearing sharp suits and highly polished patent leather shoes.
    They both held their right hands pressed close to their sides, and in each right hand was a short- barrelled , big- calibre double-action revolver pointed at his belly.
    He knew that his body hid the guns from Pete’s sight, and the