Killers from the Keys Read Online Free PDF Page A

“Think you can?”
    “It’s pretty vague, sir.”
    “Do what you can. And get out a departmental memo. Every known hood from the Midwest to be pulled in fast and grilled. Throw a charge at any one with any hint of Syndicate connections.”
    “We keep a pretty close file, Chief,” Jackson began diffidently, “and I don’t recall…”
    “I don’t care what you recall. Keep a closer track. If the Syndicate thinks it can send hired gunmen to Miami, it’s up to us to show them different. Get going.”
    Jackson said, “Right away,” and faded out through the side door.
    “Now then, Mike,” Gentry said heavily. “Give me the whole story. If you really want to protect your client, you know we’re in a position to do a hell of a lot better job of that than you are.”
    “I wish it was that easy, Will,” Shayne told him honestly. “I’d put him right into your hands for protective custody if I could… even though it meant violating a confidence by doing so. All I know is what his wife told me this afternoon. His name is Renshaw and he phoned her three days ago from Miami saying he was in hiding here under the assumed name of Fred Tucker.”
    He went on to give Gentry the gist of what Mrs. Renshaw had told him, holding back only the information he had received from the young dancer from the Florida Keys. In telling it, he managed to give the impression that the vague descriptions he had given Gentry had come from Renshaw’s wife, and he ended by spreading his hands wide and saying honestly, “That’s everything the woman could tell me, Will. You can see why I came to you for help.”
    “You always do, don’t you?” Gentry’s good humor had returned. “How else would you collect those fat fees you’ve been banking for years?”
    Shayne shook his head sadly. “I don’t see a fat fee in this one.”
    “So that’s why you toss it in my lap,” Gentry contradicted himself cheerfully. Then he became businesslike again. “You got any leads at all where this Renshaw is hiding out?”
    Shayne hesitated, wondering suddenly just how honest he was in stating he didn’t see any fat fee in the case. How much, actually, did he believe of Sloe Burn’s story about her Freddie Tucker who was loaded with money to the extent of proposing that they take off for some deserted island together? According to Mrs. Renshaw, her husband must be pretty well strapped; yet Sloe Burn had lightly tossed off the statement that Fred Tucker had given her a hundred dollars on occasion. There was some discrepancy here, and yet… it almost had to be the same Fred Tucker.
    He told Gentry, “His wife swears that he didn’t give her a single clue over the telephone that would help locate him,” and salved his conscience for withholding the entire truth by telling himself that he was likely to learn a lot more by going around to the Bright Spot by himself than by having a squad of police officers descend on the place and start asking questions.
    Oddly enough, Will Gentry himself encouraged this decision a moment later by saying reflectively, “You’ve changed, Mike.”
    “In what way?”
    “A few years ago,” rumbled Gentry, “you wouldn’t have been sitting in my office on your dead ass waiting for me to handle a thing like this for you. You always boasted that you had your own ways and methods for getting information or locating a missing man in the city, and you laughed at me because I had to go by the rules and stay within legal limits.”
    “I was younger then,” Shayne parried uncomfortably.
    “Nuts. You were hungrier.” Gentry regarded him benevolently over the smouldering end of his cigar. “I had more respect for you then, goddamit. You weren’t afraid to stick your neck out, and by God, you did get results with your methods that I couldn’t get with all the manpower I had under me. You’re worried about this little Renshaw getting gunned down by a couple of Chicago hoods, but you aren’t worried enough, by God,