Pay-Off in Blood Read Online Free PDF

in his thinking, Shayne sighed and reached out and turned on the bedside light. God! the bed felt good. He was dead for sleep.
    He threw back the covers and swung his legs over the edge, got a fresh undershirt and shorts from the bureau and put them on. He picked up his slacks from the floor where he had shed them only a few minutes before on his way to bed, grabbed a fresh sport shirt and finished dressing fast.
    The Miami Beach address meant that Peter Painter was in charge. That meant that Shayne was going to have a lot of questions to answer when he showed up on the murder scene. The longer he delayed making his appearance, the worse it would be.
    He went out of the apartment hurriedly, and down in the elevator. Pete was alone in the lobby behind the desk. He looked curiously at the detective and said, “Hey, Mr. Shayne. I thought you was bedded down for the night. When you came in at eight o’clock, you said that all hell couldn’t pull you out of your room tonight.”
    “That’s what I thought.” Shayne broke his stride to pause momently at the desk. He recalled, now, that he and Ambrose had gone down the stairway when they left because the doctor’s car was parked on the side street, and that he had returned the same way. Thus, Pete was not aware that he had already been out once since coming in at eight. It might be a good idea to keep it that way.
    He said, “At least I grabbed a couple of hours, Pete. Any calls come for me, I’m over on the Beach consorting with a dead man.”
    “Sure, Mr. Shayne.” Pete’s jaw dropped as he watched the rangy redhead hurry out the front door.
    Shayne got his car from the hotel garage where he had carefully parked it for the night, earlier, and gunned it to the Boulevard and then north toward the Causeway to Miami Beach.
    He found Dr. Ambrose’s house on a quiet side street in one of the older residential sections of Miami Beach without difficulty. There were several police cars parked along the street, and an ambulance was backed into the driveway with spotlights brilliantly lighting the doctor’s sedan that stood directly in front of a closed double garage beside a neat, white stucco house.
    Shayne pulled into the curb behind the police cars and got out. He walked up the sidewalk toward the driveway, and encountered a uniformed policeman who was shunting curious householders from up and down the street away from the scene.
    Shayne stopped beside the harassed policeman and asked, “Has Tim Rourke got here yet?”
    “That Miami reporter? Yeh . You got business with him?”
    Shayne said, “More with Chief Painter, I guess. He here, too?”
    “Sure. What kind of business, Mister? There’s been a murder committed, you know.”
    Shayne said, “I know.” He started down the drive toward the group of men on the lawn at the left side of the doctor’s sedan.
    The policeman called out, “Hey, you! Wait. I didn’t say you could…”
    Shayne kept on walking toward the group. A tall, lanky figure standing in the background and peering over the heads of some others, turned and saw him approaching. Timothy Rourke moved back swiftly and exclaimed, “Mike! What happened with you and the doc?”
    “Just what you set up,” said Shayne irritably. “Tell you about it later. What’s the dope?”
    “Just got here myself.” The reporter shook his head despondently. “But they say it looks like he was ambushed here when he drove up. Took a bullet in his heart when he got out of his car to open the garage.”
    “When?” Shayne demanded.
    “I don’t know that yet. I just got here…”
    Another, shorter, figure detached itself from the group and moved toward them. Chief of Detectives Peter Painter was a slender man who appeared to bounce on the balls of his feet as he walked. He was immaculately dressed, as always, and the pencil-line of his mustache was very black against his upper lip in the glare of the ambulance floodlights. He said, “ Rourke … and Mike Shayne. What