Shoot to Kill Read Online Free PDF

and a left turn to draw into the curb at the side entrance to his hotel on the north bank of the Miami River where he had maintained a second-floor bachelor apartment since either of them had known him.
    They got out and went in a side door and up a single flight of stairs that by-passed the lobby, and past the elevators to a door which opened into the shabby suite which both his visitors knew so well.
    Entering in front of them, Shayne switched on the ceiling light with a wall switch and tossed his hat on a rack beside the door in passing. He headed straight for the kitchen on the right, saying, “Set out the bottles, Tim, and I’ll get a pitcher of ice. You want Benedictine to settle those champagne cocktails, Lucy?”
    “I don’t want to settle them,” she protested. “What a horrible thought Can’t I have a C and C instead?”
    “Now what in hell,” asked Rourke wonderingly, “is a C and C? I’ve heard of B and B’s, but…”
    “A C and C is Michael’s own private receipt… for a sidecar when he hasn’t any lemons. And he never does.”
    “Cognac and Cointreau,” guessed Rourke, going toward the liquor cabinet on the wall near the kitchen door. “So that’s what he plies his women with? Lucy, I would never have suspected…”
    The telephone on the center table in the living room interrupted him. Both he and Lucy turned to look at it accusingly. Neither of them did anything constructive and it kept on ringing until Shayne came in from the kitchen with a tray that had a pitcher of ice cubes and various sized glasses.
    The telephone continued to ring while he set the tray on the table beside it. He picked it up and said, “Mike Shayne,” into the mouthpiece.
    A woman’s voice came leaping over the wire, shrill with fright and hysteria: “Mr. Shayne! You’ve got to stop Ralph. He’s got a gun and he’s going to kill Mr. Ames.”
    “Is that Mrs. Larson?”
    “Yes. Of course. Didn’t you hear me? Don’t you understand? Ralph is like a raving maniac. He’s on his way to the Ames house now. You’ve got to stop him.”
    “Have you called the police?”
    “The police? No. I don’t want him arrested. Can’t you hurry and stop him?”
    “Where does Ames live?”
    “It’s Northeast One-Hundred and Twentieth Street. Near the Bay. I don’t know the street number, but…”
    Shayne said, “I’m on my way.” He dropped the instrument on its prongs and whirled to face the other two who were standing in the center of the room looking at him with open mouths.
    “Call the cops, Lucy. Emergency. Get a radio car out to the Wesley Ames residence on Northeast Hundred and Twentieth Street near the bayshore. Ralph Larson is on his way out there with a gun and he’s got a hell of a head start on us. Come on, Tim.”
    He was trotting toward the door as he ended, and he jerked it open and went out hatless. Timothy Rourke was close behind him as he pounded down the hallway to the stairs and down to the side entrance. He ran around to the driver’s seat of his parked car and the reporter slid in beside him as he turned on the ignition. He grimly made a screaming U-turn in front of oncoming traffic, made a sweeping right turn on a yellow light at the first intersection, and gunned the heavy car viciously to catch a green light at the Boulevard and straighten out northward on the long run to 120th Street.
    Timothy Rourke sat tensely beside him, leaning forward with both hands clasped over his knees, his lips moving in a mumbled prayer while Shayne picked holes in the traffic, weaving from the inner lane to the center and outside, using his horn angrily and alternating with brakes and accelerator to hit the traffic lights as they changed color up the Boulevard.
    “You don’t have to get there in nothing flat,” muttered Rourke plaintively. “Better if we make it all in one piece. Lucy will have called the police. If there’s a patrol car cruising nearby they’ll be in time to stop the fool.”
    “If