Shoot to Kill Read Online Free PDF Page B

there’s a car close,” Shayne agreed grimly. “If not he’ll practically be there by this time. He was halfway there before we started.”
    “But he won’t be making eighty through traffic the way you are. Goddamn it, Mike.” Rourke shuddered and closed his eyes as the redhead cut in front of a car on his left and slid through a hole that should have taken the paint off both sides of his car but somehow didn’t.
    “Keep your eyes closed,” Shayne advised him cheerfully. “That’s Seventy-Ninth ahead. If I can hit that light…”
    He did hit it a moment after it changed to red, but side traffic hadn’t begun to move and he went through the intersection unscathed. Traffic was thinner north of Seventy-Ninth, and Rourke forced himself to relax and he asked wonderingly, “What in hell happened to trigger Ralph off tonight? I thought you had it all set with Dorothy…”
    “I thought so too. She didn’t say over the phone. Just that he had a gun and was on his way to kill Ames. Goddamn woman probably changed her mind,” he grated. “Threw it in his face or something. Know what kind of car Ralph drives?”
    “N-no. Blue with a white top, I think. One of the new compacts. I can’t tell one from another.”
    They passed 110th Street doing eighty-five and Shayne took his foot off the gas and said, “We’ll know soon enough. If the cops are already there and got him, let me handle it, Tim. Jail is the best place for him until he cools off.”
    He touched the accelerator lightly again to maintain a speed of forty as he approached 120th, braked sharply and swung to the right on a two-lane street that dead-ended against the western shore of Biscayne Bay a few blocks ahead. There were no tail-lights ahead of them. Scattered houses were lighted on either side of the street, large estates that appeared calm and peaceful at this early evening hour.
    “I think it’s on the end at the right.” Rourke was sitting erect scanning the houses as they passed. “I was here at a party once several years ago. I remember there’s a stone wall and wide entrance gates.”
    The last house on the right was a large mansion at the end of a short drive through an arched gateway behind a high stone wall. The driveway and a large paved parking area in front was brilliantly lighted by two glaring floodlights mounted well up at either end of the house.
    Two cars were in sight as Shayne swung into the driveway. A black Cadillac sedan stood under the porte-cochere and a blue and white compact was parked directly behind it. Lights blazed from the lower front windows of the house, and the front door opened and the figure of a man disappeared inside and the door slammed shut just as Shayne swung in behind the compact.
    He cut his motor and leaped out, and heard a loud shout and something that sounded like a crash from inside the house as he sprinted toward the front door.
    It opened inward onto a large square living room that was brilliantly illuminated like a stage setting.
    A man lay on his side ten feet in front of the door, struggling up to a sitting posture, his mouth ludicrously open although no words were coming out, and pointing a trembling finger toward the stairway at the rear.
    A silver tray lay on the floor in front of the stairway, and there were broken glasses and bottles strewn around it. A small, white-coated figure was running up the stairs as Shayne lunged in through the front door with Rourke close behind him, and he disappeared at the top and Shayne heard a door slam loudly on the second floor.
    Shayne ran toward the stairs, skirting the broken glass and bottles, and mounted as fast as he could with Rourke pounding close at his heels.
    Half-way down a wide carpeted corridor at the left the white-coated man was pounding a small fist on a closed wooden door while he ineffectually twisted the knob with his other hand. A printed “Do Not Disturb” sign hung from the knob. He turned a frightened, brown, Puerto Rican face over