“Not him,” said Rourke flatly. “He was so proud of that citation he’d gotten from his company, and about having a write-up in a newspaper. Hell, you’d thought he’d been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Biggest thing that ever happened to him in his whole life.” Rourke drained off his bourbon and regarded Shayne shrewdly. “What’s the wife like?”
Shayne replied simply, “She’s a close friend of Lucy’s, who swears by her. They lived right upstairs and she baby-sits sometimes. Two kids… six and nine, I think.”
“Could she be cheating?”
“Right now, all I have to go on is Lucy’s judgment, but I’ll accept that until I have some reason not to. Let’s see what we’ve got without the widow. You say there were staggering tracks from the car to where he was found. Any other tracks?”
“You mean to indicate he was rolled after he died or collapsed. No. Farrel’s report says not. And his tracks didn’t lead exactly from where the car was parked. From the edge of the pavement, rather, starting about twenty feet from the car. I saw photographs and a sketch of the scene.”
“Then it looks as though he drove there or was driven there… got out of the car and started up the road before he staggered off and died.”
“He was driven,” Rourke told him promptly. “Or else someone went to the trouble of wiping his fingerprints off the steering wheel after he got out. No prints at all on the wheel, light switch or gear shift. They’ve still got his car at the lab giving it a thorough job.”
“Someone who met him in a bar,” suggested Shayne. “Gave him the stuff there or noticed he was already passing out and offered to drive him home.”
“Could be either way. I’m sorry, Mike, but this time I have to string along with Painter. Poisoning puts it closer to home than just some stranger in a bar.”
Shayne sighed morosely. “Probably. But don’t tell Petey I said so.” He glanced at Rourke’s empty glass and put a dollar bill on the table. “Let’s drive out and look at the spot. Lone Palm Road?”
“Yeh. A couple of blocks from the bayshore. I’ve got the address.” Timothy Rourke slid out of the booth with him and they went out to where both their cars were parked outside. Shayne waved the reporter on to his car and said, “You go ahead and I’ll follow.”
He got in his own car and followed Rourke’s shabby coupe away from the vicinity of police headquarters westward toward the bay.
Rourke followed a winding course, checking street signs, and finally pulled off and stopped in the middle of a block of quiet homes on a street that dead-ended against the bay a couple of blocks ahead.
Shayne pulled up behind him and they got out and walked forward in front of Rourke’s car where chalk marks on the edge of the pavement indicated the position of Fitzgilpin’s parked car, then on ten or fifteen feet to a chalked arrow pointing off to the side where the body had evidently been found. There were many tracks back and forth across the soft shoulder here showing that the police had made an intensive search of the scene, and Shayne shrugged and glanced up and down the residential block, muttering, “These people are the kind to all be in bed and asleep by midnight. Painter’s men will have been ringing doorbells up and down, but I doubt that he’ll get anything.”
“Nothing had come in worth a damn by the time I left his office,” Rourke agreed.
Shayne stood there and looked toward the bay in the bright sunlight at a large, two-story stucco building built adjacent to the water’s edge. “Isn’t that Pete Elston’s Sporting Club up ahead?”
Rourke glanced in that direction and nodded. “He’s got a nice quiet little bar downstairs,” he suggested hopefully. “And Fitzgilpin’s insurance office isn’t too far from here, from the address I got. Might be a place he’d stop in at on his way home.”
Shayne said, “I could use a drink about now. How about you?”
“Why not? The one you paid for at Jim’s was my first this morning.”
Without more ado they both got in their cars and drove up to the Sporting Club and parked in front where only one other car stood at this hour of the morning. There was a neon light on over the door to indicate the place was open for business, however, so they got out and went in purposefully together.
5
The interior of the Sporting Club bar had subdued lighting and a quiet decor. It was not one of the garish, chromium and red leather cocktail lounges that are characteristic of Miami Beach, but had a homey quality about it that was more like the atmosphere of a neighborhood bar in a small town.
There were two men seated at the far end of the bar when Shayne and Rourke went in. They had beers in front of them and were engaged in earnest, low-voiced conversation. None of the tables or booths was occupied.
Shayne and Rourke took the first two stools and the bartender moved in front of them with an indifferent, almost hostile, expression on his horselike face. He had a protruding Adam’s apple, a bald head, and his small eyes were set too close together.
He swiped a damp cloth across the bar in front of them and asked, “What’ll it be, gents?”
Shayne said, “A bourbon and water for my friend. Old Crow. And a cognac and water on the side for me. Martel,” he added glancing at the row of bottles behind the bar.
Shayne lit a cigarette and blew out the match as the bartender set their drinks in front of them. He said, “Had some excitement around here last night, didn’t you?”
“Huh?” The bartender blinked at him suspiciously. “I don’t recollect any.”
“Were you on duty last night?”
“Sure was. Right up to quitting time.” Horseface started to turn away, but Shayne stopped him by asking, “What about the stiff they found down the street this morning? Was he passed out when he left here?”
“Look here, Mister. I don’t know nothing about a stiff down the street. We run a quiet place here, and nobody passes out if I’m serving him drinks. Get that straight. I already told the cops nobody answering his description was in here last night.”
Shayne said quietly, “We’re not cops.”
“Then how come you’re around asking questions?” The bartender seemed unduly belligerent and his close-set eyes were slitted as he glared at the two men.
“Rourke here is a reporter covering the case,” Shayne told him evenly. “He’d like a quote from you.”
“Quote, I don’t know nothing about the stiff, unquote,” snapped Horseface showing his teeth in what was intended to be a grin but came out a sort of sneer. “Say! You’re that private eye from Miami, ain’t you?”
Shayne nodded. “I’m working on the case. The way I get it, Fitzgilpin used to drop in here for a couple of beers in an evening.”
“That his name? Fitzgilpin? Never heard it before. Like I already told the cops…”
“But we’re not cops,” Shayne reminded him gently. He had his wallet out and he extracted a twenty-dollar bill and laid it on the counter. “We’re willing to pay for information. You notice a short, plump-faced guy in around midnight flashing a roll?”
“Friday nights are busy and the joint was jumping,” Horseface told him shortly. He turned away with the bill in his hand and rang up the price of their two drinks, turned back and ostentatiously counted out the exact change in front of Shayne. “No charge for that info. And it makes me nervous having reporters and private snoopers hanging around. Boss don’t like it either.”
Shayne said, “We’re not interested in Pete Elston’s gambling room upstairs. What we want…”
“You already got all you’re gonna get,” snapped the bartender. He turned his back on them and strolled down the bar to stand in front of the two beer-drinkers and rest his elbows on the bar.
Timothy Rourke grinned sideways at the redhead as he sipped his bourbon and water with relish. “Methinks our friend protests too much.”
Shayne shrugged his wide shoulders. “Elston wouldn’t like it one little bit if a guy were mugged after drinking down here. He pays plenty for protection, but not to Homicide.” He finished his drink and picked up a half-dollar and rapped sharply on the bar. The two other patrons glanced up the bar at them, but Horseface kept his back turned to them.