The receptionist in the shabby outer office was a drab, flat-chested girl whose cotton print frock looked homemade, clinging damply to under-fleshed shoulders. She looked up with lusterless eyes at Shayne's entrance and said:
"Good afternoon, Mr. Shayne. You're to go right in. Mr. Kincaid is waiting."
Shayne nodded and went past her untidy desk to the frosted glass door marked PRIVATE. He tapped on the glass, then turned the knob and walked in.
Two men were sweating in the poorly ventilated inner office. The larger of the two, a stranger to Shayne, wore wilted white flannels, a sleeveless polo shirt, with a yachting cap tilted jauntily back on graying hair. He looked about thirty and was probably forty; bronzed by the Miami sun, solidly fleshed by good food, his mid-section kept trim and firm by rigorous gymnastics and the ministrations of an expert masseur.
In contrast to the other's powerful physique and outward appearance of exuberant good health, Larry Kincaid looked anemic and underfed. His thin cheeks held an unhealthy pallor, and a heavy lock of black hair fell dankly aslant his forehead, as if twisted by nervous fingers and left lying there. His eyes were dark, and Shayne had seen the time when they snapped with fire and enthusiasm, but now they were furtive, irritable. Hunched behind a flat desk with both elbows supporting his weight, shoulder blades showed sharply beneath the thin white coat of tropical worsted.
Both men looked up quickly and with some unease at Shayne's entrance, managing to convey an impression of conspiracy.
Recognizing the detective, Larry Kincaid's pale lips twitched into a smile, and he said, over-effusively, "Hi, there, Michael. We've been waiting for you."
Shayne nodded. He said, "Hello, Larry," and there was a faint note of solicitude in his voice. He dropped his Panama on the desk and dragged a straight chair closer to the attorney, adding, "I came as soon as I got your message."
"That's all right, now that you're here. This is Mr. Thomas—Elliot Thomas," Kincaid went on, jerking his head toward the ruddy-faced man. He gushed the name of his client.
Shayne lowered his rangy body into the chair and said, "Is that so?" He didn't add, "So what?" but his tone clearly supplied the omission.
The attorney's upper lip twitched. "You must have heard of Elliot Thomas, Michael."
Shayne said, "It isn't an unusual name."
He clasped big bony hands about one knee and let his placid gaze drift to his friend's client.
Elliot Thomas moved a blunt-fingered hand impatiently.
"My identity is of little actual moment. As a matter of fact, I prefer to remain in the background as much as possible."
"Of course," Kincaid assented. "That's perfectly natural, Mr. Thomas." He faced toward Shayne hesitantly. "I need some help in handling a rather delicate affair, Michael. I thought of you, of course."
Shayne lit a cigarette and spun the match across the room and out an open west window through which the late afternoon sun streamed, making a veritable oven of the small office.
"What's on your mind, Larry?"
"Without going into details, Mr. Thomas has commissioned me to deal with an extortionist who is making demands upon him. I've advised him not to pay the scoundrel a penny. I want to work out a plan with you to pretend we're going to pay, and then take the evidence from the miscreant by force when he brings it to exchange for the money he has demanded."
Shayne frowned and rubbed a calloused hand over his bristly red hair.
"Isn't that compounding a felony?"
"Don't be absurd," Kincaid scoffed. "You've never worried much about legalities in handling your cases."
Shayne shrugged wide shoulders.
"I don't like to fool with blackmail, Larry. I don't like to see you mixed up in a case like that. Why doesn't your client go to one of the shysters who make a living off blackmailing? Miami is full of them."
Again, there was that faint note of solicitude in his voice, as though he was subtly reminding Larry Kincaid of something previously discussed and understood between them.
"Why should I turn down a case?" Kincaid demanded irritably. "I'm counting on you to help me, Michael."
Shayne said, "No." He stood up, carefully avoiding the lawyer's gaze.
Elliot Thomas cleared his throat and flashed a white-toothed smile at Shayne.
"Why don't you wait to get the facts, Mr. Shayne? This isn't the sort of blackmail I imagine you think. I haven't done anything of which I am ashamed, nor do I have anything to conceal. The evidence the party wishes to sell me is negative rather than positive. He threatens to withhold proof of my integrity and thus cause me considerable embarrassment unless I pay him an absurdly large sum of money."
Shayne turned slowly, sending a hard glance toward Thomas.
He shook his head emphatically. "That's immaterial. If you hadn't come to Larry I might have helped you. God knows, my reputation will stand anything without being hurt. But if a lawyer starts taking questionable cases like this, he's sunk. I've seen it happen to better men than Larry. One smirch on his reputation means he's done for. And that brings up a point."
A long forefinger shot out at Thomas.
"Why the hell did you come to Kincaid with an extortion deal? Who told you he would touch something that stunk?"
"Just a minute," the young lawyer pleaded. "Don't go off half-cocked like that, Michael. Mr. Thomas didn't come to me. It was Grange who first approached me."
"Harry Grange?"
"Yes. You know him, don't you? He asked me to contact Mr. Thomas for him."
"Which makes the whole thing stink worse," Shayne grunted. "You're turning on your own client just like any cheap fee-splitter. I'm surprised at you, Larry."
Kincaid's miserable eyes lowered before the somber gaze Shayne bent on him. His upper lip twitched and he started an explanation which was interrupted by Elliot Thomas's voice, calm and even-tempered:
"I didn't realize you were to be called in to pass judgment on the moral aspects of the situation, Shayne. Kincaid recommended you as an efficient—"
Shayne said, "Shut up," without taking his gaze from Larry Kincaid's bloodless face.
"I certainly shan't stay here to be insulted further."
Thomas got up and started for the door, but the young lawyer pushed his chair back and got in front of him.
"Don't pay any attention to Michael, Mr. Thomas. He'll come around all right. I'll handle everything just as I agreed. I'll see Grange and fix everything."
"See that you do," Thomas snapped, and went out the door.
Kincaid circled the detective and sank into his chair with a groan.
"Good God, do you know who that was?"
Shayne shook his head, a brooding look of melancholy on his angular face.
"I don't give a goddamn who he is, Larry. This is the wrong angle. You're just getting established here in Miami. You can't touch stuff like that without getting talk started. Hang on a little longer. The right clients will start coming."
Kincaid's thin lips were sulky, defiant.
"You're a hell of a one to preach," he whipped out.
Shayne pulled his chair around and let his big frame into it. His lean, hard-featured face was impassive, but there was a glint in his gray eyes.
"All right, Larry. I'm a mug. I've got a reputation for taking the cash where I can get my hands on it. I know how it works. I take off-color stuff because that's the only sort of cases I get a chance at. I'm not married, and if I get bumped or railroaded to Raiford—that's my tough luck and nobody else's. You've got Helen and the boy to think about."
Larry Kincaid lifted a haggard face to Shayne.
"Maybe it's them I'm thinking about. I hung up my shingle six months ago, and do you know how many clients I've had? Just two. One was a title on a truck farm, the other was a will. Elliot Thomas is a millionaire. I can make a thousand bucks at one crack on this case—and you, of all people, want me to turn it down. It doesn't make sense."
Shayne's hand slid into his breast pocket and came out with a wallet.
"Why didn't you say you were hard up? I promised to see you and Helen through here until you had a paying clientele established. All you have to do is yell when you run short."
Larry waved the offer away.
"I don't want any more money from you. I've had too much already. I'm going to stand on my own feet. If I handle this case for Thomas just right, I'll be in the big money. A word from a man like him is worth something."
Shayne put his wallet away. His head waggled from side to side.
"You're all mixed up, Larry." He paused to light a second cigarette from the first, then shot a sudden question at the younger man. "Where did you meet Harry Grange?"
"Grange? Why—just here and there." He avoided Shayne's piercing, gray gaze.
Michael's ragged red brows came down in a frown.
"That won't wash, Larry. Rising young barristers don't just run into men like Harry Grange here and there."
"What are you getting at?" Kincaid flared. "Do I have to answer to you for where I spend my time when I'm not sitting in this furnace waiting for clients who don't know I'm alive?"
Shayne looked baffled. "I'm just trying to point out what it leads to. When you associate with cheap grafters like Grange, you give the impression that that's your true level. Then, when they have a crooked deal to put over, they naturally turn to you with it."
"I don't know that Harry Grange is such a cheap grafter," Kincaid protested heatedly. "He's pretty much of a sport, if you ask me."
"I'm not asking you," Shayne rumbled. "I know Grange's kind. He and hundreds like him flock to Miami and Miami Beach in the winter and put up a swell front, dragging down a percentage from the gambling houses by bringing suckers in to lose their money."
"Well, all I've got to say is that Grange certainly puts it over with a bang." Kincaid's tone was growing nasty. "He's got that Brighton girl on the string right now."
"Who?"
"Phyllis Brighton. The pretty heiress you took to your paternal bosom when she was accused of murdering her mother last month. Lots of people think ..."
"Damn what people think!"
Shayne's eyes were dangerously bright. He reached out to crush his cigarette butt in a tray on the desk, muttering:
"So, Grange has got his hooks into her?"
"Sure. You can see them together almost any night at Marco's Seaside Casino on the beach," Kincaid told him triumphantly, "and she's getting rid of her money plenty fast at the roulette tables."
Shayne waved a big hand impatiently.
"She's too young to know any better. You're not, Larry. Drop this idea of making a lot of money fast. Playing with extortion is like kicking dynamite around."
"It'd be perfectly safe if you'd come in with me. Perfectly legitimate, too. Thomas is unjustly accused in a certain matter, and Grange, by chance, got his hands on the evidence that will clear Thomas's reputation. Grange is holding out for a big price, threatening to sell the information to another party who will suppress it entirely."
"All that is beside the point."
Shayne got up and sat on a corner of the young attorney's desk. He laid a hard hand on Kincaid's thin shoulder and went on persuasively:
"Keep clear of it, Larry. God knows, I know what I'm saying. I was once just where you are. I didn't have the guts to wait for success. Like you, I thought it was a hell of a lot more important to make a gob of money at once. Well—look at me now."
"I'm looking. You're sitting on top of the heap—with a reputation that lets you pick your cases." He stared up into Shayne's somber, rocklike visage.
"Yeah. A lousy private dick," Shayne persisted. "You can—hell! you can be governor or senator or any damn thing you want if you'll sit tight and not take the wrong turn."
Kincaid's chuckle was bitter.
"To get to be either one requires a course in crooked procedures," he snapped.
Shayne was stumped. There was a long heavy silence between them. The small office grew unbearably hot as the streaming sun reached across almost to the desk.
Shayne picked up a small framed picture from the desk and gazed at the likeness of Helen Kincaid holding a very small boy by the hand. He nodded toward it and said:
"You've got them to think about."
Kincaid's shoulder twisted out from under Shayne's hand. He got up and strode to the open west window and stood with his back turned, staring out, then swung around and faced Shayne with set lip and projected jaw.
"I'm thinking about them," he burst out. "You don't know Helen very well. She nags about money all the time. She hates it out in that neighborhood where the cheap rent is the best I can afford. She's always after me for God's sake to do something to make some money. Well—I've got that chance, and I'd be a damned fool to turn it down. You can help me if you will—and if you're so interested in Helen and the boy."
The last words were almost a snarl, as though he challenged Shayne to deny something.
Shayne refused the challenge. He shook his head slowly.
"I won't touch it, Larry."
"All right then. I'll handle it myself."
"If you insist on being a goddamned fool, go ahead."
Kincaid thrust thin hands deep into his pants' pockets, sauntered forward with an unpleasant smile.
"So, this is what your friendship actually means. I might have known. The first time I ask a real favor you turn me down flat."
Shayne said, "Don't say anything you'll be sorry for."
But the younger man went on hoarsely, "All right. Then that's the way it is. It's time I found out I can't bank on you in a pinch. Don't think I can't guess why you come sucking around my house."
Shayne slid off the desk and lunged forward, his face bleak and hard. He caught Kincaid's wrist and exclaimed urgently, "Don't say it, Larry. You're—"
Kincaid jerked his arm away. A spot of color burned high in each pallid cheek.
"I'll say any damned thing I please. You were in love with Helen before I married her. That's why you urged me to come to Miami."
Shayne laughed shortly and turned his back on the distraught young man. His fingers trembled a trifle as he lit a cigarette. He picked up his Panama and jammed it down on his head, turned toward the door.
With his hand on the knob, he swung about and asked:
"Is this the way it has to be? You're sure?"
"Goddamn sure," the young man asseverated sullenly. "I've just waked up to the sort of friend you really are. I was a fool to ask you to help me. You want me to stay broke—just to show me up to Helen." His upper lip trembled as it curled in a snarl. "Well, I won't, damn you. I don't need your help. I'll handle this myself."
"Okay," Shayne answered in a curiously gentle voice. "If that's the way you want it."
He went out through the reception room where the girl stared wonderingly at the bleak grimness of his face and down to his white-knuckled fists. He grinned at her, and his hands relaxed. For a moment he stood, undecided, then went on through the outer door and down a dingy hallway to the rickety elevator serving one of Miami's oldest office buildings.
Here again he waited in an attitude of hopeful expectancy, half-turned back toward the office.
The door of Larry Kincaid's office remained closed, and the elevator rattled to a stop in front of him. Shayne shrugged his big shoulders in resignation, and got in to be lowered to the ground floor.
