John D. MacDonald

Make Mine Murder!

Chapter One

Call Me Mister

To get around the rocky point he waded out to where the surf, smashing softly against his legs, dashed spray up onto his bare shoulders. The noon sun of the Mississippi Gulf Coast bit hard into his deeply tanned skin. Once around the point he moved back up to dry sand, hot against the toughened soles of his bare feet.

A hundred yards ahead he saw the long concrete pier of the Chez Shirley, standing tall above the reach of the storms, saw the tiny basin beside it, the brass fittings of the twin power launches glittering in the sun.

Except for the ceaseless wash of the sea, the day had a dead hot silence. On the pier he could see the glass enclosed area where they danced when the weather was bad, the open portion, green with plants, for the mild evenings when it was good to dance under the starlight over the sea.

The pier was arched where it crossed the beach and in the black shade it cast he saw the man sitting on a kitchen chair, tilted back against the heavy concrete column.

He walked slowly ahead, seeing the man stare at him, get up from the chair, come walking with heavy spread-legged stride toward him, sweat staining the blue shirt.

Archer walked steadily toward the pier. The man stopped directly in his path and said, “Turn around and go back, friend.”

Archer stopped, gave the guard a long cool look, weighing the man. The guard’s eyes, sunk in pads of flesh, were squinted against the sun glare. He carried, strangely, a riding crop, but as he swung it, Archer saw by the way it bent that it contained a lead weight, a leaf spring.

“Back the way you came, friend,” the guard said.

Archer made his voice apologetic. “I’m just going up the beach.”

“Not this way, junior. This belongs to Logun.”

“But these beaches have always been open.”

“This one isn’t any more. Not to ragged-pants bums.” As he spoke the man moved closer, prodded Archer’s bare hard diaphragm with the butt of the riding crop.

Archer had been carefully shifting his weight. He slapped down at the crop, tore it out of the man’s hand. The guard staggered in the soft sand, grunting with surprise. Then, grinning without mirth, he reached toward his hip pocket.

As Archer saw the deep surly glint of the blued steel he moved lightly to his left, slashed down with the weighted end of the crop, felt the lead strike bone.

The guard yelled then, a hoarse bellow. He dropped to his fat knees, clamping his right wrist with his left hand. The gun lay on the sand. He released his wrist, grabbed for the gun. Archer stepped on the man’s hand, raised his bone-hard knee flush into the man’s face. The guard went over, his face screwed up with pain, his hand clamped to his nose, a thread of scarlet running down his lip.

Archer leaned over with a lazy, effortless ease, picked up the automatic, glanced casually at it and tossed it off into the surf.

A tall man was walking down across the sand from the ledge on which the main building of the Chez Shirley was built. He was big, vaguely soft, with powerful shoulders, a tanned face, dark receding hair, hairline mustache. His long head was set squarely on the heavy shoulders, with but the slightest suggestion of a neck. The man wore a brilliant sports shirt, faultless sand-colored slacks and leather sandals.

The man did not speak until he was face to face with Archer. “What happened here?” he asked mildly.

“Who are you?” Archer asked, matching his tone.

“Logun. Gerry Logun. You are on my property.”

“So your man said. But I didn’t like the way he said it.”

The guard had gotten slowly to his feet. He held a white handkerchief to his nose. Over the handkerchief his eyes looked steadily at Archer, a hot glow in their depths.

Logun said, “Relli, I gave you a gun and a sap and told you to keep bums off this beach.”

Relli’s voice was muffled. “But he—”

“He jabbed me with his stick,” Archer said. “So I took it away from him. I threw it in the surf. Like this.” He threw the crop out. It spun in the air and landed forty feet out among the breakers.

Logun in the same amiable tone said, “You must be a very hard boy.”

“You put somebody here to tell me politely that I can’t walk down the beach and I won’t. I’m not unreasonable.”

“Your accent doesn’t match your pants,” Logun said.

“And your manner and your personnel match very nicely,” Archer said. “They both stink up the seashore.”

Logun stood without movement and without expression. Suddenly he grinned. “Okay, lad. Sorry this happened.” He turned to Relli and his voice snapped like a whip. “Go up and clean yourself up, Relli.”

“But, boss, I—”

Logun took one quick step and slapped Relli. It was like the movement of a big cat. The slap made a wet sharp sound in the stillness between waves.

Relli turned without a word and walked toward the path.

Archer shrugged and turned away.

“One minute, lad. What do you do? What’s your business?”

Archer turned around. “Do you have a good reason for asking?”

“I thought you might want to go to work for me. After I’ve checked on you, of course.”

“After you’ve checked on me?”

“Damn it! Take that chip off your shoulder.”

“It’s off. I’m not working. What kind of a job?”

“Relli is a good man. He isn’t handled often. I can use another one.”

“Doing what?”

“Drifting around during business hours. Handling drunks and trouble-makers. This place of mine is for drinking, dancing and gambling. I don’t advertise the last item on the sign out by the road. Business is getting better. I need another man.”

“What would it pay?”

“Room, meals and fifty a week. Why aren’t you working?”

“I’ve been in a hospital. For nearly five years.”

“For what?”

“Take a good look,” Archer said. He knew what Gerry Logun would see, the multiple network of hairline scars half hidden by the tan of his face, the scars running up into his crisp brown hair, the faintly distorted contour of the skull itself.

“War?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your name?”

“Stephen Archer.”

“Report tomorrow. Around noon. One thing understood. No drinking and no gambling.”

Archer gave the expressionless face a long look. “During my working hours I’ll do like you say. After those hours my time is my own, Logun.”

“Mr. Logun.”

“If I come to work for you, I’ll call you Mr. Logun.”

He turned and walked away, under the arch of the pier, out along the beach, his stride long, loose and easy, the muscles of his shoulders and back long and fluid under the deeply tanned skin.

It had been easier than he had expected. Of course, the timing had been carefully worked out. A day when Logun would be there. He smiled tightly. Logun had covered up his real reason for needing a new man. One of the Kister twins was in the hospital and would remain there for a good two weeks more. The knuckles of his right hand were still sore from the encounter with Ben Kister in the heavy darkness of the alley in Biloxi.

A mile down the beach he turned to the right, went up through the brush to the highway. The countryside was exactly the way Johnny Jermane had described it so many times. Moist and hot, with narrow asphalt roads, lush vegetation, the sea booming softly against the curving beaches.

This time he walked on the shoulder of the road passing Chez Shirley, the white posts marking the entrance to the wide parking lot paved with crushed shells, the small bronze sign which at night would be discreet green neon, highlighting the polished metal of the parked cars.

The convertible, acid-green body, black top raised against the sunglare, roared up the road toward him and the tires moaned softly on the asphalt as the car swung over toward him. Too close. He jumped back.

Then he stepped angrily toward the car but the girl stopped him quickly by asking, “What do you want?”

She was a creamy blonde with a faint pattern of pale freckles across the bridge of her nose and level contemptuous green eyes.

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“I saw you in Amira and you were watching me. I saw you twice in Biloxi. You’re a stranger here. I can tell by your accent. And now I find you here. What do you want of me?”

“It’s against the local laws to look at a blonde?”

Her eyes were stormy. “No. But why are you hanging around?”

“You’ll see more of me.”

“Indeed!”

“Indeed, yes. Your husband just hired me an hour ago.”

“You can be fired.”

“Your husband looks like a man who’d have to have a reason, Mrs. Logun.”

“Have I known you before? What’s your name?”

“Steve Archer.”

She tilted her head slightly, frowned. “That rings a faint bell somewhere. But I don’t place your face.”

“You wouldn’t. They built this one with a scalpel.”

“Gerry hired you as one of his trouble hounds? I thought so. For that work you need muscles, not sense.” She let her glance travel across his broad tanned chest.

“Logun buys different people for different things in different ways,” he said softly.

She paled then, and narrowed her eyes and leaned closer to him. “Did you ever hear of a man named John Jermane?” she asked.

He kept his voice casual. “Should I have?”

Her eyes searched his face for long seconds. “Never mind,” she said, a hint of viciousness in her voice. He looked steadily into her green eyes until at last she looked away, glanced back and was suddenly flirtatious, husky-soft voice saying, “We’ll get better acquainted.”

“If Gerry approves.”

She slammed the convertible into gear, her mouth ugly. The rear tires screamed against the asphalt with the speed of the start.

He watched the car turn between the white posts. And she wasn’t as Johnny had described her. He had described another person, a softer, sweeter, more honest person. This one, this Shirley Logun, had fire and depth, but he guessed that at the core of her there was the hardness of gray, lava rock.

In another twenty minutes he came to his car. He put on his shirt, shoes, socks, got behind the wheel and drove slowly to Biloxi, eleven miles away from the Chez Shirley.

He had a room in a boarding house a block inland from the plush hotels along the beachfront. Walking down the hall by the entrance to the shabby livingroom, he reached the foot of the stairs when a man’s voice said, “Mr. Archer?”

He turned, saw a slight gray man in wrinkled rayon suit, a faintly soiled panama hat in his hand.

“If I could speak to you for a moment—”

“Start speaking then.”

“In your room.”

Archer shrugged. “Come on up.”

The room contained a sagging bed, a new maple bureau, frayed curtains that hung lifeless at the open window. Steve Archer gave the man a cigarette, lit his own and the stranger’s and lay back on the bed, long and relaxed and yet vigilant.

The man said, “My name is Taen. I am beginning to understand what you may be trying to do.”

“About what?”

“About Logun and the Chez Shirley. I know your reasons and I know that you have no real personal interest.”

“I don’t get it, Taen.”

“It is a very noble venture, young man. But the world isn’t like that. Certain organized groups will accomplish what you aim to accomplish, and do it with a good deal more efficiency.”

“Just who are you?”

Mr. Taen handed Archer a wallet. Archer flipped it open, glanced at it, handed it back. “What do you want to do? Slap Logun’s wrist for income tax evasion?”

“And other things. We’ve been concerned about him for a long time. We were working on that case eleven years ago when he ran a club in Jersey. He stepped on some of the wrong toes up there and had to leave. He brought the Kister twins and Relli with him when he came down here and bought into this place with the money he took out of his Jersey City safety deposit boxes.”

“You’re still talking over my head, Taen.”

“I doubt that,” Taen said quietly.

Archer snapped his cigarette out the open window. “Pop, all I know is that today a man named Logun offered me a job as a muscleman in a nightclub he runs west of here. And I’m taking the job.”

“Jermane had a bad deal, Archer. Lots of people hold a bad hand.”

Archer didn’t move but his lips tightened. Taen continued, “And, since I happen to know the status of your bank account, Archer, and know that you could go for the rest of your life without working, I can only assume that you are going into this because of childish boredom. I don’t want my plans upset. And so I’m warning you off.”

Archer faked a yawn. “Mrs. Logun said something today about a guy named Jermane. Never heard of him.”

“John Jermane? Ward eight, bed four? With a Stephen Archer in bed five?”

“Oh, you mean that Jermane! I guess he did come from around here at that.”

“Would you consider working with us?”

Archer glanced at his watch. “I have a shower to take, Taen. And then I have to do something about packing. You’ll excuse me, won’t you?”

Taen went to the door. He turned with his hand on the knob and said, “If you kill Logun it won’t be hard to show motive.”

Archer made a sad clucking sound. “Stay away from those movies, pop. They’re getting you.”

When Taen had silently closed the door behind him, Archer came off the bed in one quick motion. He paced back and forth between the window and the door, a fresh cigarette between his lips. Things were working out exactly as he had expected. Shirley was vaguely suspicious of him. And Taen had gone right to the heart of the matter.

No, no part of this was due to boredom. It was due to other things. The sound of a man’s voice in the dim night of the ward. Plans made and broken. Hopes built and broken again. A comradeship of pain.

Chapter Two

Sucker-Punched

The pride and satisfaction was evident in Logun’s voice as he showed Steve Archer through the Chez Shirley after Steve’s bag had been put in one of the small rooms in the east wing of the main building. “On the ground floor here, Archer, we have the main bar on the left and the game room on the right. That is the foyer and check room back there.

“Those glass doors you see ahead lead out onto the pier. The glassed-in portion is used in bad weather. There’s a small bar there. Come on along and we’ll walk out through and I’ll show you the open pier where we have the floor show on good nights. Revolving band platform.”

Beyond the glass doors Logun looked over toward the small bar and stopped. Archer saw the muscles at the corner of his jaw tighten. Shirley Logun, dressed in a pale yellow two-piece bathing suit, sat on the high bar stool in the corner, a glass half raised to her lips.

Logun went over with that same catlike speed Archer had noticed before. The glass smashed against the wall.

In a soft tone he said, “I’ve told you before, darling. Liquor spoils your voice. You have to sing for the people tonight. They won’t like it to have to listen to a sloppy drunk, you know.”

Her eyes were green flame, her mouth loose, her cheeks flushed. In a faintly slurred voice she said, “Not in front of the help, Gerry.”

Logun turned to Archer. “One of your additional duties, Archer, will be to take any liquor away from Shirley when you see her drinking.”

“She’s your wife. That’s your job.”

Logun regarded him steadily. “You may be right, Archer. You may be right.” He turned back and smiled at Shirley. “For a man who likes to live nicely, a drunken wife is a sad, sad thing. Go to your room.”

“No.”

“I don’t want to mark you, my dear. The people have to watch you.”

Archer instinctively turned away as he saw Logun move in close to her. He heard the sound of the blow, heard Shirley gasping and coughing. The stool fell over and she leaned heavily against the edge of the bar.

“Go to your room,” Logun said sweetly.

Shirley walked by Archer with dragging steps, her face averted. She pushed through the glass doors. Archer followed her with his eyes.

“Come along, Archer,” Logun said briskly. “Forgive the way my home life intruded just then. She’s a good girl, but not quite bright. And with a strong taste for liquor.”

“People usually have a reason,” Archer suggested.

Logun gave him a quick, keen look. “Indeed?” he said politely. “Ah, here comes MacLayt. Mac, meet Archer. MacLayt is my accountant and general business manager. Local boy who made good. Right, Mac?”

MacLayt was a rawboned man in his forties with hollow cheeks, very dense black eyebrows, a dirty shirt and poorly fitted false teeth. He had discolored puffs under his eyes and walked with the careful mannerisms of a man accustomed to poor health.

“Hello, Archer,” he said in a soft drawl.

“Mac, Archer is on the books at fifty a week.”

“More overhead,” MacLayt said moodily.

They found Bob Kister out at the end of the pier. Like his twin brother, Kister was a husky young man with crisp golden hair, a puffy red mouth, a thin voice, and tiny gray eyes.

“Relli told me about you.”

Archer didn’t answer him. Logun said, “Bob and Ben Kister are just like little children. They’ll have to know if they can lick you, Archer.”

“Do they try at the same time?”

“Ben is — away for a while.”

“We’ll settle that some time,” Archer said gently. He put his hand out. Bob Kister met the handclasp eagerly. His face slackened as he put his strength into the grip.

“Through?” Archer asked politely.

In response Bob Kister suddenly yanked hard without relaxing his grip, pulling Archer in toward the straight left. The sun and sea spun dizzily around and the pain of the blow was like a torch held against Archer’s lips. Staggering back, his right hand released, he dimly sensed Kister coming in, fast.

He covered up to give his head a chance to clear, took a thumping blow over the ear, another near the nape of his neck.

His vision cleared and, from his doubled up position, he saw Kister’s feet. He swooped his long arms down, yanked up hard on Kister’s feet, fell onto the man as he tumbled, smothering the blows by his closeness. He grabbed Kister’s throat, lifted him a few inches, smashed his fist in Kister’s face.

Kister was as relaxed as a rag doll. Supporting him with an arm around his neck. Archer jolted two short, right hooks against Kister’s glazed, half-open eyes.

Logun pulled him away. “Hey, he has to work tonight!”

“I want him to look as though he took a beating.”

Archer walked over and looked down at the sea.

He went back, and with a long heave, grunting with effort, he threw Kister off the end of the pier.

Kister smacked flat against the water, went under, came up sputtering and coughing.

Logun said quietly, “You don’t play, do you?”

“I don’t like to be sucker-punched.”

“Kister will try to get even.”

“I don’t think so, Logun. He hasn’t got the guts to kill me and he knows that if he doesn’t there’s a good chance that I’ll kill him.”

Gerry Logun’s eyes widened. “Would you?”

“I think so. Tell him to try me again and then you’ll both know.”

“Did you have a brain injury?”

“Does that matter?”

Logun gave him a long look. He said softly, “I’ve been looking for someone like you for a long time, mister. I play with no holds barred, too.”

“Do you?” Archer said without interest. “Is there any more to this place?”

“Our association might become very profitable to you, Archer.”

Archer gently touched his swollen lip. “These handmade lips cut easy. First aid set around?”

“Mac’s office. Ask his girl. The little door to the left of the inside bar.”

As Archer reached the beach end of the pier he saw Kister walking across the beach, his clothes clinging to him.

“Kister!” Archer said loudly.

The man stopped and peered up, blue eyes squinted against the sun. His face was full of hate.

“You try anything else, Kister, and the next time I’ll put you out for ten minutes and throw you off the end of the pier at high tide. That’s a promise.” His voice was low and steady.

Without waiting for the man to answer, Archer walked on into the main bar and pulled open the door Logun had mentioned.

MacLayt’s office was bright and sunny, and outfitted as a business office. The filing cases and executive desk looked odd after the shoddy day-time splendor of the rest of the night club. MacLayt was at his desk. A slim, dark girl moved quickly away from MacLayt’s side, her pale cheeks covered with an angry flush.

“Didn’t you ever learn to knock?” she demanded.

“Sorry I spoiled your fun. Logun sent me for the first aid kit.”

“This is a new one, June,” MacLayt said. He didn’t seem particularly annoyed. He watched June as she walked over to her own desk, yanked open the bottom drawer.

“They seem to get stronger and dumber,” she said. She handed him the kit in its white enameled box. Her brow and nose were finely modeled, her mouth too wide for beauty. Her dark dress, matching her eyes, accentuated the small waist.

“Through staring?” she asked.

“Now, Junie,” MacLayt admonished softly.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Archer.” He went to the door. “I’m taking this up to my room for a few minutes. You can get back to your games. I’ll knock next time.” The contempt in his tone was clear. He was out the door before she could retort.

When he brought the kit back MacLayt was out of the office. June’s typewriter clacked busily. He did not stop typing or look up when he said his thanks.

Logun was not around. Archer went back up to his room, stretched out on his back on the bed, the door half open. Logun had said that the rest of the kitchen help and the night bartenders arrived to take over around 6. Gambling wouldn’t begin until 10.

Relli would be on the door, Kister in the game room and he was to keep on the move through the place, keeping an eye out for trouble. He was to watch the bartenders. Whenever he saw a bartender with a towel over his shoulder, he was to stay around as the bartender was expecting one of the customers to become annoying.

The walls of the small room were flat white, too much like the ward, too much like the rooms where, after the last brain operation, he had to laboriously learn to talk all over again. He lay there and it was easy to imagine Johnny Jermane’s voice in the silence of the night.

“Yeah, Steve. I planned it and built it. For Shirley. It took every dime I had plus everything I could borrow. I wish you could have seen the place when we opened. Built with most of it on a pier out over the water. I thought I could get it over the hump all by myself. But I had to take in a partner with some dough to meet the notes. An experienced guy. He gave free drinks to the lushes from Biloxi, the ones with the big cars. Those big cars in the lot drew in the other customers. We started to get business all the way from New Orleans, and when you can drag ’em away from there, you’re really operating.”

At last he went to sleep but even in sleep he retained the wariness of an animal away from its natural environment. He drifted just below the edge of sleep, with the hidden springs of his body coiled tightly.

The long evening which stretched out until 3:00 in the morning was a jumble of conflicting impressions. Shirley in a strapless dress which made the enamel on a refrigerator look like a loose drape, standing on the darkened pier, swaying and singing in the light of the baby spot; the sea wind in her hair, the stars remote above, the tiny lights near the tables, the people silent — caught by the husky sorrow in her voice, caught up in their own dreams and disappointments.

Logun in white mess jacket, elbows hooked over the edge of the bar, staring out across the tables to where Shirley swayed and sang, hands clasped in front of her. The filled stools at the bar. The crunch of tires on the crushed shells as the cars arrived.

He walked through the people, tall and slow and easy-moving, and he saw the richness of it and the profit of it, the shallow glasses and the ice-cold croupiers and the nervous laughter, all under the warm night of the Gulf Coast.

After the last of them was gone, after the last car had pulled out, Logun called him over to the bar. “You’re off, now, Archer. Drink?”

“Thanks. Brandy.”

The bartender filled the glass. “You can take off now, Bill,” Logun said. “I’ll lock the backbar.”

The tables had been stacked and a sleepy janitor slowly mopped the dance floor.

“How do you like it?” Logun asked.

Archer shrugged. “It looks profitable.”

“It is. Relli told me about you and the little redhead. You don’t have to get that fatherly about the trade, Archer.”

“Her boyfriend got drunk and passed out. That guy who picked her up could have been her father. I scared him off her.”

“He might not come back, Archer. A month ago he dropped three thousand on the tables in one hour. We’re not running a charitable institution.”

Archer spun his glass on the bar, tilted it and drained it. “If you want me to work here, you’ll give me a free hand. And you’re not as smart as I thought you were. Suppose the redhead’s people have influence. They could cost you more than three thousand.”

Logun laughed. “Boy, I butter the local politicos. It’s a hell of a lot less than it used to cost me in Jersey, but it is considerably more than they ever saw before. Nobody can cause me any trouble.”

“And if the boyfriend came gunning for you?”

“I have you and Relli and the Kister twins, and some boys you haven’t met yet.”

They walked out to the end of the pier. The tide was in. The low moon slanted against Logun’s face. Archer tightened up and his breathing was faster. So easy. There were good ways. One way would be to break Logun’s arms and throw him into the sea. That would be a slow way. But somehow it wasn’t good enough.

The man would die, yes, but it wasn’t good enough. Too quick. He would die while he was on top of the heap. He would die in the midst of success. It would be better if he were broken first. Archer faked a yawn. “With your permission, I’ll turn in.”

“ ’Night, Steve. Your time is your own until six tomorrow night.”

As he pushed through the glass doors Archer glanced back. Logun still stood alone at the end of the pier. Archer heard it then, the distant high whine of powerful marine engines. He looked out to sea.

Whatever it was, was coming closer with great speed, without running lights. He saw the tiny flashlight in Logun’s hand, beamed out to sea. The motors were throttled down to a heavy, pulsing beat. The moon outlined the hull of the fast ocean-going speedboat. As it nosed toward the tiny protected basin, Archer turned and went up to his room.

In the morning he carried a breakfast tray out onto the open pier.

Shirley sat at a table for two in the shade. There was an aging puffiness about her face, a fullness under her chin, a sagging of her body. She glanced up at him without enmity, waved toward the vacant chair opposite her.

He sat down, curious about her. She said, “Thanks, Archer, for refusing to be a watchdog over me.”

“I didn’t think you needed a watchdog.” He looked at her eyes and saw that she had had a few drinks.

“Archer, there are many things you don’t understand. You don’t understand how the angles can go sour, and how people don’t know when they’re well off.”

“Aren’t you well off?”

“With money, boy. Only with money. But a person can give you money and steal your pride and steal your hope until finally there’s nothing left. Shirley was one smart girl. She was stranded down here and she found a lad with a few dollars. The lad I’m talking about thought that our little Shirley was a princess or something. So he took this broken-down showgal and built this little roost for her, and went broke doing it.”

“Logun doesn’t look broke.”

“I’m not talking about Logun, stupid. Does he look as though he thought of me as a princess? What a laugh that is!”

“Then where does Logun fit in?”

“Oh, I used to know him. I stayed in touch. I wrote him about the chance for him here and he was in trouble up north so he came down.” Her voice had a blank hopelessness in it. “You see, Archer, I asked for it.”

“Yes, you did,” he said softly.

She gave him a penetrating look. “Something about you, Archer. You act like a man with a pat hand. Aces full. I’ve felt that about you for a long time.”

“A long time?”

“Living this way, brother, a week is a long time.” She stood up, pressed down firmly on his shoulder as he tried to rise. She looked down and her eyes were surprisingly soft. “You’re not as hard as you want to make out, Archer.”

“No?”

“In the next few days I’ll have proof.”

“Proof?”

“Yes. Something’s coming up that I don’t think you can stomach. And I don’t think I can either. See you around.”

She walked away. Archer took his time over his coffee. Before he had finished three new men came out onto the terrace, stared at him curiously as they walked by. They had the look of sailors, hard-eyed defiance, a wariness, a light-stepping caution.

Archer guessed that they had come in on the speedboat the night before. And, watching their manner, he guessed that the trips were not exactly for pleasure. It would not be a long run to Mexico. He remembered reading of the new tariffs, of the enormous profit in items not generally smuggled. Locks, small electric motors, precision hand tools.

He got into his car and drove the mile and a half into Amira. The village square was torpid in the morning sun, filled with a dead lethargy. The second floor of the court house was apparently let out to lawyers and accountants. Their names appeared in peeling gilt on the dusty windows.

One window bore the name MacLayt. Even as he wondered if it was the same MacLayt, he saw the girl named June come out of the courthouse. She carried a brown manila envelope. She did not notice him until she was ten feet from his car.

“Want a ride back?” he asked.

She stopped and, when she recognized him, scowled and said, “Not particularly. Why?”

“Get in. I’m going right back. Have to buy some blades.”

The sun was hot. She stood uncertainly for a moment. “I won’t bite,” he said.

She got in. He walked to the drugstore, hurried back to the car, half expecting her to be gone. But she still sat there, a girl with the rare ability to retain a crisp look even in the most deadening heat.

“MacLayt has two offices?” he asked.

“And two secretaries. He sent me down to get some documents.”

“I wasn’t pleasant to you yesterday.”

“You had reason, I guess,” she said without interest.

“You just don’t seem to be — the type.”

She turned a smile on him. “It’s a good job, Archer. I want to keep it.”

“How about a swim when we get back? Or is it against the rules?”

She shrugged. “Too busy. Maybe at five I can.”

As he drove into the driveway he glanced up and saw Logun at the apartment window. Logun beckoned to him. The girl went off to MacLayt’s office. Archer went up the stairs. Logun met him at the head of the stairs. There was no warmth in his eyes. “Come in here, Archer.”

Logun shut the door behind them. The room was clean, well furnished. “What’s with you and the Daley girl?”

“Who?”

“Don’t play dumb. The girl you were with when you drove in.”

“I didn’t know her name. I met her in MacLayt’s office and again in the village. I went in for razor blades and met her there.”

“Show me the blades.”

Archer reached slowly into his pocket, took out the blades, displayed them on the palm of his brown hand. “What goes on?”

Logun finally grinned and clapped Archer on the shoulder. “Forget it, boy. Nothing at all.”

“How long do you have to be one of the family here, before you can take a boat ride?”

“It’s a long trip. You wouldn’t like it.” Logun did not betray himself by the slightest change of expression. It was one of his characteristics.

“Let me be the judge.”

“Sit down a minute. I want to check over an idea I just had.”

Archer sat down, lit a cigarette. Logun paced back and forth, his hands locked behind him. He paused in front of Archer. “Can I trust you?”

Archer grinned. “You don’t trust anybody. Don’t soap me.”

“Will you do something without asking questions?”

“You wouldn’t have to answer the questions, would you?”

“Try this for size. I want you to make a large rough pass at June Daley. And I want it made in front of witnesses. Customers.”

“I’m assuming there’s a reason for doing that.”

“There is.”

“It will humiliate me, Logun. About a hundred dollars worth.”

“Cheap enough.”

“When do I do this little thing?”

“I think tonight would be a good time, Archer.”

Chapter Three

Clay Pigeon

Logun told him the approximate time that June would be coming out of MacLayt’s office. The early evening crowd was light, but the bar was well tenanted. When she came out of the door, Archer pushed himself away from the bar, caught up with her from behind. “Hello, baby,” he said, spinning her around by the shoulders, taking her into his long arms.

He kissed her, as she fought him, struggling, kicking, her angry shouts smothered by his lips. When he turned her loose, she swung her pocketbook at him. It grazed his cheek. She spun and walked out, indignation clear in every line of her body. Logun moved over and said loudly, “Why don’t you leave that girl alone, Archer?” He glared and hurried off after June. Archer smiled at the indignant faces along the bar, sauntered out onto the pier.

Alone in the dusk he tried to guess what it was all about. Logun had acted as though it were a matter of importance. Logun had been setting up witnesses. For what? Adding the little incident to what Shirley had said at breakfast, it seemed that someone was being set up as a clay pigeon. He wondered if he had slipped somewhere along the line, if Logun had found out his true motive.

It made him restless and nervous.

Dusk had been the time of day when Johnny Jermane had liked to talk of things past. Of dreams that were over.

He remembered the sound of Johnny’s voice. “Yeah, Steve, I was the wide-eyed innocent. He had the dough and the experience and when Shirley kept needling me, I took him in as an equal partner. He had the bucks all right. Green stacks of it. He was getting the joint on its feet when I was drafted. All very lovey dovey. Come back soon, Johnny.

“I was alerted for overseas duty when I got the letter from the lawyer. I hadn’t checked the partnership agreement too carefully. There was a clause in it which said that if I was absent from the business for over three months he could buy me out at half the inventory valuation. That was tough. It upset me.

“But then, by the time I got out of the service, I’d have a nice hunk of dough so I could start all over again. He paid the money over to the joint account I had with Shirley. Two months after I got overseas I got the note from Shirley asking for a divorce. Then I got the bank statement. She’d cleaned me.

“I got hit two days later. And after I was here I got an anonymous letter. I think it was somebody who used to work at the place. He wrote that Shirley was drinking and she had bragged how marriage to Logun was her price for letting him in on the deal, talking me into it, cleaning out the bank account and turning it over to him.”

Johnny had told the story over and over again.

Afterwards the doctor had said, “There was no really good medical reason why Jermane died of the after effects of his wounds. But there was a good psychological reason. Something or somebody took the heart out of him. Who ever did that to Jermane, killed him just as definitely as if they’d walked in here at night and cut his throat.”

The week before he had died, Johnny had said, “Steve, if I don’t make it out of here, go take a look, will you? Find out why they rigged it on me the way they did. Find out if Shirley has a heart.”

When you spend a few years of pain in a bed beside a man who talks of his life to cover his own pain and sickness, you learn a good deal about him.

And Steve Archer had vowed that Logun and Shirley would pay.

Night settled over the sea. The din of voices in the Chez Shirley was increasing. Shirley came out and stood beside him. “Deep thoughts, Archer?”

“Deep as the ocean, Mrs. Logun.”

“You and I have a date tomorrow.”

“How nice for me!”

“Don’t waste your sarcasm. I’m not bright enough to appreciate it, Archer. Besides, boss’ orders. We’re going swimming.”

“Today I went swimming with Miss Daley.”

“That I saw. Very cute, too. But I heard that you spoiled the good impression later.”

“What were you trying to tell me this morning about something I won’t be able to stomach?”

“Forget it,” she said. “I was wrong. You won’t have to. I will. And I can do it. It won’t be as hard as I thought.”

At 3:00 in the morning as he went up to his room, he heard the sound of a man groaning in Logun’s apartment. He paused by the door. The groans continued. He knocked.

“Who is it? Oh, come in, Archer,” Logun said.

Shirley sat on the couch, her face slack, her eyes dulled by liquor. Logun sat on the arm of the couch, smiling down with interest on MacLayt. Kister, his eyes still puffed and purpled, squatted on his heels next to MacLayt. MacLayt groaned constantly. His face was the shade of putty.

“A little more,” Logan directed.

Kister pushed MacLayt back into the couch, cracked his fist along MacLayt’s face.

MacLayt screamed thinly, without strength.

Logun said, “Mr. MacLayt has been rather stupid of late. We’re showing him that stupidity can be a painful affair.”

Kister moved over to one side, still smiling.

“Can you hear me?” Logun said loudly to MacLayt. The man nodded.

“Another bull like this last one and you’re going on a boat trip. Do you know what I mean?”

Again MacLayt nodded. Kister yanked the man to his feet, pushed him toward the door. Archer moved aside as MacLayt stumbled out.

“Fortunately,” Logun said smoothly, “his mistakes can be rectified. You’d better go to bed, Archer. You have a date with Shirley at nine.”

Shirley was waiting at the end of the pier. Her back was turned. She wore a white bathing cap. Archer gasped as she turned. Her suit was such a perfect replica of the one June had worn that he had thought it was June.

She had a tense look on her face and her lips were compressed. Logun stood forty feet away.

“Good morning, Archer,” Shirley said. “Gerry has his movie camera with him. He’s a great one for trick shots. He wants us to clown a shot for him.”

She spoke rapidly and tonelessly.

“Sure,” Archer said. “How funny can we get?”

Logun backed up. Archer turned and said, loudly because of the distance, “You won’t get any detail from way back there, friend.”

Logun called, “Do like Shirley says.”

Shirley turned. “Here’s the script. I’m standing looking out to sea. You come up behind me and waver as though you were drunk. Stagger around a little, but sneak up on me. You got it?”

“So far.”

“I’ll turn and see you and then you throw a punch at me. Just barely miss me. Won’t that be funny?”

“Like a crutch,” he said. Her voice bothered him. It was thin, somehow lifeless. As though she was hurrying through something while her courage held up.

Archer frowned. He couldn’t figure out what bothered him about the setup. Both Logun and Shirley seemed tense. He shrugged. Okay, if they liked slapstick.

He did as he was told. When Shirley whirled, he was startled at the whiteness of her face. He clumsily threw the punch, just missing her chin. She threw her head back, crumpled and fell loosely from the end of the pier into the ocean. Archer gasped, peered down, saw Shirley, with a strong crawl, heading toward the shore.

He turned and looked at Logun. “Very funny,” Gerry Logun said. He turned and began to walk back toward the high glass doors.

Suddenly the unrelated fragments clicked into a clear pattern in his mind. The tide was running out. The door swung shut behind Logun. Archer stood, breathing heavily, trying to plan.

Kister came out the door where Logun had disappeared. The muzzle of the revolver was aimed steadily at Steve Archer’s middle. Kister said in his high voice, “Stay still for daddy. Stay still until the cops come. The boss is phoning.”

That confirmed it. Nicely. From the corner of his eye he saw Shirley walking up the path from the ocean toward the side door of the main building. She looked back, a look heavy with fright. In the basin one of the powerful motors grunted into life.

There was no answering the blunt question of the revolver aimed at him. In a toneless voice Archer went carefully and thoroughly into the antecedents, the habits, the probable future history of the Kister twins. He watched the sudden flush and then the pallor. He saw the indecision, the fear of actually pulling the trigger, and still he talked on.

Kister’s control finally cracked. He moved in and slashed at Archer’s face with the revolver.

Archer moved in so quickly that the arm holding the gun wrapped around the back of his neck. In close he made sudden, violent movements, utilizing the twisting strength of his whole body. A spasmed finger yanked the trigger, the slug going harmlessly out to sea. Kister’s eyes rolled up out of sight and he sank down onto the concrete floor without a sound.

Archer snatched up the gun, jumped up onto the railing, high over the power boat moving cautiously down the narrow channel parallel to the dock. Relli stood on deck with one of the sailors.

It had to match. It had to be part of it. He poised, judged the distance, and, just as Relli gave a startled upward glance, he dropped. His bare feet hit with stinging force against the mahogany deck planks and he rolled onto his back. The revolver skidded out of his hand and spun over the side. Relli dropped and, as he dropped, Archer got his legs up. He planted his bare feet against Relli’s chest and shoved violently upward. Relli gave a shrill cry of alarm, teetered wildly with his heels against the foot high rail and went over the side.

The sailor gave a wild yell and seconds later the motors stopped. But already there was a spreading stain in the sea. A wave washed the launch sideways and it jarred against the sand, tipped at an angle.

“The screws caught him,” the sailor said flatly.

Archer darted by him and went down into the cabin. She was on the padded bench on her back, her ankles and wrists tied with soft strips of material. As he reached for her ankles, the sailor jumped onto his back. The impact carried Archer over, his head striking the bulkhead with sickening force. The waves slapped against the hull and someone was shouting in the distance.

Archer, through red waves of pain, rolled over to one side, fighting at the hands which clutched his throat. Suddenly the other man yelled hoarsely and the hands were no longer around his throat.

Archer struggled up. He braced his feet and, as the sailor came up off the floor, he smashed him full in the mouth, feeling the bitter jar of the blow, feeling a bone in his hand give.

The man dropped onto his back and was still. As Archer, ignoring the pain in his right hand, fumbled to untie the soft knots of fabric, the girl giggled hysterically and said, “I bit him.”

Above the sound of the sea, above the slap of waves against the hull, he heard the rising, growing wail of a siren.

The other crew member stood near the cabin hatch and said sullenly, “I don’t know a damn thing about any of this.”

Archer looked up as he sensed movement above him. Logun, his face distorted with rage, his mouth ugly and twisted, aimed carefully down at them. Archer spun and carried the girl with him over the far side of the small craft into the sea.

The sound of the shot was flat and brittle above the deeper roar of the waves. He could no longer hear the siren sound. “Stay here,” he yelled into the girl’s ear. He took a deep breath, went down as far as he could and struck out for the shelter of the pier itself. When he came up he was under the arches of the pier. He swam rapidly to the far side and then in to the beach, utilizing the breakers to push him along. His hand throbbed and his wind was nearly gone. He staggered as he came out onto the white sand.

As he did so, Logun dropped from the pier onto the sand at the other side of the arch, appearing with startling suddenness, his back to Archer. He started to walk over toward the basin, toward the remaining launch, and Archer guessed his plan.

His feet made little sound on the sand. He caught Logun in five running strides, hitting him across the backs of his thighs, spilling him onto the sand. Logun twisted under him, trying to bring the gun to bear. Archer got the wrist, twisted until the gun dropped, drove his left fist down at Logun’s face. But his fist hit into the sand and Logun spun out.

Logun was frighteningly quick. He caught Archer’s left wrist, threw him heavily. Archer blocked the heavy kick with his shoulder, snatched at the foot and missed. He came up with a handful of sand, flung it full into Logun’s face and, as the man cursed and backed away, rubbing at his eyes, Archer hit him with an overhand right that dropped him to his knees. But the pain of the blow against the broken bone made the sky reel darkly.

He fought back the pain and said, “This is for Johnny Jermane.” He smashed Logun in the mouth with a hard fist.

“That will be enough!” a hard voice said. “Joe, bring ’em both up here.”

The three men from the Amira force stood in a sullen half-circle. Logun sat on a chair with the back of the chair against the bar. He held a pale blue handkerchief to his mouth. His eyes were venomous.

Mr. Taen in his wrinkled rayon suit, his soiled panama hat in his hand, said, “I realize that Mr. Logun has done you local gentlemen certain favors. However, I wish you to ignore his pointed hints for you people to arrest him on local charges. My young men are on the way here and we will put him under federal arrest.

“You have heard Mr. Archer’s statement. Mr. Archer did a very fine job of analyzing the events here. He guessed rightly that Miss Daley was working for me and that Mr. MacLayt over there very foolishly allowed Miss Daley to obtain certain confidential data which we need for a conviction of Mr. Logun.

“The evidence of conspiracy to murder Miss Daley will appear on that roll of movie film in the camera on the table. It will show a closeup of Miss Daley walking toward the end of the pier. Then it will show a supposedly drunken Mr. Archer knocking what appears to be Miss Daley off the end of the pier.

“You will note, gentlemen, that the bathing costumes now worn by both Mrs. Logun and Miss Daley are identical in every respect. I rather guess we will find the film just sufficiently out of focus to further the illusion.”

Steve Archer said, “I came here to pay back some favors those two did to a friend. A friend named Jermane.”

He saw Shirley’s eyes widen.

Taen said quickly, “But I persuaded Mr. Archer that he should give up the idea of personal vengeance and work for me on an unofficial basis. Isn’t that right, Mr. Archer?”

Steve glanced at the sour expressions on the faces of the three men from Amira. He licked his lips and said, “Yes sir.” He looked at Logun. “Why frame me?” he asked. “What reason did you have?”

The voice was thick. “You were too smart and too hard. I took this place away from Jermane. I didn’t want you taking it away from me.”

Shirley said softly, “Archer, like I told you, a girl never knows when she’s well off, does she?”

She spun between the two men, yanked open the glass doors and ran down the pier beyond the band platform.

“She can’t get away,” Taen said.

“She’ll get away,” Archer said heavily.

They had to stand and watch her. The tide was out too far for either boat to be launched. She swam powerfully. They stood and watched the glitter of the white cap against the blue of the sea. They watched it until it was gone.

“What are you going to do?” June Daley asked.

Steve Archer lazily stirred his coffee. He said, “I’m a balloon without air. A doll without the sawdust. I thought of killing Logun for so long that it was the only aim and purpose I had.

“This sort of a death is a harder one for him to bear. His gray suit won’t be a good fit and he won’t like marching in line and eating when the big bell rings.”

“Are you sorry you didn’t kill him?”

“No. I was wrong. I know it now.”

They were silent for a long time. It was a comfortable silence.

At last she said, “You could buy the Chez Shirley cheap. You have the money. You ought to be busy until you find out what you really want to do. Set up some sort of a foundation. A lot of kids could live there. Make it a memorial to that friend of yours.”

He slowly tasted the idea and found it good. He said to her, “Why couldn’t Johnny have tied up with a girl like you instead of...”

She gave him a long look, so direct and level as to be almost insolent. “Why couldn’t you?” she asked.

Content

John D. MacDonald
Make Mine Murder!

Chapter One Call Me Mister

Chapter Two Sucker-Punched

Chapter Three Clay Pigeon