Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine Annual, No. 3, 1973

McKeever looked down the street. “Benjie’s still with us, I see,” he said.

Shayne spotted the car braked at the curbing about a block away as Wallace said, “She was strangled, McKeever.”

The cop shook his head. “Benjie’s been on you two since Shayne got to town. He didn’t kill her. Right now I halve to figure it was some john.” He shrugged. “Which isn’t too unusual. Johns get angry, hustlers get killed. It’s mostly always like that.

“Crumford, the manager, says she came in alone around five-thirty this afternoon. He knows because he was working out back in the parking lot when she drove in. She parked her VW, spoke to him, and went inside to her apartment. She didn’t leave again in her car. He knows that too because he was working out there in the lot until about twenty minutes before you two showed at his apartment. So right now I have to figure some john came to her place early this evening, probably some client she hustled at the law office. She worked for a law firm by day. I’ll check out the office in the morning.”

“McKeever,” Shayne said flatly, “you know why I’m in town?”

“I’d have to be blind not to. Everybody in Las Vegas reads Max Wallace. I had a call from a detective named Painter this morning. Among other things, he said there was the possibility you’d show.”

“Did Painter give you Flora Ann Perkins?”

“The passport and airline ticket business? Yes, it was the main reason he called.”

“So you can write her murder off to a john? You can’t tie it to—”

McKeever sounded as if he was thinning on patience, as he said, “I’m not writing off anything. There damn well might be a tie between the death of Melody Deans and what you just discovered. But the killing here could be a simple thing, too, and totally unrelated. It could be a john killed her. I have to consider that.”

“So consider it, then forget it. This woman was killed because she knew something about Melody Deans!”

“Maybe.” McKeever shrugged.

“You know a character named Renfro Bastone?”

McKeever fixed Shayne with a hard look. “We talk to him every so often, yeah, pull him in for questioning. About a stickup here, a stickup there. What about him?”

“Is he in town right now?”

“No,” McKeever said slowly, frowning.

“Know where he is?”

“He still could be down your way, I suppose. Miami, Miami Beach...”

McKeever let it hang and Shayne pressed. He knew he had the cop thinking in the right direction now. “You figure Bastone could’ve known Melody Deans was carrying a half million, trailed her, hit her?”

“It’s a possibility, I suppose.”

“What’s more probable?”

“That he was sent after her.”

“By whom?”

“By somebody who has a beef with Cordova, or by somebody in the know who is greedy.”

“Any ideas?”

“The beef doesn’t fit, as far as I know. Things have been quiet here, nobody angry with anybody else. But the greed, now that could fit. We have plenty of greedy people around.”

Shayne said, “I get the picture that Bastone is a cheap punk, not trustworthy. Who’d take a chance on him in a half million dollar caper?”

McKeever waved a hand. “Bastone isn’t known for smarts, that’s, true. But somebody could’ve talked him into the dead with a promise of a few thousand, then killed him at the time of the payoff.”

“You figure Bastone is dead?”

“He could be.”

“Know anything about his brother?”

“I didn’t know he had a brother,” McKeever said slowly.

“He does. Okay, if Bastone is still walking, could he have slipped in here today, and killed the Perkins woman? The passport and the air ticket made out in the name of Flora Ann Perkins could have scared him. No smarts again. He spots both, knows something isn’t right, becomes confused, then scared. He doesn’t understand the Perkins woman’s role in all of this so he heads back here and strangles her.”

“Maybe,” McKeever said, tugging his lower lip in thought. “But I’m more inclined to think that Bastone pulled off the heist, then told his silent partner about the passport and ticket. Partner kills Bastone, takes the haul, returns here, hits the woman.”

“Okay, who are the candidates?”

McKeever looked almost startled. Then he permitted himself a tight smile. “Shayne, you’ve got to be kidding. This town is loaded with greedy characters.”

“But how many would know Melody Deans was being sent on a journey with that kind of bread?”

McKeever moved. He went around the front end of the sedan and got inside. He stuck a key in the ignition switch. Shayne hung in the open door window. McKeever said, “Get a good night’s sleep, Shayne. I’ll be in touch.”

He started the motor and drove away.

Shayne watched the tail-lights disappear and then rejoined Max Wallace on the sidewalk.

“I don’t like the way your friend operates,” he snapped. “But at least he’s forgot that assinine theory about a john.”

Wallace dropped the redhead at the Trout.

“It’s been an interesting evening,” he said. “And I’ve got work to do.”

“Give me some names, Wallace,” Shayne said. “Who’s McKeever going after?”