“Of course I’m going to stay at my desk. How would it look if a client came in and caught your secretary lounging on the boss’s lap encouraging him to get drunk?”
“I’m afraid they’d be envious and try to hire you away from me, angel.” Shayne brought her the glass of wine. He went back to the table and lifted his cognac. “Here’s to a continued dearth of clients. May they avoid my office-”
A shriek from Phyllis brought Shayne whirling around, slopping liquor over the rim of his glass.
A man stood in the doorway. He was hunched forward with arms akimbo, hands thrust in the pockets of a double-breasted serge coat, hugging the garment tightly to his concave belly. His eyes were glazed and they stared straight in front of him without seeing anything. He swayed in the doorway, took a short, uncertain step, then fell to one knee as Shayne leaped forward.
He toppled sideways on the carpet before the detective reached him. A gray froth dribbled out between his lips with widely spaced words that sounded as though he had been saving them up, concentrating on them, for a long time. He said, “They-didn’t-get-” before he died.
Shayne knelt beside him and turned him on his back. He unbuttoned the blue coat and threw it back, showing a tight vest of the same material. He ripped the vest open and put his ear to the man’s chest. Phyllis remained seated, hands flat on her desk, eyes wide and frightened.
Shayne lifted his head and shook it. Phyllis screamed and pointed at him. “Your face, Mike! It’s covered with blood.”
Michael Shayne nodded somberly. He took a handkerchief from his hip pocket and wiped the dead man’s blood from his cheek. He said, “His chest is shot full of holes. God only knows how he held himself together to get here.”
He stood up and heeled the door shut.
“Michael! Is it Jim Lacy? The man who phoned?”
Shayne shook his head slowly. He stared down at the dead man and the lines of his face deepened into trenches. “I guess maybe it is Lacy. I can’t be sure. Haven’t see him for ten years. Ten tough years, if this is he.”