Free Bodies Are Where You Find Them by Brett Halliday Page B

cage and pushed the button opposite 3. The elevator clicked, purred, and rose smoothly to stop at the third floor. He went down the hall to 342 and pressed the button.
    Jim Marsh opened the door. He appeared surprised and not too pleased to see Shayne. The mayoralty candidate was a slender, wiry man with a hawklike face and uneasy eyes.
    He said, “Oh, hello, Mike. I had an idea you were halfway to New York by now. Decided to stay over, eh? That’s fine. Did you talk to that girl?”
    Shayne said, “Briefly.” He glanced inside the room, drew back when he saw there was a visitor. He stepped backward and jerked his head at Marsh. The candidate hesitated, then moved out, closing the visitor from sight.
    “Do you know who the girl was?” Shayne demanded.
    “No. She wouldn’t tell me her name over the phone. She sounded drunk.”
    “She phoned you?”
    “That’s right. She insisted that she could help us win. I thought you’d know better how to handle her.” Jim Marsh spread out his small hands expressively.
    “But you knew I was leaving town.”
    “You’re still here. How about it? Did she have something important?”
    “I don’t know. She’s dead.”
    “Dead?” Marsh retreated a step. “Good Lord, Mike!”
    “The girl,” said Shayne tonelessly, “was Helen Stallings. Her body disappeared from my room and I don’t know where it is. It’s going to be tough on me if you’ve told anybody you sent her to me.”
    “I haven’t told a soul. But—dead?” Jim Marsh shuddered. “Let’s drop it, Mike. Everything. The election. I’m beaten anyway. I haven’t a chance.”
    Shayne shook his head angrily. “To hell with that. We’re not whipped yet.” He stepped past Marsh and pushed the door open and nodded curtly to a large, hook-nosed man who sat across the room. He asked, “How are things shaping up, Naylor?”
    Jim Marsh’s campaign manager shifted a cigar to the other side of his mouth and assured him with false heartiness, “Fine. Swell. It’s in the bag, Shayne.”
    A curious silence followed his words. Naylor glanced past Shayne at Marsh, arching oddly bushed brows which crowded his eyelids. He then lifted a highball glass and drank from it, studiously avoiding Shayne’s gaze.
    Jim Marsh closed the door and asked, “What happened to your face, Mike?”
    “Campaign argument.” Shayne stalked to an overstuffed sofa and carefully lowered his lanky body. “I could do with a drink.”
    “Sure. I’ll get it.” Marsh spoke quickly and effusively. “No cognac, though.”
    “Rye will do. Lots of rye and not much soda.”
    “Coming right up,” Marsh said and went through a swinging door into the kitchen.
    The instant he was out of the room Naylor leaned forward and asked in a low voice, “What’s got into the chief? Has something come up that I don’t know about?”
    Shayne said mildly, “You’re his campaign manager.”
    “That’s just it,” Naylor responded, drawing his odd brows together to form a single matted line. “I’ve worked my head off and got the votes lined up—and now he talks about taking a runout powder—giving up before the votes are counted.”
    Shayne frowned his disbelief. “First I knew about it.”
    “He has been worried for weeks about the way things are going,” Naylor confided. “He’s new in politics, see? He doesn’t know the inside. He’s been cutting down on expense money, and you can’t win an election that way. I didn’t know we were backing a quitter.”
    “Neither did I,” said Shayne slowly.
    Naylor settled back with his cigar and highball as Marsh re-entered the living-room. “Here you are, Mike.” He handed a brimming glass to Shayne. “Lots of rye and not much soda.”
    Shayne nodded and reached for the glass. “Naylor tells me you’re putting your tail between your legs, Marsh.”
    Marsh shot his campaign manager a disapproving glance. He set his thin lips in a tight line and went back to a deep chair where his drink and pipe