Free Blood on the Stars by Brett Halliday Page A

returned it to his pocket. “It won’t be hard to match this new paint job of mine.” He smoothed the six bills together, folded them lengthwise, and slapped them against his palm.
    The mechanic nodded and reached for the money. “Drive on in. I’ll get on yours just as soon as I finish the job I’m on.” He stepped back and slid the door all the way open.
    Shayne drove inside a big room with half a dozen cars parked around the wall in various stages of dismantlement. He waited just inside while the mechanic closed the door and said, “This doesn’t look too good. If the cops come around—”
    The mechanic stepped on the running-board beside him and grinned widely, showing a gap in his front upper teeth. “Never you mind about the law, buddy. Drive straight ahead and turn in between them white lines on the floor.”
    As Shayne drove in he neared a solid ten-foot panel that rose slowly to admit passage onto a rickety freight elevator.
    The mechanic chuckled at the detective’s surprise when the panel closed soundlessly behind them when the sedan was on the elevator. He stepped from the running-board and pressed a button and the elevator descended slowly to the floor below, which was brightly lighted and resounded with the thumping sounds of a wooden mallet on sheet metal.
    “Pull it off over here,” he directed Shayne. “We’ll get to you just as soon as we finish up this other one.”
    Shayne drove off the elevator onto a clear space in the underground workroom and cut the ignition. The mechanic strolled over to say a few words to his fellow workman, who was pounding out dents in the right front fender that had been removed from a black limousine.
    After lighting a cigarette, Shayne got out and strolled over to the workman to ask casually, “How much longer will you be on that job?”
    “Quarter of an hour, maybe. All you got to do is sit tight and you can drive that hack of yours out of here fixed so nobody in God’s world’ll ever know you been in an accident.”
    Shayne said, “Fair enough.” He walked around the limousine, looking at it with casual disinterest, memorized the number of the Dade County license plate, then returned to the mechanics and said enthusiastically, “That’s the kind of crate I’d like to own. I suppose a guy would have to be a millionaire to get one like it these days.”
    One of them grunted some noncommittal reply, and they both went on with their work.
    “I always wondered,” Shayne went on, “how it felt to sit behind the wheel of a buggy like that.”
    Neither of the men said anything, but went on with their hammering as though their lives depended upon getting the job finished within a few minutes.
    Shayne shrugged and dropped his cigarette to the concrete floor and ground it out with his shoe. He yawned and strolled back to the limousine and leaned inside the front window to study the rich upholstery and the gleaming dashboard.
    Glancing at the mechanics, he saw that neither of them was paying any attention to him. The windshield of the big car appeared to be faintly opaque, and Shayne felt the window glass between his thumb and forefinger. It seemed extra thick, and he had a hunch it was intended to be bulletproof.
    He unlatched the door and slid onto the soft cushion behind the wheel, switched on the dashlight and pretended interest in the speedometer and various other gadgets.
    There was a single key in the ignition lock, and Shayne pressed a button on the glove compartment to search for some clue as to the car’s owner. It came open easily, and he was groping inside the small opening when two men appeared on a wooden stairway leading down from a room upstairs.
    The men came slowly toward the limousine, halted, and glared at him. They were both neatly dressed in dark suits, and the slimmer one was quite young. He had thick lips and his eyes bulged a trifle, giving his face an expression of boyish astonishment. His companion was heavier and some twenty years