This scene actually happens in the book!
Framed in Blood is a 1951 mystery novel by Brett Halliday, the pen name of Davis Dresser.
It is part of Halliday's long-running series about hardboiled Miami private detective Michael Shayne. Shayne is whiling away an afternoon at the bar, killing time before a date with his Sexy Secretary Lucy Hamilton, when he is approached by one Bert Jackson. Jackson is a newspaper reporter and former colleague of Tim Rourke, Shayne's good friend and an Intrepid Reporter recurring character in the Shayne series. Jackson says that he has a proposition for Shayne, and the two men adjourn to Shayne's apartment.
The proposition is that Shayne help Jackson in a piece of blackmail. Jackson has dug up an explosive story about an unnamed "Mr. Big", part of Miami's political establishment. But Jackson doesn't think that his paper will let him run the story, as the paper supports Mr. Big, and Jackson is bitter about life anyway because his wife Betty is cheating on him. Jackson wants to sell the story to Mr. Big for $25K, and he wants Shayne to be his go-between. Shayne knows that blackmail plots usually end in Blackmail Backfire, and since he likes to be alive he refuses, and tells Bert that he should abandon the idea.
Sure enough, within a couple of hours Bert Jackson is murdered. Who did it? Betty, who might have wanted to get rid of him? Bert's scheming mistress, Marie? The mysterious Mr. Big? Shayne is worried that the killer is his best friend Tim Rourke, who as it happens was the man having an affair with Betty Jackson.
Tropes:
- Alcohol Hic: Bert Jackson was already drunk when he approached Shayne at the bar and gets drunker over a couple of cognacs in Shayne's apartment. "He then hiccuped and patted a sagging side pocket of his coat," where the story apparently is, before leaving.
- Blackmail Backfire: Played With. Shayne refuses the job on these grounds, pointing out that "Shakedowns are dangerous." But in the end it turns out that Bert was killed because he didn't go through with the blackmail demand, that he decided to run the story and was shot by his reporter partner Ned Brooks who wanted the $25,000.
- "Burly Detective" Syndrome: The later, hackier Mike Shayne novels written by ghostwriters were the Trope Namer. At no point in this edition is Shayne called "burly", but he is called "rangy" seven different times. Ironically "rangy" is pretty much the opposite of "burly", indicating that the later Shayne novels went through some Continuity Drift.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: Marie Leonard, Bert Jackson's 20-year-old mistress. Shayne admires the "mature curves" of her body when he stops by her apartment, and later specifically admires a "large breast."
- Cat Fight: Offscreen, but Shayne learns that Lucy was arrested for getting into "a hair-pulling brawl" with Marie Leonard. Marie had gone to the post office and received the $25,000 payment, and the only way Lucy could think of to stop her from escaping was to physically assault her.
- Cry into Chest: Marie leans into Shayne "and buried her face against his chest and sobbed convulsively." Much like Betty Jackson a few chapters before, she's trying to seduce him.
- Drunken Master: Part of the solution! Shayne tells a story about how he's seen his old friend Tim sit in front of the typewriter and pound out whole newspaper features, without a single typo, while blackout drunk. But the suicide note on the typewriter is filled with typos, which leads Shayne to conclude that Ned Brooks faked it after shooting Tim.
- Exact Words: Shayne tells Mr. Big that he will accept $25,000 in return for destroying all the files he got from Bert Jackson. When Chief Gentry objects, Shayne says that he wasn't lying, he will destroy all the files he has—except that he doesn't have any files because Bert never gave him any.Shayne: Maybe he needs a course in semantics.
- Extreme Doormat: Lucy Hamilton, who is more submissive in this book than she usually is. She says outright that she was wrong to get mad when she thought that Shayne was screwing another woman."I had no right, Michael. Even if we were married, I wouldn’t feel I had the right." Her voice was shaky, stricken, and stormy and tender, all at the same time. "If that damned door hadn’t been unlocked—if I hadn’t walked in on you without warning—"...."I won’t be a jealous wife, Michael." Her eyes were wide and bright and starry. "I know how you are with women, and how they are about you—And I know it’s all—well—impersonal. Something that doesn’t touch me. But I never actually saw you with a woman in your arms before."
- Extremely Short Timespan: The formula for the Michael Shayne novels. In this case, 24 hours more or less from when Bert Jackson approaches Shayne to the scene where Shayne unmasks the killer.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: Marie pleads innocence in the Bert Jackson murder, saying that she could never have killed a man "on his own front porch." Shayne then nails her, saying that no one but the cops and the killer knew that Bert Jackson was actually shot on his front porch. (It turns out that she learned this from the killer, Ned Brooks.)
- Inspector Lestrade: Chief Will Gentry of the Miami police. As per formula, Shayne is always trying to stall Gentry so he can solve the case himself, while Gentry is breathing threats. This time Gentry actually tells his men to arrest Shayne when Shayne won't come across with information, which forces Shayne to make up a story to pacify Gentry, which backfires when the story winds up incriminating Tim Rourke.
- Intrepid Reporter: Played With with Bert Jackson. Jackson dug up an explosive story of corruption in city government, which would match the trope, but then he decided to sell the story which is the opposite of what an intrepid reporter would do. The ending reveals that he had an attack of conscience and decided to send the story to Tim Rourke's paper for publication, which is why he was killed.
- Love Dodecahedron: Shayne thinks that Tim Rourke "had evidently beaten a triangle into a square" when he finds out that Tim was having an affair with Betty Jackson, whose husband Bert was having his own affair with Marie Leonard.
- MacGuffin: The explosive story that Bert Jackson has reported about "Mr. Big," who is someone in Miami government. We don't find out who Mr. Big is or what he's supposed to have done, but the story is what drives the plot.
- Nosy Neighbor: Grandma Peabody, neighbor to the Jacksons, who apparently was so nosy that Betty Jackson started drawing her curtains because she knew that Mrs. Peabody was snooping. Mrs. Peabody's nonstop surveillance resulted in her seeing Bert Jackson come home shortly before he was murdered.
- Not What It Looks Like: Betty Jackson "flung herself upon" Shayne, crying, obviously trying to use both sex appeal and emotion to get Shayne to stop Bert from his scheme. She's pressed up against him with her arms around his neck when Shayne's secretary Lucy shows up for their date, catches them, and gets pissed off.
- Sexy Secretary: Lucy Hamilton as usual. She shows up for a date and is miffed to catch Shayne with another woman. Later Shayne admires her figure in a nurse's outfit (It Makes Sense in Context).
- Spit Take: "Shayne sputtered on a sip of Scotch" when Marie catches him by surprise, asking directly, "Did Bert's wife kill him?"
- Victoria's Secret Compartment: Where Marie is carrying the envelope with $25,000. She has to fish it out of her dress at the police station.
- The Voice: "Mr. Big," who isn't named, but who calls Shayne a couple of times in hopes of retrieving the incriminating story. We don't find out what his position is in Miami government, nor what exactly he did, although at the end Bert's story is retrieved so Mr. Big is going to go down.
- Watching the Reflection Undress: Shayne cannot help but admire the naked body of Marie Leonard when she is changing clothes in her bedroom. He has a quick Oh, Crap! moment when he realizes that, if he can see her nude body in the mirror in her room, she can see him looking—but then he realizes that she left the door open on purpose and is undressing in front of the mirror on purpose, because she wants him to look.
- While You Were in Diapers: Shayne, struggling to talk Bert Jackson out of a highly dangerous blackmail plot, says "Look, Jackson, I've been around Miami since before you were wetting your diapers." He goes on to tell Bert that there are easier ways to make a quick buck in a sleazy city like Miami.
