“Still early,” the bartender told him. “We had a little trouble in the neighborhood, and not many walk in off the street. But we’re still getting the guided parties from the hotels and the cruises.”
“I think I know what you mean,” Shayne said. “A gay, uninhibited tour of the exotic native night spots. Price includes two drinks.”
“Also includes tips,” the bartender said sourly.
Shayne grinned. “Doesn’t that get-up make you feel a little silly?”
The bartender gave Shayne a hard look and put both hands palm down on the bar, one on either side of Shayne’s drink. “What do you think you’re trying to be, Jack? Funny?”
“Hell, no,” Shayne said. “Just wondering. Let me buy you a drink.”
After a moment the man relaxed. “I’m getting hard to get along with. Either I put a rag on my head or I don’t work here. The rest of it I don’t mind, except this goddamn earring. Toward the end of an evening I have to take plenty of cracks.”
“Anyway,” Shayne said, “they didn’t make you cut off one leg.”
The bartender wasn’t amused. He poured himself a double jigger of rum, saluted Shayne with it, and knocked it back.
Shayne ordered another drink. A party of American vacationers came in, and things began to pick up. The orchestra played another number, with better spirit, enticing two couples out on the floor. Then the drummer, a strapping native in a straw hat and a red shirt, beat out an intricate rhythm, and a dancer ran out from behind the orchestra, wearing a ruffled dress split to the waist, with a brief ruffled top.
When the performance was over, Shayne found that a girl had slid onto the next stool but one. She was dark and slender, with short tumbled hair, and was wearing a revealing white evening gown. She lit a long cigarette.
“I will have a glass of light rum, Al,” she said to the bartender, in an accent Shayne couldn’t place.
“Why not have it with me?” he suggested.
She breathed out a mouthful of smoke, and only then looked at Shayne coolly. “That is nice of you, but I am afraid I must say no.”
“I won’t bite you,” Shayne said. “What’s that nice pronunciation? Are you French?”
He took out his money-clip, squinting to keep the smoke out of his eyes, and when both the girl and the bartender had seen how much money he was carrying, he flipped a pound note onto the bar. Al picked it up and looked at her. She moved her shoulders in a slight shrug.
“Very well, if you wish. Yes, I am French. An unhappy Parisienne, at present far from the boulevards. You are American, Mr.—?”
“Michael Shayne. Sure. What brings you to St. Albans?”
“Ah, that is a long story. Not a very interesting one, I am afraid. I am an artist, you see. No,” she said, as Shayne looked at her questioningly, “not an artist with paint and brush. A dancer. I started off with a group to perform in the South American capitals and later, perhaps, if all went well, in your own country. A supper room in the exciting hotels in New York? Hollywood? Television? Such are the dreams of foolish people. Thank you, Al.”
She took the glass of rum and lifted it, without drinking. “And of course, being entertainers from the sinful city of Paris, we are expected to perform—” she made a brief gesture—“in costumes too small to be seen by the naked eye. Very well. One is realistic. Then the pig of a manager took it into his head to vanish with the leading dancer, and what is worse, the money we are owed for three weeks. Engagements cancelled. Voila—we are marooned on this island. The owner here wishes some different entertainment than the other places, so I have a job. For how long I do not know.”
She smiled. “You are not listening. I know, it is a tragedy only to me.”
“Sure I’m listening,” Shayne said. “Let’s take our drinks to a table. Hit me again, Al.”
He moved his glass toward the bartender, who filled it. Shayne picked up the three glasses, including the girl’s. She hesitated, then repeated her slight shrug and followed him to a corner table in the other room. As she sat down she said, “But there is one thing I should make clear.”
“I’m ahead of you,” Shayne said, interrupting. “Just because a girl comes from Paris and works in nightclubs, I don’t think that necessarily makes her a tramp. Was that what you were worrying about?”
She smiled. “A little. But you have not seen me work. Ninety-nine men out of a hundred—”
“Maybe I’m the hundredth,” Shayne said. “Relax.”
“You seem to be quite a—nice person, Mr. Michael Shayne.” She looked at him over her glass. “You make me feel a little better, I think. I have been sad and discouraged.”
Shayne waited a moment. “Don’t throw me any bouquets. Any other time I’d be one of those ninety-nine other guys. In fact, in that dress you almost make me forget that I’ve got my own troubles.”
“Troubles,” she said, smiling. “What kind of troubles can you have?”
“Never mind, I wouldn’t want to spoil your evening,” Shayne said. He reached for a cigarette and said casually, “But I’m as anxious to get off this island as you are.”
“Impossible.” Then she looked at him intently. “Do you happen to be serious?”
Shayne struck a match. “Is there a guy around here they call the Camel?”
Another group of Americans had arrived, noisier than the first. They were being taken to tables. Four couples were dancing, filling the little dance floor almost to capacity. A door had opened beyond the orchestra’s raised platform, and a man had come out. He was of middle height, balding, with pouches beneath his eyes. He wore a dark double-breasted suit, and as Shayne mentioned his nickname he half-turned, and Shayne saw the small hump on his back. Having made the identification, he was willing to let it drop, but the girl said softly, “Yes, Alvarez. The owner. He has a boat. But such a service, you know, is expensive.”
Shayne grinned. “You don’t mean he’d take advantage of somebody in a jam?”
She repeated her elegant little shrug. “But naturally, who would not? Still, there is this. I know only what is said about him, but it is said that when he gives a promise he will keep it, within reason. Shall I tell him your problem?”
“No, I’d better introduce myself,” Shayne said.
He signalled a passing waiter.
“None more for me,” the girl said. “But I have a sudden idea. I would like to dance with you.”
“Another triple and more ice water,” Shayne told the waiter, and said to the girl: “I can’t dance to this music.”
“Certainly you can,” she said. “It is very simple, I will show you.”
Springing to her feet, her eyes alight, she seized his hand.
5
After several extremely embarrassing minutes, he began to get the hang of it. When the music stopped, the girl waved at the orchestra leader and it started again. The musicians grinned broadly. The other dancers had backed off to make room.
“You see how easy?” she said. “Again. One—two—”
She was beginning to introduce variations. He kept on moving his feet in the same basic pattern while she circled provocatively before him, smiling demurely as though she didn’t suspect what her body was doing. It was typical of Michael Shayne that while he was watching the girl, concentrating hard on keeping to the beat the drummer was giving him, he was fully aware of everything else that was going on in the room. Luis Alvarez, carrying the little hump that had given him his nickname, had gone into the bar. More customers arrived, first a large group, then a couple, then a single man. Shayne saw with surprise that it was the Englishman from the Lodge, Cecil Powys, with his tape recorder. The head waiter gave him a table near the orchestra.
When the music stopped there was a spattering of good natured applause.
“You see?” the girl said triumphantly.
Her breathing was normal, though the redhead was badly winded. Powys caught his eye and waved as he came off the dance floor. Shayne waved back and continued to
his own table. The girl picked up her bag.
“Presently I give my performance. You will watch me, no? And here is an idea. Only an idea!” she said, holding up one hand. “If you get the Camel’s boat, perhaps you would like a passenger?”
She came even closer to him, so she was touching him lightly at several points. “Think about it, eh?” She turned and walked quickly away.
Shayne waited, watching her thoughtfully, till she disappeared backstage. He drank his rum in one long pull without sitting down.
“Telephone?” he asked a nearby waiter.
“Yes, sah,” the man said. “Down the stairs, if you please. By the lavatory.”
Shayne glanced in at the bar. Alvarez was listening to another man who seemed to be selling him something. The detective went past and descended a badly-lighted flight of stairs. At the bottom, across from the door to the men’s room, there was a pay phone in a little niche. He looked up a number in the thin directory, sorted through his change until he found a coin that would fit one of the slots, and dropped it in. An operator answered and he gave the number.
Soon a man’s voice said gruffly, “Sergeant Brannon here.”
Someone came out of the men’s room behind him and started up the stairs. Shayne said, “Wait a minute.”
He leafed through the directory, waiting to be alone. A voice was coming out of the earphone irritably, “Are you there? Are you there?”
“Sure I’m here,” Shayne growled when the other customer had gone up the stairs. “Keep your pants on. I’ve got some information for you, and you can have it for nothing because I want to see this guy clobbered, but good. Are you listening?”
The voice said, “Who is this, please?”
“Never mind, never mind,” Shayne said. “I’m not out for publicity. If you’ve got something better to do, I don’t want to keep you.”
“Go ahead.”
“And don’t bother to have the call traced. I’m at a ginmill called the Pirate’s Roost, or something like that. The bar-man has a ring in one ear. You know the place I mean?”
“Yes. The Pirate’s Rendezvous.”
“I just saw this crumb Shayne in the bar here. If you send somebody right over you can put the bracelets on him.”
There was an instant’s pause, and the voice said more alertly, “What was that name?”
“Shayne. Mike Shayne. He’s hot right now. I hear the Florida cops want to talk to him. Don’t send one man, send two. No, on second thoughts, make it four.”
The voice started to say something, but Shayne hung up. He went back upstairs. At the top, he lit a cigarette and looked around.
The lights were down. Two male dancers were leaping around the little dance floor in the glare of two converging spotlights. The singer who had performed earlier was sitting at Powys’ table, and the Englishman’s recorder was open. Shayne drifted silently toward the entrance to the bar. Alvarez was still there, and Shayne saw that the bartender had just served him a fresh drink. The redhead circled the room, pausing at the door to the owner’s office, marked “No Admittance.” The dance became more frenzied and unrestrained. So far as Shayne could tell, no one was looking in his direction. He felt behind him for the doorknob, found it, opened the door and stepped through.
He shut the door quickly. A lamp was burning on the desk. The only pieces of furniture in the room besides the desk were several straight chairs, a couch and a large combination safe. The walls, like the walls in nightclub offices all over the world, were covered with framed pictures of obscure entertainers, most of them autographed.
Shayne reached the window in four long strides and pulled the slats of the Venetian blinds. He tried the safe. It was locked. He tugged at his earlobe, looking around, then sat down in Alvarez’ chair and began going through the desk.
He searched quickly and professionally, overlooking nothing, putting everything back in place when he was done with it. In the middle drawer he found an American .45 automatic. He unloaded it, dropping the clip into his side pocket, and then laid the automatic on the desk-top with its muzzle pointing at the drawer. In the bottom drawer he came to a bottle of rum and a glass. He took them out, looked suspiciously at the glass and took a drink from the bottle. It was better rum than Alvarez served the public over his bar.
Finding nothing else of interest, he sat back, lifted his feet to the desk, and waited.
But something remained at the edge of his consciousness. He tried to think—had he seen something in the desk which shouldn’t have been there? He brought his feet down and started through the drawers again.
He found it almost at once: a simple listing of radio programs, torn from a newspaper. Shayne looked at the opposite side and saw an ad for a St. Albans hotel. The listings were given for a half dozen stations in the area, from Havana to Kingston. On that day’s date, a light pencil line had been drawn around 11 p.m. Shayne checked his watch. It was now 10:25.
He closed the drawer thoughtfully and put his feet back on the desk. Taking the cap off the rum, he took another long drink.
Outside, a girl was singing in French, accompanied only by an intricate beat from a hand-drum. This was probably his new friend, Shayne thought. The crowd was quiet; apparently she was wearing the kind of costume, or lack of costume, expected of French entertainers. Her voice was thin and appealing, quavering on the high notes. She was well applauded. As the clapping began to die, the door opened and Alvarez came in, looking at his wrist watch.
He stopped dead as he saw Shayne. His glance jumped from the soles of the redhead’s shoes to the gun beside them, and back at Shayne’s face.
“Come on in,” Shayne told him. He nudged the bottle of rum with one foot. “Have a drink of your own liquor. It’s not bad.”
“Who are you?” Alvarez demanded in a high voice.
“And not only that. What am I doing in your private office without an invitation? Sit down and I’ll tell you about it.” When Alvarez hesitated, Shayne said politely, “Does the gun bother you?”
Leaning forward suddenly, he picked up the .45 and tossed it to the nightclub owner. Caught by surprise, Alvarez dropped it. He snatched it up from the floor and pointed it. The redhead was pleased to see that it wavered slightly.
“But I’ve got the clip,” Shayne said, “so don’t start giving me any orders. Your bar-man may have told you that I’m carrying a modest bankroll. I don’t know how you people operate, but I hear the town is a little warm. So I hope you won’t get any idea about taking it away from me.”
Alvarez checked the gun to see if it was actually empty. He came forward and dropped it on the desk. Then he whipped out a pair of black-rimmed glasses, put them on and stared at Shayne. The redhead grinned at him.
“I want some transportation,” he said. “I didn’t think anybody knew me on St. Albans, but it seems there’s a sheet going around with my picture on it. I want to get back to the States in a hurry. It’s a little cramped here. I’ll go as high as fifteen hundred. Dollars, not pounds.”
Alvarez thrust his glasses back in his pocket. He folded his lips primly, and poured several fingers of rum into the glass Shayne had decided not to use.
“What makes you think—”
“Come on, amigo,” Shayne said impatiently. “What do you want, references?”
Alvarez sloshed the rum around in the bottom of his glass without drinking it. “It is true, I go here and there about the island, I hear of such things being done. People have boats. I have a boat myself. But for fifteen hundred?”
“It’s not like hustling aliens,” Shayne said. “I’m a citizen. Somebody takes me out deep-sea fishing and we get lost. I don’t know what connections you’ve got. Maybe we run into a deep-sea boat out of Miami or Key West, accidentally on purpose. Do I have to draw you a diagram?”
Alvarez looked at his watch again, and his mouth twitched. “I must give this a little thought. Please excuse me for the moment. Watch my excellent international floorshow. Come back in one half hou
r, and we will discuss it. Of course I will want to know who wants you, and for what. That will have a bearing.”
Shayne stood up with a muffled exclamation. “You’re as jittery as a virgin on her first date. Why I want to go fishing is my own business. Do you want the fifteen hundred or not? If not, say so and I’ll try somebody else. I’ve got a couple of other names.”
Before the Camel could answer the phone rang. He looked at Shayne and picked it up.
“Yes… What? Coming here? Yes, yes. Of course I want to hear it…” His eye rested on Shayne as the voice rasped on at the other end of the line, no doubt reading Shayne’s description from the Wanted flier. When the voice stopped, Alvarez said crisply, “I do not know him, so there is no problem. Call me later.”
He put the phone back as there was a quick double-knock at the door. A waiter put his head in, called something in Spanish and ducked back out. Alvarez gave Shayne an unfriendly look, consulted his watch again and swore under his breath.
“Your name is Shayne, and may you fry in hell. The police are here looking for you. Say twenty-five hundred dollars.”
Shayne hesitated. “O.K. You seem to have me over a barrel.”
“Get up on the desk,” Alvarez told him. “Quickly.”
Shayne looked at the ceiling, a checkerboard of squares of masonite wallboard. Alvarez made an impatient motion, and the redhead did as he’d been told.
“Now reach up,” Alvarez said. “Press. A little more toward me.”
Shayne pushed upward with both hands, his fingers spread. A section made up of four of the masonite squares gave way under the pressure.
“Now through,” Alvarez said, wiping his face with a silk handkerchief. “Hurry.”
Michael Shayne pushed the loose section out of the way, then stooped for the bottle of rum and passed it through. He tested the sides of the opening, and swung himself up, feeling a stab of pain in his chest as he put his weight on his arms. Pulling his legs up, he rolled off to one side. He was in a low air-space, some three feet high at its highest point. He worked the trap-door back into place.
Murder Takes No Holiday Page 5