Weep for a Blonde

by Brett Halliday

  “But it’s so damnably unfair. They didn’t make any effort to get your side of it. Reading between the lines, you’d think Mr. Richard Kane went out triumphantly with his wife after rescuing her from a fate worse than death and that you slunk out of the place like a whipped dog to avoid being arrested for God knows what.”

  Shayne got out a cigarette and lit it. “Well, it was something like that,” he reminded her. “Remember, it was your idea that we end up with a hamburger and beer instead of quail and champagne.”

  “I’m sorry, Michael. I was a coward. I should have insisted that we stay and face it out. You hadn’t done anything wrong, and if they had called in the police as they threatened, the truth would have had to come out.”

  He said quietly, “Don’t blame yourself, angel. Let’s face it. If I’d stuck around, there really would have been hell to pay. I probably would have socked a cop and ended up in Petey Painter’s clink. And you would have had a real juicy headline to worry about.” He grinned sardonically and leaned over to pat her cheek. “Ever since I woke up this morning, I’ve been congratulating myself on having a secretary who knows how to handle me when I lose my head. Don’t spoil it by turning regretful now.”

  She breathed, “Do you really mean it? You’re not hating me for getting you to leave?” Her brown eyes glowed and her lips parted tremulously beneath his gaze.

  He leaned closer to kiss them lightly. “I’m a long way from hating you, angel.” He straightened and rose to his feet. “Anything important this morning?”

  “Not very. Except.…” At that moment her telephone rang. Lucy Hamilton put the receiver to her ear and said musically, “Michael Shayne’s office. Good morning.”

  She listened a moment and a look of acute distaste tightened her nice features. She said into the mouthpiece, “Hold on one moment, please,” and to Shayne, after cupping her palm over the phone, “You’d better take it in your office. It’s that … Mrs. Kane.”

  He hesitated, looking down into her brown eyes, and then turned away to cross the anteroom in long strides to the closed door marked “PRIVATE”.

  He opened the door and entered an empty room with a large, uncluttered desk in the center, a swivel chair behind it and filing cabinets ranged along both sides.

  He lowered himself into the chair, lifted the French phone and settled back comfortably, saying “Hello?” into the mouthpiece.

  “Michael?” It was unmistakably Lydia Kane’s throaty voice, excited and sounding a trifle self-conscious this morning. “I’ve been dying to call you, but Richard just left and I didn’t dare while he was here. I’m so ashamed of last night. I just don’t know what to say. I don’t know what you think.…”

  Shayne pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket with his right hand and said wearily, “No harm done. I hope your husband sobered up.”

  “Oh, Michael!” There was a sob in Lydia’s voice. “He was absolutely horrible last night. Suggesting the most awful things. And he simply wouldn’t listen to reason no matter how much I tried to argue with him. I have to talk with you, Michael. I just can’t go on this way.”

  “What way?” asked Shayne casually, putting his left elbow on a book of matches to hold it firmly on the desk so he could light one of them.

  “Well … the way things are. I’m afraid … oh, God, Michael, I’m just terribly afraid.…”

  “But not too afraid, my sweet,” broke in a harshly jeering masculine voice, “to call up your paramour the moment you think my back is safely turned. Are you listening, Shayne?”

  Shayne said grimly, “I’m listening.”

  “Oh, God in heaven,” moaned Lydia. “Is that you on the upstairs extension, Rich? I thought.…”

  “I know good goddamn well what you thought,” her husband cut in, his voice stridently triumphant. “You thought I’d left the house and it was perfectly safe for you to telephone your lover. That’s what I wanted you to think. Look. I don’t want to waste any time talking to you, but you’d better hang on to hear what I’m going to tell Mr. Shayne … the guy you claim you haven’t even seen or talked to for ten years … you listening, Shayne?”

  “I’m listening. And it’s getting damned monotonous.”

  “Get this straight. Stay away from my wife. If I ever catch you sneaking around her again, what I gave you last night won’t be a smidgeon to what you’ll get next time. You hear me?”

  Shayne said, “I hear you,” in a flat monotone. Then, in a different tone, he asked, “Lydia? Are you still there?”

  “Y-y-yes.” Her voice was tremulous with fear.

  “You listen to this, too, Kane.” Shayne’s voice became grimly matter-of-fact. “I gather that Mrs. Kane wants to consult me professionally … and that’s her privilege. I’ll be available … any time and any place that suits her.”

  “I’ve told you what will happen if I ever catch her with you again.”

  Shayne said, “I know. Lydia?”

  His only reply was a light click at the other end of the line. Then Kane’s voice came over the wire again, grating and harsh, “I’ll be consulting you first, Shayne. And it won’t be professionally. Right now I’m going downstairs to slap hell out of her for trying to put one over on me. And I’ll settle with you later.”

  There was a second and more decisive click at the other end of the line. Shayne held the instrument away from his ear for a moment, frowning at it indecisively, and then replaced it on its prongs.

  Lucy came hurrying into the office on clacking high heels as he did so. Her brown eyes were stormy, her voice worried.

  “This is just awful, Michael. Why didn’t you tell that man …?”

  Shayne clucked and waggled an admonishing forefinger at her. “Listening in again, Lucy?”

  “You’re darned right I listened in,” she snapped. “And a good thing I did. That man’s dangerous, Michael.”

  He rubbed his square chin reflectively with his left hand, and said, “For once, I think you’re right. Look up Richard Kane’s number in the book. On the Beach, I think.”

  Lucy hesitated a moment, studying his gaunt face gravely. Then she went out and Shayne was alone for sixty seconds. Her face was perturbed when she returned to the threshold of the open door between his office and the anteroom. “There’s no Richard Kane listed either in the Miami or Miami Beach book.”

  Shayne said, “Try information.”

  He settled back in his swivel chair and took a deep drag on his cigarette, three vertical lines creasing his forehead, and the hollows in his cheeks deepening as he waited.

  “There is a Richard Kane on the Beach,” she announced breathlessly from the doorway a short time later. “But it’s an unlisted number. Information refuses to give it out.”

  Shayne shrugged and then grinned crookedly. “All right. That seems to take care of that. If he slaps enough hell out of her, maybe she won’t bother me any more. Bring in your pad for a couple of letters,” he added, “and the file on Ryerson Moore.”

  4

  The long living room was light and pleasant with the morning sun streaming in from the east. It was a restful and welcoming sort of room, with hues of dull gold in the rug picked up by cheerful wallpaper with autumnal tints, by light draperies and almost daffodil yellow slip-covers on the comfortable chairs and the long couch along the north wall beneath a row of low windows.

  In a shimmering housecoat of brocaded material and yellow slippers only a few shades lighter than her hair, Lydia Kane was curled up in a deep, overstuffed chair in the bright sunlight flowing in from above the ocean, fitting unobtrusively and perfectly into the setting she had chosen with such loving care when they had moved into the house just a year before.

  But this morning her thin face showed the ravages of an almost sleepless night, and she sat there tensely while she listened to vague sounds from overhead that indicated her husband was dressing to leave the house.

  Last night had been awful. First that completely absurd and childish display of je
alousy at La Martinique, then the drive home in angry silence and the long and bitter argument that had raged for hours while Richard used every method of persuasion short of physical force to make her confess that she had been seeing much of Michael Shayne during the past ten years, and that their meeting at the night-club had not been accidental at all.

  Nothing Lydia could say would dissuade him from his belief that she had been carrying on an affair with the red-headed private detective behind his back. All her denials and her pleading were useless. In the end he had stamped off angrily to go upstairs and slam the door of his own bedroom, leaving her sitting alone downstairs with the frightening realization that their marriage was, indeed, utterly smashed; that it was useless to struggle further and attempt to pick up the pieces that were the result of her one silly indiscretion a few months ago.

  This morning they had not spoken to each other. She had gotten up at her usual hour and prepared his breakfast, set it out nicely for him in the dinette off the kitchen and brought her own coffee into the living room to drink it in brooding silence while he ate alone in the dinette.

  It was an impossible situation. She faced the facts calmly this morning and knew the truth. Richard would never be able to forgive her. He was constitutionally unable to do so. If they went on together there would inevitably be more scenes like last night. He would sulk in silence for a few days and then they might again achieve a footing of cool politeness for a time, but there would be another explosion like last night the next time she dared to speak to another man in Richard’s presence.

  She knew, now, that she couldn’t go on that way. She had tried so desperately to patch things up, to go along as though nothing had happened, to pretend to herself that Richard still loved her and would eventually come to understand that her silly and brief-lived infatuation for Roger had not really changed anything between them. If Richard would only understand that she still loved him—that she had never ceased loving him!

  But she knew now that he wouldn’t. After last night, she told herself sternly, she had to face that fact. There was nothing she could do to change his mind. It was his masculine ego, she supposed drearily. She wondered if any man could truly understand how a loving and basically faithful wife could step over the traces and enjoy having another man make love to her.

  It was all right for men to do it, she told herself bitterly. They condoned it in each other, and shrugged and said it didn’t mean anything, really, if a man did it. But women were different, they argued. No woman stepped outside of marriage if she had one iota of self-respect or one trace of love for her husband.

  At least, that was the way Richard Kane argued. Lydia didn’t know about other men. Richard was the only man she had ever been married to. He was the only man she had ever wanted to be married to, she told herself bitterly as she sat curled up in the deep chair waiting for him to leave the house. Even with all his jealousy and all his faults, he was the only man she had ever loved—or ever could love.

  So what was the answer? She couldn’t go on married to him this way, but she didn’t feel she wanted to go on living without him. If there were only some way of making him understand. Some way of wiping out the past and getting back to six months ago. If he could only be made to understand that she was exactly the same Lydia she had been before she met Roger—that it was Richard who had changed rather than she …

  Her muscles tightened spasmodically and she turned her head slightly as she heard muffled footsteps descending the stairs. Perhaps it wasn’t too late. Perhaps he had reconsidered this morning. If he would just step inside the room to give her some sort of goodbye before leaving the house!

  She uncurled her legs and swallowed hard and composed her features into the happiest expression she could muster, setting herself to get to her feet and rush into his arms if he gave her the slightest opportunity to do so.

  But the smile was slowly erased from her face and the light of hope died miserably in her eyes when she heard him reach the foot of the stairs and turn without even the least vestige of a pause to the rear where he went through the kitchen and opened the side door into the adjoining garage.

  She sat back hopelessly, biting her underlip hard and blinking rapidly to hold back a rush of tears. She heard the whir of the electrically-operated overhead garage door, and then the roar of a motor as he started it. That subsided to a low murmur of hushed power, and she blinked tears from her eyes to watch the white top of his convertible slide past the window and disappear from sight down the winding driveway.

  Then there was silence and she was alone in the house on top of the cliff overlooking the ocean. Alone and a prisoner in the house between two high walls of coral rock extending from the edge of the cliff to the roadway three hundred yards distant.

  She stirred herself and angrily wiped away her tears and resolutely set herself to considering the future. A tiny wave of hope came to her as she thought about the tall, rangy redhead she had seen at the adjoining table last night. She hadn’t really become well acquainted with Michael Shayne when he was married to Phyllis, but she had been quite close to Phyllis and she recalled all the nice things Phyllis had told her about him. And from newspaper accounts over the years, she knew vaguely about his career as a private detective in Miami. If there was any man on earth who could advise her in this situation, it seemed to her it would be Michael Shayne. One thing for sure—he wouldn’t be afraid to see her and give advice. No matter how Richard had flexed his muscles last night and drunkenly boasted about knocking the redhead flat on his face, Lydia knew it was because he had caught Shayne unexpectedly and off balance with his blow.

  She wondered who the quiet, brown-haired girl was who had been with him at dinner. She didn’t believe he had remarried after Phyllis’ death. The girl had seemed nice in the brief chance Lydia had to observe her, and for Shayne’s sake she found herself hoping he had found someone to take Phyllis’ place.

  Because she still believed in marriage, she told herself resolutely as she got up from her chair and went across to the far corner of the room to the telephone stand. No matter what had happened to hers and Richard’s.

  And because she still did believe in marriage, she riffled through the pages of the Miami directory until she found the number she wanted. She had a feeling that if anything could save hers, Michael Shayne would have the answer. She sat in the straight chair before the telephone and called his number.

  When Lucy’s pleasant voice answered and she asked for Shayne, she wondered momentarily if his secretary was the girl he had been dining with at La Martinique. The telephone voice seemed to fit her, Lydia thought. How wonderful it would be if two people in love could work together in an office.…

  Then Shayne’s voice came over the wire, and she said self-consciously, “Michael? I’ve been dying to call you, but Richard just left and I didn’t dare while he was here. I’m so ashamed.…”

  His voice was just right in response to her apology. Calmly matter-of-fact and reassuring, encouraging her to go on and ask for his help—try to explain to him.…

  When Richard’s harsh voice broke in on the line she almost dropped the receiver in her astonishment and fright. It couldn’t be he. It must be some sort of crazy hallucination. Richard couldn’t be eavesdropping on the wire. She had seen him drive off with her own eyes. He must be miles away.…

  But it was Richard. Asking Shayne jeeringly if he was listening, and Shayne grimly assuring him that he was.

  So he had to be on the upstairs extension. There was no other way. But how? She had been so sure.…

  She sat with the receiver glued to her ear, petrified with shame and with fright as she listened to the interchange between the two men. When Shayne delivered his ultimatum to Richard, she sighed feebly and removed the receiver from her ear to replace it on its prongs.

  She sat there for a moment without moving, and then heard the unmistakable tread of footsteps overhead, the paralyzing sound of Richard solidly and inexorably descending the stai
rs toward her.

  She stood up slowly and turned to face the archway leading out to the hall. He reached the bottom of the stairs and came through the archway and stopped. His broad face was darkly suffused and his eyes glittered as the sunlight behind her was reflected from them.

  He spoke slowly and distinctly. “You bitch. You utter, goddamned bitch.”

  She said, “No, Richard. It isn’t what you think. You’re insane with jealously. I called Michael Shayne.…”

  “As soon as my back was turned.” He moved across the dull gold of the rug toward her very slowly, in a sort of shuffle, his glittering eyes holding hers. “As soon as you thought I was safely out of the way. Yes, my dear. So, you think I’m insane with jealousy. That isn’t quite true. I don’t think you’re worth jealousy, Lydia. I simply don’t take kindly to having my nest fouled.”

  He continued to shuffle slowly toward her. It was sheer melodrama, but her breath caught in her throat queerly and she thrust both hands out toward him, crying:

  “How could you be so petty? Sneaking back into the house to listen in on the upstairs phone on a private conversation?”

  “Very ungentlemanly of me, I confess.” His voice was cruelly mocking. “I’ve wondered what goes on in this house behind my back while I’m out earning the money that buys the clothes you flaunt on your back. So, you think your Michael Shayne is the only one who can play detective, do you? You are fearfully transparent, my dear. I could see this morning that you were just panting with eagerness to get rid of me. And I wondered why. So I simply parked my car down the drive, came back through the garage and side door after removing my shoes and carrying them with me, and … ergo … so now I know. Are you still going to insist that you haven’t seen Mike Shayne or had any communication with him for ten years?”

  He was very close to her now. His lips were drawn back from his teeth in a terrifying grin, and for perhaps the first time in her life Lydia had a sensation of actual, physical fear.