Murder and the Wanton Bride

by Brett Halliday

  Into the mouthpiece, she said, “Pete? Lucy Hamilton. We wondered if you just tried to call my number, Pete? Mr. Shayne and I were coming in the door when the phone stopped ringing.”

  She listened a moment, then nodded her tousled brown curls and turned, holding the instrument out to Shayne with a mock curtsey. “For you, Mr. Shayne.”

  He took two long strides across the room and took it from her hand, sliding his right arm about her slim waist and holding her tightly as he said, “That you, Pete? What’s up?”

  The night clerk at his apartment hotel said, “Hello, Mr. Shayne. Glad I caught you. There’s this dame, see? All upset and asking for you. She’s not much on looks and I tried to stall her off, but she’s hellbent she’s gotta see you tonight.”

  Shayne said, “Is that so, Pete? Not like Marilyn’s? It’s unbelievable!”

  Lucy drew in her breath audibly and tried to twist away from his encircling arm.

  Pete said uncertainly, “What’s that you said, Mr. Shayne? I didn’t say nothing about any Marilyn. I said there’s this dame you wouldn’t give a second look at, but she’s all upset and raising hell to see you so I said I’d see what I could do.”

  “Platinum, huh?” Shayne said enthusiastically into the mouthpiece, tightening his arm about Lucy’s waist. “Sounds pretty young, Pete. But you know what I always say … if they’re blonde enough and passionate enough, and, u-m-m.…”

  “Acquiescent enough,” spat out Lucy viciously as she succeeded in twisting away from him and whirling across the floor. “That’s the word you’re fumbling for, Michael Shayne.”

  He turned his head to grin at her and said happily, “That’s right, angel.” He turned back to the phone, “Acquiescent enough, Pete. She seem that way to you?”

  “Look here, Mr. Shayne, I sure dunno what you’re talking about,” said Pete forlornly. “There’s this … this woman, see? Looks like a smalltown housewife and acts like one, too. Nothing worth you coming home for. But I thought I’d best let you know.…”

  “You bet, Pete,” said Shayne heartily. “I certainly wouldn’t want to pass up a combination like that. Tell her to keep some of her clothes on until I can get there.”

  He hung up and turned to grin wickedly at Lucy Hamilton who was slumped down on the sofa again regarding him balefully.

  “Sorry, angel,” he said blithely, “business.” He moved toward the door, reaching for his hat on a low table. “Some old hag from Pete’s description, but a private detective is like a doctor … on call at all hours.”

  “Like a horse at stud,” she gritted between her teeth. “Hurry up so you’ll get there in time to tear the last of her clothes off.”

  Shayne grinned happily and said, “The thought gives me wings.” He kissed his hand and blew her a kiss as he went out the door in a pretended rush, and then slowed and his face became somber as he went down the one flight from her apartment.

  Maybe he was a damned fool. Maybe women did take that sort of thing seriously. Maybe Lucy was sitting up there behind a closed door crying her eyes out. Maybe he ought to go back and explain to her …

  Explain what to her? That some woman whom Pete disdainfully described as a “smalltown housewife” was in trouble and seeking professional advice? That if she were built like Marilyn Monroe and had platinum hair and was young and passionate and acquiescent he still wouldn’t be interested in anything except her troubles?

  Why should he have to explain those things to Lucy Hamilton? Didn’t she know, for God’s sake, that it had been years since another woman had interested him? Seriously, at least. In any way that mattered at all. In any way that could possibly interfere with the relationship he and Lucy had together.

  So he kept on going out the front door and to his car parked at the curb. He got in and drove away with an abashed scowl on his face. If Lucy hadn’t been funny about that last drink he would not have kidded over the telephone about the appearance of the woman waiting at his hotel. He wished now that he hadn’t kidded, but after all it was just clean fun and Lucy would realize that tomorrow if he had the chance to introduce his new client and let her see for herself what she looked like.

  He drove to Biscayne Boulevard and south, past Flagler Street, turned to the right and then to the left to park beside the apartment hotel on the river where he had maintained a suite of rooms for more years than he liked to remember.

  He got out and went in a side entrance, passed a stairway leading up and went on into the lobby from the back because he didn’t know whether Pete had sent the woman up to his suite or whether she was waiting in the lobby.

  His stride slowed and he stiffened a trifle when he recognized the plainclothes detective from Miami Beach lounging against the counter talking out of the side of his mouth to Pete. A swift glance around the lobby showed it empty except for the two men.

  They both saw him at the same time and Pete’s face brightened as he called out, “Hi, Mr. Shayne. I was just telling this gentleman that I expected you soon.”

  “Gentleman?” said Shayne ironically. “You’re coming up in the world, Matson.” He stopped at the counter and looked at the Beach dick with lifted eyebrows and without offering his hand. “A little off your beat, aren’t you?”

  “Painter wants you, Shayne.” Matson was a burly man with heavy black eyebrows and yellowed teeth.

  Shayne said, “Just like that, huh?”

  “Just like that,” Matson agreed. “Let’s go.” He started to turn toward the front exit, but hesitated when the rangy redhead dropped his left elbow onto the counter and got a cigarette from his shirt pocket without giving any indication of following him.

  He said gruffly, “Painter’s in a hurry, Shayne. Let’s not horse around.”

  “Petey’s always in a hurry,” said Shayne mildly. “He was born in a hurry.” He struck a match and held it to his cigarette, slowly expelled smoke from both nostrils. “Mind telling me what it’s all about?”

  “I don’t know. Just that he wants you over on the Beach fast.”

  “Petey’s wanted lots of things in the past that he hasn’t gotten.”

  Matson sighed and turned back stolidly to put a big hand on Shayne’s arm. “Don’t make it tough on both of us.”

  Shayne shrugged his hand off. “I’m not, Matson. Just on you. Why should I come running when Painter whistles?”

  “It’s important, Shayne. Real important.” Beads of sweat stood on Matson’s forehead. “I gotta take you over.”

  “You mean it’s a pinch?” asked Shayne without much interest.

  “If you make it that way.” The Beach detective spoke doggedly. “But I’m asking you instead.” His voice became plaintive. “Real nice, I’m asking you.”

  Shayne said, “Hell, why didn’t you put it that way in the first place?” He looked across the counter at Pete. “I guess that other matter can wait for half an hour?”

  “Sure, Mr. Shayne.” Pete jerked his chin significantly upward to indicate Shayne’s apartment. “I’ll let the party know you been delayed.”

  Shayne said, “I’ll call you if it’s more than half an hour.” He crossed the lobby with Matson to a Beach patrol car parked in front of the hotel and settled himself comfortably in the front seat.

  Neither man spoke until they were on the Boulevard headed toward the County Causeway, and then Matson said gruffly:

  “I honest don’t know what it is, Shayne. I was cruising when I got the call on my radio to come over to your hotel and pick you up. Bring you to the corner of Sixteenth and South Bay Drive in a hurry.”

  They were on the Causeway now, headed east across the Bay, and the patrol car picked up speed swiftly until it was doing seventy-five on the outer of the three lanes of traffic.

  Shayne spun his cigarette over the side and yawned. He said, “It’s not your fault that Painter rubs me the wrong way.” He remained silent the rest of the way, sat up straighter and peered ahead with interest as Matson slowed passing the marquee of the Chez Dumont
and they saw the spotlights of half a dozen police cars and an ambulance blocking the street ahead.

  Matson pulled in behind the other cars and he and Shayne got out together. They pushed forward into a circle of officers congregated about the body of a dead man lying on his back, bright lights glaring on plump, pallid cheeks and accentuating the round hole in his forehead.

  Two men knelt beside the body, and one of them sprang up quickly, fastidiously brushing the dust from his knees as Shayne and Matson pushed in.

  The Chief of Detectives was short and slender, with piercing black eyes and a threadlike black mustache which he caressed gently with his thumbnail as he scowled up at the big redhead.

  “Took you long enough to bring him in, Matson. Give you any trouble?”

  “Not a bit, Chief,” Matson answered quickly.

  “What a question, Petey,” Shayne said reprovingly. “You know I always jump when you snap the whip. What can I do for you this time?”

  Peter Painter’s thin features tightened at Shayne’s tone. “Glad to find you cooperative for once. Tell me who the dead man is.”

  Shayne took a step forward, pressing Painter aside so he could look down directly at the face of the corpse.

  He studied the flaccid features for a long moment before shaking his red head and stepping back.

  “I never saw him before in my life,” he told Peter Painter truthfully.

  3

  “Now wait a moment, Shayne. Take your time and think about this carefully. I wouldn’t want you to get out on a limb on a thing like this.”

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t, Petey.”

  “I mean it, Shayne. I’m giving you every chance to come clean.”

  “To come clean on what?”

  “On this man’s identity. I warn you that you’ll be obstructing justice if you withhold any information.”

  Shayne shrugged his wide shoulders. “I never saw him before. It’s that simple.”

  Peter Painter straightened his slight body stiffly and appeared to strut standing still. “Will you take your oath that you have never seen this man before?”

  Shayne said, “If I were under oath, which I’m not, I would answer the question like this: To my knowledge, and so far as memory serves me, I do not recall having seen him before.”

  “That’s equivocating, Shayne.”

  The big redhead shrugged impassively. “Have it your own way.”

  “You’re not prepared to swear you’ve never seen him before?”

  “Are you?” Shayne shot at him.

  “Am I what?”

  “Prepared to swear you never saw him before?”

  “I’m asking the questions, Shayne.”

  “And I’m answering.”

  “Not responsibly, you’re not.”

  Shayne’s gray eyes glinted with anger. He compressed his lips and reached slowly for a cigarette, looking away from Painter and up at the night sky with an audible sigh.

  Peter Painter’s body quivered with anger and his voice figuratively stamped its foot as he snapped:

  “Well, answer me.”

  “Answer what?”

  “My question.”

  “I didn’t hear any question,” said Shayne patiently.

  “I asked if you are willing to swear you never saw this man before?”

  “Hell no,” exploded Shayne. “Maybe I passed him on the street this evening. Maybe I saw him at Hialeah ten years ago. How in hell do I know? Just how goddamned silly can you get standing out on a street corner at midnight?”

  There was an almost inaudible snicker from the men surrounding them, and Painter turned to glare around at them before thumbnailing his mustache again and turning back to say:

  “Let’s try it this way. Even though you can’t recollect seeing him before … who is he?”

  Shayne said flatly, “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know who he is?” There was a faint smirk in Painter’s voice.

  “I don’t?”

  “You haven’t the faintest idea of his identity … can’t even hazard a guess?” The smirk was more pronounced.

  “I can’t even hazard a guess.”

  “Then how do you explain this, Shayne? How do you explain the fact that we found this newspaper clipping folded up in the dead man’s inner coat pocket?” Painter dramatically produced a clipping from his pocket and thrust it forward under Shayne’s eyes.

  The private detective took it and glanced at the heading:

  PRIVATE EYE SCORES AGAIN

  He recognized it instantly. It had appeared in the Tribune some three months previously and was an inaccurately garbled account of one of his cases, written by a Tribune reporter whom Shayne had never met and verging perilously close to libel in its implication that Shayne’s gun was for hire to anyone with the price and for any killing that could be covered with even the faint cloak of legality.

  He handed it back to Painter disgustedly. “I can’t help it if he’s one of my fans.”

  “But how do you explain him having it carefully folded in his pocket tonight when he was murdered?”

  Shayne said, “You’d better ask him.”

  “You’re equivocating again.”

  Shayne smothered an obvious reply and stolidly folded his arms, puffing on his cigarette and screwing up his eyes as smoke trailed upward past them.

  “Well, aren’t you?” demanded Painter after a moment.

  Shayne said, “No,” and let it go at that.

  “I’ll give you one more chance to come clean, Shayne.” Painter took a small sheet of paper from a memo pad from his pocket and showed the redhead the penciled notation on it. Shayne looked down impassively in the bright light and read the words aloud:

  “Michael Shayne. Bank of Bay Biscayne Bldg. 9:00 A.M. sharp. Jan. 8.”

  He started to comment that the adddress was wrong, to remind Painter that his office was in the Biscayne Building in Miami instead of the Bank of Bay Biscayne Building, but he held his tongue when he recalled that was one of the many errors in the Tribune story that Painter had just exhibited. He shrugged and kept his arms folded and said, “So what?”

  “This was folded inside the clipping in his pocket. Positive evidence that he had a definite appointment with you at your office tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. Perhaps you haven’t seen him before. Perhaps you are telling the truth about that.” Painter’s tone indicated that he felt this was a remote possibility but was determined to be fair.

  “Just give me his name, Shayne. That’s all. His name and what the appointment was about.”

  Shayne said, “There wasn’t any nine o’clock appointment. Not to my knowledge.”

  “Perhaps your secretary made it for you.”

  “Not Lucy Hamilton.” Shayne shook his head decidedly. “Not for nine o’clock in the morning. She knows damn well I never reach the office until nine-thirty or ten.”

  “But if it were an emergency? If he couldn’t come any other time? Mightn’t she do it then?”

  “She might. But she would certainly warn me beforehand so I’d be there to keep it. And she didn’t.”

  “Perhaps it slipped her mind.”

  Shayne shook his head obstinately. “Things like that don’t slip Lucy’s mind. We had dinner together tonight and I remember mentioning to her that I might not be in until noon tomorrow. That certainly would have reminded her.”

  A sharply indrawn breath hissed through Peter Painter’s set teeth. “You don’t mind if I call her tonight to check the truth of your statement?”

  Shayne unfolded his arms and both of his fists doubled up at his sides. His seething anger broke into the rumble of his voice as he told Painter: “I don’t mind you phoning Lucy any time, but I do goddamned well mind you standing here and calling me a liar.”

  Painter took an involuntary step backward, glancing sideward for reassurance from the half dozen of his own men surrounding him.

  “I warn you that you’re obstructing justice, Shayne. Ident
ification of this corpse is of paramount importance. If I find out later that you’re holding out information for some devious purpose of your own I swear I’ll have your license.”

  Shayne looked down at him contemptuously and didn’t reply.

  “For the record, Shayne. What are you working on now?”

  Making a visible effort to control his anger, Shayne said: “It’s none of your damned business, and you know it, but for the record … I’m not working on anything right now.”

  “I want the name of every client who might have some bearing on this murder.”

  Shayne said, “My clients don’t go around committing murders. But I’ll ask around tomorrow and if any of them did the job I’ll be happy to tell you about it. And if I turn up anything else that might help, I’ll let you have that. In the meantime, I’m going home.”

  He turned away, but Peter Painter moved swiftly to get in front of him.

  “Not so fast, Shayne. I don’t want you coming around tomorrow trying to cover up by saying you’ve just thought of something. You’re not going to get by with that. Give me all the information you’ve got tonight. Right now. You know how important an identification is in a case like this. Don’t think you can hold out and then make a grandstand play later on by solving the case with private information that you’ve had all along. You’ve, by God, pulled that stunt in the past, and don’t think I don’t know it.” The voice of the slender chief of detectives was reedy and shaking with wrath.

  “You claim you don’t know anything about this man, so don’t try to horn in later. I won’t stand for it. Get back to your side of Biscayne Bay and stay there.”

  Shayne’s fists were bunched by his sides again, but he looked down at the enraged little man and said pensively, “It was your idea for me to come over. God knows I don’t like the stink of your inefficiency in my nostrils.” He turned away, growling, “Where’s Matson?”

  “Stay right here, Matson,” ordered Painter sharply. “I have other things for my men to do besides chauffering you around, Shayne. Try walking … or spend some of your money for a cab.”