Murder and the Wanton Bride

by Brett Halliday

  She leaned forward, and spoke more rapidly. Rourke knew that he would remember every word, every inflection.

  “It was a man,” she said, “a stranger. I could see little of him, but he had a look I did not care for. He stood well back from the door, holding out a note. ‘For Jaimé,’ he said. I naturally replied that I knew of no one by that name. I told him to be off before I called the police, and much more of that nature. But he persisted. At last I took the note, pretending it was the only way I could be rid of him, and closed the door. Locked it. After reading the note, Jaimé at once made ready to leave. I did not try to dissuade him, although at that moment, I confess it, I had a feeling as though a warning had sounded. I bade him good-bye with tears in my eyes. From the window, behind the curtain, I watched him walk away with the stranger, his coat thrown carelessly over his shoulders. He was afraid of nothing, Jaimè. Then I heard the sound of an automobile motor. A black American car came slowly along the street. Jaimé looked around in alarm, and leaped to one side. He was not quick enough. The other caught him about the waist and forced him across the sidewalk. Another of the devils reached out and dragged him into the car. Then the motor roared. Black smoke spurted from the exhaust. They left our neighborhood very fast.”

  “And next morning, as I told you, Señor,” the boy said, “Jaimé’s body, almost nude, was thrown from just such a car in the suburbs.”

  “How do you know it was a cops’ car?” Rourke asked.

  The woman laughed. “We know, Señor.”

  The boy said seriously, “First, the color. It was black. Second, it was the make known as Chevrolet, one door on each side. Third, a radio aerial, tied down. To you, perhaps, these points might have no meaning, but we are familiar with such cars, I assure you. Only the police have them.”

  After weighing the story in silence for a moment, Rourke asked the woman, “Would you know the man if you saw him again?”

  “I hope I do not see him a second time!” she exclaimed. “I do not love our police so greatly that I wish for their company.”

  The boy said anxiously, “You do not understand, señora. This will not seem obvious to North Americans, as it does to us. Will you describe the man you saw?”

  “It was dark,” she said doubtfully, “his hat was pulled over his face. He was shorter than many men, I believe, wide across the shoulders. Very much the policeman in appearance, and I mistrusted him at first sight. In only one thing was he not typical. He wore thick glasses, with curving lenses. I remember those great eyes blinking at me.”

  The boy searched Rourke’s face, worried.

  “It is not evidence,” he said in a disappointed voice. “Forgive me, I was much too excited. Jaimé’s murderers will not be brought to judgment, that we know, and have always known. But we never before had this much proof, you see. Now I look at it through a stranger’s eyes, and I see that it amounts to very little. A pair of glasses, a black car—”

  “Hell, I’m convinced,” Rourke said, “but I’m prejudiced against your Marshal already. I’m only thinking of how it’ll look to the ordinary mug who pays his nickel for a News. Tell me something about this Jaimé Ramirez.”

  The woman drew a black shawl over her head and stood up.

  “If you begin to talk about politics, I will leave you. If I am ever taken, God forbid, they will have little trouble persuading me to tell them all I know. So it is best to know nothing. You will be careful in what you write, Señor? Describe the keeper of the hiding place as young and beautiful. Thus I will not be suspected.”

  As she came into the light from the single window, Rourke was surprised to see that she was considerably older than he had thought.

  “They would know you at once from that description,” he said gallantly.

  She laughed. The boy opened the door a crack to look out. Then he shook hands quickly with the woman and she went out.

  Coming back, he sat down, hitched his chair forward eagerly and began to talk about the activities of the students and the unrest among the people. Rourke took rapid notes on a folded wad of copy paper.

  By the time he had answers to his questions, it was after dark. He folded the copy paper and put it away. Three glasses of the raw rum, taken one on top of each other, had made the boy reckless. He proposed that he and Rourke scatter anti-Gonzalez leaflets from the balcony of a big movie theatre. Rourke declined with thanks. The fight against the dictator was no business of his.

  Disappointed by his refusal, the boy conducted Rourke through a maze of unpaved streets to one of the well-lighted avenues. The reporter said good-bye and signalled a cruising taxi.

  The driver wanted to take him to a night club instead of his hotel, but Rourke also turned down this offer. He was thinking about what he had been told. His editor would be pleased. He had enough material now for a sensational front-page series, which would create a stir in Washington and would be picked up by the wire services under some such lead as, “In a copyrighted article in the Miami Daily News, Pulitzer Prize winner Timothy Rourke revealed today that …”

  But Rourke’s mind was filled with unanswered questions. Ramirez had undoubtedly been murdered by police, as the boy claimed. But what if the lodging house keeper had invented the details, the man in the glasses, the black police car, solely to make a more plausible story? Wide publicity on the case in the United States would help the rebel cause.

  And what about the cloak-and-dagger ride in the British car? Rourke had no personal knowledge that the car had actually been stolen. The boy had declared that they were being followed, but Rourke hadn’t spotted any cops behind them. Perhaps the whole wild dash had been arranged so he would swallow the woman’s story more readily.

  He cursed the skepticism that had been part of his make-up since his first month as a police reporter. He would have to ask Mike Shayne’s opinion. Shayne had a wonderful faculty for smelling out phonies. If there was anything wrong about the story, Rourke’s big redheaded friend would be able to put his finger on it right away.

  He paid off the cab at the Presidente. In the lobby, he stopped at the reservations counter to take space on the next afternoon’s plane to Miami. Now that he had his story, he no longer had to pretend to be a tourist. He was looking forward to some conversation with American women who didn’t teach school.

  On his way down the corridor to his room, he was reminded that his feet hurt. The effect of the rum was wearing off.

  He unlocked his door. Suddenly he stopped short, the door partially open and the key still in the lock.

  He smelled cigar smoke.

  Instinct told him to step back quickly and slam the door. But before his tired brain could carry out the command, someone inside the room jerked the door open.

  He found himself facing a tall man, quietly dressed, with sleepy eyes and an incongruous crew cut. A second man was standing beside the bed, going through Rourke’s suitcase. He was short and squat, powerfully-built, with a bull neck. He was chewing the stub of a cigar.

  He turned, and Rourke received a bad shock. Enormous black eyes goggled at him from behind very thick glasses.

  CHAPTER 2

  He was the man who had come for the student Ramirez. The woman’s description fitted him perfectly. A lightweight straw was pushed back from his forehead. He was a head shorter than Rourke, deep through the chest.

  He grunted, apparently not surprised to see the reporter.

  “You are early,” he said in English, without taking the cigar from his mouth. “After the pleasures of Miami Beach, you would not be excited by what our humble city has to offer.”

  To his own annoyance, Rourke’s heart was beating very fast. He glanced at the open suitcase on the bed.

  “Are you finding anything?” he asked.

  “Nothing interesting,” the other answered. “This is a routine check, Mr. Rourke. Do not be alarmed, I beg you.”

  “I’m not alarmed,” Rourke said, wishing it was true. “But I suggest that you get out, and come back som
e other evening when I’m not here.”

  The squat man removed his cigar and made a quick gesture with his bulletshaped head. His companion closed the door and leaned against it, and his arms placidly folded.

  The man with the cigar, it seemed, was in command. He said quietly, “I’m sorry you returned so soon, Mr. Rourke, but now that you are here we can have a chat. You will want to know my name. I am Lieutenant Renzullo, of the special police. Will you make this a civilized occasion, and offer us a drink?”

  “No,” Rourke snapped. “I’m not feeling too civilized right now. If you don’t get out of here, I’ll call the cops.”

  Renzullo looked startled, and the reporter said wearily, “Big joke. What do we chat about?”

  “A citizen of the United States, you don’t understand,” Renzullo said, shaking his head sadly. “How can you know what we are up against down here? We are dealing with an undeclared rebellion of terrorists and atheists, who will use any means to gain their ends. We have to fight fire with fire.”

  “The American ambassador may be interested to hear that I caught you in my hotel room.”

  “Please, Mr. Rourke, we are not children. All we are doing is investigating an anonymous tip that you are involved in the illegal importation of pornographic literature.”

  “Pornographic literature!” Rourke exclaimed.

  “And if the ambassador inquires,” Renzullo continued, “he will find that such a tip, giving this room number in this hotel, was phoned in tonight, and properly recorded. We like to be sure of being covered.”

  Rourke said bitterly, “And I suppose you know where you can lay your hands on dirty pictures, when you want to plant them in somebody’s luggage?”

  “We don’t employ such techniques, Mr. Rourke,” Renzullo said, “unless they are absolutely necessary. In this case the tip is enough.”

  “It’s a hell of a way to attract tourists,” Rourke commented. “How not to win friends.”

  “We want to attract tourists,” Renzullo said patiently. “The ordinary tourist, who comes here to see our magnificent scenery and spend his magnificent dollars, that kind of tourist we want very much.”

  He reached out suddenly and picked the folded copy paper out of Rourke’s pocket. The reporter tried to snatch it back, but Renzullo turned easily, presenting a meaty shoulder. The second man lunged forward, his heavy hands hanging loosely at his sides.

  “But that other kind of tourist,” Renzullo said unemotionally, “who looks only at the seamy side of things, who goes home and publishes slanderous stories about our great president—that kind, of course, is not so welcome.”

  Sitting down by the reading light, he brought the copy paper very close to his thick glasses, so close that the end of the stubby cigar almost grazed the paper. The second man continued to watch Rourke with his hooded gaze. The reporter had a terrible feeling of helplessness. For the first time he knew how it must feel to be a voter in this country. His only consolation was that no man alive except Timothy Rourke could read his scrawl.

  After a few moments, the policeman folded the paper carefully and put it in an inside pocket.

  “We must work on this in the laboratory,” he said smoothly. “Did you know we had a laboratory? Yes, indeed. Put that in your story. In some respects we are very up to date.”

  “I’m not filing any story,” Rourke said through clenched teeth. “Those are a few notes I made while I was out, impressions of the city at night.”

  Renzullo stood up, patting the pocket which held the copy paper. “And how did you gather these impressions? You received a phone call. Shortly afterward, you left the hotel and got into a British Morris. The license number was checked. To nobody’s surprise, it developed that the car had been stolen. Do ordinary tourists do their sightseeing in stolen cars? Now I want to give you a piece of advice, Mr. Rourke. I believe you should leave our country tomorrow, by plane.”

  Rourke laughed, thinking of the reservation he had just made. “You do?”

  “I do. Naturally we have no control over what you write after you get back home, but if you have been here only seventy-two hours, it will not be so serious. How could you discover the truth about a complicated situation in so short a time?”

  “Those notes are my property,” Rourke said flatly. “I want them back.”

  Renzullo gave him a bland look. “What notes?”

  “You know damn well what notes. If I stay, I suppose your boys will follow me around and spoil my vacation, so I’ll be on that plane. But first I want those notes.”

  Renzullo shrugged. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “All right!” Rourke snarled. “I have a legal visa. The American ambassador is here to protect the rights of American citizens. I intend to stay until you restore my property. Plus an apology.”

  The policeman raised both hands in mock horror. “An apology!”

  “If you want to get rid of me,” Rourke went on, “of course you can always deport me. Your tin-pot Marshal can see how he likes the publicity on that.”

  Renzullo shook his head pityingly. “This is a terrible attitude. We would hate to have to deport you. We want you to get on the plane of your own free will.”

  He nodded slightly to the second man, who had apparently been waiting for this signal. He clubbed the reporter with the butt of a pistol. Rourke crumpled sidewards. He kept himself from going all the way to the floor by grabbing the foot of the bed. He felt the blood flowing down his neck.

  “You bastards!” he shouted. “If you think you can—”

  He dragged the bedspread off the bed and threw it over the tall man’s head. Then he snatched up the phone.

  “Help,” he gasped. “American—”

  The tall man freed himself. Rourke threw the phone at his head, handset and all. The wire was just long enough to reach. He had the satisfaction of hearing a chunking sound as it went home.

  Then Rourke dove across the bed at Renzullo. He wanted to smash those glasses. Without them, the policeman would be practically blind, and that would make the odds a little more even.

  But the first blow from the pistol had slowed him down. Renzullo looked him over calmly, and hit him in the throat. It finished Rourke. He felt that he was strangling in his own blood.

  The second man jerked him around and hit him twice. Rourke saw the first one coming, but was powerless to get out of the way. He didn’t see the second one, but he heard a low grunt as the blow landed.

  That was the last thing he heard or felt.

  But putting up a resistance he had succeeded in making them mad, and they didn’t leave it at that. When he returned to consciousness, he knew at once that he wasn’t in his bed in the hotel. The bed was narrow and hard, and undoubtedly had a crank at both ends.

  He turned his head. He was in a hospital room, and it was night. A shaded lamp burned on a bureau, beneath a crucifix. He was alone.

  His left arm throbbed painfully, and it seemed very heavy. He tried to lift it, but couldn’t get it off the bed. Reaching across his body with his right hand, he felt a plaster cast.

  Investigating further, he felt overlapping ridges of adhesive tape across his chest. Every time he moved he discovered new areas which hurt. Apparently they had given him a thorough working-over before they left him. He couldn’t recall what he had done to deserve this, and at the moment he didn’t care.

  He was in too much pain to sleep. He watched the dawn creep into the room. Presently he was visited by a doctor, who did things to him. The doctor spoke no English. Then a very young man from the Embassy dropped in, having been told by the police that Rourke had been involved in an accident. He asked the reporter if he had any complaints about his treatment. Rourke told him that was possibly the only thing in this country he couldn’t complain about.

  “Sorry you feel that way,” the young man said. “In a sense I don’t blame you, but it’s not exactly unheard of, even back home.”

  “It’s happened to me before
,” Rourke said. “Somehow I never manage to get used to it.”

  His visitor frowned. “Then you’d better lay off the booze, Mr. Rourke, or do your drinking at home. But that’s neither here nor there.”

  He stood up. Rourke knew that he ought to be more interested in what had happened to him while he was unconscious, so he forced himself to ask, “What did they tell you? That I got into a fight in a bar?”

  “Don’t you remember? You were run down by a car. Apparently you’d had one drink too many. You stepped off the sidewalk and somebody clipped you.”

  “A hit-run driver, no doubt?”

  “They have them all over the world, Mr. Rourke. No identification was possible. It’s dark in that part of town, and nobody saw the car.”

  “I’ll describe it for you,” Rourke said wearily. “It was a late-model Chevy sedan, black, with a two-way radio and a buggy-whip aerial. There were two cops in it. One was a short-sighted character with thick lenses in his glasses, and a pretty good right hand for a man that short. His name is Lieutenant Renzullo, and he handles the special assignments, such as beating up troublesome foreigners. I can give you a good description of his buddy, but I don’t know his name. For the record, they were going through my room when I came in last night. They asked me if I’d mind getting the hell out of their country. But the hell with it. Let it go. I know when I’ve had it. I made a reservation on today’s plane, but would you mind calling them up and changing that to tomorrow?”

  The young man was staring at him. “You were actually—Will you make a deposition to that effect?”

  Rourke was suddenly very tired. “Sure, but why bother? If they went to all the trouble of sneaking me out of the hotel so they could dump me, they’ll stick to their story. If you want the full details, consult the Daily News, later this week.”