Count Backwards to Zero

by Brett Halliday

  Shayne purchased the necessary replacements, as well as shaving things, bathing trunks, and other odds and ends. He took them to his cabin. Stripping off his blood-spattered lightweight suit, he told his cabin steward to take it to the valet, but not to worry too much about the spots.

  He poured a stiff jolt of the cognac Cameron had given him. A minute or so later he was asleep.

  The Queen Elizabeth had been waiting at the dock when Shayne finally finished with the police. Needing time to get organized before he faced the Miami press, he decided on the spur of the moment to see if they had a cabin available. He hadn’t traveled on a ship of this kind for years. The first thing he did after waking up was spend fifteen steamy minutes in the sauna. He ate a huge lunch, his first food in a day and a half. Then he plunged into the pool and swam a dozen fast laps. A pretty girl, the prettiest he had seen since coming aboard, caught his eye, but he wasn’t ready for that yet.

  By the end of the afternoon his cognac bottle was empty, and he found the bar. The girl he had noticed at the pool came in a few minutes later and joined him, as though they had had an agreement to meet each other.

  “You’re Michael Shayne, I’m told.”

  “I guess I am.”

  “The Miami private detective who almost invariably wins. I thought your hair would be redder—orange, in fact. In other respects you don’t disappoint. I’m Anne Blagden, and I think you look marvellous in a bathing suit. But how did you get all those scars?”

  “The hard way,” he said.

  He sipped at his cognac and chased it with a long drink of ice water. Turning, he gave her a closer look. Her long black hair fell loosely to her shoulders. Her arms and shoulders were deeply tanned, and there was a dusting of freckles across her forehead and the bridge of her nose. She was wearing a simple white dress and very high heels, which brought the top of her head to the level of his chin. She was more than merely adequate. She was spectacular.

  She returned his look with a smile. “I’m drinking daiquiris.”

  Shayne signaled the barman and dropped a bill on the bar. “A daiquiri for the lady, Harry. Use your good rum.” He nodded to the girl. “Keep out of trouble.”

  He took his drink on deck. After finishing the cognac he dropped the glass over the side and watched it splash and sink.

  He went in to dinner when the gong sounded.

  He was seated by himself at a small table. He was drinking a coffee royal at the end of the meal, smoking an excellent Havana, when the dark-haired girl who had approached him in the bar appeared in the door of the dining room, looked around, and came over to his table.

  “Mr. Shayne, I do know a put-down when I get one, but I need to talk to you about something.”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “You might find it interesting. Give me till you finish your cigar.”

  The cigar was only half smoked, but he stubbed it out and stood up. “Excuse me.”

  “Can’t I buy you a drink? I know this is a bit, well, what’s the word, brash—”

  He left her standing at the table.

  A movie was getting underway in the main lounge. He watched the titles and part of the first scene. The actors were all fully clothed, but it was plain from the looks they were giving each other that they would be undressing presently. The leading actress had an interesting face, but that was as far as it went. Shayne returned to the bar.

  He reconnoitered before entering. The persistent girl wasn’t there. After being given a drink, he questioned the barman idly about other ships he had worked, and time passed without strain.

  Some time later, he was asked by one of his new bar acquaintances if he had any interest in poker. The question brought the man’s face into focus. He was wearing glasses with slightly tinted lenses. He was lean and fit, with a set of flashing teeth, undoubtedly his own. He wore two rings on his left hand. One was a diamond. That was also his name, he had told Shayne—Jerry Diamond. Being a theatrical agent, he made frequent trips between the United States and the Continent, but he hated and feared airplanes, and stayed out of them.

  “Unless you’ve been told to be careful about playing cards with strangers?” Diamond asked.

  Shayne laughed. “I’m careful about playing cards with friends. Where’s the game?”

  “There isn’t any yet. Let me see if I can round one up. We’ve been playing bridge, and I’ve been losing. I can’t keep fifty-two cards in my head after a few drinks.”

  He left the bar, returning ten minutes later to summon Shayne. As they crossed one of the big common rooms, he saw the girl who had been pushing herself at him. Anne something—Anne Blagden. She was on a sofa with another passenger, a small, bespectacled man who seemed older than she was. He was clearly drunk. He was very homely, very sunburned.

  Anne saw Shayne. Breaking off, she pointed her index finger at him, the thumb raised to make it a gun. She curled her finger, as though pulling a trigger, and formed the words, “You’re dead,” with her lips.

  There were five men in the game, all Americans. Shayne took down a few pots, then lost modestly for a time, absorbing the differences in style of play. They were all drinking heavily. Diamond went substantially ahead at the start, then dropped three successive pots, in which he had invested heavily.

  Shayne concluded, with some regret, that the game was honest, within the usual reasonable limits. He stopped paying close attention, rarely attempting to bluff or to read a bluff, playing the cards as they fell. The simple patterns, the ritualized betting language, the flow of money as the luck shifted, all contributed to bringing him back. He was beginning to feel nearly normal.

  He had forgotten the girl until she walked into the game room with a determined, slightly frightened look. She came directly to Shayne’s place at the table. Reaching in, she turned over his two hole cards.

  “Deal Mr. Shayne out. I’m a fan of his, and I want to tell him how much I dig him. He’ll be back, probably.”

  The two cards she had revealed were an ace of spades and a wild deuce.

  “That kind of fan I don’t need,” Shayne observed.

  He downed the last of his cognac, racked the bills at his place and thrust them into a side pocket. The girl had backed off warily, but she turned quickly when he pushed back his chair.

  On the enclosed promenade deck, she swung to face him and said hurriedly, “I know that was a terrible thing to do. I hope deuces weren’t wild?”

  “Deuces and one-eyes on that deal,” Shayne said. “Now what the hell is this?”

  “I couldn’t wait till you stopped playing. You look as though you’ll go on all night. I—”

  He interrupted. “The reason poker games go on all night is that it gets to be too much trouble to break them up. After a point you relax. That’s one of the objects.”

  “I’m sorry! This isn’t at all what you think. I’ve got mixed up in something, and my God, do I need some help. Sit down with me for a couple of minutes and listen. There may be some money in it for you.”

  “Not tonight, Anne. But you’re a good-looking girl, especially in that bikini you had on this afternoon. If you’re going to be in Miami let me know where I can reach you and I’ll call you in a few days. But tonight, strange as it seems, what I want to do is play a little uncomplicated poker.”

  “I’m willing to stay up and watch. If we could have breakfast together—”

  “Stop trying so hard, baby. Like it or not, it’s a man’s world, and the rules say that this kind of move is made by the man. Otherwise we’d have a woman President and women astronauts.”

  “Damn it, I’m not trying to get you to go to bed with me!”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Let’s knock it off for now, Anne. Hell, you must have known there’d be a shortage of men. There always is on these ships. If you really need some advice talk to the purser. Maybe they even carry a psychiatrist.”

  She caught his arm as he turned. “Please—”

  He said quietly but emph
atically, “Drop it, Anne.”

  “You’re a real bastard, aren’t you?”

  “Sometimes.”

  As he opened the door into the game room, she stepped close and kicked him hard in the ankle. He swore explosively and the poker players at the table turned toward them.

  One of the men grinned when Shayne sat down, but neither he nor any of the others commented on the altercation in the doorway.

  “Draw poker,” Diamond announced. “Jacks or better to open. Ante up, men.”

  Several hours later, with the clocks pushing two A.M., Miami time, Diamond dropped out of the game, about even. One of the two major winners remarked that his wife was never able to get to sleep until he came to bed, so perhaps he, too—

  Shayne tossed in the pack and yawned deeply. The evening had been very therapeutic. He thanked the others for their contributions to the fight against inflation, and said goodnight.

  Finding a particular cabin on a ship this size was always a problem. Shayne went down three decks. He made a wrong turn, found himself facing a dead end and had to return to the companionway to start over.

  The carpeted corridors were very quiet. The vibration of the ship’s engines, somewhere below, was steady and nearly imperceptible. He passed a short cul-de-sac in which another passenger, also retiring late, was attempting to fit a key into the lock of his cabin door.

  As Shayne went on, turning into a side corridor, he felt a slight change in the atmosphere, as though a window in a stuffy room had been opened, admitting a flow of fresh air. He heard a rustling. His reactions were a tick slow. He flung himself forward, twisting, and caught the blow on his lifted shoulder.

  It was savagely struck. For an instant, as Shayne started to come around, he thought the shoulder must be broken. Then a sheet was flung over him from behind and he took another blow. This was a glancing one—he had slipped away as he felt it coming.

  He took two sideward steps, dug in and whirled, blinded by the sheet. His hands closed on some kind of fabric.

  Pulling his assailant in hard, he sent him spinning against a wall. Following, he kept contact. He had an impression he was contending with someone very strong and quick.

  Shayne’s movements were badly hampered. The sheet was huge, enveloping him completely. He knew the importance of keeping in motion. He took two quick steps, using his adversary as a pivot, and came about, bobbing like an epileptic. His grip shifted to the man’s forearm, then to his throat.

  Only a second or two had elapsed. He heard muffled breathing from another direction, a grunt. He felt a blinding stab of pain. His skull seemed to burst outward.

  He blacked out for an instant, but came back still on his feet, still squeezing the throat in both hands, still throwing himself violently and eccentrically from side to side.

  The man he was strangling tried to kick him in the stomach. Shayne had been expecting the move. Letting go with one hand, he caught the foot as it came at him, and picked his assailant off the floor. Continuing the same motion, he swung the first man at where he judged the second to be.

  He connected, but he lost both his hold and his footing. As he went down, deciding that he needed help, he yelled.

  He hit the floor with one knee and rolled. Feeling somebody beneath him, he hit out, and felt his knuckles strike bone. He batted wildly at the sheet, but there seemed to be more than one of them, sewn together to make a kind of enormous sack.

  Then he remembered that he was carrying a weapon—a utility knife, specially made in Switzerland, with lock-picking equipment recessed into the bone handle and a blade controlled by a hidden spring. His thumb found the button. The blade sprang open.

  He faked one way and went the other, hitting the wall and using it to propel himself backward. He struck with the knife. The blade sliced through the sheet and he felt the point make contact with something soft at the outer end of the arcing swing.

  He ripped the sheet aside and saw a moving arm holding a smooth club, like a nightstick. He struck and missed.

  Then he was hit again, very hard, from his blind side. He could do nothing about this one. The floor came up.

  Before the darkness closed in, he thought he heard a door open.

  He snapped back into consciousness, not gradually but all at once, and rolled. The sheet tore, and his head and shoulders came free. He saw a stout man, wearing only pajama bottoms, a woman, equally stout, in a nightgown with her hair in a plastic bag. A door was open behind them. They looked angry and perturbed.

  “What in the holy hell do you think you’re doing?” the man demanded. “What was all that yelling?”

  Shayne moved his head slowly. The knife was still in his hand, concealed in the folds of the sheet. He snapped it shut and returned it to his pocket. Two other doors were open further along, and faces were looking out cautiously.

  He came erect and kicked out of the sheet. He looked for blood, and found some along one wall. It might have been his own.

  He touched his face. “What did you just say? Did you say I was yelling?”

  “You were yelling,” the man told him grimly. “Woke the both of us out of a sound sleep.”

  Shayne moved his hand to the side of his head, which was only one of several places where he felt pain.

  “Must have hit my head on the wall. What a dream I just had.” He looked around sheepishly. “Sorry, everybody,” he said, slurring his words. “I guess I fell asleep with my clothes on. Shouldn’t have had that last drink. Got tangled in the sheet. God knows how I got out in the corridor. I thought I was wrestling with somebody. Did any of you people see anybody? It seemed so goddamn real…”

  He looked from one to another, but the prevailing reaction was suspicion. Only one face was remotely sympathetic.

  The fat man blustered, “You ought to do something about yourself. You shouldn’t travel. Stay home with a nurse. I have half a mind—”

  “Jasper, come to bed,” his wife told him. “So he walked in his sleep. Be nice.”

  “I’m really sorry as hell,” Shayne said, rubbing his face. “I’ll lock myself in and hide the key.”

  “And lay off the sauce,” the fat man advised him. “I still think I ought to—”

  His wife pulled him into their cabin. Other doors closed, leaving only the one sympathetic woman, her face glistening with cold cream. She eyed Shayne speculatively.

  “That’s a bad bruise. If you want to come in for a minute, I’ll put a cold washcloth on it.”

  “Thanks, but my wife’s going to wonder what happened to me.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Well, good luck. I hope you sleep through.”

  She retreated.

  Shayne, left alone in the corridor, examined the sheets. There were two of them, as he had supposed, stapled together at the bottom and along the sides with an ordinary office stapler, to form a large, clumsy shroud. Shayne frowned. It didn’t make sense. The fold of paper money in his pocket was still there. He had taken about four hundred dollars out of the poker game, but a corridor in the first-class space on the Queen Elizabeth II seemed an unlikely spot for a mugging. The hand he had glimpsed briefly through the torn sheet, it seemed to him, had had a ring on it, and it could have been a diamond. Jerry Diamond, his fellow poker player, had been wearing such a ring, but he had seemed perfectly sane. They had parted friends. Why would an American theatrical agent want to throw a sheet over Shayne’s head and knock him unconscious? Shayne was absolutely sure he had never seen the man before that night.

  He wadded up the sheets and dropped them into a laundry hamper.

  The blows he had received had produced one side effect. His head was clear, and he had no trouble finding his cabin. After unlocking the door he paused for a moment, not wanting to be bushwhacked twice in an evening, and entered cautiously.

  The overhead light didn’t come on when he threw the switch. He stepped back quickly and activated his knife.

  After another moment he kicked the door open all the way and moved in. H
e groped for the desk lamp. Again, when he snapped it on, nothing happened.

  Keeping close to the wall and moving carefully, he edged around the cabin to the bathroom. This light came on.

  Turning, he strode to the bed and stripped back the cover. Anne Blagden lay there looking up at him.

  She had decided, after all, to end the evening her way, not Shayne’s. She was naked.

  CHAPTER 3

  She was two shades of brown, much paler in the two narrow strips where her bikini shielded her from the sun. One hand was behind her head. Her look was cool, somewhat mocking.

  “Do you always come into a room as carefully as that?” she said. “Private detectives—good grief. It must be a strain. And what do you think you’re going to do with that knife?”

  Shayne snapped the blade shut and put it away. He looked around for clothes. Finding only a filmy negligee, he swept it up from the chair and held it out.

  “Put this on and get the hell back to your own bed.”

  “Mr. Shayne, you know you don’t mean that preposterous suggestion.”

  “It’s not a suggestion. It’s what’s going to happen.”

  “After all that cognac, I thought you wouldn’t know I was here till you got into bed. I wanted to surprise you.”

  “You surprised me,” he said. “Now get the hell out.”

  “I’ve been known to play poker too, Mr. Shayne. This isn’t a bluff. I have the high hand.”

  “How do you make that out?”

  “All I wore is that wrapper, and if you try to put it on me I’ll fold my arms and scream like a fire siren. People are going to hear me, I promise. It’s going to embarrass you.”

  “I can stand it.”

  “I heard what happened in Bermuda. You killed somebody, apparently. You want everybody to leave you alone so the calluses can form. OK! Now I understand why you’ve been behaving like a baboon all day. But I don’t know what to do! Unless you start being human I’ll definitely shatter your peace and quiet, and by God I mean that!”