Lola
Shayne sat in the car and read the brief note several times. The single sheet of notepaper had been folded and refolded so the creases in the paper were quite heavy, but the handwriting looked fresh to him.
His face was deeply trenched as he refolded it on the same creases and put it in the inner pocket with the pair of airline tickets that Mrs. Wallace had given him the preceding night. He sat for several minutes with his big hands tightly clenched on the steering wheel while he stared straight ahead and wondered what had caused Will Gentry to make the telephone call to Ed Donovan. Did Will have some inkling that such a note as this was secreted in the apartment? Or had he some other reason for ordering Shayne kept out?
He shrugged fatalistically and put his car in motion again. Thus far, he was about three steps ahead of Will Gentry on the case, though he didn’t know what help any of them might be toward reaching a final solution.
CHAPTER TEN
Lucy Hamilton was alone, busily typing at her desk behind the railing in the reception room, when Shayne entered his office a short time later. He stopped just inside the door and wrinkled his nose at the acrid odor and the taint of blue smoke in the air, and Lucy stopped typing to wrinkle her own nose companionably.
She said, “You look as though you smell a rat.”
“It’s more like one of Will Gentry’s stogies.” Shayne dragged off his hat and tossed it on a rack by the door.
Lucy nodded with a glint of anger in her brown eyes. “He just left. He acted … funny, Michael. Unfriendly as he could be. He wanted to know where you were and what you thought you were doing on the Wallace case, and he practically called me a liar when I told him I hadn’t seen you since last midnight.”
Shayne crossed to the railing and lowered one hip onto it, lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke down at Lucy’s upturned face. He said, “You know how Will is when he’s stymied on a case and gets an idea I may be onto something he isn’t.”
“Are you, Michael?”
“I don’t know. It could be I’ve run onto a couple of things he’s missed. What else did he want?”
“He cross-questioned me at length about last night. Made me go over every step of the story again, as though he were trying to catch me up in a lie. I’m getting frightened, Michael. Do you think he suspects you went there with me and took away some evidence … like the airplane tickets?”
“He’s fishing,” Shayne assured her. “Right now he’s out on a limb with only Mrs. Wallace for a suspect, and I think he’s beginning to realize it. You didn’t give anything away?”
“I did exactly as you told me. I told the exact truth about everything except your being with me. And I didn’t tell a single lie. He didn’t ask me if I went there alone.”
Shayne said, “Be sure and remind him of that if it ever does come up. What happened after you and Bob Pearce left last night? Did Mrs. Wallace break down badly?”
“No. She was quite self-contained. Too much so, I’m afraid. I urged her to let go and cry on my shoulder, but she kept saying she had to be strong for Helen’s sake. She was too calm if anything. When I think about the wonderful life they had together.…” Lucy’s voice trailed off and tears misted her eyes. In a low voice she hurried on, “What does it mean, Michael? Those tickets for South America and Jim packing for a trip like that. It just can’t be the way it looks.”
Shayne shrugged and reached down a big hand to rumple Lucy’s brown curls. He didn’t tell her that he was beginning to fear it was exactly the way it looked. He wondered briefly how she would react if she were aware that a million dollars was missing from the brokerage firm’s safe … how Mrs. Wallace would react if she knew. But, perhaps Mrs. Wallace did know. Perhaps.…
He pulled his thoughts back to more practical considerations and asked, “Any calls this morning?”
“Just one. From a Mrs. Heffner.” Lucy dabbed at her eyes with a piece of Kleenex and glanced down at a memo pad. “She said you’d understand and that it was very important that you go to see her. It’s an address on Brickell Avenue. She was just going out when she called about half an hour ago, but said she’d be home at twelve and hoped you could be there. She sounded … well, her voice sounded like.…”
Shayne grinned down at his secretary as she paused doubtfully. “How did she sound, angel? Like a woman scorned?”
“N-not exactly. She sounded worried and embarrassed, and like a woman putting up a big front. I got the impression she was probing to find out whether I knew who she was … whether you had discussed her with me. She sounded … well, quite relieved when I told her you hadn’t been in the office yet this morning. Do we know a Mrs. Heffner, Michael? I checked the files after her call and couldn’t find her name.”
Shayne said, “We do know a Mrs. Heffner … sort of. After twelve, we’ll know her a lot better.” He glanced at his watch, leaned over to pull the sheet off Lucy’s memo pad that had Kitty’s address written on it.
“I’ll have to leave in a minute. Call Mrs. Wallace, angel. Find out whether her husband had a passport. Whether it’s been renewed recently and so on.”
Lucy said, “Of course. That’s important, isn’t it? If he did plan to fly to Rio this morning he had to have a passport in order. And with visas and all, didn’t he?”
Shayne said, “I don’t think he could take off on the plane without one.” He stood up and yawned while Lucy reached for the telephone. “After you talk to her, I’ve got another call or two before I visit Mrs. Heffner.”
He sauntered across the room to his private office, opened the door and went in. Lucy Hamilton had opened the windows above Flagler Street, and Shayne walked over to stand in front of them, savoring the sounds of midday traffic that drifted up from the street, frowning as he thought about Kitty Heffner and wondered why she was so anxious to see him today.
How was she going to react to what had happened in his apartment the previous night? He wondered exactly how much Kitty recalled before she passed out on his sofa. Did she plan to pick up at this noon date at her house where they had left off the night before? Somehow, Shayne didn’t think so. Another time, perhaps, and under similar circumstances. He grimaced, though, at recollection of the note Kitty had left for him.
Lucy’s voice from the doorway interrupted his thoughts: “Mr. Wallace did have a passport five years ago, Michael, when he made a business trip to England. Myra doesn’t know whether he ever had it renewed or not.”
Shayne turned from the window and got the pair of airline tickets from his pocket and studied them. “Call Pan-American and check on Flight Seventeen to Rio this morning. See what cancellations there were.”
Lucy nodded and turned back to her desk. Shayne went around the big, bare desk in the center of the room to a steel filing cabinet against the wall. He pulled out the second drawer and reached behind cardboard folders to lift out a bottle of cognac. He uncorked it as he went to a water cooler at the end of the room, fitted one paper cup inside another and half-filled it with cognac. He ran ice water into another cup, carried them back to his desk and sank into the swivel chair. His buzzer sounded and he pushed a switch and Lucy’s voice told him, “There were no pre-flight cancellations. But Mr. and Mrs. James Richards did not show up to claim their seats on Flight Seventeen. Pan-Am called the Biltmore Hotel which they had listed as an address, when they made the reservations, but the Biltmore had no one registered under that name. What do you think, Michael?”
He groaned, “God knows, angel. Make a note of it and we’ll try to fit it in later.” He flipped the switch and sank back in his chair, sipped alternately from the two cups until they were empty, his face gaunt and his gray eyes bleak, as they stared unseeingly across the room.
He finally crumpled up the empty cups and tossed them across the room toward a wastebasket, got briskly to his feet and strode out to lift his hat from the rack by the door.
“I’m on my way to see Mrs. Heffner, if she-calls. Tell her to sit tight and I’ll be there. Cal
l Rutherford Martin at his office and tell him I want to see him and Tompkins right after lunch. Make it definite for two o’clock and suggest it will be just as well if Will Gentry doesn’t know I’m coming in.”
Lucy Hamilton was making shorthand notes on her pad. A touch of excited color crept into her cheeks. “Anything else for me?”
“Just hold down the fort, angel. Have some lunch sent in, huh? Things could start breaking.”
“I’m so glad, Michael.” Lucy’s reaction was instantaneous and loyally optimistic. “What shall I tell Chief Gentry if he calls again?”
Shayne paused, holding the door open. “Just that I’ve been in and out, angel. And you might tell him I said to watch out for that limb he’s getting out on. I’ve an idea it’s pretty rotten and might break under his weight any moment.”
Shayne closed the door behind him blithely and hurried to the elevator to keep his twelve o’clock appointment with Kitty Heffner.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Heffner address was one of the large estates on Brickell Avenue fronting on the bay, and a curving drive led in between high stone gateposts through beautifully landscaped grounds to a three-story limestone house covered with bougainvillea and flame vine.
Shayne parked under a wide porte-cochère in front and got out. There was a cool, stone-floored front porch and heavy oaken doors with massive, wrought-iron fixtures. He touched a bell beside the doors and one of them opened almost on the moment of his signal, and a trim maid, wearing a ridiculously inadequate and frilly apron, smiled warmly at him and asked, “Mr. Michael Shayne?”
He said, “That’s right,” and gave her his hat and followed her into a wide, vaulted hallway, as she murmured that “Madame” was expecting him. Twenty feet down the hall, she turned to the left, between open sliding doors, and stood aside for him to enter, announcing, “Mr. Shayne to see Madame.”
Kitty Heffner stood in the center of a large room with bookshelves from floor to ceiling covering all available wall space. The tips of her fingers rested on the polished top of a long, refectory table and in front of her was a tray holding decanters and glasses.
She looked self-possessed and regal as she stood there, very much the mistress of her domain, in a flowing velvet gown with a high neck and long sleeves and no jewelry at all. She had a fresh, upswept hairdo that softened the bony contours of her face, and masterfully applied makeup that took years from her appearance.
She said, “I’m so delighted you could come, Mr. Shayne,” and told the maid, “Please draw the doors, Marie.”
The maid ducked her head and went out, closing the sliding doors behind her. Shayne said, “I’m delighted you asked me, Kitty.” He moved across to her and took the hand she extended between both his big palms.
She dropped her gaze from his and he realized she was trembling, and he squeezed her hand reassuringly and said lightly, “It didn’t happen, Kitty. Not a damned bit of it happened. Relax.”
Keeping her eyes down, she said in a low, throaty voice, “But I want it to have happened. Don’t you understand? I think it was wild and lovely and wonderful, and I’m positively delighted that I was tight enough to let my hair down for once in my life and act exactly the floosie I’ve always wanted to be.”
Shayne said, “And a very nice floosie you were.” He released her hand and turned slightly to the table. “Shall we have a drink on that?”
She said, “Not too much for me, Mike. A very little of the scotch and lots of soda.” Nervously, she turned beside him and tonged ice cubes from a silver bucket into two glasses. “There’s cognac for you. Nineteen Twenty-Eight Napoleon, I think it is, from my late husband’s cellar. I believe I recall that you prefer it straight with ice water on the side?”
Standing companionably beside her and not looking in her direction, Shayne poured a generous portion of the noble liquor into a snifter glass of frail crystal and said casually, “Your recollection is perfect up to that point at least. How far does it carry on?”
In a low voice, she asked, “Must I tell you?”
“Certainly not.” He let her pour water on top of the ice in his glass. “I had in mind the note you left for me. I hate to think you’ll always be sorry about anything.”
“Let’s say I’m not.” She turned to face him with a faint smile on her lips. “That note was my first reaction. Afterward, when I had an opportunity to think it out more thoroughly, I realized that quite the most beautiful thing about last night is the fact that I don’t know. So I can imagine anything I damn well please.” The smile became slightly wry as she sipped her weak mixture of scotch and soda and eyed him anxiously over the rim of the glass. “You do understand, don’t you?”
Shayne said truthfully, “About as well as any man ever understands any woman, Kitty.” He moved back to a leather-upholstered chair with his two glasses and set them on a smoking stand beside it. He sat back comfortably and stretched his long legs out in front of him and lit a cigarette. She sat down primly in a chair, ten feet from him, and smoothed her velvet skirt over the knees which Shayne remembered from the preceding night as not being at all as bony as he had expected.
“Let’s just say it was Kitty Heffner’s night to howl … and she howled. And then drop the subject.”
“After I make one further observation,” amended Shayne. “Promise me that the next time Kitty Heffner gets in a howling mood she comes to my apartment again.”
Color surged into both her cheeks, but she met Shayne’s gaze steadily and without embarrassment. “That’s a promise, Mike. But next time feed me sherry instead of straight cognac. I give you my word you won’t be disappointed.”
Shayne said, “I’ll lay in a supply of Amontillado tonight.” He relaxed and drew deeply on his cigarette, and lifted the snifter to draw in a deep lungful of the bouquet arising from the pot-bellied glass and waited for her to tell him why she had asked him to come to her house, since she had made it apparent she didn’t wish to pick up where they had left off the preceding night.
There was a long moment of silence and he stayed comfortably relaxed and let her stew in it. Then she said timidly, “Forgetting about the other … as you promised … I feel absolutely terrible this morning.”
“I didn’t promise to forget it,” protested Shayne. “Just to drop the subject. Why feel terrible, Kitty?”
“Because of the things I said. Because of the excuse I trumped up for following you home and insinuating myself into your rooms.”
Shayne said, “It is a murder investigation, Kitty. Every bit of information about any of the people involved may be very important. It was your duty to tell me.”
“But it wasn’t,” she denied strongly. “Ella is one of my closest friends, and both she and her husband have been wonderful to me since my husband died. I was just being horribly catty and I can never forgive myself for the impression I gave you … particularly since it wasn’t true at all.”
“Not true?” Shayne roused himself to sit up and rub his square jaw. “You mean you were making all that up?”
“Not exactly. That is, oh, it was true enough, but.… I’m telling this very badly,” Kitty wailed. “I’m so embarrassed when I realize how silly I was to jump to a wrong conclusion and I just don’t know how much it was due to my alcoholic desire to see you again and how much it was an honest mistake. Don’t you see how embarrassing it is?”
“Frankly … no,” said Shayne. “At the moment, you have me completely confused.”
“But I’m trying to tell you,” cried Kitty. “You just don’t understand. You thought I was talking about Jim Wallace all the time. And I wasn’t. He was a dear old sweetie-pie and I wouldn’t malign him for anything in the world. Don’t you see. I thought it was Tommy Tompkins that had been murdered all the time. No one told me me it was Jim Wallace. Don’t you remember?” she pleaded. “When you first came in and asked Ella for her husband and you told her one of his partners had been murdered? And I distinctly remember Ella saying, ‘Mr. Tompkins?’ A
nd you didn’t say anything different. You went on back to Rutherford’s bedroom and Ella came back to tell us all about it … and all of us thought it was Tommy and we were excited and we talked about it and all … and no one said it was Jim Wallace. So how was I to know? And it wasn’t until I saw the newspaper this morning that I realized what a dreadful mistake I’d made and what a terribly false impression I must have given you of Jim Wallace.”
Shayne muttered, “Wait a minute.” He rubbed a distracted hand over his corrugated brow. “You thought it was Tompkins! And all the time you were talking about the dead man and how he made passes at Mrs. Martin and other women, you meant Tompkins. Is that what you’re telling me now?”
“Certainly. I thought I had made it perfectly clear. All we girls thought it was Tommy who was dead. Not Jim Wallace. Who could imagine anyone killing him? But you didn’t tell me. No one told me anything. You let me sit up there and tell you all those things, without even telling me once that I was talking about the wrong man.”
Shayne grinned sourly and set his brandy glass down. All at once the thirty-year-old cognac didn’t taste as good as it had at first.
“So Tompkins is the philanderer? The one who kisses Mrs. Martin on the sly and whom you suspect Martin of being jealous of!” He beat his forehead with the tight knuckles of his right hand.
“Of course,” Kitty said brightly. “You can imagine just how I felt when I read the newspaper this morning and discovered the wrong partner was dead. That is, the wrong one in the light of everything I told you. And I thought I’d better put you straight just as fast as I could and that’s why I called your office and asked you to come here, just as soon as I finished my hair appointment.”
Shayne said hollowly, “I’m glad you did. I’m damned glad you did. My God! this changes everything. Are you telling me now that Jim Wallace never made a single pass at another woman? That he was, in fact, the paragon of virtue that his wife believes him to have been?”
Shoot the Works Page 9