Mermaid on the Rocks ms-55

by Brett Halliday

  “But why would she admit anything?” Kitty said, puzzled. “Why would she even see you? You won’t get there before four.”

  “I will if I fly. Call her and see what she says.”

  For a moment Kitty continued to look in his eyes, her face serious and questioning. Then she nodded. “Mike, do you know you’re absolutely the most-well, all I hope is that you’ll call me after I get back from New York. What do you want me to do?”

  He told her. She went to the phone in the living room and dialed a number. A moment after giving the operator her own number, a voice answered.

  “Eda Lou!” Kitty exclaimed. “I didn’t want to wake you up. This is Kitty Sims. You’re going to feel like shooting me, but I have to talk to Barbara.”

  The voice interrupted.

  Kitty said, “I do know what time it is, and I’m not drunk. Be an angel. Tell her I wouldn’t be calling unless it was something important. It’s about signing over my share in the Key. She honestly won’t mind.”

  Kitty covered the mouthpiece and said to Shayne, “The housekeeper, Mrs. Parchman. She’s been a fixture for decades. A nice crusty old biddy, very unphony.” Uncovering the mouthpiece, she said, “Barbara. I know this is no time of night, but I have to ask you a favor. Now don’t say no right away until I tell you about it. You’ve heard about Michael Shayne, the private detective.”

  She listened a moment.

  “That’s the one,” she said with a smile at Shayne, who was putting on his shirt on the other side of the room. “And I assure you he lives up to his reputation. He’s with me right now, as a matter of fact.”

  There was a quick squawking from the phone.

  Kitty said, “Yes, I’m calling from my apartment. Scandalous, isn’t it? Here I am not even properly divorced, with a strange man in my room. What would my ex-husband say? No,” she said seriously, “it’s not as bad as it sounds. I asked him up and I’ve been telling him my troubles over a friendly glass. I must say he’s been sympathetic. Frankly, Barbara, something happened to my cat last weekend that gave me a bad jolt. I’m uneasy about being alone. I’ve explained the Key Gaspar thing to him, as far as I know it. I’m baffled by quite a bit of it, actually. He wants to know if he can come down and talk to you.”

  Barbara asked a question.

  “Yes, right now. I’ve tried to talk him out of it and when you see what he looks like you’ll know why. But when he gets an idea in his head-What it amounts to, Barbara, I know I told Brad I wouldn’t sell under any circumstances, but now I’m having second thoughts like mad. Discretion the better part of valor and so on. Mike seems to be leaning in the same direction. I think in the end I’ll take his advice, but he doesn’t want to make any firm recommendation before he knows all the facts. So if you’d be willing to see him-”

  She listened.

  “He’ll leave right away and fly down,” Kitty said. “Don’t ask me where he expects to find a helicopter at this ungodly hour, but he thinks he can arrange it. I left the VW on Goose Key and he can use that. If everything works out he can be there in three-quarters of an hour. I know it’s asking a lot, but conceivably he’ll advise me to sell, and isn’t that what you want? I’m having breakfast with him in the morning before I go. Yes. All right, fine. Be nice to him. I’ve been giving him whiskey, but he’ll enjoy the visit more if you break out a bottle of Cal’s cognac. He’s not an easy man to get drunk, however, as I’ve been in the process of finding out.”

  She hung up triumphantly.

  “Mike, you were absolutely right! You should have heard the gulp when I said I had you here in my apartment.” She made a busy gesture beside her forehead. “I could hear the little cogs turning. She knew what Brad was up to, all right! I’ll bet that sex-killing angle was her idea!” She gave a small joyful hoot, stifling it as quickly as it had come. “I’m actually gloating! Well, I don’t think I’ll shed any tears over Brad. He deserved it. He really and truly did. And I’m not out of the woods yet, am I?”

  “Maybe,” Shayne said briefly, putting on his shoes. “It depends on how greedy they are.”

  “Oh, they’re greedy, but they also have to be a little realistic. Mike, give her the idea that you’re coming straight back here to report-she’ll put on an all-night filibuster. Who knows? She might even try to seduce you.” She looked at him speculatively. “She isn’t bad-looking, you know.”

  “This is my night for good-looking women,” Shayne said noncommittally. “Call Natalie. If Tim’s there, let me talk to him.”

  He returned to the bedroom to look for the. 38. He searched that room and the bathroom, and he still hadn’t found it after following Brad’s trail to the kitchen. Apparently the old man had managed to take it with him.

  Kitty called him and held out the phone. “Big surprise. Tim’s still there.”

  Shayne took the phone. “Something I want you to do, Tim.”

  “Sure. You just caught me going out the door. We were looking at the late movie.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Shayne said impatiently. “I’m in a hurry. Things have been happening-I’ll fill you in later. There’s going to be a story for you, with some fairly big names. I’m flying back down to Gaspar. I want you to call me at Barbara’s at exactly three. As soon as I’m on start talking fast and keep talking. I don’t care what you say. I want the lady to get the idea you’re telling me some bad news, such as that a client of mine has been found in bed with her throat cut.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Just don’t fall asleep before three,” Shayne told him. “I’m bringing Kitty over to spend the rest of the night with Natalie.”

  “Mike!” Rourke protested. “Without going into detail, that’s not such a hot idea.”

  “I thought you said you were just going out the door,” Shayne said, grinning. “We’ll be there in five minutes.” He hung up before Rourke could say anything more. “Now I suppose you’re going to want your jacket,” Kitty said with a glint.

  “Yeah. Can you get dressed fast, Kitty? I have two more phone calls.”

  He called the house doctor in a downtown hotel and told him to get a needle and thread ready. Then he roused an old friend named Jeremy Blakey, a helicopter pilot who was paid a monthly retainer by the detective, in return for which he was always on twenty-four-hour call. Shayne told him to meet him at the Watson Park heliport, and not to expect to be back to Miami before breakfast.

  chapter 8

  The Tuttle house on Key Gaspar was a good example of the pseudo-Moorish period in Southern Florida architecture. Its walls were stucco, its roof steeply pitched and tiled. There were innumerable balconies with wrought-iron railings. On the seaward side, however, part of one wall had been knocked out and replaced by a large picture window and a glass door opening onto a flagstone terrace.

  Pulling up in a cobblestone turn-around at the foot of this terrace, Shayne unkinked himself from the front seat of Kitty’s Volkswagen and stamped several times to start the blood circulating in the foot he had used on the accelerator. His injured leg had stiffened in the ride from the heliport. After stitching and bandaging the long cut on his calf, the doctor had changed to a larger needle and sewn up his torn pants.

  The house was ablaze with light. Through the big front window, Shayne saw a black-haired woman, probably Cal Tuttle’s daughter, putting on eye-liner at a narrow pier-glass mirror.

  He limped along a path skirting the terrace. Arriving at the front door, he pulled a jangling iron bell.

  Almost at once the door was opened by an extraordinary old lady. A cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth. The smoke was making her squint. Her eyes were heavily madeup, the lashes and upper lids very black, the lower lids blue green. Her hair, piled high on her head, was the color of heavy cream. She was barefoot, wearing very brief shorts and a bulky knitted sweater. Her legs were firm and beautifully tanned, her toenails painted blue-green to match her eyelids. In addition to a musky perfume, she gave off a strong smell of gin and vermouth.

&nb
sp; “Mike Shayne,” she said in a low hoarse voice.

  She didn’t move out of the doorway until she had looked him up and down. Reaching forward with a clawlike hand laden with rings, she pinched the flesh at his waist.

  “You keep in shape,” she said approvingly. She jerked her head toward the room with the big window. “You’re going to make a big hit in there. That’s my weather forecast for tonight. Come on in.”

  Turning abruptly, she led him along a hall and down several carpeted steps to the living room. The other woman had moved from the mirror to a deep sofa. She put out a hand to Shayne without getting up. She had the same magnificent tan as her housekeeper, though less of hers was showing. She was dressed in tight tapering red pants and a loose belted jacket, without buttons. By leaning forward to shake hands, she established the fact at once that there was nothing under her jacket but smooth skin, some of it tanned, some untanned. Her hand was hard and dry.

  “Mr. Shayne,” she said. “I’ve read about your exploits, of course. I’ve always hoped to be able to ask you. How much of what you achieve do you ascribe to luck and how much to-well, rapid footwork, I suppose you’d call it? Please tell me your secret.”

  “I just try not to make too many mistakes.”

  “Now that’s a wonderfully evasive answer!” she cried. “I prefer to believe that luck enters into it, which is why I’m so delighted to meet you. I like lucky people. I like to be in their orbit.”

  She settled back. “We’ve been drinking martinis because that was what we were in the mood for, but fix yourself what you want. Kitty mentioned cognac. There’s some over there.” She waved at a mahogany sideboard. “Eda Lou, honey, you’ve been a love. Get to bed now. You must be worn to a frazzle.”

  “I’m about ready to drop,” the older woman agreed. “What do you need before I go? Ice, sparkling water, booze-it all seems to be there.”

  She gave Shayne another up and down look. “Come down in the daytime and go swimming with us, Mike Shayne. The men we’ve been getting down here have been getting pansier and pansier.”

  Barbara laughed from the sofa. “Maybe I’ll make myself so fascinating that Mr. Mike Shayne will still be here at dawn. That’s the best time in the whole twenty-four hours for a swim. Not if you get up for it, if you stay up. I’m sure we can find him a pair of trunks.”

  “Well, if he’s still here and you do go in, wake me up. I mean it, Babs.”

  She gave Barbara a forceful nod, which finally jarred loose the ash of her cigarette. She padded out.

  Barbara went on laughing silently. “Did you ever see such a sex-hound? We’re both pretty well fried, incidentally, do you mind? Such an hour. Can you find everything you want?”

  Shayne opened a bottle of Courvoisier at the sideboard and half-filled a bubble glass. He took it back across the long room. The rugs were a little threadbare. There was an equally threadbare tapestry on one wall, the dusty pipes of a pipe organ on another.

  “Ducks, before you sit down,” Barbara said, “just look out in the hall and see if she’s listening, will you?”

  Shayne gave her a look, put his brandy on a low table and went to the hall. It was empty.

  “We’ll be talking about Daddy’s estate,” Barbara said when he came back. “She has no share in the property whatsoever, but the way she takes on you’d think she’s the sole heir. Kitty probably told you. Eda Lou was Daddy’s, let’s say paramour, for ages and ages. Do I shock you?”

  “Not especially,” Shayne said.

  “It was really more of a common-law marriage. I’ll say this for her, she was devoted to Daddy. She doesn’t look at all mushy on the surface, does she? Well, I happen to know that she takes flowers to the cemetery, for heaven’s sake. I never go near the repulsive place, and I’m the man’s daughter.” She studied her drink, as though it could tell her something. “I often wondered why they never married. My theory, not that I can prove it, is that she has Negro blood. She claims it’s Indian. Now I ask you. I’m not prejudiced, understand.”

  She paused for breath, and Shayne put in, “About your offer from Florida-American-”

  Barbara had been about to put down her martini glass. Her hand stopped. She took a small sip, and made a face expressing disgust and near-nausea.

  “This is pure water. If you want me to make any sense you’re going to have to mix me up another batch.”

  “In a minute,” Shayne said patiently. “I have a chopper waiting on Goose Key and it’s costing me twenty-five bucks an hour. As I understand it, Florida-American-”

  “I’d like to know how the little bitch found out! Excuse the dirty language, you probably think she’s the Christian and we’re the lions. I’ll just point out while I’m on the subject that you haven’t known her very long.” She held out her glass. “Give me some gin, ducks. Don’t worry, I won’t pass out. I never pass out. I just get talkative.”

  Shayne brought over the gin bottle and a bowl of ice from the sideboard. He emptied the dregs of the pitcher into the bowl, dropped in two fresh ice cubes and covered them with gin. After giving the pitcher a quick swirl he filled her glass.

  She tasted it. “I must say you make wonderful martinis,” she said approvingly. “Imagine Kitty hiring a private detective! I thought she was supposed to be so broke. How can she afford your rates? I’m not trying to stall, Mike. I’m going to answer your question sooner or later. I really am. I’m just curious. What kind of a story did she give you?”

  “She said somebody cut her cat’s throat.”

  Barbara smiled. “That sounds like Brad. He believes in the old-fashioned methods. Imagine anything like that working nowadays.”

  “I haven’t had time to look up his record,” Shayne said, “but I wouldn’t be surprised to find at least one killing in it.”

  She waved her hand. “Long, long ago, dear man. Of no consequence whatever. The mores of those days were altogether different. Though the funny thing is, I mean it seems funny now, that’s why Daddy spent all that time in jail.”

  Shayne looked at her sharply. “Let’s stop there for a minute.”

  “If you want to,” Barbara said pleasantly. “But where’s the connection with your client who wasn’t even born at the time? Is that what you call her-a client?”

  “She’s my client,” Shayne said.

  “The year was 1927. Brad killed somebody in a speakeasy fight. Trust Brad-he had to do it in front of a dozen witnesses, including the sheriff, if I remember the story rightly. That entitled him to twenty years to life, and Florida still had the chain gang in those days. Let me see. What was the expression they used to use? Squeal. Brad squealed on Daddy in return for a nolle-pros in his own case. Daddy was in the export-import business, which was how I used to describe it to myself, isn’t it silly? He was a rumrunner, as a matter of fact, a damn good one. The sheriff couldn’t have cared less about that speakeasy manslaughter of Brad’s. I think he was up for reelection-I was the merest infant at the time, Mike, so don’t hold me to any of this-and the papers were saying he was getting rich from the liquor interests, which was true except that he didn’t happen to be getting rich from Daddy. Bootleggers weren’t getting more than thirty days if they had a good lawyer, and Daddy believed in hiring the best. So it was Daddy’s thirty days against twenty years for Uncle Brad, and Brad made the deal. They bottled Daddy up in the cove right in front of this house and the irony of it was-he killed a man. He never held it against Brad. He understood how it happened. Maybe not at first, but he had plenty of time to think about it. Does that dispose of that? Because I want to ask you a question. Did you go to bed with Kitty yet?”

  She laughed at the look on his face. “She’s moderately sexy, I suppose, if you like the type. She’s paying you a contingency fee, isn’t she? That’s the explanation! And from our point of view that’s fine. Mike, they’ve made us a perfectly fabulous offer. An even one million dollars in cash! A quarter million apiece! Kitty can invest hers in an apartment house and get an income o
f twenty thousand a year, pretty much taxfree. How in heaven’s name can she have the effrontery to turn us down?”

  “Has anybody offered her a quarter of a million?”

  “No-o,” Barbara admitted. “I wanted to, but I was outvoted. My Uncle Brad, that great IQ, thought we should put on the screws, in his phrase, say nothing about the resale possibilities, and persuade her to resign her share for a more modest figure, say forty or fifty thousand, in the interests of peace and quiet. We decided to let him try. But I’ve never underestimated that female. She wound Daddy around her finger. He was in his dotage, granted, but even so he was never easy to fool. Come on, Mike. How did she find out about the deal? Everybody swore they’d keep it a secret.”

  “That’s a hard kind of secret to keep. Her husband’s in the real estate business. Maybe he told her.”

  “No, they aren’t on speaking terms. Of course,” she added, “if he had hopes of getting a slice-Anyway, it’s out of the bag now, and I’ll call Brad in the morning and tell him a change of tactics is in order. I can see why Kitty wouldn’t want to sell for peanuts. She wants to hang on till the rest of us die off, which in my case, by the way, isn’t going to happen for years. I know she thinks of herself as the child of the group. Stistically-and by that I mean sta-tist-ic-ally, I have trouble with that word, drunk or sober-she may be right. As a practical matter I intend to outlive her, if only out of spite. But that’s not the point. Who knows what prices will be like on that faroff day? If they’re as high as a quarter of a million I’ll be astonished. You tell her. Leaving personal feelings aside, and I’m as much at fault as anyone, doesn’t it make sense? A certain quarter of a million now, or wait till she’s a very old lady, when she won’t have any guarantee that she’ll inherit, or that she’ll get as much as a quarter of a million for the whole thing. But we have to get all four signatures by Wednesday or the deal’s off. This is no time for Kitty to go off on a vacation.”