Armed… Dangerous… ms-54

by Brett Halliday

  “But two months! It is an age!” she said with a delighted smile. “Darling, I knew we would agree.”

  Shayne shook his head wryly. “One thing I will say. I never met anybody like you.”

  “Take off your gun.”

  “In a minute.”

  “No, at once. So you are a hard man to push?”

  Her mouth came down to his and he felt her probing tongue. There was something he had to do, he remembered. He had to keep her from listening to the news or reading the afternoon papers.

  Without opening her eyes, she whispered, “Unfasten your pistol.”

  “That’s not pushing,” he said. “That’s pulling. I’m an easy man to pull. Unfasten it yourself.”

  “Where, here?”

  He showed her. She showed him how to unfasten her white dress.

  When Shayne noticed the time again, the afternoon was gone.

  CHAPTER 10

  They made it to Brooks Brothers as the store was closing, and picked up Shayne’s slacks and the pants to his new suits. He made one other stop, outside Grand Central.

  “I want to stash the dough and pick up some liquor,” he said, reaching for the dispatch case. “Won’t take a minute.”

  “You will be back?”

  He gave her a direct look. “What do you think?”

  He stopped at a liquor store in the arcade and bought two fifths of bourbon. He didn’t have to look around to know that she had left the car on the street and followed him in. He went down to the men’s room on the lower level. He paid a dime for a booth, opened the dispatch case and put in the diamonds he had taken from Tim Rourke the night before. They were real diamonds. He put the forged passport in his pocket.

  He checked the dispatch case in a coin locker and started back to the street, giving Michele time to get there ahead of him. She smiled at him brightly as he got in.

  “Please do not do that again, darling. It took longer than a minute, and bad things happened to my insides.”

  He leaned across and gravely kissed her cheek. “Stop worrying.”

  “I bought a paper while I waited. I thought you might-”

  He snapped off the ignition. “Use your head. There’s a trash basket over there-get rid of it.”

  She didn’t like his tone, but after an instant’s hesitation she took the folded World-Journal to the receptacle and dumped it.

  Shayne’s face was still angry when she came back. “What if one of those psychos out on Staten Island reads about the cop-shooting and gets the idea it might be me? We have enough on our hands.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “The hell with it.”

  He missed the Forty-first Street entrance to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive and had to come back for it, but that was something even native New Yorkers must occasionally do, he thought. The little flare-up had gone no further, and they rode in silence with the radio tuned to the only sound available on A.M. stations at this hour, the pounding music currently popular among American teen-agers.

  “We have it in France as well,” she told him. “If one could only understand the words.”

  Much against Shayne’s will, he found himself beginning to like her, although he knew she was as phony as a three-dollar bill. Given a slight turn of circumstances, say a father with a job when she was growing up-

  Unless, he thought suddenly, there had been no truth in that story about a poverty-stricken father and a roving mother? It could be, he told himself; it could very well be. There would always be a question with this girl where the truth stopped and the lying began.

  Billy was watching for them inside the gate. “Better get up there very sudden,” he told Michele. “Spaghetti’s stoned. He’s trying to get a rise out of Brownie, and I can tell you that cat ain’t going to sit still much longer.”

  Shayne came down hard on the gas.

  “This is impossible, it has to stop,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  He skidded to a fast stop in the gravel. An instant later, striding into the living room, he found an unshaven, bleary-eyed Szigetti, in a dirty sleeveless undershirt, cleaning his revolver on the sofa. Brownie was sitting across the room reading a paperback sex novel. He seemed indifferent to Szigetti, but Shayne saw that he was sweating. Irene was putting polish on her nails and drinking red wine. She looked up at Shayne, her eyes bright.

  “Welcome.”

  Michele clicked past Shayne. “Everything peaceful, the way I like it.”

  “Look at that book,” Szigetti said thickly. “A bare-assed white girl on the cover. Inside just one juicy rape after another.”

  “Your choice of reading matter seems to be irritating Ziggy,” Michele observed to Brownie. “Can you find something else? Has anybody eaten?”

  Szigetti went on, “The only reason he picked it up was to see if he could get my ass. All he’s doing is holding it. He can’t be reading-I don’t see him moving his lips.”

  “That will be enough!” Michele snapped.

  Szigetti finished assembling his. 38, spun the cylinder and took deliberate aim at Brownie.

  “It’s empty,” he said with a mocking grin, “but will you look at the man sweat?”

  Brownie looked up from the book. “Kid stuff.”

  Szigetti’s upper lip lifted and he pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked down on nothing. He repeated his mocking laugh.

  Shayne walked in front of the. 38, towering over the drunken gunman.

  “Out of the line of fire,” Szigetti said mildly.

  “There’s one bullet in the gun,” Irene warned. “I saw it.”

  Shayne bent down over Szigetti, who still held the. 38 extended in firing position. The muzzle touched Shayne’s chest.

  “We need a drink,” Shayne said. “I brought a couple of bottles back with me.”

  “Buddy. Please. One more. Six to one is good odds.”

  “Try it on me. But if you pull the trigger you’d better hope it hits the live round.”

  “Why should I do a dumb thing like that?” the smaller man protested. “Too few ex-Marines in the world as it is.”

  “Please!” Michele said. “Have a drink, stop this silliness.”

  Shayne, the. 38 still touching his chest, took hold of Szigetti’s arms and began applying pressure. He slowly backed away, bringing Szigetti to his feet after him.

  “What are they feeding you, red wine?” Shayne said. “That stuff eats out the stomach lining. Let’s have a couple of jolts of booze.”

  He continued to squeeze, and Szigetti’s body began to twist. He stopped resisting suddenly and the. 38 fell to the coffee table, knocking over a can of gun oil.

  “You still keep in shape, don’t you, Sarge?”

  Shayne let him go. Picking up the revolver, he broke it and spun the cylinder. There were no rounds showing.

  “He palmed it on you,” he said to Irene. “Russian roulette without bullets. You can’t lose.”

  “You got to do something to pass the time,” Szigetti said. “Where’s that bottle?”

  Shayne brought in his suitcase and the liquor from the car. Irene came into the kitchen with him and leaned against him while he was getting the ice.

  “Remember the last time I brought up the subject and you said later?” she said. “Like how much later?”

  “Like I’m tied up, kid, if you know what I mean.”

  “Oh, I do,” she said gloomily. “Michele, huh? I don’t suppose she’d consider making it a threesome?”

  “You never know,” Shayne said, breaking ice out of the tray. “I’ll ask.”

  “Well, I know you won’t, when you say it like that. And I thought this was going to be so different. It’s as much of a drag as anything else.” She yawned. “Excuse me. I keep yawning, for some reason.”

  “A simple case of nervous stomach,” he said. “Even the world’s champion gets sick the night before a big fight. There’s a lot riding on this tomorrow, baby, but it’s going to click. It has that feel.”

/>   “I thought so at first, but now I don’t know. Tug getting picked up and everything. All I had to do, Tug said, was get out there on the street and scream. He didn’t say anything about hanging around for four days beforehand. He’s my current guy, did anybody tell you? It’s an open secret. It was OK when he was here. I wouldn’t feel this way if I had a little nuzzling to look forward to. Now I suppose you think I’m a nympho.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You know as well as I do,” she said with a smile. “Well, I’m not. I’m normal. It’s stage fright! I get nightmares, I need somebody to hang onto. Brownie won’t because he’s sort of scared of Ziggy. Ziggy can’t. He claims he can, but he can’t.”

  “Who does that leave, Billy?”

  “That fag.”

  Michele called, “What’s happening with the drinks?”

  All the glasses were dirty; no one in this group was interested in washing dishes. Shayne found some paper cups. Brownie was still pretending to read, to annoy Szigetti, but he put the book aside with relief when Shayne handed him a cup. There was a pile of newspapers beside him, and Shayne saw that afternoon’s World-Journal. He kicked the pile over as he passed.

  Michele mentioned food, and Szigetti made retching noises. “Don’t make me throw up.”

  Shayne kept the former Marine supplied with whiskey and listened to another account of his adventures in the service. He rambled more and more as time passed. Forgetting where he was, he lapsed into a suspicious silence. His eyes rolled in his head, his head rolled on his shoulders. Finally the moment came, in the middle of the second bottle, when he didn’t get his drink as far as his mouth and spilled it in his lap.

  “Bedtime,” Shayne said. “Big game tomorrow.”

  Szigetti objected, but he had come reeling to his feet to brush off the ice cubes, and the change of position finished him. Shayne steered him toward the door. They fell upstairs together. Shayne straightened the corridor out for him, picked him up when he fell down, and manhandled him into the bedroom he was using. On the approaches to the messy bed, Shayne released him and let him dive the rest of the way by himself.

  Szigetti flopped over on the pillow, talking gibberish, as though his tongue was too large for his mouth and improperly attached. Then he fixed Shayne’s swimming face in loose focus and said distinctly, “Miami. Bigshot detective. Whaz-name, Mike Shayne. Nev’ mind, good buddy.” He smiled, his eyes whirled and he revolved himself asleep. Shayne turned and found Michele watching from the doorway.

  If she had heard the name Mike Shayne, it meant nothing to her. “That was the quickest way, whiskey after whiskey, but oh, he will feel so sick tomorrow morning.”

  “Maybe sick enough to lay off Brownie. Let’s see what we can find in the kitchen.”

  They found two minute steaks. Irene looked at the bloody, scored meat and turned pale. “It’s whiskey on top of wine,” she explained, and wobbled away, her fingers to her lips.

  Brown and Billy were already gone. Michele cooked the steaks and they ate in the kitchen, under a glaring light. They left the dirty dishes on the table.

  “What’s your idea about the night?” Shayne said. “Separate rooms?”

  “Positively! We have too many currents, far too many currents. Irene, for instance-it’s clear that she fancies you, and if she thought we were asleep together she might steal in and murder us both.”

  “That’s not the proposition she made me,” Shayne said dryly.

  They went up together and said goodnight at Michele’s bedroom door. She kissed him silently and hurriedly.

  “I wish I were in the habit of saying prayers. We need any help we can get.”

  Midnight, the time he had fixed on with Tim Rourke, had come and gone. In his own room, Shayne smoked a cigarette and finished the drink he had brought upstairs. He had to wait another half hour for everyone to settle down.

  There was a faint scratching sound at the door. He turned off the light and waited, hoping that whoever it was would go away. The knob turned and the door opened slowly.

  Billy’s voice whispered, “Anybody awake?”

  Shayne sighed and turned on the light. “Yeah.” He went to meet the boy before he could get too far inside the room. “I’m beat, Billy. Some other time.”

  “I can’t get to sleep,” Billy said. “A couple of things bother me. I didn’t want to ask her. I thought we could have a cigarette and talk for a few minutes.”

  “I wouldn’t make any sense, kid. It’s been a long day. Tomorrow after breakfast.”

  It took him five minutes to get rid of the boy without throwing him out bodily. He slid the bureau in front of the door and turned off the light again. He forced himself to wait ten minutes more. The last two minutes seemed to take almost as long as the first eight. He took the screen out of the window and swung out.

  There was no light in Irene’s bedroom. He eased himself slowly past. The night air was filled with the mating dialogue of small insects. A breeze stirred the branches of the overhanging maple, and one of the tree’s spinning seeds hit him as he looked up.

  Some of the tongue-and-groove lumber under the dry shingles had rotted away, but he decided that the two-by-six at the end of the roof, rotten or not, was going to hold him. He slid over and let himself down quickly. As soon as his feet touched the porch railing he let go and jumped to the ground.

  The moon was in its final quarter, all but gone. He walked down the driveway without using the cover on either side. Approaching the gate, he moved more cautiously. He located the little electronic eye and stepped across.

  He reached the crossroads out of breath after jogging most of the way. A dim neon glow still came from the bar and grill, but most of its customers had gone home for the night. Only three cars were parked on the pocked asphalt. One was the same police Ford Tim Rourke had used during the day. Shayne crossed the parking area and got into the front seat with Tim and a girl.

  CHAPTER 11

  “You’re overdue,” Tim observed. “We just about gave you up. Cognac in the glove compartment.”

  The detective snapped open the little compartment, found the bottle and held it up to the light.

  “We had a couple,” Rourke said. “This is Terry Fox, Mike. She was out with Herman Kraus last night but she isn’t sure she wants to talk about it. She let me put my arm around her so people would think we’re necking, but that doesn’t mean she thinks I’m a friend.”

  The girl stirred beside Shayne. “But who are you?” she said in a light, agreeable voice. “For a Miami newspaper reporter you’re a long way from home. I don’t know why I let you bring me all the way out here, except that those stories in the papers made me so damn mad.”

  Shayne unscrewed the cap of the bottle and drank. “I thought you would have explained things by now, Tim.”

  The reporter said hotly, “What do I know about what’s going on? I came along with you because things always tend to happen where you’re around. Just because I’ve already won one Pulitzer doesn’t mean I’d mind winning another. I thought you’d talk about it on the plane, but you were too busy with those damn road maps. You have one infuriating habit, boy, and that’s the way you hold up on explanations before you have everything wrapped up in tissue paper with all the ribbons tied. That’s your method and most of the time, God knows, it seems to work. You told me to fall down and break a cackle bladder on my face, and did I ask any questions? Did I point out that I might have a hell of an embarrassing half hour if somebody found me before I could wash my face, which is the way it happened, incidentally?”

  Shayne laughed. “If I’m still alive at the end of twenty-four hours, I’ll sit down and give you the full play by play. Is it Miss Fox or Mrs.?”

  “You might as well call me Terry,” she said.

  “All right, Terry. Do you think Kraus killed himself?”

  “Of course he didn’t.”

  She put a cigarette between her lips and pressed in the dashboard lighter. The faint glow showed
Shayne a surprisingly pretty girl. She was younger than Herman Kraus, if the News had been right in giving his age as thirty-three.

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell people all day,” she said, “and I haven’t made an inch of headway. I’m furious! I’m so mad I could burst. The police won’t talk to me, and still they put those lies in the papers. ‘Spurned!’ Herman wasn’t spurned. I wasn’t his fiancee. Tim says your name is Mike Shayne. Oddly enough, I heard Herman speak about you. He used to say he had no more to do with criminals than if he’d gone on working for an insurance company, which is where he started, and that’s why he liked to read stories about real working detectives. I’m groggy, I’m afraid. You are the one he talked about?”

  She reached behind him and snapped on the dome light. There were deep hollows in her cheeks, blue marks of weariness beneath her eyes. She remained an extremely pretty girl on the edge of exhaustion.

  “You aren’t at all! Mike Shayne has red hair.”

  Shayne flinched. “That’s dye,” he said in disgust.

  “Does he or doesn’t he?” Rourke murmured.

  “Yeah. They tell me if I shampoo it with a strong enough soap it’ll come right out. I’m under wraps on this, Terry.”

  She snapped off the light, and Shayne continued, “I see how you feel, and I wish I could give some answers. I don’t know enough yet. But the cops had reasons for brushing you off today. There’s something big in the works and they don’t want to spoil it. They’re hoping the fiancee story will hold up through the morning papers. They have a suicide note, it seems, a confession that your guy has been stealing narcotics.”

  “But that was over!” she exclaimed. “And he wasn’t my guy!”

  “You knew about it, Terry?”

  “No, not really. But I’ve been doing some thinking today. I’m sorry to say that isn’t something I make a practice of doing. Herman wasn’t the major thing in my life, he really wasn’t. I only saw him about once a week or once every two weeks-Well,” she said philosophically, “there it goes, and I made up my mind when I agreed to come out here that I wouldn’t say a word before I knew what you people are after.”