He said, “What did she want with you?”
“Well—for me to make moving pictures. She built it up gradually—all about how I didn’t actually have to do anything. Just pose in the nude. And what did it matter? No one who knew me would ever see the picture. And she offered me a hundred dollars. A whole hundred dollars!” She caught her lower lip between her teeth, and tears glittered in her grayish eyes. She swallowed hard, then hurried on.
“Dear God! I can remember even now how magical that sounded. A hundred dollars just for a few afternoons’ work. So I said yes, and she gave me ten dollars in advance. And two days later I did it. You know. One of those awful pornographic pictures they rent out for stag parties and smokers at men’s clubs and conventions. Do you want to know exactly how awful it was?”
Shayne said moodily, “You don’t have to go into details. Take another drink and relax. That was seventeen years ago. I gather you didn’t continue—make a career of obscene movies.”
“No. I invested the money in a shorthand and typing course. I managed to get a job afterward, and everything went all right. Wanda Weatherby and everything about her gradually faded into the background like a bad dream that actually hadn’t happened. A year ago I met Henry and we were married.” She paused again and took another sip from her glass.
“Then I met Wanda again,” she continued, “here in Miami, and quite by accident. She hardly seemed to have changed at all. A little older, but you’d certainly never guess she must be at least forty. Henry was with me. She recognized me and began talking about old times in Detroit, just as though we’d been close friends. I had to introduce him, and the next day she came out to our house.”
She stopped talking and laced her fingers tightly. Spots of color again flamed in her unrouged cheeks, and she lowered her lids to cover the hatred in her eyes.
“And then?” Shayne prompted her.
“She wanted me to do it again,” Sheila told him in a listless voice. “I refused, of course, and begged her to leave me alone, but she just laughed and said it was so hard to find girls nowadays, with all the good jobs begging to be taken.
“She was hard as nails. She just sat back and laughed when I offered to pay her money to leave me alone. She didn’t want money. She wanted me. And when I flatly refused she threatened to show Henry the old film I made in Detroit.
“It would kill Henry if he saw it. And I’ll kill myself if he ever does.” Sheila Martin was leaning toward him, her body tense, and her face pale again. “That’s when I went out of my mind and told Wanda I’d kill her if she ever did that. But it didn’t frighten her at all. She just said it was up to me to decide. And I have until next week. She still has some of those old films, you see, and still rents them out. Next week there’s going to be a special party at the Sportsman’s Club where Henry works, and she’ll either give them the one of me—or a different one. I have until next Friday to make up my mind,” she ended, and sank back limply.
“Your husband works for Jack Gurley?” Shayne asked sharply.
“He’s a waiter there. And when they have these special parties he has to work overtime to serve drinks, and he will have to see the pictures with the rest of them. You can see how viciously clever she is. She figured out that way of doing it without actually going to Henry and telling him. She doesn’t have to appear in it at all. He’ll just see the picture and that will be the end of everything. But I won’t let her. I’ll kill her first.”
“Having failed twice already?” Shayne asked quietly.
“No. I haven’t done anything. I don’t know what she means in her letter. I’ve been crazy with worry, but I don’t even know where she lives. All I have is a telephone number and I’ve called her three times to beg her not to do it. She won’t even talk to me, just asks me if I’m ready to do what she wants, then hangs up when I try to plead with her.
“She’s a devil, Mr. Shayne. She doesn’t deserve to live. I don’t think a jury would convict me if I killed her, not if they knew the truth. But that would be just as bad, because the whole story would come out and Henry would know, and nothing would be gained. So what am I going to do? What are you going to do about her letter?”
Shayne said, “I don’t know yet. If you’re telling me the truth—”
“I am,” she cried huskily. “I swear I am. Do you think I wanted to tell anyone a thing like that? If I pay you a thousand dollars, can I be your client instead of her? Maybe you could get the film and destroy it—do something to keep her from letting Henry see it.” She opened her purse and took out a handful of bills. “I haven’t got all of it yet. But I can get the rest in a few days. If you’ll take this much as down payment—”
Shayne waved it aside. “First, I want to know what you did tonight after telephoning me.”
“I was out trying to raise this much money. There’s six hundred and twenty dollars here. That’s why I didn’t want to see you until midnight. I knew what I had to do as soon as I hung up, and I called a friend who lives down the street and told her I had to raise a thousand dollars by midnight. She helped me—gave me all the cash she had—sixty dollars, then drove around with me to different friends of hers and mine borrowing whatever they could spare.”
“How soon did you see your friend after phoning me?”
“Right away. Within five minutes. Henry is working, you see, and I went right over. It was just a few minutes when Betty and I started out.”
“Will this Betty corroborate that?”
“Of course she will. Betty Hornsby is my best friend. Why? Does it matter?”
“It does,” the detective told her. “Can you tell me the other friends you visited?”
“Certainly. I made a list of how much I got from each one.”
“I’ll want the list, and your friend Betty’s address. It matters a whole lot, Sheila,” he said slowly, “because Wanda Weatherby was murdered tonight between ten and ten-thirty.”
Sheila Martin was still leaning toward him with the money in her outstretched hand. She stared at him without moving for a long moment. Then she murmured, “Thank God,” and slid forward on her knees, clutched at the arm of her chair, and pressed her forehead against it.
The telephone rang. Shayne jumped up and hurried to answer it.
The desk clerk’s excited voice tumbled into Shayne’s ears. “They’re going up, Mr. Shayne. The chief of police and that reporter friend of yours. Just getting in the elevator. They didn’t even stop at the desk.”
Shayne barked, “Thanks,” and slammed the receiver down. He leaped to Sheila’s side, dragged her erect, and said swiftly, “Kiss me good—and ruffle your hair. Hurry. Finish your drink and spill a few drops down the front of your dress. The cops are on their way up here, and if we’re going to keep you out of this we’ve got to make them think they’re interrupting a necking-party.”
“Oh, God,” she breathed, and was instantly alert. She stood on tiptoe, flung her arms around his neck, and put her parted lips hard against his. Shayne kissed her back, all the while tousling her tawny hair. Her eyes were shining when she drew back and she said, “I liked that, Michael. If you can get rid of them—”
“I liked it, too.” He grinned and gave her a shove toward the couch, saying, “Drink up—and make like a loose woman.”
She said tremulously, “It won’t be hard, Michael Shayne. You make me feel like one.”
Shayne grabbed up his own drink and finished it off, snatched a bottle from the cabinet and set it on the table in front of the couch. He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it on a chair, jerked open the neckband of his shirt and pulled his tie awry as heavy footsteps sounded in the corridor outside.
He looked at Sheila and nodded approvingly. She lolled back on the couch with her skirt well above one knee, and her long hair slid forward over one side of her face. Her lipstick was smeared, and the picture was complete.
Shayne was refilling his glass with cognac when an authoritative knock sounded on the door.
&n
bsp; CHAPTER EIGHT
Shayne dropped onto the couch beside Sheila with glass in hand. He slid one arm around her shoulders and pinched her cheek, and waited for Gentry’s knock to be repeated, muttering in her ear, “Play it up the best you can, darling. We’re both tight and plenty sore at being interrupted.”
Sheila didn’t reply, but pressed his hand hard against her cheek. She was warm and she smelled good, and Shayne wondered how much she loved her husband.
Will Gentry knocked again, and more insistently, and the deep rumble of his voice penetrated the door. “Open up, Mike. It’s Will Gentry.”
Shayne drank half his cognac, gave Sheila a final pat, and said angrily, “It’s the chief of police, honey. I’ll have to open up. You sit tight.”
He got up and started toward the door as Gentry pounded on it again. Shayne growled, “All right! Damn it. You don’t have to break the door down.” He turned the knob and opened the door about six inches, holding it firmly against Gentry’s thrust and peering out with an angry scowl.
“What in hell’s the matter, Will? You might let a man know—”
Gentry said, “Want to ask you a couple of questions.” His gaze went from the glass in the detective’s hand to his disheveled appearance and the smear of lipstick on his mouth. “Sorry if I interrupted anything important,” he added gruffly, “but you do choose the damnedest time for your tomcatting. Send your floosie in the bedroom if you’re ashamed for Tim and me to see her. If she isn’t already there,” he ended.
Shayne drew himself up, pretending outraged dignity, hiccuped, and said, “She’s no floosie, and this isn’t what you think at all. It’s just your foul mind.” He threw the door open grandly as Gentry plodded through, and the redhead gave Timothy Rourke a broad wink, and continued, “Certainly don’t want you to think I’m ashamed of introducing my friends.” He closed the door and said, “Sylvia, meet Chief Will Gentry, and Mr. Rourke from the Daily News.”
She was lolling against the couch with a cigarette dangling from her mouth. Tossing her head, she giggled, “Glad to make your acquaintance, I’m sure.”
Gentry nodded curtly and asked Shayne, “Can’t she go in the other room for a few minutes? This is important.”
Rourke had acknowledged the introduction with “Hi, Sylvia,” and stood to one side, appraising Sheila Martin with saturnine approval.
Shayne tossed off the rest of his cognac and waved a big hand vaguely. “Make yourselves right at home. Fix Will a drink, Tim—and help yourself.” He went to the couch, wavering a trifle but holding himself erect, leaned over Sheila, and said tenderly, “’Scuse us for a minute, sweet. Gotta talk business with the cops.”
He caught her hands and helped her up, went with her to the bedroom and steered her inside, half-closed the door as he switched on the light. She turned and pressed herself against him, pulling his face down, saying, “Let’s make it look good.”
Shayne held her tightly and again she kissed him with parted, moving lips. They were both trembling when he released her and stepped back. He considered her gravely for a second, then nodded and went out without speaking, pulling the door shut behind him.
Will Gentry was seated solidly on the couch with his hands resting on his knees. “Are you sober enough to answer a couple of questions, Mike?”
“Perfectly sober. Ask your questions, for God’s sake, and then beat it.”
“Sure, sure,” said Gentry soothingly. “If you’d told Tim or me you had a date, I wouldn’t have bothered you this way.”
“I wasn’t aware,” Shayne snapped, “that I was supposed to clear my dates through official channels.” He lurched as he reached for his glass, recovered himself, and filled it with exceeding care.
Rourke came in from the kitchen with two long, cold drinks, and handed one to Gentry. “It was Will’s idea to bust in on you like this, but you shouldn’t be so damned cagey, Mike. Hell, I thought you were spending all your extra time with Lucy these nights.”
“Lucy is a nice girl,” said Shayne seriously. “And so is Sylvia a nice girl. Here’s to nice girls.” He lifted his glass high, waited until the others took a drink, took a couple of swallows from his glass, and sank into a chair. “What are your questions, Will?”
“You told me tonight you’d never met Wanda Weather-by. Didn’t know anything at all about her except the one phone call asking you to see her. Is that right?”
“Something like that,” Shayne told him placidly, “because it happened to be the truth.”
“Then why did she pay you a thousand bucks yesterday?”
“Did she?”
“You know damned well she did.”
“I know nothing of the sort,” Shayne contradicted him flatly.
“The final stub in her checkbook, dated yesterday, shows a check made out to Michael Shayne for one grand—and a notation saying ‘Retainer.’”
Shayne shrugged and reminded the chief, “Lucy told you that Wanda tried to call me twice during the afternoon, and then said she was writing me a letter. Even a dumb cop should be able to deduce that just possibly she enclosed a retainer with the letter.”
Gentry’s face turned an angry red. “All right, damn it, that may be the answer. But here’s another question. What took you straight to the Sportsman’s Club from her place to ask Jack Gurley about her? How did you know about her connection with Gurley?”
“Is there a connection?” Shayne stopped pretending to be drunk. He was sure the by-play with Sheila had gone over and that neither of the men suspected she was anything more than a drinking companion.
“You must have thought so when you went there.”
“Maybe I wanted a free drink, or felt like tossing away a few bucks on Gurley’s crooked wheels.”
“Cut it out, Mike,” roared Gentry. “I know you jumped him about Wanda.”
“Did he tell you so?”
“As good as. The moment I braced him he got sore and growled, ‘So that damned shamus shot off his big mouth, eh?’”
“There are other detectives in Miami,” Shayne countered. “And my mouth isn’t so big as to make that a positive identification.”
Gentry’s agate eyes were cold. “Give me a straight answer to a straight question,” he demanded, “if you want to get back in the bedroom tonight. What sent you to Gurley?”
“I’ll trade,” Shayne offered cheerfully. “Tell me what tipped you off and I’ll tell you mine.”
Will Gentry hesitated, knowing the redhead’s stubbornness from long experience, and his disinclination to give information under pressure. Right now, the dead woman’s attempt to see Shayne before she died and her letter to him, now in the mail, were the only angles he had to work on. He said cautiously, “If I go that far will you promise not to make any trouble about me reading your mail in the morning?”
Shayne considered for a moment, conscious that the reporter was listening and awaiting his reply, conscious of the check in his pocket—the retainer he had accepted from Ralph Flannagan on condition that his name be kept out of the murder investigation. He sighed and said reluctantly, “After I read it first.”
“With me watching you open it to see I get it all?” pressed Gentry.
“Sure. You know I wouldn’t hold out anything important, Will.” He glanced at Rourke, keeping his face blandly impervious to the angry disgust the reporter showed.
“That’s a direct promise,” said Gentry heavily, “and I’ll hold you to it. Okay. Among the papers in Wanda Weatherby’s desk we found a series of newspaper stories from a clipping bureau that were all about Gurley and his family. That’s why I went to him.”
“How did he explain them?”
“I didn’t tell him—Wait a minute,” the chief expostulated. “This was a horse trade.”
“You didn’t tell him about the clippings?” Shayne said angrily. “You went away from there with him believing I was the one who sent you? Damn it, Will, you really put the finger on me that time. Of all the lousy tricks to play on a gu
y who’s supposed to be your friend!”
“I didn’t put the finger on you,” roared Gentry, his face purpling with anger. “Gurley jumped to that conclusion himself.”
“And you left him believing it. Don’t forget that if I wake up dead from lead poisoning tomorrow.”
“You fingered yourself by going to him first,” Gentry flared. “Don’t forget that. If you’d keep your nose out of my homicide cases you wouldn’t be asking for trouble.”
“Maybe it’s kind of my case, too, Will. She did call me for protection instead of going to the police when she was in fear of her life. Why? Answer me that.” He leaned forward and pointed an accusing finger at the chief. “Because your lousy homicide department has such a stinking reputation, that’s why. You ought to be damned glad there’s someone a tax-paying citizen can turn to for help when they need it instead of giving me hell for solving your cases for you.”
Chief Will Gentry took a drink of rye and water, and choked over it. He lowered his glass, sputtering with rage.
Timothy Rourke leaped into the breach with conciliatory words. “Shut up, both of you. Before you say any more that you don’t mean. You’re drunk, Mike.”
“Like hell he’s drunk,” shouted Gentry. “He’s just trying to get me sore enough to forget what I came here for. I’m waiting for that trade, shamus.”
Shayne hesitated, his gray eyes bleak, the trenches deepening in his gaunt cheeks. He said, “It’s been a long time since a friend of mine called me shamus.”
Gentry said stubbornly, “I’m still waiting.”
Shayne sighed. “Okay, Will. So we forget the friendship. I got the same tip you did. That Wanda Weatherby was collecting clippings on Gurley. And like you, I wondered why.”
“How did you know about the clips?” Gentry demanded.
“I discovered her body and called in,” Shayne reminded him evenly. “It was a few minutes before anybody got there. Do you think I sat down and twiddled my thumbs while I waited?”
“Hell, no. I’m sure you went through everything you could find and carried away anything you thought might help you solve the case and prevent us from doing it.”
What Really Happened Page 6
