Counterfeit Wife

by Brett Halliday

  “Just so you won’t pull any smart tricks,” Perry explained happily. “God knows what you could pull inside there with a car backed up against the door, but I’ve heard too much about you to take any chances. Maybe you got a gas bomb in your pocket or a saw blade sewed in your underwear.”

  “You’ve been reading too many comics.”

  Perry said, “Strip him, Getchie.”

  The Negro was behind Shayne. Shayne felt smooth metal touch the base of his neck and glide downward along his spine. Coat, shirt, and undershirt divided as the razor moved, the back of it cold against his flesh, while Shayne shuddered with impotent rage. It sliced cleanly through his leather belt, and his trousers and shorts slid down around his ankles.

  Perry grinned and Getchie chuckled softly behind Shayne. Shayne set his teeth together hard and shrugged out of the upper portion of his clothing. It was impossible to move with his pants hobbling him. He stooped and untied his shoelaces, kicked his shoes off and stepped clear of the encumbering clothing.

  Getchie was still close behind him with his razor, and Perry’s gun was ready, his eyes tight and watchful.

  Shayne picked up the bottle of Scotch just as Getchie shoved. He sprawled forward on hands and knees, lifting the precious bottle to keep it from breaking on the concrete.

  Perry laughed loudly. The Negro went out and the wooden door slammed shut as Shayne lifted himself painfully erect. He carefully set the bottle on top of the porcelain water closet and looked at his reflection in the small mirror above the lavatory.

  The terrifying face of a complete stranger looked back at him. His gray eyes were humid and contracted, his hair and eyebrows were matted with the blonde’s blood.

  Splotches of crusted blood were still on his face and neck, and his haggard features were set in a mask of such uncontrollable fury that it startled him. His swollen lips were drawn back from set teeth, and every muscle in his face was tense and trembling.

  He drew a shaky hand across his forehead and forced himself to speak aloud. “Take it easy, guy. What you need is a drink.”

  He turned away from his reflection, tilted the bottle, and let the whisky flow down his throat. He didn’t taste it as it went down, but it started a fire burning in his stomach.

  His long rangy body was trembling violently as he seated himself on the filthy toilet seat and hunched forward, his elbows resting on his bare thighs.

  A car started in the garage. In a moment there was a dull thud as a bumper was jammed solidly against the door.

  Shayne didn’t move. He stared dully at the concrete floor and tried to figure his way out of this one. He’d been in tough spots before, but he couldn’t remember a tougher one. All because he’d done a guy a favor. What the hell was it all about? What was the matter with those two bills the pasty-faced man had given him? Were they counterfeits? How did ex-Senator Irvin figure in it? And Bates at the Fun Club? And the big blonde and Fred Gurney?

  He took another drink and reminded himself that such questioning was utterly useless at this stage of the game. His present and very real problem was to get out and look for some answers. He wished now that he’d paid more attention to the comics—to Dick Tracy and Superman. They always had ways of getting out of fixes like this one.

  He took another drink and looked around sourly. The walls, floor, and the low ceiling were of concrete. The only ventilation came from two openings about four inches square in opposite corners of the wall just below the ceiling. The door was a homemade affair, a double thickness of tongue-and-groove boarding reinforced with two-by-fours. He reached out and pushed on it. The door was solidly blocked.

  His bleak eyes looked up at the ventilation squares near the ceiling. One of them was directly above the lavatory. He could hoist himself up on the lavatory and yell through the opening, but probably his voice would only be heard by Irvin and his gunmen in the apartment above.

  He inspected the contents of the whisky bottle. It was still a quarter full. He drank two gulps and began considering ex-Senator Irvin.

  It had been more than five years since Shayne had helped gather evidence on the sale of pardons to inmates of the state penitentiary. The investigation had developed into a nationwide scandal with Irvin in the middle of it at a time when he was supposedly serving the people of the state in an honorable capacity. There had been enough direct evidence to force his removal from office, but there had been a cover-up by other state officials and the trial had fizzled out without a conviction.

  Shayne had neither heard Irvin’s name nor thought of the man since that time. He wondered what the devil he was mixed up in now. Counterfeiting, apparently. That could be the only answer to his curious interest in a couple of ordinary looking hundred-dollar bills.

  He took another drink.

  The senator had changed a lot in five years. Shayne remembered him as a pompous stuffed shirt. Five years had turned him into something else. What was it Bates had said over the telephone? “Put the big shot on.”

  So Irvin was a big shot now, with gunmen and shiv artists to do his bidding. Shayne could still hear the soft purr of his voice when he said, “Hit him, Getchie,” and, as he remembered, a cold fear ran sickeningly over his naked frame.

  He hadn’t thought about that angle very much. But, thinking back, he knew now that Irvin had made up his mind about something as soon as he, Shayne, had been recognized by the rosy-cheeked ex-senator.

  Irvin knew Shayne’s reputation, and he knew a thing like that would never be forgotten. There was only one possible answer—Irvin had ruthlessly decided that Shayne would never be in a position to do anything about it, and for that reason hadn’t hesitated to have Getchie slap him around.

  He remembered Irvin’s saying that he had to convince Shayne that this was serious business. That, thought Shayne, was a masterpiece of understatement. What it actually meant was that he didn’t intend to let Shayne out of the place alive, so the manner in which he was treated didn’t matter. They’d keep him alive until they checked his story with Slocum, the man who had rented his apartment. When they found they could learn nothing from him, they’d put the screws on.

  He realized now that he should have put up a fight upstairs. He would have if he had thought things out clearly. The whisky was helping to clarify his mind and he excused his previous vacillation by telling himself he had been in no condition to think straight. His left shoulder and arm were of little use. Besides, he had been thrown off-stride by the suddenness of it all; by his complete lack of comprehension of what it was all about. He had been dazed and uncertain by the swiftness of events since he overheard the blonde talking to the freckle-nosed girl at the air terminal, and by the fact that none of it made any sense.

  His mind was clear now, his thinking coldly logical. The odds were still a thousand to one against him, but they wouldn’t get any better while he sat and waited for the night to drag itself out.

  He drank the rest of the whisky and turned the bottle over and over in his hands. It was a tall, round bottle. Better for his purpose than a squat, square one.

  He took a solid grip on the neck and struck it a sharp blow just below the center against the edge of the lavatory. The bottom broke off neatly and clattered into the basin. He tapped the lower rim of the upper portion gently, turning it and working at it until three jagged glass prongs remained, then he studied it approvingly.

  Except for a gun, he couldn’t ask for anything better, and for close work this was far better than a gun. The next thing was to arrange for some close work, preferably in the dark.

  He stooped down and carefully gathered the fragments of glass from around the lavatory and tossed them into a corner. When he stood up, he knew he was quite drunk. That was good, for no sober, sane man would do what he was going to do.

  He laid the top half of the bottle carefully on top of the water closet, reached a long bare arm overhead and unscrewed the electric bulb from the ceiling socket.

  Feeling his way to the lavatory, he turn
ed on the water and held the brass contact end of the bulb under the flow for a moment, then screwed it back into the socket. The instant the connection was made there was a momentary flare, then the water-shorted circuit brought impenetrable blackness again.

  He gave another twist to set the bulb tightly in the socket, and sank back on the toilet seat to wait. Groping behind him, he got hold of his improvised weapon and hunched forward with his elbows on his knees.

  It was hot and stifling and soundless inside the room. He knew a fuse had been blown, but he had no way of knowing whether it also controlled an upstairs circuit or only shorted the basement lights. He didn’t know, either, whether all the others upstairs were in bed. If their lights were not burning, they wouldn’t know a fuse had been blown.

  He could only wait in the darkness and the silence and listen.

  He waited a long time and nothing happened. He thought about Lucy Hamilton and about a lot of things he could have said to her over the telephone. None of this would have happened if he’d thought fast enough and kept her on the wire.

  He was sorry he would never see Lucy again. Sorry that he would not be able to give her the string of simulated pearls, the only payment he had received or would have taken for recovering the real pearls for Christine Hudson, who had been Phyllis’s dearest friend.

  Waiting in the black silence, his thoughts went back to Phyllis, his wife whom he had loved so dearly, who had died so valiantly trying to bring their son into the world.

  Lucy was a lot like Phyllis. Perhaps that accounted for his feeling toward her. A mood of dejection seized him, and he thought, Phyllis is gone. Lucy is gone. The pearls are gone. He would probably never see his clothes or any of the things that were in his pockets.

  The overhead light flared suddenly, went out again just as suddenly. Alert now, he sat naked and motionless on the toilet stool, waiting. Someone had found the burned-out fuse and replaced it with a good one. Current had flashed through for an instant, only to be shorted again by the wet contact.

  Eagerness and anxiety flowed through him. Sweat ran down in streams from his body and made little pools of wetness on the floor around his feet. He wondered if they had any more fuses—if they would realize that it was he who was causing the short circuits from his concrete prison.

  When the light flashed on again and burned steadily, he knew that the contact end of the bulb had dried sufficiently to let the current flow again.

  He sat immobile and waited. No need to hurry now. Better to let the lights burn for a time. Long enough to convince those upstairs that they weren’t dealing with an ordinary short circuit. When he blew another fuse, they would know it was he who was causing it.

  While he waited he decided to take advantage of the light, and he poured cold water over his face and body from his cupped hands, massaging his aching shoulder and working it gently as he did so. He took the broken glass out of the basin, then filled it and doused his head, washing the matted blood from his red and unruly hair.

  When he finished he felt better. He reached over to the roll of toilet paper and tore off a sheet, folded it into a tiny square, then soaked it thoroughly. He held it ready in his left hand while unscrewing the bulb again.

  Pressing the sodden mass firmly against the end of the bulb he inserted it carefully in the socket and twisted it tight. There was not even a momentary flash of current as it made contact.

  Groping in the dark, he got a firm grip on the bottle neck and settled himself on the toilet to wait, confident that none of the house lights could burn again until the wad of wet tissue was removed.

  He felt detached and impersonal about the whole thing now. His muscles were relaxed and he felt good. The darkness was reassuring and friendly. They had to come to him in the dark and he was going to have his chance. Maybe not a fifty-fifty chance, for, like all criminals, Perry and Getchie were cowards and would come together. He would, however, certainly have better than the thousand-to-one odds he had calculated a short time ago.

  He heard them coming down the stairs. Just a faint sound beyond the concrete walls, but they were coming to him in the dark.

  Shayne sat with his naked shoulders hunched, his long, hard body tense and ready to spring.

  A thin ray of light crept through the crack under the door—the moving beam of a flashlight. Then Perry’s voice was startlingly loud in the utter stillness, “Shayne, you know what put the lights out?”

  “Sure. I shorted them. The wires will be getting red hot and starting a fire in about five minutes.”

  This wasn’t true, of course, but he hoped to God they didn’t know it.

  Perry’s response was frightened and vengeful. “You lousy bastard. You’ll wish you’d left the wiring alone.”

  “So’ll you after the joint burns down,” Shayne told him cheerfully.

  There was a short silence outside the door. Then a motor roared. Shayne stood up with the jagged glass bottle in his right hand and his left hand against the door.

  It didn’t give any, though he sensed that a car was being moved in the garage. Then light seeped in all around the edges of the door, and he realized they had swung another car around to throw the headlights directly on the door.

  Shayne tensed himself and waited. If Perry continued to use his head, Shayne wouldn’t have a chance. All Perry had to do was stand back with his gun ready while Getchie drove the car away from the door and then let him have it when he leaped out into the glare of the headlights.

  The palm of his hand was still on the door. He felt it quiver and knew that the bumper was being withdrawn.

  He waited, the jagged bottle held belly-high and ready. Let them wonder what he was doing. Let them come in after him. This was his only chance—less than one in a thousand now.

  A minute passed. Half of another minute. He could hear nothing except the subdued sound of an idling motor.

  He felt a telltale quiver of the door as a hand touched the knob. He was ready and he hit it with his lame left shoulder the instant the knob turned.

  The door flew open; Shayne collided with a bulky body just outside. The headlights blinded him, but he smelled the sweat of Getchie’s body and saw the dazzling gleam of a razor raised in a swift arc.

  Shayne’s right arm was already driving the broken bottle forward and upward. It ripped through the corded muscles of the Negro’s arm and into the black face. An inhuman screech rattled in the Negro’s throat as he reeled backward and down.

  A gun roared again and again in the confines of the underground garage. Shayne had leaped over the falling body and outside the circle of illumination where Getchie lay horribly twisted with his hands pressed to his face.

  Shayne crouched beside the rear wheel of the car that had blocked the door of his prison and waited for Perry’s next move.

  Perry had fired three times from somewhere back along the wall near the stairway where the headlights didn’t reach, and now he was waiting for Shayne to show himself. Shayne had the wild hope that the man carried no extra ammunition. Perhaps he could, by strategy, inveigle him into firing enough wild shots to empty the .38.

  Shayne moved along on hands and knees to the front of the car, keeping it between him and what he guessed to be Perry’s position, studying the situation carefully and trying to decide his next move.

  The motor in the car that had been backed around to throw light on the doorway was still idling. It stood a few feet beyond the car Shayne was hiding behind, and he saw that if he could get to it and turn off the headlights, his chances of coming out of the cellar alive would be much improved.

  Reflected light lay on the concrete floor between the two cars, and Shayne dared not risk crossing between them. He crouched silently for a time, closing his mind to Getchie’s moaning and to everything except his next move.

  He finally began to inch cautiously back toward the far wall of the garage where other cars were parked, taking an angling course. His shoeless foot stubbed against a hard object, and he swore under hi
s breath. He felt for it, grasped it, and threw it hard toward the dark wall beyond him.

  Perry’s .38 roared twice in quick succession. Then there was utter silence except for the slackening tempo of Getchie’s moans. Shayne guessed that the Negro was dying.

  Shayne reached the wall of the garage, slid along it behind the parked cars until he reached a point which he calculated placed the car with burning lights and idling motor between Perry and himself.

  Still inching forward in a half-crouch, alert for some sound of movement from Perry and hearing nothing, he decided the man was playing it smart, waiting Shayne out, close enough to the stairway and the street door to prevent the detective from getting past him. Shayne had the hope, too, that Perry was holding his fire after those five shots.

  Shayne reached the rear of the car with the idling motor and felt his way cautiously along the side of it. The front door stood open. He had only to reach inside and switch off the headlights. He hesitated, his mind wary and active. Perry would still be guarding the exits with gun and flashlight. Things wouldn’t be much different with the car lights off.

  He made one last survey of the dimly lighted garage before reaching in for the light switch. The door leading in from the street was ahead and to the left, out of the direct beams of light, but close enough for the side glow to light it clearly. It was a ramshackle wooden door hanging on rollers from an iron girder.

  If it were open, Shayne thought despairingly, it would be a good bet to leap behind the wheel at the same moment that he turned off the lights and put the idling motor into action.

  The hanging door swayed slightly at the bottom as he considered this. His body muscles tightened. Somewhere off to the right in the darkness Perry was crouched, waiting quietly for him to make a break for freedom.

  Shayne studied the position of the front wheels in relation to the car exit. A slight swing of the steering wheel to the left would head the car directly toward it.

  He drew in a deep, silent breath and got one foot on the running board. The dash light was on, illuminating the instrument panel. He picked out the headlight switch, lunged forward into the seat and pushed the switch while his left foot found the accelerator.