Counterfeit Wife ms-14

by Brett Halliday

  Shayne edged closer as he listened. He wondered how a man like Dough-face could be married to a woman like that. There was an impression of tremendous vitality about her. She wasn’t old, not past her middle thirties, yet she gave one the feeling that here was a woman who might have mothered a brood of Vikings, a maiden of Odin straight from the pages of Norse mythology.

  The freckle-nosed girl looked as though she were trying hard not to smile. “I do remember him now, Mrs. Dawson. He didn’t give me his name. He got here just before the take-off,” she went on, stroking her cheek with a forefinger. “He said it was terribly important that he get space on Sixty-two, but there simply wasn’t anything for him. We had no last-minute cancellations tonight.”

  Shayne was standing at the counter, not more than five feet away from the girl as she spoke. He turned slightly, instinctively tugging his hat lower over his face.

  Mrs. Dawson said, “They told me over at the Eastern counter that no other planes have left since then, and that none are due out until morning.” It was more a statement than a question.

  “That’s correct.”

  Mrs. Dawson straightened to her full height. She was at least ten inches over five feet tall, and her body tapered gracefully from heavy shoulders and big breasts to a neat waistline above the spread of wide hips. She turned slowly to study the interior of the waiting-room again with an intent gaze.

  Shayne lit a cigarette and met her eyes from beneath the brim of his hat as her gaze passed over him. Her eyes were blue. A clear, hot blue like the clean flame of an alcohol burner. They dwelt upon him for a moment before going on to the others. She was relaxed now, and steady, with the outspread fingers of one hand lightly touching the counter.

  The little man whom she had brushed aside fidgeted behind her, but made no move to take his rightful place.

  Mrs. Dawson turned back to the girl and asked in her husky voice, “Where’d he go if he didn’t get on that plane? I don’t see him around.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know.” She spoke with the compressed-lip patience of a public servant dealing with a fool or a drunk. “I presume he returned to the city after being told there would be no more planes departing until morning. And now, if you please-”

  “I don’t see him around,” said the woman again.

  “I’m very sorry I can’t do anything to help you. If you’ll please step aside now-”

  The big blonde looked down at her for a moment in speculative silence. The girl looked back at her with a touch of weariness in the bend of her head. The little man behind Mrs. Dawson fidgeted again.

  She turned, finally, and strode across the waiting-room toward a door marked Men.

  Shayne thought she was going in, but she stopped just outside, beckoned to a porter and said something to him. The man went inside the room and Mrs. Dawson remained firmly planted outside, oblivious of the glances of people standing about.

  The porter returned shaking his head. She gave him a coin and went toward the front door, and people got out of her way again.

  Shayne picked up his suitcase and followed her out, keeping a dozen paces behind her. He hadn’t made up his mind yet whether to accost her or not. He remembered the terror in the pasty-faced man’s brown eyes, and he reminded himself that it wasn’t up to him to put a Valkyrie on the trail of a poor devil who might be trying to escape from a personal hell.

  Yet he was, he realized, the only person in Miami who could tell her the truth about the man who called himself Parson. If she were actually worried about the little guy, he supposed it was only decent for him to put her mind at rest by telling her the truth.

  She was moving across the driveway toward a row of parked cars as Shayne emerged into the illusive tropical moonlight. It glistened on the coiled hair about her high-held head, and played queer tricks with the contours of her body, softening and slenderizing her, producing the hallucinatory effect of stripping the severely tailored suit from her and replacing it with a flowing robe of some translucent material that trailed behind her, accentuating rather than hiding the sensuous, supple curves.

  Shayne set the Gladstone on the steps, lit a cigarette, and watched her approach a gray sedan parked beyond the fringe of light from the terminal.

  The left-hand front door opened as she reached it. She got in and closed it. He could not see the other occupant of the sedan. He couldn’t see anything of either of them as he stood there, undecided. He could, however, hear a murmur of voices from the parked car. Hers, throaty and full-bodied, faintly slurred but still resonant. Mingled with her tones were the strident ones of the man in the front seat with her. He sounded querulous and demanding, though Shayne couldn’t hear any of the words that were spoken.

  He picked up the Gladstone, shook his head at the driver of a loitering taxi in the driveway, and passed in front of the taxi on his way toward the gray sedan.

  The voices hushed as he approached, and his quickened perceptions guessed that they heard him coming and did not wish to be overheard.

  He was ten feet away when a cigarette lighter flared in the front seat. The man’s cupped fingers shielded the flame as he drew it into a cigarette, and the light showed the flickering outline of a thin, hawklike face.

  Shayne kept on walking at the same even pace but swerved to the left and passed the sedan without another glance. One look at the man’s face had been enough to warn him away from Mrs. Dawson.

  He hadn’t seen Fred Gurney for three years, but Gurney was a man not to be forgotten easily. Any woman who bummed around with him was very likely to be bad medicine and not one whom Shayne cared to put on the trail of an escaping husband.

  He walked on twenty feet to another row of parked cars, stood there indecisively for a moment as though looking for someone, then turned and went briskly back to the waiting taxi.

  The driver unlatched the door; Shayne shoved his suitcase inside and stepped in after it.

  The gray sedan showed headlights and the motor began throbbing. The taxi driver asked, “Where to, mister?”

  Shayne hesitated for a moment. He hadn’t given any thought to the immediate future. He had checked out of his apartment that afternoon, and the management supposed him to be now well on his way to New Orleans. With the apartment shortage, there was every chance that the one he had vacated had been rented. Still, it was a building where he was well known from previous years in Miami, and if they had any sort of vacancy they’d be glad to give it to him.

  He had no idea, however, how long he would stay in Miami. Perhaps only overnight. He hadn’t had time yet to sort out the feelings that had overwhelmed him since Lucy Hamilton had curtly hung up on him after informing him he was no longer her employer.

  His first sensation had been one of angry hurt. It had been a long time since any woman had been able to hurt him. Somehow, his action in turning over his ticket to Parson-or Dawson if the big blonde’s statements were true-and remaining in Miami had been a way of striking back at Lucy. If she didn’t want the pearl necklace, he was damned sure he could find plenty of dames in Miami who would be glad to have it.

  Inexplicably, he thought of the coiled braids of hair around Mrs. Dawson’s head, of the smooth column of neck rising above her shoulders. There, the pearls would look good.

  The occupants of the gray sedan seemed in no hurry to move even after the motor was started. Now it was being backed out and turned into the driveway.

  “Where to, mister?” the taxi driver asked again.

  “Follow that car,” said Shayne. “The gray sedan heading toward town. But stay back far enough so they won’t know they’re being followed.”

  The taxi slid away. Shayne settled back to make himself physically comfortable in the car, but there was a deep scowl between his half-closed gray eyes. Suddenly he wanted to get drunk. Drunk enough to forget all about Lucy and the empty office in New Orleans. But he needed a drinking companion and he liked women who could hold their liquor the way Mrs. Dawson had been holding hers when he had fi
rst seen her entering the terminal.

  It had absolutely nothing to do with the glimpse he had had of Fred Gurney. Gurney was nothing to him. He simply felt sorry for a woman like Mrs. Dawson who had to rely on men like her dough-faced husband and Fred Gurney for male companionship. He was convinced that she deserved better than that.

  On the other hand, perhaps she was genuinely in love with her husband and worried about him. In that case, the decent thing would be for him to tell her where he was. He’d heard too many women blaspheme husbands whom they loved, when they were angry or upset. And certainly Mrs. Dawson had reason to be worried and angry and upset about hers.

  If he could contact her and get rid of Gurney, maybe she’d invite him to her home where they could talk privately and have some drinks. He’d like to see her in a flowing dressing-gown, with her hair brushed out and hanging around her shoulders.

  Shayne stirred angrily as the taxi sped on through the cool, humid air. A derisive grin twisted his mouth as he looked ahead at the taillights of the gray sedan. He was bored and jealous and feeling sorry for himself. By God, he was chasing after the first woman to come within his line of vision after Lucy kicked him in the face. He was striking back at Lucy, and she was in New Orleans and would never know how he felt.

  The sedan was whipping along at a good pace on the nearly deserted street a couple of blocks ahead. Mrs. Dawson drove steadily and well, giving no more evidence of drunkenness than she had at the airport. The road led due east into Miami, and Shayne’s thoughts went around in circles. It had been a tough day and a tougher evening.

  He knew there were some night spots in this section, and he was about to tell the driver to forget the sedan and stop at the first place that was open when he felt a slackening of pace, and the driver grunted, “They’re slowing down. Want me to stay behind ’em?”

  “Without making it too noticeable,” said Shayne.

  They were much closer to the gray sedan now. A cluster of neon lights on the left side of the street told passers-by that the Fun Club was still open for business and half a dozen cars parked in the semicircle in front proclaimed that they weren’t without customers.

  The car they were trailing suddenly swung to the left and into the driveway leading up to the low, stuccoed building.

  “Go on past,” Shayne directed the driver sharply. “Far enough so you can swing around and come back after they’re inside.”

  The driver accelerated and passed the driveway as the sedan pulled into an open place among the parked cars. Shayne let him continue a few blocks before saying, “Turn around now and take me back.”

  The driver made a U-turn and, a moment later, pulled into the driveway and stopped in front of the door. Music pulsed gently into the silent night, and brilliant red and green lights on the outside rippled over the gently swaying palm fronds circling the building, dimming the yellowish glow from within.

  “No,” the driver said unhappily, when Shayne invited him to go in and have a drink. “I gotta be gettin’ in, see? I’m due in at midnight, an’ my old lady’s sorta sick, an’ I’ll catch Hail Columbia if I’m any later’n I am already.”

  Shayne’s Gladstone was still in the back of the cab. He thought for a moment and then took his wallet out. “Will a five fix it for you to drive on in and drop my suitcase off for me?” He gave the address of an apartment hotel in downtown Miami and added, “Tell the night clerk that Mr. Shayne missed another plane and has decided to stay in Miami for a while. Tell him to hold my old apartment for me if it’s still vacant, or hunt up something else. I’ll be in later.”

  He took a five-dollar bill from his wallet, noting as he did so that it was the last one smaller than a hundred. This reminded him of the two bills Parson-or Dawson-had given him at the airport. He reached in his pocket, found them wadded together in a ball, smoothed them out, and fitted them into the wallet with others of the same denomination.

  The driver eagerly accepted the five-spot, saying, “Shayne? Are you Mike Shayne, the detective I been readin’ about that-”

  “I’m Mike Shayne,” the redhead told him good-naturedly, “but don’t believe all you read in the newspapers. And don’t forget to deliver my suitcase and the message.”

  He stood back and waited for the taxi to pull away, then strolled leisurely over to the parking space in front and looked inside the gray sedan. It was empty.

  He sauntered back to the entrance of the Fun Club, pulled a screen door open and went in.

  The room was not large, and the tawdry murals of cavorting nudes against dark green backgrounds on the walls, the low ceiling dotted with pale yellow lights, and the tables crowding the tiny dance floor diminished its size. The air was smoke-laden, and stuffy with the stench of liquor. There was a short bar, accommodating only six stools, on the other side of a small square left bare for dancing.

  One couple was dancing languidly to muted music from a juke-box-a shapeless, skinny girl wearing a backless playsuit, and her slender partner, shirt hanging out, who held her in a vise-like grip, his sleek black head pressed against her pale blonde hair. Five of the tables were occupied by couples who had reached a mellow stage in their search for gaiety, or escape, via the alcoholic route.

  Shayne quickly spotted the couple he had followed from the airport. They were seated at a table near the short bar. He went over and sat on one of the empty stools.

  Fred Gurney wore a tan sports coat and had a Panama hat tipped back on his head. He was leaning forward talking to Mrs. Dawson, who sat solidly in her chair, filling it but not overflowing the edges; she did not spread as most large women do when they sit down. Their table was on his left, and Shayne could observe them without looking directly at them. The woman’s braids looked the color of tarnished gold in the murky yellow light, and there was an expression of determined placidity on her face.

  Pulling his hat brim a little lower on that side, Shayne hunched an angular shoulder upward farther to conceal his profile, though he thought it unlikely that Gurney would recognize him. He watched with interest while the thin-faced bartender placed a drink order on a metal tray at the end of the bar. The drinks consisted of a double shot of rye with a glass of root beer for a chaser, two double shots of dry gin in separate glasses, a bottle of beer, and an empty goblet into which the bartender put four ice cubes.

  A very dark-complexioned waiter with black hair greased against his scalp and wearing a dirty white jacket came lazily to the bar, took the tray and carried it to the table where Gurney and Mrs. Dawson were seated. Shayne watched him set the rye and root beer in front of Gurney and the two double shots of gin, the beer, and the ice goblet before the gray-suited blonde.

  Shayne turned to see the bartender watching him curiously. He grinned and jerked his head toward the table and said, “That’s quite a mess they’re drinking. Got any cognac?”

  “Enough to make a drinking man sick to his stomach,” he said, his upper lip curling. “Hennessy?”

  Shayne repeated, “Hennessy. Two ponies in a snifter with plain water on the side.”

  The bartender turned his back. Shayne saw Mrs. Dawson pour one of the glasses of gin on top of the ice in the goblet. She then filled it with beer and thrust a plump, tapering forefinger in the mixture to stir the floating ice.

  Fred Gurney tasted his rye, wriggled his long thin nose, twisted the bloodless gash that was his mouth into a sour grimace, and took a quick sip of root beer.

  Gurney had been a handsome man once. That was years ago, long before Shayne had known him except through having studied his police record and pictures. Now, at the age of forty, he was no longer handsome. His face had a wax-like pallor and the flesh was thinned away from nose and chin, leaving them starkly pointed and too close together. His eyes were sunken between graying brows and they glittered oddly in the light that filtered downward through the pall of smoke. His hair was thin and grayish. There was something repellent about him, particularly now as he sat across the table from the full-blooded and lush vit
ality of Mrs. Dawson.

  Shayne watched the two of them from the corner of his eye and wondered about a lot of things.

  The bartender set a big round glass bowl in front of Shayne and emptied two ponies of Hennessy into it. He filled a glass with ice water and turned away. The jukebox ended one record and began another. The couple on the dance floor was still hugged tightly together, feet scarcely moving, eyes nearly closed. There was nothing of ecstasy or even enjoyment on their faces. Shayne thought, with a wide grin, that they might have been a couple of somnambulists who, having met, were unable to pass each other and decided to lock arms and go round and round together.

  Turning back toward the bar, Shayne lifted the big snifter in both hands and pretended to inhale the fumes filling the bowl. Actually, he considered this a very silly way to drink cognac, but tonight the big bowl hid his face from view while he sipped and sniffed in the approved manner.

  Still listening to Gurney, Mrs. Dawson took her dripping forefinger from the goblet and stuck it in her mouth to lick off the wetness. She picked up the goblet in both hands, bracing her elbows on the table, and drank the entire glassful of gin and beer without removing it from her lips. Her Adam’s apple moved almost imperceptibly beneath the well-fleshed contour of her chin as she drank. She set the empty glass down, emptied the second portion of her drink, and again mixed it with her forefinger.

  Thus far, Shayne had not seen her speak a word to her companion, though Fred Gurney paused now and again with a questioning scowl, as though he expected an answer and was becoming extremely irritated.

  Now she leaned forward and said something to him. He shook his head angrily in disagreement, then shrugged and got up and walked to a telephone booth at the rear of the room.

  Shayne sloshed the cognac around in his bowl, slid from the stool and walked over to sit down in the chair Gurney had vacated.