So Lush, So Deadly ms-56

by Brett Halliday

  “I couldn’t get her to tell me why,” Loring said. “She was all but unintelligible. And then Brady got on the phone. He said they’d had to fire the captain, and if you’re going to help with this, Mike, you’ll want his name. It’s Raphael Petrocelli. Apparently he made some kind of pass at Dotty while she was sun-bathing, and they let him go as soon as they tied up in Miami. He’s been hanging around the saloons, spreading stories and making vague threats.”

  “Is Brady still living on the boat?”

  “It seems so.”

  “The name is Paul Brady? What does he do?”

  “He married Katharine Kuhn, which means he doesn’t have to do anything. I don’t know anything else about him. Mike, will you go and see them?”

  “Hold the line a moment.”

  The girl twisted before he could say anything and kissed him lightly. “I know that look, Michael. It seems to me I’ve seen it once or twice before. For the last few minutes you haven’t known I was here, have you? In spite of the fact that I’m wearing a new dress and some rather expensive perfume.”

  “Of course I’ve-”

  “No, Mike. You asked me to dinner, and if I wanted to be a stinker I could hold you to it. But it wouldn’t be any fun. I know you. You’re like a racing greyhound-the minute you see the mechanical rabbit you start to run. I don’t mind, really. It’s one of your nice traits. Of course you’re not the typical greyhound, because you usually catch your rabbit.”

  “The point is,” Shayne said uncomfortably, “this guy did me a favor years ago. If he hadn’t gone to bat for me I would have spent a couple of years in jail for jury tampering.”

  “Yes, dear. And it’s been a very enjoyable evening, as far as it went. I’ve got some hamburger in the refrigerator. When you think of me again, call me.” She opened the door. “After you catch the rabbit.”

  “Next time I’ll switch off the phone.”

  “Next time we’ll take my car. It doesn’t have a phone.” The inner door of her apartment building closed behind her and Shayne went back to Loring.

  “Did they give you the name of the marina?”

  “The Sunrise Shores on Indian Creek. There’s something else, Mike. The role I’ve always played in Dotty’s life is a kind of court of last resort. When everything else fails, she gets in touch with Joshua Loring. I’ve spent most of the day on the phone. There’s a boy who works in my office named Tom Moseley. He prepares Dotty’s tax returns and she seems to like him. He’s visiting his parents in Sarasota, and when I didn’t succeed in tracking you down I called him and asked him to come over. He’ll be staying at the St. Albans, and he may be able to help.”

  He hesitated. “I may be building this up. But I can’t persuade myself that she isn’t worried about something more than an employee who got out of line and had to be fired. And I had a hunch. She sold quite a bit of stock all through the fall and winter, on my advice, and she put the cash into savings accounts and certificates of deposit. The president of her bank is one of my close friends, and I asked him about the status of her accounts. Strictly speaking, he shouldn’t have told me, but he knows something about her medical history and he agreed to check. She’s closed everything out, Mike, a total of over seventy thousand dollars, and the checks came back endorsed for deposit in Miami Beach. A total of eighty thousand dollars, and she may have had other accounts in other banks that I don’t know about. And another point. A piece of industrial property she owns in Hoboken was put on the market and the broker accepted the first offer that came along. It wasn’t a bad price, but that’s not the way Dotty usually operates.”

  Shayne said thoughtfully, “Do you know any reason why she would need cash in a hurry?”

  “I can’t think of any legitimate reason.”

  “Do you think she’s paying blackmail?”

  “The idea’s entered my mind,” Loring said dryly.

  “Can you make any guesses about what kind of hold a blackmailer could have on her?”

  Loring held up imperceptibly, and from many years’ experience with all kinds of clients, Shayne had a feeling that for the first time in this phone conversation he wasn’t going to be told the truth.

  “I don’t, Mike. But she’s a complicated and unusual woman, my god-daughter, and it wouldn’t be anything routine.”

  “In other words, not sex?”

  “I don’t think they take sex that seriously, or that’s my impression. I think you can find out if anybody can. Don’t hesitate to be tough if you have to be, she may respond to that. You’re not supposed to know about the transfer of funds. That would come under the head of meddling in her private affairs, and she has an exposed nerve on the subject. She’s asked me to recommend a private detective and I’m recommending you. She has to take it from there.”

  There was a doubtful expression on Shayne’s rugged face as he listened. He had questions to ask, but he decided to look at the set-up first. He went over the names and places, and they arranged about terms.

  After hanging up, he lit a new cigarette and smoked it all the way through, leaning forward against the wheel. The bullet hole in the windshield swam into focus, a small circle surrounded by a network of radiating cracks. According to Loring’s description, Mrs. De Rham wouldn’t be likely to fire at him with a heavy-caliber pistol, but she didn’t sound exactly relaxing, either.

  He threw the cigarette into the street and started the motor.

  CHAPTER 4

  Michael Shayne was a big man, but the main impression he conveyed was competence rather than simple physical strength. He was obviously a man who could take care of himself in any company. His red hair was lightly touched with gray at the temples. There were deep lines in his face, put there by his years in an active and dangerous profession, but otherwise his appearance was almost unchanged from the time when Joshua Loring, as a lawyer for a large insurance company, had testified for him in the jury-tampering case and saved him from jail. That had been in the early days, just after Shayne set up in Miami.

  He found the Sunrise Shores Marina and boarded the Nefertiti III, where he was met by a pleasant, glassy-eyed young man who gave his name as Paul Brady. Mrs. De Rham was asleep, he said, she had fallen asleep drinking martinis, and he advised Shayne to try again a few hours later.

  Leaving the marina, he began hitting the nearby bars, looking for the Nefertiti’s ex-captain. At the end of the afternoon, after finally finishing with the cops and the newspapermen and TV crews, Shayne had downed several belts of cognac, had stood in a shower for some time, letting the warm water dissolve the tensions that had accumulated over the last few days, and then had stepped out dripping to call the girl and ask her to dinner. He was wearing a dark blue summer-weight suit and one of the few neckties in this part of town. But Shayne had a way of blending with any background, and when he entered a big, noisy bar called Riley’s he didn’t seem out of place.

  This was a new kind of waterfront bar, catering to the crewmen who worked on the big pleasure-boats moored in nearby marinas. He ordered cognac and sipped it deliberately, waiting for the bartender to look his way. When the man caught his eye Shayne called him over.

  “I’m looking for a guy named Petrocelli. Do you happen to know him?”

  “They come and they go,” the bartender said. “I don’t know names. Another brandy?”

  Shayne nodded. When the man came back with the Martell’s Shayne went on, “He’s not working now, but he came in on a New York boat that’s berthed at the Sunrise Shores. A fifty-thousand dollar job. Who would I ask?”

  “I wouldn’t know what to advise you.” He motioned at the drinkers along the bar. “Nine-tenths of them transients. When the owner says go, they go.”

  He brought back change from a five. Shayne waved it away.

  “Think about it. Somebody must know.”

  He finished his cognac while the bartender moved up and down the bar, giving no sign of thinking about anything. But after a time he spoke to someone at the far end, a
nd a man pushed off and came toward Shayne. He was red-faced, with anxious eyes and a too-ready smile, and looked like a small political wheel.

  “What’s your fellow’s name again?”

  “Petrocelli. I just want somebody to point him out for me. Can I buy you a drink?”

  “Scotch and water.”

  Shayne signaled. “My name’s Mike Shayne. It’s nothing too urgent. Just a few questions.”

  “Shayne?” the man said, less edgily. “I knew you looked familiar. I’m in marine supplies. I deal directly with the captains, working out of my hat, so to speak, on commission. Do you have the name of his boat?”

  “Nefertiti III.”

  The bartender brought his scotch and water and he drank half of it before setting it down, as though afraid that Shayne would take it away if he failed to deliver.

  “I know the Nefertiti. Nice boat, I wouldn’t mind owning her myself. I heard they paid off their captain so I decided to offer my services, if they needed anything, and there are things they’re bound to need, coming off a thousand-mile cruise. And good Christ! If they’d had a dog aboard they would have set him on me. That rarely happens. Yachtsmen as a rule are friendly people, they have to be, living in each other’s laps the way they do. Some queer with long hair came out of the cabin yelling, ‘Get off this goddamn boat,’ and so on and so forth. I won’t say it’s the first time it ever happened, but I’m not going to pretend I like it. I’m not selling magazine subscriptions or anything of that nature. Things they need, things they’ll have to buy anyway, and from not having any overhead I can give a good discount, fifteen percent off list, five percent to the captain is my usual policy. Well! He could have asked me politely, but he used profanity on me. I drop an occasional damn or hell myself, but he used the whole gamut of four-letter words. I mean! He was pretty well zonked.”

  He gave himself more whiskey. “As I say, I do know the Nefertiti.”

  A tall dark man in a T-shirt, drinking beer beside Shayne, said, “What’s this Petrocelli’s first name?”

  “Raphael.”

  “And you want somebody to point him out?” He finished his beer, his Adam’s apple working. “I’ll point him out for you.”

  He put down his glass and straightened. He was very tall, six foot six or seven, but he didn’t carry enough weight for his height. A man wearing a captain’s cap and cruising clothes was standing near the jukebox with a pretty dark girl in a very short skirt. The tall man made his way to him and flicked his shoulder. He looked up. The tall man nailed him with an ungainly right to the point of the jaw.

  “That’s one way to point somebody out,” Shayne observed.

  “I don’t know him,” the commission man said. “I see him around. Quite a mouth on him when he’s loaded, and loaded is the only way I see him.”

  Petrocelli had gone backward, keeping his feet but making a complete turn so he hit the jukebox with his shoulders. The record skipped a few grooves.

  The girl gave a little scream. “Jerry, you cluck, what do you think you’re doing?”

  The cap had been jolted to the back of Petrocelli’s head. He had handsome features, very dark skin, even white teeth. There was a roll of fat above his belt, and he looked out of condition. One arm was tattooed.

  The crowd shifted, leaving the floor clear between the two men. Petrocelli shook his head hard.

  “What was that about? Will somebody tell me?”

  The tall man, posing briefly before and after each blow as though having his picture taken, hit him twice in the stomach. The blows were given away long before they landed.

  Petrocelli offered no defense. He made a puffing sound each time. Realizing finally what was being done to him, he made a fist and swung up at the taller man. He was hit in the face with a short punch which rocked him back against the jukebox again. He began to slide.

  Until that moment everything had been slow-paced and deliberate. The bartender was trying to get out from behind the bar, but the crowd was densely packed there and wouldn’t move to let him through. Suddenly the action speeded up. The girl seized the tall man’s arm and tried to pull him away. He went on hitting Petrocelli as he slid, and then brought up his knee hard into Petrocelli’s soft middle.

  Shayne finished his cognac and set the fat little glass on the bar with a sigh.

  Two fast strides took him to the tall man. Petrocelli was all the way down now, and his assailant was kicking him. Brushing the girl aside, Shayne took the tall man by the upper arm and twisted savagely, bringing him back from Petrocelli and all the way around, into the corner between the jukebox and the wall. The arm was as thin as a stick, and felt almost as brittle.

  “The fight’s over,” Shayne announced.

  The tall man struggled for breath. His eyes were insane. He drove the four stiffened fingers of his right hand at Shayne’s face. The detective went beneath it, taking it on his forehead. He wanted to end this fast. He dropped his shoulder, faked with a left and a movement of his eyes, and brought his right into the other’s body, below the heart. The long body folded and began to sag. The dark girl leaped at Shayne, her arms windmilling, and began kicking the backs of his knees. As Shayne turned to deal with her, the back of his hand collided with the lower part of her face. It was unintended, but the movement was swift and decisive, and knocked two front teeth out of her mouth.

  She pitched forward, her mouth wide, showing the bloody gap. Shayne heard gasps of dismay in the crowd. Somebody shouted. Three men closed in on him from three separate directions and nearly brought him down.

  He took care of one with a swinging elbow, and managed to pull another into a chopping left that sent him wandering backward, dazed. The third man was still hanging on, one arm clamped around Shayne’s neck. Shayne ran him back hard against the bar. The curved lip of the bar jarred the breath out of the man’s body and loosened his grasp so Shayne could work one hand inside the hold and break it.

  There was a sound of glass being broken.

  That changed the nature of the fight. The customers nearest the door drained into the street. The tall man, facing Shayne in a knife-fighter’s crouch, had a jagged beer bottle in one hand. The jukebox was silent.

  “Why don’t we stop this before somebody gets hurt?” Shayne said reasonably. “I asked you to point somebody out for me. You did it. Thanks.”

  Two of the men were advancing on Shayne, less eager to jump him now. The tall man said jerkily, “No, boys, I want to take care of him myself. Boys. Let me. Did you see the way he slugged Sandy?”

  The girl lay on the floor in an obscene tumble, her skirt above her waist. Blood gushed from her mouth.

  “That was an accident,” Shayne said. “It looks worse than it is. Just a couple of teeth. Why don’t we call this off so we can get her to a doctor?”

  “You’ve got something coming to you, mister,” the tall man said.

  Shayne’s hand lay on the bar, palm up. He was hoping the bartender would have the sense to put a sap in it. On the floor, Petrocelli crawled toward him, but he was going to be no help.

  The tall man glided forward, his right foot advanced, the bottle low. Shayne wished he knew how drunk he was. Even without the bottle he out-reached Shayne by inches. The bottle, unlike a knife, could only be used in a forward direction, and if he moved as deliberately as when he was swinging at Petrocelli, there was nothing to worry about.

  Shayne felt something hard in his hand. He was looking into the man’s eyes. They were a pale watery blue, without depth, with tiny pupils. They changed slightly.

  Shayne brought the club around as the man struck with the speed of a snake, aiming to the right to catch Shayne’s abdomen if he moved that way. Shayne had him beaten, and he was only going to be allowed the one move. Seeing the club whirl toward him, the man lurched and brought the jagged bottle upward toward Shayne’s face. If Shayne had been without a weapon, he would have had to parry it with his hand. He deflected the blow with a hard flick of the billy, then brought the woo
d in against the tall man’s head.

  There was a solid clunk. That was that.

  “Can you stand up?” Shayne said to Petrocelli.

  Petrocelli moved his head. “No.”

  “Try,” Shayne told him.

  The short wooden club discouraged the tall man’s friends. Petrocelli clawed himself up with the help of the bar and stared blearily at Shayne. This time the fight was really over. To make it official a siren sounded. It was on Collins, coming fast.

  Shayne grunted. He wasn’t welcome on this side of the bay. Peter Painter, the Miami Beach Chief of Detectives, was an old enemy, who loved to harass the detective and would give a week’s pay for the chance to book him for knocking out a woman’s teeth in a fight in a bar. He had tied Shayne up for as long as twelve hours on a traffic violation, and this time, through pure chance, he had something more serious.

  Shayne was moving the point of the short wooden club in an arc. With his other hand under Petrocelli’s arm, he started along the bar in the opposite direction from the street.

  “Leave the nightstick,” the bartender said behind him.

  “In a minute. Tell the cops I was an innocent bystander here. If they have any questions I’ll call in tomorrow.”

  The drinkers fell away in front of him. When he reached the serving door he dropped the club on the bar. He pulled Petrocelli into a small unoccupied kitchen, through another bare room into an alley.

  When they reached the end of the alley the siren was dying. Shayne looked up carefully. Three cops jumped from the cruiser and entered the bar through the front entrance.

  CHAPTER 5

  Petrocelli was nearly strong enough to walk by himself.

  “They’ve got nothing on me,” he said, resisting Shayne’s pull. “I didn’t start that fight.”

  “You weren’t even in it.” Shayne continued to walk him toward the Buick. “That’s not the point. By the time they get everything straightened out it would be this time tomorrow night. I suppose that was Jerry’s girl you were with?”