“I thought Mr. Baumholtz was charming, didn’t you?” She laughed. “Do you know he made a sort of a pass at me?”
“What!” Shayne demanded, his head thrust forward.
“Now don’t get all manly and jealous, Michael,” she teased. “He’s so scared and lonely without his wife, and he was trying so hard to act like a man of the world.”
“Exactly what happened?” Shayne said curtly.
She twinkled at him. “He was very cute, Michael. He told me I was an attractive young woman—now don’t scowl, that’s a harmless enough observation. He’d been drinking a lot. He put his arm around my waist, quite clumsily, and he tried to kiss me. I didn’t have any trouble keeping him at arm’s length. I’m sure your approach is more skillful, but of course you’ve had considerable practice.”
“Practice! You know very well—”
She laughed again. “I love you when you get that protective look, Michael. Now sit down and finish your cognac.”
He stared down at her, surprised at the confusion of his feelings. He never would have imagined he could feel such intense jealousy for a clown like Baumholtz.
“I’ll finish my cognac,” he said, “but I won’t sit down.”
“Michael!” she cried. “You know I wasn’t serious.”
He took a mouthful of the cognac, letting it run over his tongue before swallowing it. “I know. Baumholtz, after all! But I’ve got some thinking to do, angel. I want to think back and try to find somebody this fits. There isn’t much tangible evidence, but the thing had a kind of style.”
“I don’t see what you mean,” she said frowning, “but let me help you. We can go to the office and go through the files—”
“What I want wouldn’t be in the files, and it may go back to before your time. I’m going to try to remember every enemy I’ve ever made, see what I can dredge up.”
She came to her feet. “At least nothing can happen to you while O’Brien and the other detective are watching you. You seem to be getting a little ordinary prudence at last.”
He grinned down at her. “But I’m not going out the front door. Sleep well, angel.”
He turned toward the kitchen. She clenched both fists, and cried, “Michael Shayne, some day I’m going to murder you myself! Of all the devious, underhanded—”
Unruffled, he went to the window leading to the fire escape and loosened the worm-screws that kept it from being raised from the outside. He slid up the lower sash and unhooked the screen.
“Michael,” Lucy said, coloring faintly, “If you go out this way, O’Brien is going to think you and I—”
“Let him think what he likes,” Shayne said. “He’ll know different in the morning. I can’t let Painter crowd me. Now be a good girl and go to sleep.”
“Michael, sometimes you make me so mad—Wait a minute.”
She kissed him and clung to him for a moment before pushing violently against his chest. “Go on and get killed,” she said furiously. “I can get another job. There are always plenty of openings for a good secretary.”
He grinned and went out the window. The final flight of the fire escape was a vertical ladder, which would squeal loudly as it pulled free from its rusted fittings, so he lowered himself to his full length and dropped the remaining five feet to the alley, landing lightly. At the exit of the alley he stopped to check the situation, keeping in the shadow. The radio car was still parked below Lucy’s windows, but Painter, he knew, wouldn’t trust only two men to maintain contact with Michael Shayne. After a moment Shayne spotted a shadow in a doorway. A fourth man was probably concealed in the other direction, ready to pick Shayne up if he tried to get away by the alley.
The redhead grinned. The only thing that mattered was that a good careful cop was stationed outside Lucy’s door. It would be just as well to let Painter and the second pair of detectives think they had fooled him. He wasn’t going anywhere except back to the hotel.
Whistling under his breath and making a pretence of being furtive, he left the alley’s mouth and went toward the taxi stand.
9
Miriam Moore pressed the dashboard lighter. When the wires were hot she touched them to the end of her cigarette. She offered the lighter to her companions, Clayton and the new boy, Fran Smith. Smith already had a cigarette underway, and Clayton, silent and unresponsive at the wheel, refused with a short shake of the head.
“I think we’re cutting it a little close, don’t you, Clayt?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he replied shortly.
They were sitting in the front seat of Miriam’s Dodge, in one of the parking lots at the International Airport. For a moment they were quiet as a big Douglas came down out of the blackness with an ear-splitting roar.
She went on, “Let’s move it up another ten or fifteen minutes. It’s your operation, Clayt, and you know how little I know about it. But I’d like to get more out of you than an occasional grunt. We really have to work it out, don’t we?”
She studied him in the dim light. “Clayt, is there anything wrong I don’t know about? Nobody would accuse you of being exactly talkative at the best of times, but tonight it seems to me you’re really going to extremes. You’ve been so—I don’t know what to call it, surly, I guess, ever since I picked you up.”
Fran Smith gave a light laugh. “Haven’t you ever seen an ex-con on his first job after he’s sprung? He’s nervous, kid. It’s natural. But don’t worry about old Clayt. His hand won’t be shaking when the time comes.”
“I’m not worried,” Miriam told him. “But you were supposed to find out how to put a switchboard out of commission. If there’s going to be any difficulty about that, I want to know it.”
Clayton said unwillingly, “There won’t be.”
Again Smith laughed. This laugh was what Miriam disliked about him most. She had the impression that if he ever saw anything really funny he would lose control of himself altogether. His eyes were a disturbing shade of light blue, and they gave him a dangerous look. In other respects he seemed normal enough, even pleasant. His hair was a light blond, and he wore it so long he was continually combing it. He was slightly built, almost frail, in his middle twenties, and until she had looked him in the eye the first time she had found it hard to believe that he was a professional killer. Clayton had explained that at this period, during an uneasy truce between the big underworld groups, he had to hire out his gun for less lucrative jobs outside his specialty. Clayton had said they needed someone who could dominate a whole roomful of people, including racket guys who wouldn’t be impressed by anything but the real thing. Smith, she admitted, would be able to do that even without a weapon.
But he made the job more complicated. She knew she wasn’t able to control him. She was having a hard enough time controlling Clayton. Not that Clayton had done anything she could really object to. He went through the motions. But every now and then she had the feeling that his mind wasn’t on the robbery at all.
Smith said, “Here’s the late news about switchboards. You don’t want to blow the whole board, just the cables from one floor. Okay, you unscrew this little do-hicky, cut back the insulation and shorten one set of wires. Then you tie back to the terminal. She looks okay, but now you aren’t getting any contact.”
“Don’t bother to tell me about it,” Miriam said, “so long as you understand it yourself. You’ve got all the equipment you need?” she asked the silent man at the wheel.
“Yeah,” Clayton grunted.
Angry words sprang to her lips, but she choked them back. Maybe Smith was right, and this was nothing more than nervousness after the long lay-off in prison. She couldn’t afford to antagonize him, for it was too late to start over with somebody else.
“All right,” she said. “We dump the stolen car and pick up mine and use Dade Boulevard across the Beach to the Venetian Causeway. On this side of the Bay we swing down Miami Boulevard and over to the East Coast station on Fifth, and drop Fran. I’ve paid three months rent in advance on
the garage, so we can forget about the car after we put it away. Taxi to the airport. Maybe twenty minutes would be safer than fifteen. We don’t want to miss that plane.”
She squeezed Clayton’s arm, hoping to get a reaction. He continued to sit woodenly at the wheel. He had certainly kicked up enough fuss when she’d suggested that it might be safer to go on different planes, and meet later. Now it didn’t seem to matter to him.
He started the motor. “Then that’s it.”
“That is it,” Smith agreed. “Drop me off at the Black Cat, Clayt. The stripper there told me tonight was the night. I’m nervous, too.”
He held out one hand and made it tremble. He gave his crazy laugh.
Miriam said severely, “Get some sleep, Fran. You’ll need it tomorrow. We’ll take you home.”
“What’s at home?”
“Take off, Clayt,” Miriam said quietly, and he wheeled the Dodge out of the parking lot and headed downtown.
“You aren’t going to take me where I want to go?” Smith said in an aggrieved voice.
His left hand, holding the cigarette, rested on the top of the dashboard in full view. He slid his right hand across his body beneath his elbow and put it on Miriam’s breast. He revolved it a little, looking ahead through the windshield. She put her hand on his. His grip tightened.
Casually, so Clayton wouldn’t know what was going on, she moved her cigarette, intending to burn the back of Smith’s hand. Smith swiftly unbuttoned her blouse, and slipped his hand inside. He was hurting her, and he was prepared to hurt her even more.
After a moment she said, “I guess he’s going to the Black Cat after all, Clayt.”
Clayton grunted indifferently. Smith released her breast and calmly carried his cigarette to his mouth.
“There’s all this sex on display around here,” he said. “I don’t know about other people, but I’m not getting any of it. Something could go wrong tomorrow night. Somebody might get lucky and plug me. So I’d better get my loving while I can. That’s my philosophy, if anybody ever asks you.”
“Nothing’s going wrong,” Miriam said.
“Christ, kid, you can’t be sure. You think you’ve got every last thing figured out, and then something happens that couldn’t happen again in a hundred years. Am I right, Actor?” He leaned forward to look at Clayton. Then he laughed and relaxed. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
“What’s the meaning of that?” Miriam wanted to know. “If we don’t succeed tomorrow night we don’t get a second chance. We waste our time and some two thousand dollars of my money. So let’s do it right.”
“All I’m saying,” Smith said, “is that strange things sometimes happen, things you didn’t count on, as Clayt will be the first to tell you. Damn strange things.”
“Shut up,” Clayton said between clenched teeth.
“Did somebody tell me to shut up?” Smith said in amazement. “Man, nobody tells me to shut up, and I do mean nobody.”
Clayton’s eyes went down to slits. He took his foot off the gas.
“You heard me. I said to shut up.”
“Stop that, both of you!” Miriam exclaimed. She put one hand on Clayton’s knee, the other on Smith’s. “Kill each other afterward if you want to. Right now let’s take it easy.”
“Yes, teacher,” Smith said. “So long as a few people around here realize that they don’t get away with talking to me like a crumb.”
Clayton started to speak, but she stopped him with increased pressure on his knee.
“I hope there’s nothing else we ought to talk about,” she said quickly. “I can’t think of anything, can you? Fran, I wish you could have got in to look the set-up over, but Clayt’s been there three times now, losing a certain amount of my money each time, and you can take your cue from him. If you want to do some practicing, you can make faces at yourself in the mirror.” His handsome young face darkened, and she half expected him to break out at her. But he laughed instead.
“Miriam, child, you’re a gone doll. I’m going to be practicing something else, if that crazy teaser comes through. God knows she promised. Just let me out on the corner, buddy,” he told Clayton, his good humor restored. “I don’t insist on door-to-door service.”
Without speaking, Clayton pulled up at the intersection of Flagler and the boulevard.
“But be prepared, teacher,” Smith said as he got out, “If the broad goes back on her word I’m going to be ten times more nervous than I am now. If you want to calm me down, you’d better make room. Clayt’s a heavy sleeper, he won’t mind.”
“I want you to be in the right mental state,” she told him, “but I don’t think I’ll go that far, thanks.”
She smiled as she said it, and he grinned back. “Some day, doll, when old Clayt’s back in the slammer, let’s you and me get together. You’ve got a very nice action, and you could really gas me. See you in the a.m., Clayt, about eight-thirty.”
He closed the door and walked quickly along the sidewalk, moving like a prowling cat. Clayton put the Dodge in gear.
“He’s beginning to bother you, isn’t he?” Miriam said.
Clayton waited till they were moving before he answered. Then all he said was, “Maybe.”
“What was that crack about seeing you in the morning? Is there something we haven’t taken care of yet?”
“Not as far as I know,” Clayton said. “He meant he’d see me in the morning, that’s all.”
“It sounded like an appointment, and that’s pretty early for you.”
“I don’t need an appointment to see Fran. He’s around.”
She decided to let it go. “It’s lucky we’ve only got about twenty-four hours to go. I can’t stand much more of that boy.”
“Fran’s all right.”
“Oh, fine. A little psychopathic, but we wouldn’t want to hold that against him, would we? I think he’d like to provoke something with you, for the fun of it. I don’t think he gets much fun out of girls, no matter how much he talks about it.”
Again Clayton’s response was slow in coming, and Miriam wondered, not for the first time that evening, if he might be a little drunk. “With Fran, I know the combination. We were in the same goddam cell for nine months, leaving out the time he spent in the hole.”
“There’s a bar,” she said, pointing. “Let’s have a quick one, Clayt, and relax.”
“We’ve got a bottle at the room. We might as well drink it up.”
“I said relax. I’m a little sick of that room, Clayt, if you don’t mind. I have a feeling that if we go back there this early we’ll just start snapping at each other, and I don’t want that.”
Without answering, he went past the bar. For a moment she thought he was ignoring her request, to assert his masculine independence. But he slowed and found a parking space. They walked back to the bar. She took his arm as they went in, liking the feel of his muscles under the bright shirt. She didn’t expect to need him any more after she had the money, but he had been very good for her, at this precise moment in her life. He was a pleasant companion, except for his silences, and it was true that they had become more frequent lately. A sort of curtain would descend in front of his eyes, and she wouldn’t be able to reach him.
There was a nagging worry in the back of Miriam’s mind. She had wondered if he might have his own reasons for falling in so readily with her project, and she remembered the crazy light that had shone for an instant in his eye when he had mentioned Michael Shayne.
But these moments had passed. She told herself that she would have queer fits, too, if she had wasted thirteen years in prison. She mentioned Shayne’s name to him once, casually, without appearing to watch for his reaction. But nothing had happened; Clayton showed only the mildest flicker of interest.
The job, as she had been sure it would be, had proved to be just right for him. He had broadened his accent and invented a new personality, becoming a Texan named Justin W. Briggs. He had introduced himself jokingly as the
only Texan not in the oil or the cattle business, and as Miriam had planned, he had easily picked up a friendship with one of Blackstone’s regular customers, who had been delighted to tell him about the suite of rooms on the twelfth floor of the St. Albans hotel, where he would be permitted to wager some of his Texas money at dice or poker. He lost his original fifteen hundred-dollar stake in two nights, and Miriam had been forced to increase her investment by another five hundred. That was the end of her resources, except for a final two hundred which she was keeping in reserve.
She didn’t like to appear in public with him, but she had a few questions to put to him, and she wanted to be sitting across from him so he couldn’t evade her by reaching for the bottle, or by reaching for her.
The end booth, she saw, was empty. She led the way to it. He ordered rye, and she asked for gin-and-tonic. After the drinks were paid for, he drank half of his in one long pull, then set it down and waited.
“I know I’m probably worrying too much,” she said in a low voice, “but I need a little reassurance. Tell me, without any ifs, ands or buts. Is there anything that bothers you about this?”
“I’ve told you a dozen times,” he said patiently. “There’s nothing that bothers me.”
“Then what happened tonight? You and Fran went off to find out about switchboards. It seemed to me you were tense and keyed up, as though you were going to meet your girl. But when you came back, you were morose and bad-tempered, and you didn’t pay me the courtesy of one civil word all the while we were timing the drive to the airport. And Fran kept making these significant side remarks, and giving you looks. Clayt, please. Tell me about it.”
He made a grimace of annoyance. “There’s nothing to tell. For the last time, and then for God’s sake let’s get off the subject, this thing tomorrow ought to work out fine. It’s shaped up nicely, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t make a very pretty score. Are you satisfied?”
“More than I was. How is Fran on the subject of money? Is there any danger he’ll want to take out more than his contract?”
Target_Mike Shayne Page 8
