Murder by Proxy

by Brett Halliday

  “Yes, Ma’am,” he said desperately. “They sure would.”

  “One thing you can do for me,” she said gaily, “is to open that suitcase. The latch always sticks.”

  He turned hastily to the suitcase and opened it, spreading it out on the rack.

  She had moved closer to him and had her bag open and was taking out a bill. He saw it was a five-spot as he took it and she let her fingertips trail over his. He held it up for her to see and said awkwardly, “Didn’t you make a mistake? There’s no need for you to do that.”

  She laughed happily at his embarrassment. “It’s just money, Bill. I’ve got lots of it to spend having fun the next two weeks. Do you think I will have fun, Bill?” she asked a little sadly. “Or do you think I’m just a foolish, old woman for even hoping?”

  “You sure aren’t old,” he told her sincerely, swallowing back a lump in his throat as he spoke. “You’re… well…”

  “What am I, Bill?” She moved very close to him and his heart pounded madly as he smelled the combination of woman smell and perfume that came from her body.

  He looked down at the bill he was twisting around in his fingers and gulped in an awed, small voice, “You’re beautiful.”

  She stepped back from him and said lightly, “Aw, shucks. I bet you tell that to all the women… just hoping they’ll give you big tips.”

  She was laughing at him, damn it. He clenched his big hands together into fists and hated her for laughing at him. Without looking at her, he dropped the five-dollar-bill on the floor and muttered, “If that’s what you think, keep your money.”

  He turned his back and stalked to the door, pulled it open viciously.

  Her low, intimate voice stopped him. “Don’t go away mad, Bill. When… do you get off duty?”

  “Tonight… at midnight.” He stood stiffly without looking back at her. He sensed her movement and knew she had moved up very close to him, but he remained adamantly half out of the door.

  Her voice purred seductively and he felt the warmth of her breath on his ear, “I have a feeling I’m going to be terribly lonesome by midnight, Bill. If you feel like a nightcap, why don’t you knock on my door?”

  “I’ll… uh… see.” He hurried out into the hallway, his face flaming, and pulled the door shut firmly behind him. He knew he ought to run like hell, but he also knew with a sick certainty inside him that he would knock on her door after he went off duty at midnight.

  She smiled happily as the door closed behind him, and hummed a little tune as she looked at her wrist-watch. She had promised Herb she would call him from the Miami Beach hotel after she had checked in. There was still time to catch him at his office.

  She sat down in front of the telephone and lifted it, told the hotel operator, “I would like to make a person to person call to my husband in New York.” She paused. “To Mr. Herbert Harris.” She gave the operator the office number and waited.

  Presently, Herbert’s voice came over the wire. “Hello. Is that you, Ellen?”

  “Herb?” She made her voice light and gladsome. “How are you, darling?”

  “Swell. Fine. Everything okay down yonder in the Southland?”

  “Everything’s wonderful, darling. The sun is shining, the ocean is blue, the hotel is lovely. It was a beautiful trip down. I miss you, Herb.”

  “Not as much as I’m already missing you.”

  “You’ll do all right,” she told him happily. “Let’s see now: I’m renting a car. It should be delivered to the hotel any minute, and I want to drive around a little before it gets too dark. I’m putting the hotel and car and everything on the Carte Blanche card, Herb. Is that all right?”

  “Of course it’s all right.” His voice was reassuringly gruff. “What have we got credit cards for?” There was a pause. Then he said, “I love you.”

  “Oh, Herb… darling. I love you, too.” She hesitated, then added perversely, “They’ve got the cutest bellboys in this hotel, darling. Collegiate football players, no less. You ought to see the one who brought me up. I don’t think I’m really going to be lonesome.”

  “Look here, now!” His voice was peremptory and rough. Then he chuckled. “All right. Have fun. Call me again in a couple of days, huh?”

  “I will, darling. And you have fun, too. Goodnight.” In New York, Herbert Harris echoed her “goodnight,” and the circuit was broken.

  She replaced the instrument on its prongs and stood up, stretched her arms high above her head and sighed deeply, then went across to the windows on the East and stood looking down at the ocean for a long moment.

  Finally, she shrugged and turned back into the room, peeling off her suit jacket and dropping it on the foot of one of the twin beds. She unbuttoned her skirt and stepped out of it, then crossed over to the open suitcase and selected a low-cut cocktail dress of brilliant, flame-colored silk.

  The ringing of her telephone brought her out of the bathroom ten minutes later, holding a lipstick in her hand, and, when she answered it, the hotel doorman announced that her rented car was ready and waiting.

  She thanked him and said she would be down immediately, and ten minutes later Justus Lawford stood appreciatively behind the desk and watched her emerge from the elevator and cross the lobby to the revolving front door. The cocktail dress, he decided, was a distinct improvement over the suit he had first seen her wearing. Then he let himself imagine her wearing only a sheer white nylon nightgown, and blinked his eyes enviously as she disappeared out the front door.

  The late afternoon tropical sunlight was brilliant on the sidewalk, and the brilliantly caparisoned doorman saluted with a smile when she approached him and said, “I’m Mrs. Harris in three twenty-six. Is my car here?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Harris.” He handed her a pair of keys on a ring and led her to a cream-colored convertible Pontiac with the top down. He opened the right-hand door for her to get in, and she slid under the wheel and asked him, “Does the hotel have a garage?”

  “A free parking lot around on the other side, Madam.” He pointed to a sticker affixed to the windshield that said, BEACHHAVEN HOTEL. “You can either leave it with me at the door to be parked for you and we’ll have it brought around when you want it, or you can put it in the lot yourself and take it out when you want for no charge. But take the keys if you park it, Madam. There’s no attendant at night.”

  She thanked him and found the key that fitted in the ignition. The motor purred smoothly and she pulled carefully away from the curb into traffic.

  3.

  There was only one bartender on duty in the cocktail lounge at the Beachhaven Hotel at seven o’clock that evening. The earlier rush had slackened and there were only half a dozen dawdlers at the bar, a couple of the booths were occupied and there were perhaps a dozen couples at the small tables more interested in having another drink than getting into the dining room.

  The bartender was called Tiny. He was six feet tall and four feet around the middle. He wore a size twenty collar and weighed slightly more than three hundred pounds. He had been a professional wrestler for a period, but found tending bar less arduous and a lot more fun. Particularly in a cocktail lounge like the Beachhaven. Anything could happen any time. And most evenings something did.

  Take like this stacked blonde, now, coming into the dimly lighted lounge through the door that opened directly into the hotel parking lot.

  She was a new one, and, by God, she was a honey. That vivid red cocktail dress was something! Slashed all the way down in front to here, and filled out plenty good on each side of the spreading vee. But there was an elegance about her, too. The way she held herself… proud and sure. The way she took her time looking the joint over. Studying the empty booths and tables, then letting her wide-eyed gaze drift speculatively to the row of empty bar stools and finally to Tiny’s face as he watched her. She smiled as though in recognition, although Tiny was positive she had never been in the lounge before. She moved along the bar with flawless grace and stopped behind the row o
f empty stools in front of Tiny.

  “Is there any rule about an unescorted lady not sitting at the bar?”

  “There sure isn’t. Make yourself right to home.”

  She slid easily and competently onto the leather stool and rested both elbows on the bar, cupping her chin in her hands after removing a pair of white gloves. “I’ve always wondered just why it’s considered proper at some places for a lady to sit alone at a table, but not at the bar.”

  “Nobody cares in Miami. All nice and informal down here. Your first trip?”

  “Yes.” She sighed slightly and lifted her long lashes to widen her blue eyes at him in an intimately appealing way. “What do you recommend I should drink?”

  “Well, now. All depends on what you like.”

  “I don’t drink very much at home. My husband doesn’t approve of it. But I feel tonight calls for it. I want to… sort of… cut loose. Not really, you know, but…” With a touch of defiance, “Well, why shouldn’t I?”

  “No reason at all, Lady. You just name it.”

  “A daiquiri?” She tilted her blond head charmingly. “Isn’t that the one you make with rum?”

  “Right you are. One daiquiri coming up.” Tiny turned to lift down a bottle of Bacardi and put ice and lemon juice in a silver shaker. She opened her bag and took out a cigarette which she placed between her lips. She fumbled further in her bag and a pleasant masculine voice spoke from just behind her, “May I?”

  A lighter snapped and flame moved toward the tip of her cigarette from her left. She glanced up into the mirror behind the bar and saw the reflection of a lean-jawed, smiling face beside hers in the glass. He was deeply-tanned and brown-haired, and had very white teeth. She turned her head slightly so the tip of her cigarette met the flame, and drew in deeply. Expelling smoke, she murmured a polite, “Thank you.”

  He said, just as politely, “You’re quite welcome,” and he sat on the stool beside her, widening his smile at her reflection in the mirror.

  She lowered her lashes composedly and snapped her bag shut. Tiny set a brimming, wide-topped, tall-stemmed glass in front of her on a paper napkin. The man sitting beside her said, “Bourbon and water, please, Tiny.”

  “Coming up.” Tiny’s voice sounded grumpy.

  She said delightedly, “Did you call him Tiny?” and turned her head to look at the man beside her.

  He grinned in response. “Sure. On account of he ain’t.”

  She said, “I see,” and took a sip of her cocktail sedately. “It’s delicious,” she told Tiny as he turned back to shove a highball glass in front of the man. “Just exactly what I needed.”

  “For what?” the man asked with interest.

  “For what ailed me. A… sort of lost feeling, I guess you might call it. A sort of wondering what-shall-I-do-next feeling.”

  “Why not just have fun? That’s what Miami Beach is noted for.”

  “I want to.” There was something almost plaintive in the way she emphasized it. “I’m not sure that I know how.” She took another and longer drink from her glass. “But I do believe this is going to help.”

  “Perhaps I could help too,” he suggested. “I don’t want to seem forward, but… my name is Gene Blake.”

  “I don’t think you’re being forward at all. I’m Ellen Harris. Mrs. Herbert Harris,” she added quickly.

  He drank deeply from his glass and twirled it between his fingers on the bar. He didn’t look at her as he asked, “Where is Herbert tonight?”

  “Back in New York. He,” she told Gene Blake with a faint note of rancor in her voice, “thinks that husbands and wives should get away from each other once in awhile.”

  “I agree with him,” said Gene. “Especially if you’re the wife. I think I approve of Herbert. Very definitely. Why not try the rest of your daiquiri… Ellen?”

  She said softly, “I think I had better. Before I run like hell.”

  “Where would you run to?”

  “Away from you.”

  “Back to Herbert?”

  “Oh, no. I couldn’t. Not for two whole weeks.”

  “Two weeks?” He turned his head to study her face as she emptied her glass. “Wasn’t there a book once, called Three Weeks? Elinor Glynn, wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t remember. Why?”

  Gene tossed off the rest of his highball. He said to Tiny, “Two more, please.”

  And to her, he said, when Tiny had turned his back to mix the drinks, “It just came to me like a flash of inspiration that I’ll bet if you and I put our minds to it we could cram as much into the next two weeks as her characters managed in three weeks in the novel.”

  “As much of what?” she asked, narrowing her eyes and sucking in her lower lip as though she wasn’t at all sure she cared for the trend the conversation was taking.

  “Fun,” he told her. “Isn’t that what you’re down here for? Plain, unalloyed, pure, old get-away-from-it-all fun?”

  Tiny set their drinks in front of them. Gene reached for his billfold and said, “One check, Tiny.”

  “Oh, no. You mustn’t. I can pay for my own drinks, thank you. And yours, too.”

  “But I want to.”

  “Give me the check, please.” She held her hand out imperiously to Tiny who handed it to her after a lifted eyebrow glance at Blake.

  She said, “And a pencil, please,” and then explained to Gene. “This is my hotel. I’ll feel better if I sign it. I’m sure Herbert will feel better if I sign it.” She took the pencil from Tiny and carefully signed, “Mrs. Herbert Harris. # 326.” She took half her daiquiri down in one gulp. “I’d feel like some sort of a B-girl if I let you buy my drinks,” she explained. “You can see that, can’t you? You can see what I mean, can’t you, Tiny?” she appealed to the bartender.

  “Well, sure, Ma’am… I guess.” Tiny held the signed barcheck between huge thumb and forefinger.

  “Next time,” she said, “at your hotel… you can sign. Isn’t that fair enough?” She emptied her glass and set it down hard. “Where’s all the gambling and nightclubs and excitement?” she demanded. “I’d just as well be on Park Avenue as here.”

  “You want to do some gambling?”

  “I’d love to do some gambling. A lot of gambling. You know where to go?”

  Gene Blake told her, “I know every place on the Beach.” He slid a half dollar tip on the table beside his empty glass. “Only trouble is, my car is laid up in the garage for repairs. We’ll have to get a taxi.”

  He slid off the stool, avoiding Tiny’s half-admiring, half-accusing gaze, and put his hand firmly on the rounded smoothness of her left arm just above the elbow.

  She finished her drink and smiled sweetly at the bartender. “Good night, Tiny. Or au revoir. Or something.”

  And to Gene Blake, she said as she slid off the stool and stood very close beside him, “We don’t need a taxi. I’ve got a car. Cute little convertible. Rented it this afternoon for the whole two weeks.”

  Tiny grunted sourly as he watched them move away together toward the rear exit onto the parking lot.

  That Gene, he thought, angrily and enviously. He’s got it made, by God. And what a dish! Loaded with money and sex appeal… and a jerk of a husband back in New York paying the bills. Good enough for him, Tiny thought viciously. He’d heard her remark to Gene about her husband thinking couples should be separated now and then. Like as not, Tiny thought, Mr. Herbert Harris had a private piece of his own that he was rolling in the hay tonight while his wife was vacationing in Miami.

  So, what the hell? Why shouldn’t she make out with Gene?

  He wondered how soon he’d see Mrs. Harris around again.

  4.

  Martha Hays thoroughly enjoyed her job as a maid at the Beachhaven Hotel. She had been on the third floor for six months, and the work never did get monotonous. The population of the hotel was ceaselessly changing. Rich people from the North coming and going; mostly staying for a week or two, long enough to get to know the smil
ing and helpful colored maid who cleaned their rooms and was always eager to perform any small, extra task for the comfort or convenience of the guests. Mostly they were real nice when they departed and left fairly substantial gifts for the maid whom they’d got to know in a week or so; mostly a bill left on the dresser, often augmented by articles of clothing which refused to fit into the suitcases that were overstuffed with new purchases made on Lincoln Road during their stay.

  It was always an adventure for Martha to unlock and enter the room of a guest who had just departed, and she was always eager for her first inspection of a room that was newly occupied.

  In six months’ practice, Martha had learned that, if you were smart about it, you could tell a whole lot about the occupants just by looking at their belongings, how they had arranged them, the way they left the bathroom and the room itself when they went out in the morning.

  She liked to have single men best, but she didn’t get many of those at the Beachhaven, and unmarried couples next. She did get quite a few of those. Many whom she could tell right off were unmarried, and others whom she came to suspect of an extra-marital relationship after cleaning up their room and observing them for a few days.

  Best of all from Martha’s viewpoint was the combination of a middle-aged, very wealthy man and a younger woman who had never known real wealth. They were the best tippers. The man because he was happy and guilty, and wanted to impress his younger companion, and the woman because it was all going to end in a few days or weeks and it did something for her ego to be prodigal with money that didn’t belong to her.

  The poorest bets of all were the single women who arrived at the Beachhaven in droves to spend one or two weeks of their vacations in the unaccustomed luxury of an expensive resort hotel. Most of them had saved up for a whole year to be able to afford the trip, and had come to Miami Beach with roseate dreams of meeting some wealthy, attractive, unattached male and making a conquest which might or might not eventuate in marriage.

  Disappointed in the end when they departed (because there just weren’t that many wealthy, attractive and unattached males hanging around) they weren’t inclined to waste any large portion of their remaining funds on a gratuity to the hotel maid.