Caught Dead ms-64

by Brett Halliday

  Lenore, on the sofa where he had left her, jerked around as he came in. One hand was out of sight. She seemed very pale.

  “It’s you,” she said, relieved. “God, I was afraid I’d have to-”

  “He’s just pulling into the parking lot. We don’t have time to rehearse. Take off your clothes.”

  She looked at him blankly. “Did you say-”

  “You heard me. He’ll have to go out to phone. As soon as you hear him leave, go down to Nine-C. Don’t forget that number. Nine-C. It’s an empty apartment and the door’s unlocked. Bolt it from the inside and wait there for me. It could be a long wait. It won’t be what you’re used to, but it’s better than jail. Damn it, get undressed! We’ve got about a minute and a half.”

  He had kicked off his shoes and was unzipping his pants. Lenore began to fumble with her skirt. Leaving his clothes scattered about the rug, he went to help her.

  “You can leave the shirt on.”

  “Mike,” she stammered, “you-you mean we’re going to make love? With Rubino watching through the mirror?”

  “No. It’s already happened, and it was terrific, as usual. We’re about to have an intimate post-sex conversation, and he’ll believe every word he hears.”

  He brought a bath towel from the bathroom. She was still on the extreme front edge of the sofa, her nicely tanned legs stretched out, her hands folded in her lap.

  “You look about as relaxed as a crowbar,” he said roughly.

  “Mike, are you really sure what you’re doing?”

  He gestured. She slid back into a reclining position, crossing her ankles. He arranged a pillow behind her and unbuttoned the striped shirt. The pose was right, but she was still semi-rigid. He moved the cognac and glasses so he could reach them from the sofa and lit cigarettes for them both.

  “Don’t look at the mirror,” he said more gently, arranging himself beside her. “You’ve got thirty seconds to get in the mood. You enjoyed it.”

  “I did not! Mike, you saw that camera. He’s sure to take photographs.”

  “That’s right.” He put his hand flat against her stomach. “One way is to think about the jam you’re in and the other way is to forget about jams.”

  Under his moving hand, she lost a little tension. She turned her head and kissed him lightly.

  “I’ll try to trust you. I hope I can. I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  “I’ll feed you the cues.”

  He touched her unbandaged breast, and felt the nipple tighten. He gave her a long searching kiss, drawing away only when he caught a flicker of response. They settled against each other.

  “I guess I did enjoy it,” she admitted. “How long have I known you?”

  “Six months. And it’s been sweet all the way.”

  He heard coins jangle in the glass as the door to the next apartment opened. Lenore stiffened. He put his hand back on her stomach.

  “You’re doing fine.”

  He reached for his cognac, a movement that had the effect of making her nakedness visible to the man who was undoubtedly in position now on the other side of the trick mirror. Her fingers tightened on Shayne’s shoulder. He finished the drink and poured himself another.

  “Can you reach mine?” she said quietly. “Darling.”

  He brought her glass up from the floor and passed it to her. Trying to drink without changing position she spilled some of the cognac, and laughed as she brushed the drops off her breast.

  “We’d better think about putting ourselves back together,” Shayne observed. “That guy is a demon driver, and he’ll walk in any minute.”

  “Not yet, darling. I know Caracas traffic. We’ve got ten minutes, even if he turned right around as soon as he got there, and Frost wouldn’t let him do that. It’s been ages since we had a chance to be alone. I think you’d better kiss me.”

  She closed with him, and kissed him with surprising fierceness. He felt her teeth, then her tongue. She gripped him tightly when he tried to cut it short. The tables were turned now, and she released him only when she spilled more of her cognac.

  “Poor Andres is going to murder us,” she said. “We’re wrecking his sofa. Darling, I have a smashing idea. Let’s do it again!”

  “Don’t be silly. Come on, get dressed.”

  “Do something unsensible for a change. You’re always figuring the angles. So cool. I want you inside me. Right now!”

  “I know you don’t mean it,” Shayne said, reaching for his pants.

  “Don’t I?” she said wickedly.

  She followed him as he tried to get away, caressing him with both hands.

  “Baby, think of the money at stake,” he said.

  She let him go then, after putting her mouth to the side of his face and biting his earlobe very hard. “How could I forget about the money?”

  “There’ll be other times,” he said. “All we need is a couple of small breaks, and we can buy an eighty-foot yacht and go around the world. And we’ll never have to do another thing we don’t feel like doing for the rest of our lives.”

  “Heaven.”

  Shayne swung his feet to the floor and began pulling on his socks. “I don’t think Rubino caught on, do you?”

  “Goodness no, he hasn’t a clue. But, dear God, that was close at the boat. You have a genius for showing up at exactly the right time. Another minute-”

  She gave a quick gasp of pain as she sat up. “I’m not sure sex is the best thing for stab wounds.”

  “I didn’t hear you complaining.”

  “Darling, you’ll have to help me.”

  Shayne dressed hurriedly. “In a minute. We’ve still got things to talk about. It’s lucky he’s such a small-timer, Rubino. He’ll pass on everything I said to Frost, and I think I really convinced him that all I care about is springing Rourke.” He laughed shortly. “Tim made that bed himself, and he has to lie in it. If I grease the right wheels I can get him pardoned after a couple of years.”

  “Unless it slips your mind.”

  “No, he did what he was told. I consider it an obligation.”

  After buttoning his shirt, he dried Lenore with the towel. “Baby, you’re a mess.”

  She touched his face. “Where would I be without my dear, sweet sexy Michael Shayne?”

  His voice hardened. “Keep telling yourself that and maybe you won’t be tempted to dump me.”

  “I’m not totally out of my mind,” she said, surprised. “I know I need you.”

  “You need me now. But after I get you back to civilization you may not feel the same pressure.”

  “That’s a ridiculous statement,” she declared, playing to the menace in his tone. “The partnership won’t be dissolved except by mutual consent. I know what would happen to me if I tried to be too clever. Not only that, damn it, I love you.”

  “Yeah,” Shayne said skeptically.

  “All right, I’ll modify that. I have a much better orgasm with you than I’ve been able to manage with anybody else, and wouldn’t I be a fool to throw it away? Do you find that more convincing?”

  “People have done dumber things for less money.”

  “Now listen to me, Mike,” she snapped. “I’m getting more than a little fed up with these hints. It can cut two ways. I hope you aren’t getting any mad ideas about being able to swing this singlehanded because I can tell you right now-”

  He grinned. “The orgasms have been mutual, kid.”

  She laughed grudgingly. “Then we’ll keep right on watching each other, O.K.?”

  She had trouble with the shirt, and Shayne buttoned it for her. “One character I know you won’t try anything with is Rubino. He doesn’t carry enough weight. But you’ll have to spend some time with him, so work out an attitude.”

  “What am I supposed to say to him?”

  “That I’ve gone out to see the widow. I know the way now. I don’t need him.”

  “Why you want to go near that bitch-”

  “To hammer a few final n
ails in a few coffins. I think she knows more than she’s telling people. Somebody like Felix Frost always looks for the money angle or the political angle. But ninety percent of the killings I run across are committed for the old-fashioned motives-hatred, jealousy, revenge. Don’t say anything to Andres about this because I don’t want him to get any more moneymaking ideas.”

  “Mike, do we really need him?”

  “Yeah, to carry messages. He’s my direct wire to Frost. And we may need Frost, if this other thing doesn’t pay off.”

  He smoothed her skirt over her hips and gave her a critical inspection. “You’ve got lipstick on your teeth. And comb your hair.”

  While she was working on that, Shayne knotted his necktie at the two-way mirror. He leaned closer, running his fingertips the wrong way along his stubbled jaw. His face was now only a few inches from Rubino’s in the other apartment.

  “I shaved in too big a hurry this morning.”

  “Don’t tell me,” she said, looking up from her pocket mirror. “You rubbed me raw in places.”

  “You complain about the damndest things.”

  “Mike, how is this going to work, or don’t you feel like telling me?”

  “I’m playing it by ear, as usual.” He came back to rearrange the sofa cushions. “But it seems to me I’ve got a handle. It depends on how much power Mejia really has. He was trying to tell me this morning that he’s the man with the muscle. Maybe he is. I’ll have to go easy until I find out.”

  “Are you planning to see him?”

  “As soon as I get the widow to clear up a few points. It’ll take negotiating. We want safe conduct out of the country, and we want him to call off his dogs. If I can get Tim included, fine. If not, the hell with it. It seems to me I’ve got something to sell. I’m handing him half the MIR on a platter.”

  He had picked a moment when she had her back to the big mirror. She sent him a questioning look.

  He went on. “Combine what you told me with everything I already knew and I can knock those people down so they stay down for good. I’ve got names and locations, and if Mejia takes a few precautions he can wipe out their whole outfit in one raid.”

  “He’ll love that,” Lenore said.

  “I think so.”

  “If you can give him Serrano and all the top leaders, you can name your own price. They’ll make you an honorary colonel.”

  “But it has to be handled. It’s not a simple matter of turning off the heat and putting us both on an airplane. He has to lay off altogether. I was getting a strong smell of chicanery out of him this morning. I don’t think he’d mind cutting himself a small slice. That’s why I say it’s going to be delicate. I’ve got to have guarantees, not promises.”

  “Baby, you’re beautiful,” she said admiringly.

  He kissed her and gave her a quick mechanical caress. “I’m taking the cognac.”

  “Leave me the gun?”

  “No, I may need it.”

  TWELVE

  Passing out of the line-of-sight from the wall mirror, Shayne tightened the picture wire near the front door so the glass would fall over again and Lenore would know that the door to the next apartment had been opened.

  Downstairs in the parking area, he found an unlocked Renault, with the starter on the floor. One of Shayne’s standard items of equipment was a short length of cable with a spring-clamp at each end, for bypassing a locked ignition switch. A moment later, he was moving.

  He located the conspicuous towers of the Centro Bolivar and used them as aiming stakes. He drove east on Bolivar Avenue until he saw the bullring on his right and made the necessary turn to the south. The street he had picked looped back on itself. He returned to the avenue and tried another. This time he had found the road to Valencia.

  He followed it into the mountains.

  As he approached the farm he noted the pattern of roads and the arrangement of out-buildings. This was the hottest part of the day, and the fields were empty. He turned into the long cypress avenue. Halfway to the house he had to stop to open a stock gate. Then he came to the main wall, where he sounded his horn. A stocky peasant with two sidearms, a pistol, and a machete, came out to look him over from under a broken sombrero.

  “I’m a detective,” Shayne said slowly. “Police. Policia. To see the Senora.”

  Nothing changed in the man’s face.

  Shayne motioned toward the house. “She wants to talk to me.” He pantomimed a conversation. “Very important. Norte Americano. Mejia sent me. The President of the United States sent me. El Presidente.” When none of this had any effect, he said more harshly, “Get out of my way, goddamn it, or I’ll run you down. Felix Frost sent me.”

  Either the angry manner or Frost’s name worked. The man retired to open the gate. After getting out of the car, Shayne walked past a chained Doberman pinscher, which bayed at him furiously. He clanged an ornate wrought-iron bell at the front door and entered the building without waiting.

  A uniformed maid was on her way toward him. He nodded and walked past, waving away the question she was asking.

  “I don’t speak Spanish.”

  She went with him, protesting, as he looked into the big front room, then into a formal dining room beyond. The furniture was dark and forbidding.

  “Where do I find the Senora?”

  The maid tried to hold him, but he brushed her aside. This building, like Frost’s, surrounded a central court. As he came out on one side of this court, a woman in black appeared on the other. The maid, waving her arms, shrieked something in Spanish.

  Shayne crossed the courtyard on a raked walk. Senora Alvares was a severe woman, and somewhat on the plump side, tall, with her black hair pulled into a tight knot. She wore no makeup or jewelry.

  “I hope you speak English,” he said, approaching. “I don’t seem to be coming across too well.”

  “I speak a little English, badly. Who are you?”

  She had a deep voice, a heavy accent that at first sounded somewhat Germanic.

  “I’m Michael Shayne, a private detective from Miami. I’ve been retained by the Miami News to see what I can do about one of their reporters, Tim Rourke, who’s in jail here. I have some questions. I know it’s a bad time, but they can’t wait.”

  “Questions,” she said, putting her hand to her face. “About the death of my husband.”

  “And one or two other things.”

  She looked him over deliberately, then, surprisingly, reached out to pinch the muscle of his right arm.

  “You are a powerful, powerful man.”

  She started carefully along the paved cloister. She was wearing high heels, but she was so tightly girdled that the jolts had no sensuous effect. She went in under a stone archway.

  Shayne followed. It was a sitting room, as gloomily furnished as the other rooms at the front of the house, but with one splash of color-a geometric painting in light reds and greens. Even before checking the signature, Shayne recognized this as one of the works of her husband’s mistress.

  “May I offer something to drink?” Senora Alvares said.

  Without waiting for his answer, she drew an open split of champagne from a silver ice bucket and filled two glasses.

  “Champagne. I am not celebrating the bombing apart of my husband; this is the only liquid the doctors have let me drink in recent years. To you, sir. That you remain in your present state of health.”

  She seemed to want to clink glasses with him, but he avoided that. She lowered herself into a tall-backed chair.

  “I see you looking at my painting,” she said. “And it astonishes you, because of the relationship between the painter and my poor husband. Have you met her? A cheap woman, with such fraudulent hair. Unquestionably a talented artist, however, would you not agree? I have owned this painting and others, and I thought to hang them, to show Caracas that for my husband to fall between this woman’s legs was of no consequence to me. But in the end I was too frightened! Until this morning, when I called my li
ttle servant and we hung this one, to remind me of my great cowardice. It is valued at twenty thousand bolivars, those few simple shapes. Do you believe it? Some people are taking their Dantes down since the recent events. As for me, I am putting mine up.”

  She drank deeply, set the glass on a low chest and looked at him.

  “You are the famous detective who always captures the ones who do the murder.”

  “Some of the time,” Shayne said. “On this one I’ll settle for getting Tim Rourke out of jail.”

  She reached for her glass and Shayne watched her drink. There were two more splits in the ice-filled bucket, and he saw two empties on the sideboard.

  “I’ve been talking to Miss Dante,” he said. “She told me about the plan to rescue your husband. I’d like to get your version of that.”

  She blinked. “On the whole I think I should imitate your friend Mr. Rourke and stay silent.”

  “That’s your privilege. I think I have most of it already, but naturally she told it from her own point of view. I liked her. Very juicy, I thought. That doesn’t mean I believed every word she said.”

  The Senora drank, emptying her glass. “Believe every third word. That would be my piece of advice.”

  Shayne opened another split and refilled her glass.

  “How long have you known about your husband’s association with her?”

  “From its beginning, I think. That has no significance. He has announced for many years already that he would do what he pleased, in the matter of who shared his intimate moments. But to become so much in the clutches of a North American was a mistake. His people ask each other, are there no equally juicy Venezuelans?”

  “How much of the week did he spend with you?”

  “All! There is a mode of behavior to be observed in a Catholic country. So he was with me every day for either dinner or breakfast, rarely for both. Why do you think this important?”

  “I’m interested in a diary he was keeping at the end.”

  He had noticed that whenever a question bothered or puzzled her, she drank before speaking. She reached for her glass.