Julia lifted her head high and her eyes flashed defiantly. “Because I want to dance more than anything in the world. I was born to dance. And what happened? I was sent to stuffy private schools when I was little. I was taught to be a perfect lady. Well, I knew what I wanted. I wanted to dance. So I practiced in my room when everybody thought I was asleep.”
Shayne was staring at her. Seeing the fire in her eyes, he wondered why he hadn’t recognized her as the daughter of Nigel Lansdowne before, for he had seen the same fire of conviction and purpose in her father’s eyes. In newspaper photographs, in movie shorts, and television.
“But why La Roma?” Shayne asked gently. “Why risk the reputation of your father by dancing there?”
“It was just—just a lark,” she cut in sharply, but she turned her eyes away from his probing gaze.
“When did you meet Moran?”
“A couple of months ago. I spent a week-end in Fort Lauderdale with a girl I knew in school. She seemed to be nice and friendly, but she—well, she didn’t tell me her parents were away and we’d have the house to ourselves. It was a big estate, and I felt free for the first time in my life. The first afternoon I danced on the lawn and went swimming in the pool, then danced some more.
“I didn’t know until that evening she had invited two men she knew to spend the week-end with us. It seemed awfully grown-up, and I wasn’t afraid. I knew most of the facts of life, and I thought I could take care of myself—not do anything really wrong.” She paused, and once more she concentrated upon lacing her slender fingers together, opening them, lacing them again.
“And?” Shayne prompted her.
“Ricky was my partner,” she said, avoiding his eyes.
“Ricky Moran?”
She nodded. “He was nice—at first. He told me about New York and Hollywood. He knew all the actors and actresses, and the dancers. He told me he was an impresario, and—well, I was terribly excited. I thought he could help me get started on the stage.
“I guess I sort of went overboard that first evening. I don’t smoke, but when they offered me a cigarette I took one. It seemed wicked and exciting. I didn’t know there was marijuana in them, and the next day they all said that you couldn’t smoke marijuana without knowing it. But—I didn’t.”
“That’s easy to believe,” said Shayne. “What happened?”
“Well, Sandra brought the record player out on the terrace. It was a beautiful night with a full moon, and we danced on the grass. At first, we pretended it was a big party and Ricky and Sam tagged Sandra and me—you know, changing partners every few minutes. After a while we stopped dancing. The others had drinks. I don’t drink, but I did smoke another cigarette.” She paused, seemingly unable to finish her story.
“You can tell me anything, Julia. I know what marijuana can do.”
“You do?” She widened her violet eyes at him. “It made me into a person that wasn’t me at all. I took off all my clothes and started dancing. I was floating in the air, and my body didn’t mean anything at all. I felt exultant—and freed from everything on the earth. I kept reaching up, and floating toward the moon.
“Then—Ricky was dancing with me. He’s a good dancer, and at first I didn’t realize that he had taken off his clothes, too. Then he tried to—Well, it was horrible, and it brought me back to my senses. I remember screaming and running to my room. I locked the door and ran to the bathroom. I was horribly nauseated for a long time.
“The next morning they all raved about my dancing and said I ought to go on the stage. They said I should take any job I could get for experience, and that I was bound to become a Hollywood star. I—well, I just swallowed it all. The spring vacation was the only chance I would have, and Ricky said he could get me an engagement in Miami. They all dared me, and I agreed to let him be my manager if he could get me a job.”
“And you signed a contract with him?”
Julia nodded her head absently. “He had one typed up and I signed it before I went back to school. I didn’t read it, and when I came here to take this job I found out it was for three years and he was to collect all the money. That’s why he acts the way he does. He knows he owns me, body and soul, and he’s afraid for me to talk to anybody because he thinks I might ask them for help.”
“No contract like that is worth a damn,” Shayne snapped. “Besides, you’re only eighteen.”
“I didn’t think it was, either,” she said. “I decided to see a lawyer when I found out I had to dance—without any clothes of any kind. Then he threatened me, and I didn’t know what to do. There was Father in Washington, and Mother who has been ill, and I was afraid of what he might do. I found out he wasn’t anything but a cheap booking agent for second-class night clubs. I felt trapped. I didn’t know anybody here. I was all alone with him, and he acted terrible.” She buried her face in her hands and her shoulders shook with dry sobs.
“That’s all over now,” Shayne told her. “You won’t have to see him again. How did he threaten you?”
She kept her face covered with her hands and said in a choked voice, “He had a picture of me that the other man snapped with a flash camera that night in Fort Lauderdale—of us dancing together like I said. I didn’t even know they’d snapped a picture. It showed my face, but not his. Just a man’s—naked body. He threatened to send it to my parents unless I did what he said.”
A muscle twitched in Shayne’s cheek, and his eyes were bleak. He said curtly, “So you went ahead and danced at La Roma?”
“Yes.” She lifted her head defiantly. “But not—the other. We have separate apartments, and I lock my door every night. I told him I’d kill myself if he insisted on anything else, and he—I guess he was afraid I would.”
“Let’s get back to last night and Mrs. Davis,” said Shayne casually.
“I don’t know any Mrs. Davis,” she vowed. “If any friend of Mother’s was there, I didn’t see her. I try not to see anyone when I’m dancing. I pretend I’m alone in the moonlight.”
“What about the note she sent backstage?” he demanded grimly. “And the singer she asked about you?”
“Honestly, Mr. Shayne, no one gave me a note. And if anyone asked Billie for me, she didn’t tell me about it.”
Shayne frowned and tugged at his left ear lobe. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was well past four o’clock. He growled, “I think we’d better settle this Mrs. Davis angle right now.” He went to the telephone and asked the operator to get the Waldorf Towers. When they answered, he asked for Mrs. Elbert Davis, listened to the phone ring a dozen times, and interrupted the hotel operator when she began, “I’m sorry, sir—”
“Do me a favor, please,” he said swiftly. “This is Michael Shayne. I left an important message in Mrs. Davis’s box earlier in the evening. Please see if my note is still there.”
He drummed impatiently on the desk until the operator reported, “Yes sir. A note signed by you is still in her box.”
Shayne said, “Thanks,” and hung up, shaking his red head angrily. He returned to the couch, sat down wearily, and said, “I don’t know what the score is. Right now, Mrs. Davis seems to have vanished in thin air.” He hesitated, then asked, “Is there any chance that Moran was around the club last night and heard her asking for you? Could he have intercepted the note she sent back—and told Billie Love she wasn’t to talk about you?”
Julia’s face was pale from fright. “I suppose he could have done that. He stays around most of the time. You saw how he was about me talking to you.”
Shayne nodded grimly. “He had plenty of reason for keeping you away from people.”
“Mr. Shayne!” she cried. “Do you think he found out where she’s staying—and did something to her?”
“What do you think?” he asked bluntly. “You know him better than I do.”
“He’s vicious, and greedy for money. But I don’t see—” Her voice faltered; and a puzzled frown puckered her brow. “What good would it do him? I had agreed to finish my
engagement—one more week. And he was keeping all my salary except bare living-expenses.”
“You’re forgetting the photograph that was mailed to your mother.”
“Do you think Ricky did that?”
“Who else? Who else knew your real name? Why wouldn’t it be a natural for Moran? Have you discovered any traits in his character that make you feel he wouldn’t blackmail your parents?”
“No. I—oh, I’ve been an awful fool,” she said miserably, and a big tear spilled from each eye.
Shayne didn’t contradict her. He settled back and sipped cognac and let her cry.
Presently she dried her eyes and asked timidly, “If Ricky did send the picture, and if he saw some friend of Mother’s inquiring about me last night, what would he be likely to do?”
“I don’t know,” said Shayne sourly. “He may have followed her to her hotel—and then when I came around to talk to you last night he could have gotten the wind up and decided he preferred to deal with a woman rather than with me. That is, if he knew who I was.”
“Oh, he did,” she exclaimed fervently. “That’s why I slipped away and came to you. He was terribly angry after you left La Roma, and told me a lot about you. That’s when I made up my mind I’d see you.”
“Did he stay at the club after I left?”
“I don’t know,” she confessed. “He was waiting for me when I finished my last number and went out.”
Shayne’s thoughts were racing in circles. There was that sixteen hundred dollars Mrs. Davis had in cash. There was his stop with Rourke at the Daily News and the drive to Farrell’s—which might have given Moran time to get from La Roma to the Waldorf Towers ahead of him when he left the note.
He came to his feet abruptly and asked, “Do you think Moran had any suspicion that you were coming here tonight?”
“Oh, no. I’m sure he didn’t. I went in my own apartment just as though I was going to bed, and waited a few minutes until he went in. Then I slipped out and down the back stairs and came straight here.”
“How did you know my address?”
“The taxi driver knew where to bring me.”
Shayne said, “I want to have a talk with Moran. You’d better stay right here.”
He was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone.
For the second time since three o’clock he hurried to answer it, expecting to hear Mrs. Davis’s voice, and for the second time he was disappointed.
The desk clerk said, “There’s a man here who wants your room number, Mr. Shayne,” in a low, hurried voice. “He offered me twenty bucks for the information without announcing him—and another twenty if I’d tell him whether you had a girl up there. He didn’t get either one.”
“Thanks, Dick. What name?”
“He won’t give a name, but says it’s important.”
Shayne said, “Describe him.”
Dick described Ricky Moran in a couple of dozen well-chosen words.
Shayne said, “Tell him I’ll see him in a few minutes, Dick, but don’t give him my number until I call you back.” He hung up and turned to Julia.
“Your boy friend is downstairs and wants to see you,” he said in a harsh tone.
CHAPTER V
“Ricky? How did he know?” She sprang to her feet, poised like a startled fawn for flight.
“He doesn’t,” Shayne reassured her. “Probably a guess. From my talking to you at the club, and the fact that you slipped out after pretending to go to bed.” He strode to the trembling girl and caught her arm firmly. “Take a deep breath and relax. The clerk refused to give him my apartment number, and he can’t come up until I call back.”
She whirled and faced him, her violet eyes wide and frantic. “If I go away he won’t have to know I’ve been here,” she said breathlessly. “Please don’t tell him. Isn’t there some way I can get out and back to my apartment without him seeing me?”
Shayne caught her shoulder with his free hand, pressed it hard and said, “Snap out of it. The most important thing right now is to keep your real identity out of this.”
“Let me go! Let me out,” she cried, struggling to free herself. “I can be in bed with the door locked before he gets back. If he wakes me I can tell him I just went out for a walk.”
“You’re not going back there,” said Shayne grimly. “Not until I’ve settled things with Moran—and then just to pick up your stuff on your way back to Palm Beach.”
“Not—going—back?”
Shayne released his grip on her shoulder. She pivoted and faced him. “I have to go back. He’ll do anything—”
“He’ll do nothing,” Shayne raged, looking down into her frightened eyes. “Haven’t you any friends in Miami? Someone Moran doesn’t know about?”
“No,” she sobbed, and threw her arms around him. “I don’t know what to do, Mr. Shayne.”
He held her gently with one arm and stroked her shaking shoulders. “There’s a fire escape in the back,” he said. “Don’t worry about getting away from Moran—if you really want to.”
“I do—I do.” She buried her face against his coat until her sobs subsided. She lifted her pale, tear-streaked face and confided, “My father has a friend here. I’ve been trying to remember his name. We always get a big box of fancy Florida fruit from him at Christmas, but I can’t remember his name. I think he’s in that business here in Miami.”
“Think,” Shayne commanded. “Was it Brewer? Or Godfrey?”
“That’s it—the name on the Christmas boxes. Brewer and Godfrey.” She stepped back from him and her violet eyes were bright with new hope. “It was silly of me to forget after seeing it so many times.”
“Were both of them your father’s friends?” Shayne asked.
“I—no—” Julia hesitated, a thoughtful frown between her eyes. “Why, I don’t know. Daddy used to mention one of them, but he always called him by something that sounded like a nickname.”
“Try to remember it,” he urged. “It’s very important right now.” But even as he watched her he knew that she could not recall the name. She was ready to burst into tears again.
Shayne massaged his jaw and stared past her. He realized all of a sudden that neither Brewer nor Godfrey was right for staking her out while he dealt with Moran—with one of them hiding out in fear of his life and the other being tailed by two private detectives to prevent murder. He thought of Mrs. Davis at the Waldorf Towers, but she wasn’t in her room insofar as he knew, and there wasn’t time to make another phone call.
He said abruptly, “There’s one possibility, Julia. My secretary, Lucy Hamilton.” He spun around and went to his desk, grabbed a pad, and wrote her name and address. “Lucy is a wonderful girl. All you have to do is give her this memo and say that I sent you. And stay right there in her apartment until I get in touch with you.” He straightened up, holding the slip of paper out to her, absorbed in his solution of her safety for the night. “Here’s Lucy’s address. You can go down the fire escape. Don’t worry about Moran. You won’t have to see him again. Grab a cab and go straight to Lucy’s apartment.”
Julia stared at the name, then exclaimed, “Why she’s the girl who came to your table. She hates me. She thought—”
“Lucy had a mad on because I stood her up on a dinner date to see you dance. She’s a hundred per cent when the chips are down.” He caught her arm and propelled her through the kitchen to the fire escape.
“What if Ricky got suspicious and is waiting?”
“Don’t worry. Just grab the first cab you see. Turn left at the bottom of the steps. I’ll have Moran on his way up in the elevator before you get halfway down.” He left her on the landing and long-legged it to the telephone where he called the clerk. Moran was waiting in the lobby, and he said, “Send him up.”
When Shayne opened the door Moran barged in, his black eyes darting around the living-room. “Where is she?” he demanded angrily. “Hiding under the bed?”
“I don’t know who you’re looking for,�
�� said Shayne casually. “Want a look-see?”
“You know damned well I’m looking for Dorrie,” Moran raged. “Don’t try to deny that she slipped out of her apartment and beat it up here.”
Shayne sauntered across the room when Moran started toward the bedroom. “Hold it,” he growled. “What makes you think that?”
Moran whirled around to face him. “Where else would she go?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Shayne repeated. “She was on the verge of telling me when you came up behind me at the dinner table last night and scared her out of her wits.”
“Nuts,” Moran said angrily. He strode to the bedroom door, jerked it open, and went in. He came out fuming.
“So you kept me waiting downstairs until she got her clothes on and went down the fire escape. After all I’ve done for that little slut.”
Shayne slapped him. A hard slap from a big palm swung in a wide arc. A loud plop echoed through the apartment, and Moran’s head snapped back under the force of the blow. His knees buckled and he almost went down. Staggering sideways, his right hand moved instinctively toward a bulge under his left lapel.
“Go ahead and pull a gun, Moran,” Shayne urged. His voice was dangerously gentle, and his hands were balled into big fists. “That’s all the excuse I need to beat you into a pulp.”
Moran was breathing hard. Blood trickled from the left corner of his mouth. He lowered his right hand, averted his eyes, and took a step backward. “Take it easy,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean what I said. I just got sore. Who the hell wouldn’t?” he went on in a tone of righteous indignation. “A dame steps out on you the minute you turn your back. You give her everything in God’s world, and—”
“Shut up!” Shayne lashed out. “I know the girl is Julia Lansdowne, and I know how much you’ve done for her, you lousy, blackmailing punk. Before God, Moran—”
“Wait a minute—wait a minute.” Moran was swaying and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “What the hell are you talking about? What kind of song and dance did Dorrie feed you? Me—with my hooks in her! After I picked her up in the gutter and coached her until she could hold down a job in a second-rate joint like La Roma? That’s all the thanks I get.”
When Dorinda Dances Page 6
