Killers from the Keys ms-39

by Brett Halliday

  With them, a man who liked to pretend and believe that he was irresistible to otherwise chaste women was allowed to carry on this pretense to his heart’s content. In fact, he was encouraged to do so. This second group did not openly solicit the attention of men. They sat discreetly alone at tables and booths throughout the room, pensively toying with tall drinks, with demurely downcast eyes, yet clearly telegraphing a message to every male within eyesight: Poor, lonely me. Here I sit, deserted by some brute of a man, ashamed to lift my eyes to the depraved exhibition going on across the room, and yet… and yet, vaguely stirred by it nevertheless. Because I am a woman. Deep down inside, I’m all woman, yearning for a mate. Aching to be seduced and taken by some male who can answer the deep and primitive impulses that stir within me.

  In that hot-blooded atmosphere these women were not allowed to sit alone very long. The world is full of men who fondly believe themselves to be Great Lovers and will not pass up any opportunity to prove it. A moderately attractive and half-way modest appearing woman sitting alone in a joint like the Bright Spot is like waving a red flag in front of an enraged bull.

  And so the Bright Spot had proved itself a hugely successful operation and was crowded every night of the week with moderate spenders while many of the luxury sucker traps on the Beach were complaining that they couldn’t meet their overhead.

  Thus, at nine o’clock on this night, more than half the tables and booths in the big, semi-dark room were occupied. A five-piece combo (one of three that would alternate throughout the evening) was beating out a slow, corny piece, while the stripper on stage was sinuously taking off her clothes, one lingering garment at a time, to the muted beat of the music which would build almost imperceptibly to a throbbing crescendo at the finale when the statuesque artist would stand briefly revealed in the colored spotlight completely nude (except for three pink rosettes that were glued onto her body not too firmly and might, just might, drop from their moorings in the last moment before the light was switched off).

  It was early, yet, in the evening, and the minute quantity of alcohol in each drink served had not brought about any general degree of rowdy drunkenness among the early diners such as would be evidenced a few hours later.

  At a small table in the corner beyond the spotlighted platform, the featured dance team of the evening were having an acrid argument.

  “Don’t you go tryin’ to tell me where to get off, Ralph Billiter. I worked this act up and you know it. If I was to walk off tomorrow, where’d you be.”

  “That’s what I’m always telling you, Essie. That’s why you got to get yourself smart an’ quit fooling around on the floor with men between numbers.” Sloe Burn’s companion at the table was as young as she, and muscular. He had tousled hair and a broad, sullen, unintelligent face. He was hunched toward her with heavy forearms on the table, big hands clenched angrily as he glared at her.

  She leaned back and puffed contemptuously on a cigarette without inhaling it. “I don’t fool around with men. I get paid for drinkin’ with them, just like the other girls do. You know they pay good money to get me to set at their table.”

  “You do more’n just drink at the table with that old goat you’re so sweet on.”

  “What if I do? I ain’t your woman, Ralph Billiter.”

  He snarled, “Like hell you ain’t. You bin my woman since you first laid with me in the swamp back uh your pappy’s barn.”

  “We was just kids then. Freddie’s different, Ralphie.” A softer, yearning note came into Sloe Burn’s voice. “He’s real polite an’ scared, an’ he treats me like I was his own daughter, sort of. Not really, I guess,” she hurried on, looking slightly horrified by what she had said. “I don’t mean he’s the kind… you know… to do with his own girl what he does with me… but it is sort of like that! He’s got respect for me, Ralphie, an’ a lot of money too,” she added naively, taking the cigarette from her mouth and pushing the tip of her tongue out to wet her red lips.

  “How you know that for a fact?” Ralph challenged her. “How much real money you done seen?”

  “He gimme a hunderd-dollar bill twice, didn’t he?”

  “That ain’t money.” Ralph spat the word out angrily. “You know how you and me figgered it when we run off up here to Miami. We was gonna make it big. We got the chance, I’m tellin’ you, if you just don’t go an’ spoil it. Our dance is going over bigger every night. We gonna get us a real bigtime manager an’ get us booked up north in Noo York an’ places like that. That’s where the real cash money is. Don’t you be messing it up just when we’re about to get goin’.”

  “How’m I messing it up?” she asked innocently.

  “You know how.” One of his big hands shot out and caught her wrist in a crushing grip. “I’ll kill you some night, you keep it up. I’ll just pure kill you, Essie. I’ll get to thinkin’ about you an’ that old man, and my guts’ll twist up in a knot and I’ll purely stick that conch shell right in your white belly an’ twist it good.” He was breathing heavily, half out of his chair and leaning over the table.

  She slapped his face with her free hand. It wasn’t a dainty, feminine slap. It was a hefty, infuriated wallop, with tempered muscles behind it, and a lot of solid young weight. He grunted, more with surprise than hurt, and released her wrist.

  She sat erect and glared up into his scowling face. “You listen to me, Ralphie Boy. Any big talk of killin’, just don’t forget a conch shell’ll slide into your belly just as easy as mine. Aw, let’s cut it out,” she broke out crossly. “We’re a team, Ralph, you and me. If Freddie don’t come across with a wad of money right quick, sure I’ll quit him. Why not? But you ain’t got no cause to be jealous. If you ain’t gettin’ enough…”

  “How big a wad?” demanded Ralph sullenly, settling back into his chair.

  “Big enough so we can make that trip to New York or wherever, and make it right. So’s they’ll sit up and take notice when we hit town. Anyhow,” she ended dispiritedly, “he ain’t been around for a couple of nights. Not since those two men was looking for him. I reckon maybe they found him, so what’re you gripin’ about?”

  “Yeh… well…”

  “Miss Piney.”

  Ralph’s mouth fell open when he heard the words precisely spoken just behind him. He twisted his chair around slowly as Sloe Burn exclaimed delightedly, “Freddie. We was just talking about you. Ralph an’ me. Ralph Billiter. My dancin’ partner. I don’t know you met him or not.”

  Steven Shephard said, “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.” He smiled thinly and held out his hand. Ralph got up and mumbled something and took the other’s fingers and dropped them quickly and shambled away to the rear of the stage.

  Shephard looked after him admiringly. “Really a magnificent specimen.” He staggered only slightly as he turned Ralph’s chair back and sat in it. “I’ve meant to ask you, Miss Piney.” He fingered his mustache nervously. “Watching you two dance together… uh… makes me wonder.”

  “He’s just a boy I’ve knew from down on the Keys when we was both kids,” she told him with a toss of her head. “I been worried about you, Freddie. When you didn’t come back a-tall after them two men was in lookin’ for you, I got scared they maybe found you.”

  He blinked near-sighted eyes at her. “What two men, Miss Piney?”

  “Right after you was here last time. They scared me. Real tough an’ asking all sortsa questions. But they didn’t get no change outta me, Freddie.”

  “Two men?” He compressed his lips tightly. “Yes, I’ve… I’ve been thinking… could we have a drink, Miss Piney?”

  “Why not? You got the money to pay, aintcha?” She turned and snapped her fingers and a waiter materialized from out of the semi-darkness. “Bourbon on the rocks for me. Scotch an’ water for my friend,” she ordered.

  “Yes, I… have money to pay.” Steven Shephard smiled happily as he got out his wallet. He carelessly took out a twenty-dollar bill and placed it on the table between them.
It had been less than two hours since his last drink and he was floating nicely, but he felt he needed reinforcements for what he was about to say. He seized his glass when it came and took two gulps of the liquid which was even weaker than the drinks he made for himself in the motel.

  He said, “We did talk about going away together. To some distant place. Perhaps you doubted my sincerity, Miss Piney. I beg you not to. I… uh… will you go away with me?”

  “That takes money,” Sloe Burn told him coldly. “Lots of money, Freddie.”

  “I have lots of money.” He stated the fact flatly and precisely. “More than you ever saw or dreamed of seeing. And if there are men in Miami looking for me…”

  “Gee, oh, God, Freddie!” She was looking past him into the hazy dimness. “Talk about the devil! There they come now. To this table. You gotta get out quick.”

  She kicked back her chair and flashed around to his side and caught his arm and tugged him desperately upward. “You come with me.”

  With her arm around his waist, she half-pulled and half-carried him past the end of the platform where the stripper was at long last getting down to bare skin, and into the wings where Ralph was standing in a position where he’d been able to watch their table.

  “Take him out back an’ help him get away, Ralphie. I don’t know where he’s staying…”

  “Pink Flamingo,” mumbled Shephard, dazed and frightened, and leaning on Ralph’s strong right arm.

  “I’ll go back an’ string them guys along.” Sloe Burn paused to give Ralph a hard look. “Take care of Freddie, you hear. I got somethin’ real important to tell you.”

  She whirled away from them and ran back onto the floor where the spotlight had just been turned off as two of the rosettes dropped from the stripper’s body.

  She drew in a deep breath and slowed to a walk, thrusting her breasts out and stepping mincingly so her buttocks did a slow roll with each step.

  There was no one at her table when she returned to it, and she seated herself composedly and gathered up the change the waiter had left from Freddie’s twenty. As soon as the spotlight came on again for the next number, she was pretty sure the mean-looking younger man and the sad-looking older one in the black suit would be sitting down with her to ask questions.

  8

  Back-stage, Ralph Billiter looked down contemptuously at the frightened man clinging to him and demanded, “Whatsa matter, huh? What’re you running from?”

  “Two men… looking for me… I guess,” panted Shephard. “Miss Piney was telling me about them being here the other night, and then… they showed up just now. If you can show me how to get out the back way and around to my car in the parking lot…”

  “Sure.” Ralph tucked Shephard’s arm in his and led him back to a wooden door opening out into the night behind the squat building. “What they want with you, you reckon?” he asked interestedly.

  “They want my money,” Shephard chattered. “That’s what they’re after. But it’s my money.” He took a deep breath of the night air and sought to draw his arm away from Ralph’s. “I’m all right now, and I thank you. I’ve watched you dance with Miss Piney, and I’ve wanted to tell you how good I think the two of you are together. Please thank her for me and tell her that I will try to contact her later tonight. Assure her, if you will be so kind, that I really meant what I said tonight.”

  Ralph Billiter kept his grip on Shephard’s arm and tightened his fingers bruisingly on the Midwesterner’s flesh. “I’ll walk you around to your car… be sure you get away all right. The Pink Flamingo, huh? Ain’t that just a piece down the road?”

  “Yes. It’s a motel.” Shephard did not protest further as Ralph guided him along a path beside the building leading to the brightly lighted parking area. The young man’s muscular strength was reassuring, and Shephard clung to him thankfully.

  “You got the money there?”

  “What’s that?”

  “All the money you been talkin’ about. That you been tellin’ Essie you’d give to her was she to go off with you.” There was a sudden throbbing note of anger in Ralph’s voice that penetrated the alcoholic haze surrounding Shephard, and at the corner of the building, just before they reached the lighted area, he paused again, uncertainly.

  “I have the utmost respect for Miss Piney,” he said in a high-pitched, quavering voice.

  “I know,” said Ralph brutally. “You been sleepin’ with her an’ you like it.” His big hand slid up Shephard’s arm to his shoulder and he shook the slighter man vigorously. “Where’s yore parkin’ ticket?”

  “Right here.” His teeth chattered and his hand trembled as he got the numbered ticket from his pocket.

  Ralph took it out of his hand and marched him forward into the floodlighted area. The attendant was returning to the canopied entrance from parking a car, and Ralph intercepted him with the ticket. “We’re leavin’. What kinda car you got?” he demanded of his companion.

  “It’s a dark tan Chevrolet.”

  The attendant looked at the number on the ticket and went away. Ralph pulled Shephard back against the building and they waited until the dark tan Chevrolet came around from the lot and pulled up in front of them. Ralph gave him a little shove around in front of the car, and Shephard circled it to get in the driver’s seat. As he settled himself behind the wheel, Ralph opened the other door and slid in beside him. “Drive on to yore motel,” he ordered between clenched teeth. “I gotta hankerin’ to see all this here money you been promisin’ Essie. She’s my woman, Mister, and don’t you forget it.”

  Shephard said, “I’ll ask you to get out right now. I have no intention…”

  “Drive on outta here,” said Ralph. His big hand came out of his pants pocket with a conch shell in it that had been laboriously sharpened to a needle-like point. He slid it carelessly across his lap so the tip touched Shephard’s side. “This here’s what we call a persuader down on the Keys where I come from. You want it in yore guts, or you gonna drive on?”

  Shephard looked down at the vicious shell in fascination. “That’s what you and Miss Piney use in your dance, isn’t it? They look terribly dangerous to me on stage.”

  Ralph grinned and moved his hand slightly. The tip of the shell went through the fabric of Shephard’s coat and into his flesh just beneath the rib-cage. He gasped with pain and shrank back against his side of the car, and Ralph said again, “Drive on outta here.”

  Shephard put the light sedan in gear and drove around in a circle to the exit. Ralph settled his hulking body more comfortably in the seat beside him and spoke in a voice that was chilling in its casual and irresponsible menace, “Killin’ a man ain’t nothing to me, Mister. I’d done it before this except Essie kept on sayin’, ‘Wait an’ lessee does he really have all that money he claims to have.’ You reckon she ever had any thought of goin’ off with an old goat like you?” Ralph laughed jeeringly. “Hell, ever’ time she come back from layin’ with you we laughed an’ laughed about how you was in bed.”

  “I don’t wish to discuss Miss Piney with you.”

  “We’ll discuss her, awright. She’s my woman, like I told you, an’ any money she gets outta you belongs rightly to me. These here men that’re chasin’ you, now. Just who might they be?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t.” Shephard slowed the light sedan as they neared the intersection to the well-travelled Trail. “If you’ll get out here,” he said hopefully, “I’ll give you all the money I’ve got, and I promise you I won’t ever come back to see Miss Piney again.” He pulled off to the side and looked at Ralph hopefully. “I assure you I didn’t realize she was your… ah… woman.” He gulped sadly. “She was so young and I thought she liked me.”

  “How much money you got?” demanded Ralph truculently.

  Shephard squirmed in the car seat to remain as far removed from the needle-sharp conch shell as possible, and got a thick wallet from his hip pocket. He opened it and took out a sheaf of bills which he pressed into Ralph�
��s hand. “There’s several hundred there, I think. You can see it’s all I’ve got.” He displayed the empty wallet. “Will you please get out, now, and let me go on? I promise you I’ll leave Miami immediately and never see Miss Piney again.”

  Ralph riffled the bills contemptuously. “A few hundred bucks? You gotta do better’n that, Mister. All this big talk you been givin’ Essie about going off to some island an’ livin’ the rest of yore lives.” He laughed harshly. “Drive on to that motel of yours an’ dig out the rest of it.”

  “But I tell you that’s all I’ve got left. I’ve been spending a great deal…”

  “Nuts to that.” Ralph moved the conch shell menacingly close again. “You think I’m a pure fool to swallow a story like that? How you gonna get outta town tonight if you got no money left? Drive on, goddamit, and we’ll take a look in yore cabin. I gotta get back for our dance act.”

  Shephard trembled in an agony of fear and dispiritedly pulled onto the highway in the direction of the Pink Flamingo. Ralph Billiter was something completely outside the orbit of his experience. There was a cold and predatory sort of ruthlessness about him that shocked Steven Shephard to the very core of his civilized being.

  Neither of them spoke again on the short drive down the Trail to the motel turn-off. Then he tried once more to divert the young man from his purpose.

  “I tell you it’s a sheer waste of time to search my cabin for more money. If I did have any, I wouldn’t leave it there with that manager sneaking around and peering in the windows all the time.”

  “Keep on drivin’,” said Ralph implacably. “Could be it ain’t in the cabin like you say. But you’ll tell me awright when we get there an’ settle down cozy. ’Cause you know what, Mister? This here little ol’ conch shell ain’t tasted no fresh blood for a long time now. An’ it gets a-thirstin’ and a-throbbin’, an’ I can feel it in my hand just achin’ to get inside yore hot guts an’ let the blood run out. So you’ll tell me, Mister. I got no never-mind about that.”