“How about a moonlight drive, angel?”
“Why, Michael, I’d love it,” she said huskily. Suddenly, her voice changed. “Except that I know from past experience that your moonlit drives usually end up at some place like the morgue.”
“Nothing like that tonight, Lucy. This will be sheer romance. I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”
He hung up and walked back to Mrs. Santos, who had seated herself in an old-fashioned wooden rocker.
“Will you have Sylvester phone me when he comes in, no matter what time of night it is?”
“Sure, Mr. Shayne. Be glad to.” She wiped her perspiring forehead with the back of her hand.
“And don’t worry,” he said. “Sylvester will be all right. Just like he was before, when these new friends go home.”
“Bueno,” she said. “I hope so.”
Lucy was ready when Shayne rang her apartment bell. “Won’t you come in, Michael?”
“Sorry, I can’t, angel. Let’s get going.”
“Not even for a spot of Hennessy?”
“Not even for Hennessy. I’ll take a brandy-check, though.”
She closed the door and fell into step beside him. “What’s the rush? Is the moon waning?”
“Time is. It’s nearly midnight and I want to get out to Clarissa Milford’s before she goes to bed.”
“You’re taking me with you to see another woman? I thought you said on the phone this was sheer romance.”
“It is, for me. You’re the chaperone.”
“Oh, good! Just what I’ve always yearned to be.”
As Shayne wheeled out from the curb, a gray sedan started up down the block.
Noticing how the redhead stared bleakly into the rear-view mirror, Lucy asked acutely, “Why should anyone tail you, Michael?”
“I don’t know. Percy Thain found out at the séance that his sister-in-law, Clarissa, had hired me. He didn’t like it much, but I don’t think he could have rounded up a tail this fast. It was on me when I left Swoboda’s, but I ditched him. He must have staked out here on the chance that I’d see you.”
“Then it’s somebody who knows that I’m—your secretary, at least.”
“At the very least.” Shayne smiled a wry, warm smile.
“You don’t seem worried.”
“About your being—at least—my secretary, or about the tail?”
“About the tail, of course.”
“I’m not. I’m not going anywhere tonight that I give a damn if anybody knows.”
Lucy fell silent a moment, then said, in a small worried voice, “I don’t see why it would be Percy Thain.”
“I don’t either. What’s he got to gain by knowing where I go?”
“Nothing—unless he’s the one who sent Clarissa Milford the voodoo doll. If he’s really planning to kill her, he’d want to do it when you weren’t around.”
“Good figuring, but at this point I don’t think it’s Percy Thain. I can’t figure what connection he’d have with a cheap hood like Henlein, and it’s a good bet the same person sent dolls to both Clarissa and Henlein.”
“Why?”
“Too much of a coincidence otherwise.”
It was a moonless night and out in the country the dew was thick. The windshield clouded and Shayne started the wipers, listening to the rhythm of their faint, regular squeak as they swept across the glass.
After a while he slowed, turning his spot on the mailboxes. At the one reading Milford, he entered a long driveway.
A half a block in, the Milfords’ house faced the Thains’ across about an acre of untended ground. They were identical one-story, red-brick, L-shaped houses, with a small front stoop and detached garages, and they looked out of place so far from any other sign of community living. They sat in a deserted field, squat and ugly, combining city and country living in an almost comic way. While it wasn’t difficult to picture Percy and Mabel Thain living out their lives within these lonesome, unimaginative walls, Clarissa Milford seemed out of place here. Perhaps she lived here because it was cheap. If her husband was a compulsive gambler, she’d need to keep a tight hand on the budget.
Across the way the Thains’ house was dark, but a light shone behind drawn shades in the Milford living room.
As Shayne reached for the door handle, Lucy said, “I’ll wait here for you, Michael.”
“Just to prove you trust me with another woman?”
“No, but she’s so upset. I think she’d rather talk to you alone.”
“Angel.” He slid across the seat and kissed her quickly. “You are a good angel. I won’t be long.”
As he walked across the thin sward of grass to the front door and rang the bell, from the corner of his eye he caught a movement in a spotting of shrubbery. Bill Martin was on the job. It had probably been his light-colored convertible parked on the road.
Clarissa came to the door, wearing the same blue suit she had worn to the office this afternoon and at the séance. Her eyes were tight and she looked tired. When she recognized Shayne, fine lines appeared on her forehead.
“May I come in for a minute?”
“Of course.” She stepped aside, a little reluctantly, adding, “My sister and brother-in-law are here.”
“Maybe we could talk outside for a minute then.”
She closed the door behind her, walked down the steps and out onto the sparse grass. About ten feet from the house she stopped, turned suddenly and said, “Dan hasn’t come home yet. He called to say he was tied up—on business he said, but I know what kind. Have you found anything out yet?”
He smiled. “You’ve got to give me a little time. What do you mean—you know what kind of business your husband is tied up with tonight?”
She took the cigarette he offered and let him light it and then she said, “This afternoon I told you that Dan liked to gamble, but I—didn’t tell you the whole thing. I guess I hoped I wouldn’t have to. It doesn’t have any bearing on what I came to see you about.”
“Then why are you telling me now?”
“Because I think maybe you can help me. Dan’s in deep, Mr. Shayne. He’s half-crazy with worry and I am too—about him. Especially since he didn’t come home tonight.”
“Who does he owe the money to? Someone who won’t wait?”
She nodded, looking down to avoid the redhead’s eyes. “I wasn’t quite honest with you this afternoon when I said the name De Luca didn’t mean anything to me. He’s the loan-shark Dan owes money to.”
Shayne’s interest quickened. He tapped the cigarette, sending sparks into the dark. Was this the connection between the pretty housewife and the dead hoodlum he had been looking for? Henlein had worked for De Luca, Dan Milford owed money to De Luca, and De Luca had been known to maim and kill men who failed to meet his usurious payments. Had one of De Luca’s musclemen tried to get Dan Milford to pay up by leaving one of the voodoo dolls with his wife? It seemed an unlikely way for gangsters to operate—still, they had done more than frighten Henny Henlein, they had killed him.
There was another possibility. If Henny Henlein had been crowding Dan Milford for his loan-shark boss, De Luca, Dan might have killed Henlein.
“Does your husband know you got the doll?” Shayne asked abruptly.
“No. I didn’t tell him.”
“You told the Thains. Why didn’t you tell him too? Unless you think he left it?”
She stared at him, her horror showing even in the dark night. “If you knew him you’d never say that. Dan’s not a murderer!”
“And you’re not murdered—yet. But Henny Henlein is. Henlein was one of De Luca’s muscle-men and collectors. Now that you’ve admitted you know De Luca, what do you know about Henlein?”
“Nothing. I was telling the truth about that. I never heard the name.”
“You still haven’t told me why you didn’t tell your husband somebody left you the voodoo doll.”
“I didn’t want to worry him any more. He had enough to be worried about.” She
was crying softly. “And even if he did want to kill me—which he never would—why wouldn’t he just do it, instead of sending me the doll?”
“You told me this afternoon he believed in the voodoo curse—that he was like a child that way.”
“Dan would never hurt me, much less kill me. He wouldn’t!”
“He wants to divorce you,” Shayne said brutally. “He told you so. Maybe he’s changed his mind about that and would like your insurance money instead. He’d be just as free to marry Madame Swoboda if you were dead as if you were divorced. And he’d be out from under De Luca’s threat, with maybe some money left over.”
“You’re horrible, Mr. Shayne!” She whirled away from him and started toward the house.
He caught her arm and swung her around. She bumped against him and for a quick instant he felt her body warm and exciting against him. “You hired me to help you, Clarissa. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
She sobbed on his shoulder. “I know. I’m sorry to be making such a scene, but I’m so worried about Dan—”
“He’s been out gambling before.”
She drew away and wiped her eyes. “I don’t think he’s gambling tonight. I think he’s trying to raise money to pay off D. L. And if he can’t do it—and I don’t know how he can—our house and car are mortgaged to the limit—I’m afraid of what D. L. will do. Dan may be beaten—or killed. Even now he may be dead—”
She stopped as light streamed from the just-opened door of the house.
“Clarissa!” Mabel called peremptorily. “Where are you?”
“Out here. Talking to Mr. Shayne.”
“Good heavens, you’ve been at it long enough. And all over a silly doll somebody most likely left you for a joke. Well anyway, we’re going home. Percy needs some sleep if he’s going to work tomorrow.”
“Don’t go. I’m coming in now.”
The Thains came down the steps anyway and moved toward them across the lawn.
“I wonder if you’d mind telling me,” Shayne said as they came nearer, “how long you’ve been going to Madame Swoboda’s?”
Mabel Thain stopped a few feet away. “Only since Jimsey’s death,” she said tightly. “Dan took us and we found it comforting.”
“How long has Dan been going?”
“A month or so,” Clarissa said. “Ever since she started up.”
“Does Madame Swoboda always incorporate numbers in her messages?”
“Numbers? No, not always. Sometimes.”
“What do you make of them?”
“Nothing,” Clarissa said firmly. “Nothing at all.”
“How about Dan?”
“Dan believes in numerology,” she said slowly. “He says his lucky number is twelve. If her numbers add up to a divisor or multiple of twelve, he believes that’s his day to gamble. I think he loses as fast on those days as the others.”
Shayne turned to the Thains. “What do you make of the numbers?”
Percy Thain looked beaten and dispirited; his hostility toward Shayne seemed to be gone. “I don’t know. I don’t try to understand everything. It’s enough for me to hear my son’s voice.”
“And you?” The redhead shifted his eyes to Mabel.
“They give me a sense of mystic knowledge,” she said exaltedly, fastening her eyes on the dark sky as if probing its mysteries. “It is a cabala, the theosophy of the occult. One senses and one knows, but none of these things can be communicated in words.”
Shayne waited a moment, tugging his left ear-lobe, then turned. “I’ll keep in touch with you, Mrs. Milford. And don’t worry.”
Lost in thought, he walked toward the car. Mabel had, of course, treated the matter of the voodoo doll lightly to keep her sister from being unduly distressed. But Clarissa had said Mabel believed in the séances, therefore she must also believe in the potency of a curse symbolized by a doll.
He patted Lucy’s knee when he got in the car and backed it out the drive. Near the shrubbery where he had glimpsed the movement of a few minutes before, he stopped long enough to call softly to Martin on the shag job. “Nice going, Bill. Let me know when Dan Milford—or anybody—comes in.”
Out on the road the gray Buick picked up his trail again. He put his arm on Lucy’s shoulder, drawing her over so he could feel the warmth of her body beside him. She seemed tense.
“Don’t worry, angel. Somebody’s going to see me take you home, that’s all. And if it’s a spy from a morals squad, he can go back and report I didn’t eat breakfast at your apartment.”
“I’m not worried about that—it’s Clarissa.”
“She was only crying on my shoulder.”
“I know. I feel terribly sorry for her.”
“So do I. She’s in love with her no-good husband, and from the way it looks now, he’s got some of the answers we need.”
8
Shayne rose early the next morning, showered, shaved, dressed and ate breakfast and, twenty minutes later, was striding through the downstairs lobby to the door. He stopped suddenly, turned back to the desk, picked up the phone and dialed Sylvester’s home.
Mrs. Santos answered, her voice tired and worried. No, Sylvester hadn’t come home or called and she didn’t know where he was. Shayne pronged the receiver, made for the door again and long-legged it to where he had parked his car the night before.
The gray Buick was parked a few cars behind it. The redhead passed, then whirled impulsively and stared boldly for half a minute at the man behind the wheel. He didn’t recognize the face but he would again, undistinctive as it was. The man was about average height with straight black hair thinning a little on top, and lidless eyes, like a snake’s. His skin had that peculiarly dry look which comes as the result of a bad case of acne at puberty. He wore a wilted seersucker suit and no hat. Under Shayne’s gaze, he shifted uneasily, lifting one hand to wipe self-consciously at his long upper lip. The hand was thin and bony, with big knuckles and visible veins.
Shayne waved genially, wryly amused at the startled and defensive look the gesture brought, turned and strode to his own car.
Speeding along Biscayne Boulevard, he turned east to the Causeway leading to the Beach. The morning was already hot. Sun beat on the road, making a mirror of it and intensifying the vivid flower colors along its edge. There was no wind, Spanish moss hung stiffly from the trees.
Through the rear-view mirror Shayne kept an eye on the tailing Buick, realizing suddenly that a green car which had pulled out from the curb too when he left his apartment was holding close behind the Buick. Was it possible that, this morning, he had two tails?
He crossed the Causeway and turned south, the two cars still with him, finally pulling in the parking lot at the head of the long slip where Sylvester’s boat was moored. Most of the other boats were already out, leaving the Santa Clara almost alone.
Near her on the wharf, a tall man was bent over, concentrating on something. As Shayne strode closer he recognized him as Slim, the lazy one from Philadelphia, who had lain on his back all day without doing anything more energetic than tilting a rum highball. He was the do-it-yourself man whose hobby was mechanics, according to Sylvester. This morning he had a different hobby. He was cleaning a fish.
He looked up from the mess of blood and guts as Shayne’s shadow fell across him. “Oh, hello, Mike.”
“Good morning. Is Sylvester around?”
“No, he’s down the coast somewhere. Be gone a day or two, he said.”
“What did he do, walk?” Shayne eyed the Santa Clara.
“Nope. Got a lift.”
“Boat or car?”
There was an instant’s hesitation before Slim said, “Car.”
“What did he go for?”
“There’s a boat he wanted to look at.”
“How come?”
“I think he’s considering a trade.”
“What’s the matter with this boat? You boys just put a new engine in her, didn’t you?”
“Turned out to be a d
og.”
“Since yesterday?”
Slim shrugged and went on scraping his fish with the thoroughness of a good Dutch housewife.
“I thought the engine sounded pretty good,” Shayne persisted.
“Doesn’t develop the speed it ought to. Sylvester said his old one was faster. Sylvester’s hell for speed.”
“How’d he know? You boys never let him let it out?”
“He did, I guess. When we weren’t with him.”
“Yesterday he was telling me how good it was.”
“That was yesterday. Today he didn’t like it. You know how these Portuguese are.”
“He’s not Portuguese. He’s Cuban.”
“Same difference.”
Shayne was silent. The only sound was the rasping of Slim’s heavy knife against the fish scales. Without looking up, Slim said, “This is that grouper you caught yesterday. Hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Want a piece of him?”
“No.”
“Got to thinking—” Slim seemed to feel it necessary to explain—“it’s kind of silly to be down here in the world’s fishing paradise and never eat any fish. So I came down this morning to get this one. I’ll clean it up and have the chef at the hotel cook it for me.”
“It’s a pretty big fish.”
“I’ll need it. Some of the boys are coming in to play poker this afternoon. Fish and beer and poker—that ought to be a good combo, hull?”
“Pretty good.” Shayne frowned down at the bloody mess on the wharf planks. “You know, they’d clean it for you at the hotel as well as cook it, if you asked them.”
“Yeah, but I’ve got a thing about fish. I got to know they’re cleaned good. Never eat ’em unless I clean ’em myself.”
“That’s a lot of blood from one fish.”
“It’s a big fish.”
“It’s still a lot of blood.”
Slim shrugged, still not looking up. “I wouldn’t know. I heard groupers are running bloody this season.”
“Hogwash! A grouper’s a grouper, this season or any other.”
“Maybe you’re right.” The knife kept scraping. The scales spattered.
Dolls Are Deadly Page 7
