Shoot to Kill ms-49

by Brett Halliday

  “He’s never in till late… midnight or after.” She leaned her left shoulder comfortably against the door frame and rested her right hand lazily on her hip. “But if it’s Dottie you want, I expect she’ll be coming along any minute.” She paused, appraising him openly with eyes which narrowed a trifle and made pleasant crinkles at the corners, letting him sense that she liked what she saw. “You could wait in here if you like.”

  Shayne said, “I would like.”

  She did not stir from her stance in the doorway as he took two steps across the hall toward her. He stopped a foot in front of her and she straightened up and dropped her arm to her side, and in her bare feet her eyes were not more than three inches below the level of his own. He could smell whiskey on her breath, and there was the bold darkness of nipples behind the sheer yellow fabric of her blouse.

  Studying his face quizzically, she worked her full crimson lips as though she were tasting something good, and she tilted her head slightly and asked, “What would you like, Red?”

  Then she laughed quickly and happily, very much like a little girl’s laugh, and she linked her left arm in his and turned and drew him inside the apartment, and said gaily, “Don’t answer that. You came to see Dottie. But I will give you a drink on account of I want another one myself and I make it a strict rule never to drink alone… that is if there’s anyone else around to drink with. So, what’ll you have, Red?” She released his arm from hers and turned her back and padded toward the kitchen in her bare feet, moving hips and shoulders sinuously, and Shayne called after her, “Anything. Brandy if you happen to have it.”

  She disappeared through the open doorway and her voice floated back with a trace of indignation in it, “Of course there’s brandy… if I can find it. Rest your feet while I dig it out.”

  Shayne found himself grinning appreciatively after her as he stood there in the center of her living room, and he hoped Dorothy Larson wouldn’t show up too soon.

  He got out a cigarette and lit it, and looked around him slowly. It was a pleasantly furnished and comfortably cluttered, feminine-looking room. The long sofa along one wall was covered with gold brocade and littered with small soft cushions in bright contrasting colors that managed not to clash. There were end tables with big utilitarian ashtrays on them, and two comfortable-looking overstuffed chairs ranged against the wall opposite the sofa. The muted music he had heard through the door was coming from a stereo set with twin speakers that were detached from it and set at right angles in different corners of the room. The music was not familiar to him, classical, he thought, probably one of the three B’s. A door at the end of the room directly in front of him opened onto a bedroom with a big double bed that was unmade and had two rumpled pillows at the head of it.

  Shayne liked everything he saw as he stood there and heard clinking sounds of glass against glass in the kitchen, and he frowned and tried to analyze the warm feeling of contentment that welled up inside him. It was definitely a woman’s place, and yet it welcomed his masculinity and made him feel immediately wanted. He did not know why that was, or how the woman in the kitchen had managed it so well, but he did know instinctively that she had managed it, not consciously probably, but as an expression of herself.

  He went to one of the deep chairs and sat down as she came back into the room carrying a glass in each hand. In her right hand was a big, bulbous brandy snifter with at least four ounces of amber fluid in the bottom of it. The other glass was tall, with tinkling ice cubes submerged in a dark brown mixture which appeared to be about three-quarters bourbon and one-quarter water.

  She stopped in front of him and extended the snifter, frowning anxiously. “It says Napoleon V.O.P. on the bottle, and it smells okay. If you’d rather have something else…?”

  Shayne took the big glass and inhaled the fragrance and assured her, “This is wonderful.”

  She turned across the room from him and curled up on the sofa with her bare feet under her and took a long, sturdy drink from her own glass. She blew out her breath strongly and looked over her shoulder at the open door into the corridor, and said, “We leave it open, huh? So you’ll know when Dottie comes.”

  Shayne shrugged and said evenly, “I do want to see her. In the meantime…” He lifted his glass and looked across the room at her over the top of it. “… here’s to you.” He tilted the glass and drank deeply.

  She was looking at him with her eyes wide and probing as he set the glass down on the table beside his chair with a happy sigh. “You’ve got me puzzled, Red. I can’t figure you out. You and Dottie…?” She paused, delicately. Speculatively.

  “Do you know her well?”

  “Dottie? We’ve been next door neighbors for three months. You a friend of that squirt of a husband of hers?”

  “Ralph?” Shayne shook his head. “I never met him.” He paused and added deliberately, “I understand he’s the jealous type.”

  “Of her?” She widened her eyes and leaned back against the sofa, stretching her bare legs out in front of her languidly, clasping both hands behind her neck and thrusting her torso upward so that up-thrust nipples were clearly and provocatively defined, and her steady, wide-eyed gaze challenged him to ignore them… to ignore her… to be unaware of the whole hunk of lush femininity she was flaunting in front of him.

  She said throatily, “I wouldn’t know, Red. She’s a lady. Dottie is. A real lady-bitch type. Different from me.”

  “What type are you?”

  “I’m a woman, Red. Like you don’t know.” She relaxed and sat upright and grinned suddenly. A gamin-like grin. “Like you didn’t know the moment you turned your head and looked at me across the hall. Like any real man knows when he looks at a real woman.” She laced her fingers in front of her face and peered through the interstices at him and said wonderingly in a low voice that was throaty with desire, “You could close that damned door and lock it, Red. Then you could kiss me.”

  She was a lot drunker than he had thought, Shayne realized, and he was sorry. He wished to God he were a lot drunker… or she were soberer. Either way…

  He fumbled for his glass and picked it up and glared at it, then put it up to his mouth and drained the remaining three ounces of liquor out of it.

  He got up out of his chair then, and moved a step toward her, and stopped when he saw her eyes were open. She was watching him, and waiting.

  He forced a grin onto his face and ran both hands through his rumpled red hair. He said, “This is a hell of a time…”

  “I know.” She lay on her side on the sofa, staring up at him unblinkingly. “You’re like me, Red.” She sounded sad. Desolated and torn. He wondered if she was really as drunk as he had thought her to be. She smiled slowly. A crooked, understanding sort of smile. She said, “We’re two of a kind. Ships that pass in the night. But we’ll meet again, Red. Next time, we won’t pass.” She shuddered violently and closed her eyes and was silent.

  Shayne didn’t realize he had moved, but suddenly he was standing close beside the sofa and was looking down at her. She kept her eyes tightly closed, but he knew that she knew he stood there, and he hesitated, clenching his fists tightly together so his fingernails bit into the flesh of his palms.

  Then, through the open door behind him he heard the light clickity-clack of high heels mounting the uncarpeted stairs toward the second floor. He turned his head, still standing close beside the sofa, dropping his left hand toward the woman who lay curled up there, feeling her fingers twist around his, tightly, warmly, compellingly.

  Through the open door at his right he saw a slender, smartly-clad young woman reach the top of the stairs and turn toward the door opposite him with a key held in her outthrust hand.

  She was well-stacked, as Timothy Rourke had told him. She was also beautiful, with a careful precision of features that made her into a “real lady-bitch type.”

  She unlocked the door of Apartment 3-B and walked inside without bothering to glance over her shoulder at the open door of 4-B.r />
  Shayne stood unmoving until she closed the door behind her. His left hand was still tightly gripped by the woman who lay on the sofa with her eyes closed.

  He turned to look down at her, and he lightly said, “Hi.”

  She opened her eyes and smiled up at him. “You didn’t close the door did you, Red?”

  He shook his head from side to side. “Next time, I will.”

  She said, “Okay. Next time.” Her fingers released his, and she closed her eyes again.

  Shayne walked out of her apartment and crossed the hall and put his finger on the electric button beside the Larsons’ door.

  3

  The Door Opened Almost Immediately And Dorothy Larson stood in front of him, a frown slowly forming on her beautifully chiseled features as she looked him up and down.

  Shayne had his smile all ready to put on, but he abruptly decided not to waste it on her. He made his voice impersonal and somewhat harsh as he said, “Mrs. Ralph Larson?”

  “Yes. I’m Mrs. Larson. What do you want?” Her voice was as chilly as the cold, cornflower blue of her eyes.

  “To talk to you a minute.”

  She said, “I’m sorry, Mister, but I practically never talk to strange men who come ringing my doorbell.” She took a backward step and firmly started to close the door in his face.

  Shayne had his big shoe in the way and the door stayed open a couple of feet. He said, “You’ll talk to me no matter what you practically never do. About Wesley Ames.” He put his hand on the doorknob and pushed it open against her effort to hold it shut.

  She retreated three steps away from him into the room and said coldly, “If you don’t get out this instant I shall call the police.”

  Shayne said, “I’m a detective, Mrs. Larson.” He had no difficulty making his tone match hers.

  “A detective? What on earth do you want? What about Mr. Ames?”

  “About you and Mr. Ames,” amplified Shayne. “About the affair you and he are carrying on.”

  “What has a detective to do with my private affairs?”

  “Well, you see I’m a private detective,” Shayne told her stolidly. “My name is Michael Shayne,” he added. “Make up your mind fast. Do you want to talk to me or shall I go to your husband?”

  “Ralph would laugh in your face. He works for Mr. Ames.” She lifted her chin disdainfully.

  “I don’t think Ralph would laugh in my face. In fact, I’m quite certain he wouldn’t laugh at all. And so are you,” he added harshly. “You know the poor guy is crazy in love with you. What you don’t know, evidently, is that he isn’t as dumb as you think. If he gets my report there’s going to be hell to pay, Mrs. Larson.”

  “Your… report?” she gasped. “Do you mean he’s hired a detective to check up on me?”

  “Did you think you had the wool pulled completely over his eyes?” Shayne quibbled. He folded his arms across his chest and sneered at her, and somehow found himself enjoying it.

  “What do you want from me?” she demanded. “Do you think I’ll pay you blackmail?”

  “No goddamnit,” said Shayne savagely. “I’m not here to blackmail you. I’m here to talk some sense into your silly head. Contrary to a great many popular misconceptions, all private detectives aren’t crooks and double-crossers. I happen to like your husband. I think he’s a decent guy and I feel sorry as hell for him married to a woman like you. I’m offering you a chance to come to your senses and break off with Ames before Ralph finds out the truth and kills himself or you or Ames… or all three of you. Maybe you don’t love the guy,” he went on harshly. “But you don’t want to see him in the electric chair, do you?”

  “No,” she cried thinly. “Oh God, no. I never thought…” She put her hands up to her face suddenly and began to cry.

  “It’s time you started thinking,” Shayne told her. “I happen to know Ralph has a vacation next week and he suspects the reason you want him to go off on his own while you stay in Miami alone is so you can be with Ames.”

  “That isn’t true,” she cried wildly. “I just need time to be alone and think.”

  “Whether it’s true or not,” Shayne told her brutally, “Ralph thinks it is. And if I make my report to him he’s going to be sure of it. And just as sure as God made little apples he’s going to go gunning for Wesley Ames and there’ll be all hell to pay.”

  “You can’t have anything… really bad to tell him.” She was getting her sobbing under control and she lifted a stricken, tear-streaked face to Shayne. “It isn’t as though… Wesley and I haven’t…”

  “I’ve got enough of a dossier on the two of you to send a man like your husband off his rocker,” Shayne lied harshly and convincingly.

  She didn’t attempt to deny it. She asked weakly, “What do you want me to do? If he finds out you’ve been here…”

  “Don’t admit you’ve ever seen me,” Shayne told her promptly. “This is completely unethical on my part, but in this case I think the end justifies the means. Don’t let Ralph even suspect that you know about him putting a private detective on your trail. That would ruin everything. You’ve got to make him think you’ve come to your senses all on your own and are sorry you ever met Wesley Ames. Insist on going off on vacation with him, and urge him to quit this side job he’s doing for Ames. He’s a good newspaper reporter and he can earn enough on his job to support you.

  “Maybe you’re not really in love with him,” Shayne went on swiftly, glad that Timothy Rourke couldn’t hear him now because by God he was beginning to sound like a marriage counsellor. “Maybe you should separate. But let that come later. Your job right now is to convince your husband that you’re in love with him and that your playing around with Wesley Ames has been completely innocent.”

  “And if I do that, you’ll… you’re willing to doctor your report so he’ll never know the truth?” she asked slowly.

  “I give you my word,” said Shayne honestly, “that he’ll never learn differently from me. But it has to be tonight,” he warned her sternly. “As soon as he gets home. Don’t put it off because I can’t stall him very long. Call me on the telephone first thing in the morning and tell me it’s done,” he directed her. “Get a pencil and write down my telephone number.”

  He waited while she turned away meekly and went to the telephone stand and got a pad and a pencil. He gave her his hotel number and she wrote it down.

  “That’s my home number,” he explained. “You can reach me there until nine or ten tomorrow morning. After that, call my office.” He gave her that number.

  “If I don’t hear from you by noon tomorrow it will be too late,” he told her. “Don’t forget that you’ll be responsible for whatever happens.”

  She nodded and hung her head and said, “I guess I’ve been an awful damn fool, Mike Shayne. I’ve changed my mind about private detectives.”

  “Most of us are damn fools at times,” Shayne assured her. “And stop watching the private eye shows on television. Just because a man is a licensed private investigator it doesn’t make him into a complete heel.” He stopped, grinning at himself as he realized that he was beginning to sound positively mawkish.

  “All right,” he said briskly. “So much for that. My Boy Scout deed is accomplished. I’ll now dismount from my white charger and go find some more keyholes to peek through.” He turned away from her and opened the door and went out and closed it firmly behind him.

  He was feeling good, by God. Surprisingly good. Despite his cynical scoffing at Timothy Rourke earlier he was glad he had come.

  He’d ended up almost liking Dorothy, and he was feeling very smug and paternal about the whole thing.

  He noted that the door of 4-B was now tightly closed as he hesitated there in the corridor. At the moment he didn’t know whether he was sorry or glad. She was quite a person… that barefooted one. And she served good brandy. What the devil was Napoleon V.O.P.? It was a new one on him. He wondered if she had made it up, and he suspected that she had.

>   Ships that pass in the night!

  Next time he would close the door and lock it.

  But right now Tim Rourke and his brown-haired secretary were waiting for him at Lucio’s, and Tim was going to pay for the drinks and dinner, and he and Lucy were both going to be properly impressed when he related the manner in which he had handled the Dorothy Larson affair.

  He stopped at the row of mail-boxes outside the open glass doors and looked at 4-B.

  “May Graham.”

  He liked that. Not Mr. and Mrs. Not Mrs. Graham. Just May.

  Somehow that was right for a big, barefooted woman who called him Red without waiting for an introduction.

  Michael Shayne felt very much at peace with the world as he went down the walk to his parked car.

  4

  Lucio himself met the redhead at the arched doorway of the pleasant dining room overlooking Biscayne Bay. He said happily, “Your friends are already here, Mr. Shayne. I have put them at a nice table in the corner.” He led the way through the uncrowded room and Shayne saw Timothy Rourke and Lucy Hamilton seated across from each other at a round table in front of a window that showed the lights of Miami Beach gleaming through the early darkness along the peninsula that formed the eastern shore of the bay.

  Lucy had a champagne cocktail in front of her and was leaning forward across the table talking animatedly to the reporter who was slumped back in his customary pose and nodding slowly with an intent expression on his face.

  Soft overhead light glinted on her brown hair, bringing out a faintly reddish tinge which blended nicely with the smooth tan of her face and shoulders which was accentuated by the low-cut white gown she wore, and Shayne slowed down behind Lucio as he neared the table to enjoy another moment of looking at Lucy before she was aware of his presence.

  The picture of May Graham came fleetingly to his mind by way of sharp contrast, and he was glad, now, that her door had been shut when he let himself out of the Larson apartment. Men were inherently lecherous bastards, he told himself with a trace of self-anger and more than a trace of self-guilt. Let a woman like May flaunt her sex in front of him and he started braying like a jackass at stud. When all the time there was a charming, sweet, intelligent girl like Lucy Hamilton waiting patiently in the background…