Six Seconds to Kill

by Brett Halliday

  He was moving her back and forth across the room while he talked. He began to think she was steadier, but each time he stopped to give her a chance to stand alone, she folded. He picked the phone off the floor as he passed. To dial was impossible. He managed to raise the operator on the third try. Continuing back and forth to the limit of the telephone cord, he told her he was having trouble reaching a Miami Beach number, and asked her to dial it for him. A moment later he was talking to the St. Albans switchboard. He asked for Room 703.

  Rourke answered.

  “Dr. Miller,” Shayne said.

  “Right here, Mike. Do I get to know what’s happening?”

  “Later. Put him on.”

  Miller’s voice said, “Shayne?”

  “I’ve got her,” Shayne said abruptly, and had to change hands as she slipped. “She’s just about under. Some kind of sedative in a hypodermic. Get over here right away.”

  He started to give the address, but Miller cut him short. “Two detectives are following me around. You don’t want police at this point.”

  “Damn right I don’t.”

  “How’s her breathing?”

  “Very hard and slow.”

  “Then it could be morphine. Keep her reacting. Insult her. Try coffee if you have it. If she goes to sleep, be sure she doesn’t suffocate—watch her tongue. There’s a private clinic in North Miami. I’ll send an ambulance. And Mike!” he added. “Bring the syringe so we can see what we’re up against.”

  He slammed down the phone. Shayne caught Camilla again and wrestled her back under control.

  “Here’s something else you’ll be interested in,” he said. “You picked up the gun at the airport at nine o’clock. A Czech automatic, taking an off-caliber bullet. It was loaded with blanks.”

  Her head wobbled. “No.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Crowther sent you that gun. He didn’t want to be killed himself. He wanted you to be killed. He wanted you to be shot down by his bodyguards.”

  Her head wobbled again.

  “He was still on his feet when you went into the elevator. You saw the look on his face. That was surprise. He didn’t expect it to hurt.”

  She staggered, attempting to stand by herself. He moved her backward until she hit a wall, and stayed in front of her so she had to look at him.

  “Two facts to get in your head. Crowther sent you the gun. Somebody else put a shot of dope in that needle. So that makes two people who tried to kill you.”

  He repeated the two statements, but he wasn’t sure she heard him.

  “I feel—” she said.

  “Sure. You feel like going to sleep so you won’t have to do any thinking. But you changed your mind once. Change it again. You wanted to kill Crowther and get away with it. You wouldn’t have done it otherwise! If you die now it won’t be something you decided to do yourself. Stay awake. Tell me what happened. If you don’t, they’re going to get away with it.”

  She managed one word. “If—”

  “If what? If there were blanks in the gun, how did you succeed in killing anybody? There weren’t blanks in the gun when you fired it. Somebody changed clips.”

  She sagged forward. He moved her into the kitchen. There was coffee, there was running water, there were cups. Somehow he got the operation started while bouncing her off the walls and the counter. She got away from him briefly and fell against the stove, knocking the pan aside and touching the hot unit. She screamed, and for an instant she was fully awake.

  “Who brought you here, Camilla?” Shayne demanded.

  She stared at him. “He—”

  She fell. He pulled her to her feet, and for a moment he thought she was completely gone. He slapped her hard. Her eyes opened and he hauled her to the bathroom, where he turned on the cold water and held her in the shower until she began to fight to get out.

  Back in the kitchen, he spilled powdered coffee into a cup and covered it with boiling water. He held it to her lips and got some of it down. It made her throw up. She was wet from the shower, and kept slipping out of his hands.

  They walked some more. Each time her eyes closed he had to be more brutal to bring her back. He was losing, but he kept her in motion.

  Passing the front window on one of his circuits of the room, he veered sharply. A police car was parked directly in front of the house.

  He backed away, shifting Camilla to his left arm, and approached the window again. The cop at the wheel was calling in. He looked at the convertible in the driveway, apparently getting a check on the Alabama plates. If it was on the stolen-car list, Shayne knew that the cops would be leaning on the doorbell in another minute.

  He showed himself at the window and made a clenched-fist salute, wondering if anybody but the black-power people used this any more. The woman Adele had talked to on the phone, like Shayne, would be watching the police car. He lifted the phone and showed that.

  A moment later it rang.

  Picking it up, Shayne said, “That was fast. Do you speak English, I hope?”

  “A little,” a woman’s voice said.

  “I’m a friend of Adele’s,” Shayne said. “Arriba Gil Ruiz! If those cops get interested in this house, we’re all cooked. Do you understand?”

  “The policemen. You want them go away.”

  “I want them to go away fast.”

  “I think I can.”

  The phone clicked. An instant later a ground-floor window in a house across the street flew up and a stout, grayhaired woman, the same woman who had warned Shayne the day before of the loosened lug-nuts on his wheels, put her head out and screamed. “Cabrón! Guardias cabrónes!” People appeared on nearby porches. The woman gestured like a cheerleader and others joined in. Both cops were out of their car, no longer wondering about the convertible.

  A boy darted around a clump of bushes and heaved a broken tile at the police car. One cop stayed to protect the car and the other tried to catch the boy, who wasn’t going to let himself be caught. A crowd was gathering, made up entirely of women and young children who had had to stay home while the men went off to take part in the exciting events at the airport and in Miami Beach. A garbage-filled bag arched through the air and exploded on top of the car.

  Both cops now retreated into the car and called for reinforcements. Today nothing was available. All the cops had emptied out of the station houses to look for Michael Shayne and Camilla Steele.

  The car drove off amid jeers and taunts.

  Shayne showed his clenched fist out the window and went back to the struggle to keep Camilla from falling asleep. He tried the shower again, and brought her back, but only for a moment. As she sagged in his arms he heard an approaching siren.

  The crowd on the street had only partially dispersed. The ambulance drew up, its siren dying. Shayne signaled from the upstairs window. The driver and an attendant pounded upstairs.

  “Need the stretcher?” the driver asked.

  He was an ambulance-driving type, squat and doughfaced, with an aggrieved expression, indicating that he had taken this menial job only because of its social importance. Shayne explained the situation in a few crisp words and sent the attendant into the bathroom for the hypodermic syringe and into the bedroom to gather up Camilla’s clothes.

  “Did they send any medication?”

  “Not my department,” the driver said. “I didn’t know this was what I was getting into. Mike Shayne. The things they’re saying about you on television.”

  “OK,” Shayne said. “What’s it going to cost me?”

  “I’ll have to say you pulled a gun on me. Wouldn’t seventy-five bucks be about right?”

  “Seventy-five bucks would be high.” He pulled out his wallet and threw the man a hundred-dollar bill. “You owe me twenty-five. Put it in the mail.”

  “I’ll remember to do that,” the driver promised him.

  Downstairs, Shayne backed into the ambulance and the others handed Camilla in. He told the attendant to ride in front.

&nb
sp; “And use your siren. We’re in a hurry.”

  “I always use my siren,” the driver said, surprised. “It would hardly be worth it otherwise.”

  Shayne pulled the curtains on both sides. The ambulance got away fast. The turn at the next corner was so sharp that Camilla, on the edge of the reclining bed, plunged into Shayne’s arms. He put her back, and she surprised him by saying sleepily, “Mike.”

  “That’s right. Is that all you’re going to say?”

  Her lips moved in what was nearly a smile, and her hand rose. It was her first voluntary movement in some time.

  “Do you remember a dream you had about shooting somebody?”

  “Dream?”

  “Nothing’s been working too well for you lately. But in that dream everything went off like clockwork. It would be a good sign.”

  Her head fell back. He let it roll, then snapped her violently forward. Her wig fell off. She pushed at him weakly, and said, “Don’t.”

  She only said one other thing. An abrupt change of lane sent her sliding sideways and her head flopped against his shoulder. She said distinctly, “Sex is so nice.”

  “If you want any more,” Shayne said, “you’d better wake up.”

  The ambulance reached the North-South Expressway and really took off. They left at the Opalocka exit. Shayne was still going through the motions, but he was no longer getting results. The ambulance made a final screaming turn and skidded into a covered receiving area. Someone threw the back doors open, and Dr. Irving Miller took over.

  CHAPTER 16

  He smelled and tasted the needle, then plunged it into his own forearm. He waited an instant, then selected a hypodermic from several that were already prepared, and injected it in her shoulder. A second doctor pricked her finger and filled a syringe with blood.

  Shayne kept out of their way. She was still unconscious when she was carried inside.

  “How’d you like the ride we gave you?” the driver asked, grinning. “I figured for seventy-five bucks you deserved a little something extra.”

  Shayne shook his flask. It was empty.

  “Where can I get a drink around here?”

  “You’re in the wrong place, man. This is for drying out alcoholics.” He added, “But I happen to have a pint I could sell you.”

  “How much?”

  “Call it twenty-five, and then I won’t have to remember to send you change from that hundred.”

  Shayne agreed, and had a drink from the costly bottle before going inside. He was directed to a small elevator which took him to the third floor. A pretty blond receptionist started as he entered the waiting room.

  “Mr. Shayne? If you’ll wait here, Dr. Miller will let you know when he can—”

  The furniture looked comfortable, but Shayne didn’t sit down. Several expensively dressed people sitting around the room stirred uneasily and tried not to look at him. He was holding a pint bottle of whiskey, a black wig, and a loose bundle of women’s clothing, from which a bra dangled. Having been in and out of the shower with Camilla, his clothes were soaked. She had thrown up on him and spilled coffee on him. None of that could be helped. He drank again from the bottle.

  In her nervousness the receptionist broke the point of her pencil. “Would you mind putting that bottle in your pocket, Mr. Shayne? If any of our patients—”

  Ten minutes passed before Dr. Miller called him into the corridor.

  “Paul London’s with her, but that’s not what she needs right now. She’s still very disoriented. I gave her a shot of Nalline to counteract the morphine, and it seems to be taking hold nicely. Her breathing is normal. But she seems to have barbiturates inside her as well as the morphine, and I don’t want to let her sleep right now. Her blood shows a trace of alcohol, which is bad in combination.”

  “Can she talk?”

  “I want her to talk. The next quarter hour is critical. She’s blocking out everything that happened. That’s understandable, but it could do her considerable damage. She’s convinced herself that she’s worthless. If you could make her realize somehow that at this moment she’s the most important person in Miami—”

  They stepped out onto a broad terrace overlooking the bay. Several patients in bathing suits were taking the sun in reclining deck chairs. Camilla, wearing a red robe, was walking beside Paul London. Although she was leaning on him heavily, she was definitely walking. She stopped when she saw Shayne.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came in an ambulance, but I’m only a visitor.”

  “I want you to go away, please. I happen to be quite sick.”

  “That’s not news.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  Shayne glanced at Miller. The plump little doctor remained detached, watching them with his thick glasses pushed down his nose. Shayne pulled Camilla out of Paul’s grasp and slammed her against the high parapet. The sunbathers sat up in alarm. Paul made a movement of protest, but Shayne elbowed him aside and caught Camilla as she came off the wall.

  “Nine o’clock last night you picked up the suitcase and took it to the ladies’ room. The gun was inside the suitcase. You had to touch it, but it made you sick to your stomach.”

  She began to cry. “The lights were so bright there. The whiteness, the mirrors.”

  “What did you do?”

  She looked confused. “I ran out in the dark where the planes were. My shadow was hundreds of feet long, tall and thin. It wasn’t like me at all. It went on and on and then vanished. People were shouting, shouting.”

  “When you run out on a busy airfield you have to expect to be shouted at.”

  “The lights. Blue lines of light running away forever. I thought if I was an airplane I could run between the blue lights and fly! A big jet roared at me and I ran into a dark building. I was frightened. There were dim lights there like a church.”

  “Were there planes in the building?”

  “Oh, yes. An oily smell. I was so exhausted. I looked for a place to rest. Everything was metal, cement.” She drew back. “What’s the matter with you, Mike? You’re soaking wet.”

  “I took a shower, and forgot to take my clothes off.” He smiled at her. “Baby, you’re wild.”

  “I am not,” she said seriously. “I’m basically colorless and uninteresting. I can’t do the simplest thing, like tying my shoelaces or fastening a bra. Somebody was looking for me with a big flashlight. It kept stabbing in the darkness, coming closer and closer. I shot at it. When it didn’t stop coming I was so frightened I tried to shoot myself, but I couldn’t even do that. I felt so blue and depressed. He said he wanted to be my friend. He said kind things to me, and how I needed kindness. I gave him the gun and he turned out the flashlight and we talked in the dark, under a big plane. We talked a long time. We went somewhere in his car. We drove and drove. Then there was a dark room with a mattress on the floor. I think we made love. Did we, Mike?”

  “Probably.”

  “Then it was morning, the phone was ringing. I couldn’t remember why I was there, what day it was. He told me what I should do. He made me wind my watch and told me what time it should say. There were pills and a glass of water, and they made me feel better. There was a dress to put on. I found it in the bathroom and went back to the phone. He explained what I should do about the elevator at the hotel, the table I should pull over so no one could follow me into the elevator, how many shots—” She stopped, suddenly uncertain. “How many shots to fire. I missed, I know.”

  Shayne had seen a recreation room off the terrace. He took her there and snapped on the television. Everything had been canceled because of the assassination. She watched with interest at first, and then smiled indulgently.

  “You really are ingenious, Mike. I thought that was real for a minute.”

  He snapped off the set. “One thing I don’t understand is how you could make love to the guy, even in the dark.”

  “I’m not particular. I didn’t look at him.”

  “Not
even in the car?”

  She shook her head. “I simply—went with what happened. He was part of the night. I did what he told me, to get in the car, to wait while he telephoned somebody, to come inside and undress. I was frightened of him. Dark glasses. I’m worried about people who wear dark glasses at night. In the room with the mattress there were no bulbs.”

  “You talked about Crowther with him.”

  Again she shook her head. “He talked about Crowther. I can remember some of the things he said—very stupid things. That Crowther was a murderer of little children. That if I shot him I’d be part of something much bigger than a single person. What he was really saying was that I had to do it. I had to do what he said.”

  “Then you made love. Was he tall or short? You remember something. Fat or thin?”

  “Mike, I’m not at all sure we made love.” The questioning was beginning to worry her. “I sometimes make love to people I don’t want to know anything about. I’m sorry I can’t help you. You should know better than to expect any help from me.”

  “You’ve helped. I think we’re just about out of the woods. Now think about that hangar last night. Every one of those planes had an airline’s name on it. Pan-Am. Delta. Eastern.”

  She frowned. “There was a big crane. The kind of truck the tree-surgeons use, with a long arm and a bucket at the end. I bumped into a gas pump inside the door.”

  She was running down. She mumbled something incomprehensible. He took her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. Her pupils had been nearly normal for a time, but they were big again.

  “You’re a great girl, Camilla.”

  He handed her over to Paul London, who was still in the background, and Dr. Miller took him into a small office on the same floor.

  “I think that was good for her,” Miller said. “She’s worn out physically, but I don’t want to let her sleep for another hour.”

  “What happens after she wakes up?”