Brett Halliday

So Lush, So Deadly

CHAPTER 1

Raphael Petrocelli, at the wheel of Nefertiti III, a forty-four-foot fiberglass motor yacht, did his best to ignore the noises coming up from below. It was apparently quite a party. Dotty De Rham, the owner’s wife, was high as a kite on gin. She referred to what she drank as martinis, but Petrocelli—captain, navigator, odd-job man—had carried enough of those drinks to know that they had only two ingredients, ice cubes and Beefeater.

You couldn’t call her subdued at the best of times, but after a dozen so-called martinis she was as unpredictable as a drop of fat on a hot skillet. Anything she took it into her head to do she did. Petrocelli himself was sipping a weak gin and tonic in self-defense. He knew very well that this was not a good idea. It was against his principles to drink with a fifty-thousand-dollar boat in his charge. But after all. He had a straight southerly heading, the night was clear with a three-quarter moon, and the Atlantic was as still as it ever gets. What could happen?

Mrs. De Rham had a hoarse, somewhat masculine laugh, and every time it came up through the floorboards it roughened the skin at the back of Petrocelli’s neck, and he had to have another drink to ground the charge. The fact of the matter was, she was a damned unsettling woman. He knew he had to watch his step or he could get in the wrong kind of trouble. For a couple of hours that afternoon, for example, she had sunbathed on the forward deck under the wheelhouse window, wearing a nothing bikini, two little wisps of cloth that concealed very little. Petrocelli was used to that and it didn’t bother him. But after a while, when she was lying face down, she reached around and untied the top so the string line wouldn’t spoil her tan. It was amazing what a difference the little string made. Now, instead of wearing a bathing suit—it might be skimpy, but that was what women wore nowadays—she was half naked.

It was lucky for everybody that they were in deep water, with no rocks or shoals within miles, because Petrocelli had a hard time keeping his mind where it belonged. She didn’t stay flat on her stomach the whole time, but kept raising up to reach for her drink or to get Paul Brady to light her a cigarette. Brady—he was a funny one. Petrocelli hadn’t been able to make him out. He was supposed to be married, but he hadn’t brought his wife along. He was about the same age as Henry De Rham, the owner—Mrs. De Rham was older—but was he the husband’s friend or the wife’s? Petrocelli hadn’t been able to figure that one out. He had long hair, he was plump and indolent, and he made a point of saying things he thought were clever, in an offhand way. A little flitty, Petrocelli thought, not that it was any of his business.

Brady had done most of the talking that afternoon. Mrs. De Rham was quiet, her eyes half closed. At one point she interrupted him and had him oil her. Now if Petrocelli had been doing that oiling he would have had a hard time knowing at what point to stop. Her skin was as smooth as sour cream. He would have loved to get his hands on it. But from the way Brady acted he might have been waxing a car. He kept on talking. Petrocelli, who couldn’t quite hear the words, had the feeling he was trying to sell her something. Petrocelli understood that she was the one with the money in the family, though as far as the boat went De Rham was the owner of record and he signed the checks.

The sky clouded over, ending the sun-bathing, and Mrs. De Rham did a peculiar thing, or Petrocelli thought it was peculiar at the time. Still lying on her stomach with the string untied, she reached out more or less blindly and put her hand on Brady’s can. His ass, not to get too fancy about it. She left it lying there for a minute, then gave him a kind of good-natured pat and came to her feet, clutching the bikini to her breast.

That put her on a level with Petrocelli. They looked at each other for a long moment through the thermopane glass. She had a lazy smile on her mouth, which changed to a laugh as she looked in at him. She went below. What was he supposed to think about that laugh? That she had suddenly realized he wasn’t part of the furniture, or what?

The wives were one of the hazards of his job, if you could call sex a hazard. He had been captaining pleasure boats for fifteen years, and during that time he had probably banged about thirty percent of the wives, a .333 average, not bad in any league. Of course, to be honest, it wasn’t happening as often now as it did when he was getting started, a slim, well-muscled kid who took a nice tan. He was now thirty-five, and you don’t get much exercise on a boat. He had a waistline problem. He fingered the fold of fat around his middle and sat up straighter.

Still, he was making out as well as ever with the drinkers, and Mrs. De Rham was definitely one of those. He had to be careful about the first move. It was his livelihood, after all. The kind of look she had given him through the window was not enough. These women knew how to clobber you. They had a grapevine. It you grabbed the wrong one, or the right one at the wrong time, they could drive you out of the business. The way it generally worked, the wife showed up at the marina by herself and said she felt like going out for a little sail. They wouldn’t be gone long before she broke out the ice cubes. Nobody likes to drink alone. Even after a couple of drinks he would wait till she committed herself. And later, when the husband was around, it was back to “yes ma’am,” “no ma’am,” “what do you want me to do now ma’am?” They liked that part of it best, Petrocelli sometimes thought.

De Rham, in the salon, was playing his electric guitar. Not bad, either, for a non-pro.

Petrocelli reached for the bottle on the floor and added gin to his drink. One idea had suggested another, and he was remembering his last employer, a skinny redhead. She hadn’t looked too exciting in shore clothes but in the sack she had behaved like a broken high-tension wire in a thunderstorm. Mrs. De Rham was fleshier but she had that same quality. She was walking around with an explosion inside her, and if you happened to be the one who touched it off, you’d remember it the rest of your life.

Since leaving New York the weather had been pleasant, and they would reach Miami early the following afternoon. Brady was leaving them there. The De Rhams were flying on down to Brazil for the carnival, or whatever it was called, but they would have a couple of days before the plane left. They had reserved a berth in an Indian Creek marina, and Petrocelli was now reasonably certain that Mrs. De Rham would show up around two o’clock the day after they arrived. If it didn’t happen by then, it probably wouldn’t happen at all. The city heat would be mentioned, “Wouldn’t it be cooler out on the water?” “Yes ma’am.” Perhaps she would break out one of the deck mats to do some work on her tan. And would the captain please fetch some Beefeater and ice, and apply the suntan oil to the places she couldn’t reach herself? “Certainly ma’am.” “Where did she want it, exactly? Here?” “Yes, indeed. Now a little lower!” “Lower?” “Still lower!”

The breaking of glass brought his mind back to the present. For some time now, he realized, he hadn’t heard Mrs. De Rham’s mocking laugh, and De Rham had stopped playing the guitar. Petrocelli listened carefully. They were snapping and hissing at each other. He had expected something like this ever since Mrs. De Rham had given Brady that pat on the hind end. For some reason it always seemed to happen the last night out, when everybody realized that there was no longer unlimited time ahead. Another glass broke, if it was only a glass.

Then light fell on the deck and he heard footsteps on the ladder, a woman’s footsteps. He was no more superstitious than the next man, but he didn’t like to overlook anything. He rapped his knuckles sharply against the mahogany panel. If Mrs. De Rham was really looking for trouble, he would need as much luck as he could get.

“I need you, Captain,” she said. “Captain Petrocelli, Captain Raphael Petrocelli, I need you badly.”

She sounded about the same, a little more excited than usual. She went in for some pretty far-out clothes, but tonight she was wearing a short striped jacket over a low-necked print dress. He smelled gin and perfume.

She swayed toward him. She was among friends; she wasn’t wearing a bra.

“Throw out the sea anchor,” she said. “Batten down the hatches or whatever you do. I’m not inviting you to an orgy, though that might be nice at another time. We’re having a small argument, my husband and I, and I want you to witness a signature. There’s money involved. Pots and pots of money.”

She picked off his cap and clapped it on her own head. He needed that cap, it was part of his image. He made an involuntary movement after it and kicked over the bottle.

“Captain, you’re drinking,” she said lightly. “All by yourself—it’s unsociable.” Then she added in her nasty voice, “Come on, damn you.” She didn’t use that voice too often, but she got results when she did. “I’ll tolerate no mutinous officers aboard this ship.”

She had that a little wrong. They were outside the three-mile limit, and the captain gave the orders. True, she was wearing the captain’s cap, but Petrocelli was still the captain.

He gave the Chryslers a quick goose before switching them off so they would start again when he needed them. She was waiting in the doorway, giving off a wave of impatience. He could have refused to go, he supposed, but the truth was, he was curious about what was going on down there. As the responsible person aboard, it was his obligation to find out.

He didn’t interrupt anything when he walked in. The two men were sullen and silent, and they both looked as though they wished they were somewhere else. The reason De Rham was no longer playing his guitar was that somebody—three guesses who—had slammed it against the corner of the table, which must have made De Rham very sore. He loved that guitar.

In bathing trunks, De Rham was rather scrawny, which he made up for as well as he could by wearing a beard, a full one, all the way to the ears. Now his only garment was a pair of faded jeans torn off at the knees. Paul Brady, stretched out on the built-in couch with a drink on his paunch, was trying to look cool. He only succeeded in looking rigid. He was wearing a pullover, yellow linen slacks and topsiders; his ankles were crossed.

“Captain,” he murmured, “want to umpire?”

Mrs. De Rham had been a blonde that afternoon—the color was more or less natural, at least it was her own hair. Now she was wearing a dark wig. You wouldn’t have known it wasn’t real.

“I found the captain drinking gin,” she said pleasantly. “So we’re heaving to for the night. Is that the expression? Raphael Petrocelli, I think this is the first time I’ve seen you without your cap. Your forehead is unnaturally pale.”

Brady corrected her. “Naturally pale. When his cap is on the sun can’t reach it. An analogy would be those parts of a woman’s body not covered by her bathing suit.”

“Such as it is,” De Rham said.

“Such as it is,” Brady agreed.

Drunk as skunks, both of them. They were drinking scotch, against Mrs. De Rham’s gin.

“Henry, you’re the host,” she said. “Captain Petrocelli would like a drink. Spring into action.”

“I’ve sprung into action enough for one day.”

“One of the things wrong with this country,” she remarked to Petrocelli, “is the poor manners among the men. They get worse every year. When I was a girl the boys had to wear white gloves to dancing class. They bowed from the waist. They stood up when a girl came into the room.”

“That was before World War II, wasn’t it?” her husband said—which was unfair, Petrocelli thought. She might be thirty, at a stretch, but De Rham wasn’t a hell of a lot younger. Possibly twenty-six. The beard made it hard to say.

Meanwhile Mrs. De Rham was making him a drink. It didn’t take any skill. All she did was put gin in a glass.

“I’m sorry to say we’re out of ice.”

As a matter of fact, there were things Petrocelli liked better than warm gin. He probably had a few ice cubes left in the wheel-house, but he didn’t offer to get them. She was spoiling for a fight. Her mouth had a sulky look, as though she was waiting for somebody to say something, no matter what, so she could jump on it with both spike heels. The thing for Petrocelli to do was drink up and get the hell out. He was a working man. Who needed this?

“Raphael Petrocelli,” she said. “A beautiful name, and I want you to sign it to a beautiful piece of paper. Here it is. You can use my pen and keep it as a souvenir.”

She handed him a sheet of notepaper covered with a nearly illegible scribble, the lines descending steeply from left to right. She showed him a space at the bottom. Her name was already on it, Dorothy Winslow De Rham. Paul Brady had signed as a witness.

Petrocelli didn’t like to sign things without knowing what he was signing. It was one of his rules. “What is it?”

“All you’re doing is witnessing my signature, to make it more legal,” she said irritably. “It’s a formality.”

“It’s a new will,” De Rham explained. “Disinheriting me. I’m all broken up about it. I may seem indifferent, but I’m broken up inside.”

“Cut him off without a penny,” Brady said.

Petrocelli would have felt better if everybody hadn’t been so plastered, but what the hell? He wrote his name, and it was easily the most readable signature of the three. Mrs. De Rham’s had apparently been put there by a neurotic chicken.

“Now it’s official,” she said. “Captain, you have exquisite handwriting. Darling, look at his signature. Isn’t it like something on the Declaration of Independence?”

De Rham continued to stare at the overhead. Mrs. De Rham offered Petrocelli another warm drink, but he refused and headed for the door. The words being passed back and forth were polite, if a little icy, but there was violence in the air. She took him by the sleeve and stopped him.

“The boys are ganging up on me for some reason. Listen, I’m all juiced up. If anybody started playing an amplified guitar, to give a far-fetched example, I’d go through the roof. At times like these I like a little love making, the more strenuous the better. I don’t think I’ll get it from either of these esthetes. So stay on call. Do you know what I mean?”

She put his cap back on his head. Of course he knew what she meant, and he didn’t like it a bit.

“You’re a handsome male, Raphael Petrocelli. A bit lardy in spots, but definitely macho.”

Then she did something that astonished him, for all his experience with unpredictable rich women. She closed with him and kissed him. Nothing too astonishing there, but while one arm snaked around his neck the other came between them and she took hold of him. There was only one word for it—he was shocked. It was the frankest approach he had ever had from a woman. If the other two men were interested they could easily guess what she was doing. It was for their benefit, probably. But there was no pretense about the kiss. Her tongue was in his mouth.

He was swearing savagely to himself when he made the deck. She was out of her goddamned skull! Here they were, the four of them, penned in a space of forty-four feet by eighteen, out of sight of land. If she was that anxious to get laid, why couldn’t she wait till they got to Miami? She was fooling around with TNT. Somebody was going to pick the bitch up and toss her overboard. There were some things you didn’t do on a boat this size.

He went back to the pilothouse for the bottle and the ice. After shutting himself in the forward cabin he hesitated a moment, then bolted the door. She could come looking for him in the middle of the night, but he was damned if he was going to let her in. He wouldn’t enjoy it.

CHAPTER 2

Henry De Rham, on one of the bunks, was beginning to wish he had had less to drink. He literally couldn’t move.

He watched the caress his wife was giving Petrocelli, feeling oddly detached. Even if he’d known what to do about it, he was physically incapable of doing anything at the moment. Petrocelli had the look of a brawler. In a fair fight, which of the two would end up unconscious? The outraged husband, obviously.

And did he care that much? This was going a bit far, but it was a difference of degree, not of kind. Dotty wasn’t the most faithful wife in the New York metropolitan area, by any means. She was up to something, something that had nothing to do with her wayward sexual impulses. Unless she had cut the fragile ties that held her to sanity, and was really adrift?

Once, before they were married, he had thought her an agreeable kook, pretty irresponsible—but hell, so was he. She was a pleasant change from all the half-dead conventional people he had always known. Lately he had begun to think she might be overdoing the unconventionality a little. She was up, she was down. Each swing was wider than the one before. His part of the marriage was like being strapped in a roller coaster, and if it hadn’t been for other factors, namely money, he would have looked forward to the moment when the ride was over.

He and Paul Brady had been roommates at Harvard. De Rham squeaked through the four years, but Paul had pulled one D plus too many and didn’t get the diploma. Everybody they knew had a definite idea what they wanted to do after graduation. He and Paul wouldn’t have been accepted at a graduate school even if they had had the desire. They were discouraged by the thought of joining some corporation as executive trainees. They liked to write light verse, they took good photographs and liked music and theater, but they had no particular talent or overriding interest. So one night, in the course of a drunken conversation which neither took very seriously, they decided that the only sensible thing was to marry a woman with money.

And that was the way it turned out. Paul’s wife had only one drawback. She believed her husband should go to an office, any office, every morning at nine. She didn’t care what he did, so long as he did it in an office, with a phone and a secretary. Paul couldn’t go along with that, and the marriage was now on the rocks.

Dotty didn’t have that particular hang-up, but she had others. Among other things, she demanded more sympathy and support than Henry was prepared to give anybody.

The professional dropouts had the idea. You didn’t argue. You simply refused to suit-up for the rat race. You let your hair and nails grow and wore the same underwear until it fell apart. You lived in a cold-water flat until they evicted you, and then you went somewhere else. The only trouble about this from Henry’s point of view was that he was old-fashioned, he liked booze and was frightened by drugs.

He was a divided man, he supposed. Everybody was hooked on something, and he was hooked on regular meals. He saw no reason to settle for that cold-water pad unless he had to. He liked to hang over the side of an expensive boat and watch the ocean cream past. He could see nothing wrong with material possessions so long as they cost him no effort and not too much in the way of compromise. In the Catholic countries, where divorce was difficult, once you married the woman you were set for life. But not here. Here you had to exert yourself to keep her contented, or you had to have an angle. He had thought he had Dotty sewed up, thanks to a piece of carelessness on her part and some quick thinking on his. But apparently not.

He accepted the fact that he was the passive type. He had faced that about himself a long time ago, but she couldn’t accept people as they were. She was always on, she always had to be organizing, manipulating. This byplay tonight with the will—she was challenging him to be assertive and masculine and turn her over to the police, if he had the guts. She was telling him that he was a lousy blackmailer, among other things. She was calling the pot, and what was he going to do about it?

God, he was tired. Nothing was in focus. Each eye saw its own image, and he couldn’t get them to mesh. Dotty’s face, as she came back from that irritating performance in the doorway with poor Captain Petrocelli, who must have been badly confused by the time he left the room, overlapped so much with the identical face beside it that De Rham couldn’t decide what expression was on it.

“Would you like to know why I really made a new will?” she demanded.

Paul complained, “Dotty, it’s your dough and you’ve decided not to leave it to Henry. Now give it a rest.”

“No, I want to explain. He thinks it’s because I hate him. Not at all. I love him, and I wouldn’t have missed being married to him for the world. He’s not unduly masculine, but he’s a pretty good lover in an effete way, once I can get him started.”

“All you ever had to do was snap your fingers,” De Rham said.

“I can forgive him most things, using me, ignoring me, but what I can’t forgive—”

There were tears in her eyes. If those tears could be analyzed, De Rham thought, they would probably assay at ninety percent gin.

Her voice broke. “Nobody likes to be made fun of.”

That again. “Dotty, a joke,” De Rham protested.

“I know it was a joke, a cruel one. If you try very very hard, do you think you can imagine how I felt, coming into my own house, to find my husband mimicking me to his old college chum?”

“Why do I need to imagine it, honey? You’ve told me often enough.”

Paul, on the other side of the room, was trying to keep from laughing. He was about to erupt. Bad tactics, De Rham knew, because the only way to get any peace was to let Dotty unload her grievances and apologize. If you could convince her you were sincere, you had won another day.

Paul gurgled and blew. She went over to him and poured her drink deliberately on his head.

“It was a funny imitation, wasn’t it, Paul?”

“Funny as all hell,” Paul said through his laughter. “Dotty, you’re wasting good gin.”

“I didn’t think it was so funny,” she said. “I thought it was the meanest thing he’s ever done, and he can be mean without really trying. Those were private matters he was sneering at, things I told him in confidence, after sex. How do you think it made me feel, being played back in that sarcastic, distorted way? I made up my mind then—”

It was against De Rham’s best interests, but he couldn’t help himself. He was beginning to break up. That cold-water flat in Haight-Ashbury was looking more desirable all the time. Talk about tactical errors!—his imitation of Dotty in a self-examining mood had been the tactical error of the decade. It took place on a Wednesday afternoon. She was supposedly at a matinee. She had changed her mind at the last minute, missing him, and had decided to come home and make love. Paul had dropped in for lunch. He had been talking amusingly about his own deteriorating marriage, with the scotch flowing freely, and suddenly De Rham heard himself talking in his wife’s voice. Paul had shrieked with laughter, stimulating De Rham to come up with more and more outrageous effects.

They hadn’t heard the door open. She listened to quite a bit of it before interrupting. She really made De Rham labor that time. He thought he had finally persuaded her to forget about it. This cruise and the Brazil excursion were supposed to seal the reconciliation. But he had overlooked the fact that he was dealing with a wack, and as any psychiatrist could tell you, wacks never forget an injury to their ego.

“I really don’t think I want to be married to you, darling,” she said to De Rham, pouring herself more gin. “You’ll let me divorce you, won’t you?”

“Yes, that would be the gentlemanly thing to do.”

Paul said, “Except that he isn’t a gentleman. Don’t be fooled, Dotty. He has a Harvard A.B., but none of those Ivy League values really rubbed off.”

“True,” De Rham murmured. “I don’t want to compete. I’m essentially a non-competitor.”

“I’ll make you a small cash settlement—” she said.

“No-o, Dotty, put it out of your mind. The trouble with me is I’m misplaced in the twentieth century. I’m so easily satisfied. I like things as they are.”

“But they can’t stay that way!” she cried. “I can’t bear to have you around. I won’t pay any more of your bills.”

“I don’t require much.”

“Just a fifth of scotch a day.” She took his face in one hand, squeezing with her full strength. “What do I have to do to make you understand?”

He couldn’t have spoken even if there had been anything to say. She let him go in a moment. He went back to his contemplation of the designs in the ceiling. He was a bit miffed, of course, but he couldn’t allow her to upset him.

When he noticed what she was doing, he saw that she had torn a half dozen pages out of the latest New Yorker, crumpled them up and piled them on the low table. She struck her lighter, looking at him.

“Hmm?” she said idly, and set the pile on fire.

“Hey!” Paul said.

De Rham stayed where he was, holding his wife’s eyes, while Paul scrambled off the bunk, bringing a pillow, and smothered the flames. It wasn’t much of a bonfire, just enough to fill the room with smoke and ruin the coffee table.

“That was really intelligent,” Paul said. “Do you know we happen to be in a boat? That there’s nothing between us and the Atlantic Ocean but one layer of wood, and wood burns?”

De Rham told his wife softly, “Baby, you don’t fool me a bit.”

“I thought I might.”

“You’re crazy like a fox. You may have the shrinks eating out of your hand, but that’s because you pay them fifty bucks an hour. If I had fifty bucks for every hour I’ve listened to your troubles—”

“Be careful, Henry.”

“What can I lose?” He shrugged. “I’m no longer the heir apparent.”

“If I have to murder you to make you realize what you’ve done to me—”

“What have I done? You had the same flaws when I met you. I’m the one who puts up with stuff in this family.”

“Your glass is nearly empty. Don’t you want to dull your critical faculties? Have some more scotch.”

“I’m fine for the moment. Can I get you some gin?”

“I’m doing all right.” She studied him. “Unless you’ve been keeping something from me, Paul’s just about your only friend. Would it bother you if I went to bed with him?”

Paul had returned to the bunk to get his breath back. “Thanks for the compliment, love, but no thanks.”

“Henry, you sleep forward tonight. Paul and I are going to use the stateroom.”

“Consult me about it first,” Paul said. “I’ve had too many drinks. I wouldn’t be able to produce.”

She sat down beside him. “Let’s try.”

“Dot, be human. You’re having a domestic quarrel. That happens to people all the time. It’s not unique, it’s not the end of the world. I don’t want any part of it. If all you’re trying to do is irritate Henry, I suggest Petrocelli.”

“Oh, Henry wouldn’t mind that.”

De Rham didn’t like to feel angry. It was a cave-age emotion, and he was a long way from the cave. But apparently that scribbled will had affected him more than he thought. She would tear it up tomorrow. She needed him; she knew that as well as he did. But meanwhile, what if she had a sudden embolism and dropped dead at their feet? Her most recent will, dashed off in a drunken frenzy, was the one that would prevail. He didn’t believe in fooling around with money.

“The hell I wouldn’t mind it!” he shouted, spilling whiskey on his chest. “Try it and see!”

She looked across at him, interested. Her hand was on Paul’s stomach. Paul was holding onto it to keep it there. “Darling, you’re shouting.”

“Damn right I’m shouting! I’m fed up! I’m fed to the teeth with this constant baiting and teasing and tears and acting out!”

“Time for me to go to bed,” Paul put in.

“Stay,” Dotty said gently. “I really do feel like sex, and Henry’s so unpredictable when he’s hostile.”

“Goodnight, everybody,” Paul said. “See you at breakfast.”

Dotty pressed down as he tried to rise. “You’ll do what I say, Paul. You know that check I gave you. I can always stop payment when we get to Miami.”

“What check?” De Rham demanded.

“It’s my money,” she pointed out. “I do what I like with it. I’ve decided to invest forty thousand in an aerospace company Paul’s been telling me about.”

Paul moved uncomfortably. “Dotty, let’s call it a night.”

“Let’s not call it a night. The subject of money has come up, and Henry seems to be experiencing a genuine emotion.”

“Forty thousand!” De Rham said disbelievingly. “Paul, you’re in the aerospace business all of a sudden? What is the aerospace business?”

“I have to do something,” Paul said defensively. “It’s legit. Dotty had Tom Moseley look into it for her. A hell of a growth potential, they’re just a little short of cash right now. It’s going to pay off for everybody. They’ll make me a vice president if I can come in with some capital. Maybe Kath’ll call off the goddamned divorce. I don’t intend to put in a full forty-hour week.”

“Kid, you flabbergast me.”

Dotty was smiling. “I have the power, Paul. Now where were we?”

She came down and kissed him. De Rham knew it was all planned and calculated. First Petrocelli, now Paul. She was trying to provoke him into acting like a jealous husband so she could throw it at him the next time they quarreled. Being under a psychiatrist’s care gave her a kind of license to do things which were forbidden to ordinary people who couldn’t afford the fifty dollars.

With one part of his mind he told himself to stay cool. The surest way of annoying her would be to ignore her, take a couple of Seconals and go to bed. The hell with her.

A new period had opened when she wrote that new will.

He got up, and managed to stay dignified for about a tenth of a second. Then he felt a wave of murderous rage. He found himself starting for them, and he noted with an odd flash of clarity that his fingers were curled. She had got away with too many things in her time. Right here was where he was drawing the line.

CHAPTER 3

The phone rang in Michael Shayne’s Buick. Without hurrying, the big red-headed private detective opened the door for the girl he was taking to dinner, went around to the driver’s side, got in and picked up the phone.

“I have a New York call from a Mr. Joshua Loring,” the mobile operator said. “Do you want to take it?”

Shayne put a cigarette in his mouth. He hadn’t heard from Joshua Loring in fifteen years.

“Sure. Put him on.”

He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece. “An old friend. I’ll have to talk to him.”

“If it’s anything you don’t want me to hear, Michael—”

“Hell, no.” He opened the mouthpiece. “Joshua? Michael Shayne.”

“Mike,” a voice exclaimed. “I’ve been trying to get you all day. You’re a hard man to locate.”

Shayne grinned. There was a fresh bullet hole near the lower left-hand corner of his windshield, put there at eight o’clock that morning by a .44 Magnum, fired by a good-looking blonde from the open sunroof of a little Renault. Shayne had been reaching for his own .38 on the floor, and the slug had missed him by inches. The phone had been ringing, he remembered, but he hadn’t gotten around to answering it. A few minutes later, the Renault had crashed into an expressway abutment at seventy miles an hour, and the girl now lay in a funeral home in North Miami.

Shayne meant to leave the windshield as it was, to remind him not to trust people solely on the strength of an intriguing foreign accent and a nice smile.

“I’ve been moving around town, Joshua,” he said.

“I’m glad I caught up to you,” Loring said. “Something’s going on down in Miami that I’d like to have you look into for me. I’m worried about it, in fact damned worried. How are you situated? Are you busy?”

“Right now? Right now I’ve just had a few drinks with a lady and I’m about to buy her an Italian meal on the Beach.” He covered the mouthpiece and looked at the girl beside him. “And after that, who knows?”

She slid closer and touched her forehead to his shoulder.

He went on, “But why don’t you tell me about it, Joshua? If I can’t handle it maybe I can get somebody else for you.”

“It’s my god-daughter, Mike, Dotty De Rham. She was in the papers a lot at one time, before she was married. Does the name Dotty Winslow mean anything to you?”

“Not offhand.”

“Well, by papers I suppose I mean New York gossip columns. Nate Winslow was my best friend as a boy. He died when she was three or four. There’s quite a bit of money. She owns a controlling interest in Winslow Mills. I’ve got her out of a number of minor jams, but this time it could be a bit more serious—Mike, I really hate to break into your evening this way.”

“Don’t worry about it. Go ahead.”

“I’ll have to give you a little background. Dotty’s mother is a moral lightweight. There’ve been a couple of stepfathers but neither one lasted long. Dotty was kicked out of various European schools. Then she had a breakdown of sorts and spent a few months in a mental hospital. Voluntarily. She’s under psychotherapy now, and the theory is that lately she’s been getting better. She’s thirty. She married at twenty-seven, a man three years younger—Henry De Rham. I’m afraid I may be prejudiced against young men with beards, but she didn’t ask my advice. Like everything else with Dotty, that goes in cycles. Sometimes, for a few months, we have lunch once a week and she tells me everything. Then we go into a period where I represent everything she despises and she won’t have anything to do with me.”

“She has control over her property?”

“Complete control. Her father left everything in trust, but that terminated on her twenty-fifth birthday. As a matter of fact, she’s shrewd about money. I have no complaints on that score. When she makes a financial decision she seems to become a different person. All right. They’re in Miami now. They went down on their boat, the Nefertiti III, with a fellow named Paul Brady, a classmate of the husband’s. The plan as I understood it was that Dotty and Henry were going to leave the boat in Miami and go on to South America by air. She changes her mind frequently, and it doesn’t surprise me to learn that they’re still there. But something’s going on, Mike, and I don’t like it.”

“She’s been in touch with you?”

“She’s called me three times. Around one-thirty in the morning has always been her favorite time to use the phone. I’m in the hospital, incidentally. She had to bully the switchboard to get the calls through. I’ve had what they call a cardiac spasm, and I’m supposed to stay out of airplanes, or I’d be talking to you personally now instead of using the phone.”

“I’m sorry,” Shayne said. “I hadn’t heard.”

“They’re letting me go home in a few days. Dotty asked me how I was feeling and so on, and then she started talking about her will. She was pretty incoherent. She’d been drinking. She and her husband have been having difficulties, apparently. As obnoxious as I find him personally, he seemed to have a stabilizing effect on her at first. But just before she left New York she came into the office and added a codicil to her will cutting him off with a cash bequest of fifteen thousand dollars.”

“Which isn’t much in that family?”

“Which isn’t anything. We were very much at cross-purposes in that phone call, but I gathered that they’d had a fight on the way down and he’d left her, at least temporarily. I couldn’t make out what she wanted—a sympathetic listener, I suppose. I advised her to leave the codicil as it was and not cut him out completely, as long as they remained legally married. Whether anything registered I don’t know. I asked what she was planning to do, and she said she planned to have another martini. That was the level of the conversation. The next call was different—friendly and chatty. And then last night, or rather at one-thirty this morning, she called again, very drunk. She wanted to know if I could get her a reliable private detective.”

Shayne was scraping his thumbnail along the harsh reddish stubble on his jaw, the phone clamped between his shoulder and his chin.

“I couldn’t get her to tell me why,” Loring said. “She was all but unintelligible. And then Brady got on the phone. He said they’d had to fire the captain, and if you’re going to help with this, Mike, you’ll want his name. It’s Raphael Petrocelli. Apparently he made some kind of pass at Dotty while she was sun-bathing, and they let him go as soon as they tied up in Miami. He’s been hanging around the saloons, spreading stories and making vague threats.”

“Is Brady still living on the boat?”

“It seems so.”

“The name is Paul Brady? What does he do?”

“He married Katharine Kuhn, which means he doesn’t have to do anything. I don’t know anything else about him. Mike, will you go and see them?”

“Hold the line a moment.”

The girl twisted before he could say anything and kissed him lightly. “I know that look, Michael. It seems to me I’ve seen it once or twice before. For the last few minutes you haven’t known I was here, have you? In spite of the fact that I’m wearing a new dress and some rather expensive perfume.”

“Of course I’ve—”

“No, Mike. You asked me to dinner, and if I wanted to be a stinker I could hold you to it. But it wouldn’t be any fun. I know you. You’re like a racing greyhound—the minute you see the mechanical rabbit you start to run. I don’t mind, really. It’s one of your nice traits. Of course you’re not the typical greyhound, because you usually catch your rabbit.”

“The point is,” Shayne said uncomfortably, “this guy did me a favor years ago. If he hadn’t gone to bat for me I would have spent a couple of years in jail for jury tampering.”

“Yes, dear. And it’s been a very enjoyable evening, as far as it went. I’ve got some hamburger in the refrigerator. When you think of me again, call me.” She opened the door. “After you catch the rabbit.”

“Next time I’ll switch off the phone.”

“Next time we’ll take my car. It doesn’t have a phone.” The inner door of her apartment building closed behind her and Shayne went back to Loring.

“Did they give you the name of the marina?”

“The Sunrise Shores on Indian Creek. There’s something else, Mike. The role I’ve always played in Dotty’s life is a kind of court of last resort. When everything else fails, she gets in touch with Joshua Loring. I’ve spent most of the day on the phone. There’s a boy who works in my office named Tom Moseley. He prepares Dotty’s tax returns and she seems to like him. He’s visiting his parents in Sarasota, and when I didn’t succeed in tracking you down I called him and asked him to come over. He’ll be staying at the St. Albans, and he may be able to help.”

He hesitated. “I may be building this up. But I can’t persuade myself that she isn’t worried about something more than an employee who got out of line and had to be fired. And I had a hunch. She sold quite a bit of stock all through the fall and winter, on my advice, and she put the cash into savings accounts and certificates of deposit. The president of her bank is one of my close friends, and I asked him about the status of her accounts. Strictly speaking, he shouldn’t have told me, but he knows something about her medical history and he agreed to check. She’s closed everything out, Mike, a total of over seventy thousand dollars, and the checks came back endorsed for deposit in Miami Beach. A total of eighty thousand dollars, and she may have had other accounts in other banks that I don’t know about. And another point. A piece of industrial property she owns in Hoboken was put on the market and the broker accepted the first offer that came along. It wasn’t a bad price, but that’s not the way Dotty usually operates.”

Shayne said thoughtfully, “Do you know any reason why she would need cash in a hurry?”

“I can’t think of any legitimate reason.”

“Do you think she’s paying blackmail?”

“The idea’s entered my mind,” Loring said dryly.

“Can you make any guesses about what kind of hold a blackmailer could have on her?”

Loring held up imperceptibly, and from many years’ experience with all kinds of clients, Shayne had a feeling that for the first time in this phone conversation he wasn’t going to be told the truth.

“I don’t, Mike. But she’s a complicated and unusual woman, my god-daughter, and it wouldn’t be anything routine.”

“In other words, not sex?”

“I don’t think they take sex that seriously, or that’s my impression. I think you can find out if anybody can. Don’t hesitate to be tough if you have to be, she may respond to that. You’re not supposed to know about the transfer of funds. That would come under the head of meddling in her private affairs, and she has an exposed nerve on the subject. She’s asked me to recommend a private detective and I’m recommending you. She has to take it from there.”

There was a doubtful expression on Shayne’s rugged face as he listened. He had questions to ask, but he decided to look at the set-up first. He went over the names and places, and they arranged about terms.

After hanging up, he lit a new cigarette and smoked it all the way through, leaning forward against the wheel. The bullet hole in the windshield swam into focus, a small circle surrounded by a network of radiating cracks. According to Loring’s description, Mrs. De Rham wouldn’t be likely to fire at him with a heavy-caliber pistol, but she didn’t sound exactly relaxing, either.

He threw the cigarette into the street and started the motor.

CHAPTER 4

Michael Shayne was a big man, but the main impression he conveyed was competence rather than simple physical strength. He was obviously a man who could take care of himself in any company. His red hair was lightly touched with gray at the temples. There were deep lines in his face, put there by his years in an active and dangerous profession, but otherwise his appearance was almost unchanged from the time when Joshua Loring, as a lawyer for a large insurance company, had testified for him in the jury-tampering case and saved him from jail. That had been in the early days, just after Shayne set up in Miami.

He found the Sunrise Shores Marina and boarded the Nefertiti III, where he was met by a pleasant, glassy-eyed young man who gave his name as Paul Brady. Mrs. De Rham was asleep, he said, she had fallen asleep drinking martinis, and he advised Shayne to try again a few hours later.

Leaving the marina, he began hitting the nearby bars, looking for the Nefertiti’s ex-captain. At the end of the afternoon, after finally finishing with the cops and the newspapermen and TV crews, Shayne had downed several belts of cognac, had stood in a shower for some time, letting the warm water dissolve the tensions that had accumulated over the last few days, and then had stepped out dripping to call the girl and ask her to dinner. He was wearing a dark blue summer-weight suit and one of the few neckties in this part of town. But Shayne had a way of blending with any background, and when he entered a big, noisy bar called Riley’s he didn’t seem out of place.

This was a new kind of waterfront bar, catering to the crewmen who worked on the big pleasure-boats moored in nearby marinas. He ordered cognac and sipped it deliberately, waiting for the bartender to look his way. When the man caught his eye Shayne called him over.

“I’m looking for a guy named Petrocelli. Do you happen to know him?”

“They come and they go,” the bartender said. “I don’t know names. Another brandy?”

Shayne nodded. When the man came back with the Martell’s Shayne went on, “He’s not working now, but he came in on a New York boat that’s berthed at the Sunrise Shores. A fifty-thousand dollar job. Who would I ask?”

“I wouldn’t know what to advise you.” He motioned at the drinkers along the bar. “Nine-tenths of them transients. When the owner says go, they go.”

He brought back change from a five. Shayne waved it away.

“Think about it. Somebody must know.”

He finished his cognac while the bartender moved up and down the bar, giving no sign of thinking about anything. But after a time he spoke to someone at the far end, and a man pushed off and came toward Shayne. He was red-faced, with anxious eyes and a too-ready smile, and looked like a small political wheel.

“What’s your fellow’s name again?”

“Petrocelli. I just want somebody to point him out for me. Can I buy you a drink?”

“Scotch and water.”

Shayne signaled. “My name’s Mike Shayne. It’s nothing too urgent. Just a few questions.”

“Shayne?” the man said, less edgily. “I knew you looked familiar. I’m in marine supplies. I deal directly with the captains, working out of my hat, so to speak, on commission. Do you have the name of his boat?”

“Nefertiti III.”

The bartender brought his scotch and water and he drank half of it before setting it down, as though afraid that Shayne would take it away if he failed to deliver.

“I know the Nefertiti. Nice boat, I wouldn’t mind owning her myself. I heard they paid off their captain so I decided to offer my services, if they needed anything, and there are things they’re bound to need, coming off a thousand-mile cruise. And good Christ! If they’d had a dog aboard they would have set him on me. That rarely happens. Yachtsmen as a rule are friendly people, they have to be, living in each other’s laps the way they do. Some queer with long hair came out of the cabin yelling, ‘Get off this goddamn boat,’ and so on and so forth. I won’t say it’s the first time it ever happened, but I’m not going to pretend I like it. I’m not selling magazine subscriptions or anything of that nature. Things they need, things they’ll have to buy anyway, and from not having any overhead I can give a good discount, fifteen percent off list, five percent to the captain is my usual policy. Well! He could have asked me politely, but he used profanity on me. I drop an occasional damn or hell myself, but he used the whole gamut of four-letter words. I mean! He was pretty well zonked.”

He gave himself more whiskey. “As I say, I do know the Nefertiti.”

A tall dark man in a T-shirt, drinking beer beside Shayne, said, “What’s this Petrocelli’s first name?”

“Raphael.”

“And you want somebody to point him out?” He finished his beer, his Adam’s apple working. “I’ll point him out for you.”

He put down his glass and straightened. He was very tall, six foot six or seven, but he didn’t carry enough weight for his height. A man wearing a captain’s cap and cruising clothes was standing near the jukebox with a pretty dark girl in a very short skirt. The tall man made his way to him and flicked his shoulder. He looked up. The tall man nailed him with an ungainly right to the point of the jaw.

“That’s one way to point somebody out,” Shayne observed.

“I don’t know him,” the commission man said. “I see him around. Quite a mouth on him when he’s loaded, and loaded is the only way I see him.”

Petrocelli had gone backward, keeping his feet but making a complete turn so he hit the jukebox with his shoulders. The record skipped a few grooves.

The girl gave a little scream. “Jerry, you cluck, what do you think you’re doing?”

The cap had been jolted to the back of Petrocelli’s head. He had handsome features, very dark skin, even white teeth. There was a roll of fat above his belt, and he looked out of condition. One arm was tattooed.

The crowd shifted, leaving the floor clear between the two men. Petrocelli shook his head hard.

“What was that about? Will somebody tell me?”

The tall man, posing briefly before and after each blow as though having his picture taken, hit him twice in the stomach. The blows were given away long before they landed.

Petrocelli offered no defense. He made a puffing sound each time. Realizing finally what was being done to him, he made a fist and swung up at the taller man. He was hit in the face with a short punch which rocked him back against the jukebox again. He began to slide.

Until that moment everything had been slow-paced and deliberate. The bartender was trying to get out from behind the bar, but the crowd was densely packed there and wouldn’t move to let him through. Suddenly the action speeded up. The girl seized the tall man’s arm and tried to pull him away. He went on hitting Petrocelli as he slid, and then brought up his knee hard into Petrocelli’s soft middle.

Shayne finished his cognac and set the fat little glass on the bar with a sigh.

Two fast strides took him to the tall man. Petrocelli was all the way down now, and his assailant was kicking him. Brushing the girl aside, Shayne took the tall man by the upper arm and twisted savagely, bringing him back from Petrocelli and all the way around, into the corner between the jukebox and the wall. The arm was as thin as a stick, and felt almost as brittle.

“The fight’s over,” Shayne announced.

The tall man struggled for breath. His eyes were insane. He drove the four stiffened fingers of his right hand at Shayne’s face. The detective went beneath it, taking it on his forehead. He wanted to end this fast. He dropped his shoulder, faked with a left and a movement of his eyes, and brought his right into the other’s body, below the heart. The long body folded and began to sag. The dark girl leaped at Shayne, her arms windmilling, and began kicking the backs of his knees. As Shayne turned to deal with her, the back of his hand collided with the lower part of her face. It was unintended, but the movement was swift and decisive, and knocked two front teeth out of her mouth.

She pitched forward, her mouth wide, showing the bloody gap. Shayne heard gasps of dismay in the crowd. Somebody shouted. Three men closed in on him from three separate directions and nearly brought him down.

He took care of one with a swinging elbow, and managed to pull another into a chopping left that sent him wandering backward, dazed. The third man was still hanging on, one arm clamped around Shayne’s neck. Shayne ran him back hard against the bar. The curved lip of the bar jarred the breath out of the man’s body and loosened his grasp so Shayne could work one hand inside the hold and break it.

There was a sound of glass being broken.

That changed the nature of the fight. The customers nearest the door drained into the street. The tall man, facing Shayne in a knife-fighter’s crouch, had a jagged beer bottle in one hand. The jukebox was silent.

“Why don’t we stop this before somebody gets hurt?” Shayne said reasonably. “I asked you to point somebody out for me. You did it. Thanks.”

Two of the men were advancing on Shayne, less eager to jump him now. The tall man said jerkily, “No, boys, I want to take care of him myself. Boys. Let me. Did you see the way he slugged Sandy?”

The girl lay on the floor in an obscene tumble, her skirt above her waist. Blood gushed from her mouth.

“That was an accident,” Shayne said. “It looks worse than it is. Just a couple of teeth. Why don’t we call this off so we can get her to a doctor?”

“You’ve got something coming to you, mister,” the tall man said.

Shayne’s hand lay on the bar, palm up. He was hoping the bartender would have the sense to put a sap in it. On the floor, Petrocelli crawled toward him, but he was going to be no help.

The tall man glided forward, his right foot advanced, the bottle low. Shayne wished he knew how drunk he was. Even without the bottle he out-reached Shayne by inches. The bottle, unlike a knife, could only be used in a forward direction, and if he moved as deliberately as when he was swinging at Petrocelli, there was nothing to worry about.

Shayne felt something hard in his hand. He was looking into the man’s eyes. They were a pale watery blue, without depth, with tiny pupils. They changed slightly.

Shayne brought the club around as the man struck with the speed of a snake, aiming to the right to catch Shayne’s abdomen if he moved that way. Shayne had him beaten, and he was only going to be allowed the one move. Seeing the club whirl toward him, the man lurched and brought the jagged bottle upward toward Shayne’s face. If Shayne had been without a weapon, he would have had to parry it with his hand. He deflected the blow with a hard flick of the billy, then brought the wood in against the tall man’s head.

There was a solid clunk. That was that.

“Can you stand up?” Shayne said to Petrocelli.

Petrocelli moved his head. “No.”

“Try,” Shayne told him.

The short wooden club discouraged the tall man’s friends. Petrocelli clawed himself up with the help of the bar and stared blearily at Shayne. This time the fight was really over. To make it official a siren sounded. It was on Collins, coming fast.

Shayne grunted. He wasn’t welcome on this side of the bay. Peter Painter, the Miami Beach Chief of Detectives, was an old enemy, who loved to harass the detective and would give a week’s pay for the chance to book him for knocking out a woman’s teeth in a fight in a bar. He had tied Shayne up for as long as twelve hours on a traffic violation, and this time, through pure chance, he had something more serious.

Shayne was moving the point of the short wooden club in an arc. With his other hand under Petrocelli’s arm, he started along the bar in the opposite direction from the street.

“Leave the nightstick,” the bartender said behind him.

“In a minute. Tell the cops I was an innocent bystander here. If they have any questions I’ll call in tomorrow.”

The drinkers fell away in front of him. When he reached the serving door he dropped the club on the bar. He pulled Petrocelli into a small unoccupied kitchen, through another bare room into an alley.

When they reached the end of the alley the siren was dying. Shayne looked up carefully. Three cops jumped from the cruiser and entered the bar through the front entrance.

CHAPTER 5

Petrocelli was nearly strong enough to walk by himself.

“They’ve got nothing on me,” he said, resisting Shayne’s pull. “I didn’t start that fight.”

“You weren’t even in it.” Shayne continued to walk him toward the Buick. “That’s not the point. By the time they get everything straightened out it would be this time tomorrow night. I suppose that was Jerry’s girl you were with?”

“He may think she’s his girl. That’s not what she told me.”

Shayne opened the car door and put Petrocelli inside. Petrocelli touched his head.

“The sons of bitches got my cap.”

Shayne started the motor and took the next right. Another right brought them to Collins. He headed south.

“I’ve had that cap a long time,” Petrocelli said. “I just about had the bastard broken in.”

“Tough,” Shayne commented.

“Now wait a minute,” Petrocelli said more strongly. “I don’t know who you are, or where the hell you think you’re going—”

“I’m Mike Shayne, a private detective. I didn’t walk into that because I get any pleasure out of fighting six-and-a-half-foot drunks with broken beer bottles. I want to ask you why the De Rhams fired you, and I didn’t want him to rupture your kidneys first.”

Petrocelli groaned. “That’s right, remind me.” He prodded his midsection. “He was kicking me, wasn’t he?”

“Just with loafers,” Shayne said. “Do you want a drink?”

“Man, I’m dying for a drink.”

There was no convenient place to park in Miami Beach any more. Shayne pulled into a hotel parking lot, paying heavily to be allowed through the gates. The instant he cut his lights and the ignition Petrocelli started to get out.

“They won’t let you in a bar with that much blood on you,” Shayne said. Switching on the dome light, he reached over and opened the little refrigerator built into the back of the front seat. “Is whiskey all right?”

“Gin, if you’ve got it. Just on ice, and forget the vermouth.”

Shayne broke out the ice cubes, dropped two in a glass and filled the glass with gin.

“You don’t happen to have Beefeater?” Petrocelli said.

“Hell, no. Do you want Gilbey’s, or don’t you?”

Petrocelli put out his hand for the glass. Most of the gin was gone by the time Shayne had taken the top off a flask of brandy and filled it.

“That’s better,” Petrocelli said, breathing out. “I liked the sound that sap made against that jerk’s head. What a surprise! I mean, the fox is O.K., but she’s definitely not the big thing in my life. And he didn’t say one word. Just walked up and tapped me on the shoulder and pow!”

Shayne had left the dashboard lights on. He saw an apparently easy-going, self-satisfied man in his mid-thirties, less good looking than he once had been. There was a thickening around his jowls. The fight had sobered him, but the new gin seemed to be spreading rapidly.

“Is it true that you made a pass at Mrs. De Rham?” Shayne said.

Petrocelli had just taken a mouthful of cold gin. He sputtered some of it up.

“Is that what they’re telling people?”

“Words to that effect. Isn’t it true?”

“It’s the pure exact opposite of true!” Petrocelli said emphatically. “It’s an absolute goddamn lie. If that’s the rap they’re trying to hang on me, I better start using the old apple. You skipped the bit about being careful what I say because you can use it against me. Everybody’s supposed to get that. And I’d like some more Gilbey’s if you don’t mind. I spilled part of it.”

“As soon as we clear up a few points.”

“Such as who are you working for?”

“I had a call tonight from Mrs. De Rham’s attorney in New York City. She told him her captain got out of line while she was taking a sunbath and they had to fire him. Now he’s drinking too much and making threats.”

“What crap!”

“I haven’t checked with Mrs. De Rham yet. I went to the boat tonight and saw a man named Brady. She was asleep.”

“She was passed out, you mean. The cocktail hour on that boat goes around the clock.”

“What’s your side of the story, Petrocelli?”

“I wasn’t even fired, if it comes to that.” He touched the side of his jaw and winced. “I keep finding new places that hurt. That cat could hit. Come on, Shayne, if you want me to cooperate, dole me out some more anesthetic.”

Shayne reached for the bottle and filled his glass. “If you weren’t fired I take it you quit?”

“I didn’t exactly quit either. You know what she wants you to do, Shayne. She wants you to run me out of town. That’s going to be the easiest job you ever had. Tell me what flight you want me to be on and I’ll be on it. I’ve already got the ticket. I think the tall guy in the bar was trying to tell me something, don’t you? If I get a little more warning next time I think I can take him, but I don’t know about him and his friends both. He’s off that big diesel yacht, the Rosebud, with a crew of five. And Sandy. With that hole in the front of her mouth, I mean where’s the incentive? She’s going to look like a zombie until she gets fixed.”

“Are you ready to tell me what happened?”

“In a minute, in a minute. Do me a favor? If Mrs. De Rham says I made any kind of a move, if she claims I took the initiative in any way, knock her teeth down her throat, will you, Shayne? You seem to be good at it. You know the story in the Bible? Joseph and what’s his-name’s wife? I’m telling it to you the way it was. Listen, if you want a word of advice from a veteran, wear a jock when you talk to her. Do I make any sense?”

“All this happened with her husband aboard? That’s hard to believe.”

“I didn’t believe it myself, Shayne. She took those sun-baths of hers on the forward deck, right in front of the wheelhouse, in a two-piece bathing suit the size of a couple of special delivery stamps. Sometimes she even untied the top, so except for one little strip across her can she was bare all the way down. And I was supposed to be keeping an eye on the compass needle.”

“Who else was along, just her husband and Brady?”

“That’s all. I don’t want you to think I’m bragging or anything, but it was one of those situations. Brady you saw. De Rham’s a nice enough guy, but he’s not exactly Marlon Brando, you know? One of those quirky beards. A peace-loving character, and she walked all over him. I never could figure where Brady fitted in, I mean the three of them. Nowadays you can’t tell the boys from the girls by the clothes they wear and which one has the hair down to the shoulders, but whether they had anything offbeat going I couldn’t tell you. All I know is, there was juice in the air.”

He drank. “And when I say juice—Shayne, on a damp day you could see sparks in the air. The amount of liquor they consumed! I don’t mind taking a drink myself, I’ve got no scruples against it. But that’s on dry land. I don’t touch a drop on the water. It’s one of those things I never do.”

“Never?”

“Never,” Petrocelli said firmly. “It’s like a religion, booze and power boats don’t mix And you know it’s a constant temptation when everybody else is totally stoned. Whatever she tells you about what happened that last night, nine-tenths of it has got to be the gin talking. Bear that in mind. She was up in her private space capsule, going around and around.”

“Now tell me what did happen.”

Petrocelli seemed confused suddenly, as though he himself had trouble remembering.

“I ducked my responsibility, in a way. When I hit the sack that night I would have given you a hundred to one there was going to be trouble. I don’t mean minor trouble. That woman was just too much. She had me on the canvas in ten seconds of the first round. It was no contest.”

Shayne let him pause to get organized.

“They were doing some yelling,” Petrocelli said. “She wrote a will cutting De Rham off, and she had me come down and sign it. He had a long scratch on his face and she’d busted his guitar. That won’t mean anything to you, but he loved that guitar. You could tell by the way he held it. I heard glasses being thrown or dropped. They had some kind of fire, I don’t know what, but next morning there was this big burned place on the coffee table. They were all ready to get their fingers in everybody else’s eyes. Brady was trying to keep out of it but it was taking a lot out of him. I did have a drink at that. She gave me one after I witnessed her signature. And then she said, and I quote, ‘Stay on call, in case neither of these two bums can get it up.’ Or that was the idea of it, I don’t recall the exact words. And she gave me a French kiss and a feel, with Brady and De Rham looking at us. Man, was I embarrassed! I skinned out of there so fast. I even locked my door from the inside because whatever was going to happen I didn’t want to be in the middle of it.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s as far as I can take it, of my own knowledge. Not to beat around the bush or anything, but I thought somebody was going to get killed! It was that kind of climate. But what could I do? Nobody was listening to me. Next morning we were off Palm Beach. The course we’d laid out would take us in through Lake Worth to finish up on the Intracoastal Waterway. They wanted to see Lauderdale and so on. So of course after all the drinking they were all three of them sacked in and I was the only one awake. They didn’t see Delray Beach, they didn’t see Boca Raton, they didn’t see Pompano. At about eleven Brady struggled up on deck, with a couple of poached eggs for eyes. Mr. and Mrs. were back at it in the master stateroom, hammer and tongs. I had a sort of headache myself from all the tension. What I was looking forward to was finding the Sunrise Shores, number one, and a nice uncomplicated bar, number two. I’d just about made up my mind that I and the De Rhams had had it. I might have been able to promote myself a piece if I stuck around, but she was too ticky for my taste. I’ll take advantage of something if it falls in my lap, it goes with being a captain, but I like to keep a sense of proportion.”

“Who paid you off?”

“De Rham. I didn’t see her again to talk to. But I heard her! You know how sound travels on a boat. They were having this same argument all across the north bay. I heard enough to get the gist, and it was all about how Captain Petrocelli was the only real man aboard that boat. I know it sounds self-centered,” he said smugly, “but that’s what she was saying. She didn’t want to have a real dingdong affair with me, all she wanted to do was try me a couple of times. She couldn’t see why he objected. Shayne, it made me shiver. After we tied up, De Rham came out and he looked like death warmed over. Circles under his eyes the size of oranges. He said that under the circumstances, et cetera et cetera, I’d better start traveling. I was only too happy, as you can imagine. People are always looking for captains who don’t look like out and out goons. He was nice about it, nothing but friendly words spoken. I picked up my gear and hit the dock in about thirty seconds flat.”

“That sounds clear enough,” Shayne said. “What’s this harassment she’s complaining about?”

“She’s got a nerve complaining. I got myself a room and began reconnoitering bars. Riley’s has been more or less my headquarters. I had to get the taste of the Nefertiti out of my mouth. Then I got to thinking. I walked off without a reference. I could get along without it, but it’s the kind of thing I like to have. Like now. You’re wondering who to believe, me or Mrs. De Rham, and if I had a reference I could show it to you and that would settle it. See what I mean? So I went back.”

He was so caught up in his explanation that he was neglecting his drinking. Shayne let him tell it his own way.

“I talked to Brady. He was in a hell of a mood. A chip on his shoulder. What the hell was I bothering them about? De Rham wasn’t there. Mrs. De Rham wasn’t feeling too well and I couldn’t see her. But I mean! Why should he be the spokesman? I felt like picking him up in my thumb and forefinger and dropping him in the bay. We were never buddy-buddy at any time. I was always the, you know, employee. I can be stubborn when I feel like it and I came back the next day. De Rham still wasn’t there, Mrs. De Rham still wasn’t feeling too well. This time Brady and I had a little altercation, a little back and forth. I wasn’t stone cold sober myself. I thought of getting Mrs. De Rham to write me the reference, but that’s not the same thing, De Rham’s the owner of record. And Brady, the punk, do you know what he did? He came on with a goddamn pistol.”

He drank, finally, and held his glass to the light to show Shayne he could use more gin. Shayne sipped his cognac and waited.

“I have an allergy to guns, personally,” Petrocelli said. “Is a reference worth getting shot to death over? But it struck me later—why the paranoia? Where was De Rham, exactly? They were supposed to be going to South America, so why was she still here? I had a couple of drinks with individuals who work at the marina, the night guard, the kid who pumps gas. Nobody’s seen any sign of De Rham after the first day. And that’s a real party they’ve been having, she and Brady. A real flow of bottles. She’s only been off the boat like a few times at night to use the phone, and not navigating too well. Well, hell. Extracurricular sex—what’s wrong with that? I’m in no position to judge. I just about decided to let it go when I got a call from her at the motel.”

“When?”

“Couple of days ago. She sounded pretty good, not slurring her words or anything. She said she’d been under the weather lately, which is one way to put it. Now she’d heard I’ve been going around spreading slander about her, which is a lie. I’ve only talked to a few people and I’ve said nothing but the truth, namely that she and Brady are alone on the boat and what happened to the husband? She said she didn’t like to think I was holding a grudge, it was just the way things worked out. So why didn’t I go back to New York? She was willing to give me a hundred, like severance pay, to cover transportation. She didn’t want me coming back to the boat, because Paul and I would be sure to tangle, so she’d send it to me.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Everything’s wrong with it!” He turned in the seat. “De Rham already gave me an extra hundred for transportation when we parted company. What makes her so anxious to get me out of town? Why should Paul he carrying a pistol? There’s more here than meets the eye. Dig? I’m planning to go back to New York eventually, because, not wanting to say anything against your hometown, Shayne, I’m not too crazy about the weather down here. Meanwhile, I’m in no hurry. I’m shacked up with this Sandy. She was right there beside me in the bed when I took the call. I told Mrs. De Rham sure, send me the hundred, and it came in the mail. Now a hundred bucks may not mean much to you or to me, but she’s in one of the upper tax brackets and she don’t part with that kind of dough unless there’s a reason. I mean she gave me a five for Christmas last year! I thought about it and I thought about it, and the explanation I came up with finally was that she wanted me out of town because she and Brady between them have put De Rham out of his misery!”

He held up his hands to keep Shayne from objecting.

“I know. What have I got to go on? He’s probably alive and well somewhere and there’s nothing to it. But you can’t get around the fact. There were four people on the Nefertiti when she came in, including me, and there are only two people on her now. The clincher as far as I’m concerned, and maybe you won’t think this is such a big deal, is the guitar. It’s still on the boat. I saw it the day Brady pulled the gun on me.”

“I thought you said she smashed it.”

“No, she just put a dent in it and broke the strings. What I’m getting at is—if he got fed up with the way she was treating him and walked off, he would have taken the guitar with him. It was hardly ever out of his hands on the way down. Anything else he might leave, but not the guitar.”

Shayne was scraping his chin. “Let’s get the chronology. Your two visits to the boat, and the call from Mrs. De Rham.”

Petrocelli shook his head. “The dates have been running together on me lately, Shayne. The call was like five days ago now. You could verify it with the cops, because I called them that same day. I don’t know if you’ll think it was finky or not, but if there’s any chance of a murder! The thing of it is, of the three of them De Rham was the one I liked. I know it’s probably all in my head. But somebody ought to go and ask her one simple question: ‘What have you done with your husband, Mrs. De Rham? Where is he?’”

“Who did you talk with?”

“What cops? I saw a couple. One named Richardson?”

“Luke Richardson. I know him.” Shayne finished his cognac and screwed the cap back on the flask. “Do you have any money?”

“I’ve got about four hundred in the safe at the motel. Why?”

Shayne opened his wallet and counted out three fifties. “I don’t think you’d better go back there. I’ll check you in somewhere else.”

“Why? What do you mean?” Petrocelli said, alarmed. “You don’t think anybody’s going to—”

Shayne said roughly, “I don’t know a damn thing about it, but they obviously don’t want you in Miami. Brady has a gun. Guns have a way of going off. All you have to do is pull the trigger.”

“Don’t be dumb. You don’t really think that creep Brady—” He stopped, his eyes narrowing. “Shayne, do you know it never actually dawned on me until right this minute? If he killed De Rham, if he tied an anchor to him and dropped him in the bay, I’ve been playing with fire! I think you may be right. I’d better stay out of sight for a while.”

He shuddered and drank the gin-flavored melted ice at the bottom of his glass. “Now that I think of it, that Brady has a bad eye. Mean and lazy. He wouldn’t walk a block out of his way, but if he could do it without getting up, yeah—I really think he could pull that trigger.”

CHAPTER 6

Shayne took Petrocelli to a motel in Biscayne Park, on the Miami side of the bay. The gin had finally caught up to him, and he seemed badly frightened. Shayne left him watching a gangster movie on T.V.

Using an outside phone booth, he called Luke Richardson, the Beach detective who had talked with Petrocelli. He was at home, still awake, and Shayne heard gunfire in the background. Apparently he was watching the same movie.

“Petrocelli,” he said, after Shayne told him what he wanted. “I caught that squeal. Who’s your client, Mrs. De Rham?”

“Her lawyer. I haven’t been able to talk to her yet. How seriously are you taking this?”

“I think he could have something, Mike. Did he tell you about the guitar? I didn’t get the full story. My theory with somebody like Petrocelli, you sit still and let him talk. But as luck would have it, Chief Painter didn’t have anything better to do that day—”

“Is he mixed up in this?”

“You know Painter, he doesn’t like anything to happen anywhere on the Beach that he doesn’t know about, especially involving people who own fifty-thousand-dollar boats. He didn’t like Petrocelli on sight. He put him down as a drunk with a grievance, fired for cause and out to make trouble, and he more or less threw him out. As a matter of fact, we’ve been getting a lot of these marina cases lately. After a few days at sea one of those luxury boats is like a pressure cooker, and things happen. Wait a minute till I turn down the T.V.”

He was back in a moment. “We talked to Mrs. De Rham the next day, and a man named Paul Brady, I think, a passenger. She’s the kind of society-page dame Painter gets protective about. She was haughty with him, and he ate it up. If you ask me, she was plastered. She could hardly finish a sentence. But you know Painter—if they have money everything’s understandable. Her husband walked out and she was drinking to kill the pain. Officially that’s where it stands.”

“How about unofficially?”

“Unofficially, I put out a missing persons sheet. I’ve got the marina people keeping a schedule of all traffic on or off the Nefertiti, and I’m going to stay on it myself until De Rham shows. That’s about all I can do, given Painter’s theory about not making waves. They’re visitors in town, and Miami Beach lives on visitors.”

“What did you think about the situation on the boat?”

“I think Mrs. De Rham and Brady are probably sleeping together, Mike, but that’s not a law we enforce, since we live on visitors. I don’t quite think they murdered him. Why would they hang around? All they have to do is put gas in the tank and go.”

Shayne told him about Mrs. De Rham’s cash transfers from New York, and Richardson whistled.

“Then I think we’d better start looking for unidentified corpses. Keep in touch, Mike. Incidentally, I just got a call. Somebody using your name beat up a woman in a bar. I don’t have to tell you how Painter reacted. I’m sure he jumped up and down. Better stay out of his way for a few days.”

“I always stay out of Petey’s way. I just wish he’d stay out of mine.”

He hung up thoughtfully. After a moment he returned to the Buick and drove back to the Sunrise Shores. Only one light burned aboard the Nefertiti, a battery lantern at the inboard end of the gangway. Tacked beneath it was a message printed on a shirt-cardboard:

Mike Shayne: Looks hopeless for tonight. She’s sound asleep and snoring. Going to bed myself. Try tomorrow at 9.—Brady.

Shayne frowned, feeling disconcerted and off-balance, as though he had missed a step coming downstairs in the dark. He had just been picking up momentum.

But there was nothing he could do except go home. He returned to Miami, taking his time, and garaged the Buick. He lived in an apartment hotel on the north bank of the Miami River, in the same two rooms he had rented when he first came to town. He still needed the same amount of space, he liked the down-at-the-heels neighborhood, and he saw no reason to move.

He made a final brandy and soda. While he drank it and prepared for bed, he thought about the De Rhams and Paul Brady. There were immense gaps in what he had been told. Something was seriously out of focus, but he had always had the ability to stop speculating about possibilities when he ran out of facts. He added up his checkbook, filled out his expense register, and turned out the light.

He was instantly asleep.

In the last year or so there had been a wave of boat robberies in Miami Beach. Professional thieves had discovered with delight that an amazing number of women on boats took their jewels along, and an amazing number of men carried amazing amounts of cash. The big marinas, which at first had been nothing but long floating docks, had begun to adopt security measures, and when Michael Shayne entered the Sunrise Shores the next morning he had to pass inspection by a uniformed guard.

Nearly every berth was taken. The Nefertiti was at the extreme end of its row, with open water on two sides. Paul Brady, in bathing trunks and sunglasses, was reading the Miami Herald on the forward sun deck. He folded the paper, weighted it with the coffee pot, and stood up as he saw Shayne approaching.

“Mike Shayne. I knew you’d be up early.”

“It’s not that early. Is Mrs. De Rham awake?”

Brady shook his head. Shayne saw himself reflected in the wraparound lenses of the sunglasses.

“She may be awake but she’s not up. But by God, she’s going to get up. Her husband’s been gone about two weeks now. Don’t you think it’s time she got used to the idea? I’ll get you a cup. Pour yourself some coffee while I bang on her door.”

He ducked in through a companionway and disappeared in the galley, to return a moment later with a cup and saucer, which he had just rinsed.

“We run what’s known as an untaut ship, wall to wall filth. Dishes tend not to get washed.”

“I’m told she’s been drinking,” Shayne said.

“She’s been drinking. I keep her company up to a point, but after a certain number of drinks I get sleepy.”

“This is all because her husband walked out on her?”

Brady threw out his hands. “Ask her head-shrinker. She didn’t do much twenty-four-hour drinking before this happened. They had their fights, but this time I think she’s finally convinced he means it. She’s beginning to pull out of it, I think—I mean I hope. That visit from the cops shook her up. It’s time she took some nourishment. She must have lost about fifteen pounds.”

“What’s your role here, Mr. Brady?” Shayne asked. “Just a friend?”

“Just a long-suffering friend. I thought they’d decided to make up, or I wouldn’t have come along. I have a marital problem of my own. But when they had the bad fight and the drinking started, I thought somebody ought to stick around. I don’t mind telling you I’m close to the end of the road.”

He crossed the salon and went down one step to rap on the stateroom door. He had promised to bang on it; instead, he knocked respectfully and repeated the knock when there was no response.

“What do you want?” a voice called.

He ducked his head, tried the door as though suspecting it might be locked, and stepped in.

Shayne poured himself coffee and waited. He was on the boat’s exposed side. He was half-sitting on the rail, not wanting to commit himself to a deck chair. A girl came out on the deck of the next boat, separated from Shayne only by the width of the catwalk. She had long blonde hair, coming down to where an old-fashioned bathing suit would have begun if she had been wearing that kind instead of a bikini. She came up on her toes and stretched, up and out.

She smiled at Shayne. “Good morning. Are you through with that paper?”

“It’s not mine. Throw it back when you’re done with it.”

He handed it across. She took it with another pleasant smile, found a pair of sunglasses, and settled herself. Shayne stayed where he was. She looked up from the headlines almost immediately.

“You certainly have some weird murders in Miami, don’t you?”

“I know. But most of the murderers have only been with us a short time.”

This was a game Shayne didn’t mind playing when he had nothing else to do. Brady came out before he could make the next move.

“Hi, Sally.”

“I borrowed your paper.”

“Keep it.” He picked up his coffee cup. “It’s going to take Mrs. De Rham a few minutes. Bring your coffee around here, Shayne. There’s a breeze.”

Shayne lifted one eyebrow to the girl and followed Brady to the blind side of the boat.

“This is like living in a department store window,” Brady said in a lower voice. He moved a chair so he could sit down and put his feet on the rail. “I’m afraid I gave you the wrong impression, the way I fielded your last question. I wasn’t trying to duck anything. I know it looks as though there’s a little adultery going on here. That was what the cops thought. They kept looking for a chaperone. But how could I walk off and leave her? Only husbands are allowed to do that. Of course I sympathize with the guy, he’s an old friend of mine. He’s taken plenty of punishment. So have I the last couple of weeks.”

“How about her family?”

“There’s a mother in the south of France. I was supposed to be back in New York last week, so I finally cabled. I haven’t had an answer yet, and I don’t even know if she got it. After the cops were here I got Dotty to phone the lawyer, I forget his name—”

“Loring.”

“Loring, yeah, he’s some kind of guardian. But he just had a heart attack, it turns out, which leaves me.”

There was a bowl of mixed nuts on a low table, and he was shoveling them into his mouth as he talked. His hair was long but carefully tended. He had a petulant mouth and a chin with a deep dimple. His womanish chest and thighs were deeply tanned. He was still wearing his shades, though this stretch of deck was in shadow. Shayne, as a detective, would have liked to abolish sunglasses. They hampered him. Brady’s manner was confident, but Shayne had a feeling that his eyes were darting nervously from side to side behind the screen of the glasses. The salted nuts and the coffee kept his hands busy.

“She looks like the wrath of God,” Brady said. “And she’s worried about it so go easy on her, will you? It wasn’t exactly simple, talking her into this. It was my idea that a private detective could help, but she only agreed to it because I thought of working it through the lawyer.”

He threw more nuts into his mouth. “I don’t know what’s taking her so long. She said she’d just put on some lipstick. Well, I might as well tell you. The complication, the thing she didn’t tell the cops when they talked to her, is that when Henry walked, he took some of her cash with him. He cleaned her out.”

“How much?”

“She doesn’t know for sure. It could be as much as five thousand.”

“How did she happen to have that much with her?”

“Because she’s a little batty.” He lowered his voice abruptly. “Jesus, I hope she didn’t hear that. If you look at her cross-eyed she starts screaming. She always has to have cash around, because what if she sees a diamond bracelet or something and they don’t know her well enough to take her check? What if she forgets what name to put on the check? My own private theory is that it reassures her, it gives a certain substance to her personality. Whenever she wonders who she is she pulls out the dough to prove to herself that she’s really Dotty De Rham. You don’t get that kind of feeling from credit cards.” He made a gesture of despair, which ended with more salted nuts going into his mouth. “She tells me about her childhood sex experiences, but money we don’t discuss.”

“You said you’re due back in New York. What do you do for a living?”

“I’m not exactly due back. I’ve got a tentative business connection but it’s still very fragile. The real reason I joined this junket was to get Dotty to buy some stock, and please don’t think it was like shooting fish in a barrel. It was damn hard.” He twitched up out of his chair. “I’m going to see what she’s up to. She must have that lipstick on by now.”

CHAPTER 7

“She tried to get up but she couldn’t make it,” he reported a moment later. “Come on in. She wanted me to pick up the room first, but that’s a day-long job. Be careful what you step on, it could be a T.V. dinner.”

They entered the stateroom. The shades were drawn. Shayne didn’t see any T.V. dinners, but there was everything else, clothes, newspapers folded open to stock market tables, empty bottles. Mrs. De Rham was in the double bed, hiding behind sunglasses. She was wearing a lacy bed jacket. She had tawny hair, and it was in fairly good shape. Her lipstick had been put on with a shaky hand.

She ran the glasses down her nose to look at him over them, then put them back up.

“I hope you’re used to squalor, Mr. Shayne,” she said in a pleasantly hoarse voice.

Brady picked a glass off the bedside table. “Baby, will you stop drinking gin for breakfast? Do you want to starve?” He tasted the drink. “Straight gin,” he said gloomily, and set it on the bureau.

“And what a Sunday School teacher you’re turning out to be.”

“Thank you,” he said, sitting down. “Find a place to sit, Shayne.”

Shayne moved a pile of underclothing off the chair at the foot of the bed.

“How much did Joshua Loring tell you?” she asked.

“Just that you needed a detective. I’ve already talked to Petrocelli, and he won’t be any problem. He’s ready to leave any time. But Mr. Brady tells me there’s more to it than that.”

“Yes. You see my—husband—”

She sniffed sharply and reached for a box of Kleenex.

“Now don’t cry, for God’s sake,” Brady said impatiently. “I’ve already told him about the dough.”

She turned her head angrily. “You—”

Brady put both hands on his head, as though to keep it from flying apart. “That’s what Shayne is here for, isn’t it? Let’s not go through the whole thing again. Otherwise why not let the cops find him? Or let him turn up by himself?”

“He can have the damn money,” she said in a muffled tone.

“Sure. He’ll be glad to do that. And you won’t see him again, I can guarantee you. I’ve known Henry longer than you have. He’s attached to it by now.”

She blew her nose. “Mr. Shayne—I want him back. I couldn’t tell the police that he—”

When she didn’t go on Brady picked it up for her. “How would it look? Five thousand is serious money to a cop. Hell, it’s serious to me. But Henry’s no ordinary thief. There was a certain amount of fuss on the way down about Dotty’s will. Shut up,” he said when Mrs. De Rham started to speak. “You really milked that bit, and you know it. You’ve got a choice. You can either tell Shayne what the situation is or give it to the cops. They didn’t sound too interested when it was a case of a husband who walked out on his wife after a fight, but a husband who walked out with the wife’s five thousand bucks—”

She made a gesture under the sheet. “You’re itching to tell him. Tell him.”

Brady sighed. “She wrote a new will, Shayne. Everything to charity and nothing to Henry. That was what the fight was about. She wanted to show him who had the power. She showed him, all right, and what was supposed to happen to the human relationship? I speak from experience—I’ve been getting the same business from my own wife. Dotty’s in her late twenties. With luck she’ll live another sixty years, if she tapers off on the gin. So if Henry’s only been staying with her for the inheritance it’s a long-range prospect, no? I know exactly how he figured! She was putting everything in monetary terms. O.K., he knew how it would bug her to look for those five G’s and find them missing. And why not? What else has he got out of the marriage except maintenance?”

“I want him back,” she said miserably.

“And if he doesn’t want to come back,” Shayne said, “do you want the five thousand?”

She didn’t answer for a long moment. Her hands moved beneath the sheet.

“Yes,” she said in a small voice.

“How I love you rich people,” Brady commented.

Shayne said, “Do you think he’s still in Miami?”

Mrs. De Rham had slipped down in the bed. She seemed exhausted.

“Paul,” she said faintly.

“Yes, baby. Do you want a saucepan?”

She moved her head. “I can’t talk any more.”

Brady hesitated, then stood up. “Get some sleep. I’ll take care of it. He’ll find him for you, baby, don’t worry.”

He picked up the glass of gin and took it with him, Shayne followed. After closing the door Brady stood leaning against it for an instant, breathing hard.

“I can’t help feeling sorry for her, but goddamn it! Why didn’t she treat him better when he was here?” He began shaking himself back into his earlier manner. “Of course a lot of that in there was summer stock. She overdoes everything.” He went to the galley and emptied the glass in the sink. “Not that she doesn’t have a bottle under the mattress, probably. But she’s better today. Yesterday she wasn’t making any sense. You’re going to want a picture.” He found two photographs in a drawer. In the first, De Rham was crouched over a guitar, an absorbed look on his face. The other showed him in bathing trunks, walking along a beach.

“Would he shave off his beard?” Shayne asked.

“I doubt it. He’s had it since sophomore year in college. There isn’t much of a chin behind it.”

Shayne was scraping his own chin thoughtfully, looking around the cluttered room. There was a record player and a drift of records, most of them folk music. He didn’t see a guitar.

“She didn’t answer my question. Do you think he’s still in Miami?”

“Shayne, after the pounding he took on the cruise he was in no shape to go through the rigamarole of getting a plane reservation and confirming and showing up in time for the plane. If I read the tea leaves right, and I think I do, he’d hunt for a place nearby to lick his wounds.”

He headed for another bowl of salted nuts and started working at it. “I think I could even find him myself, but I don’t want to leave Dotty. The thing about Henry, he’s not exactly burning with ambition. He doesn’t want to see his picture on the cover of Time, he just wants people to leave him alone. I used to feel the same, but I’m beginning to see that people won’t leave you alone unless you pay them to. At Harvard he used to moon around wondering what he was doing at a competitive college, instead of in some lazy pad in San Francisco or the East Village.”

He pushed a stack of records off a chair so he could sit down. “Then he met Dotty. Life with her had advantages, such as not having to pay the rent, but whenever he felt the strain he’d talk about how underneath he was really a frustrated beat.”

“How about lately?” Shayne said.

“Lately more than ever. Of course the hippies are all over the mass media these days, you can’t get away from them. I feel the attraction myself, after being cooped up with Dotty the last couple of weeks. I’ve never tried pot, but it might be an improvement over alcohol as it’s consumed on the Nefertiti. Is there a hippy colony in Miami?”

“A small one.”

“Then that’s where you’ll find him,” Brady said confidently. “Maybe you think taking the money contradicts what I’ve been saying, but Henry has a strong New England streak. If he’s really careful and doesn’t get rolled in the meantime, it would last him a few years. He didn’t even take a toothbrush with him. He didn’t take his guitar. I think he wanted to cut himself loose from everything in his past.”

“Did you see him go?”

“Neither of us did, and he didn’t leave any farewell note. He was here one night and the next morning he was gone. We haven’t been too close lately. He thought I was selling out, and I am. I think there’s a certain basic minimum, and if you can’t come up to that minimum you’re in trouble.”

“How about women? Did he have affairs?”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

“Do you happen to know his mother’s last name?”

Brady looked surprised. “Dotty may but I sure as hell don’t. Why?”

“About a third of the people who drop out of sight take their mother’s names,” Shayne explained. “It’s less of a break. And it isn’t too easy to switch off their old personalities and switch on new ones. They keep the same habits and still do many of the same things. So I’ll need to know some more about him.”

The nuts were gone. With nothing to occupy his hands, Brady kept changing position and running his fingers through his hair. Shayne made notes as he talked, wishing he could find some excuse to pull off the dark glasses and see what was going on behind them.

He asked abruptly, “When did you get the gun?”

Brady started. “That’s right, you talked to Petrocelli. Dotty had it. It’s just a .25, to protect her cash. Petrocelli got a lot less truculent when I showed it to him.”

“Did you actually see that five thousand, Brady, or did she just tell you it was missing?”

“She told me. But I believe her.”

“I’m wondering if she hopes to get some evidence to use in a divorce action. Do you think it’s a possibility?”

Brady stared at him for a moment. “Anything’s possible. I do know that she wants very much to stay out of the papers.” He read an imaginary headline. “‘Robbed by Husband, Says Textile Heiress.’ She’d hate that. At the same time, I think she may really want him back. She’s not a happy woman, or a stable one. I guess that’s obvious.”

Shayne closed his notebook and stood up. Brady went across to Mrs. De Rham’s stateroom and knocked. When she answered weakly he went in.

He was back a moment later. “His mother’s maiden name was Sealey. If you find him, Dotty wants you to give him a message. She’s restoring him to her will, and she’ll think about putting some of the Winslow stock in his name.” He shrugged. “Seriously.”

Out on deck, the girl on the next boat called over cheerfully, “Another sunshiney day. Is Mrs. De Rham any better?”

“A little,” Brady said shortly.

CHAPTER 8

After leaving the marina, Shayne arranged to meet his friend Tim Rourke, the gangling crime reporter on the Daily News. Rourke had recently published a series of articles about the Miami hippies, and while he was collecting material he had lived among them for a few days. They were hospitable and unsuspicious. Their dreaminess and apathy and the jargon they used continually had nearly driven him crazy by the time he left.

He met Shayne in a bar near the paper, bringing tear sheets of the articles.

“Only a loony would think he could hide around Jennings Park,” Rourke said after Shayne explained what he wanted. “It’s the most conspicuous place in Dade County.”

“He may not want to hide,” Shayne said. “There’s a chance he took the money to make sure she’d send somebody after him.”

“Of course the captain might be right. He could be dead. That would make a better story.”

“I don’t think he’d dead,” Shayne said slowly. “I think Brady knows exactly where I can find the guy. But what’s his object? Does he want to get De Rham to come back to take over responsibility? God knows.”

He opened the folder to look at the tear sheets. Rourke said, “You can’t read in this light, Mike. The main thing to remember—the real hippies, the Diggers, the boys and girls who really want to quit, have all hitched their way to New York, where they can do it in style. If you want to get publicity for shunning publicity, you go to the center of the communications business. Our Miami operation is still a little half-hearted. If the hippy life begins to wear thin the kids can get a haircut and go home. They’re just putting one toe in the water to see how it feels.”

He summoned the bartender. “Another shot, Pete, and then I’ve got to get back. One other thing I ought to tell you, Mike. You remember the Dirty Angels, the motorcycle boys.”

“I thought they were dissolved.”

“The club was dissolved. They got evicted from their building and most of them lost their cycles. Three of the top guys went to jail, and I think they’re still there. But the rank and file took off the black leather jackets and put the swastika armbands in the back of their bureau drawers and looked for a new kind of action. You’d be amazed what a difference it makes when you go barefoot instead of wearing stomping boots. While I was hanging around Jennings Park I’m pretty sure I saw a couple of familiar faces. They had designs painted on their cheeks with food coloring and they were handing out flowers. But don’t believe it.”

“Yeah,” Shayne said impatiently.

“Just a small piece of information. If you remember the Angels, they never believed in nonviolence.” He took his shot of whiskey in a gulp. “Call me if you want anything.”

The Jennings Park area of Southwest Miami is a district of cheap luncheonettes and rundown rooming houses. The park itself is a dusty square of broken asphalt, dotted with broken benches. Until the hippies moved in, it was used mainly by old men from nearby rooming houses. Now it was filled with bearded boys and unkempt girls, a few wearing sandals but most barefoot. From behind, and occasionally even from in front, it was hard to tell the males from the females. There were Indian headdresses and Hindu robes.

By the end of the afternoon everybody appeared to be high. One of the contentions in Rourke’s Daily News series was that there was far less marijuana and acid consumed in Jennings Park and the surrounding blocks than the participants wanted people to think. They had quickly become a tourist attraction. By early dusk the sidewalks around the park were jammed with middle-aged people in colorful sports attire, slung with expensive cameras. There was always a heavy concentration of cops.

Shayne circulated, looking at beards. His sleeves were rolled up and he was carrying his jacket over his arm. Whenever someone asked him for money he supplied some, and waited until the conversation was well under way before he brought out his photographs. The usual response was a smile and a sad shake of the head. Whenever he caught a glint of recognition he sauntered on, turning after a moment to watch the person he had been talking to and see what he did.

It was nearly dark. He was in a luncheonette, eating an undercooked and overseasoned burger when a barefoot girl with straight hair, in jeans, short-sleeved jersey and sunglasses, came in from the street and headed straight at him.

“You’re going to buy me a burger,” she said flatly.

“It’s not very good,” Shayne said. “Why not finish mine?”

She gave him a shocked look before deciding that the correct thing would be to accept.

“How about the coffee?” Shayne went on, grinning slightly. “I only had a couple of sips.”

She hesitated, then added sugar and began to drink it, standing up at the counter. Her only concession to the middle-class standards she was running away from was to turn the cup and drink with her left hand, from the opposite rim. Shayne paid the check and they left together.

“You people,” she said. Now that she was outside in the sun, she took off her shades and peered up at him from beneath an untidy fringe of brown hair. “Why don’t you stay in your own part of town? Are we harming anybody?”

“I don’t know. Are you?”

“No! All we want to do is live in our own way. What’s wrong with that? We don’t see the point in surrounding ourselves with vacuum cleaners and color television sets and a new model car every year—”

She was a small girl, coming up only to Shayne’s shoulder, and in her bare feet she seemed even smaller. She threatened him with her pointed breasts; she was one Jennings Park hippy who was obviously not a boy. Shayne thought she was probably a new arrival. She had the fervor of a recent convert. The others Shayne had talked to had thought it was cooler to ignore him. Loving parents had sent her to an orthodontist, and her teeth were good. Her eyes were warm and emotional.

“I don’t know why I bother,” she said. “You don’t care about our motivation. All you want to do is stand there in your white Anglo-Saxon Protestant superiority, and stare at the animals. The only thing I don’t understand is where’s your Polaroid color camera?”

Shayne grinned at her and took out his photographs. “Have you seen this guy around?”

She still hadn’t replaced her sunglasses, and as she glanced at the pictures Shayne caught the flicker. She handed them back carefully.

“Do I look like the type of person who would cooperate with the enemy?”

“What enemy?”

“You cops are the armed defenders of private property and the status quo, and I hope none of my friends saw me eating that burger. You were right,” she added, putting on the glasses, “it was lousy. The same goes for the coffee.”

She turned abruptly and walked toward the park. Shayne watched her, still grinning, then lost interest abruptly and sauntered away in the opposite direction, his jacket over his shoulder. He entered the park at the opposite end. He stopped to watch a chess game being played by two old men. After a few minutes, when nothing happened, he moved on to listen to a dirge being chanted by a group in dirty gray robes. Meanwhile, he was careful not to lose track of the girl. She spoke to several people in various parts of the park, and they looked at the big red-headed detective, a conspicuous figure in that gathering.

A boy self-consciously offered him a flower. Shayne took it and ran the stem into the buttonhole of his jacket, and walked on. The girl moved around a group of dancers, then turned abruptly, crossed the street and started into Coconut Terrace, which dead-ended two blocks from the park.

Rourke had reported several hippy addresses in the second block. At the next corner she looked back to be sure no one was following, and crossed.

Shayne returned to the chess game and waited till one of the old men finally made a move. Then he looked at his watch and went back to his Buick. As he drove off, he tilted the rear-view mirror and picked up two long-haired youths on the sidewalk, watching him go. He made two right-angle turns in quick succession, parked again, and returned by another route.

The hippy houses on Coconut Terrace were easily identified. They were badly rundown, with blistering paint and broken windows. Shayne went into the first and began trying doors. Few were locked. At this hour most of the occupants were out in the park. In one a boy and girl were in bed together. The girl giggled and asked Shayne to come in. The boy growled, “Outside.”

Henry De Rham was in the next room. He looked around as the door opened. He had shaved off his sideburns, but otherwise he had left his beard alone. It wasn’t as well cared for as it had been in the photographs, but it covered his face in the same way. His hair was very fair, his eyebrows almost colorless. Everything was relaxed about him except his eyes, which were small and hard and went with his old environment.

The girl who had accosted Shayne in the luncheonette was sitting across from him at an unpainted table. There was a second woman on a mattress on the floor. She was breast-feeding a baby and didn’t look up. The girl spat an obscenity at Shayne.

“Never mind,” De Rham said quietly in a high nasal voice. “It’s O.K., H. Who cares, really?”

She pushed back her chair. “I think I’ll step out for a minute.”

“Sit down,” De Rham said. “The trouble with clobbering one cop, he comes back an hour later with fifty cops. So why don’t we all relax? The only thing I’ve done lately is leave my wife. Unless I broke a speed limit getting away I haven’t committed any crimes. Who are you?” he said to Shayne.

“Michael Shayne.” There were only two chairs, both of which were occupied, so he perched on the corner of the table and felt for a cigarette. “Do you want to talk about the money in front of witnesses?”

The girl looked sharply at De Rham, then down at her dirty hands. De Rham smiled.

“Money. I see. What a bitch Dotty is, after all. Let me see your badge.”

Shayne opened his wallet and showed his private investigator’s ticket.

“Shayne—I think I’ve heard about you.” He put a burning cigarette in his mouth and left it there while he talked. “I can’t remember if what I heard was good or bad. What did she hire you to do, bring me back screaming?” He leaned forward and his lips twitched away from his teeth in a sudden snarl. “I’m not going. By that I mean not willingly. You’ve got about fifty pounds on me and as a private detective you probably know all the tricks. You might be able to deliver me, if you could get me out of the building. But this is the second half of the twentieth century. Involuntary servitude hasn’t been legal for over a hundred years. Short of chaining me to the bed—”

Shayne interrupted. “All I’m supposed to do is find you and give you a message.” He swung toward the girl. “What did he say his name was?”

When De Rham nodded she said, “Joe Sealey.”

“That’s close enough,” Shayne said. “Sealey’s his mother’s maiden name. His real name is Henry De Rham. Who’s she?”

He nodded toward the woman on the mattress, who was now burping her baby.

“It’s her room,” De Rham said. “Ursula, this is Mike Shayne, an unidentified flying object from outer space.”

The woman looked up. “He’s not fuzz?”

“Private.”

“He had me scared for a minute, because who’d look after Baby if I got busted?”

She reached under the mattress for a partly-smoked stick, and relighted it with a kitchen match. She took a deep drag, let the smoke out luxuriously, and sat back, putting the baby to her breast again.

“Pot and nursing,” she said dreamily. “It’s so great. One combination a man can’t have.”

De Rham shrugged and looked at his own cigarette, a Chesterfield. “My trouble is, it’s hard to break old habits. Is Paul Brady still around? Not that I give a damn.”

Shayne nodded. “He’s living on the boat, but he tells me he’s getting restless.”

De Rham clucked. “On the same boat. Shocking. Good old Paul. Well, he’s welcome to her. He thinks he’s had domestic troubles. Wait till he’s put in a couple more weeks with Dot.”

“She says she wants you back.”

He blew out his breath scornfully. “Have you ever watched a cat with a baby chipmunk? She doesn’t like to eat it all at once. That wouldn’t be enough fun. So she cuffs it around and watches it and sometimes even lets it get away for a minute—almost. Then she pounces on it again and eats a bit of its tail and plays with it some more. Men are supposed to be the ones with the balls, but I was never under any illusions about my married life. Dotty was the cat. I was the baby chipmunk.”

The girl called H. put her hand on his. “You’re a marvelous man, Seal. A terrific lover. Forget about that castrating bitch.”

“I intend to. All right, Shayne, you’ve delivered the message. Take her a message from me. The air tastes better in this part of town. For the first time in years I feel alive, really alive.” He gestured incoherently, then checked himself. “No, don’t tell her that. I don’t want to wreck her self-esteem, I just don’t want to go back. She can’t help being the way she is.”

He stood up and paced across the room and back. He was smaller than he looked sitting down, probably no taller than his wife. He dropped into the chair again.

“I actually think I loved her at first,” he said in a troubled voice. “Even so I wouldn’t have married her if it hadn’t been for her money. She was already putting me over the jumps. What I want is to break out of the kind of world where money can affect that kind of deeply personal decision. We all have only one life.”

“Did you think of leaving her a letter?”

“I tried to write one but I couldn’t decide what to call her. ‘Dear Dotty?’ Impossible. How is she?”

“Losing weight, according to Brady. Drinking, according to everybody else. She’s an abandoned wife, and it seemed to me she was enjoying the role.”

“That’s my Dotty. Probably there were tears. She has tear ducts she can turn on like a faucet. But she’s not getting me back with a few cheap tears! I feel sorry for her, but I feel sorry for myself too.”

“I’m supposed to tell you she’s put you back in her will.”

De Rham exploded. “If you knew how sick I am of that goddamn will! The cat and the chipmunk. I’d get interested in a conversation with some other woman at a party, and the next day Dotty would dash off to the lawyer’s and cut me down to fifty thousand. If I remembered to send her flowers on our anniversary, back I’d go as residuary legatee. The whole thing was disgusting.”

“She sounds like the most—” H. said.

“I never paid any real attention to it,” De Rham said, “but I couldn’t get her to believe that. I don’t care if she leaves her money to a home for unmarried dogs. I’m off that merry-go-round for good.”

This was emphatic enough, and the girl watched him with approval. But Shayne caught a movement at the corners of his mouth. Dotty De Rham, who had been married to him three years, might know him a little better than a girl who had been living with him two weeks.

“And she said she’d put some Winslow stock in your name,” Shayne went on.

“She knows what she can do with that stock.”

“Did she have any cash with her on the boat?”

“Dotty always has cash. It’s one of her eccentricities.”

“As much as five thousand?”

“I’ve known her to carry that much. Then sometimes we’ll be driving on a parkway and she won’t have a quarter for the toll.”

Shayne got off the table and looked around. “Ursula, how long have these people been living with you?”

Smoke trickled from her nostrils. “I stopped answering questions when I was a little girl.”

De Rham’s eyes were bright. “Did she tell you I walked off with five thousand bucks?”

“Didn’t you?”

He smiled and spread his arms. “Search me.”

“All right. Turn out your pockets.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I’m not?”

He took De Rham by the elbow and squeezed the nerve. De Rham came to his feet, his body twisting. The girl started to move, but one of Shayne’s hands shot out and kept her in her chair.

“People have been telling me lies, as usual,” Shayne said. “I’m used to that, but when I run up against a point I can check, I like to check it. H., get me your bag and empty it on the table, and don’t give me any trouble.”

When he released De Rham, the smaller man twitched himself into some kind of order and began taking things from his pockets and piling them on the table.

“Do as he says, H. It’s unimportant. You don’t strike me as being exactly stupid, Shayne. How could I carry all that money in my pockets?”

Shayne glanced at the objects as they accumulated on the table. The girl had hung onto her lipstick and eye-liner, he noticed, though she hadn’t used them recently. He went over De Rham carefully. The little bearded man tried to keep his bearing casual, but his skinny body was shaking with fury. Shayne ran his hands down his legs, probed the cuffs of his pants and the insides of his shoes.

“Are you going to search me, too?” the girl said. “You could probably get away with it. You’re so strong.”

Shayne grunted and gave her the same attention he had given De Rham. Then he turned to the room. There was no closet. The only furniture besides the table and chairs was a chipped bureau. One drawer contained diapers and other baby things in orderly piles. The baby seemed to have as many material possessions as its mother. H. and De Rham each had a suitcase. Shayne checked them quickly, then ran his finger along the top of the door and the windows.

“What are you looking for?” H. said at last, after watching him furiously. “Heroin or something?”

“A key.”

He hoped to get a reaction, but she had her sunglasses back on.

He dusted his fingertips. “All right, De Rham. I’ll tell her you’re happily established and nothing can make you change your mind, especially offers of money.”

“That’s the message,” De Rham said. “And the next time you feel like breaking into a private apartment to turn everything upside down and intimidate people, I’d suggest you get a search warrant and bring some cops.”

Shayne looked at him narrowly. “Do you really want cops, De Rham?”

He went out.

CHAPTER 9

Shayne shut himself in a phone booth with a handful of change. First he called Richardson, the Beach detective who was handling Henry De Rham’s disappearance. Shayne told him he had found the missing husband, alive and living with a new girl.

“That’s the way it goes,” Richardson said philosophically. “I was getting a different set of vibrations, but it’s not the first time I’ve been wrong. I’ll cancel the Wanted sheets tomorrow. Thanks, Mike. It’s really just as well—now Painter can’t get on me for insubordination.”

After hanging up Shayne dialed a New York number and fed coins into the phone until the operator was satisfied. Joshua Loring answered.

“There you are, Michael. I was beginning to worry.” Shayne gave him a quick report.

Loring sighed. “Poor Dotty doesn’t have much luck with men. I hope she doesn’t think she’ll improve matters by exchanging Henry for this Paul Brady. He’s more of the same, I’d say. We don’t use the term fortune-hunter any more, but the practice still seems to exist.”

“Do you have anything more about her finances?”

“That Hoboken real estate deal is moving along. The closing’s set for next Tuesday, which must mean that Dotty’s been pushing them. I talked to her again this afternoon. She sounded much better, her old self, and I thought I could take a chance and mention the Hoboken sale. There are ways I could have heard about it without doing any snooping. Mike, she blew up. I’ve never heard her so furious. Then I made the mistake of telling her I’d asked Tom Moseley to look in on her. She hung up on me!” He paused. “I’ve seen them together socially, and they seemed to hit it off together well enough. I don’t understand the fury. Damn it, it’s so hard to know what to do.”

“Is Moseley here yet?”

“Yes, I just heard from him. He’s at the St. Albans and he’ll wait for your call. I didn’t think it would be a good idea to send him to see Dotty until he’d talked to you and now I’m glad I didn’t. Have you been able to work out any plan of action, Mike? I know you must have handled blackmail cases before, but what do you do about it? How do you proceed?”

“You have to play it by ear, Joshua. Most blackmail is seventy percent bluff, and blackmailers are the world’s jumpiest people. They can usually be handled. But we don’t know if she’s really being blackmailed, or who’s doing it or what’s being used. If you’re willing to pay for it I’d like to put De Rham under surveillance. I don’t think that hippy set-up is what it seems, or especially permanent.”

“Whatever you think is necessary, Mike, of course.”

“I don’t see how he could be blackmailing her unless Brady knows about it, to the extent of being in on it. It’s possible they may be working together. That would explain a few things. There’s one way you could help. You must have some idea about where she’s vulnerable. She’s had psychiatric treatment and she’s spent time in a mental hospital. Why? What brought it on?”

There was a pause. Loring broke it by saying slowly, “There was an arson episode, Mike, a little ridiculous and fortunately not too serious. She was thrown by a horse, and that night she set fire to the stable. She set several small fires while she was in the hospital. They were put out before any damage was done.”

Shayne frowned, trying to remember what Petrocelli had said about a fire on the Nefertiti. The top of a coffee table had been burned. But how did it fit?

“Can you tell me anything else, Joshua? Was there any fire that didn’t get put out in time?”

“Yes,” Loring said with difficulty. “The main Winslow plant burned to the ground last year. The insurance company paid the claim without question, but I must confess—”

He stopped. “In the light of those earlier—”

“Where was Mrs. De Rham when it happened?”

“In Boston, eighty miles away, at her husband’s college reunion. Not many people know about those other episodes in Dotty’s history, and I—don’t want you to think I was remiss. I did make inquiries. The plant was a fire trap, and the marshal established definitely that the fire began in an overloaded electrical circuit.”

“Was anybody killed?”

Loring’s voice was unhappy. “A watchman. He was asleep—drunk—and he didn’t turn in an alarm.”

“Was De Rham with her in Boston?”

“Yes, and so was Brady, I believe. You can see why I hesitated about telling you. It’s a sticky business. I don’t think anyone could possess any evidence that the fire marshal and the insurance investigators overlooked, but if there is anything and you acquire it—”

“Yeah. It has to go to the cops. This would be a good time to pull me off if you want to play it that way.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late. It could only end in a different sort of disaster. No, stay with it, Mike, and call me if you get anything, never mind how late. I’m sleeping lightly these nights.”

Shayne hung up and called the St. Albans, a big new hotel on the Beach. In a moment he was talking to Tom Moseley.

“Mr. Loring told me you’d be calling,” Moseley said briskly when the preliminaries were out of the way. “I think he may be worrying about this more than the circumstances warrant. He’s a bachelor, as you may know, and he takes a godfather’s duties seriously. Dotty’s a lot more competent than he gives her credit for being.”

“I have a message to deliver from her husband, and then I think we’d better talk.”

“I’ll be in. I hope we can wind this up by noon tomorrow—I’d like to resume my vacation. I think the way to do it is find out as much as we can before we confront her. But I’ve always found her entirely responsible in financial matters, which is what makes these cash transfers seem so strange. If Brady’s stealing from her, and that’s the way it looks to me, we may need De Rham’s help. Would he cooperate, do you think? He and Brady are friends.”

“I don’t think that would stand in his way.”

“How did she strike you, Shayne? I know she’s been drinking heavily, but did she seem in control? Capable of making decisions?”

“I only saw her for a couple of minutes. Not long enough to make any kind of judgment.”

“Yes. Well.”

The conversation trailed off.

Shayne was on the Julia Tuttle Causeway, crossing the bay, when the phone rang on the seat beside him.

A girl’s voice said breathlessly, “I’ve been trying and trying and trying! This is Sally Lyon. You met me this morning?”

“Sally who?”

“Lyon. You didn’t exactly meet me. I was on the next boat. I was wondering who you were and what you were doing on the Nefertiti, which is a kind of mystery ship in this marina—all that skulking around and dramatic lowering of voices, and there your picture was in the paper you gave me. You know, with the story about the girl who was killed on the expressway. Michael Shayne, eh?”

Shayne held the phone clamped between his shoulder and his jaw. He was driving with undiminished speed.

“I’ll give you my autograph the next time I come by. How does it happen I don’t hear music? Don’t girls your age go out dancing any more?”

“I’m not all that youthful!” she said with spirit. “I’m twenty. And for your information, I’m no longer a virgin.”

Shayne snorted. “Congratulations.”

“Laugh. To answer your question about dancing, I’m not out dancing because I don’t know anybody in Miami. Dad and Mother think it would be just too icky to stay at a hotel when we have a boat, but you meet people in hotels. None of their friends happen to have anybody even remotely my age so I’ve had to concentrate on my tan. I don’t suppose you noticed.”

“Sally, believe me, in that bathing suit I noticed. How are things on the Nefertiti?”

“That’s why I’m calling you!” She caught her breath. When she resumed speaking it was almost in a whisper. “I’m at an open phone in the office and people keep passing by. Something very funny has been happening, if you ask me.”

Shayne’s smile had faded. “I’m headed your way, Sally. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“If you’re going to call me Sally, I’m going to call you Mike, all right? Mother and Dad are having dinner at the Sans Souci. I was supposed to go and watch them having a good time, but those dinners get to be a drag for everybody. This is Dad’s vacation, and there’s no reason he shouldn’t drink as much as he wants to, and Mother’s no slouch in the hard liquor department when she gets going, either. I think people that age ought to do their drinking in private. I don’t mean Mother and Dad get sloppy, but they say things they certainly wouldn’t back home in Baltimore. I sit there and suffer, and I guess it shows. They go home early because poor Sally has to get up in the morning for tennis lessons. Tonight I pretended I had a stomach ache and I wasn’t up to one of those fifty-course Sans Souci meals. I had a milk shake and a dog and I thought I’d go to bed early but it was too stuffy in the cabin so I brought up an air mattress and lay down on the deck.”

The phone cut out briefly as Shayne left the causeway.

“—noise,” she said.

“I missed part of that,” he said. “The last I heard you were lying on the deck.”

“Then you missed the main part. I heard this funny splashing noise and somebody breathing in the water. Or rather, not breathing. Those little bubbles, you know. Blub, blub. I was petrified!”

“What was happening on the Nefertiti?”

“Nothing, for once. The lights were on but I couldn’t see anybody. To tell the truth, from that bubbling sound I thought they might be sinking. I looked over the rail, and ducked out of sight, fast. There was this skin diver in the water!”

“Next to the Nefertiti?”

“Right next. I was on the back deck—you know what they call it, aft—and we stick out enough so I could look right down at him. His head and the tanks showed up against the white paint. He was fastening something to the back of the boat.”

“How big?”

“I couldn’t tell, but there was a wire attached to it, I think, going into the water. He turned around and pushed off. Blub, blub. I think I saw his head after a minute, but maybe it was a log or something. With some people I could knock on the door and say, ‘Excuse me, somebody just did something to the back of your boat.’ But Paul Brady. He can be really cute at times, but he gets very grumpy and alienated after a few drinks. Then I thought of calling you. I never talked to anybody on a car phone before.”

“Sally, I have to hang up. I’m in traffic. Stay in the office and I’ll honk twice. Are you still wearing that bathing suit?”

“Heavens, no. I wouldn’t dare wear that in public.”

CHAPTER 10

He drew up in front of the marina office and tapped his horn twice. Sally ran out and jumped in. She was wearing a skivvy shirt and the briefest possible shorts. She tumbled against him and hugged his arm. Shayne reminded himself that she was not for him, and began to cruise along Palmetto Drive, looking for a place to leave the Buick. A car pulled out and he beat a Cadillac to the opening, braking hard and reversing savagely, forcing the Cadillac driver to move fast to avoid a crumpled fender.

“Sensational!” Sally exclaimed. “I knew you’d be ruthless.”

After leaving the car she said more seriously, “Mike, kidding aside. What if it’s a bomb?”

“It could be, but it probably wouldn’t be wired to a detonator. The chances are it’s a listening device.”

“That’s what I thought at first, but things are so keyed up on that boat—”

“Keyed up how?”

“I mean, we’re all on top of everybody else and the only way you can operate is by being half-way cordial. If they don’t want people to talk to them, why come to this kind of place? You’re going to think I’m a busybody, but there’s a garbage collection every day, and really, people who drink as much as they do and don’t want their neighbors to count the bottles ought to dump them at sea. Mike, they average three whole fifths a day, the two of them. I don’t see how they do it.”

“Do they sleep in separate cabins?”

“How should I know? I’m no peeping Tom.” She added with a laugh, “I don’t know what I’m being so defensive about. Yes, they sleep in separate cabins, but they’re shut up in her cabin together the rest of the time. What I meant by keyed up—yesterday Paul came storming out after being in there with her for a couple of hours. He had a pencil in one hand and he snapped it in two. He saw me looking at him and he tried to smile, but it was like cracking ice. He was holding the rail with his other hand so hard I could see the white lines through his tan.”

“You make a good witness, Sally.”

“Mike, what are you doing for them, can you tell me?”

“I was hired to find her husband. I found him just before you called me.”

“You actually talked to him?” She sounded disappointed. “I guess I read too many mystery stories. Do you know what I thought? I thought they—”

“You’re not the only one.”

Approaching her boat, they fell silent. After boarding she took his hand and led him to the side facing the Nefertiti. There was a light in the salon. The record player was going, the volume turned low. It was an anti-war folk song. Shayne stumbled against an air mattress and nearly fell.

“After he swam off where did you see his head come up?”

Her breast touched his arm as she pointed toward the next marina, a hundred yards to the north.

“But I couldn’t be sure, Mike.”

Shayne began to undress.

“Mike, are you doing what I think you’re doing? That’s a wonderful idea. When two people feel like doing it I think it’s hypocrisy not to—”

He continued to undress without replying. When he had stripped to his shorts she came in against him.

“I know you’re working now,” she said, giving him a quick hug. “But will you keep it in mind for later? I’m better than you probably think.”

“It’s lucky for you I know you don’t mean it.”

He swung over the rail and dropped to the catwalk. She whispered alter him fiercely, “I do mean it!”

He slipped into the water, feeling the immediate pull of the tide. It was running strongly. Two silent strokes took him to the Nefertiti’s stern. He waved his hand gently until he touched the wire, and followed it to the little amplifying pick-up which had been attached by suction to the Nefertiti’s planking.

It was no bigger than a half dollar, and nearly as thin. He had tested Japanese units this same size and shape, and if it was in good working order it could pick up every murmur and rustle inside Mrs. De Rham’s cabin.

He followed the wire into the water. Pulling it up as he went, he swam slowly away from the boat. The neoprene coating slipped smoothly between his fingers. In a moment he touched a cluster of weights that had been clamped to the wire to keep it far enough below the surface not to foul the propellers of passing boats. There was considerable slack.

The incoming tide carried him easily across the open water separating the two marinas. Three-quarters of the way across, the wire twisted out of his loose grasp. He dived quickly and recovered it as it sank. After that he continued more carefully.

It led him to a Chris-Craft sports fisherman, a thirty-footer, moored in the second berth from the end of its row. Like the Nefertiti, it carried its own generator, and lights were burning aboard. Shayne swam to the end of the catwalk and pulled himself out of the water.

He stepped onto the deck. Both starboard and port windows of the main cabin had Venetian blinds, and the slats were closed against him. He listened until he heard a voice say, “I’m not picking up a thing. Nothing but static.”

Stepping down to the cabin door, Shayne turned the knob gently to be sure it was unlocked. Then he pushed it open and stepped inside.

Teddy Sparrow, a gargantuan Miami private detective, was sitting in a British officer’s chair, wearing earphones and smoking a long cigar. He operated on the outer fringes of the business, usually on assignment from the larger agencies who needed a man in a hurry. He was sometimes surprisingly effective, in spite of his great bulk, because people found it so hard to believe that he was actually a detective.

There was a tape recorder on a table beside him. An Aqua-Lung and a face mask lay on the floor. He was half-facing away from Shayne, and the electronic noises kept him from hearing the door open.

“I don’t even hear anybody moving. If this thing don’t work after what they charged me for it—Jack, did you moisten the suction cups the way it said?”

A voice answered from the head, “I carried them in the goddamn water. Don’t you think they got wet? Give it a little time, for Christ’s sake.”

“Here’s some music, hey.”

A man Shayne hadn’t run into before came out of the head. He stopped short, seeing Shayne’s dripping figure. He was in bathing trunks, and looked like a professional fighter. The resemblance extended to a broken nose and a damaged ear.

Teddy caught the difference in the atmosphere and looked up. The sight of Shayne jolted him back and the chair collapsed. He hit the floor with a crash, his arms and legs splayed awkwardly.

“Don’t rock the boat, Teddy,” Shayne remarked. “It can’t be yours.”

“Mike Shayne,” Teddy whispered.

The other man stayed where he was, looking watchful. Teddy wrenched off the earphones.

“Jack, you can’t even do a simple thing like planting a bug without—”

“I didn’t see nobody. I was quiet.”

Shayne said, “I’m glad it’s somebody I know, Teddy. No reason we should have any trouble. I could use a towel.”

Teddy rocked forward and struggled to his feet with a .38 in his fist. “Stand right there, Mike,” he said in an excited voice.

“That’s not a gun,” Shayne said scornfully. “You’re a two hundred fifty-pound hallucination. You’re not pointing a gun at me.”

Teddy swallowed. The gun wavered, then held steady. “The hell I’m not, Mike.” He checked with his left hand to make sure he had taken off the safety. “I won’t kill you because I know I couldn’t get away with that, but I’ll sure as hell put a slug in your leg if you make a move.”

“Teddy, listen,” Jack said, “I didn’t contract for—”

“Shut up. This happens to be the Beach. I got a better odor over here than Shayne does, and for a slug in the meaty part of the leg I can get let off with a reprimand. And I’ll do it, too!” he insisted, waving the pistol.

He was sweating with anxiety. “Sit on that bunk,” he commanded.

Shayne grinned and started toward him.

Jack warned, “Are you nuts, Shayne? He’ll do it.”

At the second step Shayne saw from the tightening of the other detective’s eyes that he was about to shoot. He turned aside.

“Teddy, what are you on?”

“Vodka, same as usual. I haven’t had a drop since before supper. The meaty part of the leg. But I’m shaking so bad I could miss, Mike, in the wrong direction. Sit down and reconcile yourself.”

“What was that word—reconcile?”

“Never mind. Sit down.”

“Are you going to give me a towel? These shorts are clammy as hell.”

“Get him a towel.”

Jack faded backward. Reappearing, he tossed Shayne a bath towel. Shayne dropped his wet shorts to the floor and began towelling himself off.

“I could have ripped out your equipment,” he observed. “You wouldn’t have liked that. One of those bugs costs about five hundred bucks.”

“Don’t I know it,” Teddy said. “I got it on approval. When I collect the fee I’m in a new category. No more watchman jobs. No more all night stake-outs and sleeping in cars. No more skip-traces, no more collections.”

“Who are you working for?”

“I have the .38. I ask the questions. Who are you working for?”

“Mrs. De Rham.”

“Amazed to hear it,” Teddy said sarcastically.

Shayne continued to work the towel briskly. The distance seemed about right. He snapped the towel at the gun. The corner of the towel cracked against the barrel and knocked it aside. Shayne slid in fast before Teddy could recover and chopped down at Teddy’s wrist. The .38 went spinning across the carpet.

“You ought to stick to what you know.”

Teddy was holding his wrist, looking aggrieved. Shayne assumed that the other man would stay out of it, but as he went for the gun he was clubbed behind the ear with a fist like a hoof. Jack retrieved the gun and tossed it to Teddy.

“You shoot him. I’m sure as hell not going to.”

Shayne recovered and felt the spot where he’d been hit. As soon as the room stopped spinning he picked up the towel and knotted it around his waist. Teddy, gun in hand again, was smiling.

“You’ve got a thick skull. Jack usually drops them. A pretty good club fighter before T.V. killed boxing.”

Shayne groped his way to the bunk and sat down. As soon as he could speak he repeated his last question.

“Who are you working for, Teddy?”

“I can’t answer that. It’s confidential, you know how it is.”

He turned to his assistant. “Get the earphones on, and when you hear voices, turn on the tape recorder.”

“Teddy, I don’t know how to work that thing.”

Teddy gave the shiny new recorder an affectionate pat “Nothing to it, you push a button. Tell me when you hear anything and I’ll take over.”

He picked the more solid of the two remaining chairs and moved it against the door. “Now we wait. I don’t know how it is with your practice, Mike, but mine’s always been ninety percent waiting.”

He pulled up his pants legs carefully and sat down, the .38 on his knees.

“I should be able to trace the boat,” Shayne commented.

“I rented it. Paying cash. Mike, I have nothing but respect for you. I discount most of what I read in the papers, but the times I’ve worked with you personally I’ve seen you pull some pretty amazing stuff. Those goddamn sources of yours, they’re all over. Sure, you could find out who my client is, but my argument is—tomorrow. Not while you’re sitting here wearing a bath towel.” He tapped cigar ash onto the carpet. “Tomorrow it won’t matter. From your point of view you should have cut the bug loose before you followed the wire. I can see how your mind worked—find out who planted it first, but this time I think you guessed wrong.”

“I’d like to hear what they’re saying myself.”

“The nerve of the guy! Let’s change the subject. Who do you like in the N.F.L. this year?”

They talked football for a time, then Teddy put the gun away and took out a worn deck of cards.

“I think I can take a chance you won’t jump me. Want to play some gin? Move that little table and you sit on the floor, where you’re more helpless.”

“I didn’t bring any money with me.”

“I’ll trust you.”

Shayne moved the table with Teddy watching, one hand inside his jacket. After Shayne was settled, he shuffled and dealt.

From time to time Teddy snapped a question at Jack, to be sure he was awake, but the listening device was still picking up nothing but music. Teddy was so pleased with the way he had held a gun on Shayne that he took too many chances with his discards, and he was soon fifty dollars down. He began to think more carefully. Shayne blitzed him again.

Teddy’s cards went spinning off the table as the door opened behind him and banged the back of his chair. The gun leaped into his hand. Instead of looking around he stared belligerently at Shayne.

“Now watch it, Mike.”

“What’s going on?” a woman’s voice said. “I’d like to come in.”

With a backhand wave, Teddy moved Shayne across to the bunk. Jack had whipped off the earphones. Teddy hooked a toe around the leg of the chair and moved it so the door could open.

The woman who entered was smartly dressed in a short knitted sheath. She had dark hair which she wore back from her forehead, a full-breasted figure, a humorous mouth. She held herself well, with complete self-assurance, as she looked from the gun in Teddy’s hand to Michael Shayne, dressed insecurely in a towel.

“You must be Mrs. Brady,” Shayne said.

CHAPTER 11

“I am Katharine Brady,” she agreed. “Who are you?”

Teddy burst out, “Damn it, Shayne, if you knew she was Mrs. Brady, why wrestle me for a loaded .38?”

“This can’t be the well-known Mike Shayne,” Mrs. Brady said. “Why are you pointing a gun at him? I didn’t hire you to make a disturbance. Just the opposite. You assured me you could handle this with discretion.”

Teddy said weakly, “I have, Mrs. Brady. He’s working for the other side. I had to make him hold still.”

Her eyes slid over Shayne’s powerful bare torso. “You had a fight for a gun and Mike Shayne lost?”

“It was two against one,” Shayne said with a half grin.

Her mouth moved slightly. “And were you really trying?”

Teddy lowered the .38 slowly until it pointed at the floor. “I had to evaluate the situation according to the facts as I knew them. I thought the best thing to do—”

“You did the right thing, actually,” she said, still looking at Shayne. “I’m sorry I spoke so sharply. Have you taped anything yet?”

“Nobody’s doing any talking,” Jack said. “Just listening to records.”

She came further into the room. “There’s no point in standing around glaring. I brought some vodka. Why don’t we make some drinks?”

“With Shayne in the room,” Teddy said, “I don’t think we ought to exactly relax.”

“I don’t intend to relax. Keep your gun out if it makes you feel better. At least let’s all sit down. Is there a refrigerator on the boat?”

“Up ahead,” Teddy said with a movement of his head.

She went out. Shayne gave Teddy an appreciative look.

“You’ve got a better looking client than I have. I like women who don’t wear sunglasses after sunset.”

“Mike, don’t do anything too cute,” Teddy pleaded. “This could be the turning point for me. I’ve always wanted to get some divorce business, and here it is, the classic case. I don’t want to make any mistakes. You don’t have to win every time, do you?”

Mrs. Brady, coming back with a tray of ice cubes, heard that.

“That’s his reputation,” she said. “Isn’t that how he commands those fantastic fees?”

“All I meant was that if he had any consideration,” Teddy said, “he might make an exception just once. It wouldn’t kill him.”

“You’ve got everything well in hand,” Shayne remarked.

“For the time being. I’ve got my equipment in, and everything seems to be working according to the catalog description. But experience tells me that the roof’s going to fall in in a minute. That’s what experience tells me.”

“If you’re that worried,” Mrs. Brady said, “why not tie him up?”

“Tie up Mike Shayne?”

“Why not? You were willing to shoot him a minute ago.”

“Yeah, but that’s more—well, he wouldn’t hold it against me.”

Shayne laughed. “Teddy, you’re a credit to the profession.”

Teddy beamed. “Am I?”

Mrs. Brady snapped, “I’ve laid out a certain amount of money here, and I make a habit of getting value for my money. You seem to consider Shayne a threat. Tie him up.”

Teddy glanced uneasily at an open leather kit on the floor.

“There’s a length of cord in there, Jack. Tie him up. How about some of that vodka, Mrs. Brady?”

Jack took a coil of waxed cord out of the kit and cut off two three-foot lengths. “Tell you what, Teddy. I’ll hold the .38. You tie him.”

Mrs. Brady shook her head. “I can see how this is going to end. I’ll do it.”

Teddy made an exclamation of annoyance and handed the gun to his assistant. He knelt beside Shayne and bound his ankles.

“This is not of my own volition, Mike,” he said. “You heard her. Hands behind you.”

Shayne put his wrists behind his back and Teddy tied them together. Having made up his mind to it, he did a complete job.

“If you start losing circulation,” he said, “tell me so I can laugh. I can be as mean as the next guy when I have to be.”

Mrs. Brady handed around paper cups full of ice and vodka. Teddy drank gratefully, wiping his streaming forehead.

“Nothing for me?” Shayne said.

“How would you hold it?” Mrs. Brady said. “Well, here, if you don’t mind drinking from the bottle.”

She uncapped the bottle and held it to his mouth. Some of it went down.

“Now explain to me how this apparatus works,” she said, turning.

“Simple as one, two, three,” Teddy said. “Of course it could be more automatic, but then you’d have those delicate components to go out of order. Here we’ve got a pickup, an ordinary electrical connection and earphones. With radio, you’re going to run into some ham operator, and he’s going to monitor you and notify the cops.”

“The tape recorder isn’t working.”

“No, we start that manually. You don’t want to waste tape when nobody’s talking.”

“But this won’t do. It won’t do at all. You mean you intend to listen to what you tape?”

“Well, yes,” Teddy said, surprised. “You can’t do away with the human element altogether.”

“Turn it on. I’m not interested in economizing in tapes. How many did you bring?”

“Only three or four. I thought that would be ample.”

He looked nervously at Shayne. Again Shayne had a sense that he was watching a screen on which everything was out of focus and improperly centered, and all the roles were slightly miscast.

“I suppose I’ll have to take the earphones,” Mrs. Brady said.

Jack handed them over. She sat in the place he vacated, and Teddy showed her what button to press to switch on the tape recorder.

“Still and all,” Teddy said, more and more worried. “You don’t want to think you can rely on a tape. They’re too easy to fake. Some judges won’t admit them at all. What you’ve got to do, you’ve got to listen to the conversation as it develops, and then when you’ve got them in bed and everything’s underway, you barge in and take your pictures. That way you’re sure. The thing about the bug, it gives you your timing. Then you don’t show up too early or too late, after it’s over. You’re only going to get one chance, remember. If you blow it, good-bye, see you later.”

“Help yourself to more vodka,” she said.

“I don’t like to give less than satisfaction, Mrs. Brady. Mike will bear me out. Isn’t that the standard procedure for proving adultery, Mike, as I’ve outlined it?”

“Sure. But Mrs. Brady doesn’t want you to hear what’s going on over there.”

Teddy cried, “I’m her witness! I’ve got to stand up in front of a judge and testify!”

“There’s more than one way of getting a divorce,” Shayne said.

She smiled at him. Suddenly she put one hand to her ear and listened intently. She signaled to Teddy and he started the recorder.

She adjusted the headset, covering both ears with the earphones. Shayne watched her closely. The room was silent except for a faint hum coming from the machine. Teddy, not liking the way this was going, kept rearranging himself and working away at the vodka. Her face was less attractive now that it was not in motion. It was all concentration and intelligence. Her movements, picking up a cigarette or drinking, were quick and graceful. Her eyes stopped now and then on Shayne, but he knew she didn’t see him.

At last she stopped the recorder and took off the earphones. She patted her hair with a satisfied smile.

“I’ve got the flash camera,” Teddy said hopefully. “You’re going to want a couple of action shots, to be on the safe side.”

“I don’t think so, Teddy. Thanks.”

He clapped his hands against his legs. “Just don’t blame me if they throw you out of court.”

“Teddy, you’ve been a doll, and if I hear of anybody else who needs this service I’ll give you a strong recommendation. Now pull in your wire.”

Teddy shrugged helplessly, and told Jack to put on his rig and get the bug.

“Experience just doesn’t seem to mean anything. There’s a right way and a wrong way, and this is the wrong way.” He unplugged the tape recorder, put the tape in its cardboard box and gave it to her. She was looking at Shayne again. This time he was sure she saw him.

“I wonder what I’m going to do with you.”

“Untie me, to begin with.”

“No, not yet. First I have to come to some conclusion about what you’re up to.”

“I’ll be glad to tell you as soon as Teddy’s out of the room,” Shayne said. “This whole thing is very weird. Everybody’s faking and pretending except me. I’m not concealing a thing. And I wish somebody would give me a cigarette.”

They exchanged a direct look. “And when I say everybody,” Shayne said, “naturally that includes you. You can fool Teddy because he wants to be fooled. He’s so short of capital he can’t afford to think about the story you gave him.”

“Do I pretend to be rich?” Teddy said.

“But don’t go by appearances,” Shayne went on. “He’s no mental defective. His mind will start working after your check clears.”

“No, it won’t,” Teddy promised.

Mrs. Brady shook a cigarette out of a pack, walked across to Shayne and put it between his lips. Her lighter flared.

“Teddy, you can go now. Pay no attention to what Mike says. You’ve done a first-rate job.”

They heard Jack clatter aboard with the equipment. Teddy considered the situation, from which he was being rapidly excluded.

“I wouldn’t trust him if I was you.”

“Who said anything about trusting him? As I said before, thanks.”

Teddy packed up his kit and started out, shaking his head.

“Oh, Teddy, for heaven’s sake,” Mrs. Brady said. “Sometimes there’s no point in having an audience. I intend to keep my wits about me, don’t worry.”

She went on deck with him and Shayne heard them talking in low tones. She came back with more ice.

“I’d like to untie you, Mike,” she said, “and maybe in a little while I will. I see you’re uncomfortable. First will you explain something?”

“Sure. What do you want to know?”

She replenished her own drink and made one for Shayne. “I hope you don’t mind if I feed you.”

She sat on the edge of the bunk, took the cigarette out of his mouth with one hand and held the cup to his lips with the other. It was awkward, but Shayne managed to swallow a mouthful.

There was a faint aftertaste to the vodka. Whiskey would have killed it. His nostrils flared. There was no longer any feeling in his hands and feet, but his brain was still getting all the blood it needed. Was it possible that this handsome, well-stacked woman was trying to feed him a Mickey? He was looking into her eyes. She had something in mind, and she didn’t want anyone dogging her. Teddy had romantic ideas about the things every self-respecting private detective should carry. A little vial of chloral hydrate would be one of the standard items in his kit.

“You didn’t get much of that,” she said. “Let’s try it again.”

This time Shayne held the mouthful until she leaned down to put the cup on the floor, and then let it run down his chin.

She ran a finger down his upper arm. “Mike, you’re a beautiful man. You have marvelous shoulders.”

“So do you,” he said. “Now that we can talk freely, what kind of stuff did you get on the tape?”

“Chatter,” she said carelessly. “Some of it pretty significant chatter. I should have explained things to Teddy before we went this far. Obviously I never had any intention of letting a fat detective with the inevitable cigar walk in and take pictures of my husband in bed with Dotty De Rham. She may be a little nutty but she also happens to be a fairly good friend of mine, as friends go in New York. Teddy wouldn’t understand. It’s something I couldn’t possibly do. Talk about status—there are restaurants in New York I couldn’t set foot into again, and they’re the only ones that serve food worth eating. People in my position simply don’t do things in such a crude way.”

“How well do you know her?”

She removed his cigarette and gave him another drink. This time, by shifting position as she put the cup down, he got rid of the mouthful in the bunk.

“We grew up together. We both went to Dalton. I met Paul at her wedding. It was a marvelous wedding, and they came to ours two months later. We had a couple of lovely weeks, Paul and I, and then it started going bad.”

“And now he doesn’t want to give you a divorce.”

“He’s quite willing to give me a divorce,” she said bitterly. “But he has unrealistic ideas about how much money I’ll hand over in return for that little piece of paper. He fooled me completely. He’s an excellent writer, Mike. He really is, very sensitive and talented, and I assumed that when we were married and he had no immediate financial worries he’d settle down and accomplish something. And he hasn’t written one line since we announced our engagement. Not a line. He says he’s looking for a subject! I want out, Mike, but I’m not giving him a penny.”

“How rich are you?”

She smiled. “I’m comfortably off, to use an old-fashioned expression. In spite of everything the accountants can do, and they’re gifted people, I end up paying an enormous income tax every year. I could afford to give him a pension, I suppose, but I’m not going to! He married me for my money, in cold blood, he’s as much as admitted it, and I’m damned if I’m going to let him get away with it.”

She gave him another drink. Again he managed not to swallow much of it.

“I’ve been planning to wait him out. I’m in no hurry.” She patted the tape. “Now I won’t have to. There’s some sexy conversation here. Really quite ribald, you’d be surprised. He was always very good at that part, much better than at what came afterward.”

“You think he’s planning to marry Mrs. De Rham?”

“That’s in the back of his mind, I think. Dotty and Henry are breaking up, or perhaps they’ve broken up already, and Paul must know by now that we’re through. Dotty has money. The mills paid a dividend this year, the first in ages, and the stock is booming. She needs a husband, and I think she’s likely to say yes. But she has a phobia about publicity.”

She was playing with the hair on Shayne’s chest. “Don’t think I’m too much of a bitch. This is the best way to do it. I expected Paul back two weeks ago, and when he stayed here I thought I’d better come down and see what was happening. And sure enough! I think Teddy overcharged me, but it was definitely worth it. It’s all going to be so simple now. I’ll play the tape for Paul. He knows if I use it as a basis for divorce proceedings Dotty’ll be perfectly livid, and Paul can consider himself scratched. So he’ll sign all the places where the lawyers tell him to sign, there won’t be any trouble or notoriety, it won’t cost me anything but the legal fees, and Paul will still have a chance to recoup with Dotty. You see?”

“Is she giving him money right now?”

“I hope not. She was thinking of buying into a company he’s trying to get a job with, but she may have more sense.”

“She’s closed out her New York savings accounts and transferred them here. She’s selling real estate.”

There was an interesting play of expression on her face. “The damn fool.”

“What kind of a blackmailer do you think he’d make?”

“Paul as a blackmailer? I think he’d be terrible. I don’t think he’s tough enough. If it came to a crunch, she’s ten times as tough as he is. What would he blackmail her with?”

“As I keep telling people, I only talked to the lady for about five minutes, and she was pretty stoned. Were you around when the Massachusetts plant burned down?”

She looked startled. “Mike, if you’re implying that Dotty—” She stopped. “I think we were all in Cambridge together that night, but I don’t know why the idea seems so preposterous. I guess because she’s so hopeless about machinery. Cars and appliances. You couldn’t walk up to a factory and throw a burning newspaper over the wall and set it on fire. No, there must be some other explanation.”

“Put out my cigarette for me.”

She took it out of his mouth and stubbed it on the floor. “Mike, I think it’s time for you to start reciprocating. Who hired you? How did you happen to be on this boat wearing only a towel?”

“Give me a drink,” Shayne said, running the words together.

She held the cup for him. He stopped the vodka with his tongue but made his throat work as though he was drinking. He blew out his breath explosively when she took the cup away.

“That’s pretty powerful stuff. Mrs. De Rham’s lawyer hired me, Joshua Loring.”

“I know him. A sweet man.”

“He’s worried about the money. He thinks Henry’s getting it, but Paul’s more my—”

He let it drift off.

When he didn’t finish she said, “We’re both being so solemn. I can’t get too worked up about what Dotty chooses to do with her money.” She brought her hands together. “In fact, I don’t want to talk about Dotty any more. One more drink and then I’ll untie you.”

“Great.”

She moved closer to him. “Mike, darling.” She put her face against his and bit the lobe of his ear. “I think we’re going to end up making love, don’t you?”

“Probably.”

She kissed him competently, using her lips, her tongue and her teeth. She still had the loaded drink in her hand, and was careful not to spill it.

“Here, sweetheart. One drink. Then I’ll keep my promise.”

She lifted his head and held the vodka to his mouth. His face touched her breast. He turned and bit her, paying her back for the bite on the ear. This wasn’t a playful nip, but a real bite. She shuddered.

“Darling, wait. I’m going to take something off.”

She pulled back and put the cup on the floor, a good distance from her own, so she wouldn’t confuse them. He turned his head, his eyelids heavy, and watched her come pouring out of her clothes. She was even better looking naked. He wasn’t responding too well. He had swallowed less than a quarter of the Mickey, but it had done some damage. His eyes were actually closing.

She reached down and pulled off the towel.

“Mike—lover—”

She came down against him. He managed to make room on the narrow bunk. After a long kiss she shivered away, came back and said huskily, “My God, Mike, you’re incredibly exciting. I’ve got to have one last drink.”

He was closer to the edge all the time, and when she held the cup for him he actually drank quite a bit of it, which had the effect of shocking him awake.

“Mike, you can’t imagine how it makes me feel when you’re tied up this way. Do you think I’m some kind of freak? Stay like that. I want to—”

“Untie me. I’ll cooperate. Co-op-er-ate.”

Her excitement carried her down against him again, so violently that he felt himself going under. He heaved upward, and in what he felt might be his last effort of the night, rolled her off the bunk. He landed on her with his full weight.

“Mike, darling, move.”

“Can’t.”

She freed herself after a struggle. He lay as she left him, face down in a helpless sprawl. He felt something working at his ankles, and then heard the little snick of nail scissors.

Soon she was at his wrists. His hands fell apart.

“Darling, put your arms around me. Mike, now. I’m so ready for you. See for yourself. Touch me.”

She worked at him for a moment in silence. “Don’t disappoint me. Don’t go to sleep. You didn’t have that much to drink. I thought I’d finally found a real man.”

He moved one arm but it flopped back to the floor. He lay still.

“Mike?” she whispered.

She tried kissing him, but his mouth was inert. Then she bit him again, very hard this time. He didn’t move. When she withdrew, he began to snore.

She made a small disappointed sound and said in a different voice, “Too bad, Mike. I’m sorry. I think it would have been terrific.”

CHAPTER 12

When he heard the door close he opened his eyes. A long moment passed before he could roll over and bring his elbows up beneath him so he could raise his head.

Blood returned painfully to his hands and feet. His head seemed to be stuffed with insulation. He gave his body a series of commands but it ignored them. He made it keep moving. His numbed feet held him for only an instant, then dumped him back on the floor.

His head struck the corner of the table as he raised it again, and the pain was what he needed. He fumbled at the tray filled with melted ice, and dashed cold water over his face. The haze cleared slightly. He hobbled to the door before remembering that he was naked, and he went back for the towel. Knotting it around him was beyond his power. He stumbled out on the deck holding it in front of him.

He heard a car door slam across the water. A motor caught and the car shot away, accelerating hard. He would see her again, Shayne promised himself, and the next time he hoped they would have more clothes on.

Could he swim back to the other marina? He decided there was too much chance of falling asleep in the water. He wondered vaguely what time it was. Remembering his watch, he consulted it. The hands seemed to move around the face at random. He squinted, trying to make them hold still. When they continued to spin and vibrate he realized how important it was to keep moving. He lurched to the dock and shambled toward shore.

This marina was unattended. Reaching the street, he slanted toward where he had left his Buick, so completely absorbed in what had to be done that he was unaware of how he looked, the towel loosely draped around his middle. He moved in an erratic line at a kind of shambling run.

He fell against the Buick. It was locked. The keys were in his pants. His pants were on a boat somewhere. Later he would try to remember where.

Without hesitation he picked up a trash basket and smashed a rear window with it. Reaching in, indifferent to the jagged splinters of glass, he unlatched the door. A moment later he was in the front seat, fumbling at the glove compartment. His hands were almost back to normal, and when he had the compartment open he found the benzedrine inhaler and broke it apart.

He took a deep breath, another and another. Gradually the fuzziness around the street lights disappeared, and when he looked at his watch again the hands held still and told him the time. It was almost midnight.

After several more deep breaths he reached for the cognac and the little bottle of amphetamines. With the first drink, he swallowed two pills to counteract the anesthetic he had been given in the vodka, and then took one more to keep him going. He waited a full five minutes, to be sure everything was working.

When he left the car wearing the knotted towel, he was still weak but almost too alert. He had too much to do, too many places to go. A brilliant sequence of impressions rushed through his head. This time he was careful that no cars were in sight when he crossed the street. He lowered himself into the water, and swam with slow, careful strokes to the dock running out to the Nefertiti.

He had trouble pulling himself out of the water. He reknotted the wet towel and started toward the Lyons’ boat. His hands and feet had nearly stopped tingling.

He stepped aboard quietly. Like the Nefertiti alongside, the boat was dark and still. He felt his way to the outside steps and up to the after deck. His foot struck a shoe. He crouched, and began groping across the deck.

The back of his hand grazed a leg. He knew instantly that it was a girl’s. He heard an indrawn breath. A tiny pencil flashlight came on and struck him in the eyes.

“Mike!” Sally’s voice said.

The light winked out. In a second he had another girl in his arms. She was younger than Mrs. Brady but equally well formed. He couldn’t tell what she was wearing, and he took pains not to find out.

“Keep your voice down,” he whispered.

“I’ll say. Mother and Dad are back.” She touched his lips with one finger. “I’ve been so scared.”

“Where are my clothes?”

“I stowed them away so Dad wouldn’t—”

He felt her breath on his cheek. She shifted in his arms, pulling him with her, and in a moment more they were side by side on the air mattress, and she was kissing him fiercely. It was pleasant and stimulating. He was running on amphetamines now instead of chloral hydrate, but there were other reasons he couldn’t relax.

“Mike, take off your towel. You’re getting me wet.”

“I’ll keep it on, thanks. You were about to get me—”

“Just a minute. Where’s the knot?”

He caught her hand. “Sally—”

“You’ve been gone for hours! I thought you’d drowned. I know the girl’s not supposed to make the first move, but if you won’t—”

“Sally.”

“I’m in a position to name my own terms. I have a piece of valuable information for you, and you’d better not think I’m going to give it away.”

“The skin diver came back and collected the mike. I know that already.”

“And something else happened.”

“Tell me, Sally. It’s late. I’ve got to see some people.”

“I’ll trade. I’ll give you my information if you—” She whispered something in his ear. “Please, Mike. It won’t take long.”

Shayne rolled off the mattress. “If I have to look for myself—”

She clutched him. “Mike, why do you have to be such a jerk? I thought men were naturally polygamous. You really won’t?”

“That’s right. I really won’t.”

“I suppose you think I’m too young for you.”

“Correct.”

“It’s quite a blow to my pride. I can’t even seduce a man who’s wearing only a towel.” She was still holding him so closely that he could feel her breasts rise against him whenever she drew a breath. “Mike, about a half hour after you left somebody else swam up to the Nefertiti and came up a rope ladder. A man in bathing trunks. His head came sliding along in the water and I almost said something, I was so sure it was you.”

“Did you get a look at him?”

“Just for a tiny second, when he came over the rail. He had a beard.”

“What kind of beard, Sally? It’s important.”

Her lingers touched his face. She sketched a chin-and-mouth beard like the one Henry De Rham had been wearing when Shayne saw him.

“Sort of curly. He listened, and then he kind of sneaked inside. I don’t know how long he stayed. I wanted to keep awake but I couldn’t seem to. And I was below for a while when Mother and Dad came home.”

“Everything stayed quiet over there? No fireworks?”

“Like a tomb.”

While he thought about it she slipped away and went for his clothes. He heard a creak as she raised the top of a locker, and then it slipped out of her hands and slammed hard. They froze. When nothing happened she opened the locker again and brought him his clothes.

“Sorry about that, Mike. I don’t think I woke up anybody.”

The towel dropped to the deck. She handed him his pants, and at that moment the cabin door burst open and a powerful three-cell flashlight came on and caught Shayne in its beam. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

“I thought I heard something, goddamn it!” a voice bawled.

“Dad, turn out that light,” Sally said. “Turn it out this minute. You’re embarrassing him.”

Sally’s father swung the flashlight at her. She proved to be wearing a thin nightgown that came down to mid-thigh. “At least one of you’s not naked!” he shouted.

She glanced at Shayne and giggled. “Dad, you’re being very square, as usual.”

He was wearing pajama bottoms. His graying hair stood up like the comb of a rooster. He was short, with a chest like a keg.

“And who the hell are you?” He turned the light back on Shayne, who was trying to get his pants on. This was hard to do because one of the legs was inside out. “Goddamn it, what’s been going on out here, what have you been doing with my daughter?”

He walked up to Shayne, who was still struggling with his pants, and batted him hard on the side of the head with the flashlight. His daughter, laughing and sobbing, caught his arm. An older woman loomed up behind her, her hair in rollers. Shayne tried to hold off the furious little man for long enough to get the second pant leg turned right side out, and he caught two more hard blows. As the flashlight whirled, its beam illuminated Shayne and the mother screamed.

“Oh, mother, please shut up!” Sally cried. “Help me get Dad calmed down and we’ll explain—”

Lights on other boats were coming on, and Shayne heard someone shout for the watchman. Finally there was nothing to do but let go of his pants and quiet Sally’s father with a crisp right to the point of the jaw. Sally gasped.

“Did you have to do that, Mike?” she demanded.

“I didn’t hear any better suggestions from you.”

The flashlight bounced across the deck and went out. Someone on the Nefertiti turned on a powerful battery lantern. Shayne at last succeeded in getting into his pants and closed the zipper. Sally’s father was allowing himself to be held by his wife.

“Brady?” he called. “I’m going to need some help over here. Call the police. This man was committing a sexual—”

“He wasn’t doing anything of the kind!” Sally cried. “He refused to. I mean—”

“Mike Shayne,” Brady’s voice drawled, amused.

“You know him?” Sally’s father said.

“Of course. He’s working for Mrs. De Rham. If you can talk your way out of this, Mike, come aboard and I’ll give you a drink.”

Shayne grunted and went on buttoning his shirt.

“You won’t talk your way out of this in a hurry,” Sally’s father said. “When I turned on the flashlight, Mother, he was standing there absolutely nude.”

“I saw him.”

“It was dark before you turned on the light, wasn’t it?” Sally said, trying to sound reasonable. “He was getting dressed.”

“And what was he doing before? I don’t care who you are, friend, we’ll see what kind of explanation you can give a judge. Trespassing, attempted rape of an eighteen-year-old girl—Will somebody please go to a phone and call the police?”

“You do, Dad, and I’ll never speak to you again,” Sally warned. She raised her voice. “Go back to sleep, everybody. It’s a silly misunderstanding. Mother, you persuade Dad to use some common sense.”

“It certainly won’t do any harm to see what they have to say,” her mother said. “He looks like a nice man and perhaps Sally—”

“A nice man!” the father exclaimed. “He looks like a thug, if you ask me.”

“Dad, honestly, he’s on a case—”

Shayne finished dressing and let the two women argue and threaten until finally the father said grudgingly that he was willing to listen to Shayne’s explanation.

“But it better be good!”

CHAPTER 13

Paul Brady, in white Bermuda shorts, was waiting in the salon of the Nefertiti. He was drinking scotch, neat, in a highball glass.

“I’m told you like to drink cognac, so I bought a bottle of Hennessey’s. Is that all right?”

“It’s perfect,” Shayne said gratefully.

“Do you mind telling me what that commotion was all about?”

“Please. I’ve been talking steadily for fifteen minutes, and I still don’t think he believes me. I don’t want to have to go through it again.”

Brady poured cognac into a snifter and handed it to Shayne. “Sally’s a pretty girl,” he said with a straight face. “Of course she’s still a bit young.”

“Damn it, Brady, we’ve got other things to talk about.”

“True,” Brady said judiciously. “I take it you found Henry.”

“Right where you said I’d find him.”

“And Dotty was so sure he’d go back to New York! I wish I’d put some money on it. Not that she ever pays off when she loses.”

“I’d like to talk to her.”

Brady shook his head. “Not tonight, Shayne. She was better this afternoon. She got dressed and we entertained a lawyer—more hocus pocus with the famous last will and testament. Henry’s back in, you’ll be glad to know. That was her big effort of the day. She actually ate a tuna fish sandwich while she was downing three or four of her mammoth martinis, and it made her sick as a dog. I think it’s a good sign. Maybe she’ll feel so bad in the morning that she’ll decide to lay off the gin. God knows it’s time.”

Shayne held the big glass in both hands. “Did you know your wife is in town?”

Brady rose straight up, and in his agitation turned completely around before sitting down again. That answered Shayne’s question; he didn’t know his wife was in town. “Kathy?” he whispered. “Why? How did you—”

“She came down to see what’s been holding you up. She hired a detective to find out if you and Mrs. De Rham are sleeping together.”

“The horrible, horrible—” He ran his hand through his hair, looking suddenly worn and haggard. “This is inexcusable. A detective. I never thought she would be capable of anything so coarse. Do you know where she’s staying?”

“No. She rented a boat, but she doesn’t seem to be sleeping on it.”

“What a mistake that marriage was, Mike.” He looked at the floor, chewing a fingernail. “She can ruin everything.”

“Ruin what?”

“What do you think? Dotty has illusions that she can persuade Henry to come back with this will, but it’s not in the cards. She’s the type of woman who has to be married, just to have somebody to bicker with at breakfast. Here I am, an old friend, not exactly unattached but not far from it.” He looked up. “So I’m a heel. Do you think that’s such a goddamned easy thing to be? I was really thinking I had this sewed up. Henry was with a woman, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“That’s something else I would have bet money on. Dotty’ll forgive him but the question is, will he forgive her? He’d be out of his mind if he did.”

From the other side of the closed stateroom door, Shayne heard dry retching, then the rush of water.

“Throwing up again,” Brady said, without sympathy. “If my dear sweet wife has a heart to heart talk with Dotty about me, I mean if she really lets down her hair, she can blow it, I’m sorry to say. I don’t expect you to feel sorry for me. As the cliché has it, it’s not your problem.”

“Is Henry blackmailing Mrs. De Rham?”

Brady looked at him narrowly. “Did he give you that impression?”

“Just answer the question, Paul,” Shayne said wearily. “It’s late.”

Brady snapped, “Not to my knowledge. Why the change in tone? I haven’t done anything except try to help.”

“What was Henry doing here tonight?”

Brady no longer had the reserves to look surprised. He said thinly, “You saw him, did you? I thought you might. He wanted to talk to Dotty, and he didn’t want his friend Brady to know he was talking to her. But I wasn’t asleep yet. Mike, we’re getting to a point where I can’t say anything more on my own responsibility. I’ve got to consult Dotty, as much as I dislike consulting a woman who’s being sick to her stomach. I don’t know if blackmail is the word. I suppose it comes close.” He stood up. “This may take a few minutes.”

He went to the door, but turned back before knocking. “How about letting it go till morning? She’s been puking her guts out. I doubt if she’ll know what I’m saying. Let her get some sleep.”

Shayne shook his head. “If I’m going to see Henry again, tonight’s the best time, before he can get set. I can stay here as long as necessary, all night if I have to. She’s bound to sober up sooner or later.”

“Not if she goes on drinking.”

“Take her bottles away, Paul. If you’re going to marry her, it’s to your financial advantage to get this settled.”

After a moment, Brady knocked on the door and let himself in. Instantly Shayne was out of his chair. He tried the knob carefully. The door was now locked. After a time he heard the toilet flush again, then a mutter of voices. Slipping off his shoes, he went on deck and checked the stateroom windows. Still he could hear nothing.

He went back into the salon and poured himself more cognac. Considerable time passed before Brady unlocked the door and came out, sweating.

“That was like pulling tacks with my fingernails,” he said, plumping down and draining his glass. “I have her authorization to tell you. Of course she won’t remember a thing in the morning, and who do you think’s going to take the rap? Let’s face facts, if Katharine’s determined to break this up she can do it. I may not look gainfully employed, but I work for a living, Mike, believe me. Who’s going to get your bill—Loring?”

“There may not be any bill. I haven’t done anything so far.”

Brady moaned. “What do you call nothing? You action people amaze me! I’ve got some activity for you, Mike, and if it works I could make myself very popular. If it backfires I may have to look for a nine-to-five job, which I’m loath to do. I know I’ll be bad at it.”

“Paul, stop dancing and tell me. What’s he got on her?”

“I can’t do things that way. I’ve got to back into it. I told you about the new will—it’s actually the old will, going back to the status quo. He gets everything after she takes care of the faithful old retainers, who aren’t too numerous, as a matter of fact. Dotty was so sure that once he saw it in black and white he’d realize where his best interests lay.”

He laughed harshly. “The next time I get married I’m going to insist on an irrevocable trust. Well, after the lawyer left I got called out to the marina office, they had a phone call for me. It was Henry: ‘Brady? What’s this crud about private detectives? Around here fuzz is fuzz, and when you have fuzz coming on with photographs people want to know why, man.’ He used to talk pretty good English, but the hippies have corrupted him. I told him Dotty wanted to see him, she’s made a new will. He said, ‘Beautiful! Tell her I left town.’ We went back and forth like that. I really tried to persuade him to come because I knew the best way to make it a real rupture was to get them together and let them yell at each other. I’m being honest. He finally agreed.”

“Cash must have been mentioned.”

“I’m sure it was. He wouldn’t sneak back just to see the will with his own eyes. That’s been trotted out so often it’s lost its magic. They had a private conversation. I tried to listen, but that’s a tight-fitting door. All I know is what she just told me. He said he was having fun and he wouldn’t think of coming back for less than fifty now, in real bills, and twenty a year from now on, which is the sort of deal I’d like to get from Katharine and I haven’t a prayer of getting. You know, your own checkbook. The difference between me and Henry is, he’s got a tape.”

“Proving what? That Mrs. De Rham burned down her factory for the insurance?”

Brady raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know about proves. I suppose you heard about the fire from Loring?”

Shayne snapped his fingers. “Come on, Paul.”

“I told you I can’t tell a story that way. You’ve already spoiled a couple of good effects. Do you know about our Fifth Reunion?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Take it easy, Mike. Hell, it’s only one in the morning. There was a dance that night, in the indoor tennis courts. Henry was on the committee and he had plenty to do. There are always enough unmarried classmates at the Fifth to take care of loose wives. What Dotty did—she denies it, but from the way she’s been acting since she heard there was a tape I tend not to believe her—was get in her car and hit the Mass Turnpike, which lets you move across the state at eighty miles an hour. If she was missing a couple of hours Henry would think she’d ducked out to a parked car with a stag.”

“Who’s talking now?”

“I’m talking. I’m paraphrasing. This plant was a terrible dinosaur, high cost, lousy transportation, a tough union. Everybody always kept saying they could start making money again if they could only move to South Carolina, to take advantage of all that lovely nonunion labor, that lovely modern facility the state was willing to give them for a dollar forty-nine, forgiving state and local taxes for the first ten years. But they couldn’t afford the move. The fire made it possible. The minute Henry heard about it he rushed to the scene. The night watchman was in the local hospital with bad burns. Henry got in with a tape recorder. He must have claimed to be a cop of some kind—he’s a great actor. The guy was coming out of a coma. After he finished talking to Henry he went back in the coma and died.”

“You don’t know what he said?”

“Whatever it was, it was hot enough so Henry thinks he can use it to collect some long-range dough. What are you looking so doubtful about?”

“There are laws against defrauding insurance companies, not to mention laws against arson and manslaughter. She could lose quite a bit of money and go to jail.”

“Hell, I realize that. That’s the point. She wants you to find out if he actually has a tape and to get it for her if he does. The price tag on this is ten thousand bucks.”

“If I find any evidence that a crime has been committed,” Shayne said, “it has to go to the appropriate district attorney. He’ll decide what to do with it.”

“You’re kidding. I’m talking about something worth an easy ten thousand.”

Shayne drank his cognac without replying. Brady studied him, then stood up.

“I wasn’t expecting this. I thought you guys were supposed to be pragmatic. Give me another few minutes.”

He went back into the stateroom. Shayne had finished his cognac by the time he came back. He fidgeted around the room and started to speak several times before saying finally, “She said to go ahead, she’ll take a chance on it, to get him off her back. She’s hanging over the john with her head in her hands. Does she know what’s at stake? Probably not.”

He dropped into his chair. “She mumbled something like, ‘Can’t arrest me, it was Tom.’ Who the hell would that be?”

“Tom Moseley?”

Brady looked up. “Moseley,” he said slowly, then shrugged. “I’m beginning to unravel. I’m not the type to make decisions.”

He picked up a coin, a quarter, and flipped it, catching it neatly and clapping it on the back of his other hand. “Heads. Henry told her if she didn’t believe he had it he’d play it for her. That means it’s here in Miami.”

“It’s not in his room,” Shayne said. “I looked for a claims check or a key to a coin locker. I didn’t find anything.”

“Here’s an idea. When he left tonight I thought I’d better find out what he was using for transportation—he wouldn’t depend on cabs. I whipped out to the other end of the dock. And he was driving a red Volkswagen, Mike. If there wasn’t anything in his room—”

He flipped the quarter again. This time it came up tails. “Somebody’s going to get the dirty end of this stick, and I have a feeling his name’s going to be Brady.”

Shayne stood up. “You’ve put in a lot of work on this. How much have you cleared so far?”

Brady drew a deep breath. “She bought some stock from me. I get a commission on that. On everything else I’ve been working on spec. And all of a sudden it occurs to me—” He swirled the whiskey around in his glass. “Do I really want to be husband number two? When you think about it, I mean, it’s a funny ambition, isn’t it?”

CHAPTER 14

Shayne started in Jennings Park and radiated outward. The neighborhood still throbbed and jumped. An open-fronted café on one of the side streets blazed with light and loud music, and the sidewalks in that block were jammed with drifting teen-agers. De Rham wouldn’t leave his car this close to the park. Most of his new set was opposed to the ownership of cars, including economy-sized imports.

Shayne found it on Flagler Terrace, in a quiet district where people went to bed early—a red VW with dealer’s plates. He double-parked and walked back.

The little car was locked. Using his picking apparatus, he had the front door open in less than a minute. He stooped to stuff himself in. But then he hesitated.

He looked around carefully. He was under a streetlight. There was an indistinct roar, punctuated by the solid thump of amplified drums and guitars, from the crowded blocks nearer the park, but here it was quiet and nothing moved. Finding the Volkswagen had been as easy as finding De Rham himself earlier. Both times Paul Brady had given him the lead. Things sometimes turned out to be simpler than Shayne had expected, but it rarely happened twice in a row. The little car suddenly seemed like a trap. Once inside it, he thought he might have trouble getting out.

He had learned to trust his instinct in these matters. Reaching in, he rolled down the windows and conducted his search from the outside, alert for any new sounds on the block. He emptied the glove compartment, felt along the underside of the dashboard and pulled up the floor padding. He brought out his picks again and opened the luggage compartment. Finding nothing, he bent down, gripped the frame between the doors, and straightened, tipping the little car on its side.

He saw the flat, cloth-wrapped package wired to the inside of one fender-well almost at once, and at the same instant his built-in radar picked up a surreptitious movement not far away. He moved fast. He slipped one of his picks between the package and the wire and used leverage to snap the wire. Stepping back, he saw Henry De Rham coming toward him. Shayne wrenched the package loose and slipped around to the other side of the car. Now he heard running footsteps. He dropped to his knees, keeping in the shadow. He saw a catch basin in the curb, and with a quick sideways flick, he scaled the tape toward it. It slithered across the asphalt, bounced against the grating and dropped in.

“That’s my car!” De Rham cried, “It’s tipped over!”

Shayne straightened. “De Rham,” he said calmly. “I didn’t recognize you. I didn’t know you owned a car.”

“What’s the bitch trying to do to me? Why can’t she leave me alone?”

Shayne, a savage grin on his face, whirled to meet the rush of two barefoot youths who had slipped between parked cars. One was swinging a short length of chain. Shayne went beneath it and drove upward, using his shoulder. He caught the second youth in a powerful grasp, tying him up and turning him, but before Shayne could do anything about finishing him, two more of the youths piled on him from behind.

That made four, not counting De Rham, and there were probably more on the way. The first glance had told Shayne that these were the ex-Dirty Angels he had heard about from Tim Rourke, members of the banned motorcycle club, a loose organization of wild young men who made savagery a cult. Two or three he might have been able to handle. Really dirty alley-fighters are more interested in fighting dirty than in winning, and they lay themselves open to retaliation from above. Shayne hammered downward, brought his knee up in one youth’s face, stamped and pivoted hard with an elbow out.

De Rham shouted, “Goddamn cops. Think you can come down on us whenever you like. I knew you’d be back! You’re going to get your ears knocked off, Shayne.”

He was carrying a piece of two-by-two lumber. He aimed it at Shayne and hit one of his own boys on the shoulder. After that he stayed back, keeping a running diatribe going against the brutality and stupidity and corruption of cops, who ignored depravity among the rich and harried people whose only crime was their long hair.

His friends didn’t need the encouragement. They were fighting for pleasure. Shayne caught one around the neck and smashed his nose with his fist. They were barefoot, and they were used to fighting in boots. Shayne, badly outnumbered, was trying to capitalize on the fact that he was wearing shoes. He connected seriously only once, and that youth staggered across the sidewalk with several broken toes.

Shayne himself had been hurt. Two other youths stopped to watch, and Shayne caught the reek of marijuana. If things went badly with him, it was only a question of time before the whole neighborhood joined in.

De Rham commented with disgust, “Somebody ought to educate these narcotics cops.” He screamed suddenly, waving his club, “Break him up! Let’s teach the mother a lesson he won’t forget!”

One of the watchers pinched out his cigarette and put it away.

Shayne picked up his smallest assailant by the neck and the crotch, spun him around and let him go. Breaking loose, he headed straight for the two newcomers and straight-armed the nearest one between the eyes.

He ran toward the park. He had been rabbit-punched repeatedly, and his midsection was on fire. His brain was still turning, but slowly. It was as though the amphetamines had lost their force and the chloral hydrate had taken over again. One knee was injured. A wave of pain shot through him at each step.

One of the boys, faster to recover than the others, nearly overtook him. Shayne swung around, snarling, as the boy dived, aiming for his genitals. Shayne chopped down, using his full strength, and left him on the sidewalk unconscious and bleeding.

Replacements had appeared for those Shayne had put out of action. A grin was still fixed on Shayne’s face. A long rip in his shirt showed the depth and power of his chest. He began to back away. They came after him warily. If they all moved together they could pull him down, but someone had to take that first step, and they had all lost some of their first eagerness.

De Rham, behind them, threw his piece of wood. It bounced from Shayne’s arm. He stopped and swept it up, whirling it at the youths and making them pause again.

Then he turned and ran into the park.

The old men had gone to bed, leaving the benches to guitarists and young lovers. Shayne’s quick eye picked out several plainclothes detectives. Short of imposing a curfew, all they could do was make an occasional marijuana arrest, and wait for trouble. The Dirty Angels couldn’t close in on him here, but Shayne, equally, couldn’t ask for a police escort. He would have to answer too many questions. The whole object of this diversion, he realized now, had been to put him out of action, and he had to hurry. He had got into this without police help, and he had to get out of it the same way.

He stopped an untidy girl and asked where he could find a public phone. She suggested the café.

He limped there, followed at a short distance by De Rham and the boys. Shayne stopped in the doorway and looked back. De Rham was conferring with one of the youths, the only one Shayne hadn’t managed to mark. He had two gaps and a stump in the front of his mouth, an inflamed complexion and blonde hair hanging over his eyes. Brushing his hair aside, he looked at Shayne evilly.

Shayne made his way among the crowded tables, wincing when he banged his knee. There were three wall phones. He dialed Tim Rourke’s number.

Rourke answered after a half dozen rings. Shayne shouted at him and Rourke shouted back, but there was too much noise; they couldn’t understand each other.

The sounds coming from the group of musicians on the raised platform stopped abruptly. Cupping his hand around the mouthpiece, Shayne made his friend understand who he was and what he wanted.

“A tape recorder,” Rourke said. “Yeah, I’ve got one. I know where you are. There’s only one rock ‘n’ roll place in town open this late. Are you having trouble?”

“Damn right,” Shayne said distinctly.

“Be right with you, Mike,” Rourke said quickly, and hung up.

Shayne found the ugly gap-toothed Angel standing beside him with a foolish grin on his face and a kind of glitter in his eye. He was high on something more powerful than ordinary tobacco. He had a knife in Shayne’s ribs.

“Introduce myself,” he said politely. “I’m Finn. I’m a—I’m a—I’m a dangerous rapist. That’s what the judge said. Blow your cool, man, and I’ll c-c-carve myself some red meat.”

“Can you get a drink in this place?”

“Only C-C-Coke.” The knife dug in far enough to draw blood. “Turn around, baby. Walk.”

The amplified group had returned to the attack. Shayne moved carefully, gauging his chances. Another Angel was going through the room alerting those with motorcycle backgrounds to the man-to-man showdown taking place between one of their own and Mike Shayne, a detective sent into teen-age country to harass a drop-out from a rich marriage. Only this selected group would take part, Shayne could see. All the others would stay out, and possibly they wouldn’t even bother to watch.

He grinned back at the grinning Angel. “Hot in here. I feel sort of—”

He put his hand to his forehead and let his eyelids flutter closed. He slid to the floor.

There was hardly room for Finn to stoop down beside him. “Get up, man.” He slapped Shayne’s face. “Trying to fake me out. That’s a phony dive, and don’t think I don’t know it.”

Shayne stayed limp, even when Finn dug the point of his knife viciously into his stomach.

“Cold,” Finn said contemptuously. “Big tough man got scared and passed out. Hey. Give me something to throw on him, somebody, an orange drink or something.”

He looked up at the faces above him. Shayne seized his wrist and wrung it hard. The knife fell. Shayne went on twisting and Finn went with the twist, his ugly face contorted. His chin was exposed, but Shayne waited until he could do it right, and then delivered a short powerful jab to the knockout point.

Somebody above laughed and sprinkled them both with a soft drink.

Shayne was well below table level, where he intended to stay. Looking up, he concluded that he would get neither help nor opposition from these boys and girls, whichever they were. They were far too cool.

He retrieved the knife and crawled along the wall. A fat youth at the phones blocked him until Shayne pricked one of his bare feet and he hopped aside. Shayne touched one of the many cords snaking down from the music platform to a gang plug in a baseboard outlet. He twitched the whole plug out and plunged the knife into the slot.

Everything blew.

The sudden silence was deafening. Leaving the knife where it was, Shayne rose to his feet in the darkness and stepped up on the platform among the musicians. One of the amplifying panels fell over. A musician struck at him and Shayne pushed him hard. In a minute the platform was a tangle of musicians and instruments and wires.

“A raid!” Shayne yelled. “Narcotics raid. Narcotics!”

He took a guitar away from somebody and began swinging it. Several musicians fell into the crowd. Girls screamed as they stampeded. There was no crush around the exits, as the entire front of the café opened onto the street. The crowd drained in that direction and Shayne went with it. He picked up a chair and pulled it apart as he went.

By the time he reached the street, the block was jammed with excited young people. A line of uniformed cops had formed at the end, barring entry into the park, and the damn fools had already begun to swing their clubs. The crowd surged away, then held and came back, overrunning the thin police line.

Paper bags of water were being thrown from the windows.

Shayne waited against the wall until the crowd divided into small running groups. With his carrot-red hair, his powerful shoulders, the clothes he was wearing, he was clearly a foreigner in this part of his home town, and a natural target for water bombs. He was hit twice before he reached the next street. At the corner he was hit from behind by something more serious, a bicycle chain wound around an Angel’s fist.

He was hit several times more. He was later to find many unexplained contusions on his head and upper body, but by that time he was unconscious.

CHAPTER 15

When he swam back, coming out through a psychedelic haze punctuated by blazing lights and sudden overpowering noises, he found himself in a doorway. His head was on a girl’s lap. Her face was upside down, and he didn’t recognize her at first. She was wiping blood gently from his forehead.

“Those jerks,” she said. “They could have killed you, but why should they care?”

“What—” Shayne said with difficulty.

That was as far as he could take it. The battle had ended, or had moved elsewhere. A siren sounded. There was a patter of feet and an excited girl ran across from the opposite building and leaped into the doorway.

“They’re shooting!” she cried. “Shooting real bullets! Get inside, H. Who’s the guy?”

“A friend of mine,” Shayne’s girl said. “He gave me his burger.”

Shayne now realized that he was being mothered by the girl who had been living with Henry De Rham.

“They’re going through houses rounding everybody up,” the other girl said. “If you’ve got any acid or anything better get rid of it.”

“I’m all right,” H. said. “I only tried it once and I didn’t like it.”

Shayne tried to raise his head, but fell back with a groan. “Where’s Henry?”

“Who cares? I don’t, I can assure you of that.”

“I’ve got to—”

“You know what you’ve got to do, Mr. Shayne. You’ve got to lie here till an ambulance comes and gets you.”

Shayne didn’t try to shake his head for fear something would go wrong inside, but this time when he endeavored to sit up he made it.

“Can you drive a car?”

“Yes, but you’re not—”

Shayne tried to stand. It was too soon, and he went under again. This time he had a harder fight to come back, and the surfacing was unpleasant.

“The beating they gave you,” she said. “They were just out of control. I completely lost my temper. I said things, I did things—”

“H.—”

“Helen.”

“Helen, I have things to do or people’ll get killed. Help me. My car—”

A battered Ford stopped with a screech of tires and Tim Rourke leaped from it. He had dressed hurriedly, and Shayne noticed with a temporary return of his usual clarity that he was wearing only one sock.

“My God, what a story. Did you start this, Mike? Tell me later. Where’s a phone?”

“In the café.”

“The café’s a shambles. Well, maybe the phones are still working.”

He dashed off.

“How long’s this been going on?” Shayne said.

“Half an hour. Nobody knows what happened, it just exploded. Everybody started running. The police have been dreadful. Unbelievable. I’m going home to my family. I’ve made up my mind that I’m not going to stay here another night.”

Moving slowly, by careful stages, Shayne sat up again. “What does Henry think about that?”

“I’ve given up on Henry. Do you know he paid those boys to beat you? Ten dollars apiece, seven boys, seventy dollars. And he told me he was so broke! I’ve been scrounging for food. I washed dishes in the café one night. He didn’t give me one cent the whole week, and suddenly it turns out he has ten-dollar bills to throw around.”

Shayne was feeling himself to see where he hurt most and he was only half listening. But a little warning flag went up. He repeated what she had said slowly, and it registered on him.

“The whole week, Helen? He’s been here two weeks.”

“Six days, to be exact. I ought to know, and half the time he’s been God knows where. I think he’s been seeing that wife! Right along!”

“What makes you think that?”

“I could smell her perfume. Expensive perfume—Dior’s. The hypocrite. I left home to get away from hypocrisy. He said he liked how peaceful it is here, nobody bugging him, no pressures—he said he was happy for the first time in his life. That’s what he said. But he wasn’t happy. He lay awake most of the night. I couldn’t help him. He wouldn’t talk to me. The whole thing has been such a fiasco.”

Rourke came running up. “Into the car, boy. We’ve got some talking to do.”

“Got the tape recorder?”

“Yeah. On your feet, Mike. I’m a ninety-pound weakling, and I’m not going to carry you. So you got knocked out. Worse things happen to you all the time.”

“You didn’t see what they did to him!” the girl cried.

“Honey,” Rourke said, “you don’t want to sympathize with Shayne. It’s bad for him. I’m this character’s best friend, and I’m always sorry to see him bleeding. But right now we’re both working. You can help him if you want to. You’re a female. He won’t mind leaning on you.”

Rourke stood by, his eyebrows cocked skeptically, while the girl tugged at Shayne and got him to his feet. She steered him across the sidewalk to Rourke’s Ford. The reporter’s only contribution was to open the door.

Shayne put his head against the back of the seat and rested. Helen reached in and kissed the corner of his mouth. She started to say something, but Rourke, meanwhile, had leaped behind the wheel and was impatient to drive off. She let go of the door and gave a tentative half wave.

“Good-bye. I hope—”

Rourke came down hard on the gas, and put a strain on the transmission going up into second.

“One of these days we’re going to have to start double-teaming you, Mike. One-man coverage is hardly enough. What’s the program?”

Shayne moved his hand. “Flagler Terrace. Left my car there. Need a drink.”

Rourke was still in second when he came up behind Shayne’s Buick. Shayne heard him swear. He opened his eyes and pulled himself forward, then slowly opened the door and got out.

The red Volkswagen lay on its side as Shayne had left it. In retaliation, De Rham and the Angels had wrecked the Buick, as well as they could wreck it in a limited time without heavy equipment. All four tires were flat. The headlights and taillights had been smashed. All the glass was gone except the windshield. The body was battered, the doors were sprung and off their hinges.

“As I think I told you, some of these guys aren’t too sold on nonviolence yet,” Rourke said. “Old habits.”

Shayne checked his liquor supply in the back seat bar. They had cleaned him out.

“I grabbed a couple of pints on the way out of the house,” Rourke said. “You never know when it’s going to come in handy. Stop panting—I’ll give you a drink.”

They returned to the Ford. Rourke took a flat bottle of cognac out of his glove compartment and opened it for him. A pint of cheap blended whiskey—Rourke claimed he couldn’t tell the difference between that and more expensive brands—was already open. They clinked bottles.

“Cheers,” Rourke said.

Shayne drank and breathed out luxuriously.

“Mike, I know you’re a fast recuperator. But this time I think I’d better check you in at St. Clare’s and let them take a few stitches. Whatever it is, it can wait till breakfast. You look pretty feeble.”

The cognac had begun to circulate, burning away the fog in Shayne’s brain.

“That’s what everybody tells me,” he said. “First Mrs. Brady, then Brady, now De Rham. Wait till breakfast. I’ve been tied up and fed a Mickey and faked into a wrong part of town and slugged and knifed. It begins to dawn on me that something’s about to happen and nobody wants me around.”

“Just the same—”

“Do something for me,” Shayne said brusquely. “Two cars in front of the VW you’ll see a catch basin. I skipped a tape into it earlier. A flat package wrapped in cloth. I know you’ll be glad to climb in and get it for me. You’re in better shape than I am.”

Rourke didn’t move. “I haven’t fooled around in catch basins since I was a small boy, Mike. That’s a job for the Sanitation Department.”

Shayne took another drink, keeping his eyes on his friend. After a moment Rourke sighed.

“You probably figure I owe you. I got some good eyewitness stuff on the riot, and if I’m patient you may tell me what else has been happening. I’d better keep you happy.” He got out. “Don’t you want to watch?”

“I’m comfortable here.”

“Yeah. Why am I the one who always has to do the dirty work? And in this case dirty is the right word.”

Shayne heard the grating clang. Rourke mumbled to himself.

“Goddamn Shayne. Gets me out of bed at all hours. I have to climb down into the goddamn sewer—”

There was a faint splash. His voice continued, echoing hollowly. The monologue quickly became more obscene.

“Got it!” he cried. “Didn’t think I would, did you, you lazy bastard? Sitting up there on your butt, swilling cognac—”

He scrambled out and reappeared between the cars, walking squishily. “I suppose you want me to unwrap it for you.”

“Please,” Shayne said, grinning. “No reason why both of us should get muddy.”

Rourke tore off the wrappings and handed his friend a reel of tape. Then he took off his shoes, smelled one, and tossed them over his shoulder.

“I needed a new pair anyway.”

“Get the recorder. I’ve got an outlet on my dashboard, if it works.”

Rourke watched critically as he opened the door and got out. “Hell, you’re in great shape. You could have done your own diving.”

The Buick’s front seat had been slashed repeatedly. Shayne found his key and turned the ignition switch, and was rewarded by a quick glow of the generator light. Rourke plugged in the recorder and set it on the shelf over the dashboard. When he pressed a button the reels began to revolve.

“What do you know?”

He clapped the tape into place. There was a soft whirr, and a man’s voice began to speak. It was thin and faltering, and at times fell off to a whisper.

“My name is Dennis O’Toole. I live at 2909 Waverly Street in this city. Employed at Winslow Mills, twenty-one years on the looms, last five years watchman in main plant.”

Another voice—Shayne recognized De Rham—said quietly, “Can you tell me how the fire started?”

“All my fault. I take the entire blame.”

“Your fault in what way, Dennis? Did you set it?”

“Mother of God! Why would I do such a terrible thing? No, I was intoxicated. Too drunk to pull the alarm.”

“You were drunk and didn’t turn in an alarm.”

“A pint of whiskey in my locker.”

A long pause followed, and De Rham prompted, “You’re saying that a pint of whiskey appeared in your locker? Are you sure you didn’t bring it in yourself?”

“Never. Because I know my weakness. I never leave a drop of whiskey in a bottle. But there it was, and I swear by the Blessed Virgin I don’t know how it got there. I drank it and went to sleep.”

“Where, Dennis?”

“Sleep overtook me in the office.”

“I see. Now what we’re trying to establish is the origin of the fire. You understand that. What woke you?”

“Dreams. I smelled—”

“You smelled smoke?”

“Smoke, chemical stink. All around. There was smoke on the stairs. I couldn’t get my breath. Broke window. Saw—”

“What did you see? Tell me what you saw. You say you broke the window and you looked out—”

“Man running.”

“A man?” The voice sounded disappointed. “Think, Dennis. Are you sure it was a man?”

A long pause.

“In a funny hat. In the car, a woman.”

“You saw a woman?” De Rham’s voice said quickly. “Can you describe her for me?”

“A red dress. Dark glasses.”

“She was wearing a red dress. Dark glasses. What kind of car?”

“White convertible. I think an Olds.”

“Where was the man running from?”

“The side gate.”

“You said he was wearing a funny hat. What do you mean by that?”

“Well—a striped band.”

“Can we come back to the woman again, Dennis? What color hair did she have?”

Silence.

“Dennis, I have a photograph here. Can you tell me if this is the woman you saw in the car?—Dennis, if you’ll just look at this picture for a minute I’ll call the Sister. Dennis.”

From that point on the tape whirred softly until Rourke turned it off.

“And that’s what I pawed through the mud to get? A pint of whiskey in a locker, a funny hat, a woman in a red dress—” The expression on Shayne’s face stopped him. “What’s the matter?”

“Everything’s the goddamn matter,” Shayne said through set teeth. “And I’m supposed to be a hard man to fool!” He bit off a savage obscenity. “It’s so obvious I ought to have my license revoked.”

“Mike, you’re grinding your teeth. That can’t be good for you. Remember you’ve just been unconscious.”

“I’ve been unconscious most of the day,” Shayne snapped. “There still may be time if we hurry.”

“Don’t bother to explain, I’m only the chauffeur. Just give me directions.”

Shayne got out of the car too fast, and realized abruptly that he was still a long way from normal. The street tilted and shifted and almost threw him. His ears rang. He steadied himself against the Buick, and a moment passed before he understood that the ringing sound he heard came from somewhere in the wrecked interior of his car.

He hesitated, but there was no time to waste.

“Want me to answer it?” Rourke asked.

“No. I’m lying in a hallway with my skull cracked. Let’s leave it at that.”

Rourke grabbed the tape recorder and beat Shayne to the Ford. He had the motor running by the time the detective climbed in.

“Which way?”

“The Beach,” Shayne growled. “When are you going to get a decent car?”

“There’s nothing wrong with this car.” The transmission howled. He shot across a stop street without slowing down. “Fasten your seat belt. I’ll give you a ride you’ll remember.”

There was no seat belt to fasten. Shayne was scraping his chin, watching the speedometer. When the needle hit fifty Rourke came down into high.

“You know me, Mike. I hardly ever complain. We’re the only news outfit in town that had live coverage of the hippy riot, so thanks, pal. I wish I knew how it started.” He glanced across at Shayne. “People said some big ugly redhead thought the music was too loud and started throwing guitarists off the platform. Don’t tell me where we’re going. One story every twenty-four hours is all I deserve.”

Shayne’s face was bleak and hard. The muscles knotted and unknotted at the hinge of his jaws.

“You know talking’s supposed to relieve the mind,” Rourke said.

Shayne shook his head shortly. He still had too many connections to work out. He rapped his fist against his injured knee. The pain helped.

A cab appeared in front of them and Rourke touched his brake. The brakes grabbed, throwing the Ford into a hard swerve. He yanked at the wheel and managed to avoid both the cab and the parked cars.

“I’ve been meaning to get a brake job.”

“Pick it up, pick it up. You can go faster than this.”

Even at slower speeds, Rourke always drove as though he thought he was competing for the Grand Prix. He sawed at the wheel, his ungainly body jackknifed forward in a tense crouch, eyes flickering from the road ahead to the dials.

“Only one trouble,” he said. “Above sixty she gets this shimmy. At sixty-two we’re O.K. At sixty-three you get the feeling the front wheels are about to fly off. I’d hate to have that happen.”

The Ford rocked violently as he whirled onto Eighth Street. If there had been any traffic coming the opposite way he would have contributed several fatalities to the highway statistics for that day.

“Of course I could get sulky and drop you at a cab stand,” he said. “Everybody thinks I like staying up all night. When I was younger I thought it was romantic, but not any more. I’m human. That’s what people tend to forget.”

“Will you cork it for a minute, Tim? I’ll tell you about it as soon as I can check a few things. I could be wrong.”

“I’m not complaining. Anything you want me to do, Mike, go down in a catch basin, break my neck in an automobile—”

He shot across the bridge over the Miami River and made the quick jog east to Biscayne Boulevard. He slowed enough for a quick glance in both directions, and ran through a red light.

“That’s better,” Shayne grunted.

“Except if I get stopped and we have to spend fifteen minutes arguing it may not look too smart. Where on the Beach?”

“The St. Albans.”

Shayne uncapped the cognac bottle, waited till Rourke had the Ford on the smooth concrete of the causeway, and drank deeply. He had been faked out of position, but he was almost beginning to persuade himself that he had recovered in time.

“If you’re going in a hotel, Mike—well, I don’t want to put you down. Take a look in the mirror.”

Shayne switched on the overhead light and turned the mirror. He ripped a piece off his shirttail. Using the cognac, he cleaned the worst of the blood off his face. The pattern of the bicycle chain remained clearly imprinted along his jaw.

“It’s O.K. They know me there.”

“Yeah, but you have to consider the tone of the place, too. You’re going to lower it, pal.”

“Too damn bad.”

He had another quick drink and put the cognac away. Rourke crossed the Beach on Arthur Godfrey Road and turned north on Collins. There was more traffic here, but he had decided to show Shayne he could drive recklessly when he wanted to, and he didn’t slow down until he used his brakes again for the curving approach to the great wedding-cake hotel.

Shayne jumped out and thrust a bill at the doorman. “Be back in a minute. Don’t move it.”

“Right, Mike,” the doorman said.

The clerk at the front desk, who didn’t know Shayne, looked at him oddly when he asked for Tom Moseley’s room number. Then, leaning forward, he made a point of noticing Rourke’s muddy pants and bare feet.

“That’s 1421,” he said, making a discreet sign to summon the night security man. “Will you use the house phone, please?”

“Tim,” Shayne snapped. “Call him and tell him I’m on the way. I’ll explain while he’s getting dressed.”

“Why don’t I come too,” Rourke suggested, “and then you won’t have to explain twice?”

Shayne waved him away. The security man, Reuben Kaufman, looked out of his little office.

“Anything you want me to do, Shayne?”

“Just picking up somebody.”

He shut himself in an automatic elevator, which took him rapidly to the fourteenth floor. He found 1421 and buzzed. He could hear the phone ringing inside.

When the phone continued to ring he whipped out his picks, already knowing what he would find. Using only a hard celluloid strip, he forced the latch and entered the room.

The lights were on. “Yeah,” Shayne said softly.

There was a dead man on the floor.

He looked down at the body for only an instant. He had been clubbed from behind with a gin bottle. The bottle, three-quarters full, lay a foot or so from the dead man’s head, which amid the blood and clotted hair clearly showed the triangular indentation. The man had been wearing his glasses when he was struck, horn-rims with straight earpieces. He was fully dressed, in a business suit.

The phone went on ringing. Shayne pulled a Kleenex from a box on the bureau and picked it up carefully.

“Tim?”

“Yeah. What’s wrong?”

“What do you think is wrong? He’s been murdered.”

CHAPTER 16

Shayne bent over the body and smelled the blood. Then he looked around. The television picture was coming in without sound. There were various small signs that a fight had taken place. A loaded ashtray had been knocked over. When Shayne returned to the body he saw something on the floor beside the right hand. At first he thought it was fur. Using the point of a pencil, he turned it over. It was a patch of human hair, blonde and curling. Each individual hair had been sewn to a piece of silk.

Shayne left it there. The buzzer sounded.

“Open it from outside,” he called. “I don’t want to smear the knob.”

The security man used his keys. Tim Rourke entered with him.

“Jolly,” Rourke commented, looking down. “Single occupancy. Not really supposed to have guests.”

“Tim, you have to handle this for me. He’s been dead a couple of hours, so I doubt if Painter will try to lay it on me. Tell him I’ll call in.”

“Mike, you found him,” Kaufman pointed out. “I’m afraid I’ll have to insist that you stay around till Painter gets here. It won’t be long.”

“You’re well within your rights,” Shayne assured him. “Insist. Tim, did you leave the keys in the Ford?”

“Yeah. But Mike, Kaufman has a point. Painter’s going to want to know what you wanted with him, and that’s for openers. What do I tell him?”

Shayne allowed himself a tight grin. “Tell him you can’t say anything before you talk to a lawyer. Mention the Supreme Court.”

“That’ll send him up the wall! Be reasonable, Mike. I’ll be glad to go down another catch basin, or anything easy. But I’m getting older. I’m losing my sense of humor. Petey doesn’t amuse me any more!”

Shayne went out. In the doorway, Rourke called after him, “Don’t leave me out on a limb too long, Mike, or you’ll lose a friend.”

Alone in the elevator, Shayne doubled his fist and slammed it against the wall. It relieved his feelings slightly. With Moseley’s help, the next step would have been easy. Now it might turn out to be very touchy indeed—he wasn’t sure he could pull it off.

He crossed the lobby, ignoring the stares of the guests who were still up. In Rourke’s Ford, he found he had to baby the carburetor to keep it operating while he shifted into the upper gears. He felt the front wheels shiver, but he reached the Sunrise Shores with everything still intact.

The guard at the gate didn’t think he looked trustworthy, and came with him to be sure he was welcome aboard the Nefertiti. Nearing the end of the dock, the guard exclaimed, “They’re gone! Nobody told me they were going!”

Shayne’s pace quickened. He heard a girl’s cry. Sally Lyon hurried down from her father’s boat and ran into his arms.

“Mike, I didn’t know what to do! Your car phone didn’t answer—” She pulled back and looked at his face. “You’re hurt!”

“It looks worse than it is. When did they pull out?”

“Do you know this man, Miss Lyon?” the guard said.

“Isn’t that obvious? Go on back.”

The guard turned reluctantly and Sally went on, “About half an hour ago. I thought we ought to call the police, but Dad talked me out of it. You should have seen them! They were in no condition to—”

She was bouncing in his arms. He took her by the shoulders and made her hold still. She was still wearing the same short nightgown.

“Sally, tell me how it happened.”

“They were drunk and they just took it into their heads to go for a sail. Mrs. De Rham, mostly. Paul was trying to stop her. He looked so desperate! They woke everybody up. They were disgustingly plastered—staggering around drinking out of the bottle! They went out without lights, they forgot to cast off one of the lines and pulled the cleat out of the dock—”

“Which way did they go?”

She waved. “North. And ever since they left I’ve been listening for sirens. He couldn’t get her away from the wheel, and she’s a menace! If they stayed in the Waterway they’re sure to smash into somebody, and good grief, if they went out through the Cut—”

“Did your father wake up?”

“Heavens, yes. He came up and yelled at them to come back. A lot of good that did.”

“Let’s wake him up again,” Shayne said grimly. “I want to borrow your boat.”

She hung onto him as he started to step aboard. “Mike, you’re not too well liked around here, you may remember. It took me an hour to get him calmed down, and I don’t think he believed what you told him about you and me—I mean about not—”

Shayne stepped into the passageway. “Which door?”

She pointed at one of the doors and he hammered on it. “Mr. Lyon! Wake up!”

“Oh, dear,” Sally said. “He probably just got back to sleep for the third time. Let me go in and prepare the way.”

Shayne let her get by. He went up to the wheelhouse. They had a good Hallicrafter radio-telephone, he was glad to see. It was still warming up when Sally’s father came boiling up from below.

“What’s this about taking my boat?” he demanded. “Like hell! You’ll get out of here before I—”

Shayne said mildly, “There’ve been two murders, and there’ll be a third unless we can find the Nefertiti in a hell of a hurry. We need the Coast Guard. You call them while I get underway. I know this water better than you do.” He called out the window, “Cast off, Sally.”

“I already did!”

Lyon was looking at Shayne suspiciously. “Who’s been murdered?” The motors caught. Shayne reversed and began to back into open water.

“Sit down, Mr. Lyon. What business are you in?”

“I’m a retailer. What’s that got to do with anything?” He was sputtering. His hands opened and closed, but Shayne loomed over him, a bloody, menacing figure, and he did nothing more than breathe fiercely through his nose. “You’re hijacking this boat. By God, the first thing the Coast Guard is going to hear—”

“Sally says you’re from Baltimore. This is going to be a pretty big story. You’ll make the Baltimore papers.”

Sally ran in. “Dad, are you being pleasant or unpleasant?”

“He’s about to call the Coast Guard for me,” Shayne told her, swinging around the first buoy that marked the channel under the Broad Causeway to the Bay Harbor Islands and Bal Harbour.

“Sally, go below and get some clothes on,” Mr. Lyon said sharply. “You can see right through that nightgown.”

Sally groaned. “Dad, you’re so far behind the times you’re prehistoric! Well, it’s probably better to have him snapping at me than at you, Mike. I’m more used to it.”

When she left them Lyon hesitated, then picked up the transmitter. “What am I going to get in the Baltimore papers for? Not for being a hero, I hope.”

“They have a gun aboard, but if they use it they’ll be shooting at me,” Shayne said.

“They could miss.” He signaled the marine operator. “I’m thinking about the women as well as myself. Of course,” he added, “they’re probably too potted to find the gun, let alone shoot it. I’ve been known to take a drink myself, but those two on the Nefertiti—they give alcohol a bad name.”

“That’s an impression they’ve been trying to give,” Shayne said. “As a matter of fact, they’ve been sober most of the time.”

“Sober? Mrs. De Rham? She hasn’t drawn a sober breath since she got to Miami.”

“It was part of the con. Tell the operator you want the Coast Guard air station at Opa Locka Airport.”

The operator was slow to answer. Lyon signaled again. When he had a connection he asked urgently for the Coast Guard. “Shayne, they’ve been moored about six feet from me for the last two weeks. I saw the empty bottles.”

Shayne let him listen to how that sounded. Lyon said slowly, “I guess she could have emptied them down the drain, but Beefeater gin—do you know what it costs?”

Sally came in, dressed in brief shorts and a respectable top. “Mother’s sleeping like a baby. What about Beefeater? That’s Mrs. De Rham’s brand.”

The Coast Guard operator’s voice came from the amplifier. Shayne picked up the small mike.

“May Day, May Day.”

The channel was open, and they heard an abrupt clanging of bells.

“Right,” the operator said tersely. “Where are you?”

“North Biscayne Bay. This is Michael Shayne. I’m on a boat named—”

“Panther,” Lyon supplied.

“Panther. A boat’s been stolen. The Nefertiti, fifty, fifty-five foot, a black cruiser.”

“Motor yacht,” Lyon corrected him, leaning forward to speak into the mike. “A deck and a half, open deck aft. Pacemaker.”

“Check. Can you give me a location?”

“We think they went out through Haulover,” Shayne said. “They have half an hour’s start. Two people aboard, a man and a woman. Tell the pilot they’re armed.”

“Roger.”

Sally’s eyes shone with excitement. “Stolen, Mike? Were you making that up?”

“Do you know what he claims?” her father said before Shayne could answer. “He says they’ve only been pretending to be drunk. I’ll be the first to admit I never cottoned to Mrs. De Rham. Very hoity-toity and unsociable. But a non-drinker? I don’t go along with you there, Shayne. I observed her carefully.”

“Maybe Mike knows more about it than you do, Dad,” Sally said.

“Do you think so?” Lyon said stiffly. “I’m inclined to doubt it.”

The sky was lighter in the east. Shayne looked at his watch and cut the lights. In a few more minutes they were approaching the Cut. They went under the highway bridge without slackening speed. Sally called out, pointing to the big Sikorsky helicopter coming up last behind them, white with a bright orange stripe.

“That didn’t take long.”

Shayne called Opa Locka. “He’s overhead now. Can I talk to him?”

“No, you have to relay through me. He’ll search to the south first. You’d better head due east. He’s computed a half-hour cruising radius for a fast boat. After he checks the north-south line he’ll come back along the arc and intersect you. Visibility’s good. We’re sending another helicopter on a line over North Miami Beach. Do you want the cutters alerted?”

“No, they couldn’t get here in time. Tell him not to bother about the Keys. These people are heading for deep water.”

Shayne hung the mike on its hook and took out his pint of cognac. “I don’t know about anybody else. I’m going to have a drink.”

“I’ll have a small one, thanks,” Sally said promptly.

“You will not,” her father said. “Not before breakfast.” He accepted the bottle when Shayne held it out to him. Shayne drank and put it away.

“How much did you see of Mrs. De Rham?”

“Just glimpses,” Lyon admitted, “but I do know a drunk when I see one. That was no act.”

But he already sounded less certain. He rubbed his mouth doubtfully. “I suppose if they had some reason—”

“Do you think they’re imposters, Mike?” Sally said. “That they’re only pretending to be Mrs. De Rham and Brady?”

“Somebody’s pretending,” he said briefly. “How are we for gas?”

“Right up snug.”

Shayne asked for binoculars, and when Sally supplied a pair he began combing the horizon. The air was still, with a light haze over the water. The sun was almost up.

“Mike thinks we might get our pictures in the papers,” Lyon said.

She looked at Shayne and laughed. “That explains the transformation. How did you know he was a publicity hound?”

“Publicity hound? I have to protest that,” Lyon said. “I’m thinking about the store. That kind of publicity translates into dollars and cents.”

The helicopter, gaining altitude, passed out of sight to the south. Suddenly the sun burst over the horizon, huge and orange, the static cut out abruptly and the Coast Guardsman called, “He’s spotted them, Shayne.”

Shayne pulled the wheel down and the boat swung.

The voice continued, “A mile off Government Cut. A bit over a mile. They’re circling—They’re on fire! They’re on fire!”

Shayne’s eyes narrowed.

“They’re heading north. Wheelhouse seems to be empty.”

Holding the wheel steady with his chest, Shayne raked the binoculars back and forth in a long arc. He picked up something that might be a smudge of smoke. He corrected his course slightly.

“I see the chopper,” Lyon said excitedly. “I’ll take the wheel, Shayne. Head for the smoke, right?”

The Coast Guardsman, after his brief loss of composure, was speaking again in his unemotional professional voice. “Nefertiti still proceeding north under full power. The fire’s out of control. No one at the wheel. I say again: No one at the wheel.”

His next words were lost in an electronic babble. Shayne brought the dial up a hair and picked up a raucous taxi dispatcher, probably somewhere in Miami Beach. The Coast Guardsman for the moment was lost.

Sally, her youthful face alive with excitement, prowled behind him, her eyes going from the smoke to the helicopter and back to Shayne.

“Why don’t they jump?”

The Panther roared through the water, at maximum speed. A black dot took shape at the base of the column of smoke, and grew rapidly larger. The helicopter was slightly ahead of the Nefertiti, a hundred feet above the water. Its hatch was open.

The gap between the two boats closed rapidly. Shayne was holding the binoculars on the burning boat. Details showed up clearly. The entire after section was hidden. The smoke shifted as the boat swung, and he saw the flames.

“But what the hell are you going to do?” Lyon said. “You don’t think you can board her, do you?”

Suddenly the Nefertiti veered sharply. Through the binoculars Shayne saw two figures, a man and a woman, struggling on the forward sun deck. The man staggered and struck the low rail. The woman fell away into the water. He looked around in confusion, waved toward the helicopter and dived after her.

Shayne handed the binoculars to Sally. “There are two people in the water,” he said quietly. “Never mind the man, I want the woman. Don’t run her down, but get as close to her as you can.”

“Right, Mike,” Lyon said.

Shayne ran out on deck, shedding clothes. The helicopter was hanging above the rapidly moving boat, which had begun to swing in a long arc to the east. The sun was directly in Shayne’s eyes. He signaled with both hands and saw an answering wave from the open hatch.

The helicopter began to turn to come back. Shading his eyes, Shayne picked up two black dots in the water. They were together, and floundering. They disappeared briefly. Then he saw a splash, a frantically waving arm.

He motioned to Lyon in the wheelhouse, and waited tensely. As the wheel came down Shayne dived, slicing into the water cleanly. He drove powerfully toward where he had seen the heads. When he rose to the surface Brady appeared to be alone and in trouble. Fifteen yards separated them. Shayne ate up the distance in a smooth crawl. Ignoring Brady, he filled his lungs, snapped his body forward and dived.

He had only one chance. He was down ten feet when he saw her, slanting rapidly downward. He stroked hard, feeling the beat behind his eyes. With flippers and an air tank he could have reached her, but she was falling too fast.

Her body turned in the water. Shayne took two more strokes, his lungs bursting, and his fingers closed on her hair.

It came loose in his hand, a wig. The little contact changed the angle of her descent. Stabbing out desperately, Shayne managed to clutch her short cotton jacket. Her face had been terribly burned; it was only a charred mask.

She spun away, her arms rising against the pull. He yanked hard, kicking upward. She slid away, leaving the jacket in his hand.

He shot to the surface, gulping in air the instant he broke water.

The helicopter hovered above him, its rotors beating the water around him into froth. A life preserver attached by a line to the hatch lay on the water between Shayne and Brady.

Brady was thrashing convulsively, making no effort to reach the life preserver. Shayne swam to him. His face was blackened, almost unrecognizable. Shayne yelled, and Brady twisted and swam toward the sound. Shayne guided him to the life preserver. He groped for it helplessly. His eyelids were torn and raw. Shayne realized then that he was unable to see.

He signaled. The helicopter put down a two-man lift. Shayne worked the straps under Brady’s arms and about his legs. Then he fastened himself in, waved to the Coast Guardsman and they were hoisted aboard.

CHAPTER 17

Before the hatch closed Shayne leaned out and pointed to tell Sally and her father that the excitement was over and to go home. Brady was moaning on the floor. Shayne found that he had held onto the wig and the jacket. He threw them down.

A young Coast Guardsman was examining Brady’s face. “Funny kind of burn.”

Another Coast Guardsman entered the compartment. “Mike Shayne?”

“That’s right.”

“Ensign Gray.” They shook hands briefly. “Wasn’t there a woman in the water?”

“Yeah, but I lost her.”

“Any point in dropping a buoy?”

Shayne shook his head, looking down at Brady’s face. The eyelids were partially gone, showing the whites of his eyes, startlingly white in the blackened face.

“Give him a shot,” Gray said.

The enlisted man dragged out a first-aid box. The officer stooped to look down at the burning boat.

“We ought to get this guy back. Can we be sure there were only two of them aboard?”

“That’s all,” Shayne said. “Can you loan me a pair of binoculars?”

The Nefertiti’s engines had stopped and she was dead in the water, on fire along her entire length. The pilot wheeled the big bird around, hovering near the edge of the cloud of smoke. Shayne leaned out. The heat was intense. He focused the binoculars on the top of the wheelhouse. The planking had burned through. He waited for a shift in the smoke, then returned the binoculars to their case and nodded to the officer.

A little fireboat from Fisher Island was on its way, coming fast.

“Not a hell of a lot they can do at this point,” Gray said.

“Can I get a phone connection through your radio?”

“They can’t hook you in. They can pass along a message.”

They went up to the cockpit, where the pilot was completing a transmission. “Hold it,” Gray said, and handed Shayne the mike.

“This is Mike Shayne,” Shayne said. “I want to call Peter Painter, Chief of Detectives on the Beach. It’s urgent. You’ll find him at the St. Albans Hotel, room 1421.”

The radioman chuckled. “Since when have you been on speaking terms with Painter?”

The officer took the mike and said sharply, “Put that call through.”

“Yes, sir.”

The helicopter rose, turned, and the jets cut loose. Soon the column of smoke was only a smudge on the horizon.

The voice announced, “I’ve got Painter on the line. Shayne? He wants to know where the hell you are and why the hell you had the goddamn nerve to walk away after you found the body. Over.”

“I’m not receiving you too well,” Shayne said. “Tell him—”

“I say again. Chief Painter wants to know—”

Ensign Gray grabbed the mike and snapped, “Use some intelligence. Relay Shayne’s message.”

“Oh, I get you, sir. Go ahead.”

Shayne said, “Tell him to pick up a woman named Katharine Brady. Katharine Brady. I think she’s registered in a Beach hotel, one of the expensive ones. Check with the airlines, and if they have her listed for an outgoing flight, get there before the plane leaves and pull her off. Don’t let her get out of town. Check the parked cars at Haulover Beach. He’ll find one with rental-agency plates and a man’s clothes in it. I want to know who rented it. Wait a minute.”

He looked at the officer. “Where do you take your casualties?”

“We have an aid station at the base.”

Shayne went on, “Tell him we’ll collect at the Opa Locka aid station. As soon as possible, because I’ve been up all night.”

“Are we still having the same transmission difficulties?”

“Yeah, getting worse.”

He handed the mike back. The officer grinned.

“If you’ve been up all night, maybe you’d like a small nip. We carry brandy as part of our medical stores.”

“If you’ll join me.”

“Maybe I can find you some clothes.”

A long time ago, Shayne had left his shorts on Katharine Brady’s boat, and the rest of his clothes on the Panther. He was naked, not for the first time that night.

He dropped into the main compartment, where the enlisted man gave him a cigarette. Brady was unconscious, breathing heavily.

Shayne picked up the tawny wig and the cotton jacket. There was a small hole in the front of the jacket, the kind made by a .25 slug. His face blank and dangerous, Shayne ran the tip of one finger into the tiny hole. He had never been fooled this badly, but he was about to start collecting some of his outstanding accounts.

Shayne was finishing breakfast in the officers’ mess when Painter’s party arrived, in two cars, using both sirens. Shayne had been given a denim coverall, a size too small for him. He finished his coffee without hurrying, postponing the moment when he would have to confront the little chief of detectives. He was in for a painful couple of hours. Shayne didn’t mind being asked questions, but one of Painter’s biggest troubles was that he rarely took time to listen to the answers.

The wall phone rang.

“Your call to New York, Mike,” Ensign Gray said.

“Thanks. Would you mind telling Painter I’ll be with him in a minute?” He took the phone. “Joshua?”

“Michael. Good news or bad news?”

“Pretty bad. For one thing, Tom Moseley’s been murdered.”

Loring sucked in his breath. “No!”

“He was bludgeoned in a hotel room early this morning. I can’t give you much on it now. A cop’s waiting for me, and he burns on a very short fuse. One thing I need to know—did Moseley go to Harvard?”

“Yes,” Loring whispered.

“In the same class as De Rham and Brady?”

“I think so. They’re all about the same age.”

“Can you check it for me? The other thing is, will you find out what company wrote the insurance on Winslow’s Massachusetts plant? I want to talk to the official who okayed that claim. I’ve picked up some evidence that the fire was set. I took a bad beating getting it, and there’s no reason I shouldn’t get some compensation.”

“You mean that Dotty—”

“I’m sorry, but you must have known it was in the cards. Tell him to call me at this number as soon as possible.”

“Mike—is she all right?”

Shayne waited, considering various answers, and then depressed the bar, breaking the connection.

Painter, told to meet Shayne in the aid station, was on his way out to look for him. The two men met in the doorway. As in every collision between Shayne and Painter, the smaller man got the worst of it. He was immaculately dressed, even now, with the points of a carefully folded handkerchief peeping from the breast pocket of an Italian silk suit. He had found time to shave, and his little hairline mustache was neatly trimmed.

“This isn’t a one-way transmission now, Shayne!” he fumed. “Can you hear me? Am I talking loud enough for you? Not that you took me in with that one-way dodge! I’ve known you too long.”

“Petey, slow down a minute.”

“And just what do you think gives you the authority to issue orders? Go there, do this, pick up so-and-so. I’m the one who gives the orders, do you understand? The sooner you get that through your head the better.”

“Orders?” Shayne said mildly. “I hope that radioman didn’t misquote me. All I said was that if you had nothing better to do, I’d appreciate it if you stopped by the Opa Locka Airport. I’m glad you could make it.”

“You don’t fool me for a minute, Shayne! I know the way you talk about me behind my back. People have told me. I’ve had verbatim quotes.”

“Petey, is this getting us anywhere? Did you locate Mrs. Brady?”

Painter held up one hand. “Do I have your permission to speak? Before I tell you what I’ve done about your polite request to locate a certain Mrs. Katharine Brady, would you kindly tell me who the hell Mrs. Katharine Brady is and why you want her?”

“She killed Moseley,” Shayne said.

Painter had a habit of hearing only the things he wanted to hear, but he heard that. He gave his mustache a quick flick in both directions.

“She killed Moseley, did she?” he said sarcastically. “Here I’ve been going on the supposition that you killed Moseley. Rourke gives you an alibi for the crucial time, but everybody knows about you and Rourke, you’ve been co-conspirators for years. This wouldn’t be the first time somebody killed a man, then came back an hour later and found the body. What makes you think you can pin it on this woman?”

They were alone in the anteroom except for a Coast Guard yeoman on duty at the desk. Sometimes there was only one way to make Painter stop talking. Shayne gathered a handful of his suit in one fist and walked him backward against the wall.

Painter took it well. “I warn you, Shayne,” he said pleasantly. “Take your greasy hand off my suit.”

“Did you find Katharine Brady?”

“Why should I answer your questions when you don’t answer mine?” He called over his shoulder, “Richardson! Foster!”

Shayne pulled him away from the wall and walked him to the inner door. Two Beach detectives held up in the doorway.

“It’s you, Mike,” Richardson said.

Shayne was grinning. “We do better in front of an audience, don’t you think, Petey? I can usually keep my temper when we have witnesses.”

Still grinning amiably, he backed the smaller man into a room in which Paul Brady lay, his head heavily bandaged. A Coast Guard medic was with him.

There was only one chair, and Painter took that, more at ease now. Shayne looked out in the anteroom.

“Can we get some more chairs in here?”

The medic at the bed looked around. “This may not be such a good idea, Shayne. Better wait.”

Shayne went to the bed. “Paul, this is Mike Shayne talking. Did you hear the doctor?”

“Yes,” Brady whispered. “What happened to—”

“Mrs. De Rham? That’s what we’re going to be talking about. If you mean did we recover her body, the answer is no. I got my hands on her but I couldn’t hold her. You’re probably curious about what happened. I have to explain a few things to Chief Painter, who’s sitting here trying to control himself. There’s no reason why you can’t listen. Otherwise you’ll get it in bits and pieces over the next couple of weeks, which would be bad for your peace of mind. It’s up to you. If you’d rather do it later—”

Brady’s lips moved. “Get it over with.”

“I thought you’d prefer that. Any time you want us to clear out, let us know.”

Shayne heard a familiar screech of tires on the asphalt, and Tim Rourke came running in.

“The traffic in this town, I mean it. I’ll have to get the paper to buy me a siren. Who loaned you the jump suit, Mike? Too small, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Shayne said wryly, easing the pull on his crotch. “Painter doesn’t want to answer any questions, for some reason. Something about protocol. What did he find out about Moseley?”

The reporter looked skeptically at Painter. “Let’s put it this way, Mike. Nothing.”

“How about Mrs. Brady? Did they locate her?”

“Easily. She checked out of the St. A. at six to make a seven-o’clock New York flight. It’s five after seven now. They had a good description of her from the hotel people, and they shouldn’t have too much trouble identifying her. I mean, with the seat number and her name on the reservation. Of course with Miami Beach detectives you never know.”

“Birds of a feather,” Painter remarked bitterly. “Now that you have the information you wanted, Shayne, will you kindly return the favor? It’s time to do some talking.”

Chairs had begun to arrive. After they were distributed Shayne sat down close to the bed and said in a low voice, “Some of this may not hit you the first time, Paul, and if you want me to repeat anything, move your hand. Remember you have no obligation to say anything. You’re entitled to a lawyer if you want one.”

There was a slight answering movement from Brady to show that he understood. Painter, across the room, had the sense to remain silent.

Shayne said, “You’ll have to make a full statement to the Coast Guard about the circumstances of the fire. Right now I want to tell Painter how I think it happened. This is all hypothetical. You can indicate assent if you feel like it, but it’s not important.”

He lit a cigarette. “The people at the marina were awakened by loud noises on your boat. Mrs. De Rham was seen drinking gin from the bottle. Gin, or tap water in a Beefeater bottle. You’d been sitting in that berth for two weeks, and now all at once she wanted to go for a sail. You tried to talk her out of it, but she was a hard woman to talk out of things when she really wanted to do them.”

“Yes.”

“She wanted to see the sun come up over the water. And it turned out to be a very nice sunrise. I hope you noticed, Paul. It may be the last you’ll ever see.”

Brady’s hand moved.

“Yeah,” Shayne said, his face impassive. “It’s a bad acid burn and the chances are that nothing can be done about it. But maybe everything else worked out. Let’s see.” He turned to Painter. “There’s somebody else we’re going to need, a guy named Raphael Petrocelli. He’s at a motel in Biscayne Park, the Dunmovin, registered under the name of Sam de Angelis. Will you send somebody to get him? Or Tim will be glad to go.”

“I will not,” Rourke protested. “I want to hear this.”

After thinking about it longer than necessary, Painter nodded and one of the detectives went out.

“To continue, Paul,” Shayne said. “You made so much racket getting away that it makes me wonder if you wanted to be sure plenty of people saw you go. At this point, if you were being questioned in the usual way, you’d point out that Mrs. De Rham was making most of the noise, and she was well known to be a drunk.”

Brady’s hand moved.

“And not only a drunk,” Shayne said. “She had a well-authenticated history of mental disturbance, in which fire always played quite a part. I found that tape, incidentally, just where you thought I’d find it, in a Volkswagen a couple of blocks from Jennings Park, and the only reason I was around to pull you out of the water was that I have a thick skull and a nice girl named Helen scared the boys off before they could do any permanent damage. The tape proved that Mrs. De Rham burned down the Massachusetts factory for the insurance. The watchman saw a woman driving a white Oldsmobile convertible, and I think we’ll be able to establish that she owned a white Olds at the time. I expect to sell this tape to the insurance company for five percent of the amount they recovered, which is why I sound cheerful, in case you’ve been wondering.”

Painter stirred. Shayne silenced him with a look.

“To come back to what happened this morning. The sun was about to come up, and Mrs. De Rham, poor mad Mrs. De Rham, started playing with matches. You’ve been a little in awe of her because she’s the one with the money, and by the time you realized you had a serious fire on your hands it was too late. Now here’s a funny thing. The Coast Guard tells me they didn’t get an alarm from your boat. Why not? Luckily for you, I’d already put in a May Day call and they were on the way with a helicopter. We managed to save you. Don’t comment on this yet, Paul. I’m sorry about Mrs. De Rham. I did my best, but all I came up with was her wig and her jacket. The jacket had a bullet hole in it.”

He pulled the jacket out of the capacious pocket of his coveralls and tossed it to Painter, who held it to the light and looked closely at the edges of the hole.

Shayne continued, “You had a gun, Paul, and one of the things that’s been bothering me is why you needed it. To protect your privacy? People who are looking for privacy don’t tie up at that kind of marina.”

“Brady killed Mrs. De Rham?” Painter said. “Is that what you’re saying, Shayne?”

“No, that’s not exactly what I’m saying. But if you want to arrest him for it, go ahead. You might be able to make it stick even without the body.”

“I’m not about to arrest anybody before I know a little more,” Painter declared. He snapped his fingers. “Let’s have the rest, Shayne.”

Shayne gave him a direct look. “Your men have been involved in this from the start. You talked to Brady and the woman, and you know the situation. I’ve been reporting to Richardson. If you want somebody else to take over, fine.” Before Painter could answer Richardson said hastily, “Don’t stop, Mike. I’m learning things all the time.”

“All right, Petey,” Shayne said. “You probably realized that the woman on the boat, the drunk you talked to, wasn’t Mrs. De Rham.”

“She wasn’t?” Painter exclaimed. “Who was she?”

“Paul could tell us,” Shayne said, “but he has a very good out. All he has to do is stop moving and we’ll think he’s gone under. He put on a fine performance, one of the best pieces of acting I’ve seen. Every time I felt a little twinge of suspicion, he came out with something so perfectly right for the situation that I couldn’t help believing him. Of course it tapered off. He was getting rushed at the end.”

“Will you try to be more specific?” Painter said.

Shayne smiled amiably. “I’ve really been talking more to Paul than to you, Petey. I want him to understand that the curtain’s come down and he’s in trouble. The first time I talked to him, he told me just where to go to find the missing husband. The next time I was looking for a reel of tape. Paul made what turned out to be an excellent suggestion. I would have swallowed one of these, but not both. There’s a funny thing about that tape. It’s going to cost Mrs. De Rham or her estate considerable money, and if she’s still alive, which by now I think we all doubt, it could put her in jail. I warned her that if I found it I’d have to turn it in, and according to Paul she said to go ahead. He had to be lying, or else the woman throwing up in the head at the time wasn’t the real Mrs. De Rham.”

He glanced at his watch. Painter tapped his toe impatiently, and Shayne knew he couldn’t stall much longer. The International Airport was seven miles away. If Mrs. Brady had been picked up as she boarded the plane she should be here now. He lit a fresh cigarette, wondering how long he could make Painter hold still. He thought of another diversion, but before he could get it underway he heard a car pull up outside.

He jerked his head toward the door. Painter followed him. They met Mrs. Brady in the corridor.

“Mike Shayne,” she said. “Damn you. I knew you had something to do with this.”

CHAPTER 18

“Mrs. Brady?” Painter said. “I’m Peter Painter, Miami Beach Chief of Detectives. I have some questions to ask you.”

“I don’t have to answer any of your questions,” she told him scornfully, “and you’d better have some explanation for taking me off that plane. I’m one of those people who enjoy fighting City Hall.”

She turned back to Shayne. There were shadows under her eyes, but the eyes themselves were clear and untroubled.

“When did you wake up?” she said with a slight smile.

“About ten seconds after you left the cabin. I didn’t drink much of that mickey you gave me. I told you I didn’t like vodka—especially vodka laced with chloral hydrate.”

“That’s what I get for being soft-hearted enough to cut you loose. You might at least have finished the love making we started. I could easily resent that.”

“You didn’t have your heart in it.”

“You’re wrong about that, Mike,” she said softly.

“Now look here,” Painter said, “I want somebody to tell me—”

They continued to ignore him. Shayne picked her bag out of her hand. She grabbed for it, but Shayne took her arm and passed her along to Painter.

“Slug her if she makes any trouble.”

“Pretty transparent. Pretty crude provocation. Nobody’s going to accuse me of brutality.”

“I erased it, of course,” she remarked as Shayne took out the tape she had recovered with the aid of Teddy Sparrow.

“I think it’s too hot to erase. It won’t be hard to find out. The question Petey wants to ask you—did you kill a man named Thomas Moseley at about two-thirty this morning?”

“Do I look like a murderess, Mike?”

He looked into her eyes, and nodded.

“Yeah, a sexy-looking one. Did you see the red cross over the door? Your husband’s in here, in pretty bad shape.”

“Paul?”

Her smile faded, and Shayne saw a spurt of apprehension in her eyes. She went to the doorway.

“Paul,” she said, very low. “What happened to him?”

“We aren’t sure. He was in a fire. And apparently somebody threw acid in his eyes. Does it matter to you?”

“Of course it matters.”

Her own eyes had filled with tears. She went quickly to the bed and sank into the chair Shayne had been using. She took Brady’s hand.

Slowly Brady reached across with his other hand and touched her. His fingers went up to her hair, then down her cheek to her shoulder and her breast. He pulled his hand away.

“Shayne,” he said sharply and distinctly. “I want a lawyer.”

“Pretty soon, Paul. We still aren’t asking you questions. We’re just theorizing. You can order us out if you want to, but don’t you think you’d better know what facts we have so you can make your plans?”

When Brady didn’t answer Shayne said, “I have a tape I’d like to play. Tim, where’s your recorder?”

“Outside. I’ll get it.”

In a moment he was back with the recorder. He found an outlet.

“I’d better explain how this was made,” Shayne said, giving the reporter the tape he had taken from Mrs. Brady’s bag. “Mrs. Brady learned that her husband was living on a boat with another woman. She’s been trying to divorce him—I’ve heard that from a couple of sources. She hired a private detective to plant a listening device on the Nefertiti, to pick up any conversations that might be taking place in the main stateroom.”

“That’s illegal,” Painter snapped. “What’s the name of this private detective?”

“I can’t remember,” Shayne said. “Do you want me to play it or not?”

Painter’s eyes shifted. “Play it, of course.”

“A girl on the next boat, a nice kid named Sally Lyon, happened to be on deck, awake, and she saw the bug being planted. A little while later she saw somebody swim up to the Nefertiti’s blind side and come up a rope ladder. A man with a beard. The missing husband, obviously, who was supposed to be off in a pad in southwest Miami.” Brady lay perfectly still. The tape began to revolve.

A voice said suddenly, “Well, did Shayne fall for it?”

Shayne stopped the tape. “That’s Paul Brady. He means did I fall for the hippy set-up. Did Henry convince me he was really running away? The next voice is going to be Henry’s.”

“Why shouldn’t he fall for it?” De Rham said irritably when Shayne started the tape. “That’s my milieu, man. I can’t tell you, it’s just so great. The chick has still got a tangle of bourgeois hang-ups, but she knows they’re there and she’s trying hard. The thing is, there’s no pressure. The time floats by. Maybe part of it’s pretty phony, but it’s the best kind of phony. If we ever get out of this—”

“With dough,” Brady said.

“We either get out of it with dough or we don’t get out of it.”

Richardson put in suddenly, “Hold it, Mike.” Shayne pressed the stop button. “You said the bug was picking up conversations in the master stateroom. Then it wasn’t really a woman aboard with Brady?” He looked hard at Shayne. “It was De Rham in drag?”

“That’s how it looks,” Shayne said.

Painter stood up abruptly and sat down again. Mrs. Brady looked at her fingernails.

Rourke exclaimed, “I don’t get it, Mike.”

“I tried every possible combination, and that was the only one that would fit. Don’t feel bad about it, Tim. I’m the one they really fooled. They took a hell of a chance, but they had to, and I’m sorry to say it almost worked. I just want to point out before we go any further that the morning they put on their performance for me I had no reason to think they weren’t the people they said they were. The dialogue was pretty convincing.”

Rourke protested, “Mike, are you trying to get us to believe you can’t tell a man from a woman? For Christ’s sake.”

“Undressed I’ve never made a mistake yet,” Shayne said, “but they weren’t undressed.”

Rourke gave a disbelieving laugh. “I don’t buy it. Now give us the switch.”

“There’s no switch, Tim. This is straight. If I’d had a little more background when I went in I might have caught it, but I’m not sure about that—they did a damn good job. It was a carefully staged scene. They’d probably rehearsed it a dozen times.”

“But, Mike—”

“Use your imagination,” Shayne said impatiently. “I had no description of Mrs. De Rham except that she was a neurotic and a drinker. Petrocelli was the one person in Miami who knew what she looked like until Tom Moseley showed up, and somebody killed Moseley with a gin bottle. Petrocelli kept coming back to the boat after they fired him. He saw Brady a couple of times but he never saw Mrs. De Rham. She was in bed drunk—or so they said.”

“You talked to both Mrs. De Rham and De Rham the same day,” Rourke said, still unconvinced. “How about the voices? The hands?”

“O.K., the hands,” Shayne said. “I never saw Mrs. De Rham’s hands. They were under the sheet. She had a low, hoarse voice. His was high for a man and slightly nasal. The easiest way to change the pitch of a voice is let it come out through the nose. They arranged it so she didn’t have to say much. A few words here and there. She’d been drinking for two weeks and she was badly hung over. Drunkenness is a good disguise, and a hangover’s even better. She lay in bed and groaned, and Brady did the talking.”

“How about the—well, breasts, Mike?” Rourke said.

“Padding,” Shayne said impatiently. “A fluffy bedjacket. But the big point is that when I saw Mrs. De Rham in the morning and De Rham at night, I saw two entirely different faces. The blinds were closed because her eyes were hurting, and of course she was wearing a goddamn pair of wraparound dark glasses. A wig, with bangs over the forehead.”

He pulled out the wig he had taken from the woman in the water. “Here it is, if you want to try it on. He darkened his eyebrows with make-up. His mouth was plastered with lipstick, and he was pretending to be drunk when he put it on, so there was a lot of it and it was a little crooked. Heavy suntan makeup on the parts of his face that were showing, and those were the same parts that were covered by a beard when he was playing himself.”

“A beard!” Painter exclaimed suddenly. “That’s what was beside Moseley’s body. A piece of a false beard.”

Shayne grinned. “It’s hard to fool you, Petey. Yeah—it was a different beard from the one De Rham was wearing in the photographs I saw, but I just thought he’d trimmed it a different way, as a kind of token disguise. What does that leave, Tim?”

“The teeth.”

“I didn’t ask him to open his mouth so I could count the fillings. By the time I was back on the boat later I’d begun to realize something was wrong. I wanted to talk to her, but she was in the head, throwing up. You can’t barge in on a lady when she’s vomiting. That’s one of the rules. It was Henry, of course, making gagging noises and flushing the john.”

Painter had listened to this open-mouthed, with his eyebrows all the way up. Now he said smugly, “This is one of the nicest things that’s happened to me in a long, long time. When it gets round town that Mike Shayne fell for something like this—and I’m going to make sure that it gets around—your stock may not be quite so high.”

“How long were you in the room with them when you talked to them, Petey?”

“That’s quite different! Maybe two minutes in all, and she didn’t say a word, did she, Luke?”

“Well—”

He flicked his mustache and said crisply, “All right, Shayne, you’ve made your point. De Rham was impersonating his wife. Now we come to the main question. Why?”

“You must have figured that out by now.”

“I haven’t been working on this case as long as you have,” Painter said stiffly. “You have information which for various reasons hasn’t been made available to the police.”

“I’m still just speculating,” Shayne said. “I don’t want to hog the spotlight. I’m willing to stop talking at any time.”

Rourke chortled. “He’s going to make you say please, Petey.”

Painter started to speak, swallowed it, and said through set lips, “Play the goddamn tape. I’d—appreciate it.”

Shayne pressed a button and the reel began to revolve. A voice began.

DE RHAM: Now we’ve got to talk about the timing, Paul.

BRADY: Relax. Relax. We’ve just bamboozled a guy who’s reputed to be the smartest and toughest private investigator in the United States. Worry can give you a heart attack. Let’s not worry.

DE RHAM: You thrive on this tightrope walking. I don’t. I’m exhausted.

BRADY: You did fine, baby, just fine. You were so irresistible in that bed jacket I almost climbed in with you myself after Shayne left.

DE RHAM: Cut it out with the queer stuff. I never did think that fag act was too funny.

BRADY (softly, after a moment): What makes you sure it’s an act?

DE RHAM: Come on. I know you too well. You made a ravishing chorus girl in the Pudding show—

BRADY: True, old chap. But who was the leading lady?

DE RHAM: Seriously. There’s enough tension around here without going out of our way. I’m a dedicated heterosexual, and if I ever had had any doubts about that, this hippy chick resolved them very satisfactorily. She’s a talented performer in the sack.

BRADY: Spare me the details.

DE RHAM (laughing): No, a queer like you wouldn’t be interested. (more seriously) This is my last day as Dotty De Rham, alcoholic. No reason to drag out the drag bit any longer. This is D-day minus one.

BRADY (sharply): You don’t mean that. We wowed everybody. Just because a clown like Shayne—

DE RHAM: That clown happens to send cold shivers up and down my spine.

BRADY: We haven’t used the sick-to-the-stomach business yet. Hell, we can handle him.

DE RHAM: If he got Loring to send him a picture of Dotty, for example—

BRADY: Why would he do that? He’s been getting by on muscle for years. There’s nothing but reflexes behind the eyes.

DE RHAM (slowly): I don’t think so. It’s too big a chance to take. Tomorrow morning we give our make-believe friend Dotty a funeral at sea.

(A moment’s pause.)

BRADY: I hate to bring up a promise, but you said you’d wait for the real estate money to come through. That’s only four more days. Let’s sweat it out.

DE RHAM: That’s earmarked for you, baby. Believe me.

BRADY: But there’s no way you can put it in writing, is there? Somehow I feel sure you’ll find some technical reason for hanging onto it.

DE RHAM (lightly): You can always blackmail me.

BRADY: Can I? I’m in it as deep as you are now. What I want is cash, and I want it before we dispose of Dotty, not after.

DE RHAM: Well, you’re not going to get another penny, because we’ve run out of time. And don’t give me that now crap. This has been a joint venture from the start. It was your idea.

BRADY: I take credit for it. And where would you be if I’d gone into a tailspin like you that morning?

The room was quiet. Shayne pressed the rewind button, and listened to the last few speeches again. Then the voices resumed.

DE RHAM: I’ve been wondering about that. If I hadn’t panicked like a damn fool—

BRADy: Hell, it was understandable. You’d just knocked off your wife.

DE RHAM: I’ve told you approximately one hundred times that I didn’t kill her. I’ll tell you another hundred times. I didn’t kill her. I didn’t—

BRADY: I seem to remember dragging you off when you tried to throttle her. She was blue in the face before I could make you let go. Petrocelli must have heard her scream. He knew she’d written a new will. Of course I could be wrong. All I know is, she was on the boat when I went to bed and she wasn’t on the boat when I woke up. If you didn’t kill her, give me a better explanation.

DE RHAM (sullenly): I can’t remember exactly what happened.

BRADY: Which would make a very lousy defense in a court of law. The will, baby. What happened to the will? I saw her put it in the desk drawer. And when we looked for it, where was it? Gone with the wind.

DE RHAM: I’ve had two weeks to think about that. I don’t deny she got under my skin. Maybe I killed her and threw her overboard and blocked it out of my mind. I’ve got an uncertain memory at the bottom of a bottle of scotch, as you know very well, incidentally. O.K. Or maybe you killed her.

BRADY (with a short laugh): She wasn’t my wife.

DE RHAM (very slowly): But she’d written you a check for forty thousand bucks and she was talking about stopping payment. You were on funny terms with her, Paul—I don’t know if it was sex or not, but there was definitely something. I could feel the static.

BRADY: That static always went one way.

DE RAHM: I’ve seen you when you lose your temper. It’s a frightening thing. She was teasing you and working you up, and if you did lose your temper with her, if you did kill her, it would be a smart thing to destroy that will.

BRADY: Baby, let’s cut this out. If we’d notified the Coast Guard that we had a woman missing, you’d be getting a big jolt of electricity two years from now, and no amount of hindsight can change that. I don’t think they could have touched me. I took a hell of a risk helping you, because if they catch us now I’ll be in for conspiracy. Well, we’ve cleared a hundred and seventy thousand bucks—what the hell, man. I’ll settle for that. Let’s wind it up tomorrow morning, then, if you feel that strongly about it.

DE RHAM: I do feel that strongly about it.

BRADY: We’ve got to pull together, Hank. That’s essential. I had the basic idea, but you executed. You did more of the hard work and you deserve a prosperous life. Have some more scotch. How can you pretend to be drunk tomorrow morning unless you’re actually lightly drunk?

(They both laugh. Drinking noises.)

DE RHAM: That first move with Petrocelli was the hard one. Everything after that was candy. I sometimes think I should have gone into the theater, except people tell me it’s hard work. When I was a kid I used to do an imitation of my mother, did I ever tell you? From the next room you couldn’t tell the difference.

BRADY: You told me. Do you want to go over the schedule again?

DE RHAM: Hell, no. I could do it with a broken leg and a temperature of a hundred and four.

BRADY: Then let’s get some sleep. Set your alarm for four-thirty and I will too. One is sure to go off. Good luck.

DE RHAM: Good luck.

(A door closes.)

The reel went on spinning. After a moment’s silence Shayne turned it off. “That explains most of it,” he said. “Any questions?”

“Yeah,” Rourke said. “What happened?”

Shayne laughed. “You mean what happened to Mrs. De Rham the last night before the boat got to Miami? Maybe Paul will decide to tell us after he’s thought it over. Or maybe he doesn’t know. I even wondered at one point if she tore up the will herself and jumped overboard after the boys went to bed just to make trouble. Did she have suicidal tendencies? We’ll have to ask her psychiatrist. Think of how it looked to Brady and De Rham when they woke up that next morning and she wasn’t aboard. Both of them had a good reason for wanting her dead. As a cop, Petey, if you’d known she was missing when Petrocelli came in with his story, what would you have done?”

“Put them both under surveillance,” Painter said promptly.

“Surveillance, then arrest, then a long sensational trial and a good possibility of conviction. But if they had nerve enough to hang on for a week or so, they could work out some kind of accident at sea to dispose of Dotty in a way that wouldn’t require them to produce a body. Meanwhile, they could be transferring cash. All they had to do was make it seem that Mrs. De Rham was still aboard and her husband was the one who was missing. De Rham was an accomplished mimic. Somebody mentioned the Pudding show—that’s a show put on by the Hasty Pudding Club at Harvard, with boys playing girls’ parts. Mrs. De Rham was known as a heavy drinker. She wore sun glasses and a wig. And of course they had no real choice. They had to try it. De Rham stayed below most of the time, and only came out at night to phone. He had three visits, one from the cops, one from me, and one from the lawyer who drew the new will. His signature was a little shaky, but there was no reason it wouldn’t stand up.”

He sat down beside Brady. “I don’t know if you’ve heard all this, Paul. I hope so, because it will save us time later. You didn’t want to move too fast. De Rham had to call Loring, imitating his wife’s voice to establish the fact that she was still alive. And he heard some bad news. She had already changed her will before she sailed. He used me to plant a motive for changing it back—as bait for the runaway husband.”

Rourke said, “Can you skip to what happened this morning, Mike? I ought to phone the paper.”

“In a minute. Everything went fine until Petrocelli started getting suspicious. He brought in the cops. Brady and De Rham were getting ready for the big climax, and they didn’t want cops hanging around. I was brought in to find the missing husband and prove he hadn’t been murdered yet, one of the easiest assignments I’ve had in years. I called Luke Richardson off and reported to Loring that the little three-person group was apparently still intact. But Loring thought his god-daughter was being blackmailed because of the cash transfers, and he kept me on. Last night, when I came back to the Nefertiti, they did some fast thinking and invented an errand to keep me busy. Henry swam ashore and set up an ambush, a half dozen tough kids with bicycle chains.”

“That explains that,” Rourke said impatiently. “Now bring us up to date.”

Shayne turned to Painter. “Did your men find a rented car at Haulover Park?”

“Yes, a Hertz Chevy rented to Henry De Rham.”

“That was the logical place. Here’s what they planned to do this morning.”

“Finally,” Rourke said.

“Mrs. De Rham, with her mental instability and her history of arson attempts, was going to get a few miles offshore and set fire to the boat. Henry gave his Mrs. De Rham imitation for the benefit of the neighbors in the marina. Wig, woman’s clothes, sunglasses, gin. It was dark, and even an observant girl like Sally Lyon never doubted that she was looking at Mrs. De Rham. It was still dark when they went out through Haulover Cut, where Henry was supposed to glue on his beard and swim ashore. This would leave Paul alone on board to finish it up, but it wasn’t really too complicated.”

“They used a dummy!” Rourke exclaimed.

“Sure, with a burned face so it didn’t have to look too lifelike. It had to be wearing Mrs. De Rham’s clothes, and by that time the jacket had a bullet hole in it. But the dummy was supposed to disappear, so Paul didn’t think it would matter. The sequence was supposed to be—start the fire, call the Coast Guard, wait till the helicopter was overhead, jump in the water with the dummy wearing Mrs. De Rham’s wig and clothes, flounder around until rescue was close, and let the dummy sink. It could have worked. The trouble was that neither Brady nor De Rham really trusted each other. They were on each other’s nerves. That reconciliation at the end of the tape had a hollow sound to me. Would Paul be satisfied with a hundred and seventy thousand, when he’d done most of the staff-work and made all the really dangerous moves? Do you want to comment on this, Paul?”

Brady remained motionless and silent.

“De Rham used the word blackmail,” Shayne went on, “and it must have been very much on his mind. At the same time, Brady would be scared that De Rham would do something dumb or impulsive. If you were one of these two characters, would you want the other one tied around your neck the rest of your life? They both decided, independently, to do something about it. Brady finally used his little. 25. He shot Henry point blank, undressed him, and dropped him in the water. He wouldn’t bother to weight the body because he’d have nothing to worry about when it came ashore. Henry, meanwhile, had rigged a nasty surprise for his old friend. I had a look at the burning boat through binoculars. One side of the wheelhouse was blown out. A simple little home-made bomb and a bottle of acid inside the radio. After the fire was burning nicely, Paul switched on the radio to call the Coast Guard. Bang. Acid in his eyes. He was blinded and helpless. He couldn’t put out the fire, he couldn’t call for help. Henry assumed he’d go down with the boat or swim around helplessly until he drowned. And Henry would be rid of both his wife and his good friend, and he could take it easy the rest of his life. Paul did what he could when he heard the helicopter, but he couldn’t see the Panther and his timing was off.”

“Great,” Rourke said, sticking his notes in his side pocket. “Where’s the phone?”

“There’s more,” Shayne said quietly.

He had heard a car arrive. Shayne had arranged many confrontations in his time. Sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn’t, but this one worked very well.

Raphael Petrocelli, unshaven, his hair uncombed, was hustled in by the detective Painter had sent for him. Katharine Brady hastily covered her mouth, but there was no place to hide.

“Mrs. De Rham!” Petrocelli said in surprise. “They were talking about you on the morning news. The announcer said you were drowned.”

CHAPTER 19

“You must have known it wouldn’t work when they pulled you off the plane,” Shayne said.

“I still had hopes.”

Her lips were pursed. She was still one of the coolest people in the room. Painter jumped to his feet.

“Shayne, I warn you. One of these days you’ll go too far. If you knew who she was all along, why in God’s name didn’t you say so?”

“I didn’t know who she was. All I knew was that she wasn’t Katharine Brady.”

She turned to Painter. “I want to talk to Mike alone.”

“You aren’t talking to anybody alone, madam!” Painter snapped. “From this point on, I’m asking the questions. What were your relations with Tom Moseley?”

She smiled and remained silent.

Shayne said, “Moseley worked for the Loring law firm. He handled her income tax. He was in the same Harvard class as her husband and Paul Brady. I believe they were lovers.”

She looked at Shayne, amused, but her fingernails were digging into her palms.

“Moseley was getting more and more nervous about what he’d let himself in for,” Shayne said. “She’d already tied him up in one killing. That was his limit. He wanted her to surface and stop the action before anything bad happened, and the way it was going, something bad was bound to happen. But she couldn’t bring herself to call it off. She killed him with a gin bottle. She left a piece of false beard to point to Henry. In a way that wasn’t too clever. We can use it to prove premeditation.”

“Was he involved in your disappearance from the boat, Mrs. De Rham?” Painter said.

“Ask Mike. You can see that I’m not doing any talking.”

Painter hesitated, then turned to Shayne. “Was he?”

“Obviously. She couldn’t have worked it without help.”

“Mike—” she said.

“Did Henry ever play you the statement the night watchman from the Winslow plant made before he died? I have it. They steered me to it. They didn’t think it mattered because they thought you were dead and they couldn’t get any more mileage out of it. In my hands it would back up the fire-at-sea story.”

“O.K., Shayne,” Painter said, “what statement are you talking about now?”

“The De Rhams and the Bradys and Tom Moseley were all at a college reunion in Cambridge. Dotty and Tom sneaked out in the middle of a dance and set a fire that burned down a factory. One of them had left a bottle of liquor in the night watchman’s locker, and he didn’t turn in an alarm. He died of his burns, but before he did he told De Rham that he’d seen a woman in a red dress, a white Olds, and a man in a hat with a funny band, the kind that’s worn to college reunions. Henry got it on tape, and so long as he had it she was stuck with him as a husband. Moseley probably had her promise that she would marry him when she could get something to counteract that tape. They set up the disappearance carefully. Moseley was already in Florida. He rented a boat and made a night rendezvous with the Nefertiti. Everybody but Dotty was drunk and asleep. When he was near enough she slipped overboard and swam across to him.”

“Is that how it happened, Mrs. De Rham?” Painter asked.

“That has to be how it happened,” Shayne said when she didn’t answer. “She destroyed her will and left things in such a mess that both Paul and her husband thought the other had killed her. She knew they wouldn’t report that she had fallen overboard. It was too dangerous for both of them. They were both connivers. All she really needed was one forged check or fraudulent transfer order and she could divorce Henry without parting with any cash. She’s the one who called Petrocelli and threatened him in a way that made him notify the police. She called Loring. Loring was getting two kinds of calls—from Henry pretending to be Dotty and from Dotty herself. She was horrified to hear that the boys were already into her for a couple of hundred thousand. She had to know what their plans were, so she hired a detective, Teddy Sparrow. Tom Moseley was probably semi-hysterical by this time. He was over his head. He may even have changed his mind about marrying her—certainly he wouldn’t marry her on these terms. He wanted to call everything off, just when it was beginning to work. So he had to go.”

“If you can prove I killed Tom Moseley,” she said, “you’re a magician, Mike. I won’t admit for a minute that anything you’ve said is true. I walked off the boat the minute we got to Miami. I was so sick of that man! I moved into the St. Albans and did some drinking. When I started functioning again I called Joshua, and before I could say a thing he scolded me about something I’d said on the phone the day before. I hadn’t made any phone calls the day before. I decided I’d better know what that pair of scoundrels was up to. That’s all. I didn’t even know Tom was in town.”

She should have left it at that, but she couldn’t resist adding, “You’ve created a brilliant monster named Dotty De Rham. Surely that Dotty De Rham—not the real one—could manage to get in and out of a hotel room early in the morning without being seen?”

Shayne grinned at Painter. “What do you think, Petey?”

Painter said cautiously, “Do you have anything you’re holding back? Some final tricky surprise to make people think you’re a genius?”

“No, that’s about all.”

Painter considered. “Well, good old-fashioned police work may turn up something you’ve missed, Shayne. It’s been known to happen. My men are interviewing every guest on Moseley’s floor, every guest on Mrs. Brady’s—” he corrected himself—“Mrs. De Rham’s. The murder room is going to be given complete scientific analysis. Fingerprints. We’ll do a thorough job on that piece of beard—”

Shayne and Mrs. De Rham smiled at each other.

Shayne said, “I know. But in some ways Petey’s a pretty good cop, and he has good people working for him. They may actually come up with something. If we can’t get you for murder, we’ll have to put you in a mental hospital for the rest of your life.”

Her smile disappeared. “You’re beaten for once, Mike. Admit it.”

He shook his head. “You start fires and you kill people. It’s all in the record. When I tell Joshua Loring about your latest caper, he’ll sign the papers. Commitment proceedings don’t operate on strict rules of evidence. Those incendiary episodes in your history are going to count against you.”

“Those—” She stopped.

“I know,” Shayne said gently. “You’d been planning to burn down that factory for a long time, for entirely rational reasons, and you planted those episodes to give you an out in case anything went wrong. I know damn well you’re sane. Too much so, if anything. You’re so damn sane you can’t see any reason why things can’t always go your way. You’ll be the sanest patient in the booby hatch.”

She lifted one eyebrow. “A romantic to the end, Mike. Life isn’t that bad in a mental hospital. I rather enjoyed my stay there. There’s a social life. They take care of you, you don’t have to worry about what’s happening in the rest of the world, you’re not involved.”

She looked away, but not before he had seen the fear in her eyes.

Paul Brady said in a harsh whisper, “Dotty?”

He had been forgotten, lying rigid and unseeing under the hospital sheet. Henry’s body would come ashore with a bullet hole in the chest, matching the hole in the cotton jacket. The money Henry had turned over to him would be found. Unlike Dotty De Rham, he would be tried and convicted, and would probably go to the chair.

“I’m sorry, Paul,” Mrs. De Rham said.

“Dotty, I have to—This is the last time we’ll ever talk. Please come closer.”

He groped for her. She put her hand in his, her face softening, and came down beside him.

“Dotty, I know you thought I was pretending, but I—loved you.”

His hand came up to caress her face. Suddenly he seized her hair, pulled her head back, and went for her eyes.

She cried out. Shayne covered the intervening space in one long stride and seized his shoulder. He twisted, his body charged with fury. Shayne thrust one arm around his neck and tore him away. He had used a hypodermic needle with the point broken off. His first thrust tore into one eye. The only thing that saved the second eye was the fact that she was wearing a wig, and she managed to turn her head. Before Shayne could subdue him he connected twice more, grinding the sliver of glass into her face and ripping downward.

When Shayne let him go he fell back unconscious. Dotty was screaming terribly.

Later, after Rourke phoned in the story and Shayne made an unpleasant call to Joshua Loring, the reporter joined his friend for cognac and coffee in the officers’ mess. Shayne was drinking moodily, unable to forget the sight of Dotty De Rham’s slashed face as they led her away.

“I suppressed one thing,” Rourke said.

“What?” Shayne asked somberly.

Rourke gave him a sideward glance. “That you had such a hard time telling the men from the women.”

“I told you! The dark room, the wig—”

“Absolutely. I’m not smiling, Mike. That’s a nervous tic. I can’t control it.”

“You’d better learn to control it.”

He was having a second coffee royale, feeling better, when Sally Lyon came running in. She had a bundle of clothes.

“I had a hard time finding you, Mike. You were just—just magnificent!”

“Yeah,” Shayne said. “The only thing I did wrong was that I couldn’t tell the difference between—” He waved. “The hell with it.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. What are you drinking?”

Shayne explained about the therapeutic effect of brandy in coffee after a violent night, and she decided it was just what she needed. They decided to skip the coffee on the next round, and to try the effect of straight cognac.

“Tim Rourke,” Sally said. “I’m very glad to make your acquaintance, but will you go to the men’s room for a minute?”

“I don’t need to—”

She kicked him under the table. He got up and hobbled off.

“Mike, now don’t pretend you’re too drunk,” she said, “because you’re famous for carrying your liquor. I’m afraid I was lying when I told you I wasn’t a virgin.”

Shayne clucked. “Well, a girl of eighteen—”

“I’ll be nineteen in two weeks! Mike, I’m determined to get some experience on this Florida trip. I admire you tremendously! I’d really be very flattered if you’d—”

He wagged his head. “No.”

“Not under any conceivable circumstances?”

“Not under any conceivable circumstances.”

“Not even if we were on a boat alone on a hot night and we took an air mattress out on deck to look at the stars, and music was playing—”

“Not even then. I have great will power.”

He used some of it to stand up. He leaned down to kiss her on the forehead.

“You’re a nice kid, Sally, and you’ve been a lot of help. I’ll drive you home after I make a phone call.”

“Mike—”

He shook his head, smiling, and went to the phone. He dialed a number. A woman’s voice answered.

“Mike!” she said, pleased. “I take it you caught your rabbit?”

“A couple of rabbits. Are you free for dinner tonight?”

There was a pause. “Do you really want to wait that long?”

“I’ve been up all night. I thought—”

She laughed. “Mike, you nut, I have a bed.”

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19