Counterfeit Wife (7 page)

UNWELCOME GUEST

SHAYNE CAME to a sudden decision when he reached Flagler Street. He needed a bath and some clothes, and he could use a drink. He swung to the left on Flagler, deserted now at two-thirty in the morning, drove two blocks toward the bay front and turned right to the side entrance of an apartment building on the north bank of the Miami River.

He parked, took the keys from the ignition, went in through the side door and across the empty lobby on unshod feet.

The night clerk was a slight, middle-aged man. When awake, he bustled around with a great show of energy, his lips compressed and three deep lines of worry between his eyes. Now he was hunched forward at the desk, asleep. His cheek was pressed against one outstretched arm. He looked neither precise nor efficient. His mouth was laxly open, and the lines between the eyes were not so deep.

Shayne stopped beside the desk and considered the sleeping man gravely for a moment. It seemed to him a wonderful thing to be able to sleep like that, as though he had nothing whatever on his mind. Then the thought came that all over Miami there were people sleeping soundly, with nothing whatever on their minds and with all the lines of daytime worry smoothed from their brows because they had chosen other professions than that of the harried private detective.

He touched the man on the elbow and said apologetically, “Wake up, Henry.”

Henry gave a little start, an involuntary twitching of his shoulder muscles, and snorted faintly.

Shayne joggled his elbow and said, “Henry,” louder than before.

Henry sat up and blinked at him, then compressed his lips and managed to look primly efficient. The deep vertical lines showed between his eyes again and deepened a trifle as he became aware of Shayne’s appearance.

“My goodness, Mr. Shayne,” he said, “I thought you’d left us. Is something wrong?” he added delicately.

Shayne asked, “Did a taxi driver bring my Gladstone back here with a message saying I’d missed the plane?”

“Yes, he did. I’d almost forgotten that. In fact, I’m afraid it slipped my mind altogether when those policemen from the Beach were in here asking about you.”

“When was that?”

“Half an hour ago, I imagine.” Henry glanced at the clock. “I gathered from the way they talked and acted that they suspected you hadn’t left town on the midnight plane, Mr. Shayne.”

Shayne’s ragged brows lifted. “So?”

“So, knowing that—er—you are sometimes in difficulties with policemen from across the bay, I decided it might be just as well not to mention the bag or the driver’s message.”

“You shouldn’t lie to the police just to keep me out of trouble, Henry.” Shayne’s voice was warm with comradeship and gratitude. Henry had been night clerk at the apartment hotel for years, and it wasn’t the first time he’d lied for Shayne.

“Oh, I didn’t lie to them. I really can’t help it if my memory is faulty, Mr. Shayne.”

Shayne said, “I hope it won’t improve if they question you again. I hear you already have another occupant for my apartment.”

“Yes. A Mr. Slocum. He rented it this afternoon.” The little man didn’t ask how Shayne knew this. The years had accustomed him to the fact that the detective often knew all sorts of amazing things.

“But he hasn’t taken possession yet?”

“I believe not. He took one grip up when he rented the apartment, but I believe the rest of his luggage is at a local hotel and he’s coming in with it in the morning.”

“Have you anything else for me? I may decide to stay in town for some time.”

The clerk spread out his thin hands helplessly. “Nothing, Mr. Shayne. Not a single thing.”

Shayne reached up and slowly massaged his ear lobe. “I’m not my usual fashionable self, as you’ll notice, Henry. I had to leave a certain place rather suddenly and I had to grab what was handy.”

Henry looked at him primly, his gaze sliding down the stiff, dirty coveralls to Shayne’s bony ankles and his feet clad only in a pair of socks. He nodded with a sober man-to-man air and murmured, “One might deduce the lady’s husband is not as tall as you, Mr. Shayne, and a trifle bulkier in build.”

Shayne grinned and said, “That’s a fair job of deduction, Henry. Do you suppose Mr. Slocum would mind if I took my suitcase up to his apartment and borrowed the bathroom and put on some clothes that fit me a little better?”

“I don’t see how he would ever know about it. But I’m afraid he has the only key. You didn’t turn yours in when you checked out.”

Shayne frowned. “Force of habit, I suppose, from carrying that key in my pocket for so many years. But don’t worry about that—But wait a minute,” he added sharply. “I left my key ring behind with my clothes. You must have more than one extra key.”

“We’ve a master key, of course.”

“Of course,” Shayne repeated. He reached for the large brass ring Henry lifted from a hook behind the desk. “Now if you’ll get my bag—”

“It’s right here.” The clerk opened a wooden gate and slid the suitcase out. “Joe is probably asleep on the top floor,” he added as they went toward the elevators. “He has a cot up there in the corridor.” He put his finger on the signal button and held it there.

“One more favor,” Shayne said as they waited for the buzzer to waken Joe. “I need a drink, Henry. You know how it is when a man needs a drink.”

Henry said, “I can imagine,” in a tone that told Shayne he couldn’t imagine at all.

“And I’m broke. There’s an all-night restaurant around the corner where they keep a few bottles under the counter for emergencies like this. Just mention my name.”

Henry nodded wisely. There was a clanking overhead, indicating that the elevator was coming down.

“How about slipping around there and getting a bottle for me while Joe takes me up? I’ll send him right down to watch the desk.”

Henry’s pale eyes twinkled. “I can do better than that, I believe. I have a small stock in the safe for emergencies. As I recall, you prefer cognac.”

Shayne looked at the neat little man in utter amazement. “After all these years,” he murmured. “One does live and learn. Yes, Henry, I do indeed prefer cognac. Send it up by Joe right away,” he added as the elevator stopped and the doors slid open to reveal a yawning Negro boy in a blue uniform.

Joe said, “Howdy, Mistuh Shayne. Yo’all back again?” with a sleepy grin, and took him up to the third floor.

Shayne got out and said, “Henry has something for me downstairs, Joe. Bring it up, and then you can take this key ring back to him.”

The lad nodded sleepily and closed the doors.

Shayne strode down the corridor to the familiar door and put the master key in the lock. It opened easily, and he padded inside with suitcase in hand. He set it down and turned on the light. The living-room was just as he had left it more than twelve hours earlier.

He felt an odd restlessness and realized that he hadn’t had a cigarette since his incarceration in the men’s room of the underground garage. He hurried to the telephone, asked Henry to send some up with the bottle, and then gave a deep sigh of relief as he hung up and began unfastening the metal buttons on the coveralls.

He let them drop from his body in the middle of the living-room, kicked off his socks, and went into the kitchenette where he turned on the cold water faucet and inspected the ice trays in the small refrigerator. They were full of cubes. He pulled one out, set it in the sink under the stream of water and got two glasses from the cupboard. He put four cubes in one glass, filled it with water, and went back into the living-room just as Joe knocked on the door.

Setting the glasses on the center table, he went to the door to get the bottle and two packs of cigarettes from Joe.

The cognac was Martell. Shayne’s nostrils flared as he got the bottle open and poured a generous draft in the empty glass. He needed this drink. Just as he needed a bath, some clean clothes, and a period of relaxation. He had a lot of thinking to do, and there wasn’t any place he could do it better than right there in the familiar living-room with a glass of cognac and ice water at his elbow.

Without consciously realizing it, he had resolutely thrust all thinking about what had been happening from his mind after talking with Will Gentry on the telephone. He needed time and quiet to digest the things Gentry had told him, to see how in hell they fitted into the curious pattern of events that had engulfed him.

He drank the cognac slowly and appreciatively, took a sip of water, and then went into the bathroom which opened directly off the living-room beside the closed bedroom.

He fixed the shower as hot as he could stand it and got under the spray, stood there for a long time, and then cooled it by degrees until it was as cold as water will run out of the pipes in Miami.

The telephone rang while he was drying his rangy body with a rough towel. He went into the living-room and answered it.

Henry said from the desk phone, “That policeman from the Beach and your newspaper friend are on their way up to see you, Mr. Shayne. They came in just now and seemed to know you were here, and I hardly dared pretend you weren’t.”

Shayne said, “That’s all right, Henry. Just so you don’t suddenly remember about the suitcase.” He hung up as a knock sounded on the door, went across to open it, holding an end of the towel in each hand and leisurely moving it back and forth to dry his back.

Peter Painter stood officiously on the threshold, and immediately behind him was the tall, emaciated frame and the melancholy face of Timothy Rourke.

Shayne said, “Hello,” stepped back, and continued drying himself.

Painter, chief of the Miami Beach detective bureau, was short and slender and exceedingly well dressed. He had a thin black mustache and piercing, inquisitive black eyes. He said angrily, “I thought we were rid of you, Shayne. You made a great to-do earlier this evening at the Leslie Hudson home about catching that midnight plane.”

Shayne said, “I decided to come back. I had a hunch there might be some more schoolboy stuff you’d be needing my help on.”

Painter bristled and entered the familiar room with short, deliberate steps, darting his sharp eyes around inquisitively.

Timothy Rourke stood in the doorway, narrowing his feverishly bright eyes and chuckling when he saw the condition of Shayne’s mouth. “Do the stewardesses on National carry knives to protect them from lecherous passengers? Or did she get over-enthusiastic and chew when she should have been kissing?”

Shayne touched his cut lip tenderly with the back of his hand. “I think she had panther blood, Tim,” he said soberly. They walked into the room together.

In a self-satisfied tone, Painter announced, “I had a hunch all along that that clerk was lying about renting this apartment to someone else. That plane jump to Palm Beach was just a dodge to throw me off the track.”

Shayne turned a look of innocent surprise on Timothy Rourke. “What’s your pint-sized friend talking about, Tim? Doesn’t he realize he has never been on the track?”

“Very funny,” snapped Painter. “You planned to come back all along, Shayne. Why did you make such an effort to make us think you were going back to New Orleans?”

Rourke chuckled and went over to pour himself a drink of cognac. His clothes hung on his bony body like the ill-fitting habiliments of a scarecrow. “I don’t know why he’s got the wind up, Mike. Is Chick sore at you?” he ended casually.

“Chick?” Shayne frowned, as though trying to recall the name. “Oh, Farrel? Chick has hated my guts ever since I beat his time with a redhead a few months ago. Why?”

“Never mind that.” Painter strutted forward, smoothing his thready black mustache with his thumbnail. “What have you been doing since you got back to Miami, Shayne? How does it happen I find you here in your old apartment when it’s supposed to be rented to another man?”

“It
is
rented to another man, but he hasn’t moved in yet. I’m simply borrowing it for a bath and a chance to change clothes.” Shayne gestured toward the strapped suitcase in the middle of the floor near Painter’s feet.

Painter snorted and went into the bathroom to look around. Shayne looked at Rourke with lifted eyebrows. Rourke shook his head slightly and lifted his own brows in response.

Painter came briskly back from the bathroom and demanded, “Where are the clothes you wore up here?”

Shayne said, “You seem to forget this apartment has a bedroom. A man usually undresses in his bedroom, but it so happens that the clothes I wore up here are there on the floor.” He pointed a bony forefinger to the dirty coveralls lying near the suitcase.

Painter went over and stooped to touch the dirty garment with his manicured fingertips, but instead, moved the coveralls with the tip of his shoe. He saw the pair of discarded socks and nothing more. “You were wearing more than this when you left to catch the plane. What have you been doing in this outfit?”

“One of these days,” said Shayne with disgust, “the city fathers on the Beach are going to catch on and give your job to the night clerk downstairs.”

“What?” Painter’s small mouth gaped open.

“Henry,” Shayne explained patiently, “deduced that her husband must be a mechanic and that he came home too soon.”

Timothy Rourke laughed happily and sat down. Painter started to speak, but didn’t. He looked Shayne’s naked body up and down and then snapped, “Don’t you have any decency? Get some clothes on so I can question you formally.”

Shayne said, “I’m sorry if my nudity offends you. What the hell are you doing up here, anyway?”

Painter retorted angrily, “Get into some clothes and I’ll be very happy to explain.” He turned away stiffly.

Shayne threw Rourke an amused look and said, “I’ll bet Petey used to undress behind a bush when he and the boys went swimming.” To Painter he said, “All right. I’ll put on a pair of shorts and make this formal.”

The big towel fell to the floor as he bent over to unfasten the leather straps and loosen the metal catches at each end of the bag and press the center lock to release the catch.

It didn’t release. Shayne frowned and pushed it back and forth, trying to pull the bag open, muttering, “It can’t be locked. I lost the key years ago.”