Murder Takes No Holiday (9 page)

Suddenly she appeared in the open doorway, looking at Shayne, aghast. She put on the skirt and had an arm in one sleeve of the blouse.

“Michael, you don’t think Paul had any connection with that!”

Shayne lit a cigarette and spoke around it, his eyes squinting against the smoke. “Watts made a trip to Miami to find out how much the customs service pays informants. A little later Malloy got a cable from him, fingering Paul Slater. That’s how Paul happened to get arrested. When all Malloy’s boys could find were a few measly watch movements, they wrote Watts down as a nut, without much sense of proportion, and didn’t give Paul a real hard look. If it hadn’t been for those watch movements, Paul would have been followed around every second he was in the States. Then Watts was stabbed before he could collect his two-bit fee.”

Martha abruptly became aware of being only partially dressed, and disappeared. Her voice came through the opening. “And Jack thinks—”

“What else could he think? The cops here don’t know about the cable. Jack wanted to see what I could find out, if anything, before he turned it over. And as soon as he does, they’ll pull Paul in and hit him with it. This is pretty rough on you, but you might as well know it now.”

She opened the door again, buttoning her blouse. “But Michael,” she said beseechingly, “he was drunk, wasn’t he? The paper said they took a blood test. Everybody says he must have got into a fight in some bar. He belonged to that idiotic committee that’s so down on the natives, and he made some belligerent remark while he was drinking, and a native followed him out to the street and they fought.”

“All that is possible,” Shayne said, “but after the cops hear about the cable to Malloy, they won’t think it’s very likely. And there are two points about that five hundred dollar fine. If a pigeon like Watts can give away a small shipment, he can give away a big one. And Malloy has a wild idea that Paul was bringing in something big that they didn’t catch. The watch movements were a decoy.”

Martha tucked in her blouse, laughing shortly. “Wild idea is right. You can tell Jack from me that Paul is very definitely in the minor-leagues as a smuggler, or else it’s a well-kept secret. Seriously, Michael, this is something I really think I’d know. I know that keeping two women at one time can run into money, but goodness—I could show you his socks. I don’t mean to sound frivolous, but he doesn’t have a whole pair to his name. His shorts are ready for the ragbag. And as for murdering anybody—no.” She shook her head. “That is something you must stop thinking about. I said I was sure he couldn’t lie in wait for somebody and hit him from behind. If there was enough money at stake, and he thought he wouldn’t get caught, maybe he could talk himself into trying it. But something would go wrong. He’d swing an instant too soon or an instant too late, if he could do it at all. And I’m glad he’s that kind of person.”

“The killing was a week ago Wednesday,” Shayne said. “Sometime between six, when Watts left his office, and twelve-thirty the next morning. Do you know where Paul was during that time?”

She smiled. “Of course. Sometimes we go our separate ways in the daytime, but we always meet for dinner and spend the evening together. We have a dozen favorite picnic spots—picnics aren’t as expensive as eating in restaurants! Every now and then, once every two or three weeks, perhaps, one of us goes out on a buying or a scouting trip. But last week—”

She was putting on a pair of high-heeled shoes. She straightened suddenly, her face very still. “Well, one day last week—it wasn’t Wednesday. But I can look it up.”

She put on her second shoe and went to the little drop-leaf desk. There she rummaged about until she found an engagement calendar. Her back was turned to Shayne, but the redhead knew what she had found even before she swung around to face him.

“It was Wednesday,” she said. “I hired a car and drove across to a fishing village where we know some people who make wonderful glazed bowls. I’ve been in such a daze—I could have sworn it was earlier in the week. I wanted to save paying for a room, so I drove back that same night. I doubt if I got in before eleven. But that doesn’t mean anything, Michael. We just have to ask Paul what he was doing, and—”

She paused, and went on hopelessly, “No, he told me he packed a few sandwiches and went for a long bike ride. Unless he was lying, and he was with that girl? But Michael, it’s all beside the point! He didn’t do it, and that’s that. Why does it have to be Paul, just because it was his name in the cable? Why not Alvarez? Everything else about this was his doing. He could have found out about Watts. Of course he wouldn’t do it himself—he’d hire somebody. I think you’ll find that Luis Alvarez was in some extremely public place, with twenty people watching him every minute.”

She kicked off her high-heeled shoes, and went to the closet for a pair with low heels. She fumbled with the laces. She was trying to speak calmly, but Shayne could see the marks of tension.

“It’s beginning to sink in at last,” she said. “And I can remember when I actually had a sneaking feeling of admiration for Paul, when he made that huge fee taking in the perfume. It seemed almost romantic. But now! My God, Michael. Alvarez thinks Paul robbed him. Watts was killed for considerably less.”

She wasn’t far from hysteria. She pulled one of the laces too tight and it snapped.

“Let it go,” Shane said. “Alvarez is probably getting restless.”

“Michael, find out who did kill Watts! I’ll hire you. If you don’t, they’ll pin it on Paul. I can see it coming.”

“Tell me one thing. In spite of this babe of his and all the rest of it, do you still want to keep the marriage going?”

As she stood up, she gave him one of the direct, candid looks he remembered. “I don’t know,” she said simply. “It was a real kick in the teeth for me, finding out about this girl. Things can’t be exactly the same again, no matter what happens. He promised me today that he would break with Alvarez. If I find out that he lied to me about that—Michael, I don’t know. I think—I’m still in love with him. I probably always will be. I don’t want anything bad to happen to him. But ask me if I want to stay married to him after I find out the real truth.”

Shayne rubbed out his cigarette. “When this is over, will you give me a complete statement of everything you know about the smuggling?”

She didn’t hesitate. “Yes, Michael. It will be a horrible thing to have to put down in black and white, and I hope you won’t have to use it. But I want to put an end to this nightmare, once and for all.”

She felt in her handbag and took out a pound note.

“What’s that for?” Shayne asked.

“If anybody asks you if you have a client, don’t you want to be able to say you’ve been given a retainer?”

Shayne grinned, taking the note and putting it in his pocket. “That doesn’t mean they’ll believe me. No, leave the light on,” he said as she reached automatically for the light switch. “No point in letting them know we’re leaving.”

He approached the window carefully, keeping well back from the lighted rectangle, and drew the curtain aside. The Hillman was where he had left it, and a slightly larger car had pulled up behind it. He could make out two figures in the shadows. One of these, in a dark suit, was probably Alvarez. There was a third man at the wheel of the second car.

Martha was nervously putting on lipstick. She blotted her lips on a Kleenex and said, “We can go out through the laundry room in the basement. There’s a big hotel farther along the shore. I think we can get a taxi there.” She waited with her hand on the doorknob. “You’ve brought me some bad news tonight, Michael. Paying you that silly retainer doesn’t change anything, but it makes me feel better. I’m not exactly unbiased on the subject of Michael Shayne. If anybody can make sense out of this, you can.”

He grinned at her and they went out. The fact that Shayne now had a client would give him a slight tactical advantage when he came to talk to the cops, but in another sense it was unimportant. Sooner or later in most of his cases, a moment came when he no longer cared whether he would end up with a fee or not, even whether he would come through with a whole skin. He had lived with danger so long it no longer meant anything to him. He was like a structural steel worker who spends his working day high in the air on a strip of steel a few inches wide. That was simply the way he made his living. There was only one thing he cared about, and that was to get to the bottom of the problem that faced him.

He had arrived at this point now. He wouldn’t have come this far if Martha hadn’t been an old friend, but that, too, no longer mattered. Someone had killed an obscure Englishman, Albert Watts. Watts meant nothing to Shayne, but his killer meant a great deal. From now on there was an almost emotional bond between Shayne and the killer. It would be broken only when Shayne had trapped him and made him admit his guilt.

On the third floor, Martha rang for the elevator. They could hear the sound of the buzzer beneath them in the shaft. They went quietly to the next landing and waited to hear the clanking as the elevator started up. When there was still no sound, Martha went back to the third floor and gave the desk clerk another long, urgent summons. They listened again. She whispered to Shayne, “He must be asleep.”

They went down the last flight to the lobby. She looked cautiously around the corner. Then, looking back at Shayne, she drew a little diagram in the air, showing him which way to go. He followed her into the lobby. He caught a swift glimpse of the clerk, an old colored man, tipped back precariously on his stool, his eyes closed and his mouth wide open. Martha opened the door to the basement stairs and motioned him ahead of her.

When the door closed they were in utter darkness. He felt her hand on his shoulder. His fingers closed on a railing. He groped ahead with his other hand and went down slowly, feeling his way a step at a time.

At the bottom he whispered, “I’m going to light a match. We don’t want to kick anything over.”

As the match flared they started forward, hand in hand. The way was fairly clear. After the match flickered out he went by memory for a few more steps before stopping to light another. This one took them to the door of the laundry room. Clawing a cobweb out of his eyes, he went on. The third match was still burning when they reached the outside door. He shook it out.

He felt her hands on his arms. She was very close. Her lips brushed his cheek.

“Thank you, Michael,” she said. “For everything.”

She opened the door. For a moment he saw her slight figure against the stars.

He followed her out, and a blinding light struck him in the eyes. A voice said, “Hold it, Shayne,” and something jabbed him hard beneath the left arm.

It was a bad place for Shayne to be hit. A wave of pain rose around him and nearly pulled him under.

He was aware of a flurry of movement just in front of him. The flashlight swung in a vicious upward arc and cracked Martha across the head. Then the man holding the flashlight reached around her and wrested the little automatic out of her hand. He was small and dark, Shayne saw, with a twisted mouth. Shayne raised his arm and looked down at the heavy gun pressed against the break in his ribs. Turning slowly, he looked over his shoulder at Al, the heavy-set bartender from the Camel’s nightclub. He still wore the drooping, villainous mustache, but he no longer had the bandanna over his head or the ring in his ear. He was almost bald.

“That’s right,” Al said. “You’re being careful. Don’t move for a minute and we’ll get the boss. Whistle, José.”

He felt Shayne’s body for weapons. The smaller man was saying something rapidly in Spanish. He feinted at Martha with the heavy flashlight, and she retreated against the wall. He was smiling, showing pointed yellow teeth. He stabbed the flashlight at Shayne’s eyes, and kicked the redhead very hard beneath the right kneecap. Shayne gritted his teeth. José gave a light, wild laugh.

“Tell him to keep away from me,” Shayne said coldly, “or you’ll have to shoot me. The Camel may not like that.”

“The bastard can’t speak English,” Al said. “José, get back there, goddamn it, or I’ll break you in two.”

José responded with another swift outburst in Spanish. Al whistled, without succeeding in making much noise. José showed his disgust. Putting two fingers to his lips, he produced a piercing blast. Then he danced up to Shayne again. Looking up at the bigger man slyly, he drew back his foot, as though for another kick, aiming higher up. Shayne regarded him steadily, his fingers beginning to curl. José gave another brainless laugh and bending down, spat on the ground between them.

Al drew back from Shayne, motioning with his heavy gun. “Back up against the house. Next to the doll. Keep your hands out where I can see them, and don’t try to jump anybody. The boss tells me you’re on a Wanted sheet, and any guy who plugs you gets a thank-you letter from the governor. And at the same time, it turns out you’re a private eye. We’re all impressed. We don’t get many of those down here.”

“I’m on vacation,” Shayne said wearily.

“Some vacation,” Al said with a laugh. “Most people come here for their health. But not you, boy. You’ve been butting your nose in other people’s business, and that ain’t healthy.”

“I see you took off your earring,” Shayne commented, watching him. “I can’t tell in this light—how about the mascara?”

Al’s jaws snapped together, and his head came forward. “Don’t try to needle me. I take worse than that six nights a week from the local winos. Goddamn it, José, will you cool off?” He stepped forward to block the smaller man as he made another swift dart at Shayne. He explained, “He’s probably never had a chance to kick a private eye in his life. He’s excited.”

Alvarez and two others ran around the corner of the building. Shayne wasted no time on Alvarez, having studied him earlier in the evening, but gave the others a close scrutiny as they came within range of the flashlight. Both were Latins. One vaguely resembled José, but was larger, with a hairline mustache; he was probably José’s brother. The other, a plump, moon-faced youth, looked a little simple-minded.

“Well, Shayne,” Alvarez said, out of breath from the short run. He clapped his horn-rimmed glasses on his nose and peered at the American. “I thought you seemed a little smart to be a hoodlum. You fooled me with that police circular. Your timing on that was very good. But I think I fooled you a little in return, eh? Perhaps I was not quite so unconscious from this knock on the head as you thought. I sent you out for ice-cubes so I could look in your suitcase. And what did I find? A Florida private detective’s license, complete with fingerprints. Who you are working for, that I still do not know.”

“Mrs. Slater,” Shayne said evenly.

“I assumed as much. I was laughing in my sleeve when I brought you here to get her. I knew you would bring her out with no fuss or noise—out the back door, into our arms.”

“I’m sorry, Michael,” Martha said miserably.