The Uncomplaining Corpses (14 page)

“Phyllis? Your wife, you mean? What in God’s name has happened to her, Mike?”

“I don’t know,” Shayne groaned hollowly.
“A fate worse than death maybe.
You know how impulsive she is. Well, she—but, hell! You can’t worry about that at a time like this.”

“Damn it, you know I’m worried, Mike. I love that girl like she was my own. What are you covering up?”

“Nothing, Will. She’s probably all right. You know how jittery a man gets.”

“I never knew you to be jittery before.” Will Gentry’s voice was very stern. “If your wife’s in some trouble—”

“She’s just a kid. Doesn’t know what the score is. Dumb enough to think her husband isn’t a murderer and to try and help him prove it. That’s why it’s going to hurt like hell while I lie up in Painter’s jail knowing that whatever happens to her will be on account of her being so
lamebrained
as to love a louse like me.”

“Quit your stalling,” Gentry snapped impatiently. “If Phyllis is in any danger, let’s do something.”

“
Yeh
.
I’d better tell you before they lock me up so you can do what you can. She left me a note this morning saying she was going out to help me solve the
Thrip
case. She went straight to Carl Meldrum without knowing that he’s a maniac. She’s so damned innocent, Will—” Shayne’s voice faltered convincingly.

“Meldrum?
That’s the bird at the Palace Hotel on the Beach. I’ve got a man waiting to pick him up now.”

“
Yeh
, but he and Phyllis went off together before your man got there and they haven’t come back. I think I know where I can find him tonight, but hell!
that
won’t do me any good if I’m in jail.”

“You’re not in jail yet, you damned fool. I can’t arrest you if I can’t find you.”

Shayne said, “Well—but—”

“No buts about it. Duck out of there and forget you called me.”

“You’ve got your job to think about,” Shayne reminded him, “and Painter will be riding you hard.”

Will Gentry cursed him fervently,
then
ended with a snarl: “I was running this department when Painter was wearing a safety pin instead of a belt buckle. Just keep out of sight, Mike.”

“Well, if you want to know where not to look,” Shayne suggested, “I’m on my way out to the Tally-Ho.”

“Good. That’s outside the city limits. I don’t think the sheriff is looking for you yet.”

Shayne said, “All I ask is a few hours, Will.” He hung up and hurried out to the curb, stepped in his car, and sped north on the boulevard.

It was too early for much of a crowd to be at the Tally-Ho when Shayne turned off the boulevard to the right toward neon lights showing through lacy palm fronds. The night club was backed up against the western shore of the bay, alone and secluded in the midst of a palmetto-grown strip which had been subdivided during the boom, but never built up.

The floodlighted parking-lot wasn’t more than a third full of cars and the dimly illumined tropical gardens surrounding the two-story stucco structure were deserted at this hour of the early evening.

Inside the clubhouse, an air of subdued magnificence was calculated to overawe the unwary and loosen their purse strings to meet the high cost of the entertainment offered.

Shayne traded his trench coat and hat for a check and a smile from a blonde behind the check counter, strolled to the door of the main downstairs dining-room for a quick gander inside, then went back through a well-lined bar to the gaming-rooms in the rear which were occupied mostly by croupiers and dealers waiting for the late play to begin.

After a leisurely circuit of the rear he came back through the bar, went on to the dining-room without seeing a familiar face. He knew there were private rooms upstairs where anything could and did happen, but he saved an investigation of them until later when they were more likely to be in use.

The headwaiter didn’t recognize the detective, but, his eyes lighted with recognition for the twenty-dollar bill in Shayne’s hand when Shayne asked:

“Do you know Carl Meldrum by sight?”

“Yes, sir.
He’s one of our regular patrons. It’s a little early for him.”

“Is Miss
Thrip
here?”

“Miss
Thrip
? I don’t know the young lady by name, sir.”

Shayne nodded shortly and moved toward a vacant table near the door, disregarding the waiter’s suggestion that he could arrange a ringside seat for the floor show which was soon to begin.

Shayne said, “This will be all right,” and selected a chair backed against the wall where he could see every person who entered and survey the entire dining-room.

A waitress, appropriately attired in a short red hunting-jacket, pink tights, and patent leather boots, approached his table at once to place the Tally-Ho’s menu sheet before him.

Without glancing at the menu, Shayne said, “Four sidecars and a planked steak for two. Make it hot on both sides but not in the middle.”

When she went away, Shayne leaned back and lit a cigarette, began a careful study of the half hundred or more couples at the tables next to the roped-off square where the floor show would be held.

He had finished less than half of his keen survey of faces when a girl glided up to his table. She had black, square-cut bangs and a white-toothed smile. She was sheathed in a tight evening gown of emerald green biased by darker stripes which reminded Shayne of garden snakes. Its V-front ended alarmingly close to her navel.

The girl asked, “Waiting for someone, big boy?” and started to pull out a chair.

Shayne said, “Yes,” and she hesitated,
then
cajoled:

“No use being lonesome while you’re waiting. How’d you like to buy me a drink?”

Shayne said gently, “Go sell your bill of goods to some sucker, sister.”

The waitress brought Shayne’s sidecars and ranged them in front of him just as the ceiling lights dimmed, leaving only the dim bulbs of cleverly designed coconut-shell lamps glowing on individual tables.

The orchestra struck up a two-four time medley and twin floodlights covered two short flights of steps down which a bevy of nude young girls tripped in a rhythmic dance.

Shayne gulped down half of one sidecar and settled back with his left arm crooked over the back of the chair, holding the glass in his right hand. From a distance and in the soft glow of varicolored sprays of the spotlights, the girls were alluring, claiming his attention. They appeared entirely nude except for silk triangles apparently held in place by nothing at all.

They paraded around the square, dancing, holding out their arms,
coyly
inclining their heads to flirt with the males whose tables crowded close to the ropes.

Shayne looked on through half-closed eyes for a time,
then
swore to himself because the lights were too dim to see the faces of the couples who entered the dining-room and were led to tables by waiters.

The girls were trooping back toward the twin flights of steps. The leaders swerved, and instead of dancing up the stairs to the dressing-rooms, tripped up side steps leading out among the tables scattered all over the room.

Shayne straightened, drank the last of the sidecar, and sat with his arms folded on the table. The dancing girls moved toward the outer tables, moving their arms
snakily
, flirting as they passed along.

When they passed his way, he could have reached out and touched them. But he didn’t. At close range he saw that a puttylike substance covered their full breasts, lifting them high, and that the putty was beginning to crack. A vivid brunette paused briefly at his table, cocked her head coyly, and moved her arms as if to encircle his neck.

Shayne looked up and grinned. “Wash that damn stuff off and you’ll have something, baby,” he muttered.

He turned his entire attention to the three sidecars in front of him, pouring down two-thirds of the second one as the waitress approached with his steak. She set it before him and waited while he pierced it with a sharp knife. A rich red color showed between the browned sides of the thick slab of meat and Shayne nodded his satisfaction.

He detained the waitress when she started away: “Is Mona busy right now?”

“Mona Tabor? I don’t think she’s here yet. I’ll find out.”

Shayne said, “I wish you would.”

He started on the third sidecar, and in less than a minute the waitress came back to report, “Mona hasn’t come yet. She phoned that she’d be late. I can get one of the other hostesses,” she offered with an obliging smile.

Shayne told her not to bother and attacked his steak after draining the third sidecar glass.

The orchestra tuned up again with swing music. A G-stringed girl and a man in top hat and evening clothes came onto the dance floor and got in the groove. In spite of the music, Shayne was interested in the eccentric dance.

He tossed off his fourth sidecar and came to the morose conclusion that he was getting old.

Dorothy
Thrip
came in between floor-show acts when the ceiling lights were on. Her black sequin dinner gown glittered and there were rhinestone clips in her hair. She stopped just inside the doorway and asked the headwaiter a question. He shook his head and said something, nodding toward Michael Shayne,

Dorothy turned her head slowly to look at him. Shayne had just sopped up the last drop of hot blood on a piece of bread. He waved it at her,
then
stuck it in his big mouth.

She didn’t return his greeting. She followed the head-waiter down the aisle to a vacant table which also commanded a view of the entrance, and sat down alone.

Shayne crooked a finger at his waitress, who appeared to have as many eyes as she had patrons for she glided to his table instantly. Shayne ordered a quart of 1932 Du Blanc Port and leaned back to light a cigarette. The lights dimmed again and a breathy female of large proportions gave a fair imitation of Sophie Tucker in a stepped-up version of
Frankie and Johnnie.

Shayne didn’t like Sophie and he detested fat women who imitated her. The crowd liked it, though. By the dim lights at the tables he saw them whisper, laugh boisterously, and applaud noisily the more vulgar lines. The dining-room was filling up rapidly and the smoky air held an acrid bite of marijuana along with the sickening sweet of Turkish blends.

During the intermission, Shayne watched the close-packed dancers who swarmed onto the small square of polished floor. Many of them were obviously
muggled
with marijuana; Shayne guessed the cute little cigarette girls were peddling reefers openly among the patrons. That would account for the number of private rooms upstairs and the rumors that filtered out of the Tally-Ho.

Shayne could see Dorothy
Thrip
alone at her table, her cold round eyes fixed on the door. She showed
no symptoms of nervousness nor
any hint that she feared Carl Meldrum might not come.

Shayne’s waitress glided up and said, “Mona just got here. I told her a gentleman was asking for her and she’ll be right over.”

Shayne thanked her and slid a dollar bill into her palm. He kept faced away from the rear toward the door for fear Mona mightn’t come if she saw who had been asking for her, and he was rewarded after a time by hearing someone stop at his table and utter a smothered gasp of recognition.

He turned slowly, pushed his chair back, and stood up. Mona’s lips were twisted sullenly and there was a tight, hard look about her face. She looked as though she was on the point of turning away, then tossed her head and said, “It’s you. I might have known it would be.” Her voice was low, her body and manner as splendidly poised as when Shayne first saw her. Her copper hair gleamed, a becoming coiffure above an evening gown of purest white which gave her a deceptively virginal appearance.

Shayne nodded to the hovering waitress to bring another wineglass. He drew out a chair for Mona, and after a moment’s hesitation she sat down. He gave her a cigarette and lit it, then poured her a glass of the excellent port.

She drank the wine and made a face, complaining, “What kind of stuff is this for a redheaded he-man to be drinking?”

“I’m just a sissy,” Shayne admitted. “I suppose you don’t think much of my cigarettes, either.”

She grimaced and tapped her cigarette against the ash tray on the table. “They’ll do,” she said indifferently. “I don’t go for marijuana, if that’s what you mean.”

“It wouldn’t mix so well with absinthe,” Shayne told her. He gestured toward the crowded dance floor. “Plenty of floaters out there, though.”

“Sure. That’s one reason a hostess has a hard time being decent in this joint.
Too much nonprofessional competition from the girls who get high.”
Her voice held an undercurrent of discontent. It was as though she held back with an effort to keep from exploding.

Shayne studied her face with frank, wide eyes. “Seen Carl Meldrum today?” he asked after a little silence.

“Does it mean anything to you whether I have or not?”

“Not much. You haven’t,” he answered for her after a brief study of her eyes. “Are you expecting him here tonight?”

“I never expect him any more,” she said with some bitterness.

Shayne motioned toward Dorothy
Thrip
sitting alone several tables away.
“Looks as if Miss
Thrip
was waiting for someone.”

Mona moved languid eyes in the girl’s direction.
“Oh—her.
She’s always getting in Carl’s hair.”

“She’ll soon have a lot of cash at her disposal,” Shayne murmured.

For a moment Mona’s defenses were down before a surge of emotions which seemed compounded of anger and fear. “She won’t have it long after Carl takes her over the hurdles.” Then, getting a firm grip on her emotions, she looked levelly at Shayne and said indifferently, “Why don’t you give up your crazy idea of hanging the old lady’s murder on someone else? Darnell’s already dead and buried. Why strain yourself to bring grief to anyone else?”

Shayne’s eyes grew stubborn before her pleading gaze. “I told you how I stood on that. I’d just as soon have you as
Renslow
or Meldrum.”