Brett Halliday: Blue Murder

“You were in that vampire movie. Of course you weren’t wearing those earrings, or anything else either.”

There was an odd assortment at her table, a middle-aged couple in resort clothes, two younger women holding hands, a heavy-set man with a face like roast beef, a puff of gray hair at the collar of his open shirt. He had his hand casually on Lib’s shoulder, one finger inside the fabric of her dress.

“One of your fans, Lib,” he said, giving it a sarcastic edge.

“It’s the first time it ever happened,” the girl said with enthusiasm. “A total of nine pictures, and nobody ever came up to me before. This may be the turning point.”

“It was beautiful,” Shayne told her. “And if you don’t think you made an impression on me, hold your breath and I’ll tell you your name. Lib” — he looked at the ceiling for help — “Calhoun. Am I right?”

“Close!” the girl said, delighted. “Very close! Callahan. Now if you tell me you’re a legendary Hollywood producer looking for talent—”

“Do I look like a movie producer?” Shayne said. “Just a humble member of the rank and file. Would anybody object if I…” He summoned a waitress. “Get us some more drinks here.”

He stole a chair from a nearby table and shoehorned himself in between Lib and the brilliantly clothed tourists, whose name, they told Shayne almost immediately, was Fox, Tom and Clarice, from Passaic, N.J. They were in town for ten days, staying at the Fontainebleau. They had three children. He was in footwear.

The red-faced man, on the other side of Lib, kept his hand on her shoulder, as though asserting a claim. A high school guidance counselor, he was named George.

“I have a question,” Shayne said to the girl. “You probably get asked it all the time—”

She groaned. “If you knew how often, lover. Does acting in this kind of movie turn me on?”

“You guessed it.”

“I usually say yes,” she said, taking her answer seriously. “The camera gives it a little extra something. You aren’t balling just one guy, you’re balling the audience. The young guys who haven’t found out yet how a woman reacts. Those lonely old guys who want to remember what it was like. The guys in between, who are working up to making it with somebody in real life. The first couple of times were tremendous! Real fireworks. But the funny thing was that it didn’t look that marvelous on the screen. Now I’ve got it so it looks convincing—”

“You certainly do,” Shayne said.

“But it’s less fun personally. All those stops and starts. I haven’t had an honest-to-God explosion in months. Just that teentsy-weentsy flutter.”

“That’s too bad,” Shayne said, and George, on the other side, was equally anxious to sympathize.

The Passaic, N.J., people were smiling brightly. The female orgasm was probably seldom mentioned in casual conversations in Passaic, N.J. Drinks arrived. After tasting hers to make sure it was what she had ordered, Lib asked Shayne to dance.

He stood up. “I’m willing to try. Don’t expect too much.”

She ran her fingernails through George’s haircut, and she and Shayne joined the group on the dance floor. There was so little room that all they could do was move from one foot to the other in time to the music.

“One thing, Mike,” she said in his ear. “That vampire picture hasn’t been released yet, so where did you see it?”

“I got your name off a poster downstairs.”

“Were you looking specially for me, or just somebody who’s been in a porno?”

“Nick Tucker told me to look you up.”

She pulled back, her pupils seeming to turn for an instant into tiny dollar signs. Then she tilted her face alongside his so she could speak directly into his ear again.

“How do you make your living, lover?”

“I’m a private detective.”

“So you really aren’t too interested in whether I’m having orgasms.”

“It’s not the main thing I’m interested in. There’s money available for a little cooperation.”

“Money I like. Nick sent you to the right girl. I’m completely amoral.”

“Completely what?”

“Amoral. That means when somebody makes a suggestion, I look at the pros and cons. The problem is, they’re so uptight about security lately. Notice the cats in the armbands? We’re supposed to go by the rules. If we don’t — zap, bam, pow. Like in the comic books.”

“I’ll meet you later.”

He felt her shake her head. “I don’t know you. It has to be with people around. Wait a minute, I’m thinking.”

She continued to grind slowly against him. The dancers around them seemed completely enclosed in their own electrical field. Lib’s hands moved lightly and absentmindedly on Shayne’s back.

She sent another burst of words into his ear. “How much money, in round numbers?”

“Up to four hundred, depending on what you can give me.”

“And you’re the one who decides what it’s worth? I’ll need something up front.”

“Two-fifty.”

“Three. I’ll drop on you for free.”

“Two-fifty is tops.”

She pulled back for another look. “I hope I’m not going to have trouble with you. What I could do is take you to this party. I’m serious about being careful. They’ll knock my head off if they find out you’re working for Tucker. The Tucker committee — that’s a dirty word around here. And everybody’s extra tense right now, I don’t know about what. Just float along and look drunk and dumb.”

The music stopped and they released each other. A small frown appeared between her eyes.

“George is the thing. I already asked him, and if he goes he’ll want to stick close.”

“I’ll explain it to him.”

“Without making a big noise, Mike? If you bop him or anything, those armbands will be down on us so fast…”

They maneuvered separately to the edge of the dance floor and between the tables. If she was thinking about money now, it didn’t show. She moved lithely, with a bounce, enjoying the crowd, the music, her own health and good looks.

Reaching their table, Shayne sat down beside the guidance counselor. “Lib wants me to break some news. She’s ending the evening with me. She says she likes you—”

“Very much,” Lib put in, the dollar signs in her eyes blinking on and off.

“But I have an angle,” Shayne continued. “I’m about to leave for the Caribbean. Some movie people are going to be along. They’re very minor people, and they probably don’t really know some of the names they drop all the time. But she’s decided she can’t afford to turn it down.”

George’s flush deepened. “You don’t have any boat.”

“She has to believe me until she finds out,” Shayne explained. “As a matter of fact, it’s a charter. We’ll be crowded, and getting dressed and undressed, we’ll catch an occasional elbow. We’ll either be good friends by the time we get back, or we won’t be speaking.”

George pushed back his chair.

Shayne said gently, “Nothing wrong with being a guidance counselor, George, but your school board wouldn’t like to hear you’d been busted for a fight over a girl who’s young enough to be one of your sophomores, upstairs over a theater showing pornographic movies.”

George had had just enough to drink so he believed his masculinity was being threatened. He began to shift. Shayne came to his feet in a fluid motion and kept the smaller man in his chair with a hard hand on his shoulder.

“Especially a fight you lost,” he added.

The tendon under Shayne’s hand was rigid at first. Gradually it relaxed and George reached for his drink.

“The story of my life,” he said.

Lib gathered her things and touched his hand. “I was looking forward to it, but you see how it is.”