Brett Halliday - Shoot the Works

She said, “I’m so delighted you could come, Mr. Shayne,” and told the maid, “Please draw the doors, Marie.”

The maid ducked her head and went out, closing the sliding doors behind her. Shayne said, “I’m delighted you asked me, Kitty.” He moved across to her and took the hand she extended between both his big palms.

She dropped her gaze from his and he realized she was trembling, and he squeezed her hand reassuringly and said lightly, “It didn’t happen, Kitty. Not a damned bit of it happened. Relax.”

Keeping her eyes down, she said in a low, throaty voice, “But I want it to have happened. Don’t you understand? I think it was wild and lovely and wonderful, and I’m positively delighted that I was tight enough to let my hair down for once in my life and act exactly the floosie I’ve always wanted to be.”

Shayne said, “And a very nice floosie you were.” He released her hand and turned slightly to the table. “Shall we have a drink on that?”

She said, “Not too much for me, Mike. A very little of the scotch and lots of soda.” Nervously, she turned beside him and tonged ice cubes from a silver bucket into two glasses. “There’s cognac for you. Nineteen Twenty-Eight Napoleon, I think it is, from my late husband’s cellar. I believe I recall that you prefer it straight with ice water on the side?”

Standing companionably beside her and not looking in her direction, Shayne poured a generous portion of the noble liquor into a snifter glass of frail crystal and said casually, “Your recollection is perfect up to that point at least. How far does it carry on?”

In a low voice, she asked, “Must I tell you?”

“Certainly not.” He let her pour water on top of the ice in his glass. “I had in mind the note you left for me. I hate to think you’ll always be sorry about anything.”

“Let’s say I’m not.” She turned to face him with a faint smile on her lips. “That note was my first reaction. Afterward, when I had an opportunity to think it out more thoroughly, I realized that quite the most beautiful thing about last night is the fact that I don’t know. So I can imagine anything I damn well please.” The smile became slightly wry as she sipped her weak mixture of scotch and soda and eyed him anxiously over the rim of the glass. “You do understand, don’t you?”

Shayne said truthfully, “About as well as any man ever understands any woman, Kitty.” He moved back to a leather-upholstered chair with his two glasses and set them on a smoking stand beside it. He sat back comfortably and stretched his long legs out in front of him and lit a cigarette. She sat down primly in a chair, ten feet from him, and smoothed her velvet skirt over the knees which Shayne remembered from the preceding night as not being at all as bony as he had expected.

“Let’s just say it was Kitty Heffner’s night to howl… and she howled. And then drop the subject.”

“After I make one further observation,” amended Shayne. “Promise me that the next time Kitty Heffner gets in a howling mood she comes to my apartment again.”

Color surged into both her cheeks, but she met Shayne’s gaze steadily and without embarrassment. “That’s a promise, Mike. But next time feed me sherry instead of straight cognac. I give you my word you won’t be disappointed.”

Shayne said, “I’ll lay in a supply of Amontillado tonight.” He relaxed and drew deeply on his cigarette, and lifted the snifter to draw in a deep lungful of the bouquet arising from the pot-bellied glass and waited for her to tell him why she had asked him to come to her house, since she had made it apparent she didn’t wish to pick up where they had left off the preceding night.

There was a long moment of silence and he stayed comfortably relaxed and let her stew in it. Then she said timidly, “Forgetting about the other… as you promised… I feel absolutely terrible this morning.”

“I didn’t promise to forget it,” protested Shayne. “Just to drop the subject. Why feel terrible, Kitty?”

“Because of the things I said. Because of the excuse I trumped up for following you home and insinuating myself into your rooms.”

Shayne said, “It is a murder investigation, Kitty. Every bit of information about any of the people involved may be very important. It was your duty to tell me.”

“But it wasn’t,” she denied strongly. “Ella is one of my closest friends, and both she and her husband have been wonderful to me since my husband died. I was just being horribly catty and I can never forgive myself for the impression I gave you… particularly since it wasn’t true at all.”

“Not true?” Shayne roused himself to sit up and rub his square jaw. “You mean you were making all that up?”

“Not exactly. That is, oh, it was true enough, but… I’m telling this very badly,” Kitty wailed. “I’m so embarrassed when I realize how silly I was to jump to a wrong conclusion and I just don’t know how much it was due to my alcoholic desire to see you again and how much it was an honest mistake. Don’t you see how embarrassing it is?”

“Frankly… no,” said Shayne. “At the moment, you have me completely confused.”

“But I’m trying to tell you,” cried Kitty. “You just don’t understand. You thought I was talking about Jim Wallace all the time. And I wasn’t. He was a dear old sweetie-pie and I wouldn’t malign him for anything in the world. Don’t you see. I thought it was Tommy Tompkins that had been murdered all the time. No one told me it was Jim Wallace. Don’t you remember?” she pleaded. “When you first came in and asked Ella for her husband and you told her one of his partners had been murdered? And I distinctly remember Ella saying, ‘Mr. Tompkins?’ And you didn’t say anything different. You went on back to Rutherford’s bedroom and Ella came back to tell us all about it… and all of us thought it was Tommy and we were excited and we talked about it and all… and no one said it was Jim Wallace. So how was I to know? And it wasn’t until I saw the newspaper this morning that I realized what a dreadful mistake I’d made and what a terribly false impression I must have given you of Jim Wallace.”

Shayne muttered, “Wait a minute.” He rubbed a distracted hand over his corrugated brow. “You thought it was Tompkins! And all the time you were talking about the dead man and how he made passes at Mrs. Martin and other women, you meant Tompkins. Is that what you’re telling me now?”

“Certainly. I thought I had made it perfectly clear. All we girls thought it was Tommy who was dead. Not Jim Wallace. Who could imagine anyone killing him? But you didn’t tell me. No one told me anything. You let me sit up there and tell you all those things, without even telling me once that I was talking about the wrong man.”

Shayne grinned sourly and set his brandy glass down. All at once the thirty-year-old cognac didn’t taste as good as it had at first. ”So Tompkins is the philanderer? The one who kisses Mrs. Martin on the sly and whom you suspect Martin of being jealous of!” He beat his forehead with the tight knuckles of his right hand.

“Of course,” Kitty said brightly. “You can imagine just how I felt when I read the newspaper this morning and discovered the wrong partner was dead. That is, the wrong one in the light of everything I told you. And I thought I’d better put you straight just as fast as I could and that’s why I called your office and asked you to come here, just as soon as I finished my hair appointment.”

Shayne said hollowly, “I’m glad you did. I’m damned glad you did. My God! this changes everything. Are you telling me now that Jim Wallace never made a single pass at another woman? That he was, in fact, the paragon of virtue that his wife believes him to have been?”