Brett Halliday: Shoot the Works

When the telephone rang, Michael Shayne said, “Let it ring, angel,” without lifting his head. He made his voice sound placid and almost drowsy. He was stretched out full-length on the sofa, in Lucy Hamilton’s sitting room, and his left cheek was pressed against Lucy’s warm lap. He had his jacket off and his tie loosened and his shirt collar unbuttoned, and Lucy was leaning slightly forward over him and her fingers were tangled in his coarse red hair.

It was almost eleven o’clock, and a half-filled brandy bottle stood on the low coffee table directly in front of Shayne beside an empty wine-glass and a tumbler with two partially-melted cubes of ice in the bottom.

The telephone across the room continued to jangle insistently. Lucy did not speak or move until the fourth ring. Then she sighed lightly and Shayne felt the muscles of her thigh tighten beneath his cheek, and he knew he had lost.

From the first ring, he had known he would lose, of course. His effort to hold on to the lazy mood of the evening had been purely a mechanical reflex. No woman can resist the summons of a telephone. Particularly late at night, when she hasn’t the faintest idea who might be calling at that hour. Why, it might be anyone or anything! The building might be on fire, or it might be long-distance from California with a message that some distant relative had died and left her a fortune.

Shayne lifted his red head enough to allow Lucy to slide out from under and cross the room to the telephone. She was wearing a full-skirted print dress that swished delightfully below her nice hips, and her brown curls glinted in the soft light from two shaded floorlamps at either end of the room.

Shayne suppressed a rueful groan as he dragged himself into a sitting position and leaned forward to splash a finger of brandy in the empty glass. He irritably tried to close his ears to Lucy’s voice speaking into the mouthpiece, but the words came across clearly:

“Mrs. Wallace? Why, I thought you weren’t due back until… I see… But what’s the matter? I can hardly understand you. Why, yes, he’s… he’s right here with me, Mrs. Wallace… Well, if it’s really important, I guess…”

Lucy’s voice changed perceptibly after she listened for a long moment. It became brisk and soothing at the same time. “Of course, Mrs. Wallace. No trouble at all. Michael will be glad to. In about ten minutes. I know the address.”

Shayne took two deep swallows of brandy as Lucy dropped the receiver and swung around. “What will I be glad to do?” he asked sourly. “It’s eleven o’clock and I was practically asleep, and…”

“That was Mrs. James Wallace. You know. Helen Pearce’s mother. She’s in some dreadful trouble, Michael. Weeping and practically hysterical. I could hardly understand her. Hurry and get your jacket.” She whirled away toward the closet near the door to pull down a light wrap.

“What’s Mrs. James Wallace got to do with us?” Shayne thumped his glass down and ran bony fingers through his tangled hair. “You’re the one who’s always telling me to keep decent office hours. You’re the one who’s always griping that we can’t spend a quiet evening together without some interruption like this. But when it’s some old dame you happen to know…”

“Michael Shayne! You get up off that sofa and move.” Lucy Hamilton snatched his jacket from the back of a chair and hurried toward him holding it outstretched.

Her brown eyes were unexpectedly blazing and her firm chin jutted forward. “I told you it was Helen Pearce’s mother. You know Helen’s one of my best friends. Something awful has happened and she needs you. If it were some dizzy blonde friend of yours, you’d be on your way by now.”

Shayne’s frown changed to a grin. Lucy was beautiful when she was angry. He surged to his feet and turned with his arms held out behind him. Lucy shoved the sleeves of his coat on and pushed it up across his wide shoulders. She grabbed his elbow and tugged him toward the door, saying breathlessly, “It’s up in the Northeast section. Hurry, Michael! You heard me tell her we’d be there in ten minutes.”

“I heard you,” he grumbled, stretching his long legs to keep pace with her, out the door and down the single flight of stairs to his car parked in front of the apartment house. “What did she say was the matter?”

“She didn’t say. Exactly.” Lucy settled into the seat beside him as the motor hummed and the heavy sedan surged forward. “Just that something dreadful had happened and could I find you and get you to come. Up the Boulevard to Fortieth will be fastest,” she directed.

“She’s been visiting in New York and wasn’t due home until tomorrow,” Lucy went on rapidly. “I know because I had lunch with Helen today and she planned to meet the noon train. But Mrs. Wallace flew back unexpectedly, I guess, and… well, I don’t know what happened. Something terrible though. She’s not the hysterical type, Michael. She’s one of the calmest, nicest women…”

“No really nice woman,” gritted Shayne, “comes home a day ahead of schedule without notifying her husband.”

“But Mr. Wallace isn’t… He’s nice, Michael. They’re the nicest middle-aged couple I know. If something like that has happened it’ll be terrible for Helen. She’s pregnant, you know. And she’s already had two miscarriages and has to be very careful not to get upset or to overdo or anything. And she just adores her father… That was Thirty-Seventh, Michael.”

He grunted, “I know,” and started applying the brakes, slowing from fifty to a speed that allowed him to swing to the right onto Fortieth Street with only a faint scream of outraged rubber.

“It’s in the next block on the right. A big apartment building.” Lucy was leaning out the door, her curls flying in the breeze. “Here, Michael. Park behind that convertible.”

Shayne pulled into the curb in front of a six-story modern building and cut the ignition. Lucy had the door open and was running up the walk by the time he got out. He followed with long strides, conscious of a bad taste in his mouth. He remembered Helen Pearce vaguely. An ethereal sort of girl with a pleasant, blond, boyish husband with whom she was desperately in love. He and Lucy had had dinner with them a couple of times, had spent one pleasantly relaxed evening in their modest home on Miami Beach. It was one of the nicer evenings he and his secretary had spent together during their many years of association. He now recalled thinking at the time that if anything could convince him that marriage was the wonderful institution it was cracked up to be, seeing Helen and Bob Pearce together, in the intimacy of their home, would do it. Indeed, he had egotistically wondered at the time if that had been Lucy’s motive in taking him there…

But now a simple-minded housewife had returned home from New York unexpectedly, and there was some sort of hell to pay. And the sins of the fathers would be visited on the daughters…

Lucy had her finger on a bell in the small foyer when Shayne entered behind her. The release catch on the inner door buzzed, and Shayne strode past to turn the knob. A wide, tastefully decorated hallway led to twin self-service elevators at the rear. One of the cars was waiting, and Lucy pushed the button for 4 when they got in. They rode up in silence, with the redhead’s arm tightly about Lucy’s slim waist, so he could feel the trembling of her body against his.

The car stopped and the door slid open silently. Down the carpeted hall to the right, a woman’s figure stood outlined in a rectangle of light from behind her. With a little choked cry, Lucy sped down the hall toward the waiting Mrs. Wallace. Shayne drew in a deep breath and followed more slowly. They were locked together on the threshold in a tight embrace when Shayne reached them.