Brett Halliday - Lady, Be Bad

The door opened and Jackie groped her way to him with a container of hot, bitter coffee. He drank it all, and then steamed some more. After two more hot-cold cycles, he came out into the bedroom, a soggy towel about his waist, moving almost normally. But his head still felt as fragile as glass.

Jackie had more coffee for him. He waved it aside.

“What’s been happening?”

He dropped into a chair and tried to make the other furniture stay in place while she told him. Two of Gregory’s men had taken her and Tim Rourke to an isolated farmhouse, refusing to say why. Half an hour later there was a phone call. They were driven back to town and set free, still with no explanation.

They returned to Tim Rourke’s motel. Soon afterward there was a knock on the door, and when they opened it, Shayne pitched headlong into the room, muttering something about Gregory. Before putting him to bed they had taken the precaution of changing motels.

“Which wasn’t exactly easy,” she concluded. “You’re heavy, Mike.”

Shayne grunted. “Where’s Tim?”

“He has a plan for getting into Sam Rapp’s party. He said if you woke up to tell you he’s taking care of everything.” She hesitated. “I’m worried about him. It seems a lot more serious than it did this morning, but Tim thinks they’re just going to let him barge right in-”

Bearing down, Shayne had been able to keep abreast of what she was telling him. “Go over it again. This party. It’s at Judge Kendrick’s fishing camp and Sam Rapp is giving it. Who’s going to be there?”

An hour later, in a Hertz Chevy, Shayne was driving west on the winding two-lane road to Lake Talquin. Jackie had marked the route for him on a road map; Shayne had never worked in this part of the country. He drove carefully, concentrating on keeping all four wheels on the highway. A tiny jet engine still screamed faintly inside his head, and if he looked too long at anything it began to revolve. But he had come a long way.

Whenever the highway began to slide he felt in his pocket for a benzedrine inhaler and breathed in deeply. After that, for a time, everything sharpened.

He slowed, knowing from Jackie’s directions that he was approaching the turnoff. He passed a stationary car with its parking lights on, pulled off on the shoulder near a closed gate. The name on a small marker leaped out at Shayne: Kendrick.

He continued until he found a place to leave the car, and used the inhaler again before getting out. He checked the fence around the Kendrick property, using a powerful three-cell flashlight. It was heavy-duty wire, topped by two barbed strands.

Turning off the light, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The night was clear, with the moon in its final quarter.

He started back toward the gate.

The roadside brush had been killed back to the fence-line. When he could see the glow of parking lights he crossed the road. The tangle of undergrowth made walking difficult but gave him cover. Hearing an approaching car, he dropped to the ground. The car slowed.

A voice called, “This the Kendrick place?”

It was Rourke. Keeping low, Shayne moved nearer, and he saw his friend at the wheel of a Tallahassee taxi. He was wearing a driver’s cap, blazoned with dues buttons, pushed back on his head. An unlighted cigarette dangled out of the corner of his mouth.

A man detached himself from the parked car and came into the glare. He proved to be a highway patrolman, tricked out in the full regalia, the big hat, the gun belt, the tight pants, the boots. He was holding a clipboard.

“What’s the name, Buddy?”

“Just delivering a couple of passengers. I’m not staying unless they urge me.”

The patrolman swung his flashlight into the back seat, and Shayne heard a giggle.

“Wow,” a girl’s voice said. “It might be more fun not to go to this party.”

The patrolman laughed. “I go off at midnight. Bear it in mind.”

He opened the gate to admit the taxi. After closing it again he remarked to his partner, “That’s Rourke. The poor bastard must think he’s disguised.”

Shayne thought about that for a moment. But whatever the reason for Rourke’s easy entry-he would have to think about it later-he knew that his own name was undoubtedly not on the list.

Turning carefully, he moved back to the utility pole where lines from the lake-camps tied into the main north-south transmission. A hundred yards from the gate, the cops were no longer in view. He searched the roadside until he found a sharp stone, which he put in his pocket, and a willow sapling. He broke the sapling into ten-inch lengths, forcing them into spike-holes in the pole. They wouldn’t support his full weight, but they gave enough purchase so he was able to work himself up to the permanent spikes.

A moment later he was at the top.

In the distance he heard party noises, music and women’s voices. The far edge of the lake was visible beyond the trees. Lights twinkled along the shore. All at once the pole he was clinging to seemed to begin to bend. He hung on with both arms until his head cleared and the stars took their regular places, separating themselves from the electric lights in the shoreside camps. Then he took up the slack in the wire to the Kendrick camp, doubled it around a metal bracket and struck down sharply with the stone. When several blows failed to sever the wire, he slipped it off the bracket and snapped it hard. The wire whipped away into the darkness, and the lights he had seen through the trees went out.

Again, for an instant, the pole seemed to want to throw him. He climbed down when it stopped swaying, and worked back toward the gate.

The highway patrolmen, unaware of the power interruption, were still talking quietly in the front seat of their cruiser. Shayne went around the next bend, found a stump, and settled down to wait.

Mosquitoes kept him alert. Some twenty minutes later, seeing the red lights of the power company’s repair truck, he came to his feet and stepped out on the road, swinging his flashlight. When the truck stopped beside him, he pulled open the front door.

“Took you long enough to get here.”

There were two men in the front seat. Shayne got in with them, making the man on his side slide over.

“Some of these people down here are pretty high up in politics,” he went on. “They expect something extra in the way of service. You’ve heard of Judge Kendrick.”

“Sure,” the driver said anxiously. “We got here as fast as we could. We had to spot-check the line.”

“The wire’s down between the camp and the road.”

“Then Jesus, not a hell of a lot we can do before daylight.”

After a quick exchange between the repairman and the patrolmen, the gate swung open to let them through.

The dirt road was in poor shape. The repairman, now very uneasy, took it too fast, crashing into potholes and swinging wide on the turns. He pulled up in a crushed-shell turnaround and leaped out, leaving his headlights on. Shayne swung out more slowly, and didn’t let go of the door until he was sure he was back in balance.

He pushed off, but instead of entering the building he followed a shell path to an open space where more than a dozen cars were parked. They included several with official Florida plates. Again, even with Rourke to help, he was badly outnumbered and he had to proceed with caution. From the darkness he reviewed the situation.

The building was larger than it had seemed to him at first. It was built of skinned pine logs, sanded and varnished. There was a screened-in porch along the side of the building facing the lake, a boathouse off to the right.

Probably the sudden blackout had picked up the party. Two or three candles were flickering inside, and Shayne saw the repairman’s flashlight as he looked for the house connection. There was a hum of excited talk and laughter. Occasionally someone could be heard to call out.