Brett Halliday - Violence Is Golden

“Those were great! Now. Back up against that big rock and look at me without smiling. Straight at the camera. I want to get the contrast of textures.”

She advanced, squinting into her viewfinder. The others had scattered. Looking around to make sure there was no one within earshot, she said in a muffled voice, “Where can we get some privacy? I have a roommate, who clings to me every minute. I’d rather not be seen having a long conference with you because I’m a little scared, to tell the truth. No, I’m not. Not really. But I do think it wouldn’t be an unintelligent idea to take a few precautions.”

“That’s always a good idea,” Shayne agreed.

The camera clicked. She moved the film ahead with a practiced flick of her thumb.

“Turn your head a bit more. Steady. Try to take me a little more seriously, Mr. Shayne. I’m onto something, I know I am. I’ll plead a headache and tell my roommate I have to lie down. Then I’ll look for a back way out of the hotel. I saw a nice-looking ice-cream parlor on High Street, Cranshaw’s. It has high-backed booths. I think we’d be safe there if we don’t go in together. At two. Two sharp. Everybody else will be swimming, according to the schedule.”

She lowered her camera. “Thank you for posing. If we live through this, and why shouldn’t we, I’ll send you some prints.”

Naomi Savage, swinging her glasses again, cut Shayne off as he returned to the carriage.

“I think we should have another of those informative little chats, Mr. Shayne. I know that scene on the plane was carefully calculated, throwing it at me in the crudest possible way to see how I’d react. And, of course, I reacted like an amateur. Which isn’t surprising, because that’s what I am, a complete and utter amateur. My room number is 1031. Will you join me there as soon as we get back?”

“Sure.”

Christa was reading a London paper in the lobby, her long legs crossed, looking cool and composed. She folded the paper when Shayne dropped onto the sofa.

“How was your morning?” he asked.

“Unproductive. Yours?”

“I made a couple of dates, including one with Mary Ocain in an ice-cream parlor. Did you find out anything more about her?”

“She definitely teaches school. She’s traveling with another social-studies teacher from the same school system, Milwaukee. What are social studies? She didn’t explain. They have a thirty-day leave to develop curriculum materials. That means photographs, primarily, I think, but I didn’t understand every word she told me.”

Shayne scraped his chin. “Mary could get to be a real problem unless I can cool her off. She’s beginning to think of herself in terms of those girls in the James Bond movies.”

“Heavens,” Christa murmured. “She doesn’t have the figure for it.”

Shayne asked if she had succeeded in planting the bug in the Savages’ room.

“Not yet. It’s only two doors from the floor clerk. But I talked to George for a time, and if you want me to do it that way, I think I can get him to invite me up. But the wife must definitely be busy elsewhere. He is a little afraid of her, I think.”

“Let me have it-I’ll see what I can do first. Naomi has something to tell me. If you see George on his way to the elevator, head him off and keep him entertained.”

“It’s folded inside the newspaper. But it’s dreadfully old-fashioned, I feel quite ashamed. Unless it’s out in the open, it doesn’t pick up voices clearly across the room. I hope you succeed. I will be pleasant to George if I must, but he definitely doesn’t excite me.”

She touched Shayne very lightly, giving him a message.

Shayne checked the combination microphone and transmitter in the elevator. It was the shape of a small pillbox, with a grilled top. There was an on-off switch and a double suction cup by which it could be fixed to a flat surface.

Naomi was barefoot and wearing a short flowered kimono when she opened the door for him.

“I have exactly five minutes,” she said. “I’m taking my flock to the beach, and there are always two or three who begin to get nervous if things don’t happen on schedule.”

She was nervous herself and trying hard to control it. She straightened her glasses, pointed Shayne toward a chair, and said she was sorry there was nothing to drink.

“And there isn’t time for Room Service,” she said. “I’m definitely squeezing you in.”

Shayne showed her his flask. “Cognac. Get a couple of toothbrush glasses.”

“Mr. Shayne, as I say, do we have the time?”

Reaching out, Shayne removed her glasses. She snatched after them, then gave an uneasy laugh.

“I know. I’m developing a thing with those glasses. It makes people jumpy. I can’t actually see much without them.”

She went into the bathroom. Shayne looked around quickly. The room was furnished with ordinary Hilton hotel furniture. The phone was on a small table beside one of the beds. The underside of that table would be the best place for the bug, but before he could do anything about it, Naomi came back with two plastic glasses. She murmured something about drinking in the middle of the day and swallowed the cognac with a shudder.

“Well.”

“Well,” Shayne repeated. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

She fussed with the hem of the kimono. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me how you knew-”

“No point in it, Naomi.”

“All right, I won’t delay you. You told me to talk it over with my husband. I’ve done that. He feels we’re in a rather good position to ignore you. We hold certain cards you may not know about.”

Shayne drank. “You’ll have to put that in plain English if you want me to listen to it.”

“You and Miss Hochberg are two people. George and I are also two people, but does that mean the sides are equal? No, it doesn’t. There are others, and you don’t know who they are, do you? I don’t think your information goes that far. And I’m on my home ground, so to speak, Mr. Shayne. I’ve been to South America many times. I have friends. I speak the language. We’ve already made some changes as a result of your warning, and we can make others. We’re neither of us made of jelly!”

“So you don’t want to play it my way?”

“That’s not precisely what I’m saying. But we won’t consider paying you a percentage. That would presuppose mutual trust, and we don’t really trust each other, do we? But I’m prepared to discuss a flat sum.”

“A hundred thousand bucks.”

He could have slapped her and got the same effect. Some of the color left her lips.

He went on, “Payable when you make delivery. I don’t know why you think you can’t trust me. I need a deal like this right now. I’ve been doing too much of the cops’ work for them lately. I can’t function unless everybody on both sides of the law believes I’m flexible. The real problem is, can I trust you? I don’t want to walk up to the payoff window and have it slammed in my face.”

“I really doubt if that happens too often.”

Shayne grinned. “Because I don’t have a trusting nature. You’re a nice-looking girl with your glasses off, but I don’t intend to take your IOU.”

“How do you suggest we do it?”

“I can’t make any suggestions without knowing a little more about your plans.”

“You surely don’t think I’m going to tell you, do you? Just like that? Maybe you don’t know as much as you say you do.”

“Do I look like the kind of guy who would con anybody?” Shayne said, still grinning.

“Yes, frankly.” She stole a quick look at her watch. “Meanwhile, time is passing.”

“Stop fidgeting, Naomi. They can find the ocean by themselves. Have another drink. We’ll think of something.”