Brett Halliday: Violence Is Golden

“What makes you so sure Adam’s going to be there?” Shayne said.

“Because I’ve spent the last two years studying the man. That’s the good thing about Interpol. Anything that has a bearing on the subject, no matter how trivial, no matter in what country it happens, ends up in the one central file.” He spooned out more caviar and ate it greedily. “His deals are sometimes almost too clever. I think he would prefer to lose ten thousand pounds on a brilliant conception than earn five thousand on a stupid one. He likes to pull off several tricks at a time. He likes to be in on the denouement, to see the look on his adversary’s face when he realizes he’s been beaten.” He reached for his glass, nearly knocking it over. “I know things about him he may not know about himself.”

He had suddenly turned very pale. He ran his hand across his forehead and looked at Shayne with real entreaty.

“Your answer is yes.”

“It’s no,” Shayne said. “Get somebody else.”

LeFevre’s mouth opened and closed, and he swayed forward. “You know he’ll kill you unless you kill him first. You’ll never have another chance as good as this.”

“I’ve got something going for me as long as I stay in Miami.”

“I don’t understand. That thing this afternoon was very close.”

“Not close enough. I knew my way around the Orange Bowl. The Japs didn’t. That gave me a small percentage. I don’t think Adam’s going to bother waiting for the gold in South America. Why should he? He might louse up the deal by being there. The one thing I agree with you on is that he might make a point of meeting the plane if I’m on it. I don’t think you want me on that plane to break up a smuggling operation. You want to use me as bait.”

“Of course,” LeFevre said simply.

“And I took him for more than money in New York. A girl named Michele Guerin was killed. She meant something to him-they’d been living together. You know about all that if you’ve read the dossier. You know he holds it against me, and you think he might be tempted to do his own shooting. You’ll be there in force. You’ll wait till his gun is empty, close in on him, and nail him for murder. A big success for Interpol.”

“You’ve done the same thing before, set yourself up as a target-”

“Sure, sure,” Shayne said roughly. “But not unless I had at least a fifty-fifty chance. Do you think I won’t be noticed on that plane? I might as well carry a sign-‘I’m Mike Shayne. Shoot me.’ If I’m going to be surrounded, I prefer to have it happen in my own town, where I know the names of a few cops, where I know which streets are one-way. I don’t speak Spanish. I’ve never been farther south than the Caribbean.”

“Mike,” LeFevre said desperately, “you don’t seem to realize what I’m offering-a chance for an open showdown. If you don’t take it, you’ll never be able to relax, you’ll never know what direction a bullet may be coming from-”

“I’ve been shot at before,” Shayne said curtly. “I’m still in business.”

“It never occurred to me you wouldn’t jump at this chance. Perhaps if Christa-”

“You can’t have a very good file on me,” Shayne said. “I like good-looking girls. I don’t always do what they ask me to.”

LeFevre wet his lips. And then suddenly an extraordinary change came over his face. The sharp downward lines smoothed out and his eyes lost their intensity.

“Well,” he said, sitting back. “I agree, people put too much emphasis on money. As for me, I only wanted money for one reason. To make up for my lack of an arm. Women, you see-”

He fell forward to one knee. Shayne watched without moving while the whiskey glass dropped from his fingers. He tried to speak, but his head dropped forward and he sagged to the floor.

Shayne went around the table and thumbed back one of the Frenchman’s eyelids. The pupil was enormous. Shayne ran a finger through the spilled whiskey, sniffed it, and touched it to the end of his tongue. It smelled and tasted like ordinary Scotch.

Turning the Frenchman so he could get inside his coat, Shayne removed his wallet and went through it quickly. He found, among other things, several hundred dollars in cash, an obscene photograph of a man with two women, a three-pack of rolled contraceptives.

He started a rapid search of the room. A fog was gathering behind his eyes, and he knew he might not have much time. An ashtray had been emptied into a wastebasket; some of the butts were tipped with lipstick. If any of this meant anything, it would have to wait.

The door was a long distance away; the phone was nearer. Shayne picked it up, but he had already forgotten why he had wanted it. He could feel a smile spreading across his face. There was no longer any urgency about anything. He hung up slowly and dropped the phone in the wastebasket. The light in the room softened.

He didn’t quite make the bed before he fell asleep.

Michael Shayne, face down on the hotel carpet, lost a few hours. Then he began to dream. Lights moved around him. LeFevre was stumbling aimlessly around the room, mumbling, “I want a woman.” Shayne heard a buzzer. The door opened. LeFevre’s voice: “Well. You look lovely.”

It seemed to Shayne later that someone pulled at his clothes. There were strange ugly noises in the room, quarrelling noises. He knew he should do something to stop it, but the carpet had a sticky coating, like flypaper, and he couldn’t move.

Blackness followed.

Then there were lights again. Again someone turned him over. He forced his eyes open. This time it was his friend Tim Rourke.

“Can you hear me?” Rourke said urgently. “Come on, Mike. Wake up. Move.”

Shayne attempted to speak.

“You’re making noises,” Rourke commented. “That’s an improvement. Keep trying, boy. You’ve got a long way to go before anybody can understand you.”

Shayne said something else. It trailed off and his eyes closed. Rourke shook him angrily.

“Mike, Goddamn it.” He slapped Shayne as hard as he could. “We’re going to have cops in a minute. I can’t carry you. I’m a weakling, and I only have the use of one arm.” Shayne opened his eyes again. Rourke’s right arm was in a cast extending down to his knuckles. Shayne appreciated what his friend was trying to do, but he was too tired to help. Rourke let go and came back a moment later with a glass of cognac.

“No, I better not,” he said in an undertone.

Putting the cognac down, he emptied cold water from the ice bucket over Shayne’s head.

Shayne sputtered his way up and asked Rourke what the hell he thought he was doing. The words were intelligible when they left his brain, but they came out as a meaningless babble. Each small movement of his head sent a flash of pain through his eyes. But the pain helped clear away some of the fog and numbness. His throat burned disagreeably. He still had amazingly little command of his arms and legs. He tried one thing at a time, first one hand, then the other.

“I think you may make it, Mike,” Rourke said. “And if you don’t, you’ll be in the worst jam of your life. This is Miami Beach. How would you like it if Petey Painter walked in right about now?”

Painter, Miami Beach Chief of Detectives, was an old enemy of Shayne’s. He had been trying for years, without success, to come out on top in his constant altercations with the private detective from across the bay. A circuit closed in Shayne’s fogged brain and he managed to sit up all the way.

“Give me a drink.”

“If you’re thirsty, you can have some tap water,” Rourke told him. “Let’s assume the liquor’s contaminated. You don’t pass out on the floor of a hotel room with your clothes on unless there’s something else in your glass besides cognac.”