Brett Halliday - So Lush, So Deadly

He slipped into the water, feeling the immediate pull of the tide. It was running strongly. Two silent strokes took him to the Nefertiti’s stern. He waved his hand gently until he touched the wire, and followed it to the little amplifying pick-up which had been attached by suction to the Nefertiti’s planking.

It was no bigger than a half dollar, and nearly as thin. He had tested Japanese units this same size and shape, and if it was in good working order it could pick up every murmur and rustle inside Mrs. De Rham’s cabin.

He followed the wire into the water. Pulling it up as he went, he swam slowly away from the boat. The neoprene coating slipped smoothly between his fingers. In a moment he touched a cluster of weights that had been clamped to the wire to keep it far enough below the surface not to foul the propellers of passing boats. There was considerable slack.

The incoming tide carried him easily across the open water separating the two marinas. Three-quarters of the way across, the wire twisted out of his loose grasp. He dived quickly and recovered it as it sank. After that he continued more carefully.

It led him to a Chris-Craft sports fisherman, a thirty-footer, moored in the second berth from the end of its row. Like the Nefertiti, it carried its own generator, and lights were burning aboard. Shayne swam to the end of the catwalk and pulled himself out of the water.

He stepped onto the deck. Both starboard and port windows of the main cabin had Venetian blinds, and the slats were closed against him. He listened until he heard a voice say, “I’m not picking up a thing. Nothing but static.”

Stepping down to the cabin door, Shayne turned the knob gently to be sure it was unlocked. Then he pushed it open and stepped inside.

Teddy Sparrow, a gargantuan Miami private detective, was sitting in a British officer’s chair, wearing earphones and smoking a long cigar. He operated on the outer fringes of the business, usually on assignment from the larger agencies who needed a man in a hurry. He was sometimes surprisingly effective, in spite of his great bulk, because people found it so hard to believe that he was actually a detective.

There was a tape recorder on a table beside him. An Aqua-Lung and a face mask lay on the floor. He was half-facing away from Shayne, and the electronic noises kept him from hearing the door open.

“I don’t even hear anybody moving. If this thing don’t work after what they charged me for it-Jack, did you moisten the suction cups the way it said?”

A voice answered from the head, “I carried them in the goddamn water. Don’t you think they got wet? Give it a little time, for Christ’s sake.”

“Here’s some music, hey.”

A man Shayne hadn’t run into before came out of the head. He stopped short, seeing Shayne’s dripping figure. He was in bathing trunks, and looked like a professional fighter. The resemblance extended to a broken nose and a damaged ear.

Teddy caught the difference in the atmosphere and looked up. The sight of Shayne jolted him back and the chair collapsed. He hit the floor with a crash, his arms and legs splayed awkwardly.

“Don’t rock the boat, Teddy,” Shayne remarked. “It can’t be yours.”

“Mike Shayne,” Teddy whispered.

The other man stayed where he was, looking watchful. Teddy wrenched off the earphones.

“Jack, you can’t even do a simple thing like planting a bug without-”

“I didn’t see nobody. I was quiet.”

Shayne said, “I’m glad it’s somebody I know, Teddy. No reason we should have any trouble. I could use a towel.”

Teddy rocked forward and struggled to his feet with a.38 in his fist. “Stand right there, Mike,” he said in an excited voice.

“That’s not a gun,” Shayne said scornfully. “You’re a two hundred fifty-pound hallucination. You’re not pointing a gun at me.”

Teddy swallowed. The gun wavered, then held steady. “The hell I’m not, Mike.” He checked with his left hand to make sure he had taken off the safety. “I won’t kill you because I know I couldn’t get away with that, but I’ll sure as hell put a slug in your leg if you make a move.”

“Teddy, listen,” Jack said, “I didn’t contract for-”

“Shut up. This happens to be the Beach. I got a better odor over here than Shayne does, and for a slug in the meaty part of the leg I can get let off with a reprimand. And I’ll do it, too!” he insisted, waving the pistol.

He was sweating with anxiety. “Sit on that bunk,” he commanded.

Shayne grinned and started toward him.

Jack warned, “Are you nuts, Shayne? He’ll do it.”

At the second step Shayne saw from the tightening of the other detective’s eyes that he was about to shoot. He turned aside.

“Teddy, what are you on?”

“Vodka, same as usual. I haven’t had a drop since before supper. The meaty part of the leg. But I’m shaking so bad I could miss, Mike, in the wrong direction. Sit down and reconcile yourself.”

“What was that word-reconcile?”

“Never mind. Sit down.”

“Are you going to give me a towel? These shorts are clammy as hell.”

“Get him a towel.”

Jack faded backward. Reappearing, he tossed Shayne a bath towel. Shayne dropped his wet shorts to the floor and began towelling himself off.

“I could have ripped out your equipment,” he observed. “You wouldn’t have liked that. One of those bugs costs about five hundred bucks.”

“Don’t I know it,” Teddy said. “I got it on approval. When I collect the fee I’m in a new category. No more watchman jobs. No more all night stake-outs and sleeping in cars. No more skip-traces, no more collections.”

“Who are you working for?”

“I have the.38. I ask the questions. Who are you working for?”

“Mrs. De Rham.”

“Amazed to hear it,” Teddy said sarcastically.

Shayne continued to work the towel briskly. The distance seemed about right. He snapped the towel at the gun. The corner of the towel cracked against the barrel and knocked it aside. Shayne slid in fast before Teddy could recover and chopped down at Teddy’s wrist. The.38 went spinning across the carpet.

“You ought to stick to what you know.”

Teddy was holding his wrist, looking aggrieved. Shayne assumed that the other man would stay out of it, but as he went for the gun he was clubbed behind the ear with a fist like a hoof. Jack retrieved the gun and tossed it to Teddy.

“You shoot him. I’m sure as hell not going to.”

Shayne recovered and felt the spot where he’d been hit. As soon as the room stopped spinning he picked up the towel and knotted it around his waist. Teddy, gun in hand again, was smiling.

“You’ve got a thick skull. Jack usually drops them. A pretty good club fighter before T.V. killed boxing.”

Shayne groped his way to the bunk and sat down. As soon as he could speak he repeated his last question.

“Who are you working for, Teddy?”

“I can’t answer that. It’s confidential, you know how it is.”

He turned to his assistant. “Get the earphones on, and when you hear voices, turn on the tape recorder.”

“Teddy, I don’t know how to work that thing.”

Teddy gave the shiny new recorder an affectionate pat “Nothing to it, you push a button. Tell me when you hear anything and I’ll take over.”

He picked the more solid of the two remaining chairs and moved it against the door. “Now we wait. I don’t know how it is with your practice, Mike, but mine’s always been ninety percent waiting.”

He pulled up his pants legs carefully and sat down, the.38 on his knees.

“I should be able to trace the boat,” Shayne commented.

“I rented it. Paying cash. Mike, I have nothing but respect for you. I discount most of what I read in the papers, but the times I’ve worked with you personally I’ve seen you pull some pretty amazing stuff. Those goddamn sources of yours, they’re all over. Sure, you could find out who my client is, but my argument is-tomorrow. Not while you’re sitting here wearing a bath towel.” He tapped cigar ash onto the carpet. “Tomorrow it won’t matter. From your point of view you should have cut the bug loose before you followed the wire. I can see how your mind worked-find out who planted it first, but this time I think you guessed wrong.”