Brett Halliday - So Lush, So Deadly

He took a deep breath, another and another. Gradually the fuzziness around the street lights disappeared, and when he looked at his watch again the hands held still and told him the time. It was almost midnight.

After several more deep breaths he reached for the cognac and the little bottle of amphetamines. With the first drink, he swallowed two pills to counteract the anesthetic he had been given in the vodka, and then took one more to keep him going. He waited a full five minutes, to be sure everything was working.

When he left the car wearing the knotted towel, he was still weak but almost too alert. He had too much to do, too many places to go. A brilliant sequence of impressions rushed through his head. This time he was careful that no cars were in sight when he crossed the street. He lowered himself into the water, and swam with slow, careful strokes to the dock running out to the Nefertiti.

He had trouble pulling himself out of the water. He reknotted the wet towel and started toward the Lyons’ boat. His hands and feet had nearly stopped tingling.

He stepped aboard quietly. Like the Nefertiti alongside, the boat was dark and still. He felt his way to the outside steps and up to the after deck. His foot struck a shoe. He crouched, and began groping across the deck.

The back of his hand grazed a leg. He knew instantly that it was a girl’s. He heard an indrawn breath. A tiny pencil flashlight came on and struck him in the eyes.

“Mike!” Sally’s voice said.

The light winked out. In a second he had another girl in his arms. She was younger than Mrs. Brady but equally well formed. He couldn’t tell what she was wearing, and he took pains not to find out.

“Keep your voice down,” he whispered.

“I’ll say. Mother and Dad are back.” She touched his lips with one finger. “I’ve been so scared.”

“Where are my clothes?”

“I stowed them away so Dad wouldn’t-”

He felt her breath on his cheek. She shifted in his arms, pulling him with her, and in a moment more they were side by side on the air mattress, and she was kissing him fiercely. It was pleasant and stimulating. He was running on amphetamines now instead of chloral hydrate, but there were other reasons he couldn’t relax.

“Mike, take off your towel. You’re getting me wet.”

“I’ll keep it on, thanks. You were about to get me-”

“Just a minute. Where’s the knot?”

He caught her hand. “Sally-”

“You’ve been gone for hours! I thought you’d drowned. I know the girl’s not supposed to make the first move, but if you won’t-”

“Sally.”

“I’m in a position to name my own terms. I have a piece of valuable information for you, and you’d better not think I’m going to give it away.”

“The skin diver came back and collected the mike. I know that already.”

“And something else happened.”

“Tell me, Sally. It’s late. I’ve got to see some people.”

“I’ll trade. I’ll give you my information if you-” She whispered something in his ear. “Please, Mike. It won’t take long.”

Shayne rolled off the mattress. “If I have to look for myself-”

She clutched him. “Mike, why do you have to be such a jerk? I thought men were naturally polygamous. You really won’t?”

“That’s right. I really won’t.”

“I suppose you think I’m too young for you.”

“Correct.”

“It’s quite a blow to my pride. I can’t even seduce a man who’s wearing only a towel.” She was still holding him so closely that he could feel her breasts rise against him whenever she drew a breath. “Mike, about a half hour after you left somebody else swam up to the Nefertiti and came up a rope ladder. A man in bathing trunks. His head came sliding along in the water and I almost said something, I was so sure it was you.”

“Did you get a look at him?”

“Just for a tiny second, when he came over the rail. He had a beard.”

“What kind of beard, Sally? It’s important.”

Her lingers touched his face. She sketched a chin-and-mouth beard like the one Henry De Rham had been wearing when Shayne saw him.

“Sort of curly. He listened, and then he kind of sneaked inside. I don’t know how long he stayed. I wanted to keep awake but I couldn’t seem to. And I was below for a while when Mother and Dad came home.”

“Everything stayed quiet over there? No fireworks?”

“Like a tomb.”

While he thought about it she slipped away and went for his clothes. He heard a creak as she raised the top of a locker, and then it slipped out of her hands and slammed hard. They froze. When nothing happened she opened the locker again and brought him his clothes.

“Sorry about that, Mike. I don’t think I woke up anybody.”

The towel dropped to the deck. She handed him his pants, and at that moment the cabin door burst open and a powerful three-cell flashlight came on and caught Shayne in its beam. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

“I thought I heard something, goddamn it!” a voice bawled.

“Dad, turn out that light,” Sally said. “Turn it out this minute. You’re embarrassing him.”

Sally’s father swung the flashlight at her. She proved to be wearing a thin nightgown that came down to mid-thigh. “At least one of you’s not naked!” he shouted.

She glanced at Shayne and giggled. “Dad, you’re being very square, as usual.”

He was wearing pajama bottoms. His graying hair stood up like the comb of a rooster. He was short, with a chest like a keg.

“And who the hell are you?” He turned the light back on Shayne, who was trying to get his pants on. This was hard to do because one of the legs was inside out. “Goddamn it, what’s been going on out here, what have you been doing with my daughter?”

He walked up to Shayne, who was still struggling with his pants, and batted him hard on the side of the head with the flashlight. His daughter, laughing and sobbing, caught his arm. An older woman loomed up behind her, her hair in rollers. Shayne tried to hold off the furious little man for long enough to get the second pant leg turned right side out, and he caught two more hard blows. As the flashlight whirled, its beam illuminated Shayne and the mother screamed.

“Oh, mother, please shut up!” Sally cried. “Help me get Dad calmed down and we’ll explain-”

Lights on other boats were coming on, and Shayne heard someone shout for the watchman. Finally there was nothing to do but let go of his pants and quiet Sally’s father with a crisp right to the point of the jaw. Sally gasped.

“Did you have to do that, Mike?” she demanded.

“I didn’t hear any better suggestions from you.”

The flashlight bounced across the deck and went out. Someone on the Nefertiti turned on a powerful battery lantern. Shayne at last succeeded in getting into his pants and closed the zipper. Sally’s father was allowing himself to be held by his wife.

“Brady?” he called. “I’m going to need some help over here. Call the police. This man was committing a sexual-”

“He wasn’t doing anything of the kind!” Sally cried. “He refused to. I mean-”

“Mike Shayne,” Brady’s voice drawled, amused.

“You know him?” Sally’s father said.

“Of course. He’s working for Mrs. De Rham. If you can talk your way out of this, Mike, come aboard and I’ll give you a drink.”

Shayne grunted and went on buttoning his shirt.

“You won’t talk your way out of this in a hurry,” Sally’s father said. “When I turned on the flashlight, Mother, he was standing there absolutely nude.”

“I saw him.”

“It was dark before you turned on the light, wasn’t it?” Sally said, trying to sound reasonable. “He was getting dressed.”