Brett Halliday - So Lush, So Deadly

Shayne gave him a direct look. “Your men have been involved in this from the start. You talked to Brady and the woman, and you know the situation. I’ve been reporting to Richardson. If you want somebody else to take over, fine.” Before Painter could answer Richardson said hastily, “Don’t stop, Mike. I’m learning things all the time.”

“All right, Petey,” Shayne said. “You probably realized that the woman on the boat, the drunk you talked to, wasn’t Mrs. De Rham.”

“She wasn’t?” Painter exclaimed. “Who was she?”

“Paul could tell us,” Shayne said, “but he has a very good out. All he has to do is stop moving and we’ll think he’s gone under. He put on a fine performance, one of the best pieces of acting I’ve seen. Every time I felt a little twinge of suspicion, he came out with something so perfectly right for the situation that I couldn’t help believing him. Of course it tapered off. He was getting rushed at the end.”

“Will you try to be more specific?” Painter said.

Shayne smiled amiably. “I’ve really been talking more to Paul than to you, Petey. I want him to understand that the curtain’s come down and he’s in trouble. The first time I talked to him, he told me just where to go to find the missing husband. The next time I was looking for a reel of tape. Paul made what turned out to be an excellent suggestion. I would have swallowed one of these, but not both. There’s a funny thing about that tape. It’s going to cost Mrs. De Rham or her estate considerable money, and if she’s still alive, which by now I think we all doubt, it could put her in jail. I warned her that if I found it I’d have to turn it in, and according to Paul she said to go ahead. He had to be lying, or else the woman throwing up in the head at the time wasn’t the real Mrs. De Rham.”

He glanced at his watch. Painter tapped his toe impatiently, and Shayne knew he couldn’t stall much longer. The International Airport was seven miles away. If Mrs. Brady had been picked up as she boarded the plane she should be here now. He lit a fresh cigarette, wondering how long he could make Painter hold still. He thought of another diversion, but before he could get it underway he heard a car pull up outside.

He jerked his head toward the door. Painter followed him. They met Mrs. Brady in the corridor.

“Mike Shayne,” she said. “Damn you. I knew you had something to do with this.”

“Mrs. Brady?” Painter said. “I’m Peter Painter, Miami Beach Chief of Detectives. I have some questions to ask you.”

“I don’t have to answer any of your questions,” she told him scornfully, “and you’d better have some explanation for taking me off that plane. I’m one of those people who enjoy fighting City Hall.”

She turned back to Shayne. There were shadows under her eyes, but the eyes themselves were clear and untroubled.

“When did you wake up?” she said with a slight smile.

“About ten seconds after you left the cabin. I didn’t drink much of that mickey you gave me. I told you I didn’t like vodka-especially vodka laced with chloral hydrate.”

“That’s what I get for being soft-hearted enough to cut you loose. You might at least have finished the love making we started. I could easily resent that.”

“You didn’t have your heart in it.”

“You’re wrong about that, Mike,” she said softly.

“Now look here,” Painter said, “I want somebody to tell me-”

They continued to ignore him. Shayne picked her bag out of her hand. She grabbed for it, but Shayne took her arm and passed her along to Painter.

“Slug her if she makes any trouble.”

“Pretty transparent. Pretty crude provocation. Nobody’s going to accuse me of brutality.”

“I erased it, of course,” she remarked as Shayne took out the tape she had recovered with the aid of Teddy Sparrow.

“I think it’s too hot to erase. It won’t be hard to find out. The question Petey wants to ask you-did you kill a man named Thomas Moseley at about two-thirty this morning?”

“Do I look like a murderess, Mike?”

He looked into her eyes, and nodded.

“Yeah, a sexy-looking one. Did you see the red cross over the door? Your husband’s in here, in pretty bad shape.”

“Paul?”

Her smile faded, and Shayne saw a spurt of apprehension in her eyes. She went to the doorway.

“Paul,” she said, very low. “What happened to him?”

“We aren’t sure. He was in a fire. And apparently somebody threw acid in his eyes. Does it matter to you?”

“Of course it matters.”

Her own eyes had filled with tears. She went quickly to the bed and sank into the chair Shayne had been using. She took Brady’s hand.

Slowly Brady reached across with his other hand and touched her. His fingers went up to her hair, then down her cheek to her shoulder and her breast. He pulled his hand away.

“Shayne,” he said sharply and distinctly. “I want a lawyer.”

“Pretty soon, Paul. We still aren’t asking you questions. We’re just theorizing. You can order us out if you want to, but don’t you think you’d better know what facts we have so you can make your plans?”

When Brady didn’t answer Shayne said, “I have a tape I’d like to play. Tim, where’s your recorder?”

“Outside. I’ll get it.”

In a moment he was back with the recorder. He found an outlet.

“I’d better explain how this was made,” Shayne said, giving the reporter the tape he had taken from Mrs. Brady’s bag. “Mrs. Brady learned that her husband was living on a boat with another woman. She’s been trying to divorce him-I’ve heard that from a couple of sources. She hired a private detective to plant a listening device on the Nefertiti, to pick up any conversations that might be taking place in the main stateroom.”

“That’s illegal,” Painter snapped. “What’s the name of this private detective?”

“I can’t remember,” Shayne said. “Do you want me to play it or not?”

Painter’s eyes shifted. “Play it, of course.”

“A girl on the next boat, a nice kid named Sally Lyon, happened to be on deck, awake, and she saw the bug being planted. A little while later she saw somebody swim up to the Nefertiti’s blind side and come up a rope ladder. A man with a beard. The missing husband, obviously, who was supposed to be off in a pad in southwest Miami.” Brady lay perfectly still. The tape began to revolve.

A voice said suddenly, “Well, did Shayne fall for it?”

Shayne stopped the tape. “That’s Paul Brady. He means did I fall for the hippy set-up. Did Henry convince me he was really running away? The next voice is going to be Henry’s.”

“Why shouldn’t he fall for it?” De Rham said irritably when Shayne started the tape. “That’s my milieu, man. I can’t tell you, it’s just so great. The chick has still got a tangle of bourgeois hang-ups, but she knows they’re there and she’s trying hard. The thing is, there’s no pressure. The time floats by. Maybe part of it’s pretty phony, but it’s the best kind of phony. If we ever get out of this-”

“With dough,” Brady said.

“We either get out of it with dough or we don’t get out of it.”

Richardson put in suddenly, “Hold it, Mike.” Shayne pressed the stop button. “You said the bug was picking up conversations in the master stateroom. Then it wasn’t really a woman aboard with Brady?” He looked hard at Shayne. “It was De Rham in drag?”

“That’s how it looks,” Shayne said.

Painter stood up abruptly and sat down again. Mrs. Brady looked at her fingernails.

Rourke exclaimed, “I don’t get it, Mike.”