Brett Halliday - Never Kill a Client

She seated herself at the end of a sofa a few feet from him and leaned forward to watch him with her chin cupped in her palm. She wrinkled her nose and said, “Whew. I really poured the perfume on that first half, didn’t I?”

Shayne said, “You really did. Were you wearing that stuff ten years ago when I met you?”

She smiled and said, “Probably not. I don’t think I could afford it in those days. I just hoped it would bring into your mind the memory of some entrancing femme fatale you’d known long ago, and you wouldn’t be able to resist it.”

“It was that half of a one-grand bill that I couldn’t resist,” Shayne informed her. He folded the two halves together and carefully placed them inside his wallet. “Now, what’s your problem and what’s this foolishness about little men chasing you all over the metropolitan area of Los Angeles? Taxi drivers, and one of them who scared you away from the Brown Derby? I suppose that fatso who stood so close behind me at the Cock and Bull was another one of them,” he went on sarcastically, “and that’s why you insisted on the cloak and dagger stuff there?”

“I know it sounds fantastic,” she told him calmly. “I’ll admit I have got the jitters, and I may be seeing them on every street corner when they’re not there at all, but so many crazy things have happened that I just don’t know any more. It’s a long story, and please don’t decide I’m insane before I finish telling it.” She hesitated. “I don’t know just where to start.”

He stretched out his long legs and blew a contemplative cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. “Why not try the beginning?”

“That’s the trouble. Where does it begin? Oh well, you don’t need a lot of background stuff: It really began about six months ago when I first met Fidel Castro in Havana.”

There was a knock on the door and she jumped up to admit a bellboy carrying a tray. She had him set it on a table across the room and signed the check and tipped him although Shayne was waving a dollar bill in the air.

She put ice cubes in the two tall glasses the boy had brought, and poured cognac in one, and Shayne stopped her before she could repeat it with the second glass, telling her, “I’d like mine straight with water on the side if you’ve got an extra glass.”

“Of course.” She gave him a dismayed smile. “Forgive me for forgetting your well-publicized drinking habits.” She went in the bathroom for another glass, poured it half full of cognac and brought it to him with a glass of ice water.

She settled herself at the end of the sofa again and said uncomfortably, “I guess I can’t put it off any longer. I not only met Fidel but I fell for him. I don’t know how much Cuban stuff they’ve been printing in the Miami papers recently, but you may have read stories about an American actress who has been going around with him a lot. Her stage name is… was… Marianne Devlin.” Her voice hardened. “That was me, in case you haven’t guessed. There was a… an unpleasant bit of publicity in Hollywood a few years ago about a television actress named Mary Devon. It has nothing to do with this except as my reason for changing my name.”

She paused, looking at him defiantly, and Shayne shrugged and said, “Go on with the Cuban bit. I don’t recall reading about Marianne Devlin and Castro. In fact, my impression of the man is that he doesn’t have anything to do with women.”

“A gross misrepresentation,” she told him dryly. “You know how Cubans are about blondes? Well, I was at one of the luxury hotels in Havana in a floor show and he saw me and… liked me. All right,” she went on angrily, “I liked him, too. I was flattered that he wanted me for his mistress. He’s quite a guy. He’s still quite a guy,” she added, glaring at Shayne as though daring him to contradict her, “although he’s changed one hell of a lot since it’s come out in the open that he’s a communist.

“Look…” She spread out her hands unhappily. “I don’t think you’re interested in the intimate details of my life with Fidel. It was flattering and exciting in the beginning… all the intrigue and the back-stage goings-on. I was in on it. You had a feeling that he was a man of destiny. That he was sincerely interested in doing a wonderful job in Cuba… and God knows those poor peons who suffered under Batista deserved a new deal.

“But things got different. He’s a sour, embittered man. The communists have moved in and taken control. And he hates it because he was the movement in the beginning. He was the revolution. Of course he’s a megalomaniac,” she went on bitterly. “That’s why it’s so hard for him now. I’m not making excuses for him, but I did see a lot of it happen. I realized I had to get out, but I also realized they weren’t going to let me just walk out. I knew too much. I’d been too close to so many things. They didn’t trust me.

“Oh, not Fidel,” she went on swiftly. “He’s really quite naive about politics. But he’s not in charge any more.” She put down her drink abruptly and got up and began striding up and down the room like a caged animal.

“I’m not saying this well,” she burst out. “I don’t know whether he ever actually loved me. I’m not sure he’s capable of loving anyone but himself… and Cuba. At any rate, little Mary Devon saw the handwriting on the wall. I made plans to get out of there while the going was good. I found a pilot… an American… who agreed to fly me secretly to Mexico. For a price.”

She stopped in the middle of the floor with her hands on her hips and regarded Shayne belligerently. “It was a high price,” she told him in a subdued voice, “but well worth it. I got out of Cuba with some clothes, a few thousand dollars in American currency… and a small dispatch case. Right now I wish to God I’d had the good sense to leave the dispatch case behind, but I didn’t. I’m still an American. And I hate the communists and what they’ve done to Fidel. Do you know what is inside that dispatch case, Mr. Shayne?”

He said, “I haven’t the faintest idea… and why don’t you call me Mike at this point?”

“All right, Mike. It’s a complete and detailed plan for the take-over of Guantanamo. They’ve got key men infiltrated into our Navy personnel there. It’s all worked out, and I flew into Mexico with it.”

“Where is it?” he asked curiously, looking around the room as though he expected to see a dispatch case standing there.

“It’s hidden on the other side of the Border… where you and I are going to get it tomorrow and you’re going to take it to Washington and see that it gets into the hands of J. Edgar Hoover, or the top man of the CIA… whichever. I guess they’re not a part of the Communist Conspiracy,” she added tautly. “Although right now I’m not too sure about that. I’ve been through hell with that damned dispatch case.”

Her composure broke suddenly and she twisted her hands together in front of her and tears appeared on her cheeks. “Who can you trust today? I had a contact in Mexico City. He was murdered before I could reach him and there was a trap laid for me that I just escaped by the skin of my teeth. I miraculously escaped death twice more before I managed to reach the Border. I didn’t dare try to bring it across with me. I didn’t dare try to turn it over to anyone, because how do you know whom you can trust today? They’ve got their agents everywhere. That’s one of the things I learned in Cuba. What do you suppose went wrong with our carefully planned invasion a year ago? They knew all about it beforehand from trusted and high-up agents of the CIA. I’ve heard them boasting about how stupid and complacent Americans are.”