Brett Halliday - Never Kill a Client

He picked it up and wondered vaguely whether it would be Liz Taylor or Tony Curtis calling him. Or, maybe Harper Lee, insisting that Somerset Maugham collaborate with her on the screenplay of Darwin’s book.

He said, “Hello.”

A husky, voluptuous, bedroom-sort-of-voice came pulsing warmly over the wire: “Mr. Shayne! I’m calling from around the corner. The most dreadful thing has happened. One of them is in there watching you. I don’t know how. I just don’t understand… but I can’t meet you there. I don’t think he saw me. I truly don’t. But we can’t take any chances, can we? You’re a detective and know all about such things, so don’t let him follow you when you leave. Be sure you ditch him. You know. Like detectives do in books. Jump into the subway just before the doors close behind you. Only, there aren’t any subways in L.A., are there? Well then… you still can ditch him, can’t you? Of course you can. You must, because it is a matter of life and death.

“Look! I’ll meet you in half an hour or so at the cocktail bar in the Cock and Bull on the Strip. Just you ditch him on the way. I’m so frightened. I’m going to run now. I’ll switch taxis two or three times on my way to the Cock and Bull, and that way I don’t see how there’ll be any danger. Don’t fail me.” There was a click at the other end and the line went silent.

Shayne replaced it slowly, tugging at his left earlobe irritatedly. He turned slowly to survey the entire room that was slowly filling up now, and he could not detect a single person who appeared to be taking the slightest interest in him or what he was doing.

He finished his drink meditatively, and signalled to the waiter for his check.

The Cock and Bull on the Strip! That would be Sunset Strip, he assumed. What a delightful name for a place of assignation under melodramatic circumstances.

He paid his check and got up and went out without looking behind him to see whether he was followed out or not. It would be such a disappointment if he weren’t. It was a lot more intriguing to assume he was being followed… and to use his wits to lose his “tail” and avoid leading him to the elusive Elsa who waited for him on “The Strip.”

Shayne’s cab driver this time was a thick-bodied, hard-faced individual who appeared to have a grudge against the world in general and particularly against anyone who got in his hack for a ride.

He turned back to sneer insolently at Shayne when the redhead settled himself in the rear seat and asked, “Do you know the Cock and Bull on the Strip?”

“Sure. Anybody knows that, Mister. You want to go there?”

“Well,” said Shayne, a trifle irked, “I’d like to end up there eventually. However, let’s take a circuitous route. Pick out some street where there won’t be very much traffic.”

“You crazy, Mister? In L.A.? You find me a street where there ain’t much traffic five o’clock in the afternoon in this man’s town and I’ll give it to you. You want to go to the Cock and Bull or don’t you?”

Shayne said evenly, “Just get going, huh? Down this street the way you’re headed. I’ll tell you when I want to get out.”

The driver muttered something about people that couldn’t make up their minds and pulled out into the heavy traffic on Wilshire.

Shayne watched the meter and got a dollar bill out of his pocket. It clicked upward swiftly the way taxi meters do in Los Angeles, and when it said an even dollar, he leaned forward and said brusquely, “Pull in to the curb right here.”

The driver did so and Shayne dropped the bill on the seat beside the surly fellow and stepped out. He was near a busy crosswalk and there were a lot of pedestrians moving in all directions. Shayne moved in with them and rounded a corner, saw another cab just in front of him discharging a passenger. He stepped out and caught the handle of the open door, swung inside and said, “Get going fast.”

This driver was a slender, elderly man wearing glasses. He got going fast without asking any questions. Shayne let him continue three blocks in that direction, watching through the rear window without seeing anything that gave him reason to think he was being followed. Actually, he felt the whole thing was pretty silly by this time, and he settled back and told the driver, “I’d like to go to the Cock and Bull, if you don’t mind?”

“Why should I mind?” the driver asked cheerfully, “That’s what I’m here for… to take people where they want to go. It’s my pleasure, sir. And the way I make a living. The way I look at it,” he went on earnestly, weaving expertly in and out of traffic, “I’m here to serve the people that honor me by riding in my cab. Don’t you agree to that?”

Shayne lit a cigarette and chuckled aloud. “Some drivers don’t feel that way.”

“Then they shouldn’t be driving cabs. If they don’t enjoy meeting the public and making the day pleasanter for everyone, they shouldn’t be granted a hacker’s license. Don’t you agree?”

Shayne said that he did agree, and all the way up Sunset Strip he was treated to a homily on the very fine class of people who rode cabs in Los Angeles, and how freehearted and generous they were with their tips.

Consequently, he tipped the man a dollar when he was finally deposited in front of the Cock and Bull, and got and affable, “God bless you, Mister,” in return for his money.

The interior of the restaurant was dark and cool and quiet, decorated to resemble a better-class English pub. Shayne checked his briefcase, strolled into the bar and looked carefully around the small, pleasantly masculine room. There were three couples seated at tables, along with groups of men in twos and threes, and there were half a dozen men on bar stools. No honey-blondes, and no unescorted women at all.

He started for the bar, then changed his mind and searched out the men’s room instead. There was a comfortable lounge equipped with a public telephone, and he tried Lucy Hamilton’s number again without success. He was a little surprised when she still didn’t answer. It was well after eight o’clock in Miami, and he had an irrational feeling of annoyance with Lucy because she wasn’t sitting at home waiting for him to call. She would be, he knew morosely, if she hadn’t gone out to dinner.

And she never went out to dinner alone. She much preferred fixing a simple meal in her own apartment.

So, she had a dinner date. No reason she shouldn’t, of course, but he was disappointed in her none the less. He had promised her that he would call. Granted that he had nothing to report as yet, but she had no way of knowing that. Suppose there were something important…?

He broke off that train of thought, grinning at himself ruefully as he went back to the bar. He was jealous, goddamn it. Just a little bit jealous of that unknown guy who had taken Lucy out to dinner as soon as his back was turned.

More tables were occupied now, and there were only a few vacant stools at the bar. One of those was beside a woman who appeared to be alone.

She was a blonde, even if her hair was not authentically honey-colored. Approaching her from the rear, Shayne wondered if a taxi driver would describe her as juicy.

Could be, he decided. There was a nice lushness about her figure that couldn’t quite be called plump. He sat beside her and drew in a deep breath. She was wearing a faint scent that he didn’t think was the same as Elsa’s. But he wasn’t really a connoisseur of feminine perfume, and he couldn’t be sure.

He ordered a sidecar and glanced down at her right hand that negligently held an old-fashioned glass. It was a firm, smooth hand with tapering fingers that ended in nicely-manicured but garishly red nails.