Brett Halliday - Never Kill a Client

There was no mirror behind the bar in which he could see her reflection, so when his drink was served he turned his head to glance aside at her as he lifted it, and caught her looking at him with disconcerting frankness. She had pleasant features, but she was hardly the knockout that Joe Pelter had described with such enthusiasm.

She colored slightly when his eyes met hers, and turned her head hastily to look straight ahead.

Her profile was better than full face, and he took his time studying it over the rim of his glass. She was in her thirties, all right, but she didn’t remind him of anyone he had known ten years before.

She glanced back and found him still looking at her, frowned slightly and said in a low, melodious voice, “I don’t know you, do I?”

It could be the same voice he had recently heard over the telephone at the Brown Derby but, like the scent she was wearing he couldn’t be sure.

He said, “I don’t know. I was wondering the same thing myself. I’m from out of town.” He paused to take a sip of his drink. It was good, but not quite as good as those he had been served at the Brown Derby. “From Miami,” he added deliberately.

She looked away with a little shrug, as though to indicate the subject did not interest her… and probably to convince him that she wasn’t an easy bar pick-up.

Shayne lit a cigarette and drew on it deeply, wondering, now, how well Elsa Cornell knew him… whether she would recognize him at first glance or whether she had only an illusive ten-year-old memory to guide her.

He thought back over what the captain had told him. Had she seen him at his table when she came into the Brown Derby and was frightened by the sight of another man? One of them, she had said over the phone. It was quite possible that she hadn’t seen Shayne at all back there. The captain would have had no reason to point him out… unless she had asked him to. And he hadn’t mentioned that.

But if it was Elsa seated beside him, the word “Miami” should have identified him to her.

She finished her drink and slid off the stool and sauntered toward the door. Shayne turned his head and watched her depart, again recalling more of Joe Pelter’s words: “She don’t sling it around for you to look at. It’s there, and she knows you know it’s there, but that’s all.”

Well, it could be, Shayne decided judiciously. There was something quite ladylike about her erect posture, her walk. But what kind of cat and mouse game was she playing? If she expected him to follow her…

Then a real honey-blonde entered the room in a sort of breathless rush, and stopped very still to look about hopefully.

This, Shayne knew with a sudden, unmistakable conviction, was the woman who had brought him out to Los Angeles. His luck was holding good. She was a real knockout. He mentally apologized to Joe Pelter for ever having thought the woman who had just left the stool beside him could possibly be Elsa Cornell.

She was quite tall and she held herself proudly just inside the doorway as she openly and coolly inventoried the male occupants of the room. She wore a clinging black sheath dress with a crimson sash and a crimson silk scarf at her throat. She was about thirty-five, and she had full, bold features. Even at that distance Shayne could almost swear that he smelled her distinctive perfume.

When her slowly moving gaze met his she hesitated momently, but she did not smile or give any sign of recognition. Her eyes moved on along the backs of the other men at the bar, and she completed a full circuit of the room before moving.

Then she did not look at Shayne, although he continued to stare at her openly. She dropped long, dark lashes demurely over her eyes and walked with sinuous grace directly to the empty stool beside him.

He did smell her distinctive perfume now with certainty. It was not too strong. Thank God she had not doused herself with it as she had her letter.

She sat beside him and glanced fleetingly at his cocktail glass, and then told the bartender, “I will have a sidecar, please,” and she had the sort of warmly intimate voice that made the request sound as though she were inviting the man into bed with her… and Shayne knew happily that this was going to be quite an evening.

“Do you like them too?” asked Shayne in a tone of politely surprised interest. “That’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it?”

She glanced at him obliquely, as though she wasn’t quite certain what he meant, and he wondered if she supposed for a moment that he hadn’t got a full description of her from the taxi driver… had not recognized the perfume she was wearing.

Then she said, “Oh? Sidecars, you mean? Is that what you’re drinking? It is a coincidence.” She opened her handbag on the bar and groped inside for a thin gold cigarette case, opened it and extracted a cigarette. Watching her with interest, Shayne caught a glimpse of green that came out with the cigarette.

He struck a match and held it for her, asking politely, “May I?”

She cupped her hands, touching his fingers to move the flame to the end of her cigarette. He felt something being pressed between his fingers, and she drew in smoke and moved her hand away from his and said composedly, “Thank you.”

He shook out the match as the bartender set her cocktail in front of her. When the man moved away, Shayne dropped both hands into his lap beneath the bar and unfolded the tightly creased and minutely folded half of a thousand dollar bill which she had pressed between his fingers. He glanced at her and saw that she was looking down at the piece of currency in his hands, that she knew he had received it safely and must now know definitely who she was.

He had no idea why she was playing it this way, but he went along with the act, making it appear that they were complete strangers, drawn together by the coincidence of both liking sidecars.

He drained his glass and motioned to the bartender for a refill, asking her, “Have you ever tried one at the Brown Derby? They’re pretty special.”

She murmured, “I’ve heard that.” There was a tightness in her voice and Shayne felt she was trying desperately to convey something to him without saying it aloud.

He glanced up and down the bar, wondering what she was afraid of here, why she insisted on carrying out the rather absurd pretence to such lengths.

He became conscious then that someone was standing very close behind him and just to his left, close enough, Shayne realized, to be able to overhear anything they said to each other.

He said, “I’m a stranger in town… just trying to see some of the sights. I don’t want to seem presumptuous, but… can you suggest a good place to go for dinner… where some of the stars might be hanging out?”

She chuckled throatily, as though genuinely amused, but behind the sound Shayne thought he sensed overwhelming fear, incipient hysteria.

“You would not be… making a proposition, I trust?”

Shayne said lamely, “Well, I…” Then he turned to her with a wide grin, glancing out of the side of his eyes at the man who stood so close behind them and declaring, “A perfectly honorable one. If you happen to be free for dinner…?”

He turned his head farther to the left and glanced balefully at the man who stood there and told him harshly, “If you’re trying to order a drink, there’s an empty stool right down there.”

He was a fat man with pale, innocuous features. He looked as embarrassed as though he had been caught in the act of peeking through a keyhole, and muttered, “I’m sorry, I… Of course. I had no intention…” He turned and moved to the empty stool Shayne had indicated.

Elsa’s voice was low and strained, very close to his ear. “Let’s get out of here.” She slid off the stool and turned toward the outer door.