Brett Halliday: The Body Came Back

She needed help.

She needed that corpse out of her bedroom… and fast.

And she didn’t know a single soul in Miami to whom she could turn for help.

All sorts of wild ideas went through her mind as she sat there drinking slowly, her eyes narrowed to slits while she considered the problem.

Go down to the lounge and pick up a complete stranger, make a play for him and invite him up, and then explain to him that she had a peculiar aversion to going to bed in a room with a corpse and if he’d get rid of the body she’d be happy to oblige?

You’d have to pick your guy damned carefully. Find one who had a lot of guts and not too much respect for the law, and who knew his way around Miami and had some experience in disposing of corpses.

That was a pretty big order. To just go down to the lounge and spot such a guy and entice him up.

Then an idea took hold of her. And it began to grow. And the more she considered it the less unfeasible it became.

As a city, Miami was noted for many and various things. There was its climate, the luxury hotels, the white sands of its bathing beaches, the beautiful race tracks, the tropical foliage… and there was a private detective named Michael Shayne.

She didn’t know him personally, but she knew a lot about him. Of course, everyone who watched television or read paperbacks knew a lot about him. Knew that he had plenty of guts and not too much respect for the law… that he definitely knew his way around Miami and had had a certain amount of experience in disposing of corpses.

But she had further knowledge about the kind of guy he was. What really made him tick. What kind of sob-story he’d go for, and what he wouldn’t. Personalized knowledge from years back in Hollywood.

Her narrowed eyes took on an excited glitter as she considered the situation. If she could get him on her side… she had it made.

And, by God she could!

She nodded slowly and emphatically. All it needed was the right approach.

She turned her gaze slowly aside to yesterday’s paper lying open at the society page with the picture of the happily betrothed couple looking up at her.

Vicky Andrews and State Senator-Elect William C. Greer!

Who could fail to be moved by that picture of youthful innocence and love and faith in the future? Not Michael Shayne. Not from everything she knew about him.

She began planning excitedly, glancing at her watch as she did so. It was only 11:17. God in heaven! Had so much actually happened in so few minutes?

It was probably a good time to call him at home. Before he settled in for the night or drank so muck cognac that he wouldn’t be able to handle the situation intelligently.

She had to get her story in order first. Let’s see, now. How had he found her in Miami?

She read the newspaper account of the anticipated wedding slowly again, absorbing every word of it, nodding her head slowly.

That would do it. But how convince the redheaded detective? Then it came to her. A lovely burst of inspiration. She picked up the paper and tore out the entire wedding story, including the picture of the engaged couple. She didn’t attempt to make a neat job of it, just tore it jaggedly around the four sides of the story. Then she crumpled it a little between her hands, smoothed it out and folded it two ways. She pressed the creases together tightly, then opened it again for careful scrutiny. It looked about right, she thought. Not too well-worn, because it was just yesterday’s paper after all, but as though it had been thumbed and read several times.

She refolded it and went into the bedroom, kneeled down beside the body and placed it in the jacket pocket. Then she returned to the sitting room and sat down at the desk in a corner of the room, found blank sheets of hotel stationery and a ball-point pen.

She hesitated a long moment with her pen poised over the paper, then took a deep breath and began writing swiftly, letting the words flow out of her, not worrying about correct punctuation or pausing to dot her i’s or cross more than half of the t’s.

She wrote. “Dear Mom-I don’t know how to say this-I can’t think straight-I’m scared to death and sick at my stomach. I just killed a man…”

She continued writing as fast as the pen would flow over the paper, covering three and a half pages before ending it, “Vicky.”

She sat back and carefully read what she had written, and found it good.

She then crumpled the four sheets together in a tight fist, dropped them to the desk and reached for the Miami telephone book.

When she found the number, she lifted the receiver and asked the operator to get it for her.

Michael Shayne was slouched in an easy chair in the living room of his apartment with a final nightcap of straight cognac within easy reach of his right hand when his telephone rang.

He frowned at the instrument and perversely let it go on ringing. Long experience had taught him that unexpected calls at this time of night were very likely to mean trouble, and right now the redhead wasn’t in a mood for trouble. He had no cases on the fire and knew of no reason in the world for anyone to disturb him at home shortly before midnight.

It continued to ring monotonously, and after six insistent b-r-r-r-s he sighed and reached out to lift it from its cradle. He said, “Mike Shayne,” and a woman’s voice answered him. It was a throaty, modulated voice with overtones of deep emotional stress, and it throbbed with thankfulness:

“Thank God you’re there. I was afraid… She paused abruptly and he could almost see her getting a grip on herself, forcing herself to speak calmly and say the words she had planned to say when she made the call.

“You won’t recognize my name, Mr. Shayne. It’s Carla Andrews. But we do have a mutual friend. Brett Halliday.”

“You’re a friend of Brett’s?”

“I know him… knew him quite well in Hollywood a couple of years ago when they were filming his television series. He told me then… that if I ever found myself in Miami and in trouble I should call on you. I’m in Miami, Mr. Shayne… and I’m in desperate trouble.” Her voice rose and broke on the last two words, and a sibilant sound that was almost a sob lingered on after they were spoken.

“What kind of trouble?”

“Your kind. I… oh God, I hardly know how to say it, but… there’s a dead man in my bedroom.”

“How did he get there?” Shayne demanded.

“I can’t explain over the phone. Won’t you come? Please. This very instant. I’m at my wit’s end.”

“Where, Miss Andrews?”

“The Encanto Hotel. That’s on Biscayne Boulevard…”

“I know the Encanto,” he interrupted. “In ten minutes.”

“Room Eight-Ten. I’ll be… waiting.”

Shayne hung up and clawed the knobby fingers of his left hand through his bristly red hair while he lifted his cognac glass and drained it. He got to his feet swiftly and picked up a light sport jacket from the back of a chair nearby and shrugged his wide shoulders into it, then went out of the room with long strides.

His car was already put up for the night in the hotel garage, and it took him the better part of five minutes to get it backed out and headed east toward the bayfront. The Encanto was only a dozen blocks north, facing the bay, and in less than ten minutes he pulled under the entrance canopy and got out.

He strode around the front of his car to receive a salute and a parking stub from the uniformed doorman who asked, “Will you be long, Sir?”

“Not too long.” Shayne grinned mirthlessly to himself as he hurried through the open doors and across the lobby toward the elevators. How the hell did he know how long he would be? A friend of Brett’s from Hollywood with a dead man in her bedroom!