Brett Halliday: Murder by Proxy

“Yes, Mrs. Harris.” He handed her a pair of keys on a ring and led her to a cream-colored convertible Pontiac with the top down. He opened the right-hand door for her to get in, and she slid under the wheel and asked him, “Does the hotel have a garage?”

“A free parking lot around on the other side, Madam.” He pointed to a sticker affixed to the windshield that said, BEACHHAVEN HOTEL. “You can either leave it with me at the door to be parked for you and we’ll have it brought around when you want it, or you can put it in the lot yourself and take it out when you want for no charge. But take the keys if you park it, Madam. There’s no attendant at night.”

She thanked him and found the key that fitted in the ignition. The motor purred smoothly and she pulled carefully away from the curb into traffic.

There was only one bartender on duty in the cocktail lounge at the Beachhaven Hotel at seven o’clock that evening. The earlier rush had slackened and there were only half a dozen dawdlers at the bar, a couple of the booths were occupied and there were perhaps a dozen couples at the small tables more interested in having another drink than getting into the dining room.

The bartender was called Tiny. He was six feet tall and four feet around the middle. He wore a size twenty collar and weighed slightly more than three hundred pounds. He had been a professional wrestler for a period, but found tending bar less arduous and a lot more fun. Particularly in a cocktail lounge like the Beachhaven. Anything could happen any time. And most evenings something did.

Take like this stacked blonde, now, coming into the dimly lighted lounge through the door that opened directly into the hotel parking lot.

She was a new one, and, by God, she was a honey. That vivid red cocktail dress was something! Slashed all the way down in front to here, and filled out plenty good on each side of the spreading vee. But there was an elegance about her, too. The way she held herself… proud and sure. The way she took her time looking the joint over. Studying the empty booths and tables, then letting her wide-eyed gaze drift speculatively to the row of empty bar stools and finally to Tiny’s face as he watched her. She smiled as though in recognition, although Tiny was positive she had never been in the lounge before. She moved along the bar with flawless grace and stopped behind the row of empty stools in front of Tiny.

“Is there any rule about an unescorted lady not sitting at the bar?”

“There sure isn’t. Make yourself right to home.”

She slid easily and competently onto the leather stool and rested both elbows on the bar, cupping her chin in her hands after removing a pair of white gloves. “I’ve always wondered just why it’s considered proper at some places for a lady to sit alone at a table, but not at the bar.”

“Nobody cares in Miami. All nice and informal down here. Your first trip?”

“Yes.” She sighed slightly and lifted her long lashes to widen her blue eyes at him in an intimately appealing way. “What do you recommend I should drink?”

“Well, now. All depends on what you like.”

“I don’t drink very much at home. My husband doesn’t approve of it. But I feel tonight calls for it. I want to… sort of… cut loose. Not really, you know, but…” With a touch of defiance, “Well, why shouldn’t I?”

“No reason at all, Lady. You just name it.”

“A daiquiri?” She tilted her blond head charmingly. “Isn’t that the one you make with rum?”

“Right you are. One daiquiri coming up.” Tiny turned to lift down a bottle of Bacardi and put ice and lemon juice in a silver shaker. She opened her bag and took out a cigarette which she placed between her lips. She fumbled further in her bag and a pleasant masculine voice spoke from just behind her, “May I?”

A lighter snapped and flame moved toward the tip of her cigarette from her left. She glanced up into the mirror behind the bar and saw the reflection of a lean-jawed, smiling face beside hers in the glass. He was deeply-tanned and brown-haired, and had very white teeth. She turned her head slightly so the tip of her cigarette met the flame, and drew in deeply. Expelling smoke, she murmured a polite, “Thank you.”

He said, just as politely, “You’re quite welcome,” and he sat on the stool beside her, widening his smile at her reflection in the mirror.

She lowered her lashes composedly and snapped her bag shut. Tiny set a brimming, wide-topped, tall-stemmed glass in front of her on a paper napkin. The man sitting beside her said, “Bourbon and water, please, Tiny.”

“Coming up.” Tiny’s voice sounded grumpy.

She said delightedly, “Did you call him Tiny?” and turned her head to look at the man beside her.

He grinned in response. “Sure. On account of he ain’t.”

She said, “I see,” and took a sip of her cocktail sedately. “It’s delicious,” she told Tiny as he turned back to shove a highball glass in front of the man. “Just exactly what I needed.”

“For what?” the man asked with interest.

“For what ailed me. A… sort of lost feeling, I guess you might call it. A sort of wondering what-shall-I-do-next feeling.”

“Why not just have fun? That’s what Miami Beach is noted for.”

“I want to.” There was something almost plaintive in the way she emphasized it. “I’m not sure that I know how.” She took another and longer drink from her glass. “But I do believe this is going to help.”

“Perhaps I could help too,” he suggested. “I don’t want to seem forward, but… my name is Gene Blake.”

“I don’t think you’re being forward at all. I’m Ellen Harris. Mrs. Herbert Harris,” she added quickly.

He drank deeply from his glass and twirled it between his fingers on the bar. He didn’t look at her as he asked, “Where is Herbert tonight?”

“Back in New York. He,” she told Gene Blake with a faint note of rancor in her voice, “thinks that husbands and wives should get away from each other once in awhile.”

“I agree with him,” said Gene. “Especially if you’re the wife. I think I approve of Herbert. Very definitely. Why not try the rest of your daiquiri… Ellen?”

She said softly, “I think I had better. Before I run like hell.”

“Where would you run to?”

“Away from you.”

“Back to Herbert?”

“Oh, no. I couldn’t. Not for two whole weeks.”

“Two weeks?” He turned his head to study her face as she emptied her glass. “Wasn’t there a book once, called Three Weeks? Elinor Glynn, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t remember. Why?”

Gene tossed off the rest of his highball. He said to Tiny, “Two more, please.”

And to her, he said, when Tiny had turned his back to mix the drinks, “It just came to me like a flash of inspiration that I’ll bet if you and I put our minds to it we could cram as much into the next two weeks as her characters managed in three weeks in the novel.”

“As much of what?” she asked, narrowing her eyes and sucking in her lower lip as though she wasn’t at all sure she cared for the trend the conversation was taking.

“Fun,” he told her. “Isn’t that what you’re down here for? Plain, unalloyed, pure, old get-away-from-it-all fun?”

Tiny set their drinks in front of them. Gene reached for his billfold and said, “One check, Tiny.”

“Oh, no. You mustn’t. I can pay for my own drinks, thank you. And yours, too.”

“But I want to.”

“Give me the check, please.” She held her hand out imperiously to Tiny who handed it to her after a lifted eyebrow glance at Blake.

She said, “And a pencil, please,” and then explained to Gene. “This is my hotel. I’ll feel better if I sign it. I’m sure Herbert will feel better if I sign it.” She took the pencil from Tiny and carefully signed, “Mrs. Herbert Harris. # 326.” She took half her daiquiri down in one gulp. “I’d feel like some sort of a B-girl if I let you buy my drinks,” she explained. “You can see that, can’t you? You can see what I mean, can’t you, Tiny?” she appealed to the bartender.