Brett Halliday: Murder Takes No Holiday

“Yeah,” Shayne said. “I guess Brannon took my advice and found himself a pigeon.”

Powys said, “Rummage around in the dashboard compartment there, Vivienne. I need a map. I think there’s a short way to the airdrome without going around through St. Albans.”

Vivienne snapped on the dome light. In a moment she found a travel folder with included a road map of the island. Powys waited till they reached the main east-west road, then stopped to study the map.

“I thought so,” he said after a moment. “I wish now we’d pulled out the phone back there. I intended to, but I forgot about it, what with one thing and another.”

“Alvarez won’t be doing any phoning,” Shayne said. “If he can talk at all after that left you gave him, he’ll be explaining things to Brannon.”

“Hope you’re right,” the Englishman said. “I’d hate to get through all this and then find the beggars waiting for us.”

“Wait!” Martha said suddenly as he reached back to turn off the light. “Paul!”

The intensity in Martha’s tone lifted the Englishman’s foot off the accelerator. Even Slater’s lips were pale, Shayne saw as he turned toward him. There were great drops of sweat on his forehead. He tried to smile, but only succeeded in exposing his lips in a terrible grimace. He had one hand inside his coat.

“Are you hit, Slater?” Shayne said.

Slater shook his head shortly. “Fine. Go on.”

Shayne opened his coat and gently pulled his hand away from his stomach. With a sigh, Vivienne slid down in the front seat.

“Damn lucky shooting,” Slater said weakly. “Black as pitch.”

“Is it bad, Michael?” Martha asked quietly.

He looked at her. “Bad enough. I’ll need something to use for a bandage.”

“Yes.”

Lifting herself, she pulled off her half-slip. Shayne ripped it in two and passed it around Slater’s body, frowning as his hand touched the warmth and dampness in the small of Slater’s back.

“We have to get him to a hospital,” Martha said, watching Shayne’s face. “Quickly.”

Slater shook his head. “Airport first. Get you on the plane. I’ll be all right.”

Shayne completed the makeshift bandage. It would slow up the bleeding, possibly even stop it. But he knew that there wasn’t anything he or anyone could do for Paul Slater now. He had seen too many gunshot wounds, and he had seen the look in Slater’s eyes.

Powys threw the car into gear and it shot forward. “Make it just as fast going past the airport. What do you think, Mike? Put him on the plane?”

“No,” Shayne said. “He’s going to need transfusions.”

“Put Martha on,” Slater said. “Get out of this, darling.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said sharply. “How can you think I could go away and leave you when-”

He interrupted. “Shayne,” he said, his voice becoming stronger. “I know all about you. Oh, yes. When you were in the papers, Martha cut it out and kept it. Jealous. Funny? You’re the kind of man she should have married. Not me, poor old Paul. Nothing I did amounted to a damn. Couldn’t even be a halfway decent crook. Ashamed. Put her on the plane. I don’t want her. Tell her to go, she’ll go. Stay, all kinds of trouble. All my fault!”

Martha was crying helplessly. “Paul. Don’t say those things. I won’t go, you know I won’t go.”

“You will,” Slater said. “Shayne, make her. Won’t be alone. Vivienne. My type, Vivienne. I don’t mean it? I mean it. Never loved you, Martha. Admired you. Different. She wasn’t the first I ran away to. Last of a long line. If I married her, I’d be a better crook, better everything. You and I. Oil and water.”

“Can’t you go any faster?” Martha called to Powys.

“Don’t know the road,” Powys said grimly around his pipe. “We’re making pretty good time.”

The Morris rocketed around a curve, the outer wheels leaving the hardtop, and Slater said fiercely, “Hear me, Shayne? Make her. If she stays, the Camel-kill her.” A spasm of pain shook him. “Bastard thinks I robbed him. Thinks I passed it to Martha. Danger.” He gasped, “He’ll kill her. The truth.”

Powys took another long curve without slackening speed, and settled down for a straightaway.

“There’s something in what he says. I’ll take good care of him. If you stay, Mrs. Slater, the Camel’s organization will be after you again. I think we can stave them off, but Paul will worry about it, and that’s the worst possible thing for him to do. He’ll be easier in his mind if you take that plane-The turn’s along here somewhere. Watch for it.”

After a moment he continued, “And as for you, Mike, you don’t want to let the sergeant get his hands on you again. It’s going to cost a little something. Do you have any cash?”

“A few hundred pounds.”

“That should swing it.”

Shayne was still frowning. Both Powys and Slater must know as well as he did that Martha no longer had anything to fear from Alvarez. He and his men would be in jail-if for nothing else, for shooting at Sergeant Brannon. A performance was being put on for somebody’s benefit here. But whose?

The Morris was eating up the road. Slater lay with his head against Martha’s breast. Her arms were around him.

“I love you, Paul,” she said through stiff lips. “Don’t be badly hurt. I couldn’t live without you.”

She was crying silently. In front, Vivienne sat up with a start as the little car screamed around another unbanked curve. She turned to look at Slater, her face frightened. Slater’s eyes were closed. His head shifted on Martha’s breast with the motion of the car. Shayne thought he was unconscious, but when the lights of the airport could be seen ahead and Powys slowed for the turn, Slater’s eyes opened.

“Not much we can do if the blighters telephoned,” Powys said. “Let’s be sure we’re in agreement. Mrs. Slater?”

“No. No. How can you imagine I could-”

“Stop that!” Slater said. “Settled. Shayne, carry her if you have to. I’m-” He paused, gathering his strength. “I’m through. You-never respected me. Too late for argument. Do what I say. Better long ago if I gave you orders. Wife obey husband. Supposed to. I understand, Martha. My fault. Lousy husband.”

“We will look after him,” Vivienne said. “They are right, you should hurry. Paul must get to the hospital very quickly.”

And that made it unanimous, Shayne thought.

“I’m sorry about everything, darling,” Martha said hopelessly. “Paul, please. If you tell me I must-”

She was sobbing uncontrollably as Powys made the turn.

Late the following afternoon in Miami, Michael Shayne knotted his necktie in front of a mirror in the office of Dr. Benjamin Sanborn, the elderly orthopedic surgeon who patched him up whenever some misadventure of Shayne’s made it necessary. Dr. Sanborn tossed a set of X-rays onto his desk.

“You were lucky, Mike. When I let you out of the hospital I told you to relax. To keep out of trouble. Not to put any strain on your chest muscles. I think I remember advising you to close your office and go on a vacation.”

Shayne grinned at his reflection in the mirror. “No sermons, Doc. What’s the verdict?”

“From the marks on your face, from the skin that seems to be missing on the back of your right hand, I have a pretty good idea how you picked up these latest injuries. It wasn’t an auto accident this time. It was a fight. One of these days they’ll bring you in with something I can’t repair. And don’t think it’s going to make me unhappy! I don’t think I ever had a patient as deliberately uncooperative as you. What do you want me to do, put you in a straight-jacket or keep you under sedation till those bones have a chance to knit?”