Brett Halliday - Murder and the Married Virgin

Shayne grunted. “And I’d pick you for a smart one.”

“I was smart,” she blazed. “I’m still smart. I’d had two years at the University before-it happened. I was just nineteen,” she ended, and finished her cocktail.

The waiter brought their dinner, and they sat in moody silence while he arranged it on the table. He asked, “Will there be something else, madam?”

“Petit Brule with our coffee,” Lana ordered, and he went away.

The moody silence continued as they ate. Lana sobered a little, and when the last oyster was gone from her plate she said, “Brain food, Red. I should have eaten before I talked. Maybe I would have lied instead of telling the truth.”

“I usually sift out the truth in the long run,” he told her.

She shrugged her bare shoulders. Her eyes were troubled and she leaned toward him with both elbows on the table, her chin resting on her clasped fingers. “I wouldn’t have lied to you, Red,” she said softly. “You know how it is sometimes. I find a man I can really go for.”

“Meaning me?” Shayne grinned. “Your eyes are green.”

“Meaning you,” she drawled. “They’re yellow-cat eyes, Red. It’s the green-dress influence.” She smiled.

“It’s a nice influence. Let’s get started.” Shayne pushed his chair back.

“Not yet.” She reached across the narrow table and laid her hand on his. “We have to perform the rites over a Petit Brule first.”

A third tray arrived and the waiter set dishes containing cups made from half an orange peeling before them, a small flask of brandy, a decorative container filled with cinnamon and two pots of coffee.

Shayne said, “Just leave the check, and that’ll be all.”

Lana poured brandy into the orange cups, dropped two lumps of sugar in each and sprinkled cinnamon over the brandy. She struck a match to each and a blue flame glowed. “Isn’t it beautiful,” she breathed, her full lips smiling.

“Looks pretty,” Shayne agreed, “but I don’t like my liquor messed up that way.”

She laughed and blew the flames out, waited a moment, then began drinking with relish. Shayne took one sip from his orange cup and set it aside. “Here-you can have mine,” he said, and poured a cup of coffee.

“I’ll have to take you in hand, Red,” Lana said, “and teach you the wonders of the French Quarter.”

“Let’s start with the game room,” he suggested.

Lana finished both the drinks, drank half a cup of coffee, and got up. Shayne paid the bill and she slipped her hand into the crook of his arm, pressed it hard, and led him to the rear of the dining-room and on a circuitous route not easily discovered by the uninitiated, to the gaming room.

A tall man with wide shoulders bulging his dinner coat smiled and said, “Good evening, Miss Moore.”

The room evidenced the same discreet good taste which characterized the rest of the Laurel Club. There was a crap table and a roulette wheel, three green baize card tables and a 4-5-6 game was in progress at the table nearest the door. All the games were getting a fair play from a quiet and well-mannered group of men and a few women.

Lana stopped Shayne by squeezing his arm and holding him back just inside the door. “You don’t have to play heavy,” she said in a low, husky voice. “Just enough to keep me in right.”

Shayne grinned at her upturned face.

“If I’ve got money to throw away, why not throw it at you instead of the wolves? Is that it, Lana?”

She shrugged and smiled. “Figure it out any way you want to.”

He said, “By God, Lana, you’re a wonder,” and meant it. “Let’s try our luck at four-five-six.”

He drew her to the table and changed a fifty-dollar bill into chips, divided them into two piles and pushed one toward her. Lana pressed close to him and moved the chips back into one pile. “I never gamble that way, darling,” she whispered.

A fat man had the bank. A couple of hundred dollars in chips were stacked in front of him and he was perspiring freely. Shayne took ten of it and watched while the rest of the chips were covered. The fat man threw a pair of fives and a trey, then passed the three dice to the first player on his left who had faded part of the money.

Shayne was next in line. His first throw was a natural: a 4-5-6 which brought the dice and the bank to him after the play was ended. He added another hundred to the sixty and said to Lana, “I have been hot in this game a couple of times.”

When the dice came to him he rattled them in the cup while the houseman called the size of the bank and checked the bets against him. When he was completely faded, Shayne rolled the dice against the backboard and crapped out with a pair and an ace,

Shayne grimaced at Lana and got two more hundreds from his wallet. He rattled the dice gently while the other players covered his money, then bounced them out again. He got a five for his point, and passed the dice on.

By the time the dice returned to him, his bank had increased to three hundred and twenty dollars. He waited impassively until it was all faded, then rolled a six with a pair of deuces-a natural.

As he watched the chips come in he heard a smooth and softly modulated voice say to Lana “Good evening, Miss Moore. Is everything all right?”

The voice was so distinctive that Shayne instantly recognized it as the one that had offered to sell him the emerald necklace over the telephone. He turned his head enough to see the speaker as Lana replied, “Everything is fine, Mr. Trueman.”

The proprietor of the Laurel Club was a tall, spare man with sharp features and elongated eyes that drooped slightly at the outer corners. Shayne judged him to be in his early forties, and he looked more like a successful lawyer than a gambler. He nodded pleasantly to Lana and passed on to another table.

With six hundred and forty dollars in front of him, Shayne got only a little more than four hundred of it faded. He watched Dan Trueman’s spare frame going out of the room through a side door as he rolled the dice. They stopped on a straight 4-5-6.

He waited until his winnings were gathered in, then calmly handed the dice to the player on his left, announcing, “The bank passes.” He paid no attention to the low murmurs of protest around the table, turned his back and waited while the houseman cashed in his chips for bills. There was slightly more than eleven hundred dollars in the roll he received.

He grinned down into Lana’s flushed face and said, “This isn’t going to make you very popular with your boss.”

She laughed with more animation than she had shown all evening. “I won’t worry about that. You’re wonderful, Red. First man I ever saw quit a winner.”

Shayne glanced around the room and muttered, “Wait for me in the cocktail lounge-and order a couple of drinks. We’ve got some celebrating to do.”

She squeezed his arm and said, “I’ll like that.”

“Which way-?”

“Right through that side door. Men to the left,” she anticipated him with an amused smile, and they separated.

Shayne opened the door into a narrow hallway, closed it, and opened another door straight in front of it. The room was small with a bar at one end and a few square tables lighted by low-hanging bulbs. Most of the stools were filled by men who slouched against the bar drinking straight whisky. Two of the tables were occupied by sober-faced men squinting at poker hands through thick smoke.

A door to the right had Private painted white on the dark upper panel. A big man with a pockmarked face leaned against the door sill. Bulky muscles swelled a jersey sweater and he was built solid all the way to the floor. As Shayne came close, he asked in a surly tone, “Lost somethin’?”