Brett Halliday - Dolls Are Deadly

Unaccountably, despite the show of anger and indignation, Shayne had a feeling that her true feeling at the moment was one of relief, almost as if she had welcomed mention of Dan Milford.

Ostensibly still holding to her anger, Swoboda said, “Whoever murdered that Milford woman would be doing a good deed.”

“Is that why you sent her a voodoo doll-to scare her to death?”

She stopped, honestly surprised, her mouth agape, her aquiline nose uptilted, the flush of anger slowly receding. The respite was only temporary, however. On the next instant the fury returned.

“It’s none of your damned business, but I didn’t. Now, for the last time, get out! You’re invading my privacy!”

“I’d like to. The idea’s tempting. You’re not going to answer my question about Dan Milford?”

“I am not.” She threw herself into the wicker chair and rocked violently, staring sullenly ahead, the cigarette sending a wavy stream of smoke up from her moving hand.

Reaching out, Shayne touched her bare arm lightly with one finger.

She jumped. “What are you doing?”

“I wanted to see if you’d burn me. Dan Milford’s wife says you’re on fire.”

“If I had my way, I would. The less Shaynes in this world, the better.”

“And the more Swobodas?”

“What do you think, Shayne?”

“I don’t know yet. Dan Milford’s wife says you’re soulless, too.”

The moment of softness was gone. “Will you stop quoting that woman? And get out of here!”

“I’m on my way-but I’ll be back. I think I’m a mystic, too.”

She opened her mouth to release a flurry of abuse.

He ducked out fast.

When Shayne reached the street he found all the other cars gone except his own and a big gray sedan which he assumed belonged to Swoboda. It seemed a trifle incongruous for someone on familiar terms with the spirit world to be operating a contrivance as unethereal as a Buick, but of course even delvers into the occult had to get around some way, broomsticks being outdated in this age of rockets.

He opened the front door of his own car and slid behind the wheel. He had covered only a few blocks before he became aware that the gray Buick was behind him. The trenches in his lean face deepened, and he turned experimentally off Southeast Third Avenue, heading toward Biscayne Boulevard. The gray sedan turned too. He swung south, circled the block. The sedan followed.

No doubt about it, he’d picked up a tail.

He cruised slowly, his face bleak. He could play along with the tail and find out who it was-but that would take time.

Two pressing errands faced him. He wanted to see Clarissa Milford and the Thains and find out why, among other things, Dan Milford, who purported to take the seances so seriously, had stayed away tonight.

But even more compelling was the need for a clarifying talk with his little Cuban friend, Sylvester. Ed’s presence at the seance was disturbing and the interview Shayne had just concluded with Swoboda had deepened his concern, for it was obvious that Swoboda had been on guard. She had sweet-talked when he brought Ed’s name up and overacted her anger at mention of Clarissa and Dan Milford. The real object of her concern would seem to be the man from the fishing boat.

The fishing trip this afternoon had left him with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction, too, of things hinted at but not explained. Was it coincidence or connection which had caused a man from the boat to turn up at the seance? In any case, since murder unaccountably was breathing down the necks of some people, a talk with Sylvester was strongly indicated.

The redhead picked up speed, hit Biscayne and turned north. He found a corner that was police patrolled and when the yellow light flashed, sped through it and turned west at the next corner. Through the rear-view mirror he saw that the gray Buick had not made the light.

Still speeding, he turned south on Miami Avenue, circled back and headed toward the Causeway to Miami Beach. Across the Causeway he turned south toward the slip where Sylvester’s boat was docked.

The Santa Clara was there all right, squeaking gently against her rubber fenders in the slow swell of the water, but Sylvester wasn’t. Shayne put a beam from his small pocket flash around the cabin, located the light switch and flicked it on. Everything looked shipshape. Sylvester must have slept off his overindulgence in Demerara rum, roused himself and gone home. It was a quick recovery and that was good. Maybe Sylvester wouldn’t be as hung-over as he deserved.

On impulse the redhead opened the ice box. The big grouper he had caught this afternoon was still there. He slammed the door shut and prowled the cabin for a few minutes, looking at the charts, the cuddy and the gear compartment forward. There was nothing that didn’t belong on a fishing boat and everything was in place.

Taking off the engine housing he probed with his flashlight at the new Gray Marine, dirtied up “to fool the tax collector,” which had never been let out, Sylvester said. Still, the power was there if he needed it. Or if they needed it? Why would they need it? The three jolly vacationers liked Sylvester. That’s the only reason they had bought him the new, very expensive engine for his boat. They had helped him to make a fast boat faster.

Leaving the Santa Clara Shayne slammed into his car and drove swiftly to a waterfront area, inhabited mostly by Cubans. He parked in front of a two-story wooden tenement, went up two steps and pressed the bell button under the name that read Sylvester Santos.

A little, ample-bosomed, gray-haired woman wearing a pink-flowered housedress came to the door, her fleshy arms protruding from the short sleeves. Her face looked drawn, but her worried brown eyes kindled with pleasure when she recognized the redhead.

“Michael Shayne!” Her full lips spread in a welcoming smile and she stood aside. “Be so good to come in, Mr. Shayne.”

Shayne walked into an apartment as neat and shipshape as Sylvester’s boat, the woman following him, talking volubly.

“You look for my husband, no? Well, I tell you. He came home maybe one half hour ago, then go out again. To look for you, he say. But now you look for him. Mr. Shayne, what is the matter? These days I am most unhappy.”

“Why does Sylvester look for me, Mrs. Santos?”

“He does not say. He says nothing to me but to talk of his new friends who are so good to him. But I do not like these new friends, Mr. Shayne. He is now drunk with them all the time and it is not like Sylvester to drink so much. Every day he comes home drunk and goes to bed dead. But tonight he comes home drunk and bleeding. One eye is black, and blood is on his face from fighting. I have to wipe it off and the cuts are deep. This is not like Sylvester, to fight-”

“Did he say he was in a fight?”

“No, but I can see he has been beaten and his clothes torn.”

From the way Sylvester had been staggering around the deck this afternoon, his fight might have been only with the Demerara. Perhaps he had gotten up too quickly and fallen on his face a few times, or maybe he had been jackrolled on the way home. If that had happened it would explain why he had left home to look for his friend, “the detective who heads only the big cases.”

“What does Sylvester say about his new friends?” Shayne asked.

She shrugged elaborately. “Only that they are so good to him. But I think they are drunk bums, Mr. Shayne, good only to get my husband drunk and in trouble and to spoil his health.”

“May I use the phone, Mrs. Santos?”

“Sure. Help yourself. You’re good man.”

Shayne dialed and got his answering service. There had been no calls. Then he phoned Lucy and learned from her that Sylvester had not tried to reach him at her apartment either.