Brett Halliday - Mermaid on the Rocks

Shayne sighed. “You did save me from drowning. I’ll keep an eye on you until you get on the plane.”

After returning to shore, Shayne checked the padlocked closet where Kitty stored her diving gear. The top of the padlock, at the point where the shank fitted into the socket, was deeply scored.

Kitty’s beach house was a simple rectangle of glass and vertical cedar siding, at the edge of a dense hardwood hummock. Rourke was trying to start a driftwood fire on the sand beach above the highwater mark. Shayne took over and in a matter of moments had it blazing.

When the flames died down, they broiled the thick steaks Rourke had brought from the city. Kitty changed out of the striped towel into another bathing suit, a fragile affair of cloth and net, nearly as arresting as the one she had taken off underwater. There was a well-stocked portable bar, a battery-powered record player and a stack of jazz records, some of which Shayne hadn’t run across in years.

Suddenly, from somewhere in the tangle of undergrowth, a bird uttered a piercing cry, as though, like Kitty’s Siamese cat, it was having its throat cut. Natalie upset her paper plate as she hurled herself into Rourke’s arms.

The reporter patted her back. “Don’t be scared, honey. Nothing but Count Dracula. He has a right to eat, too, you know.”

She shuddered. “I know I’m being silly, but I keep thinking somebody’s looking at us from the bushes. This is a peaceful, isolated spot, Kitty, and I still say you’re out of your mind. Will everybody please chew a little faster? I’m not driving out through that swamp after dark.”

“Neither am I,” Kitty said firmly. “This isn’t turning out to be any fun at all. Let’s put out the fire and go.”

Shayne said easily, “There’s more steak. Make everybody another drink, Tim. I’m still hungry.”

In the end Shayne had to eat the last steak by himself. After that they poured seawater on the embers, dressed and started back for Miami.

Kitty left her little Volkswagen at the heliport on Goose Key and transferred to Shayne’s Buick. An hour and a half later they were back in the city.

Shayne dropped Rourke and Natalie at Natalie’s apartment, in a court in Southwest Miami. Rourke had brought the compressed-air tank from the aqualung. He unloaded it from the back seat, along with the picnic basket, which now held nothing but steak sauce and an unopened fifth of Scotch. He told Shayne that if anything came up he could be reached either at Natalie’s apartment or his own.

“At your own,” Natalie announced firmly.

“Hell, Nat,” Rourke protested, “I thought you said you were nervous. You don’t want to be alone.”

“I was nervous at Kitty’s. There’s nothing to be nervous about here.”

“Nothing to be nervous about! This is a dangerous neighborhood. It looks all right, but that’s the worst kind. How about that double killing last week in the next block?”

“What double killing?”

“You read about it. Two girls. A prowler, they think. I covered the story, and what a mess.”

Kitty was laughing as Shayne drove away, leaving Rourke and the girl arguing on the sidewalk. She sobered abruptly.

“I don’t know what I’m laughing about.”

“There’s still time to change your mind,” Shayne said. “Brad’s the only one we really talked about, and I think he can be handled. But what about the other two? Shanahan’s been practicing criminal law all his life. There isn’t an angle he doesn’t know. And there’s the woman-if she wanted to be vindictive she could be a worse threat than the other two combined.”

“All I want is one little sliver of beach and a right of way,” Kitty said. “I won’t bother her. Why should she want to bother me? I know I’ll be all right if I can get past Wednesday. She has lifetime use of the house, and I’m paying my share of the taxes. It might be different if she had children, but she doesn’t, and if she and Frank ever actually do get married I doubt if they’ll start raising a family. Can you see Frank getting up for the two A.M. feeding? I can’t.”

But the thoughtful look stayed on her face as Shayne crossed the Miami River and turned left along the River Drive. Following directions, he turned off at Curtis Park and continued north on 23rd Avenue.

“Mike, I don’t know how you usually do when you stand guard, but I’m not going to allow you to spend the night in your car. I have a spare bedroom. We’re both grown-up people.”

She glanced at him swiftly. He gave her a humorous look in return.

“It’s true I’ve had to spend a certain number of nights in a car. I never do it unless I have to. Around three in the morning the time tends to drag.”

“Mike, could we do it like this? Come up with me first and make sure there’s nobody there. Then go back down and drive away. There’s a fire escape. God, I hate to ask you, because there’s nothing filthier, but could you come in that way?”

“Why?” he asked bluntly. “The best thing to do when you have protection is to publicize it. Let everybody know you have a bodyguard and we won’t have any trouble.”

She smiled ruefully. “I was really thinking of my ex-husband, though he’s not quite my ex-husband yet. He’s been making all sorts of difficulties. He may have hired a private detective to keep tabs on me, it wouldn’t be out of character. If you go in with me and don’t come out again, it would be just one more complication, one more thing I’d have to explain.”

She was silent for a moment. “Maybe I just ought to phone Barbara and tell her I’m willing to do the cowardly thing and sign her damn sales contract. I’m no Joan of Arc. But then the rest of my life I’d wonder if I could have bluffed them out of it!”

“If you want to find out if they’re really bluffing,” he said, “call Barbara and tell her you’re leaving town tomorrow, and to keep an eye on your place while you’re gone. Then if they want to do anything about it, they’ll have to do it tonight.”

She turned to him. “You’d be willing to-”

“Sure. I owe somebody for that tank of air. I don’t like to let that kind of debt pile up.”

“Oh, Mike.” She hugged his arm. “Am I glad Tim Rourke put me onto you.”

She pointed. “That one.”

Shayne pulled up in the unloading zone in front of a modest apartment house on 28th. Kitty said, “One other thing we ought to settle before we get out. Your fee. Tim said to offer you two hundred dollars and see what you said.”

Shayne grinned at her. “Give it to the Red Cross. If this works out so you can keep your place, let me come down and dive sometime. But next time I’ll bring my own air.”

“I’d feel better paying you,” she said doubtfully, “but if I’m going to spend two weeks in a New York hotel I’d better accept. You really are quite a nice man, Mike.”

Shayne unlocked the glove compartment, unlocked a steel box inside it and took out a short-barreled. 38 revolver and a box of ammunition. He loaded the gun quickly while Kitty watched.

“I never thought I’d be reassured by the sight of a gun,” she said. “I really hate the damn things.”

Shayne dropped the. 38 into his jacket pocket. Kitty unlocked the door in the inner lobby and they rode upstairs in the automatic elevator. Her apartment was on six. Shayne entered first, the gun in his fist.

He listened a moment, then switched on the lights. He checked the apartment thoroughly before telling her to come in. There was one moderate-sized bedroom, another very small one. The dining area was at one end of the narrow living room, and the kitchen was only large enough to hold a single person at a time. The furniture and pictures were inexpensive, but they had been chosen with care.