Brett Halliday - Armed… Dangerous…

“Missed!” Brownie called. He added in a lower voice, “No, you didn’t. Nicked his ear.”

Szigetti gave a complacent laugh. “Take a shot,” he told Shayne. “I noticed you carry a. 45. A. 45 slug would really blow a hole in that rat.”

Shayne’s. 45, of course, was loaded with blanks, which made a noise but wouldn’t knock any stuffing out of a stuffed rat. “No, thanks,” he said. “I stopped practicing years ago.”

“Go ahead,” Szigetti urged him. “Take a couple of cracks at the target anyway, if the rat scares you. I’d like to see what you’ve got in the way of a draw.”

Shayne smiled. “What are we doing, rehearsing for television? No, you’re too hot for me, Szigetti. After that much sauce I might not even hit the target.”

Szigetti sneered. Suddenly Shayne said, “Now I know where I saw you. You were in the Corps.”

The other man looked at him with slow surprise and put away his.

“Four long years. What outfit?”

“I was a D.I. at Parris Island,” Shayne said. “I forget what year you were there.”

When Szigetti told him, Shayne said, “The mustache makes the difference. I keep running into guys, but it always takes a minute. After the first half-dozen cycles all the boots begin to look alike.”

Szigetti, in good humor again, thought this called for a drink. They trooped back upstairs and finished the bottle. Another bottle appeared, the same harsh blend, Shayne was sorry to see. Szigetti was no less ready to reminisce than any other former Marine, and he stayed in a good mood as long as the others were willing to listen. All his officers, for one reason or another, had had it in for him, but just the same, he had generally managed to fix their wagon.

When Billy was called in off guard, he suggested a game of poker. Michele had never played, but she was willing to learn. She sat beside Shayne, her knee touching his leg. Between them, they collected most of the money at the table. Szigetti believed himself to be an expert but lost steadily. He crouched suspiciously over his cards, smoldering.

“Of all the goddamned luck!” he said, slamming down aces and queens after Shayne took the last pot with a low flush.

“Luck?” Brownie said. “That’s poker-playing, man.”

Michele stood up quickly and told Shayne to come with her while she found him a place to sleep.

“I know what,” Irene put in from across the table. “No, that would be unmoral.”

Shayne gave her a half shrug and followed the French girl.

“You can use Tug’s room,” Michele said when they were upstairs. “A toothbrush and so forth will have to wait till tomorrow.”

She turned on the overhead light in an empty bedroom. There was a mattress and pillow on the big iron bedstead, but only one rumpled sheet.

“Primitive,” she admitted, “but can you manage for two nights?”

“It’s better than jail,” Shayne said. “No women in jails.”

She listened at the door, then closed it and came into Shayne’s arms. She kissed him hungrily.

“I would love to stay with you,” she whispered. “But Ziggy is so wild, it would make him worse. Tomorrow we make love. Do not forget. I take you to New York. When we are alone, let me suggest ways, darling.”

Shayne’s role didn’t require him to make an answer. His arms tightened and he let one hand slide down her back. She broke away.

“Tomorrow will be a sensational success, I promise you. Even better will be the day after, then the day after that Wait. I want you to try on the uniform.”

She went to the closet and took out the green, one-piece overall worn by workers in the New York Department of Sanitation. “He was as tall as you, but without your shoulders. It was loose on him. We can get another tomorrow if this one is too bad.”

Shayne undressed and put on the uniform. It was too tight across the chest. The bulge of his. 45 showed clearly. She gave him a critical looking over.

“Leave one more button open. No, I think you must carry the pistol in a bag.”

Shayne grinned. “Between two slices of bread?”

“It will only be for a moment. Darling, that was clever of you, not to shoot for Ziggy. It pleased him. I have seen you with a pistol. I do not need to be shown.”

“That’s the way people get in the Marines-gun-happy.”

“He is not so bad, after all,” she said, trying to talk herself into it. “Perhaps tomorrow you must frighten him a little. He was frightened of Tug. Today they are all on edge about Tug’s arrest, they drank too much. But what each one has to do is very simple indeed. There will be no trouble. We will arrive in Portugal, you and I, with no one the wiser and much money in our luggage.”

“Maybe, Michele,” Shayne said, his tone suddenly weary. “You don’t know how it is, kid. It’s never simple. There’s always a place where you’ve got to hang tough or let them take you. Too goddamn many thieves really want to make mistakes so they’ll be put away in a nice safe cell with three sure meals a day. This Tug character who let himself get picked up-after a couple of days with these oddballs maybe he was looking for a way out. He took the small pinch instead of the big one. And that’s what these characters are thinking. They think he knew something.”

“Stop it.”

“It could work,” he said. “So long as you remember it’s going to take luck. And I have a feeling that the minute that cop recognized me in the subway, my luck changed. I may jinx this for you.”

“Nonsense!” she said sharply. “We go over it and over it, if necessary a hundred times, and cut down the possibilities. Then if something unlucky happens, you will move quickly and decisively and overcome it. That is my feeling.”

“I hope you’re right.”

She peered up at him. “Darling, that one policeman recognized you. What if there should be others? I believe we should at least dye your hair. Red, perhaps.”

Startled, Shayne let out a snort of laughter. “And maybe we can talk Ziggy into loaning me his mustache. No, baby. If something happens, it happens. That’s my philosophy.” He picked up his jacket, which he had thrown on the bed, and felt in the side pocket. “I want to give you back your watch and bracelet.”

After she said goodnight, Shayne stripped off the Sanitation Department uniform and listened at the closed door. There was no lock but he manhandled the empty bureau in front of it. He went to the window. A room on the ground floor would have been better for his purposes, but there had been no way he could ask for one. He removed the sliding screen and swung out onto the shingled roof of the veranda, which ran around two sides of the house.

The shingles were dry and brittle underfoot. He edged carefully along the wall. The next window was lighted. He dropped to his knees and elbows and wriggled past. The shingles at the edge of the roof had split and peeled. The two-by-six beneath had begun to rot away from the nails. Shayne leaned on it and felt it give.

He heard a mumble of voices from the living room: Michele’s and Szigetti’s. The note of complaint in Szigetti’s voice carried it around the house without bringing any words along with it. While the detective hesitated he noticed a dead branch dangling from the gutter. He might be able to use that.

He freed the branch carefully, then let it down heavy end first and worked the tip inside the copper wire leading to the telephone box. One of the thumbtacks pulled out of the clapboard. Rotating the branch, he caught the wire on a protruding twig and fished it up. Another tack popped out. In a moment, reaching down, he was able to seize the wire and pull it free.

There wasn’t enough slack to reach his window. He unwound more wire from the outside of his battery case and performed a rough splice in the half-dark without tools. A rotten board gave way under his knee and he had to twist sideward to keep from going through.