Brett Halliday - Armed… Dangerous…

“Please do not do that again, darling. It took longer than a minute, and bad things happened to my insides.”

He leaned across and gravely kissed her cheek. “Stop worrying.”

“I bought a paper while I waited. I thought you might-”

He snapped off the ignition. “Use your head. There’s a trash basket over there-get rid of it.”

She didn’t like his tone, but after an instant’s hesitation she took the folded World-Journal to the receptacle and dumped it.

Shayne’s face was still angry when she came back. “What if one of those psychos out on Staten Island reads about the cop-shooting and gets the idea it might be me? We have enough on our hands.”

“I am sorry.”

“The hell with it.”

He missed the Forty-first Street entrance to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive and had to come back for it, but that was something even native New Yorkers must occasionally do, he thought. The little flare-up had gone no further, and they rode in silence with the radio tuned to the only sound available on A.M. stations at this hour, the pounding music currently popular among American teen-agers.

“We have it in France as well,” she told him. “If one could only understand the words.”

Much against Shayne’s will, he found himself beginning to like her, although he knew she was as phony as a three-dollar bill. Given a slight turn of circumstances, say a father with a job when she was growing up-

Unless, he thought suddenly, there had been no truth in that story about a poverty-stricken father and a roving mother? It could be, he told himself; it could very well be. There would always be a question with this girl where the truth stopped and the lying began.

Billy was watching for them inside the gate. “Better get up there very sudden,” he told Michele. “Spaghetti’s stoned. He’s trying to get a rise out of Brownie, and I can tell you that cat ain’t going to sit still much longer.”

Shayne came down hard on the gas.

“This is impossible, it has to stop,” she said.

“Yeah.”

He skidded to a fast stop in the gravel. An instant later, striding into the living room, he found an unshaven, bleary-eyed Szigetti, in a dirty sleeveless undershirt, cleaning his revolver on the sofa. Brownie was sitting across the room reading a paperback sex novel. He seemed indifferent to Szigetti, but Shayne saw that he was sweating. Irene was putting polish on her nails and drinking red wine. She looked up at Shayne, her eyes bright.

“Welcome.”

Michele clicked past Shayne. “Everything peaceful, the way I like it.”

“Look at that book,” Szigetti said thickly. “A bare-assed white girl on the cover. Inside just one juicy rape after another.”

“Your choice of reading matter seems to be irritating Ziggy,” Michele observed to Brownie. “Can you find something else? Has anybody eaten?”

Szigetti went on, “The only reason he picked it up was to see if he could get my ass. All he’s doing is holding it. He can’t be reading-I don’t see him moving his lips.”

“That will be enough!” Michele snapped.

Szigetti finished assembling his. 38, spun the cylinder and took deliberate aim at Brownie.

“It’s empty,” he said with a mocking grin, “but will you look at the man sweat?”

Brownie looked up from the book. “Kid stuff.”

Szigetti’s upper lip lifted and he pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked down on nothing. He repeated his mocking laugh.

Shayne walked in front of the. 38, towering over the drunken gunman.

“Out of the line of fire,” Szigetti said mildly.

“There’s one bullet in the gun,” Irene warned. “I saw it.”

Shayne bent down over Szigetti, who still held the. 38 extended in firing position. The muzzle touched Shayne’s chest.

“We need a drink,” Shayne said. “I brought a couple of bottles back with me.”

“Buddy. Please. One more. Six to one is good odds.”

“Try it on me. But if you pull the trigger you’d better hope it hits the live round.”

“Why should I do a dumb thing like that?” the smaller man protested. “Too few ex-Marines in the world as it is.”

“Please!” Michele said. “Have a drink, stop this silliness.”

Shayne, the. 38 still touching his chest, took hold of Szigetti’s arms and began applying pressure. He slowly backed away, bringing Szigetti to his feet after him.

“What are they feeding you, red wine?” Shayne said. “That stuff eats out the stomach lining. Let’s have a couple of jolts of booze.”

He continued to squeeze, and Szigetti’s body began to twist. He stopped resisting suddenly and the. 38 fell to the coffee table, knocking over a can of gun oil.

“You still keep in shape, don’t you, Sarge?”

Shayne let him go. Picking up the revolver, he broke it and spun the cylinder. There were no rounds showing.

“He palmed it on you,” he said to Irene. “Russian roulette without bullets. You can’t lose.”

“You got to do something to pass the time,” Szigetti said. “Where’s that bottle?”

Shayne brought in his suitcase and the liquor from the car. Irene came into the kitchen with him and leaned against him while he was getting the ice.

“Remember the last time I brought up the subject and you said later?” she said. “Like how much later?”

“Like I’m tied up, kid, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, I do,” she said gloomily. “Michele, huh? I don’t suppose she’d consider making it a threesome?”

“You never know,” Shayne said, breaking ice out of the tray. “I’ll ask.”

“Well, I know you won’t, when you say it like that. And I thought this was going to be so different. It’s as much of a drag as anything else.” She yawned. “Excuse me. I keep yawning, for some reason.”

“A simple case of nervous stomach,” he said. “Even the world’s champion gets sick the night before a big fight. There’s a lot riding on this tomorrow, baby, but it’s going to click. It has that feel.”

“I thought so at first, but now I don’t know. Tug getting picked up and everything. All I had to do, Tug said, was get out there on the street and scream. He didn’t say anything about hanging around for four days beforehand. He’s my current guy, did anybody tell you? It’s an open secret. It was OK when he was here. I wouldn’t feel this way if I had a little nuzzling to look forward to. Now I suppose you think I’m a nympho.”

“What’s that?”

“You know as well as I do,” she said with a smile. “Well, I’m not. I’m normal. It’s stage fright! I get nightmares, I need somebody to hang onto. Brownie won’t because he’s sort of scared of Ziggy. Ziggy can’t. He claims he can, but he can’t.”

“Who does that leave, Billy?”

“That fag.”

Michele called, “What’s happening with the drinks?”

All the glasses were dirty; no one in this group was interested in washing dishes. Shayne found some paper cups. Brownie was still pretending to read, to annoy Szigetti, but he put the book aside with relief when Shayne handed him a cup. There was a pile of newspapers beside him, and Shayne saw that afternoon’s World-Journal. He kicked the pile over as he passed.

Michele mentioned food, and Szigetti made retching noises. “Don’t make me throw up.”

Shayne kept the former Marine supplied with whiskey and listened to another account of his adventures in the service. He rambled more and more as time passed. Forgetting where he was, he lapsed into a suspicious silence. His eyes rolled in his head, his head rolled on his shoulders. Finally the moment came, in the middle of the second bottle, when he didn’t get his drink as far as his mouth and spilled it in his lap.