Brett Halliday - The Careless Corpse

The solid stone wall had been built all the way to the very edge of the steep-banked canal, and then continued at right angles along the bank for fifty feet or so, where a boat-house jutted out a few feet into the swiftly moving current.

At this point the bank had been concreted to prevent erosion, and the wall was simply a continuation of the concrete, leaving not even a foothold on the outside, above the water, where one could possibly reach the boathouse.

If you were hell-bent on getting in, you could slip into the stream and swim those fifty feet to the boathouse, but the chances were it would be firmly locked against ingress from the water side, so that wouldn’t do you much good either.

Shayne shrugged his wide shoulders and turned around and started back.

With the headlight beams in front of him this time, it was easier to pick his way among the wild growth, and he arrived back at the graveled turning-area with only mild damage to his trouser-legs and ankles.

He was headed directly toward Rourke’s coupe, disgusted with himself for having wasted time stopping here, when a sound from his right attracted his attention and he stopped in mid-stride, drawing Rourke’s automatic from his hip pocket.

It was the sound of the wooden gates swinging inward on their well-oiled hinges. The side-glow from the car’s headlights revealed a brawny figure standing menacingly in the opening. He was bareheaded with an unruly shock of thick hair standing up in wild disarray. He had a square, brutal face and a thick-lipped mouth, and he held a double-barreled shotgun with twin sawed-off barrels pointed directly at Michael Shayne’s mid-section.

Both barrels of the lethal weapon were cocked, and the man’s right forefinger was crooked menacingly about both triggers.

Shayne stood very still, facing him, glad that the pistol was hanging loosely at his side and in full view of the other man.

He said, “Hi,” and sincerely hoped that his tone was casual and light. “Mind pointing that thing just a little bit away from my belly?”

“Why should I?”

Shayne shrugged and said, “I’d feel much more like carrying on a light conversation if you did.”

The man with the shotgun said belligerently, “To hell with that light conversation stuff. Throw that gat on the ground over here.”

Under the circumstances, Shayne was glad to get rid of the pistol. It was a poor match for the more lethal weapon in Brad’s hands, and this was a case in which discretion was much the better part of valor.

He tossed it forward carefully at the feet of the caretaker, who grunted, “Now you step back about six more feet.”

Shayne did so. Brad shifted the shotgun firmly into his right hand, and picked up the pistol by its barrel. He rested the short-barreled shotgun loosely in the crook of his arm to leave both hands free, and released the loaded clip of the automatic and let it drop to the ground. Then he thumbed the safety off and expelled the loaded cartridge from the firing chamber, tossed the useless weapon back to Shayne contemptuously, and growled, “Now, Mister. What the hell are you doing here?”

Shayne stooped to scoop the unloaded gun up and slide it back into his pocket.

“Looking for Felice.” Shayne tried to make his voice sound as though it were the most natural thing in the world for him to be looking for Felice here and at this time of night… as though it were the only reason why anyone could reasonably be expected to be prowling around outside the grounds of a deserted house.

“What’s that?” The twin, sawed-off barrels of the shotgun wavered slightly, but not nearly enough for Shayne to seriously consider trying to take advantage of it.

“Felice,” Shayne explained patiently. “Miss Perrin, you know.”

“What about her?” The bores of the shotgun, which looked as big as cannon barrels to Shayne, came back to steady themselves on his belly.

“Isn’t she here?”

“Why should she be here?”

“She works here, doesn’t she?”

“Look, Mister. I’m the only one that works here. The caretaker, see? My boss don’t like night-prowlers around his property.”

“Wait a minute. I don’t get this at all. Isn’t this the Peralta residence?”

“No. That’s the next house back.” Brad jerked his head toward the rear.

Shayne said, “I don’t know how I could have made such a mistake. If you’ll point that thing the other way, I’ll get into my car and apologize for bothering you.”

“Won’t do you any good to go to Peralta’s either,” the man told him.

“Why not?”

“She used to work there, but not any more.”

“Is that so? Do you know where she can be reached?”

“How would I be expected to know?” Brad asked easily. He stepped backward slowly, still holding the gun steadily on Shayne. “Get lost,” he growled, and slammed the wooden gates shut.

Shayne went slowly to the coupe and got in. The door to the glove compartment stood open. He reached inside and fumbled around and found an extra loaded clip for the pistol. He got it out of his pocket and slid the clip in, but did not throw a cartridge under the firing pin. He put it back in the glove compartment and started the motor and backed around to head out into the street. On the other side of the wall the big house showed no lights in any of the windows as he drove away.

The Green Jungle was not at all the sort of place Shayne would have expected a wealthy woman like Laura Peralta to frequent. It had none of the swank and glitter of the showplaces on the Beach, offered no floor-show or entertainment of any sort, did no advertising, and made no effort whatsoever to attract socialites or theatrical celebrities.

It was a solid, substantial establishment that had been in operation under the same management for more than two decades and made no pretense of being anything other than what it was: a place where people could go to spend a quiet evening dining exceedingly well on a simple but excellent cuisine at extremely moderate prices, with good drinks cheerfully served at one-half the normal charge in Miami bars, and with sedate gambling rooms where two-bit bets were welcomed at the roulette tables and no eyebrows were raised if a crap-shooter risked only a buck on his turn with the dice.

Thus, over the years it had become almost a family sort of place, catering to a substantial, middle-class clientele which enjoyed the excitement of gambling without being high-pressured into losing more than they had budgeted for an evening’s entertainment.

There were no drinks served in the gaming rooms, and no rowdiness tolerated. Professional gamblers gravitated to the place by instinct, and the pace of the games was kept leisurely enough to encourage system players to keep their notes and figure their odds without being rushed into making reckless bets.

It was, in other words, a comfortable place in which to lose one’s money, and Shayne wondered about Laura as he parked Tim Rourke’s battered coupe among a hundred other lower-priced cars. His brief encounter with her had not given him the impression that she was the type of woman to choose a “comfortable” place in which to lose her money. Her nightly stake of five hundred dollars was far in excess of the amount most habituees of the Green Jungle could afford to lose, and that might be the answer, he mused, as he got out and threaded his way among parked cars toward the entrance of the low, rambling building almost hidden by a luxuriant growth of untended tropical shrubbery.

Here, a woman with half a grand to drop at the tables every night would be marked as a V.I.P. and treated with every consideration and respect, while the same half-grand would be disdainfully considered peanuts at the more publicized Beach joints.