Brett Halliday - Killers from the Keys

Michael Shayne’s face showed honest puzzlement. “Are they really that good?”

“That good… or that bad,” Rourke assured him somberly. “You remember the motion picture, Fantasia? The primeval slime. The tortured writhings and gropings in obscene depths that symbolized primordial life. All right. That was beautifully and intelligently done. You were fascinated and obscurely repelled, but you weren’t revolted. It’s dangerous to be fascinated and revolted. That’s what I felt at the Bright Spot. And that’s what I saw on the faces of people all around me.”

“How do a couple of illiterate kids from the Keys manage to convey what you’re describing?” Shayne asked, puzzled more than ever by his friend’s vehemence.

“Because you feel it’s actually what is inside of them,” he replied flatly. “They’ve still got the stench of the swamp’s effluvia in their nostrils. They’re closer akin to the waddling crocodiles and the slithering water moccasins that you know were their childhood playmates than they are to civilized human beings. Their sex-play on stage is brutal and sadistic and… bestial. That’s the word I want. And the hell of it is, you find yourself responding to the savage rhythms they create. Hell, it isn’t sex- play that they give you,” he went on angrily. “It’s the primordial lust of male for female… female for male.”

Rourke paused to toss off his drink, his thin face flushed and his eyes feverishly bright.

“I went around the next day to talk to both of them off-stage, thinking there might be a story I could do. Because I, like you, wondered how a couple of illiterate kids from the Keys had managed to work up an act like that. And they hadn’t. That’s the answer. They don’t even know they’re doing it. It isn’t planned for effect at all. Purely unconscious. Off-stage, Sloe Burn is a self-conscious sexy brat with over-developed physical charms and a childishly irresponsible sort of amorality. She chews gum and giggles happily if you compliment her on the dance. Her partner is a loutish moron with muscles.” Rourke shook his head slowly and lapsed into brooding silence.

Shayne glanced across the table at his brown-eyed secretary, and lifted his ragged red eyebrows. “Still want to go with me, angel?”

She lifted a firm chin. “More than ever. If you insist on going. I want to be right there beside you, Michael, if something like that is going on.”

Rourke groaned loudly. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”

Shayne’s gaze was fixed on Lucy’s face. “I heard you, Tim. Lucy’s just too young and innocent for any of it to penetrate. Why don’t you stick around here with Tim, angel?” He glanced at his watch. “I’m expecting someone to meet me there around ten o’clock.”

“Little Joe Hoffman?” Rourke inquired with interest.

“How’d you hear about that?”

“I’ve got some lines out around town. I thought he was keeping his nose clean these days… particularly on this side of the Bay.”

“That’s what I want him to tell me,” Shayne growled. He beckoned to a waiter for the check and added with assumed casualness, “You two have fun, and see she gets home by midnight, Tim.”

She said sweetly, “I’m sure Tim has other plans, Michael.” She pushed back her chair and stood up. “Meet you in the foyer in a couple of minutes.”

Rourke grinned and turned his head to watch her thread her way between the tables toward the rest-room. “You’re not going to get rid of her tonight, Mike. So I’ll tag along if you don’t mind a threesome.”

Shayne said, “I was going to ask you. So if I get diverted at the Bright Spot, you look after her.”

“Sure.” Rourke nodded soberly and they both got up and strolled toward the foyer together to wait for Lucy to join them.

When they arrived at the Bright Spot, the large parking lot was already at least three-quarters full. Shayne stopped in front of the canopied entrance where an attendant waited to take his car, and got a numbered parking ticket from him. The three of them went into a brightly lighted entrance hall with a hat-check cubicle on the left and a service bar at the right. There were no stools at the bar, and no loungers, only three white-jacketed waiters with trays for drinks to take inside.

At the end of the hall was an archway opening into the large dim-lit room with a stripper working under a spotlight at the far end of it. A burly, impassive-faced man wearing a tuxedo stood in the archway as they approached. The sight of Lucy Hamilton between the two men didn’t bring a welcoming smile to his face, but he turned and snapped his fingers for a captain. Shayne stopped beside him, peering into the dark interior. “We’ll take a booth,” he said, “and I’m expecting another man to join us. The name is Shayne.”

“Yes, Mr. Shayne.” From the other’s tone he didn’t know whether he or his name had been recognized. The maitre d’ went on smoothly, “I’m sorry all the booths are reserved. A nice table for four…” He turned to the captain who came hurrying up.

Shayne said, “One of the booths is reserved for us.” He took Lucy firmly by the arm and pushed past the tuxedoed figure toward one of half a dozen vacant booths on the right-hand side of the room.

The captain followed them hurriedly, saying, “All the booths are taken, sir. I’m sorry, but…”

Shayne stopped in front of one that had a large RESERVED sign on the table. He helped Lucy sit down, picked up the cardboard sign and handed it to the captain. He said placidly, “The name is Shayne. Squeeze in, Tim. Don’t forget the name, Captain. I’m expecting someone to join us. And if Sloe Burn isn’t busy at the moment, tell her to come around and we’ll buy her a drink.”

The captain hesitated, half-confused and half-belligerent. He glanced over his shoulder at the maitre d’ and received a curt nod from that individual. He said stiffly, “Miss Burn is due on stage in ten minutes. I’m afraid you have to wait until after her dance.”

Shayne said, “Give her the message anyway. Tell her Mike Shayne.” He sat down beside Lucy where he could look out through the narrow aperture and see the stage clearly. The stripper had got down to a garter-belt and brassiere, and she was leaning over sideways displaying a lot of extremely well-fleshed buttocks as she unsnapped the top of a black net stocking. He let his gaze drift over the rest of the room as his eyes became slightly adjusted to the dim light, and advised Lucy cheerfully, “Keep your eyes on the platform, angel, and it won’t be too hard to take.”

He squeezed her left hand reassuringly on the padded seat beside him, and told the white-jacketed waiter in the doorway, “Two cognacs with water on the side, and a bourbon and water. And don’t mix any of them. I like to see what I’m paying for in a dump like this.”

The waiter made a notation on his pad and went away. Lucy asked in a small voice, “What do men see in that, Michael?”

Shayne said indifferently, “A lot of smooth, white flesh.” He nodded toward Tim Rourke who was peering around his side of the partition. “Ask Tim.”

“I’m not watching the stripper,” protested Rourke. “I’m voyeuring. My God, there’s one couple three tables away…”

Shayne increased his pressure on Lucy’s hand. “I didn’t want you to come.”

“I can stand it. After all, a woman likes to know what really interests men.”

The waiter came with a tray to serve their drinks. Immediately behind him was a short, thin man with a beak-like nose and very heavy black eyebrows that made an almost solid line between his eyes. He wore a yellow and green plaid sport coat. He looked genuinely harassed and worried, and he spoke excitedly in a high-pitched voice: