Brett Halliday - The Corpse Came Calling

“The papers made it sound as though maybe you needed an alibi for this afternoon,” she said eagerly and hastily. “I will swear where you were if it’s necessary.”

Shayne thought that her eyes challenged him. He said, “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.” He then demanded, “How do you know Lacy’s death had anything to do with you and Mace? Lacy was working on something else.”

“I don’t know what made me feel so certain,” she confessed. “Because I’d just been here talking to you about it, I suppose.”

“Because you had a guilty conscience and couldn’t see any other possibility,” Shayne snorted. He moved away restlessly. “It seems to me that this washes us up.”

“What-do you mean?”

He turned, gesturing widely. “Just what I said. If your husband is hep to your plan for getting him quietly bumped off, you’d better drop it.”

“Please, Mr. Shayne.” Helen’s face became chalky. “You’re not going to desert me?” She stood up, trembling.

“Count me out.”

“But you can’t,” she whimpered. “Don’t you see? I have no one else to rely on. It’s a thousand times more important now than it was this afternoon. If Mace does know-”

“Then you’re in a tough spot.”

“He’ll kill me. Without mercy. Just as he killed Jim Lacy.” She moved upon him, staggering as she approached. Shayne put out his arm, and she collapsed against him. She pressed her face against his chest and sobbed, “You’re the only one who can help me. He’ll kill me unless-”

“Unless I kill him first.” Shayne’s voice was harsh.

Her supple body quivered while one arm crept up about his shoulders. She lifted her head, crushed her breasts against him, and her eyes were hot with something more than mortal terror.

“Yes,” she whispered. “That’s it. You’ve got to kill him first You can’t stand by and let me be murdered. You know you can’t.”

Sweat beaded Shayne’s face. “Why can’t I?”

She tilted her head back. Her eyes were tightly shut. She strained her mouth upward to his. Her lips were parted, full and moist. She murmured, “You can’t, because you’re a man-and I’m a woman. Because you’re you and I am me. You’ll help me. I know you will.”

“Kill your husband for you?” Shayne asked implacably.

Her lashes fluttered up and her humid eyes held his. “It sounds terrible when you say it like that. But-yes. Yes. It’s the only thing that will save me now.”

Shayne’s jaw was set. The beads of sweat ran together, trickled down. A muscle twitched in each lean cheek. He obdurately kept his arms at his sides. “Why should I save you?” he asked hoarsely.

She clung to him tighter. Her eyes were not quite the same. “You know why,” she whispered. “You knew this afternoon. As soon as we saw each other-we both knew it would be like this with us.” Her breath came and went in little whimpering gasps. She nuzzled her wet mouth up to his lips. Both arms were around his neck, straining to drag his head down to bring their lips together.

The telephone rang loudly in the bedroom.

Shayne put two big hands on her shoulders and shoved her from him. She swayed back and dropped listlessly into a chair.

Shayne strode to the telephone, snatched up the receiver, and said, “Shayne talking.”

The eagerness went away from his lined and swollen face when a hearty voice rumbled, “Will Gentry, Mike. And this time you’ve got yourself in deeper than I can get you out.”

“What cooks, Will?”

“You’ll soon be, in a vat of oil-unless you can think of a lot of answers fast. There’s an FBI in my office.”

“Pearson?”

“Right. He’s got a lump on the side of his jaw and a yen to meet the guy who put it there.”

Shayne said, “Listen, Will-”

“You do the listening. For God’s sake, Mike, you can’t push Washington around. They’ll bury you under the Atlanta prison all wrapped up in red tape.”

“All right,” Shayne sighed. “What does he want-an apology?”

“I don’t think he’s interested in apologies. He wants to talk to you about Jim Lacy.”

Shayne said, “Why not? I’d like to hear what he’s got to say, too.”

“That’s fine.” Gentry sounded relieved. “We’ll be right over.”

Shayne said, “Hold it, Will. Can’t you stall him for a little while?”

“Why should I? You’ve got to come clean sooner or later.”

“All I want is a few minutes. Time enough to get rid of a caller before you get here. Give me fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll try. But no more than that. You can’t play hide the button with these guys.”

Shayne said, “Thanks, Will. Fifteen minutes.”

He cradled the phone and swung into the living-room. His eyes were hard and bright. He said, “Get up,” to the girl slumped in the chair.

Helen got up slowly. Her shoulders drooped and she avoided his gaze. She had put all of herself into her passionate appeal for his help and she knew she had lost.

“We’re having company,” Shayne said swiftly. “The law is coming up. Get in the bedroom and stay out of sight. Under the bed or in the closet. We’ll finish our talk after I get rid of my visitors. I’ve got a hunch I’ll have a lot of questions to ask you after I’ve talked to them.”

He stood aside for her to enter the bedroom, his face hard and inscrutable. She hesitated as she went past him, half turned, and parted her lips to speak.

When she met his unyielding eyes she compressed her lips and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

Shayne swiftly set himself to the task of getting rid of all traces of his visitor. He rinsed out Helen’s glass and set it back in the cabinet. He checked the ash trays for rouged cigarette butts, even went so far as to plump out the cushions of the chair in which she had been sitting.

When he finished he stood by the door and looked over the room with narrowed eyes. Everything was as it should be. The faint scent of heliotrope still hung in the air, and he opened the windows. Gentry would know damn well Phyllis didn’t wear heliotrope perfume.

When he was sure everything was in order, he poured a moderate drink and paced up and down while he drank it. The lines in his face deepened as he mentally went over Helen’s account of the incidents that had followed her departure from the Danube Restaurant.

Taken at its face value, which he was not quite sure was the right way to take it, Phyllis appeared to be in a bad spot. He was not certain, of course, that Phyllis had been in the cab that followed Leroy and Helen. But it seemed the only reasonable assumption. Nor did he have any real proof that Leroy had succeeded in grabbing Phyllis when he went back to investigate his tail. Helen professed not to know what had happened after she ran away.

The only real indication of danger to Phyllis was that she had not returned or called in. That meant that she was unable to do either, for she knew he would be tortured with worry over her.

So Leroy must have grabbed her on that deserted side street. Perhaps the driver of her cab was in cahoots with the gang. The senseless way in which he had tailed Leroy seemed to indicate collusion. Almost any driver with experience would know better than to pull in to the curb behind his quarry after Leroy parked.

The only logical deduction a man could make was that Phyllis was now in the hands of the gang who were after Jim Lacy’s piece of cardboard.

Sweat streamed down the deep trenches in Mike Shayne’s cheeks as he strove to put that thought out of his mind. He could not put it away. No man could. Not after what had happened in the apartment that afternoon. No man could forget the way Leroy had stood behind Phyllis’s chair, the lust in his voice as he had spread her robe apart, the glitter in his eyes as he started to untie the knotted belt holding the single garment covering her body.