Brett Halliday - The Uncomplaining Corpses

Shayne set his glass and bottle on the table beside two half-empty beer mugs. He flopped into the chair Joe pulled up and looked at the girl. A full-mouthed face was under the floppy hat. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying and she blinked them rapidly when Joe introduced her to Shayne as Dora with a determined note of pride in his voice that was, somehow, pathetic to Shayne.

Dora couldn’t have been more than eighteen. Her complexion had the swollen look of early pregnancy. Her chin was weak, and wobbled when she tried to speak, but she didn’t appear unhappy or ashamed when Joe explained:

“Dora’s gonna have a baby, see? An’ we wanta get hitched. But, Jeez, I’m flatter’n a sucker’s bankroll after they take him over the hurdles at Hialeah.”

Shayne nodded. He uncorked the cognac bottle and poured liquor into his glass. “Fred told me you’d been having it tough. Keeping your nose clean?”

Dejection settled over Joe Darnell’s youthful face again. “Sure am, Mike, an’ what’s it gettin’ me? I ain’t so sure it’s smart.”

“It is smart, Joe,” Dora said quickly. “Please don’t talk like that.”

Both men looked at the girl in some surprise when she spoke so vehemently. She sounded more mature than she looked.

Joe lifted his shoulders and eyebrows, spread out his hands, turning to Shayne. “That’s the way it is, see? Dora gets in a sweat if I mention pulling a job. But we’re flat. She ain’t gettin’ the right things to eat. It ain’t fair, Mike. Me tryin’ to stay honest and can’t take care of my girl-an’ the town’s full of chiselers ridin’ in limousines an’ drinkin’ champagne. Sometimes I wonder what the law’s for.”

Shayne nodded. His face was sour. “It doesn’t make sense.” He warmed his glass of cognac in his big hands, lifted it, and drank slowly. Irrationally, he caught himself wondering if Arnold Thrip had a limousine and drank champagne.

He placed the empty glass down gently. Dora put her hand on his arm and said low-voiced, “Joe’s told me lots about you, Mr. Shayne. He got a big kick out of helping you on that other case. Couldn’t you-find something for him-now?”

Shayne’s brooding eyes held the girl’s for a moment, then he nodded abruptly. “I think maybe I can, Dora.” He turned to Joe, pushing back his chair. “We’d better talk this over in private, Joe.”

Dora started to protest the desertion as Joe got up and Shayne silenced her by explaining, “A private detective’s business has to be private, Dora. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

He and Joe strolled back to the men’s room, went in, and Shayne latched the door behind them.

“You really got somethin’,” Joe asked eagerly, “or you just tryin’ to cheer Dora up by makin’ her think so?”

“I’ve got something, Joe. I don’t know-” Shayne moved past a row of stalls to a frosted window which was lowered from the top for ventilation. He stared out thoughtfully at a refuse-littered back alley. “Still got your tools?” he asked without turning around.

“Yeh. They’re right where I cached ’em before I went up to Raiford.”

“I know a guy,” Shayne explained carefully, “who’s figuring on pulling a fast one. He’s laying a grand on the line for a fake burglary. I’ve got no use for a bird like that and you need that grand worse than he does. He’ll leave it lying handy tonight if you want to go after it.”

Behind him, Joe Darnell’s face registered amazement, then disbelief. “You mean-you’re puttin’ me onto pullin’ a job?”

Shayne whirled on him savagely. His eyes were sultry. “Why not? The twerp had the nerve to ask me to do the job. He deserves to get his ears knocked down. And he’s expecting to get plenty for having it pulled. I wouldn’t lie awake nights worrying about it if that mistake cost him a grand. He’ll be waiting at five o’clock to explain the lay to you. Take him while he’s ripe for the pickings, Joe. There won’t be any danger. He and his wife are both in on it. He wants an empty jewel case snatched and a jimmied window to prove to the police it was an outside job.”

Shayne paused. His nostrils flared widely. “He’s going to leave a thousand-dollar bill in the jewel case. Why not cross him up by leaving the case behind and not leaving any marks on the window? He’s dumb enough to believe you’re going to do the job according to specifications. When you go out there this evening get him to leave a window unlatched. Explain to him that a jimmy won’t open a locked window.” Shayne paused. His eyes were hard, like gray marble. “By God, I’d like to see him hoist on his own petard. If he tries to stash the jewel case after you leave it behind,” he went on hurriedly, “and puts up a holler that his wife’s jewels are missing, it’ll look like nothing but a plant to the cops and he’ll have plenty of explaining to do. Do you get the angle?”

Joe’s eyes were very bright. He licked his lips all the way around. “I’ll say I do. That’s a hot one, Mike. He can’t squawk about it without givin’ the whole plant away.” Joe stared for a moment, dumbfounded, then doubled over with laughter. “That’s neat, Mike. Neat, I’ll say. And it ain’t like he didn’t ask for it.”

Shayne smiled grimly. “Better not tell Dora,” he cautioned. “Women have funny notions sometimes. The name is Arnold Thrip. He’s got a place on Miami Beach. Be there at five if you want to take a crack at it.” He unlatched the door and they went out.

At the table Dora welcomed their return with a hopeful smile. “Did you get something fixed, Joe?” she asked eagerly.

“And how!” Joe was exultant. “We’ll get married tomorrow, honey. We’ll be in the money. Boy! What a setup!”

Dora jumped up and planted a moist kiss on Shayne’s cheek before he could back away. “I knew you’d help Joe. I kept telling him-”

“Sure, sure.” Shayne paused uncertainly, then shrugged his big shoulders. Half to himself and half to Joe he muttered argumentatively, “Hell, it can’t hurt anything.” He slapped Joe on the shoulder and wished him good luck, lifted his hat to Dora, and hurried out.

It was a little after four o’clock when Michael Shayne sauntered back into the lobby of his hotel where he had kept his old bachelor apartment as an office when he moved up into the new apartment with his new wife.

At the desk the clerk said, “There was a lady in here looking for you a few minutes ago, Mr. Shayne, She looked like class so I used my own judgment and asked her to wait in your new apartment instead of the old one.”

Shayne thanked him and went up three floors in the elevator. Down the hall to his left he stopped in front of a door and turned the knob.

He took a step forward and stopped on the threshold. His eyes widened in surprise. Phyllis and Mrs. Leora Thrip were sitting together at a coffee table chatting as though they had known each other for years.

Phyllis Shayne stopped pouring tea when her husband entered the living-room. She set the silver teapot carefully on the coffee table beside her and looked up with unaffected gladness in time to catch a humorous questioning in his eyes just before he turned his back and closed the door.

She wore a floor-length hostess gown of blue satin which made her cheeks look cool and gave dignity to her slim young body held primly erect. The sheen of her dark hair vied with the sheen of the gown and the illusion was of blue-black hair parted in the center, combed back in waves from a wide forehead. She wore a minimum of make-up. Phyllis Shayne was working hard at the job of being a suitable wife for her thirty-five-year-old husband, and when she remembered to be careful and not overexuberant, she looked almost her full age, which was twenty.