Brett Halliday - The Uncomplaining Corpses

Michael Shayne said, “All right, Mr. Thrip. I’ll be over to see you right away.” He pronged the receiver on the hook and stood beside the bedside table staring at the wall for a moment, rubbing his chin perplexedly.

It was a large corner bedroom newly decorated in cream and ivory with a light tan and yellow rug on the floor. The furniture was blond maple of modernistic style, a suite which Phyllis Shayne, nee Brighton, had selected before they went on their honeymoon to Cuba. Shayne hadn’t approved of it, but he hadn’t told Phyllis so. Now, after three days of living in the new apartment, he was glad. Phyllis fitted into the modernistic background as though it had been originally designed for her.

An afternoon breeze blew in from Biscayne Bay, fluttering the draperies at Shayne’s left. From wide south windows at his right he could hear the hum of traffic entering the city from Brickell Avenue over the Miami River drawbridge. The sounds were familiar. He had listened to them for more than a decade during which he lived in a bachelor apartment one floor below this one, yet it seemed to Shayne that he had never heard them until three days ago. He had an odd feeling that past years had not been real, an interlude of futility while he waited for a two weeks’ honeymoon in Cuba with Phyllis and these three days at home.

Shayne looked again at the telephone and said, “H-m-m.” He tugged at the lobe off his ear and frowned, his eyes half closed. He grunted again and took six long strides which brought him to a south window where he stood looking down upon the river. A tugboat labored to draw a giant dredge slowly behind it while smaller craft scuttled around them. From the west, pleasure boats gaily bedecked for Miami’s winter season glided toward the drawbridge. Magnificent automobiles of the wealthy, lumbering trucks, lesser vehicles raced across the bridge. Boat whistles signaled and long arms barred traffic to the bridge as it went up. A veritable sea of traffic filled the avenue. Cars crawled up, slipped into dangerously small spaces seeking an advantage to make the dash across the instant the long bridge bars were raised.

Shayne walked slowly to an east window and stared out upon the purple waters of the bay where sleek white yachts were moored near the shore or anchored in the channel. From the kitchen of his new apartment he heard the faint clinking of glass and Phyllis’s husky voice humming a popular tune. He planted his feet wide apart and grinned at his moodiness.

For two weeks and three days he had let himself forget that hoodlums and crooks and hardened criminals flocked to Miami for the winter season.

His mouth tightened grimly. His fingers contracted into big, hard fists. His honeymoon was over, and Thrip’s telephone call meant that he had to get back to work.

He moved hastily across the room, stopped abruptly beside the double bed with its handsome silk rose spread and fussy little pillows. His abstracted eyes sought out Phyllis’s small furred mules set sedately beside his own big kid slippers; turned to look at her toilet articles arrayed on the glass top of the blond dresser with its round mirror, and on to the open closet door disclosing his suits companionably rubbing shoulders with Phyllis’s sports frocks and evening gowns.

He looked up with a start to see Phyllis standing in the bedroom door with an expression of wifely solicitude on her young face. Her black eyes danced with excitement and curiosity.

“Are you going to stay in here all day and not tell me what the telephone call was? Is it a case?”

“Sounded like it, sweet. Very mysterious. Sinister, you might say.” He chuckled and crossed the rug to her. “Looks like vacation’s over.”

She met him with lifted arms. “Honeymoon, you mean. I knew it would be a case. I wish this could have lasted forever, Mike.”

The intensity of her voice stopped his chuckle. He slid an arm around her slim waist and said, “Think of all the murderers who might go unhung if Michael Shayne spent the rest of his life lolling in his bride’s arms.”

“Is it a murder case? You’ll be careful, won’t you? You promised me.”

Above the luster of her wavy black hair Shayne’s lips quirked upward. But he said very gravely, “Yes, angel, I’ll be careful. I promised to run like hell if anybody said boo, and a Shayne’s promise is as good as another man’s bond.” He swung her into the long pleasant living-room which ran the full width of the apartment on the east. He squeezed her, released her with a little shove.

“You’re putting me off,” she accused. “Can I go with you? I’ll be terribly businesslike.”

Shayne shook his red head at her. “Nothing doing, angel. There’s no telling what’s up. That was Mr. Arnold Thrip on the phone. He’s a realtor with an office on Flagler and he wants to see me at once. I’m not acquainted with the gentleman. He may have committed a murder, be contemplating one, or expecting to be murdered. He may want me to tail his wife for divorce evidence in which case I’ll be back in a hurry.” He grinned down at her and pinched her cheek. “Besides, he may be an ogre that eats beautiful young brides.”

Phyllis looked forlorn. “It’ll be awfully lonesome here.”

“Chin up,” he commanded. His eyes twinkled. “Don’t forget I warned you when you forced me into this. Other wives manage somehow. You can take all the calls and entertain any clients who drop in informally for a spot of tea.”

“I hope some of your gunmen friends come.” Phyllis’s dark eyes sparkled. “They’d just love tea.” She went to the door with him, holding his arm tightly. He opened the door and she breathed, “You will be careful, Mike?”

He kissed her lips, saying gruffly, “You’re not the lucky type, angel. You look so damned alluring in black I’m not going to give you an opportunity to wear it.” He settled a limp felt firmly on his red hair and strode down the hall.

Neat black lettering on the opaque glass upper portion of the door said: Arnold Thrip-Realty Investments-Enter.

Michael Shayne turned the knob and went in. An impressive outer office met his eye. A third of the large room was railed off as a waiting sector, complete with a thick rug, chromium and red-leather chairs, shining ash trays accurately spaced.

Beyond the polished mahogany railing three girl typists presented their backs to him, heads bowed over clacking machines. At his left an up-and-coming blonde was speaking into a rubber mouthpiece suspended from her neck; she frowned and made a notation on a pad, then favored Shayne with an aloof but interested glance.

Shayne lifted shaggy red brows and let the door close softly behind him. Two long-legged strides took him across the deep carpet to the railing. He dragged off his hat and asked, “Is Mr. Thrip in?”

The blonde did a quick job of sizing him up. Rough tweeds hung loosely on a body that was too lean for his wide shoulders. Sunlight from open, west windows made a flame of his hair. His features were rugged with prominent cheekbones and deep hollows. A too-wide mouth and humorous lights in his deep-set gray eyes belied the severity of his square jaw. He was not a typical Thrip client, but then you never could tell in Miami.

She poked a crimson-tipped finger at a button in the small desk in front of her and asked briskly, “The name, please.”

“Shayne. Mr. Thrip is expecting me.” The blonde nipped the button over and nodded to Shayne. “You’re to go right in.” She inclined her head toward a closed door marked: Private. He nodded and went into Arnold Thrip’s inner office.

A heavy-bodied man stood up behind a big tidy desk as Shayne entered. Three telephones were arranged in a row before him. A freshly lit cigar lay across an onyx ash tray.