Brett Halliday - Dividend on Death

“What makes you ask that?” He looked at her.

She was frowning perplexedly. She looked older than he had thought her this afternoon. Twenty, maybe. And she was beautiful.

“Because I remember, or dreamed, that you talked with me. That you put your arm around me and walked with me. That you-made me take off my nightgown in front of you.”

Shayne couldn’t stand that look of tortured questioning in her eyes. She was thinking about that locked door. It was the one thing that stood between her and the belief that she had committed matricide. If he took that away from her-

He shook his head. “That’s a hell of a thing to imagine, youngster, even for Freud. You’ve got a lot of goofy ideas. I’m not the kind of a guy to watch a girl take off her nightgown in a bedroom-and not do anything about it. You can mark me out of your dream.”

“I-wondered.” She shivered and swallowed hard, looked away from him. “There are some women who don’t-appeal to men that way.”

“What are you getting at?” he growled.

“I’ve been reading some of Doctor Pedique’s books. He lent them to me to study so I might understand myself better when he discovered what he thinks is my-unnatural love for Mother.”

Her voice trailed off, and again there was only silence in the room. Shayne sipped his cognac and fought to keep a rational grip on himself. Something inside him was beginning to feel sick. The girl’s voice began again, quite impersonally, as if the whole thing were hateful but she was resigned to it. “His books are full of case histories of people with curious sexual complexes. I didn’t realize-I didn’t know there were that sort of people in the world.”

“There are lots of things you’d be just as well off not knowing.”

“But it was important to me. It fascinated me after Doctor Pedique hinted I wasn’t-normal that way. I read everything he had, to try and find out for myself whether he was right.”

Shayne’s fist thumped on the table. “He was screwy to give you those books to read. You’re too young and you’ve got too much imagination. It’s not healthy to study that sort of stuff.”

“I wanted to,” she cried wildly. “I had to find out about myself.”

“Well, did you?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I thought I recognized the same feelings inside of me as the books described.”

“Autosuggestion,” Shayne muttered. “You were wide open to that sort of stuff.”

“I’ve got to know, now.” She leaned toward him pleadingly. “I can’t go on any longer without being sure. You’ve got to help me.” She caught his hands in hers.

“I?” Shayne frowned. “I’m not a doctor. I can’t-”

“But you’re a man.” There was frenzy in her voice. “A normal man. You can tell. The books say normal men can tell and won’t have anything to do with girls like that. If you can’t-if you won’t-if you don’t want me, I’ll know. And I’ll kill myself.”

Shayne pushed his chair back and stood up. It was hot in the room, stifling. He loosened his pajama collar and went to the window, drawing in great drafts of fresh air, and tried to get a grip on himself.

When he turned about, she was also standing, trembling, her face white. “You are repulsed by me. Then-it’s so!”

“Don’t be a fool,” Shayne said roughly. “You’re just a kid. I can’t-Good God! I’m old enough to be your father.”

“I’m nineteen. And you’re only thirty-five. You said so this afternoon.” She was moving toward him, hope glowing hotly in her eyes.

There was a weakness inside of Shayne. Phyllis Brighton stopped very close to him.

She said, “Don’t you see I have to know? I have to. Nothing else matters. You promised to help me. You can. By proving to me that I’m a normal woman-desirable to a normal man.”

“You’ve been out with men before, haven’t you? Haven’t they-”

“Not with ones that are grown up, like you.” She held out her hands. “If you’d just kiss me I’d know,” she said, as if it hurt her to ask him.

“If I kiss you,” Shayne told her somberly, “it won’t end there.” He had hold of her hands and he didn’t realize that he was crushing them in his hard grasp.

“I don’t want it to end there.” Her voice was quiet, and she didn’t seem young any more. Shayne forgot that he had been thinking of her as just a kid who was trusting herself with him alone in his apartment. He was drawing her closer, hurting her cruelly, but she did not flinch. Exaltation shone in her eyes. She lifted her head, offering him her lips.

He said, “God have pity on us both if I kiss you, Phyllis.”

Her only response was to press close to him. The resilient warmth of her body against him was too much for Shayne to resist. There was a blaze flaming inside him now. He kissed her lips, and she gave herself to him, eagerly, utterly.

He put her away from him after a time, and his gaze was hungry, brooding. “I warned you. You can’t turn things like this on and off, you know-like an electric switch.”

“I don’t want to.” There wasn’t a trace of coquetry in her smile. It was a smile of sincere and honest gladness. “Where’s the bedroom?” She glanced about the room.

“That door.” Shayne’s forefinger stabbed at a closed door. “The bathroom is the door on the right.”

She patted his hand and went to the bedroom. Shayne stood there, and his gaze followed her until the door shut her from his sight. His mind was racing, trying to puzzle something through in spite of the clamor in his blood. Nothing quite like this had ever happened to him before. He poured himself a drink, held it up, and let light spill through the amber fluid. Then his eyes became abruptly intent, and he set the glass down without tasting it, went to the bedroom, and knocked.

Phyllis’s muffled voice called, “Come.”

Shayne saw that she was already in bed, the coverlet pulled up to her chin.

There was a loud thumping on Shayne’s outside door as he started to say something to Phyllis.

He whirled tautly. A heavy voice called, “Open up, Shayne.”

He turned to look at Phyllis. “No. They didn’t follow you. Like hell they didn’t. Stay in bed and don’t move. Don’t make a sound. I’ll try to stall them.”

He whirled and went out, switching off the light and closing the door quietly. “All right,” he growled as the thumping continued, “give a man time to get out of his bathroom.”

Stepping softly to the table he pocketed the. 25 automatic, set Phyllis’s wineglass upside down in the cabinet, and emptied his. Then he strode to the bathroom, flushed the toilet, sauntered to the door, and opened it. He didn’t bother to act surprised when he saw the heads of the Miami and the Miami Beach detective bureaus standing in the corridor outside. Instead, he scowled and said, “This is a hell of a time to come visiting,” stepped aside, and let them enter.

Will Gentry came in first. He was a heavy man with a face the color of raw beef who walked solidly on the thick soles of square-toed black shoes and wore a dark suit and a black felt hat tipped back on his perspiring forehead. A stolid, persevering man who ran the Miami detective bureau as it had been run for thirty years. He said, “Hello, Mike,” and went past Shayne to stand by the table.

His companion was Peter Painter, “dynamic and recently appointed chief of the Miami Beach detective bureau,” as the press had been describing him. Shayne knew him slightly. He was medium in height and slender, a few years younger than Shayne, and his appearance at the moment was characteristic. He wore a double-breasted Palm Beach suit and a creamy Panama hat. White-and-tan sport shoes, a pin-striped tan shirt, and a brown-and-red four-in-hand tie completed his ensemble. Shayne’s eyes flickered as he took in this sartorial tour-de-force, but not from admiration.