Brett Halliday - Counterfeit Wife

The voices hushed as he approached, and his quickened perceptions guessed that they heard him coming and did not wish to be overheard.

He was ten feet away when a cigarette lighter flared in the front seat. The man’s cupped fingers shielded the flame as he drew it into a cigarette, and the light showed the flickering outline of a thin, hawklike face.

Shayne kept on walking at the same even pace but swerved to the left and passed the sedan without another glance. One look at the man’s face had been enough to warn him away from Mrs. Dawson.

He hadn’t seen Fred Gurney for three years, but Gurney was a man not to be forgotten easily. Any woman who bummed around with him was very likely to be bad medicine and not one whom Shayne cared to put on the trail of an escaping husband.

He walked on twenty feet to another row of parked cars, stood there indecisively for a moment as though looking for someone, then turned and went briskly back to the waiting taxi.

The driver unlatched the door; Shayne shoved his suitcase inside and stepped in after it.

The gray sedan showed headlights and the motor began throbbing. The taxi driver asked, “Where to, mister?”

Shayne hesitated for a moment. He hadn’t given any thought to the immediate future. He had checked out of his apartment that afternoon, and the management supposed him to be now well on his way to New Orleans. With the apartment shortage, there was every chance that the one he had vacated had been rented. Still, it was a building where he was well known from previous years in Miami, and if they had any sort of vacancy they’d be glad to give it to him.

He had no idea, however, how long he would stay in Miami. Perhaps only overnight. He hadn’t had time yet to sort out the feelings that had overwhelmed him since Lucy Hamilton had curtly hung up on him after informing him he was no longer her employer.

His first sensation had been one of angry hurt. It had been a long time since any woman had been able to hurt him. Somehow, his action in turning over his ticket to Parson-or Dawson if the big blonde’s statements were true-and remaining in Miami had been a way of striking back at Lucy. If she didn’t want the pearl necklace, he was damned sure he could find plenty of dames in Miami who would be glad to have it.

Inexplicably, he thought of the coiled braids of hair around Mrs. Dawson’s head, of the smooth column of neck rising above her shoulders. There, the pearls would look good.

The occupants of the gray sedan seemed in no hurry to move even after the motor was started. Now it was being backed out and turned into the driveway.

“Where to, mister?” the taxi driver asked again.

“Follow that car,” said Shayne. “The gray sedan heading toward town. But stay back far enough so they won’t know they’re being followed.”

The taxi slid away. Shayne settled back to make himself physically comfortable in the car, but there was a deep scowl between his half-closed gray eyes. Suddenly he wanted to get drunk. Drunk enough to forget all about Lucy and the empty office in New Orleans. But he needed a drinking companion and he liked women who could hold their liquor the way Mrs. Dawson had been holding hers when he had first seen her entering the terminal.

It had absolutely nothing to do with the glimpse he had had of Fred Gurney. Gurney was nothing to him. He simply felt sorry for a woman like Mrs. Dawson who had to rely on men like her dough-faced husband and Fred Gurney for male companionship. He was convinced that she deserved better than that.

On the other hand, perhaps she was genuinely in love with her husband and worried about him. In that case, the decent thing would be for him to tell her where he was. He’d heard too many women blaspheme husbands whom they loved, when they were angry or upset. And certainly Mrs. Dawson had reason to be worried and angry and upset about hers.

If he could contact her and get rid of Gurney, maybe she’d invite him to her home where they could talk privately and have some drinks. He’d like to see her in a flowing dressing-gown, with her hair brushed out and hanging around her shoulders.

Shayne stirred angrily as the taxi sped on through the cool, humid air. A derisive grin twisted his mouth as he looked ahead at the taillights of the gray sedan. He was bored and jealous and feeling sorry for himself. By God, he was chasing after the first woman to come within his line of vision after Lucy kicked him in the face. He was striking back at Lucy, and she was in New Orleans and would never know how he felt.

The sedan was whipping along at a good pace on the nearly deserted street a couple of blocks ahead. Mrs. Dawson drove steadily and well, giving no more evidence of drunkenness than she had at the airport. The road led due east into Miami, and Shayne’s thoughts went around in circles. It had been a tough day and a tougher evening.

He knew there were some night spots in this section, and he was about to tell the driver to forget the sedan and stop at the first place that was open when he felt a slackening of pace, and the driver grunted, “They’re slowing down. Want me to stay behind ’em?”

“Without making it too noticeable,” said Shayne.

They were much closer to the gray sedan now. A cluster of neon lights on the left side of the street told passers-by that the Fun Club was still open for business and half a dozen cars parked in the semicircle in front proclaimed that they weren’t without customers.

The car they were trailing suddenly swung to the left and into the driveway leading up to the low, stuccoed building.

“Go on past,” Shayne directed the driver sharply. “Far enough so you can swing around and come back after they’re inside.”

The driver accelerated and passed the driveway as the sedan pulled into an open place among the parked cars. Shayne let him continue a few blocks before saying, “Turn around now and take me back.”

The driver made a U-turn and, a moment later, pulled into the driveway and stopped in front of the door. Music pulsed gently into the silent night, and brilliant red and green lights on the outside rippled over the gently swaying palm fronds circling the building, dimming the yellowish glow from within.

“No,” the driver said unhappily, when Shayne invited him to go in and have a drink. “I gotta be gettin’ in, see? I’m due in at midnight, an’ my old lady’s sorta sick, an’ I’ll catch Hail Columbia if I’m any later’n I am already.”

Shayne’s Gladstone was still in the back of the cab. He thought for a moment and then took his wallet out. “Will a five fix it for you to drive on in and drop my suitcase off for me?” He gave the address of an apartment hotel in downtown Miami and added, “Tell the night clerk that Mr. Shayne missed another plane and has decided to stay in Miami for a while. Tell him to hold my old apartment for me if it’s still vacant, or hunt up something else. I’ll be in later.”

He took a five-dollar bill from his wallet, noting as he did so that it was the last one smaller than a hundred. This reminded him of the two bills Parson-or Dawson-had given him at the airport. He reached in his pocket, found them wadded together in a ball, smoothed them out, and fitted them into the wallet with others of the same denomination.

The driver eagerly accepted the five-spot, saying, “Shayne? Are you Mike Shayne, the detective I been readin’ about that-”

“I’m Mike Shayne,” the redhead told him good-naturedly, “but don’t believe all you read in the newspapers. And don’t forget to deliver my suitcase and the message.”

He stood back and waited for the taxi to pull away, then strolled leisurely over to the parking space in front and looked inside the gray sedan. It was empty.