Brett Halliday - Counterfeit Wife

He stood in the doorway until a bulky man came in belting a black silk robe about his protuberant middle. He was bald with a fringe of gray hair around the back of his head. His face was plump and rosy and he had the placid, satisfied manner of a pastor of a wealthy congregation. He scuffed in past Perry, wearing a pair of rope sandals with heavy cork soles.

When he saw Shayne, the man stopped suddenly, his bleary eyes staring in blank amazement.

Shayne stared back at him and grinned. The grin broke the dried blood on his face into innumerable little cracks. He said, “Senator Irvin, by God.”

The ex-state senator said, “Shayne!” in a high, squeaky voice apparently gone completely out of control. His florid face became mottled with anxiety. He clasped his pudgy hands together over his belly and forced his voice down the scale by several notes when he asked, “What are you doing here?”

The grin stayed on Shayne’s face. He said, “I heard that you’d beat that Raiford rap, Senator, but I didn’t think you’d have guts enough to show your face in Miami again.”

“Mike Shayne,” Perry said softly. “That tough shamus I been readin’ about in the papers? Maybe you want Getchie should soften him up, boss?”

“Wait a minute, Perry.” The senator scuffed forward and seated himself in a comfortable chair opposite Shayne, who sprawled on the davenport. “Bring us something to drink, Getchie. Mineral water for me. Scotch, Shayne?”

“If you haven’t any cognac.”

“I’m afraid it’ll have to be Scotch.” The senator got a white linen handkerchief from a pocket of his robe and blew his nose resoundingly as the Negro left the room. “I’m really amazed, Shayne. I had no idea when Bates telephoned-But you’ve been hurt,” he went on with concern. “I’m sorry-”

“He got that in a car crack-up,” Perry said sourly. “Some blonde dame at the Fun Club took him for a ride and piled up on Thirty-sixth.”

“But I understood Bates to say he would hold the man for your arrival,” the senator said in a tone of extreme irritation.

“That Bates,” Perry spat out. “He don’t know which way is up. This mug walks out on him with the dame ’fore we get there.”

Getchie came back into the room with a wooden tray containing a decanter of mineral water, a bucket of ice cubes, a bottle of Scotch, two glasses, and a siphon of soda. He set it on a table, put ice cubes and water from the decanter in one glass and handed it to the senator, put two ice cubes in the other glass, and took the cork out of the whisky bottle.

“A steady hand does it. I’ll say when,” said Shayne, leaning forward as the Negro began pouring. The glass was full to the brim before he said, “When,” and then added, “never mind the soda,” as the man looked questioningly at the siphon.

Shayne drank half of the whisky and felt a lot better. “Nice of you to have me here at this time of night,” he told the senator.

“How do you figure in this, Shayne?” Irvin asked.

Shayne said irritably, “In what?”

The senator sighed and looked at Perry. Perry stepped forward to hand him a hundred-dollar bill. Irvin smoothed it out on his knee. “Bates says you tried to buy some drinks with this.”

“What’s the matter with it?” asked Shayne.

“I didn’t say anything was the matter with it. I simply want to know where you got it,” Irvin countered.

“I cashed a check at the bank this afternoon.”

“Perhaps. But the bank didn’t give you this bill.”

“How in hell do you know it didn’t?”

“Please, Shayne,” said the senator patiently, “let’s not talk in circles.”

“Then tell me what it’s all about.” Shayne lifted the glass to his lips and took a long drink.

Irvin sighed and said, “Hit him, Getchie.”

The Negro hit Shayne in the face with his open palm.

“That was just to convince you that we’re not fooling,” the ex-senator explained quietly, pinching the pendulous flesh of his third chin. “Where did you get the bill, and how many of them have you?”

Shayne got up and walked to the tray holding the whisky bottle. Blood oozed from his upper lip where his teeth had cut through from the Negro’s blow. He picked up the decanter of mineral water, poured his cupped palm full, and, bending forward, dashed it over his face. He repeated the performance until his face felt free of the blood, then wet his handkerchief thoroughly and mopped around his neck.

The trio watched him in stony silence. Then Perry said, “They say this mug is plenty tough. Whyn’t you let Getchie work him over some more, an’ then we can-”

“I think Shayne will tell us what we want to know,” said the senator quietly.

Shayne strolled back to the davenport. The Negro took the detective’s wallet from his hip pocket. Shayne sat down again and nursed the bottle of Scotch which he had brought with him, watching the senator with an oddly abstracted expression on his gaunt face.

Irvin opened the wallet and fanned through the contents. He studied one bill and nodded, placed it with the other one on his knee and returned the balance to the billfold. “Two of them. Why did you try to pass one at Bates’s place? What did you expect to find out?”

“To hell with this,” Shayne exploded angrily. “If those bills are phonies, I’m the one who should be sore about it. I sold my car this afternoon for cash. Those bills are part of the price I got.”

“Who bought your car?” The senator’s voice was smooth as silk.

“I don’t know his name. I met him in a garage on Flagler.”

“We’ll find out his name,” the senator said. “There has to be a record of the bill of sale. We’ll keep you till tomorrow morning, and if you’re lying, Shayne-”

Shayne took a long drink from the bottle while he thought rapidly. “All right,” he admitted. “I was lying. But I don’t see why I have to stick my neck out for a guy I never saw before. Particularly if the bastard slipped me a couple of queer ones. I intended to leave town tonight on the midnight plane. You can check that easily enough. I missed the damned plane and came back in a taxi. I felt like a drink and dropped off at the Fun Club on the way to town.”

That, he thought, would cover the blonde’s angle, if she were in on it somehow and told her story.

“All right. But where did the bills come from?”

“I’m getting to that. I checked out of my apartment at noon, and-well, you know how things are in Miami right now. I happened to meet a guy that was yelling his head off about not having any place to stay. I didn’t see any reason not to pick up a piece of change so I slipped him a tip on my apartment, and he gave me those two C’s for the dope.” He dabbed at his cut and bleeding lip with the wet handkerchief.

“You’re probably still lying,” said Irvin. “What apartment house?”

Shayne gave the apartment name and the room number, hoping to God they had rented it that afternoon and feeling vaguely sorry for whoever had rented it.

The senator nodded to Perry. “Check on that.”

Perry went out of the room. Shayne set the whisky bottle on the floor and pressed the handkerchief to his lips again. He said to the Negro, “Next time we meet I’m going to slice the other side of your face to match that scar.”

The Negro’s arms remained insolently folded, and his eyes were low-lidded. He pushed his thick lips out at Shayne but said nothing.

Irvin irritably drummed fat fingertips on the arm of his chair and said placatingly, “Getchie simply did what he was told to do, Shayne. I had to convince you this was serious business.”

Perry came back into the room. He said, “Could be, boss. The shamus checked out at noon like he said, and sent his suitcase to the airport. His apartment was rented again right afterward, but the clerk don’t think the new fellow has moved in yet. By the name of Slocum. He didn’t answer his phone.”