Brett Halliday - Die Like a Dog

She said, “Marvin and I had stingers after dinner. Would you like to mix another batch?”

Shayne squeezed her hand hard and looked down at the top of her shining head which lightly brushed his shoulder. He released her hand and said, “I’d rather have a straight drink.” He reached for one of the cocktail glasses and she moved toward a silken bellcord, murmuring, “I’ll ring for a clean glass.”

Shayne said, “Please don’t. I’d much rather use one of these and be alone here with you.” He twisted the glass stopper from the large decanter and filled one of the cocktail glasses to the brim. She had moved back close to him when he lifted it to his lips. He breathed in deeply the clean, delightful bouquet from the distillate of sun-ripened grapes, and the tips of her taut, full breasts, behind the silky white of a loose blouse, pressed lightly against his chest as she moved even closer.

She stood rigid, just touching him, her arms straight down at her sides and both hands tightly clenched. Over the rim of his glass, he stared down into her uplifted face. Her eyes were tightly closed and a tear squeezed out of the inner corner of each one and trailed down her lovely, waxen cheeks. Her lips were parted and the tip of her tongue showed between them, and they moved almost imperceptibly, and, faintly as the sound of a muted bell, he heard the whispered words that seemed to well up from deep inside her and not from her vocal cords at all:

“I want you, Michael Shayne.”

He sat the cocktail glass down without tasting the contents. She stood rigid and unmoving against him. Very carefully, he put his right arm about her shoulders. Her flesh seemed to pulse against his as he put slowly increasing pressure against her shoulders, crushing her against his chest, and her head fell back farther and her lips parted more widely, and then her eyes came open as he lowered his head, and they were unfocussed and gleaming, the irises showing enormously large, and when his lips touched hers, her belly and her loins writhed against him and the suction of her mouth on his was avid and compelling.

It was either a brief moment or an eternity that they stood like that, as close as two humans can get. Then Shayne heard the insistent ringing of door chimes from the front, and he slowly released her and stepped back to pick up the cocktail glass in a trembling hand, just as Mrs. Blair hurried past the open doors on her way to answer the front door.

Anita smiled dreamily at him and rested the knuckles of her left hand on top of the table. “I imagine that will be Dr. Evans come to see Charles. He’s always so prompt.”

Shayne took a gulp of cognac. It burned all the way down his throat to meet but not assuage another sort of burning in the pit of his stomach. He said, “That’s nice of Dr. Evans,” set his glass down and fumbled a cigarette out of his shirt pocket while Anita sauntered to the gap in the sliding doors and stood there looking out composedly until Mrs. Blair and the doctor hurried by, and said, “Let me know about Charles at once, Doctor. I do hope it isn’t serious.” She turned back to Shayne and asked serenely, “It isn’t, is it?”

“Just a few teeth knocked out, I’m afraid.” He looked down at his raw knuckles and drew in a deep breath. “You were giving me some absurd reason for his attacking me with a shotgun when…”

“When you decided you needed a drink,” she finished for him. “And it wasn’t absurd at all. I’m sure Charles was exactly right and Henrietta did hire you to dig up Daffy and try and prove she was poisoned.”

“Was she?” demanded Shayne.

“Poisoned? Of course not. Why would anyone want to do a cruel thing like that? Everyone loved her. Except Henrietta, of course. She hated everyone. If Daffy was poisoned, you can be sure that old bag did it. And maybe she did at that,” Anita went on slowly. “It’d be just like her. She could have, you know. Poisoned that chicken herself, and then fed a plate of it to dear Daffy out of spite.”

Shayne grinned sardonically. “And then went around and hired a private detective to disinter the dog and prove her guilt? You can’t have it both ways, Mrs. Rogell.”

“Please call me Anita,” she said absently, her forehead furrowed pensively in thought. “Maybe not, but you can be certain no one else in this household would have harmed Daffy.”

“How can you be so certain of that?” sneered a rather fruity voice from the hallway, and a fair-haired young man lolled between the parted doors. He swayed a little and clenched a highball glass in his hand, and his bloodshot eyes didn’t focus very well. “Nashty-tempered little bitch, I always said. Snapped at my ankle once and, by Jove, you were more worried about me kicking her than about me getting bit. What’s all the ruckus about anyhow, Sis?” He peered owlishly at Shayne. “Atom bombs going off in our backyard, doctors running hither and yon. You haven’t introduced us, you know.”

“This is Michael Shayne,” said Anita distinctly. “My brother, Marvin.”

“The noted private eye, eh?” Marvin blinked at him and moved closer to peer into his face with bleared eyes. “You don’t look the part at all, you know. Not like it is on television with all your beautiful blonde clients ripping off their clothes and crawling into bed with you first crack out of the box. Does he, Sis?” he asked her with a leer. “Can you imagine any beautiful blonde clients climbing into bed with this redheaded Mick? I ask you now. You’re a blonde and you ought to know. Would you climb in bed with his ugly mug?”

In a coldly vicious voice, Anita said, “Get out of here, Marvin. You’re drunk.”

“Coursh I’m a little bit drunkie.” He smiled vacuously and took one more look at Shayne, shuddered and almost feel over his own feet exiting.

She said, “So much for my brother, Mr. Shayne.” A dreamily contemplative expression chased the anger from her face. “I would, you know.”

Shayne said, “I know,” very matter-of-factly.

She closed her eyes and clasped her arms about her full breasts and shivered. Then she started gliding toward him with her eyes closed.

Shayne emptied his glass and set it on the table and waited for her to reach him.

The voices of Mrs. Blair and Dr. Evans came from the hall, approaching them. Anita stopped three feet from Shayne, unclasped her arms and opened her eyes. The hypnotized expression faded from her face, and she turned and went to the door and asked lightly, “How is Charles, Doctor?”

“As well as can be expected.” His enunciation was precise, with a studiedly genteel inflection. “I had to take six stitches and administer a sedative for the pain. Later, he’ll have to see a good dentist. I must have the straight of this, Anita. From Charles and Mrs. Blair I am given to understand that some hulking brute of a private detective forced his way onto your property tonight bent on desecrating the grave of your dog, and Charles was injured while defending the place. Have you called the police to lay charges against this ruffian? I am required to report the incident, you know.”

“Why don’t you discuss it with Mr. Shayne?” Anita moved aside and Dr. Albert Evans stepped through the sliding doors. He was young for a practicing M.D. Not more than his early thirties, Shayne thought. He was slender and of medium-height, with slightly protuberant eyes behind gold-rimmed nose glasses attached to a black cord around his neck.

He stopped and looked severely at Shayne, but the detective could have sworn there was the suggestion of a twinkle in his eyes as he asked, “What did you hit Charles with? He insists you attacked him with a large rock.”

Shayne held out his right hand with the fist doubled. “If you’ve any adhesive left you might put a little on my knuckles.”