Brett Halliday - Date with a Dead Man

While she hesitated, glaring at him mutinously, he added in an unexpectedly gentle tone, “You’ve worked with me for a long time, angel, and you’ve seen me cut corners before and always come out on top. Trust me a little bit. This is the big payoff, damn it. The one I’ve been waiting for a long time. Don’t spoil it with your little-girl tantrums. You’ll be riding around in a baby-blue convertible wearing mink if we pull this off.” His eyes glittered queerly as he stared her down. “Get out your notebook.”

She bit her underlip hard, and then dropped her gaze. Her fingers were unsteady as she undid the snap on her bag, groped inside to withdraw a stenographer’s notebook and half a dozen pencils. But they became steady as she opened the book in front of her and selected a pencil.

“This has to be very carefully worded,” Shayne explained dispassionately, “so I’ll have a document that will stand up in court after it’s all over and not lose my license on account of it. Let’s see now.” He took a sip of cognac and leaned back and studied the ceiling and began dictating.

“Memorandum of agreement between Mrs. Matie Meredith of Chicago, Illinois, and Michael Shayne, private detective, Miami, Florida, this date. Paragraph.

“Mrs. Meredith, the divorced wife of Albert Hawley and his legal heir, hereby retains Michael Shayne in his licensed profession as private detective to act for her in securing the necessary evidence to prove in court that her ex-husband was the legal heir to his uncle, Ezra Hawley, on said Ezra Hawley’s death.

“If Michael Shayne is successful in his endeavor, and if Albert Hawley is declared Ezra Hawley’s legal heir by a probate court and thereby inherits Ezra Hawley’s estate, then, for his invaluable services in bringing about this desired end, Mrs. Matie Meredith agrees to pay Michael Shayne one-quarter of Ezra Hawley’s estate… um… after deduction of inheritance taxes. Make that clear, Lucy, that my one-quarter share shall be based on the net amount after deduction of State and Federal taxes. Don’t you think that’s fair, Matie?” he added easily as Lucy’s pencil ceased racing over her shorthand pad.

“I think it’s highway robbery,” she choked out. “A quarter of the whole thing? My God. There’ll be over a million after taxes.”

“That’s what I understood,” he told her happily. “A quarter of that will make a nice little nest-egg for Lucy’s and my old age.”

“It’s preposterous,” burst out Jake Sims. “A quarter-million dollars just for destroying that diary in your hip pocket.”

“The agreement says nothing whatever about destroying a diary,” Shayne reminded him. “It doesn’t specify what my services shall consist of. I’m not a lawyer, but I believe it protects both of us from any charge or suspicion of wrongdoing or complicity.”

“The agreement is worded very cleverly,” conceded Sims. “Substitute ten or even twenty thousand for your first absurd demand, and I’ll advise my client to sign it at once.”

Shayne patted the diary in his hip pocket and said, “It’s a quarter of the estate or nothing.” He turned to Mrs. Meredith and said, “That applies to your share, too. Three-quarters… or nothing. Would you rather have nothing? Just say the word and Lucy can tear up her notes and you two can get out while I turn Groat’s diary over to the chief of police for safe-keeping as evidence in a couple of murders.”

While she hesitated, her eyes blazing venom at him, Jake Sims snarled, “He means it, Mrs. Meredith. I know Shayne. He’s perfectly capable of doing what he threatens if you don’t sign that agreement.”

“And then Jake wouldn’t get his cut either,” Shayne pointed out sympathetically. “Make up your mind, Matie.”

She said, “I’ll sign… goddam your greedy soul to hell. If I hadn’t hired you to get hold of the diary…”

“Exactly,” said Shayne dryly. “Then you wouldn’t have been faced with this decision. My typewriter’s in the bedroom,” he told Lucy briskly. “Make three clean copies of that agreement, with places for Mrs. Meredith and me to sign, with you and Sims witnessing our signatures. More Scotch, Matie?”

She held out her glass wordlessly, but as Shayne got up to take it from her, Lucy Hamilton laid down her pencil and said in a carefully precise voice, “I shan’t do it, Michael.”

He frowned, tugging at his left ear lobe. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I shan’t do it. I’m not going to let you do it, Michael. You’ll hate yourself the rest of your life if you do. Don’t you see? You’re stealing the money from the rightful heirs. From the Hawleys to whom it legally belongs. This is stealing, Michael. It isn’t just another one of your smart gimmicks where you play god and get paid for it. You can’t do this. I won’t let you do it.”

He studied her flushed face with raised eyebrows. “How about that mink coat, angel? And the convertible. Think how you’d look whooping it up around town with your curls flying in the wind and all the wolves whistling…”

“Stop it, Michael!” Lucy’s voice rose shrilly. “You know how I feel about mink coats and convertibles. I’ve done without both of them for a good many years, and I can keep on doing without them. Stop trying to kid about this, Michael.” Her voice became pleading, with a heartbroken sob in it. She completely disregarded the other two people in the room, baring her heart to him as though they were utterly alone.

“I’ve admired you and looked up to you, Michael. I’ve watched you cut corners in the past, but it was always for an ultimate good. Damn you, I’ve believed in you even when things looked black as hades. And you’ve always justified my belief, darling. Don’t do this, Michael. I beg you. Do you hear me? I beg you.” She stood up from the table facing him, her arms forward and out from her sides, palms upward.

There were deep trenches in his cheeks as he faced her unwaveringly. “You’ve trusted me in the past, angel. Keep on trusting me.”

“How can I?” It was a despairing cry, wrenched out of the uttermost depths of her being. “This is absolutely nasty-crooked. I don’t care whether there’s a quarter of a cent or a quarter of a million dollars involved. Please! If you care one tiny little iota about me, don’t do this.”

He said, “You know I love you, angel.”

She said, “I know you’ve pretended to love me. Prove it. Tell Mrs. Meredith and her crooked shyster to get out of here. Give the diary to Will Gentry tonight and wash your hands of the whole thing.”

Michael Shayne shook his red head slowly from side to side. In a tone of real regret, he said, “I can’t pass up an opportunity like this, angel. Another one like it may never come along again. Go ahead and type out three copies,” he added persuasively. “I give you my word you’ll never regret it. A quarter million bucks, Lucy?” His voice was wondering, almost awed.

“I won’t do it. I’ll be eternally damned if I’ll do it.” Lucy Hamilton whirled and snatched up her notebook with tears beginning to stream down her cheeks. She ripped at the pages containing her shorthand hieroglyphics, tearing them into shreds and scattering them on the floor.

Shayne lunged forward and clamped a hand on her shoulder, ordering harshly, “Stop it, Lucy. You’re not making sense.”

“Oh yes,” she retorted. “I am making sense. For the first time in a lot of years. You know what, Michael Shayne? I hate and despise you. I don’t care what you say, I’m not going to let you do this thing to yourself. Do you hear me? I’m not going to let you.”

She flung the last of the torn fragments of her notes on the floor and faced him defiantly.

He said, “You’re forgetting something, Lucy. You’re my secretary… not my wife. Stop acting like one.”