Бретт Холлидей - Death Has Three Lives

She slumped back weakly, put her hands behind her against the car to support herself. They were several blocks from the Boulevard, she saw, at a point where the street came to a dead end against the western shore of Biscayne Bay.

There was only one house visible. A large, three-story mansion on the right, built directly on the bluff overlooking the bay. There were no lights and the front windows were boarded up with wooden shutters the way many winter residents leave their homes during the summer and the early autumn hurricane season.

He laughed evilly as he saw her looking around in an attempt to orient herself, and said in his grating Southern voice, “Take yourself a good look, ma’am. Then start screaming your fool head off if you’re a mind to. Won’t nobody hear you. Won’t nobody ever come down this here dead-end street.”

“Who are you?” Lucy demanded again. “What — do you want with me?”

“Nothing particular with you, ma’am. I thought back yonder at the morgue maybe you’d recognize me, but if you do or don’t it don’t make no never mind to me now. All I want is that money from your goddamn smart redheaded boss. The money Jack Bristow gave to you or him tonight. That’s all I want, ma’am. And I sure as hell intend to get it one way or another.”

“We haven’t got it,” she protested weakly. “Jack didn’t have any money. Or, at least we didn’t see it.”

He shrugged and caught her upper arm to lead her away from the car toward the empty and deserted house. “Maybe Mister Shayne lied to you. I dunno. Maybe you lied to him. It don’t matter much. He’s sort of sweet on you, huh? That’s what I’ve heard tell.”

“No, he isn’t,” she said defiantly. “Don’t think you can put pressure on Mike Shayne through me. You can’t.”

“Maybe not. It sure can’t hurt to try.” He was half-dragging, half-supporting her around the side of the house that faced toward the bay. He stopped beside a ground-floor window from which the wooden shutters had been forced open and the glass shattered. He produced a flashlight and played it over the opening, told her harshly, “Crawl inside, ma’am. Friend of yours down the cellar like to have some company, I reckon.”

Lucy hesitated. There was no place to run to. No use shrieking for help, as he had pointed out. A friend of hers down the cellar? Could it be Arlene? Or was Arlene, as she suspected, the corpse back in the morgue whom he had prevented her from looking at?

While she hesitated, he caught her roughly and shoved her half over the window sill, snarling, “Get on inside. I haven’t got all night.”

She pulled herself over onto the floor with the beam of his flashlight on her, and he followed.

It was a library or study, she guessed, seeing the furniture with dust covers in the flickering light, but he seemed to know exactly where he was going, seizing her arm and leading her to an open door into a corridor, and down a passage to another door at the rear which opened onto a flight of wooden steps leading downward.

A dank, musty, almost suffocating odor smote her in the face as she went down timidly, with him pushing her from behind. It was a small basement such as is found in most Miami homes, with a damp earthen floor and concrete walls.

When they reached the bottom, he flashed the beam of his light around all four sides to show there were no windows, no other opening or means of egress except up the stairs.

“Just so you’ll know for sure how things stand, ma’am. You’re gonna sit down and write a little note to your boss telling him just exactly how things are with you, and then I’m going to tie you up tight and leave you here to rot with your friend I mentioned.”

As he spoke he lowered the beam so it shone on a female figure bundled up with ropes on the ground near the wall. Her mouth was plastered tightly shut with surgeon’s tape, and her face was white and haggard and desperate in the flashlight’s gleam, but Lucy Hamilton had no difficulty at all in recognizing Arlene Bristow.

He swung the light away from Arlene’s face with an evil chuckle and told Lucy, “She’s been here keeping right quiet and good since before dark, and hasn’t died for lack of air yet. Howsomever, with two of you down there breathing up the oxygen and with that door at the top of the stairs shut tight and locked, I don’t for sure know how long you’ll last.

“Just think about how it is when you start writing your boss that note. Think how long it’ll take you and your friend to die from lack of water or starvation locked up down here if Mister Mike Shayne is crazy enough to try and set another trap for me. Tell him just how things are with you if he doesn’t cough up that seventy grand he got from Jack Bristow.”

“But I tell you he didn’t get it,” said Lucy desperately.

“No matter about that now. I don’t care if he did or not. I got you right here where I want you, and you’re going to rot here unless he pays up. Tell him that in your note. In love with you, isn’t he? And you with him? Don’t tell me different. You’re a right pretty gal, ma’am. Reckon I’d pay out some cash to keep you from dying by inches here in a place like this. Squat right down here and use this block of wood for a table. Here’s a sheet of paper and a pen. Write it down like it is in your own words, so Shayne won’t be none mistaken about how things are. And you better make it good, ma’am. Pour on the sweet talk or whatever. Remember it ain’t only you that’ll die slow and horrible if anything happens to me or I don’t get the money. There’s Arlene Bristow over there, too. Now squat down and start writing while I hold this light for you. I ain’t got all night. It’s ’most one o’clock now.”

Silently, Lucy Hamilton took the sheet of paper and pen from him and sank down on her knees on the damp earth to compose the most important letter she had ever written in her life. In the faint light from the flash, she could see the shrouded figure of Arlene Bristow ten feet away. She knew Arlene had heard every word he had spoken to her. The man was insane, of course. But he did have the whip hand. So far as she could see, there was absolutely no chance that she and Arlene could be rescued unless their captor had his way and revealed their hiding place. Already, the air in the dank cellar seemed thicker and harder to breathe than when they first came down.

She shivered and looked down at the paper and slowly began writing, thinking of all the thousands of things she would like to say to Michael Shayne at this time, but knowing she must hold herself down to the essentials which would appear suitable to the harsh-voiced man who stood over her and read every word as she formed it on paper.

The Daily News was an afternoon paper, and there wasn’t much activity at midnight. Timothy Rourke stopped at the city desk to confer briefly with the editor, came back to Shayne shaking his head.

“No one has got anything on the man picked up at the scene of the wreck except fairly positive corroboration that an unconscious man was carted away to the Beach by an unidentified motorist. He hasn’t been delivered to any hospital, and no one has reported the incident officially to the police. What the devil could have happened to him, Mike?”

“All we can do is theorize. The way Lucy tells it, he didn’t get much of the gas. Just a few good whiffs, probably, before he was thrown clear. That would knock him out, but not for long. Could be he recovered before they reached a hospital, pulled a gun, and held his Good Samaritan as a hostage. Anything on the dead woman?”

“Not much. The gray sedan was a stolen car, by the way. From near the scene of the first murder between eight and ten o’clock.” Rourke was leading the way back to the dark and deserted file room as he spoke. “Cops checked the motel key found on the woman. They’ve got a somewhat vague description of the man who checked her in as Mr. and Mrs. Peter Smith, and they’ve got the license number of your car, but don’t know it yet. So far, nothing to point the finger at you. Nothing to show any connection between the gray sedan and Bristow or the strangled girl.”