Бретт Холлидей - Murder in Haste

He helped her to the living room. He let her go for a moment, ready to catch her again, but she was able to stand by herself. She smiled at him weakly. He knelt beside the Venetian blinds at the big front window, and carefully lifted one of the flexible slats a half inch and looked out.

The man in the open doorway of the sedan drew deeply on a cigarette. Shayne had a better view of him from here, but he still couldn’t classify him. His skin was the color of paraffin, and he didn’t look as though he spent much time in the sun, or even outdoors. The man at the wheel, behind him, might have been a Cuban. He was dark, with a hair-line mustache.

Shayne motioned to Rose. She knelt beside him, with one hand on his shoulder, and peered out.

“No, I’ve never seen either of them before,” she whispered.

Shayne was thinking. By now Joe Wing’s cops ought to be waiting. They could be summoned by a phone call. He studied the heavy, unshaven face of the man in the front seat. To Shayne he didn’t have the look of a man who would blurt out his life history to the first cop who asked him. He had probably been questioned by cops before. There was only one way to find out why he was waiting to see Rose and who had sent him.

“We’ll take them one at a time,” he said.

He reached the door in two long strides. He turned the knob carefully and eased it open, enough so the latch was free. He gave her instructions in a low voice. She went to the bedroom.

Shayne looked out again through the blinds. The man in the front seat said something to his companion and flicked his cigarette into the grass. As he came out of the car, leaving the door open, Shayne saw that the driver was playing nervously with the ignition key. The other crunched up the path toward the front steps, prodding his shirt into his belt. Shayne glanced around and faded into the bedroom with Rose. She was at a dressing table, facing a large triple mirror. He stepped behind the door, which he left open. Looking through the crack, he found that he could see the front door. Rose was fiddling with a hairbrush.

Shayne got her attention and signalled to her to do something about the neck of her robe. She adjusted it so more of her shoulder was showing. He shook his head and went on directing her, and didn’t say when until most of one breast could be seen in the mirror. She raised her eyebrows. Shayne made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. He wanted the man to come inside and close the door, and unless he was completely wrong about what he had seen in the unshaven face, this should do it.

He heard footsteps on the porch. The chimes sounded.

“Come in,” Rose called.

She began applying lipstick. Shayne watched the door through the crack. The peal was repeated.

“Come in,” Rose called more loudly. “It’s not locked.”

The man pushed the door open and looked in. “Mrs. Heminway?”

“Put it down anywhere,” Rose called. “How much do I owe you?”

He came a step into the room, holding the doorknob. Rose swung around on the low bench, and her breath caught. The quick movement pulled the robe further off her shoulder. Shayne, watching the man’s face, saw it change.

“I thought you were the cleaners,” she said. “Come in and shut the door. I’ve got the air-conditioning on, and you’re warming up the house.”

She gave him a slow, provocative look, accompanied by a slight smile. Her breast had almost escaped entirely from the robe. “I don’t think I know you, do I? But do come in. I hate to shout.”

The man’touched his bottom lip with his tongue and swallowed. He held up one finger, signing to his friend that he would only be a minute. He took off his hat and let the door swing shut.

“Are you selling something?” Rose said gayly, and went on without waiting for a reply, “I know this is unconventional, but I want to finish brushing my hair. Come in and give me your sales talk.”

The man approached the door, holding his hat in front of him. “My name’s Cole. I wanted to find out if your father’s name was Chadwick? If you used to be married to George Heminway?”

“Why, yes! Did you know George? I don’t think I ever heard him mention anybody named Cole.”

“We were old friends.”

Now the open door concealed him from Shayne, but the redhead knew from his tone that he was watching the reflection in the mirror. Shayne was watching it himself. She leaned forward as though to adjust a slipper. The voice on the other side of the door sounded strained.

“Jesus, I’d like nothing better than to kill a little time here, but I’d be taking a hell of a chance, no matter how you look at it.”

“What are you babbling about, Mr. Cole?”

Cole took another step forward. “I hate like hell to do this to a dish like you, baby, but that’s how it is.”

He moved his hat, and Shayne saw a pistol, a long-snouted Lüger, equipped with a silencer. His shoulder lifted slightly, and his jaw muscles tightened.

Without conscious thought, Shayne chopped at his arm and spun him around. Cole must have caught the movement in the mirror, for he was already turning, trying to bring the gun between them. Shayne stepped in fast, hitting him with a hard low left to the body. He started to crumble, and as his head sagged forward the redhead clubbed him with a right behind the ear.

The gun thudded to the floor. Cole went down to both knees. His head rocked backward, his eyes showing only the whites. Shayne caught himself before his follow-through could take him off-balance, and came back with a slashing downward left that met Cole’s jaw forward of the hinge. There was a crisp little click of contact. They wouldn’t be bothered with Cole for some time to come.

Shayne caught him before he was all the way down, turned him and got his wallet. He looked up. Rose was still sitting at the dressing table with a hairbrush in her hand.

“Adhesive tape,” he said. “Quick. As much as you’ve got.”

There was over five hundred dollars in the wallet. Shayne left the money alone and shucked the cards and papers on the floor. The man’s name, if his driving license could be believed, was actually Cole, Albert Cole. He was a member of the Diner’s Club and Carte Blanche, and he had a union card, a credit card entitling him to friendly treatment at a chain of gas stations, and pictures of two young children. The only thing Shayne learned in the quick once-over was that his last address had been Baltimore.

Then Rose was back with two spools of adhesive tape. Shayne taped Cole’s wrists, ankles and mouth. He left him on the floor and picked up the gun, a murderous weapon which would have blown a hole through the wall. He snapped on the safety.

“No fooling this time, Rose,” he said. “Who is he?”

Except for her lips, her face had lost all its color. She was staring with horror at the gun.

“I don’t know! Mike!” she cried as the realization broke through. “He was going to shoot me!”

“That’s how it looked,” Shayne said grimly, taking off the silencer.

Her knuckles were pressed against her mouth. “What have I gotten myself into, Mike?”

“That’s what we’d all like to know. I think it’s going to turn out that killing people is this guy’s business. Why would anybody want to kill you?”

She made a helpless gesture. “I can’t even begin to guess. I’m the original innocent bystander, Mike. All I did was go to the police to find out why they weren’t taking any action on Norma’s letter.”

Shayne looked at her for a moment, then went to the phone and dialed the number of Beach headquarters. “Joe Wing,” he snapped, and to Rose: “Have you ever fired a gun?”

Her eyes widened. “No. You don’t mean you want me to shoot—”