Mermaid on the Rocks Page 4

  Kitty said something in Shayne’s ear. Shayne told Rourke: “Hold on.”

  “How would they get it in the tank?” Kitty said.

  “I heard that,” Rourke said. “No problem. All you’d need is a little two-way coupling. Any plumber would have it. Mike, are you on?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Point number two. During a brief interval while I wasn’t chasing Natalie around the sofa, she called a gal she knows who works at Florida-American, the land company. And the news is that yes, they made an offer for Key Gaspar, and confidentially, off the record and for God’s sake don’t put it in the paper, the price is a cool one million clams.”

  “A million?”

  “Three times what Natalie thought was the outside figure. Cash, not stock or promises. What gives? The head of the company is a guy named Hilary Quarrels. You never heard of him. Don’t feel bad—I never heard of him either. Apparently he’s a big name in that part of the forest. He’s handling it himself, playing it close to the chest. This friend of Nat’s doesn’t think either the price or the location makes sense, but Quarrels does all the deciding in that outfit. As far as she knows, Tuttle’s daughter Barbara has been doing the negotiating. And for the time being, that’s all.”

  “Thanks, Tim. It’s been a long day. You must be worn out.”

  “Oh, I am. And Natalie’s showing no consideration at all. I probably won’t feel up to calling you again.”

  “Anesthetic,” Kitty said thoughtfully after Shayne put the phone back. “Speaking of coincidences—Barbara’s a nurse’s aid in a hospital a couple of days a week. These are nice people!”

  “It may help keep the peace,” Shayne told her. “Most hospitals have a pretty good system for keeping track of that kind of stuff. I’ll find out if any bottles of nitrous oxide have been reported missing. It gives us one more handle. Whose play is it?”

  She picked up the leather dice cup and shook it, putting it down a moment later. “Mike, I know it’s all very scary, but I keep thinking of more urgent things.” She poured more whiskey into her glass without looking at Shayne. “Such as what are we going to do about the sleeping arrangements?”

  chapter 5

  Shayne laughed. “It’s early. You can’t be sleepy yet. Let’s change games. How would you feel about a little craps?”

  “I haven’t shot craps in years.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll be glad to explain the rules.”

  She used her backgammon winnings as betting money, and half an hour later she had won another forty dollars, all the cash Shayne was carrying. He looked ruefully into his empty wallet.

  “I’ll have to give you an IOU.”

  “I never gamble on credit,” she told him smugly, racking the bills. “No, Mike. The time has come. This has been one of the pleasantest evenings I’ve ever had, which is really amazing considering the circumstances. That doesn’t alter the fact that you’re here for business reasons and not for pleasure. Right?”

  “Right,” Shayne said, a corner of his mouth quirking upward.

  “Will you stop grinning at me so I can remember what I was about to say? You’re here on pleasure. Not business.” She stopped. “No, that can’t be right. It’s the other way around. I’ve had too much to drink, I regret to say. I’ve never been the bait in a trap before. It’s a brand-new experience and naturally I’m nervous. But nobody’s going to set a foot in the trap so long as the lights are on so let’s get underway.”

  She sat back on her heels and looked at the sofa, then at Shayne, then back at the sofa. “You won’t fit there,” she said, “unless I saw you off at the knees. The bed in the guest room, so called, isn’t much better. So the solution is obvious. You sleep in my bed, I’ll sleep in the guest room. Where we’ll both keep reminding ourselves, I hope, that we met for the first time twelve hours ago, and actually we don’t know one single solitary thing about each other.”

  “Except that you’re pretty good with a pair of dice,” Shayne said.

  “That was because I didn’t put my mind on it,” she said. “Whenever I really try, I lose.”

  She came to her feet, almost losing her balance. “Mike. You gave the rug a jerk. Was that fair?”

  Shayne, laughing, took her by the shoulders to steady her, and turned her to face the bedroom. “You’re first.”

  “I don’t know anything about you,” she told herself. “Maybe you kick dogs. Maybe you’re a secret member of the Ku Klux Klan. As for me, I’m almost divorced but not quite, and just because you were nice enough to offer to be my bodyguard doesn’t mean—”

  She veered too much to the left, but disappeared through the bedroom door without mishap.

  Shayne, his smile fading, consulted his watch. It was after midnight. He went to the kitchen. A full range of brass-bottom saucepans hung from a pegboard over the sink. He unhooked a half dozen of these and lined them up on the floor under the fire-escape window, which he opened all the way. Going to the front door, he took off the chain and checked to be sure only the spring lock was engaged.

  He poured himself another drink. Kitty came out of the bathroom wearing a short cotton nightgown, which gave her reasonable coverage without concealing the fact that what was being covered was the supple body of an exceedingly attractive girl. With her long blonde hair pulled back and tied with a ribbon, wearing no lipstick, she looked several years younger.

  “Pouring yourself a nightcap, I see,” she said. “Don’t offer me one or I might decide to rearrange the sleeping arrangements. This is a job for you. Poorly paid, but a job. I’m bearing that in mind.” She came up to him. “Which doesn’t mean it would be out of place to kiss you goodnight.”

  “Goodnight, Kitty.”

  Without putting down his drink, he cupped her chin in one hand and kissed her cheek lightly.

  “Like brother and sister,” she said philosophically. “That’s what I call being sensible. When I get back from New York, maybe I’ll give you a chance to win your fifty-five dollars back?”

  “I’ll insist on it,” Shayne said, letting her go. “Now get some sleep.”

  She smiled up at him. “The funny thing is, with you here I think I can sleep.”

  She went into the tiny second bedroom. After an instant’s hesitation, she left the door open. He heard her pull down the covers and get in.

  “Goodnight,” she called, adding, “Thanks.”

  Shayne turned off the lights and took his drink to the bedroom. He saw that she had turned down the double bed for him and had left a new toothbrush on the pillow, still in its transparent plastic box. He took off his jacket and shirt and hung them in the bathroom. He shifted the .38 to the waistband of his pants. His shoes he nudged out of sight beneath the bed. After stacking both pillows against the headboard and making himself comfortable against them, he turned off the light.

  He knew he had at least an hour’s wait, possibly much longer. But waiting was not unusual in Michael Shayne’s business, and generally he had to do it in less pleasant surroundings, on a street or in a hallway or the front seat of a car.

  His drink and cigarettes were on the bedside table. The partition between the bedrooms was nothing but two layers of plasterboard nailed to the studs. He heard Kitty roll over. He heard her stretch. Once she sat up to check the time, and he heard that. He started another cigarette and so did she. At last, with a muffled sigh, she threw off the sheet and swung her legs out of bed.

  And suddenly all Shayne’s senses sharpened. He pulled the .38 out of his waistband. He waited, and the sound he had heard came again—a faint rustling in the kitchen.

  Easing himself out of bed, he went silently to the door. All at once there was a loud clang from the saucepans beneath the kitchen window.

  Two long strides took Shayne to the middle of the living room, where he checked abruptly. The Venetian blinds were drawn. It was very dark. He worked forward carefully, skirting the sofa. There was no further sound from the kitchen. At the kitchen door he waited again, liste
ning, his shoulder muscles bunched. He felt for the wall switch and thumbed back the hammer of the .38.

  He snapped on the light and stepped through the doorway. There was a blur of action, too fast to follow. Shayne swore viciously under his breath. A lean gray cat reached the window in one leap from the counter and vanished up the fire escape.

  Shayne let the hammer down, thrust the .38 back in his waistband and swung around. Kitty, in the doorway to the guest room, was laughing and crying at the same time. Her breath came and went in great shuddering gulps.

  Going to her, Shayne took her in his arms and stroked her shoulders, as though gentling a nervous horse. Speaking into her hair, he told her to calm down and go back to bed because he wanted to turn off the lights. Her arms were around him, her forehead pressed against his shoulder.

  Gradually her shaking subsided. She pushed away defiantly.

  “You’ll have to admit it’s funny,” she said, “after going to all that trouble. He’s a fire-escape cat, I know him well. I always put food out for him, but tonight I forgot.”

  “I don’t want that light on any longer,” Shayne said.

  He went back to the kitchen to snap it off. She was gone when he returned. He groped for the cords on the Venetian blinds and adjusted the slats, letting a faint grayness into the dark room.

  “Goodnight, Kitty,” he said at the door to the guest room.

  She didn’t answer. He saw the faint outline of the whiskey bottle, picked it up by its neck and took it with him. In his bedroom he found his glass in the dark and poured one by ear. Then he sat down on the bed and found that Kitty was waiting for him.

  “I thought we decided this wasn’t a good idea,” he said.

  “Mike, darling, I think we ought to change the plan.”

  “How?”

  “I ought to be here in my own bed if anyone breaks in. You go into the bathroom, I’ll talk to him and maybe find out how much of a combination I’m up against. Besides which—” She twisted up against him and said passionately, “It’s just plain ridiculous. Being apart. Isn’t it?” she demanded. “Say it’s ridiculous.”

  Shayne made a wry face in the darkness. It was slightly ridiculous. He looked at his watch as his arm slid around her. The luminous dial told him that now would be an excellent time for their unseen antagonist to be making his move.

  “Kitty, we’d better count ten.”

  Her mouth found his. She didn’t want to count or do any more talking, and again Shayne admitted to himself that there was much to be said for her point of view. He believed in taking chances when necessary.

  Murmuring excitedly against his mouth, she slipped down in the bed and pulled him after her. After a moment she wrenched herself away, pulled the nightgown over her head and came back into his arms.

  “Mike. Do something about that gun.”

  Then her mouth was against his again. Her flesh was cool and smooth under his hands. The bedsprings grated, and the sound of her harsh excited breathing beneath him roared in his ears.

  Suddenly, cutting through these nearby noises, he heard another. It was faint but nevertheless crisp and distinct. He had been listening for it. He bit the lobe of her ear very hard, tightened his grip on her breast and clapped his other hand over her mouth before she could cry out. She tried to pull away. Then she lay quiet, listening.

  The sound came again. It was metal against metal. A key was being pushed carefully into a lock.

  When Shayne was sure she had heard it, he slipped off the bed and groped for the .38. His spread fingers encountered her bare hip but not the gun. He couldn’t delay any longer.

  Shayne was in the bathroom, the door slightly ajar, when he heard the knob being turned cautiously. Kitty made an involuntary sound from the bed; she was frightened.

  For an instant there was a twinkle of light in the living room. Then the outer door closed and it was dark again.

  Kitty scrambled up in bed. “Who’s that? Is anybody out there?”

  There was no answer.

  She said warningly, “I want you to listen, whoever you are. I know you’re there. I have a gun and I’ve taken the safety off and it’s pointed straight at the door. I mean what I say!”

  Her voice rose at the end. She snapped on the bedside light. Shayne heard footsteps.

  A man’s voice drawled, “You wouldn’t shoot your next-door neighbor. We own a valuable piece of property together, you and me.”

  “Brad!” Kitty exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

  “I know I should have phoned, kid. But I was in the neighborhood. Happening to have a skeleton key in my pocket, I thought I’d stop in.”

  Shayne touched the edge of the bathroom door, ready to jump. With his left hand, he took his jacket down from the hook on the back of the door.

  Brad grunted. “Why, look at here. A nightgown on the floor. Pretty little trifle, ain’t it? What are you doing, sleeping raw?”

  “Brad, please,” Kitty said, intensely but trying to sound reasonable. “It’s late. If you’re looking for a drink, take the bottle.”

  “Sure, I’ll take a drink. But I want some conversation to go with it.”

  “Not now. I’m dead. Tomorrow.”

  “But didn’t I hear you’re taking off someplace in the morning?” Brad said vaguely. “I thought maybe you forgot that paper you was going to sign.”

  “When did I say I was going to sign anything? I made it perfectly clear—I’m satisfied with the way things are.”

  “You’re satisfied. But the rest of us ain’t. Maybe you didn’t think about all the angles. That Key belongs to us,” he said persuasively. “It’s Tuttle Key, that’s what everybody calls it, been in the family since aught-nine. Cal and me used to ramble around there together, trap muskrats and shoot snakes and have a high old time. I don’t give a damn how many legal-eagles say different, you can’t tell me Cal was in his right mind when he wrote that will. Just because you laid him in his old age, that don’t make you any part or parcel of the family to my mind.”

  Kitty said sharply, “Now you get out of here, Brad! If you’re broke, look in my purse out there. Just leave me enough for a cab.”

  There was a moment’s silence. Brad said thickly, “Who do you think I am, Ev? You can turn me off with a pint and a five buck bill?”

  “I know exactly who you are. Brad, it’s one o’clock in the morning, and I have a headache.”

  “You’ll have more than a headache by the time I’m done with you! You think I’ll let you get me potted and set me on fire the way you did Ev?”

  Shayne’s eyes narrowed.

  Kitty’s voice went into a thin scream. “Do you know what you’re saying, you damn moron?”

  “Moron. Oh, sure. I’m stupid. I’m a moron. But I know more than you think! You were seen! You were seen getting him plastered. You were seen coming out of his room. We’ve got a witness! Surprised? Too bad, baby, it was a nice try. You’d better sign the paper, I’ve got it right here with me, or that little Ev matter goes to the D.A.’s office.”

  “You’re raving,” she said coldly.

  “Not that I hold it against you. Ev was asking for it. And it ups the percentage for the rest of us.”

  “I think it’s time to put an end to this.” She raised her voice. “You can come—”

  Brad interrupted her with a yell. “And if that don’t stick, there are other ways! I mean if worst comes to worst I’ll be happy to! You put out for Cal and don’t tell me different because I happen to know, he told me himself. But I stink! I’m a low-income slob. You wouldn’t pull down that sheet for me now, would you? Christ, no!”

  He shifted ground abruptly. “Can’t you get it through your head? There’s only three more days! Jesus, when I think of that gold just laying there—”

  “Stop it, Brad.”

  “I’ll raise our offer to seventy-five, and throw in whatever that shack of yours cost you. When did you see seventy-five G’s? Put on some fancy duds and move to a Beach hote
l for the season. Get yourself a husband with real dough. I know a couple of good prospects I can steer you.”

  “Brad, you don’t get the idea. I want the place. I don’t want the money.”

  When Brad spoke again his voice was almost plaintive. Again the change in tone caught Shayne as he was about to open the door.

  “I’m saying if you don’t sign the paper I’ll have to kill you,” Brad said. “Who do you think killed your cat? That was to make you realize.”

  “You aren’t killing anybody tonight,” she said.

  Brad cackled, a high old man’s cackle. “I do like the way you handle yourself, baby. Naked as a clam under that sheet, and it don’t bother you a bit. I got an idea. Why don’t I switch over? I’ll take care of Babs and that shyster, that’ll leave the two of us, and how many years have I got? I wouldn’t bother you much. I don’t hardly ever do it more than once a night any more.”

  She said slowly, “You’re a disgusting old man.”

  He cackled again. “I hope to tell you! But I ain’t a day older than Cal was when you opened up for him. You’re turning me down? You wouldn’t touch me with a ten-foot pole? Then let me tell you, baby, I got some disgusting plans for right now. Here’s some pictures to start with.”

  “Playing cards!” Kitty exclaimed.

  “Yeah, if you tried to play poker with this deck, your mind would keep wandering. Look at them positions.”

  “Mike, he has a knife!” Kitty called.

  Shayne pulled the door out of his way.

  chapter 6

  Brad whirled, a thin, tough old man with straggling gray hair. He needed a shave badly. His eyes were small and bloodshot and very mean. He wore sneakers, dirty jeans, a cheap short-sleeved shirt that showed the gray thatch on his chest, tattooed forearms that were like a twist of bridge cable.