The Corpse Came Calling (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

A GIRL PAUSED HESITANTLY just inside the threshold. She appeared quite young, with lustrous, smoothly waved hair that gave off an illusive sheen like the patina of old and well-rubbed silver. She wore a dress of dove-gray silk, and looked cool and poised. She had a slender, well-put-together body and nice legs.

Shayne set his glass down and went to meet her. She peeled off a white lace glove and smiled, but her blue eyes were frightened.

Shayne engulfed her hand in his and drew her into the room, shutting the door. “You wanted to see me?”

“It’s—are you really the detective—Michael Shayne?” Her lips parted breathlessly, her eyes were wide with doubt.

Shayne ruffled his red hair and grinned his nicest grin. “Disappointed?”

“N-No. Only—” She shrugged well-fleshed shoulders and pivoted away from him, looking around the living-room with interest. “This isn’t at all what I imagined a detective’s office would be like.” She moved to an open window, casually glancing inside the bedroom through the open door.

“My wife is out,” Shayne told her equably. “We’re alone here if that’s what’s on your mind.”

She turned slowly, pressing the heels of her palms against the window sill behind her. Her hair glistened with a yellowish tinge in the tropical sunlight. She narrowed her eyes at Shayne, then parted generous lips in a slow smile. “I didn’t know you were married.”

“That,” said Shayne, “is the reason I hastened to mention it.” He went to the table and lifted his glass. “Can I get you a drink?”

“No, thank you.” The smile went away from the girl’s lips. She said jerkily, “My name is—Helen Brinstead.”

Shayne lifted his glass in acknowledgment. “Miss Brinstead.” He sipped from the glass, his eyes holding hers over the rim. “You said a man named Jim Lacy had sent you.”

She lowered long eyelashes, giving her face a demure look of youth and inexperience. “Yes.”

Deliberately, Shayne said, “I knew a Jim Lacy once. Ten years ago. From what I knew of him then, I wouldn’t expect a girl like you to be acquainted with him.”

She kept her eyelashes down. In a low voice, she said, “It must be the same man.”

“He used to be a private detective, too.”

“He still is.”

“Then why come to me? If you need the services of a detective.”

“Mr. Lacy advised me to. He explained that he had a New York license and had no authority in Florida.”

“Is Jim Lacy here—in Miami?”

“Yes. I just happened to meet him today. I—I knew him casually in New York.” Helen Brinstead lifted her long eyelashes. She took a step toward him, wringing her hands. “I’m so alone here, Mr. Shayne. So frightened. You must listen to me—help me. You must! There’s no one else.”

Shayne nodded. “Sure, I’ll listen to you. That’s my job. Relax.” He took her arm and steered her to a chair a couple of feet in front of him.

She crossed her legs and leaned forward imploringly. “It’s going to sound too utterly fantastic, but I beg you to reserve a decision until you hear me out. That’s all I ask. I’ve kept it bottled up inside of me too long. I can’t go on. It’s too utterly horrible to face alone.” She stared past him, panting through compressed lips.

Shayne offered her a cigarette. She shook her head and he lit one for himself. “You make it sound very interesting, Miss Brinstead. I like a case that offers possibilities beyond the dull routine of crimes motivated by lust and greed.”

Her eyes were a darker blue when she shifted her gaze back to him. She looked older, and her words sounded rehearsed.

“Before I take any more of your time, I’ve heard—well—that your fees are dreadfully high. I don’t know whether I can afford to pay what you’ll charge.”

Her fingers were writhing together in her lap. Her gray skirt slipped above her knees, but her eyes were intent on Shayne and she didn’t notice. He lifted a big hand reassuringly.

“Sometimes I manage to collect a decent fee, but it’s always in line with the job I do and never more than my client can stand. We’ll discuss the fee after you’ve told me what you want done.”

“One thing more. No matter what I tell you, you’ll keep it confidential? Will you give me your word of honor?”

“Hell,” said Shayne in disgust, “if you don’t think you can trust me, you’d better leave right now.”

A flush crept into her cheeks. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and lowered her lashes. She smoothed her skirt down over her knees and said tonelessly, “I guess I’m acting like a fool. I—you see—I—I tried to commit suicide yesterday.” She shuddered, with eyes downcast. “Everything looked so terribly hopeless. Then I met Mr. Lacy and he told me about you and, well—I was crazy enough to start hoping again.”

Shayne said, “This isn’t getting us anywhere. You’re talking in circles and now you’ve got back to the starting point. See if you can’t start making sense for a change.”

She glanced up angrily, then faltered, “I deserved that. The trouble is, I’ve been thinking in circles. I think I’ll take that drink you offered me.”

“What’ll it be? There’s practically anything you want in the cabinet.”

“Just—whatever you’re drinking.” Helen glanced at the cognac bottle timidly.

“This is pretty potent stuff to take straight unless you’re used to it.” Shayne heaved his rangy body up and went to the cabinet, where he got a Seltzer bottle and a highball glass. He went into the kitchen, returned with three ice cubes in the tall glass. The girl watched in silent absorption while he poured cognac over the cubes and squirted Seltzer in. She accepted the glass gratefully.

As Shayne settled back in his chair the wail of a police siren came through the open window behind him. It sank to a moan, then wailed high again, died to silence outside the apartment hotel.

The girl asked, “Is that a fire engine?”

“That, or the cops.” Shayne nodded toward her highball. “Does that taste all right?”

She drank some and said, “It’s wonderful.” She was relaxed now, her left hand lying against the arm of her chair, her head comfortably back against the cushioned headrest. Her legs were uncrossed and stretched out in front of her, and her skirt had again crept above her knees. Shayne smoked idly and waited for her to begin.

“You’re wonderful, too,” she told him suddenly. “I feel utterly tranquil sitting here. As though all my troubles were unimportant. How can you be so gentle and understanding when they say you’re tough and conscienceless?”

Shayne chuckled. “It’s my bedside manner. I lull you into a sense of false security and you find yourself telling me things you wouldn’t tell your priest.”

“That’s just what I’m ready to do now, but I can’t think how to begin.”

“Let’s begin with Jim Lacy. I’m interested because I haven’t been in contact with him for ten years. What is he doing in Miami?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know Mr. Lacy very well. That is—well, I did once. Some time ago. But we simply met here by accident. When he learned about my trouble he said if there was any man in the world who could help me it would be Mike Shayne.”

“I can’t do anything without a few facts to chew on,” Shayne reminded her.

“I know. It isn’t easy to get started. You see, I’m—not at all what I seem. Actually I’m terribly wicked underneath.”

“Just what form of depravity are you addicted to?” Shayne asked her, grinning.

“It isn’t funny.” Her voice was suddenly tight and harsh. “I’ve done some despicable things. And now they’ve caught up with me. Back in New York I was—what they call a decoy girl in a divorce racket.

“I suppose you know how the racket is worked,” she went on tensely. “I was a show girl and jobs were hard to get when I met this lawyer at a party. He and Jim Lacy worked it together—getting divorce evidence for his women clients. Sometimes there was collusion and the men co-operated in setting up evidence of adultery that would hold in courts, but more often the husband was just a sucker whose wife was tired of him and wanted alimony.”

She took a sip from her glass and compressed her lips, then went on bitterly. “I was the come-on girl. I got a commission for each bedroom scene I staged—each time I set things up for Lacy and a photographer and the indignant wife to burst in on. A professional corespondent, one judge called me.”

“All right,” Shayne said. “I don’t need a diagram. Lacy was never too choosy about the sort of work he did. So what?”

“So then—a couple of months ago I was introduced to a new fall guy. His name was—well, you might as well know everything—his name was Charles Worthing. He was nice—so damned nice that as soon as I met him I couldn’t understand why any woman would want to divorce him. It seemed to me it would be—heaven—to be Mrs. Charles Worthing.

“So—
I
was the sucker.” Helen was sitting erect now, leaning forward tensely, talking fast. “I fell for him like a ton of brick. Funny! Me, the decoy girl! But it wasn’t funny because he, God help me, fell for me, too. I should have backed out right away. I saw it happening to us. I should have run like hell, but I—I couldn’t.

“He was married to a woman who didn’t deserve a swell guy like him. And I kidded myself into believing I’d be right for him. I went ahead with it just like any other case. He came to my apartment one night. When we were in what the papers would call a compromising situation, Lacy and Worthing’s wife and the photographer busted in—just like the script was written.

“Well, there was the usual scene and Charles was wonderful. He never suspected me for a moment. Poor darling, he wanted to protect me—protect my name from being smirched by a divorce suit. My name! Get it? That was a laugh, but I—I couldn’t laugh. He made me promise to marry him as soon as the divorce went through.”

“And you agreed?”

“Sure I did. What else could I do? Tell him the truth? Smash the last thing he believed in? He loved me. And I loved him. I didn’t see why it wouldn’t be all right—why he’d ever have to know the truth.”

A single tear from beneath each of Helen’s eyelids rolled down her cheeks while she stared fixedly at the detective.

He said, “Finish your drink and I’ll pour you another.” He lifted his own glass and emptied it. Helen turned hers up, too. She made a wretched attempt to smile as she held it out to him. She breathed, “Now you know the truth. Do you despise me? Do you think I should have thrown away the only chance I’ll ever have for happiness?”

Shayne shrugged and poured cognac over the half-melted ice cubes in her glass. He splashed soda on top and handed the glass back to her. “Who am I to pass judgment? Everyone has to play the cards dealt them the way they see it.” He refilled his glass and sank back into his chair. “You haven’t told me anything very dreadful yet. What’s troubling you? Threats of blackmail from someone who knows about your career as a marriage buster-upper?”

“Worse than that. You see—I’m already married.”

Correctly interpreting Shayne’s look of astonishment, Helen explained, “I’m not as young as you probably think. I’m twenty-six. I married when I was seventeen—a heel named Mace Morgan.

“We lived together only a short time. I found out he was a small-time crook after we were married. I left him and changed my name and went to work in the chorus.

“I’d almost forgotten about Mace. About being married to him. Then, when Charles insisted that we get married as soon as his divorce went through, I realized I’d have to do something about Mace. I asked Lacy about it and he told me Mace was in the penitentiary on a long rap. I decided to come to Miami and get a quick divorce—no publicity—and Charles would never have to know.”

“Now,” said Shayne patiently, “we’ve finally reached Miami. I’m still wondering what drove you to the verge of suicide yesterday.”

“It’s Mace. He’s here. In Miami. He escaped from prison and found out about Charles and me. He followed me here. I came home one night last week and there he was in my apartment. He’s still there.”

“Finding out what he’s been missing all these years?”

Her eyes blazed at him. “It’s a terrible situation. I don’t know what to do. Mace wants money and he knows Charles Worthing is very wealthy. He refuses to let my divorce go through here without his entering a counteraction and making a lot of publicity.”

“That’d be a fool stunt,” Shayne grunted. “If he’s an escaped convict—”

“But he’ll do it,” she argued. “He’s vicious enough to do anything. He threatens to bring out all the truth about me in New York. There’ll be a scandal and Charles will know—he’ll realize I was just hired as sucker bait by his wife. He’ll never be able to believe I actually do love him. It’ll be—well, it’ll be the end of everything for me.”

“Turn your husband in,” Shayne growled. “All you’ve got to do is call a cop.”

“No! He’ll tell everything if I do that. Don’t you see,” Helen pleaded with trembling lips, “that he has the whip hand and I’m helpless?”

“What alternative does he suggest?”

“That I go ahead and marry Charles without getting a divorce from him. Then he’ll have a real hold on me—on both of us—and can bleed Charles for money the rest of his life.”

“Nice guy,” Shayne muttered. “Making a bigamist out of his wife for a blackmail setup.” He paused thoughtfully, then asked, “What do you and Jim Lacy figure I can do to ease the situation?”

Helen lifted her glass and gulped twice. She wet her lips and asked, “Couldn’t you—that is, Mr. Lacy thought maybe you could arrange to get rid of him.”

“Bump him off?” Shayne’s gaunt face was expressionless but his eyes were hard and bright. “That’s why you came to me?”

“Well—Mr. Lacy said that you could do it without getting into any trouble. That you had the authority to arrest him, and if he resisted arrest, well—” She spread out her hands, looking at him hopefully.

“Sure,” Shayne muttered. “It could be fixed all right, but no matter what Lacy told you about me, I’m not a torpedo for hire. On the other hand there are plenty of trigger boys in town who’d take care of him for a hundred bucks. Hell, I might even put you in touch with a gunsel—”

“But he won’t leave my apartment,” Helen said with a catch in her voice. “He stays there—locked in—all the time. Lacy said that you, being a detective, could get to him without any trouble, and then—and then—”