decided? Or precisely what?”
Shayne had heard this question as he brought in the ice cubes and handed them to the Camel. From this point on, he had heard the Camel’s end of the conversation. He leaned forward, intent on the girl’s answer.
“He said he had decided to give it up,” she said. “It is finished. What happened the last trip frightened him severely, so no more dealings with that devil Alvarez. I sighed and told him this was bad news, I must consider how I am to live. You told me to make it clear, and so I made it clear. It is connected, the business with you and the pleasure with me, although I think sometimes it is not such a great pleasure to him, after all. And it is only common sense. If he gives up making money, he must give up seeing me. I spoke to him of another American, who unhappily lives only in my imagination-fat, bald, with much money. This man Paul does not like. Nor do I, to speak the truth.”
“And in the end? How did you leave it? You persuaded him?”
“No, no. There wasn’t time. I did the best I could. In another hour’s time he would have promised anything, though whether he would keep this promise is yet another matter. He is not exactly the Rock of Gibraltar, Paul. But I have no chance to get even a promise. The phone rings. Erring! His wife has returned. She is downstairs in the lobby. I must dash about here and there, picking up clothes, shoes. It is like a comedy on the stage, though I am the only one of the two of us who thinks it is funny. For Paul it is most extremely serious. This wife of his must be truly formidable. I assure you, with my dress half on, in only one shoe, with the fearful Mrs. Slater entering the elevator, I did not ask him if he had changed his mind and would handle one more shipment for you. This would be much to expect, Luis.”
“All right, I understand that. Still, you had a feeling that he would go ahead with it as planned? This is important. I must know exactly.”
The reels revolved in silence for a moment. The girl’s voice said reluctantly, “I wish very much to have the commission you promise me. So of course I wish that Paul would not be such a great fool. Why he is so frightened, I do not see. But I must not seem to care too greatly, or I will lose him. He is a complicated one, our Paul. Before our tete-a-tete is brought to a sudden halt, I think he is convinced at last that if he must choose, he will choose Vivienne Larousse, lately of Paris, France. He knows this is possible only if he has money to spend, and he has no rich uncle who is likely to die in the future, I believe. As I hop out the door with zipper unzipped, one shoe off, one shoe on, I am giggling. Now I have him in my pocket, now he will do as Uncle Luis wants, he will make money, he will give it to me, not to that dried up stick of a wife. But then I think some more. He is in confusion, this young man. One can turn him easily. And Martha Slater had him all night, all morning. Perhaps she used different methods from me, but perhaps not, do you know? And now I think that perhaps you and I should both look for someone new.”
Alvarez made a noncommittal sound. “And today on the phone?”
“It was nothing. He babbled about his wife, she worked so hard, she stuck to him and he was worth nothing-all very boring. He said nothing about you or your affair. I am surprised, you know, that he had arranged to meet you.”
Shayne went on listening to the exchange between the Camel and the girl, but his mind was no longer on it. The Englishman’s pipe had gone out again; another match flared in the darkness. The Camel cut the conversation off abruptly when he learned that Slater was leaving St. Albans, and asked for another number.
“Need any more, Mike?” Powys said quietly.
“I guess not,” Shayne told him.
The Englishman sat forward and turned off the machine. For a moment they sat in silence.
Shayne said, “I think I’d better have a talk with that girl.”
“My idea exactly,” Powys said. “I was thinking it might be interesting to have a whack at her myself. I saw her performance-quite educational, actually. But you’re the logical man. Wasn’t she the one you were dancing with?”
“She was doing the dancing,” Shayne said. “I just gave her moral support. Too bad you don’t have a car. Brannon’s probably shown my picture to all the cab drivers who are still working.”
“More than likely. But we are going to need a car, Mike.” He struck a match. He seemed to be having a hard time getting his pipe to draw. “Stay where you are. I’ll run out and steal one.”
10
Michael Shayne smoked a cigarette sitting in the darkness on the Englishman’s front steps. When he heard the crunch of tires on the gravel, he gulped the last of his drink and put the glass on a window sill. Powys was driving without lights. He coasted to a stop at the gate, and Shayne got in.
“Nice little Morris,” Powys said with satisfaction. “Amazing how easy it is to steal a car. Never did it before. I think it belongs to Miss Trivers, so let’s try not to get any bullet holes in it.”
He kept the lights off until they were a quarter of a mile from the Lodge. Then he decided not to run the risk of going through the town. Once again Shayne circled St. Albans on back roads.
“Don’t forget there’s a cop in front of the place,” Shayne reminded him.
“Never fear, never fear. That man is very much on my mind.”
They came in through the straggly unpaved streets of the Old Town. “Everybody asleep,” Powys observed. “Wouldn’t mind being asleep myself.”
They passed through the native market. After rejecting several possible parking places, Powys parked on a steep street beside the old church.
“I’ll look the situation over. Back in a tick.” He glanced at Shayne as he got out. “Pity you’re so bloody big, Mike. And that red hair. There’s no getting around it, you don’t look much like a tourist.”
He latched the door softly and disappeared. They were several blocks from the nightclub district; Shayne could see the fitful reflections from the big electric signs, which would go on blinking for another few hours. He heard a goombay band, perhaps playing in the Pirate’s Rendezvous. Beginning to feel trapped in the little car, he got out and stood waiting for Powys in the side doorway of the church. After a time he saw the Englishman coming up toward him rapidly. Seeing Shayne, Powys signalled. He turned and started back in the direction he had come. Shayne followed, keeping close to shop-fronts.
Powys stopped at the entrance to a narrow cobbled alley. “You’d better go in through the back,” he said as Shayne came up to him. “I couldn’t make out what kind of guard they have on the door, but with all those pretty gels in the floorshow, they must have something. I’ll pave the way. Another sudden attack of drunkenness is called for, I’m afraid. I’ll have quite a reputation before the night’s over.”
He nodded and plunged into the alley. At the next intersection he looked around the corner with care, and walked briskly across. A car went by. The instant Shayne heard the sound of the approaching motor he dove for a shadow and pressed hard against a damp wall. He waited until the car was well out of the neighborhood before he continued to the corner. Powys, across the street, waved jauntily. Without waiting for Shayne, he turned into the continuation of the alley. Shayne crossed the street at a run and saw Powys going up a short flight of steps that led into one of the buildings, probably the one that held the nightclub. The goombay band was resting between numbers, but even without the music there were muffled indications that the building was alive.
The Englishman’s walk suddenly became lurching and uncoordinated. He was gone by the time Shayne reached the top of the steps. The door was open, and the redhead looked into a long hall, poorly lit by a single 25- watt bulb. Powys was dancing solemnly with an old colored woman, who had apparently been watching the door. Shayne grinned. This was clearly a dance step of the Englishman’s invention, a weird combination of a cha-cha and a waltz. He held her in both arms, whirling her around and around while she shrieked with laughter and tried to push him away. He danced backward into an open doorway, looking down at her with his usual owlish solemnity. Shayne heard him say, “My good woman, you dance superbly.”
The redhead slipped past. Glancing to the left at the end of the hall, he saw a stove and a man in a chef’s hat, and heard the clatter of dishes. He turned right. A moment later he found himself at the foot of a steep iron staircase. Sticking a cigarette in his mouth, he looked around. A man in the costume worn by the orchestra came through a doorway mopping his forehead. A drum began to beat slowly.
“Where’s Vivienne?” Shayne asked casually.
