the Camel earlier tonight. You were a little cold-blooded at a couple of points there, I thought. It might hurt Paul’s feelings if he heard it.”
“You wouldn’t-”
“It would be a dirty trick, wouldn’t it?” Shayne said. “It might even give him the idea that you don’t really love him.”
“So,” she said after a pause. “Since you ask me so nicely, I will get dressed. Turn around, please.”
“Turn around, hell,” Shayne said. “And get a knife between my shoulder blades?”
She stared at him for a moment, then laughed. “In some ways you are rather impressive, you know?”
“Come on, come on,” Shayne said. “We don’t have all the time in the world.”
He put another cigarette in his mouth as she shrugged out of her wrapper.
11
She chose the dress with the Paris label. It was simple and black, and fitted her exactly. Shayne was in a position to know how much she was wearing in addition to the dress, and he felt she was somewhat under-clothed, even for this warm climate.
She stepped into her high-heeled shoes, and then was ready for her face. As she worked Shayne became more and more impatient. She left the full theatrical make-up on her eyes, giving most of her attention to her mouth.
“Better?” she asked, looking around.
“Fine, fine,” Shayne growled, “Let’s get going.”
He was waiting at the door. She picked up her purse, gave her reflection one last glance, and did something more to her hair.
“I don’t know why I have decided to trust you,” she said, giving him an upward glance through the long eyelashes.
“I do,” he said. “Because I’ve got the tape of that phone call stashed away in a safe place. Any monkey business going downstairs and you’re dead with Slater.”
“Don’t threaten me, Michael,” she said, smiling. “And to show you we are friends-” She went to the trunk and opened it. After tumbling the costumes around for a moment, she came up with a battered man’s hat. “Put this on. I have a song I sing sometimes in a tramp costume-not at the Pirate’s Rendezvous, of course, here they care only for what goes on beneath the costume. It is too large for me,” she added unnecessarily.
It was too large for Shayne, he found after he had punched it into shape and put it on. She giggled.
He let her go first. She looked down the stairs and along the corridor. Turning, she beckoned. They met no one on the stairs. At the bottom, as she turned into the corridor, she called a gay greeting to someone, and Shayne pulled down the brim of the grotesque hat. He had his hand to his cigarette screening the lower part of his face, as he passed a Negro porter leaning on a broom. The man looked at him curiously, and Shayne replaced his usual vigorous step with a spiritless shuffle. The old woman at the door was drowsing over an American movie magazine. Shayne went by with his head down, his hand still at his mouth.
Vivienne was waiting in the alley. She took his arm possessively, hugging it to her breast.
“Where is the car, cheri?”
Without answering, Shayne took her along the alley and up the steep street to the church. The Morris was parked where he had left it. Cecil Powys was behind the wheel.
“Mike,” he said as Shayne opened the door for the girl. “This is a pleasant surprise.”
“I knew you’d appreciate it,” Shayne said. “She’s going along to show us the way. I also want her where I can keep my eye on her.”
“That shouldn’t be at all difficult,” the Englishman said cordially.
She gave him an interested look, shooting from behind the eyelashes as she had done with Shayne. The redhead got in back; she stayed in front so she could call the turns. Powys, sitting sideways in the driver’s seat, seemed in no hurry to get underway.
“I enjoyed your performance,” he said to the girl. “Frightfully good, really. When you were doing those convolutions to the drum, the thought crossed my mind how jolly nice it would be to go backstage and make your acquaintance. Then I thought to myself, ‘Impossible, old boy. Can’t be done. Girl like that must have scads of admirers. Probably a jealous husband somewhere in the background.’”
He beamed at her. Shayne said brusquely, “His name is Cecil Powys. He claims to be working for a degree at Oxford, but don’t ask him what he’s really up to because he won’t tell you. Now let’s get going.”
“Oh, come now,” Powys said mildly, looking around. “It’s not all that bad. I say-where did you get that awful hat?”
“You mean you just noticed it?”
Shayne laughed and put the hat on the seat beside him. Powys started the motor, swinging around the block to keep from passing the nightclub’s front entrance. Soon, following the girl’s directions, they were out of town tooling along the coast road at the little car’s top speed. Occasionally Powys turned his head to smile appreciatively at the girl beside him. She was a girl who liked to be appreciated. She slid closer until their shoulders touched.
“Now to the left,” she said after a time.
They started inland. Shayne leaned forward.
“I keep thinking of more things I want to ask you. When Martha was going out of town and Paul wanted to make a date with you, didn’t he have some way of sending you a message so it wouldn’t mean anything to anybody else? Wouldn’t it be a good idea, for instance, to tear the radio program out of a paper and-”
She swung around, and Shayne said, “That’s right. I looked through your bag. I didn’t have anything else to occupy my time. Those were from Paul?”
She hesitated. “I see no reason not to tell you. Yes.”
“You’ve been with him a lot lately. By this time you probably know most of his secrets. The customs people think he fooled them on his last trip. Do you know how he did it?”
Powys, his pipe clenched between his teeth, was holding the steering wheel lightly, intent on the road. His grip seemed to tighten, and Shayne felt a sharpening of attention.
Vivienne said carelessly, “I do not concern myself.”
Shayne made a rude noise. “The hell you don’t, baby. It wouldn’t surprise me if even Alvarez doesn’t know exactly how he works. But I’d be damn surprised if you don’t.”
She smiled in the faint light. “But you know, all this trouble may bring him together with his wife again. And if that happens, I might want to talk to the American officials in person. They pay well for such information, I am told.”
“Now that’s the spirit I like to see,” Powys said.
When she looked at him to see if he was joking, he winked at her broadly. Shayne sat back.
“Now you must go more slowly,” Vivienne said soon afterward, peering at the road ahead. “It is not far away.”
Powys cut his speed while the girl watched for landmarks. They passed several large plantations, and went on climbing. They left a small sleeping village behind. In the end, though they were all watching for the turn, they missed it. Powys had to stop and back. It was a small sign: “R. Smith,” with an arrow pointed up a gravel road. At a quiet word from the girl, Powys cut his lights. He waited briefly until his eyes came into the new focus, then ground forward slowly in second. The dark vegetation on each side made the road easy to follow.
“Not far,” the girl said.
Soon Shayne made out a massive stone wall on their left, about as high as a professional basketball center taking a rebound.
“I remember something,” Vivienne said suddenly. “Wait. When the gate opens, a bell rings at the house.”
“Easy enough,” Powys said. “We go over the wall, eh, Mike?”
He spotted a break in the vegetation. Coming to a halt, he got out to try the ground. Satisfied, he returned to the Morris, cut the wheels sharply and backed off the road as far as he could, stopping only when the rear wheels
