“But it has all the earmarks of a hoax. You said the half of the bill wasn’t phony. How do we know it isn’t? The whole thing smells to high heaven.”
“It’s a mighty expensive smell.” Lucy put her fingertip on the round-trip ticket. “This looks genuine enough.” She moved competently around the desk to the telephone. “I’ll check that flight with United.”
She dialed a number and Shayne reread the baffling appeal while she waited, trying to make some sort of sense out of it, seeking for some clue that he felt must be hidden in the wording, but which stubbornly eluded him.
He heard Lucy speaking briskly into the telephone, and lifted his head to listen to her. She was nodding, and she said, “So you are holding space on Flight Two-sixteen for Michael Shayne? Yes. He will be there to check in at twelve-fifteen at the very latest.”
She replaced the telephone and said, “If it’s a hoax, it’s a fairly expensive one. Your reservation was made in Los Angeles yesterday afternoon.”
He began striding up and down the room, shaking his head and clawing at his unruly red hair. “What about your Mr. Rexforth?” he demanded. “You were hell-bent on my keeping that appointment less than half an hour ago.”
“Oh, Michael.” Lucy smiled and made three lilting syllables out of his name. “You’re so like a little boy sometimes. Go to the hotel and pack an overnight bag. You know I can take care of Mr. Rexforth… even to recommending one of your grubby competitors if necessary. Telephone me as soon as you know whether you’re staying or not.” She had moved around the desk and was stowing the contents of the square white envelope back into it, wrinkling up her nose again at the heavy scent that arose from it.
Shayne grinned and stopped beside her to put an arm tightly about her shoulders. “Just don’t get jealous while I’m gone. And when I find out what the perfume is, I’ll bring you back a bottle.”
“I don’t care about the perfume.” She turned inside the circle of his arm and pressed her face against his chest. In a nearly inaudible voice, she said, “Just bring yourself back, Michael… all in one piece.”
He laughed lightly and put a fingertip under her rounded chin to turn her face up to his. He kissed her lips and said gruffly, “I’ll come back, Angel. And I’ll try to phone you here at the office before five. If not, at home some time this evening.” He released her with a little, affectionate shove, and strode out the door, stuffing the square envelope into his pocket.
Lucy turned and watched his rangy form disappear, blinking a mist of tears from her brown eyes. Then she followed him out, closing the door of the inner office firmly behind her.
Shayne parked his car at the side entrance to his apartment hotel, and hurried in and up the single flight of stairs with springy steps.
He did feel buoyant, by God. This sort of thing had been coming his way too seldom of late. For the past few years he’d been turning down more cases than he accepted, and life was becoming just too damned cut and dried. In fact, he’d been toying with the idea of closing up his office and taking a long vacation… maybe just wander around the country to see if he couldn’t find another spot to set up in business where life would have more of the old verve and impact that Miami had imparted to it in the earlier days when it was a roiling, moiling, hustling young city on the make and the majority of Shayne’s cases had been a challenge and had swept him along on a wave of personal excitement.
He grinned somewhat ruefully as he unlocked the door of his small apartment and strode inside. An hour earlier he had left this room with nothing more exciting to anticipate than playing hookey from the office for a day on the water in Luigi’s fishing boat. Now he had half a thousand-dollar bill and a ticket to Los Angeles in his pocket, and less than half an hour in which to pack a bag and reach the airport.
He whistled tunelessly as he went to a bedroom closet and started to get down a small suitcase, then hesitated and picked up a shabby leather briefcase from the floor instead. Some airlines were stuffy about allowing passengers to carry hand luggage onto the plane, but none of them objected to a briefcase which could be carried off the plane on arrival, thus saving a wait of fifteen or twenty minutes at the baggage counter.
He set it open on the bed, crammed in underwear, socks, pajamas, and a couple of clean shirts, got shaving things and toothbrush from the bathroom, and a full bottle of cognac from the wall cabinet in the living room.
With those essentials in the briefcase, he started to close it up, hesitated and then hurried back into the living room to open the drawer of a center table and take out a snub-nosed.38. He seldom traveled with a gun these days, but… he couldn’t disregard the note of desperation that sounded in the woman’s letter. Elsa Cornell?
The name still didn’t strike a chord. Ten years ago? So far as he could recall, he had never known a woman named Elsa. Still, there had been lots of women. Ten years ago? Damn it, some memory was trying to nag at him, but it wouldn’t come through.
He dropped the gun in the gaping bag, latched it shut, and went out of the bedroom in long strides. He took the elevator down and went to the desk where Pete grinned at sight of the case and asked cheerfully, “You headed some place, Mr. Shayne?”
The detective looked at his watch and said, “I’ve got about thirty minutes to catch a plane to Los Angeles. I don’t know when I’ll be back, Pete, but I’ll be in touch with Miss Hamilton. Any messages or mail that looks important… call her at the office or at her home number.”
“Sure. I know, Mr. Shayne. Gosh! Los Angeles, huh? Your TeeVee show coming back on the air?”
“Nothing like that, Pete,” Shayne told him happily. “Matter of fact, I’ve got a date with a doll I haven’t seen for ten years.”
He turned away with a wave of his big hand to go out the side door, and heard Pete call out cheerfully behind him, “That’s one thing you can bet your life I won’t tell Miss Hamilton.”
By fast and skillful driving, Shayne pulled into a vacant spot in the airport parking lot at just twelve minutes after noon. He reached the United check-in counter four minutes later, and slid the briefcase onto the weighing platform, saying, “That’s all I have and I want to carry it on board.”
He got the square white envelope from his pocket and extracted the round-trip ticket which he laid on the counter, half-expecting the clerk to refuse to accept it for passage at this last moment.
But nothing like that happened. The clerk scribbled some notations, tore part of the ticket off and placed the remainder in an envelope which he handed back to Shayne with a gate pass, said, “They are loading now at Gate Five. Have a pleasant trip, Mr. Shayne.” And that was it.
As Lucy had said: Even if his half of the thousand-dollar bill did turn out to be phony, the airline ticket was genuine enough.
He found a short line of people moving through Gate Five, and followed them out to the waiting jet-liner.
2
Two trim and pretty stewardesses greeted him with professionally cheery smiles at the top of the steps to the forward section. One of them checked his ticket perfunctorily while the other asked, “Would you like me to take care of your briefcase, sir?”
Shayne said, “Please,” and she took it and stowed it in a small compartment for first-class passengers.
The other stewardess handed him back his ticket and said, “Choose any seat you wish, Mr. Shayne. Don’t hesitate to ask for anything that will make your trip more pleasant.”
Shayne gravely promised her he wouldn’t, and moved into the forward section reserved for first-class ticket- holders. It was less than half-filled even this close to departure time, mostly with singles who had taken window seats; well-dressed, important-appearing men, ninety percent of whom Shayne knew must be traveling on expense accounts… or else they’d be in the cheaper rear section.
Just as he would be if he’d paid for his own ticket. He found a pair of unoccupied seats on the right near the center of the section, and settled himself comfortably in the seat by the window. He fastened his seat belt and checked his hand as it involuntarily moved toward a cigarette in his shirt pocket, glanced at his watch and saw it was only five minutes until scheduled departure time.
There were still a few late passengers boarding the plane, and he watched incuriously as they moved hesitantly down the aisle, appraising their fellow passengers and attempting to make a fast decision as to which one of those already seated might make a pleasant seat-mate for the trip.
