Shayne said, “Swell,” and took an appreciative sip of cognac. Ryan went to the door and opened it as the taxi driver came around the corner. He was a thin-faced young man, wearing a peaked cap jauntily. He looked inquiringly at Ryan and asked, “Your name Mike Shayne?”
“Inside.” Ryan stood aside for him to enter the small office. He grinned when he saw the rangy redhead at the desk with the bottle of cognac and paper cups on it.
“That’s more like what I expected. She said you was that famous shamus from Miami. My name’s Joe Pelter, Shayne.” He held out a sinewy, freckled hand and Shayne grasped it heartily. He said, “Glad to meet you, Joe. Who is
“Fare I just had in my cab. A knockout, by God.” He widened his eyes and whistled expressively. “Real class, but jittery and scared to death if you ask me. She gives me this to deliver to you. In person, she says. Be sure Mike Shayne gets it. It’s a matter of life and death, she says, and by God the way she says it, I believe her.” From his shirt pocket he took out two folded sheets of paper torn from a small memo pad that were covered with words shakily written with a thin lead pencil.
Shayne took it from him and said to Ryan, “Why don’t you pour Joe a drink, Pat, while I read this?”
Ryan said, “Sure,” and got out another cup, and Shayne wrinkled his nose at the faint scent that came up from the two small sheets of paper, and read the message:
Mr. Shayne:
I’m in a taxi on my way to meet you but am being followed. I
Please go direct to the Brown Derby and get a table for lunch or drinks and leave your name with the head- waiter. I will join you there as soon as it is safe.
Elsa
Some of the words were hard to make out and Shayne frowned at it thoughtfully, comparing it in his mind with the flowing script of the note in his pocket, and decided it was the same, having been written in a moving car. He held it close to his nose and sniffed, and knew that the scent was certainly the same.
He looked to see Ryan and the cab driver regarding him curiously, and Joe grinned and said, “Smells good, huh? Just the way that dame looked.”
Shayne said, “Tell me about her, Joe. Where did you pick her up?”
“On Hollywood near Vine. I figure she’s an actress, you know. Real class. She gets in and tells me the Plaza Terrace, and I’m driving along taking some ganders at her in the mirror, you know, because you don’t get something like that in a cab very often, not in Los Angeles, you don’t. And I notice her twisting and looking worried out the back, and after a minute she asks if I think we’re being followed, and I check the best I can, but it’s hard to tell for sure in heavy traffic. Then she gets a little pad out of her bag and starts writing on it, and suddenly she tells me to drop her off at the Beverly Hilton instead of here, and asks if I’ll come on here and deliver this note to you. That’s when she did the life-and-death piece, and I told her sure I would. So she had it folded up with a five-dollar bill and she passed it over the back of the seat just as we pulled up at the Hilton, and jumped out and went inside fast. Say, this here is damn good drinking liquor. Cognac, huh?” He drained his cup and looked thirstily at the bottle.
“Have another,” Shayne said absently, drumming his fingertips on the desk. “Describe her to me, Joe. Blonde or brunette? How old? How was she dressed?”
“Blonde,” said Joe enthusiastically. “Real, sure-enough honey-colored blonde, that’s for sure. How old? Gosh, I don’t know. No spring chicken, if you know what I mean, but no hag either. Thirty, maybe. Thirty-five. But plenty juice left in her. God, I don’t know what she was wearing. A dress, I guess. Who looks at a doll’s clothes when she’s got that kind of stuff inside of them? But don’t get me wrong,” he added hastily. “She don’t sling it around for you to look at. It’s there, and she knows you know it’s there, but that’s all.”
Shayne said to Ryan, “She wants me to meet her at the Brown Derby. Is that far from here?”
“On Wilshire? That’s the one she probably means, if she didn’t say which. There’s another one on Vine…”
“I’ll run you over,” Joe Pelter offered eagerly. “My hack’s right in front waiting.”
“Sure.” Shayne drained his cup and got up. He hesitated a moment and told Ryan, “My secretary has the name of this hotel, it’s the only place she can reach me in L.A. If she should try to call in the next half hour or so, you could have me paged at the Brown Derby. Or take a message, and I’ll try to check back with you.”
“Glad to do it,” Ryan told him heartily. “Don’t forget your bottle.”
Shayne shook his head with a grin. “Stash it away. You never know, I may be back for another drink out of it.”
“Any time,” Ryan told him, following him to the door. “Good luck with your juicy blonde.”
3
Shayne found the Original Brown Derby Restaurant practically empty when he walked into it at about four o’clock. There was only a residue of hard-drinkers from the long business lunches that had filled the place earlier and a smattering of tourists who had dropped in early to order cocktails and establish beachheads at strategic tables where they would hopefully dawdle over their drinks and wait for Hollywood celebrities to arrive during the next two or three hours preceding dinner.
A captain of waiters bustled up to Shayne when he paused at the entrance to check his briefcase with a discerning glance at the redhead which failed to categorize the detective as either a celebrity or a celebrity-smitten tourist.
“Would you like a table, sir?”
Shayne nodded, “I’m expecting a lady to meet me. The name is Shayne. Michael Shayne.”
“Of course.” The captain made a notation on his pad and started toward a row of small tables against the wall. Shayne looked at his watch and said, “I think I’ll make a telephone call first.” It was a little after seven o’clock in Miami, and he had promised Lucy he would call her either at the office or at home. He still had nothing definite to report on the length of his anticipated stay in Los Angeles, but it would be pleasant to hear her voice and her comments when he told her about Elsa’s second note and relayed the taxi driver’s description of his mysterious female client.
The captain paused in front of Shayne and looked over his shoulder to say, “Certainly, sir. I’ll have a telephone brought to your table.”
He was being a trifle gauche, Shayne realized with inner amusement, hesitating in the Brown Derby and looking about for a public telephone from which to make his call. A telephone at his table, of course. This was Hollywood, he reminded himself. Where fabulous million-dollar deals were constantly being consummated by habituees of the Brown Derby by private telephones plugged in at their elbows for convenience, so there would be no interruption in the sipping of drinks.
He followed the captain to a table for two, was seated with a flourish, and noted with amusement that he was being covertly observed with a craning of necks by some of the tourists while a waiter hurried up with a telephone which was placed by his right hand and plugged into a jack in the wall beside him.
Shayne lit a cigarette and ordered a sidecar, telling the waiter firmly, “With Martel and a shade light on the Cointreau. And no sugar on the rim of the glass if your bartender here has that atrocious idea for serving a sidecar.”
“Indeed
Shayne lifted the telephone and wondered if he looked like a movie mogul offering joint contracts to Elizabeth Taylor and Tony Curtis to co-star in an adaptation of Darwin’s
He grinned, thinking how unhappy the Brown Derby operator would be when he
