one light burned aboard the
Shayne frowned, feeling disconcerted and off-balance, as though he had missed a step coming downstairs in the dark. He had just been picking up momentum.
But there was nothing he could do except go home. He returned to Miami, taking his time, and garaged the Buick. He lived in an apartment hotel on the north bank of the Miami River, in the same two rooms he had rented when he first came to town. He still needed the same amount of space, he liked the down-at-the-heels neighborhood, and he saw no reason to move.
He made a final brandy and soda. While he drank it and prepared for bed, he thought about the De Rhams and Paul Brady. There were immense gaps in what he had been told. Something was seriously out of focus, but he had always had the ability to stop speculating about possibilities when he ran out of facts. He added up his checkbook, filled out his expense register, and turned out the light.
He was instantly asleep.
In the last year or so there had been a wave of boat robberies in Miami Beach. Professional thieves had discovered with delight that an amazing number of women on boats took their jewels along, and an amazing number of men carried amazing amounts of cash. The big marinas, which at first had been nothing but long floating docks, had begun to adopt security measures, and when Michael Shayne entered the Sunrise Shores the next morning he had to pass inspection by a uniformed guard.
Nearly every berth was taken. The
“Mike Shayne. I knew you’d be up early.”
“It’s not that early. Is Mrs. De Rham awake?”
Brady shook his head. Shayne saw himself reflected in the wraparound lenses of the sunglasses.
“She may be awake but she’s not up. But by God, she’s going to get up. Her husband’s been gone about two weeks now. Don’t you think it’s time she got used to the idea? I’ll get you a cup. Pour yourself some coffee while I bang on her door.”
He ducked in through a companionway and disappeared in the galley, to return a moment later with a cup and saucer, which he had just rinsed.
“We run what’s known as an
“I’m told she’s been drinking,” Shayne said.
“She’s been drinking. I keep her company up to a point, but after a certain number of drinks I get sleepy.”
“This is all because her husband walked out on her?”
Brady threw out his hands. “Ask her head-shrinker. She didn’t do much twenty-four-hour drinking before this happened. They had their fights, but this time I think she’s finally convinced he means it. She’s beginning to pull out of it, I think-I mean I hope. That visit from the cops shook her up. It’s time she took some nourishment. She must have lost about fifteen pounds.”
“What’s your role here, Mr. Brady?” Shayne asked. “Just a friend?”
“Just a long-suffering friend. I thought they’d decided to make up, or I wouldn’t have come along. I have a marital problem of my own. But when they had the bad fight and the drinking started, I thought somebody ought to stick around. I don’t mind telling you I’m close to the end of the road.”
He crossed the salon and went down one step to rap on the stateroom door. He had promised to bang on it; instead, he knocked respectfully and repeated the knock when there was no response.
“What do you want?” a voice called.
He ducked his head, tried the door as though suspecting it might be locked, and stepped in.
Shayne poured himself coffee and waited. He was on the boat’s exposed side. He was half-sitting on the rail, not wanting to commit himself to a deck chair. A girl came out on the deck of the next boat, separated from Shayne only by the width of the catwalk. She had long blonde hair, coming down to where an old-fashioned bathing suit would have begun if she had been wearing that kind instead of a bikini. She came up on her toes and stretched, up and out.
She smiled at Shayne. “Good morning. Are you through with that paper?”
“It’s not mine. Throw it back when you’re done with it.”
He handed it across. She took it with another pleasant smile, found a pair of sunglasses, and settled herself. Shayne stayed where he was. She looked up from the headlines almost immediately.
“You certainly have some weird murders in Miami, don’t you?”
“I know. But most of the murderers have only been with us a short time.”
This was a game Shayne didn’t mind playing when he had nothing else to do. Brady came out before he could make the next move.
“Hi, Sally.”
“I borrowed your paper.”
“Keep it.” He picked up his coffee cup. “It’s going to take Mrs. De Rham a few minutes. Bring your coffee around here, Shayne. There’s a breeze.”
Shayne lifted one eyebrow to the girl and followed Brady to the blind side of the boat.
“This is like living in a department store window,” Brady said in a lower voice. He moved a chair so he could sit down and put his feet on the rail. “I’m afraid I gave you the wrong impression, the way I fielded your last question. I wasn’t trying to duck anything. I know it looks as though there’s a little adultery going on here. That was what the cops thought. They kept looking for a chaperone. But how could I walk off and leave her? Only husbands are allowed to do that. Of course I sympathize with the guy, he’s an old friend of mine. He’s taken plenty of punishment. So have I the last couple of weeks.”
“How about her family?”
“There’s a mother in the south of France. I was supposed to be back in New York last week, so I finally cabled. I haven’t had an answer yet, and I don’t even know if she got it. After the cops were here I got Dotty to phone the lawyer, I forget his name-”
“Loring.”
“Loring, yeah, he’s some kind of guardian. But he just had a heart attack, it turns out, which leaves me.”
There was a bowl of mixed nuts on a low table, and he was shoveling them into his mouth as he talked. His hair was long but carefully tended. He had a petulant mouth and a chin with a deep dimple. His womanish chest and thighs were deeply tanned. He was still wearing his shades, though this stretch of deck was in shadow. Shayne, as a detective, would have liked to abolish sunglasses. They hampered him. Brady’s manner was confident, but Shayne had a feeling that his eyes were darting nervously from side to side behind the screen of the glasses. The salted nuts and the coffee kept his hands busy.
“She looks like the wrath of God,” Brady said. “And she’s worried about it so go easy on her, will you? It wasn’t exactly simple, talking her into this. It was my idea that a private detective could help, but she only agreed to it because I thought of working it through the lawyer.”
He threw more nuts into his mouth. “I don’t know what’s taking her so long. She said she’d just put on some lipstick. Well, I might as well tell you. The complication, the thing she didn’t tell the cops when they talked to her, is that when Henry walked, he took some of her cash with him. He cleaned her out.”
“How much?”
“She doesn’t know for sure. It could be as much as five thousand.”
“How did she happen to have that much with her?”
“Because she’s a little batty.” He lowered his voice abruptly. “Jesus, I hope she didn’t hear that. If you look at her cross-eyed she starts screaming. She always has to have cash around, because what if she sees a diamond bracelet or something and they don’t know her well enough to take her check? What if she forgets what name to put on the check? My own private theory is that it reassures her, it gives a certain substance to her personality.
