So Lush, So Deadly

better get rid of it.”

“I’m all right,” H. said. “I only tried it once and I didn’t like it.”

Shayne tried to raise his head, but fell back with a groan. “Where’s Henry?”

“Who cares? I don’t, I can assure you of that.”

“I’ve got to-”

“You know what you’ve got to do, Mr. Shayne. You’ve got to lie here till an ambulance comes and gets you.”

Shayne didn’t try to shake his head for fear something would go wrong inside, but this time when he endeavored to sit up he made it.

“Can you drive a car?”

“Yes, but you’re not-”

Shayne tried to stand. It was too soon, and he went under again. This time he had a harder fight to come back, and the surfacing was unpleasant.

“The beating they gave you,” she said. “They were just out of control. I completely lost my temper. I said things, I did things-”

“H.-”

“Helen.”

“Helen, I have things to do or people’ll get killed. Help me. My car-”

A battered Ford stopped with a screech of tires and Tim Rourke leaped from it. He had dressed hurriedly, and Shayne noticed with a temporary return of his usual clarity that he was wearing only one sock.

“My God, what a story. Did you start this, Mike? Tell me later. Where’s a phone?”

“In the cafe.”

“The cafe’s a shambles. Well, maybe the phones are still working.”

He dashed off.

“How long’s this been going on?” Shayne said.

“Half an hour. Nobody knows what happened, it just exploded. Everybody started running. The police have been dreadful. Unbelievable. I’m going home to my family. I’ve made up my mind that I’m not going to stay here another night.”

Moving slowly, by careful stages, Shayne sat up again. “What does Henry think about that?”

“I’ve given up on Henry. Do you know he paid those boys to beat you? Ten dollars apiece, seven boys, seventy dollars. And he told me he was so broke! I’ve been scrounging for food. I washed dishes in the cafe one night. He didn’t give me one cent the whole week, and suddenly it turns out he has ten-dollar bills to throw around.”

Shayne was feeling himself to see where he hurt most and he was only half listening. But a little warning flag went up. He repeated what she had said slowly, and it registered on him.

“The whole week, Helen? He’s been here two weeks.”

“Six days, to be exact. I ought to know, and half the time he’s been God knows where. I think he’s been seeing that wife! Right along!”

“What makes you think that?”

“I could smell her perfume. Expensive perfume-Dior’s. The hypocrite. I left home to get away from hypocrisy. He said he liked how peaceful it is here, nobody bugging him, no pressures-he said he was happy for the first time in his life. That’s what he said. But he wasn’t happy. He lay awake most of the night. I couldn’t help him. He wouldn’t talk to me. The whole thing has been such a fiasco.”

Rourke came running up. “Into the car, boy. We’ve got some talking to do.”

“Got the tape recorder?”

“Yeah. On your feet, Mike. I’m a ninety-pound weakling, and I’m not going to carry you. So you got knocked out. Worse things happen to you all the time.”

“You didn’t see what they did to him!” the girl cried.

“Honey,” Rourke said, “you don’t want to sympathize with Shayne. It’s bad for him. I’m this character’s best friend, and I’m always sorry to see him bleeding. But right now we’re both working. You can help him if you want to. You’re a female. He won’t mind leaning on you.”

Rourke stood by, his eyebrows cocked skeptically, while the girl tugged at Shayne and got him to his feet. She steered him across the sidewalk to Rourke’s Ford. The reporter’s only contribution was to open the door.

Shayne put his head against the back of the seat and rested. Helen reached in and kissed the corner of his mouth. She started to say something, but Rourke, meanwhile, had leaped behind the wheel and was impatient to drive off. She let go of the door and gave a tentative half wave.

“Good-bye. I hope-”

Rourke came down hard on the gas, and put a strain on the transmission going up into second.

“One of these days we’re going to have to start double-teaming you, Mike. One-man coverage is hardly enough. What’s the program?”

Shayne moved his hand. “Flagler Terrace. Left my car there. Need a drink.”

Rourke was still in second when he came up behind Shayne’s Buick. Shayne heard him swear. He opened his eyes and pulled himself forward, then slowly opened the door and got out.

The red Volkswagen lay on its side as Shayne had left it. In retaliation, De Rham and the Angels had wrecked the Buick, as well as they could wreck it in a limited time without heavy equipment. All four tires were flat. The headlights and taillights had been smashed. All the glass was gone except the windshield. The body was battered, the doors were sprung and off their hinges.

“As I think I told you, some of these guys aren’t too sold on nonviolence yet,” Rourke said. “Old habits.”

Shayne checked his liquor supply in the back seat bar. They had cleaned him out.

“I grabbed a couple of pints on the way out of the house,” Rourke said. “You never know when it’s going to come in handy. Stop panting-I’ll give you a drink.”

They returned to the Ford. Rourke took a flat bottle of cognac out of his glove compartment and opened it for him. A pint of cheap blended whiskey-Rourke claimed he couldn’t tell the difference between that and more expensive brands-was already open. They clinked bottles.

“Cheers,” Rourke said.

Shayne drank and breathed out luxuriously.

“Mike, I know you’re a fast recuperator. But this time I think I’d better check you in at St. Clare’s and let them take a few stitches. Whatever it is, it can wait till breakfast. You look pretty feeble.”

The cognac had begun to circulate, burning away the fog in Shayne’s brain.

“That’s what everybody tells me,” he said. “First Mrs. Brady, then Brady, now De Rham. Wait till breakfast. I’ve been tied up and fed a Mickey and faked into a wrong part of town and slugged and knifed. It begins to dawn on me that something’s about to happen and nobody wants me around.”

“Just the same-”

“Do something for me,” Shayne said brusquely. “Two cars in front of the VW you’ll see a catch basin. I skipped a tape into it earlier. A flat package wrapped in cloth. I know you’ll be glad to climb in and get it for me. You’re in better shape than I am.”

Rourke didn’t move. “I haven’t fooled around in catch basins since I was a small boy, Mike. That’s a job for the Sanitation Department.”

Shayne took another drink, keeping his eyes on his friend. After a moment Rourke sighed.

“You probably figure I owe you. I got some good eyewitness stuff on the riot, and if I’m patient you may tell me what else has been happening. I’d better keep you happy.” He got out. “Don’t you want to watch?”

“I’m comfortable here.”

“Yeah. Why am I the one who always has to do the dirty work? And in this case dirty is the right word.”

Shayne heard the grating clang. Rourke mumbled to himself.

“Goddamn Shayne. Gets me out of bed at all hours. I have to climb down into the goddamn sewer-”

There was a faint splash. His voice continued, echoing hollowly. The monologue quickly became more obscene.

“Got it!” he cried. “Didn’t think I would, did you, you lazy bastard? Sitting up there on your butt, swilling cognac-”