hers up, too. She made a wretched attempt to smile as she held it out to him. She breathed, “Now you know the truth. Do you despise me? Do you think I should have thrown away the only chance I’ll ever have for happiness?”
Shayne shrugged and poured cognac over the half-melted ice cubes in her glass. He splashed soda on top and handed the glass back to her. “Who am I to pass judgment? Everyone has to play the cards dealt them the way they see it.” He refilled his glass and sank back into his chair. “You haven’t told me anything very dreadful yet. What’s troubling you? Threats of blackmail from someone who knows about your career as a marriage buster- upper?”
“Worse than that. You see-I’m already married.”
Correctly interpreting Shayne’s look of astonishment, Helen explained, “I’m not as young as you probably think. I’m twenty-six. I married when I was seventeen-a heel named Mace Morgan.
“We lived together only a short time. I found out he was a small-time crook after we were married. I left him and changed my name and went to work in the chorus.
“I’d almost forgotten about Mace. About being married to him. Then, when Charles insisted that we get married as soon as his divorce went through, I realized I’d have to do something about Mace. I asked Lacy about it and he told me Mace was in the penitentiary on a long rap. I decided to come to Miami and get a quick divorce-no publicity-and Charles would never have to know.”
“Now,” said Shayne patiently, “we’ve finally reached Miami. I’m still wondering what drove you to the verge of suicide yesterday.”
“It’s Mace. He’s here. In Miami. He escaped from prison and found out about Charles and me. He followed me here. I came home one night last week and there he was in my apartment. He’s still there.”
“Finding out what he’s been missing all these years?”
Her eyes blazed at him. “It’s a terrible situation. I don’t know what to do. Mace wants money and he knows Charles Worthing is very wealthy. He refuses to let my divorce go through here without his entering a counteraction and making a lot of publicity.”
“That’d be a fool stunt,” Shayne grunted. “If he’s an escaped convict-”
“But he’ll do it,” she argued. “He’s vicious enough to do anything. He threatens to bring out all the truth about me in New York. There’ll be a scandal and Charles will know-he’ll realize I was just hired as sucker bait by his wife. He’ll never be able to believe I actually do love him. It’ll be-well, it’ll be the end of everything for me.”
“Turn your husband in,” Shayne growled. “All you’ve got to do is call a cop.”
“No! He’ll tell everything if I do that. Don’t you see,” Helen pleaded with trembling lips, “that he has the whip hand and I’m helpless?”
“What alternative does he suggest?”
“That I go ahead and marry Charles without getting a divorce from him. Then he’ll have a real hold on me-on both of us-and can bleed Charles for money the rest of his life.”
“Nice guy,” Shayne muttered. “Making a bigamist out of his wife for a blackmail setup.” He paused thoughtfully, then asked, “What do you and Jim Lacy figure I can do to ease the situation?”
Helen lifted her glass and gulped twice. She wet her lips and asked, “Couldn’t you-that is, Mr. Lacy thought maybe you could arrange to get rid of him.”
“Bump him off?” Shayne’s gaunt face was expressionless but his eyes were hard and bright. “That’s why you came to me?”
“Well-Mr. Lacy said that you could do it without getting into any trouble. That you had the authority to arrest him, and if he resisted arrest, well-” She spread out her hands, looking at him hopefully.
“Sure,” Shayne muttered. “It could be fixed all right, but no matter what Lacy told you about me, I’m not a torpedo for hire. On the other hand there are plenty of trigger boys in town who’d take care of him for a hundred bucks. Hell, I might even put you in touch with a gunsel-”
“But he won’t leave my apartment,” Helen said with a catch in her voice. “He stays there-locked in-all the time. Lacy said that you, being a detective, could get to him without any trouble, and then-and then-”
She stopped, moistened her lips. Her eyes glittered strangely
“And then rub him out while I’m taking him to jail on the pretext that he tried to escape,” Shayne supplied for her evenly. “It has been done. You mean it, don’t you? Just like that?” He snapped his bony fingers. “The job you came here to see me about is having your husband murdered-in a nice quiet way so there won’t be any stink raised.”
Helen shuddered and averted her eyes from his searching gaze. “You make it sound so horrible. It wouldn’t be murder. Not really. No more than an official hanging is murder. He’s got it coming. It’s the only way to prevent him from wrecking two lives.”
“Women,” said Shayne angrily, “have the damnedest way of rationalizing the ugliest facts into something quite sweet and lovely. He’s your legal husband and you’re offering money to have him killed. Those are the facts. Why don’t you face them squarely?”
“All right,” Helen cried. “That is what I mean. Stop torturing me. Will you do it, or are you going to sit up here and pretend to be shocked? Everyone in Miami knows you’ve done worse. They say you’ve never touched a case that you didn’t frame somebody-sit back and pull the strings and watch men die-at a profit to you.”
Shayne’s lips came away from his teeth. “That,” he told her, “is an important point. At a profit. I always make death pay me dividends. The first question I ask about any case is what’s in it for me.”
“You needn’t worry about that.” Helen fumbled in her large leather handbag. She withdrew a roll of bills. “I’ve only a few hundred right now,” she faltered. “Take it as a sort of retainer. I can get more from Charles later. I’ll pay you a thousand dollars after we’re married.”
Shayne shook his head. He said, “Put your money away. I don’t want a retainer from you. At least, not yet.” He got up and went to the window, stood with his back to her, looking out.
The sun was low in the west and the haze of early twilight was cloaking the whitewashed houses and swaying palms. There was a clean smell of flowers and the salt tang of the sea in the air. Michael Shayne breathed it deeply into his lungs, gazing toward Biscayne Bay with brows deeply furrowed. This was one of the times he wished he had chosen another profession.
He turned back after a time and found Helen’s eyes pathetically intent upon him. He said, “Leave me your address and I’ll do some checking up. I’m not promising a thing, but I’ll see what I can work out.”
She gave him the address of an apartment on the Beach. He wrote it down, then took her by the arm and led her to the door, saying, “I’d rather you weren’t seen leaving here. Go down that hall to the stairs and out the side exit.”
She faced him in the doorway, put both her hands on his arm while her eyes searched him. “You won’t let me down,” she said simply, “I know you won’t.” She lifted herself on tiptoe and swiftly pressed her lips against his mouth, then turned out the door and hurried toward the stairway.
Shayne turned back into the room slowly. There was the lingering scent of heliotrope perfume in the air. He went into the bathroom and rubbed a trace of rouge from his mouth, then came back tweaking the lobe of his left ear.
He went out after a moment’s hesitation, walked to the end of the corridor and down the stairs to the ground floor and a private side entrance.
He let himself out onto the sidewalk, strode briskly to the front of the building. Two police cars and an ambulance were parked in front. One of the police cars was from Miami’s sister city across the bay, Miami Beach.
Shayne stalked into the lobby, whistling cheerily. The desk clerk tried to signal for his attention, but Shayne waved to him and went on to the elevators.
The elevator boy’s eyes bugged at him when he stepped into the car. He breathed, “Gee, Mr. Shayne, what d’yuh think? The cops’ve been lookin’ all over for you.”
Shayne grinned and said, “That’s nothing new, Henry.” He got out and strode down the hall toward the open door of his office.
Two harness cops stood outside. He frowned and asked them, “What the hell’s going on?”
One of the uniformed men said, “It’s Mr. Shayne himself,” and jerked his thumb toward the open door, muttering, “Watch your step, Mike. It’s Peter Painter inside and he’s on the warpath for sure.”
Shayne winked at him and strode in. He stopped just inside the door, staring down at the corpse of Jim Lacy
