door. He stooped and reached inside to get a long loaf of French bread, and he straightened up, clutching it to his breast convulsively.
He turned slowly, and there were tears trickling down his cheeks. He held the loaf of bread out toward Ralph Billiter and said, “Take it. And leave me alone.”
Ralph looked at the loaf of bread in complete and moronic puzzlement. “What kinda foolishment is this here? I didn’t come for no hunk of bread, Mister.”
Steven Shephard looked down sadly at the loaf of bread in his outstretched hands. He turned it slowly so a slit all along the bottom of the loaf was apparent, and the glazed look of resignation on his face suddenly changed to one of fierce hatred. He twisted the long loaf in his hands, breaking it apart and revealing that it was hollowed out and stuffed solidly with greenbacks which fluttered in the air as he threw both ends of the loaf toward the ceiling.
“There it is! Beautiful green stuff!” The words escaped him with pent-up shrillness and he threw his head back and began to laugh hysterically, maniacally.
Ralph Billiter said, “My Gawd A’mighty!” and dropped to his knees, grabbing up handfuls of the bills and staring at them, dropping those and scrabbling about the floor to gather more handfuls.
Steven Shephard stood beside the refrigerator with his head thrown back and kept on laughing shrilly and thinly.
The cabin door burst open behind Ralph on his hands and knees practically wallowing in the green harvest.
Baron McTige was in front, and a tall man wearing a black suit was right behind him. They plowed to a stop just inside the door, and Steven Shephard stopped laughing.
He threw out his arms and said, “Welcome, gentlemen. Help yourselves. There’s plenty for all.”
9
It was no great surprise to Michael Shayne when Timothy Rourke slouched up to their table just after the dinner dishes had been cleared away and the waiter was serving coffee and ponies of cognac in lieu of dessert. The Silver Crescent was one of Shayne’s favorite spots for a leisurely dinner when he and his secretary had a slack evening, and the reporter had an instinct for turning up after food was out of the way and the more serious business of drinking was about to begin.
Tall and emaciated, and wearing a shabby, unpressed suit, Rourke put his hand on the back of Lucy’s chair and gazed down at her fondly. “You get more beautiful every day, honey. When are you going to get tired of waiting for Mike to pop the question, and start making other dates? I’m always available, you know.”
“Sit down, Tim.” Shayne jerked his head at the waiter. “A bourbon on the rocks. You’ll have to take your place in line, Tim. Lucy’s spare time is already spoken for. Tell him about your latest conquest, angel.”
She laughed softly with genuine amusement as Rourke sat down between them. “He was funny, Michael. Stop glowering about him.”
“There’s this fellow Eye from Chicago,” Shayne explained acidly. “He was practically wallowing all over Lucy when I just happened in to my office this afternoon and broke it up. That reminds me, Tim. Have you heard any rumors that the Syndicate figures it’s safe to send an Enforcer to Miami to do a job?”
Timothy Rourke shook his head. “Have you?” he countered blandly.
“Yeh.”
“What’s the story, Mike?” The reporter’s bony fingers trembled as he slopped a little water from Shayne’s glass into the bourbon and ice cubes the waiter set before him but his deep-set eyes were bright with awakened interest.
“No story yet.” Shayne emptied his pony of cognac into the cup of hot coffee in front of him and took an appreciative sip. “After Lucy and I take in the show at the Bright Spot, I may have something for you.”
“The Bright Spot?” Rourke choked over his drink and rolled his eyes at Lucy. “You’re taking her to that den of iniquity? Now look, Mike…”
“Oh, Tim” she broke in impatiently. “I’m a big girl now. You’re always encouraging Michael to keep me wrapped up in swaddling clothes.”
“What’s so special about the Bright Spot?” Shayne demanded impatiently.
“In the first place, she’ll be the only decent woman in the place. But that’s okay as long as she’s with you. Oh, hell, Mike! I realize Lucy won’t be particularly shocked by the spectacle of fair young maidens being debauched all over the joint. But they got a new dance team there that’s setting the town on its ears. This, I don’t think Lucy will go for… and I can tell you, young lady,” he went on fiercely to Lucy, “this isn’t any question of swaddling clothes. It’s plain commonsense for you to stay away from an exhibition like that.”
“Like getting a fast burn with Sloe Burn?” she asked innocently.
He threw up his hands in disgust. “My God, Mike! Don’t tell me you’ve been there.”
“Have you?”
“Last week. Listen. Those two uninhibited kids from the swamp country have got something that does queer things to civilized people.” He shook his head determinedly. “I’m serious. You know I’m all in favor of light-hearted sex, sin and such. But their dance act goes deeper than that. It’s elemental lust spelled out right there on the stage in front of you. It’s goddam frightening,” he went on strongly. “Sure, we’ve all got these obscure impulses deep inside us. But centuries of civilization have taught us it’s safer to keep them hidden away deep inside. When you see them coming up to the surface all around you… when you feel yourself erotically fascinated and sinking down into the same abyss… it just ain’t healthy.”
Michael Shayne’s face showed honest puzzlement. “Are they really that good?”
“That good… or that bad,” Rourke assured him somberly. “You remember the motion picture, Fantasia? The primeval slime. The tortured writhings and gropings in obscene depths that symbolized primordial life. All right. That was beautifully and intelligently done. You were fascinated and obscurely repelled, but you weren’t revolted. It’s dangerous to be fascinated and revolted. That’s what I felt at the Bright Spot. And that’s what I saw on the faces of people all around me.”
“How do a couple of illiterate kids from the Keys manage to convey what you’re describing?” Shayne asked, puzzled more than ever by his friend’s vehemence.
“Because you feel it’s actually what is inside of them,” he replied flatly. “They’ve still got the stench of the swamp’s effluvia in their nostrils. They’re closer akin to the waddling crocodiles and the slithering water moccasins that you know were their childhood playmates than they are to civilized human beings. Their sex-play on stage is brutal and sadistic and… bestial. That’s the word I want. And the hell of it is, you find yourself responding to the savage rhythms they create. Hell, it isn’t sex- play that they give you,” he went on angrily. “It’s the primordial lust of male for female… female for male.”
Rourke paused to toss off his drink, his thin face flushed and his eyes feverishly bright.
“I went around the next day to talk to both of them off-stage, thinking there might be a story I could do. Because I, like you, wondered how a couple of illiterate kids from the Keys had managed to work up an act like that. And they hadn’t. That’s the answer. They don’t even know they’re doing it. It isn’t planned for effect at all. Purely unconscious. Off-stage, Sloe Burn is a self-conscious sexy brat with over-developed physical charms and a childishly irresponsible sort of amorality. She chews gum and giggles happily if you compliment her on the dance. Her partner is a loutish moron with muscles.” Rourke shook his head slowly and lapsed into brooding silence.
Shayne glanced across the table at his brown-eyed secretary, and lifted his ragged red eyebrows. “Still want to go with me, angel?”
She lifted a firm chin. “More than ever. If you insist on going. I want to be right there beside you, Michael, if something like that is going on.”
Rourke groaned loudly. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”
Shayne’s gaze was fixed on Lucy’s face. “I heard you, Tim. Lucy’s just too young and innocent for any of it to penetrate. Why don’t you stick around here with Tim, angel?” He glanced at his watch. “I’m expecting someone to meet me there around ten o’clock.”
“Little Joe Hoffman?” Rourke inquired with interest.
