couple of minor suggestions. The one thing I don’t want to touch is that act of Irene’s. The big black buck and the Greenwich Village beatnik. That’s going over big.”
Shayne looked down bleakly. “Do you and Brownie get the same cut?”
Szigetti’s eyes jumped away from Shayne, not quite reaching the Negro, who regarded them impassively.
“As far as that goes.”
“Then let’s have less of this color crap,” Shayne said.
Szigetti looked at Michele for support. “What did I say wrong?” he asked on a high note.
“We change the subject,” she said firmly. “I have told Frank about your shooting. Perhaps you will show him the gallery.”
“Well,” Szigetti said grudgingly, “I’ve been sopping up booze all day. I could be a little off.”
He finished his drink and started for the kitchen, saying carelessly, “Brownie, let’s do some shooting.”
Without change of expression, the big Negro followed. Only Irene stayed upstairs.
“Exhibitionist,” she said with a look at Szigetti’s back.
The others, waving cobwebs out of their eyes, went single file down a narrow flight of steps to the basement. It was a spooky place, lit only by two dim bulbs. Rust had eaten holes in the furnace, but the bin beyond was still half-filled with dusty coal.
Szigetti faced into the shadows. “What’s the matter with that light down there? See if it’s loose or what, will you, Brownie?”
Brownie sloped off, keeping his head low to avoid the obstructions on the ceiling. A bright light came on, showing a pocked target nailed to a plywood panel. The distance, Shayne judged, was about twenty-five yards.
“Be careful,” Michele told Szigetti.
He squinted at the target, holding a short-barreled. 38 loosely at his side. “I won’t plug anybody.” He risked a quick look at Shayne. “They knew how to build houses in the old days. I had Billy stand halfway to the road while I did some shooting, and he thought it was crickets, for Christ’s sake.”
Brownie called, “OK?”
“OK.”
Brownie was concealed from view behind a hot-water tank. Suddenly a beer can flew into the light. Szigetti fired, sending the can spinning back with a clank against the masonry wall.
“You bastard,” he said, laughing. “You almost tricked me that time.”
Suddenly a rat scuttled across the concrete floor, heading straight at them. Michele screamed and seized Shayne’s arm. A shot from Szigetti’s. 38 checked the rat briefly, knocking it off stride, but it kept coming. Michele tightened her grip convulsively and went on screaming as the rat scuttled up to her feet. It had been put together out of brown cloth and darning thread, and stuffed with cotton. At close range it didn’t look much like a rat. Some of the cotton stuck out through the rip made by the bullet.
“Ziggy, you monster,” she said, her hand to her breast.
“And I don’t know what angle it’s coming from,” Szigetti said, pleased. “That’s the beauty of it. Depends on what string he pulls.”
While he was talking, a cardboard head poked out abruptly from behind the water tank, disappearing the same instant that Szigetti fired.
“Missed!” Brownie called. He added in a lower voice, “No, you didn’t. Nicked his ear.”
Szigetti gave a complacent laugh. “Take a shot,” he told Shayne. “I noticed you carry a. 45. A. 45 slug would really blow a hole in that rat.”
Shayne’s. 45, of course, was loaded with blanks, which made a noise but wouldn’t knock any stuffing out of a stuffed rat. “No, thanks,” he said. “I stopped practicing years ago.”
“Go ahead,” Szigetti urged him. “Take a couple of cracks at the target anyway, if the rat scares you. I’d like to see what you’ve got in the way of a draw.”
Shayne smiled. “What are we doing, rehearsing for television? No, you’re too hot for me, Szigetti. After that much sauce I might not even hit the target.”
Szigetti sneered. Suddenly Shayne said, “Now I know where I saw you. You were in the Corps.”
The other man looked at him with slow surprise and put away his.
“Four long years. What outfit?”
“I was a D.I. at Parris Island,” Shayne said. “I forget what year you were there.”
When Szigetti told him, Shayne said, “The mustache makes the difference. I keep running into guys, but it always takes a minute. After the first half-dozen cycles all the boots begin to look alike.”
Szigetti, in good humor again, thought this called for a drink. They trooped back upstairs and finished the bottle. Another bottle appeared, the same harsh blend, Shayne was sorry to see. Szigetti was no less ready to reminisce than any other former Marine, and he stayed in a good mood as long as the others were willing to listen. All his officers, for one reason or another, had had it in for him, but just the same, he had generally managed to fix their wagon.
When Billy was called in off guard, he suggested a game of poker. Michele had never played, but she was willing to learn. She sat beside Shayne, her knee touching his leg. Between them, they collected most of the money at the table. Szigetti believed himself to be an expert but lost steadily. He crouched suspiciously over his cards, smoldering.
“Of all the goddamned luck!” he said, slamming down aces and queens after Shayne took the last pot with a low flush.
“Luck?” Brownie said. “That’s poker-playing, man.”
Michele stood up quickly and told Shayne to come with her while she found him a place to sleep.
“I know what,” Irene put in from across the table. “No, that would be unmoral.”
Shayne gave her a half shrug and followed the French girl.
“You can use Tug’s room,” Michele said when they were upstairs. “A toothbrush and so forth will have to wait till tomorrow.”
She turned on the overhead light in an empty bedroom. There was a mattress and pillow on the big iron bedstead, but only one rumpled sheet.
“Primitive,” she admitted, “but can you manage for two nights?”
“It’s better than jail,” Shayne said. “No women in jails.”
She listened at the door, then closed it and came into Shayne’s arms. She kissed him hungrily.
“I would love to stay with you,” she whispered. “But Ziggy is so wild, it would make him worse. Tomorrow we make love. Do not forget. I take you to New York. When we are alone, let me suggest ways, darling.”
Shayne’s role didn’t require him to make an answer. His arms tightened and he let one hand slide down her back. She broke away.
“Tomorrow will be a sensational success, I promise you. Even better will be the day after, then the day after that Wait. I want you to try on the uniform.”
She went to the closet and took out the green, one-piece overall worn by workers in the New York Department of Sanitation. “He was as tall as you, but without your shoulders. It was loose on him. We can get another tomorrow if this one is too bad.”
Shayne undressed and put on the uniform. It was too tight across the chest. The bulge of his. 45 showed clearly. She gave him a critical looking over.
“Leave one more button open. No, I think you must carry the pistol in a bag.”
Shayne grinned. “Between two slices of bread?”
“It will only be for a moment. Darling, that was clever of you, not to shoot for Ziggy. It pleased him. I have seen you with a pistol. I do not need to be shown.”
“That’s the way people get in the Marines-gun-happy.”
“He is not so bad, after all,” she said, trying to talk herself into it. “Perhaps tomorrow you must frighten him a little. He was frightened of Tug. Today they are all on edge about Tug’s arrest, they drank too much. But what each one has to do is very simple indeed. There will be no trouble. We will arrive in Portugal, you and I, with no one the wiser and much money in our luggage.”
“Maybe, Michele,” Shayne said, his tone suddenly weary. “You don’t know how it is, kid. It’s never simple.
