“But why would she admit anything?” Kitty said, puzzled. “Why would she even see you? You won’t get there before four.”
“I will if I fly. Call her and see what she says.”
For a moment Kitty continued to look in his eyes, her face serious and questioning. Then she nodded. “Mike, do you know you’re absolutely the most-well, all I hope is that you’ll call me after I get back from New York. What do you want me to do?”
He told her. She went to the phone in the living room and dialed a number. A moment after giving the operator her own number, a voice answered.
“Eda Lou!” Kitty exclaimed. “I didn’t want to wake you up. This is Kitty Sims. You’re going to feel like shooting me, but I have to talk to Barbara.”
The voice interrupted.
Kitty said, “I do know what time it is, and I’m not drunk. Be an angel. Tell her I wouldn’t be calling unless it was something important. It’s about signing over my share in the Key. She honestly won’t mind.”
Kitty covered the mouthpiece and said to Shayne, “The housekeeper, Mrs. Parchman. She’s been a fixture for decades. A nice crusty old biddy, very unphony.” Uncovering the mouthpiece, she said, “Barbara. I know this is no time of night, but I have to ask you a favor. Now don’t say no right away until I tell you about it. You’ve heard about Michael Shayne, the private detective.”
She listened a moment.
“That’s the one,” she said with a smile at Shayne, who was putting on his shirt on the other side of the room. “And I assure you he lives up to his reputation. He’s with me right now, as a matter of fact.”
There was a quick squawking from the phone.
Kitty said, “Yes, I’m calling from my apartment. Scandalous, isn’t it? Here I am not even properly divorced, with a strange man in my room. What would my ex-husband say? No,” she said seriously, “it’s not as bad as it sounds. I asked him up and I’ve been telling him my troubles over a friendly glass. I must say he’s been sympathetic. Frankly, Barbara, something happened to my cat last weekend that gave me a bad jolt. I’m uneasy about being alone. I’ve explained the Key Gaspar thing to him, as far as I know it. I’m baffled by quite a bit of it, actually. He wants to know if he can come down and talk to you.”
Barbara asked a question.
“Yes, right now. I’ve tried to talk him out of it and when you see what he looks like you’ll know why. But when he gets an idea in his head-What it amounts to, Barbara, I know I told Brad I wouldn’t sell under any circumstances, but now I’m having second thoughts like mad. Discretion the better part of valor and so on. Mike seems to be leaning in the same direction. I think in the end I’ll take his advice, but he doesn’t want to make any firm recommendation before he knows all the facts. So if you’d be willing to see him-”
She listened.
“He’ll leave right away and fly down,” Kitty said. “Don’t ask me where he expects to find a helicopter at this ungodly hour, but he thinks he can arrange it. I left the VW on Goose Key and he can use that. If everything works out he can be there in three-quarters of an hour. I know it’s asking a lot, but conceivably he’ll advise me to sell, and isn’t that what you want? I’m having breakfast with him in the morning before I go. Yes. All right, fine. Be nice to him. I’ve been giving him whiskey, but he’ll enjoy the visit more if you break out a bottle of Cal’s cognac. He’s not an easy man to get drunk, however, as I’ve been in the process of finding out.”
She hung up triumphantly.
“Mike, you were absolutely right! You should have heard the gulp when I said I had you here in my apartment.” She made a busy gesture beside her forehead. “I could hear the little cogs turning. She knew what Brad was up to, all right! I’ll bet that sex-killing angle was her idea!” She gave a small joyful hoot, stifling it as quickly as it had come. “I’m actually gloating! Well, I don’t think I’ll shed any tears over Brad. He deserved it. He really and truly did. And I’m not out of the woods yet, am I?”
“Maybe,” Shayne said briefly, putting on his shoes. “It depends on how greedy they are.”
“Oh, they’re greedy, but they also have to be a little realistic. Mike, give her the idea that you’re coming straight back here to report-she’ll put on an all-night filibuster. Who knows? She might even try to seduce you.” She looked at him speculatively. “She isn’t bad-looking, you know.”
“This is my night for good-looking women,” Shayne said noncommittally. “Call Natalie. If Tim’s there, let me talk to him.”
He returned to the bedroom to look for the. 38. He searched that room and the bathroom, and he still hadn’t found it after following Brad’s trail to the kitchen. Apparently the old man had managed to take it with him.
Kitty called him and held out the phone. “Big surprise. Tim’s still there.”
Shayne took the phone. “Something I want you to do, Tim.”
“Sure. You just caught me going out the door. We were looking at the late movie.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Shayne said impatiently. “I’m in a hurry. Things have been happening-I’ll fill you in later. There’s going to be a story for you, with some fairly big names. I’m flying back down to Gaspar. I want you to call me at Barbara’s at exactly three. As soon as I’m on start talking fast and keep talking. I don’t care what you say. I want the lady to get the idea you’re telling me some bad news, such as that a client of mine has been found in bed with her throat cut.”
“Ugh.”
“Just don’t fall asleep before three,” Shayne told him. “I’m bringing Kitty over to spend the rest of the night with Natalie.”
“Mike!” Rourke protested. “Without going into detail, that’s not such a hot idea.”
“I thought you said you were just going out the door,” Shayne said, grinning. “We’ll be there in five minutes.” He hung up before Rourke could say anything more. “Now I suppose you’re going to want your jacket,” Kitty said with a glint.
“Yeah. Can you get dressed fast, Kitty? I have two more phone calls.”
He called the house doctor in a downtown hotel and told him to get a needle and thread ready. Then he roused an old friend named Jeremy Blakey, a helicopter pilot who was paid a monthly retainer by the detective, in return for which he was always on twenty-four-hour call. Shayne told him to meet him at the Watson Park heliport, and not to expect to be back to Miami before breakfast.
chapter 8
The Tuttle house on Key Gaspar was a good example of the pseudo-Moorish period in Southern Florida architecture. Its walls were stucco, its roof steeply pitched and tiled. There were innumerable balconies with wrought-iron railings. On the seaward side, however, part of one wall had been knocked out and replaced by a large picture window and a glass door opening onto a flagstone terrace.
Pulling up in a cobblestone turn-around at the foot of this terrace, Shayne unkinked himself from the front seat of Kitty’s Volkswagen and stamped several times to start the blood circulating in the foot he had used on the accelerator. His injured leg had stiffened in the ride from the heliport. After stitching and bandaging the long cut on his calf, the doctor had changed to a larger needle and sewn up his torn pants.
The house was ablaze with light. Through the big front window, Shayne saw a black-haired woman, probably Cal Tuttle’s daughter, putting on eye-liner at a narrow pier-glass mirror.
He limped along a path skirting the terrace. Arriving at the front door, he pulled a jangling iron bell.
Almost at once the door was opened by an extraordinary old lady. A cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth. The smoke was making her squint. Her eyes were heavily madeup, the lashes and upper lids very black, the lower lids blue green. Her hair, piled high on her head, was the color of heavy cream. She was barefoot, wearing very brief shorts and a bulky knitted sweater. Her legs were firm and beautifully tanned, her toenails painted blue- green to match her eyelids. In addition to a musky perfume, she gave off a strong smell of gin and vermouth.
“Mike Shayne,” she said in a low hoarse voice.
She didn’t move out of the doorway until she had looked him up and down. Reaching forward with a clawlike hand laden with rings, she pinched the flesh at his waist.
“You keep in shape,” she said approvingly. She jerked her head toward the room with the big window.
