again.
Kitty scrambled up in bed. “Who’s that? Is anybody out there?”
There was no answer.
She said warningly, “I want you to listen, whoever you are. I know you’re there. I have a gun and I’ve taken the safety off and it’s pointed straight at the door. I mean what I say!”
Her voice rose at the end. She snapped on the bedside light. Shayne heard footsteps.
A man’s voice drawled, “You wouldn’t shoot your next-door neighbor. We own a valuable piece of property together, you and me.”
“Brad!” Kitty exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
“I know I should have phoned, kid. But I was in the neighborhood. Happening to have a skeleton key in my pocket, I thought I’d stop in.”
Shayne touched the edge of the bathroom door, ready to jump. With his left hand, he took his jacket down from the hook on the back of the door.
Brad grunted. “Why, look at here. A nightgown on the floor. Pretty little trifle, ain’t it? What are you doing, sleeping raw?”
“Brad, please,” Kitty said, intensely but trying to sound reasonable. “It’s late. If you’re looking for a drink, take the bottle.”
“Sure, I’ll take a drink. But I want some conversation to go with it.”
“Not now. I’m dead. Tomorrow.”
“But didn’t I hear you’re taking off someplace in the morning?” Brad said vaguely. “I thought maybe you forgot that paper you was going to sign.”
“When did I say I was going to sign anything? I made it perfectly clear-I’m satisfied with the way things are.”
“You’re satisfied. But the rest of us ain’t. Maybe you didn’t think about all the angles. That Key belongs to us,” he said persuasively. “It’s Tuttle Key, that’s what everybody calls it, been in the family since aught-nine. Cal and me used to ramble around there together, trap muskrats and shoot snakes and have a high old time. I don’t give a damn how many legal-eagles say different, you can’t tell me Cal was in his right mind when he wrote that will. Just because you laid him in his old age, that don’t make you any part or parcel of the family to my mind.”
Kitty said sharply, “Now you get out of here, Brad! If you’re broke, look in my purse out there. Just leave me enough for a cab.”
There was a moment’s silence. Brad said thickly, “Who do you think I am, Ev? You can turn me off with a pint and a five buck bill?”
“I know exactly who you are. Brad, it’s one o’clock in the morning, and I have a headache.”
“You’ll have more than a headache by the time I’m done with you! You think I’ll let you get me potted and set me on fire the way you did Ev?”
Shayne’s eyes narrowed.
Kitty’s voice went into a thin scream. “Do you know what you’re saying, you damn moron?”
“Moron. Oh, sure. I’m stupid. I’m a moron. But I know more than you think! You were seen! You were seen getting him plastered. You were seen coming out of his room. We’ve got a witness! Surprised? Too bad, baby, it was a nice try. You’d better sign the paper, I’ve got it right here with me, or that little Ev matter goes to the D.A.’s office.”
“You’re raving,” she said coldly.
“Not that I hold it against you. Ev was asking for it. And it ups the percentage for the rest of us.”
“I think it’s time to put an end to this.” She raised her voice. “You can come-”
Brad interrupted her with a yell. “And if that don’t stick, there are other ways! I mean if worst comes to worst I’ll be happy to! You put out for Cal and don’t tell me different because I happen to know, he told me himself. But I stink! I’m a low-income slob. You wouldn’t pull down that sheet for me now, would you? Christ, no!”
He shifted ground abruptly. “Can’t you get it through your head? There’s only three more days! Jesus, when I think of that gold just laying there-”
“Stop it, Brad.”
“I’ll raise our offer to seventy-five, and throw in whatever that shack of yours cost you. When did you see seventy-five G’s? Put on some fancy duds and move to a Beach hotel for the season. Get yourself a husband with real dough. I know a couple of good prospects I can steer you.”
“Brad, you don’t get the idea. I want the place. I don’t want the money.”
When Brad spoke again his voice was almost plaintive. Again the change in tone caught Shayne as he was about to open the door.
“I’m saying if you don’t sign the paper I’ll have to kill you,” Brad said. “Who do you think killed your cat? That was to make you realize.”
“You aren’t killing anybody tonight,” she said.
Brad cackled, a high old man’s cackle. “I do like the way you handle yourself, baby. Naked as a clam under that sheet, and it don’t bother you a bit. I got an idea. Why don’t I switch over? I’ll take care of Babs and that shyster, that’ll leave the two of us, and how many years have I got? I wouldn’t bother you much. I don’t hardly ever do it more than once a night any more.”
She said slowly, “You’re a disgusting old man.”
He cackled again. “I hope to tell you! But I ain’t a day older than Cal was when you opened up for him. You’re turning me down? You wouldn’t touch me with a ten-foot pole? Then let me tell you, baby, I got some disgusting plans for right now. Here’s some pictures to start with.”
“Playing cards!” Kitty exclaimed.
“Yeah, if you tried to play poker with this deck, your mind would keep wandering. Look at them positions.”
“Mike, he has a knife!” Kitty called.
Shayne pulled the door out of his way.
chapter 6
Brad whirled, a thin, tough old man with straggling gray hair. He needed a shave badly. His eyes were small and bloodshot and very mean. He wore sneakers, dirty jeans, a cheap short-sleeved shirt that showed the gray thatch on his chest, tattooed forearms that were like a twist of bridge cable.
He was holding a switchblade knife in his left hand, his thumb at the base of the blade. His first motion showed Shayne that he knew what he was doing.
“Do you know who I am?” Shayne said.
“Mike Shayne,” Brad said in a low voice, and moistened his lips. His eyes flickered around to Kitty. He forced a sneer to his lips, deciding on the tack he was going to take. “In the bathroom with only a pair of pants on. I’m just going to have to kill you too, Shayne. That’s too damn bad because I know it’s going to be work. Just take one step this way. O.K.?” He waved Shayne toward him with his right hand. “One step.”
Kitty reached for the whiskey bottle on the bedside table. Brad heard the slight readjustment of the bedsprings, darted his knife at her arm and snatched up the bottle himself as Shayne threw his jacket at him. He ducked beneath it, moving amazingly fast, and drove up at Shayne’s mid-section with the knife all the way out. Shayne was twisting even before the thrust started. It came very close.
Off balance, the detective chopped at Brad’s forearm. His hand glanced from the bone. The knife licked out at him again.
The old man’s spittle was flying. Shayne had no room to maneuver. He went down and away, and the point of the knife left a hot trail of pain across his shoulder.
He hit the wall and rebounded. He missed with a kick. Brad was unbelievably fast for a man his age.
Shayne came to his feet with the chair in his hands, its legs outward. For an instant everything stopped, as though frozen by a stop-action camera. Brad was nearest the door, his eyes darting from one enemy to the other. Kitty had recoiled against the headboard, still clutching the sheet to her breast. The sheet had pulled out at the
