“Do what I tell you or I’ll scratch you. With that sunburn you’re helpless.”
Sounds of lovemaking followed. Shayne finished his cigarette and put another in his mouth, but didn’t light it at once.
The girl said, “Will I see you in LA?”
“You know. Maybe.”
“I thought it was great out there.”
“Part of it was great. The hassles I can do without.”
“One guy isn’t enough for me! A woman can come more times than a man — everybody knows that. I need that contented feeling. Otherwise I jitter so much I rattle the windowpanes. And the bread. When was the last time you picked up a check?”
“I don’t believe in it. How much did you milk out of Frankie?”
“Nickels and dimes. Will you stop bugging me about it? If I told you how he liked his sex, you wouldn’t believe me. Machismo, my ass. What did we get started on this for?”
The bed complained as they changed position. Shayne checked the time again. This was producing very little, but it would be unfair to walk in before they were finished.
By gradual stages, the activity next door picked up speed and intensity. The woman was running it. She carried him along, asking for comments but paying little attention to what he said. The bed’s headboard was loose, and it creaked like a chorus of frogs. The girl’s breathing became more and more rapid, and she finished with a yell.
He decided to give them three minutes to wind down.
“There,” the girl’s voice said. “Any Scotch in the bottle?”
The bottle was found.
“You know what the next step’s going to be in blue movies?” she said. “Animals. I don’t know if I dig that.”
“Two to one you will. What was it about this picture he just shot? Did you figure it out?”
In the next room, Shayne had been about to get up. He sat back to listen.
“I saw some of the dailies,” the girl said.
She went into the bathroom and called, over the sound of running water, “He paid me in cash, which I don’t mind, naturally. Then all this secrecy. I mean, why? I went out today and asked around, but nobody knows a thing.”
“That blonde chick, Gretchen.”
A toilet flushed. “I thought I’d get her to come to a party here and loosen up—”
Shayne lost what was said next.
“—nowhere. They never saw her before.”
“I’ll tell you my idea,” the young man said. “Could you get hold of a print?”
“Probably not, but why?”
“It’s worth money to somebody, that’s all we know. So let’s screen the mother and see.”
After a moment, slowly: “No chance.”
“They know you, they’d let you through that first door. Drop it to me out the window.”
“Can’t be done. They even put the outtakes in the vault, and it’s a combination dial, the size of a grapefruit. You don’t peel that with a can opener.”
Impatiently: “I’m not talking breaking into vaults. There must be a way to get the combination. Like Frankie Capp must know it.”
“I agree with you. So?”
“Feed him some barbs in coffee. Espresso, to kill the taste. I’ll rent a U-Haul, and while he’s asleep we’ll clean out his place, rugs, pictures, whatever. Those guys keep plenty of cash for emergencies, right? So if we don’t find the combination we don’t lose.”
“Frankie Capp? This is the coke talking. Miami’s his town.”
The young man’s enthusiasm vanished abruptly. “I know we won’t do it. It’s always somebody else who makes the million dollars. I really hate it. Something big’s going on, and we can’t even find out what.”
She stopped him with a hiss. “The door’s unlocked.”
“No, it’s not. I locked it.”
“Whisper,” she whispered, and Shayne missed the next thing she said. Then: “We better get some help in here.”
Shayne stood up, the unlighted cigarette still in his mouth. He unlocked the door on his side and went into the next room.
The girl, naked, was alone on the bed, against pillows. She stared up at Shayne.
“Who the hell are you?”
A violent blow against the door knocked it out of Shayne’s hand. He was moving, instinct telling him — a tick too late — that he had walked into an ambush. The youth had the Johnnie Walker bottle, bringing it around and up. Shayne caught the blow on his raised arm. The girl, moving fast, slithered off the bed, bringing the bedspread with her, and netted Shayne with it.
Shayne punched out blindly. He caught the youth a hard blow in the kidneys. Shayne went after him, trying to throw off the bedspread, and the girl hit him from behind, probably with another bottle. She wasn’t sure she had done enough damage, though Shayne was shuffling woozily, and she hit him once more.
He went down.
CHAPTER 10
He didn’t go all the way out. He told his arms and legs what to do, but the circuits seemed to be interrupted. He managed only a sluggish movement.
Meanwhile, his two assailants were swarming all over him. He kicked feebly upward at the girl, who seemed to be the fiercer, but his foot was too heavy to get it off the floor. The bottle came at him again. He sagged, turning everything off, and the blow missed.
No words were being spoken, but they were all breathing hard. The blow that finally put Shayne under was delivered by the youth, from the side, again with a bottle. A flashbulb exploded inside his head, driving splinters into his brain.
When he fought his way back, he found himself still on the floor. His mouth was heavily taped, his wrists and ankles bandaged together with strips torn from a sheet.
The girl was talking into the phone, reading Shayne’s identification folder. The youth had pulled on his Bermudas and stood regarding Shayne sleepily, kneading the place where Shayne had hit him.
“You bastard.”
When Shayne grunted, the girl hung up and turned on him. “Are you working for Frankie Capp?”
Shayne half laughed, the effect somewhat spoiled by the tape across his mouth.
“Are you or aren’t you?” the girl said sharply. “Shake your head yes or no.”
Shayne shook his head and hitched around into a sitting position against the wall. She came to stand over him. There was a tiny crucifix on a golden chain between her breasts, her only jewelry. Her fingers were bare. Her eye makeup was smeared, and she had lost one set of artificial lashes. Her hair, which had been under constraint when he saw her come in, was now around her shoulders. She was nicely tanned, in the usual places.
“You have a dirty job. Much dirtier than mine. In my book a private detective is two levels under a Peeping Tom. Look in the next room, Peter. See what kind of setup he’s got there.”
The youth stepped through the open door. The girl stayed close in front of Shayne. Leaning down, she flicked her fingernail contemptuously against the bridge of his nose.
Peter came back. “Not even luggage. Say something and I’ll see if I can hear it through the door.”
He closed the door and the girl directed several obscenities at Shayne, speaking in her ordinary tone. The youth came back.
“I heard you. Now we have to think back and remember what we were talking about.”
“Lots of things. But if we lock him in the bathroom until I get on a plane he can’t report to anybody, can he?”
She went back to sit on the bed and continued going through the things she had taken from Shayne’s pockets.
“It gives me a crawly feeling,” Peter said. “Big Brother’s watching you. Lucky I’m a peaceful fellow, or I’d be tempted to cut off one of his ears.”
She made a small sound as she opened the envelope with the pictures Shayne’s client had given him. She called Peter to the bed, and he made a sound almost a copy of hers. She picked out one picture and waved it in front of Shayne.