“Why did you stay at the club afterward?”
“It’s a job. She didn’t want me to quit right away, so it wouldn’t look suspicious. That’s the whole bit, Shayne. Now the next thing we want to do is get this leg to a doctor’s, don’t we?”
He made a small sound, and Shayne turned to follow his look, letting the overhead light blink off.
Two men approached. Shayne recognized one of them. It was the vice-squad detective named Vince Camilli. He was tieless, but he wore a jacket over his gun, which he used far too often. He had a handsome dark face, a loose mouth. He was the department’s top scorer in both homosexual and prostitution arrests, and Shayne was sure that the total included many entrapment cases using fabricated evidence, as well as shakedowns that had failed to pay off.
Camilli spoke to his partner, a weedy young man in a sports shirt, who was trying to raise a mustache. Shayne pulled the end of the sling down over the buried hook.
The younger cop held back while Camilli came up to the driver’s side of the DeSoto and made a cranking gesture. Jake rolled down the window.
“Something wrong, Camilli?” he said nervously.
The detective reached in with his left hand, on which he wore a rough signet ring, and ground the ring against Jake’s face.
“Next time check it out first, will you? We looked like a couple of bums in there.”
“You had the right apartment, nine C?”
“We had the right apartment. What do you think this is, Fitch, amateur night?”
“I just got this tip, that’s all. I passed it on the way I heard it.”
“The apartment’s rented to the vice-president of a manufacturing firm. His credentials are perfectly O.K.”
Jake had his hand on the door. Without haste, Camilli pulled out his police special and slammed it down on the other’s fingers. Jake snatched his hand back inside the car with a cry.
“A couple of people have won suits for false arrest lately,” Camilli went on, “and this town is full of lawyers.”
He pulled the door open enough to trip the dome switch, and looked in. “Mike Shayne,” he said, surprised. “Well, well, Mr. Bill of Rights in person, the guy who thinks queers and floozies are covered by the United States Constitution.”
“Back to work, Camilli,” Shayne said. “There are hustlers out all over town and here you are taking things easy.”
Camilli scowled. “This begins to make sense. You think I can’t smell a frame when I stick my nose in it? Let me tell you something. I’m making a mental note, Shayne. The next time you want somebody taken care of, let me handle it for you. But bring me in on the planning, will you? Don’t spring it on me, just to get out of it cheap.”
“You’re through here, aren’t you, Camilli?”
“For the time being. I said to myself when I watched that performance of yours on TV tonight, I said to myself, what do you know? Shayne has been reached. Not that I expect you to tell me the ins and outs, because I’m only a poor, lowly copper.”
He straightened, then stooped again to give Shayne a hard look. Shayne returned it. Camilli picked up his partner and they walked off together.
“Now?” Jake said anxiously.
“Let’s have your wallet.”
Jake’s mouth twitched a protest, but he produced his wallet after a reminder from the buried hook. Shayne flipped it open and thumbed the bills out on his lap.
“Leave me twenty,” Jake begged. “I’ll need it to pay the doctor.”
Shayne flicked two tens back at him and fanned the rest. “Call it three-fifty even,” he said. “I’ll give you a receipt. It’s probably not enough to keep you in town, but it may help.”
“Why wouldn’t I stay in town?”
Shayne pulled an envelope out of the glove compartment and scribbled an IOU. Then he wrenched the hook out of Jake’s leg. Reaching over to the floor of the back seat, he gathered up Deedee’s clothing.
“Shayne, it’s coming in spurts!”
Shayne pushed the door open on his side. “No, it’s not. Get them to show you a chart at the hospital. The artery’s on the other side of the leg. Here.” He sorted out the girl’s underclothing, keeping only her dress and a pair of shoes. “Bandage yourself with this. If you think you need a tourniquet, use the bra.”
He got out and slammed the door, leaving Jake whimpering for help inside. Before Shayne reached the entrance to the apartment building, the DeSoto went by him, already going very fast.
CHAPTER 11
The light was on in the basement room where Shayne had left the girl. She had opened a trunk to look for something to wear, so far without success. She whirled, protecting her breasts. Seeing Shayne, she dropped her arms and came toward him.
“Hey, my dress. Did you see Jake?”
“Yeah. He was very disappointed to hear you didn’t do better upstairs.”
He tossed her the dress. She looked to see if he had anything else for her to wear underneath, then pulled it over her head and wriggled into it.
“I don’t see how he can blame me,” she said. “You didn’t give me one minute to think.”
He handed her a shoe at a time, and she hopped from foot to foot putting them on. She smoothed the dress over her hips.
“Big improvement,” she commented sarcastically. “You can see right through it. I hope we’re not going anyplace in public.”
“What’s your real name?”
“Deedee’s my real name. I had to put up a terrific battle, but everybody calls me by it, finally.” She added, “My real name is Dorothy Pappas. Do I look like a Dorothy Pappas?”
“Where’s your family live?”
“What family? They booted me out when I thought I was preg.”
He jerked his head. They went down the corridor to the elevator, passing the superintendent’s door. The super and his wife were watching television and they didn’t look around.
In the elevator Deedee stood very close to Shayne, her breasts touching his arm.
“I guess you don’t like me much.”
“Not a hell of a lot,” Shayne told her.
“I didn’t guess so.”
Outside, he strode rapidly toward the spot where he had left his car. She clicked beside him, not quite keeping up. Jose Despard was waiting on the sidewalk beside Shayne’s Buick, his shoulders hunched, both hands deep in his pockets. He gulped when he saw the girl.
She ran the last few steps, one hand out, but stopped before she actually touched him. “Honey, I’m so sorry it had to happen! As sorry as I can be. You know you weren’t supposed to be in on it.”
His face contorted painfully. At a brusque signal from Shayne, she got in the Buick.
“Wait here for me,” Shayne told Despard.
Despard kept his head averted. While Shayne went through the pattern involved in starting the car with one hand, Despard said in a choked voice, “Don’t forget to put something on that cut.”
“On my legs?” she said. “No, I’ll take care of it. I won’t see you again, will I, so-well, goodbye.”
Despard didn’t trust himself to answer.
Shayne turned onto Biscayne Boulevard, then pulled over to use the phone. On the third try he found a friend who said she would be willing to put Deedee up for the night.
“Man or woman?” Deedee said when they were moving again.
“Woman.”
“And she’s probably just a bit dykey, huh,” Deedee said sullenly after another moment.
Shayne glanced at her and she said with spirit, “Don’t look at me. I happen to be heterosexual and proud of it.”
“You happen to be what?”
“Heterosexual. That means-”
“I know what it means.”
He delivered her to a Northwest address, promising to explain in the morning how he found himself the custodian of a high-school dropout wearing no underwear. He returned to the Buena Vista street corner. Despard, told by Shayne to stay put, hadn’t moved. He had pulled himself together to the extent of being able to fill and light a pipe. Shayne motioned him to the driver’s side.