“A deal with that shark? Are you out of your mind?”
“For a shylock, he’s almost human. I’m sick of putting people in categories.”
“You’re really talking about the Doctor?”
“And what’s your idea of a happy ending — back to business as usual? I’m due for a change. The routine has been getting to me. If only somebody would come up with some new kind of crime…”
His words were thickening. “It’s like the foxes and the rabbits. Do you know what I mean?”
“The foxes and the rabbits? I honestly don’t,” Rourke said.
“They’re in balance. Too few rabbits, the foxes starve. Too few foxes, then too many rabbits grow up — not enough to eat, the rabbits starve. They depend on each other. Like us and the criminals. With no criminals, how would we make a living? We’d have to go out and stick up a bank.”
“Mike, tell me what’s happened!” Rourke pleaded. “The foxes and the rabbits, for Christ’s sake.”
“Here’s something you can chew on. The Bannister case last year. I did that one all by myself. Spent three months on it full-time, shot two people, and brought the lady in so she could be indicted for first-degree murder.”
“You had a bad break there, Mike.”
“I don’t agree with you. Everything broke my way, and then a high-priced defense attorney came down from Boston and got the acquittal. I ought to be glad he didn’t sue me for false arrest. But hell. Did I really want Judy Bannister to go to jail for the rest of her life? You’ve been through that prison. You know what happens to prisoners up there. I don’t think I told you, but I slept with that dame…”
“I surmised.”
Shayne waved it away, and finished his cognac. “Money. Another touchy subject. Who gave me the tip on that wonderful over-the-counter stock that was going to make us all rich? Tim Rourke, I think the guy’s name was. It went off at fifteen, and was one and five-eighths the last I looked. A TV station. Couldn’t possibly miss. Bringing me in on that spoiled it for everybody. I think somebody’s trying to tell me something. Let me work it out myself, Tim. I’m ahead tonight, and it’s a good feeling.”
“You dropped five or six in a row,” Rourke said. “That’s why I pulled you out, dummy.”
“Nobody wins a hundred percent of the time at blackjack.”
“That was the turn,” Rourke insisted. “Accept it.”
Shayne pushed off from the bar and said in a voice that was suddenly ugly, “I’ll quit when I get where I want to be. I’m testing the luck tonight, and I still feel it’s with me.”
Rourke must have been very worried, for he tried to hold him. Shayne broke the grip with a sudden movement, and rocked him back against the rim of the bar.
“Stop phoning me,” Shayne said harshly. “Stop following me around. Get yourself another reliable source.”
4
The girls converged on him when he returned. “What’s going on?” he said.
“Money’s changing hands,” Sarah said. “I must say I’ve been having rotten luck with those chips you gave me. Do you think these wheels are honest?”
“An interesting question. My game’s blackjack.” There was a new dealer at the table, older, with tinted glasses, the usual sallow complexion, and a less slick way of handling the cards. Shayne began losing at once. When he heard Sarah murmur behind him, he rounded on her and snapped, “You’re bothering me. Get lost, both of you.”
“Willingly,” Sarah said. “I don’t like to be snarled at.”
Mercedes shrugged, to show how little it mattered. As Shayne’s stack of chips continued to melt, he hunched forward, and his manner became tighter and colder. The player on his right was also losing, a spindly long-haired youth in horn-rimmed glasses. The dealer turned over an ace and a face card, and the youth swore and slapped his cards down on top of Shayne’s. Shayne turned.
“Keep your cards where they belong.”
The youth, resentful at the way the dealer had been cutting him up, made the mistake of replying obscenely.
With no change of expression, Shayne half-rose, turned, and chopped down so hard that his coat sleeve popped open at the shoulder. The punch was a short one, but it had all Shayne’s power behind it. The youth’s jaw cracked against the table, and he slid out of sight.
Shayne scaled his last remaining chip to the dealer. “Buy yourself a deodorant.”
As he pushed his chair out of the way, the crowd behind him opened to let him pass. Two men in security-staff blazers were heading for him, and he veered to meet them.
“A guy passed out at the blackjack table,” he said, smiling coldly. “Tense game, blackjack.”
The guards glanced at each other and decided they hadn’t seen a blow. Shayne looked for his girls. Mercedes had disappeared. He found Sarah in the bar, sipping a peppermint liqueur.
“What did you do with those chips I gave you to hold for me?”
“To hold? Mike, that was a free gift, made out of euphoria and the goodness of your heart. We both thought it was generous of you.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Let me borrow them back. I just gave a kid a shot in the ear, and it’s going to make a difference. Sometimes when you blow off like that, it gets you rolling again. I’ll write you an IOU.”
“Mike, it’s all gone! That was easy money, and it went the same way. I don’t know what Mercedes did with hers. You could ask her.”
Shayne stood indecisively for a moment, and then shrugged. “She’ll probably feel the same way. I hate to say it, baby, but they cleaned me out. So what next?” Leaning down, holding her from moving with one hand on her hip, he bit the lobe of her ear. “Let’s go back to bed.”
She gave him a long look, and then said to the man next to her, who had taken no part in the conversation, “I’m afraid I’ll have to say good night. Thanks for the drink.”
Shayne hummed softly on the way to her bungalow.
“I’m feeling numb,” he said, unlocking the door. “You know that Novocain feeling. Numb, with a tingle.”
“Mike, I’m sorry. But at least you gave them a scare.”
“Damn right. I came close.”
She stepped into the lighted bedroom. Coming in behind her, he took her around the waist, pivoted, and sent her spinning back hard against the wall.
He kicked the door shut and met her with a hard slap as she came at him. The slap knocked her onto the unmade bed.
“You bastard,” she whispered, her hand at her cheek. “I’m not giving you any money.”
He feinted at her, and she slipped out from under, off the bed by the opposite side. He came after her without hurrying, his smile oddly unconcerned. She waited until he was almost upon her and then darted in and raked at the smile with her fingernails.
He jerked his head back too late, and her knee caught him in the stomach. He doubled forward. As he went down she broke the lamp over his head. The room was plunged in darkness.
Faint light from outside came through the closed slats of the front blind. He heard a crunch of broken glass and seized her ankle before she could reach the door.
“Mike, I know what we can do,” she said urgently as he forced her down beside him. “I know how we can raise some money. Not tonight — tomorrow. I shouldn’t have been so damn flip. You’re so great in bed, darling—”
He shifted his grip to her arm and hauled her up after him so he could turn on the overhead light. Her dress had been ripped. She stared at him, her eyes wide.
“Mike—”
He drew back his fist. She pulled away, covering her face.
“When people hit me with lamps, I get annoyed,” he said. “I ought to break your back. Just don’t give me any more of this crap if you want to go on being good-looking.”