“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. “You’re going to make a big hit in there. That’s my weather forecast for tonight. Come on in.”
Turning abruptly, she led him along a hall and down several carpeted steps to the living room. The other woman had moved from the mirror to a deep sofa. She put out a hand to Shayne without getting up. She had the same magnificent tan as her housekeeper, though less of hers was showing. She was dressed in tight tapering red pants and a loose belted jacket, without buttons. By leaning forward to shake hands, she established the fact at once that there was nothing under her jacket but smooth skin, some of it tanned, some untanned. Her hand was hard and dry.
“Mr. Shayne,” she said. “I’ve read about your exploits, of course. I’ve always hoped to be able to ask you. How much of what you achieve do you ascribe to luck and how much to-well, rapid footwork, I suppose you’d call it? Please tell me your secret.”
“I just try not to make too many mistakes.”
“Now that’s a wonderfully evasive answer!” she cried. “I prefer to believe that luck enters into it, which is why I’m so delighted to meet you. I like lucky people. I like to be in their orbit.”
She settled back. “We’ve been drinking martinis because that was what we were in the mood for, but fix yourself what you want. Kitty mentioned cognac. There’s some over there.” She waved at a mahogany sideboard. “Eda Lou, honey, you’ve been a love. Get to bed now. You must be worn to a frazzle.”
“I’m about ready to drop,” the older woman agreed. “What do you need before I go? Ice, sparkling water, booze-it all seems to be there.”
She gave Shayne another up and down look. “Come down in the daytime and go swimming with us, Mike Shayne. The men we’ve been getting down here have been getting pansier and pansier.”
Barbara laughed from the sofa. “Maybe I’ll make myself so fascinating that Mr. Mike Shayne will still be here at dawn. That’s the best time in the whole twenty-four hours for a swim. Not if you get up for it, if you stay up. I’m sure we can find him a pair of trunks.”
“Well, if he’s still here and you do go in, wake me up. I mean it, Babs.”
She gave Barbara a forceful nod, which finally jarred loose the ash of her cigarette. She padded out.
Barbara went on laughing silently. “Did you ever see such a sex-hound? We’re both pretty well fried, incidentally, do you mind? Such an hour. Can you find everything you want?”
Shayne opened a bottle of Courvoisier at the sideboard and half-filled a bubble glass. He took it back across the long room. The rugs were a little threadbare. There was an equally threadbare tapestry on one wall, the dusty pipes of a pipe organ on another.
“Ducks, before you sit down,” Barbara said, “just look out in the hall and see if she’s listening, will you?”
Shayne gave her a look, put his brandy on a low table and went to the hall. It was empty.
“We’ll be talking about Daddy’s estate,” Barbara said when he came back. “She has no share in the property whatsoever, but the way she takes on you’d think she’s the sole heir. Kitty probably told you. Eda Lou was Daddy’s, let’s say paramour, for ages and ages. Do I shock you?”
“Not especially,” Shayne said.
“It was really more of a common-law marriage. I’ll say this for her, she was devoted to Daddy. She doesn’t look at all mushy on the surface, does she? Well, I happen to know that she takes flowers to the cemetery, for heaven’s sake. I never go near the repulsive place, and I’m the man’s daughter.” She studied her drink, as though it could tell her something. “I often wondered why they never married. My theory, not that I can prove it, is that she has Negro blood. She claims it’s Indian. Now I ask you. I’m not prejudiced, understand.”
She paused for breath, and Shayne put in, “About your offer from Florida-American-”
Barbara had been about to put down her martini glass. Her hand stopped. She took a small sip, and made a face expressing disgust and near-nausea.
“This is pure water. If you want me to make any sense you’re going to have to mix me up another batch.”
“In a minute,” Shayne said patiently. “I have a chopper waiting on Goose Key and it’s costing me twenty-five bucks an hour. As I understand it, Florida-American-”
“I’d like to know how the little bitch found out! Excuse the dirty language, you probably think she’s the Christian and we’re the lions. I’ll just point out while I’m on the subject that you haven’t known her very long.” She held out her glass. “Give me some gin, ducks. Don’t worry, I won’t pass out. I never pass out. I just get talkative.”
Shayne brought over the gin bottle and a bowl of ice from the sideboard. He emptied the dregs of the pitcher into the bowl, dropped in two fresh ice cubes and covered them with gin. After giving the pitcher a quick swirl he filled her glass.