“Always,” grinned Salvadore.
“Your Jo has vitality,” said Lucy.
Salvadore’s laugh was genuine. “Yes. I wish I could recall her last name.”
“Oh.”
“She came with someone. I don’t remember who.”
Shayne grinned, finished his cognac.
“Okay, Mike,” accused Salvadore. “What’s that smug look supposed to convey?”
“Just fun and games,” said the detective with a shrug.
“Un-huh,” Salvadore nodded. “And not my potential surprise.”
Aires turned then as if on a silent signal, glanced over his shoulder.
A woman had entered the suite. She stood alone slightly inside the door, a bag purse dangling from her right shoulder. She looked in her early forties, was tastefully groomed in body and wardrobe, leaning a little toward the severe. She wore a plain, sky-blue street dress that had come from an expensive shop and a diamond wristlet that was a stark contradiction. Her hair was dark, her legs firm, and her inventory of the suite consuming.
“But there,” breathed Salvadore Aires, “is my surprise, Mike.”
Shayne watched his friend go to the woman and he had the distinct impression that everyone else in the suite suddenly did not exist for the lean man. Salvadore took the woman’s hands, pecked her cheek.
They talked for a few seconds. The woman’s face did not change. Salvadore’s posture did. He took a step backward, seemed to be pulling the woman slightly. She remained rooted, frowning slightly, looking around.
Salvadore stepped back into her, talked again. The woman answered him. Then they stood in silence briefly before Salvadore turned and gently escorted her through people.
“Lucy Hamilton, Mike Shayne,” Salvadore said, sounding vaguely triumphant, “Melody Deans.”
“Melody is from Las Vegas,” he continued. “Just got in on a flight,”
Up close, Melody Deans looked fatigued, nervous and on the borderline of impoliteness.
“Unfortunately,” she said, “it was an uncomfortable flight. We hit much turbulence.”
“Will you excuse us for a few minutes?” Salvadore asked.
“Miss Lucy Hamilton, Mr. Shayne,” Melody Deans nodded in polite acknowledgement.
Then they were gone, threading through the people again. Shayne watched them disappear behind a closed door far across the main room of the suite.
“Number Six, Angel,” Shayne said. “You just met her.”
“I’m not so sure, Michael.”
Shayne gave her a sharp glance. “When they return, Salvadore will have an announcement to make. I’ve got a hunch it’s the reason he’s pitching this—”
“I don’t think so,” said Lucy.
“How come?”
“There’s something about her. She has more than marriage to Salvadore Aires on her mind. It’s something — something she hasn’t told him. She’s telling him now. Didn’t you notice how she didn’t want to come over here and meet us, at least not immediately? She wanted to talk to him first. She has something very heavy on her mind.”
A houseman with a silver tray of drinks approached. The redhead plucked a fresh cognac from the tray. He nodded to the blonde Jo still penned by the four men. He laughed gently. Jo couldn’t get her eyes off the door that hid Salvadore Aires and Melody Deans.
“Hopes dashed,” said Lucy. “It happens to every girl sometime in life. Even those with cleavage. But we all recover. You watch.”
Shayne found himself keeping an eye on the closed door too. He wasn’t sure why the door bothered him, except that he knew Salvadore Aires seldom disappeared for long when he was a host.
“Would you like to go over there and open that door and find out what is going on?” Lucy asked after awhile.
Shayne countered, “Would you?”
“I’m dying.”
The redhead laughed, inventoried the room. “Well, our lady of the cleavage has switched horses.”
The white blonde had a new arm to lean on. It belonged to a stumpy, fat man who obviously was proud of a thick beard.
“Maybe we should leave, Michael. Maybe Salvadore would like to have all of us leave. Perhaps we could start it.”
Shayne looked at his watch. Twelve-twenty-five. “Yeah, maybe,” he agreed.
Suddenly across the room the closed door opened and Melody Deans and Salvadore Aires re-entered. No one, Shayne noticed, seemed to pay any particular attention to them. But he was curious.
Melody Deans looked distraught, her mouth a tight line, skin coloring gone, and she moved straight to the corridor door and disappeared. Salvadore watched her. He wasn’t the Salvadore Aires that Shayne knew. This Salvadore’s juices had quit flowing. Suddenly. He looked as if he had been hit with a wet fish and couldn’t believe it.
Salvadore moved through the people.
“Trouble, pal?” Shayne asked.
Salvadore seemed to gather himself slightly. “What?”
“You and Miss Deans.”
“Oh. No. That was just a little misunderstanding, Mike.”
“She’s an attractive woman, Sal. Looks as if she’s got savvy.”
“Mike, can we drop it?”
“It’s dropped. Grab yourself a drink. We’ll have it and then Lucy and I are going to cut.”
“What for?”
“We work for a living, stiff.”
Salvadore tried on a grin. “Insurance bums don’t, huh?”
“If the rates I pay are a guide, they don’t have to.”
“You ever figure how those rates got where they are, Mike?”
Shayne felt better. Salvadore’s juices seemed to have started again. At least, he suddenly was hep to the one-upmanship game.
Salvadore became himself, the gracious host, the party man, fun and games. It seemed as if he had put Melody Deans out of his mind. The blonde Jo attempted to hitch up anew, but Salvadore put her off politely and she proved intelligent enough to return to her stubby friend. Shayne’s opinion of the blonde bomb went up a notch.
Then Lucy said, “Michael, it’s after one o’clock.”
They left the protesting Salvadore, rode the silent express elevator down to the elegant lobby and walked outside to Melody Deans’ death plunge.
Uniformed cops swooped down. They finally were followed by plainclothed detectives. Red police car lights swirled, creating weird glows across the front of the hotel. Clusters of people continued to surge forward toward the body, then fell back with murmurs of distaste. Presently a small, aggressive man, impeccably dressed, moved in beside Shayne who remained on one knee near the corpse.
Shayne looked up. The small man moistened an index finger and stroked a threadlike black mustache. It was one of the few times in his life that Peter Painter, chief of Miami Beach detectives, had the opportunity to tower over Mike Shayne. The two men shared an inborn animosity toward each other that neither ever was able to explain.
Painter snapped, “I might’ve known. What are you doing here?” His small black eyes glittered.
Shayne stood, looked down on the detective chief. “I live over there in Miami, remember?” he said.
“Point,” Painter replied coldly.
“I have a friend staying at the Cassandra. Lucy and I were visiting.”
“You two just happened to stumble across this diver, huh?”
“She was no diver, Painter.”
“She fell?”
“She was thrown or dropped.”
“Oh, God,” breathed Painter. He looked around as if seeking condolence.
“Smell her,” Rasped Shayne.
“Huh?”
“Melody Deans stinks of chloroform.”
Painter jerked.
“And a diamond wristlet is missing. I saw her wearing it earlier,” the redhead said.
III
Peter Painter took time to establish order at the death scene, rid the area of gawkers and have the body covered before he thumbed Mike Shayne and Lucy Hamilton to an unmarked police car. “Okay, shamus, explain how you know the deceased.”