They rode up to the eleventh floor, walked a corridor. A couple came around a corner ahead of them. Barbette slipped her hand into Shayne’s and bumped her hip against him as they moved toward the couple. She turned her face up to him, gave him doll eyes. “...and will you be long, darling? I don’t want to spend the entire day alone on the beach.”
“I shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours, baby,” Shayne said as they passed the couple.
They rounded the corner and Barbette Johnson took her hand from his. They rode an elevator down to the eighth floor. No one else was aboard.
“Okay, cross your fingers,” she said as the elevator stopped. “This is our floor. Perkins could be standing outside the door.”
The doors slid open. No one was in the corridor. They moved along it swiftly and Barbette produced a room key from the bag purse.
The room was airy and conventionally furnished. Barbette went immediately to the phone and called the desk. “Page Mr. Charlton Brooks, please. He is in the lobby.”
She stood tapping a toe impatiently against the carpeting as she waited for Charlton Brooks to come on the line. Shayne sat in a chair behind her. He found his eyes drawn to the long legs and red hot pants. He admired both. And then she spoke into the phone again.
“I’m home with him,” she said and hung up.
Facing Shayne, her smile was just a hair taut now. “Do you have any suggestions as to entertainment? This may be a long day. Or perhaps we sit and look at each other.”
“Boredom,” Mike Shayne grunted, “is one of the pitfalls of shadowing, Rookie.”
She studied him for several seconds, and then she laughed suddenly and came away from the telephone. She took a cigarette from the bag purse, lit it with a lighter without offering either to the detective. She dropped the lighter in the purse and said, “I like you, Mr. Shayne.”
She sat in a chair in the opposite corner and crossed her long legs. A smile remained, but she seemed to be studying him in a different light now.
“Doll,” he said, “do you people really expect Perkins to show here again? He’s got what he wants — or at least he’s got what Bell said he wanted.”
“I told you, Mr. Shayne, we don’t know what Mr. Perkins is going to do. We’re waiting.”
“I assume he is under surveillance.”
“Yes,” she nodded.
“I assume he has been under surveillance all night.”
“Do I have to repeat everything for you, Mr. Shayne?”
“All I’m trying to figure, doll, is how come I was yanked into this thing in the first place. In spite of that pitch of Bell’s about wanting someone Perkins would not recognize—”
She interrupted, “I think Mr. Bell also told you that he would have some of us on the scene, too.”
Shayne tugged his ear. “You know what, honey? I’ve got a hunch your Uncle Michael has been live bait in all of this. I’ve got a hunch Bell expected Perkins to get wise. I think Uncle Michael was fed to Perkins with the idea of forcing him into hurried departure. But I think, too, Perkins is a pretty shrewd gent. I think he suspicioned that the private detective setup might be a facade, that in reality I might be a CIA agent he didn’t know. I think he played it cool at my office, giving me the arrest pitch. It was a test.
“If I was a brother agent I’d land on him, of course. I’d expose my hand but I’d have nothing on him, really. All he had to do was cry confusion. He could maintain that he had become suspicious that his friend Hayes was in trouble, that he had decided to investigate for himself, that he had watched the action and now was making an arrest.
“But when I didn’t pounce, he knew I was what I am, a private shamus who had something he wanted. He probably was puzzled about how I got involved, but that little mystery wasn’t enough to make him back off. So he made his play for the Haynes papers and I let him do it to trap him — the hitch being he managed to bolt and leave me sucking air.”
“You sound as if you’re still damning yourself, Mr. Shayne.”
“I’m human, doll. I boot a play once in a while, but it doesn’t happen often.”
“Well, perhaps all is not lost,” Barbette Johnson said. “After running from you, Jack Perkins went to a car rental agency.”
“So it’s not too tough to figure how he’s going to move out of town.”
“Or perhaps return here.”
“But why would he? He’s got what he came for.”
“I’m not here to fathom, Mr. Shayne,” Barbette Johnson said. “I’m here to keep an eye on Mr. Perkins if he does return.”
Shayne glanced at a wall. Perkins’ room was on the other side. “You got X-ray eyes, honey?”
“Electronic gadgets, Mr. Shayne,” she said simply.
“Bugs?”
“They were put in last night while Mr. Perkins was out to dinner.”
“You’ll know when he enters or leaves the room.”
“I’ll know,” she nodded.
“Or uses the telephone.”
“I’ll know,” she repeated with a slight smile.
A buzzing sound came from somewhere in the room. Shayne scowled. The girl went swiftly to a wall closet, stood in the doorway, head cocked slightly. Shayne looked over her head, saw the bug receiver on the back wall of the closet. Rustling noises came from the receiver.
“Someone is in the room,” Barbette Johnson said. “It could be a maid, of course. If whoever is over there leaves, there’ll be a change in the tone when the door is opened from the inside. I’ll go into the hall then, but you remain here, Mr. Shayne. Out of sight.”
The redhead grunted, said nothing.
And then they heard a dialing sound.
“He’s phoning,” said Barbette Johnson. She inched deeper into the closet.
Shayne heard Jack Perkins’ voice as he conversed with a desk clerk downstairs. Perkins was checking out. He wanted his bill prepared. He also wanted an outside number dialed for him. It was a Miami exchange.
Shayne stood frowning as he listened to the new dialing. Then a male voice answered the ringing of the phone.
“Albert?” Jack Perkins said.
“Jack—”
Albert Haynes sounded mystified.
“Albert,” said Jack Perkins, “I have something that belongs to you. You lost a briefcase last night. I have retrieved its content for you.”
“But... but...” Haynes sounded totally confused.
“I think you know my work, Albert,” Jack Perkins said. “I am not easily hoodwinked. Last night while we were dining... well, let’s just say that I became suspicious that you were in some kind of trouble. I thought you might tell me when we went to your home, but you didn’t, and then you received that phone call and... well, Albert, I was sure then. You were very nervous.”
Perkins paused, but Haynes didn’t pick up the conversation.
“Albert, do you know a man named Michael Shayne? Have you heard the name?”
“N-no.”
“Well, he professes to be a Miami private detective, but I am not positive that he is. Oh, he may have an office here, and he may be established, but he also could be something else. At any rate, this Mr. Shayne eventually ended up with your papers and I retrieved them from him this morning.
“I’m not at all sure about this Shayne. He could be one of our people, someone I don’t know, or he could be working for a foreign government. I’m leaving for Washington today and I’ll find out when I get there. But on my way out of the city, I want to drop the papers off at your home. I’m driving, so it will be no inconvenience.”
“All right, Jack.”