Shayne asked, “Who were some of the others?”
“Ella for one.”
“Mrs. Martin?”
“That surprises you, doesn’t it? With her fat and her gray hair and all. Men are so dumb. Just because Ella is fifty-two and has had the change of life and lets herself look run-down and dowdy, most men never think she might still like to have some fun on the side. Mr. Martin is like that. I always thought he never even suspected. Until tonight. And then I began to wonder.”
Kitty paused and emptied her glass. She held it out to Shayne. “Could I have another tiny sip?”
Shayne let her hold it while he tilted the bottle and poured a large number of tiny sips into her glass.
“You thought Martin never suspected what?”
“The way they used to smooch together. At parties, you know. When they thought no one was looking.” A sly smile curved her lips. “Sometimes I think Ella just lets her hair stay gray and dresses the way she does to fool her husband. So he’d never even suspect she was carrying on with his partner on the side.” She paused for another hefty drink and Shayne got out a pack of cigarettes and shook two out. She took one and put it in her mouth and Shayne lit a match. She set her glass down and put her fingertips to his hand to guide the flame to the end of the white cylinder. Her fingertips were cold and they trembled violently. Her black eyes were wide and they held his, challengingly, as she pulled smoke into her lungs. She said in a small voice, “Should I be frightened, Mike? I feel… funny inside, when I touch you. Do you feel funny, too?”
Shayne pulled his gaze away from hers and lit his cigarette, saying carefully, “I feel wonderful, Kitty. Maybe you’d better not drink any more.”
“But I want to. It makes me feel loose inside and… and wanton. Do you mind if I feel wanton, Mike? That’s a lovely word. Like wanting. And that’s what you do to me and you know it. And I’m glad of it. I’m glad I’m old enough to know a man likes that. To be wanted. You do like it, don’t you, Mike? Every man does. That’s something I’ve learned, and if I’d only known it when I was younger everything would have been so much easier. But I thought it was terrible to let a man know the way you felt. I thought he’d despise you if he ever guessed. But men don’t, do they? You don’t, do you?”
She moved closer to him on the sofa, as she spoke. Her mouth was slightly open and her breath came in little panting gasps.
Shayne said, “I certainly don’t despise you, Kitty. Do you think Ella’s carrying on had anything to do with tonight’s murder?”
“I don’t know. That’s for you to decide. But it does give you an insight into his character, doesn’t it? Kissing her and squeezing her fat breasts right there in her own house. I saw them all right. And more than once. But I didn’t think Rutherford ever suspected. And I didn’t really think anything about it when I saw him slipping back into his room tonight. Not until I found out about the murder. And then I began putting two and two together. Suppose he did know how Ella had been carrying on. That could be a motive, couldn’t it?”
“For Martin’s shooting his partner?”
“Well, couldn’t it?” Kitty twisted toward him on the sofa, her eyes very bright in the subdued light. She drew up one nylon-sheathed knee so it pressed hard against Shayne’s thigh, leaned forward to clasp his right hand tightly. Her fingers no longer felt cold. They were burning against his flesh as she flexed them convulsively.
“I didn’t breathe a word of this to the police, Mike. But about ten-thirty, when I was dummy, I left the bridge table to go to the bathroom. It’s down the hall next to their bedroom. And when I stepped into the hall I saw Rutherford just slipping back inside his room. And he was fully dressed, though it had been at least two hours since he told us all good-night and went back to go to bed.”
She seemed unconscious of her fingers that were squeezing and loosening on his hand, unconscious of the steady pressure she was exerting to pull his hand forward so it finally rested on the silken-covered flesh above her knee. She wasn’t as bony as she appeared. The flesh was unexpectedly soft yet resilient beneath his palm, which she pressed down hard with her own feverish hand.
“What do you think of that? There’s a rear door out the kitchen, you know.”
Shayne said, “I know. I went out that way tonight.” He emptied his glass and set it down decisively. “Are you suggesting that Mr. Martin slipped out and killed his partner after trying to set up an alibi by pretending to go to bed?”
“He could have, couldn’t he?” She lifted her hand away from his and straightened up a trifle to empty her glass a second time. Shayne let his hand remain quietly on her thigh and resisted an impulse to knead the flesh.
He said slowly, “I suppose he could have.”
“Isn’t it important, Mike? Don’t you think maybe it’s important?” Kitty’s voice was very low and yearning. “Tell me you think it’s important enough to justify my coming here. Then I won’t feel so… so depraved.”
“Don’t you like feeling depraved?”
“Of course I do,” she said with unexpected vigor. “You know, don’t you? I knew it as soon as I saw you there tonight. Something happened that hasn’t happened to me for a long time, Mike. Such a goddamned long time,” she moaned, and then she shuddered violently. She turned away from him to reach for the bottle and pour her own drink. Liquor splashed to the top of the glass and overflowed the rim. She lifted it in both hands and drank from it greedily, then dropped the empty glass to the floor. Her arms went out to him imploringly.
“Kiss me, darling. Oh, God, kiss me.”
Her left hand tangled in his hair and she pulled him toward her fiercely, with surprising strength. She forced her open mouth against his and pushed her bosom against his chest.
Her scent was surprisingly fragrant.
Shayne’s arm went around her shoulders and her weight pressed him back on the sofa, so she was half on top of him. Guttural sounds came from her throat, indistinct and muffled by the long kiss, her limbs writhed and then her entire body stiffened spasmodically.
She went wholly lax, without warning, and was suddenly a dead weight on him.
Her lips fell away from his and her head lolled back. She breathed naturally and easily, through slightly parted lips, and her eyes were closed. Her face was almost beautiful in its rapt relaxation.
Shayne twisted from beneath and sat up, rubbing sweat from his drawn face. He said, “Kitty,” and then repeated her name more loudly.
She did not stir or open her eyes, and Shayne knew that Kitty Heffner had passed out cold from that last drink.
He exhaled a deep breath and got up, moodily, stood looking down at her for a moment. He felt weary and dejected as he turned away. He told himself firmly that he should be glad that she had passed out when she did, but he wasn’t.
He went into the bathroom, and when he emerged he heard an unmistakable snore from the sofa. Then he grinned. At himself and at life, and at the illusions men cling to.
He entered his bedroom and closed the door firmly behind him, leaving the lamp burning, so Kitty wouldn’t be too upset or frightened if she woke up before it was daylight.
Chapter six
Sunlight was slanting in the north window when Michael Shayne wakened the next morning. He judged it was close to nine o’clock. He reached for a cigarette on the table beside him, lit it and drew in a deep lungful of smoke.
He wondered, wryly, if Kitty Heffner had come out of her coma and left the apartment, or whether she was still in the other room, stretched out on the sofa. He hoped to God she had waked up and departed decently. It would be awkward if she was still there. She wouldn’t look so good in the bright light of morning and nursing a hangover, and she would be conscious of the fact.