“Yeah. She left out some cream and it hasn’t turned sour. I hope the photo morgues can find a recent picture, because from all the medicine lying around I doubt if she’s as good-looking as she used to be. Another thing-there are four different hair colors in the bathroom, from ash-blond to black. I’ve seen two wigs, one black and one platinum. She was blond once. That doesn’t mean she’s still blond.”
“What kind of feel does the place have, Mike? You know what I mean. Does it look as though she’s planning to put bullets in Crowther tomorrow instead of pins?”
“God knows,” Shayne said, looking around. “She’s certainly been thinking about him. Berger kept talking about playfulness. Sticking pins in a photograph is a playful way to kill somebody, and collecting three times too many sleeping pills is a playful way to commit suicide. No sign of a gun.”
Squires had picked out something else while Shayne was talking-a photograph of a man standing beside a car.
“It was at the bottom of a bureau drawer,” he said. “Underneath everything. A funny place for a snapshot.”
“This lady is not in the best of mental health.”
“You know it.”
It had been decided that they would leave the apartment dark, and that Squires would wait outside in his unmarked car. Shayne returned to his Buick and started south on Biscayne Boulevard, heading for the Julia Tuttle Causeway to the Beach.
An open convertible came up behind him rapidly and pulled out as though to pass, honking. In his side mirror Shayne saw that the driver was waving him over. He braked and slid in against the curb.
The other car passed him and parked. When the driver came into Shayne’s headlights, Shayne saw a well-built young man, getting bald too early. He had had more hair in the photograph Camilla Steele had squirreled away at the bottom of a bureau drawer.
“You’re Mike Shayne, aren’t you? I thought it was you. Can I get in?”
Shayne cut his headlights. Leaning over, he unlatched the front door. As he straightened, he activated his tape recorder.
“Look, I’m Paul London,” the young man said quickly. “I’m a friend of Mrs. Steele’s. I know she’s in some kind of a jam, and I want to find out if there’s anything I can do.”
“What kind of jam do you think she’s in?”
London hesitated. “I don’t want to answer that. It might turn out to be something you didn’t already know. The other guy’s a cop, isn’t he? I can’t go up to a cop and ask him why he’s searching somebody’s apartment. They don’t give out that kind of information. But I thought you might be halfway human.”
“Mr. London, are you or Camilla Steele affiliated with any group that’s working for the forcible overthrow of any Latin government?”
“What?”
Shayne put a cigarette in his mouth and waited. After a moment, London said, “I’m not, certainly. I guess I really don’t know about Camilla. She works for a foundation that gives research fellowships to Latin American scientists, but she doesn’t talk much about it. All that stuff in the papers. Is that why you’re-”
He stopped. Shayne’s lighter flared.
“How well do you know her?”
“We were in high school together. We dated for a couple of years until-well, you know the story.”
“Are you married?”
“Not any more. If you’re wondering about my interest in this, I want her to marry me. She’s turned me down. Nevertheless-” He drew a deep breath. “I’m on vacation. I went away for a couple of days, but I couldn’t relax. I finally decided to come back. I’m-damn it, I’m afraid she’s going to try to kill herself or something equally stupid. If she can get through this weekend I think she may be all right.”
Shayne smoked for a moment in silence. “She keeps a picture of you at the bottom of one of her bureau drawers.”
“You’re mistaken,” London told him seriously. “She doesn’t care that much about-” He swung around. “You mean you found one?”
“Yeah. I’d judge it was taken about three years ago. What were you doing parked outside her house?”
“Waiting for her. She specifically said she didn’t want me hanging around, and she really meant it. But the way she drove off tonight-”
“What time?”
“About eight thirty. She was carrying a scarf, and one end was dragging on the ground. That’s what decided me. She doesn’t do that kind of thing, no matter how many drinks she’s had. She jumped in her car and took off like a drag-racer. By the time I got organized it was hopeless to try to catch her. I decided to wait and see if I could-” His grip on his knees tightened. “Did she have an accident? You can at least tell me that.”
“We don’t know where she is. Do you think this funny behavior has anything to do with the medal Attorney General Crowther is getting tomorrow?”
“Those letters!” London cried. “They don’t honestly mean anything, Shayne. It’s a game she’s been playing.”
“Did she ever say anything to you about Supreme Court Justice Jenkinson?”
“Who? What’s he have to do with this? The answer is no, but if you’d tell me what’s going on, maybe I could help. I’ve been seeing her fairly often.”
“Does she own a gun?”
“A gun,” London breathed. “Jesus. I doubt it like hell. You don’t believe she’s thinking about-?”
Shayne snapped on the overhead light and asked to see London’s identification. He was thirty-one, an office-furniture salesman. Making up his mind abruptly, Shayne told him about the anonymous tipster who had warned him that an attempt was to be made on Crowther’s life, and that the potential killer was a woman. Then he described the tableau in the airport ladies’ room.
“There’s more, but those are the two main items. Somebody’s putting up a smoke screen. We don’t know what the real move is going to be, or where. Whatever it is, it has to be serious. Three different people have pointed guns at me since four o’clock this afternoon, and I’ve been slugged from behind with an ax-handle, for no particular reason, because I don’t know much more about what’s going on than you do. I hope Camilla’s not planning to play any games with Crowther tomorrow. A battalion of airborne infantry’s coming down from Bragg. Every cop in town is going to be on duty with a loaded weapon.”
“Oh God,” London said unhappily. “I’d better tell you everything that happened yesterday and today. Can you give me a cigarette?”
Shayne shook one out of his pack.
“As soon as I got in yesterday I called her office. She wouldn’t talk to me. I’d already decided I couldn’t afford to be too touchy, so I waited downstairs. She really looked like a ghost when she came out-very tired and sick and jumpy. We had a fight in the lobby about whether I had any right, etc. She used some strong language. She was trying to make me mad, and she succeeded. But she overdid it. She wouldn’t be yelling like that in a crowded office-building lobby unless something was wrong. I followed her over to one of the hotels on the Beach.”
“The St. Albans?”
“That’s right, where Crowther is getting his medal tomorrow. I don’t know what else she did, but she picked up a man in one of the bars and took him home. At that point I decided the hell with it, not for the first time. I didn’t wait to find out how long he stayed, which was just as well. I saw him leaving this morning.”
“She didn’t take her birth-control pill yesterday,” Shayne remarked.
London had been tightening up noticeably during his account of Camilla’s evening, and now he flared. “Damn you, Shayne, you don’t care what you do, do you?”
“The medicine cabinet is always one of the first places I look. Did she know you were following her?”
“I suppose. I wasn’t trying to keep out of sight.”
“Then maybe the reason she picked somebody up was so she wouldn’t have to argue with you any more.”
“Maybe. But it wouldn’t be the first time she slept with somebody she just met. I wish she wouldn’t do it, but it’s a symptom of something else, and when she gets over that, whatever it is-” He broke off. “And of course the truth is that it’s driving me out of my skull! The guy was such a slob!”