He peered near-sightedly at the bill. Damn that accident that broke his glasses. He'd have to get another pair. First thing in the morning. Too late to do it tonight, he guessed. Goddamned lazy opticians probably all closed up shop when it got dark.
The figures on the slip swam before his gaze and he asked the waitress, "How much?"
She told him and he blinked down at his wallet and carefully selected a five. He put it on her tray and said, "Keep change."
When she had gone away, he got up stiffly and slid out, walked a little unsteadily to the front door, remembering to keep the left side of his face averted as he passed the bar and went out into the cool night.
Things blurred as he dragged in a lungful of the clean air. He staggered a little more obviously as he went to his car and got under the wheel.
Looking for Nellie. That's what. Had to find her.
He put the car in gear and it lurched away. Lessee, now. Where was he exactly? He didn't know Miami too well, but it is an easy town for a stranger to orient himself in if he can read street signs, and he paused at the next intersection to peer out the windshield and read them aloud.
Sure. He knew now. Turn to the left and drive about six blocks. Then to the right three blocks. That was it.
Everything was all right now. He knew exactly where he was and where he was going. He needed another little night-cap maybe. Then he'd sleep soundly. And first thing tomorrow he'd get some new glasses and then he'd find Nellie.
TWENTY-TWO: 11:43 PM
The Silver Glade was a modest night-spot in the Southwest section not more than ten blocks from Michael Shayne's hotel. It had a floor show and a small dance floor, and it served honest drinks of liquor to natives or to tourists sober enough to notice what they were drinking.
Because it was close and because the bartender knew Shayne's preference in cognac, the detective was in the habit of dropping into the Silver Glade occasionally for a late drink. When he entered the door tonight the hat-check girl smiled at him brightly and said, "Long time no see, Mr. Shayne," as she took his Panama without bothering to give him a check for it.
She was a big-breasted girl wearing an evening gown that had been carefully cut to accentuate her bigness. Shayne leaned on the low counter in front of her and pleased her by leering at the deep valley beneath her chin and told her, "I can only stand the rot-gut you serve here every so often."
He took the four-by-six photograph from his pocket and pushed it in front of her. "For a well-stacked doll, I always figured you were pretty smart. Ever see this guy around?"
She giggled appreciatively and gave her body a little shake to pull the low-cut gown a little lower. "Always kiddin', aren't you?" She leaned forward so he could get a better look, and studied the picture doubtfully.
"Don't remember as I have. You know how it is. Half the time I don't even look at them when I hand out checks-unless they're big, ugly redheads, that is."
Shayne said, "Try hard. This evening is what I want. Last two or three hours."
"I swear I can't say. It sure doesn't ring any bell." Shayne nodded and turned, bringing his elbow up to brush against the distended fullness of her flesh so that she giggled again.
Holding the photograph in his hand, he went to the bar where there was an empty stool at one end. The bartender was middle-aged and bland-faced. When he saw the redhead coming to the bar, he turned and reached up to the top shelf to lift down a bottle of Martell that had an ordinary cork in it instead of the silvered pouring spout in most of the other bottles.
He set it on the bar in front of Shayne and uncorked it with a flourish, provided a four-ounce glass and a tumbler of ice water, and said reprovingly, "Don't see you around much, Mike."
Shayne laid the picture on the counter and poured cognac in the small glass. "You notice this bird in here this evening?"
The bartender looked down at it, then reached into his hip pocket for a pair of glasses in a leather case. He hooked them behind his ears and studied the man's face carefully.
"Can't say that I did, Mike, but that doesn't mean he wasn't in. You know how it is-if a man isn't a steady-"
Shayne said, sure, he knew how it was. He sipped his drink morosely, and a slim, dark man in elegant evening clothes came up behind him and clapped him lightly on the shoulder.
"Glad to see you, Shamus. So long as you're not pinching the joint. On the house, Henry," he told the bartender, nodding toward the bottle.
"Not as long as you put out Martell for free," Shayne told the proprietor pleasantly. He moved the picture back with his forefinger on it. "You had anybody in this evening that looked like this?"
Salvadore studied it critically, twisting his smooth black head slightly to one side.
"Sure. Dozens of them just about like that. He isn't one you'd pick out of a crowd."
"I know. That's the hell of it. This is really very important, Salvadore. Take it around to the waiters and bus-boys, huh? Make everyone take a long look. If any of them think they saw him in here tonight, let me talk to them."
"Sure, Mike." Salvadore Rotiselli took the picture daintily between thumb and forefinger and minced away. Henry had moved down the bar to serve another customer, and Shayne glowered down at his drink.
He hadn't much hope of success with the picture. As Salvadore said, the face was too thoroughly ordinary, too completely undistinguished to give anyone reason for remembering it.
But it was all Shayne had left now. If he could prove the dead man had actually been in the Silver Glade after nine-thirty, it would be a cinch he hadn't gone into Bis-cayne Bay from room 316 of the Hibiscus.
But what would that prove? Shayne asked himself angrily. Nothing, really. He still wouldn't know the actual identity of the man with the scarred face-nor of the dead man.
Bert Paulson? Charles Barnes? A dead girl in the park. Until he looked at her face and at the receipted bill from the Hibiscus, he had been so dead certain she wasn't Nellie Paulson.
The other identity fitted her so much better. Mary Barnes from the Roney. Mary Barnes, who had caught a fleeting glimpse of her murdered brother after being summoned by him to the Hibiscus. Mary Barnes who had fled in terror from the man with the scarred face-who had sought refuge in his hotel room and then run out into the night still in terror because she did not trust him to protect her from the man she feared.
All those facts fitted what little he knew about Mary and Charles Barnes. They didn't fit what he knew about Nellie Paulson.
He drank his cognac morosely, washing it down with tiny sips of water from the glass while the questions ran around and around and around in his mind.
There was something eluding him. Something important. Perhaps a key to the entire puzzle. Some tiny bit of information he had that he didn't know he had.
That wasn't exactly it. He knew it was there. Somewhere in the maze of conflicting stories and reports he had listened to this evening. Something that had seemed wholly irrevelant at the time, yet which might be supremely important.
He doggedly went over and over again in his mind every single thing that had happened since the telephone call had taken him from Lucy's side.
It was there. He knew it was. Hidden away in his subconscious. He had no idea what it was nor how to go about searching among the half-truths and irrelevancies to dig it out.
Yet it had to come. He had a feeling that time was running out. He glanced down at his watch, wondering absently why he felt that way. While the girl had been missing from Lucy's-before her body had been found in the park — it was natural that he had felt fiercely he must find her before something happened.