“Looking for Felice.” Shayne tried to make his voice sound as though it were the most natural thing in the world for him to be looking for Felice here and at this time of night… as though it were the only reason why anyone could reasonably be expected to be prowling around outside the grounds of a deserted house.
“What’s that?” The twin, sawed-off barrels of the shotgun wavered slightly, but not nearly enough for Shayne to seriously consider trying to take advantage of it.
“Felice,” Shayne explained patiently. “Miss Perrin, you know.”
“What about her?” The bores of the shotgun, which looked as big as cannon barrels to Shayne, came back to steady themselves on his belly.
“Isn’t she here?”
“Why should she be here?”
“She works here, doesn’t she?”
“Look, Mister. I’m the only one that works here. The caretaker, see? My boss don’t like night-prowlers around his property.”
“Wait a minute. I don’t get this at all. Isn’t this the Peralta residence?”
“No. That’s the next house back.” Brad jerked his head toward the rear.
Shayne said, “I don’t know how I could have made such a mistake. If you’ll point that thing the other way, I’ll get into my car and apologize for bothering you.”
“Won’t do you any good to go to Peralta’s either,” the man told him.
“Why not?”
“She used to work there, but not any more.”
“Is that so? Do you know where she can be reached?”
“How would I be expected to know?” Brad asked easily. He stepped backward slowly, still holding the gun steadily on Shayne. “Get lost,” he growled, and slammed the wooden gates shut.
Shayne went slowly to the coupe and got in. The door to the glove compartment stood open. He reached inside and fumbled around and found an extra loaded clip for the pistol. He got it out of his pocket and slid the clip in, but did not throw a cartridge under the firing pin. He put it back in the glove compartment and started the motor and backed around to head out into the street. On the other side of the wall the big house showed no lights in any of the windows as he drove away.
EIGHT
The Green Jungle was not at all the sort of place Shayne would have expected a wealthy woman like Laura Peralta to frequent. It had none of the swank and glitter of the showplaces on the Beach, offered no floor-show or entertainment of any sort, did no advertising, and made no effort whatsoever to attract socialites or theatrical celebrities.
It was a solid, substantial establishment that had been in operation under the same management for more than two decades and made no pretense of being anything other than what it was: a place where people could go to spend a quiet evening dining exceedingly well on a simple but excellent cuisine at extremely moderate prices, with good drinks cheerfully served at one-half the normal charge in Miami bars, and with sedate gambling rooms where two-bit bets were welcomed at the roulette tables and no eyebrows were raised if a crap-shooter risked only a buck on his turn with the dice.
Thus, over the years it had become almost a family sort of place, catering to a substantial, middle-class clientele which enjoyed the excitement of gambling without being high-pressured into losing more than they had budgeted for an evening’s entertainment.
There were no drinks served in the gaming rooms, and no rowdiness tolerated. Professional gamblers gravitated to the place by instinct, and the pace of the games was kept leisurely enough to encourage system players to keep their notes and figure their odds without being rushed into making reckless bets.
It was, in other words, a comfortable place in which to lose one’s money, and Shayne wondered about Laura as he parked Tim Rourke’s battered coupe among a hundred other lower-priced cars. His brief encounter with her had not given him the impression that she was the type of woman to choose a “comfortable” place in which to lose her money. Her nightly stake of five hundred dollars was far in excess of the amount most habituees of the Green Jungle could afford to lose, and that might be the answer, he mused, as he got out and threaded his way among parked cars toward the entrance of the low, rambling building almost hidden by a luxuriant growth of untended tropical shrubbery.
Here, a woman with half a grand to drop at the tables every night would be marked as a V.I.P. and treated with every consideration and respect, while the same half-grand would be disdainfully considered peanuts at the more publicized Beach joints.
The front doors were invitingly open, and Shayne entered a low-ceilinged hallway with a bar and cocktail lounge on the right. Directly ahead at the end of the hall was a sign that said, “Dining Room,” and halfway down, on the left, was a large archway leading into the gambling rooms. There was a winsome-faced and adequately dressed hatcheck girl behind a counter on his left as he entered, and he exchanged his hat for a numbered check and a smiling “Good evening, Sir.”
Shayne returned the smile and went into the barroom where there were booths along the left wall and a long bar with half a dozen bartenders behind it at the right.
No more than half the stools at the bar were occupied, mostly by men hunched quietly over their drinks, and less than half the booths were in use.
Shayne stood for a moment in the doorway, glancing down the bar at the backs of half a dozen women on stools without recognizing Laura Peralta. Then he strolled past the booths, looking into each one that was occupied with the same negative result.
Glass doors at the end opened into a pleasantly-lit cocktail lounge with well-separated tables and an air-conditioning unit that kept the atmosphere clean and fresh. Again, Shayne paused on the threshold to study the room carefully without seeing Laura. A smiling waiter came up and asked, “One, Sir?” but Shayne shook his head and said, “Later.” He strode through the room to a side entrance into the large dining room that was being well-patronized at this hour; and turned left to meet the maitre d’ whom he knew by sight, but not by name.
He was welcomed pleasantly, but not effusively. “Mr. Shayne, isn’t it? A table for dinner?”
Shayne said, “I’m meeting someone. Mrs. Laura Peralta. Have you seen her tonight?”
“Mrs. Peralta? No, Mr. Shayne. Not yet tonight. Have you tried the roulette tables?”
Shayne said, “I will. If she turns up, tell her I’m here.”
He went out into the entrance hall and sauntered through the archway to the main portion of the building and its reason for being.
The large room was brilliantly lighted and luxuriously carpeted, with no whirring clatter of slot machines to distract the players from the serious business of losing money at the tables. Just inside the archway was a cashier’s grilled window where chips could be cashed on leaving, and beyond were six well-separated roulette tables, four of which were getting a good play at this hour, and three huge revolving wheels where a player could get as much as twenty to one if the arrow on the wheel stopped in the right slot.
Opening off the main room on the right was the Card Room with its black-jack, poker and baccarat tables, and four crap layouts were in a similar room on the left.
It was a quiet and orderly scene that Shayne surveyed as he stopped inside the archway. Each of the four operating roulette tables had from four to six players seated about the rim, with half as many spectators standing behind the chairs watching the balls go around with intent but not feverish interest.
Shayne’s first casual glance did not discover Laura Peralta at any of the tables. He lit a cigarette and started forward over the thick carpet and was intercepted by a tall, ascetic-faced man wearing a dark business suit and a black bow tie. It was Alexander Griffin, manager of the Green Jungle, and he held out his hand to the detective with a faintly wary smile.
“Feel like trying your luck, Mr. Shayne?”