Dolls Are Deadly (7 page)

When Shayne reached the street he found all the other cars gone except his own and a big gray sedan which he assumed belonged to Swoboda. It seemed a trifle incongruous for someone on familiar terms with the spirit world to be operating a contrivance as unethereal as a Buick, but of course even delvers into the occult had to get around some way, broomsticks being outdated in this age of rockets.

He opened the front door of his own car and slid behind the wheel. He had covered only a few blocks before he became aware that the gray Buick was behind him. The trenches in his lean face deepened, and he turned experimentally off Southeast Third Avenue, heading toward Biscayne Boulevard. The gray sedan turned too. He swung south, circled the block. The sedan followed.

No doubt about it, he’d picked up a tail.

He cruised slowly, his face bleak. He
could
play along with the tail and find out who it was—but that would take time.

Two pressing errands faced him. He wanted to see Clarissa Milford and the Thains and find out why, among other things, Dan Milford, who purported to take the séances so seriously, had stayed away tonight.

But even more compelling was the need for a clarifying talk with his little Cuban friend, Sylvester. Ed’s presence at the séance was disturbing and the interview Shayne had just concluded with Swoboda had deepened his concern, for it was obvious that Swoboda had been on guard. She had sweet-talked when he brought Ed’s name up and overacted her anger at mention of Clarissa and Dan Milford. The real object of her concern would seem to be the man from the fishing boat.

The fishing trip this afternoon had left him with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction, too, of things hinted at but not explained. Was it coincidence or connection which had caused a man from the boat to turn up at the séance? In any case, since murder unaccountably was breathing down the necks of some people, a talk with Sylvester was strongly indicated.

The redhead picked up speed, hit Biscayne and turned north. He found a corner that was police patrolled and when the yellow light flashed, sped through it and turned west at the next corner. Through the rear-view mirror he saw that the gray Buick had not made the light.

Still speeding, he turned south on Miami Avenue, circled back and headed toward the Causeway to Miami Beach. Across the Causeway he turned south toward the slip where Sylvester’s boat was docked.

The
Santa Clara
was there all right, squeaking gently against her rubber fenders in the slow swell of the water, but Sylvester wasn’t. Shayne put a beam from his small pocket flash around the cabin, located the light switch and flicked it on. Everything looked shipshape. Sylvester must have slept off his overindulgence in Demerara rum, roused himself and gone home. It was a quick recovery and that was good. Maybe Sylvester wouldn’t be as hung-over as he deserved.

On impulse the redhead opened the ice box. The big grouper he had caught this afternoon was still there. He slammed the door shut and prowled the cabin for a few minutes, looking at the charts, the cuddy and the gear compartment forward. There was nothing that didn’t belong on a fishing boat and everything was in place.

Taking off the engine housing he probed with his flashlight at the new Gray Marine, dirtied up “to fool the tax collector,” which had never been let out, Sylvester said. Still, the power was there if he needed it. Or if
they
needed it? Why would they need it? The three jolly vacationers
liked
Sylvester. That’s the only reason they had bought him the new, very expensive engine for his boat. They had helped him to make a fast boat faster.

Leaving the
Santa Clara
Shayne slammed into his car and drove swiftly to a waterfront area, inhabited mostly by Cubans. He parked in front of a two-story wooden tenement, went up two steps and pressed the bell button under the name that read
Sylvester Santos.

A little, ample-bosomed, gray-haired woman wearing a pink-flowered housedress came to the door, her fleshy arms protruding from the short sleeves. Her face looked drawn, but her worried brown eyes kindled with pleasure when she recognized the redhead.

“Michael Shayne!” Her full lips spread in a welcoming smile and she stood aside. “Be so good to come in, Mr. Shayne.”

Shayne walked into an apartment as neat and shipshape as Sylvester’s boat, the woman following him, talking volubly.

“You look for my husband, no? Well, I tell you. He came home maybe one half hour ago, then go out again. To look for you, he say. But now you look for him. Mr. Shayne, what is the matter? These days I am most unhappy.”

“Why does Sylvester look for me, Mrs. Santos?”

“He does not say. He says nothing to me but to talk of his new friends who are so good to him. But I do not like these new friends, Mr. Shayne. He is now drunk with them all the time and it is not like Sylvester to drink so much. Every day he comes home drunk and goes to bed dead. But tonight he comes home drunk and bleeding. One eye is black, and blood is on his face from fighting. I have to wipe it off and the cuts are deep. This is not like Sylvester, to fight—”

“Did he say he was in a fight?”

“No, but I can see he has been beaten and his clothes torn.”

From the way Sylvester had been staggering around the deck this afternoon, his fight might have been only with the Demerara. Perhaps he had gotten up too quickly and fallen on his face a few times, or maybe he had been jackrolled on the way home. If that had happened it would explain why he had left home to look for his friend, “the detective who heads only the big cases.”

“What does Sylvester say about his new friends?” Shayne asked.

She shrugged elaborately. “Only that they are so good to him. But I think they are drunk bums, Mr. Shayne, good only to get my husband drunk and in trouble and to spoil his health.”

“May I use the phone, Mrs. Santos?”

“Sure. Help yourself. You’re good man.”

Shayne dialed and got his answering service. There had been no calls. Then he phoned Lucy and learned from her that Sylvester had not tried to reach him at her apartment either.

“How about a moonlight drive, angel?”

“Why, Michael, I’d love it,” she said huskily. Suddenly, her voice changed. “Except that I know from past experience that your moonlit drives usually end up at some place like the morgue.”

“Nothing like that tonight, Lucy. This will be sheer romance. I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”

He hung up and walked back to Mrs. Santos, who had seated herself in an old-fashioned wooden rocker.

“Will you have Sylvester phone me when he comes in, no matter what time of night it is?”

“Sure, Mr. Shayne. Be glad to.” She wiped her perspiring forehead with the back of her hand.

“And don’t worry,” he said. “Sylvester will be all right. Just like he was before, when these new friends go home.”

“Bueno,”
she said. “I hope so.”

Lucy was ready when Shayne rang her apartment bell. “Won’t you come in, Michael?”

“Sorry, I can’t, angel. Let’s get going.”

“Not even for a spot of Hennessy?”

“Not even for Hennessy. I’ll take a brandy-check, though.”

She closed the door and fell into step beside him. “What’s the rush? Is the moon waning?”

“Time is. It’s nearly midnight and I want to get out to Clarissa Milford’s before she goes to bed.”

“You’re taking me with you to see another woman? I thought you said on the phone this was sheer romance.”

“It is, for me. You’re the chaperone.”

“Oh, good! Just what I’ve always yearned to be.”

As Shayne wheeled out from the curb, a gray sedan started up down the block.

Noticing how the redhead stared bleakly into the rear-view mirror, Lucy asked acutely, “Why should anyone tail you, Michael?”

“I don’t know. Percy Thain found out at the séance that his sister-in-law, Clarissa, had hired me. He didn’t like it much, but I don’t think he could have rounded up a tail this fast. It was on me when I left Swoboda’s, but I ditched him. He must have staked out here on the chance that I’d see you.”

“Then it’s somebody who knows that I’m—your secretary, at least.”

“At the very least.” Shayne smiled a wry, warm smile.

“You don’t seem worried.”

“About your being—at least—my secretary, or about the tail?”

“About the tail, of course.”

“I’m not. I’m not going anywhere tonight that I give a damn if anybody knows.”

Lucy fell silent a moment, then said, in a small worried voice, “I don’t see why it would be Percy Thain.”

“I don’t either. What’s he got to gain by knowing where I go?”

“Nothing—unless he’s the one who sent Clarissa Milford the voodoo doll. If he’s really planning to kill her, he’d want to do it when you weren’t around.”

“Good figuring, but at this point I don’t think it’s Percy Thain. I can’t figure what connection he’d have with a cheap hood like Henlein, and it’s a good bet the same person sent dolls to both Clarissa and Henlein.”

“Why?”

“Too much of a coincidence otherwise.”

It was a moonless night and out in the country the dew was thick. The windshield clouded and Shayne started the wipers, listening to the rhythm of their faint, regular squeak as they swept across the glass.

After a while he slowed, turning his spot on the mailboxes. At the one reading Milford, he entered a long driveway.

A half a block in, the Milfords’ house faced the Thains’ across about an acre of untended ground. They were identical one-story, red-brick, L-shaped houses, with a small front stoop and detached garages, and they looked out of place so far from any other sign of community living. They sat in a deserted field, squat and ugly, combining city and country living in an almost comic way. While it wasn’t difficult to picture Percy and Mabel Thain living out their lives within these lonesome, unimaginative walls, Clarissa Milford seemed out of place here. Perhaps she lived here because it was cheap. If her husband was a compulsive gambler, she’d need to keep a tight hand on the budget.

Across the way the Thains’ house was dark, but a light shone behind drawn shades in the Milford living room.

As Shayne reached for the door handle, Lucy said, “I’ll wait here for you, Michael.”

“Just to prove you trust me with another woman?”

“No, but she’s so upset. I think she’d rather talk to you alone.”

“Angel.” He slid across the seat and kissed her quickly. “You are a good angel. I won’t be long.”

As he walked across the thin sward of grass to the front door and rang the bell, from the corner of his eye he caught a movement in a spotting of shrubbery. Bill Martin was on the job. It had probably been his light-colored convertible parked on the road.

Clarissa came to the door, wearing the same blue suit she had worn to the office this afternoon and at the séance. Her eyes were tight and she looked tired. When she recognized Shayne, fine lines appeared on her forehead.

“May I come in for a minute?”

“Of course.” She stepped aside, a little reluctantly, adding, “My sister and brother-in-law are here.”

“Maybe we could talk outside for a minute then.”

She closed the door behind her, walked down the steps and out onto the sparse grass. About ten feet from the house she stopped, turned suddenly and said, “Dan hasn’t come home yet. He called to say he was tied up—on business he said, but I know what kind. Have you found anything out yet?”

He smiled. “You’ve got to give me a little time. What do you mean—you know what kind of business your husband is tied up with tonight?”

She took the cigarette he offered and let him light it and then she said, “This afternoon I told you that Dan liked to gamble, but I—didn’t tell you the whole thing. I guess I hoped I wouldn’t have to. It doesn’t have any bearing on what I came to see you about.”

“Then why are you telling me now?”

“Because I think maybe you can help me. Dan’s in deep, Mr. Shayne. He’s half-crazy with worry and I am too—about him. Especially since he didn’t come home tonight.”

“Who does he owe the money to? Someone who won’t wait?”

She nodded, looking down to avoid the redhead’s eyes. “I wasn’t quite honest with you this afternoon when I said the name De Luca didn’t mean anything to me. He’s the loan-shark Dan owes money to.”

Shayne’s interest quickened. He tapped the cigarette, sending sparks into the dark. Was this the connection between the pretty housewife and the dead hoodlum he had been looking for? Henlein had worked for De Luca, Dan Milford owed money to De Luca, and De Luca had been known to maim and kill men who failed to meet his usurious payments. Had one of De Luca’s musclemen tried to get Dan Milford to pay up by leaving one of the voodoo dolls with his wife? It seemed an unlikely way for gangsters to operate—still, they had done more than frighten Henny Henlein, they had killed him.

There was another possibility. If Henny Henlein had been crowding Dan Milford for his loan-shark boss, De Luca, Dan might have killed Henlein.

“Does your husband know you got the doll?” Shayne asked abruptly.

“No. I didn’t tell him.”

“You told the Thains. Why didn’t you tell him too? Unless you think he left it?”

She stared at him, her horror showing even in the dark night. “If you knew him you’d never say that. Dan’s not a murderer!”

“And you’re not murdered—yet. But Henny Henlein is. Henlein was one of De Luca’s muscle-men and collectors. Now that you’ve admitted you know De Luca, what do you know about Henlein?”

“Nothing. I was telling the truth about that. I never heard the name.”

“You still haven’t told me why you didn’t tell your husband somebody left you the voodoo doll.”

“I didn’t want to worry him any more. He had enough to be worried about.” She was crying softly. “And even if he
did
want to kill me—which he never would—why wouldn’t he just do it, instead of sending me the doll?”

“You told me this afternoon he believed in the voodoo curse—that he was like a child that way.”

“Dan would never hurt me, much less kill me. He wouldn’t!”