She had a very comfortable, but not ostentatious, two-room suite on the fourth floor of the Perriepont Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.
She closed the door behind the two of them with a long exhalation of relief and exclaimed, “Now I feel I can breathe easily for the first time in days. Sit down and I’ll order up a drink. You can see I haven’t even unpacked yet.” She gestured toward a closed suitcase and hatbox standing side by side just inside the door of a bedroom.
Shayne sat in a comfortable chair beside a smoking stand and ran clawed fingers through his red hair while he appreciatively watched her sway across the room to the telephone. There was a pleasing air of exuberance about her now that was quite at variance with the first impression of taut strain she had given when she entered the Cock and Bull.
She lifted the telephone and asked for room service, then glanced over her shoulder at him and asked, “A bottle? If they have it?”
He nodded comfortably and lit a cigarette. She gave her room number and asked, “Is it possible to have a bottle sent up? Cognac, if you have it. Martel? That’s fine. With lots of ice and two glasses.” She hung up and turned slowly to look at him, nodding her head soberly. “You’re just the way I remembered you, Michael Shayne, only more so. God, if you knew how good it makes me feel just to have you here.” She made a little face at him. “I could kiss you… just out of sheer gratitude.”
“I haven’t done anything,” he protested. “Later, perhaps. After I’ve earned it. Right now I feel like Alice on the other side of the Looking Glass.”
He reached in his pocket for the torn half of the bill she had passed to him surreptitiously at the bar, and spread it out on his knee. Then he got her envelope from another pocket and extracted the other half from it, and gravely placed the torn edges together to make sure they matched.
She seated herself at the end of a sofa a few feet from him and leaned forward to watch him with her chin cupped in her palm. She wrinkled her nose and said, “Whew. I really poured the perfume on that first half, didn’t I?”
Shayne said, “You really did. Were you wearing that stuff ten years ago when I met you?”
She smiled and said, “Probably not. I don’t think I could afford it in those days. I just hoped it would bring into your mind the memory of some entrancing femme fatale you’d known long ago, and you wouldn’t be able to resist it.”
“It was that half of a one-grand bill that I couldn’t resist,” Shayne informed her. He folded the two halves together and carefully placed them inside his wallet. “Now, what’s your problem and what’s this foolishness about little men chasing you all over the metropolitan area of Los Angeles? Taxi drivers, and one of them who scared you away from the Brown Derby? I suppose that fatso who stood so close behind me at the Cock and Bull was another one of them,” he went on sarcastically, “and that’s why you insisted on the cloak and dagger stuff there?”
“I know it sounds fantastic,” she told him calmly. “I’ll admit I have got the jitters, and I may be seeing them on every street corner when they’re not there at all, but so many crazy things have happened that I just don’t know any more. It’s a long story, and please don’t decide I’m insane before I finish telling it.” She hesitated. “I don’t know just where to start.”
He stretched out his long legs and blew a contemplative cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. “Why not try the beginning?”
“That’s the trouble. Where does it begin? Oh well, you don’t need a lot of background stuff: It really began about six months ago when I first met Fidel Castro in Havana.”
There was a knock on the door and she jumped up to admit a bellboy carrying a tray. She had him set it on a table across the room and signed the check and tipped him although Shayne was waving a dollar bill in the air.
She put ice cubes in the two tall glasses the boy had brought, and poured cognac in one, and Shayne stopped her before she could repeat it with the second glass, telling her, “I’d like mine straight with water on the side if you’ve got an extra glass.”
“Of course.” She gave him a dismayed smile. “Forgive me for forgetting your well-publicized drinking habits.” She went in the bathroom for another glass, poured it half full of cognac and brought it to him with a glass of ice water.
She settled herself at the end of the sofa again and said uncomfortably, “I guess I can’t put it off any longer. I not only met Fidel but I fell for him. I don’t know how much Cuban stuff they’ve been printing in the Miami papers recently, but you may have read stories about an American actress who has been going around with him a lot. Her stage name is… was… Marianne Devlin.” Her voice hardened. “That was me, in case you haven’t guessed. There was a… an unpleasant bit of publicity in Hollywood a few years ago about a television actress named Mary Devon. It has nothing to do with this except as my reason for changing my name.”
She paused, looking at him defiantly, and Shayne shrugged and said, “Go on with the Cuban bit. I don’t recall reading about Marianne Devlin and Castro. In fact, my impression of the man is that he doesn’t have anything to do with women.”
“A gross misrepresentation,” she told him dryly. “You know how Cubans are about blondes? Well, I was at one of the luxury hotels in Havana in a floor show and he saw me and… liked me. All right,” she went on angrily, “I liked him, too. I was flattered that he wanted me for his mistress. He’s quite a guy. He’s still quite a guy,” she added, glaring at Shayne as though daring him to contradict her, “although he’s changed one hell of a lot since it’s come out in the open that he’s a communist.
“Look…” She spread out her hands unhappily. “I don’t think you’re interested in the intimate details of my life with Fidel. It was flattering and exciting in the beginning… all the intrigue and the back-stage goings-on. I was in on it. You had a feeling that he was a man of destiny. That he was sincerely interested in doing a wonderful job in Cuba… and God knows those poor peons who suffered under Batista deserved a new deal.
“But things got different. He’s a sour, embittered man. The communists have moved in and taken control. And he hates it because he was the movement in the beginning. He was the revolution. Of course he’s a megalomaniac,” she went on bitterly. “That’s why it’s so hard for him now. I’m not making excuses for him, but I did see a lot of it happen. I realized I had to get out, but I also realized they weren’t going to let me just walk out. I knew too much. I’d been too close to so many things. They didn’t trust me.
“Oh, not Fidel,” she went on swiftly. “He’s really quite naive about politics. But he’s not in charge any more.” She put down her drink abruptly and got up and began striding up and down the room like a caged animal.
“I’m not saying this well,” she burst out. “I don’t know whether he ever actually loved me. I’m not sure he’s capable of loving anyone but himself… and Cuba. At any rate, little Mary Devon saw the handwriting on the wall. I made plans to get out of there while the going was good. I found a pilot… an American… who agreed to fly me secretly to Mexico. For a price.”
She stopped in the middle of the floor with her hands on her hips and regarded Shayne belligerently. “It was a high price,” she told him in a subdued voice, “but well worth it. I got out of Cuba with some clothes, a few thousand dollars in American currency… and a small dispatch case. Right now I wish to God I’d had the good sense to leave the dispatch case behind, but I didn’t. I’m still an American. And I hate the communists and what they’ve done to Fidel. Do you know what is inside that dispatch case, Mr. Shayne?”
He said, “I haven’t the faintest idea… and why don’t you call me Mike at this point?”
“All right, Mike. It’s a complete and detailed plan for the take-over of Guantanamo. They’ve got key men infiltrated into our Navy personnel there. It’s all worked out, and I flew into Mexico with it.”
“Where is it?” he asked curiously, looking around the room as though he expected to see a dispatch case standing there.
“It’s hidden on the other side of the Border… where you and I are going to get it tomorrow and you’re going to take it to Washington and see that it gets into the hands of J. Edgar Hoover, or the top man of the CIA… whichever. I guess they’re not a part of the Communist Conspiracy,” she added tautly. “Although right now I’m not too sure about that. I’ve been through hell with that damned dispatch case.”
Her composure broke suddenly and she twisted her hands together in front of her and tears appeared on her cheeks. “Who can you trust today? I had a contact in Mexico City. He was murdered before I could reach him and there was a trap laid for me that I just escaped by the skin of my teeth. I miraculously escaped death twice more before I managed to reach the Border. I didn’t dare try to bring it across with me. I didn’t dare try to turn it over to anyone, because how do you know whom you can trust today? They’ve got their agents everywhere. That’s one of the things I learned in Cuba. What do you suppose went wrong with our carefully planned invasion a year ago? They knew all about it beforehand from trusted and high-up agents of the CIA. I’ve heard them boasting about how stupid and complacent Americans are.”
She stalked back to her end of the sofa and dropped down, lifted her glass of watered cognac and took a long drink. “All right, Mike. You didn’t come all the way to Los Angeles to listen to a lecture on the danger of communist infiltration here. But I’ve been hounded and deviled ever since I crossed the border from Mexico. My hotel room and bags have been searched twice. I can’t make a move on the streets without one of them right behind me. You may think I’m imagining all of it, and I don’t care what you think if you’ll just go down to Tijuana tomorrow and recover that dispatch case and see it gets into the right hands in Washington. That’s all I ask. Then let me go back to being Mary Devon and forget there ever was a woman named Marianne Devlin.”
He sucked the last drops of cognac from his glass, got up and went across to pour out some more. With his back to her, he observed mildly, “I think you’ll do all right as Mary Devon. You impress me as being quite a competent actress.” He turned back with an approving smile. “How much rehearsing did you do on that story before you tried it out on me?”
“Mike!” she cried in a stricken voice. “Don’t say that! You’ve got to believe me and help me. You’re the one person in the world I could think of whom I could call on.”
“I may be willing to help you,” he told her, reseating himself and pleasurably taking a sip of cognac, “after you tell me the truth. There may be a dispatch case hidden in Tijuana,” he agreed judicially. “Perhaps I’ll help you get hold of it… after you tell me what’s in it. But all this other stuff, Mary. For God’s sake!” He shook his head in disgust.
“If any of this wild story were true why the devil haven’t you gone to the police here in L.A.? Or the local office of the FBI? You didn’t have to send for a private detective from Miami to help you prevent a communist takeover of a Naval base in Cuba.”
“But I’ve told you,” she appealed to him tremulously. “How do you know whom you can trust these days? Even Mr. Hoover boasts publicly that about half his agents are members of the Communist Party. He thinks they are spying for him, of course, but how does he know which side they’re really on? I’ve just gotten to the point where I don’t trust anybody.”
“I know,” said Shayne with withering sarcasm. “Not even the local taxi drivers. A guy like Joe Pelter, for instance, who delivered your note to me today. You think he’s a commie and read your note and sent a cable to Moscow warning them that you planned to meet me at the Brown Derby. Nuts! What kind of a simpleton do you take me for?”
Mary Devon put her hands over her face and began crying quietly. “What am I going to do?” she sobbed. What am I going to do?”
“Start telling the truth,” he advised her coldly. “I don’t know what you’ve got yourself into, but it’s evidently something you can’t go to the police with. Maybe you have been sleeping with Fidel Castro. I wouldn’t blame you… and I certainly wouldn’t blame him. If you come clean with me and it’s something I can touch without losing my Florida license, I’ll be glad to consider it. Otherwise, I’ll finish up this glass of excellent cognac and be on my way.”
He raised the glass to his lips and grinned over the top of it at her.
She pulled her hands away from her tear-stained face and regarded him with a strange look of near-exaltation. “Will you, Mike?” she breathed hopefully. “Will you truly promise to help me if I tell you the real truth?” She got to her feet and glided toward him as though in a sort of trance.
He said gruffly, “If I can. Practically anything short of murder.”
She dropped to her knees beside his chair and clutched his thigh with both hands while she looked up at him imploringly. “I’m going to trust you, Mike. I’ll tell you the real truth this time. But it is a long story, and we might as well be relaxed. Do you mind if I… slip into the bedroom and get into something more comfortable?”
He said, “I don’t mind at all,” and pretended to hide a yawn while he glanced at his watch. “As a matter of fact, I’ll use your phone to make a collect call to my secretary in Miami while you’re doing that.”
She got up and said simply, “You won’t be disappointed, I promise you,” and he watched her go toward the bedroom and wondered fleetingly just what he was getting himself into.
He shrugged the question away, got up and carried his cognac over to the telephone stand where he sat down and put in his call to Lucy.
While the operator repeated the Miami telephone number, he glanced across the room and noticed that Mary had carelessly neglected to close the bedroom door all the way and that a full-length mirror set in a closet door inside the room afforded him an excellent view of the juicy body of the honey-haired blonde emerging from a black sheath dress.
She didn’t face the mirror directly so he wasn’t sure whether she was aware that he could see her in the glass or not, and he struggled with his gentlemanly instincts while he waited for Lucy to come on the line.
His baser instincts won the struggle without much difficulty. Actually, he thought, a woman who had been Castro’s mistress… or who had calmly claimed to be his mistress for purposes of her own, would think it pretty childish of him if he called out to warn her to close the bedroom door.
And he wondered with a grin how Lucy would react in Miami if he told her he was sitting up in a woman’s hotel room watching a disrobing act being put on for his special benefit.
Then he realized, suddenly, that Lucy still wasn’t answering her phone. He had been too absorbed in other things to count the number of rings, but now the operator was announcing crisply, “That number does not answer, sir. Do you wish me to try again in…”
He growled, “Cancel the call,” and hung up. When he looked up at the bedroom door with a scowl, Mary was walking through it placidly, bare-footed and wearing a long, full-skirted silken robe of pale yellow that was belted tightly at the waist and rustled suggestively against her limbs.
She stopped short at sight of his scowling countenance. “Don’t you like it?” she asked anxiously. “I thought…”
“I like it fine,” he told her shortly. “I’m just worried about my secretary. Her telephone doesn’t answer.”
“But, goodness, what’s that to worry about?” She glided sinuously to the sofa and patted the cushion beside her. “Why don’t you bring your drink over and relax?”
“But it’s after ten o’clock in Miami. Lucy wouldn’t normally be out so late.”
“Pooh! What’s ten o’clock? I bet she’s an attractive doll, isn’t she? I can’t imagine Mike Shayne having a secretary who isn’t. You know the old saying: When the boss is away the secretaries play. Come on, darling, and this time I’ll tell you the real truth about that old dispatch case.”
Shayne shook his head stubbornly. “You don’t know Lucy Hamilton. She was expecting me to call. She just wouldn’t do this.”
He picked up the telephone book and ruffled through it, found the number for the Plaza Terrace Hotel and gave it to the switchboard.
When it answered, he said, “Pat Ryan, please. Security,” hoping that Ryan would still be on duty.
The operator said, “Certainly,” and a moment later a voice said, “Ryan speaking.”
“Mike Shayne, Pat.”
“Hey. How you doing, Mike? Caught up with that juicy blonde yet?”
“I’m just about to.” Shayne lifted his eyebrows at Mary, who reclined on the sofa with her robe carefully arranged to show the smooth line of long, well-fleshed legs. “What I wondered, Pats” he went on hastily. “Has there been any call for me? I haven’t been able to get hold of my secretary.”
“Not a thing, Mike.” Pat Ryan chuckled lewdly. “Why worry about a secretary in Miami when you’re about to catch up with something juicy out here?”
Shayne said, “Thanks,” and hung up. His scowl deepened and he drummed blunt fingertips on the telephone table beside him.
Why, indeed? But none of these people knew Lucy. That was why. He didn’t even bother to look at Mary when her voice floated to him provocatively from the sofa, “For goodness sake, you can call her later, Mike. After she gets home from her date. Remember that kiss I promised you.”
Shayne said coldly, “I still haven’t earned it.” He lifted the telephone again and directed the operator to put through a collect, person-to-person call to Timothy Rourke in Miami, giving her both the Daily News number and Rourke’s home number.
It was some time before they succeeded in locating the reporter, and his voice sounded queer when it finally came over three thousand miles of telephone wire: “Mike? The operator said Los Angeles. Is that right?”
“Yeh. I’m in L.A. Tim, I’m beginning to get worried about Lucy. I can’t locate her, and…”
“You’re getting worried about Lucy?” Tim Rourke seemed about to choke over the words. “You can’t locate her? Neither can the whole goddamned Miami police department… or you either for that matter. What are you doing…?”
“What are you talking about, Tim?”
“About a dead man in your office, Mike. Stabbed in the heart with that filing spindle off Lucy’s desk. And she seems to have vanished into thin air.”