Shoot the Works

Chapter five

She moved up close to him, tilting her head coquettishly, and, when Shayne caught a whiff of her breath, he realized she’d had at least one more drink since his encounter with her at the Martins’.

“Mr. Shayne. Or may I call you Mike?”

“I’ll answer to either,” he told her equably. “And you’re…?”

“Kitty Heffner. I just don’t answer to anything but Kitty.” Her voice was brassy and somewhat loud, the words slightly blurred around the edges. “I’ve been waiting and waiting. I just felt I had to see you. I’ve got some very private information for you. Things I just wouldn’t tell that old policeman.”

Shayne said, “That’s fine,” drawing back a little from the impact of her flashing black eyes. She was a woman who must have been very beautiful fifteen or twenty years before, and a few drinks evidently made her forget those intervening years. He took her arm and started to turn her toward two chairs across the lobby. “We can sit here quietly and I’ll be glad to hear anything you can tell me.”

“Do we have to sit down here in public, Mike? It’s really terribly confidential. I don’t know whether I ought to tell it or not, but I do think maybe another little drink would give me more nerve.”

Shayne sighed and then indicated a waiting elevator, conscious of the amused attention of Dick at the desk and the uniformed operator. He said, “We can go up to my room if you like. Unless you’re afraid of being compromised,” he ended hopefully. “It is past midnight.”

Her gurgling laughter was unpleasantly remindful of the neigh of a horse. “I always say it’s never too late for a little drink. And I didn’t think you’d be Victorian, Mike. Not after all the things I’ve heard.”

He compressed his lips and got in the elevator with her. The operator stood very erect with his eyes front, avoiding Shayne’s face.

Out of the side of his mouth, Shayne said, “Be seeing you shortly,” as he got out, and reached in his pocket for a key-ring as they went down the hall.

He unlocked a door and reached inside to turn on the ceiling light, and then stepped back to let Kitty Heffner precede him into the square sitting room.

She uttered a little squeal of delight as she surveyed the room. “So this is where you grill your suspects?”

“Sometimes,” said Shayne, “I feed them enough liquor so they tell me all their secrets without being grilled. Particularly if they’re female… and pretty.” He passed her toward a wall liquor cabinet as he spoke.

“Oh, you.” Her voice lost some of its brassy quality and became flirtatious. “I’ve always understood you liked blondes.”

“And brunettes,” Shayne assured her. “What can I get you?”

“Anything.” She waved a large-boned hand vaguely and the bracelets rattled on her wrist. “Whatever you’re taking will be fine. It is nice and cozy here and I just love the thought of being plied with liquor. My, but the other girls would envy me if they even guessed where I am.”

Shayne took down a brandy bottle and two four-ounce glasses. He carried them into the kitchen and set them on a tray, ran warm water over a tray of ice cubes and put three cubes in each of two tall glasses. Filling the glasses with cold water, he carried the tray back and found Kitty ensconced on the shabby sofa, leaning back so that her matronly breasts were thrust out and her rather tight skirt was pulled up to her knees. She had nice legs and trim ankles and a neat waistline, and the redhead realized she wouldn’t be bad at all in a dim light and if she’d keep her mouth shut.

He set the tray on a low table in front of the sofa, and provided the dim light by switching on a floorlamp across the room and turning out the overhead light.

She patted the sofa beside her happily as he turned back. “I do feel lovely and sinful… and just a little bit terrified of you, Mike Shayne. You’re so big and masterful, I just know I shouldn’t trust myself here alone with you. I can’t help wondering what might happen if you should take it in your mind to seduce me.” A deeper note had crept into her voice and it vibrated through Shayne.

He sat down beside her and said, “I practically never seduce a witness until I’ve grilled her thoroughly first.” He poured brandy in both wine glasses and said, “Or would you rather have yours mixed?”

“I just love straight liquor… if it’s good. And I just know you wouldn’t have anything but the best.” She reached for her glass and contrived to have the back of her hand brush against his knuckles. He was pleased that he felt no answering tingle.

He lifted his own glass and said, “You’ve got some information about the murder?”

She took a dainty sip of the brandy, savored it, and then avidly drank half the glass. She set it down without a sputter and without reaching for the ice water.

“I think so. I think it’s important.” She was frowning a little and a tremor of self-doubt crept into her voice. “I don’t think I’m just being catty, and I don’t think I just decided it might be important, just because it gave me an excuse for coming up here and being with you. But I don’t know for sure. I do feel dreadfully disloyal and all. But it is a murder case, isn’t it? And, in a murder case, isn’t it against the law to withhold evidence?”

Shayne took a drink from his own glass and chased it with ice water. “It’s practically a felony,” he told her. “You can tell me in confidence.”

“I knew I could, Mike. That’s why I didn’t volunteer any information to that policeman. I told myself, Kitty Heffner, you just keep it for Mike Shayne. But now I don’t know whether it was just because in the back of my mind I thought it might turn out this way or not. You do know you’re dreadfully attractive, don’t you?”

Shayne said gruffly, “I’m supposed to be grilling you. Remember?”

“Of course I do. And you practically never seduce a witness until you’ve grilled her thoroughly first, do you?”

“That’s right. So the sooner we get on with it… Shayne’s voice trailed off into suggestive silence.

“It’s about Mr. Martin’s partner that you said was murdered, mostly. And something about Mr. Martin, too. As soon as I heard you say he was dead I couldn’t help thinking to myself, ‘So, he finally got what was coming to him.’ And I wasn’t surprised, not a bit. The way he was always pawing everybody at parties and making remarks with double meanings. Not me, you can bet. I wouldn’t have it. The mere thought of his kissing me in the kitchen makes my flesh crawl. But there were others that liked it, all right. I know I shouldn’t tell you this, but, I made up my mind, I was going to tell you the truth because it might be important.”

Shayne asked, “Who were some of the others?”

“Ella for one.”

“Mrs. Martin?”

“That surprises you, doesn’t it? With her fat and her gray hair and all. Men are so dumb. Just because Ella is fifty-two and has had the change of life and lets herself look run-down and dowdy, most men never think she might still like to have some fun on the side. Mr. Martin is like that. I always thought he never even suspected. Until tonight. And then I began to wonder.”

Kitty paused and emptied her glass. She held it out to Shayne. “Could I have another tiny sip?”

Shayne let her hold it while he tilted the bottle and poured a large number of tiny sips into her glass.

“You thought Martin never suspected what?”

“The way they used to smooch together. At parties, you know. When they thought no one was looking.” A sly smile curved her lips. “Sometimes I think Ella just lets her hair stay gray and dresses the way she does to fool her husband. So he’d never even suspect she was carrying on with his partner on the side.” She paused for another hefty drink and Shayne got out a pack of cigarettes and shook two out. She took one and put it in her mouth and Shayne lit a match. She set her glass down and put her fingertips to his hand to guide the flame to the end of the white cylinder. Her fingertips were cold and they trembled violently. Her black eyes were wide and they held his, challengingly, as she pulled smoke into her lungs. She said in a small voice, “Should I be frightened, Mike? I feel… funny inside, when I touch you. Do you feel funny, too?”

Shayne pulled his gaze away from hers and lit his cigarette, saying carefully, “I feel wonderful, Kitty. Maybe you’d better not drink any more.”

“But I want to. It makes me feel loose inside and… and wanton. Do you mind if I feel wanton, Mike? That’s a lovely word. Like wanting. And that’s what you do to me and you know it. And I’m glad of it. I’m glad I’m old enough to know a man likes that. To be wanted. You do like it, don’t you, Mike? Every man does. That’s something I’ve learned, and if I’d only known it when I was younger everything would have been so much easier. But I thought it was terrible to let a man know the way you felt. I thought he’d despise you if he ever guessed. But men don’t, do they? You don’t, do you?”

She moved closer to him on the sofa, as she spoke. Her mouth was slightly open and her breath came in little panting gasps.

Shayne said, “I certainly don’t despise you, Kitty. Do you think Ella’s carrying on had anything to do with tonight’s murder?”

“I don’t know. That’s for you to decide. But it does give you an insight into his character, doesn’t it? Kissing her and squeezing her fat breasts right there in her own house. I saw them all right. And more than once. But I didn’t think Rutherford ever suspected. And I didn’t really think anything about it when I saw him slipping back into his room tonight. Not until I found out about the murder. And then I began putting two and two together. Suppose he did know how Ella had been carrying on. That could be a motive, couldn’t it?”

“For Martin’s shooting his partner?”

“Well, couldn’t it?” Kitty twisted toward him on the sofa, her eyes very bright in the subdued light. She drew up one nylon-sheathed knee so it pressed hard against Shayne’s thigh, leaned forward to clasp his right hand tightly. Her fingers no longer felt cold. They were burning against his flesh as she flexed them convulsively.

“I didn’t breathe a word of this to the police, Mike. But about ten-thirty, when I was dummy, I left the bridge table to go to the bathroom. It’s down the hall next to their bedroom. And when I stepped into the hall I saw Rutherford just slipping back inside his room. And he was fully dressed, though it had been at least two hours since he told us all good-night and went back to go to bed.”

She seemed unconscious of her fingers that were squeezing and loosening on his hand, unconscious of the steady pressure she was exerting to pull his hand forward so it finally rested on the silken-covered flesh above her knee. She wasn’t as bony as she appeared. The flesh was unexpectedly soft yet resilient beneath his palm, which she pressed down hard with her own feverish hand.

“What do you think of that? There’s a rear door out the kitchen, you know.”

Shayne said, “I know. I went out that way tonight.” He emptied his glass and set it down decisively. “Are you suggesting that Mr. Martin slipped out and killed his partner after trying to set up an alibi by pretending to go to bed?”

“He could have, couldn’t he?” She lifted her hand away from his and straightened up a trifle to empty her glass a second time. Shayne let his hand remain quietly on her thigh and resisted an impulse to knead the flesh.

He said slowly, “I suppose he could have.”

“Isn’t it important, Mike? Don’t you think maybe it’s important?” Kitty’s voice was very low and yearning. “Tell me you think it’s important enough to justify my coming here. Then I won’t feel so… so depraved.”

“Don’t you like feeling depraved?”

“Of course I do,” she said with unexpected vigor. “You know, don’t you? I knew it as soon as I saw you there tonight. Something happened that hasn’t happened to me for a long time, Mike. Such a goddamned long time,” she moaned, and then she shuddered violently. She turned away from him to reach for the bottle and pour her own drink. Liquor splashed to the top of the glass and overflowed the rim. She lifted it in both hands and drank from it greedily, then dropped the empty glass to the floor. Her arms went out to him imploringly.

“Kiss me, darling. Oh, God, kiss me.”

Her left hand tangled in his hair and she pulled him toward her fiercely, with surprising strength. She forced her open mouth against his and pushed her bosom against his chest.

Her scent was surprisingly fragrant.

Shayne’s arm went around her shoulders and her weight pressed him back on the sofa, so she was half on top of him. Guttural sounds came from her throat, indistinct and muffled by the long kiss, her limbs writhed and then her entire body stiffened spasmodically.

She went wholly lax, without warning, and was suddenly a dead weight on him.

Her lips fell away from his and her head lolled back. She breathed naturally and easily, through slightly parted lips, and her eyes were closed. Her face was almost beautiful in its rapt relaxation.

Shayne twisted from beneath and sat up, rubbing sweat from his drawn face. He said, “Kitty,” and then repeated her name more loudly.

She did not stir or open her eyes, and Shayne knew that Kitty Heffner had passed out cold from that last drink.

He exhaled a deep breath and got up, moodily, stood looking down at her for a moment. He felt weary and dejected as he turned away. He told himself firmly that he should be glad that she had passed out when she did, but he wasn’t.

He went into the bathroom, and when he emerged he heard an unmistakable snore from the sofa. Then he grinned. At himself and at life, and at the illusions men cling to.

He entered his bedroom and closed the door firmly behind him, leaving the lamp burning, so Kitty wouldn’t be too upset or frightened if she woke up before it was daylight.