“No-o, Dotty, put it out of your mind. The trouble with me is I’m misplaced in the twentieth century. I’m so easily satisfied. I like things as they are.”
“But they can’t stay that way!” she cried. “I can’t bear to have you around. I won’t pay any more of your bills.”
“I don’t require much.”
“Just a fifth of scotch a day.” She took his face in one hand, squeezing with her full strength. “What do I have to do to make you understand?”
He couldn’t have spoken even if there had been anything to say. She let him go in a moment. He went back to his contemplation of the designs in the ceiling. He was a bit miffed, of course, but he couldn’t allow her to upset him.
When he noticed what she was doing, he saw that she had torn a half dozen pages out of the latest New Yorker, crumpled them up and piled them on the low table. She struck her lighter, looking at him.
“Hmm?” she said idly, and set the pile on fire.
“Hey!” Paul said.
De Rham stayed where he was, holding his wife’s eyes, while Paul scrambled off the bunk, bringing a pillow, and smothered the flames. It wasn’t much of a bonfire, just enough to fill the room with smoke and ruin the coffee table.
“That was really intelligent,” Paul said. “Do you know we happen to be in a boat? That there’s nothing between us and the Atlantic Ocean but one layer of wood, and wood burns?”
De Rham told his wife softly, “Baby, you don’t fool me a bit.”
“I thought I might.”
“You’re crazy like a fox. You may have the shrinks eating out of your hand, but that’s because you pay them fifty bucks an hour. If I had fifty bucks for every hour I’ve listened to your troubles-”
“Be careful, Henry.”
“What can I lose?” He shrugged. “I’m no longer the heir apparent.”
“If I have to murder you to make you realize what you’ve done to me-”
“What have I done? You had the same flaws when I met you. I’m the one who puts up with stuff in this family.”
“Your glass is nearly empty. Don’t you want to dull your critical faculties? Have some more scotch.”
“I’m fine for the moment. Can I get you some gin?”
“I’m doing all right.” She studied him. “Unless you’ve been keeping something from me, Paul’s just about your only friend. Would it bother you if I went to bed with him?”
Paul had returned to the bunk to get his breath back. “Thanks for the compliment, love, but no thanks.”
“Henry, you sleep forward tonight. Paul and I are going to use the stateroom.”
“Consult me about it first,” Paul said. “I’ve had too many drinks. I wouldn’t be able to produce.”
She sat down beside him. “Let’s try.”
“Dot, be human. You’re having a domestic quarrel. That happens to people all the time. It’s not unique, it’s not the end of the world. I don’t want any part of it. If all you’re trying to do is irritate Henry, I suggest Petrocelli.”
“Oh, Henry wouldn’t mind that.”
De Rham didn’t like to feel angry. It was a cave-age emotion, and he was a long way from the cave. But apparently that scribbled will had affected him more than he thought. She would tear it up tomorrow. She needed him; she knew that as well as he did. But meanwhile, what if she had a sudden embolism and dropped dead at their feet? Her most recent will, dashed off in a drunken frenzy, was the one that would prevail. He didn’t believe in fooling around with money.
“The hell I wouldn’t mind it!” he shouted, spilling whiskey on his chest. “Try it and see!”
She looked across at him, interested. Her hand was on Paul’s stomach. Paul was holding onto it to keep it there. “Darling, you’re shouting.”
“Damn right I’m shouting! I’m fed up! I’m fed to the teeth with this constant baiting and teasing and tears and acting out!”
“Time for me to go to bed,” Paul put in.
“Stay,” Dotty said gently. “I really do feel like sex, and Henry’s so unpredictable when he’s hostile.”
“Goodnight, everybody,” Paul said. “See you at breakfast.”
Dotty pressed down as he tried to rise. “You’ll do what I say, Paul. You know that check I gave you. I can always stop payment when we get to Miami.”
“What check?” De Rham demanded.
“It’s my money,” she pointed out. “I do what I like with it. I’ve decided to invest forty thousand in an aerospace company Paul’s been telling me about.”
Paul moved uncomfortably. “Dotty, let’s call it a night.”
“Let’s not call it a night. The subject of money has come up, and Henry seems to be experiencing a genuine emotion.”
“Forty thousand!” De Rham said disbelievingly. “Paul, you’re in the aerospace business all of a sudden? What is the aerospace business?”
“I have to do something,” Paul said defensively. “It’s legit. Dotty had Tom Moseley look into it for her. A hell of a growth potential, they’re just a little short of cash right now. It’s going to pay off for everybody. They’ll make me a vice president if I can come in with some capital. Maybe Kath’ll call off the goddamned divorce. I don’t intend to put in a full forty-hour week.”
“Kid, you flabbergast me.”
Dotty was smiling. “I have the power, Paul. Now where were we?”
She came down and kissed him. De Rham knew it was all planned and calculated. First Petrocelli, now Paul. She was trying to provoke him into acting like a jealous husband so she could throw it at him the next time they quarreled. Being under a psychiatrist’s care gave her a kind of license to do things which were forbidden to ordinary people who couldn’t afford the fifty dollars.
With one part of his mind he told himself to stay cool. The surest way of annoying her would be to ignore her, take a couple of Seconals and go to bed. The hell with her.
A new period had opened when she wrote that new will.
He got up, and managed to stay dignified for about a tenth of a second. Then he felt a wave of murderous rage. He found himself starting for them, and he noted with an odd flash of clarity that his fingers were curled. She had got away with too many things in her time. Right here was where he was drawing the line.
CHAPTER 3
The phone rang in Michael Shayne’s Buick. Without hurrying, the big red-headed private detective opened the door for the girl he was taking to dinner, went around to the driver’s side, got in and picked up the phone.
“I have a New York call from a Mr. Joshua Loring,” the mobile operator said. “Do you want to take it?”
Shayne put a cigarette in his mouth. He hadn’t heard from Joshua Loring in fifteen years.
“Sure. Put him on.”
He cupped his hand over the mouthpiece. “An old friend. I’ll have to talk to him.”
“If it’s anything you don’t want me to hear, Michael-”
“Hell, no.” He opened the mouthpiece. “Joshua? Michael Shayne.”
“Mike,” a voice exclaimed. “I’ve been trying to get you all day. You’re a hard man to locate.”
Shayne grinned. There was a fresh bullet hole near the lower left-hand corner of his windshield, put there at eight o’clock that morning by a.44 Magnum, fired by a good-looking blonde from the open sunroof of a little Renault. Shayne had been reaching for his own.38 on the floor, and the slug had missed him by inches. The phone had been ringing, he remembered, but he hadn’t gotten around to answering it. A few minutes later, the Renault had crashed into an expressway abutment at seventy miles an hour, and the girl now lay in a funeral home in North Miami.
Shayne meant to leave the windshield as it was, to remind him not to trust people solely on the strength of an intriguing foreign accent and a nice smile.
“I’ve been moving around town, Joshua,” he said.
“I’m glad I caught up to you,” Loring said. “Something’s going on down in Miami that I’d like to have you look into for me. I’m worried about it, in fact damned worried. How are you situated? Are you busy?”
“Right now? Right now I’ve just had a few drinks with a lady and I’m about to buy her an Italian meal on the Beach.” He covered the mouthpiece and looked at the girl beside him. “And after that, who knows?”