Free Killers from the Keys by Brett Halliday Page A

onto the floor where the spotlight had just been turned off as two of the rosettes dropped from the stripper’s body.
    She drew in a deep breath and slowed to a walk, thrusting her breasts out and stepping mincingly so her buttocks did a slow roll with each step.
    There was no one at her table when she returned to it, and she seated herself composedly and gathered up the change the waiter had left from Freddie’s twenty. As soon as the spotlight came on again for the next number, she was pretty sure the mean-looking younger man and the sad-looking older one in the black suit would be sitting down with her to ask questions.

8
     
    BACK-STAGE, Ralph Billiter looked down contemptuously at the frightened man clinging to him and demanded, “Whatsa matter, huh? What’re you running from?”
    “Two men… looking for me… I guess,” panted Shephard. “Miss Piney was telling me about them being here the other night, and then… they showed up just now. If you can show me how to get out the back way and around to my car in the parking lot…”
    “Sure.” Ralph tucked Shephard’s arm in his and led him back to a wooden door opening out into the night behind the squat building. “What they want with you, you reckon?” he asked interestedly.
    “They want my money,” Shephard chattered. “That’s what they’re after. But it’s my money.” He took a deep breath of the night air and sought to draw his arm away from Ralph’s. “I’m all right now, and I thank you. I’ve watched you dance with Miss Piney, and I’ve wanted to tell you how good I think the two of you are together. Please thank her for me and tell her that I will try to contact her later tonight. Assure her, if you will be so kind, that I really meant what I said tonight.”
    Ralph Billiter kept his grip on Shephard’s arm and tightened his fingers bruisingly on the Midwesterner’s flesh. “I’ll walk you around to your car… be sure you get away all right. The Pink Flamingo, huh? Ain’t that just a piece down the road?”
    “Yes. It’s a motel.” Shephard did not protest further as Ralph guided him along a path beside the building leading to the brightly lighted parking area. The young man’s muscular strength was reassuring, and Shephard clung to him thankfully.
    “You got the money there?”
    “What’s that?”
    “All the money you been talkin’ about. That you been tellin’ Essie you’d give to her was she to go off with you.” There was a sudden throbbing note of anger in Ralph’s voice that penetrated the alcoholic haze surrounding Shephard, and at the corner of the building, just before they reached the lighted area, he paused again, uncertainly.
    “I have the utmost respect for Miss Piney,” he said in a high-pitched, quavering voice.
    “I know,” said Ralph brutally. “You been sleepin’ with her an’ you like it.” His big hand slid up Shephard’s arm to his shoulder and he shook the slighter man vigorously. “Where’s yore parkin’ ticket?”
    “Right here.” His teeth chattered and his hand trembled as he got the numbered ticket from his pocket.
    Ralph took it out of his hand and marched him forward into the floodlighted area. The attendant was returning to the canopied entrance from parking a car, and Ralph intercepted him with the ticket. “We’re leavin’. What kinda car you got?” he demanded of his companion.
    “It’s a dark tan Chevrolet.”
    The attendant looked at the number on the ticket and went away. Ralph pulled Shephard back against the building and they waited until the dark tan Chevrolet came around from the lot and pulled up in front of them. Ralph gave him a little shove around in front of the car, and Shephard circled it to get in the driver’s seat. As he settled himself behind the wheel, Ralph opened the other door and slid in beside him. “Drive on to yore motel,” he ordered between clenched teeth. “I gotta hankerin’ to see all this here money you been promisin’ Essie.