Free Killers from the Keys by Brett Halliday Page B

She’s my woman, Mister, and don’t you forget it.”
    Shephard said, “I’ll ask you to get out right now. I have no intention…”
    “Drive on outta here,” said Ralph. His big hand came out of his pants pocket with a conch shell in it that had been laboriously sharpened to a needle-like point. He slid it carelessly across his lap so the tip touched Shephard’s side. “This here’s what we call a persuader down on the Keys where I come from. You want it in yore guts, or you gonna drive on?”
    Shephard looked down at the vicious shell in fascination. “That’s what you and Miss Piney use in your dance, isn’t it? They look terribly dangerous to me on stage.”
    Ralph grinned and moved his hand slightly. The tip of the shell went through the fabric of Shephard’s coat and into his flesh just beneath the rib-cage. He gasped with pain and shrank back against his side of the car, and Ralph said again, “Drive on outta here.”
    Shephard put the light sedan in gear and drove around in a circle to the exit. Ralph settled his hulking body more comfortably in the seat beside him and spoke in a voice that was chilling in its casual and irresponsible menace, “Killin’ a man ain’t nothing to me, Mister. I’d done it before this except Essie kept on sayin’, ‘Wait an’ lessee does he really have all that money he claims to have.’ You reckon she ever had any thought of goin’ off with an old goat like you?” Ralph laughed jeeringly. “Hell, ever’ time she come back from layin’ with you we laughed an’ laughed about how you was in bed.”
    “I don’t wish to discuss Miss Piney with you.”
    “We’ll discuss her, awright. She’s my woman, like I told you, an’ any money she gets outta you belongs rightly to me. These here men that’re chasin’ you, now. Just who might they be?”
    “I don’t know. I really don’t.” Shephard slowed the light sedan as they neared the intersection to the well-travelled Trail. “If you’ll get out here,” he said hopefully, “I’ll give you all the money I’ve got, and I promise you I won’t ever come back to see Miss Piney again.” He pulled off to the side and looked at Ralph hopefully. “I assure you I didn’t realize she was your… ah… woman.” He gulped sadly. “She was so young and I thought she liked me.”
    “How much money you got?” demanded Ralph truculently.
    Shephard squirmed in the car seat to remain as far removed from the needle-sharp conch shell as possible, and got a thick wallet from his hip pocket. He opened it and took out a sheaf of bills which he pressed into Ralph’s hand. “There’s several hundred there, I think. You can see it’s all I’ve got.” He displayed the empty wallet. “Will you please get out, now, and let me go on? I promise you I’ll leave Miami immediately and never see Miss Piney again.”
    Ralph riffled the bills contemptuously. “A few hundred bucks? You gotta do better’n that, Mister. All this big talk you been givin’ Essie about going off to some island an’ livin’ the rest of yore lives.” He laughed harshly. “Drive on to that motel of yours an’ dig out the rest of it.”
    “But I tell you that’s all I’ve got left. I’ve been spending a great deal…”
    “Nuts to that.” Ralph moved the conch shell menacingly close again. “You think I’m a pure fool to swallow a story like that? How you gonna get outta town tonight if you got no money left? Drive on, goddamit, and we’ll take a look in yore cabin. I gotta get back for our dance act.”
    Shephard trembled in an agony of fear and dispiritedly pulled onto the highway in the direction of the Pink Flamingo. Ralph Billiter was something completely outside the orbit of his experience. There was a cold and predatory sort of ruthlessness about him that shocked Steven Shephard to the very core of his civilized being.
    Neither of them spoke again on the short drive down the Trail to the motel turn-off. Then he tried once more to