Free The Violent World of Michael Shayne by Brett Halliday

return, Shayne gave her a closer look.
    She was in her early twenties. Most of the things that had happened to her so far had obviously been pleasant. Her features were finely cut, with a shadow of dissatisfaction at the corners of her mouth. Her white dress had a short skirt, very little back, and not much front. She wore a diamond necklace that looked authentic to Shayne. He didn’t know much about diamonds but he was an expert on girls, and he knew that this one couldn’t be picked up in this kind of bar unless she had been told to by someone with money to spend. So he decided to try.
    He swayed in her direction. “People all told me back home that Washington’s a dead town after dark. Dead? It’s putrid.”
    She glanced at him coolly, moved her drink a fraction of an inch farther away and went on looking at her watch. But she stayed where she was, though there were half a dozen empty stools farther down.
    “You didn’t have the privilege of hearing the singer,” Shayne said loosely. “That was an experience. She got up off her deathbed to fill the engagement. Fascinating, if you like ghoulish entertainment. One number there, ‘Night and Day,’ I was giving three to one she wouldn’t make it all the way through. Rallied in the middle. What’s that in your glass?”
    “Crème de menthe,” she said indifferently.
    “Crème de what?” he said, almost falling off his stool. “Never heard of it. What’s it taste like?”
    Without asking her permission he lurched closer, picked the glass out of her hands and tasted it. He recoiled.
    “Say, that’s horrible! That’s the worst drink I ever tasted. I’d rather take cough syrup. Let me buy you something that will stir up your circulation. You’re a good-looking kid except for one thing—you’re too pale.”
    “Thanks,” she said with another look at her watch. “I’ll stick with this.”
    “Baby, don’t you know when your date has run out on you?” Shayne said. “Or hasn’t it ever happened to you before? He’s been gone fifteen minutes. What did he tell you? He was going to the men’s room? Don’t believe it. He left by the back door.”
    She frowned. “Why would he do that?”
    “I could name you any number of reasons. I’m more or less in the business myself. Maybe there’s somebody in there he didn’t want to see you together. He’s a married man, right?”
    She looked at Shayne fully for the first time. “His wife is in California. Listen, would you be willing to—”
    She stopped, frowning again.
    “To check the men’s room for you?” Shayne said happily. “Baby, I will do that with the greatest of pleasure.”
    He straightened his shoulders. Coming down too hard on his heels, he walked a straight line to the men’s room, where there was a colored attendant but no customers. Checking his appearance in the mirror, Shayne rumpled his hair and loosened the knot of his tie. His eyes were already bloodshot, from a shortage of sleep, not from too much liquor.
    “Nobody there but us chickens,” he reported to the girl after returning to the bar. “Bartender! Make mine a double this time, and for the lady—” He looked at her. “Not that goo, for God’s sake.”
    “What are you having?”
    “Martell’s. The best cognac you can get in a creep joint like this.”
    He waved at the bartender. When the drinks came he attacked his thirstily, spilling part of it. The girl didn’t like this, but Shayne no longer doubted that she was following orders.
    “Honey, we’ve got to get out of here,” he told her earnestly. “I’m beginning to feel like a mummy, and that’s not what good cognac is supposed to do for you. That singer’s going to come back any minute. There has to be one livelier place than this in town.” He tightened his necktie and said, “Michael Shayne, from Miami, Florida, the greatest little city in the world. I can tell just from looking at you—” he looked at her solemnly “—that you don’t ordinarily