Free Murder Takes No Holiday by Brett Halliday

handkerchief.
    “What I should do,” Alvarez said, “is wash my hands of the whole thing. You make trouble for me, I knew that the first minute I saw you.”
    He looked at his watch again, and clapped his hand over his wrist. “I could choke you with these hands! A mess you make of this, you blundering imbecile!”
    English was not a flexible enough language to express his feelings, and he fell back on Spanish. He took a few nervous steps, and returned to the desk. He looked searchingly at Shayne, who was unscrewing the cap of the rum bottle.
    “Something wrong?” the redhead said innocently.
    “Wrong! One works everything out carefully, takes all possibilities into account, and then a large stupid North American lumbers in like a bull in a parlor—”
    He broke off abruptly. “Can you drive a car?”
    Shayne raised his eyebrows. “Sure.”
    “Then I will do you a service and get you off the island. But first you will do a service for me. The two men I could trust, they are now, thanks to you, in jail. You will have to take their place.”
    Shayne balanced the bottle lightly in both hands. “Better tell me something about it, amigo. I like to know what I’m doing.”
    “It is nothing so complicated, after all. You are to follow me in a car and pick me up when I tell you. Then we go another place, and after that, directly to the dock and you leave St. Albans before you get me into more trouble, God forbid. First the bullets, please.”
    He put out his hand. Shayne gave him the clip for the .45 and watched him load the gun.
    “You don’t just want a driver,” the redhead said, settling himself on the desk. “Even an American imbecile like me can figure that out.”
    The Camel’s mouth was twitching again. “That is true,” he admitted, and continued reluctantly, “I meet a certain person tonight. I am not altogether sure I trust this person. I would not wish an accident to happen. No special exertion on your part is necessary. It will be enough if you are present.” He added more sharply, “And are you in any position to refuse?”
    “I’m not refusing,” Shayne said. He fished out a cigarette and a match, and struck the match on his thumbnail. “But when the cops showed up, you bumped the tariff from fifteen hundred to twenty-five. Now let’s be reasonable. Make it an even thousand and I’m with you.”
    Alvarez looked at him with distaste. “So. It is a bargain. Although you exaggerate the value of your service, Mr. Shayne. It is merely insurance against an unpleasantness. I am delivering a car. You are to follow me closely. I will leave the car in a garage, and you will take me where I tell you. There I will exchange the keys to the car for a sum of money. That is all.”
    Shayne laughed and stood up. “It’s a hell of a complicated way to run a railroad.”
    “But it is not your railroad, is it? I begin to think that I will be relieved to see the last of you, Mr. Shayne. Now,” he said with the spinsterish primness that seemed to be habitual with him, “here is what you must do.”

 
6
     
    Michael Shayne, cigarette dangling from his lips, switched out the light after Alvarez left the office. Going to the window, he adjusted the slats of the blind and raised it all the way. The window was already up as far as it would go. Kneeling and keeping close to the window frame, he looked out cautiously.
    He would have only a three-foot drop to a cobblestoned alley. A cat was prowling along it, a big yellow tom. Seeing Shayne, the animal froze and gave him a look of intense suspicion—possibly wondering, Shayne thought wryly, if the American was actually wanted for armed robbery by the Florida police.
    He heard an automobile motor. It idled a moment, then stalled. That was the signal. When it took hold again, Shayne swung one of his long legs over the sill. At his first move, the cat whirled about and disappeared. The redhead let himself down to his full length and dropped to the cobblestones as