the same inward stirrings in the past, he reflected, and it had always been a simple matter to rid himself of them with the assistance of the nearest complaisant woman. Curiously, he felt only a vague distaste when he considered seeking the same remedy tonight.
Damn Phyllis! She was too innately decent to waste herself on a louse like Grange. If she was determined to go in for that sort of thing, he might as well—
When he turned onto the causeway he saw that there was a yellowish phosphorescence on the water. The breeze was stronger, more full-flavored. He allowed his thoughts to return to Phyllis Brighton as she had been that night when he sent her away from his apartment, let speculative memories have their way with him as he drove into Miami.
The scowl remained fixed on his face, but there was no real inward causation for it as he swung around the traffic circle in front of a great department store into the west lane of brilliantly lighted Biscayne Boulevard, and drove on past cool, shadowy Biscayne Park.
Passing the end of Flagler Street, he turned to the right at the next corner, then to the left, and a block farther south he pulled in at the curb, parked at the side entrance to an apartment hotel backed up to the Miami River. He went into a small hallway leading on to a lighted lobby, passed the elevators and climbed a stairway to the second floor to his apartment.
He heard the muffled ring of his telephone as he fitted a key into the lock. He entered unhurriedly and switched lights on a large, comfortably furnished living-room.
The wall telephone continued to b-r-r-r loudly.
He closed the door and tipped his hat back, went directly to a liquor cabinet where he took down a half-full bottle of modestly priced cognac. He pulled the cork on the way to the phone, took down the receiver and said, “Hello,” then tipped the bottle and drank deeply.
A metallic masculine voice said, “Shayne?”
“Talking.”
He didn’t recognize the voice over the wire. A deep crease formed between his eyes. It was evident that the man at the other end was trying to disguise his voice. He tilted the bottle again as he listened to the man saying rapidly, “I’ve got a case for you, Shayne. Something big. Can you come right away?”
Shayne lowered the bottle and held it loosely by the neck.
“How big? Where?”
The tone of his response was one of complete disinterest.
“Plenty big. It’s something I can’t discuss over the phone. Can you come to the beach right away?”
The voice was muffled, as if it came through a cloth over the mouthpiece.
“I suppose I can,” Shayne said dubiously. The crease between his eyes deepened. “Who’s speaking?”
“Never mind. You mightn’t come if I told you.”
Shayne bellowed, “To hell with that,” and slammed the receiver on the hook.
He stood on wide-spaced feet, scowling at the wall, then shrugged his shoulders in dismissal of the affair. He went to the littered table and set the bottle down. Going to the cabinet again, he took a tall wine glass from a shelf and was on his way back to the table when the phone rang again.
He blandly ignored it. He filled the slender glass to the rim with amber fluid, drank it slowly and with whole-souled enjoyment. Not until the glass was empty did he lift the receiver and stop the persistent ringing.
The same voice said guardedly, “Hello. Mr. Shayne? I guess we were cut off.”
“I hung up,” Shayne tossed into the mouthpiece. There was a brief silence.
Then the man said, “I must have misunderstood you. It sounded as though you said you hung up.”
“I did.”
“Oh.” Then the voice continued, “If you have to know my name, it’s Grange—Harry Grange,” in a strange, guttural tone, as if the man’s mouth was pressed tightly against the instrument.
“You don’t sound like Grange to me,” Shayne said flatly.
“You don’t ever know who’s listening in on a damned telephone,” the man snapped. “I’ve got to
Maurizio de Giovanni, Anne Milano Appel