The Uncomplaining Corpses by Brett Halliday Page B

scruples. A woman who could easily destroy a man. He recognized the tantalizingly familiar odor from her lips now. It was the strong unnerving smell of absinthe, and he knew now that Meldrum had been under the influence of the green stuff that morning.
    He drew the cognac bottle from his pocket and worried the cork with his teeth while she watched. Perfunctorily, he asked, “Have a drink?” then tipped it to his mouth when she shook her copper-colored head as he had known she would.
    The drink steadied him. He set the open bottle on the floor beside him and growled, “Carl sent me to get things straight with you. You know the spot he’s in.”
    She didn’t reply. A tawny glint came into her eyes and went away while she waited for him to go on. She took a deep drag on her cigarette and smoke flowed smoothly out of her nostrils. She was as quiescent and as dangerous as a sulking tigress.
    “You know all about it,” Shayne insisted. “He told me you were fixing him an out for last night.”
    Mona Tabor’s tongue came out and wet the outer surface of her lips. She said, “Then he hasn’t anything to worry about, has he?”
    “He sent me over to get the whole thing straight. So there won’t be any mix-up in the stories you and he tell the cops.”
    “You’re lying, redhead.” She said it without rancor. “I don’t know what your game is but there’s something about you that does things to me—if you know what I mean and I’m damned sure you can guess in three tries.” She was languorous, her words were faintly slurred, and the tawny glint was in her eyes again. They were not so dark a brown as he had thought at first
    Shayne shook his head impatiently. “That sort of thing isn’t going to get us anywhere. What I want—”
    “I can make you want me, redhead.” She made no physical movement.
    “You’re not guessing,” he agreed harshly. Sweat was standing on his forehead. He stared across the room at the wall, which he discovered was stippled in rose and blue and yellow. His hand groped for the bottle beside him. He lifted it and drank and there was perfect silence in the room.
    Shayne broke the silence. “I’m a married man,” he said.
    “I’m married, too, but I’m not working at it right now.”
    “I’m told it lasts longer that way,” Shayne said, “but right now I’m working at it.”
    “You’re the kind that would be,” Mona Tabor agreed with an undertone of bitterness.
    He turned his head slowly to look at her. She had not moved a muscle of her relaxed body, yet beneath the surface tension was apparent to his wary scrutiny.
    “You’re going to come over here close to me in a minute,” she told him. “You can’t help yourself, redhead. We haven’t anything to do with it. Neither of us. I think we’ll get drunk together. God! I love getting drunk in the daytime. You know what I mean—drunk!”
    Shayne crossed his knees and stared down at the tips of his big shoes. He could get everything out of Mona if he went at it right. Less than three weeks ago he would have seen his job clearly and worked at it.
    He lurched to his feet, grabbing his cognac bottle by the neck. “ Yeh , I know what you mean,” he repeated thickly, “but I’ve got to see a dog about a man.”
    “Not until you’ve had a drink with me, redhead. Just one drink and then you won’t care whether you ever see a dog or a man either.”
    She was standing close to him, body muscles curved beneath the clinging silk of her robe. He dragged his eyes away from them, set his jaws hard.
    She nodded triumphantly and moved away in a long-limbed stride. Shayne watched her go into an inner room and presently she reappeared with a small liqueur bottle and two gold-rimmed glasses. He watched her pour green absinthe into one glass and strode forward to put a big hand over the other glass to stop her from filling it.
    “I’ll stick with my own brand,” he said, dangling the bottle before her eyes. “And before you take