Murder Takes No Holiday by Brett Halliday Read Free Book Online Page A

water, and finally said, “Here is good place.”
    Shayne had his first strike within a minute after his bait hit the water. By the end of the afternoon, when they swung around and headed back toward the Yacht Haven, he had a string of eight handsome bonefish, the largest weighing over ten pounds. The Chicago couple had done nearly as well. Powys had spent the day chatting with the captain and his barefooted deck hand, sometimes switching on the recorder to get a story or anecdote in the island dialect. Shayne persuaded him to take a rod just before they turned back, and he caught the biggest fish of the day.
    There was a photographer on the dock with a sixty-second Polaroid Land camera. Shayne borrowed the Englishman’s fish and posed for a picture. The photographer made a series of passes over his camera, and took out a large watch with a sweep second-hand. Ten seconds or so passed, and a native policeman strolled out on the dock, dressed in a brilliant blue and red uniform, white helmet and white gloves.
    Then Shayne remembered. Half an hour earlier he had heard a big commercial plane pass over. It must have been the Miami plane, bringing the Wanted flier with his picture on it. The fliers probably wouldn’t be posted this soon, but nevertheless Shayne pulled his beat-up fishing cap forward over his eyes and was busy tightening his shoelaces as the cop went past. The Chicagoans converged on the splendid uniform and begged the cop to pose between them. Pulling down his tunic self-consciously, he agreed, and they formed up on either side and waited for the photographer. Shayne straightened, his back to the cop, and started for the end of the dock.
    “Your picture, sah!” the photographer called. “Five seconds more.”
    “That’s right,” Shayne muttered.
    He had to turn, but the Americans had maneuvered the cop around so the boat would be in the background. The photographer gave Shayne the picture and a stamped envelope to put it in. Shayne glanced at it; it showed a tall, broad-shouldered American, his eyes shaded by the long peak of his cap, holding up a handsome twelve-pound bonefish and grinning broadly with pleasure. He was slightly sunburned, the picture of health, and clearly didn’t have a care in the world. This had been perfectly true sixty seconds ago, before Shayne had remembered the other picture of himself, which Jack Malloy had dug out of a newspaper morgue.
    He hastily scrawled Lucy’s address on the envelope and dropped it in a mail box across from the cab and carriage stand.
    When he presented the string of fish to Miss Trivers for the Lodge kitchen, some of his pleasure returned. The fact was, after a day on the water he felt better than he had in months. He showered, put on clean clothes and had a peaceful drink on the terrace. Shayne had the strong feeling that this would be his last peaceful moment for some time, and he made the most of it.
    Miss Trivers’ native chef stuffed the bonefish and served it in a fiery sauce. After dinner Shayne took a pot of coffee back to his own terrace and drank coffee royals while the sun went down in a wild blaze of color. He waited till the first star was out before he called a carriage.
    He was wearing a white Palm Beach jacket. He put all his paper money, a few hundred pounds, in a clip in his side pocket and left his wallet, with his private detective’s license, locked inside his suitcase. When he heard a horse’s hoofs on the gravel he went out. On the way down the path, he picked a brilliant crimson flower for his buttonhole. That was all he could do by way of disguise.
    Getting into the decrepit carriage, he told the driver to take him to town. The driver clucked to his horse, and it clopped off at a leisurely pace. Shayne settled back, an unlighted cigarette in his mouth, and reviewed the situation.
    He had talked with detectives and undercover government agents who as part of their jobs had allowed themselves to be recruited by criminal gangs.