Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine July 1959 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Pulp
Publisher: Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine
Published: 1959-07-08T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 2

THEY CAME IN over the Hollywood freeway, that wound above the dingy, east section of town, giving the panoramic scope of a great-city. She was on a new speedway of her own, Bina thought. The same world, but married to Jerry, suddenly a new one. Exciting, warm, promising. A world of height and depth and thrilling vistas. A world where you dreamed with your eyes wide open. Where every beat of time was measured and heavy with love.

At Beverly Hills, they cut over to Wilshire and followed its winding curves west for a mile before turning up the narrow drive that hugged the lavish slab of apartment building Jerry called home. On the other side of the drive a thirty-foot excavation yawned.

Bina whistled. “They’ve been busy while you were away.”

“Must be going to build a skyscraper from the size of that hole.” Jerry swung the car into its parking stall. Loaded with suitcases and tennis racquets, they went in through the back entrance, and took the small service elevator.

“Married or not,’ Bina observed, “I feel guilty going into a man’s apartment.”

“You won’t feel guilty by the time you’ve scrubbed the cobwebs out of that refrigerator,” Jerry assured her.

At his door, he put down his luggage, turned his key in the lock, and gathered Bina up, suitcases and all.

“You’ll break your back!” Bina cried, laughing, as he carried her over the threshold.

“Isn’t that what husbands are for?”

He stood there in the smart cubicle of hall laughing with her, and then suddenly sniffed. ‘“Lobster thermador!”

“Silly,” Bina laughed.

At this minute, Toto moved around the corner and came toward them, with his slippering, half run. His Oriental face glistened with grinning excitement.

“Welcome. Welcome!” He made a giggling bow.

Jerry slid Bina from his arms and together they stared at the houseboy, who had left the Crevellin place after Clarissa’s death to work for her young, clubwoman friend, Marge Norris.

“It is lobster thermador.” Jerry beamed at the boy.

“How do you happen to be here tonight?” Bina demanded.

Toto giggled again. “I a loan,” he said. “Missa Canby, your secretery, tell Missa Norris you come today. Missa Norris tell me come make dinner.”

“Good old Marge,” Jerry approved. “You can help me get this junk into the bedroom, Toto.” He picked up his suitcases and rounded the corner into the living room—to bump into Bina, who had stopped dead still.

“You have guest,” Toto remembered, belatedly.

“Hello.” Lefty Ryan stood across the room with his stiff cop’s carriage, hat in hand, his dark suit looking more uniform than suit, his face coolly expressionless.

Bina ran across to him and wound her arms about his neck, sobbing. “Dad! Dad!”

His arm tightened around her, but his expression did not change. Sniffing, she wiped her eyes on his tie. “I knew you’d have to forgive me, Lefty—and congratulate us.”

“Sorry. That’s not exactly it.”

She ignored the coldness of his tone and rushed on. ““You’re staying to dinner! We talked about having you to dinner on the way in, didn’t we, Jerry?”

Jerry put down the luggage and advanced toward his father-in-law resolutely, if a little warily.

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