Dolls Are Deadly Read Online Free Page B

girl.
    “I don’t think she ever had bonito.” Ed turned to Shayne. “What you going to do with your fish, Mike?”
    “I don’t want them,” the redhead said.
    “O.K., amigo,” Ed called. “We’ll swap you a barracuda or a grouper.”
    “No need to swap. We give you the bonito.”
    “No,” Sylvester insisted. “Swap is fair.”
    “I would love the barracuda,” the girl said.
    “Good. The barracuda then.” The young man grinned. “It is more favored in our country than in yours.”
    “Your mother can cook it for us, Jose,” the girl said. “She has most good recipe for barracuda.”
    Sylvester laughed thickly and clapped Shayne on the shoulder. “Tha’s what I like about these boys. Every time we go out we make new friends.” He lurched toward the Cuban boat and Shayne grasped his arm to keep him from falling.
    The boats were close, rising gently on the swell. The young man extended his hand and grasped Sylvester’s. They braced themselves and pulled, and slowly the boats drew together.
    “Hey,” Sylvester yelled, “now I can’t let go to get the fish.”
    The girl laughed, looked at Shayne and languidly stretched her arm toward him. The redhead took her slim, brown hand in his own big one.
    “You can let go now,” she said softly to Sylvester.
    Shayne felt her fingers tightening and loosening in his grasp, and the warmth flowing from her flesh.
    “It is a marriage,” she said, “of the moment.”
    Shayne smiled. It was a good moment.
    Sylvester returned with the barracuda and handed it across, then took the bonito. It was a plump fish, a good ten pounds. Ed bore it away to put it on ice. The taller of the Cuban men leaned close and dropped a handful of cigars aboard the Santa Clara. “Good Vuelta leaf Havana. You like.”
    “Is time to part,” the girl said sadly.
    “Uno momento,” the young man called. “Our ice all melt. You have enough to spare for our drinks till we get back to Cuba?”
    “Si.” Sylvester weaved to the table, grabbed the ice bucket and lifted it across into the hands of the young man. “Keep it. The bucket too.”
    “Gracias, señores.”
    Certainly there had been nothing but good will and friendly feeling expressed on all sides here. Still, something about Sylvester’s gift of the ice cubes troubled the redhead. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was there—a nagging little inconsistency.
    The girl squeezed Shayne’s hand convulsively and then released it, letting her fingers trail lingeringly across his palm as the boats drifted apart. When the chasm between them was a boat’s width she blew him a kiss.
    The engine of La Ballena started and, with it, the music blared forth again. The girl moved her nude shoulders and wheeled her bare knees in the nautch-like circle that carried her hips along in a seductive rhythm. As the space between the boats widened, she swirled toward the center of the deck and started again on the mad, compulsive rhumba. The music grew fainter with distance but the dance grew wilder, her movements more unrestrained. Suddenly, the young man leaped toward her and took her in his arms. They kissed in the hot, bright sunlight, her body still moving sensually against him. The tempo of the music quickened. Still holding the kiss, he moved her backward to the companion-way which led below.
    On the Santa Clara all but Vince, who was at the wheel, had been watching. Sylvester sighed heavily. “It took him a long time. Even I—fus-trated—whatever you call it—and at my old age, would have done it sooner. And you, Michael Shayne—” he poked an unsteady finger at the rangy redhead—“would have done it on the first note.”
    “Michael Shayne?” Ed repeated quickly. He looked at Shayne, as did Slim and Vince, from the wheelhouse. “You mean,” Ed said with no unsteadiness in his voice, “you’re Michael Shayne, the private detective?”
    “The same,” Sylvester said proudly. “My friend, he is famous