Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine Annual, No. 3, 1973

She said, “I usually have a drink around this time every night. A double daquiri.” She looked at me with those liquid green eyes. “I hate to drink alone,” she said, pouting just enough so it showed.

I came back with a snappy answer: “Tonight you can drink with Casimiro Lowry. Okay, baby?”

She gave me a dazzling smile and proceeded to shake up the rum and lime and ice mixture. It was quite a show. She had taken her coat off and was dressed in a miniskirt, pumps and snug sweater. I’m no lecher, ordinarily, but like I say, it was some show. She knew it and I knew it and she knew — well, you get the picture. Naturally, I was hoping the evening would prove helpful to our investigation.

One thing was bugging me. I asked her, “How did you and Mrs. Draftsman ever hook up?”

She laughed. She liked to show her teeth. They were white and very even.

“You won’t believe this,” she said, “but we were roommates in college.” She mentioned an out-of-town institution. “We didn’t have too much in common in those days. Now we’ve got even less.”

“Then why—?”

“Economics, nostalgia, a smidgeon of inertia. I don’t know.” She raised one shoulder slightly. “Another drink?” I refused. She started on another. She said, “What do you care anyway? Eleanor’s out of the running.”

“How’s that?” I said it easily.

“I mean—” She sat on the couch beside me. She brought her glass and the shaker with her. I allowed her to refill her own glass. She looked up at me. “You sure you want to talk about Eleanor?”

She was pretty close and the rum-lime smell was overpowering. I stuck a cigarette in her mouth and lit it. She blinked, twice. “I guess you do,” she said.

“For awhile.” I gave her another crooked smile. “You said she was out of the running.”

“She is.” She drained her glass, refilled it. “She hasn’t looked at a man since she started living here and that was a year ago. You want to know why?”

“Sure.”

“Because she’s married to the UN. To an inanimate, faceless world organization. She’s in early and she works late almost all the time. When she isn’t working for the UN she’s doing something for one of those outfits who call themselves friends of the UN.”

I asked: “What about Noel Draftsman?”

“What about him? He probably got so he couldn’t stand the competition any longer.” She took an unsteady trip to the liquor cabinet and mixed another round.

“What’s he doing?”

“Who?”

I repeated the name slowly, patiently.

“M-m-m.” She poured herself another drink and sat in an armchair opposite me. She looked like she was having trouble focusing.

“How about laying off that stuff for awhile?” I said, and she emptied the glass. I sighed. “Where’s Noel Draftsman?”

“How the hell should I know, buster?” — It came out ‘busshder’. “I don’t even know the guy. Never met him. Didn’t even know Eleanor was in New York until a year ago.”

She emptied another glass, got up, grinned idiotically, and collapsed. She must have drunk three-fifths of the quart herself. I went over and felt her pulse. It was slow and strong. Nothing wrong with her that a good night’s sleep and maybe two years of intensive psychotherapy wouldn’t cure. I laid her out on the couch and looked around the apartment, figuring this was a good time to try and locate a photo of Noel Draftsman.

The phone rang as I turned toward the bedroom. I let it ring a couple of times while I checked the tops of the dressers. Which was maybe silly, considering the state of the Draftsman’s relationship, but you can never tell. Then I answered the phone. That is, I picked up the receiver.

It was still eight inches from my ear when this joker started talking. He might have been primed at that.

He said, “Hello, baby, I’m around the corner in a phone booth. Just wanted to let you know I’m on my way. Hello, hello—”

I hung up. And lit out. Fast. I didn’t want any trouble. I had enough as it was. I brooded on it all the way uptown. I’d spent twelve hours on the case — a day and a half counted in hours — and what did I have to show for it? A big fat zero. I went back to the office to do some planning for the following day. I also wanted to take another look in the Draftsman dossier.

The following morning I gave all of it to Akutagawa verbatim. The way he likes it — dialogue, facial expressions, the whole bit. Always He would listen intently, eyes turned inward, unmoving except to nod once in awhile or ask me to clarify a point.

He said, talking about Joan Chandler, “She was a rather striking redhead?”

“Just as I described her. And a lush, to boot.”

“So.” He nodded. “Pour some tea, please.”

I obliged. I said: “We’re out of luck on the photograph. I didn’t get a chance to look around much, because this joker called.”

“A pity,” was all he said, which meant he was extremely dissatisfied with our progress.

I added, “I wouldn’t mind betting that Noel Draftsman could tell us a thing or two.”