Killers from the Keys by Brett Halliday Page B

these obscure impulses deep inside us. But centuries of civilization have taught us it’s safer to keep them hidden away deep inside. When you see them coming up to the surface all around you… when you feel yourself erotically fascinated and sinking down into the same abyss… it just ain’t healthy.”
    Michael Shayne’s face showed honest puzzlement. “Are they really that good?”
    “That good… or that bad,” Rourke assured him somberly. “You remember the motion picture, Fantasia? The primeval slime. The tortured writhings and gropings in obscene depths that symbolized primordial life. All right. That was beautifully and intelligently done. You were fascinated and obscurely repelled, but you weren’t revolted. It’s dangerous to be fascinated and revolted. That’s what I felt at the Bright Spot. And that’s what I saw on the faces of people all around me.”
    “How do a couple of illiterate kids from the Keys manage to convey what you’re describing?” Shayne asked, puzzled more than ever by his friend’s vehemence.
    “Because you feel it’s actually what is inside of them,” he replied flatly. “They’ve still got the stench of the swamp’s effluvia in their nostrils. They’re closer akin to the waddling crocodiles and the slithering water moccasins that you know were their childhood playmates than they are to civilized human beings. Their sex-play on stage is brutal and sadistic and… bestial. That’s the word I want. And the hell of it is, you find yourself responding to the savage rhythms they create. Hell, it isn’t sex- play that they give you,” he went on angrily. “It’s the primordial lust of male for female… female for male.”
    Rourke paused to toss off his drink, his thin face flushed and his eyes feverishly bright.
    “I went around the next day to talk to both of them off-stage, thinking there might be a story I could do. Because I, like you, wondered how a couple of illiterate kids from the Keys had managed to work up an act like that. And they hadn’t. That’s the answer. They don’t even know they’re doing it. It isn’t planned for effect at all. Purely unconscious. Off-stage, Sloe Burn is a self-conscious sexy brat with over-developed physical charms and a childishly irresponsible sort of amorality. She chews gum and giggles happily if you compliment her on the dance. Her partner is a loutish moron with muscles.” Rourke shook his head slowly and lapsed into brooding silence.
    Shayne glanced across the table at his brown-eyed secretary, and lifted his ragged red eyebrows. “Still want to go with me, angel?”
    She lifted a firm chin. “More than ever. If you insist on going. I want to be right there beside you, Michael, if something like that is going on.”
    Rourke groaned loudly. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”
    Shayne’s gaze was fixed on Lucy’s face. “I heard you, Tim. Lucy’s just too young and innocent for any of it to penetrate. Why don’t you stick around here with Tim, angel?” He glanced at his watch. “I’m expecting someone to meet me there around ten o’clock.”
    “Little Joe Hoffman?” Rourke inquired with interest.
    “How’d you hear about that?”
    “I’ve got some lines out around town. I thought he was keeping his nose clean these days… particularly on this side of the Bay.”
    “That’s what I want him to tell me,” Shayne growled. He beckoned to a waiter for the check and added with assumed casualness, “You two have fun, and see she gets home by midnight, Tim.”
    She said sweetly, “I’m sure Tim has other plans, Michael.” She pushed back her chair and stood up. “Meet you in the foyer in a couple of minutes.”
    Rourke grinned and turned his head to watch her thread her way between the tables toward the rest-room. “You’re not going to get rid of her tonight, Mike. So I’ll tag along if you don’t mind a threesome.”
    Shayne said, “I was going to ask you. So if I get diverted at the Bright