Counterfeit Wife by Brett Halliday

swollen lips were drawn back from set teeth, and every muscle in his face was tense and trembling.
    He drew a shaky hand across his forehead and forced himself to speak aloud. “Take it easy, guy. What you need is a drink.”
    He turned away from his reflection, tilted the bottle, and let the whisky flow down his throat. He didn’t taste it as it went down, but it started a fire burning in his stomach.
    His long rangy body was trembling violently as he seated himself on the filthy toilet seat and hunched forward, his elbows resting on his bare thighs.
    A car started in the garage. In a moment there was a dull thud as a bumper was jammed solidly against the door.
    Shayne didn’t move. He stared dully at the concrete floor and tried to figure his way out of this one. He’d been in tough spots before, but he couldn’t remember a tougher one. All because he’d done a guy a favor. What the hell was it all about? What was the matter with those two bills the pasty-faced man had given him? Were they counterfeits? How did ex-Senator Irvin figure in it? And Bates at the Fun Club? And the big blonde and Fred Gurney?
    He took another drink and reminded himself that such questioning was utterly useless at this stage of the game. His present and very real problem was to get out and look for some answers. He wished now that he’d paid more attention to the comics—to Dick Tracy and Superman. They always had ways of getting out of fixes like this one.
    He took another drink and looked around sourly. The walls, floor, and the low ceiling were of concrete. The only ventilation came from two openings about four inches square in opposite corners of the wall just below the ceiling. The door was a homemade affair, a double thickness of tongue-and-groove boarding reinforced with two-by-fours. He reached out and pushed on it. The door was solidly blocked.
    His bleak eyes looked up at the ventilation squares near the ceiling. One of them was directly above the lavatory. He could hoist himself up on the lavatory and yell through the opening, but probably his voice would only be heard by Irvin and his gunmen in the apartment above.
    He inspected the contents of the whisky bottle. It was still a quarter full. He drank two gulps and began considering ex-Senator Irvin.
    It had been more than five years since Shayne had helped gather evidence on the sale of pardons to inmates of the state penitentiary. The investigation had developed into a nationwide scandal with Irvin in the middle of it at a time when he was supposedly serving the people of the state in an honorable capacity. There had been enough direct evidence to force his removal from office, but there had been a cover-up by other state officials and the trial had fizzled out without a conviction.
    Shayne had neither heard Irvin’s name nor thought of the man since that time. He wondered what the devil he was mixed up in now. Counterfeiting, apparently. That could be the only answer to his curious interest in a couple of ordinary looking hundred-dollar bills.
    He took another drink.
    The senator had changed a lot in five years. Shayne remembered him as a pompous stuffed shirt. Five years had turned him into something else. What was it Bates had said over the telephone? “Put the big shot on.”
    So Irvin was a big shot now, with gunmen and shiv artists to do his bidding. Shayne could still hear the soft purr of his voice when he said, “Hit him, Getchie,” and, as he remembered, a cold fear ran sickeningly over his naked frame.
    He hadn’t thought about that angle very much. But, thinking back, he knew now that Irvin had made up his mind about something as soon as he, Shayne, had been recognized by the rosy-cheeked ex-senator.
    Irvin knew Shayne’s reputation, and he knew a thing like that would never be forgotten. There was only one possible answer—Irvin had ruthlessly decided that Shayne would never be in a position to do anything about it, and for that reason hadn’t hesitated to