Counterfeit Wife by Brett Halliday Page B

son into the world.
    Lucy was a lot like Phyllis. Perhaps that accounted for his feeling toward her. A mood of dejection seized him, and he thought, Phyllis is gone. Lucy is gone. The pearls are gone. He would probably never see his clothes or any of the things that were in his pockets.
    The overhead light flared suddenly, went out again just as suddenly. Alert now, he sat naked and motionless on the toilet stool, waiting. Someone had found the burned-out fuse and replaced it with a good one. Current had flashed through for an instant, only to be shorted again by the wet contact.
    Eagerness and anxiety flowed through him. Sweat ran down in streams from his body and made little pools of wetness on the floor around his feet. He wondered if they had any more fuses—if they would realize that it was he who was causing the short circuits from his concrete prison.
    When the light flashed on again and burned steadily, he knew that the contact end of the bulb had dried sufficiently to let the current flow again.
    He sat immobile and waited. No need to hurry now. Better to let the lights burn for a time. Long enough to convince those upstairs that they weren’t dealing with an ordinary short circuit. When he blew another fuse, they would know it was he who was causing it.
    While he waited he decided to take advantage of the light, and he poured cold water over his face and body from his cupped hands, massaging his aching shoulder and working it gently as he did so. He took the broken glass out of the basin, then filled it and doused his head, washing the matted blood from his red and unruly hair.
    When he finished he felt better. He reached over to the roll of toilet paper and tore off a sheet, folded it into a tiny square, then soaked it thoroughly. He held it ready in his left hand while unscrewing the bulb again.
    Pressing the sodden mass firmly against the end of the bulb he inserted it carefully in the socket and twisted it tight. There was not even a momentary flash of current as it made contact.
    Groping in the dark, he got a firm grip on the bottle neck and settled himself on the toilet to wait, confident that none of the house lights could burn again until the wad of wet tissue was removed.
    He felt detached and impersonal about the whole thing now. His muscles were relaxed and he felt good. The darkness was reassuring and friendly. They had to come to him in the dark and he was going to have his chance. Maybe not a fifty-fifty chance, for, like all criminals, Perry and Getchie were cowards and would come together. He would, however, certainly have better than the thousand-to-one odds he had calculated a short time ago.
    He heard them coming down the stairs. Just a faint sound beyond the concrete walls, but they were coming to him in the dark.
    Shayne sat with his naked shoulders hunched, his long, hard body tense and ready to spring.
    A thin ray of light crept through the crack under the door—the moving beam of a flashlight. Then Perry’s voice was startlingly loud in the utter stillness, “Shayne, you know what put the lights out?”
    “Sure. I shorted them. The wires will be getting red hot and starting a fire in about five minutes.”
    This wasn’t true, of course, but he hoped to God they didn’t know it.
    Perry’s response was frightened and vengeful. “You lousy bastard. You’ll wish you’d left the wiring alone.”
    “So’ll you after the joint burns down,” Shayne told him cheerfully.
    There was a short silence outside the door. Then a motor roared. Shayne stood up with the jagged glass bottle in his right hand and his left hand against the door.
    It didn’t give any, though he sensed that a car was being moved in the garage. Then light seeped in all around the edges of the door, and he realized they had swung another car around to throw the headlights directly on the door.
    Shayne tensed himself and waited. If Perry continued to use his head, Shayne wouldn’t have a chance. All Perry had to do was