He had three and a half hours before the stockholders’ meeting. He was setting up a list of things that had to be checked when he was overtaken by the highway patrol as he came off the Thirty-eighth Street ramp. The patrolman ranged up abreast, dropped back to check his plates, then came up again, blinking. Shayne pulled over.
The patrolman was very young, with an Alabama accent. All his clothes seemed a trifle too tight, including his hat and boots. He had never heard of Michael Shayne, and Shayne had no credentials to show him. He had Gallagher’s license; but that wasn’t good enough, inasmuch as Gallagher’s wallet proved to contain two other drivers’ licenses in different names. But what impressed the patrolman most was the fact that the car had been stolen.
Shayne asked to be taken to the barracks. These things could be explained, but he didn’t want to have to do it twice.
“Out,” the patrolman told him, picking at his holster flap. “Get out and turn around and stand there, like the book says. This is my first day in this job.”
“In that case, I’ll be glad to do what you tell me,” Shayne said.
The patrolman had him empty his pockets. Gallagher had been carrying a money clip holding $500 in fifties and twenties, a serrated set of brass knuckles, an airplane ticket to Las Vegas, gonorrhea pills, a hypodermic needle, and a glassine envelope filled with a white powder. The patrolman commented on these items individually as they appeared. He also noticed that Shayne was wearing a shoulder bandage, and there seemed to be bloodstains on his shirt. Very carefully now, his gun drawn, he walked Shayne to the patrol car and called for help.
The pace of events had been fast for some hours. Now, it slowed abruptly. He and the patrolman waited twenty minutes at the side of the road. To show what he thought of clapped-up junkies who carried brass knuckles and drove stolen cars, the patrolman refused Shayne a cigarette, although he smoked steadily himself. Two more patrolmen arrived at last, driving a sedan with wire mesh between back and front seats and no inside handles on the rear doors.
The sergeant at the Miami Springs barracks agreed that Shayne had a superficial resemblance to pictures he had seen of Michael Shayne, but he wouldn’t assume any further responsibility. Whoever Shayne was, he had certainly been carrying a great deal of incriminating stuff; and he deserved to be locked up for the rest of the night, until the day-shift lieutenant arrived.
Up to this point, Shayne had been doing his best to understand their problem.
“Did you listen to the news tonight, Sergeant?”
“Eleven o’clock, why?”
“A movie actress was murdered in a Beach hotel. Put in a call to the cops over there, and ask if they’d like to talk to Mike Shayne. A few minutes later, you’ll hear sirens.”
“In the morning.”
“Another very good looking girl was beaten up at a drive-in movie. That was in Miami. The guys who did it came to the movie in a stolen MG. It’s outside now. She was slugged by the guy who belongs to these clothes I’ve got on. He’s dead now, in still another jurisdiction. Those are the high spots. There won’t be much else on the front page tomorrow. Police work is your career. The spotlights are going to be on, and you don’t want to look too stupid.”
He leaned forward, his knuckles on the sergeant’s desk. “That’s one way to look at it. Here’s another. If you don’t pick up that phone and start dialing, I can guarantee that I’ll have your ass.”
He gave it just the right emphasis. The sergeant said evasively, “Everybody’s entitled to his opinion.”
He bit the end of his mustache and reached for the phone. Dawn was just breaking. Getting through to the Miami Chief of Police, the Chief of Miami Beach Detectives, and the Dade County Sheriff took half an hour. As soon as the phone was free, Shayne called his lawyer. Another half hour passed while everyone gathered. Shayne, without the benefit of coffee, a drink, or a cigarette, explained the situation as far as it had gone. But this was clearly not the full story. There were still major gaps. To fill them in, he had to be turned loose to ask some more questions; and these had to be asked in his own way. They could all be present, but he wanted everybody to keep his mouth shut and watch and listen.
Peter Painter, the Chief of Detectives from Miami Beach and an old adversary of Shayne’s, burst out when he finished, “I’ll be damned if I’ll be party to any more goddamned tricks, Shayne! I’ve been burned too many times.”
Everybody tried to talk at once. Shayne broke in to ask to be excused until they decided who had first claim on his time and whether or not his proposition was acceptable. Painter, less dapper than usual because he had dressed in haste and left home without shaving, ordered him to sit exactly where he was and provide specific answers to some specific questions. Shayne smiled and stood up.
“If you want to charge me with anything, I’ll let my attorney advise me how to plead. I can see you’ll have to talk about it some more, but do I have to be here? I’ve been up all night, and I’m sleepy.”
After a lengthy wrangle, Shayne was shown into an empty cell. Lying down on a bare mattress, he set his wristwatch alarm for eight-thirty and fell asleep, hearing the angry rise and fall of voices in the outer room.
When the buzz of his watch woke him up, the argument was continuing. He was given a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of bad coffee. He took one taste of each.
“There’s one other murder I don’t think I told you about,” he said. “Keko Brannon, seven years ago, outside Los Angeles; and that’s the big one. It’s been wrapped up in so many layers that I can only think of one way to get through. Sure, it’s a trick, Painter, a dirty one. But I’ve never heard you object to dirty tricks except when they didn’t work.”
Shayne’s lawyer announced that he was advising his client to say nothing further. Unless he was released at once and given a chance to eat a decent breakfast, he was applying for a writ of habeas corpus and calling a press conference.
“Keko Brannon?” Painter said speculatively. “Murdered? I’d be interested to hear more about that.”
“We all would,” Will Gentry, Miami Police Chief, put in. “What are you asking, Mike—a couple of hours?”
“That’s all. I have to stop on the way to change my clothes. And can anybody loan me a bulletproof vest?”
“Why not?” Gentry said. “Come on, Petey. I watched a Brannon movie on TV last night; and if anybody murdered that girl, I want to know about it.”
Shayne drove in with Painter and Gentry and explained briefly what he wanted to try. Painter, predictably, didn’t like it. He kept railing against Shayne’s methods all the way downtown on the Airport Expressway, while Shayne was changing, while Gentry stopped off for a bulletproof garment which Shayne put on under his shirt.
“But why?” Painter said. “We’ll protect you. I don’t want anybody to shoot you until you’ve done some more talking. A stockholders’ meeting. Do you actually want us to believe somebody’s going to jump up and try to shoot you?”
“I want to get into the meeting without stopping any more bullets,” Shayne said. “The guy who was in charge of Mandy Pitt’s beating is named George. I didn’t get a good look at him. He was hanging around the St. A. last night waiting for me to show up. He’s probably given up by now, but let’s find out. Pretend you don’t know me.”
“And how I wish it were true,” Painter said fervently.
The sheriff had already reached the hotel, with the help of his lights and siren. Shayne lit a cigarette and entered the lobby. He bought a morning paper and checked the board to see which of the public rooms had been assigned to Consolidated-Famous. He picked a chair from which he could see the entire lobby and opened the paper. They had used a publicity still of Kate Thackera, a wire-service shot of Oscar Olson alighting from his private plane at the International Airport. Turkey Gallagher’s death and his attempt to sink Gasparilla’s ship hadn’t reached the front page. Shayne checked inside, but apparently Zion had been able to bottle up the story.
The plumbing su
pply convention was still in full swing, and the lobby was crowded with delegates between events as well as a few more ordinary tourists. One of the salesmen, wearing the conspicuous rubber plunger, turned toward Shayne and reached out as though to shake hands. There was something ungainly about the movement. Shayne didn’t actually see the gun, which was hidden beneath a convention program. He flicked his cigarette at the man’s eyes and kicked him beneath the left knee. The man shouted thinly; this was the same spot where Shayne had hit him the night before with a tire tool. Shayne caught the gun as the man passed him and shook it loose. An empty space had opened magically around Shayne’s chair.
“George what?” he said, maintaining contact.
“Strickland,” George said. “Damn you. I knew I should get out of town. I knew it.”
Shayne surrendered him to two of Painter’s detectives, and he continued to the elevator.
The Consolidated meeting, in the number two ballroom, had been called to order half an hour before. Larry Zion was at the microphone, and Shayne was astonished at the way he looked. When Shayne saw him last, he had been ready to drop. Now he radiated health and energy, like a commercial for geriatric vitamins. He seemed to be listening to fast, exciting music. He was beautifully dressed in a white suit with a red carnation, a red scarf. On the microphone stand, there were two bronze replicas of the little Motion Picture Academy statuette. He spoke between them, exuberantly, manipulating one of his marvellous long cigars. His walking cast was below eye level.
Other officials were lined up along the dais, and Shayne was surprised to see Oscar Olson among them. In contrast to Larry, he looked exhausted. His face was set in the haughty expression he considered sophisticated, as though he didn’t want anyone in the audience to think he was listening.
For some reason, Marcus Zion was missing.
Shayne moved down the side aisle until he spotted someone familiar. Evie Zion, smiling to herself, was knitting a dog’s sweater. He assumed that, like everyone else, she was acting. Things weren’t that good for anybody.
There was a vacant seat in her row. Zion, spotting Shayne, swallowed a word but caught himself quickly and hurried on with the good news. Shayne forced his way in and asked the people nearest Evie to move over. He hadn’t shaved, and there was a look on his face that said he had been in too many fights and arguments, and he hoped nobody would give him any trouble. They gathered their belongings and made room.
“I’ve been wondering about you,” Evie whispered.
“Where’s Marcus?”
“Well, Marcus.”
Zion stepped up the intensity of his delivery to draw the crowd’s attention from the little disturbance beneath him. He slid an acetate sheet into an overhead projector; and a picture of Gasparilla’s ship, under full sail, jumped onto the screen.
“Sorry,” he said, his teeth flashing. “Wrong image.”
He replaced the ship with a Consolidated balance sheet.
“Marcus,” Shayne said to Evie.
“He’s resigned. He’s going with Twentieth Century-Fox as head of production.”
“That’s a surprise.”
She nodded, smiling her situation-comedy smile. “He’s not quite as big a fool as everybody thought. Larry’s signed a purchase agreement for his shares.”
“How much is he paying?”
“Yesterday’s closing.”
At the mike, Zion was giving off sparks, trying to keep his listeners from looking too closely at the numbers at the bottom of the balance sheet. He was leading up to an important announcement.
Shayne said, “What’s Oscar doing up there?”
“Oh, he and Larry have made a deal.”
There was a spatter of applause around them. It was picked up by others, and soon nearly everyone in the room was clapping hard. Shayne had missed it.
Evie explained in a whisper. “He’s selling the backlog to television for thirty million. Oscar is putting in another ten in return for a three-picture production agreement.”
Many of the shareholders were on their feet, showing how glad they were that the cash flow had been reversed and was coming their way at last. Zion waved happily, good for another twenty years. He reached back to shake hands with Oscar, who bobbed his head. Flash bulbs were popping like sex-mad fireflies.
“Do we get to ask questions?” Shayne said.
“Pretty soon. Mike, it’s the wrong time of day for it; but I have a little liquid nourishment in my bag. What with one thing and another, would you be interested in a small jolt of scotch?”
“Absolutely.”
She opened a silver flask and inserted a bent straw. He drank; then she drank. Then he had another, and she had another. This continued until she was sucking air.
“I told you Marcus would surprise people. Didn’t I tell you that?”
“Something like it.”
Zion held both hands over his head, shook hands with himself, gave the V sign, and finally succeeded in quieting the crowd. Now, he announced, he was prepared to submit himself to questions. As anybody knew who had ever attended a meeting chaired by Larry Zion, the management believed in keeping nothing secret from the stockholders. He was prepared to be completely open and responsive. He wanted everyone to go away satisfied. If need be, he was willing to keep the question-and-answer period going well into the night. He had a handball game later, but he was prepared to cancel.
“With a broken leg?” Shayne said.
“He hasn’t really played handball since his—shh!—heart attack.”
A man in the front row jumped up and accepted a microphone from a smiling girl in the aisle. He asked about Marcus’s resignation.
Zion managed to look regretful. Marcus had decided to accept an offer from one of their toughest competitors; and his parent, for one, was very, very sorry. But the terms of the offer had been so generous that, in the interests of his family, Marcus had been unable to turn it down.
“Yes, the interests of his family,” Evie observed.
A woman in a huge hat took the mike. This was a professional gadfly, a perennial meeting-goer, who wanted to know: 1) when Consolidated-Famous was going to adopt cumulative voting for the board of directors, and 2) what plans had been made by the company for increasing minority employment. Zion had quick, humorous answers for both. So far, he seemed to be enjoying himself. Perhaps Shayne could change that.
He pushed to the aisle and signalled for the mike. “Mr. Shayne?” Zion asked, peering down. “A private detective, aren’t you? Are you a stockholder in this corporation?”
Shayne didn’t get any amplification from the mike, and the girl showed him the button he had to press.
“I’ve got two hundred shares,” he said. “I had a deal with Oscar for another thousand, but I’m not sure I can make it stick.”
Zion gave the audience a long-suffering look. “You have a question.”
“At the time of Keko Brannon’s death, the company was able to suppress certain facts; and my question is—was one of these facts that she had bruises on her shoulders?”
“Bruises?”
“Yeah, that might have been put there by somebody’s hands?”
The room was suddenly quiet. Zion’s face was as impassive as the statuettes on either side. He was a moment in answering.
“That suggestion is ridiculous, and you know it.”
“Her picture was already over budget. If you’d replaced her, you’d have to go on paying her salary. How much would you say her death saved the company?”
“Something, of course. As it turned out, the Thackera version was exceedingly profitable. But we lost one of the great moneymakers in the history of motion pictures.”
“What does the name Mandy Pitt mean to you?”
“The same thing it means to you, probably. I’ve seen the newspaper.”
“When did she start working for Consolidated?”
“She never did.”
Shayne took Gallagher’s brass knuckles out of his pocket
and waved them. He was glad to see that he was getting attention. Painter and Will Gentry, each with a little group, were at opposite corners of the room. He saw his friend Rourke at the press table with the other reporters.
“These are the knucks the guy used on her. But the funny thing is—” he looked up at the tanned face between the statuettes—“the funny thing is, the bumps and indentations don’t fit all her wounds.”
“That’s enough,” Zion snapped. “I said I’d be responsive to any legitimate question. Incredible! I wouldn’t allow this scene in any of my pictures. You are out of order, Shayne. Take your seat.”
Shayne smiled up at him. “I think my question’s in order, and I appeal the ruling of the chair. What happens to the price of our stock if the chairman goes to jail for murder?”
“I’ll ask the sergeants-at-arms to remove this man.”
Shayne shouted, “We’re entitled to an answer. Did you go to the Sky-Vue drive-in last night?”
There was considerable confusion around him. Painter’s detectives were shifting uneasily. Guards began to converge on Shayne: two coming up the aisle from the front of the room, two from the back. The woman shareholder in the large hat leaped into the aisle.
“Let him speak! Move the previous question! An appeal from the ruling of the chair calls for an immediate vote! You can’t railroad this meeting, Larry Zion!”
Shayne pushed back into his row, pulling the mike on its long cord. “What’s behind this last-minute deal with Olson? I’ll tell you.”
From the podium, Zion cut off Shayne’s mike. But one of the professional gadflies, in the row ahead of Shayne, had brought a bullhorn in case the same thing happened to him. Shayne reached over and took it. People were on their feet around him. Chairs had been kicked out of line.
Shayne’s bullhorn roared. “Did Marcus resign because he had reason to believe you murdered Mandy Pitt and others in a desperate attempt to maintain control of this corporation? Yes, or no? Were you at that drive-in?”
Zion looked from side to side, as though wanting to consult the statuettes. In another situation, he would have refused to answer. That was impossible here. He had assured the meeting that he had nothing to hide. Unless he answered, he would stand condemned in front of his stockholders. The thousands of proxies his side had solicited were to be voted by the group of officers behind him. They were listening with interest.
Kill All the Young Girls Page 15
