The Violent World of Michael Shayne ms-50

by Brett Halliday

  “A gun!”

  “She wasn’t going to shoot me unless she had to. It was just to make me hold still so she could slug me with an ashtray. She wanted him to hear her version before ours. She broke her date with him for tonight and she told him she’s thinking of going to New York tomorrow. Where do we go from here?”

  Trina bit her lip and sat down on a leather sofa, tucking her feet beneath her. Shayne sampled the brandy and let her adjust. The brandy was excellent.

  “Naturally I wish it hadn’t happened this way,” she said. “It’s going to look like a bad case of interference on my part, and I don’t know what I’m going to say.”

  “Would you like to hear my opinion?” Shayne said.

  “Of course.”

  “I think we’ll have to tell him the whole thing. He knows I hit her with something, and he’ll want to know what. I can keep on not talking, but I’ll be going home tomorrow. You have to go on living with him.”

  “Oh God. You’re right, I suppose. But you tell him, Mike-I couldn’t. And just watch! She’ll wriggle out of it. He’s an imbecile as far as that woman’s concerned. He’ll forgive her! You liked her, didn’t you?”

  “I like lots of people,” Shayne said, looking at his cognac. “That’s not what I meant. You thought she was very strong sexy stuff and you can understand how Daddy feels.” Shayne decided it was time to change the subject. “What’s this business with Senator Wall?”

  “Oh, he’s the number-two man on the subcommittee. This investigation would have never got off the ground if it had not been for Tom. He’s a great believer in honesty in government, to the degree that I’m afraid he gets under people’s skin.” She added hastily, “By that I don’t mean that Daddy doesn’t believe in honesty in government. He just isn’t a fanatic about it. After his heart attack he can’t afford to be fanatical about anything.”

  “Is Bixler trying to sell Wall the same thing he sold me?”

  “No, I don’t think so, not from the way Tom talked about it. He kept saying it would blow the whole case sky-high. Well, maybe. Meanwhile, don’t you think we have to assume that the status quo still exists? That Daddy’s still their major target?”

  She tasted her Cointreau and licked the taste off her lips. “What worries me-as soon as they hear that the Maggie Smith thing has fallen through, won’t they try some desperate last-minute move? What I’m getting at, couldn’t you stand by, as a sort of bodyguard, for twenty-four hours?”

  “Not unless your father agrees.”

  “Well, he wouldn’t agree. But couldn’t you watch him without letting him realize you were there?”

  Shayne shook his head. “That only happens in books, Miss Hitchcock. I’m a stranger in town. And even if I’d worked here all my life, I’d need three other men and a couple of two-way radios, and I wouldn’t guarantee anything.”

  She worried her lip for another minute. “But at least you’ll make sure Maggie Smith gets on a plane tomorrow? And if anything comes up before then, where will you be?”

  “At the St. Albans,” Shayne told her, without adding that after he got to sleep it would take more than the ringing of the telephone to wake him up.

  Hitchcock came in.

  “Tom’s wonderful,” he said to his daughter, his usual good temper restored. “He’s going to be majority leader in ten years, or dead of a heart attack.” He knocked lightly on the desk top. “Knock on wood.”

  “Don’t joke about it!” Trina said harshly. “It’s in terrible taste.”

  “I had some mild heart trouble a while ago,” the Senator explained to Shayne. “I recommend it as a good way to get a sensible outlook. Trina, I’ll get around to you shortly. I want to talk to Mike privately first. Don’t go to bed.”

  She stood up. “Daddy, I’m sorry.”

  “I know you are, dear, and I hope not too much damage has been done.”

  She smiled nervously and left them alone.

  CHAPTER 6

  10:05 P.M.

  Hitchcock poured more brandy into Shayne’s glass and set the bottle beside his chair. “Help yourself when you feel like it. I have to deny myself hard liquor, but they’ve relented about cigars. Without cigars, I think I might have had to resign from the Senate. Will you smoke one with me? These are Havanas. I wish I could think they were part of a pre-Castro shipment. Actually, I know very well that they were smuggled in.”

  As soon as their cigars were burning evenly, Hitchcock said, “Perhaps I should explain about my daughter. Her mother was an invalid for many years before she died. I was away much of the time, first in the legislature, then in Washington. Even after they joined me here we didn’t have much family life. She’s concerned about me. In my turn I’m concerned about her. I have a strong hunch that she and Tom Wall are having an affair. There’s nothing wrong with Tom except that he eats ravenously and never puts on weight. He’s too eager for my taste, and besides that he’s married. His wife isn’t here with him, but it worries me. Well, that’s neither here nor there. I’m already talking too much, but that’s a habit we find it easy to fall into. Maggie-ever since she was a young girl she’s been part of the theatre, and I don’t have to be told that few theatrical people live by traditional American small-town standards. Although some of the things that go on in American small towns! I know there have been men in her life. That has nothing to do with my feeling for her.”

  He waited for some comment from Shayne, drawing on his long Havana, but the detective kept quiet.

  “Our friendship has been entirely platonic,” Hitchcock said. “I wouldn’t expect Trina to believe that. I think what frightens her is the possibility that I might marry again. What frightens me is what Maggie would say if I asked her. Well, I know she’d be kind. I can’t seem to stop talking about her. She’s so alive! You saw that, didn’t you?”

  Shayne nodded slowly, having no trouble remembering the way Maggie Smith had felt in his arms.

  “What has your investigation turned up about her?” Hitchcock asked, too casually. “I really think you’d better tell me, Mike. Otherwise I’ll have to squeeze it out of Trina, which would be unpleasant for both of us. If you can drive Maggie out of town with it, it must be fairly lurid.”

  Shayne swirled the brandy around in the big bubble of glass. “I hate to do it this way, Senator. She did something for Sam Toby once. I can give you the details if you have to have them, but I’d just as soon leave it at that. She didn’t deny it.”

  Hitchcock’s face had gone very still. “When?”

  “Eight years ago. I know people change, and I think she’s sorry. But it raises a big question. Apparently she’s pretty close to the rocks financially. You know this guy Sam Toby and the way he operates. Leaving personalities aside, do you think he’s capable of putting a hustler on you?”

  “Toby is capable of anything if there’s enough money involved and he thinks he can get away with it.” He laid his cigar carefully in an ashtray and stood up. “Excuse me.” With his back turned, he poured a glass of water from a carafe on the worktable and swallowed two pills that he took from a small vial. Shayne was on his feet.

  “Is there anything I can do, Senator?”

  “No. This is precautionary.”

  After a moment he turned, went to the phone on a small table beside the fireplace, and began to dial.

  Shayne said, “Why not sleep on it? Let her call you.”

  “Do you think I’d sleep?”

  He waited. The phone rang a long time. Then Shayne heard the connection being opened and Hitchcock said quietly, “Maggie?”

  There was a faint scratching noise. Hitchcock turned up a volume control and reached over to throw a switch so the conversation would be recorded.

  Maggie Smith’s voice said, “-feel much better. The Senate ought to put up a statue to the man who invented aspirin. But about tomorrow. A call came through from New York just after you left. I have to run up to untangle a stupid legal snafu about some out-of-town performance rights
. It’s too boring to go into. I may not be back for several days.”

  “I have Mike Shayne here,” Hitchcock said. “I’ve been browbeating him. Naturally I couldn’t believe that he’d been interviewing you about some runaway hoodlum. There was too much excitement in the air.”

  “What has he told you?”

  “Not much as yet, except that he was able to scare you with some scandal he dredged up out of the past. Ordinarily I’d refuse to listen, but in anything involving Sam Toby you must realize that I have a public responsibility. I can’t leave it hanging in midair.”

  “Don’t tell me Shayne won’t supply the details. I wouldn’t give him credit for so much delicacy.”

  “I’d rather hear it from you, if you don’t mind.”

  She sighed. “I’ve always known it would come back to haunt me. I’ve dreamed about it, except that in my dreams it turned into a murder and I couldn’t get rid of the body. You’ve been sweet, Emory. I’ll say goodbye to you now, because I know you won’t be speaking to me in another minute.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” Hitchcock said softly.

  “Emory-” She waited a moment, and Shayne could guess that her eyes were shut and she was pinching the bridge of her nose. She said it fast. “I wanted a part in a Broadway production. My thirtieth birthday was coming up, and it seemed to me that that was some kind of deadline. I had to find out if I was really an actress before it was too late. Sam was never a real friend of mine, but I’ve known him a long time. He knew people who were putting up the money for a show with a second lead that was right for me. Emory, you do know that in the theatre it’s not exactly unheard of for an actress to go to bed with a producer to get a part she wants very much?”

  Hitchcock kept his voice noncommittal; Shayne, in the same room with him, could see what it cost. “Yes, I’ve heard of that happening.”

  “It’s part of the folklore,” she said bitterly. “So Sam arranged it. It’s the sort of thing he does well. I was promised the part if I would invest a week or so in a Caribbean cruise with a Labor Department official. I’d just had my divorce and it was a rough one. I didn’t like anybody very much, including myself. Sam introduced me to the man. He seemed quite ordinary and inoffensive. Sam’s client needed an exemption from the Wage-Hour Act for a certain category of workers, as I understood it. I know it was a lousy thing to do, and I’ve been regretting it steadily ever since. I went on the cruise, and I actually had a fairly good time. Sam’s client was given the exemption. I got the part, and the play folded after three days. I was OK in it, but not wonderful, I guess. Producers didn’t embarrass me with floods of offers.”

  “Thank you for being so frank,” Hitchcock said without expression.

  “That was the first and only time anything like that happened. Sam never mentioned it again. In the last few years I’ve hardly seen him. Mike Shayne says that Sam made the arrangements so I could meet you. This was news to me. I can see how under the circumstances you won’t believe that. I’ve been puzzling and puzzling. Maybe Sam’s holding me in reserve or something, but I don’t know. If he has anything up his sleeve, why hasn’t he mentioned it to me?”

  She didn’t bother to make it sound convincing. “I know you’ve absorbed all the implications by now,” she went on. “In the face of this much evidence, what can I hope to gain by denying it? But I do, Emory. I haven’t been spying on you. I haven’t planned this with Sam Toby. I’m not scheming to get you into a motel bed in front of a camera, as Shayne thinks. And now I really do have a headache. I feel lousy in other ways too.”

  “What are we going to do?” Hitchcock said in a strangled voice.

  Maggie seemed to be close to total exhaustion. “Do? We aren’t going to see each other any more. That’s obvious. Michael Shayne will pocket his fee and go home. Don’t worry about it, Emory. It isn’t that important.”

  They both waited with the line open, but there was nothing else either of them wanted to say.

  “Goodbye, Maggie, I’m sorry,” Hitchcock said finally, and put back the phone.

  He worked slowly at his cigar while Shayne finished his brandy in silence. Suddenly Hitchcock hammered his fist against his knee.

  “I believe her! Good God, I’ve done things I’m ashamed of, we all have. I’m sorry she got mixed up in that old affair with Toby, but we wouldn’t ever learn anything if we didn’t make mistakes. I don’t care-she couldn’t have been pretending these last two months.”

  “She’s an actress,” Shayne pointed out. “Most of the love scenes in the movies look like the real thing.”

  “No, Mike. You met her for the first time tonight.” He stared at the ash on his cigar. “I’ve had conversations with her lasting for hours. Some of the things she’s said-a fake? They couldn’t have been! I expect you’ll think I’ve gone into my second childhood, but damn it-”

  All this proved, of course, was that Maggie Smith had been good in the role, which Shayne had been sure of already.

  “She said something about Toby arranging for us to meet,” Hitchcock said. “What did she mean?”

  “Mrs. Redpath asked you to dinner as a favor for Toby. She told me that herself.”

  “Adelle?” Hitchcock frowned, puzzled. “If she says so I’ll have to accept it, but that doesn’t prove Maggie was in on it.”

  “It’s a good indication.” Looking down into his glass, Shayne picked his arguments carefully. “Even if you’re not entirely convinced, won’t you want to call time until the hearings are over? If Maggie’s telling the truth she’ll understand why you can’t afford to take any chances.”

  The Senator shook his head slowly. “You’re advising me to withhold judgment. But that’s not how it would look to her. She’d think I’d convicted her without giving her any real chance to explain. Damn it, I shouldn’t have been as cold as that on the phone. I hate to think what she must be going through right now.”

  “She didn’t admit that Caribbean cruise until she had to,” Shayne pointed out.

  Hitchcock went on as though the detective hadn’t spoken. “In a strange way, this is my last chance, Mike. The last chance I may ever have to get hold of anything real. I can’t let it end like this.”

  “Why the hell not?” Shayne exclaimed, suddenly losing his patience with the stubborn old man. “Your daughter will tell you that she didn’t have an easy time getting me up here. I agreed to come because I didn’t like the idea of someone in your position being played for a patsy in what looks like an up-to-date version of the old badger game. OK-maybe it’s not, but it sure as hell looks like it, and why not play safe for a couple of weeks?”

  “Because Maggie isn’t an abstraction, Mike. She’s a person.”

  “Oh, my God! Well, there’s an old rule among con-men-the victim has to be willing. If you think you absolutely have to talk to her tomorrow, will you let me fix the place, and go over it first for bugs and cameras?”

  “No, Mike. Either I trust her or I don’t.”

  Shayne put the glass beside the bottle. Sitting forward, he planted his big hands on his knees.

  “Your daughter told me this wouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. I didn’t really expect it to be that simple. Before I go, Senator, would you mind telling me a few things that have no connection with Maggie Smith? What did Senator Redpath have to do with awarding this contract?”

  “Redpath?” Hitchcock said, surprised. “You’re asking because of Adelle’s dinner, of course, and that’s hardly unconnected with Maggie Smith. You’re giving this too much weight, Mike. We could have met in any of dozens of ways.” He considered, drawing on his cigar. “Hank Redpath-well, I wonder. Half the Senate was involved with the contract on one side or the other. How much do you know about it?”

  “Very damn little. I know who won, and that’s about all.”

  “Who lost is more important. National Aviation isn’t accustomed to losing contracts of this size. They’re a big amalgamation of a half-dozen companies, and their political con
nections, their military connections, their banking connections are all very good. They make a point of spotting their subcontracts in swing states where there are senators who expect a hard fight for reelection and are looking for campaign contributions. That’s where the real lobbying takes place, back in the states. It’s one reason our investigations here never do more than scratch the surface. Is this the kind of thing you want?”

  “More or less.”

  “Manners Aerosystems also has plants in a number of states, but it’s mainly a Texas company. As you may know, the Texas delegation pulls a disproportionate amount of weight in this town. But they couldn’t have done it alone. Redpath would be a good ally. He has twelve years’ seniority on the Finance Committee, where the brass hats have to come every year for money. If Redpath had a strong opinion on the merits of one contender versus the other, unquestionably he would have been listened to. But sooner or later most cloakroom rumors end up with me, and I haven’t heard this one. Oh, he may have made a few phone calls and written a few routine letters.”

  Hitchcock’s eyes were wandering. He couldn’t seem to keep his mind on what he was saying. He said suddenly, “Here’s an idea. I recorded that phone conversation with Maggie. Why don’t I spring that on Toby? Tell him to stop putting pressure on her or I’ll give it to the papers. There’s no statute of limitations on publicity. I couldn’t put him in jail with it, but I could hurt him.”

  Shayne stood up. “Leave blackmail to the experts, Senator. You could hurt Toby but you’d also hurt Maggie. He’d think it over and tell you to go ahead.”

  Hitchcock’s face fell. “You’re right, of course.”

  “I don’t suppose you want to tell me what Senator Wall is so hopped up about?”

  “Tom Wall gets hopped up faster and more easily than any other man in the Senate. And sometimes for less cause.” Shayne pulled at his earlobe indecisively. “That does it, then. I can’t think of anything else.”

  Hitchcock came to the door with him. “Mike, I keep thinking of reasons I ought to believe her. Toby must know I couldn’t drop the investigation at this stage even if I wanted to. After it gets to public hearings, it picks up it own momentum. It’s really been Tom’s baby, anyway. Why not pick on him? And rumors aside, giving the contract to Manners was the proper thing to do. He was well in the lead on performance points. He’s one of the few industrial geniuses still around. The time for an investigation would have been if National had got it.” His mind skipped back to Maggie. “Just because I haven’t promised not to see her again, don’t make that an excuse to hector her any more, Mike. I mean that.”