Brett Halliday - Million Dollar Handle

“Not from you, Jamieson.”

“Naturally you’re going to do it your way.”

“It’s too late to change.”

The detectives posted themselves on the sidewalk before releasing Shayne, and kept close beside him as they walked him upstairs, into Painter’s office. The walls were crowded with pictures of the chief of detectives having his hand shaken by politicians, making arrests, posing with entertainers at the Beach hotels. The man himself remained planted in his chair, his hands spread on the desk as though ready to spring at his visitor. Before going into police work he had been a Marine captain, and he had kept the manner. He had put on some extra weight around the middle, but he kept it sucked in hard and sat very straight, to make the most of what height he had. His executive armchair was cranked up as high as it would go.

“They didn’t have to shoot you to get you to come in and answer a few questions. You’re mellowing, Shayne.”

Shayne sat down. “I’m trying to think what crimes I’ve committed lately. I can’t remember any in Miami Beach.”

Painter squinted at him. “How does extortion sound?”

“Serious.”

“I believe it’s serious.” Painter checked the time and said briskly, “I’ve set aside fifteen minutes, and I don’t want to keep our media friends waiting. I’m hoping to make the six o’clock news. Suppose you start by telling me why Max Geary paid you that money.”

“Geary?” Shayne said, puzzled. “What money?”

“Now here we’ve been talking for exactly thirty seconds, and you’re already asking questions. This time I’m doing the asking. What did you have on him?”

“On Geary? Past tense? You mean he’s dead?”

“Yes, you’ve been away, haven’t you. Very conveniently timed. If you really don’t know, he totalled his car at two o’clock Tuesday morning. The blood test showed straight bourbon. He was starting home from the track and just made it out of the parking lot, went off the cloverleaf and piled up on Alton Road. Made a very nice bonfire. They got the foam truck from the track, but he was pretty well singed by the time they got him out.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Shayne said somberly. “I used to like Max. He’s been getting a little hard to take lately, boozed up most of the time. I’ve never been one of his regular customers. I never had him for a client.”

“No, I wouldn’t say this was the regular detective-client relationship.” Painter gave his narrow mustache a quick flick in opposite directions. “Now I want to hear you say it. You never took a penny from him, legally or otherwise. You don’t know what I’m talking about. You let him buy you a drink now and then, but that’s as far as it went.”

“It seems to me I usually paid for the drinks. Aren’t you forgetting something? You haven’t given me the warning.”

“You don’t need that, for Christ’s sake. But all right. You’re entitled to have a lawyer present, and anything you say may be used against you. Now answer the goddamn question.”

“This isn’t boot camp, Petey. Look at it from my side of the desk. You went to the trouble of finding out where I was and what plane I was coming in on. You sent two guys out to grab me, and you made sure a photographer was there to get a picture of Mike Shayne being busted, or of Mike Shayne breaking somebody’s jaw. Now you tell me to waive my constitutional right to keep silent until I’m confronted with some evidence. Go to hell.”

Painter’s lips tightened, but he tried to speak evenly. “What happened the last time I asked you to come in and talk about something? You were gone for four days. And when you finally surfaced, you had the guy we were supposed to be looking for. You made us look bad, and not by any means for the first time, I’d like to point out.”

“If we’re thinking about the same case, there was a deadline and I couldn’t stop to explain it to you in advance. Petey, come on. Extortion is a bad label to hang on a private detective. It might give my clients the idea that it’s a mistake to trust me. You’ve got something connecting me with Geary, or with the dog track. It has to be more than a rumor but it can’t be much more or you’d be convening a grand jury. What is it? If you don’t want to tell me, I’ll try to catch your press conference on TV.”

He leaned forward to get up. Painter clamped his lips more tightly together, took a small notebook out of the central drawer, and spun it across the desk.

It was so small it fitted easily into the palm of Shayne’s hand. The leather cover was charred, but it is hard to burn a tightly closed notebook, and this one had come out of the fire in time for the writing on the inside to be legible. Shayne turned the pages slowly. There was nothing on them but a long list of names, dollar amounts and dates, going back six years.

“You found this on Geary?”

Painter was watching him closely. “Not right away. He was wearing it in a kind of money belt, around the upper part of his leg, under his underwear. Also two folded thousand-dollar bills, emergency money, and a safe-deposit-box key. The book was tucked back in under his balls, so it wouldn’t show. Skip the early pages. Start at the end and read backward.”

The last entry had been made the previous weekend, the name of a Miami lawyer against the sum of $1500. A flake of charred paper drifted to the floor.

“Tiny writing,” Painter observed. “If you’re having trouble I can give you a magnifying glass.”

Shayne turned a page, and his own name came out at him: Mike Shayne, $3000. He met Painter’s eyes. His old adversary gave him a tight smile.

“Don’t be embarrassed. Read on. You’re in distinguished company.”

Shayne returned to the book. He recognized most of the names that recurred at regular intervals. Before Christmas every year there were a dozen that didn’t appear at other times. There were a few police officers among the regulars, the majority leader at Tallahassee, several other Senators and representatives, a zoning official, a building inspector, the head of a Teamsters local. Some of the earlier Shayne entries gave his full name, some only his initials.

“This is dynamite,” he observed. “Are you in it?”

“I am very definitely not in it,” Painter snapped. “That’s a payoff list. I’ve never taken a payoff in my life.”

“Maybe that’s what makes people think you’re a little inhuman,” Shayne said. “How far have you got with this? Who’s Wolf? Five thousand.”

“He used to be the state’s tax man at Surfside. From the Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering. Most of the Tallahassee people have something to do with allocating racing dates. There’s an ex-director of the Board of Business Regulation, a chief inspector, some racing judges. There are also a few cops there, I’m sorry to say, and one of the things I’m going to announce is their immediate suspension without pay.”

“Ben Wanamaker? Is that the guy on the News?”

“Sports editor. How far back have you got? Turn the page.”

“Tony Castle!”

“I thought you’d be interested. For eight thousand, and that’s annual. He’s not supposed to have any mainland connections anymore. That’s what I get from the FBI, and I still like to think they know what they’re talking about.”

Castle’s true name was Castalogni. At one time he had been an important figure in the Miami criminal world, but as a result of an investigation run by Tim Rourke of the News, using leads provided by Shayne, he had considered it prudent to get out of the country. The payments from Geary had started the following year. He owned a casino in the Bahamas, and as far as Shayne knew, he had never been back.

“And what does Castle do, if anything,” Painter said, “to earn that eight thousand a year? It’s one of the things I’m hoping you’ll tell me.”