Brett Halliday: Lady, Be Bad

“Now consider Boots Gregory,” Shayne said.

“Watch what you say about me,” Gregory warned.

“Big, handsome, not too bright,” Shayne said. “He wanted to move up to the major leagues. He has a tight organization and a healthy bankroll, and whenever he was daydreaming he thought of himself in Sam’s job, in Sam’s penthouse, with Sam’s girl. Yeah,” Shayne said when Anne Braithwaite moved, “you’re a nice-looking kid, Anne, but I don’t think you’re as nice-looking as last year, and a year from now I doubt if you’ll have it anymore. You’ll dry up in the wrong places. Your nose will get sharper. Every year you’ll get bitchier, and there’s nothing worse than a bitch with an English accent. Ask anybody here. Tim?”

Rourke looked carefully at Anne and then at Lib. “I’ll take Lib, any time.”

“Judge Kendrick?”

The judge rapped his stick impatiently. “Get on with it.”

“So here we have Boots Gregory, the ideal mark. The real inspiration was picking up the tired old casino bill and bringing it back to life by restricting it to Dade County. Let’s not have any speculation about how far Lib felt she had to go with Boots to soften him up. I’ve found her a prudish girl.”

“I deny that,” she said with a smile.

“Any comment. Boots?”

“I’m not saying a word.”

“That’s safer. Probably Lib told Boots to pay no attention to the hotel’s books-Sam’s accountants cooked them to show a loss, to help his tax position.”

Again Shayne timed his remark for a moment when Boots was drinking, and he spilled some more coffee. His lawyer whispered. He put the cup down and didn’t touch it again.

Shayne went on, “Now the second half of the con. The minute it began to look as though the bill had a chance, they were able to raise a campaign fund from people who would benefit from it-Gregory for one, other gamblers and hotel men. I heard somebody mention the figure of six hundred thousand. Maybe it wasn’t that high.”

“It was higher!” Gregory exclaimed while his lawyer went into a small spasm beside him. “They’ve been spending money like-”

He stopped abruptly.

“They only had to seem to be spending money,” Shayne explained. “It’s been a high-visibility operation. That party last night should have been top secret, but everybody in town seemed to know about it. It had very good word-of-mouth. They made sure Tim Rourke would be there, so every paper in the state could carry his copyrighted story about how Sam Rapp, the notorious gambler, was corrupting the legislature. Lib wore a tape recorder. I thought she wanted to nail down the deals, but not at all, the tape was for the people back in Miami who put up the money. She mentioned buying a senator for ten thousand. He tells me that the actual price was less, very much less, and I think I believe him. Sam even started the story that he was responsible for Maslow’s death, to show his backers how far he was willing to go to lobby the bill through.”

Gregory swung around to look at Sam, and Gregory’s lawyer came to his feet. “That will be just about all, Shayne. There’s a little too much flimflamming going on there. If no definite charge is going to be lodged against my client-”

“Did he go to the party last night?”

“We’ll pass that question.” He turned to the state attorney. “Do you condone this procedure? Because I want to put you on notice-”

The state attorney swallowed a mouthful of toast. “All I’m doing is having breakfast.”

“Because Anne was there,” Shayne went on when the lawyer made no further move. “She stuck a gun in my back and started to signal somebody outside. I think it was Boots. Anne, were you ever a nurse?”

Her neck seemed to lengthen slightly. “What bearing can that possibly-”

“There’s something about your style that reminds me of bossy nurses I’ve run into.”

Al Luccio put in, “She was a nurse in St. Albans when Boots was there.”

“There’s nothing wrong with nursing,” Anne said stiffly.

“Except that it’s not very highly paid. We’re getting ahead of ourselves. To wind up the money-now that it’s out in the open I’m afraid Sam and Lib will have to pay back their backers everything they didn’t actually spend. I doubt if they’ve got rid of more than twenty-five thousand.”

“Twenty-five!” Sam exclaimed.

“In the neighborhood of twenty-five. Put that in your story, Tim, and don’t bury it. Get it up in the lead where Sam’s investors can’t help but see it. You can quote me. I’ve gone into the matter thoroughly, and if Sam Rapp’s lobbying expenditures on this bill ran as high as twenty-five thousand I’d be very much surprised.”

“Mike, that’s way off!” Sam protested. “The girls alone-”

Lib and his lawyer, between them, forced him to subside. He gave an angry laugh.

“I thought you were being a little too good to us.”

“You dealt off the hotel at a nice price.”

“That was just half of the idea.”

“All right,” Shayne said. “Everybody still with me? The point I’m making is that Sam and Lib weren’t really trying, but for a period of twenty-four hours they wanted everybody to think the bill was about to pass. They did that by manipulating Grover Kendrick and his father.”

Everybody turned to look at the judge, who had himself under good control.

“I have to give you some background,” Shayne said. “Grover was spending time in Miami Beach, where Lib met him. And here we are again, Lib. I have to say something that’s going to make you sound mean and mercenary. I can’t work up much sympathy for Boots Gregory or even for Grover, but a confidence game-and I don’t care how clever it is or how much the mark deserves to be taken-is a mean way to make money. I hope Sam will put something in trust for you so you don’t have to do it again. Grover wanted to invest in the over-the-counter market, because horse racing is known to be crooked, and before long a loan shark came into the picture and Grover needed forty thousand in a hurry. He swindled it out of a lobbyist named Phil Noonan. There’s been a lot of talk about forty-thousand dollar bribes, but it’s all been the same bribe, moving in different directions. Noonan, of course, thought he was buying Judge Kendrick. This isn’t as complicated as it sounds. Grover accepted a payoff. No one would believe Noonan paid that much money for Grover’s influence, because he didn’t have any. Noonan had to be buying the judge, and sure enough, when the measure came up for a vote the judge rammed it through. And Sam and Lib had documentary proof of the transaction.”

Shayne added more cognac to his coffee. “To repeat. They weren’t really trying to legalize casino gambling. They couldn’t buy Judge Kendrick because he’s not for sale. He may be reactionary and bigoted and fifty years behind the times, but I think he’s reasonably honest. But he’s also a politician, and he doesn’t want his reputation wrecked for something he didn’t do. This is the deal they made. He made a careful statement and loaned them his fishing lodge for a big conspicuous party. Grover could take the rap for the party in case of trouble.”

Even the three lawyers had settled back to listen. Shayne smiled at Lib and went on.

“The hotel deal was still a bit edgy, because if the casino prospects were as good as they looked after Kendrick’s statement, why would Sam want to sell? He hadn’t signed the papers and Boots hadn’t handed over the check, but all the legal work had been done on it. So the con went into the third act. Sam told Boots he’d changed his mind-the deal was off. Boots went for it like a hungry trout. He kidnapped Sam, snatched him out of his motel without even giving him time to put on his socks. I almost managed to break that up, but Sam explained to me that he didn’t want to be rescued. I can imagine the dialogue after I left, straight out of network TV. Boots: ‘Sign these papers.’ Sam: ‘I won’t.’ Boots: ‘You will, by God, or you’ll end up at the bottom of a swamp.’ Sam: ‘All right, you talked me into it, where’s a pen?’”