Brett Halliday: Lady, Be Bad

Luccio gulped. “I suppose that’s fair, Mike. It’s just been a lot of turmoil about nothing, hasn’t it?”

When Shayne didn’t answer, Luccio moved away.

“Thanks, I guess,” Jackie said. “I would have preferred-well. We’ll run into each other. Miami’s not that big a town.”

She picked up the bag of St. Albans counters, returned to her table for her purse and cigarettes, and walked out Lib Patrick, seeing Shayne alone, came down to join him.

“You did wait till Sam deposited the check, so I suppose I’m grateful.”

“Of course you’re grateful,” he said. “And after Sam sets up the irrevocable trust-fund, so he can’t change his mind, you might be willing to show me how grateful you are.”

She laughed. “And would that be so terrible? If you’re serious, we don’t even have to wait for the papers to be signed. But I don’t think you’re serious.”

“That’s right, I’m joking.”

He had switched to straight cognac. He refilled his glass.

“I see you’re in a sour mood,” she said. “Tim just reminded me about that fifteen thousand. It’s yours. We couldn’t claim it without admitting we were trying to frame you.”

“I earned it.”

“Baby,” she said, laughing, “what are you being so grim about? All we did was swindle Boots Gregory out of seven-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars. That’s not such a horrible crime.”

“And how many people were killed? I make it four so far, and it’s not over yet.”

She touched his hand lightly. “They deserved it, dear.”

The press conference was breaking up. Rourke wandered back, passing Lib as she left.

“What was she doing, offering sex? And what were you doing, turning her down?”

“I have to punish her some way.”

Rourke saw the phone sticking out of the manila envelope. “I tried to make a phone call in the lobby, and one of the phones was cut loose. Is that-”

“Not so loud,” Shayne said. “The phone up in Leesville didn’t produce any usable prints.” He picked up his drink. “Don’t go anywhere, Tim. I’ve got one more thing to do, and then let’s do some drinking.”

Judge Kendrick was still sitting alone, clutching his stick with both hands. Shayne sat down across from him.

“Isn’t it time the senate convened?”

“They can convene without me. Mike, will those-people be convicted of Maslow’s murder?”

“Not a chance. The body would have helped, but probably not too much. I meant it when I said it was a sure thing.”

“But they definitely did it?”

“Definitely. You don’t still think Grover had anything to do with it?”

“No,” the judge said heavily, almost with regret. “Gregory’s going to repudiate that confession, you know. He’ll say you bludgeoned him into it, which you did, incidentally.”

“We may be able to get him on it if we can find the gun. Did you know about Maslow’s unofficial office?”

“It was one of those open secrets everybody knew.”

Shayne made an impatient movement. “Don’t make me drag it out of you. You know you have to talk about it. I can’t read people’s minds, and neither can you. Sheldon Maslow was a bastard, but do you want them to get away with killing him? I don’t think so. He was a fellow member of the club.”

“You’re not bad at reading people’s minds.” He waited a moment. “I saw Grover leaving the hotel, and I had an idea where he was going. Somehow he’d got hold of some plastic explosive, and he’d just blown the safe when I came in. He’d been drinking heavily. Mike-you said I set great store by honesty, and that’s true. But there have been compromises. Such is politics. Grover learned from me. I don’t accuse him. He merely went further. I voted for what he called special-interest legislation because I believed that when you add the special interests together, you get a system which, on the whole, works better than any other. Grover believed in free enterprise for himself as well. You turned up one bribe, the one from Noonan. There were others. There would have been more. He’d been watching Maslow, to see how he worked. Grover had bad luck with women, he was a poor judge of common stocks, in many ways he was a coward. He had taken Maslow’s papers out of the safe. He told me-joyfully-that I was going to serve another term, after all. Maslow had wanted power, but I already had it. One term, Grover thought, would make him rich.”

“What kind of a gun did you have?”

“He had the gun, a junk.38, a cheap revolver. I wiped it off carefully. It can’t be traced to me. I hadn’t been drinking since midnight. I took it away from him.”

“And it went off accidentally.”

“It went off. I don’t maintain it was accidental.”

“I didn’t think the scene was right for Boots. He would have tried to deal. How do you want to handle it?”

“I’ll take care of it myself, Mike, if that’s all right with you. I buried the gun in a vacant lot-I’ll show you where. I think I’ll let you see if you can convict Gregory. For the first time in my life I feel inclined to take the law in my own hands-now there’s a pretentious remark. I haven’t been that much of a pillar of rectitude. I don’t really care about my life. I have no family now, and I’m sick to death, Mike, sick to death of courthouse politics in my home county. I’ll arrange a hunting accident.”

Shayne nodded and produced the tiny pencil-like recorder which he had taken from Lib Patrick.

“I’ll accept that, but don’t change your mind about killing yourself, Judge, because I’ve got it on tape. I’ll give you a month.”

The judge met his eyes. “Pick your own date. Just give me twenty-four hours notice. I honestly don’t care anymore.”