Brett Halliday: Lady, Be Bad

The other committee members, in turn, under the pretext of questioning Shayne, addressed the television audience. Shayne continued to refuse, politely and patiently, to commit himself on the merits of the bill.

Afterward, when the hearing adjourned, he was caught in a swirl of reporters and television people, who wanted to know more about what had happened in Las Vegas. It was another several minutes before he was able to make his way out of the building to join Tim Rourke and Jackie in Rourke’s rented Ford.

“Mike, you were marvelous!” Jackie said, hugging his arm. “So damned calm and convincing.”

Shayne made a face. “I hope somebody reminds me never to do this again.”

“You were pretty sharp there with Maslow,” Rourke put in.

Shayne waved in disgust. “That guy gives me a pain. A kid with an Italian name gets picked up for car theft and people like Maslow think they’ve caught a Mafioso. ‘Consorting with known criminals! The criminal power structure!’”

A teen-age girl thrust a notebook through the window and asked Shayne for his autograph. He made a threatening gesture. She squealed with joy and darted away.

Rourke laughed. “Keep that up and you’re going to lose the teen-age vote.”

“Yeah. What happened to the teen-ager I shot in the chest?”

Rourke sobered. “They think he may make it, Mike. It went in and out. But he won’t be talking for a few days. The cops want to see you.”

“Did they find out anything about him?”

“The name on his draft card is Jerry Salsz. Nineteen years old, and his address is a tramp airfield outside St. Petersburg. There’s a call out for the Volkswagen. I still don’t understand why you let them drive away. We had them cold. We could take a plea and find out who they were working for. This way it’s wasted.”

“I’ve told you a hundred times,” Shayne said roughly. “In the movies, the detective points a gun at a man and says to hold still, and he holds still. That’s not how it goes in the real world. If he’s jumpy and scared and had a bad night’s sleep, the chances are he’ll pull his own gun and start shooting. And a lady putting groceries in her car a hundred yards away will take a bullet in the head. It wasn’t that important.”

“What do you call important? They were trying to kidnap us. You mainly, but Jackie and me too-three people.”

“Kidnapping’s not as serious as it sounds, Tim. You’re not the Lindbergh baby. All they were doing was lobbying for legalized gambling in Dade County. If that bill passes tomorrow we’ll still put on our pants in the usual way.”

Jackie gave him a worried look. “Mike, you aren’t really in favor-”

Shayne stopped her. “I’m like you, I provide a service. I don’t refuse to work for people I don’t like. I like Sam Rapp and I’m not impressed with Sheldon Maslow. But if he wants to hire me to find out what Sam and Lib are up to in the Skyline Motel, I’ll take a crack at it while I’m here.”

“Mike, I thought he’d jump at the idea,” Jackie said in a troubled voice, “but he was actually very negative about it. Do we want to fight fire with fire, and so on.”

Rourke was maneuvering into a parking space in front of a coffee shop. “Let’s grab a sandwich and talk about it. What’s Maslow scared of, that somebody else will get the headlines?”

The restaurant was crowded and noisy, but the hostess found them a table. After they had ordered, Jackie said, “Well, it’s funny, Mike. Last night he was all in favor of bringing you up to testify if you got back in time, but you really must have got under his skin. Unless-”

“Unless what?” Shayne said when she didn’t go on.

“Oh, it doesn’t make sense. But he and Judge Kendrick were having some kind of argument, and I think the judge hit him with his stick, believe it or not. He was fuming! And then Shell had such a queer reaction about hiring you. There’s going to be a party tonight at the judge’s fishing lodge on Lake Talquin, and it seems to me there’s a real opportunity for an expose. But Shell doesn’t want anybody to try to crash it. He’s afraid it could boomerang.”

“What kind of party?” Shayne said.

“Apparently a real old-fashioned blast,” Rourke told him. “You’d think Warren G. Harding was still alive, the way these people are carrying on. Kendrick loaned his place to Sam Rapp for the night, which is peculiar in itself, and Sam’s going to turn back the clock-broads, booze, pot, poker. The works.”

Shayne laughed. “All right, you’ve convinced me. I’ll be there.”

Jackie said helplessly, “I should have gone ahead without consulting Shell, but he has to approve any major expenditures, and he’s said definitely no. I couldn’t budge him. He’s convinced we have the votes. What he’s afraid of-Judge Kendrick has a really unassailable reputation, and unless we can come up with some documentary proof that he’s been bribed, we’ll do ourselves more harm than good. That’s the way Shell sees it.”

“The guy’s nuts,” Rourke said. “If this bill actually has six hundred thousand bucks behind it we’ve got to move, and move fast.”

“I agree with you,” Jackie said ruefully, “but he’s the chairman.”

“Would your paper hire me, Tim?” Shayne said.

“For how much?”

“Fifty bucks a day.”

“For one day? You’re on the payroll as of now.”

Their food arrived.

As soon as everything had been handed around Shayne said seriously, “For legal reasons I need a client, but I’ve been on this case since that kid pointed a.45 at me this morning. I have a license to protect. I have to find out who set that up, and make him see that it was a bad idea. Did you get anything from Tampa, Tim?”

“Yeah, I phoned the crime guy on the paper there, and you were right-a Cuban named Ramon Elvirez is part of the Boots Gregory circle. Collection work, mainly. Strong back, weak mind kind of thing.”

“Has anyone else mentioned Gregory in connection with this bill?”

“No, Sam Rapp is the only name I’ve heard. And if Sam called for help from Boots Gregory, that’s something else that’s funny as hell, because Boots is a third-class fink, not in Sam’s league at all.”

“How did you hear about the party tonight?”

“Everybody’s talking about it.”

“I don’t like to sound innocent,” Jackie said, “but I didn’t know this kind of thing went on anymore. It’s so flagrant, isn’t it? My vote’s for sale, how much will you give me?”

“That’s not how it’s done,” Rourke said. “Take a man like Matt McGranahan. You know him, don’t you, Mike?”

“That lightweight, sure.”

“Matt’s unemployable. He can’t live on a senator’s salary. Gamblers are in town, loaded with money, but he can’t just drop in at the motel to ask Sam for the going rate. That would be corrupt, and Matt’s conscience would bother him. So he accepts an invitation to a party where he knows they’re going to have liquor and girls. He knows what happens after a certain amount of drinks-he wants a girl. So they go upstairs, and somebody comes in and takes their picture. Matt’s married. His wife would be horrified if she saw that picture. So they blackmail him with it. He also wins a few thousand bucks in the poker game, but that’s not why he votes their way, he does it because they have him over a barrel. All he has to reproach himself for is getting drunk. That can happen to anybody.”

“I think I follow that,” she said doubtfully.

“Just the same, Sam Rapp and Judge Kendrick are both elder statesmen, and this isn’t how elder statesmen are supposed to act. Kendrick wouldn’t be sponsoring Sam like this unless he’s being forced to, and I suddenly begin to wonder about his son. Grover Kendrick, Jr. His father’s administrative assistant, and a kind of a slob. In his forties, unmarried, no stranger to the Miami fleshpots. Yeah,” he said with mounting excitement. “Mike, I think I’ll work on that angle while you’re tied up with the local cops. I’ll make some phone calls and see if I can find out how Junior amuses himself between sessions. There could be a connection-”