Brett Halliday: The Violent World of Michael Shayne

“In a minute,” she said desperately. “Tom Wall’s in the living room.”

“That’s convenient. Did you arrange it?”

“No! He’s being very mysterious, but apparently he’s onto something that will really fix Sam Toby’s wagon. He wants to report to you before he goes any further. Daddy, please don’t be mad. You’ll thank me for it eventually. Somebody has to look out for you.”

“It’s comforting to know I have such a motherly daughter,” Hitchcock said bitterly.

A man burst out of the living room, walking fast and jerkily. He was short and thin, seemingly nothing but bone and sinew. He had sharp black eyes, a jaunty little black mustache, and hollowed cheeks.

“Emory! Something important. Do you mind?”

He looked at Shayne, and Hitchcock said mildly, “Michael Shayne, Senator Tom Wall.”

Wall acknowledged the introduction with a fast nod. “Time’s passing. At least I won’t have to chase you around the supperclubs tonight, that’s one consolation. This has all the earmarks of something terrific, and I need your OK on it. Remember a jerk named Bixler who used to work for the subcommittee?” He shot Shayne another accusing glance. “We’d better keep this in the family till tomorrow. It’s big, Emory.”

“Keep calm, Tom,” Hitchcock said. “That’s what people tell me, and it’s good advice. I have a slight family problem, but it can wait. Trina, take Mike into the library and give him a drink. You’ll have a chance to synchronize your stories.”

The two senators went off, with Hitchcock’s hand on the shorter man’s shoulder. Trina took Shayne into a comfortable room smelling of cigars and leather. It was lined with bookshelves from the floor to the ceiling. A few logs smouldered in a fireplace. On a long worktable against one wall Shayne saw an antique wooden press, pots of glue, and other bookbinding equipment. After opening a small cabinet and taking out several bottles, Trina saw Shayne examining the press.

“Here’s where Daddy really works,” she said. “The Senate’s only a hobby. Wasn’t cognac what you were drinking on the fishing boat this morning? Shall I get some ice?”

“Straight’s fine.”

She splashed some cognac into a large snifter and poured herself a half-glass of Cointreau.

“Damn it!” she said with suppressed fury. “I hoped he wouldn’t have to know anything about this. Now I’m in the doghouse for fair, not that I really mind so long as that creature is taken care of. What went wrong?”

Shayne took the glass. “You said he was picking her up after the theatre and I thought I had plenty of time. He walked in on us. I’d just taken a gun away from her, and for a few minutes we were all of us breathing hard.”

“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.

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.”