Brett Halliday - The Violent World of Michael Shayne

He waited for some comment from Shayne, drawing on his long Havana, but the detective kept quiet.

“Our friendship has been entirely platonic,” Hitchcock said. “I wouldn’t expect Trina to believe that. I think what frightens her is the possibility that I might marry again. What frightens me is what Maggie would say if I asked her. Well, I know she’d be kind. I can’t seem to stop talking about her. She’s so alive! You saw that, didn’t you?”

Shayne nodded slowly, having no trouble remembering the way Maggie Smith had felt in his arms.

“What has your investigation turned up about her?” Hitchcock asked, too casually. “I really think you’d better tell me, Mike. Otherwise I’ll have to squeeze it out of Trina, which would be unpleasant for both of us. If you can drive Maggie out of town with it, it must be fairly lurid.”

Shayne swirled the brandy around in the big bubble of glass. “I hate to do it this way, Senator. She did something for Sam Toby once. I can give you the details if you have to have them, but I’d just as soon leave it at that. She didn’t deny it.”

Hitchcock’s face had gone very still. “When?”

“Eight years ago. I know people change, and I think she’s sorry. But it raises a big question. Apparently she’s pretty close to the rocks financially. You know this guy Sam Toby and the way he operates. Leaving personalities aside, do you think he’s capable of putting a hustler on you?”

“Toby is capable of anything if there’s enough money involved and he thinks he can get away with it.” He laid his cigar carefully in an ashtray and stood up. “Excuse me.” With his back turned, he poured a glass of water from a carafe on the worktable and swallowed two pills that he took from a small vial. Shayne was on his feet.

“Is there anything I can do, Senator?”

“No. This is precautionary.”

After a moment he turned, went to the phone on a small table beside the fireplace, and began to dial.

Shayne said, “Why not sleep on it? Let her call you.”

“Do you think I’d sleep?”

He waited. The phone rang a long time. Then Shayne heard the connection being opened and Hitchcock said quietly, “Maggie?”

There was a faint scratching noise. Hitchcock turned up a volume control and reached over to throw a switch so the conversation would be recorded.

Maggie Smith’s voice said, “-feel much better. The Senate ought to put up a statue to the man who invented aspirin. But about tomorrow. A call came through from New York just after you left. I have to run up to untangle a stupid legal snafu about some out-of-town performance rights. It’s too boring to go into. I may not be back for several days.”

“I have Mike Shayne here,” Hitchcock said. “I’ve been browbeating him. Naturally I couldn’t believe that he’d been interviewing you about some runaway hoodlum. There was too much excitement in the air.”

“What has he told you?”

“Not much as yet, except that he was able to scare you with some scandal he dredged up out of the past. Ordinarily I’d refuse to listen, but in anything involving Sam Toby you must realize that I have a public responsibility. I can’t leave it hanging in midair.”

“Don’t tell me Shayne won’t supply the details. I wouldn’t give him credit for so much delicacy.”

“I’d rather hear it from you, if you don’t mind.”

She sighed. “I’ve always known it would come back to haunt me. I’ve dreamed about it, except that in my dreams it turned into a murder and I couldn’t get rid of the body. You’ve been sweet, Emory. I’ll say goodbye to you now, because I know you won’t be speaking to me in another minute.”

“Don’t be too sure,” Hitchcock said softly.

“Emory-” She waited a moment, and Shayne could guess that her eyes were shut and she was pinching the bridge of her nose. She said it fast. “I wanted a part in a Broadway production. My thirtieth birthday was coming up, and it seemed to me that that was some kind of deadline. I had to find out if I was really an actress before it was too late. Sam was never a real friend of mine, but I’ve known him a long time. He knew people who were putting up the money for a show with a second lead that was right for me. Emory, you do know that in the theatre it’s not exactly unheard of for an actress to go to bed with a producer to get a part she wants very much?”

Hitchcock kept his voice noncommittal; Shayne, in the same room with him, could see what it cost. “Yes, I’ve heard of that happening.”

“It’s part of the folklore,” she said bitterly. “So Sam arranged it. It’s the sort of thing he does well. I was promised the part if I would invest a week or so in a Caribbean cruise with a Labor Department official. I’d just had my divorce and it was a rough one. I didn’t like anybody very much, including myself. Sam introduced me to the man. He seemed quite ordinary and inoffensive. Sam’s client needed an exemption from the Wage-Hour Act for a certain category of workers, as I understood it. I know it was a lousy thing to do, and I’ve been regretting it steadily ever since. I went on the cruise, and I actually had a fairly good time. Sam’s client was given the exemption. I got the part, and the play folded after three days. I was OK in it, but not wonderful, I guess. Producers didn’t embarrass me with floods of offers.”

“Thank you for being so frank,” Hitchcock said without expression.

“That was the first and only time anything like that happened. Sam never mentioned it again. In the last few years I’ve hardly seen him. Mike Shayne says that Sam made the arrangements so I could meet you. This was news to me. I can see how under the circumstances you won’t believe that. I’ve been puzzling and puzzling. Maybe Sam’s holding me in reserve or something, but I don’t know. If he has anything up his sleeve, why hasn’t he mentioned it to me?”

She didn’t bother to make it sound convincing. “I know you’ve absorbed all the implications by now,” she went on. “In the face of this much evidence, what can I hope to gain by denying it? But I do, Emory. I haven’t been spying on you. I haven’t planned this with Sam Toby. I’m not scheming to get you into a motel bed in front of a camera, as Shayne thinks. And now I really do have a headache. I feel lousy in other ways too.”

“What are we going to do?” Hitchcock said in a strangled voice.

Maggie seemed to be close to total exhaustion. “Do? We aren’t going to see each other any more. That’s obvious. Michael Shayne will pocket his fee and go home. Don’t worry about it, Emory. It isn’t that important.”

They both waited with the line open, but there was nothing else either of them wanted to say.

“Goodbye, Maggie, I’m sorry,” Hitchcock said finally, and put back the phone.

He worked slowly at his cigar while Shayne finished his brandy in silence. Suddenly Hitchcock hammered his fist against his knee.

“I believe her! Good God, I’ve done things I’m ashamed of, we all have. I’m sorry she got mixed up in that old affair with Toby, but we wouldn’t ever learn anything if we didn’t make mistakes. I don’t care-she couldn’t have been pretending these last two months.”

“She’s an actress,” Shayne pointed out. “Most of the love scenes in the movies look like the real thing.”

“No, Mike. You met her for the first time tonight.” He stared at the ash on his cigar. “I’ve had conversations with her lasting for hours. Some of the things she’s said-a fake? They couldn’t have been! I expect you’ll think I’ve gone into my second childhood, but damn it-”

All this proved, of course, was that Maggie Smith had been good in the role, which Shayne had been sure of already.