Brett Halliday - The Violent World of Michael Shayne

“You take it,” Shayne said.

“Well, if yours is OK, I believe I will. When I get a buzz going I hate to let it fade out on me.” He shook the last drops of champagne into his glass. “To make a long story short, Mrs. Masterson kept a diary! To protect herself, I suppose, because Toby has a reputation for using somebody just so long, and then when the wrinkles begin to show-kaput, finish.”

“You’re sure it was a diary?”

“That’s what it said on the outside, according to Olga, ‘My Diary,’ and she kept it locked in her jewel box. At that moment in history I hadn’t had a raise for eighteen months. Side money-you know, odds and ends-was all that kept me going. Mike, maybe right now I’d better get your promise. This has to be strictly between you and me.”

Shayne’s eyes were bleak. “I never make that kind of promise.”

“You don’t?” Bixler said, dashed. “Couldn’t you stretch a point in my case?”

“I’m sorry, Ron. I make that a rule.”

“Not that I committed any crime. I’m just trying to establish motivation. I didn’t clear one cent out of this until tonight, and that’s perfectly ethical. But at the time, in a situation that was pregnant with possibilities, I admit I began thinking of how I could turn it into cash. Did Olga know where Mrs. Masterson kept her keys? She did. Was she sore enough about being fired, or to put it another way, the way I actually put it to Olga, was she devoted enough to the internal security of the United States, to borrow that diary for half an hour so I could see if there were any government secrets in it? And she was! All she wanted was fifteen hundred dollars, believe it or not. Probably no more than a gradeschool education, no imagination at all. Of course she didn’t know about Mrs. Masterson’s Toby connection, and how much he grosses in fees and commissions. If things broke right, if I could sell that diary to Toby, I could retire from the government and open my own office, which has always been my ambition.”

“And if they didn’t break right, you might end up in the morgue.”

“Hardly. Toby’s done just about everything else, but he’s never killed anybody as far as I know.” He finished his glass. “You know champagne could get to be a pretty expensive habit?”

“And then what happened?” Shayne prompted.

“Then my Civil Service appointment came through. Finally, after hanging fire for months and months. Ronald Bixler, report to the Chicago office without delay. Well, I griped and I groused all the way to Chicago, but maybe subconsciously I was relieved. Going up against Toby with this material-I know my limitations. He would have smiled me out of it, or twisted it around some way. But I couldn’t just drop it after I’d developed it that far, could I? I said to myself I’d come back the next weekend and finish it up. And when I came back the next weekend, Olga Szep had made herself scarce. She’d dropped out of the scene altogether. I tried to find her for two days, but she didn’t want to be found.”

“How did you interpret that?”

“Either she’d caught a slight case of cold feet, or she’d decided she didn’t need me, and tried for more than the fifteen hundred. Well, an amateur like Olga against Sam Toby’s organization? That would be the mismatch of the century. I decided the better part of valor was not to ask too many questions. I did ask one of the guys on the committee staff what happened to the Toby investigation, and they’d all been pulled off. It could be that the fix was in, or maybe it was legitimate, who knows? I never decided how much hanky-panky there was in that, if any.”

“How long did you stay in Chicago?”

“’Till last month. This I wangled, because in the back of my mind I’ve never forgotten Mrs. Masterson’s diary. Would you, in my shoes? So when Senator Wall looked me up -he looked me up-I knew right away what he was talking about and how to proceed.”

“Did he have anything to do with the investigation last year?”

“He had access to the files. More than that I don’t know. We felt each other out. I was still a little leery, but as soon as he told me there were National Aviation funds available, it solved my problem.”

“I don’t think I get that, Ron.”

“I mean I could sell it in that quarter without risk. Dealing with Toby, eyeball to eyeball-well, I don’t know if I have the stature for it, frankly. It just so happened that I knew where they could contact Olga and take it from there, because the minute I got transferred back from Chicago I went to work on it. I ran down about ninety blind leads until I came across the right one. It turned out that she’d been away. One of her brothers-she has two, both apes-owned this joint, and when she came back to town she went to work for him. I dropped in one night to look it over. She let out a yell, recognized me right away. Her brothers walked me to the door and gave me a kick in the slats to remember them by. I’m not like you, Mike. I don’t keep fit. I had to let them get away with it.”

“You didn’t find out why she went out of town, or where?”

“Mike, they didn’t let me utter more than two or three words. OK, what should I do now? I decided that doing nothing might be the best bet. But it kept gnawing at me. It took away my peace of mind. And then in walked Senator Wall, out of the blue, so to speak. I brought him up to date and sold him Olga’s address. I made it clear-no public testifying, because I value my rating. Gee,” he said abruptly, “maybe I made a mistake taking that last drink. I have a tremendous capacity for liquor, but isn’t there something about the dregs at the bottom of a wine bottle?”

“Ron, stay with me another minute. Did this Mrs. Masterson ever have anything to do with an Air Force colonel?”

Bixler fell against the arm of the sofa. “Snuck up on me. Millions of Air Force colonels.”

“This one’s about five-ten, broad through the shoulders-”

Bixler waved his hand to stir up the air in front of him. “Funny thing. All I can see is bubbles.”

“Is Mrs. Masterson still in Washington?”

He fixed Shayne with an eye that suddenly seemed off-center. “Not in the papers any more. Going to find out first thing in the morning. Child’s play for experienced investigator. Maybe there’s more money in this. Could be, you know.”

He stood up, his hand to his mouth. “’Scuse me, Michael. With you in a minute.”

He headed for the bathroom in an S-shaped line, taking the last few feet at a run. He slammed the door. Shayne waited, listening to the bathroom noises, then made up his mind and let himself out.

2:45 A.M.

Accumulated fatigue caught up with Michael Shayne as he got into his car. Heavy weights pulled at his eyelids. His hands suddenly became too heavy to lift. For an instant, as he sat at the wheel, willing himself to turn the key, he went to sleep. Wall, Hitchcock, Sam Toby, Trina, Maggie Smith-they were like scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and as he slept they shifted about and changed places, turning over and over. He seized each in turn and made it hold still. Even then nothing would fit.

He snapped awake. The car seemed to start itself and glide away from the curb with no help from Shayne. He was finally beginning to adjust to Washington’s pattern of avenues and circles. A short drive north brought him to the Capitol, and after that it was no problem to find Connecticut Avenue and the Park Plaza Hotel. Leaving the Ford double-parked, he asked at the desk if Senator Wall was in. Again the answer was no.

He lit a cigarette after getting back in his car. At some point, he knew, Bixler had stopped telling the truth and started lying. He had sold one set of facts to Shayne, another to Senator Wall. In spite of his denials, had he sold still a third to Toby?