Brett Halliday: The Violent World of Michael Shayne

10:00 A.M.

When he awoke he knew immediately where he was. He heard the low hum of the electric clock, and brought his hand up to look at his watch. It said ten o’clock on the button, and while that was registering, an announcer’s voice from a radio somewhere said cheerfully that it was already fifteen seconds past the hour.

“Maggie!” he yelled.

She ran in from the kitchen as he erupted off the sofa. “Mike! I thought you’d stay in that coma another twenty-four hours. Coffee coming right up.”

“No time for coffee.” He grabbed his shoes. “Come on, I’ll explain as we go.”

“Mike, I can’t go anywhere dressed like this.”

“Sure you can, you look great,” he said, without looking at her, and hauled her to the front door. “The first thing you have to understand is that everything is the opposite of the way it seemed.”

“I’ve got to turn off the stove! Go on, I’ll catch up.”

She ran to the kitchen swiftly. He remembered to duck as he went out the front door. Oskar Szep, seeing him striding down the brick walk carrying his shoes, leaped out of the Ford.

“I wondered what this doll did to you. It’s after ten.”

“One minute after,” Shayne said. “Get the pick-up and let’s go.”

Maggie ran out of the house while Shayne was pulling on his shoes. As soon as the Chevy swung around the corner Shayne put the Ford in gear and shot away.

“You need something to eat,” Maggie said. “I brought you a muffin.”

“A muffin!” Shayne said. “Now listen carefully. I figured I’d need about three hours to bring you up to date and talk you into doing me a favor. Now I have ten minutes, and I sure as hell can’t do it with my mouth full. I want to end up at the Capitol, so if I make a wrong turn, correct me. In a nutshell. Everybody thinks this started when Hugh Manners hired Toby to get him a contract to build an airplane. It started before that, around June 25th last year, with a stolen diary.”

She murmured occasionally to show she was listening, and didn’t waste any of his time by making him repeat anything. As he turned past the Grant Memorial into the circle leading up to the Capitol, he said, “But how the hell am I going to prove any of that? Everybody’s been too cagey. There’s only one way I can see. You used to be an actress. What about doing some ad-libbing for me? So long as you understand the general outlines-”

“Which I still don’t.”

“I’ll keep driving around and around until you do. The thing to remember is that we’ve got an advantage right now, and we’ll lose it the minute they identify Bixler. We’ve got to cut a few corners and jolt people, get them to do something they wouldn’t do after thinking it over.”

“You’ll have a hard time jolting Senator Wall. He’ll just say, ‘Excuse me, I have to talk to my lawyer.’”

“Then we’ll put on some more pressure. Where do Senators park their cars?”

“Behind the Senate Office Building. No, that way.”

Shayne followed her directions, which took him along First Street between two large official-looking buildings into a paved court. Only about half the slots reserved for Senators were being used. The slot marked “Senator Thomas Wall” was filled by a recent-model Mercury, a hardtop with a white top and a black body.

“That’s what I thought,” Shayne said with satisfaction. He reversed, passing his amateur bodyguards in the Chevy pick-up, and returned to the Capitol. When he got out Maggie slid over to take the wheel.

“You do look great in those slacks,” he said, really looking at her, “but if you’ll feel better in a dress, you have twenty minutes. Better make it fifteen. Wait.”

He went to the other side of the car and opened the front door.

“You’re getting the muffin?” she said approvingly. “You really do need something.”

“I do,” he said fervently, and took out the blended whiskey Hugh Manners had pressed on him the night before, hoping he would use it to put himself to sleep. Unscrewing the top, he took a long pull. As he lowered the bottle he found himself being watched solemnly by three women and a row of little girls. All, including the women, were in Girl Scout uniforms.

“I missed breakfast,” he explained.

Maggie laughed as he tossed the bottle back in the car. Oskar was getting out of the Chevy. The Girl Scouts opened for Shayne, and he took the shallow steps two at a time. Oskar followed, entering the rotunda while Shayne was asking the guard at the door for directions.

“Get a guidebook or something so you won’t stick out so damn much,” Shayne told Oskar, overtaking him. “And tell Pete to roll down his sleeves to hide those damn tattoos.”

“Jesus, Mike, what if the cops have found out who Bixler is by now? Are we making any headway?”

“Relax, Oskar. Try to look like a tourist.”

Shayne found the room in which Senator Redpath had arranged to meet him. The door was unlocked and he went in without knocking.

It was a narrow conference room, with a dozen or so chairs around a long oval table. A man at the window swung around as Shayne entered. He was tall, heavily built, with jowly features, which probably still looked statesmanlike in a campaign photograph.

“You’re Shayne?”

It was close to an accusation. His voice was clear and resonant. Turned on its full power, Shayne was sure it could reach the last row in a large hall with no help from a microphone.

“I’m behind schedule,” Shayne said. “Let’s skip the preliminaries. Did Mrs. Redpath explain her problem?”

Senator Redpath moved out a chair and sat down. He looked at Shayne sharply, reminding the detective that one of the things he had been planning to do at Maggie Smith’s was wash and shave.

“I need some sort of bonafides before I can talk to you freely,” Redpath said. “Adelle thinks you’re working for Hitchcock.”

“As of this minute,” Shayne said honestly, “I’m not working for anybody. I was hired by Trina Hitchcock, but I think the money for the fee came from National Aviation, through Henry Clark. For obvious reasons, National didn’t want Toby to get a blackmail handle to use on Hitchcock. I don’t have time to be anything but blunt, Senator. I’m assuming that your wife’s diary was the lever that got this whole thing moving. Toby could use it against your wife and various other people whose names were mentioned in it. Apparently there were enough of those to put over the Manners contract. Clark tells me it’s too late to revoke that now. He’ll settle for a couple of concessions, and an assurance that the diary won’t be used when Manners comes back to Washington looking for more business. If I can destroy it or turn it over to you, I’ll collect a fee of fifty thousand clams. I think that puts us on the same side of the fence. But if you wait to check every statement I’ve just made-”

Senator Redpath shifted his weight abruptly. “I’ll accept that, Shayne. What do you want to know from me?”

“Who approached you about backing Manners?”

The Senator began preparing a long cigar. He hesitated, then spoke decisively. “My wife, of course, on Toby’s behalf.”

“Did he give her any proof that he’d got hold of her diary, or had access to it?”

“He showed her several snippets cut from a photostatic copy. I wasn’t aware that any such document existed until this morning. She merely asked me to look into the Manners bid to see if I could back it, and she said it was important to her. I knew she had been associated with Toby. I assumed there was something about that association which could be misinterpreted, and he had reminded her of that. I asked only one question, whether this would be the final claim he would lay on her. Her answer was yes. Our marriage was a calculated risk on my part, Shayne. On the whole I considered it successful. She manages my household well. She is an excellent hostess, a marvelous campaigner. In last fall’s election I credit her with picking up between fifteen and twenty thousand votes. I won by eight thousand.”