Brett Halliday - Guilty as Hell

“Change your mind and have some cognac?” Shayne said.

The young man shook his head ruefully. “I’d better wait. I had too much Scotch last night, I’m ashamed to say.”

“You’re not the only one.”

Forbes laughed. “Begley! I’ve never seen anybody get stoned faster.”

Shayne straightened. Crinkles of concentration appeared at the corners of his eyes. A flight of blacks had appeared in the southeast, three ranges high. Pulling out a slender duck call, Shayne began working them down. He started with a piercing highball, followed by a series of high excited notes. The flight wheeled. The Chesapeake retriever beside his knee watched alertly. Shayne talked the ducks down and down. They were at sixty yards, coming over the blocks on the cross wind, when they were spooked by a single shot from another blind. They veered up and away. Shayne swore.

“My uncle Jose,” Forbes said. “He always was a lousy judge of distance.”

After lighting a cigarette, Shayne said, “Your father told me you’d fill me in. This might be a good time.”

“I suppose,” Forbes said with a sigh. “I knew he had that in mind when he put us together. I just wish the aspirin would take hold, that’s all. How much has he told you?”

“Enough so I can start with a couple of questions. What’s this T-239 paint?”

“The name doesn’t mean a thing, Mr. Shayne. The ‘T’ stands for the pigment-titanium dioxide. Adding the number is just a gimmick, to make it sound scientific for the ads and the label. It’s an alkyd resin, water-thinned, and there’s no question it’s a damn good paint. We’re planning to offer an absolute three-year money-back guarantee against peeling or blistering on bare wood using a recommended primer. I don’t know how much you know about house paint-”

“I live in a hotel.”

“You’re lucky-I think I’ll have some of the cognac after all. This coffee isn’t doing anything for me.”

The detective splashed a dollop of cognac in the younger man’s coffee cup.

Forbes went on: “I don’t know how people who own houses manage to keep their sanity. Father maintains that the reason outside paints break down so fast is that houses are better insulated and present-day appliances give off so much steam-dishwashers, humidifiers, driers. The steam has to go somewhere. It breaks the paint seal and exits by way of a blister, which then peels down to the wood. The public, of course, simply figures we’re marketing an inferior product, to break down faster so we can sell more paint. This worries my father. Where will it end? In government regulation, he thinks. Socialism.”

He snorted scornfully and sipped at his coffee. “Hey, this is good. Maybe we ought to add a few drops of cognac to each gallon of paint and see if it lasts any longer.” He winced. “I’m not really up to being facetious this early in the morning. God knows, it’s serious. We must have a couple of million dollars invested in T-239. The first company out with a really nonpeelable product is going to mop up. Everybody’s been working on it. Well, about eighteen months ago we came up with a formula that gave very good lab results. That didn’t necessarily mean it would stand up well on a house. We put it through an elaborate series of tests, and those tests can’t be hurried. There’s really no substitute for slapping a coat of paint on a piece of cedar siding and leaving it out in different kinds of weather. Sure enough, after a few months the white paint turned yellow. We took care of that and all the technical boys are very pleased with the way things have turned out. But Dad happens to believe in being two hundred percent certain. That’s how we’ve got caught. He ordered a new series of tests, and we can’t hope to have T-239 in the stores before next May at the earliest.”

“And United States Chemical stole the formula?”

“More than the formula. The really important thing was the test results. A year and a half is a long time to keep a secret in any business. By not having to duplicate the tests, they save a huge amount of money and cut months off the development period. We’ve been getting rumbles about a new indestructible paint they’re about to launch with a long-term guarantee. They did a fair job of keeping it under wraps, but we finally managed to purloin a can. And it’s T-239, all right, with a few modifications. And a source in their experimental division tells us they rushed into production after a crash testing program that couldn’t possibly prove anything about durability. They’re making the first announcement on the CBS breakfast show next Tuesday morning. In other words, they’ll beat us out by five months.”

Without looking directly at him, Shayne had been studying the young man as he talked. He was twenty-five, Shayne judged. One moment he was caught up in his explanation, taking it with utter seriousness. A moment later he would make a clumsy gesture and seem to sneer at the importance of what he was saying. At times he was capable of producing a sudden, engaging grin. Having talked at length with the senior Hallam, Shayne knew the younger man’s position in the company must be far from easy.

Shayne’s gun came up.

“Ducks,” he said in a low voice.

Forbes reached for his shotgun, then sat back with a flap of his hand. There were five pintails and a single, quartering in and rising. At first Shayne thought they were all his. As he tracked them, they veered more and more to the right, crossing at the extreme limits of his gun’s range. There were two quick bangs from the next blind, a thousand feet distant. Two ducks plummeted out of the sky.

“Dad’s still got his eye,” Forbes remarked. “I assume that was Dad and not Walter. Walter Langhorne and a shotgun are two different animals.”

“You aren’t shooting this morning?” Shayne said.

Forbes said defensively, “I’m too shaky. When I was a boy I used to come out here with Dad all the time. I don’t see much point in it any more.”

He sipped his coffee. “I’m beginning to feel hungry. Nothing like fresh air and not enough sleep. Let me finish, and maybe by then we won’t get any dirty looks if we go back and have a decent breakfast. I was about to tell you about United States Chemical. They’re teetering on the edge. They have a nice tax-loss position and Dad sees no reason why they shouldn’t merge with E. J. Despard, through an exchange of stock, to everybody’s benefit. They won’t even discuss it. It’s a Boston company, wholly owned by the Perkins family. We’re Goliath and they’re David, and in real life how often does David win? But this paint coup gives them a reprieve. By the time we stumble out with T-239, they’ll have another ten percent of the market and much prestige, and maybe they can stay out of our clutches. What I’m really saying is, to put this in proportion, it’s more important to them than it is to us. Dad never likes to come in second, but in the long run we probably won’t even lose much money. But for United States it’s life or death. Literally.”

“What happens if you find out anything before Tuesday?”

“Well, we’re coming down to the wire, Mr. Shayne. We’d need something so good we could go into court with it on Monday. Calling you in was Dad’s idea. This weekend was mine, a kind of last-ditch expedient. I thought if we could get you and Begley here, plus enough of the rest of us to feed you leads and suggestions, something might give. Begley was foolish to accept, in my opinion. He probably thought it would be suspicious not to. You can question various people individually during the day and get your ammunition ready. Tonight we’ll run an all-night poker game and put on the pressure. I don’t know if you’ve heard about the soul sessions people have been having lately.”