“Why should I get my ears pinned back?”
“What makes you think Mr. Big will pay off?”
“I’ve told you-”
“You’ve told me a lot of things,” Shayne broke in wearily. “Among them is your conviction that your paper will suppress the story if you turn it in. Then you talk about blackmailing Mr. Big by threatening to do just that. Why in the name of God would he pay you blackmail if he knows your paper won’t print the story?”
Bert Jackson dropped into his chair and took a long drink of rye, warm, now, and weakened further by melted ice cubes. “I thought about that angle,” he admitted, his haggard face twitching. “That’s what had me stymied until I thought about Tim Rourke.”
“What about Tim?” Shayne’s voice was suddenly harsh.
“You said it yourself a minute ago.” Jackson tensed forward and continued eagerly. “If it were Tim’s story, no one would dare suppress it. It would be front-paged just the way he wrote it-and Mr. Big knows that as well as we do.”
“But it isn’t Tim’s story, nor the News’s story.”
“I could turn all my stuff over to him.”
“To a rival paper?”
“Not to be printed,” said Jackson quickly. “Just to put pressure on Mr. Big. He’d pay plenty to keep it quiet if he knew Timothy Rourke had the lowdown on him. A lot more than ten grand. And ten grand is all I want out of it. Rourke can have the rest. You and Rourke-to split between you.”
Shayne was silent, watching his perspiring visitor through half-closed eyes to hide the rising anger in them. Jackson’s damp, sandy hair lay aslant his forehead, adding a maniacal look to his grim face. “Where do I come in?” he asked after a brief period.
“You put it up to Rourke. I’ll give you part of what I’ve got, enough to convince Tim it’s the real thing.”
“Why don’t you put it up to Tim yourself?”
Jackson licked his lips and combed his bangs back with nervous fingers. “Let’s say for personal reasons. What’s that to you? You’ll get a nice cut just for passing it on to Tim.”
“Tim Rourke didn’t get where he is now by suppressing legitimate news,” said Shayne shortly.
“But he won’t be suppressing anything. Not really. Don’t you see? There’s nothing actually unethical about my proposition. The way things are now, Rourke can’t print the story because he hasn’t got it. I can’t print it because I know my publisher will turn thumbs down on it. So, what the hell? We can all collect a chunk of money from a situation that can’t be changed.”
Shayne finished his drink and came to his feet. His face was deeply trenched, and white showed at the knuckles of his clenched fists. “I wouldn’t insult Tim Rourke by suggesting it. You’d better get out of the newspaper game and tout for the races or some other place where your particular talents will be appreciated. And get out of here fast if-”
“Wait a minute, Shayne. Don’t go off half-cocked.” Bert Jackson was on his feet, backing away from the redhead’s slow advance. “Why don’t you try Rourke on it and see what he says?”
Shayne stopped in his tracks. A peculiar intonation, a suggestion of sneering bravado in the reporter’s voice struck him as being all wrong. He tightened his mouth and studied the man appraisingly.
Jackson returned his scrutiny with sullen self-possession. “Don’t be so damned certain about Rourke,” he warned. “He might fool you. Why don’t you call him and see what he says?”
Shayne shifted his angry eyes from Jackson’s drawn face and instinctively massaged his ear lobe as he stared bleakly at the wall beyond his would-be client. “I will,” he said decisively, and went back to the desk. “And when he tells me to kick your proposition right down your throat that’s what I’ll enjoy doing.” He picked up the receiver and gave the switchboard operator the number of the Daily News while Jackson picked up his warm drink and sauntered nonchalantly around the room.
The City Room of the News told Shayne that Rourke was out and was not expected back soon. Shayne asked for the City Editor and waited until a voice said, “Dirkson speaking.”
“Mike Shayne, Dirk. You know where I can locate Tim?”
“I’ve got a telephone number,” said Dirkson cautiously. “Is it important, Shayne?”
“Since when did Tim start playing hard to get?”
“It’s just-he gave me this number privately, for us in case something special came up-any emergency. I guess that includes you.” He gave Shayne a number and hung up.
Shayne clicked for the switchboard and gave the number, holding the receiver against his ear. The phone rang four times before a woman’s voice answered. A low, intimate voice that conjured up a vision of a bedside table, a silken negligee, and cocktails for two. The kind of voice he was prepared to hear after Dirkson’s hocus- pocus about a private number and a long acquaintance with Timothy Rourke.
He said, “I want to speak to Tim Rourke,” and heard a breathy murmur of astonishment, then Rourke’s voice rasping with irritation.
“What the devil is it, Dirk? Can’t you let a man-”
“Mike Shayne, Tim. I’m calling for a friend of yours. A kid named Bert Jackson.”
There was a long moment of dead silence. Shayne glanced around and saw Jackson emerging from the kitchenette, heard the clink of ice in his glass, and watched him stop at the liquor cabinet and pour more rye over the cubes.
“What about Bert Jackson?” Rourke’s voice blustered defensively against Shayne’s eardrums.
“He’s offering us a proposition-to join him in a small blackmailing deal.” Shayne sketched in the details of the reporter’s offer, and added, “He insisted that I put it up to you before kicking him out.”
“Don’t kick the kid out, Mike,” said Rourke.
“Why not?”
Rourke’s next words came swiftly, muffled, as though he pressed his mouth against the instrument and tried not to be overheard by someone in the room. “Stall him, Mike. Pretend to go along. Get whatever you can and arrange to see him later. I’ll call you.” Before Shayne could speak he heard the receiver click. He slammed the instrument on the prongs and glared angrily at the recumbent form in the chair beside his desk.
“Did you really think Rourke was so lily-white he’d turn down a thing like that?” said Jackson, a sneer of triumph lifting his sparse mustache.
Shayne picked up his glass and drained it, thumped it down and said, “It’s nothing to me, youngster, but I have yet to see a blackmailer come out on the top of the heap. It never works out that way. Who’s the guy you plan to put the clamps to?”
“Oh, no.” Jackson took a long swig of his fresh drink, smiled with cocky assurance, and said, “Once you and Rourke had the name you could handle it without cutting me in. Tim’s got ways of digging up the same stuff I’ve got.”
Shayne set his teeth hard, silently cursing Rourke for placing him in this ambiguous position. After a moment’s deliberation he creaked the swivel chair forward and said persuasively, “Look, Jackson, I’ve been around Miami since you were wetting your diapers. There’s a lot of loose money in this town and a lot of ways of picking up a fast buck. Blackmail isn’t one of them. Give this stuff of yours to me and I’ll figure out another angle. If Tim and I can’t find a paper to break it locally, we’ll put it over a wire service and give you full credit.”
“Damn the credit. I’ve got to have cash.”
“How much?” Shayne swiveled forward and propped his elbows on the scarred desk. “I’ll advance you something. It depends on how good the stuff is after you lay it on the line for me to see.”
“Ten grand,” said Jackson sullenly.
“No story is worth that.”
“This one is-to a certain party.” Bert Jackson finished his second drink and wavered to his feet. Steadying himself with one hand on the back of the chair he said belligerently, “I tell you I’ve got enough to send Mr. Big up for life.”
“Then sell it to him,” Shayne snapped. “It’s your neck, not mine.”
Jackson bent down carefully, still clinging to the chair back with one hand, picked up his hat, and carefully fitted it on his head as he straightened. He then hiccuped and patted a sagging side pocket of his coat, leered at Shayne through half-closed lids, and said with drunken emphasis, “Don’t worry about my neck. Just let him try to get tough.”
