“Well, he wouldn’t agree. But couldn’t you watch him without letting him realize you were there?”
Shayne shook his head. “That only happens in books, Miss Hitchcock. I’m a stranger in town. And even if I’d worked here all my life, I’d need three other men and a couple of two-way radios, and I wouldn’t guarantee anything.”
She worried her lip for another minute. “But at least you’ll make sure Maggie Smith gets on a plane tomorrow? And if anything comes up before then, where will you be?”
“At the St. Albans,” Shayne told her, without adding that after he got to sleep it would take more than the ringing of the telephone to wake him up.
Hitchcock came in.
“Tom’s wonderful,” he said to his daughter, his usual good temper restored. “He’s going to be majority leader in ten years, or dead of a heart attack.” He knocked lightly on the desk top. “Knock on wood.”
“Don’t joke about it!” Trina said harshly. “It’s in terrible taste.”
“I had some mild heart trouble a while ago,” the Senator explained to Shayne. “I recommend it as a good way to get a sensible outlook. Trina, I’ll get around to you shortly. I want to talk to Mike privately first. Don’t go to bed.”
She stood up. “Daddy, I’m sorry.”
“I know you are, dear, and I hope not too much damage has been done.”
She smiled nervously and left them alone.
CHAPTER 6
10:05 P.M.
Hitchcock poured more brandy into Shayne’s glass and set the bottle beside his chair. “Help yourself when you feel like it. I have to deny myself hard liquor, but they’ve relented about cigars. Without cigars, I think I might have had to resign from the Senate. Will you smoke one with me? These are Havanas. I wish I could think they were part of a pre-Castro shipment. Actually, I know very well that they were smuggled in.”
As soon as their cigars were burning evenly, Hitchcock said, “Perhaps I should explain about my daughter. Her mother was an invalid for many years before she died. I was away much of the time, first in the legislature, then in Washington. Even after they joined me here we didn’t have much family life. She’s concerned about me. In my turn I’m concerned about her. I have a strong hunch that she and Tom Wall are having an affair. There’s nothing wrong with Tom except that he eats ravenously and never puts on weight. He’s too eager for my taste, and besides that he’s married. His wife isn’t here with him, but it worries me. Well, that’s neither here nor there. I’m already talking too much, but that’s a habit we find it easy to fall into. Maggie-ever since she was a young girl she’s been part of the theatre, and I don’t have to be told that few theatrical people live by traditional American small-town standards. Although some of the things that go on in American small towns! I know there have been men in her life. That has nothing to do with my feeling for her.”
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
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.
