The Violent World of Michael Shayne

“OK, Olga, you and Bixler. Take your time.”

He listened attentively, occasionally asking a quiet question. Pete burst in ten minutes later.

“A black and white hardtop!” he announced. “How do you like that?”

“Yeah, but Billy,” his brother said skeptically. “He’d make some witness.”

“He won’t get as far as court,” Pete admitted. “He’ll forget about it in the morning. But it’s a start, ain’t it? I could hardly make out what he was saying, half the time. He couldn’t find his teeth. The only reason he remembers-the guy stepped on his toes. When he got out of the car, and he didn’t say he was sorry. Billy’s still steaming.”

“Are you sure he knew who you meant?” Oskar said.

“Sure I’m sure. The guy we threw out. He remembers the car because he was going to pound in the fender. He looked around and picked up the first thing he saw-an old broken piece of a torsion rod, and he was all set to do it when he saw there was somebody sitting in the car. That scared him, and he threw the rod away and came in for a drink. Black and white hardtop, a good car, good shape. That’s all I could get out of him, and I was shaking him half the time.”

Shayne pulled hard at his earlobe. He had seen a black car with a white top somewhere recently, but he couldn’t remember where. If he didn’t push it too hard it would come to him.

Pete said, “Something else I been thinking about-that dough.”

“What dough?” Shayne said.

“In the wallet. Who’d know the difference if we cut it up in three shares?”

“If you didn’t take it in the first place,” his sister said angrily, “and left it for somebody else, they’d be in this trouble, not you. Mr. Shayne talked me out of thinking you did it. What are you trying to do, talk me back in? Now beat it. I’m telling Mr. Shayne.”

For the next half-hour she went on talking disjointedly, going over and over each episode until Shayne was sure she had told him all she could remember. Something below the surface was working at him. When he finished the bottle, Oskar brought another. Pete, two tables away, smoked cigarette after cigarette. Oskar stayed at the bar, rarely taking his eyes off Shayne. Only the cognac kept the redhead awake. He was both tense and relaxed. His eyes glazed, his mind began to drift, and suddenly something Olga said broke through to him.

“-telling the truth,” she said, and Shayne came back so suddenly that his hand jerked and the glass fell from his fingers.

Olga stopped talking and watched him. Wide awake and back in action, he went to the phone. If Bixler had been telling the truth about the diary episode, maybe Maggie Smith had been telling the truth about her friendship with Hitchcock. There was only one Margaret Smith in the phone book. He dialed that number.

It rang a long time, and Maggie’s hello was stifled and unclear.

“Wake up, Mrs. Smith,” Shayne said briskly. “This is Michael Shayne.”

“Who?”

“Shayne. The crude son of a bitch who’s been trying to break up your romance with Senator Hitchcock. Are you awake?”

“Michael Shayne? Do you know what time it is?”

“It’s five-ten, and I thought I’d better tell you that the guy who told me about your Caribbean cruise has been murdered.”

“Murdered!”

“Yeah. He was already unconscious. Somebody broke his head open with a torsion rod, if you know what that is, and left him on a dump for the rats.”

“Well, damn you, that wakes me up. Is this a joke?”

“No, Mrs. Smith. His name was Bixler, and I don’t really think you killed him. Unless you drive a black and white hardtop?”

“I drive a Volkswagen, and I wouldn’t know a hardtop if I saw one. Listen here, Mr. Shayne-”

“Didn’t we decide at one point you were going to call me Mike?”

“Are you drunk, by any chance?”

“Slightly, and I’m tired. Is anybody with you?”

She drew in her breath sharply and slammed down the phone.

Shayne looked up the number and dialed it again. She let it ring as long as she could stand it, then picked it up and said angrily, “You’re a grown man, try to act like one. What did I do to bring this on?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know how that was going to sound. To put it another way, would it be all right if I come over? Don’t hang up! All of a sudden it’s occurred to me that maybe you’ve been telling the truth.”

He wasn’t sure she was still on the line until she said suspiciously, “Which of your various accusations are you withdrawing?”

“All of them. I don’t think you’re working for Sam Toby. I don’t think you knew he set up that dinner where you met Hitchcock. I don’t think you’ve been trying to blackmail anybody. This puts things in a different light. I really think you’ve been used by some pretty crummy people.”

“I did go to the Caribbean with that Department of Labor man,” she said after a moment.

“That’s long in the past. There’s something I want you to do for me, Maggie. Can I come over?”

“Mike, I don’t know! I may not have much of a reputation, but I’d like to keep what little I have. Not to mention the fact that I don’t know you.”

“Wait a minute. Even if I had any such ideas, which I didn’t before you brought it up-”

“Before I brought it up!”

Shayne continued, beginning to grin, “We’ve got too much else to cover. Maybe you’ll invite me to breakfast.”

“Breakfast isn’t entirely impossible,” she said doubtfully, “but-”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” he said, and hung up before she could point out that she hadn’t yet decided to invite him. He underlined her address in the phone book and tore out the page.

“Are you going to need us?” Oskar said.

“I think so,” Shayne said, his mind racing. “There are some Texans in town, and they keep telling me what they’re going to do to me the next time they see me. First I’m going to wake up a few more people.”

He dialed the home phone of Senator William P. Redpath. Someone cut off the ring almost before it started, but all Shayne could hear was the sound of heavy breathing.

“Hello!” he shouted. He whistled into the phone. “Hello! Mrs. Redpath?”

“Hello,” a man’s voice said fuzzily.

“Sorry to be calling you at this hour,” Shayne said loudly, “but will you get Mrs. Redpath to the phone?”

“Who’s this?” the voice said more distinctly.

“My name is Shayne. If this is Senator Redpath, your wife knows me. I want to ask her about a woman named Olga Szep who used to work for her before she married you.”

He winked at Olga reassuringly. There was silence at the other end of the line for a long moment.

“Let me have your name again.”

“Shayne. I’ve been working all night on the Sam Toby investigation. Your wife’s name keeps cropping up, sometimes as Mrs. Redpath and sometimes as Mrs. Masterson.”

Adelle Redpath’s voice exploded in Shayne’s ear. “What a ghastly hour! Precisely what do you mean by this, Mr. Shayne?”

“I’ve already told your husband I was sorry,” Shayne said. “Don’t shout. I’ve had a bad night. I thought you’d want to know what happened to your diary.”

Probably she had been in tight places before, and she didn’t gasp or cry out, but merely said cautiously, “I’ve lost touch with Olga in the past year.”

“Does that mean your husband doesn’t know you used to keep a diary?”

“Not yet. And I hope that continues.”

“OK. I expect you know that it was copied, on or about June 25th last year. It’s my guess that only one copy exists. There’s a chance I can get hold of it. If I do, I’ll turn it over to you without reading it, in return for a small amount of cooperation from you and your husband.”

“And you’re a private detective?”

“You’ll have to take it on faith,” Shayne snapped. “I want to talk to Senator Redpath the first thing in the