“Didn’t know it was a lie,” Shayne said, the sharp outlines of everything in the kitchen beginning to fuzz over and blur. “Believed me and Toby. You said one thing, Toby said another. I tried believing Toby, made no sense. Because all a fake. Tried believing you, made sense.”
He had been able to stay awake and clear-headed in a hard, uncomfortable chair in Oskar’s after-hours bar, but here in the airy kitchen, filled as it was with pleasant cooking smells, he could feel himself going.
“Don’t fall
Shayne snapped out of it, giving his head a short shake. “How’s the coffee coming?”
“One more minute. What could Toby hope to gain by telling Manners something he knew wasn’t true? Aren’t they working together?”
“Toby’s been conning everybody, Manners too. He had to.”
As Shayne’s eyes began to close again Maggie hurriedly splashed some too-strong coffee into a cup and put it in front of him. The fumes brought him back for a moment, but getting the cup to his mouth, or his mouth to the cup, seemed to be beyond him. He blinked hard, then his eyelids relaxed and everything began to swirl.
She shook his shoulder. “Damn you, Michael Shayne! You can’t say something cryptic like that, and dodge out of it by going to sleep. Drink your coffee.”
He could hear her, but her voice seemed to come at him from a great distance, rising and falling as though being blown about by a strong wind. He managed to take the coffee cup in both hands. He lowered his face toward it, meeting it halfway. It was scalding hot. The first mouthful burned its way down and his head cleared.
“There’s no time to sleep!” he said. “I’ve got to explain something. I think I know what happened but I can’t prove it. I need your help.”
“What can’t you prove, that Toby was lying?”
“No, no. That-”
The cup began to tilt. He watched, powerless to stop what he saw happening. Maggie took it out of his hand and put it back on the table.
“All right,” she said more philosophically. “I can see you’re determined. You woke me up in the middle of the night, and now you can’t stay awake yourself to tell me why. If you think I’m going to carry you upstairs, you’re very much mistaken.”
“I just need a minute,” Shayne mumbled. “Some more coffee.”
“It’s too hot to drink, and you won’t still be awake when it cools off. Stand up.”
He shook his head, frowning. “Got to tell you something. It wasn’t Toby’s idea.”
She pulled at him gently, and he toppled sideward, knowing that if he went to sleep now the machinery he was caught up in would go faster and faster until it crashed into something and broke apart. Maggie guided him toward the living room. He heard a low hum from an electric clock on the wall and saw the sweep second hand revolving slowly. He was past before he was able to decipher the time.
He tried again. “Toby’s the hired man. He wasn’t-”
“No, Mike,” she said when he didn’t go on. “He definitely wasn’t. You can finish that sentence after you wake up.”
“I can’t go to sleep!” he exclaimed, finding himself lying on a broad sofa, with no memory of having crossed the living room. “You don’t understand.”
“You can say that again,” Maggie said, untying his shoe laces. “And the reason I’m taking off your shoes is not because I want you to be comfortable, but because I don’t want my sofa to get dirty. When do you want me to wake you up?”
“I can’t go to sleep,” Shayne insisted.
He could hear his own voice, but that was all, and it went on echoing for a long time. Damn right he couldn’t go to sleep. He had to meet Senator Redpath at the Capitol at ten, and he had a lot of persuading to do first. Ten was the absolute deadline. Ten o’clock.
CHAPTER 17
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
“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
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
