Independence. Pay attention. Maybe you’ll learn something.”
“Like what?” Pete said, trying to get him to hurry. “Like it’s not such a smart idea to sock cops?”
“Those guys weren’t local cops.”
Shayne’s eyes were on the move, looking for familiar faces. Somebody must be backstopping the fake arrest, in case it went sour. And as they reached the exit between two big Revolutionary War paintings, he caught a glimpse of Stevens, Manners’ huge houseman.
Shayne propelled Pete through the door. “Now we hurry.”
They raced to the stairs and down to the basement. Oskar materialized behind them. An open subway car was waiting for passengers for the short underground trip to the Senate Office Building. Grabbing one of the metal hoops between the seats, Shayne swung in beside the motorman.
“Let’s go.”
The motorman, a portly elder statesman as dignified and imposing as many Senators he transported, said loftily, “In due time, sir.”
Shayne lifted him bodily out of the way. Pete climbed over and took charge of him while Shayne studied the controls. A simple rheostat governed the flow of power from the monorail on the ceiling. He advanced the lever. They had just begun to move when Stevens burst around the corner from the stairs.
Without a second’s hesitation, the big man set off along the pedestrian ramp, running at a clumsy gallop and coming surprisingly fast. Oskar yelled at Shayne, but the rheostat was already all the way over. Gradually the car picked up speed and began to pull away.
“Are you crazy?” the motorman shouted. “Slower!”
People on the ramp looked about, startled, as the car shot past. Stevens yanked out a gun and snapped off a fast shot. He was too badly winded to hold his hand steady, The slug glanced from the big sign over Shayne’s head: “CAUTION: Keep Arms and Feet inside Car,” and went shrieking away.
Pete said angrily, “You didn’t say anything about bringing a gun.”
The wheels bit into the curve. Shayne was trying to find the brake. He turned off the power as he saw the brightly lighted basement lobby of the office building, and located the brake just in time. They slid into the station with wheels locked, shooting sparks.
He leaped out. Two MP’s were idling in front of the elevators. One shouted, “That’s him!”
They advanced, two tough-looking soldiers in white helmets. Shayne retreated toward the mouth of the tunnel, the back of his neck prickling. Stevens would come pounding around the curve in another minute. Oskar and Pete turned back suddenly into harmless visitors from out of town. The MP’s called to Shayne to halt.
“I didn’t do anything!” he said.
“Oh, no,” the motorman cried. “You didn’t manhandle me and hijack government property!”
Shayne came forward, moving carefully. The soldiers had.45’s, and unlike Stevens they hadn’t been breathing hard and he couldn’t expect them to miss. The Szep brothers passed them, wheeled into position as though this was a maneuver they had practiced many times, and grabbed them from behind. The MP Pete was grappling with seemed to be the beefier of the pair. Shayne pumped a right into his unprotected midsection and then knocked him cold with a hard shot to the jaw. Shayne felt a searing pain all the way to his shoulder. Pete let him fall and whirled to help his brother.
The elevator arrived and discharged a load of passengers for the subway. Somebody shouted from the stairs. It was Curt Rebman, and just above him Shayne saw the National Aviation lobbyist, Henry Clark. Clark couldn’t make up his mind. His face was working. But as Rebman started for Shayne, Clark whipped off his hat, reached around the Texan and pulled the hat hard against his face. While Rebman clawed at it, trying to turn, Shayne pushed into the elevator and slammed the door.
The operator, an elderly Negro, had his hand on the control handle. Shayne closed his hand over the operator’s and pulled the handle over. The Negro was breathing shallowly, his eyes tightly closed. Shayne let him go after they passed the main floor.
“Two,” he said.
The old man looked around to see who was doing this to him. Shayne grinned, unsettling him to the point where he missed the floor by a foot.
“Close enough,” Shayne said.
Opening the door himself, he stepped up.
“Watch your step,” the operator said.
That was what Shayne intended to do. He went along the corridor, his footsteps echoing on the marble. Senator Redpath was waiting at the turn of the corridor, calmly smoking his cigar. He opened a door marked “No Admittance” as Shayne reached him.
“What kept you, Shayne?” he said.
CHAPTER 19
11:00 A.M.
They entered a lounge, furnished with leather armchairs and standing ashtrays and the usual array of oil portraits in heavy gilt frames. The Washington and New York papers and loose copies of the Congressional Record lay on a mahogany side table.
“How long a recess do you want?” Redpath said.
“Tell him ten minutes, not that I can do it in that.”
As Redpath opened a door Shayne heard a man’s voice, mechanically amplified, speaking against a confusion of background noises.
“-be happy to answer that question, Senator. Year by year the machinery of government has grown more complex. Before I undertook this assignment from Manners Aerosystems, I will be the first to admit that I knew nothing about the manufacture of military aircraft. And the fact of the matter is, gentlemen, that I know very little about it even now.”
Shayne had paused in the doorway. The big hearing room was flooded with unnaturally bright light, but it took him a moment to make any sense out of the scene. The walls were paneled in marble. There were two great crystal chandeliers. Only a stenotypist, a yard or so from Shayne, was paying any attention to the witness, who must be Sam Toby, Shayne supposed, finally spotting him at one of the crowded tables. He had a pleasure-loving face that probably rarely looked as serious as it did now. He was flanked by lawyers. As he leaned toward the microphone, he gestured with a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.
The members of the subcommittee, seated behind a curved table above him, made no pretense of listening to what he was saying. Senator Wall was reading his mail, making notes for his secretary at the bottom of each letter. Redpath bent over to whisper to Hitchcock. Hitchcock glanced at the doorway. Seeing Shayne, he frowned.
Shayne stepped back into the lounge and took the lists of names out of the thick envelope Henry Clark had given him. These were people who had rented safe-deposit boxes just before or just after the day Olga Szep stole Mrs. Red-path’s diary. They were arranged alphabetically, and it took him only a moment to find the name he was looking for. He permitted himself a quarter-smile. Sooner or later, according to the law of averages, the luck was bound to start running his way.
In the hearing room, Senator Hitchcock broke into what the witness was saying. “I’ll cut you off right there, Mr. Toby. We’ll resume after a ten minute recess.”
There was a surprised buzz from the crowd. Hitchcock bustled into the lounge.
“Mike Shayne,” he said, shaking hands. “I hope the cameras didn’t catch you in the doorway. This room’s reserved for members of the Senate. There are too many newspapermen out there for the amount of news we’re generating.”
“We may have a story for them,” Shayne said. “But I don’t like to repeat myself, so could we get Toby and a few others in to hear this?”
Hitchcock looked at him soberly. “How important is it, Mike?”
