“Sam?”
“Yeah.”
“O.k. I still don’t know what the hell you people think you’re doing. Maybe you’re imbeciles-maybe. You laid fifteen thousand on the line to put me out of circulation till tomorrow.
“The charges will be dropped tomorrow morning as soon as the senate votes,” Lib assured him.
“You don’t know the law, baby. The complainant can’t drop the charges. All you can do is refuse to appear. Boyer saw me offering the money. He heard me working toward a top price of fifty thousand, and because of that smash in the mouth he won’t be feeling like giving me any breaks.”
Again her arms began to drop. He lifted the steering wheel.
“Lib.”
“Yes, Mike,” she said in a hurry.
“I’m checking a theory. There’s no use buying votes unless you can make sure you’re getting what you pay for. Maybe you threw this party to collect blackmail on your guests, but that’s the dirty way to do it. A series of statements on tape would be just as good.”
“Mike, we’d implicate ourselves.”
“You’d put them around privately, so no other lobbyist would trust the same people again. You and Grover were having a serious talk tonight in a locked bedroom. I searched the room after you left and I didn’t find anything.”
She said suddenly, “So that’s why you-”
“Sure,” Shayne said when she stopped. “That’s why I gave you the alcohol rub, without the alcohol. Don’t worry about it, Sam. She walked out before I got to any of the interesting places.”
He reached for the sweatshirt. She moved back.
“You’re right, Mike. I’ll give it to you.”
“I don’t want it to end up in the lake. I’ve gone to too much trouble.”
Letting the steering wheel dangle, he lifted her sweatshirt and found a long cylindrical recorder taped beneath her breasts.
She shivered away. “Damn you, will you hurry? I’m embarrassed.”
She winced as he freed the recorder. He glanced at it briefly and dropped it into his pocket.
“Japanese, no doubt. What will they think of next? Now we’ll talk about Senator Maslow.”
He stepped out of the way so they could look at each other, and saw her eyebrows come down warningly.
“Don’t try any cops’ tricks, Mike,” she said quietly. “How did it happen?”
“He was in a bedroom closet. There were two holes bored in the door and he had an infra-red flashbulb in his pocket. I didn’t find a camera. The way it looked, or the way it was meant to look, he was taking pictures as people went in and out. If the pictures were lurid enough he could use them as ammunition. A monotonous way to spend an evening, and he had a bottle of bourbon to keep him company. He was asleep when I saw him. I locked the door and took the key with me. Then the fire broke out. I was handcuffed to a steering wheel. I didn’t get there in time.”
“He died in the fire?”
“Apparently. But if we can find out who started the fire, if it turns out to be somebody who had a motive for killing Maslow and knew he was unconscious in a locked room, we can get a conviction for manslaughter. That’s my ambition right now.”
“How can you prove who started the fire? Everybody was high as a kite, walking around with candles-”
“I didn’t say it would be easy.”
She gave Sam a quick look as he started to speak. “We’d better start thinking in terms of a lawyer.”
“If you want to do it that way,” Shayne said. “He’ll tell you about the law on conspiracy. If you’ve got a common purpose they can get you whether or not you struck the match yourself.”
“Hand me my pants, Mike.”
“If you have anything to say now would be a good time to say it, while I’m still moving around.”
“I’d say the conversation is over, wouldn’t you, Sam?”
“Just about,” Sam said. He hesitated. “Mike, I wish you’d go someplace, it would be better for everybody, yourself included, but I know how you operate. Just the same, don’t let this bribery business with Grover and the cop weigh too much-I’ve got friends, I’ll straighten it out in the morning.”
“By making a statement that you set it up?”
“No-o. It was all a misunderstanding. You know. Grover can say it was his money, he was trying to hire you away.”
Shayne shook his head. “They’ll still have me for assaulting a police officer. They like to get convictions on that.” He went to the cabin and started the engine. Lib and Sam conferred in low voices while Shayne came about. He looked back once while he headed for the opposite shore, and saw her getting into her wet underclothes.
The fire was still burning strongly, but without the wildness it had had at first. Shayne was angling to the left, aiming at a spot a quarter mile from the burning building and the people around it.
“How are you going to work this?” Lib said from the doorway.
“I’m going to let you walk. Then I have to get rid of this steering wheel. After that I’ll need a fifteen-minute start. Right about here should do it.”
The motor idling, he drifted in toward a public boat-landing, a wooden ramp and a shack selling bait and soft drinks. It appeared deserted.
“You can follow the shore, or take the driveway out to the road, depending on how embarrassed you are about your costume.” He glanced at her. “You look pretty good, as a matter of fact.”
Her hand went to her hair. “I do not.”
“I don’t think it’s over your head here.”
“Mike, you mean it, don’t you?”
“I mean it.”
She drew a deep breath and slipping over the side, lowered herself into the water. It rose as high as her waist.
“Mud,” she said. “Squishy and probably full of broken glass. Coming, Sam?”
Sam gave a snort of laughter. He slid awkwardly into the water.
“However it works out, Mike, things are usually interesting when you’re around.”
“I don’t think it’s so damn funny,” Lib said grimly. “If I cut an artery, Mike, I’m going to collect as much blood from you as I lose.”
Shayne swung the flashlight around and lit their way to shore. He left them arguing in front of the bait shack.
CHAPTER 10
Michael Shayne, looking down from the
Having called Kendrick before leaving Tallahassee, Shayne was expected. As he stepped out he was met by a 250-pounder with the unmistakable air of a small-town deputy sheriff. He was an outdoorsman, but that didn’t mean that he got much exercise. He was wearing a stained felt hat and a wrinkled summer suit, bulging in the spot where he would be expected to carry a gun.
He looked Shayne over elaborately, screwing up his little elephants’ eyes. “Mike Shayne-we’re flattered.”
He led the way to a side entrance in the ornate marble building, coming down too hard on his heels, the walk of a whiskey-drinker. Inside, the air had a characteristic courthouse taste, as though it had been in and out of too many lungs. Crossing a lobby lit by a single naked bulb, they passed underneath a display of bullet-torn regimental
