in Indiana.”
“They think he’s losing interest in breaking the law. According to Doc, that’s the feeling all over town. The idea is that this would be a good time for somebody to move in and take over.”
“Don’t look at me,” Naples said. “I’ve got a suite with a terrace. I sit out on the terrace and watch the sea gulls.”
Shayne grinned skeptically.
Naples admitted, “OK, when you’ve seen one sea gull you’ve seen them all. Since I was a kid I’ve been on the jump, and sitting still all of a sudden-you’ll find out when it happens to you, Shayne. I got a bang out of how I handled Ladybug this afternoon. But that’s as far as it goes. Do you know how much you’d have to pay me to take Harry’s job? You couldn’t pay me enough. The headaches, I happen to know. The doctor says with my blood pressure not to get excited. When you’re sitting where Harry is, you’ve got to stay excited nine tenths of the time.”
He sucked at his cigar. “So somebody held up old Harry. I’ll be f-” He swallowed the rest of the word, looking past Shayne at his wife’s shoulder. “They walked right up to him with their bare faces hanging out? I wouldn’t want to do that myself, unless he’s really changed.”
“They wore masks,” Shayne said. “They stopped him by setting fire to his Cadillac. They pistol-whipped his driver and chased Harry over a stone wall. They were a lot younger than he is, in pretty good condition. They caught him and knocked him around. I think I’ve known Harry as long as you have. Anybody who thinks he’s turned into a cream puff is making a big mistake.”
“It could be I agree with you,” Naples said. “Maybe I get tired watching sea gulls, but that don’t mean I want any kind of trouble with Harry Bass.”
“I’m glad I don’t have to argue with you. He took a bad beating, and he ought to be in bed right now, under sedation. Instead of that he’s out beating the bushes for two-day money. He couldn’t find it in Miami so he went to New York. I might have been able to talk him out of it if I’d been there, but I wasn’t. He’s got a hell of a temper, as you probably know. One thing a concussion does is take off the brakes, and I hope everybody handles him with kid gloves. Naturally he’s going to be wondering who did this to him. He’s sure to be in a half-haze and not thinking too clearly, but somewhere along the line, on the plane going up or the plane coming back, it’s going to hit him-is it possible his old friend Al Naples-?”
He drank the rest of his cognac.
Naples said, “Hell, he can take my blood pressure. I’ll let him bring his own doctor.”
Shayne said seriously, “I’d like to get you to agree not to talk to him tonight at all.”
“I’ll hide under the bed,” Naples said. “Will that do?”
“I’m serious,” Shayne said. “Harry doesn’t go in for nonviolence. If he makes up his mind that you did it to him, he may come looking for you with a gun in his pocket.”
“For Christ’s sake! Give him credit for more sense.”
“I come back to what I said before,” Shayne said. He took out a cigarette and reached past Mrs. Naples to get a book of St. Albans matches. After lighting the cigarette he leaned forward again to toss the match into the ashtray. She was half-turned toward a paunchy little man with a head like a dried apple, but Shayne saw the small signs that meant he and her husband had her full attention.
He said deliberately, “It’s either somebody like you, with experience and confidence, plenty of funds and plenty of muscle. Or it’s somebody young and wild, without sense enough to be scared. I’ll tell you a few things I’ve picked up. Two of the stickup men died in a car crash. Both of them come from St. Louis.”
Mrs. Naples’ shoulder made a slight involuntary movement. The redhead went on, “St. Louis is close enough to Chicago so you’d know people there, but not too close. A third man got away. The money got away with him, but we’re hoping to find his fingerprints in the wrecked car. I have a lead to a fleabag hotel called the Gloria. I have another lead to a football fix. There are indications that that was planned here at the St. A.”
“What do I know about football?” Naples said.
“All you need to know is somebody who knows the quarterback. Harry hired me to look for the dough. I took the job before I knew you were involved. If this ends in a killing, if I find out who robbed Harry and the man is killed, I’m in line for an accessory rap. That could be serious if it happens here on the Beach, where the cops don’t like me. So I’m on a peaceful errand. I hope everybody will make up. Thanks for the drink. I don’t suppose you have any soothing message you want me to give Harry.”
“Tell him he has my sympathy,” Naples said. “I’ve been through it myself. If you see Doc, tell him I’m waiting for my dough.”
Shayne pushed back his chair and stood up. “Harry can’t be back from New York before one, so enjoy yourself. After that don’t answer the phone and don’t go to the door. I hope I can head him off. Nice to have met you, Mrs. Naples.”
She started and swung around. “Going, Mr. Shayne? It was a pleasure to meet you.”
The ex-baseball player made him stop and meet his new wife. Out of the corner of his eye, Shayne saw Mrs. Naples excuse herself and start around the dance floor toward the ladies room. He freed himself from the ex- ballplayer and his bride and took the elevator to the lobby.
9
“I didn’t think it would take that long,” he said to the doorman. “Everything OK?”
“Perfect.”
Shayne slid into his Buick and started the motor. He was gambling that Mrs. Naples wouldn’t be able to reach Vince Donahue by phone, or would want to talk to the boy in person, to warn him that Shayne was looking for somebody who formerly lived at the Hotel Gloria. Shayne pulled back his coat sleeve to check the time. If she didn’t come out in two minutes, he would have to go back and scare her some more.
In just under two minutes, an open red convertible shot out of the underground parking garage and turned north on Collins. Mrs. Naples had a gauze scarf over her hair, tied under her chin. She was driving rapidly, in a hurry to deliver her warning and get back to her party before she was missed.
Shayne joined the traffic behind her. Her scarf blew loose and she poked it back angrily with one hand. At 63rd Street, she swung sharply to the left and crossed the bridge to Allison Island, then turned again, over the canal to La Gorce. It seemed unlikely that Donahue would be living on this island of big estates. In a moment more she stopped near the mouth of a short lane leading to the bay. There was a lighted boathouse at the end of the lane. Several boats were tied up along both sides of a floating pier.
She unlatched the door hurriedly and started to get out, then checked herself and came back into the car. She removed the scarf and fluffed out her hair. Adjusting the mirror to check her lipstick, she caught the glint of Shayne’s headlights behind her. She whirled.
He blinked his lights at her and brought the Buick to a halt behind her convertible. He got out without hurrying. She waited for him, her lipstick raised as though to slash him with it. The boat at the end of the pier, he noted, a sixty- or seventy-foot cruiser, was brilliantly lit up.
He opened the convertible’s front door and got in beside her. She shivered and said in a low controlled voice. “I thought you were setting a trap for Al. You were setting it for me, weren’t you? And I walked right into it.”
“I meant part of what I told him,” Shayne said quietly. “I don’t want Harry to kill anybody. That includes Donahue.”
She made a distracted gesture with her open lipstick. “You don’t care about him and you know it.”
“That’s true,” Shayne said. “He kicked me in the kidneys a few hours ago, while one of his friends from St. Louis was rapping me behind the ear with a gun. That’s all right. I get used to it. But my client isn’t as understanding as I am. If Vince wants to live through this, he’ll turn over the dough and leave town fast.”
“You can’t really think that he robbed-”
“Sure I can. And so can you, Mrs. Naples, or you wouldn’t be here. He heard about Al’s plans for Ladybug from you, didn’t he?”
“Naturally.” She was trying to paste herself back together, and nearly succeeding. “Al said it was surefire. I saw no reason Vince shouldn’t benefit by it. He hates to take money from me.”
