“We’ve had a certain amount of violence, and I’ve been expecting some more. There’s a hell of a lot of money in the game. But tonight everybody’s being very well behaved.”
“Please God they stay that way,” Hurlbut said. “Would it help if I tell Ruthie we need her room?”
Shayne rubbed his jaw. “Harry, I just don’t know. This thing has more twists than a corkscrew. I think I have to go up and throw a little weight around.”
“Do it gently, will you, Mike? If you have to splash anybody off the walls, take them outside.”
Shayne returned to the elevators and waited. An elevator arrived. Forbes was in it.
He looked at Shayne blankly. Shayne put his arm into the electronic field to keep the door from closing.
“It’s no coincidence, Forbes. I followed you here from the Stanwick. I need to talk to you. Let’s go in the bar and have a drink. After that I may have some questions to ask Miss Di Palma.”
Forbes finally pushed off from the back wall. “She’s been on benzedrine all weekend and she took a couple of pills to knock herself out. I’m the one you want to talk to. I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to get around to me.”
“Yeah, I’ve been getting pushes in your direction,” Shayne said.
At the entrance to the Blue Bar he called Hurlbut over and introduced the two men.
“When the blonde comes down, tell her I want to see her in the bar,” Shayne said. “Maybe we can settle everything peaceably.”
“Knock on wood.”
Shayne took Forbes into the bar, found a large enough opening on a banquette and ordered drinks.
“I’m sorry about the arm, Mike,” Forbes said in a low voice. “I know it’s part of your profession, but I’m sorry just the same.”
“I’ll sue somebody,” Shayne said. “Did you know your father fired me?”
Forbes swung around in surprise. “What did he do that for? Did you insult him or something? We’ve only got one more day.”
“He’s writing it off,” Shayne told him. “He says he’d rather take a small money loss than look dumb in public. I think he’s really afraid I’m onto something that will lead to a family scandal or endanger his control of the company. He put a cop on me to make sure I was paying attention.”
“I thought he was in Washington.”
“They have phones in Washington. He happened to be talking to a cop who could take a hint.”
The drinks arrived. Shayne raised his. Forbes was thinking about something else. When he saw that Shayne was waiting, he started and picked up his drink.
“Cheers,” he said gloomily. “He’s trying to cover up for me, I guess. Who told him?”
“Your Uncle Jose. He wanted to know if your father ended up paying for Ruth’s abortion.”
“Oh, that,” Forbes said, his face clearing. “That turned out to be nothing. She made a mistake.”
“How much money was involved? I was told eight hundred.”
“That’s right. Dad loaned me some money the year before to cover a payment I had to make because of an accident. A hit-and-run thing, except I didn’t know I hit anybody. I didn’t have eight hundred. I’d only been going with Ruth a few months. She thought, on the basis of the Jaguar, the job, my rich family, she thought all I had to do was reach for the money clip and peel off hundred-dollar bills until she told me to stop. She knows better now. It turned out nobody considered me much of a credit risk. I was beginning to think I’d have to ask for offers on the Jag. I wanted to leave Dad out of this one if possible. Jose told him. Dad yelled a bit, but finally he said he’d take care of it. Then Ruthie came up with the good news-false alarm.”
Shayne drank some cognac and followed it with a sip of ice water. “That was the winter crisis. Now how about the spring one?”
Forbes sighed. “I knew you’d pick it up. That was worse. That was so bad it still gives me the shivers. This time it was ten thousand.”
“For another abortion?”
“Mike, you have the wrong idea about Ruthie. I’m not sore, just explaining. She had a letter from dumb me taking full credit for the baby. She could have made me marry her or come through with a big settlement. Mother was sick at the time, and there was a family theory that the news would be bad for her. Good God, I want to marry Ruthie. She’s the one who won’t marry me. No, this ten-thousand deal was something else, an old bane of mine. Stud poker.”
Shayne’s manner was offhand, but his grip on the cognac glass tightened. “That’s a lot of dough to drop in a poker game.”
“I’m aware of the fact,” Forbes said sadly. “It went on all night and all the next day. Talk about soul sessions. At one point I was fourteen thousand ahead.”
“Who was the big winner?”
“A fellow from New York, Lou Johnson. There’s something I want to explain, Mike. Someday I’d like to do a novel about these people, these friends of Ruthie’s. It’s material nobody else has used. They’re”-he made a rippling gesture with one hand-“I don’t know, floaters. They go where the wind takes them. They’re talented enough to do anything they want to, except that they don’t want to do anything. I really think I can catch the style. I admit I was drunk when I lost that money. But once I got involved in that high-stake poker game, I wanted to go all the way-for the book, you see? And of course, Mother was in the back of my mind all the time. If I dropped a few thousand, I knew she’d make it good, she always had. Well, she died a week later.”
He closed his eyes. “I’m posing again. I don’t suppose I’ll ever write that book.”
“Send me a copy if you do,” Shayne said dryly. “What business is Lou Johnson in?”
“Oh, he has something to do with raising money for the theater. He’s affable enough, and at the same time he’s a little scary, somehow.”
“There wouldn’t be any point in losing to him otherwise,” Shayne observed.
“You may be right. I wish I didn’t have to be such a fool.”
“If your mother had lived, would she have covered you to the extent of ten grand?”
“No. They would have settled for less. They agreed to come down fifty percent as it was.”
“Who agreed?”
“Johnson sent two friends to see me. One of them held me while the other hit me. Then they switched. I don’t stand pain well. I faced that fact about myself long ago. They told me they’d be back a week later for the five thousand.”
“Who did you ask for it?”
“Walter first. I knew he had it. I wanted to give him a lien on my share of Mother’s estate. He turned me down. I’m sure it was Dad’s doing. Then Dad turned me down, in no uncertain terms. I invented a reason to go out to the Coast. I stayed away a few weeks. I’d probably still be out there, but I found out that Johnson had been arrested in New York on some kind of narcotics charge. I decided to come back and I’m glad I did. Those two characters never came near me again.”
Shayne saw Candida hesitating in the doorway. He signaled to her. She stood irresolutely for another moment, then made up her mind and came over.
“I was under the impression we said goodnight a couple of hours ago, Mike.”
“I waited around to see if you really stayed home,” he said. “You know Forbes Hallam.”
“No, I don’t,” she said evenly. “Candida Morse. How do you do?”
Forbes had risen. “The Hal Begley Miss Morse? I don’t know what I expected. Something different.”
Shayne waved to a waiter. “She tells me she’s in it for the excitement, not the money. What are you drinking, Candida?”
“Nothing, thank you. I shouldn’t even have come in here, but curiosity got the better of me. I suppose you’re talking about our one big subject.”
“What else?”
They sat down. Shayne ordered a new round of drinks. “Forbes has been telling me how he was maneuvered into needing five thousand bucks in a hurry last April. We’re moving on to the next question. Who did the maneuvering?”
Candida looked at him levelly, then turned to the waiter. “I think I’ll have a Scotch and soda.”
Forbes protested, “Nobody planned it, Mike. I get in my own jams, from sheer natural stupidity.”
“Not this time,” Shayne said. “You were playing against a stacked deck. The timing was too good. Candida,
