raised a finger. “You’ve expressed your scorn and contempt for me openly and often, but that’s one of the unfortunate byproducts of public service. As far as I’m concerned, you’re free to say what you like and think what you like. But that cuts both ways. I’m entitled to freedom of speech too. I happen to believe that your free-wheeling methods, your disregard for the legal niceties, have had a lot to do with the decline in respect for constituted authority in this city-”
Shayne said impatiently, “I think you’re a horse’s ass and I’ve never concealed it. What has that got to do with this?”
Painter was thrown slightly off-stride. “You’ve made me lose track of what I was about to say. If you can keep a civil tongue in your head for one minute, and remember that maybe the other fellow has some feelings. You know where I’d like to see you. In jail, with your license revoked. Be that as it may! I’m willing to work with you for the common good. And this time, by God, I’m talking from strength! Your name on that list would be enough. But I’ve got something else and I’m going to tell you about it right now.”
“All right, Petey. That’s enough of a buildup.”
“Just wait one minute and you may not be quite so flippant. What is your impartial observer going to conclude when he looks at that sequence of payments? Three thousand, three thousand, one thousand, one thousand, nothing, three thousand. Well, maybe Geary was temporarily short of funds. He had to go on paying those other guys, but you’ve got money in the bank from all those huge fees you’ve been drawing down from gullible people. So Geary came to you and said, Mike, I’m a little short, what do you say, ease up for a couple of months. And you went along with it because as I say, you don’t have to scrimp and scrape on a city salary. And when the winter meeting was underway and his income picked up, you went back to your old arrangement. That’s the way it looks. But I know different!”
“Petey, you get more long-winded every day.”
“Then I’ll come right to the point. People know you’re one of the high-priority items in this office, and when they hear about anything where your name is involved, they bring it to me. In October of last year, the third month you weren’t getting your slush, I was told that a nurse at Jackson Memorial had a Mike Shayne story I might want to add to the collection. That’s out of my bailiwick, but I made arrangements to see her. Geary was in the hospital-mugged outside the stadium after a Dolphins game. According to the official version, he was drunk, and when the man with the knife asked him politely if he had any change, he put up a fight. Broken nose, bruised larynx, concussion. I have her notarized statement, with two witnesses, and I’ll give it to the papers if you decide that’s the way you want to play it. The statement is as follows. Getting long-winded, am I? She was the night nurse on duty. He called her over and grabbed her wrist and told her it wasn’t some junkie who did this, it was no less a celebrity than Michael goddamn Shayne.”
Shayne regarded him steadily.
Painter gave his mustache another little flick, and went on. “An argument about money, and Shayne went out of control. Kicked him. Banged his head on the pavement. Left him there bleeding. King Kong stuff, and Geary was too scared to take it to the cops. But he wanted the nurse to make note. If anything happened to him, if he ended up on the obit page under suspicious circumstances-”
“Wait a minute. Are you wondering if that crash he died in was an accident?”
“No, that’s open and shut, as far as that goes. Hold the interruptions. I’m almost finished. He wrote her a check for three hundred dollars. I’ve got a photostat of that canceled check, with the right date on it, the night when he’d been beaten up and he was supposedly too drunk to hold a pen.”
“This is all bad news.”
“Not to people who don’t make a practice of beating up drunks. Not to people who don’t take high five-figure payoffs. I’ll tell you what I did a few days later. Geary was home, getting over his concussion. I told him it was silly to be scared of a private detective who was on the skids anyway. I pleaded with him to give you to me for assault with intent to kill. I couldn’t get anywhere with him. He maintained that he didn’t have any recollection of who mugged him, or of talking to the nurse.”
“I think I see your theory, but you’d better tell me anyway.”
“Obvious on its face!” Painter was enjoying himself. “He was trying to get out of that regular payment, and you gave him a taste of the law of the jungle. After that you’ll notice he was always prompt. So that’s the situation, and I can’t begin to tell you what satisfaction it gives me. My first impulse, my first impulse was to walk out and lay the entire sordid story in front of the press, and lick my lips while they crucify you. If there was ever any bastard who deserved it, it’s you. But what does it amount to, after all? A little petty extortion. True, as you said yourself, that’s a bad tag for somebody in your dubious profession. You’d probably have to move to a different location, but I assure you, after a couple of weeks we’d stop missing you. It took me a sleepless night to come to this decision, but I’m going to give you a chance to unhook.”
“If I tell you everything I know.”
“You’ve got it.” He ticked a fingernail against the desktop. “Frankness, Shayne. I want complete openness and frankness and candor. In return, nothing will be said publicly about the nurse’s statement or the canceled check. And I’ll go one long step farther. I don’t like to make deals, I never have, but that’s the way the world seems to be organized. If you can deliver Tony Castle to me for a felony prosecution, I’ll suppress that eighty-thousand- dollar payoff. I’ll have to wave the book, but I won’t let it leave my hand. I don’t have to release all the names, I can get away with that. I want to make sure I don’t injure any innocent parties, and so on.”
“All you want right now is a promise?”
“And a few morsels to show good faith. As I keep saying, I don’t have a great deal of time. I’m not asking for immediate miracles, as far as Castle’s concerned. I’ll let you have a couple of weeks. But before I go out to face the TV cameras, I want to know what’s been going on over there at the Surfside Kennel Club.”
Shayne shook his head. “It’s too open-ended. Any time you aren’t satisfied with my performance, you can always call another press conference-you don’t know how you overlooked it the first time, but all of a sudden you’ve noticed my name on the list.”
“Sure-I’ve got something to hold over you for a change, and I’m not so saintly that I don’t like the feeling. No more stalling, please. A simple answer to a simple question. Three thousand bucks a month from Max Geary. For what?”
“I’d like to think about it for two minutes.”
“No more time. What’s there to think about? You’re in a jam this time, baby, and you’ve got one way out.”
“I always hate to have people say that,” Shayne said, standing. “It makes me feel crowded.”
“Who cares how you feel? You’ve got no choice in the matter.”
“I can always tell you to screw yourself.”
Painter dodged back, as though Shayne had swung at him. “You won’t do that.”
“I just did it.”
“You’re out of your mind! Alienating me is not in your own best interests, believe me. I’ll have no recourse except to include your name with the others I intend to announce, and make the nurse’s affidavit part of the record. Go ahead and deny it. How many of your friends will believe you?”
“I haven’t denied it. I don’t have to plead until I’m charged with something.”
Painter’s mouth opened and closed. “Come now, Shayne-”
“Unless you want to book me.”
“Not yet! Not yet! There are people on that list who were involved in the day-to-day operations, and I’ll make them the same offer I made you. They’ll cop, don’t worry. All I need is one living witness, just one, and you’ll be out of my hair for a long time to come. You may be surprised by the public reaction. I think you’ll find that the general beer-guzzling public will be delighted to learn that Mike Shayne is on the take, like everybody else.”
“Do your duty, Petey.”
“More sarcasm. And after I leaned all the way over backward, tried to give you a break-”
Shayne walked out on him.
Chapter 5
