“Outside,” Plato said.
“Certainly,” she said, spilling some of the coffee.
She went out hurriedly. Shayne tossed his hat on the nearest desk and sat down on the desk beside it “Where do you keep your liquor?”
“Let’s do it without,” Plato said. He picked up the phone, put it in a bottom drawer and stuffed rags around it. “We go over the place for bugs a couple of times a day, and we keep finding them, too. But with a phone you never know until you take it apart.”
Shayne grinned. “You don’t mean people want to listen to your private conversations?”
“Mike, you don’t know. They’re thicker than seagulls around a garbage scow, at convention time especially. Thank the Lord I had the sense to get out of it. Say it fast because I got to get out to vote for myself.”
“The water’s probably not over fifteen feet deep where she went down, Harry, so you can raise her. But let’s talk about money for a minute. I could use a retainer.”
“I might arrange something, Mike. In how many figures?”
“I keep thinking of about a thousand a month.”
Plato looked at him closely. “You’re trying to tell me it’s serious?”
“Yeah,” Shayne said soberly.
Plato cracked one powerful fist into his other palm, and for a long moment he did nothing but swear, using language he had learned before he became a labor statesman.
“You take the words out of my mouth,” Shayne said.
“What I’d like to do to that son of a bitch! Well, I better get the details on it so I don’t make a mistake.”
“You don’t want to hear the whole thing, Harry. I was looking for Painter. I—”
Plato raised a hand, puzzled. “I thought you two had a grudge fight going. What’s that, something they made up to sell papers?”
Shayne smiled. “There’s something to it. But he was planning to break a story yesterday morning, and I was looking for him to find out what it was. I found out. Do you know a hood named Juan Grimondi? And an ex-con from Baltimore, called Whitey?”
Plato ran his hand across his jaw. “Those names seem to ring a bell.”
“There were eight or nine in all. Your boys put up a good scrap, but they were outclassed. Gray’s dead.”
“Yeah?” Plato said bleakly. “I’m sorry to hear it. He was a good man.”
“That’s about all I can tell you. They opened up a plate in the engine room and she went down fast. Painter was taped up in a locked cabin, and I’ve got mixed feelings about that. It’s bad for public morality when one of you people knock over a cop. All things being equal, I’d like to put somebody away for it. But all things aren’t equal. A grand a month that I won’t have to pay taxes on is quite an inducement.”
Plato waited a moment, the fingers of his right hand opening and closing. “Jesus, I’ll be lucky to get out of this without a bleeding ulcer. It’s a deal, Shayne, as of now. The first thing I’d like to have you do is bring that son of a bitch in here.”
Shayne got off the desk: “Quinn? What do I say to him?”
Plato smiled grimly. “I’m still president of the goddam union, for another half hour. Do you carry a gun, Shayne?”
“No. Do I need one?”
“It might be a good idea, for when Quinn realizes you saw the Panther go down. I don’t think he’ll try to pull anything here, we got just about every cop in town, but the bastard is crazy! He’s out of his mind! Take care of your health, would be my advice.”
“I’ll do it for your sake, Harry,” Shayne told him. “So long as I’m healthy you’ve really got something to use on Quinn.”
“I’m thinking of that,” Plato said.
Shayne went out, leaving the union president slumped in an armchair, looking old. The redhead used the door where the sergeant-at-arms knew him. The balloting was about to begin. There were two voting machines, and officials of the Honest Ballot Association were ready with delegate rosters, to be sure that no faction tried to vote its men more than once. The TV cameras were recording the scene, but neither cameraman bothered to follow the tall, rangy figure of Michael Shayne as he made his way among the tables and up to Quinn.
Quinn’s after-breakfast cigar had burned down halfway. The smell of tobacco mingled with the strong smell of after-shaving lotion. He was tipped back slightly in the chair, giving off an atmosphere of power and confidence, but Shayne saw that his manicured fingers were drumming nervously against his leg.
“Quinn?” Shayne said.
Quinn looked at him coldly through his horn-rimmed glasses. “We got a rule against letting private dicks on the floor.”
“They waived it for me,” Shayne said, “and it only cost me five bucks. Harry wants to see you.”
“Here I am,” Quinn said indifferently. “He knows what I look like.”
Shayne smiled down at him. “He also knows what you looked like three years ago, when you still owed Sticky Horvath some money.”
“Christ,” Quinn said in his gravelly voice, and added for the benefit of his fellow-delegates, who were pretending not to listen, “He probably needs somebody to tie his shoelaces. Hell, he’s got another twenty-five minutes, let him live it up.”
The delegate beside him said, “What do we do about—you know, the Welfare Fund?”
“Plenty of time,” Quinn said. “They’ll keep the machines open till everybody votes.”
He came with Shayne. Outside in the corridor he started to speak, but straightened his glasses instead and walked on, puffing busily at his cigar.
“You working for Harry these days?”
“He made me an offer,” Shayne said, “but I’m not sure he has much of a future.”
“Now that’s using the head, Shayne. I’ll give you a tip. He hasn’t got any future.”
Plato was standing, facing the door. He had succeeded in summoning up his old belligerent expression.
Shayne said, “You won’t want me, will you, Harry?”
“Stand by outside. Nobody comes in. Nobody.”
Shayne closed the door and moved fast. He called to the nearest cop. “Nobody in or out of this door,” he said, echoing Plato.
Lieutenant Wing was coming toward him. Shayne signalled, and Wing met him at the entrance Shayne had used before.
“Wait a minute,” the sergeant-at-arms said.
Shayne went on to the press table and worked in beside Rourke.
“It’s all set, Mike,” Rourke said in a low voice.
Shayne looked at the floor. The reporter had hooked into the main cable from the microphone, scraping off the insulation and tying in two wires from a small receiving set in his lap.
“I thought I was going to take a few thousand volts doing it,” he said. “But how did you plant the mike? Wasn’t he with you all the time?”
“It’s in my hat,” Shayne said. “The hat’s out on a desk. We ought to get good reception.”
“Son of a bitch,” Rourke commented.
Wing sent two cops to stand beside the microphone above them. Shayne switched on the receiver. It was a powerful set, manufactured for this purpose and no other. It only received on one wave-length and its single knob was a volume-control. There was a good deal of noise in the hall, but Shayne heard a faint crackling from the loud-speakers suspended from each corner of the gallery. He grinned at Rourke and stepped up the volume.
Plato’s voice roared over the public address: “When are you going to get it through your thick head that times have changed?”
Chapter Eighteen
The general babble in the ballroom was cut off as abruptly as if it were controlled by a single switch. Everyone looked toward the dais, where the two cops stood self-consciously on either side of the unattended mike. Shayne turned the knob, and Plato’s voice continued more quietly: “If you think you can get away with that kind of rough stuff, you’re making a mistake, Luke. The newspapers. The goddam Senate.”
Quinn replied with a truck-driver’s obscenity,
telling Plato what the Senate could do, and it came over clearly.
Rourke said, “I wonder if that went over the TV.”
“The country may survive,” Shayne said.
Plato repeated the obscenity sarcastically. “I wish they could hear you say that. All right, kid how you planning to swing in the vote?”
“I have respect for you, Harry,” Quinn said. “You did a lot for this union. And you did a lot for yourself too, not to speak of your family and your wife’s family, but let’s not talk about that. I hate to break it to you this way. We’re dumping you. You get the pension, and that’s all.”
Plato’s voice was hard. “You’re going for that—that—”
“We’re going for your distinguished opponent from San Francisco. And you’re speaking of the future president of the Welfare Fund, so watch your language. I listened to the offers. We talked it over. And when I saw a way to take care of this Painter situation, I put the word around—what we need in the leadership is some representation from the West Coast.”
In the ballroom, the voting had stopped. The delegates had formed in lines leading to the tables to have their credentials checked, but the lines weren’t moving. Several of the most burly delegates moved toward the microphone. Wing’s reserves formed, two deep, nightsticks ready. For an instant it looked as though TV cameras would record some real action, but the threat fell apart before it reached the police line.
Shayne called to Wing, “Put another half dozen men in front of the Midwest office, Joe.”
“What did they offer you?” Plato cried. “Human blood?”
Quinn replied calmly, “I’ve got his promise for two years from now.”
“For what?” Plato was almost screaming, and Shayne turned down the volume. “For president? You want to step into my shoes?”
“Not right away, Harry. I’m not ready. Two years from now we figure will be about right.”
Plato said, “I knew you were crazy. You don’t have the—the stature, Luke. Everybody knows it. And your background! You’re vulnerable.”
“Not any more,” Quinn said.
“You’re wide open! I got this union finally a little respectable, and how’s it going to look when the international president’s put away for murder?”
“I’m in the clear, Harry. Not all the way in the clear, but close enough. I’ve got two years to take care of everything.”
“No, Luke, it can’t be done. You left too many loose ends. We’re in the goddam limelight, you can’t do things the old way. Sending goons to knock off that girl! That’s crude, Luke. You solve one problem and you make a couple more. Knocking off Milburn, okay, that’s the one thing you handled right. I think I’d even let you get away with knocking off Painter, because the dumb little no-good had it coming. But I’ll be damned”—his voice thickened—“if I’m going to let you get away sinking my boat!”
“I asked you to hand him over, Harry. I had to take him.”
“I had him under control.”
“And for how long? You found out what he was working on, I don’t know who from. That crumb Horvath, probably. Yeah, and he’s somebody else who’s going to get it in the head. And did you tell me so I could take care of it? You did not. You grabbed Painter and put him in the freezer so he couldn’t blow the whistle on me till you had both fists in the Welfare Fund. That may be good politics, but it’s not so hot, friendship-wise. I can’t feel so warm to you any more. And after the election? You were going to get him found with a babe in a motel, I hear! You’d have the Fund. And me? I’d change places with Sam Harris in condemned row.”
“That’s the risk you run when you kill people,” Plato said.
The TV cameras had discovered the receiver in front of Rourke. The reporter straightened his tie self-consciously.
Quinn’s gravelly voice went on, “It was an accident. I had to shoot Heminway, Harry. Nobody was supposed to be there that night. He loomed up in front of me, and I had to blast him.”
“Sure, sure,” Plato said. “I forgive you. But will the State of Florida forgive you? What I don’t understand is why you posed for a picture.”
Shayne leaned forward to hear the answer.
“That bastard Ben Chadwick,” Quinn’s voice said. “The bank president. He set it on automatic, with infra-red so I never knew it went off. He wanted to make sure I wouldn’t go light on his end of the split. And when I saw a print of that picture, believe me, I handed over every last buck he deserved.”
Standing up, Shayne motioned to Goddard in the balcony. He pointed toward the exit, and the insurance company president nodded. Shayne gave Rose Heminway the same sign, accompanying it with a hurry-up motion.
Plato said, “We’re wasting time. I’ll tell you what I want you to do—go out and tell your people that Harry Plato’s the man.”
Quinn laughed unpleasantly. “Give up, Harry. So long as you had Painter hanging over me I had to take your advice. But not any more.”
“I’m not forgetting how that happened, either,” Plato said. “I’ll send a diver down to get him, so I can dump him somewhere else, but I’m not forgetting you figured he’d be found on my boat. That was dirty pool, Luke, and you’re” going to pay for it.”
“Tell me how,” Quinn said.
“I’ll be glad to,” Plato answered carelessly. “I’ve got the picture.”
Shayne nodded to Rourke. “They’ll be yelling at each other in a minute. Let’s break it up.”
Quinn, at the other end of the transmission, whispered, “You’ve got the picture?”
“Of you coming out of the vault, just before George Heminway came around the corner. Chadwick had it with him the day he flopped on Painter’s front steps. I got it from Painter.”
“You mean he was carrying it around?”
“That’s Painter,” Plato said. “Brains aren’t his big feature. Naturally I’m not dumb enough to carry it around, so you can put that gun back in your pocket.”
A door came open violently, and Peter Painter’s voice cried over the public address: “So brains aren’t my big feature, are they?”
“Pa-painter!” Quinn said.
“I don’t blame you for stuttering,” Painter said with satisfaction. “You thought you could get the better of me, did you?”
Shayne jerked his head toward the exit. Rourke came with him, hurrying to keep ahead of the other reporters and wire agency men. Rose Heminway and Goddard were waiting in the corridor. Shayne swept them along with him to the open door of the Midwest office. Rourke managed to be last.
“Nobody else,” he told the cop, and closed the door behind him.
Shayne, two strides ahead of his friend, saw Luke Quinn with a big gun in his hand, pointing it at Painter. The barrel wavered as Shayne and the others thrust through the door. Rose gave a small scream.
“Don’t move, goddam it,” Quinn said. “Any of you.”
Painter walked calmly up to him. Quinn swung the gun back, but Painter batted it aside with his left hand and hung a right on Quinn’s jaw. As the blow landed the gun went off. To Shayne’s surprise, Quinn sat down. Harry Plato kicked the gun out of his hand.
Painter turned toward the others. “Big, tough hoodlum,” he sneered.
His eyes were bloodshot He had tried to shave, but his jowls were cross-hatched with small cuts. A strong smell of gin hung in the air. As Shayne approached, the report of the gun registered on Painter’s brain and he sagged into a chair.
“Get up,” Shayne told Quinn.
Quinn’s head lolled. Shayne gripped the front of his shirt. Heaving him erect, Shayne walked him to a leather sofa. Painter began to recover as he saw the effect of his roundhouse punch.
“When I hit them,” he observed, “they stay hit.”
Shayne shook Quinn’s shoulders and slapped him sharply twice. “It’s the end of the trail, Luke. You’ve had three years, but it’s finished.”
He picked up his hat from the desk and pulled out the little sending set. “These a
re wonderful gadgets. They cost an arm and a leg, but they’re worth it. Everything you and Harry just said went out over the public address. The TV-boys taped it and it’ll go out to the country later, minus some of the profanity. Five hundred people heard you admit you robbed the Beach Trust and shot George Heminway. The Coast Guard picked up the Ophelia, with Grimondi and the rest of your people. Painter’s alive, as you’ve just found out. Rose is alive. So is her father. I think Harry’s going to turn that picture over to us so he’ll win our friendship and we won’t prosecute him for kidnapping. At this point he needs all the friends he can get.”
“Mike—” Plato said weakly.
Shayne said, “Luke wants to clear up a few things for his friends in the ballroom first. Go ahead, Luke.”
Quinn pulled himself together and repeated his earlier obscenity. Shayne made a reproving sound.
“Think about it, Luke. You don’t want to be the only one who gets burned, do you? Of course you don’t. Who had the idea for the robbery, you or Chadwick?”
Quinn looked around the room. Then he made up his mind and said viciously, “It sure as hell wasn’t me. We had this deal going—collecting dough for the Red Cross, and he kept wailing about how he needed cash, he needed cash—”
“No,” Rose breathed.
“Oh, yes,” Quinn said more strongly. “I’m not going to take the jolt and let him hang onto that hundred and forty thousand I counted out in his lap. What I suggested, if he needed cash I suggested robbing the Red Cross, they’d never miss it, but Chadwick, he got up on his high horse. Rob the Red Cross! Who did I think I was talking to? I felt like a bum, and I was about to crawl out on my hands and knees when he said wait, he had a better idea, and this was it.”
“You’re lying!” Rose exclaimed.
Shayne cut her short with a gesture. “What was the split, Luke?”
“Down the middle, after expenses. I paid my debts, and laid out the rest so I got a nice advancement in the union, and everything was going fine till that Harris dame—I’d like to pull her apart!”
“What made you send a couple of gunmen to Rose?” Shayne said. “None of us liked that, Luke.”
Murder in Haste Page 17