Violence Is Golden

by Brett Halliday

“It’s a nothing crime, Mary. It’s the export business without paying any taxes.”

  “What if they’re carrying heroin or something, would that change your mind?”

  “I know what they’re carrying, but I’m not going to spend the afternoon explaining it. It isn’t heroin.”

  “Very well,” she said firmly, “if you’re so determined to go it alone, I think I’ll just let you guess who was in the gift shop with the Japanese.”

  He gave her a dangerous look, and she said quickly, “Thompson. He was in the front of the cabin by himself. I don’t suppose you noticed him, because externally he’s a bit colorless, but I’m in the habit of reconnoitering unattached men. Not that I’m not perfectly contented as a single person, thank you very much!”

  She looked at him defiantly, but crumbled at once. “Which is a damn lie. In vino veritas—after cognac on top of absinthe, a person’s likely to start telling the truth. I never have any money left over after taxes. The thought came to my mind that, if I could let the proper authorities know that some hankypanky is going on, I might get a cash award. I know I’ve read that that kind of money is tax-free. I could quit my job and travel in the off-season, and maybe I could meet somebody. In summer there are such hordes of schoolteachers on the move—they flow across the map by the hundreds of thousands. And just for once, I wouldn’t be out in the audience, watching the action on a screen, I’d be part of it myself.”

  “In a movie the actors do what they’re told,” Shayne said. “The villain always gets killed. With real villains that sometimes doesn’t happen.”

  She ignored him. “Mike, I’m so out of everything! All the interesting things are always taking place somewhere else. Maybe you’ll think I’m getting maudlin, but I’ve never had a real love affair with anybody. I’m not making a pass at you, don’t worry! I know you wouldn’t give me the time of day. But if I had money, I wouldn’t mind paying someone to make love to me. I wouldn’t!” she insisted.

  Her hand closed into a fist and she hammered it on the table. “I’m not going to stay in St. Albans like a coward and miss out on what happens tomorrow. I could help you, Mike. I won’t insist on any of the fee. I won’t go around asking any more provocative questions, but I can keep my ears open, can’t I? Like seeing that Japanese with Mr. Thompson. I told you something you didn’t already know.”

  Shayne drew a deep breath. “I would have found it out soon enough. Thanks very much, but I can’t use you. They’re giving you an out and for God’s sake take it. This isn’t a simple smuggling operation. There are other angles.”

  “But I’d be helping you, didn’t I make that clear?”

  “Yeah, baby, but—” He ran his hand through his hair. “You’d be a chain around my leg. Can’t you see I have to be ready to jump?”

  “No, I can’t,” she said. “I wouldn’t hamper you. Right now I think I’ll go back to the hotel and take a nap. Then I’ll get up and wander around and take a few pictures and have dinner and gamble away the ten dollars they’re going to give us to lose in the casino, and go to bed. Go to bed alone, it hardly needs saying. And if I happen to observe anything that seems significant, I’ll pass it on to you privately. What’s so awful about that?”

  Shayne finished his cognac. “I can’t put you in a straightjacket, as much as I’d like to. Just try not to do anything too stupid.”

  “I have an IQ of a hundred fifty-four,” she said coldly. “And all my life it’s been a real burden. But I’ve taken one big step forward.”

  “What’s that?” he said warily.

  “You called me ‘baby.’ Nobody ever did that before.”

  “Christ!” He stood up. “Are you coming?”

  “We’d better not leave together. I’m going to order a milkshake. It may sober me up. Never mind about the check. This is on me.”

  CHAPTER 9

  George Savage was drinking moodily in the Calypso bar at the hotel. Shayne slid onto the empty stool beside him and ordered a drink.

  “I thought everybody was supposed to be out getting sunburned,” Shayne said. “Doesn’t that include you?”

  George turned his head heavily. His breath was like a blowtorch and his eyes were bloodshot.

  “I’m allergic to gnats. Naturally, we don’t mention the gnats in our literature. I stopped taking that damn schedule seriously weeks ago.”

  “Your heart’s not really in the travel business?”

  “That’s a fair statement.” He turned back to his drink. “I’ve been asking about you, Shayne, and this doesn’t seem to be your kind of caper at all.”

  “Just a vacation.”

  “And Santa Claus comes down the chimney every year on Christmas Eve, I understand. What’s happened to your technique? Why are you so determined to antagonize me? Oh, I can see how you figure. The billing-and-cooing stage with the Savages has been over for months. You may even have heard a rumor that I’ve been sleeping around, with this one and that one. You’re outgunned, so why not see what you can do about splitting up the opposition? That calculated put-down on the plane this morning—you made an enemy there, you know, and what did you gain by it?”

  Shayne picked up the glass the bartender put down in front of him. “Does it matter?”

  “It could matter very much. The floor clerk tells me, in return for a promise to mention her in my will, that you spent half an hour in Naomi’s room after lunch, and you had lipstick on your face when you came out. Goddamn it, it’s actually still there. Why can’t you be satisfied with that babe of yours? She’s one of the sexiest things I’ve seen in years.”

  “You haven’t looked at your wife lately,” Shayne said. “She looks good in a bikini, and even better out of a bikini.”

  “There,” George complained. “You’re trying to get me mad. And why? All it does is cloud the issue. There’s money at stake! I shouldn’t have to remind you. We’ve all got to keep our eyes on the Goddamn ball. Do we want to end up in the local can charged with drunk and disorderly? I mean, it’s all out of proportion. Why should I care what you do with Naomi? The whole concept of marital fidelity is out of the Stone Age. It simply doesn’t apply. From the rational point of view, if you want to fool around with my wife, why, go right ahead. Be my guest. But speaking from the gut, Shayne, stay away from that woman or by God I’ll—”

  “You’ll do what?” Shayne prompted.

  George spread his hands. “That’s just it. What can I do? My God, Shayne! There’s enough here for everybody. Don’t keep pushing me and prodding me or you’ll spoil it. You’ll end up with nothing. I’ll end up with nothing.”

  “I don’t think I’ll worry about that,” Shayne said carelessly.

  “I know what you’re trying to do! You’re trying to get me into a situation where I’ll have to do something to prove my manhood. I see through it, but that doesn’t mean I may not fall for it.” He looked at his watch. “Luckily I’ve got an appointment, or in another couple of minutes I’d be trying to knock you unconscious. And what good would it do?”

  He knocked back the rest of his drink and pushed off from the bar. Shayne exchanged a look with the bartender, who lifted an eyebrow and shrugged.

  Christa, wearing only earphones and a bathing suit, was smoking on one of the beds in the room she shared with Shayne. The bathing suit was punctuated here and there with circular openings, like Swiss cheese. It covered a greater area than Naomi’s bikini, but it was equally startling.

  “Why did I ever think police work was going to be romantic and glamorous?” she said. “It seems to me I spend most of my time in hotel rooms listening to static.”

  “George went up in the elevator a few minutes ago.”

  “I heard him come in, yes. But he’s alone. No phone calls yet. The last thing I heard of any interest was at five minutes before two, when you were trying to seduce poor Naomi. Or was she trying to seduce you? I didn’t hear the beginning of that, and I couldn’t determine.”

  Shayne laughed. “I had to do s
omething to plant the bug. She was watching me like a hawk.”

  “I thought you handled her very skillfully.”

  “There at the end I was beginning to think we might have the wrong idea about her. Her marriage is a mess, but if George is in trouble, she might think she ought to cover up for him.”

  “I see she impressed you.”

  “For about two minutes,” Shayne said bleakly. “She has a damn nice figure. That shouldn’t make any difference, but it seemed to.”

  “Oh?” Christa said coldly.

  She sat forward suddenly. “Someone has come in.”

  She summoned Shayne with a quick gesture and gave him an earphone. George’s voice came over clearly. He was probably lying on the bed only a few feet from the microphone.

  “If I get out of this without ulcers, believe me—”

  A woman replied, but the words were inaudible.

  George went on, “And it was all supposed to be so very simple. Open and shut, a child could do it. Do you still think it’s simple?”

  The woman’s voice, very faint and scratchy: “… panic. He’s overrated.” Then a murmur, ending with “… fool.”

  “If you think Shayne’s a fool,” George said distinctly, “it’s because that’s what he wants you to think. We’re going to have to buy him off. It hurts me as much as it does you, but we’re going to have to give him a couple of those pretty gold loaves and tell him to get lost.”

  The woman said something from across the room. He replied irritably, “Sure, I’ve been drinking. But you wouldn’t like to see me sober—I’d terrify you.”

  More words were lost. Then: “… get rid of him.” Christa’s hand tightened on Shayne’s arm.

  “And what do we do about the blonde?” George demanded. “I hope you don’t think she’s just some babe he brought along to while away those off-duty hours. That’s not my interpretation at all. She knows what’s going on, and underneath all that surface sexuality, she’s a very cold fish. A very cold fish. Take her temperature, and you’ll find it’s a long way below ninety-eight point six. Let’s pay them both. It’s much simpler.”

  The woman’s next words were again inaudible.

  George exclaimed, “What do you mean he’s going for the whole thing? You’re out of your mind! He knows he’s up against an organization. Even if he could pull it off, how could he market it? He’ll settle. I guarantee it.”

  More scratching followed, broken by scattered words. “… could be bad if…”

  George answered but now he, too, had moved beyond the microphone’s effective range.

  “Damn!” Christa said. “Damn, damn, damn!”

  Shayne was still listening intently. The faint electronic scratchings and mutterings continued, but the voices were too far from the pickup point to come across as words.

  After a time he went for drinks. He gave Christa a questioning look when he came back, but she shook her head: still nothing. He paced the rug restlessly, considering and discarding possible courses of action.

  She hissed at him, and he picked up the earphone in time to hear George say, “… too bad he knows what Yami looks like. But hell, I suppose it could work. It damn well better. If it doesn’t, then we do it my way, all right? And if that doesn’t work, we might as well quit. What I need is a drink.”

  This was followed sometime later by scraping and rustling sounds.

  George said harshly, “Not now. Damn it. where’s your sense of timing? I’ll call Mike Shayne for you. He might not even charge you a stud fee.”

  There was a resounding slap. It took place near the microphone, and was followed by the sound of a brief struggle. No words were spoken for a time. Something fell.

  George said, “You’re a real bitch.”

  A door slammed.

  CHAPTER 10

  Each member of the tour was given a complimentary glass of champagne with dinner and ten dollars’ worth of chips to lure them into the casino. The main gambling room combined features copied from the elegant European casinos—chandeliers, paneled walls, impassive male attendants in evening dress—and the great Las Vegas supermarkets, which go in for varied action, fast turnover, and no frills. Lassiter, the pilot of their chartered DC-8, was shooting craps, the pastime that had got him into trouble when he worked for Pan American. Several sunburned schoolteachers from the tour were feeding half dollars compulsively into the slot machines. It was early in the evening, but they already wore the stupefied look of slot-machine players everywhere.

  The Reverend Crane Ward, among the onlookers at the roulette table, caught Michael Shayne’s eye and shook his head in amazement. Shayne, playing idly, had been winning steadily. After an hour and a half, he was thirty thousand dollars ahead. A crowd had collected around him. Women kept touching him, in the hope that some of his luck would rub off. He lost on a combination bet, then won again heavily. There was a general exhalation of breath around him as the croupier’s rake, which usually moved in the opposite direction, pushed another impressive stack of chips toward him.

  Shayne bet two fifty-dollar chips on the next spin and lost.

  Christa, beside him, in a glistening silver evening gown with no back, was as excited as the others around the table. Shayne staked another hundred dollars and lost. He won again when he increased his bet, and now he began to pay more attention to his surroundings. He surveyed the room casually.

  He had no trouble picking out the professionals by a certain quietness of manner. He recognized several of them who at one time or another had worked in Miami Beach.

  The croupier was waiting for his play.

  “What’s your name, croupier?” Shayne said.

  The man, a small, sallow Italian, wet his lips. “Tony Gambino.”

  Shayne reached out, but delayed before placing his bet on the table. “I haven’t kept up. Who has the concession here now?”

  “Why, Al Luccio.” He corrected himself immediately. “Mr. Luccio.”

  “Send for him.”

  “Isn’t everything satis—”

  “Send for him.”

  Shayne dropped the chips on black, and the wheel spun. Black came up, to squeals of delight from Shayne’s little cheering section.

  “Michael, you marvelous man!” Christa cried.

  While she was stacking the chips, a thin bald man with a cigar appeared at Shayne’s elbow.

  “How are you, Al?” Shayne said without looking around.

  “Not bad, Mike. And yourself? You seem to be lucky tonight.”

  “And all with that complimentary ten bucks. You’ve got a nice store here.”

  “The best,” Luccio agreed quietly. “Are you picking up now, Mike?”

  “No. The reason I called you over, Al, besides wanting to see a familiar face, is to talk to you about social conditions in St. Albans. I remember how generous you used to be when the Miami ladies passed the hat for some worthy cause.”

  “Yeah, well—a lot of that was public relations,” Luccio said modestly. “You know how it is.”

  “And I suppose you keep up the good work down here.”

  Luccio said quickly, “Why don’t we discuss it in my office? This is no place—”

  Shayne wagged his head, and when he spoke next his speech had thickened. He made a loose, drunken gesture.

  “Anything I have to say, I’ll say in front of these wonderful people. I’m not going to give you a big speech, but when I was walking around this afternoon, I saw plenty of kids who could use a pair of shoes. Fine-looking kids. Al—I want you to cash in these chips and see to it that the dough gets where it’ll do the most good.”

  He interrupted himself to ask Christa for a total.

  “Just over forty-seven thousand.”

  “As much as that!” Shayne exclaimed happily. “Al, this is going to do your public relations a world of good. Let’s nail this down. Not that I don’t trust you,” he assured the gambler, turning to look at him for the first time, “but there’s always a chance of a boo
kkeeping mistake. Who can give me the name of a good local outfit that can use forty-seven thousand fish?” He looked around. “Anybody.” A woman across the table said hesitantly, “There’s a free clinic in Old Town. The doctor who runs it is always short of money.”

  “Perfect,” Shayne said. “Give Al the address. He’s known all over the Caribbean as a man who’s satisfied with the house percentage, and I think we have enough witnesses so he’ll make sure the clinic gets the full forty-seven thousand. I want to thank you, Al, for running an honest game and giving me this opportunity to help people who may not be quite as fortunate as the rest of us. I’ll be moving on tomorrow, but you’ll be staying. It’s really your money, in a sense. I’m only a vehicle. I know your name is going to be mentioned in a few mothers’ prayers.”

  “Yeah,” the gambler said unenthusiastically. “It’s always a pleasure to see you, Mike, even if it usually costs me money.”

  Shayne cocked an eyebrow at Christa. Leaving the chips where they were, she rose and came with him. The slot machines continued to clank and whir, but the rest of the action in the big room had stopped.

  Alone with Shayne in the automatic elevator, Christa let out her breath in a long whistle. “You really think they were planning to jump you?”

  “Sure. I spotted a couple of specialists. The wheel has an overhead photoelectric control.”

  “You were winning, not losing. It never occurred to me that the wheel might be crooked.”

  “The idea was to set up a legitimate excuse so I could be found with a fractured skull and the cops wouldn’t tie up the plane.”

  “And Luccio would get his money back.” She shivered. “I was completely taken in. Still,” she added wistfully, “forty-seven thousand dollars! Wasn’t there any way you could put it in the hotel safe?”

  Shayne shook his head. “All they were trying to do was get me tabbed publicly as a big winner. The money wouldn’t be there when the cops looked for it.”

  She hugged his arm. “To me that’s six years’ salary. And you swindled it in an hour and a quarter. But he was right, you know—you are lucky.”