Lady, Be Bad

by Brett Halliday

  “Coming out or going in?”

  “Coming out.” She drew a deep breath. “It’s such a great feeling.”

  “That last half hour must have been pretty tense.”

  “You know it.”

  “I’m afraid I’m going to cost you some money, even so. You tried to do too much.”

  She shot him an alarmed glance and hurried to Sam’s table. Shayne said something quietly to Jackie, who went out to the checkroom and returned with a manila envelope.

  Judge Kendrick was the last to arrive. He stumped in, gave Shayne a hot, hard look which Shayne returned, and saying nothing, sat down at a nearby table.

  Shayne had lost some of his edge during the long altercation, and he was bringing himself back with a cup of coffee laced with cognac. The barman had been awakened and sent to bed. Two waitresses from the coffee shop were distributing breakfasts and drinks. As soon as that was finished Shayne asked them to leave.

  He sat on one of the tables and took another sip of his aromatic coffee.

  “I want to thank the distinguished counsellors for letting their clients attend,” he said with a grin. “This isn’t a hearing. It’s an information session, and I hope we’ll all learn something before it’s over.”

  The room was silent. He glanced at his watch.

  “Nine forty-five. I’ve been in town twenty-four hours. Here’s a partial list of the crimes that have been committed in that time, all but a few of them by people in this room—bribery, blackmail, more bribery, kidnapping, extortion, robbery, assault, arson, and murder. We’ve got a jurisdictional tangle. We’ve spent a couple of hours trying to sort things out, but the more we talk about it, the worse it seems to get. Somebody’s obviously going to end up in a court of law, but first we have to agree on what actually happened. This is a political town, and before we finish our coffee I suppose we’ll make some deals. Counsellors, are you paying attention?”

  They were. They had refused food and drink, and were sitting forward in their chairs, ready to jump.

  “The big thing everybody has to understand,” Shayne went on, “and I don’t think I’ve convinced the state attorney of this yet, is that what we have here is a confidence game. A very good confidence game that worked, and it’s one of the few things nobody’s going to be charged with. Boots.” Shayne had waited till Gregory was about to take a sip of coffee, and he spoke sharply. Some of the coffee sloshed over.

  “What?”

  “Am I right in believing that you’re the new owner of the Regency Hotel in Miami Beach?”

  Gregory glanced at his lawyer. “What about it?”

  “Sam Rapp put a certified check in the bank about an hour ago. Would you mind telling us the amount of that check?”

  The lawyer considered, and nodded. “The tax stamp makes it a matter of public record.”

  “Seven-hundred-and-fifty thousand,” Gregory said. “Cash over mortgages. It’s a six-million dollar property.”

  “Well, you got stuck,” Shayne said. “It may mean you’ll have trouble meeting your legal fees, but that’s your lawyer’s problem. We have an expert on Miami Beach real estate values with us. Tim, how much is the Regency worth?”

  Tim Rourke, at the end of the bar, looked into his highball. “If the bill passes,” he said judiciously, “I’d say about six million. That old ballroom would make a nice casino. If the bill doesn’t pass, about forty-nine cents.”

  “That may be a little high,” Shayne said. “The next question goes to Judge Kendrick. As of this moment, what are the bill’s chances?”

  “After what happened last night and this morning?” the judge snapped. “We’ve been given a very convincing demonstration of hoodlum methods and hoodlum morality. The bill is dead.”

  “Then that’s about it. But don’t complain about hoodlums, because the non-hoodlums haven’t done too well either. Of course we know now that the bill never had a chance. That was the con.”

  He was watching Anne Braithwaite. She sat forward to look narrowly at Boots. Gregory hadn’t reacted yet, it would take a little more time.

  “I’ve been at the Regency at the height of the season and seen nothing but free riders in the lobby,” Shayne said. “But don’t feel sorry for Sam—he’s had free rent all these years. Things get to look old-fashioned fast in Miami Beach. Even if you sunk a million bucks in renovations—”

  “With a million,” Sam put in, causing his lawyer to stir uneasily, “you could barely get started.”

  “And even then you couldn’t count on bringing the customers back. When you’re paying out more than you take in, it’s hard to find a buyer. The smart move would be to go bankrupt, but Sam had a position in town and he couldn’t do it that way.”

  “It was never that bad,” Sam observed amiably. “Still, I’m not denying it’s nice to unload.”

  “Now I have to say a few things about Lib Patrick,” Shayne said. “She’s really the heroine. I don’t think she’s killed anybody. She’s had a live-in arrangement with Sam for seven or eight years. It isn’t a job, so there’s no retirement plan. It isn’t a marriage, so there’s no social security. Lib has to face the fact that Sam is likely to die first, and he’s not really a rich man. That may surprise you, Boots. But at a certain point a half dozen years ago, Sam had to make a choice. He could go on taking the top man’s cut, and go on battling and conniving and scything the young kids down before they got big enough to be dangerous. And what kind of life is that? So he resigned the money and settled for the reputation, and he’s been enjoying himself ever since. Am I right, Sam?”

  “My lawyer won’t let me say anything.”

  “Now consider Boots Gregory,” Shayne said.

  “Watch what you say about me,” Gregory warned.

  “Big, handsome, not too bright,” Shayne said. “He wanted to move up to the major leagues. He has a tight organization and a healthy bankroll, and whenever he was daydreaming he thought of himself in Sam’s job, in Sam’s penthouse, with Sam’s girl. Yeah,” Shayne said when Anne Braithwaite moved, “you’re a nice-looking kid, Anne, but I don’t think you’re as nice-looking as last year, and a year from now I doubt if you’ll have it anymore. You’ll dry up in the wrong places. Your nose will get sharper. Every year you’ll get bitchier, and there’s nothing worse than a bitch with an English accent. Ask anybody here. Tim?”

  Rourke looked carefully at Anne and then at Lib. “I’ll take Lib, any time.”

  “Judge Kendrick?”

  The judge rapped his stick impatiently. “Get on with it.”

  “So here we have Boots Gregory, the ideal mark. The real inspiration was picking up the tired old casino bill and bringing it back to life by restricting it to Dade County. Let’s not have any speculation about how far Lib felt she had to go with Boots to soften him up. I’ve found her a prudish girl.”

  “I deny that,” she said with a smile.

  “Any comment. Boots?”

  “I’m not saying a word.”

  “That’s safer. Probably Lib told Boots to pay no attention to the hotel’s books—Sam’s accountants cooked them to show a loss, to help his tax position.”

  Again Shayne timed his remark for a moment when Boots was drinking, and he spilled some more coffee. His lawyer whispered. He put the cup down and didn’t touch it again.

  Shayne went on, “Now the second half of the con. The minute it began to look as though the bill had a chance, they were able to raise a campaign fund from people who would benefit from it—Gregory for one, other gamblers and hotel men. I heard somebody mention the figure of six hundred thousand. Maybe it wasn’t that high.”

  “It was higher!” Gregory exclaimed while his lawyer went into a small spasm beside him. “They’ve been spending money like—”

  He stopped abruptly.

  “They only had to seem to be spending money,” Shayne explained. “It’s been a high-visibility operation. That party last night should have been top secret, but everybody in town seemed to know a
bout it. It had very good word-of-mouth. They made sure Tim Rourke would be there, so every paper in the state could carry his copyrighted story about how Sam Rapp, the notorious gambler, was corrupting the legislature. Lib wore a tape recorder. I thought she wanted to nail down the deals, but not at all, the tape was for the people back in Miami who put up the money. She mentioned buying a senator for ten thousand. He tells me that the actual price was less, very much less, and I think I believe him. Sam even started the story that he was responsible for Maslow’s death, to show his backers how far he was willing to go to lobby the bill through.”

  Gregory swung around to look at Sam, and Gregory’s lawyer came to his feet. “That will be just about all, Shayne. There’s a little too much flimflamming going on there. If no definite charge is going to be lodged against my client—”

  “Did he go to the party last night?”

  “We’ll pass that question.” He turned to the state attorney. “Do you condone this procedure? Because I want to put you on notice—”

  The state attorney swallowed a mouthful of toast. “All I’m doing is having breakfast.”

  “Because Anne was there,” Shayne went on when the lawyer made no further move. “She stuck a gun in my back and started to signal somebody outside. I think it was Boots. Anne, were you ever a nurse?”

  Her neck seemed to lengthen slightly. “What bearing can that possibly—”

  “There’s something about your style that reminds me of bossy nurses I’ve run into.”

  Al Luccio put in, “She was a nurse in St. Albans when Boots was there.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with nursing,” Anne said stiffly.

  “Except that it’s not very highly paid. We’re getting ahead of ourselves. To wind up the money—now that it’s out in the open I’m afraid Sam and Lib will have to pay back their backers everything they didn’t actually spend. I doubt if they’ve got rid of more than twenty-five thousand.”

  “Twenty-five!” Sam exclaimed.

  “In the neighborhood of twenty-five. Put that in your story, Tim, and don’t bury it. Get it up in the lead where Sam’s investors can’t help but see it. You can quote me. I’ve gone into the matter thoroughly, and if Sam Rapp’s lobbying expenditures on this bill ran as high as twenty-five thousand I’d be very much surprised.”

  “Mike, that’s way off!” Sam protested. “The girls alone—”

  Lib and his lawyer, between them, forced him to subside. He gave an angry laugh.

  “I thought you were being a little too good to us.”

  “You dealt off the hotel at a nice price.”

  “That was just half of the idea.”

  “All right,” Shayne said. “Everybody still with me? The point I’m making is that Sam and Lib weren’t really trying, but for a period of twenty-four hours they wanted everybody to think the bill was about to pass. They did that by manipulating Grover Kendrick and his father.”

  Everybody turned to look at the judge, who had himself under good control.

  “I have to give you some background,” Shayne said. “Grover was spending time in Miami Beach, where Lib met him. And here we are again, Lib. I have to say something that’s going to make you sound mean and mercenary. I can’t work up much sympathy for Boots Gregory or even for Grover, but a confidence game—and I don’t care how clever it is or how much the mark deserves to be taken—is a mean way to make money. I hope Sam will put something in trust for you so you don’t have to do it again. Grover wanted to invest in the over-the-counter market, because horse racing is known to be crooked, and before long a loan shark came into the picture and Grover needed forty thousand in a hurry. He swindled it out of a lobbyist named Phil Noonan. There’s been a lot of talk about forty-thousand dollar bribes, but it’s all been the same bribe, moving in different directions. Noonan, of course, thought he was buying Judge Kendrick. This isn’t as complicated as it sounds. Grover accepted a payoff. No one would believe Noonan paid that much money for Grover’s influence, because he didn’t have any. Noonan had to be buying the judge, and sure enough, when the measure came up for a vote the judge rammed it through. And Sam and Lib had documentary proof of the transaction.”

  Shayne added more cognac to his coffee. “To repeat. They weren’t really trying to legalize casino gambling. They couldn’t buy Judge Kendrick because he’s not for sale. He may be reactionary and bigoted and fifty years behind the times, but I think he’s reasonably honest. But he’s also a politician, and he doesn’t want his reputation wrecked for something he didn’t do. This is the deal they made. He made a careful statement and loaned them his fishing lodge for a big conspicuous party. Grover could take the rap for the party in case of trouble.”

  Even the three lawyers had settled back to listen. Shayne smiled at Lib and went on.

  “The hotel deal was still a bit edgy, because if the casino prospects were as good as they looked after Kendrick’s statement, why would Sam want to sell? He hadn’t signed the papers and Boots hadn’t handed over the check, but all the legal work had been done on it. So the con went into the third act. Sam told Boots he’d changed his mind—the deal was off. Boots went for it like a hungry trout. He kidnapped Sam, snatched him out of his motel without even giving him time to put on his socks. I almost managed to break that up, but Sam explained to me that he didn’t want to be rescued. I can imagine the dialogue after I left, straight out of network TV. Boots: ‘Sign these papers.’ Sam: ‘I won’t.’ Boots: ‘You will, by God, or you’ll end up at the bottom of a swamp.’ Sam: ‘All right, you talked me into it, where’s a pen?’”

  Gregory’s fingers clenched and unclenched. The sunny look on Sam’s face told him that Shayne’s version was correct.

  “The only trouble,” Shayne said, “was that the con was so good it fooled everybody, including Al Luccio, off in the Bahamas. The thought of Miami Beach competition was keeping him awake nights. He steamed in and hired Senator Maslow to set up a committee against the bill, and that explains what I’m doing here. You won, Al. Of course you would have won staying home, but never mind that. Has Al explained to you,” he said to Luccio’s lawyer, “that he’s sure to be rich some day, but right now he’s a little short? Obviously he couldn’t compete with a grease fund of over half a million dollars, so last night, when things began to look really bad, he decided to try muscle. He even threatened Judge Kendrick, by bombing his car and shooting his favorite deputy sheriff.”

  “Is that a formal charge?” the lawyer said.

  “We haven’t decided yet. Boots Gregory was somebody else who should have stayed home, but it was too important to him, too much was at stake—his whole future career. He tried twice to kidnap me. Maybe we won’t bother about that, Counsellor, if we can get him for anything bigger.”

  “I didn’t kill the guy,” Boots said sullenly. “He was dead when I—”

  This time the lawyer let out a real cry, his hands flying.

  “I’m not talking about Grover,” Shayne said gently. “I’m talking about Senator Sheldon Maslow.”

  Hearing that, the lawyer looked less agitated. “The cause of death there, as I understand it—”

  “In a moment, Counsellor. I admit it’s a tough one because the body has already been cremated. More background—there’s no longer any doubt that Maslow was running a blackmail operation.” He took out the envelope file which Gregory had been trying to burn. “This came out of his safe. We’ve looked through it, and it all makes interesting reading. I’ve already said that Al Luccio is in a cash bind, so how did he hire Maslow? He offered to pay in gambling plaques, redeemable in currency at Al’s casino at some specified time. But Maslow wanted more than that, and Al had to give him more.”

  Beginning to smile, Shayne drew an arrest-sheet out of the envelope.

  “I almost missed this, because of course Boots changed his name after it happened. The police jurisdiction is St. Albans, and that gave it away. He told me he’d never been arrested. I considered that statement incredib
le, and sure enough—”

  “Shayne—” Boots said thickly.

  “I know. You were only seventeen at the time, and it hardly seems fair. But you shouldn’t have killed Maslow. That was your real mistake.”

  Looking at the sheet, he snorted with laughter. “In a way it isn’t too funny. A convict who turned in a tip on this to the Kendrick committee was murdered in prison. Here, Anne. You’ll be interested.”

  Gregory bounded forward and snatched at the sheet, but the heavy hand of a state trooper forced him back in his chair. Anne began to read, suspiciously at first. After a moment she laughed loudly.

  “Boots, how odd. Two women and a chicken! One would have said, anatomically impossible. How did you work it, actually?”

  Gregory slumped in his chair, mumbling. She passed the sheet to Gregory’s lawyer.

  “Blackmail’s usually based on something serious,” Shayne said, “and this is so trivial it’s ridiculous. The St. Albans judge probably laughed like hell when he suspended the sentence. In some lines of work it wouldn’t matter, but Boots Gregory has to come on very tough. He’s been hoping to take over Sam Rapp’s role as the father-figure in Miami, and if this sheet got copied and passed around he couldn’t even hang on in St. Pete, let alone move. And Maslow knew the value of such things. The price would be high. High enough so Boots couldn’t afford to pay it and have enough left to buy Sam’s hotel. So Maslow had to be murdered, which is the classic way for a blackmailer to die.” He was speaking louder, but he was having difficulty making himself heard over the noise and raucous laughter.

  CHAPTER 17

  He gave up and finished his coffee. More time passed before he was able to resume.

  “But it had to happen soon,” he said, “because Maslow was pressing him for money. It wasn’t simple. As far as the public knew, Maslow was a brave and disinterested crusader against crime, the leader of the good-government forces, and to kill him in gangland fashion would also kill the bill. The trick was to do it in a way that would make him look like a phoney and a hypocrite.”