“Damn it, we’ll have to take off the tape if we want him to answer questions.”
She picked at a corner of the tape until it began to come, then ripped it off in a quick move.
Shayne said calmly, “My client’s name is Congressman Nicholas Tucker. His wife has been missing three days. Do you know where I can find her?”
Maureen, hardly moving, watched him. “You are so cool. As soon as we have some conversation I think I’m going to have to ball you. Did you ever do it with your hands and feet tied?”
She brought her pelvis forward and brushed his forehead lightly with the hair.
Shayne waited till she withdrew. “You could do worse than deal with me. You were talking about money. Tucker has money, and he can raise more.”
“We meant money. I’m going to talk it over with my friend in the bathroom, and don’t strain your ears because this time we’re going to be careful.”
The bathroom door closed behind them and the shower came on. Shayne fell forward, getting his knees under him, and propelled himself into the space between the beds. One more hard kick took him to the bedside table. He was facing the wrong way, and he had to pull the phone off the table with his teeth. It came apart as it fell. He put his lips to the mouthpiece.
“Operator? Operator?”
Peter came out and clucked when he saw what Shayne was doing. After replacing the phone on the table he dragged Shayne back in the open.
“Peter’s going to leave us alone now,” the girl said, “because I don’t want you to feel shy. Would you like me to feed you some whiskey?”
“Sure.”
Peter stopped at the door. “Are you positive this is the way you want to play it?”
“Positive,” she said. “It’s the only way.”
Peter muttered and went out without looking at Shayne.
“One thing you may not know,” Shayne said, “is that he was parked outside Tucker’s house in Bal Harbour earlier tonight. A package was delivered to Tucker a little later. If he didn’t deliver it, he may know who did.”
He thought she looked interested. “A package.” While she was in the bathroom she had pulled on a loose robe. It had a belt, but she left it dangling. She sat on the edge of the low bed.
“It’s barely possible that we’re going to become friends. Tell me some more. I know Tucker didn’t hire you just because his wife is missing. Is somebody trying to put the bite on him?”
“I think so.”
She was thinking hard. Her tongue came out. She massaged her forehead, to speed up the circulation, and said slowly, “At the Warehouse. I wasn’t supposed to see this, but when I get going I can be nosy as hell. Baruch was splicing single frames back into the negative. I bet he made transparencies! You said a package. Was that what it was? Stills? Like a trailer, coming attractions? To let Tucker know what they had?”
She barked suddenly, like a hound after a coon, and gave a happy laugh. Then she peered at Shayne.
“What did you make of it? I mean you, not Tucker.”
There was an edge to the question, as though it might be more important than it sounded, and Shayne was careful about his answer.
“You want me to guess how much Tucker would be willing to pay for the film. — If we’re going to be friends, why not untie me?”
“Finish,” she said impatiently.
“I think there might be quite a stink if it showed up in the theaters. He’s already imagining the headlines — ‘Anti-Smut Crusader’s Wife in Sex Film.’ And that’s how the story would be played. But somebody said something about the old blackmail ploys, that they don’t work the way they used to. If they broke this at the right time, he could lose this nomination. Otherwise he could ride it out. Naturally he’d like to clamp a lid on the whole thing, but too many greedy people know about it by now. All I’m saying is, there may not be as much money here as everybody seems to think.”
“How do you mean, he could ride it out?”
“She has a history of drug-taking, and she’s been seeing a psychiatrist in Washington.”
She nodded after a moment. “A sick girl. Corrupted by a filthy-minded, pot-smoking extremist Jew.”
“And whose business partner is a mafiosi, of sorts. It was a plot to get Nick, and to make it work they took a woman who was in delicate psychological balance to start with, and drove her nuts. That’s the press conference version. In the pictures I saw, she looked fairly O.K.”
She changed the subject abruptly. “Was I in those shots?”
To refresh his recollection, she opened her robe. A good makeup person could have changed the shape of her face and the color of her hair and the way she wore it, but there were too many important differences between this girl and the girl in the erotic slides. For one thing, that girl hadn’t spent any time out in the sun. Her nipples had been slightly cross-eyed, whereas the breasts Shayne was looking at now pointed slightly outward.
When Shayne shook his head, she bounced off the bed and began moving, her robe flying.
“A congressman’s wife. I knew there was something funny about her. I didn’t think Armand handled her too well. Now I think that was part of it, to make her uncomfortable. We did a Lesbian scene, and she didn’t enjoy one minute of it.” She turned with a quick laugh. “And it was probably the first time in her life! Dig that. On camera.”
She came back. “Do you mind listening to me think aloud? Poor Tucker. His poor helpless wife, out of her skull. But he could only get away with that version if she wasn’t around to contradict it.”
“Where would she be?”
“Dead.” She let the word fall like a stone. “Dead, dummy. She wouldn’t be the first suicide in the sexploitation business. There’ve been some gory ones where I come from. Now if Gretchen — that’s what we called her, is it her right name?”
“Yeah.”
“We keep changing names whenever we change our personality. Do you think I was born Maureen? Never mind. I’m not thinking about her so much because I don’t really know her. I’m thinking about me. Two or three years in the skins is a career. I want to make money now, and make it fast. That’s so you know where I’m at. And one of the ideas that’s running through my head — running, hell, hurdling — is wouldn’t I do better to deal with Tucker direct?”
“Are you in a position to sell him anything?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She looked for cigarettes, but found only an empty package. She picked up the loose cigarette Shayne had dropped. After lighting it, she put it between his lips.
“It’s yours, so you get every other puff. Did Tucker strike you as the kind of guy who would kill somebody if he thought he had to?”
“I didn’t talk to him long enough.”
She took the cigarette back and drew on it deeply. “I happen to be a little high on one thing or another, so shut up and listen. I have psychic feelings about people. The feeling I had about that Gretchen chick was that she didn’t have long to live.”
Shayne made a skeptical noise.
“I know,” she said. “You don’t believe in that crap. But she had this light in her eye. I mean it. She was giving off signals. Hey, I promised you a drink.”
She put the Scotch bottle to his lips, noticed that the cap was still on and removed it. “We were pretty tight there for a couple of days. You can fool the camera when you can’t fool the person who’s down on you. I didn’t get any reaction at all. Like novacaine, man.”
“She wasn’t doing it to have fun.”
“I know that. I wish I wasn’t this coked, I could think better. Do you know who I think of sometimes when I cop somebody? My grandfather. He was a Methodist minister, and I didn’t go to his funeral. But you don’t want me to go into this.”