“No. What happened on April twenty-third?”
“Nothing much. Not a great deal, really. A certain individual got fifty thousand clams from somebody named Bagley or Babcock or something, that’s all. Are you digging me, Daddy?”
Shayne pushed himself up in the bed. “Go on.”
“I thought you’d be interested. I don’t know can I trust you, is the trouble. If I give you some information, will you promise you won’t bring charges against those three guys last night?”
“Sure, you can have all three. I’ll gift-wrap them for you.”
“And your friend,” she said suspiciously, “the fat one, will he make the same deal? Huh?”
“He’s right here. I’ll ask him.” Shayne looked across at Teddy. Without covering the mouthpiece he said, “A girl wants to know what you’re planning to do about the assault last night, anything?”
“Forget it,” Sparrow said promptly, taking the cigar out of his mouth. “I’m supposed to be able to take care of myself. What kind of image do I come out with if I go bawling to the cops? If anybody asks me, it was too dark to see who was doing what.”
“Did you hear that?” Shayne said into the phone. “Do you want me to put him on?”
“I guess not,” she said doubtfully. “How do I know you won’t say one thing now and do something different later?”
“Let me think about it,” Shayne said. “Do you want to come here?”
“To the hospital? Are you crazy or something? These people don’t kid, or didn’t you realize that yet? Tonight. After dark. I wouldn’t set foot anywhere near that hospital. If you’re still in, we’ll have to make it tomorrow.”
“You name the place and time. Before we go any farther, you’d better understand that all I can control is the assault rap. They were driving a stolen car. If you want to make an arrangement on that, you have to make it with the D. A.”
She gave a faint moan. “I wouldn’t know how to begin. I thought you could-”
“I can put in a recommendation. They don’t always do what I tell them.”
“Damn it! I didn’t think they’d pay attention to a little thing like a car when they can get somebody for murder.”
“As far as I know,” Shayne said with no change of expression, “nobody’s been murdered.”
“That shows what an expert you are. That’s my last word on the subject.”
Shayne scraped a thumbnail across the reddish stubble on his jaw. “How would this be? I’ll make a statement for the six-o’clock news, strong enough so I can’t pull it back tomorrow without looking dumb. Six o’clock-WTVJ. The boys there owe me a favor. If it doesn’t sound good enough, don’t show up. Where do you want me to meet you and when?”
She swallowed. “I wish I knew how to do this!” After another long hesitation, she poured it out in a quick rush. “Eight o’clock. In Buena Vista. Four ninety-seven Bayview Drive. Apartment nine C.”
“Wait a minute.”
Shayne snapped his fingers at Sparrow, and the other detective tossed him a ballpoint pen. Shayne had the girl repeat the address, and he wrote it on his cast.
“At eight,” she said. “Now listen. Ring the bell just once, longer than you would usually. But not too long! If I don’t happen to be alone, I don’t want the other person to think it’s funny. Eight on the button, so I’ll know it’s you. When I buzz for the door, I’ll give one long buzz if it’s O.K. One buzz, come up. Three or four short buzzes, don’t. Get sort of lost. I’ll come out as soon as I can. I’ll stand on the front doorstep and fix my stockings so you’ll know it’s me. God, I’m scared.”
She clattered the phone back on the hook. At the other end of the broken connection, Shayne scraped his jaw thoughtfully with the phone before putting it down.
“That’s one difference between me and you,” Sparrow observed. “When I’m on a case, I can sit looking at the phone for days and days, and nobody calls me.”
“Something phony about this,” Shayne said, the thoughtful look still on his face. “I think somebody’s trying to sandbag me. I don’t like that to happen two days in a row.”
CHAPTER 7
Shayne wasted the afternoon on the phone.
In Georgia, he learned from Jose Despard, the coroner, who also delivered the rural mail, had certified the death of Walter Langhorne as one of those unfortunate accidents that are more or less bound to happen if people insist on going shooting with a flask of Scotch after only two hours sleep. Despard sounded tired and hungover.
“It was a rough day, Shayne. After the sheriff left, Hal-lam really hit the booze. He’s always been hard as nails, but one thing he never used to be is mean. He never was that sure of himself. I want to tell you his days are numbered. If he gets past the next board meeting, I’ll have to say he’s a wizard.”
“He isn’t answering his phone.”
“He flew to Washington. Taking the company plane, naturally. The rest of us had to wait for a commercial flight back. It’s a wild-goose chase, as I tried to tell him. He wants to talk to the Patent Office tomorrow about an infringement action. We don’t have a leg to stand on, but he won’t believe what the lawyers tell him because he thinks lawyers are one cut lower than garbage collectors. Prior use is the big thing. When we finally, at long, long last, get T-239 in the stores, we’ll be lucky if United States doesn’t sue us.”
“Are you serious?”
“No, they wouldn’t have the gall. It makes my blood sizzle. I told him, we all told him. When you have a revolutionary product, get it on the market first and ask questions afterward. We didn’t know it then, but we surely do know it now, the United States people were working their balls off all summer, excuse the expression. It’s a textbook case. Ossified management.”
“Despard, did anything particular happen this year on April twenty-third?”
“In what connection? I know Forbes figured the copy went out of the office sometime during the last two weeks in April. I don’t see how you could pin it down.”
“Who do you think did it?”
“Walter. He’d get my vote because he’s dead. If we can accept him, maybe everybody can shut up about it. The hell of it is, I can’t really talk myself into it, unless he was some kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”
The nurse was waiting when Shayne hung up. “Time for your bath, Mr. Shayne,” she said firmly.
He grinned at her. “Let me get a few more phone calls out of the way first.”
He dialed the WTVJ number and arranged for an interview on the subject of the previous night’s altercation. Tim Rourke came in while he was completing the arrangements. The reporter listened open-mouthed.
“Mike,” he said sadly after Shayne put the phone down, “are you giving those TV creeps an interview? After all you and I have been through?”
“I have to tell a few lies,” Shayne told him. “You wouldn’t want me to lie to the News, would you?”
“Maybe not,” his friend said uncertainly, “and I don’t know what you’re talking about, as usual. Could you use a drink?”
Shayne brightened. “Yeah.”
Rourke gave a surreptitious look around and produced a pint of cognac, which he had carried past the front desk in a basket of fruit.
“Booze,” Sparrow said with pleasure.
Rourke closed the door so they wouldn’t be bothered by hospital personnel and poured drinks all around in paper cups.
“I don’t think I’ll ask for ice,” he said. “They might think we were breaching regulations. Now a small explanation, Mike. The last time I saw you, you were sitting down to dinner with a bosomy blonde, and here you are with your arm in a cast. Did it turn out she knew judo?”
Shayne described what had happened, finishing with an account of the puzzling phone call from the girl.
“It sounds kosher to me,” Rourke said. “If you wanted to throw the book at those three baboons, you and Teddy, you could put them away for a year. It gives you something you can use. Tie them to the Begley firm, and you can do some damage. You and I know they use blackmail and muscle, but it might shake up some of their legitimate clients if it came out in the papers. Did you hear what I said?” He repeated, “In the papers! Not on TV. You have to get it in black and white or you don’t feel the impact. On TV it’s some jerk with bags under his eyes passing on gossip.”