“I read the ads.”
“A lot of money’s being spent. For the Zions, it’s company money. Oscar’s using his own. The beauty of it is that, if he wins, his people get to sign the checks and he can pay himself back.”
Jane put in, “Would either of you be interested in going dancing?”
“Ordinarily,” Rourke said. “But we’ve got a problem here. Mike’s been done out of a fee, and he doesn’t take that lying down.”
“Lying down,” she said thoughtfully, looking at Shayne in his insufficient towel.
Rourke laughed. “Mike has to leave as soon as I bring him some clothes. But I might as well stick around. I can phone the story in from here, if that’s okay with you.”
“What story?”
“Honey, you’re a bit zonked, I think. Let me finish this up, and I’ll explain it to you. What I was about to say, Mike, is that the newspaper ads and the official mailings are just to make a record. The real fight is bloodier. Consolidated-Famous is just a shadow of what it used to be, but it’s a shadow with assets. Those assets are what everybody’s after. Money. Both sides have hired proxy solicitors, and those guys are tough. I mean, they don’t usually put bombs in bottles of Old Grand-dad; but otherwise, anything goes. Olson’s using one of the dirtiest firms in the business. Larry’s people have a dossier they’ve let me look at, a list of cases where the worst kind of pressures have been used. Of course they aren’t exactly Boy Scouts themselves.”
“Olson is definitely the long shot in this proxy fight?”
“Definitely. I’ve been giving four-to-one odds against. That’s what I’d like to have explained. Up to now, he’s had an unbroken string of successes. So why did he get mixed up in this nest of rattlesnakes? The movie guy on the paper has a theory that if Olson wins three seats, the Zions will give him his own production unit. His magazine is number two in the country. His key clubs and soft-cover books are coining money. Now he wants to prove he can do it in movies the way Hitler wanted Czechoslovakia. I haven’t been able to get in to talk to him. His publicity men, yes. Oscar, no.”
“Where’s he staying?”
“I see you’re not up on the Oscar Olson myth. He’s at the Pussycat Club. He keeps a private apartment in each of his clubs, and I think there are ten of them now around the country.”
“What’s it like? Have you ever been there?”
“Mike, old friend, this is no time for insults. Of course not. I like my sex without leers. You must have read about his private airplane. It’s the dream of every American adolescent: wall-to-wall girls. His local staff meets him at the airport and whisks him off to the club in a fleet of Pussycat Cadillacs. But if you’re thinking of asking him any questions, take along a flamethrower. When he doesn’t want to be bothered, as a rule he isn’t bothered. Now can we come back to Keko? I’ll get somebody to dig out the clippings. It would help if we had some idea of what kind of thing we’re looking for.”
“I don’t know any more than I’ve already told you.”
Rourke opened the gatefold and looked at it again.
“You’re obviously beginning to think she was murdered. But what the hell have you got to go on?”
Scraping his thumb nail across the side of his jaw, Shayne didn’t answer.
Chapter 6
Shayne gave Rourke the key to his Buick, and the reporter let himself out. Jane had moved from the bed to the floor, where she was waving her arms gently. “How are you feeling, Mike?”
Shayne looked down after a moment. “What?”
“That answers my question. I’m feeling wonderfully relaxed; and there you are, tight as a drum. I’m sorry for anybody who gets in your way the next couple of hours. Would you like me to teach you some exercises while we’re waiting?”
“Not now, Jane. Maybe you can do something with Tim. Now there’s a real challenge.”
“Mike, will you give me your autograph before you go?”
“What?”
“My friends won’t believe it unless I have something in writing.”
He laughed shortly and took the “Do Not Disturb” sign off the doorknob, reversed it, and wrote, “Anything Jane says happened really happened. — Michael Shayne.”
When Rourke came back with the suitcase, Shayne took his clothes to the bathroom and dressed quickly. Other questions had occurred to him while Rourke was gone, and the two men talked quietly for a moment.
“I want to know where to reach you,” Shayne said. “Find out what Jane thinks about your staying here. You can keep track of what’s going on across the hall.”
She heard that and came out of an intricate twist.
“I was planning to get to bed early tonight; but of course if it’s a question of catching a killer…”
Rourke had brought ice cubes back from the outside world. He raised his glass to Shayne, who nodded to him and went out.
The corridor was jammed with media people and uniformed police. A television unit was waiting. Reporters attempting to buttonhole police officials as they went in and out were getting nothing but rebuffs. The one-fingered bomb expert, Sergeant Lovejoy, had just arrived and was trying to force his way through the crowd.
“Now boys, what can I tell you? A bomb went off; that’s all I know. Let me look at it first.”
The cop at the elevator knew Shayne and remarked that he hadn’t seen him when he came in.
“Nothing I can do here till the crowd thins out. I’ll be back.”
“Was it really Kate Thackera?”
“It really was.”
He took the elevator to the basement garage. An attendant brought him his Buick. As soon as he left the hotel, he opened his car phone and signalled his mobile operator. She had trouble getting the number he wanted, and he pulled over to the curb and waited.
Presently a man named Jerry Lewellyn answered. Lewellyn worked for the telephone company; and although articulate enough in person, he was seldom willing to say anything on an open line except hello and goodbye. Without giving his own name, Shayne suggested that it might be a nice night to go bowling. A little late, but they wouldn’t have any trouble getting a lane.
“Bowling,” Lewellyn said without enthusiasm. “Just what I wanted to do.”
Shayne crossed on the Venetian Causeway and parked near a bowling alley. Lewellyn drove up in a panel truck. A light-skinned black with a degree in electronics, he was one of the phone company’s least loyal employees. Shayne explained what he wanted.
“Have to give you a no on that, Mike,” Lewellyn said. “A slow no, I could use the bread. But I know that Pussycat operation. They’ve got that whole island organized.”
“Come out with me, and look it over. It can’t be that tight.”
“It is, though. I put in their PABX for them, and I was watched every minute. They’ve got a guy running a dice game. Of course it’s protected, but the customers don’t know that. So they keep a bunch of hard white boys standing around. You need a key to get in. You’d think something sinful went on there. But what, outside of the crap game? The waitresses aren’t allowed to massage the customers. You can find bluer entertainment in any hotel on the Beach.”
“For five hundred bucks. That’s good money. How about cutting in where the line comes out of the building?”
“With the right kind of equipment — which I don’t have. And I’d be only too visible. Ma Bell doesn’t approve of this kind of moonlighting. Sorry. I was watching a basketball game when you called. I’ll get back.”
“Wait a minute. Olson is having some kind of tax trouble. Would IRS have a tap on him?”
“I’ve known cases. But they wouldn’t do business with us.”