“Damn it, better not.”
Both twin beds in the bedroom were littered with lists and manila folders. A pretty girl was typing with a portable on her knees. The phone between the beds rang, but Zion continued into the bathroom.
He had brought the ice-filled glass. He filled it from the tap and left the water running.
“Make yourself comfortable.” Leaning forward, he peered at himself in the mirror. “I don’t think I look trustworthy, do you? Would you trust a man with this face to help run one of our biggest U.S. corporations?”
He pushed the shower curtain aside, sat on the edge of the tub and took a sip of cold water. “Who’s that eccentric billionaire who used to hold important business conferences in men’s rooms? Howard Hughes, no doubt. I never thought it was my style.”
“Do you want me to help by flushing the toilet?” Shayne said.
Marcus looked surprised and then laughed. “This may seem a bit paranoid. It’s not that I’m afraid of being bugged. But there’s money at stake here. Lots and lots of money. As well as certain intangibles such as power. Fame. I suppose even women. We’ve all got our spies, and some of the things I want to tell you I wouldn’t even like Evie to hear. How much have you heard about my father’s accident?”
“Just that he ran off the highway and smashed an expensive automobile.”
“He didn’t run off by himself,” Marcus said. “He was crowded off. And it happened at a bad time. Everything’s popping at once. Are you up to date on our proxy troubles? I don’t want to waste time telling you anything you already know.”
“I know that an outside group is trying to take over your company. I didn’t read past the headlines. It isn’t my kind of story.”
Marcus said dryly, “You might be surprised, Shayne. Both sides have been getting pretty rough. My father’s been in charge of our strategy. Unfortunately, nobody knows his secrets; and that goes for his own flesh and blood. So having him unconscious all afternoon has been a very serious thing.”
“I understand he wasn’t badly hurt.”
“That’s the way we’re playing it. And as a matter of fact,” he said with some distaste, “the son-of-a-bitch is amazing. Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m as full of filial crap as anybody else. I haven’t been sitting around the hospital chain-smoking, but I’ve worried about him from time to time. On top of everything else, we’ve just put a picture into production. I’ve had the full burden of setting up the stockholders’ meeting tomorrow, with no way of knowing what surprises Larry has in store for us. And now this. Larry’s conscious. He intends to chair the meeting and give the main report. Somebody tried to murder him this afternoon. Conceivably they’ll try again. I’m a stranger in Miami. I asked our attorneys to give me the name of a good man, and they gave me yours. But they said you’re semi-retired, and I’d have to persuade you that the job would be interesting. If I can’t make it interesting enough, I’ll call in some writers to help me make it interesting. They also said you expect your clients to be honest with you.”
“I expect it,” Shayne said. “It doesn’t always happen.”
“I don’t see any reason to hold anything back. If you come in on this, you’ll be talking to people. I’m the money man in the organization, and I’m not too popular because I’m the one who has to decide that some ideas are too expensive. But you may be told that under this plodding exterior, I have my ambitions — I’d like to see if I could make it on my own, without Larry breathing down the back of my neck from morning to night. You may hear that I resent the sneers and sarcasm that have come my way over the years and that the only reason I want to make sure Larry lives through the night is because if he dies his shares will revert to a family trust with two trustees. I’m one of them. The other’s my mother. She’s a venal woman who hates Larry and will vote against his slate, and I’ll be job hunting.”
Shayne drank. “It’s interesting so far. You said another car crowded him off. What does he say about that?”
“There wasn’t much traffic. They shouldn’t have been that close together. He swerved off on the shoulder — all the way off on the grass. From the skid marks, both cars were travelling very fast. And before he could get back, he ran into one of those lovely exit barriers. Zap. The other car didn’t stop. It was a red convertible. Somebody coming north saw it pull past and leave the highway.”
“Unless the highway patrol has something, I’d have to be lucky to find out who was driving. And if they do have something, you don’t need me.”
“We know who was driving. An actress named Kate Thackera. I caught Larry at the right moment, when he was coming out of the concussion, before the censorship could start working. He said, and I quote, ‘That Brannon bitch, do you know what she did? She tried to shoot me.’”
“Brannon?” Shayne said, frowning. “Keko Brannon?”
“Kate Thackera took Brannon’s place in that sad lady’s last picture. He got them confused.”
“And she tried to shoot him from the other car?”
Marcus spread his hands. “That was all he’d say. I said something like, ‘What? Who? Tried to shoot you — what are you talking about, Larry?’ He came back into focus and his brain started clicking. I told you he doesn’t go in for telling secrets, and not to Junior especially. I tried to get him to go back to it, naturally; but he pooh-poohed it — more important matters to think about and so on. I had a man check the hotels. Kate Thackera is here at the St. Albans. She came in this afternoon. And she’s driving a rented Chevy, which happens to be red and a convertible.”
“Why does she want to kill him?”
“She’s trying to get the part of Doña Isabella, in The Last Buccaneer. We’re shooting it on location in Homestead; and if you haven’t heard about it, our publicity people are doing a lousy job. It’s a fat part, really fat — the only woman on a pirate ship. I saw her costume tests, and I thought she was okay. Maybe better than okay. But I’m not the creative genius. Larry’s using somebody else.”
“So she ambushed him on Interstate 95? I don’t know many movie stars, but how often does this happen?”
“This is a special girl. Not the world’s most stable individual. Larry used to screw her, and that makes it less simple. I don’t mean it was nutty, anything but. Under the circumstances, it might have worked. Larry likes people to fight for a part — he thinks it carries over into their performance. That was a heavy thing she did. Larry has to be impressed. Everybody else wanted her for the part, the producer, the director.”
“Are there any bullet holes in your father’s car?”
“You’re ahead of me. I couldn’t see any. Now I want to tell you something that’s not common knowledge. First I’d better see if we can cut a deal. What I want to have you do is take charge of Kate Thackera. I don’t care how you do it. I want you to tie her up so she can’t make another move for thirty-six hours. Tonight, tomorrow, tomorrow night.”
“That sounds possible.”
“And I’m not thinking in terms of surveillance. Our own people could handle that. I want you to be actually on the scene all the time. I don’t know if anybody’s working with her; so I don’t want her to have access to a phone. I’m told you set your fee according to the difficulty of the assignment. I’d prefer it if you could do all this without letting her know you’re working for us, but she’s not dumb, and she may be hard to handle. I’m thinking in terms of a thousand dollars.”
“For thirty-six hours?” Shayne said. “It’s high for escort duty. It’s low for kidnapping.”
“I’m not talking about kidnapping. Well, I suppose I am, if you look at it a certain way. Fifteen hundred? Half in advance.”