“Perhaps not. But the senate is my stamping ground-I like to keep up with what’s going on there. Now I presume you’re going to tell me what I must do to prevent you from calling the press together to hand out a transcript of that conversation.”
“I’ll come to that in a minute. I’ve been told you had an argument with Maslow this morning. What about?”
“He wanted my support for governor. I refused it.”
“You could have done that by saying no.”
Kendrick gave another frosty smile. “The man has an offensive way about him at times. As governor, he would be a calamity. A thoroughgoing hypocrite, completely unscrupulous.”
There was a tap at the door, and Grady Turner, the deputy sheriff, put his head in.
“Associated Press, from Tallahassee, Judge. What should I tell them?”
“At this time of night? I’d better take it.”
He picked up the phone on his desk and said cordially, “Yes, Joe, Kendrick speaking. How are you and how’s your fine family? — No, you’re not disturbing me a bit. I’ve been sitting around the office with a few old friends, swapping lies about last hunting season.”
He listened for a moment, and said more soberly, “No, I haven’t heard about any fire.”
While Shayne poured himself more whiskey he heard the scratchy voice from Tallahassee telling Kendrick about the events at his fishing lodge. Kendrick had come forward in his chair, his hand closing on his stick. His eyes touched Shayne’s briefly.
“Was anybody hurt? — Who? Who? — I see, yes. That’s terrible news. Joe, do they know how it started? My God! I can’t believe it. Sheldon Maslow. I can’t deny that we’ve had our differences, but I never had anything for him but the highest respect as a man. How terrible, how tragic.” The other voice asked a question Shayne didn’t hear, and the judge answered, “Grover said something about asking a few people out for a drink, to break the last-minute tension, but as far as I know it was completely unplanned. Whoever happened to be sitting around the George Bar. Joe, this is shattering news. I know you’ll understand if I hang up now. Grover must be trying to reach me. Thank you for calling, and I’ll get back to you if possible before the night’s over. I may have to come down.”
He replaced the phone slowly. His eyes were cold and hard.
“Two people dead. That puts your tape in a different light.”
“Senator Maslow’s the only one I know about.”
“And a repairman from the power company. I’ve been calling the camp regularly and getting a busy signal. I notice now that your eyebrows are singed. You were there.”
“Yeah. The place was a tinderbox. The power was off. They were using candles and a kerosene lamp. There was marijuana around, as well as plenty of booze. It could have been an accident. But you know more about Maslow than I do. Who didn’t like him enough to want him dead? That’s why the cops will be asking why you whacked him with a stick this morning. ‘Will the honorable gentleman from Biscayne County yield?… No? Wham!’”
“Senatorial courtesy stops at the edge of the senate floor,” Kendrick snapped. “Where was he when the fire started?”
“In a locked bedroom upstairs, passed out on the floor. Lib Patrick tells me that just before the fire started she heard a pop. When I get a chance I want her to listen to the sound a handgun makes when it’s equipped with a silencer. That would do it. You could shoot in through a window and put a slug in the kerosene lamp. You’d get a Molotov-cocktail effect.”
“How do you know he was drunk?”
“He seemed to be drunk. I dragged him out in time, so we can take a blood sample and find out for sure.”
“Do you have any other bad news for me, Shayne?”
“No, that’s about all.”
Kendrick made a face and stubbed out his cigar. “I suppose I sounded like a politician on the phone. I meant some of that. Sheldon Maslow was totally uncongenial to me. His ambition was too naked. There are explanations-his family didn’t have money, he had to work like a dog to put himself through law school. I shouldn’t have spoken as I did about his lack of ethical judgment.”
He reached for the whiskey, but checked himself. “Shayne, what are your terms?”
“For suppressing the tape? I may not be able to do that. What effect will this death have on the vote tomorrow?”
The judge considered before shaking his head. “There are too many imponderables.”
“Yeah. I’ve been trying to add them up, and they cancel each other out. What was an anti-corruption man doing at a lobbyist’s party? I hope the cops managed to get the names of everybody there. I have an idea some of the girls have been fingerprinted, at one time or another. What are the possibilities? If he wanted to get in on the flow of cash, that’s bad for us. If he wanted to take pictures so he could blackmail the guests, that’s also bad. It’s even bad if all he wanted to do was expose the methods the opposition was using. That kind of thing is all right for people like me, but he’s not supposed to get down in the mud personally. He had too much to drink and they took away his camera. That’s terrible. It makes him a joke. All you can say for sure is that there’s one less vote against the casinos, Maslow’s own.”
Kendrick slumped sideward in the big chair, and all at once he looked tired and old.
“Let’s do it this way,” Shayne said. “We’ll want a statement from you early enough to make the nine o’clock news. You’re shocked and moved. Sheldon Maslow’s tragic death makes you realize he was right, and you want the senate to vote down this bill as a memorial to everything he stood for. And make sure your people know you mean it, because if the bill goes through, we’ll use the tape to get a veto.”
“That seems-well thought out,” Kendrick said heavily.
“It would be a hell of a climax to your career, whether or not they get you for malfeasance.”
“Glorious,” Kendrick said, and struggled to stand. “My elderly stomach is about to betray me, I find. The stress is at cross-purposes with the corn whiskey.”
Leaning painfully on his stick, he went into a little washroom off his office, and Shayne heard the door of a medicine cabinet open.
The air was crackling with messages. Kendrick was hardly the type to be sick to his stomach at a time like this. Perhaps, Shayne decided, the moment had come for him to get the hell out of Leesville.
He wasn’t quick enough. Glass shattered in the washroom, and the jagged neck of a medicine bottle struck the carpet at Shayne’s feet. He opened the door to the outer office, and Judge Kendrick cried in a shrill voice behind him, “Stop the son of a bitch.”
The cry brought all the fat men to their feet. Turner and the sheriff groped automatically for their weapons. They were all looking past Shayne with expressions of horror.
Shayne turned. The judge was leaning against the edge of his desk, blood streaming down his face. He had drawn the jagged edge of the bottle across his forehead in a long, slanting line.
He said, “I’m going to make sure you regret that, Shayne.”
CHAPTER 11
Things seemed to be happening to Shayne today in pairs. Two attempts had been made to kidnap him. He had been handcuffed twice. Now for the second time within two hours he was surprised in the act of committing a felony. With the broken bottle at his feet, Kendrick bleeding behind him, five half-drunk cronies of Kendrick between him and the helicopter, he scooped up the bottle-neck and stepped back toward the desk.
Grady Turner, the deputy, was the first through the door. His face, usually, medium-well-done, was now closer to rare.
“You cut Judge Kendrick?”
As Turner reached for him, Shayne slashed the air between them with the broken bottle. The deputy followed the movement with his eyes, and turned to the others.
“Look at that.”
Moving deliberately, swinging his eyes back around to Shayne, he drew a.38 revolver.
Shayne said calmly, “Don’t use it, Turner. Kendrick doesn’t want me shot in his office. That would really bring the building down. He’s like everybody else-he just wants me on the sidelines until tomorrow morning.”