She tasted it. “I must say you make wonderful martinis,” she said approvingly. “Imagine Kitty hiring a private detective! I thought she was supposed to be so broke. How can she afford your rates? I’m not trying to stall, Mike. I’m going to answer your question sooner or later. I really am. I’m just curious. What kind of a story did she give you?”
“She said somebody cut her cat’s throat.”
Barbara smiled. “That sounds like Brad. He believes in the old-fashioned methods. Imagine anything like that working nowadays.”
“I haven’t had time to look up his record,” Shayne said, “but I wouldn’t be surprised to find at least one killing in it.”
She waved her hand. “Long, long ago, dear man. Of no consequence whatever. The mores of those days were altogether different. Though the funny thing is, I mean it seems funny now, that’s why Daddy spent all that time in jail.”
Shayne looked at her sharply. “Let’s stop there for a minute.”
“If you want to,” Barbara said pleasantly. “But where’s the connection with your client who wasn’t even born at the time? Is that what you call her-a client?”
“She’s my client,” Shayne said.
“The year was 1927. Brad killed somebody in a speakeasy fight. Trust Brad-he had to do it in front of a dozen witnesses, including the sheriff, if I remember the story rightly. That entitled him to twenty years to life, and Florida still had the chain gang in those days. Let me see. What was the expression they used to use? Squeal. Brad squealed on Daddy in return for a nolle-pros in his own case. Daddy was in the export-import business, which was how I used to describe it to myself, isn’t it silly? He was a rumrunner, as a matter of fact, a damn good one. The sheriff couldn’t have cared less about that speakeasy manslaughter of Brad’s. I think he was up for reelection-I was the merest infant at the time, Mike, so don’t hold me to any of this-and the papers were saying he was getting rich from the liquor interests, which was true except that he didn’t happen to be getting rich from Daddy. Bootleggers weren’t getting more than thirty days if they had a good lawyer, and Daddy believed in hiring the best. So it was Daddy’s thirty days against twenty years for Uncle Brad, and Brad made the deal. They bottled Daddy up in the cove right in front of this house and the irony of it was-he killed a man. He never held it against Brad. He understood how it happened. Maybe not at first, but he had plenty of time to think about it. Does that dispose of that? Because I want to ask you a question. Did you go to bed with Kitty yet?”
She laughed at the look on his face. “She’s moderately sexy, I suppose, if you like the type. She’s paying you a contingency fee, isn’t she? That’s the explanation! And from our point of view that’s fine. Mike, they’ve made us a perfectly fabulous offer. An even one million dollars in cash! A quarter million apiece! Kitty can invest hers in an apartment house and get an income of twenty thousand a year, pretty much taxfree. How in heaven’s name can she have the effrontery to turn us down?”
“Has anybody offered her a quarter of a million?”
“No-o,” Barbara admitted. “I wanted to, but I was outvoted. My Uncle Brad, that great IQ, thought we should put on the screws, in his phrase, say nothing about the resale possibilities, and persuade her to resign her share for a more modest figure, say forty or fifty thousand, in the interests of peace and quiet. We decided to let him try. But I’ve never underestimated that female. She wound Daddy around her finger. He was in his dotage, granted, but even so he was never easy to fool. Come on, Mike. How did she find out about the deal? Everybody swore they’d keep it a secret.”
“That’s a hard kind of secret to keep. Her husband’s in the real estate business. Maybe he told her.”
“No, they aren’t on speaking terms. Of course,” she added, “if he had hopes of getting a slice-Anyway, it’s out of the bag now, and I’ll call Brad in the morning and tell him a change of tactics is in order. I can see why Kitty wouldn’t want to sell for peanuts. She wants to hang on till the rest of us die off, which in my case, by the way, isn’t going to happen for years. I know she thinks of herself as the child of the group. Stistically-and by that I mean sta-tist-ic-ally, I have trouble with that word, drunk or sober-she may be right. As a practical matter I intend to outlive her, if only out of spite. But that’s not the point. Who knows what prices will be like on that faroff day? If they’re as high as a quarter of a million I’ll be astonished. You tell her. Leaving personal feelings aside, and I’m as much at fault as anyone, doesn’t it make sense? A certain quarter of a million now, or wait till she’s a very old lady, when she won’t have any guarantee that she’ll inherit, or that she’ll get as much as a quarter of a million for the whole thing. But we have to get all four signatures by Wednesday or the deal’s off. This is no time for Kitty to go off on a vacation.”
“I’m the one who advised her to get out of town,” Shayne said. “That was before I knew about the million-dollar figure. It’s damned high.”
She frowned. “Do you think so? They made a great deal of money up in the Tampa area, and they want to spread out. Gaspar’s just what they’re looking for. I don’t pretend to understand business people, why they offer one million instead of two, or half a million. Real-estate developers are nothing like you or me, thank God. We look at Gaspar and see some lovely beaches, a mangrove swamp and that priceless thing, privacy. They see royal palms and poinsettia beds, fifty houses with two bathrooms, a dock and a two-car garage, at a minimum net profit of four thousand dollars a house.”
“So it’s a simple business deal,” Shayne said.
“But what else?” she asked. “Mike, I’ve always heard you were a heroic drinker. You’ve hardly touched that cognac.”
Shayne drained his glass and stood up abruptly. “I’ll tell her. You’re offering to bring her in on the deal and give her a full fourth. If you don’t want to wait till morning to find out what she says, stay awake and I’ll call you.”
“Mike, you just got here! You don’t mean to say you’re going back to Kitty at this hour?”
“I’ll wake her up if she’s asleep. There’s no point in dragging it out. It’s a simple case of yes or no.”
“You did go to bed with her!” Barbara exclaimed. She sat forward, her breasts swinging interestingly inside the loose jacket. “Well, by God, I’m not letting you out of here without a battle. Mike, of course there’s more to it than a simple real-estate transaction. Much more! If the only way I can keep you out of her clutches is to tell you, I’ll tell you. Don’t stand there looking stern and disapproving. She’s getting two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, isn’t that enough? Does she have to get a tumble in the hay with you, too? Pour yourself another drink.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Shayne said flatly.
“Oh, Mike, don’t be so dim.”
She came to her feet. She was taller than she had seemed on the sofa, only three or four inches from being as tall as Shayne himself. Taking his glass to the sideboard, she splashed brandy into it and brought it back.
She held it out. “Now sit down and I’ll tell you about this million-dollar figure. It’s a wild tale. You may not believe it at first, but I think you’ll enjoy it.” She pressed the brandy glass into his fingers. “Sit.”
He allowed her to back him toward the chair. He shrugged and sat down. He was facing a large baroque clock, on which the minute hand was laboring up toward three. Rourke would be calling in another fifteen minutes.
chapter 9
Barbara perched on the edge of the low table facing him. Their knees didn’t quite touch.
“I hoped Kitty wouldn’t have to know about this,” she said. “She’s such an avaricious thing, not that I expect you to agree with me. You’re quite right-a million dollars for Gaspar as it stands is fantasy. That’s thirteen thousand an acre, and most of those acres you can’t get to unless you happen to be a mosquito or a bulldozer. We’re swindling poor gullible Mr. Hilary Quarrels, that farsighted, hard-headed businessman, and if you sip your brandy and let me put my hand on your knee from time to time to emphasize a point, I’ll tell you about it.”