Shayne felt vastly relieved when he strode out of the Dolphin bar a few minutes later. The girl had used good sense, he thought, in not telling her young man the full truth about Henderson and her sexual involvement. Paul Winterbottom didn’t appear to have the broadest shoulders in the world, but he seemed a nice enough fellow and genuinely in love with the girl. It was too bad, of course, that something couldn’t be done about Henderson, but he didn’t see how it could be accomplished without involving the girl.
There were lots of Hendersons in the world, though most of them weren’t on the verge of being elected mayor of an important city like Miami Beach. That, too, wasn’t any affair of Shayne’s, but he knew that if he could find a way to throw a monkey-wrench into the political pot, he would do so gladly. For that reason he decided to say nothing to Tim Rourke about no longer wanting to meet the man.
10
It was the next day when Timothy Rourke called to say that Shayne and Lucy were invited to cocktails at the Henderson house that afternoon. When Shayne asked if he’d had any trouble wangling the invitation, Rourke laughed shortly and said, “It was the other way around. In fact, it was Henderson himself who brought your name up while I was casting about for some way to get you together.”
Shayne said wonderingly, “Henderson mentioned my name out of a clear sky?”
“That’s right. I called to suggest I might interview him on his political prospects, and we made an appointment. Then, before I could say anything else he sort of gushed, ‘By the way, you’re quite friendly with Michael Shayne, aren’t you? The private detective.’ When I coyly confessed that we were practically on a first-name basis, he said he admired hell out of you and always had wanted to meet you. I told him it wasn’t difficult if he had the price of a drink on him, and he wondered out loud if you’d like to drop in for cocktails this evening, and I accepted for both of us.”
“And Lucy?”
“And Lucy. He said there isn’t any Mrs. Shayne, is there, and I told him no but you had a beautiful secretary with two hollow legs. He thought that was very funny indeed and insisted that you must bring her. Pick me up at my place a little before six?”
Shayne said, “Sure,” and hung up reflectively. Why would a man like Saul Henderson be anxious to meet him? Did he know about his stepdaughter’s meeting with Shayne? And would she be there? It looked like an interesting evening, and he went out to tell Lucy to leave the office early enough to be ready to be picked up at half past five.
The Henderson house was a modern one-story structure directly on the ocean at the far northern end of Miami Beach. There were already half a dozen cars parked in the circular drive in front of the ranch house when Shayne turned in at six-thirty. Sitting between the two men in the front seat, Lucy said, “You didn’t say it was going to be a party, Tim. If I’d known that…”
“I didn’t know myself, and what would you have worn different if you had known?” Rourke’s amused glance took in her neat tailored suit of blue silk with a fresh organdy blouse which she had changed into after leaving the office.
“But this isn’t a party dress.”
Shayne stopped and switched off the motor and said gruffly, “You look good enough to eat, angel. Next time I bring you to meet a wolf like Henderson remind me to make you wear that gunnysack that makes you look like Old Mother Hubbard.”
“You don’t even know the man, Michael. Yet you keep on making veiled remarks about him,” Lucy protested as they got out and circled the parked cars toward the front door.
“That’s right,” Tim Rourke averred with a curious glance at him over Lucy’s head. “What does give between you and Henderson, Mike? You asked me to set up this meeting…”
Shayne said, “Just don’t let him get you into a bedroom alone with him, Lucy.” He squeezed her arm and grinned to make the warning lighter than it sounded, but she stopped on the steps to glare at him and said furiously:
“You sound as though I make a practice of going into bedrooms with strange men.”
Shayne pulled her on up to the front door and said grimly, “Just don’t.” He put his finger on the button and the door was opened almost instantly by a maid in a neat white uniform.
There was a small entry hall behind her, and from an archway on the right flowed a loud babble of voices and laughter and the welcoming click of ice in glasses.
The maid smilingly took the men’s hats and they passed her to enter a large square room that held twelve or fifteen people in three groups, all with glasses in their hands and seemingly all talking at once.
Saul Henderson detached himself from the group nearest the entrance as they hesitated there. Shayne recognized him at once from his newspaper picture, and immediately disliked him more in the flesh than he had in his thoughts. He was of medium height with thinning dark hair, and he carried his forty-odd years with a youthful bounce that somehow managed to be irritating to the redhead. He had an ingratiating, smile that was almost effusive as he advanced with outstretched hand and exclaimed, “Mr. Rourke. How delightful that you could come. And in such charming company.”
He pumped Rourke’s hand and beamed at Lucy as the reporter introduced her, and then took Shayne’s hand firmly and squeezed it a little harder than was necessary and looked him steadily in the eye in a man-to-man way and made his voice very serious as he declared, “I’m one of your great admirers, Mr. Shayne. I’ve read everything Mr. Rourke has written about you in the papers, and I want to say quite frankly that I feel Miami is a better city for having you as a citizen.”
Shayne took his hand away from his effusive host and thrust it into his pocket for safekeeping. He said dryly, “One of your prominent law enforcement officers here on the beach wouldn’t go along with that.”
“You mean Detective Chief Painter?” Henderson threw back his head and chuckled delightedly, showing a double row of even, white teeth. “How right you are. But I mustn’t monopolize you. Come and get a drink, all three of you, and then meet my guests, who are all anxious to shake your hand.”
He took Lucy’s arm and led them to a small bar set up at the rear of the room that was presided over by a colored man in a white jacket and said hopefully,
“A sidecar, Miss Hamilton? Or don’t you go along with your employer’s choice of cocktails?”
She said, “Oh, but I do. Michael would fire me if I dared order anything else,” and Shayne stood by sardonically while the waiter efficiently mixed a shaker of excellent sidecars and filled two tall-stemmed glasses.
While Rourke lagged behind to get a bourbon and water, Henderson took them around to the various groups in the room, introducing them in the prideful manner of a man who has snagged a celebrity and insists upon everyone recognizing the fact.
Faces and names were a meaningless blur to the detective. “Jane Smith” was not among those present. Nor did he recognize anyone else whom he met. They all seemed to recognize him by reputation and he tolerantly fenced with gushing females while Lucy clung to his arm and glowed happily.
After he had dutifully made the rounds, including another foursome who arrived after them, Shayne left Lucy in the company of three young men who surrounded her admiringly, and looked around for Timothy Rourke.
The reporter, he discovered without a lot of surprise, had expertly corralled the prettiest female at the party (if you excluded Lucy) and had her blocked off in a corner of the room where he was leering at her happily and working on his third highball while he heartily agreed with her that newspaper reporters were, indeed, a daredevil and fascinating lot.
Bored by it all, and again wondering why Henderson had so obviously wanted to meet him, Shayne wandered back to the bar and secured another sidecar, then found a comfortable chair in a deserted corner of the room and sank into it gratefully, lighting a cigarette and half-closing his eyes, making his mind as blank as possible so that the waves of sound from the throats of the score or more of people in the room flowed over and through him without making direct contact.