“I see how that would work.” Shayne’s expression cleared. That was one thing that had bothered him about Harsh’s story. He hadn’t been able to reconcile Miss Morton’s turning down money from Gannet and at the same time trying to extort a similar sum from Harsh. Now he thought he understood. The Harsh story was a sort of sideline she had happened upon while pursuing the real story that had brought her to Miami, the one involving Gannet. There would be no loss of prestige in dropping the Harsh story, but failure to expose Gannet’s racket would be a blow to her reputation.
“She must run on to a lot of stuff around the country that various guys would pay to keep out of the headlines,” said Shayne. “You heard any rumors about anything like that?”
“Nobody gets very far in the newspaper business playing that way,” Rourke told him emphatically. “You may play certain things down in a story, or suppress them, but you don’t take money for it. Not and keep Morton’s reputation year after year.”
“All right. But I may make you eat those words. Do you know Carl Garvin?”
Rourke’s slaty eyes showed surprise. “Sure. I run into him now and then.” He grinned and added, “Morton and Garvin got along just like that,” holding up both index fingers and moving them apart the full length of his arms.
“Why?”
“She worried him. Garvin’s not a newspaperman. Just a glorified office boy for her syndicate. He’s probably a tenth cousin to a vice-president. He sits on his lazy butt and draws a fair salary for clipping an occasional story and rewriting it over the wire. I think he took a journalistic course in some swanky eastern college, and do those guys ever think they know their stuff,” he added with heavy sarcasm.
“What control did he have over Morton?” Shayne asked. “What she did in Miami and what she wrote?”
“Damned little. He was afraid she’d upset the status quo by sending out stuff so hot the syndicate would begin to wonder why he’d been sitting on it. Nominally, a job like his carries the responsibility of clearing syndicated stories, but I doubt whether Morton ever showed her stuff to Garvin.” He grinned again and added, “By refusing to co-operate he could have slowed her down some.”
“What sort of guy is Garvin? Personally, I mean.”
“A bit of a high-flyer. Lives on the Beach and moves with the society crowd over there. Going to marry some rich dame, I’ve heard.”
“Burton Harsh’s daughter,” Shayne supplied casually.
“Yeah?” Rourke emptied his glass.
Watching him closely, Shayne saw no indication that the reporter connected Harsh’s name with the Morton case. “Then you don’t know much about the man’s character?” he said.
“Very little,” Rourke acknowledged. “But I came here to get in on a story, Mike. So far all you’ve done is pump me. You got any new angles?”
“I’m starting right now,” Shayne promised. He stood up and took a handful of coins from his trousers pocket, picked out several, said, “Order us a couple more drinks while I make a phone call.”
He consulted the directory and found a Carl G. Garvin listed with a residence address on the Beach. The phone rang twice and was answered by the cultured voice of an elderly woman:
“Hello.”
“May I speak to Carl?” Shayne said.
“My son isn’t in,” she said, “but I expect him soon.”
“Could you tell me where I might find him?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know. May I take a message? Or perhaps have him call you?”
“This is Timothy Rourke,” Shayne said. “Tell Carl I’ll get in touch with him tomorrow.”
She said she would be happy to, and Shayne hung up, went out to consult the directory again, and called another Miami Beach number.
A man’s voice answered with a polite “Good evening-Red Barn.”
“I want to talk to Mr. Carl Garvin. Have him paged upstairs.”
“Please hold on. I’ll see if I can locate Mr. Garvin.”
Shayne held on, scowling through the glass door of the booth and wondering what in hell he was going to say to Garvin when he answered.
A new voice said dubiously, “I believe Mr. Garvin is in the manager’s office at the moment. Is the matter important enough to-?”
“Sure,” Shayne cut in swiftly, a tingle coursing down his spine with the knowledge that his hunch had been right. “Switch me to Leo’s private wire.”
After a few clicks and a buzz, Leo Gannet’s sanctimonious voice said, “Yes?”
“Let me speak to Carl Garvin.”
“Garvin left thirty minutes ago. Sorry, but-”
“I’ve got to find him,” Shayne said urgently. “This is a friend of his and I’ve got some money that belongs to him. I promised to see him tonight, but I got tied up-” He let his voice trail off and listened hopefully.
His hunch paid off. “I-see. You must be the one-” He paused, then said, “Did Mr. Garvin have a definite appointment to meet you tonight?”
“Not definite.”
“The reason I asked is that when he left here I was under the impression he was meeting someone who owed him money,” Gannet went on in his deep, resonant voice. “In fact, I expect him back in an hour or so. If you do see him, tell him I’ll be here until four o’clock.”
“I’ll do that,” Shayne promised blithely. He hung up and went back to the booth, slid into the wooden seat opposite Rourke, and shook his head sadly:
“It was a bum steer, Tim. I’m afraid I dragged you down here for nothing.”
“That’s all right.” Rourke took a drink from his refilled glass and asked, “Did you happen to hear the midnight newscast?”
“No. Why?”
“I thought maybe you hadn’t,” said Rourke casually, “or you wouldn’t have made that crack about breaking the case while Gentry tried to.”
Shayne had his glass halfway to his lips. He held it there and stared at the reporter for a moment, grated, “Give, Tim,” and downed a long drink of cognac.
“You’ll get some credit,” Rourke assured him generously. “It was your tip that put Will on the right track.”
“Give,” he said again.
“Ralph Morton. If they haven’t picked him up yet, they soon will. Remember, you told Will to look for Sara’s good-for-nothing husband.”
The strained tightness went out of Shayne’s face. “Glad my tip helped. What about Ralph Morton?”
“I went down to our morgue after I left your place and dug up an old picture of Sara Morton’s husband,” Rourke explained happily. “We showed it around the Tidehaven, and sure enough, the doorman and one of the elevator operators identified him as a man they’d seen around the hotel about six o’clock.”
“So?” Shayne waited with lifted brows, noting the exultant expression in the reporter’s eyes.
“Then we were in luck. Covering the fourteenth floor, we found a guest who went down the corridor from his room at six-fifteen and saw Ralph Morton pounding on his wife’s door and calling for her to open up. He said the man was obviously drunk, and he hurried past so as not to get mixed up in any trouble, but he’s positive of the identification.”
“Good work,” Shayne said with admiration.
Rourke’s eyes looked puzzled at the note of genuine pleasure in Shayne’s voice. “Sure it’s good work,” he said stubbornly.
“With Ralph Morton tagged for the job,” Shayne went on happily, “I suppose Will won’t bother about checking Edwin Paisly.”
“Paisly?” Rourke frowned over the name, then grinned and said, “Oh- la Morton’s current heart-throb.”
“Do you know him?” Shayne growled.
“I remember running into him once at the Golden Cock when they were having cocktails. As a matter of fact, Will did check on him. Seems he had a dinner date with her at seven and he sat around waiting for her like a good little boy until around nine-thirty. He called her at the hotel to find out why she hadn’t come, and the cops answered. They invited him over, but he didn’t accept.”
“I know about that. Who is he?”