“And not forgetting the dividends-which have been sadly curtailed,” Matrix put in with a sardonic grin.
Payson chuckled. “Ha ha. Amusing fellow, isn’t he, Mr. Shayne? He flaunts a determined cynicism while actually he’s one of our most aggressive civic boosters.”
Shayne said, “If you want to talk privately to Mr. Matrix, I’ll be going along.” He dragged his big frame up from the desk.
“No, don’t go,” Matrix interposed. “Payson and I can talk in the back room. There’s something else I want to take up with you before you go.”
“Don’t leave on my account,” Payson concurred. “My business with Gil will take only a moment. I don’t wish to slow the-er-wheels of justice, shall we say?”
He followed the editor through the door leading into the printing-shop and closed the door. Through the single wall Shayne could hear the older man talking at length in a low, guarded voice, but could distinguish no words.
At length Matrix said sharply and disagreeably, “All right, Payson, but it’s against the principle that has made the Voice what it is. You know our slogan-all the news without fear or favor.”
Payson’s voice droned again placatingly, until Matrix interrupted, “I told you I would-let it go at that,” and jerked the door open.
Payson came back into the office smiling in some constraint. He mumbled something to Shayne and went out the front door, closing it firmly behind him.
“The old goat,” said Matrix viciously. “A pillar of the church, by God, and he practically controls the bank that holds my mortgage.”
Shayne grinned at the dynamic little editor’s vitriolic emphasis. “Suppressing a juicy bit of scandal?”
“Exactly. The old so-and-so has a good wife and two fine kids here in town, but he has evidently got himself tangled up with a wench in Miami. I was in Miami on business this afternoon and saw him on the street. Now he’s in an uproar because I was going to print the news as a local item. Seems he told his wife he was making a business trip up the coast. If I had that mortgage paid off I’d print it whether or not. That’s the sort of small-town stuff I’m running up against all the time here.”
Shayne said, “This Payson-is he the brother of the proprietor of the other print shop in town?”
Matrix nodded and dropped into the chair before the desk. Shayne resumed his position, one hip on the corner of the littered desk.
“That relationship,” Matrix continued, “cost me a nice juicy contract for printing the dog-track tickets last fall. I’m morally certain they opened my bid first, then arranged that the Elite bid a few dollars under my price.”
Shayne said, “Hardeman told me that Payson and he divide the responsibility of getting the genuine tickets printed without a leak.”
“That’s right. If the old goat didn’t own stock at the track I’d suspect him of having counterfeits printed.”
“As it is,” said Shayne casually, “how do you think the counterfeiters get hold of the new design each day in time to get their forgeries out? Hardeman claims that Boyle guards the printed tickets personally until they’re delivered at the track.”
“Humph. Who guards Boyle?” Matrix asked cynically. “That’s the crux of the whole affair. Hardeman is just a trusting fool. He refuses to recognize the obvious fact that Boyle is only a tool for Grant MacFarlane.”
“You hate MacFarlane?” Shayne asked softly.
“I don’t deny it.” Matrix glared at him, his thin face working. “I hate what MacFarlane stands for-the rottenness and filth our youth are taught to take for granted when they frequent a cesspool like the Rendezvous. Any man who preys on adolescents makes a business of warping immature minds and is the greatest menace in modern society.”
Shayne nodded, swung himself to a standing position and said, “It’s time I took a look-see at MacFarlane’s sink of iniquity.” He paused with his hand on the knob, half turned back into the room.
“You don’t happen to know the name of Payson’s light-of-love in Miami? Did you see him with her?”
“No, and he naturally didn’t divulge any details.”
Shayne said, “Naturally not. But if you have any way of finding out I’d like very much to know the lady’s name.”
He went through the door as Matrix stared after him in open-mouthed amazement.
Chapter Seven: SHE FORGOT HER ROLLER SKATES
Shayne crossed the street to his roadster, still parked in front of the hotel. With his hand on the doorlatch, he hesitated and turned to look toward the entrance into the lobby where he had left Phyllis. Then he frowned, took a step forward, and stopped. Equally unaccountably, he grinned, turned back to the car, got in, backed away from the curb, and drove north through the business district of Cocopalm. Tall, clean-trunked royal palms lined the highway, their graceful fronds silvered with the pale light of a quarter moon.
Lounging back in the seat with his big hands loose on the steering-wheel, Shayne drove slowly. He was waiting for something, he wasn’t certain what. There was a subtle warning in the subdued murmur of the night breeze swaying silvery fronds along the way, in the gentle swish of combers on the shore to his right.
He nodded absently. It was best to leave Phyllis twiddling her thumbs in the hotel lobby.
The black macadam of the highway was strangely deserted, an unwavering path leading him onward between the slender white palm trunks which were like a double row of planted lances in the softly diffused light.
Headlights of an oncoming automobile cut a bright swath toward him. He slowed still more and watched it roar past. A Ford, and the driver was the stoop-shouldered man he had watched drive away from the Voice office.
When his headlights picked up the slender figure of the girl in the roadway ahead, Shayne felt no surprise. She was as much a part of the scene as the tall palms and the night silence. She was walking northward on the edge of the pavement, glancing back over her shoulder hopefully as he came up behind her.
She stopped suddenly and turned to face his headlights, not gesturing for a ride, but quite evidently offering herself for any adventure that might come. Few men would have passed her by on the lonely road, and certainly Michael Shayne was not one of those.
He braked the roadster to a stop beside her, seeing only that she was young and slender and held herself with an aloofness that was disconcertingly at variance with what one might reasonably expect of a roadside pickup.
The girl hesitated momentarily, then leaned forward on the door, putting her head and shoulders inside and looking at his face with grave, searching eyes. She had bright blond hair wound around her head in big braids with a tiny jaunty ribbon tucked on one side. Her breath came jerkily through parted lips that were too red.
Shayne decided that her eyes were blue. He grinned and asked, “Well, do I pass inspection?”
When she nodded without speaking he leaned over and released the door catch. “It doesn’t cost any more to ride, and it’s lots easier on shoe leather.”
She nodded swiftly and slid in beside him, drawing a light silk cape protectingly about her shoulders and breast. She shivered and murmured with forced flippancy, “I forgot my roller skates.”
Shayne reached past her and closed the door. He settled back and took out a pack of cigarettes, offered her one, but she shook her head; then, changing her mind, she reached for one. “I guess I will, too.” Her voice was a deep-throated murmur.
Shayne held a match to the end of her cigarette and amusement came into his eyes as she puffed with bravado. She had a nice profile and a creamy soft complexion where there was not excessive rouge.