“I thought everybody was supposed to be out getting sunburned,” Shayne said. “Doesn’t that include you?”
George turned his head heavily. His breath was like a blowtorch and his eyes were bloodshot.
“I’m allergic to gnats. Naturally, we don’t mention the gnats in our literature. I stopped taking that damn schedule seriously weeks ago.”
“Your heart’s not really in the travel business?”
“That’s a fair statement.” He turned back to his drink. “I’ve been asking about you, Shayne, and this doesn’t seem to be your kind of caper at all.”
“Just a vacation.”
“And Santa Claus comes down the chimney every year on Christmas Eve, I understand. What’s happened to your technique? Why are you so determined to antagonize me? Oh, I can see how you figure. The billing-and-cooing stage with the Savages has been over for months. You may even have heard a rumor that I’ve been sleeping around, with this one and that one. You’re outgunned, so why not see what you can do about splitting up the opposition? That calculated put-down on the plane this morning-you made an enemy there, you know, and what did you gain by it?”
Shayne picked up the glass the bartender put down in front of him. “Does it matter?”
“It could matter very much. The floor clerk tells me, in return for a promise to mention her in my will, that you spent half an hour in Naomi’s room after lunch, and you had lipstick on your face when you came out. Goddamn it, it’s actually still there. Why can’t you be satisfied with that babe of yours? She’s one of the sexiest things I’ve seen in years.”
“You haven’t looked at your wife lately,” Shayne said. “She looks good in a bikini, and even better out of a bikini.”
“There,” George complained. “You’re trying to get me mad. And why? All it does is cloud the issue. There’s money at stake! I shouldn’t have to remind you. We’ve all got to keep our eyes on the Goddamn ball. Do we want to end up in the local can charged with drunk and disorderly? I mean, it’s all out of proportion. Why should I care what you do with Naomi? The whole concept of marital fidelity is out of the Stone Age. It simply doesn’t apply. From the rational point of view, if you want to fool around with my wife, why, go right ahead. Be my guest. But speaking from the gut, Shayne, stay away from that woman or by God I’ll-”
“You’ll do what?” Shayne prompted.
George spread his hands. “That’s just it. What can I do? My God, Shayne! There’s enough here for everybody. Don’t keep pushing me and prodding me or you’ll spoil it. You’ll end up with nothing. I’ll end up with nothing.”
“I don’t think I’ll worry about that,” Shayne said carelessly.
“I know what you’re trying to do! You’re trying to get me into a situation where I’ll have to do something to prove my manhood. I see through it, but that doesn’t mean I may not fall for it.” He looked at his watch. “Luckily I’ve got an appointment, or in another couple of minutes I’d be trying to knock you unconscious. And what good would it do?”
He knocked back the rest of his drink and pushed off from the bar. Shayne exchanged a look with the bartender, who lifted an eyebrow and shrugged.
Christa, wearing only earphones and a bathing suit, was smoking on one of the beds in the room she shared with Shayne. The bathing suit was punctuated here and there with circular openings, like Swiss cheese. It covered a greater area than Naomi’s bikini, but it was equally startling.
“Why did I ever think police work was going to be romantic and glamorous?” she said. “It seems to me I spend most of my time in hotel rooms listening to static.”
“George went up in the elevator a few minutes ago.”
“I heard him come in, yes. But he’s alone. No phone calls yet. The last thing I heard of any interest was at five minutes before two, when you were trying to seduce poor Naomi. Or was she trying to seduce you? I didn’t hear the beginning of that, and I couldn’t determine.”
Shayne laughed. “I had to do something to plant the bug. She was watching me like a hawk.”
“I thought you handled her very skillfully.”
“There at the end I was beginning to think we might have the wrong idea about her. Her marriage is a mess, but if George is in trouble, she might think she ought to cover up for him.”
“I see she impressed you.”
“For about two minutes,” Shayne said bleakly. “She has a damn nice figure. That shouldn’t make any difference, but it seemed to.”
“Oh?” Christa said coldly.
She sat forward suddenly. “Someone has come in.”
She summoned Shayne with a quick gesture and gave him an earphone. George’s voice came over clearly. He was probably lying on the bed only a few feet from the microphone.
“If I get out of this without ulcers, believe me-”
A woman replied, but the words were inaudible.
George went on, “And it was all supposed to be so very simple. Open and shut, a child could do it. Do you still think it’s simple?”
The woman’s voice, very faint and scratchy: “… panic. He’s overrated.” Then a murmur, ending with “… fool.”
“If you think Shayne’s a fool,” George said distinctly, “it’s because that’s what he wants you to think. We’re going to have to buy him off. It hurts me as much as it does you, but we’re going to have to give him a couple of those pretty gold loaves and tell him to get lost.”
The woman said something from across the room. He replied irritably, “Sure, I’ve been drinking. But you wouldn’t like to see me sober-I’d terrify you.”
More words were lost. Then: “… get rid of him.” Christa’s hand tightened on Shayne’s arm.
“And what do we do about the blonde?” George demanded. “I hope you don’t think she’s just some babe he brought along to while away those off-duty hours. That’s not my interpretation at all. She knows what’s going on, and underneath all that surface sexuality, she’s a very cold fish. A very cold fish. Take her temperature, and you’ll find it’s a long way below ninety-eight point six. Let’s pay them both. It’s much simpler.”
The woman’s next words were again inaudible.
George exclaimed, “What do you mean he’s going for the whole thing? You’re out of your mind! He knows he’s up against an organization. Even if he could pull it off, how could he market it? He’ll settle. I guarantee it.”
More scratching followed, broken by scattered words. “… could be bad if…”
George answered but now he, too, had moved beyond the microphone’s effective range.
“Damn!” Christa said. “Damn, damn, damn!”
Shayne was still listening intently. The faint electronic scratchings and mutterings continued, but the voices were too far from the pickup point to come across as words.
After a time he went for drinks. He gave Christa a questioning look when he came back, but she shook her head: still nothing. He paced the rug restlessly, considering and discarding possible courses of action.
She hissed at him, and he picked up the earphone in time to hear George say, “… too bad he knows what Yami looks like. But hell, I suppose it could work. It damn well better. If it doesn’t, then we do it my way, all right? And if that doesn’t work, we might as well quit. What I need is a drink.”
This was followed sometime later by scraping and rustling sounds.
George said harshly, “Not now. Damn it. where’s your sense of timing? I’ll call Mike Shayne for you. He might not even charge you a stud fee.”
There was a resounding slap. It took place near the microphone, and was followed by the sound of a brief struggle. No words were spoken for a time. Something fell.
George said, “You’re a real bitch.”
A door slammed.
CHAPTER 10
Each member of the tour was given a complimentary glass of champagne with dinner and ten dollars’ worth of chips to lure them into the casino. The main gambling room combined features copied from the elegant European casinos-chandeliers, paneled walls, impassive male attendants in evening dress-and the great Las Vegas supermarkets, which go in for varied action, fast turnover, and no frills. Lassiter, the pilot of their chartered DC-8, was shooting craps, the pastime that had got him into trouble when he worked for Pan American. Several sunburned schoolteachers from the tour were feeding half dollars compulsively into the slot machines. It was early in the evening, but they already wore the stupefied look of slot-machine players everywhere.