Shayne was hustled along the dock with the others. The Beach cops used a modified Volkswagen bus for their riot calls, with two rows of facing benches. Except for Maguire, who had been driven off in an ambulance, Shayne knew only one of the arresting cops by sight, and if that man recognized him, he was careful to say nothing about it. Shayne made no attempt to identify himself or to ask for different treatment, which they wouldn’t have given him.
Betty had been permitted to put on more clothes, but her bag had been confiscated before she could comb her wet hair or do anything about her lipstick. The welt left by Maguire’s nightstick showed clearly, even in the dim overhead light, and she kept one hand cupped over her injured ear. She was rocking back and forth.
“I’m going to be sick,” she whispered.
The wagon got underway with a jerk. More police cars had collected, and the officer in charge had decided to go in using their sirens.
“Betty,” Shayne said.
He was sitting across from her, their knees almost touching. He took her free hand and made her meet his eyes.
“We’ll be there in a minute,” he said. “Listen to me without saying anything.”
The cop at the end of the wagon leaned forward. “Shut up back there. No talking.”
Shayne nudged Steve, who was slumped beside him, his face a mask of dejection. When he didn’t react at once Shayne nudged him again. He started.
“What do you mean, shut up?” he shouted at the cop. “This is supposed to be a democracy!”
Lee joined in, the cop roared at them both, and all the prisoners but Shayne and Betty began to sing defiantly, “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty-”
Under cover of the clamor Shayne went on quietly, “Don’t say anything to anybody about Vince. I want to find out what happened. I can’t do that if we’re tied up in jail. If it’s just drunk and disorderly I think we can get out in a couple of hours.”
She started to say something but he forestalled her. “How drunk are you?”
“Pretty,” she said weakly. “You hit that cop, didn’t you? You took his nightstick.”
“Yeah. Not only that, I didn’t drown Vince. When his body comes up we can find out what went wrong. The way the cops are going to look at it, you were together in a locked cabin, you had a fight and cracked his skull.”
Her eyes widened in protest.
“The way you’ve been waving bottles around,” Shayne said, “they’ll think it figures. I know it didn’t happen like that, but I have other things to go on, things they don’t know about. They’ll figure you put him in his scuba outfit and tipped him out of the window. It was just bad luck that he got tangled up in the ladder. You’re ideal for this, Betty. No money for high-powered lawyers, no connections. The heroin angle makes it bad. They’ll jump at it. I don’t think they can make it stick, but it could mean a pretty rough year and a half.”
She swallowed painfully. “I didn’t-”
He patted her knee. “Just take it as it comes.”
He opened his mouth and bawled with the others, “Land of the Pilgrims’ pride-”
They were still shouting and singing when they arrived at the police station. Their pictures were taken again as they emerged from the wagon. One of the photographers exclaimed, “It’s Mike Shayne!” and ran for a phone.
Inside, they were lined up and booked. Shayne was the only one to ask for a phone call, and for a moment he didn’t think he was going to get it. He called his friend Tim Rourke, the crime reporter on the News, and told him where he was and what lawyer he wanted.
“What did you do this time, Mike?” Rourke said happily.
“Let me see,” Shayne said. “It’s drunk and disorderly to begin with. Then inciting to riot, resisting arrest, striking a police officer, vandalism and malicious mischief. I may have left out one or two.”
“And you only need one lawyer?” Rourke asked.
Shayne laughed. “I’ve got things on the fire, Tim, so get moving.”
Shayne, Steve and the other boy in their party were taken to the open drunk tank, jammed with its usual Saturday evening crowd. Some were already asleep, several were fighting, an old man was sobbing in the corner. Others were sitting around hopelessly, on benches or on the floor, waiting for time to pass. The boy who had come with Steve and Shayne hung back at the grated door and seized the attendant’s arm.
“I want to make my phone call.”
“You had your chance,” the cop said surlily. “Inside.”
The boy held onto the grate and kept the door from closing. “I’m Tom Pike! You’ve got to-”
The nearby prisoners crowded around and joined the protest, and finally the attendant took Pike back to the phones.
“His old man’s the judge,” Steve told Shayne. “It might help.”
Shayne found an unoccupied section of bench. Presently Pike was brought back, looking subdued. He wouldn’t speak to Steve, and stayed at the gate, holding the grating.
Over the next half hour the quarrelsome prisoners began to quiet down, rousing up whenever the gate was opened and new arrivals were admitted. The smells accumulated. Shayne had been in worse jails, and he used the interval to go back to the beginning of the attempt on Harry Bass and sort out what he knew and what he didn’t know. The second category, as usual at this stage, was much larger than the first.
The dozing drunks reared up again at a disturbance in the corridor. Peter Painter strode around the corner, surrounded by a group of police officials. The news of Shayne’s arrest had taken longer to reach him than the redhead had expected.
The chief of detectives was wearing an immaculate white linen dinner jacket, a red carnation in the lapel. He was beautifully shaved, brushed, and powdered, and his little quirky mustache was at its best. A gloating smile played across his lips as he searched among the disreputable drunks for his old enemy, who had beaten him so often, Michael Shayne.
Those of the prisoners who were still awake stared at him sullenly, with open hostility. Those who didn’t know who he was were offended by his dinner jacket. A drunk near Shayne made an obscene suggestion about the carnation and Shayne laughed.
“Shayne!” Painter exclaimed triumphantly as his eye lighted on the big redhead, lounging between a sleeping derelict and a young delinquent in a dirty T-shirt and tight jeans.
Shayne stood up lazily and stretched. Steve watched anxiously from farther down the bench. Shayne winked at him and sauntered over to the grate. Painter’s pungent after-shave lotion could be smelled clearly among the other smells in the tank.
Painter’s smile broadened. “This is a night I’ll remember,” he said, and signed to one of his entourage to unlock the gate.
The officers around Painter were grinning except for Bob Sanderson, a lieutenant who had grown gray and drawn trying to keep the department functioning in spite of his chief’s mistakes. His hands deep in his pockets, he refused to meet Shayne’s eye.
“In here,” Painter said, indicating an interrogation room off the corridor. “Not that I’m superstitious, but I’ve solved some hard cases in this room. Sanderson, have you got the stuff the boys found on the boat?”
He took a manila envelope out of Sanderson’s hands and led the way. The interrogation room was cold and bleak, furnished only with a metal table, a typewriter, and several folding metal chairs. A pen, a blotter and a bottle of red ink waited on the table, as a reminder that the room’s main purpose was to produce signed confessions. The walls were unadorned cinderblocks, painted white. The single light, a harsh, powerful ceiling bulb, made even Painter look sallow and weary.
Painter let Sanderson and a stenographer into the room and shut the door on the others. He made a complete circuit of Shayne, to get an all-around view. Shayne’s shirt had dried on his back, but his pants were sodden and uncreased. Painter bent down and announced with glee, “No socks!”
Shayne let him enjoy his moment. It wasn’t often that Painter had a chance like this, and he meant to exploit it to the full. Shayne moved out one of the metal chairs and sat down. Sanderson gave him a cigarette and lit it for him. Painter alighted on the corner of the table, arranging his black trousers carefully.
“Organization,” he said with a chortle. “It pays off every time. My men have standing orders to let me know of anything involving Michael Shayne, no matter at what hour of the day or night. I confess this is one time I hesitated. It meant putting a very lovely lady into a taxi and sending her home alone. She was piqued, and she may refuse to see me again. But it’s worth it. The sight of you in that drunk tank has rewarded me a hundred times over.” His eyes hardened. “Shayne, I wouldn’t be surprised if this finishes you in this town.”
He lit his own cigarette after fitting it into a long holder. From long experience with the preposterous little man, Shayne knew that he had to let him crow for a time. In the end, if nothing happened to ruffle his feathers or make him lose his shaky hold on his temper, he might be willing to shut up and listen to something he hadn’t heard from his own men. He would have to be told about the robbery of Harry Bass and the drowning of Vince Donahue. Shayne had often concealed facts from Painter in the past, but there had also been times when he had had to forget his personal feelings about the man, to force him to behave in a semi-reasonable way.
“Three girls, three guys,” Painter said, still chortling. “I wonder which one was yours. That Betty’s really stacked, didn’t you think so, Sanderson?”
Sanderson went on smoking impassively, looking at the floor.
“She’s afraid she’s getting fat,” Shayne said.
“Nonsense,” Painter snapped. “Just right. Not my type, of course, too raucous, for one thing, but I can see how she’d appeal to someone with your limited background. Enough liquor and gage will cover a multitude of small imperfections, won’t they? I’m told that after one or two reefers all women tend to look about the same.”
He picked a brown cigarette butt and two unsmoked sticks of marijuana out of the manila envelope and laid them on the table. Then he went back into the envelope for a hypodermic needle.
“God, the headlines,” he commented. “Mike Shayne, rough-and-ready private eye! A drunken sex party on Al Naples’ boat! Mary Jane and horse! Semi-nude babes! Blue movies! This is one time I’m going to enjoy the morning papers. And it won’t be all text. It was pure luck a News photographer was hanging around when the call came in. We haven’t run off that sixteen-millimeter stuff yet. The boys looked at a few frames and they tell me it’s an adult-education course in various types of fornication, none of it what the statutes define as exactly normal. What’s wrong, Shayne? Usually by this time you’re trying to bluster your way out of it.”
“Are you ready to listen yet?” Shayne asked calmly.
“To your usual lies and evasions? No, I’m not ready to listen! Because I’ve got you this time, my corner-cutting friend! I’ve got you by the short hairs, and I’m going to heave the book at you, I kid you not! Dear God, have I been waiting! I knew that sooner or later you’d slip in a big way. Sure, everybody likes to relax and let down their hair now and then, but don’t you think this was overdoing it a little? The marijuana, the heroin, there’s the crowning touch. Something in the Bible, I forget how it goes, about how if you hang on long enough your enemies will be delivered into your hand.”
He clenched his fist slowly. Opening it again, he picked out an imaginary crushed insect, and crunched it between his small white teeth.
“You’ll never learn,” Shayne said. “You’ve tried that before, and it always gave you a bellyache.”
“But not this time,” Painter said smugly. “I don’t underestimate you. You’re the luckiest son of a bitch on the face of the globe, and I don’t deny that you have a certain dramatic flair. By lowering yourself to their level you’ve captured the allegiance of a few so-called gentlemen of the press. ‘Bums of the press’ would be a better name for them. As for the great moronic gum-chewing public, you can do no wrong. Maybe you can convince them that you were working on a research project tonight, trying to get at the sources of teen-age delinquency.” He leaned toward the unruffled redhead, and all at once his sharp little face became nasty. “The fact remains, whether or not you were smoking rope or screwing three girls at a time, you hit a police officer! You employed your usual method, violence, to resist arrest. My men were investigating a complaint from an influential taxpayer. You and your friends met them with a barrage of broken bottles. When Sergeant Maguire asked you to come along with him peacefully, you broke his jaw.”
“I thought I heard something crack,” Shayne said mildly. “Petey, will you simmer down? Maguire should have been kicked off the force years ago. He was about to kill a girl with a nightstick. If you’re surprised to hear that, you’re more out of touch than I think.”
“Maguire’s character and record, good or bad, have nothing to do with anything,” the angry little man snapped. “He’s a police officer. He was making a legal arrest. From the nature of his injuries, it’s fairly certain that you hit him with something harder than a fist. Unluckily for you, this time we have a witness you’ll have a hard time impeaching. The News photographer saw the whole thing and has given us a conclusive statement. I haven’t seen his pictures, but I know what they’ll show. You’re going to prison! And I’m delighted it’s on such an appropriate rap.”
“My lawyer will be showing up in a few minutes,” Shayne said, succeeding in keeping his temper. “I’ve got work to do.”
Painter smiled malevolently. “Not tonight, Shayne. Tonight you’re going to be our guest in the drunk tank. Oh, we’ll have the usual bleeding-heart army on our doorstep tomorrow morning, I have no doubt, but there’s a mountain of red tape to get out of the way when somebody slugs a police officer and sends him to the hospital. Don’t count on being back in circulation before the end of the afternoon.”
The redhead’s ragged eyebrows drew together. “Petey, I can see how your version appeals to you. But if you’ll give it one minute’s thought you’ll realize I was an extra wheel at that party. Did you talk to the watchman?”
Sanderson looked up, interested. “Was there a watchman on the dock, Mike?”
Painter broke in. “Never mind answering that. You don’t have to teach us the rudiments of police procedure. We’ll cover that in the morning.”
“I can see why you don’t want to cover it now,” Shayne said. “If he tells you I’d only been on the boat for half an hour you’d have to do some thinking. I know how hard that is for you.”
Painter started to speak, but Shayne decided it was time to raise his voice. “There were five people in the party when I got there, three girls and two boys. The third boy is dead. His name’s Vince Donahue. He’s the Nugget’s captain. I’m working for Harry Bass, and the reason I have to get out right away-”
“If you think you’re going to get out, you’re out of your mind.”
“The reason I have to get out,” Shayne repeated, raising his voice even more and speaking to Sanderson as much as to Painter, “is that Harry’s on the loose with a concussion. He has a bad temper and something to be mad about, and I want to get to him before he does anything that can’t be reversed.”
“I’ve been waiting for Harry to make a wrong move,” Painter said. “Nothing would please me more.”
“The political organization that put you in office,” Shayne said evenly, “gets a monthly contribution from Harry Bass, and I doubt if that’s news to you.”
The little man’s face was livid. “Are you accusing me-”
“Oh, knock it off, Petey!” Shayne exclaimed. “You didn’t just show up here from the back hills. This is a tourist town. Without gambling the hotel business would fall off by a third. If anything happens to Harry there’s going to be trouble.”
Painter smiled unpleasantly. “I cut my eyeteeth on trouble. I’ve let you have your say, and now you’ll listen me.”
He motioned to the stenographer, who opened his book. “We’re going to cut out the fooling and get down to business. Oddly enough, I’ve managed to inform myself on a few points. I know that an eight-passenger Cadillac caught on fire tonight not far from Harry Bass’s house on Normandy Isle. The license plates were destroyed, but we do know that Harry owns an eight-passenger Cadillac, which is not now in his garage. A Negro man named Billy Wallace was found on the scene with a fractured skull. The registration on his pistol gives his address as care of Harry Bass. You’re one of Harry’s cronies. All this is well known. I don’t really have cotton in my head, Shayne. When you show up at a party at Al Naples’ boat, with Harry Bass’s son Steve-”
Shayne looked at him sharply.
“Oh, he didn’t use his right name when he was booked,” Painter said, smiling. “Further, when a hypodermic needle is found under the bed in the main cabin, and adhering to the point are a few burned grains of a substance that will undoubtedly prove to be heroin-” He looked quizzically at Shayne. “Do you follow me?”
“Petey, I really don’t,” Shayne said candidly.
“OK,” Painter snarled. “If you don’t want to pick up a hint, see how you like it this way. Your public is going to eat up this orgy story. Unless you cooperate to the fullest extent, I’m going to play that deadpan. Laugh it off if you like, Shayne. It’s going to hurt. But I’m willing to compromise. I’ll put the lid on. I’ll see if I can quash the charges against you for hitting Maguire. It’s going to play hell with morale in the department, but I’ll go out on a limb, in the larger interest. If you want to be tough about it, it stands. I’ve finally got a club I can use on you, and don’t think I won’t use it unless you tell me all you know, and I do mean all.”
“About what, Petey?” Shayne said patiently.
“About that shipment of heroin.”
Shayne looked at him in surprise. He quickly added a mocking half-grin to make the surprise seem less real.
Painter said, “I see you know nothing about it. Of course not. Did you expect anything else, Sanderson? Frankly, I didn’t.”
“Refresh my memory,” Shayne said.
“I’ll tell you what little I know, so you’ll know precisely what gaps I want filled.” He moved around the table and sat down, tipping into balance on the back two legs of the chair. “My relations with the Bureau of Narcotics are currently not too good. We had a difference of opinion a few months ago. They thought I had something to do with the failure of a raid they had hopes for. Actually they bungled the affair themselves from start to finish. Well, I’ve had a tip from my own sources. This one I’m keeping to myself. When I’m ready for an arrest I’ll hand it to those slewfeet on a silver platter. They’re the experts on drugs, they think. Everybody else is nowhere.”
“Are you going to tell me about it?” Shayne said.
“Without interruptions,” Painter replied. “The tip comes from an export-import man who’s been feeding me information for years. He heard from connections in France that five hundred thousand dollars worth of heroin was on its way to Miami. That’s a retail figure, of course. Thanks to efficient police work, we have the drug problem under control here. It can’t be eliminated entirely, considering the comings and goings of travelers from New York and the Caribbean. All of a sudden heroin has become surprisingly simple to procure, excellent heroin at a non-panic price. I know that the shipment left Nice during a ten-day period in October. I cabled the French police to check hotel registrations. One of the Miamians who was visiting Nice at the time was Harry Bass.”
“Harry has nothing to do with narcotics,” Shayne said flatly.
“As a regular thing, of course not. He wouldn’t have public opinion behind him on it, which is unfortunately the case with bookmaking. But as a one-shot, to meet a sudden demand for capital? I wonder. The profits are enormous, and they can be realized immediately. We’re putting pressure on all our stoolies to find out about it, but it’s being handled very cleverly. We had our first break this afternoon. Sanderson, you tell him. He might not believe me.”
Sanderson said, “It’s second or third hand, Mike. Just a rumor that one of the big bookies is behind it.”
“I don’t pretend to have all the answers,” Painter said. “How about Steve Bass? Is he a pusher?”
Shayne ground out his cigarette on the floor. “This is all news to me.”
“Now Shayne,” Painter said pityingly. “The steno is taking this down. That statement’s absurd on the face. There are too many coincidences here.”
“Harry’s an extremist on the subject,” Shayne said. “He won’t do business with anybody who comes anywhere near narcotics.”
Painter teetered on the back two legs of his chair. “That kind of operator will always make an exception if the price is right. And how about you, Shayne? Your principles have a way of bending when there’s money involved.”
Shayne put both hands flat on the table. A pulse in his forehead was beginning to beat dangerously. “You think I’ve been going in for smuggling heroin?”
Sanderson put in, “Chief, maybe we ought to get back to that kid who was missing from the boat. Shayne says-”
Painter stopped him with a movement of his hand. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Shayne’s.
“If Harry Bass and Al Naples have a heroin deal going, they need a contact, somebody with a tough veneer to keep the small boys in line, somebody who can go back and forth with parcels without stirring up the narcotics people. I’m an admirer of your footwork. I may not be able to pin it on you. But I can make you stand still for this assaulting-an-officer rap, and that’s the deal I’m offering. A clean bill of health, in return for which you tell me everything you know on the subject of the Basses, senior and junior, Al Naples and his boat and half a million dollars worth of uncut heroin.”
Shayne came to his feet “You little pipsqueak, I wouldn’t give you the time of day! If I’m going to be slammed for hitting a cop, I think I’ll compound it.”
“Sanderson!” Painter piped.
Shayne picked up the bottle of red ink with one swipe of his big paw. Neither Sanderson nor the stenographer moved to stop him. As Shayne’s arm cocked, Painter shrank away from the blazing look in his eyes, and his chair went over backward.
The door opened and Tim Rourke and Harry Halstead, Shayne’s lawyer, came in.
“Captain Rourke of the U. S. Cavalry,” Rourke announced. “Hi, Mike. Been hitting cops again, have you? Where’s Painter?”