Guilty as Hell

CHAPTER 1

Hal Begley, president and sole owner of Hal Begley Associates, buzzed his secretary.

“Ask Miss Morse to come in, please.”

He did a quick isometric exercise while he waited. A big, well-tailored man in his middle thirties, Begley had the look of a former college athlete. In his business, the facade was important. As a matter of cold fact, he had lasted a single semester at a second-rate college, and he was totally uninterested in athletics. He was doing well. Two years earlier his taxable income had passed $100,000. His firm occupied a suite of offices in a high-rent building on North Miami Avenue, and Begley himself owned an oceanfront property in Coconut Grove. His manner was crisp, genial and self-assured, and it concealed the fact that he was beginning to lose his nerve.

Candida Morse, his executive assistant, came in from an adjoining office. She was younger than Begley, a blonde in a pink suit that had originated in the workrooms of a famous New York designer. She wore it well. She was a slender girl with delicately carved features. She looked smart and ambitious, and in her case it was more than a facade. She was very smart and very ambitious, as her employer had reason to know.

Begley also knew he was lucky to have her. When she first came to work for him, he had been operating out of a two-desk office in a less desirable building in a scruffier section of Miami. He had owed money all over town. At that time he had called himself a “management consultant.” His main job had been investigating applicants for executive openings. Candida shifted the firm immediately into recruitment and went on from there. Begley had the greatest respect for his assistant, but sometimes he was also a little scared of her.

“Isn’t that a new jacket?” she said pleasantly. “Nice.”

“For the Georgia weekend,” he said, “to shore up the old morale. Did you get the guest list?”

She dropped a paper on his desk, which was a thick slab of walnut with the knotholes left in, and came around beside him so they could read it together. Begley had various pressing things on his mind, but his hand automatically slid up her leg beneath the pink skirt.

“From my good friend Walter Langhorne,” Candida said. “There may be some last-minute additions, but as of last night, this is it. I’m meeting him for lunch. He’ll pass on any developments.”

“Candida baby, how would we ever get anything done around here without you?”

His hand stopped as it reached the coarse weave of her stocking top. His eye had skipped down the list to pick up the final name. For an instant he felt trapped, as though his tall leather chair had snapped shut on him.

“Michael Shayne? They didn’t tell me Shayne was going to be there.”

Candida bent down, took his face between her competent hands and kissed him. After a moment he felt himself beginning to relax. His hand slid on up to the cool flesh of her thigh. Completing the kiss, she looked at his face critically and wiped lipstick from his mouth.

“This explains a few things. A quiet duck-shooting weekend away from the telephone, to talk to a group of Despard executives about their high-level personnel problems? I never believed it for a minute, Hal, and neither did you. They want to talk to you quietly, all right-about how the T-239 report got out of the E. J. Despard safe into the hands of United States Chemical. And we don’t know a thing about that, do we, darling?”

“You’re talking a foreign language,” Begley said, with the beginnings of a grin. “I’m a poor misunderstood head-hunter, and I wouldn’t know an industrial secret if it came up and bit me on the ankle. Scout’s honor. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it even if they put lighted matches under my fingernails. If it was just a bunch of third-class vice-presidents, I wouldn’t worry. The only thing is, Mike Shayne.”

Candida went to the other side of the desk and dropped into a sling chair. She lit a cigarette which she took from a box on Begley’s desk, using a tall desk lighter.

“Hal, having Shayne there only makes it official. We’ve known you were in for a grilling. I think the tactic we decided to follow is still perfectly sound. United States Chemical is moving up the announcement of the new paint to next Tuesday morning. I’m sorry the Despard people found out, but we expected it, after all. How can they hurt us, Hal, seriously?”

“You did a great job on it, baby. Great all the way. But there’s four days between now and Tuesday. We can be hurt, believe me.”

“I really don’t see how.” She frowned at the toe of her shoe, which was swinging in a short arc. “I’m not trying to be superoptimistic. If we get past the Tuesday announcement without publicity, United States owes us an extra thirty thousand. Conceivably we might lose that. But in the long run there’s no such thing as bad publicity for us. There may be some tut-tutting. We may draw a couple of disapproving editorials. But the next time some company needs a piece of trade information and can’t get hold of it through regular channels, they’ll think of us.”

“Not if Despard gets out an injunction.”

“Hal, be reasonable. United States changed the formula enough so there can’t be an action for infringement. Two companies were simply working on parallel lines. They both came up with a new kind of house paint that won’t peel or blister, and United States, which is faster-moving, more aggressive and less conservative, got its product on the market first. It’s that simple. Everybody in the paint business will know where they got their information. Proving it in court is another matter entirely.”

“I hope you’re right,” Begley said. “But what if some clever bastard like Shayne gets our man to sign a confession?”

She smiled and shook her head. “We’re covered there.”

He knocked on the walnut desktop to take the curse off her flat statement. She could spot him fifty points on a comparative IQ, but he’d been around the business long enough to know that sometimes people didn’t behave logically or predictably, especially if they happened to be a little eccentric to start with.

She went on, “Mike Shayne-now there’s a paper tiger if I ever saw one. We didn’t come off too badly the last time we tangled with him.”

“I’m glad you think so, baby,” Begley said sourly. “We came out with our skin. Barely. Three people retired early, one company paid a ten-thousand-buck fine, and Shayne knocked down a large fee.”

“And the word-of-mouth got us the United States account. And dear God, was he lucky. That sort of a run can’t go on forever. Stop thinking about last time, Hal. You can handle this man with one thumb and one forefinger. I want to brief you on the rest of the guests. Forbes Hallam, the president. He probably won’t impress you, but bear in mind that E. J. Despard was doing an annual business of less than half a million dollars when he took over, and you know where they are now. Forbes Hallam, Jr.-he has a literary act. Commerce is beneath him and Henry James is his favorite writer. You might try to remember that. Walter Langhorne-the point to bear in mind there is that he and Mr. Hallam have come up together through the company, but they’re very different types. There are all sorts of undercurrents. Jose Despard-Hallam’s wife was his sister. Head of Research and Development, apparently not much between the ears. It’s his family’s old firm and he has a sizeable stock position. Richardson and Hall are two more vice-presidents. Richardson-”

Begley, on the other side of the desk, tried to concentrate on what she was saying as she continued down the list. It was hard to do because of his rising panic.

Coming out of his office, Jose Despard found his secretary, Miss Mainwaring, bending over a file drawer. Viewed from the front, Miss Mainwaring was tight-lipped and flat-chested, the everlasting spinster. But from this angle, her personality seemed to offer certain possibilities. What if Despard should favor her with a small, innocent tweak, purely as a sporting proposition? She would be startled at first. She would straighten so abruptly that she would give her pelvis a painful knock against the file. But after that, who could tell? Perhaps she would turn slowly, remove her glasses and remark in that sultry tone that had aroused Mrs. Despard’s suspicions the first time she heard it on the phone, “I never knew you thought of me in that light, Mr. Despard.”

He thrust both hands deep in his pockets to keep them out of harm’s way. “Going to lunch. Don’t forget to call the gun shop. Tell them I’ll pick up the gun before five.”

Straightening, Miss Mainwaring turned her spinsterish side in his direction. It became safe to take his hands out of his pockets. Imagine pinching the rear of anybody with a face like that!

“And if Mrs. Despard calls,” he added, “tell her I’ll be going straight to the airport from here. I’ll phone her the minute we get in.”

He went out, hatless. He was tall, very thin, and always seemed to be in a hurry, having important business to transact when he got where he was going. He wore his hair long over his ears. It was touched with gray; he was fifty-three. He sometimes managed to forget his age for as long as three or four days at a time.

He picked up a red Thunderbird convertible in the executive parking lot. Walter Langhorne, head of the design department, was backing a new Chrysler out of the next slot. The two men waved and left the lot by opposite exits. Another early lunch for Walt, Despard noted, and the lucky son of a bitch could stay out as long as he liked, with no fear that some clacking idiot would see him and pass the news along to his wife. Because he had no wife. Despard cocked an eyebrow, a wry expression which he had practiced so long it had become habitual. He believed it made him look English.

E. J. Despard, a family-operated chemical company with an antiquated plant in a small town in southern Georgia, had moved into plastics and synthetic fibers after the second world war and now had manufacturing facilities all over the country as well as in Europe. Largely through Jose Despard’s efforts, the head office, as well as Research and Development, his own baby, had been transferred from Georgia to a new industrial park on undeveloped land between Miami and North Miami. The climate was better, the ocean was nearby, and there was a certain amount of extracurricular action if you knew how to go about locating it.

Despard drove east to the Expressway, picking it up at 103rd Street, and zoomed south toward Miami at a rate of speed that fitted the way he was feeling. He left the Expressway at the 54th Street exit. A block or so later, he stopped at an outside phone booth. Returning to his car, he pressed a button which brought the top up out of the boot. He seldom used the Thunderbird’s top, and it felt like a disguise.

He cruised north into Edison Center.

He felt absently for a stick of gum and chewed it down to manageable size. This was another effort at camouflage. The head of one of the oldest and finest families in Georgia naturally was seldom seen with gum in his mouth.

He turned left at Edison Park, and his heart gave a thump. A girl got up off a bench and slanted across the street toward him. He pulled up and waited. She gave a quick look around, yanked open the door and bolted inside.

She wasn’t quite young enough to be his granddaughter. She was wearing a black turtleneck, a short skirt and sandals. She, too, was chewing gum, as rapidly and nervously as Despard himself. She had long black hair which never satisfied her, and every time she changed to a new hair style, she changed her personality to go with it. Today, partly because he had given her so little warning, it hung down lankly to her thin shoulders. She had a pointed face, bright restless eyes, too much lipstick. He had never seen her eat anything except French fries and hamburgers, and she was much too skinny. But in the black turtleneck her small breasts, he thought, were charming. At times she looked apathetic, but at other times she had all the energy of a broken high-tension wire.

“Honey,” she complained as he drove off, “you said you wouldn’t do that. What if Dad was home sick and picked up the phone?”

“Simple. I’d ask if this was Schwartz’s delicatessen.”

She sighed and settled deeper into the upholstery. “God, do I like these bucket seats.”

“That’s why I got them.”

“Know what I’d like to do some day? Ride up Collins Avenue with the top down in a bikini.”

“All right, you shall.”

“Yeah, I bet! I saw it once, a blonde in a suit about the size of a postage stamp, and if you just sort of glanced, you’d think she was naked. In a Bird with red-leather buckets. The man, though! Jesus. A real creep with a cigar. Where are we supposed to be going?”

He leered, twirling imaginary mustaches. “Don’t you know?”

“Jose, do you think we ought to?” she wailed. “In the daytime? Remember last week, you didn’t get back to the office and you missed some dumb conference. I don’t mind about me. I’ll just tell Dad I went to a double feature, and who cares, anyway? I kind of had Sunday saved.”

Despard signaled for a right turn. “Sunday’s out, that’s the trouble.”

“Hell! Why?”

“I have to go on that damn company weekend,” he said with disgust. “Shooting ducks-I haven’t shot a duck for twenty years. Any time I want to eat duck, I’ll go to a restaurant and order a tame one. But the word has come down from Mt. Olympus-be there. Apparently we’re after something bigger than duck, wearing pants.”

“Come on, Jose. Pants?”

“It’s too complicated to explain. And to make it look good, I have to get up before dawn and stand out in the mud. I know that marsh. I know it well. The mosquitoes are twice as big as the ducks.”

“I don’t get it! What’s the good of being the brother-in-law of the head of a company if you can’t make any plans? You already gave him forty hours this week.”

“I know, sweetie, it’s rough. But this is top priority and I can’t do a thing about it.”

“You don’t have to give me a big story. You wouldn’t have another girl on the string, would you?”

He smiled. “Funny face.”

“I had a chance to go somewhere else Sunday, that’s all,” she said discontentedly. “I said I was going to be busy.”

He took a small package out of his side pocket and passed it to her.

“A present?” she cried, with one of her fast personality switches.

She was now a little girl on Christmas morning. She broke the string and unwrapped a small perfume box. Despard was attending to the traffic, but he could tell she was disappointed. Then she opened the box and read the label, and her jaws stopped moving.

“Jose, this stuff sells for fifty bucks an ounce, and this is an ounce!”

He twirled his imaginary mustache again. “I expect to get my money’s worth.”

“Don’t worry about that. I never heard you complain yet.” She put a hand on his nearest leg. “I don’t like that about Sunday, but I’ll just have to stand it. I’ll ask my girl friend to come over and give me a permanent. But I’ll have to pour this perfume in another bottle or change the label, one. If she sees it, she’s going to want to know what’s going on. The way she pokes and pries and picks, I just know I’ll tell her the whole thing.”

“Wouldn’t she approve?”

“Oh, I don’t know. She might be a little jealous.”

She giggled suddenly.

“What?” he said, smiling.

She shot him a glance. “I just had a way-out idea, I don’t know what you’d think. She’s mad! My girl friend, absotively, posolutely mad. And if I give her a small sniff of this perfume, she’ll purr like a cat. The next time we have a date, why don’t we ask her along?”

His face sobered. So did hers.

“Honey? It was just a thought that happened to cross my mind.”

Despard moistened his lips. He could feel his heart hammering unpleasantly.

“What’s she like?”

She settled into the embrace of the comfortable bucket seat. “Cute as a button. Everybody says so. Much cuter than me. But goodness, it’s entirely up to you.” She made a small movement. “Honey, I wouldn’t want you to get picked up for speeding, but could you please hurry?”

In the main parking lot in Crandon Park on Key Biscayne, Walter Langhorne waited in his Chrysler. He had parked carelessly, the front wheels blocking access to the next parking space. Seeing a red Volkswagen coming off the Bear Cut Bridge, he started his motor, maneuvered forward and back, and opened up the space.

Candida Morse turned in and parked. She was wearing her elegant pink suit. As she swung out of her low-slung car, her skirt rode up to give Langhorne a fast glimpse of the loveliest legs in Greater Miami.

Langhorne had an air which his colleague, Jose Despard, failed to achieve through trying too hard-he looked as though he lived on a private income. He was well aware that to begin with, Candida had sought him out solely because he was a chemical-company vice-president with an itchy foot, and she was a wheel in a well-known headhunting firm. They had both put themselves out to be agreeable. This had been easy to sustain. Each had quickly discovered the other to be handsome, civilized, intelligent, a little cynical, very good company. They had met a dozen times, either behind closed doors or in unlikely places, as they were meeting now. Once they stole an afternoon and drove to a secluded beach on one of the Lower Keys. Each time, as they parted, Langhorne wished they had met in a different way. He had begun to wonder in the last few days if, by being a bit more difficult, he could have maneuvered her to his apartment and into his bed. Probably not, he thought. He was uncommitted and would remain so.

He brought a long-necked bottle of German wine over from the cooler in the back seat and was working the corkscrew when she opened the door and got in beside him.

“Rhine wine,” she observed. She uncovered two earthenware bowls in a wicker basket. “Vichyssoise. Watercress and cucumber sandwiches. Walter, why haven’t you ever been snapped up by somebody?”

“I’ve been too fast on my feet,” he replied, drawing the cork. “How do you know some charmer didn’t turn me down once and I’ve never been able to forget her?”

“I’d accept that,” Candida said, laughing. “Is it true?”

“I forget.”

He was busy for a moment arranging napkins and silverware. He took the chilled glasses out of the cooler and poured the wine. They touched glasses.

Langhorne said seriously, “To your success, if that’s truly what you want.”

“It’s what I want. But why so ceremonious? You sound as though the next thing you say will be goodbye.”

He nodded. “It’s our last meeting. In the present series. I’ll call you in six months’ time and see what you think about starting over on a different basis.”

“Then you’ve decided not to go with United States Chemical?”

“Almost.”

She disposed of the matter with a little movement of her lips. “That’s out of the way.”

“Candida, one more moment on business. We’ve always been able to understand each other, I think, without elaborate explanations. I don’t want to change the rules, but I do want to say this. I’m not one of the most loyal employees E. J. Despard ever had, and if you find yourself in any difficulty and there’s anything I can do to help, will you let me know?”

She put her hand against his face. “You really are a lovely man, Walter. But this is one time I don’t think I do understand you.”

“Something’s going on,” he said slowly. “I’ve probably given you a biased picture of our distinguished president. Hallam has never had any real existence for me outside of his role in the firm, but I learned long ago never to underestimate him. I told him I was considering an offer from one of our competitors-”

She broke in. “When?”

“Yesterday. If I hadn’t known him so well, I would have thought he showed emotion. We’ve been at exactly opposite poles on every decision, every attitude, every course of action. I would have said he’d be delighted to be shut of me. But on the contrary. I haven’t definitely said I’d stay, but if I do I’ll have ten thousand dollars more a year, complete autonomy, a big increase in the design budget, veto power over a broad range of policy, six months out of every eighteen in Europe-”

“Walter, that’s marvelous!”

“I agree. But unless I’ve been dead wrong about Forbes Hallam all these years, something’s behind it. He wants me on the scene, but why?”

He moved his wine glass so it caught the light. “And I’m wondering, in a perverse way, if he’s been told that I’ve been seeing you.”

“Would that be so ghastly?”

“Darling, of course not. Unless by some odd chance he connects it with the flap we’ve been having about a certain new nonpeelable paint known to our advertising department as T-239.”

Neither spoke for a moment. Langhorne tasted his cold soup and added a few grains of pepper from a pepper mill.

Candida ventured, “How does that concern me?”

Langhorne chose his words carefully. “We’re all of us sitting on a barrel of dynamite. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the roof blow off the administration building before the end of the week. There’s a directors’ meeting on Thursday, and the board is split down the middle. Hallam’s enemies have been waiting for a pretext to move. I think you ought to pass this on to Begley. I’m not too impressed with your employer, as a matter of fact. It may be a mistake for him to go to Georgia this weekend. I want you to consider seriously having him come down with a virus that will keep him in bed until after the board meeting.”

“He’s not exactly a fool, Walter.”

“Would you mind defining your terms?” Langhorne said dryly. “It’s not his brain I’m thinking about. It’s whether he can be trusted. We have a report that you’ve been seen going into the United States Chemical offices on Route 128 outside of Boston. Not Hal Begley, you see. Candida Morse. I’m usually right about these things. He has a bad eye. What that eye tells me is that Hal Begley in the clutch will think of Hal Begley, and of nobody else. If he has to jettison someone in order to survive, too bad for that someone. Hal Begley Associates will dwindle down to Hal Begley Period.”

He spooned up some soup. “I hate the idea of the kind of throat-cutting and back-stabbing I’m in for this weekend. Blood will flow! It’s no concern of mine who wins, the Hallams or the Despards. Probably I should have turned Hallam down outright instead of asking for a few days to think about it. One reason I didn’t was that I’d like to be on the inside when the trouble starts. Perhaps I can help. I’ve become very fond of you, my dear.”

He touched her knee. “Come, Candida, you’re not eating.”

Forbes Hallam, Jr., a good-looking, dark-haired young man with the build of a quarter-miler, tapped on a door on the twelfth floor of the Hotel St. Albans in Miami Beach. Without waiting for an answer, he unlocked it with a key he carried on his key ring and went in.

It was 5:15 in the afternoon, and the blinds were drawn. The room was awash with discarded clothing. An empty gin bottle lay on the carpet. Ruth Di Palma was asleep on the bed amid a tumble of bedclothes. She was face down, one bare arm trailing.

Forbes adjusted the blind cords, letting in the afternoon sun. This room was on the Inland Waterway side of the hotel, where prices were lower. Ruth, in fact, occupied it rent-free during the off-season, although she was supposed to be ready to move on an hour’s notice.

He switched on the exhaust fan and turned the air-conditioning dial up a notch. Sitting on the bed beside the sleeping girl, he slipped his hand under the covers.

“Ruthie, wake up.”

He moved his hand along her body. She stirred, murmuring, then flopped over, opened her eyes suddenly and stared up at him. It was clear to Forbes that she didn’t have the remotest idea who he was. Her skin was a lovely golden color. Her face glistened with something she had rubbed on it before going to bed. The sun had burned her hair the color of driftwood. There were no lines on her face, and, if it was true that anxiety was what put the lines on people’s faces, Forbes could be fairly sure that she would still look the same at sixty.

“You remember me,” he said, withdrawing his hand.

“Put your hand back. Come on.”

“Ruthie-”

She lifted the sheet. She slept without nightgown or pajamas.

“What are you doing out there with all those clothes on?”

“Ruth, it’s five in the afternoon, which is a peculiar time to be asleep, and I tore in from the office to see you for about ten seconds.”

“I took a pill. Or two. Or a handful. I love you.”

“I love you.”

“Five in the afternoon? You don’t scare me a bit. The real point is, what day?”

Forbes laughed. “Friday.”

“Well, if it’s still only Friday.” She pulled at his clothes. “Be unconventional. Come to bed. I haven’t seen you since this morning.”

He scuffed off his loafers. Without undressing any further, he swung in under the sheet and took her in his arms.

“Don’t you want to know why I left the office early and drove like a madman and why I’m taking a chance on holding up the company plane?”

“Why?”

“I wanted to find out what you decided.”

“I never decide things,” she said. “Things decide themselves.”

He gave her a small shake. “Why don’t you marry me, Ruthie?”

“Because you’re only one person. If you have to have a reason.”

He laughed again. “I’m changeable.”

“Not enough. Number two, you like your job.”

“I hate my job,” he said calmly.

“You only think you hate it. Let’s make love. I don’t feel a bit like it. It’s the last thing I’d suggest ordinarily, down at the end of the list after watching cartoons on TV. But anything to change the subject!”

“Ruthie, don’t,” he said, trying to keep her from unbuttoning his shirt. “I have to be at Opa-Locka airport in sixty minutes, or my father will chop me off at the neck. He likes people to be on time.”

Doubling the pillow behind her, she hitched up against the headboard and looked at him balefully. “You won’t believe this, but do you know I forgot you were going away? Now maybe you’ll agree I’m not cut out to be the wife of a rising young executive. I told Freddy and Adrian we’d go to Palm Beach.”

“Where in Palm Beach?”

“Freddy met the lady who gives those millions of dollars to the opera. She has some wonderful Picassos and he’s going to get her to give him one.”

“Nobody gives Freddy Picassos.”

“He has a plan worked out. I’ll see if he can put it off a week. Then I promised we’d be back in time for the soul session at the Stanwick. They’ve got some real weirdies.”

“I’ll be satisfied to miss that.”

“Too bad for you, buster. I’ll go stag. Cigarette.”

She watched him find the cigarettes and hunt around in the mess for matches. “It begins to come back to me. I wish you wouldn’t keep telling me things when I’m tight. This is your Mike Shayne weekend.”

“There, you see? There’s nothing wrong with your memory.”

He held a match to her cigarette. She breathed out smoke and looked at him.

“Forbes, are you in any kind of jam I don’t know about?”

He shook his long hair off his forehead. “I tell you about all my jams.”

“At three or four in the morning, when I couldn’t care less. I asked a couple of people about this Mike Shayne, and here’s what they tell me. Now listen. To start with, you have to remember he’s tricky. But he’s not like other tricky people. He can be tough. And he’s not like most tough people because he can also be tricky. If you can’t follow that, it’s because I’m not at my best before breakfast. What it boils down to, if you’ve got something you don’t want Shayne to find out, don’t take your eyes off the radar screen.”

“Shayne and I are working the same side of the street. We’re the one-two punch for the good guys.”

“Hmm.”

“Ruthie, are you worrying about me by any chance?”

“Me worry? About you? You may not be handsome, but you’re rich, accomplished, a talented writer, with a nice car, nice clothes and a nice crusty father.” She added, “You did raise that money O.K., didn’t you?”

“Ruthie, that was ages ago. It all blew over. You realize, don’t you, that if you’ve started to worry about me and money, you might as well marry me? Wives are supposed to worry about their husbands. Girls are supposed to be blase about their boy friends.”

“How can I marry you, Forbes? I’m five years older than you.”

“I’ll catch up.”

“Besides, your father’s paying me a weekly allowance as long as we don’t get married.”

His smile vanished. He seized her bare arm above the elbow. “Is that true?”

She looked at him in silence for a moment before shaking her head. “No.”

He let go. “Well, your financial condition’s a mystery to me, but I really don’t think that explains it. The old man’s attached to that dough. He made it himself. I’ve got to go.”

“Not yet.”

“Yes, damn it, if I want to hang onto that job, and we’ve been through that ten million times. If I could get along without eating, I could easily live on what I make writing fiction. Three short stories in six months, two hundred and twenty-five dollars.”

“You’re not using the old computer,” she said, tapping his forehead. “If you drive to Opa-Locka, you’ll just about make it, leaving now. The Watson Park heliport is five minutes from here. Take a helicopter.

He looked into her eyes, then glanced quickly at his watch.

“You see?” she said. “Call the heliport.”

She threw off the sheet and slid down in the bed, watching him gravely. He hooted and reached for the phone, beginning to unbutton his shirt with the other hand.