Kill All the Young Girls

Chapter 6

Shayne gave Rourke the key to his Buick, and the reporter let himself out. Jane had moved from the bed to the floor, where she was waving her arms gently. “How are you feeling, Mike?”

Shayne looked down after a moment. “What?”

“That answers my question. I’m feeling wonderfully relaxed; and there you are, tight as a drum. I’m sorry for anybody who gets in your way the next couple of hours. Would you like me to teach you some exercises while we’re waiting?”

“Not now, Jane. Maybe you can do something with Tim. Now there’s a real challenge.”

“Mike, will you give me your autograph before you go?”

“What?”

“My friends won’t believe it unless I have something in writing.”

He laughed shortly and took the “Do Not Disturb” sign off the doorknob, reversed it, and wrote, “Anything Jane says happened really happened. — Michael Shayne.”

When Rourke came back with the suitcase, Shayne took his clothes to the bathroom and dressed quickly. Other questions had occurred to him while Rourke was gone, and the two men talked quietly for a moment.

“I want to know where to reach you,” Shayne said. “Find out what Jane thinks about your staying here. You can keep track of what’s going on across the hall.”

She heard that and came out of an intricate twist.

“I was planning to get to bed early tonight; but of course if it’s a question of catching a killer…”

Rourke had brought ice cubes back from the outside world. He raised his glass to Shayne, who nodded to him and went out.

The corridor was jammed with media people and uniformed police. A television unit was waiting. Reporters attempting to buttonhole police officials as they went in and out were getting nothing but rebuffs. The one-fingered bomb expert, Sergeant Lovejoy, had just arrived and was trying to force his way through the crowd.

“Now boys, what can I tell you? A bomb went off; that’s all I know. Let me look at it first.”

The cop at the elevator knew Shayne and remarked that he hadn’t seen him when he came in.

“Nothing I can do here till the crowd thins out. I’ll be back.”

“Was it really Kate Thackera?”

“It really was.”

He took the elevator to the basement garage. An attendant brought him his Buick. As soon as he left the hotel, he opened his car phone and signalled his mobile operator. She had trouble getting the number he wanted, and he pulled over to the curb and waited.

Presently a man named Jerry Lewellyn answered. Lewellyn worked for the telephone company; and although articulate enough in person, he was seldom willing to say anything on an open line except hello and goodbye. Without giving his own name, Shayne suggested that it might be a nice night to go bowling. A little late, but they wouldn’t have any trouble getting a lane.

“Bowling,” Lewellyn said without enthusiasm. “Just what I wanted to do.”

Shayne crossed on the Venetian Causeway and parked near a bowling alley. Lewellyn drove up in a panel truck. A light-skinned black with a degree in electronics, he was one of the phone company’s least loyal employees. Shayne explained what he wanted.

“Have to give you a no on that, Mike,” Lewellyn said. “A slow no, I could use the bread. But I know that Pussycat operation. They’ve got that whole island organized.”

“Come out with me, and look it over. It can’t be that tight.”

“It is, though. I put in their PABX for them, and I was watched every minute. They’ve got a guy running a dice game. Of course it’s protected, but the customers don’t know that. So they keep a bunch of hard white boys standing around. You need a key to get in. You’d think something sinful went on there. But what, outside of the crap game? The waitresses aren’t allowed to massage the customers. You can find bluer entertainment in any hotel on the Beach.”

“For five hundred bucks. That’s good money. How about cutting in where the line comes out of the building?”

“With the right kind of equipment — which I don’t have. And I’d be only too visible. Ma Bell doesn’t approve of this kind of moonlighting. Sorry. I was watching a basketball game when you called. I’ll get back.”

“Wait a minute. Olson is having some kind of tax trouble. Would IRS have a tap on him?”

“I’ve known cases. But they wouldn’t do business with us.”

“How would they work it? They wouldn’t do anything crude, like putting transmitters in each phone.”

“Man, what are you saying? That the phone company would cooperate with government snoops? Our big mission is to preserve the integrity of the customer’s messages; and if some dirty person sneaks in and puts in a crossbar shunt, we don’t want to know anything about it.”

“Can you check?”

“Easily.”

He went back to his truck. Shayne stayed behind him and waited outside while he went into a fortress-like building on Second Avenue. He came out some minutes later, smiling.

“This is actually going to work. We tap in on the tappers. Why not? It’s practically legal.”

“Where’s their setup?”

“In Buena Vista, and I think it’s a street of two-family houses. That’s the easiest kind.”

He moved off in his panel truck, with Shayne behind him. They stopped in a residential neighborhood a block or two from the noisy swath torn through the city by the big north-south expressway.

Lewellyn disappeared between houses with a bag of tools. This was a quiet street, with little traffic. Cars were parked along both curbs. Lewellyn came back into view, unreeling wire. Where it crossed the sidewalk, he ran it into one of the transverse cracks and glued it down with a quick-setting adhesive. After carrying it into the back of his truck, he climbed in to check the installation.

“Couldn’t be clearer,” he said, coming back to Shayne. “If they were all as easy as this, I’d go into tapping full-time. Can you let me know by midnight if you want all-night coverage? I have to work in the morning. I can get somebody else or cut in a tape recorder and sleep in the truck.”

“I have your number. I’ll try to call you.”

Pelican Island, one of the man-made lozenges in Biscayne Bay off the Julia Tuttle Causeway, had been bought by Olson Enterprises and turned into an entertainment complex. After appropriate sums had been contributed to the campaign funds of office holders on both sides of the bay, its name had been changed to Oscar’s Island on the official maps; but everybody still called it Pelican.

It was an island dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure. To rent one of the efficiency apartments or a room in one of the motels, it was necessary to be single. Marriage — the word itself was in disrepute here — was cause for expulsion. Naturally the entire operation was regularly denounced from all the pulpits within a hundred miles; but as Lewellyn had pointed out, everything that happened there also happened elsewhere, if less self-consciously.

The Pussycat Club, where Shayne hoped to find Olson, had been built with a vaulted glass roof that emitted light like a beacon for incoming airplanes. Its walls were of concrete, unbroken by windows, with the rough grain of the wood used in the forms still showing on the surface. The entrance was unobtrusive, without a sign or marquee.

Shayne parked and waited until a raucous party arrived in three taxis from the Beach. Several of the men wore badges in the shape of rubber plungers, identifying them as salesmen from the convention meeting in the St. Albans. Shayne joined them. He claimed an acquaintance with a plump, unsteady man whose true home, according to his badge, was Omaha, Nebraska. He was glad to acknowledge Shayne as an old friend, and they all went in together. The two guards inside the door, dark, smiling boys in suits, didn’t notice that the group had picked up a hitchhiker.

Inside, Shayne stopped at the long bar with his new friends and paid for a round of drinks. Then, a brandy glass in his hand, he moved on.

All the female help — and except for the guards all the help seemed to be female — were extraordinarily pretty and well filled out, wearing a minimum of clothing, cats’ tails and unfailing smiles. The murals were semipornographic cartoons by artists whose work appeared in Olson’s magazine. There was a poker room and a dice room, an amplified rock group, and a well-known girl singer. One person at each table, on an average, appeared to be enjoying himself. The others were waiting for the evening to run its course.

Shayne intercepted one of the lightly clad waitresses. “I seem to be lost. Which way to the man’s apartment?”

“Now what man you-all talking about?” she said, giving him a dazzling smile.

“Oscar. We’re old army buddies.”

“Sure enough? You better cut that out, because Oscar Olson never spent a single day in any army.”

“We had our own army. I’m not trying to bust in on anybody. I just want to send my name in so he’ll know I’m here.”

She shook her head, her smile undimmed. “You know that just isn’t possible. If he opened himself up to any old body who wanted to see that revolving bed, I mean he’d be mobbed.”

“Would money persuade you?”

“Certainly,” she said promptly. “It could get me in hot water, too; but I’m not fixing to stay in this job forever. For an old army buddy, I believe I’ll just charge you a miserable twenty-five dollars.”

“That’s fair.”

He counted out the bills. They disappeared in the pocket between her breasts.

“Thanks, honey,” she said. “Now you understand this is just going to get you an interview with one of the secretaries.”

“How much will she cost me?”

“They’re on another level. They don’t take tips. I had a chance to audition for it, but you really have to dig the concept, and I’m not ready to commit myself yet.”

She went off with a flirt of her behind. Presently she was pointing him out to a tall, dark-haired girl in pink-tinted glasses. She was equally gorgeous but more conventionally dressed. She bore down on Shayne, her unfettered breasts like cannon beneath her loose shirt. She was the first Olson employee Shayne had seen without a smile.

He spoke first. “I don’t know him. I’m Michael Shayne, and I’m working for Marcus Zion. That doesn’t automatically make me an enemy. I’m not part of the proxy fight.”

The girl gave him a close inspection. She had gray eyes and looked alert and competent.

“Did you tip her?”

“Yeah, twenty-five bucks.”

“It’s getting harder and harder to find suitable girls. What do you want, precisely?”

“There’ve been a few late developments I don’t think he knows about. She told me not to offer you money.”

“She was right. Hold still.”

Her hands slid under his arms and patted him for weapons. Stooping in such a way that he could see her breasts down to and including the nipples, she ran her hands down both his legs.

“Lucky I’m not ticklish,” he said. “I’ve got a gun in the car if you think I ought to take one in with me.”

She came erect and said coldly, “Oscar doesn’t like private detectives. And that means anybody who works for him doesn’t like private detectives. Michael Shayne. Didn’t I read a piece about you in one of the news magazines?”

“A couple of years ago. It was eighty percent wrong. I’m not that good.”

“I’m Mandy Pitt. Tell me about these late developments.”

“What’s the point?” Shayne said impatiently. “I’m not going to bite off his nose. He’ll want to hear this, I promise you.”

She shook her head. “It goes through me first. That’s the way Oscar wants it to be. He gets certain shots in the evening, and one of the effects is to make him drowsy.”

Shayne broke in. “An actress named Kate Thackera has been offering him a deal on Consolidated proxies. She was killed in her hotel room about an hour ago.”

Mandy Pitt’s breasts lifted as she drew a sudden audible breath, a quick gasp.

“Killed!”

“And tell him I was with her most of the evening. We had a long confidential talk. His name came up a few times.”

She breathed out slowly. “You’re right; that’s news. But why do you think he’ll want to hear about it tonight? He has a hard time getting to sleep.”

“Tell him I’m older than I was when Newsweek ran that piece about me. Older and more venal.”

“Venal?”

“That means I’m willing to listen to any reasonable offer.”

“I know the word. I don’t understand how you’re applying it here.”

“You’ve done your duty, baby. You’ve convinced me that he’s a major personality who doesn’t like to be disturbed unless it’s important. This can have a bearing on the vote tomorrow, and of course it’s important.”

“All right, Mr. Shayne. We’ll do it like this.”

She signalled with a movement of her head. A rumpled man with ears that had taken a battering in the prize ring separated himself from the drinkers and closed in on Shayne.

“We want to use the office, Louis,” Mandy said. “If there’s anybody there, ask them to step out for a minute.”

He tapped on a closed door and looked in. A small, glistening man in a tuxedo came out, moving sideward to get out of Mandy’s way.

“We’ll only be a few minutes.”

Shayne and the girl entered a small room which was filled to capacity with two people in it. Like all offices of this kind, like certain restaurants and celebrity barber shops, all four walls were crowded with framed, inscribed photographs of entertainers, few of them of any particular luster. Any new additions would have to go on the ceiling.

She perched on a corner of the desk and waved him to a leather sofa.

“I did this to establish something.”

“Okay,” he said agreeably. He had brought his drink. He shook it in his glass to raise the bouquet and drank. “What do we talk about?”

“This is the Oscar situation. He doesn’t want anybody to think he’s really trying. But you know, don’t you, that he didn’t build Oscar Olson Enterprises out of thin air without a certain amount of application? He worries, like the rest of us. He’s been worrying about this vote. He’s committed a good deal of capital. Now if he stays up the rest of the night worrying about Kate Thackera, he won’t be able to look casual at the meeting tomorrow; and that would be out of character.”

“Maybe he ought to worry. There are things he could be doing tonight.”

She pushed her glasses back on her nose. “He’s put Consolidated-Famous out of his mind. He’s had sex. As soon as he gets his testosterone shots and a massage, he’ll drift off. Now if you barge in and jolt him out of this routine — and he decides it wasn’t necessary — he’ll brand me and cut off my ears. On the other hand, if I’m overly cautious, that can be bad, too. That’s why I have to hear about it.”

“He sounds like a pain in the ass. Why do you work for him?”

“An interesting question, and you don’t really want to know the answer. From all I can gather, if Marcus Zion didn’t happen to be the son of Larry Zion, he’d be the manager of a supermarket or a CPA. If we take over the board, he’ll be given thirty days notice; and he knows it. You’re not necessarily an enemy? Of course you’re an enemy, and I think the reason you want to talk to Oscar may be to unsettle him and knock him off balance so he’ll make some mistake tomorrow.”

“How well did you know Kate Thackera?”

“Not at all. She had two conversations with Oscar: one in San Francisco, one here. I talked to her before she got in, the way I’m talking to you. A trifle unstable, wasn’t she?”

“She tried to give that impression. Was she blackmailing Olson?”

“I haven’t heard that word in years.”

“It’s called different things. This was delivered to Kate at the hotel this afternoon.”

He unfolded the composite Brannon-Thackera nude torn from her employer’s magazine and let her study it.

“The face is Kate’s. You may not recognize the body, but Oscar will. It’s Keko Brannon. You hadn’t even started to menstruate when this was taken.”

“And you’re hoping to sell it to him?”

“It’s not for sale. I just want to see what kind of rise I can get out of him. You did it very well. Very cool. No vibrations at all.”

“Why should I vibrate? It means nothing to me.”

She pushed off from the desk and sat down beside him. “I’m not catching much of this, as a matter of fact. You do realize that I’m a girl?”

“You made sure I’d realize that by frisking the top of my socks and not wearing a bra.”

“Oscar writes editorials against bras. He enjoys the aesthetic harmonies of a moving breast; and when the breast starts to sag, he loses interest in the lady it’s attached to. I shouldn’t have to tell you this.”

“What are you telling me? That in addition to a great figure, you’ve got a mind?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, still poker-faced. “Did that sound pretentious? I just don’t think the size and shape of the female breast is the only thing that matters. Shall we start again?”

“How far back?”

She removed her glasses. Switching around on the couch so she faced him, she touched his leg and said in a completely different voice, almost whispering, “You’re a Taurus, aren’t you? That wonderful combination of strength and gentleness.”

“Baby, time’s passing.”

“Too fast.”

She moved her fingers on his leg. The look she was giving him was vague and unfocussed.

“You’ll try to understand, won’t you? I know it’s absurd, because all I am is a secretary; but I have to screen people. He’s such a tyrant. The chances are he’d go into hysterics and call for the bouncers and have them bounce you down the stairs. And I don’t want any bruises on your sexy body. Talk to me instead. Tell me about it. Maybe I can persuade you to come for a dip in our pool. We swim naked, of course.”

She moved her hand on up Shayne’s leg and gave him a quick intimate caress. “Would sex be a better way to do it? Would you prefer that?”

He laughed. “Baby, you’ve got a real chip on your shoulder.”

She put her glasses on. Her voice was back to normal.

“I made a mistake about something minor this afternoon, and he gave me a verbal flogging. It’s true I’m feeling a bit militant. I know Kate Thackera saw him. I don’t know what about. But he’s pretty much wrapped up in himself, and I don’t think he’s going to mind that she’s dead.”

“Have you decided to let me in?”

“No. What can he do about anything tonight that he can’t do just as well in the morning?”

“If he talks to me now, if he gives me something I can use, there’s a chance his name won’t be mentioned. Not much of a chance, but he’ll want to take it. I was hired to keep that girl out of trouble. Somebody got past me. That’s bad publicity in my business. It makes me look dumb. The only way to handle it is to blanket it. I expect to be up most of the night. I don’t have to get a solution, just some names for the lead. Keko Brannon’s a good name. So is Oscar Olson.”

“I don’t see what you mean.”

“Toss me out, and I’ll call a press conference and show this picture. The newspaper guys can take it from there. Oscar’s magazine. Keko Brannon used to share his wonderful bed. She died. Kate Thacker went to Oscar’s parties and saw him privately, and she died. Oscar has money; Kate needed money. She wanted a part in a movie. Oscar could get it for her if he won.”

“You think she was blackmailing him and he killed her? You’re insane.”

“Somebody killed her.”

“He’s been here all day, and sixty or more people can testify to that.”

“Did he know what brand of bourbon she drank?”

“How do I know? What difference does it make?”

“She opened a gift package of Old Grand-dad, only it wasn’t Old Grand-dad. It was a fragmentation bomb.”

This time if he had had her wired to a polygraph, all the needles would have leaped into agitated motion. Outwardly she changed very little. A muscle flicked at the corner of her mouth. Some change in her inner chemistry caused her pupils to contract.

“It blew up in her hands?” she whispered. “How awful. Are they sure?”

“The cops are still trying to figure it out, but I’m sure. I was there. I was close enough so I got some of her blood on me. We were about to start making love.”

“Oh, Mike. I’m sorry I’ve been so obnoxious. How awful. I liked her pictures.”