The Violent World of Michael Shayne by Brett Halliday

government, to the degree that I’m afraid he gets under people’s skin.” She added hastily, “By that I don’t mean that Daddy doesn’t believe in honesty in government. He just isn’t a fanatic about it. After his heart attack he can’t afford to be fanatical about anything.”
    “Is Bixler trying to sell Wall the same thing he sold me?”
    “No, I don’t think so, not from the way Tom talked about it. He kept saying it would blow the whole case sky-high. Well, maybe. Meanwhile, don’t you think we have to assume that the status quo still exists? That Daddy’s still their major target?”
    She tasted her Cointreau and licked the taste off her lips. “What worries me—as soon as they hear that the Maggie Smith thing has fallen through, won’t they try some desperate last-minute move? What I’m getting at, couldn’t you stand by, as a sort of bodyguard, for twenty-four hours?”
    “Not unless your father agrees.”
    “Well, he wouldn’t agree. But couldn’t you watch him without letting him realize you were there?”
    Shayne shook his head. “That only happens in books, Miss Hitchcock. I’m a stranger in town. And even if I’d worked here all my life, I’d need three other men and a couple of two-way radios, and I wouldn’t guarantee anything.”
    She worried her lip for another minute. “But at least you’ll make sure Maggie Smith gets on a plane tomorrow? And if anything comes up before then, where will you be?”
    “At the St. Albans,” Shayne told her, without adding that after he got to sleep it would take more than the ringing of the telephone to wake him up.
    Hitchcock came in.
    “Tom’s wonderful,” he said to his daughter, his usual good temper restored. “He’s going to be majority leader in ten years, or dead of a heart attack.” He knocked lightly on the desk top. “Knock on wood.”
    “Don’t joke about it!” Trina said harshly. “It’s in terrible taste.”
    “I had some mild heart trouble a while ago,” the Senator explained to Shayne. “I recommend it as a good way to get a sensible outlook. Trina, I’ll get around to you shortly. I want to talk to Mike privately first. Don’t go to bed.”
    She stood up. “Daddy, I’m sorry.”
    “I know you are, dear, and I hope not too much damage has been done.”
    She smiled nervously and left them alone.

 
CHAPTER 6
    10:05 P.M.
     
    HITCHCOCK POURED MORE BRANDY INTO SHAYNE’S GLASS AND set the bottle beside his chair. “Help yourself when you feel like it. I have to deny myself hard liquor, but they’ve relented about cigars. Without cigars, I think I might have had to resign from the Senate. Will you smoke one with me? These are Havanas. I wish I could think they were part of a pre-Castro shipment. Actually, I know very well that they were smuggled in.”
    As soon as their cigars were burning evenly, Hitchcock said, “Perhaps I should explain about my daughter. Her mother was an invalid for many years before she died. I was away much of the time, first in the legislature, then in Washington. Even after they joined me here we didn’t have much family life. She’s concerned about me. In my turn I’m concerned about her. I have a strong hunch that she and Tom Wall are having an affair. There’s nothing wrong with Tom except that he eats ravenously and never puts on weight. He’s too eager for my taste, and besides that he’s married. His wife isn’t here with him, but it worries me. Well, that’s neither here nor there. I’m already talking too much, but that’s a habit we find it easy to fall into. Maggie—ever since she was a young girl she’s been part of the theatre, and I don’t have to be told that few theatrical people live by traditional American small-town standards. Although some of the things that go on in American small towns! I know there have been men in her life. That has nothing to do with my feeling for her.”
    He waited for some comment from Shayne, drawing on his long Havana, but the