“You must have figured that out by now.”
“I haven’t been working on this case as long as you have,” Painter said stiffly. “You have information which for various reasons hasn’t been made available to the police.”
“I’m still just speculating,” Shayne said. “I don’t want to hog the spotlight. I’m willing to stop talking at any time.”
Rourke chortled. “He’s going to make you say please, Petey.”
Painter started to speak, swallowed it, and said through set lips, “Play the goddamn tape. I’d-appreciate it.”
Shayne pressed a button and the reel began to revolve. A voice began.
DE RHAM: Now we’ve got to talk about the timing, Paul.
BRADY: Relax. Relax. We’ve just bamboozled a guy who’s reputed to be the smartest and toughest private investigator in the United States. Worry can give you a heart attack. Let’s not worry.
DE RHAM: You thrive on this tightrope walking. I don’t. I’m exhausted.
BRADY: You did fine, baby, just fine. You were so irresistible in that bed jacket I almost climbed in with you myself after Shayne left.
DE RHAM: Cut it out with the queer stuff. I never did think that fag act was too funny.
BRADY (softly, after a moment): What makes you sure it’s an act?
DE RHAM: Come on. I know you too well. You made a ravishing chorus girl in the Pudding show-
BRADY: True, old chap. But who was the leading lady?
DE RHAM: Seriously. There’s enough tension around here without going out of our way. I’m a dedicated heterosexual, and if I ever had had any doubts about that, this hippy chick resolved them very satisfactorily. She’s a talented performer in the sack.
BRADY: Spare me the details.
DE RHAM (laughing): No, a queer like you wouldn’t be interested. (more seriously) This is my last day as Dotty De Rham, alcoholic. No reason to drag out the drag bit any longer. This is D-day minus one.
BRADY (sharply): You don’t mean that. We wowed everybody. Just because a clown like Shayne-
DE RHAM: That clown happens to send cold shivers up and down my spine.
BRADY: We haven’t used the sick-to-the-stomach business yet. Hell, we can handle him.
DE RHAM: If he got Loring to send him a picture of Dotty, for example-
BRADY: Why would he do that? He’s been getting by on muscle for years. There’s nothing but reflexes behind the eyes.
DE RHAM (slowly): I don’t think so. It’s too big a chance to take. Tomorrow morning we give our make-believe friend Dotty a funeral at sea.
(A moment’s pause.)
BRADY: I hate to bring up a promise, but you said you’d wait for the real estate money to come through. That’s only four more days. Let’s sweat it out.
DE RHAM: That’s earmarked for you, baby. Believe me.
BRADY: But there’s no way you can put it in writing, is there? Somehow I feel sure you’ll find some technical reason for hanging onto it.
DE RHAM (lightly): You can always blackmail me.
BRADY: Can I? I’m in it as deep as you are now. What I want is cash, and I want it before we dispose of Dotty, not after.
DE RHAM: Well, you’re not going to get another penny, because we’ve run out of time. And don’t give me that now crap. This has been a joint venture from the start. It was your idea.
BRADY: I take credit for it. And where would you be if I’d gone into a tailspin like you that morning?
The room was quiet. Shayne pressed the rewind button, and listened to the last few speeches again. Then the voices resumed.
DE RHAM: I’ve been wondering about that. If I hadn’t panicked like a damn fool-
BRADy: Hell, it was understandable. You’d just knocked off your wife.
DE RHAM: I’ve told you approximately one hundred times that I didn’t kill her. I’ll tell you another hundred times. I didn’t kill her. I didn’t-
BRADY: I seem to remember dragging you off when you tried to throttle her. She was blue in the face before I could make you let go. Petrocelli must have heard her scream. He knew she’d written a new will. Of course I could be wrong. All I know is, she was on the boat when I went to bed and she wasn’t on the boat when I woke up. If you didn’t kill her, give me a better explanation.
DE RHAM (sullenly): I can’t remember exactly what happened.
BRADY: Which would make a very lousy defense in a court of law. The will, baby. What happened to the will? I saw her put it in the desk drawer. And when we looked for it, where was it? Gone with the wind.
DE RHAM: I’ve had two weeks to think about that. I don’t deny she got under my skin. Maybe I killed her and threw her overboard and blocked it out of my mind. I’ve got an uncertain memory at the bottom of a bottle of scotch, as you know very well, incidentally. O.K. Or maybe you killed her.
BRADY (with a short laugh): She wasn’t my wife.
DE RHAM (very slowly): But she’d written you a check for forty thousand bucks and she was talking about stopping payment. You were on funny terms with her, Paul-I don’t know if it was sex or not, but there was definitely something. I could feel the static.
BRADY: That static always went one way.
DE RAHM: I’ve seen you when you lose your temper. It’s a frightening thing. She was teasing you and working you up, and if you did lose your temper with her, if you did kill her, it would be a smart thing to destroy that will.
BRADY: Baby, let’s cut this out. If we’d notified the Coast Guard that we had a woman missing, you’d be getting a big jolt of electricity two years from now, and no amount of hindsight can change that. I don’t think they could have touched me. I took a hell of a risk helping you, because if they catch us now I’ll be in for conspiracy. Well, we’ve cleared a hundred and seventy thousand bucks-what the hell, man. I’ll settle for that. Let’s wind it up tomorrow morning, then, if you feel that strongly about it.
DE RHAM: I do feel that strongly about it.
BRADY: We’ve got to pull together, Hank. That’s essential. I had the basic idea, but you executed. You did more of the hard work and you deserve a prosperous life. Have some more scotch. How can you pretend to be drunk tomorrow morning unless you’re actually lightly drunk?
(They both laugh. Drinking noises.)
DE RHAM: That first move with Petrocelli was the hard one. Everything after that was candy. I sometimes think I should have gone into the theater, except people tell me it’s hard work. When I was a kid I used to do an imitation of my mother, did I ever tell you? From the next room you couldn’t tell the difference.
BRADY: You told me. Do you want to go over the schedule again?
DE RHAM: Hell, no. I could do it with a broken leg and a temperature of a hundred and four.
BRADY: Then let’s get some sleep. Set your alarm for four-thirty and I will too. One is sure to go off. Good luck.
DE RHAM: Good luck.
(A door closes.)
The reel went on spinning. After a moment’s silence Shayne turned it off. “That explains most of it,” he said. “Any questions?”
“Yeah,” Rourke said. “What happened?”
Shayne laughed. “You mean what happened to Mrs. De Rham the last night before the boat got to Miami? Maybe Paul will decide to tell us after he’s thought it over. Or maybe he doesn’t know. I even wondered at one point if she tore up the will herself and jumped overboard after the boys went to bed just to make trouble. Did she have suicidal tendencies? We’ll have to ask her psychiatrist. Think of how it looked to Brady and De Rham when they woke up that next morning and she wasn’t aboard. Both of them had a good reason for wanting her dead. As a cop, Petey, if you’d known she was missing when Petrocelli came in with his story, what would you have done?”