He knocked sharply. The voices stopped. He was facing a small round one-way mirror, and there was a faint clatter as it opened on the inside.
The door was thrown open promptly. Bixler, his face red, his eyes bulging, was wearing a kind of smoking jacket with velvet lapels. On a mannequin in a store window it had probably looked quietly dashing. It was wrong for Bixler.
“Mike Shayne!” he cried with his slight lisp. “This is what I call a pleasant surprith! Come in, Mike, and join us in a glass of cold champagne.”
His apartment was furnished simply, with good modern furniture. A big picture window looked out at the lights along the Potomac. There were two champagne glasses on a glass-topped table, a few lipstick-tipped cigarette ends in the ashtray, but no other sign of Bixler’s guest.
“I hope I’m not butting in,” Shayne said.
“Absolutely not. There’s always a welcome for Mike Shayne in my humble-ah, pad. I’ve been entertaining, because what would life be like without the ladies? She’s a little shy.” Lowering his voice, he said confidentially, “It’s the first time I ever had her up here.” He knocked at the closed bathroom door. “It’s OK to come out, Margaret. It’s Mike Shayne. The one I was telling you about.”
A faint voice inside said, “Tell me as soon as he’s gone.”
“I want you to meet him! I know it’s late, but you don’t have to worry-Mike’s been around.”
When there was no answer, Bixler shrugged.
“Make yourself at home, Michael. If I’d thought there was a faint chance you might be dropping by, I would have laid in a supply of Markell’s. Isn’t that what you drink? Or is it Martell’s?”
He twirled the champagne bottle ceremoniously in its bucket and filled a glass for Shayne. “See what you think of this bubbly. The man at the store said I couldn’t do better at twice the money.”
He beamed after Shayne tasted the champagne and nodded approvingly.
“Do you live it up like this every night?” Shayne asked. “Working for the government must be a better deal than I thought.”
Bixler laughed heartily. “That’s good, Mike. No, working for the government is financially very unrewarding, if you don’t count in the fringe benefits. This is a celebration.”
“You’ve started spending the two thousand bucks I gave you?”
Bixler touched his finger to his lips, sending a meaningful glance at the bathroom door. “I’m celebrating two things. The second thing was even more satisfactory, both to ye olde bank account and my self-esteem. A small financial token of esteem from a certain senator who must here remain nameless, but whose name begins with-” He sketched the letter W in the air. “I didn’t bargain. I named a price and then I was like granite. I just smiled quietly. Finally he paid it.”
“I hope this wasn’t the same information you sold me.”
“Certainly not. I never sell anything twice. That way you can make enemies.”
“I’m trying to find Wall. Do you know where he might be?”
“I think I can make an educated guess.” He went back to the bathroom door and rapped again. “Margaret, don’t be like that. Come on out.”
The door opened in a moment and a plain, dumpy woman emerged. She was stiff and embarrassed. Two pinch-marks on the bridge of her nose showed that she habitually wore glasses, though she had taken them off in honor of the champagne.
“Margaret, I’d like to have you meet the famous Mike Shayne,” Bixler announced, “in person. Mike, this is Miss Saul, my secretary. She’s in the pool, really, but I always ask for her, and do you blame me?”
“I certainly don’t,” Shayne said.
“How do you do,” Miss Saul said, looking no higher than Shayne’s necktie. “Ron, it’s so late I really think I must be going.”
Bixler tried to talk her into letting him fill her glass, but she insisted. She also refused to let him change his jacket and escort her home.
“I live downstairs on the sixth floor, you see, Mr. Shayne,” she explained, blushing.
Stooping swiftly, she retrieved a white bracelet from the floor near the sofa. Blushing more violently, she said, “I had a perfectly lovely evening, Ron. See you at work tomorrow.”
He took her to the door, where he whispered something. She giggled and gave him a push. He was preening himself when he came back.
“A very warm person, Mike. No raving beauty, I’ll be the first to admit, but the truth of the matter is that I think surface prettiness is greatly overrated in women. Bosoms-people believe in these great enormous bosoms, but I for one think companionability’s more important. You’re used to the women in the sensual south. You wouldn’t believe how puritanical they can be in this town. This apartment is setting me back an arm and a leg, but it’ll be worth it if tonight’s any example. More champagne?”
He filled Shayne’s glass and raised his own. “Here’s to money.”
Shayne started to speak, but Bixler forestalled him.
“Michael, I just wanted to say this. I know you want to locate Senator Wall, so you can confer about overall strategy, and the reason you dropped by is that you’ve figured out that I know that-” He stopped, confused. “I seem to be a little-but don’t worry, I know what I’m trying to say, I have a good head for liquor. What I mean is, I’m under no illusion that this is a social visit. You have an ulterior motive, like everybody, and you’re probably impatient to get moving. I know how monotonous it must be, always running into people who are sort of like disciples, but I’m a dyed-in-the-wool disciple of yours and I always have been. You’re the reason I took up investigation in the first place. Maybe it didn’t work out the way I expected, but that’s no fault of yours. That’s Washington. It’s been tedious, and the financial pickings have been slim. Not many glamorous women have come my way. And then you blew in, and in six hours I made more money than in the whole last year. Margaret sensed the change right away. That made the difference between coming up for a drink and not coming up for a drink. Where was I?”
“Weren’t you about to tell me what it was you sold Wall?”
“I guess I was. He told me not to breathe a word to a soul, but that wouldn’t include you. If you want to check further, and knowing your methods I think you will, you may be able to find him at Oskar’s, that’s an after-hours joint, 17 Larue Place, off Ninth Street, pretty sleazy. That’s the first place I’d try if I was you.”
“I’m surprised he’s still making the rounds,” Shayne said. “I heard he usually gets to bed early when he’s going to be working the next day.”
“Oh, this is no pub-crawling expedition,” Bixler told him. “Wall? Heavens, no. He wouldn’t be caught dead in that kind of joint if he didn’t think there was money in it. You know that as well as I do.”
“I don’t know anything at all about these people,” Shayne said. “That’s why I came to see you.”
Bixler broke into a happy smile. “Think of being in a position to give pointers to Mike Shayne! You’re going to be calling me Ron before the evening’s over, aren’t you, Mike?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Shayne said agreeably. “What does this all go back to, something you found out when you were investigating Toby for the Hitchcock committee?”
“There! You don’t beat around the bush, like some people. You put your finger right on the crucial point. I’ll tell it in chronological order, that would be the best way.”
He took a large gulp of champagne. “This was just before I went with Civil Service-well, I told you that. I was working for Hitchcock, if you can call it working. We had half a dozen things we were supposed to be looking into, and Toby was one of them. He’s a perennial. We weren’t any of us too eager. Step on the wrong toes in something like that and before you know it you’ll be lining up for unemployment insurance. So before you even call up and make an appointment to see somebody, better check to make sure you got the right kind of backing.”