Guilty as Hell Read online

  Brett Halliday

  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 façade 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 façade. 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. Wha
t 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?”