Michael Shaynes' 50th case

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It was a little after three o’clock in the afternoon and Marvin Blake sat alone in his hotel room in Miami looking forward to the evening that lay ahead of him with a certain amount of distaste. Perhaps there was a bit of dread mixed with his distaste, although that is a strong word for what Marvin was feeling.

Certainly, he wasn’t looking forward to the night with any eagerness or anticipation. Thus far, he conceded to himself, it had been a good convention. This was the final day of it and he had just come back to his room after attending the last formal meeting on the agenda.

Tonight was the night for making whoopee. The night for cutting loose from all restraints and raising hell just for the pure fun of it. The night, in fact, that most of the delegates looked forward to with enthusiastic anticipation. The reason most of them had come to the convention in the first place.

Many of the delegates, of course, had been whooping things up ever since they had been in the city. But tonight was the big one. Tomorrow they would all disperse and go back to their humdrum lives at home. Most of them would go back to small communities like Sunray Beach, which was Marvin Blake’s home-town where they were solid and respected citizens, members of the Chamber of Commerce and the Elks or the Lions, good husbands and fathers, sober and dependable taxpayers who helped to keep the National Economy in gear.

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