“I can sure as hell ask her!” Steve said enthusiastically. “I don’t know if they were shacked up, but I think so. How should I go about it?”
“They’re going to turn us loose in a few minutes. Catch her before she disappears. Give her one drink and let her talk. If you find out anything, call me on my car phone—you can get the number from the mobile operator. Or try Tim Rourke. It’s the only Timothy Rourke in the book. I want to know about Vince’s drug habit—how long he’s had it, how much it’s been costing him, if he was pushing the stuff himself. I want to know if he’s been having conferences with anybody out of the usual run. This thing took a lot of planning, and it wasn’t worked out on the phone. They probably had to run at least one rehearsal. Nobody I’ve talked to seems to think that Vince did the staff work himself.”
“I don’t think he did either,” Steve said. “He wouldn’t want to go to that much trouble. That I’m sure of.”
15.
AS MICHAEL SHAYNE AND STEVE BASS came out of the station, an automobile horn across the street was tapped lightly. The sound came from a white Alfa-Romeo. There was a girl at the wheel.
“It’s Theo!” Steve exclaimed, and started toward her.
“Steve,” Shayne said, and the boy came back. “Betty’s going to be out in a minute. Don’t lose her.”
“Oh, God, that’s right. Do me a favor—ask Theo to drive you somewhere. If she sees me going off with Betty at two in the morning—”
“All right,” Shayne said.
“And if you talk to Dad before I do, I’ve found it pays to get your version out before he says anything. If you let him talk first, he thinks he’s got to stick to it to show he’s the master.”
Shayne thanked him for the advice and crossed to the white car.
“Mr. Shayne,” Theo said. “Can I give you a lift?”
“Sure.”
Shayne went around to the other side and squeezed into the bucket seat alongside her. “I have to talk to Harry, and the sooner the better.”
“Mr. Shayne, didn’t Doc Waters tell you? He flew to New York.”
“I know that, and he’s in no shape to be wandering around.”
“He certainly is not!” she said grimly. “I didn’t approve at all, but do you think he’d listen to me? I don’t understand why these people can’t wait forty-eight hours for their money, do you?” She shook the stick shift angrily. “He made me so mad! Can we go somewhere and have a drink? If I don’t talk to somebody I’ll burst.”
“I left my car on La Gorce Island,” he said. “We can talk on the way. Did he give you a New York number?”
She started the motor, then hesitated briefly. “I have the name of the man he’s seeing. It’s probably an unlisted number. It’s—well, damn it, it’s—”
She told him who Harry had gone to see. Shayne swore under his breath.
Theo said, “That was my reaction exactly.” She put the powerful little car into gear, accelerated sharply and took a corner with an expert flip of the wheel. “They had some business connection years and years ago. Harry couldn’t think of anybody who’d have that much cash on hand here in Miami. And on a jet plane, New York is just around the corner. Harry called him—he didn’t have to look up the number, he just dialed it—and then we had a mad scramble to put him on the plane.”
All at once, looking straight ahead over the wheel, she uttered a one-word obscenity.
“Excuse me, Mr. Shayne. I don’t use language like that as a rule, but it seems to me the situation calls for something.”
“I’ve heard the word,” Shayne said. “When’s he due back?”
“At four-ten, depending on how long it takes him to get in from the airport in New York, pick up the money and get back. He wants to put the whole sum in Doc Waters’ hands before breakfast.—Please don’t look at me that way, Mr. Shayne. I really tried to discourage him, but nothing worked. I know you thought those drinks would slow him down, and they did. But they wore off.” She glanced at him, worried. “Did the police beat you up?”
“No, that dates back to early tonight.” He pointed to two lighted phone booths, side by side on a corner. “Over there, Miss Moore.”
“Won’t you call me Theo? Miss Moore sounds so—” She turned in to the curb. “How could I have stopped him? Doc Waters was less than no help. I didn’t know how to get in touch with you. Harry made a half dozen calls around town first, and they were angry calls. There was one person he was sure was lying to him, and he was about to sail out and shake the money out of him. How would that have ended? I thought at least he could calm down on the plane, possibly get some sleep. Up to the last minute I thought he was taking me with him. But he absolutely refused. We had to depend on cancellations. There was one, only one, and that ended the argument.”
She leaned forward to look in the mirror. “Mike, there’s a car behind us. It stopped when we did. Are they following us?”
“Just a couple of Painter’s boys,” Shayne said without looking back. “We can lose them if we have to. How much change have you got?”
She opened her bag. “I don’t think enough for a New York call.”
They pooled their silver. Shayne shut himself in a booth and dialed the number of a New York private detective named Hawkins. The man Harry Bass had gone to see was the elder statesman of the gambling business, an oldtime bootlegger and slot-machine man who had lost most of his real power, but was still a headline figure. Hawkins had worked for him during a contempt-of-Congress proceeding.
The New York detective answered sleepily.
“Think nothing of it,” he said, when Shayne had identified himself and apologized for calling so late. “I’m always glad to take a call from you, Mike. Nine out of ten times it means money in the till.”
“I just want somebody’s phone number,” Shayne said, and told him the man’s name.
“Jesus, Mike. How important is it? He’s always in bed by midnight these days—he’s slowed down a lot. And would it mean any trouble? Believe it or not, and I know what I’m talking about, in the last eight or nine years he’s been more sinned against than sinning.”
Shayne assured him that his reason for wanting the number was to prevent trouble, not to cause any. Hawkins gave him the number without further objection. Shayne waited for a dial tone and used a dime to put in a person-to-person call, collect, to Harry Bass. He read the number to the operator.
The phone rang over and over in New York. Finally a hoarse, rasping voice said irritably, “Hello?”
Immediately after the first click, Shayne heard a second, as an extension was opened. There were subdued noises in the background, low voices and somehow the feel of tension.
The operator said, “A collect call for Mr. Harry Bass?”
“There’s nobody here by that name,” the voice rasped.
The phone was slammed down with a small controlled explosion, but the extension remained open. A man’s voice said quickly, “Operator, who’s your call for?”
“Mr. Harry Bass.’ Michael Shayne in Miami calling. Do you accept the charges?”
“Yes! Put him on.”
“Is this Mr. Bass speaking?”
“This is Sergeant Fino of the New York Police Department. We’ll accept the charges. Let me speak to your party.”
“Cancel the call,” Shayne said, and broke the connection. In a moment he lifted the hook again. Finding the line still open, he left the phone dangling and moved to the next booth, where he used his last dime to call Tim Rourke.
“Tim?” he said when the reporter answered. “Do something for me. I know I’ve got a lot to explain, but I can’t take the time now. Do you know anybody on a morning paper in New York? The Daily News would be best.”
“I have an intimate friend on the Daily News,” Rourke said promptly, “but if you want to know can I trust him, it all depends.”
“Give him New York rights to those pictures your man took, and he’ll cooperate. I’m trying to get in touch with a client. I called a New Yo
rk number where he’s supposed to be, and a cop answered.”
He told Rourke the name of the New York man.
“Mike, you know you’re getting to be quite a name-dropper?” Rourke said.
“I want to know what the cops are doing there, and if it has any connection with Harry Bass.”
“A local name. This gets better and better.”
“Harry went up on a nine-thirty jet. If he had any trouble the cops won’t be making it public yet, but a good reporter ought to be able to smoke it out. Call me on the car phone as soon as you get anything.”
He returned to the other booth and hung up the receiver. The phone rang immediately. That would be the long distance operator, trying to complete the New York call. Shayne backed into the Alfa-Romeo, leaving the phone ringing impatiently.
“Mike, tell me this instant,” Theo said urgently. “There’s trouble, of course.”
Shayne’s voice was hard. “That New York junket had trouble written all over it, from the word go. Harry’s friend has cops in his apartment. I don’t know how long they’ve been there. Tim Rourke is checking.”
“Mike, please, please,” she said helplessly. “How could I have stopped him?”
“He may be all right,” Shayne said.
He motioned impatiently and she started the motor. They continued north on Collins. She was tightly wound up. If there had been more traffic Shayne would have suggested driving himself. She gripped the wheel so tightly that the tendons stood out on her hands.
“I know this is going to sound self-centered,” she said. “But the minute I heard where Harry was going I knew I had to quit. I’m over my head. I tried to tell him when I was putting him on the plane, but he looked so—so pale and collapsed.”
“He can take care of himself,” Shayne said, and hoped it was true. “How did you know where to find me?”
“I got your secretary out of bed, I’m sorry to say. She was nicer about it than I would have been. She gave me Mr. Rourke’s number. I’ve been hoping you found out something so Harry wouldn’t have to go through with that New York loan. He shouldn’t be linked with that man.”
“I’ve found out who pulled the stickup,” Shayne said, “and how it was worked. I don’t know why.”
“Why?” she said, puzzled. “Isn’t two hundred thousand dollars a good enough reason?”
“Sometimes.”
Following his directions, she crossed the canal to La Gorce Island and parked behind his Buick, at the end of the lane running down to the dock. The police car, which had followed, stopped a discreet distance away. Leaving the door of the Buick open, Shayne tried Rourke’s number. The line was busy.
Theo had left her car and was nervously lighting a cigarette beside the open door of the Buick. “Mike, if you’re just going to be waiting for a call, can I talk to you? I know I ought to wait, but you may not be available later. I need some advice.”
Shayne took a flashlight out of the glove compartment. “I have to pick up something from the boat. I’ll be back in a minute. Answer the phone if it rings.”
She hugged herself miserably and glanced around at the waiting police car. “Can I come with you? I don’t want to stay here alone.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
She walked beside him, taking two steps to his one. “My father’s a Baptist minister, and the big thing when I was growing up was going to camp meeting in the summer. It wasn’t much of a preparation for this.”
The watchman had gone to bed. Shayne and Theo went aboard the Nugget, picking their way through broken glass and pieces of chairs. The boat looked as though it had been visited by a freakish tornado. The repair bill was going to take most of Al Naples’ winnings on his mare, if he ever succeeded in collecting from Doc Waters. Theo was appalled.
“My God, Mike!”
“A small disturbance of the peace,” he said, looking around with satisfaction.
Working the dented movie projector out of the way so the door would open, he went through into the main cabin. Mirror splinters crunched underfoot. The footboard of the bed had been smashed. Torn bedding littered the floor. Sliding the frame of the broken window aside, he pointed his flashlight down toward the water.
“Aim this for me,” he said, giving Theo the flashlight.
He brushed broken glass off the windowsill, swung out onto the rope ladder and started down. When he was able to reach the light line attached to the bottom rung, he pulled it in hand over hand.
The bait bucket floated toward him out of the darkness. He hoisted it up and carried it back up the ladder. A bucket filled with money is heavier than a bucket with nothing in it but air, and even before he unsnapped the lid and looked inside, he knew by the way it handled that it was empty.
16.
“MIKE, PLEASE, I CAN’T STAND not knowing,” Theo said. “Please throw me a few crumbs.”
“At one point this was full of bills,” Shayne said. “Somebody beat me to it. I need a drink.”
“I think I saw a bottle in the other room.”
That was where most of the fighting had taken place, and the debris was ankle-deep. Shayne tried the light, but the fixture had been pulled out of the ceiling. The beam of the flashlight moved about the floor, stopping on a bottle.
“Brandy!” she exclaimed.
Stooping, she came back up with a bottle of Courvoisier. Perhaps, Shayne thought, his luck was beginning to change.
“I don’t think we’ll find any glasses,” he said. “Have you had much experience drinking out of the bottle?”
“Absolutely none.”
He unscrewed the cork and offered her the bottle. She took it dubiously, then put it to her lips and took a long swallow.
“It burns!” she said, gasping.
“It’s supposed to,” Shayne said, and drank himself. “Let’s get back to the Buick. I want to try Rourke again.”
He stopped short as he came out on deck. A black limousine zoomed past the mouth of the lane, braking to a stop beside the police car. It looked like the showy Lincoln which Peter Painter had recently talked the city into letting him use as his official vehicle. Theo caught Shayne’s arm.
“Take it easy,” Shayne told her. “The night’s a long way from being over.”
He waited, his eyes hooded, his powerful body deceptively relaxed. He had no more time to waste on Painter tonight.
Watching the Lincoln’s rear door, he said quietly, “Do you see where we’re tied to the dock?”
The Lincoln’s door opened and the sleeve of Painter’s white dinner jacket appeared.
“Throw the lines off the cleats,” Shayne said sharply. “We’re going for a sail.”
“We aren’t!”
Painter and Sanderson and the two cops from the squad car, walking quickly, passed under a street light.
Shayne snapped his fingers. “Move, Theo! Or we’ll spend the rest of the night answering questions.”
She sprang onto the dock. Running to the forward cleat, she cast off. Shayne held the gangway while she cast off the second line and scrambled back on board. He gave the gangway a powerful thrust. Its loose end dropped into the water and the Nugget shot away.
They still had a going tide. In a moment the current caught the boat and they began to turn. Painter’s little group had reached the boathouse. One of the cops pointed to the end of the dock and broke into a run.
“Didn’t they let you go?” Theo protested in a half-whisper.
“He must have had some news from New York. I don’t like to have Painter tell me things I don’t already know.”
The boat was moving more rapidly now. Because of the light from the boathouse, they could see Painter and the rest of his party clearly, but the Nugget was probably no more than a faint shadow.
Painter shouted, waving his fist, “Shayne, come back here! This is your last chance. Come back in and I’ll give you the BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT!”
He bellowed the last few words. Grinning, the redhead felt his w
ay forward, using the flashlight only after the curve of the deckhouse concealed him from the dock, and answered Painter by starting the motor. It choked, died, then took hold with a rude, deep-throated roar.
He switched on the navigation lights, swung the wheel and headed for mid-bay. Theo called something from the doorway. He couldn’t hear her over the roar of the motor. He took a long pull from the cognac bottle. After running a few minutes with the tide, he swung into the current and throttled down the motor.
Theo was perched on the corner of the plotting table, lighting a cigarette. She blew out a match and watched him study the radiotelephone, a four-channel unit mounted to the left of the wheel. He picked up the handset and depressed a button. Instantly a woman’s voice, clear but metallic, said, “Yes, sir?”
“I’m glad you’re still up. My name’s Mike Shayne. Can you get me a Miami number?”
There was a moment’s silence. “Mike Shayne,” she said breathily. “Excuse me while I pinch myself.”
Theo gave Shayne an amused look.
“Ouch!” the operator said. “I guess I’m awake. You’d think any number of interesting things would happen on this job, wouldn’t you, but no. It’s mostly routine. Like calling up somebody’s wife to tell her to get the martinis ready.”
He gave her Rourke’s number. He heard the stutter of the dial, then the busy signal.
“Can you try that for me every few minutes,” Shayne said, “and call me when you get it?”
“For Mike Shayne,” she said, “if you’re everything they say you are, I’ll be glad to.”
He hung the handset back with a rueful grin. Theo had taken off her glasses and was tapping them against one nylon-clad knee.
“I hope the line will stay busy while I talk to you,” she said. “Before Harry got on the plane tonight he asked me to marry him.”
Shayne’s expression didn’t change. He checked their heading. There was a lighted buoy to starboard, and he let the wheel fall off a point so the boat would hold the same position against the current.
“What did you tell him?”
“I haven’t told him anything yet. But I can’t marry him. I can’t! I don’t know how to get out of it without hurting him.”
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