Brett Halliday

I Come to Kill You

1

St. Albans is a small, lovely island with some of the finest sand beaches and most voracious sand fleas in the Caribbean, an airstrip, a picturesque though decrepit fishing village, a booming casino.

Michael Shayne, the big, red-headed private detective, arrived on St. Albans one night in mid-February, his only luggage a dispatch case with a broken handle. He had been drinking heavily for days, and showed it.

Disembarking from the plane, he did something that would have puzzled his friends in Miami, who knew his ability to keep his quickness and coordination even after consuming improbable amounts of brandy. His shoelaces were untied. He tripped on the top step of the ramp and lurched forward against another passenger. The corner of Shayne’s dispatch case hit the man in the small of the back, slipped from Shayne’s grasp, and broke open. Shayne sawed at the air, and probably would have gone all the way down, knocking over people like dominoes, if the girl he was traveling with hadn’t grabbed his arm and pulled him into balance.

“Watch that top step,” he told her with drunken dignity. “It’s treacherous.”

He gathered his belongings, the dirty socks, shaving cream, gun, and loose ammunition, and repacked the dispatch case. Refusing further help from the girl, he continued down the ramp by himself. She was laughing at him.

“Solid ground,” she said when they reached the tarmac. “No bones broken.”

“These goddamn airlines ought to figure out a better way to get off their planes. Baby, you know what we need? We need a little kinky sex. Then we need a couple of drinks. Then we need some more sex.”

He spoke loudly, getting amused looks from some of his fellow passengers, looks of suspicious disgust from others. The girl seemed slightly embarrassed. “Michael, you’re bragging again.”

Meeting her in a bar at the International Airport in Miami, Shayne had been interested to learn that they shared the same destination. Her name was Sarah Percival, she told him, and she worked in a travel agency. Their plane had a balky engine. While the ground crew labored to fix it, Shayne and the girl had a drink together, then another, then a third. When their flight finally departed, hours later, they weren’t on it. They were in a room Shayne had rented at the airport hotel.

With careful planning and mutual encouragement, they managed to make the plane the following night, though in the last-minute rush Shayne cut himself shaving. They had passed a pleasant and busy twenty-four hours, cut off from the pressures and concerns of the outside world. But just before leaving the room to rejoin the rat race, Shayne took out his money and slowly and carefully, his lips moving, counted it to see how much he still had. It came to $1,185.

“Honey?” Sarah said, watching him. “If you’re wondering about me, don’t. Everything’s paid for. That’s the thing about the travel business. Not knowing what might happen, I reserved a room with a double bed.”

“Yeah, good,” Shayne said absently. He squared the bills and returned them to his money clip. “If I told you how much I grossed last year, you wouldn’t believe it. But it came and it went. It came and went. And now those Internal Revenue bastards…” He stood up. “The hell with it. Let’s fly.”

After the single moment’s awkwardness getting off the plane, Shayne steadied. In the taxi on the way to the hotel, he told Sarah a somewhat incredible story, which happened to be entirely true, of how Dominick De Blasio, the Mafia don in Miami, had stolen the casino from the New York group that put up the initial grease, and ousted the original British investment syndicate.

“And they’ve got a goddamn diamond mine here,” he said. “It’s the only wheel in town. They don’t do Las Vegas business, but they don’t have that Vegas nut. No entertainment budget, no tax problem, but the same house percentage. The same suckers bringing money.”

“And I was under the impression,” she said, smiling, “that you came here to gamble.”

“I came to play blackjack. And if you see me wandering off in the direction of the roulette tables, do me a favor — hit me with a bottle.”

“Why blackjack?”

“It’s on a short percentage. They can be taken. I’ve done it a few times… You aren’t interested in this.”

“In making money? Of course I am, Mike.”

“Blackjack. You watch the cards and count them as they come out. You don’t have to be a mathematical whiz — just click them off in the back of your head. Then when you get down near the bottom of the deck, you have a better idea where you are. It smoothes out the odds.”

“I don’t get it.”

He tried again. “Say you’re looking for a seven or under. Anything over seven will bust you. There are seventeen cards left. Eleven are over seven, six are under. So you stand. Do you follow me?”

“Maybe part of the way.”

“And the dealer’s not betting his own money, so he doesn’t have the same desire. He won’t have to go on food stamps if Mike Shayne walks away with ten or twelve grand.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

Shayne sat forward. “Driver, stop the car.”

The driver, startled, put on his brakes and swerved to a stop. Shayne had the door open. He reached out and rapped a highway post.

“Not that I’m superstitious or anything,” he said, coming back in. “Go ahead, driver. They don’t put any wood in cars. Go on, it’s all right. On top of that,” he told Sarah when they were underway again, “you know you need luck. You hit streaks in any kind of gambling. And the way you have a big night is, get your streak early, push it hard as long as it’s running, and the minute you feel the turn, get the hell out or they’ll beat you to death on the way down.”

She slid her hand inside his shirt. “We won’t let that happen tonight.”

“I need to hit big,” he said. “I think I’m beginning to get the feeling. All that nice money, lying there waiting for me.”

“Then why don’t you kiss me?”

He was knocking his fist against one knee, staring ahead. After a moment he took a deep breath, threw his arm across her body, and kissed her hard enough to hurt her mouth. She responded by pulling him closer. The long, deep kiss drained off some of the tension that had built up during their talk about percentages.

The lobby was empty except for several broad-beamed American ladies feeding the half-dollar slots, and they were part of the furniture of such places. Shayne let Sarah walk ahead to the desk. She was a girl who liked to move quickly, with a pleasant swing. She was tall and lean-shanked, with long blonde hair that was crinkly to the touch. Her clothes and luggage were expensive, and she wore a square-cut diamond she couldn’t have bought with what she earned at a travel agency. She had exceptional legs, exceptional skin, and considerable style. Naked, she was a little too thin for Shayne’s liking, but she made up for that with agility and inventiveness in bed.

Becoming impatient quickly, he joined her at the desk. She was signing the registration card. He put his hand on her buttocks, and her muscles tightened. The pen put a jagged squiggle on the card.

“Michael,” she murmured.

“Testing your reflexes,” he said. “They seem to be O.K.”

“Do you have a reservation, sir?” the clerk asked. “I hope so, because everything’s taken.”

“My motto is,” Shayne said, his hand still on Sarah, “the Lord will provide.”

She had been assigned a room in a poolside bungalow. Shayne tipped the bellman and sent him away. She looked around with little enthusiasm.

“Crummy, isn’t it?”

He tossed his dispatch case on the bed. “All they care about is the cash flow in the casino. These are casino people, not hotel people.”

He kicked over to the window, rattling the coins in his pocket. “What are you going to do, change? I don’t want to hang around here, I’m too—”

She gave him a quick hug. “We’re going to play it the way you want, Michael. I’m just somebody you met at the Miami airport. Get started. I’ll find you.”

He moved restlessly. “It doesn’t feel right yet. Pick me up in the bar.”

Outside, he tested his luck by walking along the extreme edge of the pool, where the slightest wavering would have sent him into the water with his clothes on. He went in through the hotel lobby, hesitated for an instant outside the darkened bar, and then walked into the wall of noise coming from the casino.

It was as crowded as a supermarket on Friday night. He bought three fifty-dollar chips, counting out the bills like a miser, and took them to the dice tables. He saw several people he knew from Miami, but didn’t stop to exchange hellos.

He watched the play at one table. A fat man, perspiring with anxiety, was chafing and exhorting the dice. They spilled out of his hand and bounced: seven. When the time seemed right to Shayne, he bet his three chips against the shooter. He won.

Pocketing his winnings, he returned to the bar. He drank his first cognac standing, in one long pull. He took his second more slowly, and looked around to see what the room had to offer.

There was only one woman without a companion. She was short and dark, in a tight dress, with her hair pulled back so hard that her forehead seemed stretched. She looked fresh and appealing in the dim light. Shayne knocked his glass on the bar.

She turned slowly and met his eyes with one eyebrow lifted. He moved down beside her, and added eight years to her age. That was all right; it was what he was looking for.

“I’m hoping to change my luck,” he said. “What are you drinking?”

“Black velvets,” she said, with a slight Spanish accent, and pushed her glass toward the bartender. “I’m Mercedes. I think good luck is sometimes hard thing to find.”

“You know it,” Shayne agreed. “But if you worry too much about it, that can be bad, too. I remember one time when everything worked. Everything broke right for me. And then all of a sudden—”

The bartender brought her new drink, and Shayne lit her cigarette.

“What are you, Cuban?”

“From Colombia, a long time ago. I am a dancer, you see. I had an engagement last month in San Juan, very pleasant. I meet an American booking agent here in two days’ time, and perhaps he will find me an engagement in your country.”

She was looking at him seriously, her eyes large, black, and liquid. Her full breasts strained against the tight dress. He brushed the back of his hand against one nipple.

“Nice.”

“Don’t do that.” She peered at him through the smoke. “But why do you say things are bad for you? You are one of the lucky ones.”

“I wish I could believe you,” he said gloomily. “But it’s hard to argue with facts.”

“No, no,” she insisted. “You are trying to fool me for some reason. I am never wrong about such things.”

“You don’t happen to be serious, by any chance?” Shayne said slowly.

“I am definitely serious. My mother could read the stars. I do it with nothing, I look in the eyes and see the soul. I see clearly that you are a man who wins. You have told yourself a lie. Your good fortune is gone? No, no. It is still with you.” She placed her fingertips against his chest. “I feel it beating there, strongly.”

“You’re kidding me.”

She shook her head. “Look here, I will prove it to you.” She took two chips out of her handbag and pressed them into his hand. “Play these for me at the roulette table.”

“I’m allergic to roulette.”

“Ordinarily, but not tonight. Please, for me. On a color.”

He scraped his chin with the edge of one chip. Then he shrugged. “What can I lose?”

He dropped a bill on the bar and took the girl into the roulette room, where he bet her chips on red. The ball danced around the wheel, hesitated, and came in on red. Shayne hooted.

“You see,” Mercedes said quietly. “I could feel the luck.”

He spun one of the chips in the air and caught it as it came down. “Kid, you’re just what I need. You’ve convinced me.”

He took her hand and pulled her along. She went with him obediently, holding back only when he started to leave the gambling area.

“Not the slot machines. Nobody wins there.”

“We’re coming back, and I’m going to give these guys a pasting they won’t ever forget. But we’ve got to nurse it along. It can go sour on you if you try to hurry it.”

He bought a bottle of Martell’s and a bottle of Scotch in the bar and asked for a bucket of ice. The girl was shaking her head.

“No. This is not what I intended. Though I like to be with people who have luck, and afterward, possibly…”

“Afterward, hell. I’ll be too high or too low. I’m jangling, can’t you feel that? I can’t play blackjack this way. I couldn’t follow the cards.”

The bartender handed the ice across the bar. Shayne put a bottle in each side pocket, and took the ice in one hand and the girl’s elbow in the other. He explained as they went. He was sure she was right, he was about to break out of his long slump. But a lot was riding on this evening, more than she realized. He needed a quiet drink, some quiet conversation, a little human contact.

“But you see,” she said, “it is undignified, it is not correct. Really and truly, my dear. No. I could not do such a thing, so suddenly.”

Outside Sarah’s room, he shifted his grip and guided her in against him. Her quick movements had released her perfume, which was heavy and musky. She turned her face up after a moment. A moment later he felt her tongue.

“Damn you,” she said. “Believe me, I have never—” The door was unlocked. He got her inside and was able to lock the door, pocketing the key, before the two girls were aware of each other.

Sarah had finished working on her eyes. She glanced around and started a word, but didn’t complete it. She had dressed with care, in a striking white dress, low at the neck.

“This is Mercedes,” Shayne said. “She asked me to bet a hundred bucks for her on red. If I lost, too bad. Maybe I’d pay her back and maybe I wouldn’t. If I won, the chances were good that I’d keep playing with my own money and cut her in. A hustle, in a way, but never mind. I want the three of us to have a drink together.”

“You can use the room,” Sarah said, giving the other girl a second chilly glance. “I’ll run into you in the casino later. May I have the key?”

He grinned. “Not unless you can take it away from me. Those are nice emeralds. It’s my favorite color.”

Her hand went to her necklace. “I can’t quite fathom you, Mike. Are you really that drunk?”

“What have we got in the way of glasses?”

Sarah glanced at the phone, then back at Shayne. She remained cool and lovely. She gave the other girl a closer inspection. Mercedes stared back boldly, but wasn’t able to hold it.

“This was not at all my idea,” she said weakly.

There were only two glasses in the bathroom, but Shayne didn’t object to drinking from the bottle. He made drinks for the girls. Mercedes alighted nervously on the front third of a chair, picking at the hem of her skirt. When Shayne held out the drink she said something angrily in Spanish and tossed her head before taking it. Shayne kicked off his shoes and sprawled across the big double bed.

“I started to tell you my ideas about how to gamble,” he said to Sarah. “It’s not a science. You have to go on instinct. I was in Vegas once. Six or eight years ago, and the reason I remember it, I had just about the same amount of cash I have now, twelve or thirteen hundred bucks. And I was moderately smashed, not quite enough, so I didn’t have that edge you need to put pressure on a dealer. I was taking it as it came. And I ended up in bed with two babes.”

Both girls reacted. Shayne drank and smiled reminiscently.

“What a pile-up. But I think I can honestly say we enjoyed ourselves.”

“Mike, you’re a comedian,” Sarah said.

“No, wait a minute. Nobody was thinking about money in that bed. We were one big happy tangle. That’s what sex is supposed to do for you, but it doesn’t always happen. I went down to the casino afterward, and I could read every card in the deck. I’ve never had a run like that in my life. An hour and a half later I walked away with seventy-five thousand.”

“You’re as superstitious as a caveman,” Sarah said.

“People have been believing in magic for thousands of years,” Shayne said. “There has to be something to it.”

“Do not include me in your magic,” Mercedes said firmly.

“I’m sure Room Service can provide you with two other girls,” Sarah suggested. “You’re welcome to use the room.”

“It wouldn’t work that way,” he told her. “I gave the girls in Vegas five thousand apiece. But they didn’t do it for money, they did it because they were sure I was going to be lucky. And I know you won’t do it unless you really believe. That’s the point. Confidence is what I need. We’ve got plenty of booze, plenty of ice, plenty of time. They don’t close the tables till six in the morning.”

Sarah smiled calmly, shaking her head. “Mike, Mike.”

Mercedes’ pretty dark face was set in a sullen mask, and she remained far forward in her chair, her legs crossed. It wasn’t until the third drink that she sat back. Shayne was talking about the famous occasions when casino managements had been beaten for important sums of money. He kept moving about the room. Once he perched on the arm of the dark girl’s chair and gently helped her out of her stockings.

The two girls made friends. It was Sarah, finally, who made the decisive move, going to the bathroom and coming back a moment or two later undressed.

2

The lights stayed on.

Shayne moved his arm to look at his watch. He sat up and swung his legs out of bed but remained there for a time, massaging his forehead.

Mercedes lay face down, her dark hair loose. Sarah was reversed, her head toward the foot of the bed. She still wore her emerald necklace. There was lipstick on her teeth. She watched Shayne through her artificial eyelashes.

“Tell me, is the magic working?”

He seemed to consult an internal adviser. “I think so.”

He came to his feet and located the cognac. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand after drinking, and lit a cigarette. He extended the package to Sarah.

“I couldn’t move,” she said. “I may stay right here for twenty-four hours.”

He smiled at her through the smoke. “All right? Just checking.”

“God, you’re a lovely man.”

“You two seemed to have lots in common.”

“She’s sweet. Mercedes, are you listening to me?”

The other girl remained motionless, snoring slightly. Shayne went to the bathroom, leaving the door open, and stepped into the shower. He remembered too late that he was smoking a cigarette, and threw it away. When he came out he toweled himself briskly, did a dozen fingertip-pullups in the doorway while Sarah watched, and borrowed her hairbrush to use on his rough hair. His clothes had ended up in different corners of the room. He retrieved them and dressed.

“Do you want me to make an effort?” Sarah said.

“No, I have to watch the dealers for a while, see if I can spot one who’s just going through the motions.”

“Have luck,” she said softly.

He filled his pocket flask with cognac. Before corking the bottle he sprinkled some on Sarah’s stomach.

“That makes you my girl.”

He saluted her with a confident circle with his thumb and forefinger, unlocked the door, and tossed the key on the bed.

There was even more of a jam in the casino than when he had been there earlier. He moved through the crowd without hurrying, an unlighted cigarette between his lips. A small tense man slid into his path and snapped a lighter.

Shayne accepted the light without thanking him. “What are you doing here, Larry?”

“Like everybody else. Mike, I want to talk to you.”

Shayne had given him only a glance, to identify him. Larry Zito, known as the Doctor in newspaper stories, did most of the Miami Beach loan-sharking. His nickname referred to the early days when he carried his cash in a doctor’s bag. He had been loose in those days, everybody’s friend, but as he rose in the ranks he had become more and more jumpy, and now everything about him seemed to be in constant motion — his hands, his moustache, his eyes. He was small and quick, with a largish paunch, which he usually made a practice of kneading when he was sitting down.

“I don’t feel like talking now, Larry,” Shayne said quietly.

“Believe me, I know the feeling,” Zito assured him. “But you’ve got to stand still and listen to me while I make a few remarks, or I’ll get some help.”

Shayne still didn’t look at him directly. “I know I owe you. I don’t need any reminders. You’ll get your money.”

“I know I’ll get it, Mike,” Zito said reasonably, “it’s a matter of how. Come over here out of some of this uproar.”

Shayne swore. He picked a glass off a tray being carried past by a scantily clad waitress, emptied the ice cubes, and half-filled it with cognac.

“Just don’t put on any pressure. I’m at a point where it wouldn’t take much.”

Zito was smoking a miniaturized cigar. He motioned with it.

They went across the big room to a carpeted staircase, and down to a dimly lit lounge. A muscular blue-jowled man wearing a striped blazer and a badge saying, “Mr. Maxwell, Security,” stepped aside and let them through a door marked “Employees Only.” They entered a two-stall lavatory.

“About the only place you get any privacy around here,” Zito said. “I don’t like to shout business in public. I saw you earlier with a broad. You notice I waited. Don’t bother to thank me.”

In a quick two-handed motion, he clapped Shayne under the arms to make sure he wasn’t carrying a pistol. Completing the motion, he opened his own jacket, to show an automatic in a shoulder holster.

“Not putting muscle on you, Mike. Just want to make sure you get the picture.”

Shayne’s eyebrows had drawn together in a scowl, and Zito stepped back quickly, his hand going to his lapel.

“Now, Mike, I do it this way because I know you’re a man with a good pair of balls. Use your head and stay out of the hospital.”

Shayne drank from his cognac glass, set it on the glass shelf over the wash basins, and turned to use the urinal.

“Don’t show me the gun again unless you’re planning to use it. What’s all the excitement? With the vigorish running at twelve percent a month—”

“On paper, Mike. And let me point out to you, I haven’t seen any twelve percent a month. I made you a loan for a definite two-month period — sixty days, to be picky — and at the end of those sixty days I like to see the green stuff coming back in. And you don’t even give me a buzz and ask for an extension.”

“I’m working on it,” Shayne said evasively.

“I do sincerely hope so. I didn’t want to lay that eight on you in the first place, but I decided I better because I thought you still had some worthwhile connections. Me and my big mouth, I happened to mention to a couple of people you were late getting it back, and that makes it semi-public. If I let you get away with it, everybody else thinks likewise. My action’s way down because of the situation. I want to wind this up, and I’m prepared to be fair.”

Shayne picked up the cognac and drank again, his face unfriendly. “Doc, you’re a pain in the ass. What’s your definition of fair?”

“I can’t take people to court, can I? I got to rely on my own enforcement, but at the same time you know and I know that with Michael Shayne, because of what the name used to mean to the people of Miami, I’m walking on eggs.”

“Don’t shoot me,” Shayne said bleakly. “That’s good business advice.”

“And don’t I know it,” Zito said, rubbing his face unhappily. “But I can’t let it slide, either. How much have you got on you?”

“Not enough.”

“I know that, for God’s sake. What, a couple of grand?”

“Less than that.”

“And you think you’re going to run it to ten, and get off the hook.” Zito shook his head pityingly. “I used to think you had brains. Give me a grand to prove good faith. When you get back to the mainland, I want to see you sell your car. With all those gadgets, you ought to net a couple of grand, minimum. There are creeps who’d pay that so they could work it into the conversation that they’re driving around in Mike Shayne’s car.”

“I need it to work.”

“Your working days are over, let’s face it. You still got a few friends, you can raise another couple. Give me five for now and three more at some later date. What I’m saying to you, I’m ready to wipe the vigorish off the books. The Don tells me I ought to, in the interest of peace and harmony. Tell me if you could ask for a better deal.”

Shayne made a menacing gesture, and Zito went on, speaking fast, “Don’t say something you’ll want to take back later. Look at it from my side of the table. Here you have this crazy private dick, not too bad a guy, not one of those bug-outs who think anybody with some Sicilian in his ancestry ought to be stuck in the can, automatic. He’s short of cash. The banks have cut off his credit so he looks for Larry Zito, who extends him the loan against his better judgment. And he defaults! He drags it out and don’t even come to see me, and I get the word from my friends that he’s snickering at us.”

“I haven’t been laughing much lately,” Shayne said soberly.

“Let me finish. With everybody flapping about this Meister killing, we want to stay out of the spotlight if it’s in any way possible. The shylock business right now, it’s down to zero. Half my people are staying indoors, and the other half are out on some fantastic bail. Pray God it won’t happen” — his eyes jumped — “but if Mike Shayne, who everybody knows is having problems with the Beach shylocks, is picked up some dark night with his head shot off—”

He cut it off there. His hand remained near his gun. The threat was clearly implied, and the Michael Shayne of the Miami legend had always reacted explosively to threats. But that Michael Shayne hadn’t ever borrowed eight thousand dollars from loan sharks. He said mildly, avoiding Zito’s eyes, “Shylocks have to enforce. I don’t argue with that.”

Zito continued, a little shrilly, “What I’m saying is that if there’s a way out that won’t be too hard on anybody, why not? That’s why I’m willing to forget the vig, as much as it goes against the grain.”

“I pay my debts,” Shayne said. “I just want to try this tonight, O.K.? Hell, I’ve been taking chances all my life. I happen to believe in hunches, and when I seem to have a modest little streak going, I’ve got to back it, Larry, or give up, pull out for good. Think back. Didn’t you ever have a time when you could play something one of two ways? Either safe, or screw the percentages and go all out. And I know which way you went. Otherwise you’d be living in a little two-by-four house in Coral Gables, complaining about crime in the streets and the rise in the cost of living.”

“Which might not be too bad a life,” Zito said.

He studied the big man curiously, his hand no longer near his gun. After a moment he said gently, “Well, go ahead, then, knock your head on the wall. I must be getting sentimental or something. Because you know you can’t win, Mike. When you’ve got to win, you lose. In my business, believe me, I see it all the time.”

“Tonight I’m going to break the rules.” Shayne smiled broadly. “Talk about hunches — I had a hunch that if I kept my temper and laid it out for you, you’d break down and act human. You’re not as much of a prick as people tell me.”

“Thanks,” Zito said dryly.

“You won’t regret this, Larry. I mean it, because I’m going to pay you the whole goddamn thing, every penny. Just don’t keep looking over my shoulder. I need a little open space. Room to swing.”

He finished his drink and left the glass on the shelf. “I just want to do one thing, to get me back in the mood.”

He turned the doorknob carefully and drove the door against the back of the guard outside. He was on top of the man before he could recover, and brushed him off, apologizing. Zito, nervous again, watched from the doorway.

“Now, don’t worry, you’ll get your money,” Shayne told him, and walked away.

3

He was several thousand ahead when he felt Sarah’s cool hand on his neck.

“You seem to be doing all right.”

Shayne continued to concentrate on the cards in the dealing slot. “Where’s Mercedes?”

The dark girl answered behind him. “Right here, Mike, cheering for you.”

He looked around and gave one of her full breasts a squeeze. “What great tits, no kidding.”

“Now, you cut that out.”

Shayne shook his flask, drank off what was left, and handed it to Sarah.

“Just in time to get me a refill.”

Shayne was playing two hands. There were four others at the table, but they didn’t matter. It was between Shayne and the dealer, an indifferent young man with oiled hair, quick hands, and a professional pallor. He was betting by the book. He had hesitated only once, when Shayne stood on a hand totaling fourteen. He made the percentage move, went over, and paid Shayne seven hundred dollars.

Shayne’s run continued.

He ordered the two girls to stay behind his chair, reaching back to touch them from time to time. They became more and more excited as the chips continued to flow from the dealer to Shayne. Shayne raised his bets, and went on winning. The dealer made another mistake on a judgment play, and Shayne caught a very faint vibration: the dealer wasn’t unhappy to see the house losing.

And immediately after that, Shayne was beaten four times in a row.

Mercedes whispered, “Out, Mike?” but Sarah told him excitedly, “Hang in there, it’ll come back. I love you.”

Shayne lost again.

A voice said behind him, “Gambling again. What kind of example is this for the Greater Miami Cub Scouts?”

Shayne looked around, surprised.

It was Timothy Rourke, the long, lean crime reporter on the Miami Daily News. He was sucking at a swizzle stick, being in the midst of one of his frequent and unavailing attempts to give up cigarettes. He swayed drunkenly and bumped Sarah, causing her to spill some of her drink on Shayne.

“Excuse, please,” Rourke said. “I’ve been watching that roulette ball go around and around and around and around…”

“Are you down here on a story?” Shayne asked.

“I’m always working,” Rourke declared. “Writing my semiannual Mafia series. Do you know who owns this operation, through a dummy corporation in Panama? Come to think of it, you’re the one who told me… Mike, I’ve got a plane to catch. Two minutes of your valuable time.”

“Not now, Tim. I’ve got a streak going.”

“Card?” the dealer called.

Shayne turned and asked to be hit. A face card came snapping out of the deck.

“You got me,” he said. “I’ve got to take care of this drunk here. Mercedes, hold my place. I’ll be back.”

He stacked his chips, gave each girl a handful, and pocketed the rest. Sarah dropped one of the chips and had to go down to chase it. She was flushed with excitement.

“Mike Shayne, you’re absolutely the most marvelous—”

She took his arm, but he shook her off roughly. “Didn’t I tell you I don’t like to be handled?”

He walked off with Rourke, who observed, “That’s one chick I wouldn’t mind being handled by. Correction. Those are two chicks I wouldn’t mind being…”

“Sleep over, and maybe I can get you included, Tim. They like me.”

“You just handed them about a grand apiece, man,” Rourke said. “Why wouldn’t they like you?”

“I’ll buy you a drink, but organize your thoughts. I’ve got to get back before I cool off.”

“It seems to me that already started.”

“No, I’ve got a dealer who wants to stick it to the management, for some reason. That doesn’t happen too often. What are they having, labor trouble?”

“Competition. Let’s do this in camera, Mike. The room they gave me is really a linen closet, but we can both squeeze in if you don’t take any deep breaths.”

Shayne turned toward the bar. “No. You said two minutes. I’m clocking you.”

“Mike, come on, don’t be a horse’s ass, will you?”

Shayne found a place at the heel of the crowded bar and ordered bar cognac. Rourke asked for rye with a beer chaser. “You look terrible,” he said objectively. “What’s the expression? Death warmed over.”

“Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

“Damn it, will you stop hammering?” Rourke kept his voice low, just loud enough for Shayne to hear it in the general babble. “I’m not your Aunt Tilly, for Christ’s sake. I don’t care how little sleep you get or how much you drink or how many chicks you take to bed at the same time…”

“Don’t knock it before you try it,” Shayne said.

“How was it, incidentally?”

“Different.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it, but why did you have to be so damn public? You couldn’t throw a paper airplane in that casino without hitting somebody from Miami. Maybe they’d all like to get a little of that multiple sex, but they’re too tied up to come out and say so.”

“They’ll have to work out their problems with no help from me. Will you get to the point, Tim?”

The bartender brought their drinks. Shayne leaned down to meet the glass as it came up, and drank thirstily.

“Mike,” Rourke said. “Mike, old buddy. You can trust me. What in the name of God is going on?”

“Nothing mysterious. I’m just trying to enjoy myself for a change.”

“I know you better than that. You’re up to something.”

“Am I?” Shayne said wearily.

“Because if you’re not,” Rourke said, “if you don’t realize what this kind of crap is doing to the image—”

“I haven’t been getting much mileage out of it lately. From now on I intend to do what I like, and not what the public expects.”

“I’m for that,” Rourke agreed. “But by the same token, you’ve built up a certain — I don’t know how to say this without sounding like the worst type of square — a certain reputation, Mike. Leaving everything else aside, it’s money in the bank. Do you really want to throw it away? Now, don’t just stand there grinding your teeth. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t—”

Interrupting, Shayne said brutally, “And if clients stop calling me up, what happens to Tim Rourke? Everybody knows I’ve been carrying you for years.”

Rourke said carefully, “In vino veritas, is that it? You’re crocked, Mike.”

“I’m not so crocked I don’t know the score,” Shayne said, drinking again. “Why does the paper pay you that salary? Because you write better than other people? Literary style has never been your big thing. They keep you on the staff because I let you follow me around. Nothing to be ashamed of. It only gets bad when you start kidding yourself.”

Rourke sagged against the bar. “Mike—”

Shayne’s knuckles whitened as he squeezed the glass. “All I’m pointing out is that when you want to keep me in operation you’ve got your own axe to grind. You’re the Shayne specialist, and you don’t want to lose your meal ticket. That’s natural. But I’ve got a new policy. I’m going to start telling the truth, and the hell with whether or not it hurts. And that includes the truth about the famous private detective who never lost an important case. Look at the competition, for God’s sake. The Miami and Miami Beach police force and the state highway patrol. Strictly bush.”

“There’s no point in talking if you’re going to be that stupid. We all have our bad days, but keep it in proportion.”

Shayne made a gesture of controlled fury. “I was lucky for a long time, and I was fool enough to think I had something to do with it. God help me, I got a kick out of being recognized. Don’t try to con that man, because that’s Mike Shayne. The one-man army. He can outdrink, outfight, outscrew — You and the rest of the media jerks, you’re the ones who got me that reputation, and do you want to know the part that really bugs me? This idea that I can soak up cognac for a week on end, fifth after fifth, and be just as good in bed, just as fast on my feet — Tonight I’m going to prove I’m human.” He rattled his glass. “I’m going to go on drinking this stuff until I fall down.”

“You’re well on your way, man.”

Shayne turned bloodshot eyes on Rourke. “No. The weird thing is, I haven’t started to feel it. I know how many chips I’ve got in my pocket. I know how much money I owe back in Miami. I managed to forget it with those babes, but the minute I went into the casino, back it came.”

“That was going to be my big topic,” Rourke said. “I mean, you and I have done some nutty things, but borrowing money from Larry Zito—”

“How do you know about it?”

“You can’t keep a thing like that corked. Everybody in Miami is chortling about it. You’ve been right too often! Yeah, you’ve been lucky. Of course you’ve been smart too, and tough when it counted, and there’s nothing phony about your record. But with most people, all they see is the luck. And when luck turned against you, I mean they were delighted! I’ve learned about human nature in the last few months. I’m talking about the cops, who never liked reading about your big fees. About cab drivers, the guys on the paper…” He was speaking so quietly that Shayne could barely hear him. “I don’t know why you haven’t returned any of my calls. I heard you were asking guys to loan you some dough. How come you didn’t ask me?”

Shayne said dryly, “How much can you let me have?”

“About forty-nine cents at the moment. That’s not the point. Name a sum and let me try to raise it. The paper will give me an advance. There are plenty of people around who owe me a favor. I can get up a purse—”

“Thanks for the suggestion,” Shayne said gruffly. “And we could have a touching little ceremony, with speeches. I’d have to keep blowing my nose… Tim, why do I have to explain the most elementary things? I’d use the money to pay Zito. And then how would I pay you?”

“We wouldn’t be charging a hundred and twenty percent interest. You could pay it back when you had it.”

Shayne’s face worked. “And if the luck hasn’t turned, something just as bad or worse will happen next week or the week after. I’m not looking for stopgaps. If I can keep that dealer on the run, what’s a little thing like ten or fifteen grand? Tim, I know your heart bleeds for people in trouble, but help somebody else, will you? They aren’t going to kill me. They aren’t even going to beat me up. I talked to Zito, and he’s nearly as embarrassed as I am. We’ll make a deal.”

“A deal with that shark? Are you out of your mind?”

“For a shylock, he’s almost human. I’m sick of putting people in categories.”

“You’re really talking about the Doctor?”

“And what’s your idea of a happy ending — back to business as usual? I’m due for a change. The routine has been getting to me. If only somebody would come up with some new kind of crime…”

His words were thickening. “It’s like the foxes and the rabbits. Do you know what I mean?”

“The foxes and the rabbits? I honestly don’t,” Rourke said.

“They’re in balance. Too few rabbits, the foxes starve. Too few foxes, then too many rabbits grow up — not enough to eat, the rabbits starve. They depend on each other. Like us and the criminals. With no criminals, how would we make a living? We’d have to go out and stick up a bank.”

“Mike, tell me what’s happened!” Rourke pleaded. “The foxes and the rabbits, for Christ’s sake.”

“Here’s something you can chew on. The Bannister case last year. I did that one all by myself. Spent three months on it full-time, shot two people, and brought the lady in so she could be indicted for first-degree murder.”

“You had a bad break there, Mike.”

“I don’t agree with you. Everything broke my way, and then a high-priced defense attorney came down from Boston and got the acquittal. I ought to be glad he didn’t sue me for false arrest. But hell. Did I really want Judy Bannister to go to jail for the rest of her life? You’ve been through that prison. You know what happens to prisoners up there. I don’t think I told you, but I slept with that dame…”

“I surmised.”

Shayne waved it away, and finished his cognac. “Money. Another touchy subject. Who gave me the tip on that wonderful over-the-counter stock that was going to make us all rich? Tim Rourke, I think the guy’s name was. It went off at fifteen, and was one and five-eighths the last I looked. A TV station. Couldn’t possibly miss. Bringing me in on that spoiled it for everybody. I think somebody’s trying to tell me something. Let me work it out myself, Tim. I’m ahead tonight, and it’s a good feeling.”

“You dropped five or six in a row,” Rourke said. “That’s why I pulled you out, dummy.”

“Nobody wins a hundred percent of the time at blackjack.”

“That was the turn,” Rourke insisted. “Accept it.”

Shayne pushed off from the bar and said in a voice that was suddenly ugly, “I’ll quit when I get where I want to be. I’m testing the luck tonight, and I still feel it’s with me.”

Rourke must have been very worried, for he tried to hold him. Shayne broke the grip with a sudden movement, and rocked him back against the rim of the bar.

“Stop phoning me,” Shayne said harshly. “Stop following me around. Get yourself another reliable source.”

4

The girls converged on him when he returned. “What’s going on?” he said.

“Money’s changing hands,” Sarah said. “I must say I’ve been having rotten luck with those chips you gave me. Do you think these wheels are honest?”

“An interesting question. My game’s blackjack.” There was a new dealer at the table, older, with tinted glasses, the usual sallow complexion, and a less slick way of handling the cards. Shayne began losing at once. When he heard Sarah murmur behind him, he rounded on her and snapped, “You’re bothering me. Get lost, both of you.”

“Willingly,” Sarah said. “I don’t like to be snarled at.”

Mercedes shrugged, to show how little it mattered. As Shayne’s stack of chips continued to melt, he hunched forward, and his manner became tighter and colder. The player on his right was also losing, a spindly long-haired youth in horn-rimmed glasses. The dealer turned over an ace and a face card, and the youth swore and slapped his cards down on top of Shayne’s. Shayne turned.

“Keep your cards where they belong.”

The youth, resentful at the way the dealer had been cutting him up, made the mistake of replying obscenely.

With no change of expression, Shayne half-rose, turned, and chopped down so hard that his coat sleeve popped open at the shoulder. The punch was a short one, but it had all Shayne’s power behind it. The youth’s jaw cracked against the table, and he slid out of sight.

Shayne scaled his last remaining chip to the dealer. “Buy yourself a deodorant.”

As he pushed his chair out of the way, the crowd behind him opened to let him pass. Two men in security-staff blazers were heading for him, and he veered to meet them.

“A guy passed out at the blackjack table,” he said, smiling coldly. “Tense game, blackjack.”

The guards glanced at each other and decided they hadn’t seen a blow. Shayne looked for his girls. Mercedes had disappeared. He found Sarah in the bar, sipping a peppermint liqueur.

“What did you do with those chips I gave you to hold for me?”

“To hold? Mike, that was a free gift, made out of euphoria and the goodness of your heart. We both thought it was generous of you.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Let me borrow them back. I just gave a kid a shot in the ear, and it’s going to make a difference. Sometimes when you blow off like that, it gets you rolling again. I’ll write you an IOU.”

“Mike, it’s all gone! That was easy money, and it went the same way. I don’t know what Mercedes did with hers. You could ask her.”

Shayne stood indecisively for a moment, and then shrugged. “She’ll probably feel the same way. I hate to say it, baby, but they cleaned me out. So what next?” Leaning down, holding her from moving with one hand on her hip, he bit the lobe of her ear. “Let’s go back to bed.”

She gave him a long look, and then said to the man next to her, who had taken no part in the conversation, “I’m afraid I’ll have to say good night. Thanks for the drink.”

Shayne hummed softly on the way to her bungalow.

“I’m feeling numb,” he said, unlocking the door. “You know that Novocain feeling. Numb, with a tingle.”

“Mike, I’m sorry. But at least you gave them a scare.”

“Damn right. I came close.”

She stepped into the lighted bedroom. Coming in behind her, he took her around the waist, pivoted, and sent her spinning back hard against the wall.

He kicked the door shut and met her with a hard slap as she came at him. The slap knocked her onto the unmade bed.

“You bastard,” she whispered, her hand at her cheek. “I’m not giving you any money.”

He feinted at her, and she slipped out from under, off the bed by the opposite side. He came after her without hurrying, his smile oddly unconcerned. She waited until he was almost upon her and then darted in and raked at the smile with her fingernails.

He jerked his head back too late, and her knee caught him in the stomach. He doubled forward. As he went down she broke the lamp over his head. The room was plunged in darkness.

Faint light from outside came through the closed slats of the front blind. He heard a crunch of broken glass and seized her ankle before she could reach the door.

“Mike, I know what we can do,” she said urgently as he forced her down beside him. “I know how we can raise some money. Not tonight — tomorrow. I shouldn’t have been so damn flip. You’re so great in bed, darling—”

He shifted his grip to her arm and hauled her up after him so he could turn on the overhead light. Her dress had been ripped. She stared at him, her eyes wide.

“Mike—”

He drew back his fist. She pulled away, covering her face.

“When people hit me with lamps, I get annoyed,” he said. “I ought to break your back. Just don’t give me any more of this crap if you want to go on being good-looking.”

He picked up the beaded purse she had been carrying, and found it stuffed with paper money.

“That’s what I thought,” he said. “Now I feel better. Come on, I’m not going to hurt you.”

She took her hands down. Except for the spot where he had hit her, her face was very pale.

“Take off the dress,” he said.

“What?”

“That little skirmish woke me up, didn’t you notice? I’m going to ball you.”

“Oh, no, you’re not.”

He made a quick grab at her, and she said hastily, “Yes, you are. Of course. Absolutely. It’s a perfectly logical idea, and I’m sure it’ll be very enjoyable, even for me.”

She was fumbling with her zipper. Her nervousness put him back in good humor.

“Stop jittering. Here, I’ll help you.”

He found the zipper tab and pulled it, and watched her come out of the dress. He left the overhead light on. When they were together, he surprised her by being gentle and careful, and even tricked her into taking part. She was wary at first, but then began moving with mounting excitement. They went over together, with Sarah throwing her head blindly from side to side, muttering hoarsely. It was their best moment.

There were tears and blood — from Shayne’s scratches — on her face. He disengaged slowly. Still gently and tenderly, he unfastened her emerald necklace. When he picked up her left hand, she stretched the fingers so the diamond would slide easily into his palm.

“And the crazy thing is,” she said, “that I almost decided to stay in Miami. Because what ever happens in St. Albans?”

“Who gave you the ring?”

“I gave myself the ring. I bought it on time, and it’s still not paid for.”

“I’m just going to hock it. I’ll buy it back for you after I make that dealer surrender.”

Tears glistened on her cheeks. She didn’t reply. “That’s a promise,” he assured her. “I know you feel naked without it, but you’ll get it back.”

He went to the bathroom to wash. Hearing a sound from the bed, he whirled, but she had merely stacked up the pillows so she could lie back and watch him.

“Play it out,” she said. “If you’re really that sure…”

“I have to be sure,” he told her. “So long as there’s any daylight showing, I’ve got to go for it. Sorry it had to be you, baby, but there’s more riding on this than money.”

The cognac flask had slipped out of his pocket while they were rolling on the floor. He retrieved it, and drank.

“What do you mean, more than money?” she said.

“I don’t know how to say it. But unless you finish what you start, you might as well be a check-out clerk in a supermarket.”

He opened his dispatch case and took out his.38 pistol in a clip-on holster. He snapped it on his belt and buttoned his jacket over it.

“I was going to offer to get dressed and go with you,” Sarah said. “That changes my mind.”

“Get some sleep.”

He hesitated, looking down at her, and then wrapped the phone cord around his hand and yanked it out of the wall. She made a murmur of protest.

“That wasn’t necessary, Mike. I’m too worn out to dial. I’m with you now. I want you to win.”

Shayne went out, locking the door.

He looked through the gambling rooms for Larry Zito without finding him. He got Zito’s room number from the desk, went upstairs, and hammered on the door. Even after hearing who was making the noise, Zito was reluctant to let him in.

“We can talk about it in the morning, Mike. It’s late.”

“Can’t wait till morning,” Shayne declared. “I want to pay you. If you don’t open this goddamn door, I’ll just go back down and throw the dough across the blackjack table. You don’t want that.”

After a long moment the bolt was thrown. Shayne went in with Sarah’s money in his hand.

Zito was wearing only a pair of rumpled shorts. When he saw the bills he relaxed and lowered the pistol he was holding. Shayne’s hand shot out, catching Zito’s wrist and giving it a quick wring. The gun hit the carpet.

“I don’t know why you don’t trust people,” Shayne complained.

“Some trust,” Zito said wryly, rubbing his wrist. “I’m glad you’re ready to settle. The big thing I want is to get you out of my hair.”

“I can’t quite do that yet, Larry,” Shayne said, putting the money away. “Later, I hope.”

He saw a familiar black dress carefully arranged over the back of a chair. Stepping across to the bed, he yanked down the sheet.

“Hi,” Mercedes said sullenly, looking up at him. Her hair was loose again, and the flesh was puffy under her eyes. “You said get lost. That’s what you said.”

“You picked a good bed to get lost in. This guy is loaded.”

Zito waited, the muscles around his mouth jumping. One hand went up to scratch the mat of hair on his chest.

“You’re going to stick me up, is that the deal?” Shayne looked at him in astonishment. “You really think I’d do anything that dumb? I just want you to loan me a few grand.”

Zito fumbled on the top of the bureau for one of his little cigars, to have something to do with his hands. “Shayne, you’re in a class by yourself. I already loaned you a few grand.”

Shayne spoke persuasively. “You want to wind this up. So do I, for Christ’s sake. It’s your money, but it’s my skin. I’m not asking for any favors. I’m going to give you security this time.”

He pulled out Sarah’s jewelry. Mercedes sucked in her breath, covering her mouth quickly when Shayne looked at her.

“She’s with me,” Shayne told her. “Unlike some people. She offered it to me, and she had to hit me with a lamp — literally — before I agreed to take it. Larry’s going to advance me something, and I’m going downstairs to invest it in a game of blackjack. And this time, when I get to ten thousand, I’m going to quit. I’ll pay Larry, he’ll return my security, I’ll give it back to Sarah. Fireworks! American flags! Brass bands! Drum majorettes!”

“You’re drunk,” Zito said critically.

“Now, don’t make me nervous,” Shayne warned him. “Whether or not I’m drunk has nothing to do with it, and as it happens, I’m really pretty sober. Three thousand, Larry.”

“No,” Zito said flatly. Shayne’s fingers closed around the jewels, making a fist, and he went on, “I might, in Miami. Here I don’t have the protection.”

“Then give me the name of somebody. Put on your glasses and look at this stuff. The emeralds alone—”

Zito lit his cigar. Waving away smoke, he explained the reasons why it was impossible for him to do that kind of business with Shayne. The casino’s deal with the island officials included a self-policing guarantee. Jewel thieves knew better than to try to score in this hotel. Consequently, there were no fences, as such, on the island. He didn’t question Shayne’s claim that the girl had given up the articles voluntarily, but did she show him a bill of sale? If by some freakish chance they turned out to be hot, the local police would consider it a breach of the basic agreement, and fur would fly.

Even before he finished, Shayne was nodding.

“Larry, I’m sorry I woke you up. I see what you mean — no point in getting out of one kind of trouble and right away into another.”

“Why not make me a partial payment, with what you’ve got there?”

“These are just tens and twenties.”

He found Mercedes’ bag and cleaned out the cash. She wanted Zito to interfere, but he stood by, smoking and scratching.

“This isn’t stealing,” Shayne explained to her. “I gave it to you earlier. It’s not much, but it’s a start. Don’t be surprised if I come knocking on your door again.”

“Can’t it wait till morning?”

“No,” Shayne snapped, with another quick switch in tone. “And don’t cry about it — good shylocks are on twenty-four-hour call.”

Downstairs, he decided he ought to know where he was at, and he smoothed and counted the money he had taken from the girls. It came to eleven hundred dollars. After all his activity, he had less than when he started in Miami.

He smoked a cigarette while he thought about it.

He was in the lobby. Ever since sitting down he had been monitored by a squarely built young man with a badly scarred face and the meaty hams of a football player. He wore the standard blazer, with a badge giving his name as Mr. Valenti. When Shayne put his money away and started for the casino, Valenti followed.

The crowd was smaller, less intense. The dealers and stickmen were swallowing yawns. Shayne approached the blackjack table. The dealer looked up and met his eye with a glitter. The setup made Shayne vaguely uneasy, and he went past.

He studied the play at the dice tables, hoping to see a pattern. Wherever he looked, the house appeared to be winning.

Soon the general weariness and staleness had its effect on Shayne. He yawned widely, then pulled himself together with an effort, and went to the cashier’s window to change his money into chips. A man ahead of him was doing the opposite, emptying his pockets of chips and changing them back into money. He had won heavily.

“Do you mind if I ask what game you’ve been playing?” Shayne said, interested. “Maybe you left some of that luck at the table.”

The winner guffawed happily. He was smaller than Shayne, with considerable facial hair — heavy eyebrows, a full moustache, and unpruned sideburns. He was so myopic that his eyes looked fishlike behind the thick-lensed glasses.

“I spread it around,” he said. “That’s my system. Move fast and stay in front of the law of averages.” He stuffed his pockets with bills. “Not that I really believe that. Scientifically speaking, they’ve got you by the short hairs. I know that. Tonight I happened to be the exception.”

Shayne hesitated, and forced an unconvincing smile. “Have a drink with me, will you? Maybe some of your luck will rub off.”

“I’ll be happy to, friend, but don’t expect any secrets. I rattle the dice and let fly. That’s my secret.”

Shayne introduced himself as Hank Morrison of New York City. The lucky winner proved to be a hotel-supplies salesman from Chicago, named Gregory Nash, and he had been betting expense-account money, which, as everybody knows, isn’t the same as real money. After the drinks were served, he showed Shayne pictures of his wife and three children, and the outside of his house in a Chicago suburb. The two girls were getting good grades in school, but for some reason the boy never seemed to feel like studying.

Shayne nodded mechanically, only half-listening. He had two cognacs while Nash sipped a watery Scotch. He slumped over his glass, more and more gloomy. Nash paid for the drinks with a credit card and stood up.

“You know you saved me some money?” Shayne said. “Talking about those kids of yours. I never had children. I was married once, but it didn’t work out. I’ve been trying to fake it, but I’m fundamentally a loser. The hell with it for tonight. They’ve taken me for all the bread they’re going to get out of me until I get optimistic again. The way I feel now, that may be never.”

Nash, like all winners everywhere, showed little sympathy. Shayne went to the elevator with him. As soon as the door slid shut, Shayne took out his gun and touched him in the small of the back. The man didn’t realize immediately what was happening.

“Goddamn it,” Shayne said, “I’ve got a revolver here. Take a look. You won’t get hurt if you’re sensible.”

The salesman glanced down. When he saw the gun, he recoiled so violently that he twisted all the way around with his hands raised.

“Now, don’t get excited,” Shayne said irritably, prodding him. “I just want you to understand I’ve got to have ten thousand bucks.”

Nash’s glasses shook on his nose. “The first time I ever really won—”

“Listen to me carefully. The thing to get through your head is that I have to have it. Do you hear me? I thought I could win it, but I see it isn’t my night. If I don’t get it, I’m dead.”

Nash had pressed the button for four. The elevator reached that floor and stopped. Shayne stabbed another button and the car went on.

“Put your hands down,” Shayne told him. “If somebody gets in, stand there and don’t make a sound. You said it’s expense-account dough — that’s what gave me the idea. You won’t miss it.”

“You can have it. You can have it.”

“I know that, but there’s something else, and that’s what I’ve got to make plain to you. This is a goddamn island. I don’t want you to report this. I’ve never been busted for anything over a misdemeanor. That’s the way I want it to stay. If they get me on this, it’s a first offense, and I’ll be out in eighteen months. Your name’s Gregory Nash, and you live at three-nine-four-seven Maple Drive in Englewood, Illinois, and you work for the Ideal Hotel Products Company. When you had your credit card out, I memorized it. Don’t turn me in, or I’ll come visit you.”

The man moistened his lips. “Leave me fifty for cabfare.”

“I’m going to leave you a hundred and your credit card. You’ll get home O.K. Give Mrs. Nash a big wet kiss from me.”

The salesman was no longer shaking. He cleaned out his pockets and his wallet, keeping nothing back except five twenties. “Because here or at the dice table, what’s the difference. I had a fun-filled evening, and it didn’t cost me a cent.”

“That’s the way to look at it,” Shayne said approvingly, taking the money. “And you got a fellow citizen out of a bad hole.”

He stopped the elevator at four, and Nash scurried out, glad to find himself still alive. Then Shayne returned to Zito’s floor and forced Zito to open the door again to accept payment. He fell several hundred short, and Zito offered to write it off, but Shayne insisted, “No, I understood the terms. I’ll panhandle for it if I have to.”

“Mike, don’t borrow any more money from me, all right?”

“Don’t worry about that.” Shayne blew an explosive breath and made a wide gesture. “I think we ought to have a celebration. I’ve got a chick downstairs. Do you want to come down, or should we come up?”

“Neither,” Mercedes said firmly from the bed.

“It’s been a long day,” Zito said apologetically. “I’m exhausted.” Clapping Shayne on the shoulder, he urged him toward the door. “You got lucky finally, and that makes me happy. Personally, I’m glad we handled this between the two of us. Get some maintenance on the haircut while you’re here, Mike. There’s a good barber. And tell you what — buy yourself a new shirt, a new pair of slacks, and put it on my bill.”

“Larry, I hope I’ll always deserve your respect.”

“You do, Mike. You will.”

They shook hands. Shayne made an occasion of it, prolonging the handshake long after Zito wanted to let go.

“In my book, Larry, you’re tops.”

“Yeah, thanks, Mike. Now, good night.”

“Pleasant dreams,” Mercedes called from the bed, and added, “You paid him. But you didn’t pay me, did you?”

Downstairs, Sarah was sitting up in bed reading a paperback mystery. This was the first time Shayne had seen her with glasses on, and she removed them hurriedly.

“You didn’t think I could do it, did you?” Shayne said with satisfaction. “I got the goddamn shylock off my back. I’m even.”

“Mike, darling, that’s marvelous!”

“And if you’re friendly,” he said, smiling, “and don’t make any waves, I’m going to give you back your jewelry.”

5

There was a stealthy knock on the door. Shayne’s head lifted off the pillow. Sarah was fitted against him. From a slight change in tension he could tell that either the knock or his sudden movement had awakened her. The knock was repeated, and a voice whispered, “Shayne.”

He swung out of bed naked. He pulled open the door, and a figure slipped in.

“Don’t turn on a light. The fuzz is out front.” The man who entered had a small, thin-beam flashlight. He flashed it toward the bed. Sarah scrambled for the sheet.

He turned the light upward, showing his face. It was the security man Shayne had spotted earlier in the lobby, Valenti.

“We can hold them only two minutes. Get some clothes on. Both of you.”

“Why the hell should we?” Shayne said mildly.

The beam stabbed his chest. “A guy complained of a stickup in the elevator. That’s one thing don’t happen in this hotel. I mean, it never happened yet, and we want to keep the record.”

Shayne blinked. “The son of a bitch reported it? That surprises the hell out of me.”

“Move.”

Shayne felt for his clothes. “Call Larry Zito. He’ll tell you it’s O.K.”

“The message is from Zito. He wants you out in two minutes. Give me any trouble, and it’s an automatic hit.”

He pushed a heavy.45 into the light. Sarah gasped. Shayne looked down at the gun stupidly.

“Do you know who I am?”

“We know.”

“Then put it away, for Christ’s sake. Sarah, if he says you’re included, you’re included.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with any robbery! Why should I have to—”

Valenti stepped around, his back to the door. “You got off the airplane with him. You’ve been with him most of the time since. They’ll take you in to find out what you know about him. We don’t want anybody busted from here.”

Shayne said, “Jesus, baby, I’m sorry. I fouled this up. Better get dressed.”

“I’ll do nothing of the kind,” she said with spirit. “Just because I made the mistake of going to bed with—”

Shayne took one long step to the bed, lifted her out, and dumped her on the floor. “He said two minutes. That won’t give you time to put on makeup.”

When she didn’t move, he kicked her hard in the ribs. She jumped to her feet. Valenti ran the flashlight down her body.

“Terrific,” he commented between his teeth.

“But it’s just fantastic!” Sarah exclaimed, ignoring him. “Who in heaven’s name is Zito? What could I tell the police?”

“My name and address, baby,” Shayne said, “and they’ll extradite me. Too bad, but it’s one of those things. They’re going to cover for us — they’ve got to.”

She wriggled into a dress, almost crying. “Mike, they’re hoodlums, we can’t trust them. They’ll kill us once they get us out of the hotel.”

“No, they won’t. That would make more trouble for everybody. They abide by the law down here. It’s the only way they can operate.”

He had dressed rapidly. Valenti relieved him of his pistol but let him keep his flask. Sarah swept the little bottles and tubes off the bureau into her big handbag.

“My clothes,” she said helplessly.

“We’ll get them back to you,” Valenti said. “O.K., the babe first. Turn right outside.”

He killed his flashlight. Outside, he herded them quickly around the pool and past the line of cabanas. He told them to wait while he checked the road.

Coming back, he asked Shayne, “Can you drive a motorcycle?”

“I grew up on the damn things.”

“It’s in the bushes at the bend. You got a long coast downhill. Don’t start the engine till you have to. No lights. If you see any cars coming, get the hell off the road and lie down. I mean hit the dirt, understand me? Bear left at the fork — you’ll see signs to the airport.”

“How exciting,” Sarah said bitterly. “Have the time of your life in swinging St. Albans.”

Suddenly there was a heavy booming explosion from the casino. It blew out the windows and flooded the grounds around the building with a quick blaze of light. Sarah whirled into Shayne’s arms. Somebody shouted.

“Follow the airport signs!” Valenti whispered. “Get going. The service gate before you come to the passenger area — somebody ought to be waiting for you.”

“I need the gun.”

“They don’t want you to have a gun, Shayne. If anything happens, stay where you are and don’t make it worse. Are you sure you can start a BMW?”

“Oh, God,” Shayne said.

Lights were flashing on all over the hotel and in the poolside bungalows. Valenti ran toward the casino.

Pulling Sarah with him, Shayne had no trouble finding the motorcycle at the edge of the road. He wheeled it out.

“Mike, concentrate for a minute,” Sarah said. “Maybe we shouldn’t do what they tell us. This could be a trap. They don’t want us arrested at the hotel. What if the police are waiting at the airport? That would be wonderful for me, wouldn’t it? Whatever dumb thing you did, they’ll think I was in on it.”

“I’ve still got your necklace,” Shayne said. “If you want it back, get on.”

“God,” she moaned. “I’ll never, never—

Hiking her skirt up high, she swung up behind him, and clutched him about the waist. He pushed off.

The sky was lighter in the east; it was nearly morning. Shayne followed the dotted line down the middle of the road. It dipped toward the shore and then turned inland. When the road leveled out, he switched on the ignition and kicked the engine into life. At the fork he turned on his headlights briefly, saw the airport arrow, and leaned into a long upward curve.

Sarah’s arms were locked around him, her chin pressing painfully against his spine. When he saw the perimeter lights of the airfield, he throttled down and looked for the gate.

“You son of a bitch,” she said. “You rotten, lying, cheating, stealing—”

The gate swung open. Without his lights, Shayne turned too sharply, and felt the back wheel beginning to slide. He gave the engine a quick spurt of power to right himself, and braked to a stop.

“We’ll take the bike,” a voice said politely. “Get in the plane.”

Sarah continued to hold on to him desperately, and he had to break her fingers apart to force her to let go.

“This is crazy. I didn’t do anything.”

“They’re waiting on you,” the voice said. “Let’s not have a big conversation.”

She twisted out of Shayne’s grasp, but the man who had been waiting for them walked her, struggling, to the waiting plane. Lights flashed, a command was called, and a power cart on the ground began blowing air into the turbines. Pressure built up with a whine, and as Shayne and Sarah stumbled into the cabin, both engines came alive with a shattering roar.

The cabin was furnished with a bar and two separate clusters of leather armchairs. Larry Zito and two others were strapped into the black chairs, waiting for the takeoff. Zito peered up at Shayne with extreme distaste.

“Sit in back. I don’t want to talk to you, even.”

“Jesus, Larry, I’m sorry.”

Zito popped his undersized cigar into his mouth to discourage explanations, and dismissed Shayne with a curt movement of one hand. Shayne and the girl took seats in the second group of chairs. She looked pale and haggard in the bright lights. Sensing this, she opened her bag and went to work on her mouth.

Presently the plane wheeled around, headed along one of the runways, and lifted. The sun was beginning to show above the horizon.

When they leveled off, Shayne unstrapped himself and asked Sarah if she wanted a drink. She shook her head shortly.

“No. Don’t get me anything. Don’t apologize anymore. Have the common decency to shut up.”

Zito, too, was unwilling to talk to him, so after Shayne finished a cigarette, he fastened himself in again and went to sleep.

Someone was shaking him.

He started violently forward against the belts. When he realized where he was, he glanced out the window beside him and saw the long spit of sand with its string of wedding-cake hotels, and beyond, the familiar profile of downtown Miami.

Zito said, “Now, I want that three thousand you held out on me.”

“What three thousand?”

Zito cuffed him lightly with his open hand. “You stuck up the guy for thirteen. You only gave me ten. I want the rest of it.”

He held out his hand.

Shayne said indignantly, “He told you thirteen? He conned you, Larry! I wasn’t trying to make a profit, I turned over the entire take.” He unsnapped the belts and stood up. “Shake me down, and if you find more than coffee money, I’ll eat it.”

Zito summoned one of his companions, who went through all Shayne’s pockets. When he brought out the emerald necklace, Sarah said quickly, “That’s mine.”

“Hell, give it to her,” Shayne said. “What did you do with the guy, Larry, reimburse him thirteen?”

“That’s right,” Zito said grimly. “And thirteen is what you owe me, with full vigorish, starting now.”

Shayne winced. “These expense-account types — crooked as a corkscrew. I wish you’d checked with me, Larry. I’d say you were too gullible.”

“He told the cops thirteen, and we had to accept it.”

“So that’s why he reported it,” Shayne said. “There’s a little larceny in everybody. I know his address — three-nine-four-seven Maple Drive — and I don’t intend to forget it. Jesus.”

He dropped into his seat and ran his fingers through his hair. “It used to be ten. Now it’s thirteen. I seem to be going backward. At least you didn’t bill me for damages to the casino.”

“What damages to the casino?”

Shayne looked at Zito. “Didn’t you set off that bomb to keep the cops busy?”

“What bomb?”

Shayne told him about the explosion. All three men were clearly hearing about it for the first time. Zito asked for exact details, but there wasn’t much more Shayne could tell him.

With a visible effort, Zito brought the conversation back to the earlier subject. How was Shayne proposing to raise the thirteen thousand dollars?

Shayne said eagerly, “I’ve still got a few angles I haven’t tried. People I can hit for a contribution, and if they don’t come through, certain confidential information is going to be leaked to wives or the newspapers. I’ve picked up a few nuggets over the years.”

His face clouded. “And to be realistic, the way I’ve been going lately, somebody’ll decide to be brave, and I’ll end up being rapped for extortion.”

“We’ve got a better idea, Mike,” Zito said. “I talked to the Don on the phone. Come out to the island with us. He wants to see you.”

6

They were met by a long gray Cadillac with room for everybody.

“I’ll get a cab,” Sarah said. “I’m in the phone book. Call me when my luggage gets back, and I’ll come out and pick it up. Good-bye, everybody. It’s been fun.” She added bitterly, “I’m lying, of course.” One of the men who had helped bring them back from St. Albans cut her off as she started away. She turned quickly. Shayne, his hands in his pockets, avoided her eyes.

“I know we’ve ruined your vacation,” Zito said. “Let me make up for it in a small way. I’d like to take you to a shop and let you pick out something to be charged to me.”

“I don’t want anything more to do with this,” she said sharply. “This is a free country, thank God. Isn’t it?”

“If you don’t want to do it the easy way,” Zito said, still polite, “we’ll do it the hard way.”

His eyes flickered, and the man standing nearest Sarah put her into the front seat of the Cadillac. Shayne got in back, between Zito and another man who had been addressed as Skeets. He dozed fitfully until he realized they were starting across the MacArthur Causeway between Miami and Miami Beach.

“Hey, what is this? You said you were going to get her a present.”

“I changed my mind.”

“But what’s the point?” Shayne said. “I don’t know what impression you get, but we’ve only known each other two days. It’s purely a sex thing.”

“I see that.”

“I’m kind of groggy. I know I’ve made a few problems, but what I’m trying to tell you, she had no part of it.”

“Everything’s going to work out,” Zito said.

Shayne bit his knuckles. “You understand, I’m not trying to give you a hard time. You’ve got me where I don’t have a hell of a lot of choice, personally. I never thought this would happen, but goddamn it, it has. As I say, O.K. But if you want me to show any kind of motivation at all, you’ll drop her at the heliport and let her phone for a taxi.”

Zito said gently, “She had reservations for three days at the hotel, so nobody expects her back in Miami. This is the way we want to do it, to plug the loopholes. We don’t know who she’d phone. Maybe nobody, but why take the chance? It’s a couple of days, maximum. Then we’ll take a fresh look at the situation.”

Sarah twisted. “Mike, are you going to let them get away with this?”

“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I know I already said that. I really did think the guy would take the loss and shut up.”

A red light was blinking ahead, mounted on a police cruiser pulled over out of the eastbound traffic. As they came abreast, Sarah’s hand darted out, and the Cadillac’s horn blared. The man on her right jabbed her with his bunched fingers and pulled her arm away from the wheel. The cop, writing in a notebook, didn’t look up.

“Childish,” Zito said.

Halfway across, the Cadillac swung down onto a ramp to Ponce de Leon, one of a group of oval manmade islands bisected by the causeway. The northern half had been in underworld hands since the days of the celebrated Al Capone. Dominick De Blasio, the Mafia boss, lived in a big Spanish-style fortress at the tip of the oval. Five or six other houses were scattered about on the carefully maintained grounds, occupied by less important hoodlums and relatives. During times of trouble, the women and children moved to one of the Mafia hotels on the Beach, guns were brought out of concealment, and the paths along the water were patrolled around the clock by German shepherds and armed men.

The gray Cadillac slowed at a checkpoint and was waved on. Shayne had gone to considerable trouble to get past this checkpoint, but he stayed relaxed, blinking frequently, his head rolling as the big car swung around the curving drive. He knew exactly where he was, having put in long hours studying aerial photographs. He had buzzed the property in a light plane, had reconnoitered along the shore by boat, and he probably knew more than De Blasio himself about the utility and electrical and protection systems.

“That’s the last time,” Sarah said fervently, “the last time in my entire life I agree to have a drink with somebody I don’t know. No matter how interesting he looks.”

Shayne sighed. “Will you stop squawking, damn it? He said you’d be all right.”

Two men were lounging on the front terrace of the main house. Only Shayne and Zito got out of the car when it stopped. Sarah sent Shayne a last terrified look, and he made a gesture meant to be encouraging.

The car moved on. As Shayne and Zito passed the two men on the terrace, one of them remarked, “Isn’t that Mike Shayne?”

Zito, jumpy enough at best, became even more agitated as they entered the house. His hands kept moving — tucking in his shirt, fingering his face, brushing nonexistent lint from his clothes.

“Quite an establishment,” Shayne observed.

“Yeah, the best.” Zito called, “Hey, anybody home?”

He looked into a big front room. “I know he expects us.”

Returning to the front door, he sounded a chime. A maid appeared and led them through the building to a flagstone terrace overlooking the bay. Here a small family group was having breakfast.

De Blasio, touching his mouth with a napkin and then throwing it down beside his plate, came to his feet and advanced toward Shayne with outstretched hands. He was in his late fifties, deeply tanned, with graying, wavy hair. Despite his plaid Bermuda shorts and ankle-length socks, he still managed to convey the impression that when he advised people to do a thing, they usually did it.

“Mike Shayne, so we finally get together. I always thought of you as my type of guy.”

“Yeah,” Shayne said hurriedly, ignoring the extended hands. “Listen, I don’t feel so hot. Can I use your bathroom?”

“Why not? Angela, show Mr. Shayne…”

The maid took Shayne to a small downstairs bathroom, where he retched violently, partially drowning out the sound by flushing the toilet. He turned on the cold water and put his head under the faucet, then dried himself on a hand towel.

When he returned, Zito and the boss were conferring, apart from the others. De Blasio dismissed the loan shark with a flick of his heavily ringed fingers, and coming back, introduced Shayne to the three people at the table.

His only son, Carl, had recently returned without a degree from the University of Alabama to enter the family business. He was taller than his father, thin, and shaggy. His wife, Nicola — they had been married eighteen months — was plump, dark, and shy. The other man was the chief adviser, the consigliere. Shayne had once tried, and failed, to convict him for bribing a police officer. His name was Musso Siracusa, and he gave Shayne the briefest of nods. Mean-looking and heavily built, he was one of the few real-life mafiosi who could have been hired to play the part in a TV melodrama.

De Blasio asked courteously if they could offer Shayne anything to eat.

“I’ll try coffee,” Shayne said, sitting down.

The daughter-in-law poured him a cup, and then excused herself prudently so the men could talk. Shayne raised the coffee almost to his lips and set it down without tasting it.

De Blasio began, “You’ve hurt us at times, Shayne, but I don’t hold it against you. Because you’re honest about it; you don’t sneak.”

“Can we get down to it?” Shayne said. “I’m going to have to puke again in a minute.”

Siracusa leaned forward, his eyes small and hot. It was said about him, and Shayne thought it was true, that he had killed five people during the guerrilla warfare that ended with the De Blasios in undisputed control of the Miami rackets. By choice, he was a strangler.

“Show some respect, louse,” he said hoarsely.

Shayne placed his knuckles on either side of his coffee cup and returned his stare coldly. Carl De Blasio put in quickly, “I’ve got a date to play tennis in half an hour. We don’t have to go through a lot of formality, do we? We all know where we are.”

“You’ll be on time,” his father said. He touched Siracusa on the arm and rebuked him gravely. “Shayne is sincere. He doesn’t lie. We’re going to treat him like a gentleman. If he was a different type of guy, we wouldn’t protect him. You’re too nervous; wait in the house.”

Siracusa bowed silently and left, taking his coffee with him.

De Blasio explained, “He still has some bad blood about when you had him pinched that time.”

“He wasn’t out of circulation very long.”

“No. We got one of our judges on it, but it went on his sheet. That’s old history; forget it. When you asked Larry Zito to loan you, I advised him to go ahead, maybe it would lead to an association. You are one man. You refuse to deal, to get together with people, and where you end up you have everybody mad at you from all sides. When you needed help, did any of your old friends come forward? Definitely not. Among us, when a person is where he can do a favor for somebody, it is remembered.”

“Well—” Shayne said vaguely.

De Blasio sipped his coffee. “I know what you did on St. Albans, the heist in the elevator. I think it made sense. Instead of going against the house odds, you picked someone who already won. Three out of four, at least, would keep quiet. You went with the percentage. I like that.”

“I’ve already had my nose rubbed in it,” Shayne said. “I’ll have the dough for Zito in a week or ten days, as soon as I get on my feet. So don’t lean on me. This is a good time for people with Italian names to stay out of the papers.”

De Blasio smiled. “But we don’t swallow a thing like this lying down, Shayne. We have a strong law against any kind of heist in St. A. Any money that’s clipped there, we want to be the ones to do the clipping. If Mike Shayne can get away with it, every hotshot in this part of the world is going to flock down there and take unfair advantage.”

Carl pointed out, “This means you’ve got an obligation on top of the thirteen thousand you owe Larry.”

Shayne rubbed his forehead. “Let me grab a couple of hours’ sleep, and maybe I can come up with something.”

“No, we need to move before the talk gets started,” De Blasio said. “I have something, a job you can do for us, and I’d say the exchange would be just about even.”

“Can you give me some cognac to put in this coffee?”

Carl called the maid, who brought an unopened bottle. Shayne poured fresh coffee and added a splash of cognac. It was too hot to drink. He held it under his nose to get the benefit of the fumes.

“Go ahead. But don’t expect enthusiasm.”

De Blasio, meanwhile, had been forking up pancakes. He washed the last mouthful down with a swallow of coffee.

“There’s been a lot of crazy stuff in the papers. Rourke has this series of write-ups going in the News. Any other time, I’d laugh about it, the things he gives us credit for doing. The amount of truth there, you could stick in the eye of a mosquito. But it’s doing some harm. I didn’t cry any tears for Mr. Sherman Meister. He was an annoyance. I couldn’t watch him; I tuned to another channel. Now everybody claims I paid for the hit. There’s heat everywhere, and it won’t die out as long as Rourke keeps on writing those articles on the front page of the paper.”

“That’s the business he’s in,” Shayne said.

“I’ll tell you what I think — it’s a lousy business. For me, I’ve been bum-rapped all my life; I walk with a clean conscience. But it’s bad for the outfit. The paisani are being pushed, their spots are being pulled. Cops who’ve been on the payroll for years are giving us the back of the hand. And it s this Rourke who’s keeping it boiling. Now, what we want you to do, Mike,” he concluded, “is stop it for us.”

Shayne looked at him blankly. “How the hell do you think I can do that?”

“You can get in to see him. Tell him you’re in a corner and that unless he does this thing, you’ll get your head beat in.”

“You’ve heard about freedom of the press? That’s the guy’s religion.”

Carl said, “And we want his notes and phone numbers. He’s been building that file for years. We want it.”

Shayne shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

“‘Can’t’?” De Blasio said thoughtfully.

“If you knew Tim Rourke, you’d know it’s impossible. His desk is right in the middle of the goddamn city room. And what the hell — he knows that file by heart. There’s no way to stop the series, short of—” He broke off, and De Blasio nodded.

“You had a beef with him in the St. A. bar. This would be more of the same. No questions asked.” Shayne sipped the loaded coffee. They let him think about it.

“The trouble is, I’ve known him so many years. We’ve been close—”

“I’m figuring that in the price.”

“It’s worth more than thirteen.”

“We don’t think so,” De Blasio said. “We had expenses. And pulling a piece in our casino. We can’t forget that.”

Shayne filled his empty flask from the cognac bottle while he was considering. Then he swore explosively and stood up.

“I won’t guarantee anything, but I’ll go in and look it over. I’ll need my car.”

“We had it brought in from the airport already.”

“How about the girl?”

“I assure you she won’t lack for a thing. We’ve got a nice apartment over the garage, fixed up nice, and she’ll be there by herself. I’ll send Nicola down to see if she needs anything.”

“All right,” Shayne said bleakly. “Now, tell me one thing. That creep in the elevator last night. Nash, from Chicago. Did you plant him on me?”

De Blasio smiled slightly. “No comment on that, Shayne.”

7

Shayne was followed back to Miami by Siracusa and two button men in a black Chrysler sedan. Siracusa had wanted to ride with Shayne, so he could watch him. That was the first argument Shayne had won, on the grounds that arriving at the News Building with a known amico would tie De Blasio into the action.

As soon as Shayne was out on the causeway, he opened the car phone and signaled his mobile operator. He had recently put in a floating microphone so he could make calls and still have the use of both hands.

“Mike, it’s you,” she said. “You’ve got quite a few backed-up calls.”

“Put this one in for me first,” he told her. “Dial the News and ask for Rourke. I don’t want to talk to him, just find out if he’s there.”

She kept the connection open. He heard the News switchboard girl say good morning. Rourke picked up his extension a moment later, and Shayne’s operator clicked off and broke back to Shayne.

“He’s in, Mike. Do you want your calls now?”

“In order of importance.”

“Now, how would I know which are important? Everybody’s anxious to reach you. Somebody named Larry Zito has been pretty persistent. I think he was trying to sound like a movie heavy. A couple of females left numbers; are you interested?”

“Not right now.”

“A detective agency called from New Orleans—” Shayne said quickly, “Save that one. Who else?”

“Tim Rourke twice. Chief Gentry. A collection agency. Another collection agency. The renting agent of your building, and he wants me to tell you he’s giving you forty-eight hours before he starts proceedings. That was — let me see — approximately forty-seven hours ago. And finally, Mike, the phone company. You know our policy. When a customer not only fails to pay his bill, but fails to get in touch with the business office to plead for an extension, service is suspended. And I personally wouldn’t like that, because I take a vicarious interest in your operation.”

“What kind of interest?”

“Vicarious. That means I sit here and enjoy myself without being shot at.”

“Baby, if it isn’t obvious from that list of calls, I’m having money trouble. Send them twenty bucks to keep them quiet for a few days.”

There was an instant’s silence. “That would be highly irregular, Mike, and against my personal code and I’ll have to think it over.”

“I need the phone. I’m working.”

“Please?”

“Please.”

“All right, maybe I will,” she said reluctantly. “But it’s a first.”

Reaching the mainland, he turned onto Biscayne Boulevard and left his Buick in an outside parking lot a short walk from the Daily News Building. His companions decided to stay in their car, but only a moment after they pulled into a no-standing zone, a patrolman on traffic duty herded them on, something that never happened when things were running smoothly.

Shayne put a cigarette in his mouth, entered the News Building, and went up to the city room. Rourke had been offered his own office, but he preferred to work in the open city room where he always had, under pressure and surrounded by the clatter of other typewriters and the ringing of phones. Sucking at a pencil stub in lieu of his usual cigarette, he was leafing through a manila folder. The file drawer of his desk was open.

He looked up, and his face broke into a wide welcoming grin.

“The man himself, back on his home turf. How did the night end, win or lose?”

“I lost. That’s neither here nor there. I want to talk to you.”

Rourke’s expression sharpened. “I knew that whole farce was for somebody’s benefit. Two chicks at a time, for Christ’s sake. But I couldn’t figure out why. Can it wait till I finish this piece? They’re pushing me for copy.”

“I only need a minute.”

Rourke stood up. “Then let’s go down to Jack’s and hoist one.”

“The cafeteria’s good enough. I don’t want to take you away from the fight against crime.”

“This isn’t going to be more about the foxes and rabbits, I hope?”

“What foxes and rabbits?”

“A theory some drunk was pushing at me last night. Too many rabbits, the foxes starve, or was it the other way around?”

In the cafeteria, they drew coffee from the big twenty-four-hour urn.

“As a matter of fact,” Rourke said casually, sitting down, “there are a couple of points in the story I’m writing I’d like to check with you. The man’s in no position to sue, but still—”

“You mean this isn’t your usual rehash? What’s up?”

“Mike, I wish I knew. Something peculiar, and my Geiger counter is clicking away like crazy. I’ve had hopes you could enlighten me. If I didn’t know it wasn’t allowed, I’d think somebody from out of town is trying to move in.”

“On the De Blasios?”

“They’ve had it easy the last few years. But nobody wants to tell me about it. My usual people aren’t calling me back, and that leads me to think they don’t want to go on record, even off the record. Damn it, if you don’t want to smoke that cigarette, will you throw it away?”

“I’m just doing it to torture you. What do the cops say?”

“Nothing there, either, Mike. The pressure’s still on. The organization shylocks and bookies haven’t turned an illegal dollar for three weeks now, and it must be beginning to hurt. But I’m told there’s action starting up in some of the hotels, and it must be new people.”

“Joe Jerk from St. Louis can’t walk in and start making book. It has to be cleared.”

“I know, I know. All I’m saying, nobody’s willing to tell me anything, in spite of the fact that I’m the one man in Miami journalism who has never blown a source.”

Shayne said slowly, “Somebody’s taking bets on the Beach, and the De Blasio bookies are still being pushed?”

“Hard. One of them got bagged for defective headlights, and he stayed in the precinct twenty-four hours while the lawyers screamed.”

“I’m sorry I can’t help you, Tim. I haven’t been doing much Mafia-watching lately. That brings us around to what I wanted to say. While we were talking last night, I think I brought up one of the facts of life. A lot of the big stories in your career have come from me, including the one that got you the Pulitzer. Maybe it’s time for you to do something for me in return.”

“That’s putting it bluntly,” Rourke said, “but hell, it’s true. Unless you want to figure the publicity got you more business — foxes and rabbits again. What do you want me to do?”

“Kill the series.”

Rourke stared at him. “You’re nuts.”

“You’ve written the same articles before, and what good did they ever do?”

“What good?” Rourke said excitedly. “They informed people. Told them what municipal politics are really like. A few of the worst abuses actually got corrected. All that extortion in the building trades — I blew that sky-high.”

“You’re saying there’s no graft or corruption in the building business anymore?”

“No, I didn’t say that. I sent a few people to jail. A couple of others got deported. Kill the series! Christ, man — who are you acting for?”

“Myself, as usual. You know already that I’m in a jam. If you don’t want to help me, the hell with you.”

“Mike, talk sense. It’s announced for ten installments. Today’s the third.”

“Stay home and call in sick. Then tell them you’ve lost interest.”

“Mike, if it’s that important… I don’t know, maybe I could work it—”

“And so they won’t give your notes to a rewrite man, I’ll take them with me.” He raised his voice to override Rourke as he started to speak. “I’ll keep them in a safe place. And I want your Mafia folders.”

Rourke’s hands shook. “Impossible.”

For a moment their eyes held. Then Shayne said wearily, “I knew you’d say that, but I thought I’d ask you.” He stood up. “I think I’ll use your facilities while I’m here.”

Rourke, in the habit of trusting Shayne, accompanied his friend to the men’s room.

“I know how you lean on that damn file,” Shayne said. “Have you ever considered it might do you good to get out in the world and start reporting things you see with your own eyes?”

“I’ve spent years building that file.”

“I know — people call you up from all over the country to get your opinion, and it’s great for the ego. But it’s all a fantasy. Guesses and hearsay, Tim. Somebody whispers something in a bar, and you pop it into the file. And those Mafia experts on the cops and the FBI. What you don’t seem to realize, they have a stake in the damn thing. They—”

And he slugged Rourke without warning.

His strange request had made the reporter wary. Trying to get out of the way of the blow, Rourke ducked into it. His nose collapsed in an explosion of blood. He grabbed at Shayne, his eyes hurt and uncomprehending. Shayne hit him again, spinning him back against the urinal. Rourke snatched the handle of the urinal as he came around, and it flushed. Shayne hit him once more as he began to slide, and that blow broke Rourke’s jaw.

Shayne caught him before he was all the way down, and worked him into an empty booth, where he wedged him into a corner, jackknifing his long legs so they couldn’t be seen from the outside. Then Shayne latched the door, stepped up on the toilet seat, and swung himself up and over.

Leaving the men’s room, he snapped his lighter and lit his cigarette.

People were used to seeing him in the city room. Nobody paid any attention when he sat down at Rourke’s desk and cranked the unfinished page out of the typewriter. He took the Mafia folders out of the file drawer. Then he slid a sheet of yellow copy paper into the typewriter and typed quickly: “IMPORTANT — call M.S. exactly at 8:00. Has information. Names. Careful, phone may be bugged. Must pay $250.”

He looked up Musso Siracusa’s phone number and added that to the note. He buried the sheet in one of the folders. Then he slid the folders into a large envelope and left the city room without hurrying.

8

Downstairs, he looked for Siracusa and the others. The Chrysler was not in sight, but the low-slung strongarm named Skeets was standing on the corner. Shayne passed him, swinging the envelope.

In an outside phone booth across the street, Shayne dialed the Daily News and asked for the city desk. When a voice answered, he said easily, “If you’re looking for your hot-dog reporter, you’ll find him in the last booth in the cafeteria john. Hurry it up, because he’s losing blood.”

Ringing off, he took out a felt-tipped pen and printed across the front of the envelope in block capitals: “WAIT HERE FOR CALL.”

Skeets was now against the building line a few steps away. Shayne walked out of the booth, leaving the envelope on the shelf beneath the phone. Skeets headed for the booth, feeling in his pocket for a coin.

The parking attendant brought out Shayne’s Buick. Shayne went out the lot’s side exit and had his operator dial the number of the phone booth. Skeets picked it up in mid-ring.

“Where’s Siracusa?” Shayne asked.

“Around the block. The goddamn fuzz is keeping him circling.”

“O.K. You see that envelope. Tell Musso to get back to Ponce de Leon with it in a hurry. Never mind about me for the time being. I had to put the slug on a guy, and he wasn’t looking too healthy when I left.”

“Rourke? You mean you dropped him?”

“I didn’t take his pulse. He won’t be talking for a couple of days, anyway. Let’s be careful. I may have picked up some heat on the way out. You people don’t want any part of this — it could be rough. I’ll find out how bad he’s hurt, and whether anybody’s looking for me. Give me twenty minutes. If it’s bad news, I’ll get a message to you. I may need help getting out of town.”

“Hey, talk to Musso, will you? He’ll be back in a minute. We were supposed to stick right with you, not let you pull anything.”

“I’ve got to hang up now,” Shayne said curtly. “When they see that envelope, we’ll all get a bonus.”

He broke off. He had crossed Miami Avenue and was driving west on 8th Street. He took out his flask and tossed it on the seat beside him. It was warm to the touch. An ingenious radio receiver, tuned to a little-used frequency on the citizens’ radio band, had been built into the bottom third of the flask. A signal broadcast on this frequency tripped a switch in the receiver and activated a coil which warmed the flask — and the cognac as well, making it undrinkable.

For this call, Shayne didn’t want to use his operator. He stopped and made it from a public phone.

“Shayne,” he said when a man answered. “Five minutes.”

After that he did some careful driving, playing games with the one-way traffic patterns around the County Courthouse and the railroad station. Then he picked up the North-South Expressway. He continued to watch the mirrors as he headed north, and swung off on Thirty-eighth Street toward the bay.

Six weeks earlier, a man named Hugh MacDougall had called from Washington to find out if Shayne would be interested in hearing about an assignment that carried a guaranteed hundred-thousand-dollar fee. To his surprise, Shayne’s answer had been a flat and immediate no.

The same day MacDougall phoned, Shayne had decided that he needed a change of scene and a complete change of pace. A woman who had been charged with first-degree murder, on the basis of evidence painfully accumulated by Shayne, had been found not guilty. After hearing the jury’s verdict, Shayne had walked to an airline office and bought two round-trip tickets to Hawaii. Back at his office, he was about to start phoning girls, to find one who wanted to use the second ticket. MacDougall persuaded him not to make those calls, and flew down.

Shayne knew his reputation. He had been a professor of criminal law at a New England university, and he had retained an academic manner, which combined agreeably with enthusiasm for his new job. He was executive director of the little-known Justicia Foundation. Originally established under the will of an ex-Attorney General, it had been fattened by grants from larger general-purpose foundations. Its stated aim was to advance the general welfare by financing innovative projects in the field of crime prevention. MacDougall’s grant program had been freewheeling and often wildly imaginative. In Denver, a Justicia grant had made possible saturation patrolling of a high-crime area, turning it overnight into a low-crime area. In San Francisco, another grant had financed a computerized system of closed-circuit-TV coverage in the principal banks, and San Francisco had quickly become known as a bad town for bank thieves.

In Miami, MacDougall proposed to try an entirely different approach.

“Crime enforcement is too oriented to particular cases,” he said. “A man rapes a ten-year-old girl. The police can’t put together enough evidence to convict him, so he rapes another, then another. Finally he rapes someone who is able to identify him, and he’s locked up. If he could have been treated after that first rape, society would have been spared three further crimes.”

Shayne laughed. “Psychiatrists aren’t looking for that kind of practice. They can’t buy Rolls-Royces with it.”

“I’m not talking about psychiatrists. What I’ve suggested to my board is that we turn Michael Shayne loose among the organized criminals of Miami, on an open assignment. Let’s talk about the Sherman Meister killing. I’ve seen the clippings. I’ve discussed it at length with Mrs. Meister. Wouldn’t you call this a typical Mafia execution?”

“It has the earmarks.”

“And do you expect it to be solved?”

Shayne shrugged. “Sometimes somebody gets lucky.”

“There were four hundred and forty-seven clearly identified gangland murders in the United States last year. How many convictions?”

“None?”

“Precisely. There were no indictments, few arrests. And even if the actual killer in one of these cases had been identified and convicted, by some odd chance, would that dispose of the matter? Not in my estimation. The gunman in these things is only the mechanic. What about the man who gives the orders? He seems to be immune.”

“Nobody looks too hard at that kind of murder. Who cares, is the idea.”

“Society should care. The immunity of these people is the basis of their power. The FBI hasn’t had much luck with organized criminals of this type. It always pains me to see some well-known mobster go to jail — if at all — for tax evasion or perjury or contempt of court or of Congress, never for any serious crime. Mike, a sworn FBI agent and a sworn member of the Mafia belong to two utterly different species. They don’t understand each other’s language or rules of behavior. They’re an enigma to each other. Can you imagine an FBI district director a caporegime in a Mafia family? Could an FBI agent ever win the confidence of a Mafia boss? Obviously not. But you might be able to.”

He talked on into the night. The next morning Shayne made two calls, one to MacDougall, accepting the assignment, the other to the airline canceling his reservations for Hawaii.

The contract was drawn up and signed.

Shayne stopped opening his mail and paying bills. Drunk in the afternoon, he had a pushing and shoving fight with a well-known sportsman in front of hundreds of horseplayers in the Tropical Park clubhouse. This man, not in the best of physical shape, managed to knock him down with a feeble right to the cheek, a blow that did less damage to Shayne than to his reputation. He was seen in various clubs and entertainment rooms with a variety of girls, usually drunk, often sullen and dangerously quarrelsome.

To account for his need for money, he spread a story about a loss he had suffered in the over-the-counter market on a television stock. Sherman Meister’s TV operation had gone public the previous year. The stock had been fought for. It was issued at 15 and hit 85 four months later. There was a general feeling that after being granted a license to one of those priceless channels, only an idiot could fail to use it to coin money. Meister, unfortunately, had suddenly decided to expand his public-service programming. Tim Rourke and a few others had been critical of his news department for blandness and overcaution. Meister responded by going on the tube himself with a weekly half-hour editorial, usually attacking organized crime. Rourke supplied him with facts and pseudo-facts from his anti-Mafia file. Meister’s mobile cameras began dogging De Blasio and other leading underworld personalities, including visitors from the North, and picked up some excellent footage of well-dressed hoodlums waving their fists or covering their faces with newspapers. The station’s constant goading stirred the police into action, and they made a number of harassing arrests.

The counteroffensive began immediately. Business spokesmen urged Meister to find another subject, on the grounds that his exaggerations were giving people the wrong idea of ordinary life in Miami. No resort town can afford a Puritan look; people on vacation like to sin a little. On the other hand, they don’t want to vacation in a place that is dominated by mobsters and killers, which seemed to be the impression Meister’s station was trying to convey. Couldn’t he forget the Mafia at least till the season was over?

Meister began losing accounts. He found himself having labor trouble for the first time. Various pressures were brought to bear, some on a very high level. A Federal Communications Commission investigator arrived and began going over his books. There were rumblings from Internal Revenue about an old tax case. Meister was denounced by a national Italian-American organization which objected to his use of the term “Cosa Nostra.” A spaghetti-sauce manufacturer pulled his commercials off the station. When Meister reported a fourth-quarter loss for the first time in the station’s history, the stock skidded catastrophically.

Shayne’s story was that he had bought a thousand shares on margin at 50, and his broker had sold him out on the way down. He moved out of the office he had occupied for ten years, and rented space in a six-desk operation in a grubby building in a deteriorating neighborhood. His office-mates, who shared a single telephone and secretary, treated him with contempt. He dropped eight thousand dollars in a Miami Beach crap game. He tried to borrow money from an organization judge.

Word of mouth did the rest.

Even Shayne was surprised at how fast the news spread. At first a number of old friends — more than he expected, because he took a somewhat dim view of human nature — offered to help, but he discouraged them with complaints and insults.

Now Shayne pulled into a huge parking area wrapped around two sides of an anonymous high-rise apartment near Biscayne Park, a block from the bay. No attempt had been made to provide downstairs security. Shayne rode an elevator to one of the upper floors.

He sounded a buzzer. The peephole clicked open, and Hugh MacDougall opened the door.

Twenty-four hours earlier on St. Albans, he had been masquerading as Gregory Nash, the hotel-supplies salesman from Chicago, using the simplest of disguises — a wig, a moustache, and a pair of rented sideburns. The thick glasses had been his own. Now he was back in his normal academic disguise. He grinned engagingly.

“Our amateur stickup artist. I thought you did that very well for a beginner.”

“You invested ten thousand in the deal,” Shayne said, “and got thirteen back. Speaking of con men.”

MacDougall laughed. “I thought that up on the spur of the moment. To make it more credible. And what did you think of the bomb?”

“Did you do that?”

“I did that. I couldn’t resist the temptation. I wanted to give them something to think about — I’ll explain in a minute.”

He took Shayne into the living room. He had rented this apartment for the sole purpose of having a place they could meet, and the only furniture was a battered sofa and a few chairs. To Shayne’s surprise, a woman was sitting on the sofa smoking a cigarette in a holder. He looked questioningly at MacDougall.

“This is Jo Meister — have you met? Michael Shayne.”

She was some ten years younger than her husband, who had been fifty when he died. She was thinner than Shayne remembered. Her hair had been lightened and cleverly cut. The only times he had seen her had been on public occasions, accompanied by her husband, a big, bald man with a booming laugh. Her habitual expression then had been a self-effacing smile, as though she didn’t believe she belonged on the dais, but down at the less desirable tables among the common people. She hadn’t altogether lost the look, but she was moving in that direction. A few more months out of her husband’s shadow might turn her into a handsome woman.

Shayne said in a carefully controlled voice, “Our arrangement was that you were to be the only contact.”

“You know I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t important.”

“This has to be fast,” Shayne said, sitting down. “It’s a bad time for me to be off the scene. They’re on edge.”

“I can imagine.” MacDougall took a place at the opposite end of the sofa from the woman. “Two things, Mike. First, the girl you went to St. Albans with, Sarah Percival, was Meister’s girl friend the last few months before he died.”

“What?” Shayne exclaimed.

“She worked at the station,” Mrs. Meister said. “And when Hugh mentioned her name—”

“Wait a minute. How much do you know about what I’m doing?”

MacDougall answered. “In a way she’s the instigator of this whole thing. When Sherm’s money troubles started, he applied for a Justicia grant. Naturally, we were interested in what he was doing. Then he was killed. Jo seemed to think we had a kind of obligation…”

“Damn it, Hugh,” she said, “you know you encouraged him.”

“I thought he was performing a valuable public service. I still think so.”

Shayne cut the explanations short. “So long as you both understand that if anything leaks, I’m dead. I’ve got to get off the streets before the cops start looking for me.”

“The cops?” MacDougall asked. “Because of St. Albans? I thought that was taken care of.”

“This is something that just happened. Tell me about the girl.”

“Yes. The St. Albans police couldn’t find her, so I assumed she flew back with you. I vaguely remembered the name, and I checked it with Jo. I thought this was something you’d better know about, and I brought Jo along in case you had any questions.”

“Yeah — but make it brief,” Shayne said, looking at Mrs. Meister. “Are you sure they were sleeping together?”

“I’m not sure, but I think so. It’s a feeling I had, a dozen little things put together. I’m sure he had girls, as a general proposition. He must have, don’t you think? Outgoing, always ready to plunge into some new form of noisy activity. He was often away. I don’t say I enjoyed the idea, but I’m enough of a rationalizer so I think I understood it.”

“Can you give me anything more specific?”

“Just that whenever he said he’d be out of town and I checked, Sarah Percival wouldn’t be answering her phone. I smelled her perfume on his underwear. That’s an embarrassing thing to admit.”

“We went back and checked the payroll,” MacDougall said. “She got the job just after the anti-De Blasio campaign started, and the obvious question is, did they put her in there to keep track of what was happening? And if that proves to be the case—”

“I’ll have to watch my step. I thought I picked her up in a bar. Apparently she’s the one who picked me up. As I remember, the night Meister was shot, he was working at the station with his accountant. Was Sarah there?”

“No,” Mrs. Meister said. “But he’d reserved a table at Mario’s, a table for two. A call came in on his private phone. He went out a few minutes later. It’s possible that she made the call.”

“O.K. That’s the first thing you wanted to tell me. What’s the second?”

“That a New Jersey hoodlum named Bobby Burns is in town,” MacDougall said.

“We get hundreds of people like that every winter. The hotels live on them.”

“This doesn’t sound like a vacation. He has ten or fifteen men with him, maybe more. He had a small union foothold in one of the New Jersey counties — Hudson, I think — and he tried to expand. One of his people died of bullet wounds, and another disappeared, and Bobby was told to get out of the state.”

“What kind of guy?” Shayne said thoughtfully.

“Young and hungry, Mike. No capital of his own, not much in the way of connections. It’s known that De Blasio is under pressure, and wouldn’t this be a good time for an ambitious free-lance to move in and try to pick off a piece of a very rich market?”

“If he was crazy enough.”

“And won’t the De Blasios think it was Burns who set off the bomb in the St. Albans casino last night? I hope so.”

“All right,” Shayne said curtly. “I’ll keep it in mind, and I may be able to use it.”

“One other thing we should talk about, Mike,” MacDougall said as Shayne started to get up. “I know how you feel about this, but I’d like to come back to it. I think we should work out a system so you can give me occasional progress reports. Now, hear me out. I have connections all over the country. I’d like to think I’m contributing something. We’re off to an amazingly good start. You’re inside their lines, and you’re going to be picking up information all the time. I believe—”

“I know. If I get wiped out, you want to have something to show for your money.”

“That’s not what I mean at all. By working together—”

“I’m working alone on this,” Shayne said. “That’s the deal. You don’t want day-to-day information. The FBI has been getting that kind of junk for years, and a hell of a lot of good it’s done. We want to be able to prosecute a few people. Don’t expect anything on the Meister thing. But if you’re right about Burns, if he’s really trying to move in on De Blasio, there are going to be killings. I hope to be there when they happen, so we can go into court with some eyewitness testimony for a change. I’m also hoping I won’t be one of the victims.”

He turned to Mrs. Meister. “And that’s not such a far-fetched idea, so don’t talk about this at the hairdresser’s.”

“My God, Mr. Shayne! You must realize that I have every conceivable incentive to say nothing to anyone. Anything you find out that has a bearing on my husband’s murder — I know the dangers you’re running. I think it was wonderful of you to agree to do it.”

“I agreed to do it for a hundred thousand dollars,” he said, “and don’t hand me any bouquets till I’ve actually done something.”

9

He did some more circling before swinging over to the shore on one of the terraces in the low Thirties. He aimed his Buick at a garage door, and an electronic control opened the door for him.

A dark-haired young woman ran into the garage from the house. She was barefoot, wearing tight yellow slacks and a striped shirt. She sprang at Shayne and embraced him.

“Ugh,” she said, drawing back. “You really are grimy, you know that? Though there’s a certain haunting fragrance, not entirely disagreeable—”

Shayne laughed. “I’ll have to remember to take a shower.”

“I can offer you one now,” she said quickly. “A razor. I’d even be willing to wash that shirt.”

“I don’t have time, Liz. I need the boat.” He touched her cheek. “You’re looking healthy.”

“We’re all supposed to look healthy in this climate.” She gave him another quick hug. Her name was Liz O’Donnell. She had worked as his secretary briefly in the days when he ran that kind of office. Now she divided her time between writing children’s books and skin diving off the Keys. Shayne owned twenty-five percent of her boat, and he kept his diving equipment in her locker.

Before leaving the garage, he unlocked the reinforced trunk of his Buick and took out a small waterproof case. He opened it to be sure everything he needed was still there.

“This is the Ponce de Leon thing?” she said quietly.

“Finally. And I hope it’s not a bad time for you, because I want you to stay close to the phone.”

“I haven’t made any dates I can’t call off. The freezer’s full of food. I won’t answer the phone when it rings. You’ll let it ring twice and hang up. Then you’ll dial again and let it ring twice more and hang up again. That means you want me.”

“That means I want you in a hurry.”

“Mike, did you ever wish you were in some different business, not quite so risky?”

“What?” Shayne said absently, fitting a lump of plastic explosive carefully back into a built-in pocket in the case.

“Just making conversation,” she said.

He tightened the waterproof overlap and zipped up the case. Liz’s boat was a low-slung twenty-four-foot sport fisherman, painted black with white trim, named the Wanderer. Shayne stepped down into the cabin.

He took his wet-suit and oxygen tanks from the diving locker. Before pulling on the wet-suit, he buckled the waterproof case to his belt. Then he went over the plan again step by step, while Liz nodded seriously.

She kissed him briefly. He put on the mask.

He switched over to oxygen and slipped into the water. He felt along the hull until he found the two handholds he had bolted to the planking, a foot below the water line. He rapped the side of the boat, and submerged.

The diesels turned over. Liz backed out of the slot and headed across the bay at low power. Presently Shayne heard the rush of traffic as they passed underneath the Venetian Causeway. A few moments after that she killed the engine. When the boat was nearly motionless he heard, or felt, a rap from inside, and he pushed off at a right angle.

They had rehearsed this. He went down to ten feet and swam in a straight line. He had been released forty feet off shore, slightly to the west of the De Blasio dock. He swam more cautiously when he saw the bottom coming up to meet him. The pull of the tide carried him to the left. He was able to make out a shimmering piling.

Three boats were usually docked here. Just beyond, an open-decked racing boat, a sleek, potent twenty-footer which looked fast even tied to a mooring, was kept in a closed boathouse. A black shadow in the water, Shayne swam beneath the dock and into the boathouse, where he surfaced silently.

He waited a moment before unclamping his face plate. When he was sure he was alone, he pulled himself out of the water.

He peeled off the wet-suit and hung it under a yellow foul-weather slicker. He hid his waterproof case in an equipment drawer, after removing a.38 revolver and a tiny two-piece listening device.

Hearing footsteps on the gravel outside, he went quickly to the building’s single dirty window, his hand on the gun.

He was seventy-five yards from the main house, but he could see only one corner of the terrace and part of one wing. Musso Siracusa passed, heading for the garage. He was walking quickly, his head down, and he had put on dark glasses for the short walk in the sun.

Two of the garage doors were down. The third slot was occupied by the gray Cadillac that had brought them from the airport.

Sarah, Shayne had been told, had been taken to the apartment over the garage. His eyes narrowed as Siracusa went into the apartment entrance. Shayne left the boathouse, slipping on his own shades as he came into the bright sun.

A gardener was watering the shrubbery in the distance. No one else was in sight.

Lighting a cigarette casually, Shayne went into the garage. It would be a bad place to be caught, but he needed to hear this conversation.

He lowered the garage door from inside. The pickup portion of his listening device consisted of a compact unit no bigger than a cigarette package, with a suction cup at one end, for pickups through hollow-core walls, and a thin spike at the other. He tied the earphone into the terminals, tightening the screws with his thumbnail. Stepping up on the Cadillac’s front bumper, he forced the spike through the plasterboard ceiling. When it met resistance he tapped it with the butt of his revolver.

He listened.

Nothing came through. He moved to the next car, also a Cadillac, and picked a different spot in the ceiling.

This time he heard the click of high heels. Sarah’s voice said, “This person named Skeets or Skeeter, he’s not anybody, is he?”

Siracusa answered, “One of our kids, he’s O.K. He stays in line pretty good. He was supposed to keep an eye on you so nothing happens.”

Sarah: “That’s what I thought. I wanted to say this to somebody who can take action on it. Can I get you some coffee?”

Siracusa: “I can always drink a cup of coffee.”

Sarah: “It’s made.”

Shayne, below, unreeled more wire and stepped down. He crouched in front of the Cadillac’s grille, ready to yank the spike out of the ceiling and slide beneath the car if anybody raised one of the garage doors.

Sarah was speaking: “What I really would like is a little Irish whiskey in this. I don’t suppose you want to go back and get us a bottle.”

Siracusa: “Hey, it’s eleven A.M. in the morning, lady. We’re in the middle of a crisis here; I’ve got to keep a clear head on my shoulders.”

Sarah: “I was thinking of myself, primarily. I didn’t get much sleep last night, about twenty minutes in all.”

Siracusa: “So sleep. What’s to prevent you?”

Sarah: “And miss out on a chance at some money? No, thank you. I need compensation for the wear and tear. What’s Musso short for — Mussolini?”

Siracusa: “Are you trying to be smart or something? It’s what I was baptized, after an uncle.”

Sarah: “Right. Here’s what it is, Musso. I’ve got something for you, but I want to be paid for it. I’m thinking of something in the middle four figures. Five or six thousand. I realize it’s a fluid situation.”

Siracusa: “What is this?”

Sarah: “Wait. I’ve spent the last thirty-six hours with Mike Shayne, and that qualifies me as a short-term expert. I know you’re interested in the same subject…”

Siracusa: “In Shayne?”

Sarah: “Baby, you’d better be interested in Shayne, because he’s interested in you. Musso, I’m an outsider. I don’t know the chain of command. How high can you personally go, in terms of dollars, for something that could save you considerable grief?”

Siracusa: “It depends on what I’m buying. Don’t believe the goddamn newspapers, that we’re all of us billionaires. We’re feeling the pinch, like everybody. Now, what the hell? It happens there are things popping, and I’ve got to get back.”

Sarah: “Musso, we have to come to an agreement on a price range first. Relax. Don’t be so tense.”

Siracusa: “You’d be tense, sweetheart, if you had what I have.”

Sarah: “No, seriously, if you go on picking me up on everything, I’ll have to talk to somebody else. You can’t spare the time? Excuse me for bothering you. At this rate, you’ll have a heart attack before you’re fifty. I think I’ll rub the back of your neck for a minute.”

Siracusa: “What am I, some kind of fag? Keep your hands off me. I don’t go for that crap.”

Sarah: “There. Lean your head back and go with it. This is going to help you think. Like that. Do you feel the tension slipping away?”

Siracusa: “I guess. Can you finish?”

Sarah: “I have to unbutton your shirt, to get at those muscles, but don’t be alarmed. Nothing more. Don’t interrupt. I won’t tell it all at once. I’ll hold something back until I see some money. You think Mike Shayne is coming apart at the seams, don’t you?”

Siracusa: “I can remember when the guy meant something around here. When he said a thing, that was it, you could count on it.”

Sarah: “And now he’s a lush and a deadbeat and he’ll beat up his best friend to make a dollar.”

Siracusa: “Kid, if you’ve got something to pass on—”

Sarah: “I feel the tension coming back. You think you can use Shayne. It’s the other way around, my friend. That’s all an act.”

Siracusa: “It couldn’t be.”

Sarah: “He had a few fights with people. He fell down a few times in public. He began slopping down cognac like ginger ale. He borrowed money from one of your shylocks and lost it at blackjack. All very easy and obvious. And you fell for it.”

Siracusa: “That’s been going on for months, the whole bit. We investigated all the angles.”

Sarah: “Not quite all the angles, I think, if you didn’t find out he was working for Mrs. Meister.”

Siracusa: “Let go my neck. That’s enough.”

Sarah: “She hired him to find out who killed her husband. Oh, he did it very well. He fooled me completely at first.”

Siracusa: “Christ, the guy robbed a tourist down there. That was no con.”

Sarah: “How do you know who that man really was? He probably had credentials, but did anybody really check?”

Siracusa: “Him and Rourke—”

Sarah: “They cooked that up between them. What’s a little thing like a punch in the nose, if you can get the famous Dominick De Blasio for murder? Look — Shayne’s broke, right? That’s the crucial thing. But what happened to all those big fees he pulled down in the last few years? The idea is that he lost money shooting craps and took a bath in the over-the-counter market. He bought a stock on margin just before the bottom fell out.”

Siracusa: “That’s one of the angles. We checked the broker.”

Sarah: “Who happens to be an old friend of Mike Shayne’s, I’m sure. Those were wash sales. Never mind how I know, I know.”

That was enough. Shayne, in the garage, swore viciously and jerked the spike out of the ceiling. He didn’t have much time. Nevertheless, he waited a moment, snapping his fingers soundlessly, before he lifted an overhead door and started for the house.

10

He entered by the terrace. Carl De Blasio’s wife, Nicola, met him in the hall and told him her father-in-law wanted to see him as soon as he came in.

“I’ll show you. I had a nice talk with Sarah.”

“Yeah?”

“She’s a very intelligent person, isn’t she? The places she’s been! I’m going to find out from my father-in-law if it would be all right to take her for a sail later. Sometimes it’s all right.”

They had gone down a half-flight. She knocked on a closed door and looked in.

Carl said angrily, “Can’t you see we’re busy?”

She stepped back, and Shayne went into a big paneled room, large enough for both a pool table and a Ping-Pong table without seeming crowded. There was also an old-fashioned pinball machine, the type that had once been one of the mainstays of the De Blasio family business, a huge television set, a stereo sound system, a fireplace, and a bar. Shayne went to the bar.

De Blasio and his son, Carl, had been conferring in an octagonal bay window looking out over the water. De Blasio’s jaws were clenched tightly on his cigar. It took him a moment to smooth the anger out of his face and say cordially to Shayne, “You’re my boy.”

While Shayne was looking for the cognac and the right kind of glass, he was also looking for the Mafia folders he had taken from Tim Rourke’s desk. He saw them on a table beyond the window. One of the folders was open, and he recognized the sheet of yellow copy paper that was uppermost. It was the message he had typed on Rourke’s machine — apparently a reminder from Rourke not to forget to call M.S., at Musso Siracusa’s number, and to be prepared to pay $250 for information.

He poured a sizable drink and drank it thirstily. “Good liquor,” he said, breathing out.

De Blasio came up to the bar and hit his shoulder with a mock punch. “You did a beautiful job, Mike. I only wish we got together years ago. Think of the time we wasted.”

“It wasn’t perfect,” Shayne said, refilling his glass. “I had to cool him. It won’t surprise me if the Miami Police Department starts talking about me on the shortwave.”

“Not yet, anyway,” De Blasio told him. “They took him to Mercy Hospital, and he’s still unconscious, according to our information. He has a jaw that somebody broke in three places.”

“Well, hell,” Shayne said defensively, “I tried to reason with the guy, but he wouldn’t listen. He’s always been a hard-nose.”

Carl guffawed. “I hear you took care of that, too, Shayne. Kaboom.”

Shayne failed to respond to the joke. “Yeah.”

“He may not realize somebody robbed his folders till he goes back to work,” De Blasio said. “We’ve got a pipeline at headquarters, and the minute the name Shayne comes into the matter, we’ll hear about it. I don’t want you to worry. We’ll take care of the whole thing.”

“You may not have quite the clout you thought you had a couple of months ago.”

“You’re not telling me anything,” De Blasio said. “With the judges especially, they’re always looking for ways to get out of their obligations. But this is only a minor assault, a little routine slapping around. That we can handle under the table.”

“I hope those folders are what you wanted. They were the only ones I could find.”

“Mike, you did a great job.”

“Then this puts us even? Tell Larry Zito.”

“As far as that goes. Can we talk?”

Shayne looked at him curiously. “Go ahead.”

“You don’t want to be in too big a hurry. The smart thing to do is stay quiet here, more or less, until we find out where we’re at with this Rourke. If he dies or anything. If he brings robbery charges. You’ve got a lady friend here, what more do you need?”

“She wasn’t too happy about coming. She won’t want to stay.”

“You can persuade her. If the lawyers say it’d be better to get out of the state temporarily, let me handle the details. You say you’re even, financially. Put it a different way, you’re back to zero. While you’re knocking around here, banging your lady, boozing it up, would you have any objections to picking up a little change?”

“Doing what?”

“A little nothing. I’ll describe it to you, and you can say yes or no, according. We’re feeling some heat, you know that. I have something moving I’d like to go ahead with, but it’s going to take a new face.”

“Not mine.”

“Yours would be ideal,” De Blasio said, “and let me tell you how simple. There’s this meet scheduled at such and such a pinpoint in the open ocean off Key Biscayne. Now, this is between you and I. Not to leave this room. Another guy made the appointment, and we want to take it over. Nothing’s going to change hands, I’ll guarantee that. It’s to sit down and talk about a deal, and the individual we want to meet is a bust-out guy, a Latino, and he gets a little excitable, you know? If he sees Carlo or somebody he knows, zzt!” He made a gesture pantomiming a rapid departure. “And at a bad time, because we need the action.”

Shayne drank. “How much choice do I have?”

“All kinds of choice. We’re not trying to force you. I don’t expect any problems, but when you’re doing business with this guy, there’s an outside chance some crazy might pull a gun, if that’s what’s on your mind. I want Carlo to go, and one other good man. Siracusa — he’s been like a rock for twenty years, and you can be assured he won’t do anything on a sudden impulse. Here’s the way I see it. You’re the only one on deck. When the guy’s boat comes alongside, you throw him a line. Then you let them look at your muscles until Carlo and Musso can make their point, the point being that we’re still in business, still the people to deal with in Miami.”

“Deal with on what?”

“No reason I shouldn’t tell you. Not narcotics.”

Shayne snorted. “That’s what it sounds like.”

“Mike,” De Blasio said with sincerity, “I’ll give you my word on this. We have an ironclad law — we don’t handle the stuff. It’s people, Mike. Italians, outside the quota. They pay five hundred a head, we get jobs for them, and after that, when we need somebody we can call on…”

“You wouldn’t be sending Carl,” Shayne conceded, “if you expected anybody to get shot. Just the three of us?”

“That’s all.”

“We go out in the ocean and meet a boat. How many people are going to be on it?”

“A couple, three at the most. But you saw the key thing right away. Any chance of blood being shed, would I include Carlo? Not to speak of Siracusa. I made him myself. He’s been like my son.”

“But I’m the one who’s not in the family.”

“Somebody in the family, there’s suspicion right away. I explained that. We wouldn’t get the chance to straighten the guy out, iron out the situation. The price is five C’s.”

“A grand.”

“Split the difference,” De Blasio said, holding out his hand. “Seven-fifty.”

Shayne gave the hand a light slap. “Funny the way things turn out. I never thought I’d be strong-arming for a dope delivery.”

De Blasio said worriedly, “I’ll say it again. Narcotics at a time like this, I’d have to have a head full of marbles. And Carlo.”

“Whatever,” Shayne said, “we’ll bring the kid back without any holes in him.”

“You sure as hell better,” Carl put in.

Shayne began filling his flask from the cognac bottle, keeping the flow steady even when Siracusa came in, in a hurry.

“Don, I just found out something about—”

He broke off, seeing Shayne at the bar. Shayne screwed the cap on his flask.

“Get your topsiders, Musso. We’re going sailing.”

Siracusa came around the Ping-Pong table to give De Blasio a look full of meaning. “Talk to you for a minute.”

“When you get back. This has precedence.”

“Don, it’s important.”

“So is this. Carlo, give him the rundown. Mike, one thing I forgot.”

He waited till the other two men had left the room. Reaching out, he touched the gun in Shayne’s belt. “Good, to be prepared. I want you to watch Musso.”

“What do you mean, watch Musso? You made him yourself, twenty years in the thing, and you don’t trust him?”

“The number of guys I can trust… Don’t keep asking questions. Everybody’s jumpy. Just play the cards you get dealt. But go a little slower on the juice, Mike…”

Shayne gave him a cold stare. “Nobody tells me how much I can drink.”

“I’m not trying,” De Blasio said hastily. “I don’t preach to people. And you’re no boy, right? The only reason I mention it, I don’t want you to doze off on me.”

“I’m O.K.”

De Blasio came outside with him. Shayne put on his dark glasses.

“This is strictly a one-shot,” he said. “Don’t start including me in the count. Because if I had to lay bets, I’d be tempted to put my money on Burns.”

“On Burns? How did you hear about him?”

“It’s around. Just that he’s here, and he’s looking for an end. Young, yeah, but he’s got desire. You’re tied down with real estate.”

“That’s laughable,” De Blasio said, though he wasn’t laughing. “You think there’s going to be war in the streets, like the old days? No. When the time comes, I’ll cut him to bits. Get this thing out of the way for me, and come back and we’ll talk.”

Shayne misjudged the first step down from the terrace, but swung his arms quickly and stayed in balance. He glanced up at the windows over the garage, and seeing the girl’s face, gave her an obscene one-finger salute.

Siracusa and the younger De Blasio were already aboard the biggest of the three boats, a forty-five-foot Pacemaker motor yacht with a rakish flying bridge. Shayne’s movements suddenly became very careful, a signal to the other two that the cognac was taking hold. Siracusa looked down from the flying bridge. “You’re going to be a big help.”

Coming aboard, Shayne’s heel caught, and he came close to falling. Three long strides took him to one of the padded chairs on the cockpit deck.

Carl cast off the lines. Siracusa, above at the wheel, backed out of the slot.

“How’re you making it?” Carl said, passing.

“Just great.” He gestured with the open flask. “Want a whiff?”

“No, thanks.”

Shayne put the flask to his mouth, stopping the flow of cognac with his tongue. Carl climbed to the flying bridge, where Shayne heard the two men talking in low tones. Shayne was far enough under the overhang so he couldn’t be seen from above. He worked his pistol out of his waistband and wedged it between his thigh and the side cushion, covering it with his right hand.

There was considerable small-boat traffic in the bay, and they moved slowly at first, the twin diesels operating at a fraction of full power. They began to pick up speed after clearing the causeway, into Government Cut between the southern tip of Miami Beach and Fisher Island.

It was a sparkling, stinging day. Shayne smoked, kept his pistol ready, and waited.

Carl checked on him from time to time, appearing briefly at the top of the ladderway to exchange a few remarks before returning to the fly bridge. A ten-knot breeze was blowing out of the east, kicking up a choppy cross-sea. The Beach shorefront structures dropped rapidly astern, to disappear in the haze.

The engines throbbed steadily. Soon they were alone on the ocean.

Suddenly, without warning, there was a heavy, shattering explosion on the flying bridge. Shayne came forward, the gun in his hand. The boat heeled over, rolling in a different way as the chop caught her on a new quarter. A long moment passed.

Carl’s voice said weakly, “Mike Shayne.”

“Right here, kid,” Shayne answered.

“I need help.”

Shayne said after a moment, “We’ll see. Your old man said to be careful. Drop two guns down the ladder, yours and Musso’s.”

A moment later one automatic fell onto the cockpit deck.

“That’s mine,” Carl said. “He didn’t have one.”

“Careless of him,” Shayne said. “Raise your hands with the palms out and turn away from the ladder.”

He kicked out of his shoes and went up fast, his gun high. Carl, his hands raised, was facing the bow.

Shayne came onto the enclosed bridge, lowering his pistol. “O.K., Carlo. Let’s check the damage.”

Siracusa, at the wheel, shifted in the rotating chair and began to slide. Carl said something deep in his throat, not quite a word. The bullet from Carl’s heavy.45 automatic had entered Siracusa’s head from behind and blown it apart. The mess on the inside of the plexiglass windshield looked like smashed tomatoes.

11

Carl’s shoulders were shaking uncontrollably. “My God.”

Shayne touched him from behind to make sure he had no other gun, and then put his own pistol away.

“Now you’re a real Sicilian.”

“Sick…” Carl said, bringing his hands to his face.

“Outside, outside,” Shayne said. “There’s already enough to clean up here.”

Carl stumbled to the rail. Shayne spun the wheel, bringing the bow back into the wind. He set the automatic pilot and throttled the engines down so they were barely turning over. After that he joined Carl at the rail, uncapped his flask, and held it out.

“Medicine.”

At first Carl shook his head miserably, then forced himself to take the flask and drink. Shayne had a drink himself before putting it away.

“I’m damn near sober. Nothing like a little gunfire to clear the head.”

Carl was holding the rail tightly. “Mike, would you…”

“Yeah, I’ll mop up. It won’t be for the first time. What did you tell him, that I was the one who was going to be hit?”

“He went for it.” Carl took a deep breath. “Do you know what he wanted to tell us, back at the house? That you’re working for Meister’s widow.”

“What am I supposed to be, insane?”

Carl turned toward him, his skin still yellowish under the tan. “He was selling us out! He was a stool pigeon, Mike!”

“Are you sure of that?”

“We’ve known for months we had a leak, and it was pretty high up. Musso’s phone number was in that stuff you found in Rourke’s desk.”

“What’s a phone number?”

“There was more than that. Rourke wrote a note to himself. A price. He was the one, all right. And with everything up in the air, we couldn’t postpone.”

“And you volunteered?”

“I didn’t exactly volunteer,” Carl said, biting off the words. “But it was time for me. Musso always treated me like a dumb kid. He wouldn’t be that trusting with somebody else.”

“I don’t suppose we’re really meeting anybody out here.”

“No, that was just for your sake.”

“What do we do with the body, dump it?”

Carl nodded. “There’s a tarp and some weights in the big stateroom.” He swallowed. “I know it’s asking a lot, but I’ve always had this stupid thing about blood.”

“I’ll do it,” Shayne said. “Just keep out from underfoot. If a Coast Guard cutter comes along, I don’t want them to start wondering what we’re doing. Break out a fishing rod and get a line over the side.”

“Yes.”

Shayne waited till Carl was installed in the fishing chair at the stern, and then went into the pilothouse to retrieve Carl’s automatic. He picked it up carefully by the front sight, slipped it into a plastic map case, and then took it up to the fly bridge and buttoned it inside Siracusa’s shirt. After that he went below for the tarp. It was stiff heavy-duty canvas, hard to manipulate on the narrow bridge. The bundle, when it was completed, was lumpy and awkward, but Shayne had lashed it securely, and he believed it would hold.

The weights, doughnut-shaped disks meant to be locked onto a weight-lifting bar, totaled three or four hundred pounds. Tied to the tarp, they would carry Siracusa’s body to the bottom, where it would disintegrate harmlessly, with nobody but those in his immediate circle aware that he was gone.

Shayne lined up the weights and lashed them together, but when he attached the new bundle to the larger one, he used a double slipknot that would pull apart the instant it hit the water.

Carl, having made his contribution by blowing Siracusa’s brains out, was looking astern. Shayne put together still another bundle, this one consisting of three life jackets. While collecting the life jackets, he had found a shipwreck kit containing vitamin tablets, shark repellent, flares, and a small tin of marking powder. He tucked the tin among the jackets.

When he had everything ready, he called Carl. “Get the binoculars. Let’s be damn sure there are no other boats around.”

Carl came into the pilothouse for the binoculars, and scanned the horizon from the side deck.

“Nothing,” he reported.

“O.K. I’m taking her off automatic pilot. Bring her about. When this rig goes overboard, I want to get the hell into some different part of the ocean.”

Carl went back into the wheelhouse and took over the dual controls. Shayne looked around carefully.

“Go!” he shouted.

The boat surged forward through the water, and Shayne tipped everything over the rail. The life jackets were yanked under by the tug of the weights, but bobbed to the surface again at once. Shayne dropped to the cockpit deck, to block Carl’s view. Behind them, a bright patch of yellow — the marking powder from the survival kit — blossomed on the surface and began to spread rapidly.

He yelled for more speed. As soon as the conspicuous iridescent stain had dropped out of sight, he returned to the flying bridge, where he again took the controls. He called to Carl to get back to his fishing chair, set the automatic pilot, and noted the bearing, the time, and the rpm readings.

Then he lowered a canvas bucket over the side and began dipping up bucket after bucket of seawater, which he sloshed around freely. The water flowing out the scuppers ran red for a time, then more and more clear. Finally Shayne stowed the bucket, made up the line, and called Carl into the pilothouse.

“I think I took care of the worst of it. When we get back, scrub it out with a good detergent, and rinse it with paint thinner. If you’re still feeling squeamish, get Nicola to do it.”

“I can’t help the way I am about blood. What did you do with the gun?”

“It’s overboard, with everything else.”

“Good, because it’s registered to me. You’re sure everything’s taken care of?”

“Go up and look.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” He shook his head when Shayne offered him the flask. “I can’t drink that brandy. I think there’s Scotch in the galley.”

He went below, and came back with a bottle and a glass. Shayne let him sit down and feel the bite of the Scotch before saying anything.

“So now I’m a co-conspirator,” Shayne said. “Nobody’s going to believe that when the gun went off I was the second most surprised man on this boat. That was part of the idea, wasn’t it? I’m part of the team now.”

Carl was looking better, nearly normal. “Mike, Dominick De Blasio is one of the facts of life. The sooner you learn that, the better.”

“Dominick De Blasio has just about had it,” Shayne said calmly.

“You think so, do you?”

Shayne shrugged. “I don’t give a goddamn, personally.”

“Just about had it,” Carl repeated. “Maybe that’s the way it seems to you. The cops make some noise, and everything closes down. But that’s temporary. Granted, the things he’s interested in are out of date. His methods are out of date. Now, don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean what just happened. That had to be done, and done fast. I knew I’d have to hit somebody sooner or later, to get respect.”

“Next time it’ll be easy.”

“What are you talking, next time? This was it, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve made my bones, and now I can express my views without having all the old Moustache Petes like Siracusa put me down as a college boy. I never had to fight and struggle, but there’s no getting around the fact, my name’s De Blasio.”

The strong slug of undiluted Scotch was working. Carl put his feet up and his head back.

“I didn’t hesitate. I just didn’t expect all that stuff to spatter out on the windshield.”

“What courses did you take at college, Carl?”

Carl’s head came around. “Now, what does that have to do with what I was saying?”

“Your father’s knocked some of the corners off lately, but he used to be one of those Moustache Petes you were talking about. You’ve heard the stories. I’d say half of them are true. When he was getting started—”

“I know all about that.”

“I remember one that impressed me. A young fellow in a Teamsters local, Italian boy. He decided to run for business agent without clearing it with the organization. The day before the nominating meeting, they found his body in Coral Gables and his head in Bal Harbour. In those days Dom De Blasio was a rough man.”

“I don’t condone that kind of thing. It’s bad practice, in more ways than one.”

“What I meant about college — where’d you go, Alabama? The name De Blasio is well known. I suppose everybody asked you if you were related to what’s his name, the Mafia don.”

Carl said softly, “I never had a chance to be normal, you know, Mike? Some of those rednecks put a lot of time and effort into thinking up ways to humiliate me. What could I do, fight everybody? Or ask my father for a couple of strongarms to bodyguard me? I toughed it out for three years. But I really wanted that diploma. I always had a vague idea I’d like to be a psychiatrist.”

“The country needs doctors.”

“More than shylocks and bookmakers? Don’t be silly.”

He replenished his drink. If he had looked closely at Shayne’s expression, he might have seen something that would have started him shaking again, but he was absorbed in his own situation.

“I’m a part of it now,” he said, drinking. “I don’t know why you brought up college. The one way I could have made it, the only way, was if I’d gone out to the Coast, and signed up under a different name. I love Nicola — she’s a terrific kid, even though she does have a slight drinking problem — but the big reason we got married — you think I’m going to say she was pregnant, but not at all, it was so I’d have an excuse to drop out of college. It was getting impossible. We had a big old-timey ceremony. Well, make the best of it.”

Looking at Shayne with every sign of sincerity, he said, “We could work together, Mike. I think we complement each other. We could really click.”

“You don’t want to trust me, Carlo. I could surprise you.”

“You’re as much a part of it as I am. Not officially, how could you be, you’re not Italian — that old story. But to all intents and purposes. And you’re what the thing needs. I’ve had a few ideas. Siracusa was the stumbling block. He was the adviser, you know, and his advice was to stay in the same grooves.”

“As long as they make money…”

“Sometime I’ll tell you how much it costs in fees and protection to run a handbook in one hotel. You’ve got to do it — gambling holds the whole thing together. Everybody wants to gamble, and so we get protection on other things, but some years we barely break even. My father believes in taking care of his people. That’s the boss’s job. At least half the regular payroll is a drain. You can’t run a modern business that way. Here’s what I want to do, what I’m pushing for. We’ve got a political nucleus. We’ve got good leverage, and what do we use it for? To protect our policy runners. To fix traffic tickets. Mike, with a little grass-roots work we could elect two congressmen and — it’s not impossible — a senator. Just by collecting on all the favors we’ve thrown at people all those years. We could put together one of the tightest political machines in the country if we bothered. The real money isn’t in shylocking. It’s in Washington.”

He was becoming excited. “The kind of thing I’ve been investigating, a couple of shipyards over on the Gulf are up for grabs. I don’t object to the use of muscle — it’s a matter of how and where. I never could make Siracusa see the point, that we’re wasting our power on loan-shark collections and so on and so forth. Throw it into a proxy fight. What’s that, he wanted to know.” He laughed scornfully. “Those stockholders would be delighted to vote for a management that could get them some contracts. For that you need people in Congress. What I’m trying to say is, I want to pull the family into the twentieth century. The numbers on one of those shipping deals would stupefy you. You put up a hundred thousand, turn around, and six months later you’ve got a million. But you can’t buy senators like judges. They have to be yours before they take the oath of office. That means you have to plan ahead.”

“It’s a long way from peddling football pools.”

“And safer, for the very good reason that it’s legal. People say we’re moving in on legitimate business, but you know that’s a lot of crap, Mike. Laundromats. Bottling franchises. Car hauls. Nickle and dime stuff.”

“And if you took over—”

“Did I say anything about taking over? Persuasion’s the thing.”

He continued to smoke and drink and talk about his plans until the strangely shaped Beach hotels began to rise out of the mist. Shayne corrected his heading.

“Mike,” Carl said suddenly, “thanks a million for — you know, and if there’s anything I can ever do for you…”

“I’m getting paid for it. But not very well.”

“When you tell my father about it, if you could sort of gloss over a few things, how I didn’t help afterward…”

“Yeah, yeah.” He started to drink, but made a wry face and put the flask back in his pocket. “I’m getting the wrong kind of jolt out of this. I’m going to pull into Pier Park for a minute and hit a drugstore.”

Carl said with interest, “What are you into?”

“Nothing heavy. I’m behind on my sleep.”

“Somebody laid some cocaine on me the other day,” Carl said. “Really smoothed me out. But Jesus,” he added, “don’t say anything about that to my father, either.”

Shayne cut around the breakwater at the tip of the Beach and came in past the Kennel Club. “Take over.”

Carl took the wheel. “You’re not trying to be cute or anything, are you, Mike? You’ll be back?”

“Damn right I’ll be back. You people owe me some money.”

He swung over the rail and caught the ladder at the end of the recreation pier, kicking the boat away before it scraped. Leaving the park, he dodged across Ocean Drive without waiting for the light.

There was a pharmacy a few blocks away on Euclid, run by an old man who was known to be a soft touch for prescription junkies. He had been in difficulty only once, and then it was Shayne who by some fast footwork had saved his license. He greeted Shayne cordially, peering over the top of his half-moon glasses.

“Mike, I’m so far out in the woods you don’t ever come to see me? Somebody was telling me you had bad luck in the market. Believe me, you look it.”

“The luck’s been bad all around,” Shayne said, “but I think it’s about to turn.”

He motioned toward the back of the store. The pharmacist followed him.

“What can I give you?”

Shayne explained what he needed, while the old man looked more and more unhappy. “This is without a prescription?”

“Naturally. Would I come over here if I had a prescription? I’ll get one to you by the end of the week.”

“Mike, only for you. And don’t recommend me to your friends, all right?”

“Let me use your phone.”

“That I can let you do without breaking the law.”

As soon as Shayne had a dial tone, he dialed the New Orleans area code, following it with another number he found on a slip of paper in his wallet. A man’s voice answered.

“Star Investigations. Wellington speaking.”

“This is Michael Shayne. My operator says you called me. Does that mean you found him?”

“No sweat, Mike. You said a faggot, and he’s flaming. He hustles out of a Bourbon Street bar, but not with just anybody. I mentioned your name, and I mentioned five hundred dollars, inasmuch as it’s out of town. He looked receptive. Do I go ahead with it?”

“How soon can you put him on a plane?”

“I advanced him fifty, and he promised to stay available. I don’t want to make you nervous, but he’s looking forward to meeting you. Mike Shayne, wow.”

Shayne laughed. “I’ll be careful.”

“I told him you didn’t swing that way, but I’m wondering if he believed me. There’s a flight that gets to Miami at seven, and if everything goes nicely, that’s the one he’ll be on.”

“Tell him to wear a carnation so I’ll recognize him. If he can’t make that one, I’ll give you a number to call.”

He dictated a Miami number, and after breaking the connection with New Orleans, he dialed the same number himself. Hugh MacDougall answered from the almost empty apartment in northeast Miami.

“Mike, any news?”

“Things seem to be moving,” Shayne said briefly. “You offered to help, and here’s something. Do you know Will Gentry?”

“Chief of Police. Yes, I’ve met him.”

“O.K. I hope you’re feeling persuasive, because this won’t be easy. I borrowed some money he was going to use to buy his wife a birthday present, and I dropped it at the dog races. But he’s the only one we can trust.”

“He’ll talk to me,” MacDougall said confidently.

“And don’t do it on the phone, because he has a leak in his office. You’ll have to tell him a piece of this, but try not to mention my name. Tell him if he wants to find a dead man who’s been shot in the head with a.45, the body is anchored in the Atlantic about seven miles out.”

“Seven miles, Mike — how are we going to find it?”

“I’m coming to that. What you have to do is talk him into going alone, just the two of you. Take a bearing of forty-one degrees northeast from the Oceanfront Auditorium in Lummus Park. I can’t give you the exact distance. Seven miles is a very rough guess. Somewhere around there you should see a large yellow stain in the water. If you don’t find it right away, you’ll have to call in a Coast Guard helicopter. The body’s tied to a bundle of life jackets. Now, here’s the important thing, and it’s goddamn important. You have to get out there before that stain dissolves, but I want this kept absolutely quiet until I say to open it up. If anybody knows Gentry was out in that general area, tell him he’ll never find out how it happened, because your informant will be dead.”

“Couldn’t I do this alone, Mike?”

“No, we need somebody with a badge. He won’t recognize the corpse, because there isn’t much face left, but you can tell him it’s a big one.”

“Mike, if he asks how long I want him to sit on it…”

“Maybe twenty-four hours. Everything’s breaking much too fast. I hope I can control it, but I already see that this isn’t a long-range operation. I’ve got to be ready to jump.”

“All right, Mike. I’ll get back here to the phone as fast as I can.”

The pharmacist had five ampules ready, small disposable hypodermic syringes, with their needle ends protected by small cardboard collars. He packed them carefully in a cotton-lined box.

“In the buttock would be the best place. Allow about ten minutes. I’m giving you five because you can’t be sure how long each shot will last, depending on body size and alcohol intake and God knows what. To be comfortable, come back with another shot every four hours. It’s safe, supposedly, just an extra strong sedative. Don’t forget to get me that prescription.”

12

Shayne, on the cockpit deck, saw Dominick De Blasio on the open terrace with binoculars. There had been three men on the boat when it left, and he wanted to see how many were coming back. Shayne lifted his fist in an insulting gesture. De Blasio lowered the glasses.

“Mike, the thing we were talking about,” Carl said. “About the future. I know it’s too soon to get any meeting of the minds on it, so keep it in the back of your head, will you?”

Without answering, Shayne jumped down onto the dock with the bowline. After tying up, he started for the garage. The older De Blasio gestured and came down from the terrace to cut him off.

“Mike, where are you going?”

Shayne waited for him, smiling slightly. “Seven hundred and fifty bucks. That has to be your cheapest contract in thirty years.”

De Blasio came up, breathing hard. “How did it go, O.K.?”

“Everything was fine. Have you got the money on you? I’m picking up my girl and cutting out.”

“Let’s talk first.”

“Who the hell do you think I am, De Blasio? Some peasant from the old country with his mouth full of sheep dung? That phony Mafia act stopped impressing people years ago. You’re a cheap thief and a cheap killer, with the emphasis on ‘cheap.’ Man of respect! You’re living in a dream world. The only reason you won’t end up on welfare is because there’s no social security for hoods.”

He was shouting and waving his arms. Without looking away from De Blasio, he was aware that there were now six men in view — two on the terrace, two more on the driveway, coming around the house. The gardener had dropped his hose and brought out a pistol. Skeets, the youth who was guarding Sarah, stepped out of that doorway, and he too had a gun. Carl was running along the dock.

De Blasio said, “No reason to get so hysterical, Mike. Come inside and talk over some refreshment.” Shayne gave the boss a shark’s grin, pulled his pistol, and rammed it into the older man’s stomach. De Blasio grunted and stepped backward, making a swatting gesture with one hand.

Carl yelled, “Shayne, quit it!”

Shayne sidestepped, putting De Blasio’s bulk between him and the others. “The safety’s off. Start walking backward.”

De Blasio searched his face to find out how serious he was. “Are you out of your head?”

“There’s a guy behind you with a gun. Skeets. Tell him to get rid of it.”

“Put the gun away, Skeets,” De Blasio called, keeping his eyes on Shayne. “No shooting.”

“I want the girl and the money,” Shayne said. “You know you got a bargain. Tell somebody to bring out the paper with an elastic around it, and toss it to me. I don’t want anybody within ten feet. You’re coming with us. And if everybody’s sensible and no shots are fired, I’ll put you out at a cab stand.”

Drops of sweat glistened on De Blasio’s forehead. He kept moving backward, prodded by the gun.

“Stay in step, for Christ’s sake,” Shayne said irritably.

“Do what he says,” Carl called. “He’s doped to the eyeballs.”

“Doped to the eyeballs,” Shayne said sarcastically. “Keep moving.”

“Mike, it’s the wrong idea, the wrong way. If you want to leave, leave. But if you want to make some money—”

“Somebody else you want hit?”

“You’re a private eye. I’ll hire you. I know we conned you a little, but I’ll explain that, we had to. Five thousand. To find out who killed Meister.”

Shayne jabbed him sharply with the pistol, and De Blasio sat down in the gravel. Shayne followed him down, keeping the gun jammed into the soft folds of his stomach.

“Everybody in town knows who killed Meister.”

“I swear to you we had nothing to do with it,” De Blasio said. “It hurt us. What do you want me to say, I owe you an apology? You want me to humble myself? We had to take care of Musso fast. He was too high in the administration. An old hand like that, would he turn his back on Carlo unless we told him Mike Shayne had to be done away with?”

Shayne’s eyes shifted suddenly, and he said in a complaining voice, “Everybody likes to be treated like a human being. Why didn’t you say honestly, ‘Shayne, here’s what we want you to do’?”

“Because you wouldn’t take any part of it!”

After a moment Shayne nodded. “You could have a point there. And now if I stand up I’ll get a slug in my head. I could use the money, but the only way I can see is to take you with me. Get up.”

“Carlo!” De Blasio shouted. “Skeets. Everybody. This is a misunderstanding. Mike Shayne is a guest. The fault is mine. Do you all understand?”

Shayne looked around. “Wait a minute,” he said as De Blasio started to get up. “Let’s talk about that money. Well, hell. With a gun in your gut? It’s not the way I usually do business.”

He stood up, thrusting the pistol inside his belt. De Blasio embraced him affectionately, in the Italian manner.

“Do you know the last time somebody had a gun on me? A long time ago, Mike, a long time. I forgot what it felt like.”

Carl called, “Mike, take it easy, will you?”

Shayne and De Blasio returned to the house arm in arm, if not yet cousins, friends. At the bar in the game room, where they had had their earlier conference, the boss patted his stomach.

“I’m going to be black and blue down here, Mike. You really jabbed me. What are you having?”

“I’ll pass this time. I’m already high as a hawk.”

“Are you?” De Blasio said dryly, and poured himself a shot of Scotch. “I hadn’t noticed. I’ve been chewing my fingernails. Did Carlo—”

“Like a pro,” Shayne said.

De Blasio looked pleased. “Maybe he told you — this blew up in our faces all of a sudden. I didn’t get a chance to work up any plans. You’re entitled to be hot about it, and there’s going to be a little gift in it for you. I knew I could count on it, with you along, if Carlo got a little excited or what not, you’d be a steadying influence. He’s a good sound boy, and with a little more experience under his belt…”

“Nothing wrong with his attitude. We talked about it on the way in.”

“I’m glad to hear you say this, Mike. He ran into some influences when he was away at school, associations I didn’t approve of and so on, but kids have to learn from their own mistakes.”

He knocked back the Scotch, belched delicately, and sat down across from Shayne in a plastic chair upholstered in bright chintz.

“Don’t worry about bugs, we can speak freely. We’re careful on the phone, wire taps is all some of those federal people know, but I invested in an Intruder Detector, and we go over the buildings twice a week, this room daily. Is the boat clean?”

“We rinsed it out with seawater. Carl’s got some more work to do on it. The body’s down in a mile of water. Was Siracusa married?”

“That part’s all right, she knows to keep her mouth shut.”

“Now, what’s this business about Meister?”

“I want you to clear that up for me, Mike, so I can get some peace and harmony. What did you hear about Burns? I didn’t know that was out in the open yet.”

Shayne had an answer ready, but before he could get it under way, the broad-beamed youth who had been assigned to Sarah appeared hesitantly in the doorway, clearing his throat.

“I don’t like to bust in, but Carl said it was O.K. The chick over the garage? She wants to see you, says it can’t wait.”

“Tell Carlo to take care of it, I’m in the middle of something.”

“Hold on,” Shayne said. “Didn’t I see Siracusa coming out of there?”

“Well, yeah,” Skeets said. “He was in with her for I don’t know how long, like twenty minutes.”

“Doing what?”

“How should I know? Maybe he was eating her; I wouldn’t be surprised. His shirt was open when he came out.”

“What is it with this kid?” De Blasio said. “I thought she was just somebody you had along.”

“So did I,” Shayne said slowly. “But if she and Siracusa — Are you absolutely sure he was in contact with Tim Rourke?”

“We’re positive about that. There’s written evidence.”

“What I’d better do—” Shayne said, still speaking slowly. He thought a moment. “How about a short intermission?”

“If it’s really short. I can’t just sit here scratching while a bunch of haywires take over the town.”

“But you don’t want to do the wrong thing. I’ll see if I can make some connections. Siracusa. The girl. Burns.”

“You know, Mike, it’s a thought. Would a jerk like Bobby Burns show his face in Miami unless he had some kind of an in?”

“I keep remembering that bomb in the casino last night. She could have planted it. And if she’s taking Bobby’s money, maybe there’s a way you can use it. Let me work on her.”

“Then we have a deal?”

Shayne ran his hand over his face. “I’m too spaced out to talk about it now. I need a hot shower, a shave, a clean shirt, a Bromo, and some hot coffee. And answers to some questions.”

“I can provide all those. Just don’t drag it out.”

“Not to speak of sex,” Shayne said. “I’ll try to cram everything into the next half-hour.”

13

Skeets unlocked the door for him.

“Pay no attention if she yells,” Shayne said. “I may have to knock her around.”

The hoodlum’s tongue came out. “Man, if you need any help…”

“I can take care of it, thanks.”

After letting Shayne in, Skeets locked up again.

Sarah hurried out of the little kitchen, stopping short when she saw Shayne.

“Oh,” she said flatly. “Mike. Where have you been?”

“Around and around.”

He took her by the arms and tried to kiss her. She turned her head so his lips grazed her cheek.

“I’m scared, Mike, really and truly scared. These people are creepy. What are they going to do with us? I keep going back and forth, it’s my fault, it’s your fault, it’s nobody’s fault…”

“It’s all mine,” he said, dropping onto the sofa. “I’ve been in jams before, but never one like this. I can’t figure anything out. I couldn’t tell you my own phone number.”

“Mike, I saw you go out in a boat. I thought you were going to leave me.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

She shook her fists at him. “What’s happened to you? You used to be able to take care of yourself. What happened to all that?”

“It seems to be gone,” he said heavily. “I keep thinking the cards have to start coming my way, but it’s one bust after another. I’m about to give up.” He mumbled, “I really am sorry.”

“For which one of us?”

“Don’t chew at me, Sarah. If I can sort things out, I know I can think of something we can bargain with.”

“What do they want with you, Mike?”

“I wish I knew.” He pressed his fingertips against his forehead over one eye. “I’ve got this lousy headache. Baby, if you want to help, come here a minute.”

She gave him a quick look before deciding there could be no connection with the similar service she had performed for Siracusa. She came around behind him, and he felt her cool fingertips.

“The dark, mean-looking one,” she said after a moment. “Siracusa? Did he say anything to you?”

“He’s been muttering to De Blasio, I don’t know about what. Right there, that’s the place. Like that. Yeah.”

He let her go on kneading his forehead for a few moments.

“They got me out of some bad trouble at the casino last night. I don’t know what got into me, outside of a couple of fifths of cognac. I used to think I was able to hold my liquor. I wish they’d tell me what they want and get it over with… You’ve got a great touch. You could go into the business.”

He drew one of her hands down and kissed the palm.

“Mike, talk to me.”

He turned his head and bit her breast through her dress. Then he came up on his knees on the sofa, his arms around her.

“Baby, get undressed.”

“Mike, I couldn’t. Not now. I’m too jittery.”

But he insisted, using his mouth and hands. When he had his mouth on hers and their tongues were together, he brought her down slowly until, with a twisting adjustment, they were lying side by side.

The gun in his belt hurt her, and he put it on the floor. She continued to object, using her shoulders and knees.

“Contribute something,” he said.

She sighed. “Oh, well.”

Switching completely around, she began to help. He pulled at a zipper. She forced herself out of his grasp and shrugged off her dress. They assisted each other, fumbling with fastenings and beginning to laugh a little. She was beginning to seem excited. They had been together enough so he knew some of the things she liked. Her eyes closed, and she murmured her appreciation.

Presently he whispered, “Roll over. Nice for a change.”

She complied readily. With his free hand he felt in his jacket pocket, on the floor beside him, took one of the hypodermic ampules out of the flat package, and flicked off the cardboard guard with his thumb.

She was rolling her head back and forth, her face against the pillow.

“Mike, you bastard, where are you? Put it in me.”

He activated the plunger, filling the syringe, and hit her with the needle. His thumb came down.

She didn’t notice the small sting. Then she twisted so she could touch him, and the needle pulled. He withdrew it quickly. She came up on an elbow and stared at him through her tangled hair.

“What did you do to me?”

“Just gave you a small injection, baby; don’t worry about it. It’s a big thing with the college kids, like amyl nitrate.”

“Mike—”

“Everybody says it gives you a real bang. Lie down. I wanted to surprise you. You were almost there.”

“What was it?” she demanded. “Damn you, what was it?”

“I forget what they call it. After it’s over, you’re supposed to tell me you never felt anything like it, and do it again soon. That’s the shtick. The marvels of chemistry.”

She came up on her knees to face him. “You’re lying.”

He grinned at her. “If you don’t relax, you lose the effect.”

She snatched up the needle from where he had dropped it, and pumped a drop of fluid into her palm.

“I don’t know why you don’t trust me,” Shayne said. “I just wanted to find out if it’s as good as they say.”

“Is it heroin?”

“You know better than that. With heroin you go look for a vein.”

“Mike, tell me. It’s important! You’re trying to knock me out.”

“I’m not that quirked. I like my women conscious, and taking part.”

“Stop it! Stop talking that way! How fast does it work?”

“If you fight it, it may not work at all.”

She shook back her hair, and taking him by the arms, she said urgently, “This turns everything around! You’ve been faking all this, haven’t you? The money you borrowed — the drinking and fighting — my God, Mike!” She made a distracted gesture. “Watch out for Siracusa. I told him the robbery last night was phony. I said you’re working for Jo Meister.”

“Take your time,” Shayne said. “You’ve got a few minutes. Why did you do that?”

She ran her hand through her hair. “To buy my way in! That was one hell of a performance you put on. I didn’t really believe it till I heard what you did to Tim Rourke.”

“I just broke his jaw. He’ll recover.”

“Mike, can I take anything to counteract it? We ought to be making plans…”

“It wears off in four or five hours. Keep talking. What the hell did you expect to accomplish by throwing me to Siracusa?”

“Mike, there’s a sauna. The steam…”

She pulled him into the bathroom. Words tumbled out.

“I was Sherman Meister’s girl, we were going to get married as soon as he swung the divorce. Mike, I’m the one who persuaded him to go after the Mafia. That was all me, I made him do it! I wrote the editorials; it never occurred to me there was any danger…”

She pulled him into the steam. They remained standing, in a partial embrace.

“It was my fault he was killed! Then nobody did anything about it. The police were bought off, they’ve been taking payoffs for years. There was hardly an investigation.”

Their bodies were already very wet. The steam was now so heavy they couldn’t see each other. He let her tell it without interruptions.

“I had a horrible time, three horrible months. I loved him, and it was my fault. I had a tape of one of my editorials, and I kept playing it. This sickening stuff about how one individual can make a difference. Stand up and be counted. One with God is a majority. Incredibly naïve! But I was the one who wrote it. And finally I decided, damn it, I had to stand up and be counted!”

Her head swayed in against him. Her words were running together.

“I heard you owed money to a loan shark. You couldn’t pay it back. I thought you could be a kind of passport for me. You were in contact with them. I could get to meet Larry Zito, go to bed with him. Shake me. Hurt me, Mike. Keep me awake. Be careful with Siracusa.”

“He’s dead.”

She swayed away. “Did you kill him?”

“I had something to do with it. Don’t stop talking.”

“Kept trying to meet you. Finally, at the airport. One determined individual, make a difference. Get inside. Watch and listen. Sleep with everybody if I had to. Remember Mercedes — be ready to do anything.” She giggled sleepily. “And you did that, with the two of us, to convince them… I wondered and wondered. And then you beat up Rourke. Your best friend. Decided to sell you, make them think I’m on their side, said you’re working for dear Jo, you’d turned into such a slob, who cares…”

“Sarah.”

She was asleep. He pulled her out of the sauna and into the shower, where he turned on the cold water. The icy stream snapped her awake in his arms.

“So wrong,” she said. “Thought you were really… I told him you’re faking. Nicola…”

“What about Nicola?”

“Carl’s wife.”

Her eyelids came down, and she began to slide. Shayne pulled her erect, turning her face into the cold water, but the drug had taken a firm grip, and he could see she wasn’t coming back.

He turned off the water and lifted her out. Someone was knocking. Shayne put the girl on the floor, wrapped a towel around his waist, and went out dripping.

The bolt was thrown, and Skeets looked in. “The Don sent you some things.”

“Put them on the chair.”

Skeets looked curiously toward the bedroom. “How’s everything coming?”

“Not bad.”

“You’re sure you don’t need somebody to hang on to her while you…”

“She’s cooperating.”

“Hey, that’s good.”

He retreated.

Shayne returned to the bathroom, closed the toilet, and sat the unconscious girl on it while he toweled her hair. She kept slipping away. When she was reasonably dry, he carried her to the bedroom, opened the bed, and put her in it. She was sleeping peacefully, a slight smile on her lips. He patted her buttock, where he had sunk the hypodermic, and covered her.

Still dripping, he turned on water for coffee, and then used the shaving equipment Skeets had brought him, and dressed.

14

Skeets was waiting outside on the landing, close to the door so he could hear any sound of blows or erotic cries. After he let Shayne out and locked the door, Shayne picked the key out of his hand.

“I’ll take this.”

“The Don said I was supposed to—”

“Check it with him.”

Shayne found De Blasio still in the game room, studying an open ledger, his head tipped so he could look through the bottoms of his bifocals. He shut the book with a snap as Shayne came in.

“You look better. The shave and everything.”

“I’ve been thinking it over,” Shayne said, “and I think we can do business.”

De Blasio smiled happily, showing teeth too perfect to be his own. “I knew you’d see daylight, Mike, and I’m happy to hear it, believe me.”

“With a few qualifications. If I solve that problem for you, if I find out who really killed Meister, it’s worth more than five thousand. It’s worth ten now and another fifteen if I deliver.”

De Blasio threw up his hands. “Have a little pity, will you? I’m hurting for cash. What can I do, sell the island? I’ll give you ten and five. Fifteen thousand in all, for a lousy couple of weeks.”

Shayne argued briefly before accepting the Don’s second offer.

“But let’s be sure what we mean by delivery,” he said. “A couple of questions first. We’ll be getting into strategy, so if you want anybody else in on it…”

“As a matter of fact, Carlo ought to be here.”

Heaving himself up, he rapped on a windowpane with a heavy seal ring. Skeets came in from the terrace, and De Blasio sent him for Carl.

“I don’t like the way that guy looks at my chick,” Shayne said. “I’ve got the key to the apartment, and if it’s all right with you, I’d like to hang on to it.”

De Blasio assented. When Carl came in, smelling of disinfectant, his father announced, “Shayne’s working for us.”

“That’s the best news I heard all day,” Carl said enthusiastically. “How much do we have to pay him?”

“Too much,” De Blasio said, waving his cigar. “You said you had some questions, Mike.”

“Yeah. I want to know the family version of the Meister killing. What do you think happened?”

De Blasio held up a single finger. “I know one thing, of my own personal knowledge. I didn’t order the hit. I know some of my people are taking the credit. It went off very slick, the execution was perfect in every respect. Sometimes it’s a botch, a mess, you don’t want your name connected with it. But with something like this, how can you say no? Not everything we get tagged for we actually do.”

“You know that, Mike,” Carl put in.

“Which is usually all to the good,” his father continued. “With shylocking especially, you want them to figure they won’t stay alive if they don’t pay up. So some people think — Meister was saying all kinds of things about us, this and that, and we decided to show him a lesson. But that’s talking idiotic. Look what happened. Who’s been taking the heat? I’ve been through this kind of thing before. You don’t shoot a weasel like Meister. You use economics on him. And it was working. In another month he would have been down on his knees.”

“We had it all set to blow up his transmitter,” Carl said.

“That same night! Does it make sense to hit the guy before we try everything else? We could give him some labor headaches, a picket line. What I ask myself, who’s getting the benefit? Not us.”

“You mean Burns?” Shayne said. “He needed a commotion to keep you diverted?”

De Blasio nodded. “That’s what we’ve come to the conclusion. And if you can get him indicted for it, that little thing by itself will be worth the fifteen thousand.”

“Fifteen?” Carl commented. “Isn’t that pretty steep?”

“Steep, hell,” Shayne said. “It’s cut-rate. But you know as well as I do there won’t be an indictment. I’m not a magician.”

“You’ve done some hard-to-believe things, Mike…”

“This would be really hard to believe. Unless you know something I don’t?”

He looked from father to son. De Blasio continued smoking his cigar, and Carl turned his hands over on his lap.

Shayne went on, “It was a textbook job. The car was found parked at International Airport. Apparently somebody met him there in a stolen Dodge, drove five miles west on the Trail, pulled off on a side road, killed him, and transferred to another car. The number was filed off the gun. The handle was wrapped with friction tape. The cops haven’t come up with anybody who saw the transfer at the airport.”

“They didn’t look too hard,” De Blasio said. “I know you’re not trying to beat me out of that ten grand down payment, or you wouldn’t be pointing this out. What the hell, I agree with you, it’s going to be hard.”

“Even if Burns did the shooting himself, he’d need two other men. Have you picked up any rumors I could work on?”

“We’ve been handicapped,” De Blasio said. “We’ve had cops on our backs.”

“How many men did Burns bring?”

De Blasio said worriedly, “We’re in the dark about that, Mike. He’d be nuts to try anything with less than twenty.”

“Who’s backing him?”

“Who’s backing him is the question. He only started his move last week. I’ve made inquiries, but nobody gives me any satisfaction. Either they don’t know, or they don’t want to tell me, and it’s been worrying me.”

“What’s his idea, to take over?”

“No, no. God, no. A jitterbug like Burns? He doesn’t have the stature. Heisting payrolls is about all he’s good for. He’ll just try to squeeze in somewhere, and negotiate.”

“How’ve you been planning to handle it?”

“Well, Mike, I’ve been having second thoughts. What Siracusa advised may not be the right thing. We’ve got to start over and think it through again.”

“I’d like to know how we can get around it,” Carl insisted.

Shayne said impatiently, “Around what? Come on. Either I’m in or out. If I’m out, good-bye.”

De Blasio was still reluctant, but after blowing a plume of cigar smoke he said finally, “We came to the conclusion that one of his men has to be dropped.”

“How far has the preparation gone on that?”

De Blasio exchanged an uncomfortable look with his son. “You’re sure you want to know, Mike? Let’s just say it’s on the calendar, and for soon.”

“And then Burns will come back by killing one of your people.”

“We’ll have to try and be careful. But the only way he can get in is by shooting his way in, and if you think we’re going to move over and invite him politely, you’re mistaken. This is our livelihood. I have a responsibility to my people.”

“Whatever way you want to look at it,” Shayne said, “he’s out of line. Isn’t there some kind of commission you can appeal to?”

De Blasio shook his head and said mournfully, “There is, Mike, but they don’t care to get involved anymore. They’ve been burned too often.”

“I know of at least three of them who are here for the winter. I see them all the time. Then, there’s Dino. I know he retired, but his money must still carry some weight.”

De Blasio shifted uneasily. “Mike, as somebody from the other side of the street, you don’t understand. They get together and take a vote, and then how do they enforce it? It’s not their fight, so why should they commit their own people?”

“Burns could be hurt by that kind of vote,” Shayne said, “even with no pistols behind it. It depends on whose money he’s using, who’s behind him. If you invited these four men to a meeting to discuss it, would they come?”

De Blasio continued to move about in his chair. “For a plate of spaghetti, a glass of wine, why not, but they know I wouldn’t take advantage and use the hospitality to embarrass them. How can I explain it to you? This kind of trouble they expect me to handle. I’m recognized already. How can they add?”

“Mike has an idea,” Carl said. “Let’s hear what it is.”

“They come to Miami to get away from trouble,” Shayne said. “If you and Burns get into an all-out war, bang, bang, bang, every Cosa Nostra guy in town will feel the heat, no matter whether he’s personally mixed up in it or not. You know the routine. He’ll be flashbulbed and tailed and bothered and hauled in for questioning. What’s wrong with talking about ways to avoid it? I said you couldn’t get a grand-jury indictment against Burns. But you might be able to get a verdict of guilty from these people. If I can bring in some kind of proof that Burns barged into somebody else’s town and murdered an important TV man to create a panic — that’s dirty football. It’s not the way to do things. It endangers everybody.”

De Blasio studied the end of his cigar. “Could you get proof?”

“If you cooperate, maybe.”

“If it was open-and-shut, if they were unanimous on it…” De Blasio said. “Mike, I think you’re onto something. They’ll put the word around that Burns is a real crazy—”

“From what I hear,” Carl said, “that word’s around already.”

“No, Mike’s right, he’d lose support. Whoever invested. They could find out who’s with him, where they’re connected, and yank some of them out by the thumbs. It smells good to me. You’re going to move in on him, Mike?”

“It won’t be easy. Where do I find him?”

“In a place called the Rivage, in Normandy Shores. A condominium, and it’s buttoned up tight. Carlo looked it over. Tell him, Carlo.”

“It’s this building with four separate apartments, and Bobby’s people are in all four. Cyclone fence. Closed-circuit TV. An alarm system. He doesn’t go out. That’s why we thought the only way was to pick off one of his button men, a runner.”

“Let’s get back to that,” Shayne said.

“Mike, if there’s any way of canceling—”

“No, you’ve got to do something to show everybody it’s serious. Who’s the target?”

“And this is really something you want to know?”

“It really is. I may be able to use it to make contact.”

De Blasio said softly, with a shrug, “A nobody named Marcello Marti. He went into shylock on the Beach without authorization.”

“When’s it going to happen?”

“Today. Why put it off, was the idea.”

“Do you have somebody you’d be able to live without?”

De Blasio was puzzled. “I don’t get what you’re driving at.”

“Somebody you’d just as soon lose,” Shayne said impatiently. “Give him the hit. I’ll go along and chaperone. Then I’ll sell him to Burns. That way we’ll make friends.”

De Blasio nodded as he listened, liking the simplicity of the idea. Carl was more agitated. He broke a cigarette between his fingers and shredded the tobacco.

“Don’t keep doing that, Carlo,” his father said.

“I just think it’s too — I don’t know what. I think we ought to go with the first idea, and wait and see what Bobby comes back with.”

“No,” his father said. “It’s a fine proposal. Because he might hit some good man, and we’d feel it. It’s going to be one-for-one, whichever. We have to, and he has to, and then we talk. Like with a union, the real talking starts when they see the pickets on the bricks. This way we have control. Why not select? Mike’s the one who’s going to stick his head in the lion’s den. If it don’t work out, we’re no worse off than now.”

“Except that Burns will know you tried to con him.”

“That don’t matter. What matters is the commission, call it a commission. Mike’s right on that. If they clamp all the way down, we won’t have to worry. And if the decision’s to give him part of the business to stop the bloodshed, we’ll keep the bastard surrounded and eat him later. Mike, go ahead.”

“Who are you going to give me?”

De Blasio pursed his lips and looked at his son for suggestions. “What do you say about Skeets?”

“You choose,” Carl said angrily.

“Skeets wouldn’t be bad. He was close to Musso.” He explained to Shayne, “The kid don’t know what the word ‘discipline’ means. We had him on collections, and he did away with somebody he was only supposed to break his head a little. He started and couldn’t stop. I protected him on that. Did he show any gratitude? Not a bit. Another plus, he’s not related to anybody.”

Shayne shrugged. “It makes no difference to me.”

15

Skeets was surprised to be told of the change in assignment, and even more surprised to learn that he would be carrying it out with Shayne, who had been part of the operation for less than a day. He was called into the game room to have it explained by the De Blasios. Shayne, outside on the terrace, could hear his protests.

He was still full of his grievance when he came out. “I need the key to that apartment. I’ve got to get something.”

Shayne went with him.

“I don’t like to do it fast like this,” Skeets said. “I like to get up for it. Prepare.”

“Don’t be a showboat. It’s all worked out for you. All you have to do is pull a trigger.”

“And I’d just as soon do it alone. Less can go wrong that way. If I have to have coverage, I can think of any number of guys I could count on. Maybe you’re O.K.,” he admitted, “I just don’t know.”

“They want to have a hit they can hang on me, to keep me in line.”

“All right, so long as you understand they put me in charge. When I say frog, you say how far do you want me to jump? Or there’s going to be more than one dead soldier.”

“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Shayne said.

Skeets kept pushing. “And lay off the booze. There’s close timing involved. I have to get over to the Beach and look at the guy, see where the elevators are, all that. Don’t lush it up while I’m gone.”

“Whatever you say, Skeets. I need the bread.”

At the garages, Skeets held out his hand for the key, but Shayne went upstairs with him and unlocked the door himself.

“What do you think I’ll do to the babe, for Jesus’ sake?” Skeets complained. “Give her a fast feel on the way through?”

“She told me you made a couple of remarks.”

“Remarks! But did I lay one finger on her?”

Shayne glanced into the bedroom where he had left Sarah. She hadn’t moved, and her lips still curved in the same small smile.

Using a different key, Skeets was unlocking a second bedroom. This room was dark, but as the door opened, Shayne had a glimpse of a double gun rack against the opposite wall. Skeets came out with two handguns, one of which, a Smith and Wesson.38, he gave to Shayne.

“Don’t take your own piece. These are cool.”

“Yeah.”

“What a fantastic collection we’ve got here. Talk about firepower. Man, you name it. If we ever have to hole up on the island, I mean all the regimes, they’d have to use flame to get us out.”

“I don’t like the idea of being out in the water here.”

“Now, don’t you think the Don thought of those possibilities? We’ve got mines in there! There are floodlights. Dogs. We’ve all got our stations. This New Jersey jerk thinks he found a soft touch. The kid’ll learn. Our father is fierce. Don’t let that belly of his fool you. Underneath, he’s oak. Now, remember what I said about the booze.”

He put the handgun into the glove compartment of one of the Cadillacs, and then, deciding to use a less showy car, went off in a Chevy. Shayne waited till the car was out of sight, and then took out the gun and field-stripped it quickly. He snapped out the hammer spring, put the gun back together, reloaded it, and returned it to the glove compartment.

He went back to the house and refilled his flask while De Blasio counted out ten thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. De Blasio seemed annoyed when Shayne reminded him that he was owed an additional seven hundred and fifty dollars for his part in the disposal of Siracusa. De Blasio added the seven-fifty, but with poor grace.

As soon as Shayne had a phone to himself, he called Liz O’Donnell. Without giving his name, he told her to drive his Buick to a parking garage on Collins Avenue and leave the key at the office.

With nothing else to do after that, he shot craps with Carl in the game room, and won four hundred dollars in the space of twenty minutes.

“Didn’t I tell you?” he said happily. “No losing streak lasts forever.”

He went to the kitchen to fix himself a sandwich. Nicola, Carl’s plump and pretty wife, her face pleasantly flushed, was taking long loaves of fresh bread out of the oven. She insisted that he sit down at the kitchen table, and scrambled some eggs to go with the bread and a bottle of red wine. She was drinking Campari herself, and when she refilled her glass, Shayne noticed that she added a splash of gin. While Shayne ate, she rattled on about all she had read about him, how he had been pointed out to her once at a football game, and how surprising it was to meet him, after all, here at her father-in-law’s house.

“You’ll see a lot of me,” he told her. “He’s going to throw me some business. How do you like it in Miami?”

“Sensational,” she said too quickly. “The people might be friendlier, but Carlo says that’s because everything’s so stratified here. And all those old stories about the De Blasios. Racketeers. Gangsters. Don’t people exaggerate? I wanted to say — I had a nice long chat with Sarah, and I adore the way she looks. I’ve thought of becoming a blonde. If you’re going to be living on the island, why don’t you move in with us? That apartment isn’t exactly the greatest. We’ve got a guest suite with its own bathroom, right on the water. She says she plays tennis, but I know she’s better than I am, I can usually tell. The way she moves.”

Skeets found him as she was making still another gin-and-Campari. She started to drink it as they left. Her lips looked sticky.

They used the Imperial, with a driver. When they turned onto the causeway, Shayne explained about the stop he had to make on Collins. Skeets was very erect in his corner of the back seat, getting himself ready psychologically. He turned slowly.

“A garage? What for? This is all worked out. There aren’t supposed to be any departures.”

“I’m carrying too much cash. If anything goes wrong, I’ll need it for a lawyer.”

“What can go wrong? Did the Don say it was O.K.?” Shayne had the money in his side pocket in a folded-over envelope. He snapped off the rubber band and let Skeets see the denominations.

“All hundreds. If we’re picked up for anything, the cops get it. I’m not feeling that charitable.”

Skeets exclaimed in irritation, but gave the driver new orders. They went north to Arthur Godfrey Road before crossing the creek to Collins. At the garage, Shayne exchanged a word with the man in the office and was permitted to go in and find his Buick. He kept out several of the bills for expenses, and locked the remainder in the strongbox welded to the floor of the back seat. Then he unlocked another compartment and armed himself with a tiny Japanese camera, no bigger than a matchbox. He loaded it with film and checked the light meter and lens setting.

Skeets had gone into semi-rigor. “That took long enough,” he said through set teeth. “You threw off the schedule.”

“As a matter of fact, we’re early,” Shayne said easily.

Skeets looked at his watch. “We’re a little early,” he admitted. “Have you got that flask on you? I’ve got a case of the butterflies.”

Shayne uncapped his flask and held it out. “Go easy on it, Skeets,” he said, grinning. “When the time comes, I want to know you’re sober.”

“You son of a bitch.”

He drank deeply, checked the time again, and told the driver to move slowly along Collins with the traffic. After a few blocks, they turned into the curving approach to one of the big hotels. They dismounted under the canopy, and the driver took the car to one of the waiting zones.

Inside the lobby, Skeets’s manner became elaborately casual. He bought a magazine at a newsstand and studied the listing of events on the lobby board. They were joined here by a middle-aged man Shayne hadn’t seen before.

“If you’re looking for our friend,” this man said, “he went up ten minutes ago.”

Skeets wet his lips, and his nostrils flared. “Then what are we waiting for?” he said to Shayne.

Marcello Marti, who aspired to take over the shy-locking in this stretch of hotels, had been carefully scouted. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at this time he visited a woman in an eighth-floor suite. She was the wife of a public-relations man for the hotel association, who could be counted on to be away during the day.

Alone in an elevator with Shayne, Skeets relaxed. “They tell me you handled two broads at a time in St. Albans. How does that work out?”

“All right if you keep an open mind.”

Skeets chuckled, and he was still chuckling as they left the elevator on the eighth floor. Outside the woman’s door he became serious again.

“Don’t offer any help unless I ask for it, baby. The important thing is precision.”

He looked both ways. The corridor was empty. He pulled out two rolled-up stocking masks and gave one to Shayne. They pulled them on. Then he slid a key into the lock, turned it carefully, and eased the door open.

They went in fast, guns out.

Leaving Shayne to close the door, Skeets headed for the bedroom. Shayne was a step behind as he went through.

The two people in the room were both in their late thirties. The woman was naked, but the man on the bed wore an undershirt and over-the-calf socks. On the beach or at poolside, the woman was a bikini wearer. She was in fair shape. Shayne corrected that at once to better than fair. Marcello Marti, on the other hand, had skin of a uniform color, like light shoe polish. He was soft, paunchy, and hairy.

Their entrance was well timed. The woman, on her knees on the floor, was preparing Marti. He jerked away from her mouth and banged against the headboard, both hands raised.

“Don’t, don’t!”

Shayne, behind Skeets, had already made three pictures. He was shooting without concealment, knowing that Skeets was giving the man on the bed his full attention. The woman sat back, confused, her red hair flying. Shayne took her picture over Skeets’s shoulder.

“Go in the bathroom,” Skeets snarled at her. “Up, fast.”

But she was frozen. Shayne pulled her to her feet. Before she was completely erect, her knees folded, and she collapsed against him.

“You don’t want to watch this,” he told her, and hauled her into the bathroom, where he dumped her without ceremony. He turned on the shower to muffle the sound of the shots, and went back to the bedroom, the little camera out of sight in his palm.

Skeets was giving orders with little movements of his gun. Marti scrambled out of bed. He had lost his readiness for sex.

“Turn around,” Skeets told him. “Assume the position. Both hands against the wall. That’s right, baby. Hold it.”

“I’ll pay you—” Marti said frantically. “How much? We can—”

Shayne shot another picture as Skeets touched his gun to the half-naked man’s head. Marti in terror voided his bladder against the wall.

“You creep,” Skeets said, and pulled the trigger.

Shayne shot two more pictures as Skeets shook the gun and tried to get it to fire.

“Hell, here’s mine,” Shayne said.

Skeets’s head swung, and Shayne brought the butt of his reversed pistol down in a hard slanting blow. Skeets fell.

Marti had fainted.

Shayne pulled them side by side. There wasn’t enough blood for his final picture, so he opened his pocketknife, made a deep cut in Skeets’s arm, and let him bleed over the back of Marti’s undershirt. When the undershirt was sufficiently soggy, he moved Marti’s unconscious body so his head was out of sight beneath the bed, and shot another picture.

Then he went to the bathroom. The woman shrank back, and made a desperate attempt to smile.

“I won’t say anything. I don’t care that much about him.”

“You shouldn’t be having matinees with people you don’t like,” he said. “Fix your hair. You look like a witch.”

The only first-aid equipment in the medicine cabinet was a box of flesh-colored band-aids. Two of these on Skeets’s forearm stopped the bleeding. Then Shayne opened his box of hypodermic syringes. Skeets twitched as the needle went in.

Marti, returning to consciousness, lifted his head, knocking it on the bed rail. He came out talking.

“I’ll pay anything you want, anything, but don’t kill me. Don’t tell me you can’t use a little extra money.”

“How much have you got with you?”

“Not much in cash, but I can get more. Give me a break, Jack. Harriet’s got some diamonds.”

“Who’s Harriet — in the bathroom?”

“A bracelet, some nice rings…”

“I need cash. Get up and see how much you can find. I hope for your sake it’s enough to make this worthwhile.”

Marti scrambled up. He winced and touched the back of his neck, then looked at the blood on his fingers.

“That’s not your blood,” Shayne told him. “I’m setting up a little con here, because I’m not sure De Blasio still has the clout to protect anybody on a homicide rap. But I can always change my mind. Get me some money. That’s the kind of argument I can listen to.”

Marti went through his wallet and the woman’s pocketbook. She had a little over a hundred; he had six hundred. The sum didn’t impress Shayne.

“Take the bracelet,” Marti offered. “You can fence it for a couple of grand.”

“Don’t be dumb. What terms are you on here, Marcello? Would she mind if you got killed?”

“Sure she’d mind! She’s crazy about me! She’ll write a check like a shot.”

“And how do I cash it?”

“Go down to the desk with her. They know her. They’ll cash up to five G’s.”

“Marcello, use your head. I want to stay anonymous. Sit down, let me think about it.”

Marti collapsed into a chair. “Did you kill him?”

“I gave him some dope. He’ll be out four hours. Shut up and don’t bother me. Maybe there’s a way I can work this.”

Marti watched him. Shayne stuck a cigarette in the mouth hole of the mask.

“How the hell did you get yourself in a position like this?” he said after a time. “Didn’t you know the Don would have to knock over the first guy who tried to shylock in these hotels?”

“Bobby said there was coverage from inside. I had his assurance.”

Shayne lit the cigarette. “What kind of coverage?”

Marti said desperately, “I took his word! I didn’t push him for details, that’s his business. Do you think I’d try to break into a new town unless I was convinced it was an open market? The way they explained it to me, the cops are on top of Mr. D. every minute, so I could get established.”

“Where do you come from?”

“Brooklyn. But I’m not a complete stranger, I used to peddle smack here, years ago. I can refer you to people who can vouch for me.”

“Who staked you?”

“It all came through Bobby. Goddamn it, he told me time and again I had nothing to worry about!”

“He was lying to you, Marcello. Do you ever watch the Late Show? You’ve seen it happen — the Indians have the wagon train surrounded. The hero puts his hat around the corner. If he pulls it back with an arrow in it, that tells him something.”

“An arrow?”

“If you made it through the week without being shot, Bobby’d know it was safe to turn the rest of his guys loose. If not, tough. Then he’d have to go for the Don himself, or show his strength and try for a deal. How many guns has he got?”

“Twenty. But they’re under wraps. Like you say, he’s taking it step by step.”

“What kind of people?”

“The best.” Marcello clapped his heart with his fist. “To the death.”

“If I make a mistake on this,” Shayne said doubtfully, “it’s my ass. We’ve got you outnumbered eight to one, but I don’t know about the Don — he’s ninety percent flab. Carl — well, the less said about Carl…”

“I heard he’s flitty.”

“He’s married, if that means anything, and in Carl’s case I doubt if it does. Siracusa’s been scratched.”

He considered for another minute before pronouncing judgment. “Marcello, when they gave me the assignment, you got lucky. I’m going to take a chance with Bobby. You’re sure he has financing?”

“Heavy! This is no fly-by-night thing. I’ll sponsor you, I can get you in.”

“I’ll get myself in. Now I’m going to explain something.” He picked up the harmless.38 and demonstrated the trigger action. “I took out the hammer spring. That was a sincere thing for me to do, and you know you’re grateful.”

“I am!”

“And now you’re going to do exactly what I say.”

“Exactly what you say. Anything at all.”

“How about the chick’s husband? When’s he due?”

“He’s in Vegas for two days. No problem.”

“I want to talk to her. Get her out here.”

Marti ran to the bathroom. She had knotted a towel around herself, and improved her appearance by combing her hair and repairing her lipstick, but she was still frightened. Her eyes flickered from Marti’s blood-soaked undershirt to the man on the floor.

“It’s O.K.,” Marti told her. “He’s being reasonable.”

“Don’t count on it,” Shayne said. “Did you notice I took some photographs?”

“No,” she said faintly.

Shayne took out his tiny camera, told them to join hands, and made one more shot, which finished the roll.

“All right, Harriet. What shape is your marriage in?”

“Please,” she said faintly.

“Did Marcello tell you what he does for a living? He’s an outside shylock who’s been loaning money in the hotel without an O.K. He’s the wrong kind of playmate. I had the feeling you were blowing him when we walked in. Maybe not, but the camera knows. This is a great lens — very good definition in eight-by-ten enlargements.”

“Do you want money?” she said.

“Damn right I want money.” He took out his flask, which was warm to the touch, opened it, and drank. “And on top of that, I don’t want to end up on the losing side. Marcello, I want you out of Miami inside an hour. You’d be making a big mistake to say good-bye to anybody but Harriet. When you get to wherever you’re going, stay out of sight. Don’t use the phone. You’re dead, and I’ve got pictures to prove it.”

Marti was nodding quickly.

“Maybe you think you can get away with one phone call to Burns—”

“No! I promise.”

“You’ve been marked by De Blasio, and you know he has a million connections. Stay dead until we can work this out. Just remember, you have no options at all.”

“My God, after you have a gun at the back of your head like that, you need a vacation.”

Shayne took out another hypodermic syringe. “Skeets will need another one in the ass four hours from now. That’s going to be your job, Harriet. Do you know how to give an injection?”

She gave a terrified shake of the head.

“Baby, you do, too,” Marti said. “Unless you want Jerry to see those pictures.”

Shayne showed her how the plunger worked. “I don’t care what you do so long as you’re here to give him his shot. Then you can leave him and let him wake up by himself.”

“Wouldn’t it be safer,” Marti said, “if we, you know…”

“Stop trying to use your head. It’s too late for that. I’ll leave you now. I always hate to interrupt people when they’re having sex, so if you want to finish…”

Harriet said coldly, “What a revolting idea.”

“Sweetie…” Marti complained.

16

At the door, his back to the others, Shayne pulled off the stocking mask and tossed it aside.

Leaving the hotel, he walked past the waiting Imperial and continued to Collins. At the first intersection, he stopped to let the big car come abreast.

“All taken care of. Tell the Don.”

He left his exposed film at a photo finishers on the mall. He was known here, and for an additional ten dollars they agreed to start work on it right away. This was a process that couldn’t be hurried, and he took a cab to the Collins Avenue garage, where he picked up his own car.

Before leaving the garage he took a cigar and a small receiving set from the locked box in the back seat. He attached the receiving set to his telephone antenna, and tied it into the tape-recorder unit under the dashboard. He examined the cigar carefully and put it in his breast pocket. The only one of its kind, it contained a miniaturized microphone and transmitter, encased in a metal cylinder and professionally wrapped with the best leaf tobacco. It had been custom-built for Shayne by Hugh MacDougall’s Justicia Foundation, at considerable expense. In tryouts, it had worked perfectly at a distance of three quarters of a mile. In practice, as Shayne knew, these miniaturized devices had a tendency to go bad when they were most needed, and he used them as seldom as possible.

Finding an outside booth, he called MacDougall’s number.

“Well, Mike,” MacDougall said briskly, “I thought you’d want to know that we found the bundle you left for us. We needed a helicopter, but Gentry waved them off as soon as they spotted the stain.”

“Has he agreed to keep it quiet?”

“Until six tonight.”

“Six is too early.”

“Well, that’s his deadline, Mike, and I had to talk myself blue to get him to agree to that. Your name came into the conversation, unfortunately, and he isn’t entirely rational on the subject of renegade private detectives. He choked and sputtered. And he didn’t like the insinuation that De Blasio has a pipeline into his office.”

Shayne swore. “If he releases that story at six, I stand a good chance of getting killed.”

“That’s what I told him, and got a very nasty laugh for an answer. The body’s locked in his car. It comes out at six, and gets the regular homicide treatment.”

“Hugh, six o’clock would be the worst possible time. You’ll have to tell him a little more. Have you got a copy of that contract we signed?”

“Yes, do you want me to show it to him?”

Shayne said reluctantly, “He’ll think he’s been made a fool of so I can draw down a big fee. You’ll have to persuade him to put his personal feelings aside. This could be the hottest homicide of his career. Here’s a way you can get his interest — the body in that tarp isn’t run-of-the-mill. It’s the Don’s consigliere. Musso Siracusa. And the point to make is that if he holds off till I give him the go-ahead, he can nail Carl De Blasio for the killing.”

“The son?”

“Yeah, and this time there’s an eyewitness. But if Gentry or anybody else fouls it up, the eyewitness will be too dead to testify.”

“Put it like that, and he’ll have to agree.”

“If he listens. He may not feel like listening. He can be a mule.”

“Leave it to me,” MacDougall said. “If you can handle these hoodlums, I should be able to handle one overweight police chief. He gave me a small piece of news — a minor strongarm at the St. Albans casino has been killed. He’s a De Blasio second cousin, a little retarded.”

“I’ve been expecting something to happen down there. That’s where they’re vulnerable. I’ll get back to you before six.”

Hanging up, he returned to the photo shop. His pictures weren’t ready, but as an old customer he was allowed into the second-floor lab to wait. A dark gum-chewing girl was processing his order. She checked one of the negatives on the viewer, and nearly swallowed her gum.

“You’re a technician,” Shayne said. “A picture’s a picture.”

“We can’t print this kind of negative! It got us in trouble last year.”

Shayne showed her his private detective’s license. “It’s a skin-flick operation. The lady’s brother hired me to put them out of business before they’re raided, and with these pictures I think I can do it.”

“What a liar. All right, Mr. Shayne. Keep an eye out, and let me know if you see any plainclothes-men.”

Shayne chose the negatives he wanted enlarged, and watched the scenes re-create themselves in the pan under the enlarger. He became impatient quickly, and left before some of the prints were dry.

He drove north and crossed onto Normandy Isle at Seventy-first Street. The condominium that Bobby Burns had taken over was a new Moorish-style building around a central court with a swimming pool. Shayne parked, blocking the driveway, leaving his motor running.

He saw an unshaven face at a front window. After a moment a burly man with a recent sunburn came down the front walk and unlocked the narrow gate. His face was unfamiliar to Shayne, but it was a familiar type.

“You’re sitting in our driveway,” he pointed out.

“I’m looking for an angle guy named Burns. Some friends of mine in Jersey told me he was down here, and I’ve got some pictures to sell him.”

“You’ve got some pictures to sell him?”

“I’ve got some pictures to sell him,” Shayne agreed. “But I don’t want to talk about it out here on the street. And I know you don’t want to let me in until you’re sure he wants you to let me in. So I’ll show you a sample. You haven’t heard about this yet.”

He selected one of the still-damp prints. It showed Marcello Marti, in undershirt and high socks, facing the wall with a gun at the back of his neck. The man gulped audibly and put out a hand for the picture, but Shayne moved it away.

“Tell Bobby what I’ve got.”

“He’s going to want to see these.”

He told Shayne to park. Shayne backed into an open space on the other side of the street, switched on his little radio receiver, and locked the car carefully. He took out the cigar, bit off the end, and lit it as he entered the building.

Three men were waiting in the entrance lobby. One was Valenti, the security man from the St. Albans casino.

“I see you’ve been traded,” Shayne commented.

“No percentage in sticking with a loser. Put your arms out, Shayne.”

He was relieved of the pictures, and Valenti took them into a downstairs apartment. Shayne had left his gun and knife in the car. The other men made a small pile of everything else he was carrying. Then he was told to take off his clothes.

“Come on. Let’s not overdo this.”

“Bobby had a bad experience with the FBI once. The goddamn agent had a mike taped to his belly button.”

“They’re bastards,” Shayne agreed.

The cigar in his mouth, he undressed. Everything came off, including his socks, so they could look between his toes. Valenti came back.

“He’s clean,” one of the men reported.

“Snap it up, Shayne. Bobby wants to know where those pictures come from.”

“I shot them myself. What does he think, I hired actors?”

He dressed quickly and finished buttoning his shirt as Valenti took him into the living room of the ground-floor apartment. It was clearly a bachelor encampment. There were several mattresses in the room, three or four chairs, a card table, bottles, cigarette butts, the remains of TV dinners.

Bobby Burns was short, no more than five-six, even with lifts in his heels, but very muscular. His frizzy black hair stood out around his head as though it carried an electrical charge. He was bare from the waist up, with several tattoos. “Born to Raise Hell,” said a message on his arm.

Shayne’s photographs were laid out in sequence, starting with the one-sided lovemaking and ending with Marti on the floor, clearly dead. Burns motioned to the photograph showing Skeets about to fire.

“Who’s the shooter?”

“One of the Don’s boys. Skeets, they call him. A kid.”

“What’s this, a hotel room or where?”

“A hotel room. It won’t be reported right away. They ditched the body, but I don’t know where. I wasn’t in on that part of it. All I was doing was carrying a gun.” He grinned. “And a Japanese camera.”

“You private eyes,” Burns said flatly. “You’d sell your own grandmother.”

“I’ve done it often.” He shook the ash from his cigar. “Do you have anything to drink around here? Your boys took my flask because it might be a forty-five pistol in disguise.”

“Just being precautious.”

Burns offered him a pint of cheap blended whiskey. Shayne winced at the label, but took it and drank. He brushed magazines and newspapers off one of the chairs and sat down.

“I saw this kid Valenti in St. A. What did he do, wipe out one of their guys before he took off?”

“That’s the condition,” Burns said briefly, sitting down.

“It’s pretty crude stuff, Bobby, considering that everybody’s trying to live down that old image.”

“I don’t worry about that crap.”

“It’s like checkers. You take one. De Blasio takes one. It gives the media jerks something to talk about, and the cops get excited and close down the crap games. I’ve got a better suggestion.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Which will cost you money.”

“What else is new?”

“When I say money, I do mean money.” He looked thoughtfully at the glowing end of his cigar. “Because you realize I’m right in there. They love me on that island. I’m in a position where I can do you some good.”

“Tell me more about that, and we’ll talk price.”

Shayne shook his head. “The other way around, Bobby. I’m wondering how serious this is with you. Are you down here to make a nuisance so they’ll buy you off, or do you want it all?”

Burns, very erect, very cocky, snapped, “I’ll settle for the Beach. That’s for openers.”

Shayne nodded. “For openers. I thought so. That’s what the Don thinks, too — that if he made an agreement with you, you’d keep it only as long as you felt like it. You know you won’t get a hundred percent of the Beach by negotiating, because that’s where the money is.”

“Are you spokesman for anybody?” Burns said sharply.

“No, I’m the wild deuce. But I had a long talk with the man this morning.” He dismissed De Blasio with a gesture. “Nothing much there anymore. The organization stinks. And without Siracusa—”

Burns leaned forward. “What do you mean, without Siracusa?”

“An accident at sea. He went for a sail with the kid, and didn’t come back.”

“You mean with Carlo?” Burns said incredulously.

“Yeah, it surprised everybody. So how does that leave them for leadership? The old man, a kid out of college, a couple of nervous has-beens like Larry Zito. Soft and slow. It’s my judgment that they can be taken.”

Burns came to his feet, his muscles rippling, and took several strides toward the front windows, turned, and came back. He kicked an empty beer can out of the way violently.

“You’re positive about Siracusa, he’s definitely out of it?”

“Hell, I’m the one who wrapped him in the tarp and committed him to the Gulf Stream.”

Burns made an attempt to control his mounting excitement. He stretched like a cat, and sat down.

“Siracusa. There was one son of a bitch it was a good idea not to fool with.”

“So what you’d better do,” Shayne said, “is forget these small fry and go for the Don himself.”

“That’s common sense. But you know he’s going to stay on that island. He’s got it fortified like Fort Knox.”

“And if you want to knock over Fort Knox,” Shayne said, “you blow it up from inside.”

In spite of the exciting ideas in the air, Burns was exercising isometrically, lacing his fingers in front of his chest and trying to pull them apart.

“If somebody could blow up that main house…”

Shayne shook his head. “Most of their guns and ammunition are in a room over the garage. I know where I can put my hands on a chunk of plastic explosive and a detonator. It would make a nice loud bang and scare everybody.”

Burns studied him. “You could really do that?”

“All I have to do is go into the garage and reach up.”

“When?” Burns demanded.

“Tonight would be a good time. Four of your guys have seen me here. I’m sure they’re all honest and loyal, but I could be blown with a phone call.”

The hoodlum’s face and shoulder muscles were knotted with concentration. “How do you see this? You set off the bomb…”

“You’re out in the bay in a couple of power boats. There’s a floodlight system along the water, but don’t worry about that, I’ll pull the main switch first, and then detonate. While they’re running around wondering what the hell happened, your guys come ashore. I can let you have some aerial photos and a survey map. You don’t want to get involved in a fire fight if you can avoid it. I’d advise you not to hit the Don, but grab him. With any luck you can be back in the boats in five minutes.”

“How many men would we be up against?”

“I’ve only seen about eight or ten, but don’t go by me. You want to get in and out before they know what hit them.”

“You know, it could work,” Burns said in a low voice. “In five minutes. You’re sure that bomb will go off?”

“Sometimes they don’t, but that’s your signal. If nothing happens, call it off and go home.”

Experience told Shayne that this kind of proposal required a minimum of three repetitions. He explained it to Burns again, went back to his car for the photographs and ground plan of Ponce de Leon, and explained it once more, this time with two of Burns’s advisers in on the discussion.

Finally Burns said, “Now, money.”

“I’m asking fifty. Half now, half if it works. And that will be it. I don’t want you to do me any favors after you take over. If you meet me in a restaurant, don’t say hello. If I think I can get you busted for anything, expect me to try. I’ve had a bad run lately, but this is going to put me on the other side of the line. I only want one thing out of you besides money.”

“What?”

“I need to bag somebody for the Meister killing.”

“Why talk to me about it?” Burns said cautiously.

“Because I’m making it part of the deal. Everybody knows it was bought by the Don, but none of the regular pigeons have turned in anything specific. Give me a couple of names to start with. The cops are sore at me for one reason or another. Sore at me — hell, they want to strip me to the buff and run me out of town. If I can come up with an arrest on that and give them the credit for it, maybe they’ll forgive me. I need it. If a couple of the Don’s boys go over for it, why should it bother you?”

“There’s only one thing wrong,” Burns said. “That was our hit.”

Shayne was holding his cigar on his knee, the microphone pickup inside the leaves pointed at Burns’s chest.

“The hell it was.”

“I’m telling you.”

“You did everything on it? Who made the phone call?”

“I did. You’ll have to think of some other way to get square with the law. That one’s going to stay unsolved.”

Shayne shrugged. “You won’t have enough action for all the Don’s moochers, as well as your own people. If you feel like throwing me a couple when you settle, I’d appreciate it. We could put together a case, and you’d get off to a better start with the cops. It’s your smart move. Just remember, work it through me.”

Burns shook his head slowly. “I’ve heard about you, Shayne. You’re really something. You know that?”

17

They continued to talk while Shayne’s cigar burned slowly down. The microphone-transmitter was in the final two inches, and Shayne had to stub the cigar before the metal cylinder emerged. It was a costly piece of equipment, and he hated to leave it, but there was a chance he could retrieve it when everything was over.

One of Burns’s men went off in a car and returned some time later with twenty-five thousand dollars, which Burns counted and handed to Shayne.

“And if this is a con…” he said, scowling.

“I’ve got enough people mad at me as it is.”

They had one more briefing session, with eight men present, and worked out the timetable. Burns thought Shayne should take part in the kidnapping because of his familiarity with the terrain, but Shayne vetoed this idea. The bomb explosion would conclude his role, and after that he planned to be elsewhere.

Returning to his car at last, he locked up the money. This was turning out to be a profitable job. On the other hand, he had invested six months in it, and his expenses had been heavy.

He left Normandy Isle, crossing to the mainland on the North Bay Causeway.

Pulling into the Seventy-ninth Street Shopping Center, he parked in a distant corner away from other cars and played back his conversation with Burns. For once, all the electronic devices had lived up to the claims in the catalogs. He transferred the voices to a portable tape recorder, eliminating a few speeches and drowning out others with feedback noises. It took him half an hour to get what he wanted.

He listened to it again. Burns asserted emphatically several times that he had come to Miami to eliminate De Blasio and destroy his organization, that he had strong financial backing and friendships with important northern bosses, that he took full credit for killing Meister, that if he was forced to compromise for tactical reasons, he would use the time to consolidate his position so he could take over completely as soon as it was safe to move.

Satisfied that this would convince De Blasio to call a high-level conference, he had his operator dial MacDougall’s number.

“How’d you make out with Gentry?” he said when MacDougall answered.

“I talked to him, Mike, but I’m sorry to say I didn’t make any headway at all. He says he’s been faked out by you for the last time.”

“The stubborn bastard. I’ve got a tape that might change his mind, but the goddamn thing is, will he hold still for it?”

“Not unless he’s under some form of restraint. But you won’t find him at his office. He’s here.”

“Can you keep him there?” Shayne said quickly.

“I think so.” MacDougall laughed. “I’ve got him handcuffed to the air-conditioner.”

“What?” Shayne gave a relieved snort of laughter. “Don’t unlock him. I’ll be right over.”

When Shayne walked into the apartment a few minutes later, he found that MacDougall hadn’t been exaggerating. Will Gentry was indeed handcuffed to the air-conditioner.

Gentry was a tough, honest cop, burly and redfaced, with strong opinions and a short fuse. Until the recent period he and Shayne had worked well together. But Shayne had deliberately set out to forfeit his respect, as a necessary credential for his acceptance by the organized underworld, and he had succeeded.

He glowered at Shayne and yanked furiously at the handcuffs. After a lifetime in police work he had a good command of profanity. He knew that Shayne, directly or indirectly, was responsible for his predicament, and he let him know it in basic terms.

“How’d you get him to fall for it?” Shayne asked MacDougall.

“I told him you’d give yourself up if he came here to get you. And then I maneuvered him over to the window and snapped on the cuffs. Mad, isn’t he?” He looked at the angry cop with cool interest, as though inspecting a chained beast in a zoo. “I thought he’d calm down eventually, but every time I say anything to him, he starts shouting again.”

“You’re carrying a gun,” Gentry said. “Kill me, Shayne. You’d better do it, because by God when I get out of these cuffs, I’m going to track you down, I’m going to track you down and tear you in chunks with my bare hands.”

Shayne set his tape recorder on the floor and turned it on. This was the undoctored tape, the conversation with Bobby Burns as it had actually happened. He spun the reel and halted it at random. The volume was all the way up, overriding Gentry’s angry muttering.

It was Shayne’s own voice, enormously amplified: “… NEED TO BAG SOMEBODY FOR THE MEISTER KILLING.”

“Another one of your goddamn tricks,” Gentry said. “I’m through playing fall guy for you, Shayne! Can’t you understand the simplest thing? I played along and played along…”

“… ONE THING WRONG,” the Burns voice said. “THAT WAS OUR HIT.”

MacDougall crouched beside the tape recorder. “Who said that, Mike? Who’s talking?”

“Bobby Burns. And if everybody will cool off for a minute, we can play it from the top and see if we can learn something.”

“This is as flimsy a stunt as you’ve ever pulled,” Gentry said. “Who’s going to believe anything you say? It could be anybody. Give somebody a couple of bucks to read lines…”

Shayne reversed the reels, went back to the beginning, and started over. Gentry was still unwilling to listen, but the volume was up so high that he had to hear some of it. After several moments he stopped pulling against the cuffs, and some of the anger died out of his expression, to be replaced by suspicion. When Shayne saw that he had him, he turned down the volume so the voices were more nearly human.

When it was finished, Shayne said quietly, “Now, Will, you can do one of two things. You can keep up this stupid feud and go on trying to get me killed. Or you can work with me for a couple of hours tonight and pull off something that might really make a small dent. I mean that. Here’s a chance to cripple these people. You took an oath of office once. ‘I solemnly swear to leave the city of Miami in the hands of the Mafia, so long as I can manage to score a few points on Mike Shayne.’”

“That’s an ambush,” Gentry said. “It’s not for the Mafia, it’s for us, because we know how you operate.”

“Will,” Shayne said patiently, “how do you think I got in to have that conversation with Burns? I worked it out with De Blasio. Right now I’m the Don’s favorite boy. Use your head. Would I be welcome on Ponce de Leon if anybody suspected I was still friends with the top cop in town?”

“Still friends,” Gentry said scornfully. “I stuck by you longer than most people, but when you got plastered and beat up Tim Rourke—”

“I don’t have time to debate it,” Shayne said. “I have a plane to meet. I’ll leave this tape. Play it as many times as you like. I’ll call back in half an hour and find out if you’ve decided to be reasonable. Here’s what I want from you.”

“I’m not interested in what you want.”

“But I think I’ll tell you. I warned Hugh at the beginning that he might be wasting the foundation’s money. Getting any kind of conviction against these guys is no easy matter, as you have more reason to know than most people. De Blasio hasn’t seen the inside of a police station in twenty-five years. Are we going to arrest anybody for murdering Sherman Meister? Probably not. But at this point that’s not the most important thing. Stop squirming, damn it, and listen. We’ve got a taped confession from Bobby Burns. It’s not admissible. There isn’t a thing in it we can use. What the hell, it may not even be true.”

MacDougall started to speak, but Shayne stopped him with a glance. This was between him and Gentry.

“Here’s what I’m shooting for. You remember the big Appalachian raid in New York State? That was more or less an accident, it just happened. And it was the first time the Mafia was hurt since Lucky Luciano was deported. Nobody stayed in jail very long, because there’s no law against eating barbecue at a friend’s house. But there was terrific publicity, and it did some damage, some real damage. Everybody knew what the thing actually was — it was a high-level Mafia meeting to work out a succession problem, and the anonymous people who were there weren’t anonymous any longer. They had to operate in a completely different way.”

Gentry was finally listening.

“I forget how many there were,” Shayne went on. “Twenty or thirty, and for the next couple of years those people had all kinds of legal trouble, heart attacks, quarrels with Immigration and Internal Revenue. We’ll have to be satisfied with the half-dozen or so who are already here in Miami.” He listed the Mafia figures who had homes in the Miami area, or who were currently vacationing on the Beach. “Naturally, I’m not going to play this whole tape for De Blasio. I’ve got a censored version, and as soon as he hears it, he’s going to want to call a meeting. Miami’s too important to these people. It’s like Vegas — they want to take it easy while they’re here, like everybody else. If De Blasio can show them evidence that this new goon murdered a TV-station owner, for the sole purpose of causing so much disturbance that he could move in and take charge, they’ll be forced to act like elder statesmen. They’ll tell Bobby to cool it, or he’s sentenced to death. Even Bobby must know he can’t get anywhere against that kind of opposition.”

Gentry said, “Tony Barbieri is here from Boston.”

“He’d be a nice catch.”

“Where’s this going to take place?”

“It’ll have to be on the island. De Blasio won’t put his head out until this is settled, and they’ll realize they have to come to him. I’d prefer to use local cops for the bust. It’s my town. But if you don’t feel like playing, I’ll try to understand, and bring in the FBI. I have a vague hunch they’ll be delighted. I think the director will be tempted to lead it in person.”

“You’re a son of a bitch, Shayne.”

“I know I have that reputation.”

“What about that bomb you were talking about, was that just talk?”

“Hell, no. I’m hoping to make some noise, so they’ll know I’m there. Burns was being cagey about how many men he could suit up — about twenty, I think. They’ll come across in two boats. We’ll need the Harbor Police, and we’ll need helicopters. Plenty of flares. You ought to have at least four cars to block the causeway. Collect the choppers at the Watson Park heliport. It’s too bad we can’t run a rehearsal, but be loaded and ready, and take off when you hear the explosion. If anything goes wrong with that, I’ll set one of the houses on fire. You ought to show up at just the right time. Drop the flares and come in yelling. I think you’ll start a nice little panic without much shooting. These are hoodlums, after all, not GIs.”

Gentry sighed. “Goddamn it, I don’t withdraw any of the things I said, but I have to admit I like it.”

“If we can believe him, maybe we can take off the handcuffs, Hugh.”

“I think so. It’s a cop’s dream, after all.”

He felt in all his pockets, and finally found the key and unlocked the cuffs. Gentry massaged his chafed wrist.

“Why didn’t you tell me all this six months ago?”

“I couldn’t take that kind of chance, Will. It had to be a real break.” He grinned. “And it was more interesting this way.”

“You couldn’t have planned the whole thing. You’re not that big a genius.”

“I set up the situation and let it develop. I’ve got one other little thing going for me. I remembered hearing some rumors about Carlo’s social life in college, and I did some research. The one disgrace a Mafia don really can’t stand is having a fruity son. I wouldn’t have risked any of this without that ace in the hole, and the funny thing is, I haven’t had time to use it. I still want to try to work it in — everything helps. Hugh, there’s something I want you to do while Will is getting this arranged.”

“Actually,” MacDougall said, “I’d like to go along in one of those helicopters. Why not?”

“Because I want you to stay alive so you can sign checks. Tim Rourke’s at Mercy Hospital. If he isn’t too doped up, tell him what’s happened to date. I’ll meet you there.”

Before leaving, he took another five minutes to go over the schedule again to be sure it was understood. The more Gentry thought about it, the better he liked it.

“God knows I’ve been looking for a pretext to get on that island. One thing, though, Mike, no matter how well it works, things are going to be different. There’s such a thing as being too tricky. From now on I’ll never know whether or not to trust you.”

“That’s your problem, isn’t it?” Shayne said.

18

The flight from New Orleans was late.

One of the disembarking passengers was a handsome blond young man with a shoulder handbag, carrying a long-stemmed white carnation. He came up to Shayne and said in an agreeable voice, “You’re Mike.”

“Philly Tucker?”

“Oh, yes.”

The youth gave Shayne a frank, open-eyed, smiling appraisal. He was tall and slender, and the only thing about his appearance to indicate that he might be a homosexual was the obvious care he had taken with his clothes. Everything matched except the things that weren’t supposed to match, and they clashed in an interesting way. He smelled of whiskey and after-shave perfume.

“I’m so glad you chose me.”

“I had a good reason for choosing you, Philly, and I’ll tell you about it on the way in.”

“Could we stop for a drink first, for sociability’s sake? To break the ice? Not that I’m not already partially plowed. I adore boozing on airplanes. Those repulsive little canapés.”

“What were you drinking?”

“Bourbon and branch, thanks.”

Shayne asked him his brand, left him in the main concourse, and stopped at a stand-up bar for a double I. W. Harper to go. Philly took it with thanks and let Shayne carry his bag.

In the car, he gave Shayne another admiring glance. “You know, you’re even more attractive than I expected? Has anybody ever told you you have woodsman’s arms?”

Shayne laughed, starting the motor. “Not too often.”

“I know, I know,” Philly said, holding up his hand. “I have to be chary with compliments. This isn’t the ordinary one-night stand.”

“How much did Wellington tell you?”

“Not much, but I deduced. From the amount of money you’re paying, and one thing and another. I’m probably a present for somebody?”

“You guessed it.”

“Well, Mike, I do wish it was you, but I’m ready for anything. I hate to get in a rut. One private detective asks another private detective in a different town to send him some fast trade. At five hundred dollars plus transportation, which is suspiciously high! And the thought jumped into my mind. This would be a gay variation on the age-old badger game, I assume?”

“That’s close.”

Philly laughed and drank as Shayne wheeled the Buick out of the parking lot.

“Yes,” Philly said with satisfaction. “I put it together, and that’s what I decided. The husband and the lad from New Orleans carrying on scandalously in the sack, and the wife and the private detective walk in with a camera. I suppose I was referred? I did it for somebody else once, and the fact is, I did rather enjoy it. The sex was a tick more intense. I mean, knowing what was coming.” He slid closer to Shayne. “Are you planning on photographs?”

“I haven’t decided. It depends partly on what you can tell me.” He swung out of the ramp onto the expressway, and the needle began to climb. “Do you remember a kid at college named Carl De Blasio?”

“Oh,” Philly said, freezing. In a moment, in a slightly less frivolous tone, he continued, “I remember dear Carlo well. And that makes it more of a challenge, doesn’t it?”

“He married a nice Italian girl who makes her own bread.”

“I make a pretty good loaf myself,” Philly said. “Did he have to come back and go into the gangster business after all, poor lamb?”

“He’s number-two man in Miami,” Shayne said. “If you don’t want the trick, say so and I’ll turn around at the next interchange.”

Philly rattled the ice. “Can we do it without gunfire?”

“I don’t know why not.”

Philly adjusted the window to let the wind hit his face. Shayne came up to the interchange and swept past without slackening speed.

Philly said in a quiet voice, “You know, I’d like to see Carl, see what would happen.” He drank deeply. “I don’t mind danger! It adds something. I’ve been shot at once or twice. Once, to be accurate, and I honestly didn’t mind. After I calmed down, I was glad it happened. Ordinary life gets so deadly and predictable.”

“Do you think he’ll be glad to see you?”

“Glad?” Philly laughed musically. “He’ll be terrified. He’s put that part of his life behind him, I’m sure he thinks. He’ll climb up the wall.”

“Then this may not work.”

“I’m exaggerating. I’m talking about that first minute. He always had double feelings — he used to love it and hate it, and you know that made it hard on the person he was with. He could be nice for long periods, really gentle and giving, and all of a sudden so cold, so brutal. Which I didn’t mind sometimes! And then he’d be miserable afterward. Yes, I think I want to see Carl very much.”

He started to drink, but checked himself. “Before I put away the rest of this elegant bourbon, tell me what to expect. Will it be a party, or the two of us?”

“That’s something I’ve got to arrange. I’ll drop you off at his house, but first I have to get his wife out of the way. It’s been a big day for Carl, and he may be celebrating. He took his first scalp this morning.”

“How?” Philly said, his lips parted.

“With a forty-five automatic, through the back of the head. Lots of blood.”

Philly swallowed air, then bourbon. “The skunk,” he said admiringly. “This is going to be an experience. Disregard what I said about danger, Mike. Can you see to it that he doesn’t have a gun?”

“Yeah, I can manage that.”

“Then here’s how we can do it. Let’s not bother with drawing-room-type conversation, thrusts and ripostes, little witticisms. Let’s take the bull by the horns. When he turns on the light, I’ll jump at him, quite, quite nude. I went out for wrestling at Alabama.” He smothered a giggle. “I really did. It was heaven, but I didn’t win very often, because I couldn’t bring myself to pin those handsome sweaty creatures. But I’m good at it. If you hear anybody screaming, it’ll be Carl, defending his honor. By the time I get him down on the rug, I can almost guarantee we’ll be in a different kind of struggle. Then give us a few minutes to say hello and so on before you break in. Five minutes. How does that sound as a scenario?”

“Perfect.”

“I have a motto, Mike. I give satisfaction if it kills me.”

“It won’t come to that.”

“I hope so, too!” He finished his bourbon in a long gulp. “The thing I mainly hate is monotony. I’ve had girl friends, you know, but it gets monotonous much faster. That bourbon has the kick of a jackhammer. What town are we in, Miami?” Another quick giggle came out. “I’m polluted.”

“That’s all right.”

“And if I forget myself and make a pass at you, you will blame it on I. W. Harper?”

“Save it for Carl,” Shayne told him.

Before starting across the causeway, Shayne backed into a delivery alley and told Philly to get out. He opened the trunk.

“You want me in there?” Philly said. “I couldn’t possibly, Mike, not even for you. I’m claustrophobic.”

“I’ll take out the spare. There’s plenty of room, and it’s only for a minute, until we get through a checkpoint.”

Philly shook his head. “I’d kick and hammer and sob.”

In the end he curled up on the floor of the back seat, and Shayne covered him with a raincoat. These precautions were unnecessary, because the guard at the entrance to the De Blasio property waved him on before he came to a full stop.

“The Don wants to see you. Right away.”

Shayne swung around the house toward the garages, and parked where the driveway widened.

“I’ll be back soon.”

“Make it sooner than that. I’m beginning to feel stifled.”

Shayne ran up the steps to the apartment. As he came in, Sarah, in her nightgown, ran out of the kitchen to throw her arms around him.

“Nicola’s here,” she whispered. “Stinking.”

“That’s perfect,” he told her. “How’d you manage that?”

“She walked in with her own bottle.” She called over her shoulder, “It’s Mike.”

She pulled his head down. “Carl’s been seeing another woman. I think—”

Nicola, barefoot, came out of the kitchen with a glass in her hand. “How do you do, Mr. Shayne?”

“It was nice of you to visit Sarah,” he said. “There’s not much for her to do here.”

“Italian men,” Nicola said, swaying. “All we are is women, we don’t matter. Lock us up. She could have starved to death, for all they care.”

“I had a long nap,” Sarah said, “a sauna, a chance to do my nails—”

“I could do with a drink,” Shayne said. “The Don’s waiting to see me, but the hell with that.”

“Let him wait,” Nicola said. “Let him stew in his own juice. People deserve a little consideration.”

They collected in a little booth in the kitchen, around a table so small that their knees touched. It was Nicola’s gin, and she poured.

“Nikki and I have had a long talk,” Sarah said, smiling at the other woman. “Mostly about private matters.”

Nicola colored slightly. “We aren’t supposed to have feelings. We cook for them and run the vacuum cleaner and have their babies…”

Tears came to her eyes, and she couldn’t finish.

Sarah said gently, “Mike’s a detective. He could help you.”

Shayne drank in silence, letting her handle it.

Nicola said, “I wouldn’t hire a detective. I don’t want to get divorced. I just want…”

Confused, she drank deeply.

“That’s not what I meant,” Sarah said, stepping up the pressure on Shayne’s knee. “You know, there’s nothing sleazy or slobbery about Michael Shayne. You can trust him. He’s handled hundreds of your kind of case. He’s unshockable. I know he could give you some good advice. Let me tell him what you told me.”

Nicola put her hand to her forehead. “Carl’s over there drunk as a goat. He won’t let me come near him. There’s something on his mind, but he won’t tell me. Go cook some linguine. Go have a baby.”

Sarah turned to Shayne. “If you talked to him, Mike. I don’t think he realizes what he’s doing to this girl. They’ve only been married sixteen months—”

“Eighteen!” Nicola said.

“And he’s stopped making love. Maybe once a month, as a special treat, and at their age that’s ridiculous. You see, there’s another woman. And Carl’s still so immature, in some ways. This other person’s a lot older; it has to be a bad relationship, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I think I would,” Shayne said neutrally.

“Nikki saw him picking her up at the TV station. Remember, I told you I used to work there?”

Shayne’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t mean Mrs. Sherman Meister.”

“It sounds a lot like her.”

“That’s a funny combination. When was this?”

He looked at Nicola, who after a moment concentrated hard and said, “What did you say?”

“When did you see Carl with this woman?”

“A few weeks ago.” Her mind jumped. “I know how he makes his living. It has something to do with gambling. He promised he’d never get mixed up with anything worse. My mother was pleased when she saw the island. I have a car of my own, in my own name. But sometimes I think I don’t like Carlo. Mike, what shall I do?”

“He’s got a lot on his mind,” Shayne said, “but you’ve got a legitimate beef. Stay here with Sarah while I talk to him. I don’t like the looks of some of these characters I see walking around.”

“She’s a guest of the family. They wouldn’t try anything. I don’t think they would.”

Sarah came to the door with him.

He pulled her against him, and didn’t hurry the kiss.

“You’ve been a big help. Keep her here, and I don’t care how you do it.”

He went down to the car. Carl’s old college friend was still on the floor of the back seat.

“Philly.”

“Still here. And I’m going to start whimpering in a minute.”

“You can get up now.”

He brought the Buick around in a fast U-turn, kicking gravel. Just short of the checkpoint he turned off on a long driveway leading through the palms to a house on the water. It had been designed by an architect who liked huge windows and odd conjunctions of angles. Shayne went inside. Finding the house empty, he called Philly.

“I’ll get him over here sometime before dark. Don’t fall asleep while you’re waiting.”

“Fall asleep, you’re kidding. I’m too keyed up. I wonder how much he’s changed.”

19

There were more men on the property than Shayne had seen earlier, and more cars kept arriving. He counted eight in front of the house.

He received some interested looks as he entered. A dice mechanic he knew wanted to talk to him, but Shayne gave him a mean stare and went past.

In the game room an all-male group was watching a locally based comedian on television, with much enjoyment. De Blasio was holding forth in the bay window, in what seemed to be his usual place. The man he was with was Larry Zito. When he saw Shayne he broke off the conversation abruptly.

“Michael,” he said, looking at Shayne intently and taking him by the arms. “We haven’t had a word. Did it go all right with you?”

“You’ve got quite a crowd here.”

“I thought we’d better get together. We have to come to some decisions. Larry thinks we ought to take the offensive, the hell with this standing around.”

Shayne glanced at Zito. “Larry was a tough man twenty years ago.”

“They hit one of our guys in St. A.,” Zito said. “That’s one less mouth to feed,”

Shayne said. “I’ve got a tape I want you to listen to. Privately,” he added.

“Absolutely, Mike,” De Blasio said. “I want to hear it, believe me.”

His son, Carl, at the bar, called, “Play some Ping-Pong, Mike? Five bucks a game.”

“We’ve got some business to get out of the way.”

Leaving the room, Shayne remarked, “He’s pretty juiced. Does that happen often?”

“It’s a reaction, Mike; it’s understandable.”

“How many people know I was along on that this morning?”

“There’s been some talk about it. You can’t prevent that.”

Shayne was taken to a downstairs bedroom, where, sitting on one twin bed, with De Blasio on the other, he played the censored version of his conversation with Bobby Burns. De Blasio listened attentively, and asked to hear it again.

“There were a couple of other things I hoped I’d catch,” Shayne said, “but these little receivers are temperamental. They cut in and out.”

“Did he mention any names?”

“Of backers? No, why should he? He had no reason to try to impress me.”

“I just wish he came over more crazy. But he wants to argue it out in the streets, and that’s against everything the top people have been trying to do. Mike, I think I can win with this. I’m going to give it a try. Dino, Frankie Guarino, Don Peppino, a few others.”

“Joe Barbieri’s in town.”

“And Barbieri. Now, what happened on the Beach, with Marti? Nothing’s come through. Dino and Frank and the rest, what if the news breaks about the hit and they hear it on the car radio? They’ll ask about it.”

“Act mysterious.”

“Mike, on this level, when they want to know something, you tell them.”

“It won’t be on tonight’s news. That’s all I can tell you. This is one thing I don’t want to have hung on me. And that brings me to an important announcement. If this tape convinces your committee that it’s in their interest to kick Burns into line, you owe me five thousand. After I collect that, we’re through.”

Before De Blasio could comment, Shayne went on, “Carlo thinks being in on the Siracusa thing makes me a permanent part of your outfit. Bull. You can’t use it. I helped to clean up, but he’s the one who fired the gun. I’m going to open my old office and try to drum up some legitimate business. Burns offered me a very good deal, and I told him the same thing.”

“What kind of deal?” De Blasio said suspiciously.

“Thirty thousand to think of a way to get you off the island. I refused to discuss it.”

“That was smart.”

“I think so. I’m a status-quo man. He’s an unknown quantity. I think Miami’s better off with you.”

“Thanks, Mike. You’ll be here, won’t you, to fill us in on the background if they have any questions?”

“No. Too many people have seen me already. I can live with that. The clients like to think I can get in anywhere — it’s part of what they expect for their money. But there’s a line I can’t cross and keep my license. Don’t mention my name in connection with this tape. I’ve given you value for your money.”

“I’m not saying otherwise. I thought I could make you an offer you couldn’t afford to turn down, but if this is how you want it…”

“It’s how I want it,” Shayne said, standing up. “Tell them to let my Buick through the checkpoint.” He put out his hand. “Good luck.”

Shayne went behind the bar to fill his flask. Carl, drinking gin, like his wife, blinked at him.

“Looking for you. Mike, I want to say just one thing. You’ve got balls.”

“I want you to forget that boat ride this morning,” Shayne said. “If you can’t do that, the guy with you was small and bald and potbellied, with six toes on one foot and a bad complexion, and he took off for Mexico City right afterward.”

“I’m digging you, Mike. And whatever you say, I’ll do, because in my book you’re one hundred percent solid. I think we did a sweet job. No rough edges. No chance of a kickback on it.”

“I’ve been talking to your wife.”

“With Nicola?” Carl said, astonished. “About this?”

“Bring your drink. Too many people around.”

“I don’t know what the hell Nikki—”

Shayne walked away. It took Carl a moment to leave the security of the bar, where he had something to hold on to. His walk was a shade too emphatic, but otherwise steady.

Shayne waited on the lawn. The light was fading. It would be dark in half an hour.

“I can’t promote a Ping-Pong game anymore,” Carl complained. “I’m too good for those bastards. I know you could hold your own. You’ve got the reflexes. Mike? Ever since I was a kid I’ve admired people with balls. You pulled a gun on the old man. I respect you for that.”

“Your wife says you’ve been cheating on her.”

Carl peered at him owlishly. “How does she know that?”

“She wants me to find out who it is. She knows it’s an older woman, and that worries her.”

“Older woman! She’s seventeen, and it was only twice.”

“Carl, after this morning we’re friends, aren’t we?”

“We are! Friends is the word. By God, anything you ever want…”

“You know this kind of setup is hard on a girl, coming in cold. She must have an idea where the money comes from, but she wouldn’t want to think about it. It wouldn’t be too bad as long as she was on good terms with her husband…”

“Did she say we fight? I deny that. I always treat her with courtesy.”

“Whenever you think of her, and that’s the point. I want to ask you a personal question, between friends. When was the last time you had intercourse with her?”

“The last time…” Carl said, baffled. “Mike, I’m not one of those compulsive morning-noon-and-night people. So many things have been going on, business-wise…”

“She’s a sweet girl. She’s trying to be a good wife to you. She’s home now, Carl. When I left her, she was crying.”

“I see what you’re driving at, but I had my heart set on a game of Ping-Pong.”

“No. She needs you. Not next week or tomorrow, but right now. Forget about your father’s problems. You’ve done enough for one day. Go home and apologize. Have a quiet drink together. Broil a steak.”

“I don’t know why she never said anything to me. And then to open up to a perfect stranger…”

During this maudlin conversation Shayne had been circling back toward the garage. Carl continued to protest that he didn’t know what his wife was complaining about. Coming up to the Buick, Shayne said curtly, “I’ll drive you. I promised her I’d deliver you, drunk or sober. Get in.”

Carl obeyed. “To be honest,” he said as Shayne brought the Buick around in a tight circle, “she’s not all that wild about sex, in my experience. She just lies there. She takes. She doesn’t give.”

Shayne had played a variety of roles in the last few days, and he was finding this easily the most repellent. He left it at that. Carl also was silent, becoming increasingly tense as they approached his house.

Shayne braked to a stop, but Carl didn’t get out. Setting his jaw, he said firmly, “You’re right, Mike. I haven’t been home as much as I should. I’d better stop kidding myself. I’m really part of the business now. I’ll spend more evenings with Nikki. We’ll start a family.”

“Will you go in, goddamn it?” Shayne said, losing patience. “I’ve got other things to do.”

Carl looked at him in hurt surprise.

“No, wait a minute,” Shayne said as he unlatched the door, and felt him for weapons.

“I don’t carry a gun on the island,” Carl said. “Hey, listen, you don’t think I’d hurt her, do you?”

Shayne made a brusque motion, and Carl scrambled out of the car and walked into the house.

After a moment Shayne switched off the motor. He heard Carl call, “Nikki, sweetheart?”

A light came on. A voice said something, and Carl made a loud sound, between a cry and a groan. Shayne heard running footsteps, then the sound of a struggle. A piece of furniture went over.

Shayne had been told to allow Philly five minutes, and he waited it out by the dashboard clock, minute by minute. Then he went into his equipment box for the little camera he had used to photograph the simulated execution of Marcello Marti. He stopped abruptly, swearing under his breath. He had forgotten to buy film.

It was too late to do anything about it now, or to change his plans. In a hurry to finish up the distasteful episode, he entered the house. He heard sounds behind the closed door of a bedroom. He unlatched the door quietly and let it swing open. The room was dark. Somebody moaned, and there was a wet sound and a gasp.

He stepped inside, the camera raised.

Philly’s confidence in his own attractions and Carl’s weakness had been justified. The two figures on the floor had come a long way in five minutes.

Shayne turned on the ceiling light and began clicking the shutter. If there had been film in the camera, he would have taken a half-dozen shots unnoticed. Philly looked up. “Baby, we’ve got company.”

Carl pulled free and lunged frantically at Shayne’s leg. Philly caught him, laughing.

“He’s straight, dear. He won’t come down and join us. He wants us to go on so he can take some more pictures.”

Carl slapped him away. “Mike, Nicola wasn’t here. He tripped me. He used karate.”

Shayne made another shot from a lower angle. Philly mugged lewdly for the camera.

“Take one like this, Mike. It’s my best profile. Isn’t he virile?”

“Enough is enough,” Shayne said, dropping the camera in his pocket.

There were tears in Carl’s eyes. “I haven’t been into anything like this for so long. I couldn’t help it. He made me.”

“And that’s true!” Philly said. “He fought every inch of the way, except the last couple.”

“Don’t show anybody those pictures, Mike,” Carl begged, coming over on his knees. “I don’t know what my father would… He’d castrate me!”

“Can I watch?” Philly asked.

“You certainly did a professional job,” Carl said bitterly. “Beautiful. I know what happens now. I pay. You’ve got a steady income for life.”

“Philly, do you think you can keep each other occupied for another forty-five minutes?”

“With the greatest of pleasure.”

Carl said accusingly, “You’re going to have those films developed and show them to my father! You don’t care if I get killed. I don’t know what I did to you to deserve anything like this.”

“One small thing you did, Carl,” Shayne said, “was involve me as accessory in a first-degree murder. Outside of that, you’ve been fine. I paid Philly five hundred dollars, plus his air fare, and that qualifies this as entrapment. It’s a standard technique, but I try not to use it too often. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, and listen. You knew you’d have days like this if you went to work in the family business. At least now you don’t have to pretend you’re a happy heterosexual.”

“Isn’t he beautiful?” Philly said.

“I thought so until just lately,” Carl said.

“I’ll be back,” Shayne told them. “I’ll have a program mapped out for you, Carl, and I advise you to follow it. Exactly. Don’t do anything to irritate me, and maybe I’ll open up the back of the camera and expose this film. Philly, lock the doors and leave one light on in the other room. When I honk, I want you both to come running. That means be dressed and ready.”

“Dressed,” Philly said. “Hmm.”

“Except for that, do whatever you like. Have fun, Carlo. Remember, Philly came all the way from New Orleans for this date.”

20

It was an overcast night, without stars, but Ponce de Leon was never completely dark because of the glow from the lighted buildings and streets on both sides of the bay.

The long black Cadillacs were arriving, bringing the great men — Dino Occhiogrosso, called the Senator because of his white hair and dignified manner, who brought ten million dollars out of Prohibition, and had held on to most of it, the coordinator of the New York — New Jersey families in the great days, in retirement since escaping from a nervous assassin with a short-barreled shotgun; Joe Barbieri, from Boston, who owned a racing wire, prizefighters, and a talent agency, and did the biggest layoff business in the East; Albert Cataldo, from New Jersey, numbers, unions, hijacking, construction kickbacks, politics, a harassed man who was being sued for divorce and had bleeding ulcers which he didn’t believe he deserved; Frank Guarino, from Las Vegas; Danny Noto, from Chicago, who until recently had done many of his own killings, not because he had to but because of personal inclination.

For Shayne’s plans to work, a large number of people had to appear at exactly the right time, and perform exactly as expected. After all his years of experience, Shayne had no real hope that this would happen. Bobby Burns and Will Gentry were equally unpredictable, in different ways. But even if the big confrontation failed to come off, Shayne now knew — thanks to Philly Tucker — that he could salvage something, and he was ready to move.

Using the telephone in the game room, he dialed Liz O’Donnell’s number. He let it ring twice, hung up with a frown, looked up the number again, and redialed it. Again, after hearing the two rings, he hung up. This was the agreed-upon signal that would bring Liz and her boat across to a point sixty yards west of the De Blasio dock, on a direct line between the main house and a lighted tower on Biscayne Boulevard, on the Miami side of the bay.

The television had been turned down to a mutter. Pool balls clicked and fell. At the bar, the drinkers talked in low tones, clearly aware of the important conference that was taking place elsewhere in the house.

No one spoke to Shayne. He returned to the garage apartment and let himself in.

Sarah came out of the bedroom and shut the door. “I’m having a time with her, Mike. She wants to find her husband and have it out with him.”

“This wouldn’t be a good time to do that.”

Nicola, very drunk, stumbled out. Shayne caught her.

“Nikki, Carl and I have had a long session. He knows he hasn’t been spending enough time with you, and he’s sorry about it. He wants you to go to the Beach with him, to catch the show at one of the hotels.”

“Carl? Change my dress.”

“No, you’re all right. He wants to leave right away, before they grab him for some detail. Brush your hair. Sarah, give her a hand. I’ll be right with you.” The girls retired to the bedroom. Using the lock-picking attachments built into his pocketknife, Shayne picked the simple spring lock on the door to the gun room. A moment later he came out with two ugly-looking magnetic mines studded with explosive sensors and attached to disk anchors with fifteen-foot lengths of line.

“What are those?” Sarah asked as he passed the open bedroom door.

“Meet me downstairs.”

He camouflaged each mine with a dish towel and carried them to the water’s edge. Going over the aerial photographs with Burns, he had marked out a landing zone, a shingle beach an eighth of a mile west of the dock, on the northwest curve of the oval. He planted both mines here, scaling the anchors out some twenty feet offshore.

When he returned, Nicola was ready, washed, brushed, with fresh lipstick. She was wobbly, but erect.

“You come with us, Mike. Sarah. I want all my friends.”

“We have to go in two cars,” Shayne said. “There’s some kind of summit meeting going on in the house, and your father-in-law told Carl to stay on call. So we’ve got to fool them.”

“Mike, you’re a marvelous person.”

“I like to help,” he said with a glance at Sarah.

The girls got in. He drove back to Carl’s house and tapped the horn. Philly burst out, dragging Carl.

“I had to hit him, but he’s going to be a good boy, aren’t you, Carl?”

“I suppose I have to,” Carl said sulkily.

His wife, in the front seat, gave him a tremulous smile. “You don’t know how unhappy I’ve been.”

“You’re drunk,” he said with disgust.

“I had a few drinks with Sarah. I’m not drunk. You know this is the first time you’ve asked me to go anywhere with you in months?”

Shayne drew Philly aside. “Drive her out to the causeway. You won’t have any trouble getting that far, but then you’ll run into a police block. Tell them you’re working for me.”

“Baby, that’s no way to wind up a party. Fuzz?”

“Don’t worry about it. Just get rid of any dope you’re carrying. How have you broken the law otherwise?”

“Well, Mike, if you really don’t know…” He indicated Nicola with a nod. “I’ve had some bad times with female drunks. What do I do if she makes trouble?”

“Cool her,” Shayne said, and he made his next remark even more confidential. “The guns start going off about three minutes from now.”

“In that case…” Philly said hastily. He moved in swiftly and nearly succeeded in kissing Shayne’s cheek. He laughed as the detective pulled away. “Mike, you’re as skittish as a racehorse. Bye.”

Following Shayne’s directions, Philly drove them back to the garage, where he dropped them. Nicola made an attempt to get out and stay with Carl. “Carlo—”

Carl hit the door with both hands as it opened. “Goddamn it, will you start shaping up for a change?” he shouted. “Do what you’re told, and don’t ask any questions!”

His fury drained the color out of her face. Philly drove off.

“That’s the spirit,” Shayne said. “Do as you’re told, and don’t ask questions. I couldn’t improve on that.”

“I have to, don’t I?” Carl said sourly. “You’ve got me over a barrel.”

Larry Zito and another man stepped out of the garage. The second man, named Tony P., was one of the two who had accompanied Zito back from St. Albans. He was holding a shotgun.

“What’s this about a barrel?” Zito demanded. “That’s what guys say to shylocks. Is Shayne blackmailing you?”

“No-o! Larry, just don’t interfere, all right?”

“I think I’m called on to interfere. Up to the house, Shayne. I’ve been watching you for twenty minutes. What’s all this coming and going? What did you throw in the bay a couple of minutes ago? Who’s that fag driving the car? I never saw him around here before.”

“He’s a classmate of mine,” Carl said. “And he’s anything but a fag, as you put it. He’s taking Nikki over to the Beach for a drink. I didn’t want them around while the meeting’s going on. Do you mind?”

“In Shayne’s car? That was Shayne’s car he was driving.”

“I loaned it to them,” Shayne said. “We’re meeting them later.”

Zito remained firm. “Carlo, I want you to talk to the Don. I speak as an uncle. Shayne’s trying to work something.”

Carl seized his shirtfront and shook him. “Trying to mess me up, shylock…”

Tony grunted and brought the shotgun around. Stooping swiftly, Sarah picked up a loose coil of garden hose and flung it over his head. The nozzle rapped him on the cheek. As the coil tightened, Shayne hit him from the blind side, knocking the shotgun barrel away with one hand and connecting a split second later with a hard shot behind the ear.

The shotgun fired, and the recoil pulled it out of Tony’s weakening grasp. Shayne jerked the barrel hard, and it came free. He swung viciously and broke the stock over Zito’s head.

“Now we move,” Shayne said. “Grab the other guy, Carlo. Stay with me.”

He caught the semiconscious Zito around the waist and ran him down to the dock. Carl and Sarah followed with Tony, each with an arm. Shayne let Zito fall, and quickly prepared one of his two remaining needles, pulled down the loan shark’s pants, and hit him with it. He used the other on Tony.

The shotgun blast had brought several figures out on the lighted terrace. Shayne lined up the conspicuous tower that was their aiming point in downtown Miami, and was relieved to see a dark shadow on the water.

“There’s a boat waiting out there,” he said, pointing. “Swim out to it. Quietly. I’ll be along.”

“I can’t swim,” Carl said.

“Oh, for God’s sake!”

He went into the boathouse and retrieved his little waterproof case and the wet-suit and oxygen tank he had left there that morning.

“Put these on,” he told Carl, “and get in the water. Do you know how the oxygen works, Sarah?”

“Sure.”

“Hook him up and tow him. I’ll try to be back to help.”

There was more movement on the terrace. A floodlight came on.

Shayne started for the house, one hand in front of his eyes to shield them from the glare. As he approached, he called, “Any of you guys up there hear a gun go off?”

The consensus was that the shot had been fired from a boat lying just offshore. Shayne, who had been checking the dock area, had the impression that the sound had come from the grounds to the west of the house, the opposite direction from the garage. A patrol was quickly formed under the leadership of a man Shayne didn’t know.

Shayne walked through to the kitchen, where he found the maid putting dishes into the automatic dishwasher.

“Mr. De Blasio says to take off,” he told her. “Just leave everything. He doesn’t want anybody to get hurt. You heard a gunshot, didn’t you?”

“Was that what—” She grabbed her purse. “I knew something was bound to happen.”

She ran for the back door without changing out of her uniform, and Shayne went into the crowded utility room off the kitchen. Using a pencil flashlight, he found the main fuse panel, exactly where it appeared on the wiring diagram. He unscrewed the face cover. After making a few swift preparations, he began unscrewing the clamp holding the main cable. It whipped free. He hit the exposed panel three blows with the butt of his pistol, smashing most of the reset switches.

Returning to the dark kitchen, he crossed it to the back door without using his flashlight. People were shouting and crashing about in other parts of the house. The top third of the island had been blacked out. Still without using his light, he headed for the garage.

He entered by the open door. The gray Cadillac was still parked under the gun room. He laid the flashlight, burning, on the roof of the car and stepped up on the front bumper.

Now he began working carefully. Opening his waterproof case, he took out the fist-sized lump of explosive material, folded the end of a wire into the plastic, and pressed it against the ceiling, waiting several seconds until it adhered.

He backed out of the garage, paying out wire. The headlights of several of the parked cars had been turned on. Shadows crossed and recrossed. Reaching the dock, Shayne had to use the flashlight again to tie in the small detonator.

He stripped down to his shorts and put the camera, his money and wallet and pistol in the watertight case. One of the men from the house was running toward the garage and had nearly reached it. Shayne yelled, and the man stopped.

Shayne pressed the detonator handle and dived off the dock.

He felt the force of the explosion underwater. He went deep and took a dozen hard strokes before surfacing. Bits of debris were pattering into the water around him.

He saw two pleasure boats lying dead in the water to the east, Sarah’s head and bare arm ahead of him, Liz O’Donnell’s Wanderer, without lights, beyond.

He glanced toward the shore briefly, and then set out to overtake Sarah with a powerful rolling crawl. Coming up behind her, he seized Carl’s free hand. Carl, on oxygen, floated just beneath the surface, kicking feebly.

A second explosion blew more flaming bits in the air. The building was burning fiercely.

Then Shayne saw Liz’s hand reaching down from the boat. He passed Carl’s hand up to her, and the black-clad figure broke water. Shayne found the rope ladder and climbed aboard. He helped Liz pull Carl into the boat, then Sarah.

“Let’s go. We’re in rifle range.”

Liz ran to the wheel. The starter coughed, and the motor took hold.

On the island, men were running around seemingly at random. A car’s headlights moved toward the causeway. Burns’s two boats were heading for shore. Shots were being fired. Both boats missed the floating mines, and grounded. The fire in the garage flared higher briefly as a gas tank exploded.

Overhead, Shayne heard the flailing of helicopters. The helicopters came in from two directions, lights blazing, and hovered above the lawn with Will Gentry’s voice booming out over a bullhorn, telling everybody on both sides to stand where they were and drop all weapons. Burns, Valenti, and one other made it back to a boat. They were moving away from shore in a long, sweeping curve under full power when the boat exploded beneath them. On the second try, it had hit one of the mines.

All three were killed.

The only other casualty, surprisingly, was Dino Occhiogrosso, who was hit between the eyes by a chance bullet as he trotted toward his car. The official theory was that this was an accident, but certain Mafia experts believed that in the confusion one of his enemies had finally managed to pay off an old score.

21

Liz, expecting to pick Shayne out of the water, had brought a towel and a robe. Sarah removed her wet clothes, dried herself, and put on the robe. Shayne, meanwhile, was freeing Carl.

He came out gasping. “What was that explosion?” He stopped and looked at the island. The flames had reached the ammunition. There was a steady crackle of small-arms fire, the occasional heavier bang of a grenade. The helicopters were swooping down, dropping flares.

Stunned, Carl looked at Shayne. “You, Mike?”

“Other people helped.”

“Is — my father dead?”

“I don’t think so. I thought of putting off the cops for ten or fifteen minutes, so more people could get shot, but I don’t seem to be that bloodthirsty anymore.”

“No, you’re not bloodthirsty,” Carl said. “Of course not. If the old man was dead, you wouldn’t have anything to pressure me with.”

Shayne called to Liz, at the wheel, to cut across the channel between islands. She made the turn without answering, and the stiff way she was holding her shoulders showed she was mad. Shayne went up into the wheelhouse with her and asked for a cigarette. She had brought a fresh pack, as well as a pint of cognac.

He drank first. As he lit the cigarette, Liz said, “She’s cute.”

Shayne agreed. After a moment Liz’s shoulders relaxed. “All right, I’m a bitch. But I thought I was only going to pull one person out of the water. I didn’t know you’d have a skinny blonde in a wet dress and no bra.”

He laughed. “Under the Bay Bridge, Liz. Then swing in and take us as close as you can to Mercy Hospital. You know what has to happen now. I have to answer questions. Then more cops show up, and they ask me the same questions, and I answer them again. That goes on for twelve hours. If you’re free for breakfast…”

“I happen to be free for breakfast.”

He returned to the cockpit deck, where he took off his shorts and pulled on the wet-suit, without the oxygen tanks or the mask. Carl chattered nervously for a time, until Shayne told him to shut up; he had things to think about.

“Such as who gets first whack at Carl De Blasio,” Carl said. “I know.”

They came in and splashed ashore.

“That’s your girl, I suppose,” Sarah remarked coolly as the boat backed off to head north up the bay.

“What?” Shayne said absently.

“You heard me.”

“I’ll tell you about it. Not tomorrow, because tomorrow I’m going to catch up on my sleep. The next day.”

They entered the hospital. At the sight of Shayne in the shiny wet-suit, a woman in the main downstairs waiting room rose like a partridge.

“Mike Shayne!”

He stopped, and she hurried up. It was Jo Meister. “Hugh’s upstairs with Tim Rourke. He brought me so I could back him up if Tim didn’t believe him.”

“How is Tim?”

“Sitting up, but he’s pretty hostile. On the subject of Michael Shayne, especially.”

The lady volunteer at the desk didn’t want to let them pass, as it was long after visiting hours, and Shayne had to threaten the night supervisor. He took Mrs. Meister with them.

Rourke was propped up against pillows. His jaw was wired and clamped, and much of his face was hidden behind bandages. But his eyes were showing, and they looked at his old friend with cold enmity.

Shayne said, “You don’t look as bad as I expected. I must be losing some of my steam.”

The expression around Rourke’s eyes didn’t change. He flexed his fingers.

MacDougall said, “I tried to explain what you’ve been up to, Mike, but I don’t think I made much of an impression.”

Shayne grinned at the injured reporter. “I brought you a couple of visitors. Sarah Percival, who used to sleep with Sherman Meister and has been sleeping with me for the last two days. Mrs. Meister. Carl De Blasio, of the notorious Mafia De Blasios. I thought you might like to ask them some questions.”

Rourke lifted his head ironically and made a swallowing noise.

“Baby,” Shayne said to Sarah, “go down to the nurse’s station and borrow her portable. Tim has a fast pair of index fingers.”

After she went out, Shayne explained to Rourke, “You know about Carl. His old man has been hoping he’d take an interest in the business. That’s natural. But nobody grows up speaking Italian anymore. The old Mafia personalities are dwindling away. I don’t think there’s a boss in the country who’s younger than sixty-five. Carl doesn’t object to making money. He explained it to me. He wants to bring the organization into the modern world, and start making modern amounts of money. But the Don’s too old to change.”

Carl interrupted. “Aren’t you going to give me the warning?”

“Consider yourself warned. You have a right to remain silent, and I have a right to develop a roll of film. This may take a little time, so everybody sit down. Carl, you stand at the foot of the bed where Tim can check your reactions. He’s one hell of an interrogator when he gets going.”

Sarah came in with a typewriter and a few sheets of ruled paper. Shayne set the machine on Rourke’s lap, cranking a sheet of paper into position under the keys.

“Go ahead. Say something.”

Rourke’s two fingers came up and typed rapidly, “Get the hell out of my room, turd.”

“I thought you might want to ask Carl to elaborate. I’ll start him off. How much personal capital do you have, Carl?”

“You know the answer to that. Zero.”

“One thing I didn’t explain,” Shayne said. “Carl murdered a man this morning.”

Carl smiled. “I know enough law to know I can beat that.”

“Without a corpus and a gun, even with me testifying against you, you’re probably right. Any comments, Hugh?”

MacDougall said, “Shayne wrapped the gun in with the body, and he did it carefully, in plastic. And then he anchored the whole thing to a bundle of life jackets and marked it with a yellow stain. It was the most conspicuous thing in that part of the ocean. You could see it for miles. Will Gentry and I went out and hauled it in. The body and the gun are locked in Will’s car.”

This was bad news for Carl. “I don’t believe it. What yellow stain?”

“You were feeling seasick, don’t you remember?” Shayne said. “If I hadn’t found the yellow powder, I would have rigged up something else. I went into this hoping to take you. Why would I get rid of a corpse when there was a chance I could use it to get the Don’s son cold on a murder charge? That would make history. Any questions, Tim?”

The typewriter remained silent.

“But from Carl’s point of view,” Shayne said, “this isn’t too bad. It’s in the tradition. Something else has come up. I’ve promised not to talk about that. If you’ve been wondering, that’s why Carl has agreed to be interviewed.”

Suddenly Rourke tapped out a word. “Queer?” Shayne read it. “All right, I’ll ask him. Rourke wants you to tell us what you know about Sherman Meister’s murder.”

“Just what I read in the papers,” Carl said. “Rourke wrote most of the stories.”

Now Rourke leaned forward and typed: “You goddamn bastard! You don’t think CARL KILLED MEISTER? Out of your mind.”

Shayne said, “Rourke wants to know who had the idea for that, you or Mrs. Meister?”

MacDougall sprang to his feet. “Mike, that’s enough. If you’re implying—”

“I’m just passing on Tim’s questions. What did you mean by that one, kid?”

Rourke typed: “Go ahead. Fireworks time.”

“He wants to know…” Shayne said, reading. “Now, wait a minute, Tim. Are you sure that’s what you wanted to ask?”

Rourke’s expression, the little that could be seen of it, changed slightly. He tapped: “Beginning to get it. She stood to gain.”

“Yeah,” Shayne said. “Tim is pointing out that the big unanswered question in that killing was motive. Everybody ducked it. A TV man campaigned against the Mafia and got himself killed, in a Mafia way. But what a stupid move for De Blasio. He had to know what would happen — pure trouble. But look at it from Jo’s point of view…”

“Jo, don’t say anything,” MacDougall warned her.

“I have no intention of saying anything,” she assured him coldly.

Rourke was typing: “Station losing money.”

“You’re damn right it was losing money,” Shayne said. “I got stuck with some of the stock, on a tip from a friend who has a broken jaw and is in no position to defend himself. There was a boycott on, and it was hurting. De Blasio thinks another month would have done it.”

“I argued with Sherman about those silly editorials,” Jo said. “That’s no secret. I thought he was being foolish and quixotic.”

“He was also being foolish and quixotic about Sarah Percival,” Shayne said. “There was nothing ahead for you but bankruptcy and divorce. No alimony. Whereas with your husband out of the way, you could fire the public-service department and save the property. And yet it’s obvious that you couldn’t organize that kind of killing by yourself.”

Rourke typed excitedly, “Car. Gun.”

“Right. Somebody had to steal the car and provide an untraceable gun. And I don’t suppose Jo would want to do the actual killing herself. Were you about to say something, Carl?”

“She didn’t want to, but she did,” he said.

She snapped, “Liar.”

“Up to a point I was willing, you know?” Carl said. “It was an investment for her. When they went public, they cleared a nice piece of change, and she still had some of it. She gave it to me. She said it was all she had, and I think that’s true. After all, I may be a citrool in some ways, but I know how to steal cars. We keep a supply of that kind of gun. But you know damn well I wasn’t going to point it at another human being and end his life. Frankly, until this morning I didn’t think I was up to it. And we didn’t want to bring in anybody else. So she called him at the station and told him she was in touch with somebody who had a hot story. She met him at the airport and drove him to where the other car was parked. She shot him and came home in her own car. I wasn’t within ten miles.”

Rourke typed: “Will he testify?”

“Rourke wants to know if you’ll repeat that in court.”

“I’ll talk to the lawyers about that. But I’m beginning to think you’ve got me, Shayne. What’s the difference?”

Rourke’s typewriter was working again. “Carl brought in Burns?”

Shayne relayed this, and Carl answered, “I knew Burns was looking for something, and with our outfit under wraps, it was the perfect time. I was just able to swing it with Jo’s cash.”

“We all knew Bobby wouldn’t try anything like this without inside connections,” Shayne said. “Because, of course, the Don would have to go.”

“Not necessarily!” Carl said. “Not necessarily! With Siracusa out of the way…”

“He wasn’t out of the way when you and Bobby made the deal. You agreed to set up the old man for the hit.”

“Well, it’s kind of academic now, isn’t it?” Carl said wearily.

Rourke typed: “I want it exclusive for twelve hours.”

“I was going to suggest the same thing,” Shayne said, “and I think Gentry and the county attorney will go along. The only case we’re going to bring against Carl is for killing Siracusa. No mention of any private matters, or any private understandings with rookies from out of town. That will keep him straight with the family. In return, he’s going to tell us all he knows about Sherman Meister’s murder.”

Jo Meister screamed, “It’s immoral! Immoral! It’s dirty and immoral!”

She sprang at Carl. He didn’t defend himself, and Shayne didn’t come to his assistance. Hugh MacDougall subdued her.

“I must say I think I agree,” he said, staring at Shayne. “Immoral is one word for it.”

“When you hired me,” Shayne said coldly, “that’s what you bought. You wanted a murder case solved and a Mafia family dispersed. If you don’t pay off on the contract, I’ll see you in court. Any more questions, Tim?”

Rourke thought a moment, his fingers poised. “They were going to kill me,” he typed. “You beat me up as the lesser of two evils.”

“They wouldn’t have killed you,” Shayne said evenly. “They weren’t even talking about pushing you around. I had to do what I did. It’s known that you’re a friend of mine. That was the key to the whole thing. They wouldn’t have believed me without it. Do you understand?”

Rourke typed. “No. Maybe sometime. But not now. Not yet.”

Content

Brett Halliday
I Come to Kill You

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