Violence Is Golden

by Brett Halliday

  “Nikko,” he said. “Nikko!”

  The Greek looked up from his cup, which he was holding delicately in both hands.

  “If we’re going to be on the same side,” Shayne said, “I don’t want to put my head out the door and have somebody take a shot at me. How about asking the boys in for a drink or a cup of coffee?”

  “My sailors are not allowed to drink at sea,” Nikko said. “That is an absolute rule. Coffee—yes. Excellent. I will brew more.”

  “I just looked. There’s enough for now.”

  Nikko yelled at the sailor and made him stop dancing. The boy, told what to do, nodded and went out.

  Shayne continued, “It’s always seemed to me that the hardest thing about a job like yours must be the women. How do you cope with them? They have nothing to do all day but lie around in bikinis, drinking and smoking pot and thinking about sex—”

  He passed Naomi Savage’s passport picture in front of the Greek. “How’s this one in bed?”

  Nikko shook his head dreamily. “I don’t think I know her.”

  Shayne tried Christa, and again Nikko shook his head. Next was Mary Ocain.

  “I didn’t think it would be possible, you know,” Nikko said. “I have always had beautiful women. A little stupid often, but who objects to stupidity in a young beautiful girl? With this one I had to grind my teeth. Then she went out of her head with joy! It was extraordinary. It changed my views about the ugly ones.”

  “Was it LeFevre’s idea?”

  “Oh, yes. I carry out the plans other men make for me. I have had a limited education.”

  “Where’s the gold now?”

  “Ah—” Nikko began giggling. “Who would guess?”

  Three sailors trooped in. Nikko greeted them in rapid Greek and hugged Shayne demonstratively to show how matters had changed. Shayne supplied each man with coffee.

  “There’s still the kid in the window,” Shayne said. “Do you want me to call him in?”

  “No, let the black man sweat.”

  “Nikko,” Shayne persisted, “you were about to tell me what you did with the gold.”

  “Gold. People worry and worry and kill each other for it. Why? What pleasures does Geoffrey Adam get from all his money? He will invite a famous actress to come on a cruise among the islands, and then he sends a telegram. ‘I am delayed. Business.’ And the actress must content herself with Nikko Pappadotos. I have forgotten why I was angry with you, my dear friend. LeFevre is dead. We will all die. He was never satisfied. He wanted more victories. An intelligent, educated man. Dead, as you say.”

  He rushed to the record player. “Music.”

  He dropped several records before succeeding in fumbling one onto the turntable. It was American jazz, dating back to the big-band days of the 1930s. The sailors watched in wonder. He flung around the room wildly. Then he halted, a thoughtful look on his face, and subsided onto the white rug.

  Shayne, the empty submachine gun over his shoulder, opened the door to the bedroom and stepped in. The guard whirled.

  “I don’t suppose he speaks English,” Shayne said to Ward.

  “Not a word.”

  “Then we may have to jump him.”

  Ward had been lying on one of the twin beds with his hands behind his head. He came to his feet casually. Shayne moved out of the doorway so the boy could look into the next room, where the loaded coffee was beginning to take effect. He was as young as the boy who had been guarding Shayne, but he was sullen-looking, his face pocked and pitted.

  Shayne kept his voice pleasant. “I suppose those are friends of yours in the helicopter.”

  “I think so,” Ward answered. “I told them we might have trouble. They don’t seem to know what to look for, do they?”

  The sailor stared at the scene in the salon. Nikko lay on his back, helping Tommy Dorsey conduct the orchestra. One of the sailors chased another out on deck. The third had begun to exercise with whiskey bottles.

  Ward took a step forward, but the boy went into a tense crouch and snapped out a command.

  “You may have to kill him,” Ward said.

  “I hope not. I’m already over my limit.”

  Turning back into the salon, Shayne picked two bottles off the shelf behind the bar and began swinging them like Indian clubs. The other sailor, who was doing the same thing, hesitated and lost his rhythm. His bottles met and shattered. He gave a shout of delight.

  He and Shayne embraced warmly. Shayne turned it into a clumsy dance, steering him into the bedroom. The Greek guarding Ward retreated. He yelled to Nikko for help as Shayne whirled his partner around and pushed the two Greeks together.

  The boy with the gun floundered, trying to throw his friend off. Shayne freed his right hand and chopped it at the exposed side of the boy’s face. He went backward, his mouth beginning to open. Shayne closed it with a powerful left and the boy went down.

  The drug working inside the other Greek now changed direction. He bellowed with rage and slashed at Shayne’s face with the broken bottle. As Shayne dodged backward, he lost control of the Schmeisser. It clattered to the floor. The sailor struck twice more, out of time to the music.

  Shayne feinted. The murderous bottle neck returned the feint, a tick slow. The boy darted at him, missed with an upward swipe, and raked Shayne’s arm, from the elbow to the wrist. Shayne slammed his left fist into the boy’s abdomen, all but breaking him in two. At almost that exact second, Ward swung the Schmeisser like a hatchet; Shayne pulled out of the boy’s way as he fell.

  There was an instant’s silence as the record completed one track and moved to the next.

  Ward had snatched up the Schmeisser Shayne had dropped, and now he had them both, which wasn’t the way Shayne had wanted the argument to end. Shayne went into the salon and turned off the record player. When Nikko started to come to his feet, Shayne dragged him into the bedroom. Moving the key to the outside of the lock, he closed the door and locked it. The Negro, between Shayne and the door to the deck, watched with a slight smile.

  “What do you do now?” Shayne said. “Shoot me, or do you want to gloat a little first?”

  CHAPTER 19

  “Oh, have a drink,” Ward said. “I take it you know who I am?”

  Shayne went to the bar. “I’d say you’re probably Sir Geoffrey Adam, in blackface. How did you persuade anybody to give you a title?”

  “I bought it. Can’t I ever surprise you? I expected you to stagger in amazement.”

  Shayne poured a drink. “Sanchez ripped your shirt just before I shot him. You didn’t bother with body makeup.”

  “I didn’t expect to get involved in knife fights, either. You amaze me, Shayne, and I’m almost sorry I have to kill you. But that’s been the whole object, and how can I change my plans this late in the day?”

  Shayne wrapped the bar towel around the gash on his arm, and sat down on the white sofa. He swirled the cognac and drank.

  “I still think I’m going to take you in,” he said evenly. “LeFevre told me some interesting things about you, and they all seem to be true. He said you don’t go after a money deal unless there’s some kind of excitement connected with it. He said you like to be in on the finish yourself. I’ve been waiting for you to turn up. I thought you might be one of the guerrillas. I know you won’t get any pleasure out of killing me without telling me about it, so go ahead. Take as long as you like. Who knows? Something else may happen.”

  Adam pulled a straight chair around and sat down, bringing one of the two guns to bear on Shayne. The other stayed on his left shoulder. One of the two submachine guns was loaded, one was empty. They were identical German Schmeissers, the standard Wehrmacht burp gun from World War II, and which one was pointed at Shayne now, the full one or the empty one, Shayne didn’t know. There would be a considerable difference in weight, but Adam had already shown his unfamiliarity with hand guns, and there was a chance he might not wonder why one was heavier than the other.

  Adam smiled. “I adm
it to a fondness for tidy endings. But do sit still, Shayne, or I’ll have to deprive myself of the pleasure of telling you what a fool you’ve been.”

  He closed the flap of the Schmeisser. “Now the safety is on. Correct?” Pointing the gun at Shayne, he attempted to press the trigger. “Correct.” He opened the flap again. “And now, as you observe, the safety is off. Think twice before you make a move in my direction.”

  “Why don’t we let Moss out of the head?” Shayne suggested. “He’ll want to hear this.”

  “No. No more rabbits out of the hat, Shayne. This is between you and me. I’ve had enough excitement to last me for a while. I didn’t expect to end up aboard the Paladin. If Nikko had recognized me, he would have killed me without a moment’s thought. But all he saw was my color, the idiot. Shayne, do you realize now who your client has been for the last two days?”

  “You?”

  “Quite right. I needed to find out who stole a million and a half dollars from me last summer, and who has been betraying me to Interpol. You found out for me.”

  “Is that why you had LeFevre killed?”

  “Did I do that? I don’t want to take the credit for everything. Let’s just say that I succeeded, by whatever means, in getting you out of Miami and aboard the plane. And I must say you lived up to my expectations, in every way but one. You didn’t locate the gold.”

  “It’s somewhere on this boat.”

  Adam repeated flatly, “Somewhere on this boat. The gold from last summer?”

  “Yeah. In the bilge, probably. You didn’t hear what Nikko was telling me. LeFevre made the arrangements and supplied the props. Mary Ocain and George Savage were the ones who handled the actual switch and Nikko took care of the transportation.”

  “Did you say Mary Ocain?”

  “That’s right. She’s like you, she’s tired of living in the ordinary way. I just checked her passport. It has visas for all the Eastern Mediterranean countries. Nobody’s more invisible in Europe or the Middle East in the summer than an American schoolteacher with a camera. They’re part of the scenery.”

  “Do you know for a fact that the Paladin—”

  “I suppose you checked the canal records. LeFevre invested some money and took care of that. Since then, the boat’s been stuck in the Mediterranean. But they were in no hurry to get rid of the gold. They’d have to feed it into the market a little at a time.”

  “I’ve been watching for it, and it hasn’t showed up. But this is really a bit nervy! Using my own yacht! So you’ve carried out your full assignment, after all. Magnificent. It’s been a pleasure watching you work. I can say that now that it’s over. I’m nearly fifty, you know. A little excitement, properly controlled, slows down the aging process. And now,” he said, his voice hardening, “we come to the question of your fee.”

  Shayne said quickly, “The excitement isn’t over yet. Look out the window.”

  The boat swerved, overcorrected, and came back too far. The helicopter, clacking loudly, had overtaken them again and was hovering directly overhead. One of the sailors yelled exuberantly. The Paladin was moving at maximum speed, executing maneuvers that would have been excessive in a twenty-foot speedboat.

  Holding Shayne’s eyes, Adam came slowly to his feet. Shayne was studying his face. Under the artificial pigment, he could see the added age lines. The cheeks had been padded.

  Adam raised the gun. “I think I’ll say goodbye now, Shayne.”

  Shayne dived, flipping the cognac glass with a quick underhand snap. The gun was silent. Adam swore viciously. But he adjusted quickly, and as Shayne came to his feet, charging, he was met with a hard slap of the gun barrel.

  That delayed him long enough for Adam to switch guns. He flipped open the safety flap and backed away, his face working.

  The boat swerved violently, nearly sending him off his feet. He fired a quick burst. Through the big portside window, Shayne saw that they were heading at full speed for a crowded bathing beach.

  Another sailor dashed past the window, waving his arms like a happy madman. The helmsman threw the wheel over hard and the bottom of the boat scraped on sand.

  In the salon, bottles crashed from the shelves and Adam made a complete pivot and slammed back against the wall. Shayne was on one knee, surrounded by records that had cascaded out of the cabinet below the record player. He scooped up several of these and sailed them at Adam. If the boat held steady on its course for only a few seconds, he knew that a burst from the submachine gun would catch him at the door. He kept throwing, bottles, records, a small chair.

  The Paladin was now headed for a long jetty at the entrance to a small harbor. The helicopter noise was overpowering.

  Something crashed through the big window behind Adam. It gave Shayne another instant. The drawer had shot out of the big table. Loose forty-five rounds were rolling about the floor. Shayne skidded and fell. A hammering burst from Adam’s gun went into the wall. Shayne lunged for the empty submachine gun. He had never moved faster. Snatching it up, he slammed a round into the chamber and fired.

  The bullet went into Adam’s left shoulder. The helmsman, after a series of crazy swings, finally brought the hallucination to an end by smashing the Paladin into the jetty at full speed.

  There was an explosion. Shayne, deafened, reeling, saw Adam fly backward. Then a beam came down. Shayne blacked out briefly.

  His return to consciousness was slow and painful, a difficult climb up a steep slope in total darkness. He smelled smoke. The helicopter rotor seemed to be flailing at him. The facing wall was gone. Uniformed men with rifles were running along the jetty. He saw Adam crawl along the littered deck, his left arm hanging limp. Something was wrong with one leg.

  A man swarmed down a cable dangling from the helicopter. He slung Adam onto a T bar. Adam yelled, pointing at Shayne in the wreckage of the deckhouse.

  “Kill him!”

  Shayne was pinned to the white rug by the heavy beam. One of the soldiers leaped aboard, unslinging his rifle. Adam’s man picked up a submachine gun, checked quickly with Adam, and took careful aim at Shayne. Nothing happened, and after working the slide desperately, he threw the gun down.

  Now there were a half dozen Venezuelans on board. Adam tried to get off the T bar, but at that moment the helicopter swooped up and away.

  The soldier with the rifle was too confused to fire. Shayne’s last glimpse of Adam was a blackened face contorted with fury. Then the winch in the helicopter whined insanely and the two men were hoisted aboard.

  CHAPTER 20

  No one thought of lifting the beam until Tim Rourke and the others arrived from Maiquetía. By that time Shayne was unconscious again.

  A bright light burned through his eyelids. When he opened his eyes, the light dispersed and changed into the white walls of a hospital room. His head and left arm were bandaged. A tube connected his right arm with a bottle hanging beside the bed.

  Rourke swam into view. “I tried to persuade them to add cognac to the mixture, Mike, but it’s against the rules.”

  “What about the chopper?” Shayne said weakly.

  “Far, far away. You know you hit about twenty-five yards from a gendarmerie barracks? Let’s say everybody was a little taken aback, in Spanish. By the time I heard about the helicopter, it was too late to do anything. We’ve alerted the main airfields, but nobody thinks there’s much chance. Do you feel well enough to talk? Painter’s here.”

  “If Painter’s here, I don’t feel well enough to talk.”

  “I thought you might say that. There’s also a Treasury guy named Carmody. What do I tell him? That you’ll give him a buzz as soon as you feel better?”

  Shayne hitched up in bed.

  “Easy,” Rourke said.

  “Do they have a guard on the yacht?”

  “All taken care of. It went down in five feet of water, but the tide’s out now so it’s just sitting there. If you’re thinking about the gold that was under the floorboards—”

  “That’s
the gold I’m thinking about.”

  “The hull split open and it spilled out. When the water went down, there it was, giving off a nice soft glow.”

  “Get the doctor in here. I want this thing out of my arm.”

  Ten minutes later, a hard-eyed Michael Shayne was sitting up in bed, supported by three pillows, confronting a tough little Irishman named Hugh Carmody. Shayne had insisted on calling a man he knew in Washington to verify Carmody’s credentials. Painter, too, was present. The dapper little chief of Miami Beach detectives gave Shayne a hostile look when he came in.

  “You’re breathing,” he said. “I knew this wouldn’t turn out to be my lucky day.”

  “What are you doing down here, Petey? You ought to be back home finding out who killed Jules LeFevre.”

  “I already have a pretty shrewd idea who killed Jules LeFevre. You. I’m hoping you’ll tell me why.”

  The passengers and crew of the grounded DC-8 had been brought to Puerto São Luís by truck. Shayne gave Rourke the names of the ones he wanted to see, all of them women. While Rourke was rounding them up, Shayne and Carmody did some hard bargaining. The gold from the Persian Gulf theft was already in Treasury hands, but Carmody still didn’t know what had happened to the shipment that had left Miami on the DC-8. Finally he agreed to pay five percent of the combined seizures, and Shayne made him put it in writing.

  Christa exclaimed when she saw Shayne, and hurried to the side of the bed. “Thank God you’re all right.”

  Naomi Savage, looking frightened, refused Rourke’s offer of a chair. Mary Ocain came last. She raised her camera and a flashbulb went off.

  “Tim Rourke’s idea,” she said. “It’s a big story. Everybody’s going to want pictures.”

  “All right, baby,” Shayne said wearily. “I’ll take you first. Pay attention, Petey. I don’t want to go through this twice.”

  Mary, flushed and defiant, looked almost pretty. Shayne looked at her for a moment in silence.

  “I had a long talk with Nikko,” he said. “I was surprised. I heard you tell somebody you’re a virgin.”