Count Backwards to Zero

by Brett Halliday

  He went back to A deck, consulted a cutaway diagram of the ship hanging outside the purser’s office, and went forward to the captain’s cabin. He gave the door a few hard knocks and went in.

  “Captain?”

  There were two rooms. When Shayne switched on a light, another light came on in the bedroom and a voice called, “What is it?”

  When Shayne reached the doorway, the captain, a big beak-nosed man named Stackpole, was sitting up looking at him. Shayne held out his Florida private detective’s license.

  “I’m Michael Shayne. I need some major cooperation, and before you give it to me you’ll need more to go on. Do you know the Bermuda Police Commissioner? Or the Deputy Commissioner, Ian Cameron?”

  Captain Stackpole put in his teeth and made a quick pass at his graying hair before taking Shayne’s leather folder. He glanced at it and gave it back.

  “I know Cameron. He’s the son of an old schoolmate of mine.”

  “He can vouch for me if you call him. I know it’s late, but they owe me something.”

  Captain Stackpole, like Shayne himself, was a man doing a job. Without requiring any more information, he picked up the telephone and gave a few quiet instructions.

  “This is a police matter, I take it,” he said to Shayne.

  “Smuggling. It seems to be something fairly big.”

  “We’ve come to expect it on the southern run. They think the Miami Customs will be softer than New York, but it seldom turns out that way. Are any of the ship’s people involved?”

  “I don’t think so. But there’s still a lot I don’t know.”

  “We have a high personnel turnover these days. We take what we can get, and that includes some pretty doubtful people. If you find any crew connection, Mr. Shayne, I’d appreciate a little advance notice so we can have a company representative standing by. It may take a few minutes to get Cameron. Coffee? Whiskey?”

  Shayne asked for whiskey. The Captain made the drink without ice and opened a soft drink for himself. Until the phone rang at the bedside, he talked easily about earlier smuggling attempts on the Southampton-Miami crossing. It was true, he admitted, that he only knew about those that had been frustrated.

  The phone rang.

  “Cameron, it’s John Stackpole here. Sorry about the lateness of the hour and so on. I have a person called Michael Shayne in my cabin. He says the name is familiar to you.”

  He listened for a moment. “He appears to be moderately sober. I’ve given him a small whiskey. Should I trust him, and if so, to what extent?”

  He listened another moment, thanked Cameron, and said goodnight.

  “You have your clearance, Mr. Shayne. He seems to feel I should hand the ship over to you, but I won’t quite do that. What did you have in mind?”

  Half an hour later, pushing a low-wheeled dolly, Shayne entered the Queen Elizabeth’s afterhold.

  The big cavernous space was weakly lit up by unshaded bulbs on each exposed steel rafter. After relocking the door, he began the hunt for Little’s doctored Bentley.

  He had brought a powerful four-cell flashlight. The cars were as crowded as they would have been in a busy downtown parking lot. Each was chocked to the deck and fixed to an adjustable axle clamp. He had to move sideways between rows, and step on bumpers to get from one row to the next.

  He checked a Bentley in an outermost row, and found Dr. Quentin Little’s name on the red tag wired to the steering wheel. It seemed to be riding very low on its rear wheels. Shayne stooped to look at the gas tank.

  The bright beam of his flashlight shot all the way across beneath the cars. A moving shadow caught his eye. He swung the flashlight instinctively, but nothing that shouldn’t have been there showed in the light. He pointed the beam another way, keeping his eyes on the spot where he thought he had detected movement.

  The shadows changed slightly. He stabbed with the light, and picked up a man’s feet and legs.

  They were in the opposite aisle, at the far side of the massed formation, scissoring rapidly. Straightening, Shayne saw a blurred, crouching figure.

  He hurled the flashlight. It revolved end over end, and was still burning when it crashed against a bulkhead and went out. Shayne was already running. He was parallel with the figure, separated by the densely massed cars.

  A light winked at him. The sound of a pistol shot hammered back and forth across the metal enclosure.

  The shot had been snapped off at random, to let Shayne know that he was stalking an armed man. Shayne jumped into a pool of shadow.

  There was a dimly lighted doorway ahead of the other man, and he was dearly trying to reach it without disclosing his identity. Bent low, Shayne ran to the door on his side of the hold, where he had left the dolly. He tipped the tools and equipment onto the floor. The clatter drew another shot.

  Shayne grabbed a heavy long-handled pipe wrench. Throwing himself down on the dolly, he launched himself from the wall with a powerful kick.

  He shot along the top aisle, surprised by his own speed. Low enough not to be seen, he careened across the hold and was still moving very fast when he collided with the wall. Wrestling the dolly around, he kicked off from a bulkhead and rolled at the figure running toward him.

  He saw a white shirt, a pale face, a mop of hair. The figure leaped straight up, picking up his feet like a second baseman making a double play, and Shayne shot beneath him.

  Twisting off the rapidly moving dolly, Shayne hit the wall and came around. In the same motion he threw the wrench.

  The heavy-jawed wrench struck the man between the shoulder blades. He staggered, nearly losing his footing. An instant later he was out the door.

  By the time Shayne reached the doorway, the dimly lighted corridor was empty.

  He waited, listening. Then he closed the door and pushed an empty drum against it, where it would be knocked aside if the door opened.

  He retrieved the dolly. One of the casters was bent but it was still serviceable. Reloading it with his welding and cutting equipment, he rolled it to the Bentley.

  Captain Stackpole had given Shayne authority to draw on the ship’s machine shop for any tools he needed, and he had brought a wide assortment, including a working light with a long heavy-duty cord. He found an outlet and plugged in.

  He opened the Bentley’s luggage hatch, removed the spare wheel and turned back the floor carpeting. It was beginning to seem more and more likely to Shayne that at least some of Little’s story was true. A quick glance told him that the bolts attaching the gas tank to the chassis had been recently replaced.

  He had to jack up the rear end and crawl underneath to reach the nuts. He found them easy to turn.

  He could see from the tension on the rear springs that the tank must be unusually heavy. Bracing himself, he pushed upward with both hands. It gave perceptibly, but it was obviously going to give him trouble.

  He drew jacks from nearby cars and began jacking it out, using one at each corner. At intervals, he slid out to see how it was coming. The tank cover was a half inch longer and wider than the tank itself, providing a flange that could be bolted to the body. The entire cover had been sliced off and later rewelded. The new weld was daubed with dirty grease, but under the bright 150-watt bulb, Shayne could see the faint scar where it joined the natural accumulation on the underside of the car.

  He had three hours till daylight. He needed it all.

  He disconnected the hose and opened the gas line, draining the tank into an oil pan. After measuring the tank carefully, he reconnoitered the neighboring cars and picked a late-model Oldsmobile. The steering wheel tag gave the owner’s name and an address in Coral Gables, adjoining Miami to the south. The two tanks were nearly the same shape and size, though the flange on the Bentley’s tank was wider and the bolt holes were spaced differently. On the American car, the bolts were rusted in place, and Shayne had to burn them off.

  Because of the lack of space to maneuver, the transfer was difficult. The Oldsmobile’s tank lifted
out easily after being drained and disconnected, but putting the Bentley’s tank in its place took an hour’s straining and prying. To bring the tank clear of the floor of the Bentley’s luggage space, he had to block up the jacks. It got away from him briefly as he was levering it over, and it left a bad scar in the front fender of a Jaguar.

  Now, shining his flashlight into the tank’s open neck, he saw that it was, in fact, extremely shallow. The false bottom was slick and black. Before rolling it to the Olds, he inserted a small rectangular object wrapped in heavy plastic. This was a homing device, part of the standard survival equipment in the Queen Elizabeth lifeboats. The switch had been taped open, and for the last hour or so it had been transmitting a tiny pulsing buzz at thirty-second intervals. The batteries had a 36-hour life. The effective range of the device, Shayne understood, was a little over ten miles.

  It was attached to a long wire. Leaving this dangling, Shayne began the difficult task of raising the heavy tank high enough so he could work it into the open trunk of the Olds. He found it a fraction of an inch too long. Firing up the cutting torch he had brought from the machine shop, he burned off a narrow strip of Detroit steel, allowing the heavy tank to drop into place. And then it was necessary to drill new holes for the bolts. He used only two. Before attaching the hose he ran the wire through the hose opening and beneath the car, and tied it into the Oldsmobile’s antenna.

  After that, he installed the Olds tank in the Bentley, connected the gas lines and filled both tanks.

  Back in his cabin as dawn was breaking, he showered and changed clothes and settled down to wait for the phone to ring.

  CHAPTER 6

  It rang just as he decided to make the call himself.

  Anne spoke in a hushed voice. “I called you before, Mike—no answer. I’ve been worrying.”

  “How is he?”

  “Asleep, but it’s not doing him much good.” She lowered her voice further. “I found a couple of capsules in his suitcase. I don’t know what they are—”

  “Get rid of them.”

  “We have to talk. Can I come to your cabin?”

  “No, stay with him. We’ll have to start being careful. I ran into somebody else who believes Little’s story, and this time a couple of shots were fired. I didn’t fire back. Somebody broke into my cabin earlier and took the bullets out of my gun. Those are the late developments. Stay under cover and don’t open the door to anybody.”

  “Mike, if you’re trying to scare me,” she said accusingly, “you’re succeeding.”

  “Fine. I’ve got something underway, and I think there’s a faint chance it will work. He’ll need some luck, but he already knows that.”

  “Can you tell me about it? I could use a little reassurance.”

  “Too many people know about parts of this already. He’s going to be closely watched when he comes off the ship. I don’t want to be seen with him, and the less he knows about it the better. I want him to look very jittery when he goes through Customs.”

  “I can guarantee that! Mike, one of the things I wanted to tell you—I won’t be available to hold anybody’s hand. My brother and sister-in-law are meeting me, damn it. He heard about my great romantic disappointment in England—dear God, how long ago it seems now—so he’s taking a week off to cheer me up. I have to keep George Blagden and Dr. Quentin Little in two absolutely separate compartments.”

  “That’s all right with me, but why?”

  “George works for a Washington think-tank that’s always being accused of being too liberal. You see the implications. I’ve told Quentin, and he understands. Mike, are you really telling me that we shouldn’t talk about this at all?”

  “I don’t even like this phone call. I’ll send down a bottle of vodka to help him through the day.”

  “There’s a delicate line there, Mike, if you want him to walk down the gangplank under his own power. He can drink for hours without showing it, and then all of a sudden he comes apart. Well, that’s a minor problem. I’ll use my judgment. I don’t know where we’re going to be staying, but can I call you?”

  “Call Mobile Operator Three. She’ll know how to reach me. If anything goes wrong, you’ll see it on television.”

  “God! And I wanted some reassurance. Goodbye, Mike. He’s waking up.”

  After a large breakfast, Shayne went to the communications center amidship and was assigned a booth. He placed a call to his friend Timothy Rourke, a crime and political reporter on the Miami News. The shoreside operator found him at the paper, working on a follow-up to the Bermuda story.

  “Been thinking about you, man,” Rourke said. “That was a cryptic press conference on the Hamilton dock. ‘The cops blew it.’ Needless to say, we used the line, but would you mind expanding on it a little?”

  “That’s yesterday’s news, Tim. Today I’m working on something else.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “So are other people, possibly. I’ll need my car. I left it at the airport—keys under the floormat. Will you send somebody out for it? And I want you to make one phone call for me. There’s a legislative research bureau in Washington I’ve used a couple of times. I don’t remember its name but you can look it up. I want to know about Public Law 1063, passed in May 1949. But I don’t want to start anybody thinking, so ask about three or four other acts at the same time. Pick some numbers at random. The title is all I need, never mind the details. Leave it in the glove compartment.”

  “May 1949, 1063. You don’t want to give me a small hint about what’s happening out there in the Atlantic?”

  “Not now. I hope you can arrange your social schedule so you can meet the boat. One other thing, Tim. Have a full tank of gas.”

  “That’s the Mike Shayne I’ve come to know. Curt. Concise. Uninformative. Have a nice day. I wish I was out on the water instead of having to sit inside staring at this goddamn electric typewriter. It doesn’t want to perform for me today.”

  After paying for the call, Shayne went up to the bridge, where Captain Stackpole greeted him cordially, making no reference to their middle-of-the-night conversation. Shayne wanted to know about the procedures for unloading passengers’ cars. This was a lengthy process, he was told. No one who had brought a car with him could hope to be free in much less than an hour.

  Shayne had another piece of unfinished business. He checked the passenger list for Jerry Diamond’s cabin number. Finding the door he wanted after some searching, he knocked.

  No one answered. He picked the lock and went in.

  Diamond was already partially packed. He traveled simply, with a single two-suiter suitcase. Apparently he had left England in a hurry; he had brought no underwear except whatever he was wearing at the moment. There were drops of dried blood in the bathroom, and several blood-stained tissues in the wastebasket.

  Shayne sat down to wait. Two cigarettes later, Diamond came in.

  He seemed tired. Seeing Shayne, he stopped short in the doorway, his eyes widening. That look fled instantly and he flashed a smile.

  “Mike! Hey! What did I do, leave the door unlocked? That was a great poker game, I seem to remember. I’m ashamed to say I had a few too many drinks.”

  He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt with the cuffs buttoned. The edge of a bandage protruded below the left cuff.

  “What happened to your arm?” Shayne asked. “You haven’t been getting into knife fights, have you?”

  “That,” Diamond said. “Too many boozies, I guess. I thought I’d have a nightcap and take a shower, but I shouldn’t have tried to do both at the same time. I slipped and the glass broke. It’s an easy trick. Anybody who tries hard enough can do it.”

  “Let me see your passport, Jerry.”

  Diamond frowned and said in a suddenly ugly voice, “What’s this private-detective business all of a sudden, Shayne?”

  “I want to see what countries you’ve been in lately. Just passing time.”

  “Do you know what you can do, detective? You can beat yo
ur meat somewhere else.”

  Shayne exploded upward and stood towering over the smaller man. Diamond checked himself after an involuntary step backward. After a moment’s hesitation he snaked out his passport and gave it to Shayne, who checked the visas. Before coming to England, Diamond had been in Egypt and Syria.

  Tossing the passport onto the bureau, Shayne took the front of Diamond’s shirt and walked him back against the wall. Diamond’s breath came out in a warm puff. Shayne went over him for weapons and then checked his wallet. He was carrying three $1,000 bills, but nothing else of interest except a credit card in another name.

  “Somebody tried to beat me up last night,” he said. “I don’t know why. Maybe they got the wrong man. That doesn’t make me like it any better.”

  His knife came out. The blade snicked open and Diamond cringed away, raising an arm.

  “Shayne, for God’s sake, will you think about what you’re doing?”

  Shayne flipped open Diamond’s passport and began cutting out the picture.

  “The same thing happened to mine last night, and it’s a cute idea. Unless you’re carrying a spare, you’ll have trouble getting through Immigration. I’ll shoot this up to Washington and see if you’re wanted for anything important. If the answer is yes, I’d advise you to move fast and stay out of everybody’s way.”

  “I’ll stay out of your way, believe me,” Diamond said fervently. “I never like to tangle with psychopaths. Believe me, Shayne, you’re the one who’s making a mistake. I’ve never beaten up anybody in my life. It’s one of the things I don’t happen to do.”

  “In that case I’m wrong,” Shayne said, “but I’ll hold the apology for now.”

  The Queen Elizabeth moved regally up the Cut as the sun was setting behind the Miami skyline. To the north, Miami Beach was beginning to light up for the night. The fire ships were out, spouting a welcome. Tugs warped the big ship into place with special care. A large welcoming crowd waved from the dock.