Count Backwards to Zero

by Brett Halliday

  Diamond drove him to the block where he had left his Buick. Diamond wanted to continue talking about their various options, but every time he started to speak Shayne cut him short.

  “I have to think about the best way to do this. Shut up and keep moving.”

  When Shayne changed cars, Diamond warned him again that he would be kept under close watch, and any attempt at treachery would be followed by instant retribution.

  “Diamond, it’s lucky we need each other, because you’re beginning to bug me.”

  Shayne locked the package of money in the strongbox welded to the floor beneath his front seat. Diamond preceded him in the Mustang. The two others in Diamond’s party followed in the Dodge.

  The phone rang before Shayne turned the first corner.

  “I gave Miss Blagden your message,” his operator said. “She promised to be there. Now here’s Chief Gentry.”

  “Mike,” Gentry’s voice said.

  “Yeah. I was probably rude to you the last time we talked. I take it all back.”

  “I stand by every word I said. I’ve got the district FBI director and two of the Highway Patrol brass in my office. I need some factual information for a change, and I’m beginning to think I won’t get it unless you’re physically apprehended and brought in.”

  “Is there a call out for me?”

  “Not yet. I wanted to ask you nicely one more time. Will you please come in and enlighten me about how a knife I gave you for Christmas came to end up in a British scientist’s stomach?”

  “Look for another knife in a room upstairs. Ivory handle. That’s the one that killed him. Have the medical examiner measure the depth of the wound. My knife won’t go that deep.”

  “Mike, will you please come in and dictate a statement on that? Now there’s the second time I said please, and it’s the last time. But I’ll bait the request. We have something from Washington about Diamond.”

  Shayne said quickly, “Tell me, Will. I had a gun at my head ten minutes ago, and right now I’m sandwiched between two cars with three men in them. They wouldn’t let me come in even if I wanted to. I’d be shot coming up the steps. I’ve got a minute and a half at the most. I’m picking up new bits all the time. There are two groups of people, and all I know about them is that they’re out for blood. Diamond thinks I committed that murder, and also killed a witness. He thinks it gives him a handle. That same pitch won’t work with the other side. I have to think up something entirely different. I need everything you’ve got, Will, believe me. Come on, come on!”

  A faint crackling came from the phone.

  Then Gentry said decisively, “All right, the hell with everybody. What can they do, after all, put me in jail? The fingerprints did it. Diamond’s only one of his names. He’s in demand. Washington wanted to know where I got those prints, and I had to tell them.”

  “Forty-five seconds or less.”

  “He’s in free-lance intelligence. Gets hold of something and peddles it around. He’s had a couple of big hits. On retainer for one of the American oil companies. A month ago he was seen in a Cairo bank that handles Egyptian intelligence payments. There’s a tip that he’s working for the Arab side in the Arab-Israeli hassle, another tip that he was in England putting together an organization. That’s all.”

  Without saying goodbye, Shayne dropped the phone and pulled up at the corner where he had arranged to meet Anne. The Mustang continued through the light to the other side of the intersection. Shayne didn’t look for the Dodge. It was behind him, he knew.

  Leaving his motor running, he took the cognac bottle from his glove compartment and drank.

  After another long moment, Anne stepped out of a doorway and crossed the sidewalk. She looked exactly as good as she had on the Queen Elizabeth, as elegant, as self-assured, as unruffled.

  “Mike Shayne,” she said, getting in beside him. “We’re back together. I love you.”

  “No car? What’s happening?”

  She put her hand in her open purse and raised it between them. “I’ve got a gun, Mike, and it shoots very hard. So stand at ease.”

  “Everybody has guns but me. I gave mine away.”

  “Don’t go anywhere,” she said as Shayne went into gear. “There’s somebody I want you to meet.”

  Shayne remained with his forearms resting on the steering wheel, as the rear door opened and a man came into the car. Shayne glanced at him casually. It was the same man who had met Anne at the pier.

  “You must be Sam Geller.”

  “That’s right,” the man said. “And if you know that much you know what we want, and you know you’ll be killed if you give us any trouble.”

  Keeping the clutch depressed, Shayne gave Geller a more searching look. At this range, it could be seen that he combed his black hair forward to cover a receding hairline. He had good skin and a pleasant expression.

  “I didn’t know people at your level got involved in anything this messy, Geller. And where you get the goddamn gall to come into Miami and tell me I’ll be killed if I give you any trouble—You know it can still go either way. The cops had to be told some of it. I’m sorry about that, but I kept it to a minimum.”

  “We’ll be all right if we go on being careful.”

  Shayne snorted. “Careful? You people have been behaving like madmen. The elusive Sam Geller wouldn’t be here in person unless it was really big. My price is going up by the minute.”

  “Does that mean you have it?” Geller said quickly.

  “No, but I think I know where it is. You’ve broken every rule in the goddamn—”

  Geller was leaning forward tensely. Without completing his sentence or looking back toward the street, Shayne released the clutch and came down hard on the gas. He was braced for the sudden acceleration, but Geller was hurled backward, arms out and feet off the floor.

  At the same instant Shayne hit a dashboard button releasing a spurt of pepper gas from a nozzle set in the back of the front seat. The incapacitating spray fanned out on a flat plane and caught Geller squarely. He screamed and clutched his eyes.

  Shayne swung the wheel, taking an abrupt left into 54th Street. He shifted smoothly, moving up to the extreme limit of the gear, passed a slow-moving pickup truck, and as he came back he whipped around against the pressure of the seat belt and slashed the helpless man across the face with his closed fist. The blow stunned Geller, anesthetizing him against the pain he was surely feeling.

  Through the rear window, at the same moment, Shayne saw the Dodge jump the light and come after him. Diamond, in the Mustang, would have to make a U-turn to follow.

  Anne had her gun out, steadying her right hand with her left. “Pull over, Mike! I’m going to shoot.”

  Shayne sawed at the wheel. “Diamond’s right behind us. Two cars. Baby, there’s just one way.” He reached around with his left hand and unlatched the rear door. “Dump him. Get rid of him.”

  “Pull over this minute!”

  “Diamond has three men. They’re all armed. If you want to shoot it out with that little automatic, fine. You’ll do it alone. Geller can’t see. Don’t count on me for anything.”

  She looked away from him, out the rear window.

  “If I pull over,” Shayne snarled, “you’d better start running. Give them Geller! We don’t need him. You and I can swing this alone. Move, damn it! Get over and dump him.”

  The gas supply, blown by the same kind of gadget that sprayed window-cleaning fluid onto the windshield, was used up. All the windows were open, but Shayne’s eyes were tearing. Geller, dazed and whimpering, had his face in his hands. He was swaying, about to fall.

  Shayne yelled at Anne again. She made up her mind in an instant as the Mustang came out of a screaming turn. Swinging all the way around on her knees, she reached over and gave Geller a hard sideward push.

  He toppled against the unlatched door, knocking it out of Shayne’s hand. He grabbed out desperately and caught the door. She chopped at his fingers with the gun barrel wh
ile Shayne swerved from side to side, swinging the blinded man out of the car. Fenders clashed, and Geller spilled out on the street with a scream.

  A horn blared behind them. Tires squealed.

  Shayne accelerated. Responding, the door slammed shut. He watched the mirror. The pickup truck behind him slewed across two lanes to avoid striking the fallen man. The Dodge skidded to a stop and Diamond’s men erupted from it. Shayne thought he caught the wink of a gun, but he couldn’t be sure; too much else was happening.

  In high gear, the Buick slid through the Second Avenue cross-traffic like a fish. At the next corner Shayne signaled for a right, and swung left abruptly between the oncoming cars. In this maze of courts and terraces, he could lose anything but a bumper-to-bumper pursuit, and both the Dodge and the Mustang were caught in the tangle created by Geller’s fall from the car.

  “God,” Anne said. “You startled me into that. I hope it was right.”

  “It wasn’t the right thing, it was the only thing, sweetheart. He wouldn’t have been any good in a fight. That’s the first time I used that pepper gas gimmick. I wasn’t sure it would work.”

  She glanced at him, her eyes watering. “It worked.”

  He was taking turns on the outside of his tires. At 62nd Street he began to ease up, turned east and picked up Biscayne Boulevard.

  “Sorry I didn’t have more time to chat with him,” Shayne said. “I understand he’s had an interesting career. How have things been since I saw you?”

  “Hectic,” she said briefly. “Mike—”

  “Let me do this my way. It has to be done exactly right. I’ve just been told that Diamond’s working for the Arabs. That clears up a few things about you. What we’ve been arguing about really is a bomb, isn’t it?”

  “Of course. I thought you realized that.”

  “Well, it’s a change for me. Usually the client comes in with a plausible story, and I gradually find out he’s lying. You’d be surprised how often that happens. This time it’s the exact opposite. I didn’t believe it to begin with, and now I have to.”

  “Mike, I can’t help being nervous. Shouldn’t we talk about what to do next?”

  “Ordinarily. But this isn’t an ordinary situation.”

  He had continued to drive north on Biscayne, moving with the traffic. Now he turned in under a blinking neon arrow pointing to a large illuminated sign, Flamingo Springs Motel.

  The Vacancy light was on. He parked in an open slot in front of the office. Anne watched him, puzzled but saying nothing.

  “I’ll have to explain,” he said. “It may take me a minute, because it’s such a damned uncharacteristic thing for me to be doing.”

  “Mike—”

  “No, wait. I don’t know how much a bomb like that is worth in terms of money. It isn’t something you pick up in the A & P. With Geller and Diamond bidding against each other, it could be a fantastic deal for the man in the middle. Look at it that way, and every minute counts. Something can happen to one of the bidders. He can die, for example. If all I cared about was money—and that’s an incredible remark coming from me—I would have held onto Geller. I’d ask him to give me a price, then I’d find out how Diamond reacted, and let it go to the side that could produce the most cash. But it’s not that simple.”

  She relaxed slightly. He touched her knee.

  “I want us to do this together, Anne. Between Israel and the Arabs, you must know which side I’m on. But that’s not the important thing.” His hand moved along her leg. “Is it?”

  She forced herself to respond, but he could feel her tension.

  “It’s the important thing to me, the only important thing. It’s my life. I see what you mean—dimly—and you realize how much I’m attracted to you. But right now we have to—I feel—”

  She made a distracted gesture.

  “It’s time to stop rushing,” Shayne said. “Everybody’s been doing too much of that. I want to stop and start over. We should have been working together all along. I want to get a room. All right?”

  The hand that a few moments ago had been pointing a gun at him reached up to touch the harsh stubble at the edge of his jaw.

  “Mike, tomorrow and the next day and the week after that. But not now. You can come out with us on the plane, or tell me where you want me to meet you.” She shivered. “But God, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could?”

  “We can,” he assured her. “Let’s invest a few minutes and establish that we’re really on the same side. Then we can talk about it.”

  She hesitated. “I think I’m too wound up. I wish I could.”

  “Let’s try,” he said gently. “If we sit here firing questions we’ll never get anywhere. We don’t have to press too hard. See what happens.”

  After a moment she nodded. “It doesn’t feel right to me, but if you think it would help—”

  Touching the back of her neck, he guided her in against him. They kissed. At the same time, with his left hand, he reached along the steering column and pulled the ignition fuse.

  “Darling,” he said.

  He went into the office. The woman on duty was the wife of an old friend.

  “Mike Shayne, in the flesh,” she exclaimed. “I put your girl in Room 22, on the balcony. But isn’t she a little young for you?”

  “Patsy, you’ve been reading too many dirty novels,” Shayne said. “I want another room. Keep looking at me. There’s a girl outside in my car. If she slides over into the driver’s seat, tell me. Let me have a registration card.” Shayne scribbled his name and paid for the room. “Is the other girl still here?”

  “Miss Cecily Little, of Camberwell, England. She came in a few minutes ago for ice cubes. Before that she was phoning like crazy.”

  “Who to?” Shayne said quickly.

  “I didn’t write them down—all Miami calls.”

  Shayne thought briefly. “Do something for me, Patsy. If she phones again, ring me and cut me in on the call. Can you do that?”

  “I can, but would it be ethical?”

  “Absolutely, especially if nobody knows about it. And can you watch the stairway for me? I want to know right away if she goes out. Some fairly important things are riding on this, including my health and well being. How many rooms do you still have vacant?”

  “Two, Mike. Business has been slow all week.”

  He added two more twenties to the bills on the counter. “Put up your No Vacancy sign so you can concentrate. Give me two quick rings if she goes out.”

  “Don’t worry, Mike,” she said, impressed. “If I have to go to the bathroom or anything, I’ll get Pete to stand in for me.”

  She gave him the key to a ground-floor room. He took it back to the car, with a plastic container of ice cubes, dropped the key on the floor, and while he was retrieving it, replaced the fuse.

  “Can you drink cognac? It’s all I have.”

  “Mike, do we have time for a drink? It seems more and more impossible that this can really be happening.”

  He moved the Buick into the slanted opening in front of their room, and took the cognac out of the glove compartment before locking the car. Inside, they saw the usual motel furniture, the principal item, of course, being beds.

  Anne stood nervously at the side of one bed, holding her purse in both hands, while Shayne made the drinks.

  “Mike, this is ridiculous. I’ve never felt less sexually inclined in my life.”

  “People say it’s relaxing. We need to relax.”

  He held out a glass. She took it, and came in against him to hug him with her free arm.

  “Mike, I’m a dedicated girl. I’ve been doing this work for two and a half years, and nothing remotely like this has ever happened. Most of the time it’s been paperwork, going through technical journals, not the way the novelists describe it at all. And now all at once—”

  She gestured with her glass, and drank some cognac. She coughed.

  “I’m not that much of a drinker,” she explained.

>   Setting the drink on the bedside table, she unbuttoned her blouse. A sensible girl, she was wearing nothing underneath. She killed the light and continued undressing in the dark.

  “I’m also a little shy, you’ll find,” she said. “Of course you’ve already seen me undressed. In your cabin on the Queen?”

  “I remember it well. If I hadn’t just been jumped by those two guys, I would have been more polite.”

  “My feelings weren’t hurt. Mike, don’t dawdle. I think I see what you’re driving at, but try to understand how I feel, too. I hear clocks ticking all around me.”

  He had poured three fingers of cognac into one of the drinking glasses the motel provided inside a paper envelope. He drank it in one pull, waited till he could feel it begin to course through his body, and began deliberately to undress.

  Unable to wait, she came to help. Their fingers became tangled. As his clothes came off she kissed him impatiently. But when he came down on the bed beside her the tempo changed.

  Presently they were moving easily together, everything synchronizing nicely. He heard a phone ringing in his Buick, outside the window, but whoever that was would have to wait. At the end, completely at ease with him, Anne was laughing softly against his face.

  CHAPTER 14

  “You were right,” she said as they separated. “So incredibly right, Michael. I’m in a different time zone.”

  “Do you mind if I turn on a light?”

  “No, dear.”

  He snapped on the bedside light and found his cigarettes, which had spilled out of the package onto the floor. He poured more cognac for himself before joining her against the pillows.

  “Even so, we rushed it a bit, didn’t we? Next time will be better. God, I love the way you feel.” She smiled and touched him.

  They lit cigarettes.

  “Now,” he said, breathing out smoke. “About Geller. How long you’ve been with him, how you found out about all this.”

  “I wish we didn’t have to talk about anybody but us, but I’m not that carried away, I guess. Did you hear your car phone a few minutes ago, or did I imagine it?”