The phone rang as he was about to leave the car. He picked it up and snapped, “I’ll call you back in a minute.” He added after returning the phone to its clamp, “If everybody’s very lucky.”
“We’re going to be lucky,” Anne assured him. “I have that feeling. If I have to do it without you, I’ll do it without you.”
He cut his lights, hearing a vague rumbling noise from the street as the bed of the big dump truck came up.
There were no midblock street lights in this part of town, but the scene was well lighted by the two pairs of headlights. The open ground between the warehouses was weedy and rubble-strewn. Anne, in her heels, stumbled and clutched Shayne’s shoulder. She continued to hold him.
“Mike, please help,” she whispered. “We’ll pay you very well. Please. What will you do if I’m killed?”
“Call the FBI and let them mop it up.”
“I hate you. I hate you.”
Reaching the corner of the building, she stopped and looked out carefully. The truck bed was all the way up, and the rubbish container was beginning to slide. The end of the container broke open, and trash spilled out on the street. The truck driver was facing his vehicle, his hands against the cab door. Dessau stood a few feet behind him, holding a long-barreled Luger.
“Find some rope somewhere,” Dessau called. “We’ve got to tie this chap up.”
“Now,” Anne whispered. “Mike?”
He shook his head. “As I’ve been telling you, it isn’t my war.”
“You’ll feel sorry if it doesn’t work out.”
“Why should I?” he said softly.
She jerked away from him and walked into the open. Dessau didn’t notice her till she was ten feet from him, and then all he saw was an exceptionally attractive darkhaired girl in a blouse and skirt, the blouse unbuttoned part of the way down.
Following Shayne’s advice, she didn’t hurry. She held her open bag lightly in one hand.
“Something wrong?” she asked pleasantly. “Can I help?” The boy in the upraised truck bed called suddenly, “Watch out, I know her, it’s—”
Dessau’s gun started to come around. Anne fired through the bottom of her bag and the bullet struck him in the chest. She fired again after another step. Dessau fell. She continued up to him and twisted the Luger out of his hand.
The driver looked back over his shoulder, his mouth wide.
“Keep your hands where they are,” Anne said coolly. “Everybody go on with what you were doing. Now, isn’t there a girl around here somewhere?”
Cecily, who had been crouching on the far side of the Ford, broke for the shadows between the warehouses, where she collided with Shayne.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay at that motel?” Shayne said.
“Mr. Shayne,” she said stupidly. “What are you doing here?”
“Mike, you’ll help me, won’t you,” Anne said, “now that the shooting’s over?”
“I’ll watch, thanks. You’re doing OK.” Bringing Cecily out into the light, he looked at the boy in the truck. “Do what she says, kid. She’s got all the guns and she’s a soldier.”
Taking Cecily with him, he walked up to Dessau. As the wounded man looked up from the curb, a bright red bubble broke from his mouth and dripped into the gutter.
“Can you talk?” Shayne said.
“If you say one word, Dessau,” Anne said calmly, “I’ll put a bullet in your head, but with the Luger this time, and blow it apart.”
She had taken a backward step so she could watch them all. With both guns, she looked very formidable. She gestured to the boy, but before he could respond the container resumed its slide, breaking apart as it hit the street.
“Driver,” she said curtly. “I need you. Do precisely what I say and don’t make any quick movements because I seem to be getting more and more tense. I’m working a very tricky equation. Mike, what I want you to do—and I’m not asking any more, I’m telling you—is get some of those rags from the trash and tie up the girl. Do a good job of it, hands and feet. I’ll check in a minute, and if the knot isn’t tight I’ll shoot you.”
She told the driver to join the boy and hunt for a discarded gas tank. Shayne found a rag and started tearing it into strips. Cecily, very meek, put her hands behind her and let Shayne tie her wrists.
“I don’t know what this is all about,” she complained.
“Gag her,” Anne added. “I don’t like that whine.”
The boy and the truck driver found the tank and worked it into view.
“This mother’s heavy,” the driver said, surprised.
“Put it in the Ford,” Anne said, and repeated, “in the Ford.”
They began to lift it. The boy’s grip slipped and it clanked heavily to the pavement.
Cecily squealed, “For Christ’s sake, be careful! You know what’s in it.”
They staggered past Shayne carrying the tank. He was inserting a gag in Cecily’s mouth.
Anne took two quick steps one way and then another.
“I won’t ask for advice,” she said, biting her lip. “I ought to be able to work this by myself. Nobody else will be shot,” she said as the others came back, panting, “if you all do what I tell you. Dessau is an intelligence agent, and he knew what he was letting himself in for. None of the rest of you are that involved, but you realize that I won’t hesitate to kill you if you force me to. Mike Shayne will tell you I mean what I say.”
“She means what she says,” he agreed.
She told Shayne to bind and gag the driver, then the boy, and to drag them between the warehouses. Cecily and Dessau were next. Then Shayne himself lay down and let her truss him up, using the stockings from her purse.
“Mike’s car,” Shayne heard her say under her breath.
She swung up into the cab of the truck and cut the lights. Coming down, she put a bullet into the two front tires and the radiator.
Before she left she stooped beside Shayne. “I liked what happened at the motel, Mike, but I truly hate you.”
Her lips brushed his cheek.
The next thing he heard was the roar of the Ford’s motor. She turned at the next corner, heading for the unloading area at the rear of the warehouses, where Shayne had left his car.
Shayne rolled, kicking a weight off his legs. Hearing Dessau’s harsh breathing, he wriggled in that direction.
Light glowed suddenly as Anne, in the Ford, turned in through the broken gate. Shayne saw Dessau lying on his side. The big man’s neck was unnaturally twisted and his teeth were bloody.
Shayne rolled again, twisting, and jack-knifed himself over Dessau’s feet and back along his body until their hands touched. Shayne was making half-sounds through his gag. He thought he felt Dessau’s hand pull away slightly. Groping, he worked the knot in the stocking against Dessau’s fingers.
There were three more shots from the rear of the warehouse, then the sound of the Ford leaving. A moment later it passed on the street, moving fast. A horn tooted twice, derisively.
Dessau, of them all, had the most to gain by getting loose. Shayne willed his fingers to move. They were flaccid and unresponsive. Dessau’s breath was whistling feebly in his throat.
Shayne shifted position, aware that he had very little time. Now he thought he felt a faint answering pressure. He tightened his shoulders and began working his wrists back and forth. He had two of Dessau’s fingers in one hand, the thumb in the other, and for a moment he was able to work them almost as extensions of his own. He felt the stocking around his wrists begin to loosen.
Now he was able to pull at the knot in the cloth strip around Dessau’s wrists. Shayne had tied the knot himself, and in the end Anne had neglected to check it. After a moment’s tense fumbling he succeeded in picking it apart. Dessau rolled. Shayne felt hands at his wrists.
He held still and counted backwards from twenty-five. His hands were free before the count reached zero.
After that it was only a moment, and Shayne was up and running,
tearing at the gag. He tripped on something and went sprawling, and felt a jagged piece of metal bite into his hand.
The Buick’s two front tires had been shot out. Fluid was leaking from a hole in the radiator. The phone had been ripped out by the roots and thrown away.
Nevertheless, when Shayne hit the switch, the motor caught instantly.
He came back fast through the open gate, running well enough on the rims as long as he moved in a straight line. But he barely cleared the side of the warehouse as he came about, heeling over, fighting the wheel.
He knew this part of town well. Plotting the straightest, shortest line to the nearest phone, he bounced over the railroad tracks and continued inland.
The red warning lights on the dashboard were on. The motor was hammering. Shayne kept the gas pedal all the way down even as he felt the car beginning to lose power. Steam swirled up across the windshield and up around his feet.
He was in a neighborhood of unoccupied buildings and vacant lots. Each new bump flattened the rims further and the ride became increasingly rough. The steering wheel seemed to be trying to tear itself out of his hands.
He saw lights ahead.
Waves of heat rolled back into the car. He saw an outside phone booth, and the Buick nearly reached it before the head gasket blew. Even then he kept going, bucking to a stop, smoking a few yards short of the booth.
He leaped out, feeling in his pockets for change. They were empty.
He uttered one single explosive epithet, swerved without breaking stride, and ran onto the porch of the nearest house. He kicked out a glass panel. Reaching in, he opened the front door. Before he could find a light switch, he had kicked over an umbrella stand and a chair. The phone was all the way through in the kitchen.
The Miami Police Headquarters had recently installed separate numbers for each extension. Shayne dialed Will Gentry’s number, and the police chief picked up the phone promptly.
“It’s Shayne. This has to be fast. Listen carefully. There’s a Lear Jet-Star at Opa-Locka, in front of the second hangar to the right in General Aviation. Buzz Yale can point it out to you. It absolutely can’t be allowed to take off. Call the tower. Tell them to hold up air clearance, and block the runway. Fake a collision—yeah. But I don’t want the people in that airplane to know they’ve been spotted. I’ll hold.”
There was a rustle in the doorway. A woman stepped into view, holding a shotgun in a businesslike manner. She was tall, wearing rumpled yellow pajamas, her dark hair in curlers, large horn-rimmed glasses halfway down her nose.
“What is—” she demanded hoarsely, then cleared her throat and started over. “Who are you and just what do you think you’re doing?”
Shayne held up his hand, palm out. “I’ll show you my credentials, but to do that I have to put this hand in my pocket. Don’t pull the trigger.”
He brought out his wallet and shook it open to show his detective’s license. She didn’t look away from his face.
“I’ve seen your picture,” she said. “You’re Michael Shayne. And I’d like to know how being a private detective entitles you to break into strange houses in the middle of the night.”
“I had to use your phone, and I didn’t have time to ring the doorbell and go through a long song and dance. I’ll see that everything’s fixed.”
She lowered the shotgun muzzle and pushed her glasses further up her nose. “All right, since you ask me so charmingly, feel free to use the phone.”
“Thanks.”
Gentry came back on. “That’s taken care of. They didn’t ask for an explanation, but I’m going to. That is, if you have a moment.”
“There’s one other thing we have to get out of the way, Will. Is the FBI still hanging over you?”
“Breathing heavily.”
“We’ve got some picking up to do, and I think we can let them help.”
He told Gentry where he could find Cecily Little and the three others. One of the three would be needing an ambulance.
“Now I have one more call while that’s getting underway,” Shayne said. “Keep this line open. I’ll get back to you.”
“Mike, make it a promise.”
Shayne sighed. “Unless the lady here decides to let me have it with a twenty-gauge shotgun, I promise I’ll call you.”
The shotgun, in fact, was leaning in a corner, and the lady had turned on the heat under a kettle on the stove and was casually taking out her curlers.
Shayne dialed the number of his mobile operator and identified himself.
“Has anybody named Jerry Diamond called me?”
“Yes, indeed, Mr. Shayne.”
Shayne’s grip tightened. He had been on first-name terms with this girl for months. Unknown to the telephone company, she worked for him as a kind of combined secretary and answering service. He took her to dinner occasionally, and had loaned her father money to open a liquor store.
He said carefully, “If I can’t get in touch with the guy I’ll have to let the cops have him. He won’t like that.”
Diamond’s voice broke in. “I’m on, bastard,” he said roughly. “That was quite a trick there, dumping Sam Geller to slow us down. Like throwing the baby to the wolves. I’ve been waiting for your number to light up. You know what’s going to happen if you don’t stop trying to finagle me? You’re going to end up dead.”
“I told you I have to do this my own way. If you want to waste time trading threats, go ahead. It’s supposed to be good to get things off your chest. What else is bothering you?”
Diamond hesitated. “You had something to tell me.”
“Do you want me to apologize for dumping Geller? That was a spur-of-the-moment idea. Those cars of yours stood out like fire engines, and I don’t like to be that conspicuous. You probably know that your man Dessau has been dealing for the gas tank with Little’s daughter. Has he asked you for your bid yet?”
“No,” Diamond said tightly. “Does he have it?”
“He did have it, but Anne Blagden took it away, all by herself. A neat little guerrilla operation.”
“If you’re crapping me, Shayne—Where is she?”
“On the way to the airport by now. She’s in a rented black Ford. She has to pick up two of her people at the Queen Elizabeth, and then she has a few traffic lights before she hits the expressway. If you hurry, maybe you can get there first.”
“Which airport, Opa-Locka?”
“I think so. The arrangements have all been made there. Would you like me to describe the plane for you and tell you where to find it?”
“Yes!”
“And if you take it away from her, you won’t forget you owe me another thirty-six thousand?”
“Of course not. We’ll be leaving from Miami International. Hubble Oil Company, executive jet. Meet me there.”
“That sounds believable, and I think I’ll believe it.”
He repeated the directions he had already given Gentry, and wished Diamond luck.
A moment later the operator was back on the line.
“He flew out of here so fast, Mike! He’s been pacing up and down behind me for fifteen minutes. My hands are so slippery I can hardly hold the phone.”
“Baby, you’re always a great help,” Shayne said. “Everybody’s offering me money today, and I’ll steer some of it your way.”
“Oh, well. He did have a wild look, but I knew he wouldn’t shoot me. It was the idea of it more than anything. I’m glad you’re all right.”
“We aren’t home yet. Get me Will Gentry. No, wait a minute. I forgot I’m not in the car. I can dial it myself.”
Across the kitchen, his involuntary hostess was setting out cups. “Do you want some coffee?”
He looked at her in surprise. Without the curlers, her hair fell softly to her shoulders. Her face shone with some kind of oil. She had laid her glasses aside, and all at once she was an amazingly handsome woman.
“I’m not going anyplace right away,” Shayne said. “My car’s got two flat whe
els and a blown engine. What’s your name?”
“Sarah. Cream and sugar?”
“Just black, Sarah.”
He watched her, still astonished by the sudden transformation. Shaking his head, he dialed Gentry’s number.
“While we’re rounding up people,” Shayne said, “we might as well include everybody. I wouldn’t want Jerry Diamond to feel left out. He and two others are going to try to take over the Jet-Star. Now be careful, Will. Don’t move till they start shooting. Depending on what happened to a guy named Sam Geller, that may be the only charge against Diamond we can make stick.”
“Sam Geller?”
“Yeah, did you find him?”
“We pulled him out of a smashed-up car. He’s got a broken neck, but he’s expected to live.”
“Hold on a minute.” Shayne covered the phone and spoke to the woman at the stove. “How’s it happen you’re the one who comes downstairs with the shotgun? No man in the house?”
“No man in the house,” she said without looking toward him, “unfortunately.”
When he lifted the phone again, it was apparent at once that something new was happening in Gentry’s office. He heard an excited babble. His own name came through clearly. Other phones were ringing.
An authoritative voice, close to the open phone, told Gentry, “Enough is enough, Chief. Start talking or you’re under arrest.”
“In my own headquarters,” Gentry said mildly. “I’d never live it down.”
The other voice snapped, “Where’s Mike Shayne?”
“Somewhere around town. He keeps calling in. Now if you don’t mind, this call’s confidential!”
“Confidential!” the other man roared.
Gentry spoke into the phone. “Give me your number. I’ll call back as soon as some of the dust settles here.” Shayne read the number from the dial and hung up.
The woman held out the coffee. “Airplanes. FBI men. Shooting. What’s going on, is the public permitted to know?”
Shayne took the cup and kicked a stool over within reach of the phone.
“I don’t know how much will get in the papers. There’s going to be quite a bit of pressure to keep it quiet. How long have you lived around here?”
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