Painter backed out of the Buick, wiping his fingers on an immaculate handkerchief. That completed, he returned the handkerchief to the breast pocket of his coat, and flicked his thumbnail across his mustache in two quick outward strokes.
He turned to Shayne. “You said you never saw him before?” he asked, with obvious disbelief.
“That’s right.”
“I’ll reserve judgment on that,” Painter said. “But let’s say we accept it for the sake of argument. Who hired him to plant a bomb under your dashboard?”
“You think that’s what happened, Petey—excuse me, I mean Chief?”
“It’s obvious,” Painter said condescendingly. “You may not have noticed that there are two loose wires leading from the ignition. Subject to correction from the laboratory, I’d say the explosive used was probably an adhesive lump of demolition plastic, with a detonating cap. His hand slipped when he was tying in the wires, and it blew up in his face.”
Shayne was silent, and Painter studied him suspiciously. “Have you any other idea?”
Shayne rubbed his calloused palm across the stubble on his jaw. “No-o. You’re probably right.”
“Well, if you do have, come out with it. The wise thing for you to do is cooperate, Shayne, cooperate all the way, or you’ll wish you had.”
When the private detective still didn’t answer, Painter snapped, “Let’s get this thing organized. I want some good clear pictures of the body in its present position. Squire,” he said sharply to one of his assistants, “who’s in charge of this parking lot?”
Squire passed the request along to another detective, who dug the attendant out of the crowd. Shayne posted himself in an inconspicuous spot between the cars, where he could hear the questions and answers. The lot had been cleared of onlookers, but the sidewalk was jammed, and Shayne noticed that there was no attempt to keep the crowd moving. Painter liked to perform before an audience, the efficient police officer getting to the bottom of a difficult case. More police cars had arrived, and an ambulance clanged to a stop. Tim Rourke, the cynical, unkempt Daily News reporter, got out of a taxi and pushed past the detectives.
He came up to Shayne, his quick, intense gaze darting from Shayne’s damaged Buick to the dead boy inside. “I see you’re still in one piece, Mike,” he remarked, pushing his hat back from his forehead. “You had a little luck.”
“Shut up,” Shayne told him. “I want to hear this.”
“Where abouts are you posted?” Painter asked the attendant, after the man had given his name and address.
“Right up front there,” the attendant said, rolling the dead cigar in his mouth. “Most of the time.”
“Suppose you tell me your procedure,” Painter said.
“My what? Oh, I get you. You mean with the tickets. I just stick it in their windshield wiper and give them the other half. They’re supposed to get it stamped by the lady in the restaurant. When they drive out, if I don’t see no stamp, I charge them. You don’t have to eat dinner in the Seafarer to use the lot, only it’s free if you do.”
“Could anybody get by you, without your seeing them?”
“This is my busy time of night, and I don’t have eyes in the back of my head. And when you come right down to it, a person could shinny over the back fence.”
Pursing his lips, Painter looked at the brick wall at the rear of the lot, which was about shoulder-high. The boy could have scaled it easily, and reached the Buick without being observed. Or he could have walked in with someone who was coming to claim another car.
The photographers, one from the police department and the rest from the newspapers, finished with the body. The ambulance men lifted it out of the car and laid it on a stretcher. The youth’s blue jeans were turned up a good six inches at the cuffs, and his brown-and-white shoes had rundown heels and holes in the soles. Shayne studied the worn shoes.
“Take a good look at that face,” Painter said to the attendant. “Did you notice him going past?”
The fat man had turned pale. He wiped his fingertips across his forehead and shook his head.
“Well, speak up,” Painter said. “Haven’t you ever seen a dead body before? Did you notice him or didn’t you?”
“No,” the attendant said faintly.
Someone was sobbing in the crowd. Painter savored the moment. He was smiling, to show his public that he was at his ease with corpses and accustomed to the presence of violent death. A flashbulb went off. He gave orders to cover the bloody body.
“Anything in the pockets?” he asked.
“Nothing to identify him,” Squire answered. “A knife and some loose change.”
“Get a morgue shot,” Painter said briskly. “Head and shoulders. Blanket the neighborhood with it. Somebody must have seen him. I want a fast identification. He’s about high school age, I’d judge. Show the picture to the principals of every high school and trade school on both sides of the bay. Get their home addresses from the Board of Education, and rush it.”
Another detective was told off to see that the Buick was towed to the police garage, where Painter wanted it gone over carefully. He smoothed down his little mustache, and turned to Shayne.
“What we’d better do now,” he said. “We’d better go over to headquarters and have a little heart-to-heart chat.”
“There’s not much I can tell you, Petey,” Shayne said absently.
“I’m not at all surprised to hear that,” Painter said with satisfaction. “Although I’d prefer to put it that there’s not much you want to tell us. I’d be astonished by any other attitude. But I’ll remind you that an attempt has been made on your life. If and when a second attempt is made, and if and when such an attempt proves successful, no doubt certain elements in the sensational press—” he looked at Rourke, who returned the look innocently—“no doubt certain so-called crusading journalists, and I use the words inside quotation marks, will charge the police with laxity and indifference. You maintain that you know nothing about this, Shayne? Very well, I want that denial on record.”
“Petey, you kill me,” Shayne said. “Which is more important, that you score a few points, or find out who murdered this kid?”
“What do you mean?” Painter demanded. “He died by misadventure, in the performance of a felony. How do you make that murder?”
Going to the front seat of the car, Shayne leaned in and ran his hand over the torn upholstery, his eyes cold and hard. The full force of the blast, confined by metal on two sides, had been directed upward and outward. The driver would have died the instant he turned the ignition key. And anyone sitting beside the driver would have been maimed, if not also killed. Shayne knew Lucy’s habits. Getting into the front seat of the Buick after a long, pleasant dinner, concluding with a coffee royal and a final shot of the Seafarer’s best brandy, she would have slid in close against him, perhaps squeezing his arm just before he reached out for the ignition.
There were knots of muscle at the hinges of Shayne’s jaw. He stooped to look at the floor.
The rubber floor mat had been ripped away in places, and the metal was exposed. Without thinking, Shayne clicked the dashboard switch, but of course the wiring had shorted out. He unlocked the glove compartment and brought out a flashlight. After a moment’s search on the floor he picked up a short length of insulated cable with a loop of naked wire on each end.
He showed it to Painter. “Do you want to change your opinion?”
“I’m no mechanic,” Painter said. “What is it, part of the wiring? We’ll check it all out at the garage.”
“I’ll tell you what it is if you listen to me for a minute,” Shayne said. “It’s an ignition-jumper. You scrape off the insulation in two places with a knife or a pair of pliers, and tie in above and below the switch.”
“So?”
“I’m surprised you never saw one of these before. They’re easy to make, the simplest method ever invented of starting a car if you don’t happen to own the ignition key.”
; Painter understood at last. “You think he was trying to steal—”
Shayne silenced him with a brusque gesture. The ambulance men were easing the stretcher out through the crowd, and again he heard a stifled sob. It sounded like a girl’s voice. He tossed the length of cable into the Buick and walked away from Painter with long strides.
Painted scurried behind him. “Where do you think you’re going, Shayne? Come back here!”
Shayne reached the edge of the crowd as the interns slid the stretcher into the ambulance. A young girl, wearing a tight red sweater and an equally tight skirt, her black hair in a thick pony-tail, was watching them. She pressed her doubled-up fist to her mouth, in an effort to keep from sobbing. Tears stood in her eyes.
Suddenly aware that Shayne had loomed above her, she looked around, her eyes widening in terror.
“He was a friend of yours, wasn’t he?” Shayne said gently.
The pony-tail swung violently as she shook her head, her fist hard against her mouth.
“It’s all right,” the redhead said in the same gentle tone. “His family will have to be told. The papers are going to carry some pretty gruesome pictures, and I don’t think the boy’s mother should find out about it that way.”
Suddenly her shoulders collapsed and she fell forward against Shayne, weeping unrestrainedly. He put a muscular arm about her and patted her awkwardly. She was the same age as the dead boy. She had applied her lipstick too heavily, and much of it had come off on her hand. She smelled of cheap perfume.
Painter craned to see her face. “Who was he? Tell us the boy’s name, young lady. We don’t want to stand around here all night.”
Lucy hurried through the crowd. At a signal from Shayne she took the distraught girl in her arms, murmuring comfortingly.
“Stop that bawling, do you hear me?” Painter snapped. “That young hoodlum was killed while engaged in criminal activity of some kind, whether it was planting a bomb or stealing a car. We can’t be expected to waste any sympathy on him. I want a full disclosure of the facts, or I’m warning you—”
“Petey,” Shayne said in exasperation, “you’re not only a lousy human being, you’re a lousy cop.”
He pushed Painter out of the way with a sweep of one arm, and turned Lucy toward the entrance to the Seafarer. She led the girl away, still crying desperately.
“If you want to find out what the kid was doing,” the redhead told Painter, “give Lucy five minutes with her. Go on yelling and she’ll really fall apart.”
Painter hesitated. “All right. Five minutes. But I’m going to be right there all the time, Shayne, so don’t try any tricks.”
5
Her name was Sylvia Masante. She stopped crying finally, and under Lucy’s urging, she renewed her lipstick. Using a large napkin supplied by George, he wiped away her tears. She tried to smile, but it was short-lived and unsteady. In spite of her reddened eyes, she was a fresh, pretty girl.
“I’m sorry I went to pieces like that. It’s just—”
Lucy patted her hand. “Tell us about it. We want to help you.”
“Well—”
Her lips trembled, and Lucy said quickly, “Don’t cry. Take a sip of coffee.”
Shayne was sitting at the same table, leaving the questioning to Lucy. Painter straddled a reversed chair, drumming his fingers impatiently. The girl drank some of her black coffee, which Shayne had privately instructed the waiter to lace with a half-jigger of brandy. “What was his name?” Lucy asked.
“Terry Weintraub. I don’t really know him too well, that’s the awful thing.”
“Tell us what happened,” Lucy prompted her.
“This was only the third time I’ve gone out with him. I—I don’t know how to explain, Miss Hamilton. Sometimes he could be the nicest boy in school, and then all of a sudden he’d say something that would make you want to hit him. I think he was—well, sort of neurotic. He was on the basketball team, and he could have got good marks if he’d studied. He was one of the clique the other kids call hoods—you’re too old to understand, I guess. He wasn’t really a delinquent or anything, but he didn’t care about much except cars and things like that. He lived with his uncle, who was awful strict.” She sipped at her coffee. “What I’m trying to say—he didn’t break any laws outside of—oh, speeding, things like that.”
“Did he have his own car?” Lucy asked.
“Terry? Oh, no, that’s the whole thing. And you see, Miss Hamilton, that’s why I feel so—”
“No, don’t cry,” Lucy said again. “You’ll feel better if you tell somebody.”
“It was my fault,” Sylvia said unhappily. “I made him do it.”
“You asked him to steal a car?”
“No! I wouldn’t do anything like that. I didn’t know what he was planning until it was too late. I suppose I could have run in and told him to stop, but I couldn’t move a muscle.”
She took another sip of the strong coffee, and brought the story out with a rush. “I guess I must be the most terrible person who ever lived. I’ve been dating this older boy who has a sports car, and of course I had to mention it to Terry. I—I guess I sort of bragged about how fast it would go, and all. Last Saturday Terry asked me to the movies, and I couldn’t go because I already had a date. It wasn’t with this boy with the MG, but Terry thought it was, and I let him go on thinking it. I’m such a—such a—bitch!”
The girl continued, “He was sort of keyed up when he came to get me tonight. He showed me a funny little piece of wire, and he wouldn’t say what it was. The only thing he’d tell me was that he had a surprise. I thought he’d got somebody to lend him his car, and I wasn’t too wild about that because he didn’t have a driver’s license. He told me to stand out there on the corner, and he went a little way down the side street and into the alley behind the restaurant. All of a sudden I saw him stick his head up over the fence in back, and I knew what he was going to do. The man was right there taking tickets and everything, but that’s the way Terry was—he’d get more of a kick out of doing it that way.”
“When people park on the street,” Painter put in, “they usually lock their doors. We all know that.”
“I guess so,” she said. “I was petrified. I didn’t want him to get in any trouble on my account, because I wasn’t his girl. Here he was taking such a big chance, and I didn’t like him that much. I liked him, but—oh, I can’t explain it. I wanted to tell him to stop showing off, but I guess I was just too scared. A minute or so later I saw him sneaking along the wall. He always said he wouldn’t drive any car but a Buick, and I guess that’s why he picked that one. I was just getting up nerve enough to run, because I certainly didn’t intend to go riding in a stolen car with the police looking for us, and then—”
She stopped, and Shayne saw the horror flare up in her eyes as she remembered the roar of the explosion, the confusion, the agonized waiting for Terry to get out of the Buick.
He said quickly, “Sylvia, I want to ask you something very important. “You’re sure that all he had was that one piece of wire?”
“How do you mean?” she said doubtfully.
“Is there any chance that somebody hired him to booby-trap the car? When he spoke of the surprise he had for you, could he have meant money?”
“I don’t see how, Mr. Shayne. He didn’t have any package or anything. And Terry wouldn’t do a terrible thing like that!”
“How long would you say we were inside the restaurant, angel?” Shayne asked Lucy. “Three quarters of an hour?”
“Or less,” she said.
Shayne turned back to the girl. “While you were waiting for Terry, before you saw him stick his head up behind the fence, did you notice anybody fooling around the Buick?”
She shook her head.
“You’re a nice girl, Sylvia,” Shayne said. “You’ve helped us a lot. Chief Painter is going to ask you some more questions now. The thing to do is answer him as quickly and completely as possible, and get it over with.” He
added, with an apologetic look at Lucy, “I admit that sometimes I have a hard time following my own advice.”
He went over to the bar and caught the bartender’s eye, holding up his thumb and forefinger, several inches apart. The bartender brought a wine glass, filled it with cognac and went back for a tumbler of water poured over cracked ice. The detective drank half the cognac in one gulp, and sipped abstemiously at the water. He watched Painter questioning the girl, ready to interfere if necessary. He felt fully alive, for the first time in months. He was aware that he was at a marked disadvantage. His enemy knew who he was, and where he could usually be found. He could strike secretly, without warning. But Shayne had always been at his best with the odds against him. Only one thing worried him seriously. That was Lucy Hamilton.
Two detectives came in from the street, bringing a man and a woman between them. Painter looked up in annoyance. The man, who had a sunburned face and a mustache much like Painter’s own, was protesting, trying to free his arm from Squire’s grip. Painter excused himself and met the group near the end of the bar. “What have you got here, Squire?”
“This character saw something, sir. Or he said he did, and now he denies it.”
Both Painter and Shayne looked at the man, who squirmed with embarrassment. The little mustache was thicker and shorter than Painter’s. His movements were poorly coordinated, and he was probably slightly drunk. He wore a white silk jacket over the kind of brightly figured shirt which winter visitors consider appropriate to Miami Beach. Apparently he worried about going bald; his hairpiece was not one of the most convincing Shayne had seen. There was a clear boundary where his own hair stopped and somebody else’s began.
He looked around desperately. “I assure you I saw nothing,” he said in a strong Northern accent. “And I object to being manhandled in this fashion. I may not pay taxes in this state, but I know my rights as an American citizen.”
“Those rights will be respected,” Painter assured him. “Let go of his arm, Squire. Tell us what you saw, Mr.—”
Target_Mike Shayne Page 4
