Miami Mayhem (Jerry eBooks) (2016)

by Anthony Rome

  Everything began to blur and shift. My body detached itself from my head and floated away. My brain spun and kept spinning till it found a way to get out of my head and escape into darkness. Its place inside my skull was filled with the chloroform-soaked sponge. After that only my lungs remained, pumping like bellows. Soon there was nothing . . .

  CHAPTER

  4

  TANGERINE WAS standing on my lap, licking my face. I unglued my eyes and looked at him. He stopped washing my face and stared back.

  He was a long, skinny, battle-scarred tomcat, with patches of fur missing that would never grow back and a chewed-off ear that gave his face a one-sided, rakish expression. I’d named him Tangerine because of his color. He wasn’t a pet. He was strictly a waterfront freebooter. But we’d struck up a wary sort of acquaintance. When pickings were lean elsewhere or it rained or the sun got too hot, he sometimes came along the pier and down into my boat.

  The weather was mild and there’d been plenty of fish leavings along the docks that evening, so it must have been a yen for milk that had brought him that night. He wasn’t the lap-sitting and face-licking type ordinarily; the sight of me motionless on that yacht chair with my head hanging must have upset him considerably.

  I raised my chin off my chest and mumbled: “I didn’t know you cared.”

  As soon as I spoke Tangerine jumped off my lap and slunk away to a dignified distance. He uttered the growl that passed for a meow in his circles, then sat back and watched me.

  The two men who’d ambushed me were gone. They’d left the cabin a mess. The shelves had been emptied of books. The lockers had all been opened and the clothes and gear from them were now scattered over the deck. The cushions had been pulled from the settee and the mattress and pillow dumped from the forward bunk. The hatches were off the water tanks. Beyond the bookcase I could see that the galley had gotten the same treatment. Every jar and open container had been searched, the contents dumped. The icebox was open and its cake of ice was melting on the galley deck.

  They’d searched me too, emptying my pockets and scattering their contents around my feet which were now bare. They’d pulled off my sneaks and socks.

  It took me five minutes of pushing and pulling to work my wrists free from the tapes that bound them to the chair legs. They’d done a hasty job with the tapes, making them just secure enough to hold me while the chloroform was being applied. I stood up, stretched, rubbed my face with my tingling hands and looked at my wrist watch. I’d been out for an hour. Which meant they’d given me extra doses of the chloroform from time to time. My brain felt numb and a bit swollen, but otherwise I didn’t feel bad.

  I went to the galley, picked up the melting ice block and stuck it back into the icebox, shutting the door. Out in the deckhouse I put the engine hatch back in place, then prowled topside. They’d done a thorough stem-to-stern job. Some of it was just a matter of straightening up and cleaning. But there was real damage, too. My gorge rose but I knew I was going to get still angrier when I had to pay the repair bills. Up on the flying bridge there was more of it. The ship-shore radio had been ripped open. They’d even unscrewed the mouth and earpieces of the phone.

  The sight of all the mess and clutter combined with the fumes still in my brain to make me dizzy. I went up to the bow deck, stripped, and dove overboard, submerging completely under the surface. The icy cold of the water clamped me in a tight grip, but I stayed under, stroking away from the pier, as long as I could. Then I surfaced, gasped my lungs full of air, and dove under again. Surfacing again, I swam back to the Straight Pass. I was shivering violently as I climbed back on board, but my head was completely clear.

  Toweling myself quickly in my cabin, I dug out my dungarees and sweater from the mess and got into them. Tangerine was still sitting there, eying me impassively and waiting.

  I went to the galley, poured some milk in a saucer on the deck for him, poured myself a snifter of brandy, and took the glass with me out to the cockpit. Setting the cushion back on the fishing chair, I sat down and sipped the brandy and tried to sort matters out in my mind.

  The earpiece and mouthpiece of the telephone had been unscrewed, so what they’d been hunting for was small enough to fit in there. Something smaller than the palm of my hand . . .

  Tangerine, licking drops of milk off his chops, padded out through the deckhouse. He stopped a few feet from me and eyed me uncertainly.

  ‘Tm okay,” I told him.

  He turned and made it from the deck of the cockpit up onto the pier in one effortless leap, stalked off into the shadows along the dock walk.

  I sat there alone awhile longer, taking my time with the brandy till I’d finished it. I couldn’t come up with an answer to what they’d been searching for—or even who they were. But I calmed down enough to begin die irritating task of straightening up the mess they’d made.

  It took me two hours. By the time I was finished, I was mad all over again. Opening the settee in the cabin, I stretched out on the double bed it formed and pulled down my copy of Coxere’s Adventures by Sea. I read two whole chapters of the seventeenth-century sailor’s narrative before I finally simmered down enough to fall asleep . . .

  The first thing I thought of when I awoke in the morning was my twin Chrysler Crown engines. The engine hatches had been off, and they could have done a lot of damage without even trying when they searched there. I swung off the bed and went to test them. The engines turned over and started with no trouble. Breathing a sigh of relief, I cut them. After a quick morning swim, I showered, shaved, had three cups of black coffee, and got into my city clothes. Then I went down the pier to my car.

  The hubcaps lay beside the wheels. I banged them back in place, got the cushions back on the seats and stuffed the strewn contents of the glove compartment back inside it.

  They’d probably been under the hood too. I got in behind the wheel and tried the motor; it worked.

  Swinging around to the marine service station, I asked Ferguson there to check on the Straight Pass and estimate the cost of repairs. Then I drove to my office, which at that time was on the fifth floor of the Miller Building, near the junction of Miami Avenue and Flagler Street. I knew what I’d find by then, and I wasn’t wrong. The door lock had been forced and both rooms—the small waiting room where I kept the files and the larger main office—had been searched. They’d done a fast, sloppy job of it.

  I spent that Saturday morning putting everything back in order. The files were the worst job. I was itching to meet those two characters again by the time I got the folders back in sequence. But nothing was missing.

  I didn’t waste much thought that morning on what it could have been they’d been hunting. I had no idea. But I had an idea I’d find out.

  Somebody thought I had something I didn’t. I’d been searched—so had my car, boat, and office—and it hadn’t been found. The way things like that usually went, it wasn’t likely to end there.

  I finished tidying up my office and went out to lunch.

  When I came back, Diana Pines was waiting for me.

  She sat erect on the early American bench in my reception room, her slim hands clutching a small handbag on her lap. The handbag was the same dark golden brown as her high- heeled shoes. Her straight skirt and simple high-necked blouse were in lighter shades of the same color—a color that went well with her wide, innocent brown eyes.

  She was young enough to have slept off all signs of her binge. A gold band at the nape of her neck held her black hair in a pony tail that made her look even younger.

  She stood up quickly as I came in. “Mr. Rome?” Her eyes held no recognition.

  I nodded. “How’re you feeling today?”

  A light blush suffused her softly rounded cheeks, and she sucked her lower lip back between her small white teeth. “I’m fine,” she mumbled. “Thank you.”

  I took her into my office, settled her in the leather wing chair beside my desk and sat behind my desk in the swivel chair.

&
nbsp; “I may as well admit right off,” she said, forcing herself to meet my gaze, “that I don’t remember you at all.”

  “S’all right. I didn’t expect you would.”

  “My father and my stepmother told me about you. That’s how I happen to be here.” She’d spoken haltingly. Now she stopped and searched for more to say.

  I nodded and smiled at her meaninglessly. It seemed to encourage her.

  “I suppose I should thank you for getting me home safely.”

  “I was paid for it.”

  She eyed me hesitantly, chewing her lower lip some more. Then she blurted it out, “I want my pin back.”

  “Pin?”

  She was caught between anger and embarrassment. “I was wearing it on my dress when I left home the night before last. It was gone when you brought me home last night.”

  It hadn’t been on her dress when I’d seen her in the Moonlite Hotel. “What’s this pin look like?”

  Her mouth became impatient. “It’s made of gold and diamonds in the shape of a daisy.”

  I put out my hand, knuckles down on the desk. “Is it smaller than the palm of my hand?”

  “Yes. You do know what it looks like, don’t you?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t steal it, Mrs. Pines.”

  “I don’t care who took it. I just want it back. I’ll pay for its return.”

  “Don t you have it insured?”

  “My father does. It was a present from him. Why?”

  “The thing for you to do is notify the police and your insurance company. In that order. If the police can’t find it, you can buy another, and the insurance company will pay the tab.”

  Her frown was uncertain. “I didn’t think you’d suggest my going to the police.”

  “I told you I didn’t take it.”

  Her shoulders slumped a little, and another blush warmed her face. “I . . . all right, I apologize. But I still want the daisy pin back. Without the police or the insurance company. I want you to find it.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want my father to find out I lost it. He’s upset about me enough as it is. I don’t want to worry him any more. Can you get it back for me? I’ll pay you well.”

  “How much?”

  “Would three hundred dollars be enough?”

  “We’ll see. I might have to buy it back for you. The same as the insurance company might have to do. Only if you took it to them they’d foot the bill.”

  “I told you. I don’t want my father finding out and getting all unhappy about it. I talked to Rita—my stepmother—about it this morning. She agrees with me.”

  “All right. How much is this daisy pin worth?”

  “About three thousand dollars.”

  “When was the last you definitely remember that you still had the pin?”

  “I was wearing it on my dress when I left home and came to the city. I went first to the bar at the Drake. You know it?” I nodded. The Drake was one of the city’s best hotels.

  “I was at the Drake bar for a long time. I remember that much. So I must have been wearing the pin while I was there.”

  “It might have fallen off without your noticing.”

  She shook her head emphatically. “It couldn’t have just dropped off. It pinned very securely, with a lock catch.”

  “Were you alone at the Drake?”

  “Yes.”

  “And after the Drake?”

  She bit her lip and looked down at the handbag clutched on her lap. “I don’t know,” she murmured. “I must have had an awful lot to drink at the Drake. I remember the barman suggesting I’d had enough, and I didn’t agree with him. I—I guess I was pretty nasty to him. Anyway he kept on serving me. After that, it all gets fuzzy in my mind. I can’t even remember leaving the Drake.”

  “You don’t know where you went next?”

  “I don’t remember anything else clearly until I woke up at home. Makes it real easy for you, doesn’t it? I could have been anywhere. Done anything . . .”

  “It’s not as difficult as you make it sound,” I told her. “I have the Drake and the hotel where I got you. I trace your movements backward from the one and forward from the other till I fill the gap between them.”

  Her mouth began to tremble. “That should be delightful for you. A drunk’s progress.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Most of us tie one on sooner or later.”

  “I never have.” Her eyes were loaded with misery.

  “Well, you have now,” I said gently. “How much cash did you find in your purse this morning?”

  “Six dollars. And some change. Why?”

  “How much did you have when you left home two nights ago?”

  “I don’t know exactly. It must have been over a hundred.” It hit her then. “My God! Did I drink that much?”

  “Can you come back here around five o’clock?”

  “You think you can get my pin back by then?”

  “We’ll see,” I said. “Five o’clock. And don’t start crying. Your mascara’ll run.”

  After she had gone, I sat there awhile drumming my fingertips on the edge of the desk and considering. A three- thousand-dollar pin didn’t seem to justify the kind of trouble and risk the two men with the chloroform sponge had taken. In fact, it wasn’t at all likely.

  I was getting up to leave when my phone rang. On weekdays Margo, in Ben Silver’s office next door, took all my calls on the extension I’d had put through from my phone. Ben was my lawyer, and it had been his idea since I didn’t need a fulltime girl. I paid part of Margo’s salary in exchange for her taking care of my typing and filing in her spare time and handling my phone calls. But neither Margo nor Ben would be in on a Saturday. I picked up the phone on the second ring.

  It was Rudolph Kosterman, calling from Bridesberg.

  “You told me to check on you with Captain Crown,” Kosterman said over the phone. “I did. I didn’t realize you were that Anthony Rome.”

  I stiffened, and a flash of an old anger came back to me as fresh as if the five intervening years had been wiped away.

  “I knew your father slightly,” Kosterman was saying. “I met him a few times in the city.”

  “My father knew a lot of big-money men,” I snapped. “Too many.”

  I’d worshiped him. What had happened five years before had hit me hard but it hadn’t changed that. He’d been a captain then, in charge of the police commissioner’s special squad investigating racketeering connections. He dug too deep and scared too many influential people. They’d done some digging of their own. And they’d turned up proof that way back when he’d been a detective sergeant he’d taken a large bribe to suppress evidence against a rich man’s son who was involved in a hit-and-run.

  The first I knew of it was when I read it on the front pages of the evening newspapers. By the time I got to my father it was too late. He’d already put the bullet through his brain. I was a lieutenant on Captain Crown’s armed robbery detail then, and the reporters rushed over for quotes. I gave them an earful. At the time he’d taken that bribe my mother had been going through her long final siege in the hospital, and I’d been about to start college. I told them what I thought of a city that paid a detective—three times cited for bravery—so little that he couldn’t even secure a loan to pay for his dying wife’s hospital expenses and his son’s education. Then I’d handed in my resignation from the force before the commissioner had time to ask me for it.

  “I didn’t bring it up,” Kosterman said, “to reopen old wounds.”

  “Then why bring it up at all?”

  “Because it means that you understand how it feels to have someone dear to you in trouble.”

  “If we’re talking about your daughter, Mr. Kosterman, let’s keep it to her. She’s not connected with my father in any way.”

  “Very well, Rome. I admit I was trying to get your sympathy. I had that talk with Diana this morning. She claims not to know where she was or what she di
d. And she wouldn’t tell me why she left here in the first place. She’s quite troubled about something. I know her well enough to know that.”

  “You want me to find out what’s troubling her.”

  “Yes. I’ve spoken to her husband, and he has no idea what’s bothering her. And now she’s gone off somewhere again. She left right after I talked with her without a word about where she was going. She hasn’t returned.”

  “Maybe your son-in-law knows where she went.”

  “No. Darrell is at the development office cleaning up a load of extra work. He left before she woke up this morning.”

  “Your son-in-law works for you?”

  “He’s vice-president in charge of sales for our development villas. Rome, I want you to find Diana. If you can.”

  “I can,” I told him. “Then what?”

  “Find out what she’s up to, what kind of trouble she’s gotten herself into.”

  “People get moody sometimes without being in any particular kind of trouble.”

  “If that’s the case, I want to know it. To relieve my mind. Do you want this job or don’t you?”

  I did, and told him so. I was already estimating what making him happy could mean to me. Kosterman was a top- income-bracket permanent resident of southern Florida. That could mean bringing my own income bracket up a notch—if he was satisfied with my work enough to begin recommending me to his coin-heavy friends and business contacts. One part of my mind began considering how those fat fees could buy me a long Caribbean cruise in the Straight Pass. But the gambler in me was dwelling on thoughts of an all-out assault on Las Vegas . . .

  I gave it some fast, careful thought before naming a fee to Kosterman. I had to make it low enough so he wouldn’t feel he was being taken but high enough so he’d respect me—a ticklish tightrope you’ve always got to walk with the rich.

  We settled on his mailing me a check to cover fees and expenses for the next few days. Then I left the office, took the self-service elevator down, and went to see Ralph Turpin.

  CHAPTER

  5

  “THIS’S LIKE old times,” Turpin said, lounging back in the easy chair in his room on the second floor of the Moonlite Hotel. “Seeing this much of you. Nice.” He chewed the stub of his unlighted cigar and eyed me warily. With his jacket off I could see that some of his weight had gone to fat in the past year. But I still wouldn’t have wanted to go any rounds with him.