Caught Dead ms-64

by Brett Halliday

  “There is no official version, because no one interpretation makes complete sense. There were two cigarette cartons.” He opened an envelope beside his plate and took out several glossy photographs. “If you look at these first, it may save us some time.”

  Shayne flicked through the pictures while the maid poured coffee. There were four shots of the devastated room in the prison. A final picture showed Tim Rourke with a girl. Rourke was on the sidewalk, holding the door of a car, and she was getting out of the front seat.

  “What legs!” Frost remarked. “My, my. You can almost see the young lady’s snatch. Her name is Paula Obregon. Her father owns a large store in the Plaza O’Leary. She spent a year at the University of Miami. Is it possible that you know her?”

  Shayne said doubtfully, “I may have seen her with Tim. When was this taken?”

  “Yesterday. She is affiliated with the MIR. Do you know these initials? Our local guerrillas, increasingly troublesome lately. She is generally used as a courier. She speaks English well, and can pass as a tourist.”

  “All right,” Shayne said evenly. “Rourke was seen with a guerrilla with a good pair of legs. What else have they got?”

  “Really very little. I showed you those photographs of the prison to make a point. A fire started after the explosion, and it burned rather intensely for a time. As a result no one can be sure exactly what kind of bomb was used, or where and how it went off. But the prevailing opinion is that it was introduced inside those two cartons of Pall Mall cigarettes carried by Larry Howe, the UPI correspondent, presumably as a present for Alvares.”

  “What’s the tie-in to Tim?”

  “I didn’t offer you sugar and cream. Or since both of us have been up all night, perhaps it isn’t too early for a drop of cognac?”

  He sent the girl for a bottle. After adding a dollop to Shayne’s coffee, he poured some in his own.

  “Ah, the tie-in to Tim Rourke,” he said. “Howe was a pool correspondent, representing the resident press corps. Rourke gave him the cartons, and the police have two witnesses-United States journalists-who say that he was strangely insistent on having them delivered by hand.”

  “And the cops think Tim got the cigarettes from the guerrillas, through the girl?”

  “That is the hypothesis they are working on.”

  “As I understand it, Alvares was out of office, a has-been. Why would they want to kill him?”

  Frost looked into his coffee. “To set up new tensions? To show that the junta can’t even guarantee security inside their maximum-security prison? Or perhaps it wasn’t their intention that the bomb should go off in that precise way. A half-dozen MIR leaders are confined in the same prison, and there have been rumors about a possible jailbreak. The Centre branch of the Guaranty National was robbed of four hundred thousand dollars last night during the confusion, and that had all the earmarks of an MIR operation-quick and controlled.”

  Shayne considered. “Are they sure the cartons Tim gave Howe are the ones he carried into the prison?”

  “When Howe left the hotel he had one carton of Pall Malls in each side pocket. When he arrived at La Vega he still had one carton of Pall Malls in each side pocket. He and Menendez, the PR man, drove there together. We can’t ask Menendez what happened on the way because he’s dead.”

  He took another swallow of the loaded coffee. The maid brought in scrambled eggs, thin slices of fried ham and warm brioches. Frost tucked into the food with obvious pleasure.

  “Suppose everything stays the way it is,” Shayne said, “and nothing new is found out. What can they do to Rourke?”

  “On the basis of the evidence they have now,” Frost said, chewing, “my guess would be thirty years.”

  “That’s not good,” Shayne said, scratching his chin. “How about the new government? What were they planning to do with Alvares if that bomb hadn’t gone off?”

  “Put him on trial for stealing from the people. Which was something he unquestionably did over a span of years, on a gigantic scale.”

  “Are they better off with him dead, or worse? How much popular following did he have?”

  “Not that much. He’d been in office too long. What I’d better do is let you glance at some of my political reports so you won’t sound totally naive when you start talking to these people.”

  “Which side are we on?”

  He gave the question an edge, and Frost looked at him sharply, then laughed and forked up a mouthful of scrambled eggs.

  “Nothing is ever that simple,” he said, his diction slightly blurred. “Alvares was a friend of ours to the end, but we felt he was becoming too greedy. Certain concessions were being renegotiated, and he had a fantastic idea of how much the traffic would bear. You’ll find this covered in my reports. So we weren’t overwhelmingly unhappy to see him removed. But you must be careful, Shayne, not to exaggerate our importance here. All we can do is give people an occasional mild nudge. But don’t think you have to become an expert on all this. We have far too many experts already. Your job is to make your friend Tim Rourke understand exactly how serious it is.”

  “Are they going to let me see him?”

  “I’ve already made the appointment. My suggestion would be”-he swallowed another forkful of eggs and washed it down with coffee-“that you reject the first arrangement they offer you, which will probably be the usual visiting room, with a glass barrier and guards in attendance. Object to this strongly, on the grounds that you have a right to confer with the prisoner in private. Demand a face-to-face confrontation, with no one present but yourselves. They will accede to this. The idea being that you will now assume you can speak freely, without being overheard-an assumption which will unquestionably be incorrect.”

  He seemed pleased with the way he was handling his visitor. Shayne watched him stuff his mouth with a brioche coated with butter. This was his third. There were three more in the basket and given time he would undoubtedly work his way through them all. His chin glistened.

  “And then what?” Shayne said.

  “Then,” Frost said, swallowing, “you tell Rourke that he had better be perfectly candid unless he wants to spend the next thirty years in excruciating discomfort. Prison management in this part of the world is far from enlightened. Tell him we are washing our hands of him. No deal is possible, in my judgment. What can he tell the police except that he has been in contact with Paula Obregon, a fact they already know?”

  “You said the room will be bugged. Tim may not know that. Do you still want me to persuade him to talk?”

  Frost’s lips curved. Even with his mouth full he managed to look faintly roguish.

  “I really do. This sealed-lips tactic is only making things worse for him.”

  “I think I get it,” Shayne said slowly. “Tim and I have been working together for years. There are ways I can let him know we’re being listened to, without saying it. Then he can tell me something that’ll send the cops off in the wrong direction. Police translators tend to be pretty square.”

  “That’s one way it might work.”

  “But that’s on the surface. Meanwhile, he’ll be giving me a slant on what really happened. You’re my contact. I’ll consult you about it. If I don’t, your man Rubino will be driving me, and he’ll keep you up-to-date. What I want to know now is why? Thanks for the breakfast, by the way. Everything was very good. Are you acting for yourself or for the United States government? How much did you have to do with this revolt, or whatever you call it? All you do is nudge people-yeah. You’re in politics up to your chin and everybody knows it.”

  “I fail to see-”

  “If you were mixed up in this coup and Alvares could prove it, wouldn’t it be better for you if he was dead?”

  Frost patted his lips. “Pour yourself some more coffee. I know you aren’t seriously suggesting we had anything to do with the bombing.”

  “Stranger things have happened, and you people have been known to boast about some of them. Where could Tim
Rourke get hold of enough explosives to do that much damage? How could he pack it in cigarette cartons so nobody could tell it wasn’t cigarettes? That came out of a pretty sophisticated workshop. It was planted on him. If you did it, get Tim out of the country and I won’t lean on it too hard.”

  Frost said quietly, “If it had become necessary to kill Alvares there are less sloppy ways. As it happens, that kind of violence is usually counterproductive, believe it or not. Of course I’m interested in what Rourke tells you, or what he fails to tell you. I am primarily a collector of intelligence. What’s so sinister about that? Would you want your government to make policy in ignorance of the facts?”

  “Who’s this Andres Rubino you’re trying to hang on me?”

  Frost gave his rubbery smile. “A free-lance. But you’re quite right to be suspicious. Be suspicious of everybody. The situation is heavily booby-trapped. We all have different goals, different axes to grind. Of course I hope you’ll discover something I can use to our country’s advantage! And I trust that for a small fee Andres will keep us informed of your activities. But you could do much worse. Whoever you hire will be on somebody’s payroll. Andres, I’m sure, is on several. Which is part of his value.”

  The maid had left the coffee and cognac, and Shayne refilled his cup. “You people-no kidding.”

  “You do what you can with what you have-those are the rules. Andres is quick-witted, and good at milking the maximum dollar out of whatever comes along. A bit of a blackmailer, but that shouldn’t concern you.”

  “Is there any way I can get in touch with these guerrillas?”

  Frost wagged his head. He offered Shayne a box of long fat cigars and began preparing one himself, an elaborate ceremony which occupied him while he spoke.

  “That is one thing I can’t arrange. Everyone of that persuasion is very far underground today. You’d like to talk to Paula Obregon. So would the police, both the political police and the criminal police. But the MIR is beautifully organized, highly efficient. Paula Obregon will come to the surface when they want her to, not before.”

  Shayne asked several other questions while he finished his coffee. Frost went into another room, unlocked a wall safe and brought back onionskin copies of several memos on Venezuelan politics. He wrote an extremely dense prose that was occasionally hard to follow. Shayne read them in silence, nodded, and handed them back.

  Frost gave him a card with a phone number on it. “Call me whenever you like. I may be napping but I’m a light sleeper.”

  FIVE

  Andres Rubino ground out his cigarette when Shayne appeared and threw open the door of the Jaguar.

  “You have decided to hire me!”

  “Let’s see how it goes,” Shayne said. “He doesn’t give you much of a reference. He says you’ll deal with anybody if the price is right.”

  “But everybody knows that about me! Mr. Frost himself, for example, pays me occasional sums out of unrestricted funds. But if you have something you don’t wish me to tell him, say so frankly and we’ll discuss how much that will cost you.”

  “It shouldn’t be too hard to collect from us both.”

  “I try not to do too much of that,” Rubino said earnestly, “because it gets complicated and dangerous. And you and Mr. Frost are on the came side, no? I’m much better for you than some dull nobody you could pay to be loyal.”

  He honked to have the gate opened. “First stop, the jail?”

  “That’s right. Where do you stand politically, Andres?”

  For the first time the cheerful Venezuelan looked indignant. The gate opened and he went out with his thumb on the horn.

  “Politics. What does it matter to someone in my financial position which crook is in office? Of course,” he added, “in international politics I am very much pro-United States.”

  “Of course. What do you think of Frost?”

  “Mr. Frost is unquestionably number one on my list!” he said with sincerity. “Physically somewhat repulsive, but he has risen above it. Did you notice his maid? Elegant-elegant. His style of living. People in his line of work retire young, on three-quarters pay. He is now fifty-five. He could pull out at any moment, and from certain indirect signs I think he is planning to do so very soon. And then I will have to start over again with his successor-a dismal perspective, because Mr. Frost and I understand each other. But did he really describe me as that corrupt?”

  “A free-lance agent and a blackmailer on the side.”

  “He shouldn’t have said that!” Rubino cried. “How could I blackmail you? In what way does it apply?”

  “He wasn’t telling me anything he didn’t want me to know.”

  Rubino drove a block or so in silence, thinking.

  “Well, he’s a clever man. I would hate to play chess against him. We’ve agreed on one hundred dollars a day? I’ll start at once to earn my money. Technically we are among the backward nations, we Venezuelans, but one exception is the police, who have modern listening devices. Very miniaturized, very delicate. So you must conclude that when you confer with your friend, other ears will be listening.”

  Shayne didn’t interrupt, and listened to much the same advice he had already received from Felix Frost. He was watching the turns, getting the feel of the city.

  At Police Headquarters, a forbidding fortresslike building on Avenida Universidad, Rubino again left the conspicuous car in a no-parking zone and came inside with Shayne.

  Using Rubino to translate for him, Shayne rejected the first room he was offered. After a loud exchange in Spanish, accompanied by much sawing of the air, he was taken to another room where Rubino left him. This room was furnished with a simple table and two benches. While he waited for Rourke, he prowled around the room trying to spot the mike, but it was well hidden.

  The door opened.

  One of Rourke’s eyes was swollen shut and he had what looked like fingernail scratches on one cheek. His belt and shoelaces had been taken away, evidently an international police practice.

  “Mike Shayne,” he said gloomily. “Well, well. I hope you brought me some cigarettes.”

  “They tell me you’re smoking Pall Malls these days.”

  “When I can get them.”

  He accepted what he was given, a Camel. They sat down at the table and Shayne lit his cigarette for him.

  “You didn’t waste any time, did you?” Rourke said, breathing out smoke. “Didn’t even stop to have breakfast, probably.”

  “I had a very good breakfast with Felix Frost, do you know him? Sort of a creep, I thought, but I’m sure he’s good at whatever he does.”

  “Good old Felix.”

  While this exchange was taking place, they were communicating in other ways. Shayne’s first look had warned the reporter to look out; they were being monitored. Rourke had replied in the same way that he knew that much about the behavior patterns of law-enforcement officials. He also didn’t have to be told that his situation was grim, and Shayne would have to work an unusual kind of miracle to get him out.

  “Who hit you?” Shayne asked. “Do you want me to get the Civil Liberties Union to complain?”

  “I wish you would, man. Every little bit helps. Talk to me. Nobody around here wants to tell me what happened out in the real world. They want me to tell them. Did a bomb actually go off in the La Vega prison, or did my ears deceive me? And if so, how did you hear about it?”

  “Caldwell called me from the paper when he got the flash. You really don’t know what happened? They have a pretty good body-count. Alvares, Larry Howe, a Venezuelan named Menendez.”

  Rourke’s face had gone very still. “Alvares, Howe, Menendez. I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “It seems there were these two cartons of cigarettes.” Shayne lowered his voice. “I think it’s all right to talk here, Tim. I’m going to need some leads.”

  “They worked the handkerchief switch on me, Mike. The gypsy handkerchief switch. There were hints I might get a story out of it. The Pulitzer Prize was m
entioned. And I went for it! Tim Rourke, the prototype fall guy, drunk and gullible.”

  “Put it in English.”

  “There was supposed to be a cyanide capsule in with the cigarettes. They were getting Alvares ready for a show trial, and some of the testimony would have tarnished our image, or that’s what they told me. A cyanide capsule, the way it happens in the movies. I’ve always said, if somebody wants to knock himself off, who am I to stand in the way?”

  He added, “And they were torturing him, Mike. Cyanide is the only way you can beat that. I was operating in a heavy mist at the time. I’d been soaking up gin for a couple of days. I really blame it on the martinis.”

  “They’ve got a picture of you with a girl named Paula something.”

  “Yeah, I took her out a few times. I met her in Miami a year or two ago-nice kid. She had nothing to do with this.” The look he gave Shayne contradicted the words. “It was a guy. He came to my room in the Hilton. Mustache, shades. One of his shoes was built up in the heel-one leg must be shorter than the other. But you’ll never find him.”

  “I’ll never find him if that’s all you can give me. Have you told the cops about this?”

  “Mike, my act with these bush cops is strictly tongue-tied and stupid. I’m going to promise you one thing. Never again. I’m strictly a voyeur from now on. The goddamned handkerchief switch. I never thought they’d catch me with that one.”

  “If I’m in a position to make a deal, will you tell them what you’ve just told me?”

  “If I have to, but Mike, I’ll feel like such a schmuck!”

  “Frost mentioned thirty years. Everything I hear from other people makes me think he was optimistic.”

  “You have such a wonderful bedside manner. I know I’m in trouble. But I need time to think. They’ve been on top of me every minute. You know the technique, in shifts. Damn it, there has to be something I can dredge up, if they’d just give me a couple of minutes to brood about it. But no. It’s been hammer, hammer, hammer. You’re too early. It’s nice you’re here, I appreciate it. But I wish you hadn’t been in such a hurry. I might have had something to tell you. Now they won’t let me see you again till tomorrow.”