Violence Is Golden ms-57

by Brett Halliday

  In their room, she kicked out of her shoes and picked up an earphone. “I saw Naomi in the lobby, but not George.”

  Shayne loosened his tie. It would take time for his adversaries to plan and mount another action, but he would be hearing from them again, he knew. The Miami plane bringing Tim Rourke was due in another half hour. Christa was Shayne’s immediate concern. An obvious strategy would be to try to reach him through her. His obvious counterstrategy was not to let her out of his sight between now and the time the plane left for Venezuela in the morning.

  She was watching him. After a moment she slowly took off her earrings. Shayne had a feeling that this was going to be one of his most agreeable assignments in a long time.

  One of her hands flew to an earphone. “This wretched equipment,” she said after a moment, disappointed. “Now the static is making noises like a person being sick.”

  She brought him to her side with a gesture. “The phone’s ringing.” Picking up the second earphone, Shayne heard George’s voice say sullenly, “Hello.”

  After a moment he continued, “Does it have to be tonight? To tell you the truth, I’m not feeling too well.”

  Again he listened.

  He snapped, “OK, I’ll be there,” and hung up with an oath. There was a retching sound, then, a little later, a rush of water.

  Hearing nothing more, Shayne put down the earphone and shook a cigarette out of his pack.

  “Darling, I have something I wish to say,” Christa said later. “And I happen to be quite serious, so listen to me seriously. If there were more of us than two, either you or I would go out and follow George to see where he goes. But we are without a car, without contact with the local police. I think logic calls for us to spend the night here, with the door locked and a gun under each pillow.”

  “I decided the same thing when you took off your earrings,” Shayne said.

  “I am trying to say something, Mike, so will you please not look as though you already know what it is? It might be something you don’t expect.”

  “You’ve surprised me a few times. What are we talking about, whether or not we sleep in separate beds?”

  “Damn you, Mike. I made a few careless remarks on that subject, as I hope you don’t remember, but I am not that type of person. Not exclusively that type of person.” She lifted her hands in despair. “I’ve lost track. Don’t sit there looking so sure of yourself.”

  “We’re both cops,” Shayne suggested. “This isn’t a pleasure trip. We’re here on business.”

  “Precisely. And we’re both mature people. Simply because the job requires us to share a room-”

  “Doesn’t mean we have to do anything we don’t really want to.”

  “You’re twisting my words! And will you stop grinning? That’s better. It has nothing to do with wanting or not wanting. Mike, listen.”

  She pushed back her hair. “When I was seventeen, I had a bad and cynical time. I did some foolish things. Jules LeFevre found me and helped me. He needed an agent who would be accepted by the world I was living in then, on the edge of the drug business, among small criminals and students and politicals. Later I became a bona fide member of the police. I worked for a time on the French Riviera, then in Lisbon. I was given money to dress well, so I wouldn’t look like a policewoman. I broke up a group of jewel thieves when I was twenty-two. I saw Jules only sometimes, and it was always business, but I had a special feeling for him. He had saved me, I think, from something very bad. All during the day today, at odd times, I have remembered that he’s dead. Killed perhaps by one of these people we are playing cat-and-mouse with. Tonight, Mike, I think we should do nothing to break our concentration. If I ever make love to you, I want it to fill my mind! After tomorrow perhaps-”

  One foot grazed Shayne’s knee.

  The little contact canceled her arguments, and she came in against him. But before their bodies had adjusted to each other the phone rang, not the phone in the Savages’ room, but the one on the table between the beds.

  It went on ringing. By the time Shayne decided it had to be answered and reached for it, it had stopped.

  “Damn it,” Christa said with a little laugh. “But you see? Definitely not tonight.”

  She clicked for the operator and asked if she had a call for them. She made a sour face a moment later.

  “Yes, he’s here.”

  She handed the phone to Shayne. The familiar too-girlish voice of Mary Ocain exploded against his eardrum.

  “Mike! Just what are you up to there, with your blonde bombshell? Why weren’t you answering your phone? You’re supposed to be working, according to the story you gave me. I think it’s too disgusting for words.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Shayne said, “we were in the middle of-”

  “Don’t tell me!” Mary screamed. “I know what you were in the middle of. I’ve been picturing the scene. Mike, I’m ensconced in bed with a liqueur, a box of chocolates and a ribald paperback novel. I’m wearing a new nightie I bought for this trip on the chance that I might meet some impetuous Latin. I have something to tell you, and I thought I might inveigle you into coming down? It’s Room 285, and my roommate, to everybody’s surprise, has been invited to have drinks with the captain and won’t be in till-”

  “What do you have to tell me, Mary?”

  “I really think you’d get more out of it face to face?”

  She made it a question. “Sorry,” Shayne said curtly. “Could you move it along a little faster, Mary? I’m expecting another call. I don’t want to tie up the phone.”

  “I see through that! That’s very transparent! You want to get back to your blonde. Well, I won’t keep you long, a minute or two at the most. And if at any time you want to interrupt me and come down, don’t hesitate.”

  “Now that you’ve got that out of the way-”

  “Yes, Mike,” she said meekly. “Coyness is one of my many vices. I know you told me to crawl back into the woodwork and leave the investigation to you, but you didn’t think I was going to plug up my ears and wear a blindfold, did you? I didn’t do anything imprudent. I took a very small risk, and it paid off. I’m alive to tell about it.”

  “You aren’t telling about it yet,” Shayne said patiently.

  “I’m coming to it. I was down on the beach, well-oiled because of the fact that I freckle, and there was quite a breeze blowing. In ten minutes my skin felt like sandpaper. We were supposed to stay another half hour, but I went up to the pool to rinse off, and I saw George Savage going into one of the cabanas. Nothing suspicious about that, but do you remember I told you about that big Japanese with a camera? As I was climbing out of the pool, he went into the same cabana!”

  “And you decided it was just a coincidence and went up to your room to change for dinner, because you remembered I told you to stop acting like a character in a Hitchcock movie.”

  “No, to be honest with you I didn’t. How often does anybody like me get a chance to do something about crime? Now, Mike, I can tell from the tense way you’re not saying anything that you don’t think it was a good idea. But I’m not a moron. I had my camera with me. If anybody saw me they’d think I was getting into position for a low-angle shot of the beach. And nobody saw me, I’m sure.”

  “That’s great,” Shayne said through his teeth.

  “Mike, you were right to give away that forty-seven thousand dollars! Of course, poolside cabanas are built of the flimsiest materials. I heard George say something about some arrangement he was making at the casino. I came in on the tail end of that and I didn’t know what he meant until tonight, when some of the other gals and I were arguing about why you didn’t keep the money. And it struck me. They were planning to sandbag you and make it look like a robbery!”

  “Yes, Mary. Now, if that’s all-’”

  “It’s by no means all! They mentioned a ship, the S.S. Mansfield City. They mentioned a location, La Guaira. For your information, if you’re not up on your geography, that’s the port
for Caracas, Venezuela. And they mentioned two names.”

  “Mary?” Shayne said when she stopped.

  For an instant he thought the connection had been broken. Then she cried, “What do you think you’re doing? Get out this instant or I’ll-”

  There was a guttural exclamation. She squealed almost comically and the phone fell. An instant later a click sounded in Shayne’s ear.

  CHAPTER 11

  Christa, sitting forward, questioned him with a look. He weighed the phone in one hand, then put it down.

  “This may he the break I’ve been waiting for,” he said decisively. “Don’t leave this room. When Tim Rourke phones, tell him to come here.”

  “Mike, we decided-”

  He thrust the thirty-eight into the side pocket of his jacket. “They had no way of knowing she was calling me. It’s a chance to get everything sorted out so we’ll know where we are tomorrow. But if I do get booby-trapped, the gold is scheduled to go out of La Guaira on a ship called the Mansfield City. Give it to the cops, and let’s have everybody picked up when they make the transfer.”

  “Mike, be careful.” She added softly, “Come back to me.”

  Shayne gave her a slanting grin and ran for the elevators. On the second floor he looked for Room 285. The door was locked, but a locked hotel door never delayed Shayne for long. He entered carefully, his gun out. After waiting a moment, he snapped on the overhead light.

  One of the two beds was turned down for the night. The other was badly tangled. A crumpled pillow and a spilled box of chocolates lay on the floor. Shayne took in the scene in a fast glance. As he turned, he heard the loud blast of an automobile horn outside. After going on too long, it broke off abruptly.

  Shayne went quickly to the window.

  This room was on the blind side of the building. He looked down on a dimly lit expanse of parked cars. The horn sounded again, this time briefly. A flicker of movement near one of the mercury-vapor lamps drew his eye. Three figures, a woman and two men, were struggling in the front seat of a white convertible. The top came down and hid them from view.

  Shayne moved fast.

  He took the stairs to the mezzanine three at a time. Still moving quickly but without seeming to hurry, he descended the curving stairs to the lobby. Ward, the Negro clergyman, was in his path, talking to one of the older women from the tour. He nodded to Shayne and turned as though to stop him.

  “Meeting a plane,” Shayne said, and brushed past.

  As he approached the taxi stand to the right of the main entrance, an elderly Negro sprang to attention beside a battered Checker cab.

  “Cab, sir?”

  “Yeah, and I’m in a hurry.”

  The driver slid behind the wheel. Shayne came into the front seat beside him. The driver wheeled the cab around, completing the turn just as the convertible shot out of the driveway leading into the parking area.

  “There they are!” Shayne snapped. “My wife’s in that car.”

  The driver, a small man with grizzled hair and gnarled hands, came down hard on the gas. “There won’t be any-altercation?”

  “Nothing like that,” Shayne told him. “This is just to see where they go, to protect myself. She’s trying to hit me for heavy alimony. Don’t hang too close. Just don’t lose them.”

  “Because,” the driver continued, shifting gears, “I wouldn’t want to become mixed up in somebody else’s domestic argument. I’m a peace-loving man.”

  “So am I,” Shayne said, peering ahead.

  The driver glanced across at him skeptically. “And that thing that’s dragging down the right-hand pocket of your coat could be a pipe, too, but I doubt it.”

  Shayne sighed. “Why do I always pick a driver who notices things? I’m a detective. The lady’s not my wife. She’s my client’s wife.” He took out a twenty-dollar bill, held it up so the driver could see the denomination, and tucked it in his shirt pocket. “All right now?”

  “Well-l-”

  “How long’s this Checker been kicking around?”

  “Nearly as long as I have. The difference is, everything’s been replaced a few times and I’m still running on the original parts. They made a good automobile. This about the interval you like?”

  “Fine.”

  The convertible they were following was a recent-model Pontiac. It twisted through the cobblestone streets of the Old Town. As it emerged into the countryside, Shayne told his driver to drop farther back. The road surface became rapidly worse. The Pontiac’s big double taillights danced crazily as the wheels went into potholes or over breaks in the asphalt. The high old Checker was less troubled by the road, but the motor labored as they began to climb. “You could use a valve job,” Shayne observed.

  The driver chuckled. “Can’t the same be said for almost everybody? For another ten dollars I’d be willing to cut my lights through here. I know this road like a newspaper, and it’s easy with another vehicle to follow.”

  Shayne paid him, and he slowed abruptly as the lights went off. Whenever the taillights ahead vanished from view, he put his own dims back on and speeded up till the road straightened and the taillights reappeared. They crossed an intersection and continued another few miles in silence.

  “This is bad country around here,” he said nervously. “The people will pick the meat off your bones, if they catch you, and leave nothing of your automobile but the chassis. I can’t make out where this fellow is going.”

  “Doesn’t the road go around the island?”

  “Not this one.” He swung the wheel to avoid a bad hole. “He is driving too fast for conditions. He’ll lose the bottom out of his oilpan if he isn’t careful. No, the coast road is behind us. I can tell better in a few kilometers. There is a Y ahead. If he goes to the right, it is one thing.”

  The road dipped and the taillights disappeared. When they came into view again, the driver murmured, “Now we see.” A moment later: “To the left. Now we can turn around and go back to town.”

  “Where are we?”

  “In a district known as La Esmerelda. The right fork comes down into a valley where there are cane plantations. The left fork goes nowhere. A ridge with a waterfall, a view of the ocean. A man from New York started to put up houses there, then he went away. That is how it is done, it seems. There is one house, only half finished. People say he will return when the banks give him more money.”

  They reached the fork. He cut his wheels and began to turn.

  “How far is the house?” Shayne said.

  “A few minutes on foot. Also a few minutes by car-the road is bad. If you listen, you can hear the waterfall.”

  “Pull over and wait for me.”

  “No. As I told you, this is a bad part of the mountains, and so I think I will go back to the lights of the town. If you are getting out here, that will be five dollars.”

  Shayne opened his wallet. “Fifty.”

  The old man shook his head. “I do not interfere in anybody’s business. But when a man with a weapon in his pocket follows a woman in a modern automobile into the mountains, I know from history that shots will be fired. And the man with no connection with the affair is always the one struck by the bullets-that is the way it happens in St. Albans.”

  “I’ll make it a hundred.”

  “I am truly sorry, sir. Even a third-class funeral costs more than a hundred dollars.” The valves tapped loudly as the motor idled. “I am nervous to be standing here. Are you coming or staying?”

  Shayne paid him and got out. “Come back in an hour.”

  Again the driver apologized; this had to be his last fare of the night.

  “There is a telephone at the inn at the foot of the mountain. And of course,” he added slyly, “there is always the Pontiac.”

  “Yeah.”

  “The road goes straight to the site. There is a big hole, where the man planned to build a swimming pool. A person might fall into it if he hadn’t been told it was there.”

  He came down into low
gear and roared away.

  Shayne waited for his eyes to adjust to the change of light. The noise of the Checker’s motor dwindled away beneath him. There was no moon, but the sky was brilliantly sprinkled with stars.

  He started up the road, which was rutted and unpaved. In places it had washed badly. There was dense foliage on either side. As he rounded a bend, the sound of the waterfall became suddenly louder. Seeing a light ahead, he went more carefully, stopping every few steps. Soon he was able to make out the white bulk of the Pontiac, parked just off the road. As the foliage fell away on either side, a building took shape against the stars.

  The light he was following proved to come from a battery-powered lantern inside the building. He heard voices, and a figure crossed in front of the light. Standing absolutely still, he let his eyes range slowly along the front of the building. It was long and low, on a single level. The framework was finished and the roof had been closed in, but construction had been interrupted with the sheathing barely begun. There was only one room with walls. Space had been left for two large picture windows looking north. At that end of the house a still-unpaved terrace stretched almost to the edge of the waterfall.

  The ground was open, dotted with piles of building material. Off to the right, Shayne saw the irregular outlines of a big piece of earth-moving equipment, a bulldozer-backhoe combination.

  Crouching, he moved closer to the house, his gun in his hand.

  A man’s voice said complainingly, “What a bunch of bushers. How much planning went into this, I’d like to know? Very damn little. I thought I was going to be working with pros.”

  Another voice, with a trace of a Japanese accent, answered stiffly, “There is nothing to talk about. We have to kill her at once. Forget about Savage.”

  “Chop chop,” the first voice said with a sneer. “That’s all you know.”

  Mary Ocain said brightly, “Am I allowed to say something?”

  Her voice was thin and shaky, but she seemed in an odd way to be enjoying herself. Shayne reached the building line. There was a rough scaffolding still in place. Maneuvering around a low pile of cinder blocks, he moved cautiously toward the nearest opening in the plyscore sheathing.