Becoming serious, he began ticking off points Shayne had asked him to check, displaying the precision and economy that made him such a good reporter.
“We were seen leaving the Sans Souci, and they have an exact time. That’s bad, because the M.E. says LeFevre died about two hours earlier. There are jimmy marks on the door but only one set, and you know who put them there-I did. The big new thing is that LeFevre wasn’t unconscious when he was slugged. There was blood in several different places. They think he was sapped a couple of times before he started to fight. They found skin under his fingernails. I know Petey wants to find out if anybody’s scratched you lately.”
“They have. They’ve also been hitting me with two-by-fours.”
“Foolish of them,” Rourke said without much sympathy. “You wanted to know about the hotel safe. There was nothing in it in LeFevre’s name-no dossier or photographs. I don’t mean somebody took them out later. LeFevre didn’t put them in. George Savage. No police record, but a girl at the paper has come up with something. Apparently he was working the Dead Sea Scrolls con in the Middle East last summer. You’ve heard of that-the mark buys some tightly rolled scrolls that an Arab has found in a cave. And, of course, when they’re unrolled, they turn out to be a map of downtown Tel Aviv. Now the captain, Joe Lassiter. Women, horses, liquor. But everybody says Pan Am gave him a wrong deal. Jimmy Moss. This boy is a red-hot. A pilot. He’s flown all over, including the Congo. He ferried planes to the Algerians. And this is interesting. It’s just a whiff, but one of my raffish friends says Jimmy may have had something to do with the big gold theft in LaGuardia Airport in New York last year. For that do you raise my salary?”
“I’ll double it. Here’s what I want now, Tim. I saw George Savage having supper by himself in the Calypso Room. I think it’s still open. He’s been through here a number of times so the girls would know him by name. Find out who served him and what he ate, and if anybody was with him at any time. He’s being sick to his stomach, and it doesn’t seem to be a simple case of too much booze. I’d like to find out if anybody fed him anything. After that, charter a small plane so you can get to Caracas ahead of us. We’re leaving at eight. You’d better be on your way by five. Alert the airport people down there. Don’t say anything about gold, but it’s all right to drop a few hints. Can you do that?”
“Easily,” Rourke said bitterly. “Five o’clock is three hours from now. By the time I talk to waitresses and persuade the charter people that my credit is good, I won’t have any time to make friends with Christa. Good planning, Mike. She wants to talk to you again.”
“Mike?” Shayne heard her say. “Shouldn’t I know what’s going on? When will I see you?”
Shayne hung up gently without answering.
“Take these,” Ward said when he dropped him. “You may need them.”
He slid the forty-five and a tiny pencil flashlight into Shayne’s hand. Shayne stuck the weapon inside his belt and stepped out of the cab.
“Thanks.”
But at this point he trusted nobody, and after Ward had driven off, he took out the gun and checked the clip. There were four rounds in it, as well as one more in the chamber.
The taillights of the Checker disappeared. Shayne was in the shopping district in the old part of town. He waited exactly fifteen minutes, then pulled a fire alarm.
A siren blew at once. The engine came careening along the high-crowned cobblestone street less than six minutes later, good time for what must have been a volunteer company. The engine was a big LaFrance pumper, probably a castoff from some fire department in the States. It was beautifully painted and polished.
Shayne leaped on the running board. “The airfield!”
The airfield was on flat ground two miles east of town. In a moment they could see the flames. Ward had started a blaze against the outer wall of a small-plane hangar, and it was burning nicely. The fire truck shot through the main gate, its bell clanging. Arriving at the fire, Shayne helped himself to one of the rubber coats and helmets on the side of the truck, picked a fire ax out of the rack, and, leaving the firemen to look after the fire, set off at a run toward the main hangar area.
Passing a guard, he shouted, “Telephone!”
The chartered DC-8 had been taxied into the first of the big hangars. Shayne found a padlocked side door and broke off the padlock with the fire ax. Inside, using the pencil flash, he found a tool closet and ditched his fireman’s gear.
Then he picked his way across the oil-spotted floor to the big plane. He maneuvered a mobile flight of stairs into place and entered by the forward door.
The tail cone was at the rear of the galley, entered through a sliding panel beneath the ovens. The space looked small and uncomfortable. Shayne crawled inside and found that he was able to slide the door shut after him. There was nothing between him and the skin of the airplane but a double layer of control wires in their fiber sheaves. Having proved that the cone would hold him, he wriggled back out to the galley. He found two or three pillows in the stewardess’s closet and stuffed them into the cone to make the ride easier. Then he opened a midget bottle of cognac, which he carried to the last seat in the passenger cabin. In a matter of minutes after finishing his drink, he had fallen asleep.
He was awakened by the sound of the hangar door opening.
He checked his watch. Unless it had stopped again, the time was 4:25. Looking down, he saw a thin flashlight beam moving toward the plane.
He dropped his empty glass into the drying rack in the galley and slid feet first into the cone, leaving the sliding door open a half inch. A moment later someone climbed the steps and entered the plane. Putting his eye to the crack, he saw the moving flashlight, behind it a pair of woman’s legs. The skirt seemed to be part of the light blue stewardess uniform. She seemed to be looking for something in the aisle. Stooping with her back to Shayne, she stripped back a section of carpet and pulled up a hatch cover. It blocked her from view.
Shayne hesitated. He could hear metallic noises in the plane’s belly. He opened the door all the way. But before he could make up his mind to move, the woman climbed out.
Startled by something, she turned off her light. The hatch cover dropped back in place. Shayne began to work his way out into the galley. A dark shadow was moving up the aisle away from him. Then high heels rang on the metal steps. He reached a window in time to see the flashlight glide across the hangar to the outer door.
He waited several minutes to be sure he was alone. Then he found the break in the carpet and lifted the aisle hatch.
The thin pencil of light showed a narrow luggage compartment running the width of the airplane. He stepped onto the top of a long metal container. It shifted beneath his weight. Apparently it rested on rollers. He lifted the hinged lid and pulled up one of the bags, a heavy fabric two-suiter. He forced the lock.
Inside, carefully swaddled in cotton waste, he found a standard four-hundred-ounce gold bar.
After thinking about it for a moment, he handed it up to the cabin and relocked the bag. Then he set to work. Twenty minutes later all the gold had been removed from the luggage and was stacked neatly in the aisle. He closed the luggage container, lowered the hatch, and replaced the carpet. There were twenty-five golden loaves. He arranged them in stacks in the tail cone.
The work had made him hungry. He had an early breakfast of croissants and cognac in the galley and then slid into the cone, arranging himself carefully amid the stacks of gold.
He was very tired. With the help of the strategically placed pillows, he was soon asleep.
CHAPTER 15
The big front doors of the hangar went up with a clang, awakening Shayne. A thin sliver of daylight came into the dark cone through the crack in the door. When he heard movement aboard the plane, he closed the door the rest of the way and rearranged his cramped body so it wouldn’t interfere with the free movement of the control wires. If the plane kept to schedule, it would be leaving in ninety minutes.
A
tractor hooked onto the plane’s nose and towed it out onto the field. Shayne heard the fuel tanks being filled. The stewardesses entered the galley and began talking in confidential tones about the party in the hotel the night before. Joe Lassiter, the pilot, had drunk gallons, and he was suffering from the usual morning-after symptoms now.
“But he doesn’t frighten me half as much as some of the ice cubes I’ve flown with on scheduled runs,” one of the stewardesses commented. “He makes his mistakes on the ground.”
Time went by, the plane filled, and eight o’clock came and went. The stewardesses were kept busy. At 8:20, with the engines still warming up, both girls were in the galley at the same time, stealing a few quick gulps of coffee.
“Three passengers still missing,” one girl said. “Samuel Thompson-I don’t even remember what he looked like, do you?”
“Definitely. I had a tentative date with him at eleven o’clock last night and he never showed up. Just as well. He was sort of a creep.”
“A hell of a time for Georgie-boy to take off. Who’s going to look after the baggage?”
“You and me, naturally. Funny about Mike Shayne. I wonder what happened to him.”
The first girl made a shivering sound. “Now there’s one of the sexiest creatures God ever made.”
Shayne grinned in the darkness. The other girl said scornfully, “Sue, don’t let your glands run away with you. He scares me. I wouldn’t mind partying with him, but-”
A buzzer sounded.
“Yes, Mr. Moss. No, Mr. Moss. Let him wait. That man has a mean pair of eyes. What was the Hochberg woman telling you about Shayne?”
“He expects to catch up to us in Caracas. I don’t know if I’m imagining things, but I don’t think she was this tense yesterday. What a kooky bunch. I just hope Shayne-well, you have to admit that was weird in the casino last night.”
“I’ll tell you one thing about that stud. He can take care of himself.”
Shayne, in the tail cone, hoped she was right.
Presently the noise of the motors rose to an excited whine. The plane began to move. The jets cut loose and blew them into the air.
The pilot completed a long climbing turn and leveled off. The wires on both sides of Shayne moved imperceptibly, responding to small changes made in the cockpit. The only sound was that of air whispering along the fuselage.
The next time the stewardesses were both in the galley they were talking about a new passenger who had come aboard at St. Albans. Again, something out of the ordinary had happened, for passengers rarely joined a tour a day after it was underway. And this passenger, too, was anything but ordinary: a swarthy, handsome Brazilian with jumpy eyes. He had asked for a double Scotch and drunk it like medicine.
Suddenly the plane was shaken by a sharp explosion.
A glass shattered a few inches from Shayne’s head. After a long moment’s silence, he heard one of the girls whisper, “My God, Sue. What was that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
The buzzers were clamoring. Shayne pulled the pillows out of his way. His fingertips were on the edge of the sliding panel. As far as he could tell, the plane was flying normally, with no unusual vibration. One of the passengers in the rear of the cabin called back, demanding to know what had happened.
“Better check with Lassiter,” one of the girls said in a low voice.
“Here he comes.”
Shayne got a better foothold, ready to push off. Lassiter’s voice, easygoing and unexcited: “Did you kids hear a bang?”
“Did we!”
“Now stop shaking, dear. Nothing’s wrong with the engines. Nothing shows on the instruments. We’re on full power and everything’s answering. Where did it seem to come from?”
“Right underneath, Joe. I thought it was in one of the luggage compartments.”
Lassiter considered for a moment. “I wonder if we’re getting any tail-cone vibration.”
Apparently he squatted, ready to pull the sliding panel. His next words came from that level. Shayne’s teeth came back from his lips.
“Hell with it,” Lassiter said, and stood up. “If we’ve got one of those insurance nuts who bring in time bombs in their luggage, we’d better get back to St. Albans and check it out.”
All the buzzers were sounding now. Shayne heard Lassiter’s departing footsteps.
He pulled the door open far enough to look out. The stewardesses had begun moving up the aisle, flashing professional smiles. After Lassiter passed, a man rose and followed him into the cockpit.
The plane banked. Then it rocked and began to turn back in the opposite direction. The first stewardess swung around to look at her friend.
Almost immediately a voice came over the public address. “Ladies and-”
It was Moss’s voice. It broke off abruptly, to resume again an instant later.
“Ladies and gentlemen. This is not your captain speaking. Kind of hectic up here for a minute. Everything under control. Jaime, they’ve got a stupid idea about turning back to St. Albans, so let’s us spring into action.”
Another man went to the front of the cabin. When he turned, he was seen to be wearing a grotesque monster mask.
“This is a robbery, folks,” the public address said. “We hope nobody’s going to get hurt. This airplane has been taken over by the Venezuelan Armed Forces for National Liberation.”
A delayed scream sounded from the rear of the cabin.
“I could give you a little political lecture,” Moss was saying, “but I’m afraid it wouldn’t stay with you. So we’re passing out pamphlets, one for each passenger. Read it at your leisure. My colleague at the front of the cabin is named Jaime Sanchez. He’s a professional revolutionary. The reason he’s wearing that horrible mask is so you won’t be able to describe him to the police. Some of you probably saw him when he came aboard, but you’ve forgotten what he looks like, haven’t you? I don’t want you to remember that he has a scar over his left eye, pockmarks, and a missing lower tooth in front.”
He gave a high, happy laugh, which made the loudspeaker vibrate. “I’m holding a pistol to your captain’s head, and he intends to do exactly what I tell him. If he tries any funny stuff and I have to spatter his brains over the windshield, don’t be alarmed. You may hear the gun but don’t give it a thought. I’m a qualified pilot. I’ve logged twenty thousand miles in DC-8s. And the boys up here will be glad to help me with advice and assistance, I feel sure. Jaime, get to work.”
The masked bandit at the front of the cabin called, “Money and jewelry, passports. Watches, travelers checks, credit cards. Drop in the bag.”
He shook out a canvas U.S. mail sack and offered it to the passengers in the front seats. Moss came back on the public address.
“Don’t hold out, any of you people. When you read those pamphlets, you’ll understand the reason we need money, to overthrow a corrupt and inefficient and murdering government. And don’t forget it’s deductible. You’re really making a political contribution, but this way you can tell the Internal Revenue Service you’ve been robbed. Did you follow that?”
After each passenger contributed, Jaime gave him a pamphlet. Suddenly he reached out and cuffed somebody. Dropping the sack, he pulled a woman into the aisle. She was one of the tour’s single women; Shayne had seen her with Mary Ocain. The robber held her erect and ripped her dress to the waist. She huddled her arms together.
The voice on the public address said, “I keep thinking of things to tell you. Some of you are going to think you can get away with slipping a couple of bills in your shoe. Don’t. Jaime’s a kind of fanatic. He wants your cooperation. He doesn’t want to feel he’s forcing you to contribute against your will. Now this would be a foolhardy thing to pull with just the two of us, wouldn’t it? We have friends and sympathizers scattered throughout the plane. They’re watching you. Viva the Front of National Liberation!”
Jaime had punctuated this speech with slaps and blows. Shayne snicked back the slide of th
e forty-five and moved the door another inch. The robber broke the straps of the woman’s bra and turned it inside out. A small ring skittered into the aisle. He pounced on it and held it up for everyone to see.
Crane Ward finally came to his feet. “You’ve made your point. Let the woman alone.”
Jaime’s mask had huge pop eyes, a bad scar or a burn, a craggy underslung jaw. Lowering his head, he caught Ward by the front of his clerical vest and yanked him around.
“Because she hide something, I give her a kick in the pants. If a man tries to hide something, I give a crack with the gun on the side of the cheek. That way everybody knows to give me all their money.”
He walked Ward back to his seat and sat him down hard. He ground his fist deliberately against Ward’s nose and laughed.
“I spit on priests.”
He spat through the mouth hole, then wrenched the half-undressed woman around and did as he had promised-gave her a powerful kick which lifted her off the floor.
“Anyone else?” he shouted. “All of you, give everything you have and I promise we will use it for guns and ammunition to overturn the Yanqui puppets.”
His sack filled rapidly. Deciding arbitrarily that one of the old men was holding out on him, he pulled him into the aisle to be searched. Finding nothing, he apologized, gave him a pamphlet and moved on.
He bowed elaborately to the two stewardesses, in the last seat in the cabin.
“Such pretty girls. Maybe you would like to join us in the mountains? We need women to cook and mend clothes and sleep with us.”
“Thanks very much,” one of the girls said drily. “We appreciate the thought, we really do.”
Reaching down, he touched her face gently. “So pretty. Keep your money.”
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