He looked at Shayne suddenly, and his tongue came out to lick whiskey off his lips. “You don’t think I had anything to do with starting that fire?”
His eyes traveled from face to face, and he began talking very fast. “You want the whole story. Mike? Tim? The big thing the association has been pushing this session is a one percent bump in the mortgage ceiling. Very good economic arguments in favor, and we didn’t expect any trouble. Then Grover broke the bad news. The judge had set a price of forty thousand on letting it through. I was surprised. It was the first time I ever heard of Judge Kendrick being on the shake. But of course it was worth it. Some of our members needed that extra point to stay in business, so I got the money together and gave it to Grover, and Judge Kendrick handled the bill all the way, smooth as cream.”
“The forty thousand stopped with Grover?”
“Yes, but how was I supposed to know that? The judge was for the bill, he just wasn’t committing himself for strategic reasons. When he found out about it he made Grover give it back, and that’s the complete and absolute truth. I hope you’ll see your way clear to destroying those pictures, including the negatives, because—”
The phone rang. Rourke took the call while Shayne questioned the lobbyist further about the payment he had made through Sparrow. Noonan maintained that that had been a mere thousand dollars. He had believed that Sparrow had learned of the forty-thousand-dollar payment and was blackmailing him on his own account.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Sparrow said firmly.
Rourke put the phone down. “Did you hear some fire sirens?”
“Yeah, on the way in. What was it?”
Rourke came back to his drink. “What’s our big unsolved question? Was Maslow’s death an accident or murder? Both doctors who looked at the body have political jobs, and a verdict of accidental death would get a lot of important people off the hook. Was Maslow really drunk when the fire started? Were they lying about the alcohol count, or did somebody switch blood samples?”
“Well?” Shayne said impatiently.
“There’s no way of checking now, Mike, because the funeral home burned down.”
When Shayne gave him a questioning look he nodded. “Yeah. Everything went, including the corpse.”
CHAPTER 15
Sam Rapp’s costly and powerful Ferrari 275 GTB, carrying Shayne and Tim Rourke, approached the medical block where, according to Teddy Sparrow, Senator Maslow had maintained his sub rosa office. The sky was beginning to lighten. Daybreak was less than an hour away.
“I know there’s no time for an illustrated lecture,” Rourke said, “but tell me this one thing. Was Maslow murdered?”
“Hell, yes,” Shayne said gloomily. “All you have to do is think of him in that closet. Every picture he took meant either money or votes. Why would he pick a time like that to start drinking?”
“I guess the answer is that he probably didn’t. We can’t prove it now.”
“Unless we get the killer to admit it.”
“Well, I’ve been following you around long enough to know that it sometimes happens. One thing I didn’t tell you. When I talked to the paper tonight they said three separate tipsters had phoned in a name. This is the smart money talking, and who do you think they give credit for the killing?”
“Sam Rapp,” Shayne said. “But Sam didn’t do it. That’s one of the few things I do know. Let’s see if we turn up anything at Maslow’s office. I doubt if he was a safe-deposit-box man, but you never—”
A cream-colored hardtop turned onto the street and rocketed away, kicking out a heavy exhaust. Shayne came down on the gas and the Ferrari responded.
“Tim! Watch the street numbers.”
The hardtop zoomed past a lumbering milk truck, drifting farther and farther across the center line until, with a sudden flare of its brake lights, it swung across the opposite lane into a side street.
“Here we are,” Rourke said.
Shayne lifted his foot off the accelerator, but waited an instant before applying the brake. He thought the hardtop had come out of a driveway in this block, but he couldn’t be sure.
He pulled up to the curb, hesitating again before getting out. But this was unfamiliar country, and he knew from experience that once you lose contact with a car in the residential district of a strange town, with two-way traffic and short blocks, it’s likely to be gone for good.
The address Sparrow had given them belonged to a long two-story brick building, with stores along the ground floor. The second floor was a warren of medical offices. As Shayne and Rourke went up the stairs, taking them two at a time, Shayne could still feel the pull of the hardtop. He was beginning to think he had made a bad choice. He should have given chase the instant the light-colored car appeared. The driver had accelerated too hard, he had taken the turn too sharply.
It was too late now.
They found Room 37, which the lettering on the glass door identified as the office of Dr. Seymour J. Weiss, Gynecologist. Shayne had his lockpicking equipment ready, but the door was already unlocked. As they crossed the threshold, the pungent after-smell of an explosion made his nostrils flare.
They were in a small waiting room. Crossing the room in two strides, Shayne pushed open the door to the doctor’s examining room. The medical furniture inside had obviously not been used in some time. A padded examining table, fitted with stirrups, was pushed against the wall, with newspapers and magazines thrown carelessly on it. The floor on the visitors’ side of the desk was littered with butts. Shayne went quickly to a wall cupboard, of a kind that could be used for storing medical supplies. The doors stood open. Inside, a small cylinder safe had been cemented into the wall. It had been blown.
Shayne heard Rourke swear under his breath behind him.
A body was sprawled on the floor, between the end of the examining table and the wall. It was Grover Kendrick, Jr., still attired in the blue Bermudas and knit shirt he had worn at his party. A heavy caliber bullet had opened an exit-hole in the back of his skull. The blood on the floor around him looked recent.
“Take care of this, Tim,” Shayne said savagely. “Then get back to the hotel.”
“Sure,” Rourke said as Shayne passed him. “And when they ask me why I’m here, what do I say?”
“You’re getting a checkup.”
Rourke came to the door and called after him, “From a gynecologist?”
Moving fast, knowing that he had already lost far too much time, Shayne plunged down the stairs and into the Ferrari. He was figuring probabilities. To run down the hardtop now, he needed something faster and more mobile, able to maneuver in two dimensions—a helicopter.
Coming down into high when the tachometer began to insist, Shayne shot past the milk truck, which swerved off nervously as Shayne loomed suddenly on its left.
The airport was a mile away, and he covered the distance in less than thirty seconds. It was a marvelous car, too conspicuous for anyone in Shayne’s business to drive regularly, but steady on the rough pavement, with a sensitive wheel and an ability to move around corners at a high speed without drifting or shuddering.
The gate he wanted was chained. Braking lightly, he hit it head on. It burst open.
He kept his thumb on the horn as he headed for the helicopter. The blacktop was slick with dew. He went into a long controlled skid that came to a stop under the idle rotor.
The look on his face as he pulled himself into the helicopter sent the pilot into the cockpit. The motor sprang to life and the big overhead blade began to wheel slowly.
Shayne, at the pilot’s elbow, gestured upward with his thumb. Salzman shook his head, and waited till he approved of the noises the engine was making, then he moved his controls and the craft rose at a shallow angle, hugging the ground until they were out from under the traffic pattern.
“We didn’t get clearance. It’s an emergency, I hope.”
“Yeah,” Shayne said curtly. He drew a circle in the air. “We’re lo
oking for a white hardtop with Florida plates and bad bearings, burning oil. Within five miles of here.”
Salzman looked skeptical. “Moving or parked?”
“If it isn’t moving we won’t find it. Up a little higher.” The helicopter rose to fifteen hundred feet and began to weave. The street plan of the town became clear. There was a harsh orange glow in the east; the sun was on its way. Shayne found the street he had been on. Following it with his eye, he picked up the milk truck, motionless now as the driver made a delivery.
There was little movement in the side streets, and the only vehicles he saw were either the wrong color or the wrong shape. Once he had Salzman come down to look more closely at a white sedan. It proved to be a low-priced compact.
They began taking wider and wider casts as they ran farther out on an imaginary radius, and soon, for part of the time, they were over open country. At a gesture from Shayne, Salzman went still higher. Shayne was shifting back and forth from one side of the great curving windshield to the other.
Twice more they went down for a closer look. The second time Shayne touched Salzman on the shoulder and said, “That’s the one I want.”
It was a heavy three-or-four-year-old DeSoto. Even moving at high speed on open highway it was making too much exhaust. The sun was up, and the speeding car cast a long, lively shadow. It was traveling due south on a two-lane highway. A mile or so ahead of its present position, a curving unpaved road wandered away through trees to the west, to join another north-south highway leading back to town.
“Set down ahead of him,” Shayne said. “See what he does.”
Salzman overtook the DeSoto, planed up and over, and after picking up a hundred-yard advantage, began to settle toward the highway. The DeSoto cut its speed sharply, swung out on the shoulder and went into a violent seesawing turn.
“Now we chivvy him a little,” Shayne said.
The helicopter came up and around, hanging behind the DeSoto at an elevation of only two hundred feet. The road ran straight for five miles, with no side roads, paved or unpaved.
“This about right, Mike?”
“Just fine,” Shayne said grimly.
Picking up the transmitter, he signaled the tower. When a voice answered, coming in strongly, Shayne identified himself and gave the helicopter’s location and bearing.
“Take this down,” he said. “We’re pursuing a cream-colored DeSoto hardtop convertible, tag number—” He peered down, shading his eyes against the sun, and read the digits. “The driver’s a killer. We can hold him on this stretch of road, but we need a roadblock. Notify the highway patrolmen. Over.”
The DeSoto was slowing again, and Salzman throttled down to keep the interval.
“A killer, is he?” he said casually. “I suppose he’s armed.”
“No, probably not,” Shayne told him. “He thought he was in the clear. The first thing he’d do would be to throw away the gun.”
“Then we’d better turn him again. If he gets into town he can lose us.”
“Not if the cops are on the ball. They must have cars available. It’s been a big night for everybody.”
The radio voice called. Shayne picked up the transmitter and answered.
For an instant, after throwing the switch to receive, he heard only a meaningless crackle. Then that cut out and the voice said hesitantly, “Shayne? The Captain says—well, he says they don’t want any crap out of you, and to get your ass down out of there unless you want a bad mess of trouble. Unquote.”
Shayne grinned. “If he’s still on the phone, tell him we’ll handle it ourselves. We’ll keep him posted.”
Salzman looked around when Shayne closed the transmission. “I’m not getting combat pay, Mike.”
Hand signals told him what Shayne wanted. He went back to full throttle, shooting over the DeSoto at a rising angle. Shayne flattened his face against the side window. The car below had slowed to a crawl. The windshield reflected the sun, but Shayne saw two people in the front seat, the passenger partially screened by an open roadmap. The DeSoto was still heading north when Salzman dropped down behind the trees for a shallow approach to the airfield.
“Stay on his tail,” Shayne shouted as the wheels touched down a few yards from the Ferrari.
He leaped out. The helicopter swooped up and away. He slid smoothly into the waiting bucket seat of the Ferrari and without wasting time on the seat-belt brought the powerful car around in a tight circle. He was passing out through the broken gate as he felt the beat of the chopper overhead. On the highway, he waited for a lead. The helicopter seemed to hesitate. Then, spotting the fugitive DeSoto, it cut across the grid pattern and took up a position behind it.
Shayne took a parallel street. The two cars were mismatched. When Shayne’s Ferrari was well out in front he made two fast rights in succession. The DeSoto loomed up ahead, moving fast. He came about at a slant, blocking both lanes. The other car rocked and slid, and shot away into a side street.
Shayne was after it in an instant. The helicopter passed him and fell in between the two cars. Shayne waved. Salzman caught the signal, overtook the DeSoto and began to settle. This gave them their bracket.
Houses fell away on both sides. On an open stretch of road, Shayne ran up close behind the DeSoto, entering the spume of exhaust, and rapped his front bumper, already banged by the collision with the gate, against the DeSoto’s back bumper. Shayne’s fingertips played lightly with the wheel. His left foot was on the brake, so he was riding brakes and gas at the same time. He gave the accelerator a quick savage goose, ramming the other car hard, then increased the brake pressure and fell back.
When the interval opened to a car-length he hit the gas and zoomed into the left-hand lane. He kept control all the way. When his rear wheels were abreast of the front wheels of the DeSoto, he began to bear in, and ran the other driver off the road.
His opponent lost courage at the last moment. As the fenders clashed he went to his brakes. Shayne sheered off, and heard a slither and a crunch in his wake. His own brakes were on. Even before he came to a complete stop he jammed the stick into reverse and came back, stopping a few yards from the DeSoto, which had come all the way around to point back up the road. In the dying moments of its skid, it had broken off two highway posts.
The driver, on the shoulder of the road, was bent over fumbling with something. It was Boots Gregory, whose tattooed wrist had said that he was looking for trouble. He had found it. With trembling hands he was trying to set some crumpled papers on fire.
But he couldn’t make his lighter work. He dropped the papers and faced Shayne, his face wild. Shayne held his eyes. He feinted with a tiny head movement. As Gregory went with the feint Shayne nailed him. Gregory hit the DeSoto on the way down, putting one more dent in its side.
Anne Braithwaite was strapped into the front seat, using both seat-belt and shoulder-belt. She was staring straight ahead, her face white and blank.
“Are you hurt?” Shayne said.
Her teeth unclenched. “Scared,” she said faintly.
The helicopter came down. Salzman, beckoned by Shayne, ran toward them. Shayne gathered the papers Gregory had been trying to burn, and restored them to a lawyer’s letter-size cardboard folder. On the floor of the front seat was a small drawstring bag. Opening it, Shayne found it filled with roulette plaques, each bearing the little embossed seal—in this case a coronet—which identified the one casino in the world where it could be exchanged for money.
A siren began to cry. Anne scratched frantically at the catches of her seat belts. Shayne helped her. After she left the front seat he searched the car. Then he searched Gregory.
“No gun,” he observed.
“Which is lucky for you,” Anne said.
Gregory was trying to sit up when a highway patrol car, its siren dying, pulled in. A highway patrol captain jumped out, his revolver drawn.
“You gave yourself away with that radio call, Shayne,” he announced. “All we had to do was look for a h
elicopter. You’re under arrest.”
“Shayne’s under arrest?” Anne said bitterly. “Brace yourself, my dear man. You have a few surprises in store.”
CHAPTER 16
Shayne was in no hurry now.
The highway patrolmen wanted to book him for attempted bribery and assaulting a police officer with a Cadillac steering wheel. The county sheriff had questions to ask about a dead man named Ramon Elvirez, found in the grass at the edge of the airport. Then a report came in connecting Shayne with another man, considerably more important, who had been shot to death in a gynecologist’s office. When the state attorney arrived, a tall, gray-haired man with a superficial resemblance to public prosecutors on television, Shayne suggested that everybody collect in a central place, perhaps the bar of the Prince George, and determine who had primary jurisdiction.
Nobody wanted to do it that way. Tim Rourke called the Miami chief of police, a close friend of Shayne’s, and had him talk to the Tallahassee chief of police and the state attorney. Gradually the contending parties came around. Shayne gave them a list of people who could contribute information, and city policemen were dispatched to bring them in.
Sam Rapp, Boots Gregory and Al Luccio arrived with lawyers, obviously under instructions not to utter a single word. Luccio, dark, pudgy, and balding, had shaved with an unsteady hand. His face was crosshatched with cuts.
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” he told his lawyer, and coming up to Shayne, said in a low voice, “If you can swing the vote, Mike, it’s worth twenty G’s.”
“But have you got twenty G’s?” Shayne said. “In cash, not in markers.”
Luccio’s face twitched expressively. “We ought to have a little conference, you know? Sign now, pay later.”
“Al, do what your lawyer tells you. Sit down and shut up.” Lib Patrick and Jackie Wales came in together, both looking great, in their different ways. Jackie pulled up short, seeing the size of the gathering.
Lib remarked, “At least these cops gave me time to get the junk out of my hair. Thanks for holding off. They picked Sam up at the bank at 9:05.”
Lady, Be Bad Page 13
