Brett Halliday: Last Seen Hitchhiking

The next call surprised everybody. A man’s voice: “Mike, are you by any chance a concealed homosexual?”

Shayne laughed. “I doubt it.”

“Because if you are,” the voice continued, “I hope you’ll come out of the closet and join us. You have the image we need. You could be highly effective in our struggle for recognition.”

“This is García,” a strong accented voice announced next.

Sandy decided to drink one more glass of wine and listen to one more call. She hadn’t gleaned much from the Fort Myers lady, although from the way he had put his questions, Shayne had seemed to think she was saying some interesting things. The wine had started a slight buzzing. She had made a close study of her own reactions, and she knew if she laid much more wine in on top of everything else, the buzzing would swell in volume and intensity until she would be able to hear nothing else, and it would keep her from considering her problem. That problem was no longer whether or not she would call — she had decided she had to — but what name she would tell them. It had to be authentic, so they could send her some of the money.

García: “I do not trust you, Shayne. I am not one of those people who open their mouths and everything spills out. Tonight I have done a few crimes, perhaps. I am tall, I am easy for the finger to be pointed to. To disappear into the Spanish-speaking community is not so simple for me. So I want your friendship. I want money, because I have received nothing but pennies so far for all I have done. An acquaintance tells me you have questions. I didn’t shoot Scotch. Understand that. I would have no reason except annoyance.”

“Which one of you did the organizing?”

“He. Of course. Except in height, I am small man. Very much unimportant. But I have feelings.”

“When did he call you?”

“Yesterday.”

“Come on, don’t drip it out with an eye-dropper. What was your deal?”

“To bring two other guys, reliable, and meet in Seminole Beach. A car. No danger, no complications, that was his promise. No danger! No complications!”

“Did he pay in advance?”

“A small sum. Because of your interference, there has been no second payment. And I can tell you I have bills. The phone company, the gas company.”

“I left Scotch on Holloway’s front porch. Did you see him again?”

“We were to meet at a certain place if anything was wrong, if we were separated. I went, but nobody.”

“You had to be a little sore about what happened.”

García said uneasily, “I am refugee, not as yet citizen. It is not wise for me to be angry.”

“How long have you known him?”

“I was with them to Mexico, Holloway and the others. Only to translate. I am not archeologist. To carry things, to put up the tents.”

“Were you there when the Mexican was shot?”

“Indian,” García corrected. “Yes, the professor did that. Should I tell you? Would it interest you? He was a robber, he wanted to rob the professor of his watch, his American Express checks. There was a trail between the camp and the bathroom. The professor was careless, he should not have gone out alone. This raggedy man came up to him with a knife. Out came the professor’s gun. Down fell the Indian.”

“How did the local people react to that?”

“There are so few in the jungle. In the camp, some people said it was the usual gringo craziness, done out of fear. For my part, if it had been me on that path, I would take the knife away from him. Or give him the checks and the watch, and get them back through the rural police, who know everybody in the district. What does an ignorant chicle gatherer know about traveler’s checks? But the professor was nervous, from much looking, little finding. I worried, you know, that evening. The way people looked at him; whispered. But in the morning, the mask was found and everybody was happy after so long, excited. We all knew it would be famous. The professor was lucky. You need much luck in the jungle, among so many trees. You saw it after it was clean, repaired. When it came out of the earth it was not so splendid. But piece by piece. A finished mask, everybody said it was very rare.”

“What place did Scotch have in the expedition?”

“Always with painful ankles, weak bowels. Excuse after excuse. Little work.”

Shayne’s patient questioning continued. Sandy, looking down into her glass and turning it this way and that, almost stopped listening. A conscious step was to be taken, and she didn’t take so many of those that she could do it without working herself up. Would they believe her? Psychologically speaking, she was a mess, with a memory that stood on its head sometimes and did somersaults. She remembered things that hadn’t happened yet, for heaven’s sake, which was definitely not normal.

“Tim Rourke again,” Rourke’s voice said from the radio. “We’re rolling along, in one of the wooliest episodes in the recent history of nighttime radio. I’ve just been told that we’ve been joined by Biscayne Fats and his minuscule audience. Welcome, Fats and friends. Here’s that phone number again. If you know anything about hitchhiking murders or Toltec masks, call us. If you’re hesitating, pick up the phone and dial.”

That was the push Sandy needed. She dialed the number as Rourke said it slowly. She was sure she had done it wrong, and was immensely relieved when a man’s voice answered.

“KMW. Hel lo.”

“I thought I’d — I wanted to—”

“Sweetheart? Do you have something for Shayne?”

“About Bruno, the Mad Doctor.”

“About Bruno, the Mad Doctor,” the voice prompted. “Tell me who’s calling.”

“That’s the trouble! You’d think I’d know a simple thing like my own name, wouldn’t you? I don’t believe in God, I haven’t voted yet, and here are some of the things I like to do: drink, dope, ball, and hitchhike.”

One of the men on the bed sat up. “Who you calling?”

“Mike Shayne, on the radio. They’re talking about that guy who picked me up last week.”

The man at the radio station heard this answer, which she might not have been able to deliver straight into the phone.

“I’ll put you through. You sound a little flittery, but compared to some of the calls we’ve been getting—”

“Shayne,” a voice said a moment later. “Go ahead.”

“My name is—”

And that was as far as she could get. Shayne waited, in a relaxed way. Something came out of the mouthpiece. Some quality, she didn’t know what to call it. All she knew was that none of the men she had ever slept with had had it. Her mind stopped spinning, and she told the truth about herself for the first time in weeks.

“Natalie Kreczmer,” she said, “and the reason I think it’s Bruno, when I woke up I was on this table! Like when I had the abortions? He wasn’t a doctor, he was using the office while the doctor was on vacation. It was a real office, with all these machines. So—” She trailed off.

“Where are you calling from, Natalie?”

“I don’t know that either.”

The man on the bed said, “Bal Harbour, stupid. Listen to the waves on the beach.”

The only surf she could hear was beating back and forth between her ears.

“Everything’s inside everything else,” she told Shayne. “I’m talking on the phone, and my voice is coming back out of the radio, but it’s not the right program—”

“It’s a bad time of night, Natalie.”

“I get disoriented. That’s what Bruno said, and he said he gets that way himself sometimes. He’s a medical student, and he said to call him Bud. I was hitching. The seat-belt was stuck. I had to wear it, he said. He reached over to fix it and gave me this shot in the neck. It slid me right out of there. Mike, I was gone.”