Brett Halliday - At the Point of a. 38

In the parking lot, the Oldsmobile’s engine took hold with a nice even roar. It moved out fast, grazing one of the derelict shopping carts and sending it careening away.

Shayne was holding his paint-bomb well back, ready to throw. The Oldsmobile rocked toward the exit. He noted that the front suspension needed some work. As it began to come around, he touched the fuse to the lighter flame, and threw.

Hissing, the can went up and out in a long arc. The timing was fair. But the Oldsmobile’s driver made his cut sooner than Shayne had expected, and his aim was a bit off. The can exploded ten feet from the ground, five feet to the car’s right and slightly behind it.

Shayne fired twice. Probably neither bullet hit the rapidly moving car.

He raced back to the Buick and jackknifed himself in. Hurrying, he knocked his elbow, and the pain was so bad for a moment that he wasn’t really conscious of starting the car. He left the seat-belt hanging and shot away from the curb, lights off, accelerating hard. He missed the moment for the first upward shift, and the Buick responded with a loss of momentum. Shayne bit down hard, to keep the pain at a manageable level. This would be a difficult pursuit.

The Oldsmobile had a three block lead, and was moving dangerously fast. The explosion and the shots must have startled the driver, and he would be startled even more when he picked up Shayne’s lights in his mirror. Hampered by the necessary changes in his driving rhythm, Shayne lost another half block. On a fast skidding turn into Biscayne Park and through it into Biscayne Boulevard, he came close to losing control. After that he let up slightly. It was much too soon to spend any more time in the hospital.

The driver of the Olds seemed to know his way around town nearly as well as Shayne himself did. He was heading for the Northwest-Northeast interchange, probably hoping that once he was out in the open he could run away, using nothing but speed. This was a mistake. Shayne’s Buick, in spite of its shabby exterior-it was never washed or polished, or withdrawn from service for cosmetic repairs-was powered by a Mercedes 4.5 liter V-8 engine with overhead cams, and cruised easily at 125. Shayne was at more of a disadvantage here, with the constant cornering and changes of speed.

He noticed that he was low on gas.

Coming up from a shift, he knocked the phone off its bracket, opening the connection. After shifting again he managed to retrieve the phone and hang it from the dashboard. His operator was calling him.

“I’m kind of occupied here,” Shayne said, his teeth set. “A call to Watson Park heliport. Either Larry Dietrich or a guy named Norman. If there’s no answer try the Yacht Club bar. It’s urgent.”

He went into the interchange ramp too fast. For a moment the heavy car seemed to want to leave the pavement in an attempt to fly. He came back with wheels locked and skidding, and nearly left the ramp on the opposite side. Less than a foot from the edge, the skid reversed. Shayne fought the wheel, trying to keep away from the brake. He missed a Yield sign by inches. Tonight it was the traffic already on the expressway that would have to yield for him. An oncoming car hurtled sideward. Shayne shifted up into fourth with the pedal on the floor. There were taillights ahead. The car they belonged to had a splotch of luminous paint on its roof. After making this identification, Shayne dropped back and held steady.

“Mr. Shayne?” the operator said. “Ringing the heliport. I gave Chief Gentry your message. The switchboard picked it up and it went out on the air. Is that bad or not?”

“Christ, I don’t know.”

He felt for a cigarette, but gave up after deciding that lighting it would be too much of a problem. He kept his interval, the needle holding steady at a tick higher than 90. They headed north toward Hollywood, through light traffic. The operator tried another number. This ring was answered almost immediately, and he heard her asking for Larry Dietrich. He punched the radio on. Rourke’s show still had an hour to run, but the call from Shayne had emptied the studio. A record was playing.

Shayne’s gas indicator came to rest on the E. Now he had seventeen miles. After another five, he would close with the Olds and see if he could scare the driver into making a costly mistake.

Rourke’s voice interrupted the music.

“All right,” he said. “Out of breath. Give me a minute. This is Tim Rourke. It’s a first for this show, and my editor at the News won’t like it one bit. He wants me to save the hot stories for the paper. All right,” he repeated. “We thought that phone call might be a put-on, but definitely not. There is a black Ford. There is a body in the trunk. A woman, shot twice through the head. Description-somewhere in her mid-twenties, black hair, kind of low center of gravity, hair on her legs and under her arms, an arm vaccination. No purse, no identification. Cheap silver ring on her right hand. Wearing a white blouse, lavender skirt. Clothes look O.K., but not expensive. Good teeth. Now for anybody who’s just joined us, I’ll repeat what happened here. Mike Shayne, that’s the private detective, was just pulling up outside the station. He heard shots. We don’t know where he is now, but his mobile operator called in here for Will Gentry, who needless to say is Miami Chief of Police-”

The same operator was trying to get Shayne’s attention now. He cut Rourke’s voice down to a mutter.

Suddenly the Oldsmobile’s brake-lights flared. The Golden Glades interchange was ahead. Undoubtedly the driver had decided that he was out-powered in expressway driving, and that he would be better off on narrower roads with quick turns and heavier traffic.

“Hold it,” Shayne told his operator.

The Olds ran past the exit. Shayne followed. All at once the other car braked really hard and came about in a tight U, running off on the center strip. Shayne picked his. 357 magnum out of his sling and flicked off the safety. The two cars passed each other with both drivers firing. Shayne held the wheel with one knee and the pressure of his cast. He went down the Route 9 entrance ramp while the Olds went down the regular exit. Shayne was in time at the bottom to pick up the taillights before they disappeared.

“That sounded like shooting,” Shayne’s operator said.

“I don’t think we hit anything. Go ahead.”

Larry Dietrich’s voice said, “Do you need me, Mike? I hope so, because I’ve got bills. I’m a little soused, but I can fly.”

“How long will it take you to get a chopper in the air?”

“Five, six minutes. I think there’s one ready.”

“I’ve got the Buick. I’m on Route 9, going into Opa-Locka. Following a white Olds, and he knows I’m behind him. He should be easy to spot from the air, because I put a splash of fluorescent paint on his roof, running down over the rear end. Head northwest and call me.”

For the first long leg of the chase, Shayne had kept himself tightly keyed up, thinking ahead to the next corner, the next shift. Now he was beginning to lose his concentration. He overshot a turn and had to back up. Backing was his most difficult maneuver; he had to work from the mirrors. By the time he completed the turn, the Olds was out of sight.

By his earlier calculations, his gas tank was now totally dry. He swerved off the road and came to a stop by the premium pump in an all-night gas station. While the attendant filled his tank Shayne weighed possible moves. If the Oldsmobile’s driver thought he had finally shaken Shayne, he would head west, to pick up the Palmetto Expressway on the other side of the Opa-Locka airport. There he could turn either north or south.

Shayne juggled distances and times. The helicopter, casting back and forth overhead, might be able to pick up the Olds even if Shayne, on the ground, was no longer in contact.