Brett Halliday - Six Seconds to Kill

“You are-without a doubt-”

“What else happened at five o’clock?”

“What do you mean?”

“That sex episode held me up about fifteen minutes. And don’t tell me you have sex with every man you slug with an ax-handle, because except for your political opinions I think you’re probably a very nice girl.”

“What makes you think I’m the one who hit you? It could have been somebody else in the crew.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“No, it wasn’t. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just wanted to put you out of action, and I didn’t even succeed in doing that… I wasn’t pretending about wanting to make love to you!”

“Yeah, it was politically OK.” He touched her shoulder. “No point in crying, Adele. You’re losing your eye-liner.”

“You certainly acted as though you liked it. Was that just-”

“I liked it,” he said gently. “But that’s not why it happened. You wanted to keep me there, and I wanted to get the bullets out of your gun. Everything else was incidental. What was happening in the outside world during that fifteen minutes?”

“You’ll hear about it anyway. Another Vega leaflet is coming out any minute. After he picks them up at the printshop he’ll be much harder to find. But that was only a pretext! Damn it, I-”

“We can analyze our motives some other time. What kind of leaflet?”

“Like the one this morning, nothing sensational… And there you were, sitting on the bed in a wrapper. It was ninety percent lust. I don’t care if you believe me or not.”

Shayne opened her purse. “Not as cluttered as some,” he remarked.

There was a small change purse, a few folded bills, the usual female grooming equipment, a library card, a magazine clipping. He unfolded the clipping. It was a photograph of a pale, tired-looking young man wearing a beret and jungle camouflage. He was thin and unshaven, with a preoccupied frown between his eyebrows. To Shayne, he looked neither glamorous or particularly dangerous.

“Ruiz?”

“Are you out of it!” she said. “You could ask anybody in this part of town. Of course it’s Ruiz.”

“What’s the attraction?” he said, studying the face.

“Mike,” she said definitely, “you don’t know a damn thing about it, I’m sorry to say. Can I get out now?”

“Any time.”

“Give me back my things.”

He put the picture of Ruiz in his pocket and stuffed everything back except the money, which he let slip between his knees.

“Educate me a little first. What’s going on, Adele? You don’t approve of your uncle’s politics, that’s clear. You don’t want me to interfere with Vega’s counterdemonstration, if that’s what you call it. But you don’t like Vega’s politics either, do you?”

“I despise them.”

“That’s the feeling I get. If he turns up tomorrow with a good-sized contingent, your uncle and his people will get their heads bashed. Why should you want that? On general principles? Because fighting in the streets turns liberals into revolutionaries?”

“I don’t dare talk about it. Look at the mess I’ve made. Now I’m going to start using my head. I’m just going to shut up and get out of this car.”

“Go ahead!” he exclaimed. “You’ve been acting like a goddamn child, and you don’t want to do anything sensible this late in the afternoon. That would be inconsistent. My God! Your uncle thought all he had to do was bring in Michael Shayne and pay him a fee, and his troubles would be over. I’d bare my teeth at Vega and the man would curl up and die. Think about it for a minute. What can I really do? Beat him up? Scare him? How can I prove whose money he’s spending? All I can do is plow ahead with my eyes closed, and hope somebody else will make the mistakes. And you made them. You worked out a complicated scheme to shanghai me. You exposed three or four of your people, you tried to put a.38 slug in my knee, you had sex with me-and that wasn’t ninety percent lust, baby, it was ninety percent calculation. You’re right. So far you’ve done a lousy job. And it was all totally unnecessary. I’m not Clark Kent or Mighty Mouse. Why not start over and tell me what’s really happening? I know Crowther and I don’t like him. If I knew more about Colonel Caldera I probably wouldn’t like him either. Ruiz is probably OK. He just doesn’t take a good picture.”

She hesitated, her hand on the door handle.

“You’re preparing something,” he went on. “If it’s not too illegal I might give your uncle his thousand dollars back and go up to Pompano and see if I can make some money on the trotters.”

She moved toward him swiftly and kissed the corner of his mouth. “I can’t tell you, Mike. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

He made no effort to stop her. She got out of the car and walked away-a very nice-looking girl, whether coming or going.

Shayne was learning things all the time, but unfortunately not fast enough. He put the Buick in gear and drove off without hurrying. The moment he was around the corner, where he could no longer be seen by Adele, he shot ahead.

He had picked his spot carefully. Three quarters of the way along the block he turned abruptly, without signaling, and plunged down a ramp into an underground taxi garage. A few years before, the owner of the cab company, one of the biggest in Miami, had had a valuable painting stolen. Shayne had recovered it for him. Now Shayne had a standing deal permitting him to borrow a cab whenever he needed one.

The dispatcher looked out of his office. “Another handkerchief switch, Mike? Take that one. It’s gassed up.”

Shayne left his Buick in a parking slot and transferred to the cab. As he passed the office, the dispatcher handed him a cap, which he put on. It was much too small.

Wheeling out of the exit ramp, he headed back to 15th Court, an address which Adele had blown when she thought she was threatening Shayne with a loaded gun. He was improvising. He had told her the truth-he had no plan at all.

Soon he was cruising down 15th Court. The blue panel truck was still parked in the driveway. He checked the time. Three and a half minutes had elapsed since he changed cars. Finding no money in her purse, Adele would be unable to phone. It would take six or seven minutes to cover the distance on foot.

He pulled into a gas station at the corner and checked his tire pressure, then got back behind the wheel and glanced at a copy of the News left by a previous driver. The next day’s anti-Crowther demonstration by Dr. Galvez’ group had been given the big headline.

A moment later he saw Adele run across the street and enter the house by a back door. Her friends inside wasted no time. Shayne heard a door slam. The panel truck roared back out of the driveway. It proved to be easy to follow. It went west on 8th Street. At Ponce de Leon Boulevard, it turned south into Coral Gables.

There was less traffic here, and Shayne dropped back. On one of the curving drives near the university, the truck’s brake lights flared. Someone jumped out, a slender young man who somehow gave the impression of having slept in his clothes. He started up the walk toward a four-unit apartment building. He glanced around, hearing Shayne’s motor, and Shayne got a flash of dark glasses, large moustache, prominent front teeth. He noted the address and continued to follow the truck, which led him to Route 1 and back into Southwest Miami.

On 17th Avenue it swung north. Before long it stopped at an outside phone booth. Another young man jumped out. Shayne thought he was the boy he had seen run out of Dr. Galvez’ office, but he was wearing slacks instead of the checked shorts.

Shayne worked fairly close to the booth before parking. The boy stayed at the phone, making call after call, and at one point he had to go into a stationery store for change. Finally he hung up and waited.