Brett Halliday - Six Seconds to Kill

He slammed down the phone. Shayne caught Camilla again and wrestled her back under control.

“Here’s something else you’ll be interested in,” he said. “You picked up the gun at the airport at nine o’clock. A Czech automatic, taking an off-caliber bullet. It was loaded with blanks.”

Her head wobbled. “No.”

“Yes,” he said. “Crowther sent you that gun. He didn’t want to be killed himself. He wanted you to be killed. He wanted you to be shot down by his bodyguards.”

Her head wobbled again.

“He was still on his feet when you went into the elevator. You saw the look on his face. That was surprise. He didn’t expect it to hurt.”

She staggered, attempting to stand by herself. He moved her backward until she hit a wall, and stayed in front of her so she had to look at him.

“Two facts to get in your head. Crowther sent you the gun. Somebody else put a shot of dope in that needle. So that makes two people who tried to kill you.”

He repeated the two statements, but he wasn’t sure she heard him.

“I feel-” she said.

“Sure. You feel like going to sleep so you won’t have to do any thinking. But you changed your mind once. Change it again. You wanted to kill Crowther and get away with it. You wouldn’t have done it otherwise! If you die now it won’t be something you decided to do yourself. Stay awake. Tell me what happened. If you don’t, they’re going to get away with it.”

She managed one word. “If-”

“If what? If there were blanks in the gun, how did you succeed in killing anybody? There weren’t blanks in the gun when you fired it. Somebody changed clips.”

She sagged forward. He moved her into the kitchen. There was coffee, there was running water, there were cups. Somehow he got the operation started while bouncing her off the walls and the counter. She got away from him briefly and fell against the stove, knocking the pan aside and touching the hot unit. She screamed, and for an instant she was fully awake.

“Who brought you here, Camilla?” Shayne demanded.

She stared at him. “He-”

She fell. He pulled her to her feet, and for a moment he thought she was completely gone. He slapped her hard. Her eyes opened and he hauled her to the bathroom, where he turned on the cold water and held her in the shower until she began to fight to get out.

Back in the kitchen, he spilled powdered coffee into a cup and covered it with boiling water. He held it to her lips and got some of it down. It made her throw up. She was wet from the shower, and kept slipping out of his hands.

They walked some more. Each time her eyes closed he had to be more brutal to bring her back. He was losing, but he kept her in motion.

Passing the front window on one of his circuits of the room, he veered sharply. A police car was parked directly in front of the house.

He backed away, shifting Camilla to his left arm, and approached the window again. The cop at the wheel was calling in. He looked at the convertible in the driveway, apparently getting a check on the Alabama plates. If it was on the stolen-car list, Shayne knew that the cops would be leaning on the doorbell in another minute.

He showed himself at the window and made a clenched-fist salute, wondering if anybody but the black-power people used this any more. The woman Adele had talked to on the phone, like Shayne, would be watching the police car. He lifted the phone and showed that.

A moment later it rang.

Picking it up, Shayne said, “That was fast. Do you speak English, I hope?”

“A little,” a woman’s voice said.

“I’m a friend of Adele’s,” Shayne said. “Arriba Gil Ruiz! If those cops get interested in this house, we’re all cooked. Do you understand?”

“The policemen. You want them go away.”

“I want them to go away fast.”

“I think I can.”

The phone clicked. An instant later a ground-floor window in a house across the street flew up and a stout, grayhaired woman, the same woman who had warned Shayne the day before of the loosened lug-nuts on his wheels, put her head out and screamed. “Cabron! Guardias cabrones!” People appeared on nearby porches. The woman gestured like a cheerleader and others joined in. Both cops were out of their car, no longer wondering about the convertible.

A boy darted around a clump of bushes and heaved a broken tile at the police car. One cop stayed to protect the car and the other tried to catch the boy, who wasn’t going to let himself be caught. A crowd was gathering, made up entirely of women and young children who had had to stay home while the men went off to take part in the exciting events at the airport and in Miami Beach. A garbage-filled bag arched through the air and exploded on top of the car.

Both cops now retreated into the car and called for reinforcements. Today nothing was available. All the cops had emptied out of the station houses to look for Michael Shayne and Camilla Steele.

The car drove off amid jeers and taunts.

Shayne showed his clenched fist out the window and went back to the struggle to keep Camilla from falling asleep. He tried the shower again, and brought her back, but only for a moment. As she sagged in his arms he heard an approaching siren.

The crowd on the street had only partially dispersed. The ambulance drew up, its siren dying. Shayne signaled from the upstairs window. The driver and an attendant pounded upstairs.

“Need the stretcher?” the driver asked.

He was an ambulance-driving type, squat and doughfaced, with an aggrieved expression, indicating that he had taken this menial job only because of its social importance. Shayne explained the situation in a few crisp words and sent the attendant into the bathroom for the hypodermic syringe and into the bedroom to gather up Camilla’s clothes.

“Did they send any medication?”

“Not my department,” the driver said. “I didn’t know this was what I was getting into. Mike Shayne. The things they’re saying about you on television.”

“OK,” Shayne said. “What’s it going to cost me?”

“I’ll have to say you pulled a gun on me. Wouldn’t seventy-five bucks be about right?”

“Seventy-five bucks would be high.” He pulled out his wallet and threw the man a hundred-dollar bill. “You owe me twenty-five. Put it in the mail.”

“I’ll remember to do that,” the driver promised him.

Downstairs, Shayne backed into the ambulance and the others handed Camilla in. He told the attendant to ride in front.

“And use your siren. We’re in a hurry.”

“I always use my siren,” the driver said, surprised. “It would hardly be worth it otherwise.”

Shayne pulled the curtains on both sides. The ambulance got away fast. The turn at the next corner was so sharp that Camilla, on the edge of the reclining bed, plunged into Shayne’s arms. He put her back, and she surprised him by saying sleepily, “Mike.”

“That’s right. Is that all you’re going to say?”

Her lips moved in what was nearly a smile, and her hand rose. It was her first voluntary movement in some time.

“Do you remember a dream you had about shooting somebody?”

“Dream?”

“Nothing’s been working too well for you lately. But in that dream everything went off like clockwork. It would be a good sign.”

Her head fell back. He let it roll, then snapped her violently forward. Her wig fell off. She pushed at him weakly, and said, “Don’t.”

She only said one other thing. An abrupt change of lane sent her sliding sideways and her head flopped against his shoulder. She said distinctly, “Sex is so nice.”

“If you want any more,” Shayne said, “you’d better wake up.”