Brett Halliday - Six Seconds to Kill

Galvez filled Shayne’s cup and said cautiously, “If you have any ideas-”

“You said Vega has a marginal business. How marginal?”

“Very. He lives in a low-rent neighborhood. He drives a battered car.”

“Then a couple of thousand ought to do it. But you’ll have to move right away, before he hires too big an army. That kind of thing can pick up its own momentum.”

Galvez was staring at Shayne. “Buy him?”

“According to you, somebody else already has. That means he’s for sale. When nothing happens tomorrow, all he has to say is that the people he hired got scared and didn’t show up. Nobody’s going to take him out and shoot him. It isn’t that important.”

Galvez stroked his neat little beard. “You’re proposing that I make an appointment with Vega and walk up to him and offer him two thousand dollars?”

“If you don’t have capital in the export-import business, you’ve got to cut corners. He’s probably had a piece of dozens of illegal deals. If you can get something on him, open with that. While he’s wondering if you’re bluffing, come in with the money offer and he’ll probably grab it. But you have to move fast.”

“I see that. Good Lord. My niece Adele-you saw her, she’s my technician-mentioned something we might use, but-Mike, listen. You handle it. I wouldn’t know the technique. Two thousand is not an impossible sum.”

“What makes you so sure he’s spending government money? There are other possibilities. U.S. Metals. Caldera. Crowther himself.”

“Oh, I don’t-” His hand went to his beard. “Conceivably. We simply assumed that because Vega and the CIA were associated in the past-Crowther! Unquestionably our demonstration will embarrass him. We plan to assemble at the Orange Bowl and cross to Miami Beach in a motorcade, and if he could break it up before we come within range of the TV cameras-I think you may be onto something. And wouldn’t that give you a personal incentive? You’ve had a few run-ins with him, if I remember rightly.”

“In the old days,” Shayne said briefly. He glanced at the time. “But he keeps at least five removes from anything that could get him in trouble, and I know damn well there’s no chance of proving anything. I’m amazed that he didn’t make up some excuse for not coming down tomorrow. All right. It’s at least a hundred-to-one shot, but once in a great while they’ve been known to come in. It all depends on how nervous Vega is. I’ll try to shake him a little. Just remember I don’t speak Spanish and I don’t usually operate in this part of town. I’ll need any leads you can give me.”

“Good, Mike,” Galvez said, relieved. “Fine. I’ve got a thousand dollars here, and I can get another thousand by the end of the afternoon. As for leads, Adele has been talking to people who know him. She’d better tell you herself. The only thing-” He hesitated. “I’m getting a little paranoid, I’m afraid. You know the syndrome, surrounded by enemies. In the long run the obvious right-wingers like Vega have been discredited. It’s the left that frightens me. This unrealistic fever that has infected everybody beneath a certain age. I have the feeling that something -something -is in the wind. I wish I could speak more precisely. There is a difference, I don’t know how to describe it, in the way certain young men hold themselves at certain coffee stands. A sort of-impatience.”

“And you think your niece is involved?”

Galvez spread his hands. “Not involved. Perhaps aware. Her parents are both dead, I have brought her up with my daughters. She has given no sign that she is anything but completely loyal. But by accident I have found a copy of a picture magazine in my house with a page torn out. It was a photograph of a man called Gil Ruiz. Probably the name will mean nothing to you, but to the young people of Latin America it means a great deal. A student who interrupted his studies to join the revolution. A self-appointed expert on guerrilla warfare. He is said to be in command of the armed opposition to the Caldera regime, and to girls of Adele’s age-group he is a person of legend. Of course she knows how much I despise and have always opposed that kind of romantic adventurist.”

He hesitated again, and then said firmly, “She’s intelligent, level-headed. I’ve seen to it that she is firmly grounded in political theory. If I can’t trust her, I can’t trust anybody.”

Dr. Galvez had his offices in a newly built medical block between Miami Avenue and Eighth. Shayne returned to his Buick, in the parking lot behind the building. Galvez had given him an envelope containing ten hundred-dollar bills. He tapped the envelope thoughtfully against the steering wheel, then transferred the money to his wallet.

He lit a cigarette and waited.

In another moment Adele Galvez opened the opposite door and slid into the car. She was a tall, open-faced girl, radiating health and enthusiasm. She was in her early twenties, Shayne judged. She wore her black hair to her eyebrows in front, to her shoulders everywhere else. She had changed out of her uniform into a very short skirt and a white sleeveless blouse with a small alligator over the left breast.

“Mr. Shayne, it’s tremendous!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t think he could persuade you. He’s nice after you get to know him, but he certainly can get pompous at times. I’m going to make an admission right away. I’m a fan of yours! You’re just so-I don’t know-”

She laughed.

“Thanks,” Shayne said dryly. “What’s this idea of yours about Vega?”

“Everything worked out exactly the way I planned! Usually when I plot something nobody else cooperates. I was on the phone half the night and most of the morning, and I found out a few interesting things about the bastard. But you’ll notice I didn’t give my uncle any details, and anyway, if we’re going to be sort of blackmailing somebody-isn’t that the idea? — he doesn’t want to know anything about it. I was dying to meet you! I’m hoping you’ll take me with you so I can see how you work. I guess that sounds pushy. I’m not throwing myself in your arms or anything.” She gave him a quick look. “Which might be very pleasant!”

“But time-consuming,” Shayne said with a short laugh.

“I certainly hope so! Look, we better not talk here. Too many people know I’m an NLS’er. Here’s a picture of Vega, probably not too recent. I know somebody who knows him, and she says he looks ancient, like fifty.”

She gave Shayne a snapshot of a balding man wearing only bathing trunks, squinting fiercely at the camera. He had a well-developed paunch, a luxuriant thicket of chest hair, a small, well-cared-for moustache. His arms were folded across his stomach, and he held a long-barreled Luger automatic in each hand.

“That’s what we call machismo,” Adele said. “The guns. Don’t fool with Lorenzo Vega, he’s ready for anything. Guns in a bathing suit-he can’t be serious.”

Shayne put the photograph away and reached for the ignition key. At that moment a youth in a pullover shirt and Bermuda shorts burst out of the rear entrance to the medical block and raced to a blue panel truck parked two spaces away. There was a muffled explosion inside the building.

Adele jerked around. “Mr. Shayne!”

The blue truck pulled out of line, accelerating. Shayne’s moves were instinctive. He jammed the stick into reverse and came back hard. The Buick fishtailed as he went into low and hit the gas. The truck shot out of the lot, rocking. Suddenly an old Cuban woman jumped out in front of Shayne’s Buick, waving her hands and shouting. His horn blared. The brakes grabbed unevenly and the Buick slewed, nearly spinning into the next line of parked cars.