Brett Halliday - Six Seconds to Kill

The woman leaped aside, still waving crazily. When she saw that he had stopped she ran up, shouting.

“Ten cuidado con las ruedas! Atencion las ruedas. Cuidado!”

Shayne snarled, “Get the hell out of the way.”

“No, no,” she said in great excitement, pointing. She poured out an explanation in Spanish.

“What’s she saying?”

“I think-” Adele said. “She says somebody did something to the wheels.”

“Las ruedas!”

Shayne snapped off the ignition and stepped out. The woman subsided gradually, but went on pointing and nodding. The truck was now out of sight. Shayne went into his luggage compartment for a tire tool, and pried off a rear hubcap.

A lug-nut was missing. He tested the other nuts. They had been loosened to the point where the threads barely engaged.

The woman was still pouring out a flood of Spanish. Adele said: “She was waiting for a doctor and she looked out the window. That same kid in the shorts was fooling around your car. Stealing hubcaps, she thought, not such a terrible crime. Then he put them back on. When he went back to his truck she saw that he was carrying that four-handled wrench you use to change tires. It’s not just that one wheel, it’s all four.”

While she talked, the woman nodded happily, continuing to point at the sabotaged wheels and at the window from which she had seen it all happen. Shayne checked the other wheels. A number of nuts were missing. The rest were loose. Probably they would have held through the lower gears, but the first time he tried to corner at a high speed he would have thrown a wheel.

“Tell her we’re glad she was looking out the window,” Shayne said, tightening the remaining nuts. “Otherwise we’d be hearing ambulance sirens about now.”

Adele shivered. “That thought already crossed my mind.”

She spoke to the woman, who sobered abruptly and sketched a quick sign of the cross.

“She says St. Christopher must be looking out for us,” Adele said.

“Let’s hope it keeps up.”

The woman clasped him impulsively. Adele translated: “She says her husband, too, was a large man, with the same powerful arms, though not with red hair. He left her last year for a younger woman.”

“Can you wind this up, Adele?”

After a further exchange, the woman stood aside and they got back into the car. As they drove off, Adele sighed and fastened her seat belt.

“That scared me. I’d like to know how they knew. I suppose that bang we heard-”

“Just a feint to get us moving. The timing was pretty good.”

“Like-wow,” she said. “We could have been killed!”

He drove north toward the river, and stopped at a garage on West Flagler. He bought Cokes at an outside dispenser and they stood in the shade while a mechanic checked the wheels. Adele kept looking at her watch.

“The time element, gee. Well, we’ve got three quarters of an hour. Can I tell you my idea?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“I don’t know if it’ll work. There’s a cruise ship, the Mozambique, leaving from Pier Three. One of the things Vega does for a living, it seems, is sell bulk marijuana, and I feel a little finky talking about it. From what the kids say, he’s a pretty good source when you can’t get it anywhere else-though he’s expensive. Isn’t this something you could use as a handle?”

“What’s the connection with the Mozambique?”

“He uses cruise ships to bring it in. Everything’s very tight on the Mexican border, as I probably don’t need to tell you, so it’s been going the other way, down to Central America. Somebody on the Mozambique will pick it up in Panama. How does this sound so far?”

“Keep going.”

“Well, there’s a deckhand who thinks my uncle is the greatest man since Simon Bolivar. When he’s in port he comes to every meeting, he rings doorbells, he stuffs envelopes. He’s broken up that he’ll miss the picket line tomorrow. He speaks about two words of English, incidentally, so you’ll need me. If I explain everything to him, and it has to be me, he wouldn’t trust somebody like you even if you could speak Spanish, I just bet we can get enough information so you can scare Vega out of his shoes. He’s supposed to be very skittery about this dope operation. Can we try it, anyway? It’s a start.”

“Are you sure you want to come with me?”

“I’m not worried any more. Wheels have come off cars before and no one was hurt. You’re probably a very good driver. Come on, he’s finished, let’s go!”

She added, “But I’m fastening my seat belt, I can tell you that.”

He studied her for a moment.

“Please?” she said.

“OK.”

He paid the mechanic and they got in.

“I’m crazy about you, Mr. Shayne!” she said. “I thought you’d make me argue. My aunt and uncle act as though I’m still about twelve years old.”

“I’d say you were a bit older than twelve.”

“You noticed,” she said, pleased.

He found a parking place on one of the terraces two blocks inland, and they walked to the pier. The Mozambique, decked out with pennants for its departure, seemed to be pulling at its ropes. Its sides sparkled in the bright sunlight. A band played on the promenade deck.

Adele hesitated before starting up the gangway. “I guess it’s all right, isn’t it?”

“As long as we’re still not aboard when they sail.”

Most of the passengers had arrived by plane, and so had a few friends to see them off. But the cruise personnel were working hard, trying to make the departure an event. A gay middle-aged lady in a paper hat threw a streamer at Shayne as he emerged on deck, and asked him to dance. He smiled and evaded her. A steward offered them a tray loaded with glasses of domestic champagne. Adele asked him a question in Spanish.

“No speak Spanish,” he said, and she shifted to English.

“We want to say good-bye to Raphael Rivera, have you seen him?”

“Don’t ask me. I just signed on. Take a glass of champagne-it’s complimentary.”

They each picked a glass off his tray and drank it before continuing into the main salon, where the bridge tables were set up and waiting. Adele stopped a passing crew-member and repeated her question. This man thought he’d seen Raphael having coffee in the galley, one deck down.

They found the passenger dining room and went through a set of swinging doors into the galley. It was a busy place. Adele spoke to a small tattooed man slicing cucumbers. There was a rapid exchange of Spanish while Shayne started a cigarette. She was frowning when she turned back.

“Damn it, they must think you’re a cop or something. I’ll be less conspicuous by myself. Wait in the dining room and I’ll waylay somebody. I can’t say I’m Raphael’s girl friend with you hulking in the background. Stop looking at me like that-nothing’s going to happen. Go on, we don’t have much time.”

“All right, but be careful.”

“I honestly will,” she said impatiently.

Shayne stepped back into the dining room. Once there he moved quickly. He left by another exit, went up a flight of stairs and along a corridor. At the next stairway he went back down and found a door marked NO ADMITTANCE-CREW.

The corridor on the other side of this door was uncarpeted. The walls needed paint. If he had calculated correctly, the galley was somewhere to his right. He turned left.

A spindly youth in an undershirt and a chef’s cap came toward him.

“Did you see a girl in a white blouse a minute ago?” Shayne said.

“Yeah! What’s happening? I thought those cats were coming on a little heavy. Who is she, one of the new waitresses?”

“Which way did they go?”