Brett Halliday - Caught Dead

He suggested a Spanish word to the girl and she said, “Negotiate.”

The police chief considered, and then spoke to her again. She rose submissively and left the room.

“A good girl, I think,” Mejia explained, “but she was a student and it is best to be careful. They are everywhere. I said to come back to me with information. We will talk. Not about a division of the money. That belongs to the government, to no individual person. We want facts to help us explain this terrible event. If they are important enough, our case against Timothy Rourke will be seen to melt away.”

“What you’re saying is that he’s a hostage.”

“Hostage?” Mejia said doubtfully. “You know about policemen-we need a criminal. We have Rourke. We keep him until you persuade us to not. One little advice. Mr. Felix Frost knows something about the money.”

“Are you sure?”

“It is the business of him. The movements of gold, hidden bank accounts, quiet arrangements. And he will not tell us. He is a tightmouth. With Felix Frost, he is the one who asks the questions. But someone named Michael Shayne, you can ask it through your Senator.”

They exchanged a look. There was no reason a police chief in Caracas should know of that connection.

“Is there any way I can get through to these MIR people?” Shayne said.

“Only if they come to you.”

Shayne stood up. “I want to be sure you understand what I’m about to say. I’ve got an interpreter outside, or call your girl in.”

Mejia’s gaze was hard and unblinking. He touched a button and the girl appeared.

“Right now I have nothing to threaten you with,” Shayne said. “Apparently we’ve stopped sending aircraft carriers to rescue Americans in trouble. For the time being, I’m staying in Caracas. It’s a hundred to one that I’ll find out anything, but I’ve been lucky at times. Nobody in the radical movement will talk to you. But maybe they’ll talk to me if I can think of a way to get in contact. And no negotiations are possible-I’ll repeat that- no negotiations are possible if you use electricity on Tim Rourke.” He looked at the girl. “Maybe I said that too fast.”

“I understand it,” she said quietly. “You are promising that anything you discover will be available to the police only on condition that the prisoner is well treated.”

“Tell him.”

She spoke to Mejia, who watched Shayne while he listened.

“For twenty-four hours only,” Mejia said. “And then, if necessary, we must.”

“Talk to me first,” Shayne said coldly. “Everybody else must be in as much of a hurry as you are, and if I can make myself unpleasant enough it may happen fast. What kind of dollar amount are you thinking about, a few million?”

“More.”

“How much more?”

Mejia’s tongue came out to touch his lips. “In the vicinity of twenty.”

As they entered the Jaguar, Rubino said, “I will be very much surprised and astonished if the police don’t follow us.”

“You’ve been telling me what a hot driver you are. Lose them.”

Rubino moved out from the curb and joined the traffic, watching the mirror.

“There they are. A black Chevrolet, and if it’s the car I think, it has a special engine, a double carburetor. Never mind, I can outrun them. But there will be a second car. At present I don’t see it.”

“Shut up and drive.”

While Rubino slipped smoothly from lane to lane, using his full range of forward gears, Shayne concentrated on the muffled signals he had received from Rourke.

“You’re too early. What’s half a day? Back in Miami, second cup of coffee, opening the morning mail. Tried to protect myself. That goddamn Tanqueray gin. The Pulitzer prize was mentioned. The hell with the female-look for the male. Paula Obregon, nice kid, but forget the female, go after the male.”

And then the pattern hit him. Not the female, the male. Male-mail. Back in Miami, opening the mail.

Rubino turned onto the curved freeway running between the twin towers of the Centro Bolivar. He was as relaxed as a cat, smiling slightly, holding the wheel with only his fingertips.

“I want a phone, Andres,” Shayne said. “I don’t want any cops crowding me.”

“Yes. I see the second car now. We’ll worry them a little first.”

He accelerated smartly, swinging into the oncoming lane, then back. He forced a taxi to veer away and turned a corner. A traffic policeman glanced at the Jaguar’s plates. Rubino waved, smiling, and turned again. He shot down a one-way street, up an alley, and emerged into another avenue.

“Walk in the building where I stop. There are phones by the elevators. I’ll circle to confuse them. When you are finished, walk through the building. Have you Venezuelan coins?”

He gave Shayne a handful of change, executed another quick series of linked turns and braked hard. Shayne was out of the car before it stopped rolling.

He entered an open arcade lined with specialty shops. The entrance to the elevator lobby, halfway through the block, was between a boutique and a shop selling Indian artifacts.

There were two phones. Shayne found the coin that would get him a dial tone, and dialed the operator. As soon as she answered he said, slowly and firmly, “Do you speak English?” He repeated the question twice more before he was switched to someone who could understand him. He placed an overseas call to his own Miami number.

When a girl’s voice answered, he identified himself and asked if she’d been able to get back to sleep after he left.

“Not a wink! Mike, how does it look?”

“Worse than I expected. Much worse. I’m just beginning to feel my way. Has the mail come in yet?”

“Not yet, but a messenger just brought an envelope for you and it’s on Hilton Hotel stationery-Hilton Hotel, Caracas. I couldn’t decide what to do with it.”

“Open it, for God’s sake.”

He heard the envelope being torn open. “It’s from Tim! And there’s something else, something in Spanish. Wait a minute.”

There was a brief pause. “You know what Tim’s handwriting is like-this is a real scrawl. I’ll try to puzzle it out. ‘Dear Mike, I’m onto something really hot. If it works biggest story of career.’ I think that word is ‘career.’”

She waited, and continued, “‘… Something… something risky. It could go sour on me, and if so I’m in bad trouble. It’s a jailbreak. Tear gas, smoke bombs-far out, man.’”

There was a pause. She went on haltingly. “Here comes a bad stretch. ‘Something the enclosed.’ I guess ‘Translate the enclosed. Something something to-whet? To whet my appetite. If you don’t hear from me by noon, get your ass down here. I’ll give you half the net. The magazine rights alone should be fantastic. Life, Playboy- they’ll be bidding like madmen. It’s Alvarez’ diary. First person account of everything that happened. About 35,000 words. If this page is a sample we’ll make the history books. His wife has the rest. Strategy: get the full diary and use it to blast me loose. You owe me this! Tim.’”

Shayne was scraping his jaw with his thumbnail. “All right, what’s the enclosure look like?”

“I was bragging about my Spanish, Mike. It’s not that good. And this writing is even worse than Tim’s.”

“All I want is the general idea.”

“It’s a sheet torn out of a book. It starts off in the middle of a sentence. The next entry is ‘Tuesday,’ in a different color ink. Let me see. I’ll just give you the words I’m sure of. Here’s a proper name. That’s easy-Felix Frost. CIA. An oil company, somebody else’s name. They’re paying-well. Let me skip this part. A cable from Washington. ‘Private payments to-’ Hmm. North American somethings off La Guaira. Submarines? I guess submarines. Commercial airline, fourteen planes ready to take off in Guatemala City-guns and ammunition, I finally have absolute proof of U.S. involvement in plot against me-”