Brett Halliday - Caught Dead

“That makes the point,” Shayne said. “Now read Tim’s letter to me again. See if you can fill in the blanks.”

He listened carefully. She read it with fewer pauses, and was able to decipher one or two more words.

“O.K.,” he said. “This is going to put me one step ahead of the cops. Get a better translation of that diary entry if you can. I’ll try to call you later today.”

He broke the connection and dialed the number Frost had given him.

“What news of our boy?” Frost said cordially.

“He’s in fairly good shape. I had to talk with Mejia. He knew the Senator called you, by the way. Does that mean he has a tap on this phone?”

“That’s another number, not this one. I don’t mind too much. I have a tap on his.”

“He’s giving me twenty-four hours before he starts working on Tim. They have little tricks they do with electricity, he tells me. Is that the kind of threat he’s likely to carry out?”

“Oh, yes.”

Shayne’s lips came back from his teeth. “Twenty-four hours. I’ve already used up fifteen minutes. Mejia didn’t sound too interested in Tim. The big subject he wanted to talk to me about was the grease Alvares has been accumulating over the years.”

Frost sighed. “That old story.”

“Do you mean there’s nothing to it?”

“Something, of course. The Bull was, above all, prudent, and he must have known the cushy days wouldn’t last forever. He had an airplane ready to fly him to the States. I’m sure he had something laid aside to pay his bills after he got there.”

“Mejia thought you could be more specific.”

“In what way?”

“About how much and where. He said it’s the kind of information you like to collect.”

“How discerning of him. Yes, economic warfare is one of my things, perhaps because I’ve never been very good at the other kind of warfare, with fists. But I’m not omniscient. Alvares maintained several Swiss bank accounts for years. He closed them out some eighteen months ago, when he began to smell trouble. That much I’ve been able to discover. But the Swiss, as you know, are very chary with information. I pulled all the available strings, but I couldn’t come up with even an approximate evaluation of his holdings.”

“Will you explain that? Why did he close his accounts?”

“For one thing, those numbered accounts are no longer as sacrosanct as they used to be. The successor regime here might have been able to tie them up.”

“In his position, what would you do with the money-keep it in cash?”

“I’d put it in gold bullion, I believe. In retrospect, considering the recent changes in the price of gold, that would have been a clever move.”

“Wouldn’t there have to be records if he bought that much gold?”

“Records can be hocussed and faked. There are dozens of ways to cover your tracks if you buy enough of the stuff. Was Mejia willing to hazard a guess as to the amount?”

“He said in the neighborhood of twenty million.”

“The wrong neighborhood,” Frost said, laughing. “Much too high. It’s true the Alvares administration was notoriously corrupt, but he had to cut it up a number of ways to stay in power. How does this connect with the subject you were presumably discussing-namely, Tim Rourke?”

“It seems that Alvares spent his vacations in Miami-”

“Palm Beach, actually,” Frost said.

“Palm Beach, then. Tim has friends there. Maybe somebody who knows where the money is talked him into pushing for that interview, and then screwed him by giving him a bomb instead of Pall Malls. I said I doubted it very much. That’s when he said I had twenty-four hours to come up with a different theory.”

A soberly dressed youth walked quickly along the arcade, stopping a shade too abruptly when he saw Shayne. He came into the elevator lobby to look at the directory of tenants.

Shayne said, “I want to see what I can get from Alvares’ widow. Do you think she’ll see me?”

“You have to remember,” Frost said doubtfully, “that her husband was blown into little pieces last night. She won’t feel too happy about talking it over with a stranger. Still, you must run into that all the time.”

“It’s never easy. Were they happy together?”

“One doesn’t know. He was a typical Venezuelan. He had a succession of little mistresses, one or two of whom,” he added with a leer that came over the telephone line clearly, “were arranged for him out of this office.”

“What does the widow stand to inherit?”

“Virtually nothing. They lived in the Presidential Palace, the property of the nation. Her family has a little money. She lives on a farm west of the city, and that, I believe, is in her name. If not, it will undoubtedly be taken. She’s been a good friend of ours on occasion, and if she doesn’t want to be bothered today I hope you’ll respect her wishes.”

A second man, another obvious cop, came into the lobby and pretended to look up a number in the phone-book, one ear cocked toward Shayne.

“I seem to be surrounded here,” Shayne said. “I’d better find out how good they are. Stay on tap. I’ll be calling you again.”

He hung up. Before opening the folding door he lifted up on it hard, dislodging it from its overhead track. He beckoned to the man at the phonebooks.

“Come here a minute,” he said in English.

The man sent an uncertain glance at his partner and started toward Shayne, scowling. Shayne head-faked toward the street. His adversary had obviously never played one-on-one basketball. He went for the fake. Shayne caught him off-balance and pulled him into the empty phone booth. The second man reached inside his coat. Shayne feinted a kick, and when the cop doubled forward Shayne grabbed his hair in both hands. He pivoted, going backward. The first cop was trying to get out of the booth. The two Venezuelans collided, hard. Shayne gave the door a powerful yank and it jammed, shutting them both inside.

He grinned at the knot of people waiting for the elevators.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said pleasantly. “I do this sort of thing all the time.”

He walked out of the building.

The open Jaguar was cruising toward him. Rubino reached across to open the door. Shayne stepped in and issued a curt order.

Without hesitation Rubino wheeled about in a U-turn, using his horn to blast an opening. He swung right at the next corner, left at the next on a red light, and plunged into the older part of the city, a tangle of narrow twisting streets. A moment later they were edging into a fast-moving line of cars on an east-bound freeway. Rubino watched his mirrors.

“That gets rid of one,” he said triumphantly. “I used to live in that district, in my unlucky days. I know it like the inside of my pocket. But two pacos went into the building after you. I don’t see their car.”

“They’re trying to punch their way out of a phone-booth,” Shayne said. He took out a money clip and counted out five hundred-dollar bills. “This is an advance. Mejia’s giving me twenty-four hours, which means we have to keep moving. If I can get Rourke out I’ll ask his paper for a fifteen thousand buck fee. They’ll settle for half that. I’ll give you twenty-five percent on top of what I’ve just given you if you stick with me and don’t sell me out. That means no phone calls to Frost, Mejia, or anybody else.”

Rubino swept the bills out of his hand. “You’re a master of psychology, Mr. Shayne. You’ve won my allegiance! Where do you wish me to drive you?”

“Do you know where I can find Alvares’ widow?”

“Yes, but it is some miles away, on the road to Valencia. We can phone first, to make sure.”