Brett Halliday - Caught Dead

“They’ll be telling the same jokes next week,” Shayne told him. “This could be a very big pinch. I thought of working it through the narcotics people, and then I decided it would be nice to let you have the credit.”

“And of course I ask fewer questions.”

“How long has it been since I wanted a favor? I can’t tell you much on the phone, except that both these people are big couriers, and they’re arriving separately. They’re heading for Palm Beach, but they’re likely to come in through Miami, and their credentials are going to be very good.”

“I don’t like the way that sounds.”

“The bigger the credentials, the better the story. You’ll be even more famous than you are now.”

“I’m not famous at all, and that’s the way I like it.”

“I’m taking the responsibility,” Shayne said. “If anything backfires, it’s my ass. They may do some yelling when you pick them up, but tell them the tip came from Mike Shayne in Caracas. That ought to quiet them down.”

Boyle said doubtfully, “And if we shake them down and don’t find anything-”

“You won’t. People on that level hardly ever get hassled. That’s the beauty of this. All I’m asking you to do is sit on them for three hours.”

“They’re entitled to a phone call.”

“Tell them I said to call this number.” He read off the number of the instrument he was using. “And if it’s busy tell them to keep trying.”

“Mike, I know that tone of voice. I think I’m beginning to worry.”

Shayne laughed. “If you can’t act dumb for three hours, you don’t deserve your badge. Get a pencil and paper. I’m going to give you the descriptions, and I want you to write them down. If anybody puts on a false mustache and sneaks past-”

“Mike, I wish they would! That would show they have something to hide, and I’d feel better about this.”

He gave Boyle a careful, detailed description of Luis Mejia and Felix Frost. His next Palm Beach call went to Sam Katz, the private detective Shayne had asked to check on Lenore Dante.

“She seems O.K., Mike,” Katz reported. “Nobody has a bad word to say against her, officially. But you said you wanted rumors.”

“That’s the main thing I want.”

“You mentioned Alvares. The story is that he owns her business. But that could be legit, because it makes money. You had the idea they had an affair going. I can’t confirm it. She has a condominium apartment at the north end. Whenever he was in town he stayed at the Colony, forty-three days in the last four years. And she went places with other escorts when he was in town-to balls and stuff. He’s been a moderately soft touch for charities. Nothing out of proportion.”

“How much of the year is she there?”

“Right through, but there’s a lot of traveling. You know the Worth Avenue galleries. Hers is one of the winners. She buys for some of our big collectors. She goes to auctions and so on, New York, Europe, wherever. If she and Alvares met for any length of time, that was where. I’ve got copies of a couple of news stories, about pictures she bought for Mrs. Phipps and the Kennedys. Some of them in six figures. As I say, they all seem to like her.”

“Which is the moneymaker, the gallery or the commission business?”

“It’s part of the same stew, Mike, as I understand it. She buys in the slow season. Like she knows in general what kind of thing a client is looking for, Americana, French Impressionists, you name it. If she hears something’s coming up for sale in a private collection, or in the settlement of an estate, she has authority to bid for it. I haven’t heard that she’s made any mistakes.”

“Any major romance?”

“We’re still working on that. She’s had men overnight at her apartment but nobody Alvares’ age.”

“How about bank accounts?”

“Nothing out of line. I don’t have profit figures yet but they’re coming. I’m glad you called, Mike. There’s a safe in her office, on the second floor of the gallery. It’s a five-cylinder wall safe, and if you’re under pressure I imagine I could peel it for you.”

“Let’s forget that for now. I’m interested in those profit figures and I’d like to get them tonight. Who are you working with?”

“She has a part-time bookkeeper. It really isn’t costing you much.”

“Does the bookkeeper have keys to the office?”

“I can get her in if she doesn’t. Do you want me to call you?”

“I hope to be up there in a couple of hours. I’ve-”

Shayne dropped the phone and came around fast. A police car stopped at the curb with a squeal of brakes, and two uniformed cops leaped out.

“It’s O.K., Mike,” Paula said quickly.

Shayne recognized one of the uniformed men. He was a short, wiry guerrilla who had been sitting on the dirt floor across from him, his knees drawn up to his chin, most of the afternoon. The uniform was too large for him.

He seized Shayne roughly and made an announcement in Spanish.

“We are being arrested,” Paula translated.

Shayne reached back in the booth and hung up the phone. The second bogus cop put him in handcuffs. Shayne submitted after testing them to be sure they were unlocked. He and Paula climbed into the back seat with one of the cops.

“They’re going to be looking for this car if it’s the one we had before.”

“We changed the plates,” Paula told him. “We’ve been dying to get our hands on such a car.”

They dropped down to the Valencia road; their first stop was to be the Alvares farm. So far everything was working well. Two known MIR people had taken coffee in a restaurant where a man thought to be a police informer worked as a waiter. This man was permitted to hear them talking about how the well-known North American detective, Michael Shayne, had hired them, in a sense, to get him out of the country. The stake was enormous-the huge illegal fortune Alvares had accumulated during his years in power. Palm Beach, Florida, was Shayne’s destination, and if they managed to deliver him intact, and if he didn’t betray them the minute they arrived, the movement stood to gain a large sum in dollars, with which they could purchase weapons on the flourishing secondhand market. They finished their coffee and left. Another guerrilla, posted in the restaurant, then saw the waiter make a surreptitious phone call.

Meanwhile, nothing had been heard from Senora Alvares’ maid, which meant that the widow was still at the farm. Entering the cypress avenue leading up to the house, the driver turned on his siren. The old man who had charge of the gate was already looking out through his little wicket. Seeing Shayne, he shook his head.

One of the presumed cops yelled at him, and when the old man responded by closing the wicket, he drew his police revolver and fired a shot in the air. Shayne signaled to the driver to back off and ram the gate. The bolt tore out of the wood on the second try.

The old man was unchaining the watchdog. Shayne pulled the Luger out of Paula’s handbag and fired as the dog leaped. The bullet passed through the animal’s brain, and he was dead by the time he hit the side of the car.

Paula and one cop came inside with him.

“Find out if she’s had any calls,” Shayne said.

He found the widow in her bedroom, sprawled across the flowered bedspread, breathing heavily. She was wearing unbuttoned pajamas, and there was no doubt that she was actually asleep. A glass on the bedside table held a little dead champagne.

Paula came in behind him. “Yes, Mr. Felix Frost phoned about twenty minutes ago. That would be ten minutes after Mejia got his call from the cafe. She talked to him in English, but kept dropping the phone. The servants put her to bed.”