Brett Halliday - Armed… Dangerous…

“We do not unload here, my love. You are concerned about the wall? Simply put the truck in low, point at the wall and keep going. The uprights have been cut. They are held in place now by aluminum brackets. A child’s perambulator could knock it over. No, not a perambulator, but a large and powerful garbage truck, certainly. There is another alley exactly beyond. Drive through to Twenty-eighth, turn right with the traffic. Thus we confuse everybody.”

Shayne was grinning broadly. “Baby, you’re in the wrong line of work. You should be a lady professor. What if another truck is already down in there?”

“The lofts in this building are all vacant,” she said. “It is soon to be taken down. And we have two wooden barriers. ‘Police Department, No Passing.’ We put one here, one on Twenty-eighth. They are of flimsy wood. You knock them over and drive on. More questions?”

“No more questions,” he said, still grinning. “Honey, I think we’re going to take these people!”

“Of course we are,” she said simply. “Now I show you where we truly unload.”

Shayne circled the block again and headed down Broadway, shifting to Fifth where Broadway crossed it at Madison Square. She pointed out an excavation for a new building on Twenty-first, between Fifth and Sixth. A wooden wall had been thrown up along the sidewalk. The site could be entered by a sloping dirt roadway.

“We borrow this place,” she said. “No one will be working. Change clothes while they unload. Then leave the truck on another block. Take a taxi to LaGuardia Airport. There I am waiting.” She looked at her watch. “Now I am late, dear. Go uptown to Forty-second Street.”

Shayne turned again on Sixth. In a moment more they passed the corner of Twenty-seventh, where, if everything went well, there would be a certain amount of activity the next day.

“One thing you haven’t covered,” Shayne said. “How about the two men in the cab, where do we dump them?”

“Billy will carry four sets of handcuffs. As soon as you are out of sight behind the building between Twenty-seven and Twenty-eight, put handcuffs on their wrists and ankles, and leave them.”

Shayne shook his head. “Kid, why aren’t you a millionaire?”

“I intend to be,” she said.

At Forty-second Street she told him to turn west. During all the weaving and circling, the black Ford had clung to their tail. It made the turn behind them.

“You need a picture for the passport,” she said. “I think I remember a sign-yes, there.”

She pointed to an arcade filled with low-cost entertainment devices, including a photo booth. She waited while Shayne ducked inside, coming back a moment later with a strip of four shots of a glowering, unprepossessing face which bore very little resemblance to his real one.

“Frightful,” she said. “But never mind. Now I must be apart from you briefly, darling. It is to collect some money, so be patient. I will leave you at a cinema, and come as soon as I can. I hope in an hour’s time.”

She scanned the marquees of the double-feature houses they were passing. “These are all dreadful! Well.” She pointed to a theatre showing two of the dubbed Italian spectacles which Shayne was always careful to avoid. “That one. I need some money. Give me some please.”

Shayne counted out five twenties and gave them to her. He kissed her cheek and got out. She moved over behind the wheel, sliding the seat forward.

“If there’s no smoking downstairs I’ll be in the mezzanine,” he said.

Crossing the street, he bought a ticket at the glassed-in booth. Michele’s Chevy still hadn’t moved. He waved at her and went in.

Shayne strode purposefully past the candy counter, apparently anxious not to miss a minute of the movie, which dealt with the adventures of Jason among the Amazons, female warriors who were almost as bare-chested as Jason himself. The theatre was half-filled. The customers were almost all men, most of them sitting alone, many of them asleep. Shayne ignored the usher, went down an outside aisle toward a red Exit sign, and pushed through a heavy door leading into a narrow cul de sac separating this theatre from the next. By the time he reached the sidewalk the Chevy and the police Ford had both disappeared.

He shut himself in a phone booth in the amusement arcade. The number where he could reach Rourke during the day was scrawled across the back of one of the cards in his wallet. He dialed the Manhattan mobile operator and read her the number. Rourke answered promptly.

“Shayne. Where are you, Tim?”

“Going into the bus terminal,” Rourke told him. “She’s right ahead. There’s a garage on the roof. How come she dropped you?”

“She has a ten-o’clock date with the guy we’re after. She said she’d be back in an hour. How about the cop they gave you, does he seem OK?”

“So far, but how can you tell? When she parks, you want him to follow her?”

“Right. He has to be the one to do it. You’re supposed to be in the hospital with a fractured skull. Tell him not to lose her. This is our best chance, maybe our only one.”

“There she goes!” Rourke said. “Hold on.”

Shayne heard the roar of buses and other automobile noises from the other end of the connection. Rourke spoke in a low voice to the driver of the Ford. The toll operator cut in to tell Shayne she needed more money, and he put in another coin.

Rourke said, “It’s underway. She’s waiting for the elevator and Jamieson’s right behind her. He’ll call back on this phone as soon as he puts her in anywhere. I’m in touch with Power.”

“Let’s not tie up the phone, then,” Shayne said. “How far away are you?”

“Next block. A big hunk of concrete. You’ll see it.”

Shayne decided to stay in the arcade another few minutes, to give Michele time to get out of the neighborhood. He paid a dime to send five rubber balls tumbling into a maze of baffles and holes. As each ball dropped, a playing card lit up on the backboard. It turned out that Shayne had rolled a full house and won a stuffed panda, to his disgust. He gave it to a Puerto Rican girl who was watching the play, and returned to the street.

At the big Port Authority bus terminal on Eighth Avenue and Forty-first Street, an elevator took him to the parking garage on the top floor. Rourke, standing beside the Ford, saw him and waved.

The reporter grinned happily as he approached. “That hair, Mike. You could walk down Biscayne Boulevard and nobody’d know you.”

“How’s your skull?”

“The skull’s fine,” Rourke said. “It’s my belly that’s sore. You were supposed to pull that punch.”

“I wanted you to make a convincing noise. I thought you did it very well.”

“That wasn’t acting,” Rourke said sourly. “All I’ve got to say, it’s lucky I’m in top shape physically.”

Shayne exchanged an amused look with his friend, who had taken no exercise for years and who lived almost entirely on cigarettes, bad whiskey and delicatessen sandwiches. Some day he would probably fall apart. Meanwhile he wasn’t letting it bother him.

Shayne folded his big frame into the front seat of the Ford. Rourke came in beside him.

“That babe is really something,” Rourke observed. “I suppose you’re making out all right?”

“Within reason,” Shayne said shortly.

“She surprised me, you know? She’s got too much class for this job, like a stakes winner in a claiming race. What makes a doll like that tick? I’ll never know.”

“She wants to make a million bucks,” Shayne said. “Don’t ask me why. Where’s Power?”

“Downtown. He’s keeping a phone free. I don’t suppose you read the morning paper?”