Michael Collins - Act of Fear

Spanish Beach was hot. A loud town, crowded now because the cars were racing. My connection had been good at Miami, and we came into Spanish Beach on time. I took a taxi straight to the speedway.

I remember when Spanish Beach was a sleepy town where they spoke more Portuguese than English and everyone fished for sponges from boats with eyes painted on their bows. Now it was too big and loud and fast. It was all speedway and fast cars, like Riverside, California, and Daytona Beach.

At the speedway the cars were practising out on the brick track, and the administration offices were open. From the letter Anna had received I was sure Jo-Jo was around the track in some small job. He was smart enough to stay away from the cars themselves. At least I hoped he was.

I found the personnel office and went inside. A man bent over papers behind a counter. There were tables. The busy man did not look up when he heard me.

‘Nothing but selling programmes,’ the man said. ‘If that suits you, take a form and fill it out all the way.’

He was a small man with greying hair and a bald spot he carefully covered by brushing the hair sideways on — top of his skull. Ink stained his hands. He wore no coat, and his shirt was plastered to his back already.

‘I’m looking for a man,’ I said.

He looked up at that. He did not move, he just looked.

‘A young guy,’ I said. ‘Blond, tall, about nineteen.’

He put down his pen. ‘Who the hell are you?’

I showed him my credentials. He stood up then and came to look at them. He was only mildly impressed. He sniffed. He looked at my missing arm and at my face.

‘I lost it on Iwo Jima,’ I told him. ‘Knocked out three Jap machine-gun nests. I’m a real detective.’

‘Private,’ he said. ‘I don’t have to tell you anything. Private cop and New York at that. Three Jap nests? All alone?’

‘I had help,’ I said. ‘How about my friend? You probably took him on for some job last Saturday or Monday.’

‘All I took on all week was programme kids.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘That’s it.’

‘You want to save the life of a programme boy?’

He laughed. ‘Them? Between you and me, mister, they ain’t worth saving. Punks, all of them. They take the job so they can watch the races. Race bums. Half the time they look at the races ‘n don’t sell a programme. The customers got to beg.’

The man was small and red and he had a pet peeve. So many people have a pet peeve. Something or someone or some group they have to hate. It gives them something to do in the world. It gives a shape to their lives.

‘Talk to me and I’ll take one off your hands,’ I said. ‘The name is Olsen, but he’s probably not using his right name. Tall, blond, not bad-looking. No marks. He likes motors. You would probably have hired him around last Monday, like I said.’

The man shrugged. ‘You just described maybe half of them. They come, they go. If they work a week they’re veterans. You got a picture?’

I produced the picture Pete had given me. It hadn’t improved any as a likeness of Jo-Jo. Besides, he would have done something to change his appearance a little. The man confirmed my opinion.

‘Some picture,’ the man said. ‘It looks like most of them.’ And the man looked hard at me. ‘What’s so important about this Olsen anyway?’

My stomach went down on an elevator about a hundred feet.

‘Someone else was here?’ I said.

‘It’s my day,’ he said.

‘When? How many of them? What did they look like? What did you tell them?’

‘You got a lot of questions, mister.’

I laid a twenty on the counter. It hurt. The small man scooped it up. My war record and the twenty made him my friend.

‘There were two of them. They left maybe an hour ago, no more than that,’ and he went on to give me a pretty fair description of my two shadows. The same two who had certainly beaten Petey and probably killed Schmidt.

‘What did you tell them?’

‘What I’m telling you. I got no Olsen. The description fits about ten of the punks. Your picture don’t change much. I can give you a list. The rest is up to you.’

‘Did you give them a list?’

‘Sure, they paid too,’ he said, and then he seemed to stop and think. ‘For the war record I’ll do you a favour. I figure you ain’t so far back of them.’

‘How so?’ I said.

‘Well, I heard one of them telling the other that they should have come to the speedway first instead of wasting time asking people all over town and out in Flamingo.’

‘Flamingo?’

‘It’s a small town just outside city limits. They got a dirt motorcycle track gives us some competition.’

‘How do you figure that gives me some time?’ I asked.

‘Hold your horses,’ the small man said. ‘When the first one said that about wasting time, the second one said they was just following the “Big Man’s” orders. Then the other one said they better get to a phone and get the Big Man in from Flamingo quick. And the second one said they oughta start down the list right off, but the first one said no they better wait.’

I did not have to guess who the Big Man was. But it gave me a hope.

‘Give me the list,’ I said.

I did not know if Jo-Jo was even one of the programme boys at all, but it was all I had to go on. At least, it seemed to be all Roth’s boys had to go on, too. They had done me one favour anyway — they had covered the motorcycle track out in Flamingo and had probably checked out all the hotels and flops in town, with negative results. From what the small man said, it seemed like the two hoods had been in Spanish Beach before me. How? Maybe they had got Anna’s letter, too, but I did not think so. They had not come to the speedway first. I remembered that Magda Olsen had not been able to get in touch with Roth, and that my two shadows had not tailed me last night. It looked very much like they had learned about Spanish Beach last night before I did. Only they had learned less than I had from Anna’s letter, and something had sent them out to Flamingo. Whatever had done that I didn’t know, but it gave me a chance.

‘Here you go,’ the small man said.

The list he gave me contained only eight names.

‘I gave the other guys ten, only the picture you got rules out two of them,’ the man said.

It gave me another edge. Yes it did!

They had almost an hour’s start. It wouldn’t do Jo-Jo much good if I got to him second. It wouldn’t do me any good if it was a dead heat. If they got there first there would be some hope, because Jo-Jo would probably be on the alert. Maybe he could hold out or get away. But it was not something I could count on. No matter how I sliced it, I had to reach Jo-Jo before the two hoods. From the rest of what the small man had told me about the conversation of the two hoods, I might have a chance if they waited too long. If one of the names was really Jo-Jo at all.

‘Thanks,’ I said to the small man.

The man only shrugged again. He went back to his work and I went out into the Florida sun. I found a shady place, sat down, lighted a cigarette, and began to study that list of names. It wasn’t going to do me any good to just start running. If the first name the two hoods checked was Jo-Jo, he was probably dead already. Or he had run again, and I’d have to go back and start over. If the two hoods were working from the wrong end of the list, that wouldn’t do me any good either unless I knew which end they had started from, and that I couldn’t know. No, if I just started out from one end of the list or the other, it was pure chance who found him first. What I needed was a short cut. I needed a good, gold-plated hunch that would take me right to Jo-Jo the first time.