Бретт Холлидей - Count Backwards to Zero

“If Joe Nye’s still in command of the Dinner Key Air Station he won’t ask you to put it in writing. He’ll get his planes in the air and let you fill him in later. Just tell him it’s a security matter.”

“A security matter,” Gentry said sarcastically. “Don’t tell me you still think somebody’s been smuggling in atom bombs.”

“Will, the main guy is an English physicist who up to a week or so ago was a top official in an atomic laboratory. He’s been reading Lenin and going to Left-wing demonstrations. He brought in a Bentley. The gas tank on that car weighed about three hundred pounds with no gas in it. I know, because I wrestled it out of the Bentley into that green Olds, where I hope to hell it still is.”

“You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?” Gentry said slowly.

Shayne said grimly, “You know it. Make the Coast Guard call — they wouldn’t do it for me. Keep this line open.”

Shayne’s operator, coming back at his signal, held the connection to Police Headquarters, and put Shayne through to the desk of the North Miami Holiday Inn. Identifying himself, he asked them to look at their list of license numbers, on cars belonging to their guests, and see if the Oldsmobile’s was among them.

“Yes, here it is, Mr. Shayne. That’s Mr. and Mrs. William Robinson, of St. Petersburg.”

Shayne thanked them and waited for Gentry.

“Let’s go, Will, what’s holding you up?” he said impatiently to the dead phone.

He took a cognac bottle from the glove compartment, and drank. Then Gentry was back.

“Seems to be OK, Mike. They’ll run a series of five-mile circles, moving north and south, and he was nice enough not to ask me what a Cunard Line lifeboat transmitter was doing at a Holiday Inn in North Miami. I’ve got the Highway Patrol looking for Rourke. Now are you going to spoon out some more information, or do you want me to sit here and sweat?”

“I can explain one thing, at least,” Shayne said. “Slattery’s wife isn’t expecting him for another week. He brought somebody back with him — I saw a woman in the front seat when he drove the Olds out of Customs — and apparently he plans to get in a little illicit sex before he shows up in Coral Gables. The reason there’s no Daniel Slattery registered is that he signed in under the name William Robinson. If he’s there and the car is gone, it must mean somebody else found out about the gas tank switch and hijacked the Olds. And that’s bad news.”

“Wait a minute, Mike. Something’s coming in now.”

Shayne heard scratchy voices in Gentry’s office, too far from the phone to come across as words. When Gentry returned his attention to Shayne, his voice had quickened.

“Here’s a break. I’ll be guided by you as to how we play it. The Bentley’s been spotted.”

“Where?”

“In Brownsville. We’ve got good lines of communication on that block. I think I told you about him once — Grady Ramsay.”

“A numbers banker?”

“That’s what he used to be. He broke his back in a car crash. Now he’s paralyzed and he spends most of his time at the front window. If we had somebody like him in every neighborhood we’d really know what happens in town. He called in to report a stolen car. The description fits your Bentley.”

“What the hell is my Bentley doing in Brownsville?”

“Call Ramsay, Mike. Otherwise you’ll be getting it third hand. It sounds like a queer deal.”

He gave Shayne a number, and Shayne passed it on to his operator. In a moment a voice said briskly, “Grady Ramsay speaking, what can I do for you?”

“This is Michael Shayne. I’m calling about the car you just reported stolen.”

“Mike Shayne? Well, well. I had a hunch this was something, from the way they pricked up their ears.”

“It sounds like a car I’m interested in. I know you’ve been through this once, but would you mind doing it again?”

“I’m not going anyplace. You don’t see that kind of a car pass through here more than a couple of times a year, and I sharpened right up when it cruised past. Imported, you know — didn’t have that Detroit look at all. Those big swishy front fenders. The lines of a two-minute trotting horse. How much of a hurry are you in? I can condense it for you, or put in all the curlicues.”

“Don’t leave out anything. Did you see who was driving?”

“Only the elbow. I was dozing away, and he was past before I had the use of all my apparatus. Rolling along at ten miles an hour. He stopped all of a sudden, jammed on his brakes. That car raised up and then it settled back, a good three feet out from the gutter. I had my head poked out the window for a clearer view. I said to myself, ‘Uh-oh, that cat is inviting trouble.’ Because you know the younger element around here will strip that kind of automobile down to its bones if they’re given the opportunity, so the smart thing to do, the sensible thing, is don’t give them the opportunity. If you have to stop, don’t get out. He got out, both him and the person with him.”

“Slow down. That’s important.”

“I can’t help you with much of a description of either one of them. The street lamp service is a shame and a disgrace. There’s a chinaberry tree at that spot, which didn’t help matters any. The driver had the sense to lock up, I’ll say that for him, and he walked around past the headlights. Not a very large fellow. A white person, incidentally, and from little things about him I’d say he was more than somewhat polluted. As for whoever was with him, I couldn’t tell if he was old or young, or black or white, or anything about him at all.”

He paused a moment.

“Excuse me, just wetting my whistle here. Now you understand my heart was hammering and I was expecting some action. That automobile set somebody back over ten thousand dollars new, and the house they went into — I won’t say it’s run down because that wouldn’t convey the flavor. It’s been abandoned three weeks, and the landlord’s letting it go to the city. That car and that building, they don’t go together. And all at once I heard the beating of another automobile. This one I believe was a Dodge, and it could use a valve job and new plugs and points. It stopped behind the other car and a big guy jumped out with what I honestly believe was a pistol in his hand. He whipped out some keys, got in the first car, the imported car, and drove off, leaving some rubber on the pavement. The Dodge was right behind him, but here’s the point, and I didn’t tell the lieutenant this because it just happened this minute. The Dodge is back, and it’s parked out there with the lights off. I tried to get the license number but all I can see is the letter T and a nine.”

“What happened to the people who went in the building?”

“They could still be there, or they could walk through to the alley in back and I wouldn’t see them from here.”

“Who used to live there?”

“Just ordinary hard-luck black people, on welfare and so on.”

“The guy who owns the Bentley is mixed up in some kind of radical politics. Would that fit any of the tenants?”

Ramsay sounded careful for the first time. “I’d say nobody around here is any more militant than the next man. Just trying to slide along.”

Shayne took him through the scene again, but it remained as baffling on the second telling as on the first. After thanking Ramsay for his help, Shayne broke back to Gentry.

“I see what you mean, Will. He’s a good witness. But I’d better take a run out and see for myself. I ought to have a back-up man standing by. Who’s available? I need somebody who can work close without kicking over any garbage cans. Considering the part of town we’ll be in, somebody who’s not too pale.”