Бретт Холлидей - Count Backwards to Zero

“Where is it?”

“If I knew that, why would I be fooling around out here with you? This might make a certain amount of sense if you knew where Dessau is. Relax for a minute. Let the blood drain out of your brain so you can use it to think with. Tell these guys to cool off and we’ll talk.”

After a moment Diamond called, “All right, when he lets you go, go back to the other car.”

Some of the tension went out of the arm Shayne was grasping. He eased up, but when the man outside had withdrawn a few inches, Shayne yanked again. The man’s chin banged the top of the car harder than before. Then Shayne twisted with both hands, causing a contorted face to appear framed in the window.

“Don’t hit people with pistols when you don’t know who they are,” Shayne said. “Find out something about them first. What happened to Dessau?”

“He went for cigarettes. You came out of the cafeteria before he got back. That hurts.”

Shayne let him go and the man disappeared.

“For cigarettes,” Shayne said. “Most places that sell cigarettes also have phones. But maybe we’ll have a perfectly good explanation when he turns up.”

He reached for his gun, which Diamond was holding, and then waved.

“If you think it gives you an edge, keep it. What’s your current theory? I hope you don’t think I rigged that gas tank in the Olds. I would have put in a neater weld.”

“You and Little had some kind of deal. You didn’t walk in that building on the basis of the explanation you’ve given me.”

“I told you what he told me. I didn’t say I believed it. I know he was lying. So was Anne Blagden. So are you, for Christ’s sake. I’m used to that. But every time I get hit by somebody I find out something new. We’re ruling out possibilities all the time.”

“What possibilities?”

“I don’t know why you feel this is a time to panic. From your point of view the situation has improved. If the tank had stayed where I put it, in the Olds, it’d be out of the country by now. Or else the Coast Guard would have picked up the signals, followed them to the airport, and grabbed them while they were loading it in the plane. This way it’s still available. If I stashed it away somewhere, you have to deal with me. If I didn’t — and believe me, I didn’t — I’m your link.”

“I don’t see that.”

Shayne said patiently, “Anne and Geller don’t know how to get in touch with you. You don’t know how to get in touch with them. Whoever actually has the goddamn thing can’t put it up for auction because he doesn’t know how to get in touch with either of you. But everybody knows how to get in touch with me. I’m in the book.”

Diamond began to look interested.

Shayne went on, “Anne — if it really was Anne and Geller who hijacked the Olds — is going to have the same reaction you did. I was in the hold of the Queen with welding and burning equipment, and a whole night to work out a three-way switch. She’s probably been trying to get through to me for the last twenty minutes.”

“And what happens after she gets through to you?”

“We go on playing it by ear. Seriously, Diamond, I’m the one fixed point. As soon as everybody gets that through their heads, we can start winding it up.”

“All right, but I’m going to keep you right under my eye.”

“I don’t object to that. Stick as close as you want, but keep out of sight. Right now we’re both stymied. I’m worse off than you because I’ve got a murder charge hanging over me. Anne doesn’t know that, unless Dessau told her. As far as she knows, I’m still open to a money offer.”

“I hope you’re not thinking of asking her if she wants to outbid me.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Shayne said wearily. “She must understand by now that there’s a good chance she’ll come out with nothing unless she levels with me. She’ll have to make some kind of offer. If it’s high enough I might be tempted to take it and sell you out. God, I’m tired of explaining the simplest things. Don’t you realize yet? The cops are going to want somebody for Little’s murder. It has to be me or one of Anne’s people. That’s something I can’t deal away, as much as I like large sums of money.”

“I think I see your point,” Diamond said, still uncertain. “But if you try anything—”

“Yeah, yeah. Stay within pistol range.”

Using the phone in the next gas station, Shayne phoned his mobile operator and asked if anyone named Anne Blagden had called him. Someone named Anne Blagden had been calling regularly, he was told. She had left a number.

Shayne instructed the operator to call the number and tell Miss Blagden that he wanted a meeting very much indeed. If she could arrange to be at the corner of 54th Street and North Miami Avenue in fifteen minutes, he would pick her up.

Diamond drove him to the block where he had left his Buick. Diamond wanted to continue talking about their various options, but every time he started to speak Shayne cut him short.

“I have to think about the best way to do this. Shut up and keep moving.”

When Shayne changed cars, Diamond warned him again that he would be kept under close watch, and any attempt at treachery would be followed by instant retribution.

“Diamond, it’s lucky we need each other, because you’re beginning to bug me.”

Shayne locked the package of money in the strongbox welded to the floor beneath his front seat. Diamond preceded him in the Mustang. The two others in Diamond’s party followed in the Dodge.

The phone rang before Shayne turned the first corner.

“I gave Miss Blagden your message,” his operator said. “She promised to be there. Now here’s Chief Gentry.”

“Mike,” Gentry’s voice said.

“Yeah. I was probably rude to you the last time we talked. I take it all back.”

“I stand by every word I said. I’ve got the district FBI director and two of the Highway Patrol brass in my office. I need some factual information for a change, and I’m beginning to think I won’t get it unless you’re physically apprehended and brought in.”

“Is there a call out for me?”

“Not yet. I wanted to ask you nicely one more time. Will you please come in and enlighten me about how a knife I gave you for Christmas came to end up in a British scientist’s stomach?”

“Look for another knife in a room upstairs. Ivory handle. That’s the one that killed him. Have the medical examiner measure the depth of the wound. My knife won’t go that deep.”

“Mike, will you please come in and dictate a statement on that? Now there’s the second time I said please, and it’s the last time. But I’ll bait the request. We have something from Washington about Diamond.”

Shayne said quickly, “Tell me, Will. I had a gun at my head ten minutes ago, and right now I’m sandwiched between two cars with three men in them. They wouldn’t let me come in even if I wanted to. I’d be shot coming up the steps. I’ve got a minute and a half at the most. I’m picking up new bits all the time. There are two groups of people, and all I know about them is that they’re out for blood. Diamond thinks I committed that murder, and also killed a witness. He thinks it gives him a handle. That same pitch won’t work with the other side. I have to think up something entirely different. I need everything you’ve got, Will, believe me. Come on, come on!”

A faint crackling came from the phone.

Then Gentry said decisively, “All right, the hell with everybody. What can they do, after all, put me in jail? The fingerprints did it. Diamond’s only one of his names. He’s in demand. Washington wanted to know where I got those prints, and I had to tell them.”