Blue Murder

CHAPTER 8

Shayne left Lib asleep on the water bed, lying on her stomach with an arm trailing. He had paid her $300, and she had promised to ask the cameraman about Project X and Mrs. Tucker, in return for which Shayne would pay her the additional $200. But hearing about a possible part in a big-budget picture had made her wonder if she’d been wrong to betray Baruch to the Tucker committee. Mistake or not, Shayne told her, it was unlikely that Baruch would ever have the funds to make the picture.

The party was dying, all but dead. Shayne had left his Buick a block away, on a curving street leading to the canal. Several years earlier, the son of an accountant who had been sentenced to a prison term on evidence supplied by Shayne had wired a bomb to his ignition system, using much too much dynamite. If Shayne hadn’t been warned by the boy’s sister, it would have blown in the fronts of nearby houses. In all his cars since then, he had installed a simple relay, causing a yellow bulb to light up on his dashboard whenever the hood was lifted.

The bulb was burning now.

He hesitated, one foot in the car, then backed out, feeling in his pockets as though he had left his keys in Baruch’s apartment. He returned to the house. Baruch’s entrance was in back, off a narrow cobblestoned court, reached through an archway. Shayne continued past.

People who booby-trapped other people’s cars usually hung around to see whether their devices worked. He angled back carefully, taking advantage of the protruding porches and hanging staircases characteristic of Coral Gables architecture. He shifted position several times before he spotted the men he was looking for, in the front seat of a hardtop convertible with the windows rolled up all around, a fairly new Chrysler.

He planned his route carefully. Moving in a low crouch from a palm tree to a clump of shrubbery, and from there to the curb, he came up on the car from the rear. The air conditioning was on, and its low hum covered his approach. Bent double, pressed against the side panel so he would be seen only if one of the men turned completely around, he reached up to the rear-door handle.

He freed the latch soundlessly and focused his energy for a sudden burst. He yanked the door open and entered the car with a shot-putter’s yell, slanting upward between the two heads.

Before either man could react, Shayne had a forearm around each neck. The man at the wheel was a large black, with the columnlike neck of a fighter or football player. Hampered by the steering column, there was little he could do except claw at Shayne’s arm. The man beside him managed to get a hand inside his coat. A gun spilled out.

Shayne stepped up the pressure, counting aloud. Before the count reached thirty, both men had ceased to flounder.

He shifted his grip. Backing off slightly, he cracked their heads together hard. Reaching past, he opened both doors and let them fall out of the car.

He dragged them onto the curbside grass. The black was huge, over six four, at least two hundred and sixty pounds. Shayne checked their wallets. The black’s name was Abraham Page. The other had three different driver’s licenses, in different names. Shayne took the guns and wallets to his own car, where he raised the hood and disconnected the explosive device, a lump of plastic the size of a bar of soap, taped to the underside of the fire wall between brake and clutch. He pulled off the detonator and tossed the now harmless device into the back seat.

He backed up to the Chrysler and double-parked. The two gunmen on the curb lay where he had dropped them. He unlocked the liquor chest, checked the level in the cognac bottle, and drank. Then he signaled his operator.

She had two numbers for him, in the same part of town. One was his client. The other was a woman named Mrs. Ten Eyck.

“She said you wouldn’t know the name, but to tell you she’s the one you jogged with tonight in Bal Harbour. Did you really jog, Mike? I can’t quite picture it.”

“I’m recommending it to everybody. Ring her for me.”

Presently a woman’s voice said hello, as though speaking through water. The phone had awakened her, and there was a moment’s confusion until she separated Shayne from the dream she’d been having. “Michael Shayne. I remember I called you, and in a minute or two I’ll remember why it seemed important. Right, I’m beginning to tick. I don’t know what you’re up to, but doesn’t it have something to do with Nick Tucker?”

“I’m working for him. That doesn’t mean I’ll vote for him if he gets the nomination.”

“I’m glad to hear that, because I think he stinks, as I may have told you. Should I stick my nose in this, or not?”

“You already have.”

“But I haven’t told you anything yet.”

Shayne sipped cognac and waited.

She went on, “Well, I know I’m going to tell you. I just thought you’d want to urge me a little. The reason I run at night is to get my brain to slow down, but after that adventure with you, everything kept whirling and I couldn’t go to sleep so I went out and jogged another couple of miles. When I came back, Nick Tucker and somebody were in the parking lot, having what looked like a drunken brawl. Pulling and shoving, trying to keep their voices down because this is a quiet part of the world. No coat, his necktie flapping. Tucker. Shocking! That carefully arranged hair flying every which way. Well?”

“Who was he wrestling with — a man or a woman?”

“A man. Smaller, older, and I’m going to take a quick jump and say I know who he is. I used to live in Chicago, when I was married to the irresponsible heel I’m no longer married to. This guy was our congressman, and his name is Barnett Pomeroy. Believe me, a pain in the ass. Pompous? Incredibly. He’s had the job since Harding was President, practically, and if he ever had an original idea in all that time, he kept it to himself. That’s all I have to tell you. I hope it helps.”

“Did they see you?”

“Yes, and it calmed them down. I only heard one thing. Tucker kept saying. ‘I can handle it, let me handle it,’ something like that. I can’t give you the words, it happened so fast.”

Shayne, after another sip of cognac, asked how sure she was of her identification. She said very sure — during election campaigns in his Chicago district, Barnett Pomeroy’s face had looked out from every blank wall.

“I don’t know what it means, Mrs. Ten Eyck, but thanks.”

He wished her success in getting back to sleep. After breaking the connection, he had his operator call Tucker’s number. Tucker answered promptly.

“You wanted me to report in,” Shayne said. “I’ve confirmed a few things. Baruch’s expecting to come into a large chunk of cash, but don’t for God’s sake pay him a penny, because I’m beginning to think he doesn’t have anything to sell. Your wife has been seen at the Warehouse. I still don’t know where she’s staying. I warned you she’d be hard to find. There’s one thing you may be able to help me with. A congressman from Chicago, named Pomeroy.”

“Barnett Pomeroy? What about him?”

“Is he connected with this in any way?”

“Insofar as we’re both members of the same caucus,” Tucker said. “He’s in town, to keynote the convention. I made the mistake of including him in the people I called to see if they’d heard anything about Gretchen. He was out there like a shot. He’d been drinking, and he was hard to get rid of. What have you heard, Shayne? He was very indignant about this whole thing, and if he took it into his head to do something about it—”

“Where would he start?”

“At the Warehouse, I suppose,” Tucker said slowly. “He’s a feisty little guy. He’s had things his own way for the last thirty years. He hates pornographers more than I do, if that’s possible. And if Baruch and his merry crew get their hands on him—”

Shayne said quickly, “I have to go now. A guy I just hit is starting to sit up.”

“Shayne! What did you mean, Baruch may not have anything to sell? Shayne…”

Shayne hung up and stepped out of the car. The black had rolled over and brought one knee up. The second man was still out.

Shayne kicked the black in the head, then again in the side, staving in two of the short ribs at the bottom of the ribcage. The big man fell back on the grass.

“My name is Shayne. I’m the guy you were trying to blow up a minute ago. Can you understand me?”

“I hear you.”

He groped for his gun. Finding it gone, he swiveled on one hip, trying to tangle legs with Shayne and bring him down. But his movements were slow. Shayne stepped back, then forward, and kicked him even harder in the same place. Clearly, it hurt. He gave an almost feminine cry.

Stooping, Shayne rolled him off the curb into the roadway. When he tried to grab the bumper of one of the cars, Shayne kneed him in the small of the back.

“Car come along here, I’m going to get hurt.” the man said.

“Not much traffic this time of night,” Shayne said. “Chances are you’ll be O.K. I’m going to ask you some questions, Page, and we’re going to stay out in the open until you give me the answers. Then I’ll give you ten dollars for bus fare, because I know you’ll want to leave town. Who’s paying you to blow up people?”

“Don’t know the cat’s name.”

Shayne kicked him in the neck. A car came around the corner with a sweep of headlights, swerved violently, missing the prostrate figure by less than a foot, and came to rest against the opposite curb.

A young man yelled at Shayne, “What’s going on?”

“Move along,” Shayne said without raising his voice. “This doesn’t concern you.”

The black raised his head. “You broke my ribs.” He saved himself another kick by going no further with his complaint. The young driver restarted his stalled motor and drove off quickly.

“Answer the question,” Shayne said patiently. “Who paid you?”

“Frankie Capp. Never again. That dude is bad luck.”

“This whole thing has been bush,” Shayne said. “You can’t kill anybody with that amount of plastic. You’d just blow a hole through the floor and break my feet.”

“Yeah, and then he said to carry you out to the island.”

“Did you plan to bandage me, or let me bleed?”

Slowly and painfully, Page came over far enough so he could look up at Shayne. “Make it a hundred. I couldn’t come back to this town.”

“Because of Capp? Forget it. Capp won’t be around.”

“Capp won’t be around?” Page said in amazement. “You’re dreaming, man. He’ll live longer than anybody.”

“Did he tell you to search my car?”

“For eight cans of film.”

“What cans of film?”

“What cans? He didn’t tell me what cans. Frankie Capp?”

The second man sat up and shook his head. Shayne showed him one of the guns. He stood up heavily, stared at Shayne and started to lumber away. Shayne shot him in the leg.

He swung the gun toward Page, who held up both hands, palms outward. Shayne took out the photograph of Gretchen Tucker and moved it in front of his eyes.

“Does she look familiar?”

The black opened his mouth to speak, then shook his head. Still patient, Shayne explained the seriousness of the situation. Page was in trouble with Capp for failing to mangle Shayne, in trouble legally for planting a bomb in a car. Shayne sometimes cut corners himself, but this time he and the police were on the same side, and if Page thought jail might be the best and safest place, Shayne asked him to remember that Capp had friends and associates among the prisoners in most jails. When the black’s lips remained clamped, Shayne had his operator cut in on the police band, and a patrol car was on the scene in less than five minutes.