Caught Dead

EIGHT

The open Jaguar was cruising toward him. Rubino reached across to open the door. Shayne stepped in and issued a curt order.

Without hesitation Rubino wheeled about in a U-turn, using his horn to blast an opening. He swung right at the next corner, left at the next on a red light, and plunged into the older part of the city, a tangle of narrow twisting streets. A moment later they were edging into a fast-moving line of cars on an east-bound freeway. Rubino watched his mirrors.

“That gets rid of one,” he said triumphantly. “I used to live in that district, in my unlucky days. I know it like the inside of my pocket. But two pacos went into the building after you. I don’t see their car.”

“They’re trying to punch their way out of a phone-booth,” Shayne said. He took out a money clip and counted out five hundred-dollar bills. “This is an advance. Mejia’s giving me twenty-four hours, which means we have to keep moving. If I can get Rourke out I’ll ask his paper for a fifteen thousand buck fee. They’ll settle for half that. I’ll give you twenty-five percent on top of what I’ve just given you if you stick with me and don’t sell me out. That means no phone calls to Frost, Mejia, or anybody else.”

Rubino swept the bills out of his hand. “You’re a master of psychology, Mr. Shayne. You’ve won my allegiance! Where do you wish me to drive you?”

“Do you know where I can find Alvares’ widow?”

“Yes, but it is some miles away, on the road to Valencia. We can phone first, to make sure.”

“She won’t talk to me unless I walk in on her. Do you know if she speaks English?”

“A woman in that position, I believe she must. She would always be entertaining Yankee imperialists to dinner. And if she pretends she doesn’t, I will interpret for you.”

He circled the bullring and turned south. Presently the highway began to climb, and they left the city behind them.

Their destination, Rubino told Shayne, still called itself a farm, but though a large number of peasants seemed to be employed on it, their true function had been to bodyguard Alvares, who had spent as much time there as possible, preferring it to the stately and uncomfortable palace.

The countryside was rolling and rugged. Strips of mist lay in folds between the hills.

“This is Alvares land now,” Rubino said, “on both sides of the road. More or less worthless, because who in his right mind would wish to buy it?”

An occasional huddle of scrawny cattle grazed in the fields. They passed a group of farm laborers walking at the edge of the road-barefooted, in ragged clothes, with big hats and sheathed machetes. Rubino pointed and Shayne saw a kind of adobe fortress, reached by a dirt road between a double line of cypresses.

A car was being driven down this avenue, very fast, kicking up dust. It swung onto the paved road and passed them-a heavy green Olds. Shayne had a flash of a woman in dark glasses at the wheel, her blonde hair blowing.

Rubino’s foot lifted from the accelerator. He watched the rapidly receding car in his side mirror.

“Funny,” he said.

“What is?”

“That’s Alvares’ girlfriend. Lenore Dante. And she has been to call on the Senora. For what purpose, do you think?”

“You know more about it than I do.”

“Did you see the look on her face? She has the devil behind her, jabbing her with a pitchfork.”

After a moment he said slowly, “I think we should see where she goes in such a hurry. The Senora will still be here when we get back.”

“O.K.”

Rubino was still watching the mirror. “I don’t want her to see the brakelights if she looks. There is only this road. We can overtake her slowly.”

He swung into the cypress avenue, stopped, and then moved the switch that brought the top up out of the boot.

“If she noticed us pass, she saw an open convertible. Nov she will see a quite different car. I’m being clever today.”

He waited till the Olds was out of sight before backing out onto the road.

“Lenore Dante,” Shayne said. “What nationality?”

“A compatriot of yours, such a lovely one. An artist, her paintings have been seen on many walls in Caracas since Alvares became her protector. And now, I suppose, they will be hidden in the garages.”

“How old?”

“In her first thirties. Thin. Dashing. It is an arrangement of three years. That is a long time for a thing of this kind with Alvares. Formerly it was for short periods, and with a great effort to be furtive and secretive. Always Latin girls of bourgeois families. They would be given a check when he said good-bye for the final time. But he allowed himself to be seen openly with this one. He visited her in Palm Beach, in your country, where it is said she owns a busy art gallery that makes much money. Here a cooperative apartment has been taken for her in a good district. And she lived in it every year a little longer. With the regime ending there was less reason to be careful.”

The Olds ahead was still being driven at headlong speed. They had come over the rim of the plateau and saw the city stretched out below them. As they dropped, Rubino began closing the gap.

“I’ll tell you something. It is supposed that no one was with him in the plane when it crashed except the personal pilot, who is now in the hospital with a cracked skull and can say nothing. But I think Dante was with him. Before the police arrived she had enough time to dismount and disappear. I have a private piece of information that a woman walked rapidly away from the wreck, not his wife. I’ve wondered what I could do with this information. Probably nothing.”

When the Olds came up onto the city freeway he closed with it and hung just behind as it whirled across town in the high-speed lane.

“The autopista,” he said. “To the airport. Mr. Shayne, this presents a problem.”

The Olds leaned into the cloverleaf, taking the curve too fast. Rocking, it drifted off on the outside shoulder, swerved and recovered. Rubino dropped further behind as soon as the other car committed itself to the northbound lanes.

“Because at the airport,” he went on, entering the cloverleaf, “there will be police. I wish there was time to change cars. They know by now to look for the Jaguar.”

“Keep thinking about it. If they arrest us, there won’t be any more hundred dollar bills. What else can you tell me about this woman? Was she mixed up in politics?”

“Not at all.”

After another moment, watching Rubino carefully, Shayne remarked, “Mejia thinks there’s a sizeable chunk of money floating around.”

He saw Rubino’s grip on the wheel tighten. “This is not, as I told you,” Rubino said softly, “much of a spiritual city. Ninety-nine percent of Caracans are daydreaming about that subject.”

“Including you?”

Rubino laughed again. “Why else are we following?”

“Do you think you have a chance at it?”

“By myself, no. I am too small. But together with you, there are attractive possibilities.”

“This Lenore Dante must know something about it.”

Rubino laughed again. “Why else are we following her? Mr. Shayne, I am sure she knows a great deal about it. That relationship, on Alvares’ side, was becoming always more scandalous, more intense. She would figure in his future plans. And now what do you think? Should we overtake her here in the open countryside or find out first if she is meeting someone?”

“You decide.”

Rubino considered, squinting into the glare. He pursed up his lips.

“I think that first we establish if she turns to the airport. Then we can come up alongside and force her to pull over. We should seem cruel and merciless. I will conceal my ordinarily sunny nature. She was frightened leaving the Senora’s farm, we will frighten her more. If she decides to collaborate, to tell us all she knows about the bombing, about the money-fine. If not we will take physical possession and look for buyers. I think she will be in demand. We can be an excellent partnership. I with my knowledge of the Venezuelan mentality, you with your Embassy connection, the excuse of being interested only in getting Mr. Rourke out of prison-”

He broke off suddenly. “There are binoculars in the compartment. Look at that turning red light. A police car?”

Shayne found the binoculars. Bracing himself with his elbows against the dashboard, he moved the focusing knob and picked up a revolving beacon on the roof of a black sedan parked at the mouth of an exit ramp.

“Yeah, it looks like it.”

“At the airport exit,” Rubino said. “Damnation. They will be watching for Jaguars, certainly. If we had taken the trouble to borrow an anonymous car.”

He shifted down, rattling his fingers against the steering wheel. Shayne watched the car they were following. Its brakelights came on for the exit, but it passed the police beacon and continued another hundred feet to the next ramp.

“Going east!” Rubino said, his voice tight. “To a boat. But there is a roundabout way.”

He signaled for a turn, climbed the divider and headed back toward Caracas. Shayne said nothing. Rubino pushed the Jaguar hard, getting the maximum speed out of each gear. He darted down into the next exit.

“Hold on with both hands,” he advised. “This is shorter, more primitive. From an older century.”

The concrete ramp spewed them onto a narrow two-lane road, unpaved and rutted.

“Now you will meet Venezuela,” he shouted happily, “and if the axles hold-”

He hit a pothole and the rest of the sentence was jolted away. He stayed in third, avoiding the worst irregularities with subtle changes in speed and direction.

“Can you see the car?” he demanded.

The road here was depressed between high banks. Until it turned and dived downward, Shayne was unable to see the ocean. He located the coastal road, which hugged the shore in places but most of the time ran inland through dense undergrowth.

“Mr. Shayne,” Rubino said urgently, “do you have a gun?”

Shayne pulled his bag over from the back seat and took out his. 38. Rubino snapped the catches holding the top in place and let it fly up and back.

“At the next bend. Show them the gun and fire once.”

Shayne still had seen nothing that required a gun. Rubino threw the wheel over and started into another long downward curve. The curve tightened. The road doubled back on itself and they went into their own dust cloud. At the bottom of the loop, an old flat-bed truck was parked so that it nearly blocked both lanes. There was a man on the runningboard with a rifle, two bandoliers of ammunition crossing his chest. In the shadow cast by his wide hat brim, he was faceless.

Shayne pulled himself up and brought the pistol to bear. The Jaguar fishtailed in the loose dirt.

The man on the truck watched without shifting the rifle. Shayne fired, and he dived out of sight. The Jaguar swerved while Rubino sawed at the wheel. For a moment they headed straight down the mountain. The rear wheels rode out of the rut. Rubino pulled the wheel sharply to the left, missed the edge by an eyelash and came back around the truck into the road. Shayne fired again, at the truck’s tire, but the bullet went into the dirt.

He sat down and refastened his seatbelt.

Rubino was very excited. “How they would love to get hold of this car. It would make their fortunes.”

The road’s surface improved as they came out on the flat. He stayed in third, watching carefully to avoid the frequent holes.

“I fear we are still bouncing too badly for binoculars.”

He glanced behind, then skidded to a stop and took the binoculars out of Shayne’s hands. He began panning from left to right, looking for the green Olds.

“Yes,” he said. “I was right. She is going to Macuto. She can charter a boat there. Do you see her at the end of the long cove? Keep your eye on her, please, while I pay attention to this wretched imitation of a road.”

Part of the next section had washed badly, and he slowed to a crawl. Shayne lost the Olds briefly, picking it up again as the road improved. Then all at once they were rolling on blacktop. It was pocked and broken, but a big change after the difficulties of the last few miles.

Seeing the main road ahead, Rubino slid to a stop.

“We are here first,” he announced. “Now we spring out at her as she comes past and give her a small heart attack, perhaps. She thinks she is almost safe.” He peered down the winding road. “She will appear in one moment.”

But he became impatient quickly. “There are so many places for boats! If she had one waiting, in two seconds she could lose herself on the Caribbean. And that would be too bad, after all the time we have invested. I think we should go meet her.”

When Shayne didn’t disagree, he turned out on the shore road in the direction of the airport. There was little traffic, an occasional truck, one or two small European cars. A distant tanker, a smudge on the blue water, headed west toward Maracaibo.

They found the green Olds after half a mile. No one was in it. It was pulled well off the road with the front door slightly ajar, the interior light burning. Rubino frowned and said something in Spanish as he braked to a stop.

It was blindingly hot. The undergrowth was very thick on the land side. There was a small cluster of shacks just ahead, a tiny store marked with a Coca-Cola sign.

Shayne stepped out. A dirt track ran down to the water where two fishing boats were tied to a rickety dock. Off shore, a 20-foot open-decked runabout rode at a mooring in a slow swell.

A barefooted Venezuelan girl appeared around one of the shacks. Rubino called a question, which frightened her back out of sight.

Shayne started toward the water, and suddenly a man materialized on the deck of one of the boats. He was wearing only bathing trunks. He was young, well-tanned and well-muscled, with a full mustache. He looked at Shayne, then whirled, scrambled to the rail and dived.

He came out of the dive with arms and legs pumping in a powerful crawl. Shayne ran toward the dock, reaching it an instant before the swimmer arrived at the mooring and flashed over the gunwale of the powerboat like a leaping salmon. Shayne had his revolver out, but didn’t fire. He glanced back at Rubino, who had stopped short, shading his eyes.

A motor roared and the moored boat jumped forward, snapping the line. Shayne crossed the dock to the fishing boat and stepped aboard.

There was a strong smell of fish and the decks were wet. He found the woman face down on the floor of the cabin, her white blouse slashed open and her back bloody.