Last Seen Hitchhiking

Chapter 10

García phoned from the lobby. He said only, “I have it,” and was told to come up.

After leaving the elevator, Shayne told him to hold still for a moment. When the Cuban turned, Shayne swiped at his face with the pistol barrel, drawing blood.

García went back. “But why?”

“Thinking of your reputation. You put up a great fight.”

“I am not a fighter. I use the gun if I have to, but as for hitting people with fists, never.”

Halfway along the corridor, he picked a door and touched a bell. When the door opened, Shayne gave him a blow from behind that sent him staggering into the room. He ran into a man nearly as tall as he was, but with the sections of his body in harmony. A long nose and prominent nostrils gave him a horsy look, and the sound he made when collided with by the moving Cuban was like a whinny. Shayne shut the door. His gun was showing.

“Are you Eliot Tree?”

“Evidently.” He gave García a displeased look. “I thought I was getting professionals.”

“We outnumbered him,” Shayne said. “There was a big fist-fight, but he’s a little awkward and he lost. He didn’t get a chance to shoot anybody, which is lucky for you because you’re already in serious trouble.”

Tree, Shayne had been told, was the director of a major New York museum, and people in that business, he was sure, were seldom exposed to the sight of guns and blood. But he was taking it coolly. He picked up the cigar he had been smoking.

“When did this fight take place,” he asked García, “before you finished your errand or afterward?”

Shayne handed him the white box. “They took this out of Holloway’s safe. Before we tell García to get lost, I want to ask him one question. Is it or isn’t it true, García, that this package never left your possession until we got to the hotel, and at no time has it been opened or tampered with?”

García looked confused. “Will you say that over, please?”

Shayne said it again, and García assented. “It is as we tied it when it came out of the safe.”

“Now get out. And next time don’t get caught.”

García took a step toward the door. “I am sorry about this, Mr. Tree—”

“I know, you were outnumbered.”

“That, but it may not be as bad as it seems. It is not a plain and simple robbery. This is Mike Shayne.”

“Are you trying to take a weight off my mind?” Tree asked. “I already know it’s going to cost me money.”

García left, and Tree looked at Shayne quizzically. “You want me to open this. I assume I’ll find that it’s not all here.”

“I’m assuming the same thing, but I’ve already had a few surprises. There seems to be a certain amount of chicanery in your business.”

“I’m distressed to hear that you think so.”

He took the box to a low table and used a silver cigar knife to cut the string. He removed a layer of tissue paper. Looking at Tree’s face and not at what was in the box, Shayne saw his nostrils open. He laid the cigar down carefully and lifted out a brightly colored fragment.

“Seems to be broken,” Shayne said.

“As you very well knew. But look at the color.”

There were seven pieces. He put them together, handling each delicately, as if afraid that some of the color he admired might rub off on his fingers.

“Who has the second eye?”

“I don’t,” Shayne said. “I’m fairly sure now that Holloway doesn’t.”

“A pity.”

“But I have an idea I want to talk over with you.” Leaving the mask loosely joined, Tree leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head, his cigar cocked at a sharp upward angle. He was in his early fifties. To judge by his skin, his clothes, the way he spoke, he had spent his childhood in a house with a big lawn, had learned to sail and play squash and tennis at an early age, had gone to a New England church school and a good college, and had spent his whole life among people whose histories were more or less identical with his own.

“An idea,” he said. “No doubt a money-making idea. But keep your aspirations within reason, Shayne, because the Fine Arts’ acquisition account is seriously depleted at this moment.”

“Very smooth,” Shayne said. “Is that why you’re dealing with a cheap thief like García?”

“Hardly cheap, hardly cheap. And I don’t accept your word ‘dealing.’ I have a legitimate reason for being in Miami. I’m not a hard man to approach. I answer the phone myself. I didn’t call him. He called me.”

Shayne touched one of the brightly colored pieces. “How much is this worth to you, as is?”

“Very little. We already have two post-Classic masks of good quality. They’re rarely shown because they’re fragmentary.”

Shayne picked up the piece he had touched and placed it on the floor. He took out his pistol, reversing it so he was holding it by the barrel.

“Then you won’t care if I smash this.”

Tree stirred. “Don’t do that, Shayne.”

“Nobody’s ever accused me of being cultured. I haven’t been inside any kind of museum for twenty years, and that time I remember I was looking for some guys who stole a bunch of gold coins. I saw the picture Holloway has been showing people. It didn’t impress me. Of course I have to have a certain amount of respect for anything that would bring that kind of price.”

His eyes narrowed. “I see I’m not getting through to you. I don’t think I’d be able to force myself to set fire to a ten-thousand-dollar bill. But this?” He touched the fragment with his toe, and Tree’s hand moved. “I know it means something to you, but it doesn’t mean a damn thing to me, so I don’t want you to be too lofty. I don’t have time to play games. I want answers, and I want you to forget for a minute that you went to Exeter and Harvard. But after three minutes I’ve taken a strong dislike to you, and for some reason I seem to be a little jumpy.”

He brought his gun down hard, missing the terracotta by a fraction of an inch. A strong jolt of electricity passed through Tree.

“For God’s sake! I know I alienate people, Shayne, but I can’t change my act at this late date. What you want is some honesty, is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

Tree took a heavy breath. “All right, dive in. It’s St. Paul’s and Yale. I realize that’s not what you meant, but I have to get used to this gradually. My wife has a little money. I don’t.”

“What’s a little money?”

“Twelve thousand a year, but I’m sorry to say she’s divorcing me and she doesn’t plan to pay alimony. My contract has six months to run, and again, I’m sorry to say there’s a distinct possibility that it won’t be renewed.”

“That’s the kind of thing I like to know about somebody,” Shayne said, putting his gun away. He picked up the fragment and added it to the others on the table. “Tell me what makes this so important.”

“In general, or to the Fine Arts, or to Eliot Tree’s career at the Fine Arts?”

“All three, but boil it down. I’m on a short fuse.”

“First things first. Naturally I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to support myself in six months’ time if they drop me. I have standards to keep up. I’ve made a couple of small mistakes. I had to send a Tintoretto back to Italy, because of a certain unconscionable scamp in the Italian Office of Antiquities who made a deal with the prosecuting attorney. We didn’t recover a penny of the purchased price. To replenish, I sold a few odds and ends that have been gathering dust in the basement, including, unhappily, a Van Dyck that had been misattributed. The papers pilloried me for that, in spite of the fact that deaccessioning has gone on continually since the museum was built, and every transaction can’t be favorable. My portfolio managers have had some bad luck in the market. Income is down, gifts are way down, the trustees aren’t returning my phone calls, and I need something spectacular to recoup. At a time when I don’t have the funds to buy anything spectacular in the marketplace, and it’s inexpedient to raise funds by going into the basement.”

He returned Shayne’s fragment to its place. “This would do it. The times are right for pre-Columbian prices to move, and there’s no telling how high they can go. But there has to be a bellwether, something to get the buyers talking, particularly the Japanese — a dazzling show or a dazzling single piece. I happen to like this mask, I’m enchanted by it, in fact, but that’s not the point. This is the time for me to be enchanted by something from this hemisphere. It would be particularly great for us because so many other people have bid for it. We’ve been outbid too often lately.”

“How public was the bidding?”

“Not public at all. Only the necessary people.” He gave a short laugh. “Of course the necessary people are all blabbermouths. If I get it, and I hope you’re about to tell me how it can be done, Eliot Tree will once again be the man-of-the-minute in museum circles. Superstud! How did he wrest it away from Terre Haute and Los Angeles? Not by offering more money, because everybody knows the Fine Arts is practically broke. No, he used the wits God gave him. Wits plus experience plus connections. The trustees would be insane to rid themselves of such a man.”

“After the Terre Haute bid, what made you think it might still be available?”

Tree looked at the end of his cigar. “Should I or shouldn’t I protect my informants? Usually I’m scrupulous about that, but this is a strange, strange episode — Holloway’s ex-wife, Maxine. It’s a subject she knows about. She practically wrote the bastard’s book.”

“I’ve heard that. Did she tell you she had the mask?”

“Was I interested. I said I was interested but as to price, I would have to be permitted to handle the merchandise first.”

“You didn’t send García and his friends this morning to see if they could talk her into giving them the mask for nothing?”

“Certainly not,” Tree said. “Some things you can do, some things you can’t. You can receive stolen goods, we all do, but you can’t suborn robbery.”

“And she didn’t call you again?”

“No, and I couldn’t seem too eager, so I didn’t call her. Then a male voice, giving no name, a slight Spanish accent. Was I still in the market? For what, said I. For valuable Toltec art objects, very pretty, guaranteed genuine. Yes, indeed. He instructed me to return to my room at eight, and I would be contacted.”

“García?”

“It could have been García, forcing his voice. But what happened? They made Holloway open the safe?”

“It’s still question-and-answer time,” Shayne said, “but I’m asking the questions. I want to know how it would be possible for you to exhibit this when it was legally imported by Holloway after buying it from a dealer in Bogota.”

“I can have my own provenance in a matter of twenty-four hours.”

Shayne made a disgusted sound. “You people.”

“His papers are bogus, of course. That dealer will sell his signature for the price of a case of whiskey. At the same time, it’s important from the scholarly point of view to know where the piece actually originated, and under what conditions. We know this. Holloway’s expedition received a good bit of attention. We all knew there’d been a major find. What’s the difference between a dealer in Bogota, who ostensibly sold it to Holloway, and a dealer in Bern, Switzerland, who ostensibly sold it to Tree? I’ve been playing with the idea of finding it in my own basement. Perhaps not, though, a bit too subtle. This Bern collector stung us with a forgery a few years ago and we were nice about it. He owes us a favor.”

“Why wouldn’t Holloway yell? ‘It’s my mask, they stole it from me.’”

“He’s in no position to get on the wrong side of the Fine Arts. We can hurt his reputation or we can help him. I’m ready to be friends. We sell five hundred copies of his book in our bookstore a year, and that will jump if pre-Columbian takes hold.”

“Did you bring cash?”

“A bit. I’ve found that the sight of a table piled high with money has a powerful effect on a certain type of person. It’s in the hotel safe,” he added. “Not that I don’t take that gun of yours with a grain of salt.”

“How much cash?”

“Before I answer, don’t you think you ought to tell me what procedure you have in mind?”

“No. In my game you buy explanations. I’ve already told a number of people that who gets the mask and how much is paid for it isn’t the most important thing. Your money situation has changed. You don’t have to pay García.”

“I may have to give him something to keep him quiet.”

“I’ll find out who he is and what he does and keep him quiet for you. I want to hear a figure, and I don’t have time to bargain. I’ll be standing at your elbow when you open the safe, so I’ll know how much you brought down from New York.”

“I didn’t expect to spend it all.”

Shayne, losing patience, came to his feet. Tree said hastily, “For the complete mask, one twenty-five.”

A moment later, when Shayne made no comment but merely looked at him, he raised that to one fifty.

“Would you go to two if I push you? This would be legitimate, so you could write a check like ordinary people.”

“Legitimate?” Tree said, puzzled.

“I know it’s going to make problems for your accountants, but try something different for once. Two hundred thousand, and the opposition’s ready to pay three times as much. Your trustees will give you a dinner.”

“And with no publicity?”

“It can’t be done without publicity. This is going to get national attention. If it works and the mask ends up in your museum, you’ll draw big crowds, and isn’t that what you’re after?”

“I suppose it is, really. Tell me what would go in the press release.”

“Like this. You made a sensational buy in Switzerland. You’re keeping the price confidential. A mask, in pieces, and you left it that way so it wouldn’t look too important when you brought it through customs. You needed somebody to put it together and give you an expert opinion on whether you got a bargain, and you hired the best man in the business, Holloway. This was too important to trust to the U.S. mails, so you hand-delivered it. And then some dirty dog held Holloway up with a pistol tonight and stole one of the pieces. You want it back. It isn’t worth anything to the thief. Your remaining fragments aren’t worth much by themselves.”

Tree was nodding. “And we’re offering a reward for the missing piece.”

“With no questions asked. Get in touch with Michael Shayne. He handles this kind of deal for insurance companies all the time.”

“Two hundred is a touch high.”

“It’s a round number. For some reason it sounds much bigger than a hundred and fifty. If we’re dealing with a killer, that could be important.”

“What?” Tree said, leaning forward. “What about a killer?”

“Two people have been kidnapped and possibly murdered. One of them’s a friend of mine. But I don’t really expect any direct contact with the kidnapper. He’s crazy, by definition, and two hundred thousand may not mean anything to him. The reward is for information leading to the recovery of the fragment and apprehension of the thief.”

“I finally begin to see where you are in all this, Shayne.”

Tree made a few movements while he thought about it, manipulating the cigar, running his fingers through his longish hair, adjusting the fall of his pants legs. “I have a feeling I’m going to go for it,” he said finally. “A reward that big would establish the value of the piece better than a price of six hundred thousand at auction. And you’re right, the publicity could be good to excellent. But I’m shooting high on this. I want to make sure all angles are covered.”

There was a knock at the door. Tree’s eyes jumped to the fragments, then to Shayne. Shayne picked up one of the pieces and put it in his shirt pocket.

“To keep the game honest. See who it is.”

“Probably not room service.”

“Probably not,” Shayne agreed.

He replaced the pieces in the foam-rubber-lined box. Tree was examining the ash at the end of his cigar.

“If it’s the police, I know nothing about any Toltec mask. You brought these fragments to me to ask my opinion. Where you got them is your business. That means you do the talking.”

“Nobody wants to bring in the cops just yet. We’re still feeling each other out.”

“Holloway, perhaps?” Tree suggested. “Or Mrs. Holloway. With Spanish-speaking friends. With guns.”

Tree blew a thin plume of cigar smoke and stood up when the knock was repeated. “You know more about this than I do, and somehow I get the feeling that you have other things on your mind than the professional survival of Eliot Tree.”

At the door, he said, “Who is it?”

A woman’s voice answered cheerfully, “Delivery for Tree.”