Last Seen Hitchhiking

Chapter 11

When Tree opened the door, it was knocked out of his hand. Professor Holloway came charging in. He had a girl with him, and Tree had been right about one thing: she had a pistol.

She waved it and told them excitedly, “Face the wall with hands over your head. Everybody!”

Shayne laughed. “My God, Holloway. Where’d you recruit this one?”

She was a full college generation younger than Meri Gillespie. She was wearing extremely short shorts, from the cuffs of which came a pair of long honey-colored legs. Holloway’s eyebrows might be graying and his manner might be getting a little anxious around the edges, but he hadn’t lost his power to fascinate. She was floating. Her eyes crackled, and her breasts seemed to give off a steady flow of static electricity.

She darted the gun forward and repeated her command. If this girl wanted him to stand against the wall, Shayne was ready to comply, and he advised the museum director to do the same.

Holloway had a reddish bruise over one eye, an equally large sense of grievance.

“Elly, I don’t know what’s happened to you. You used to be reasonably honest. Did you stop to consider that I might have been seriously hurt, or killed?”

“I’m sorry about that, Sam.”

“You’re sorry. He hit me with brass knuckles. He could have done permanent brain damage. I’m not some TV repairman, I need my brain to operate.”

“It wasn’t my doing.”

“I doubt that intensely, but it isn’t such a distinction, is it? They knew you’d buy what they stole, without any qualms. How is it that you happen to be in town at this particular moment, may I ask?”

“Pure chance.”

The girl had been following this with birdlike movements of her head. The gun was also in motion, and she was clearly itching to use it.

Shayne said, “Isn’t it time for everybody to disarm? I’m wondering if your friend really understands the situation.”

“How can she when I don’t understand it myself?” Holloway said. He put his hand on the girl’s arm. “It’s all right now. I’ve got my property back. I’ll hold the revolver.”

“No, I’d like to,” she said brightly. “I thought I’d shoot the redheaded one first. He looks more dangerous.”

“Thanks,” Shayne said, “but I’m not interested in old Mexican jigsaw puzzles. It’s pure chance that I’m here.”

“Pure chance,” Tree repeated.

Holloway tugged gently at the gun. “You’ve been splendid, Diane. I couldn’t have managed without you. But now if you shoot somebody we’ll be sitting around in a police station the rest of the night. Let go.”

She relinquished the weapon finally. Shayne turned, lowering his hands.

“How do you do it? You must hypnotize them.”

“She was mildly hypnotized when I picked her up,” Holloway said dryly. “I knew she’d scare you.”

“Jesus,” Tree said fervently.

“And how do I interpret this little scene?” Holloway said. “What were you doing, Shayne, negotiating a price for selling me out?”

“I don’t know who really owns the goddamn thing. Tree was about to show me papers proving that he bought it from a Swiss dealer.”

Holloway gave the museum director an unfriendly look. “Boëckli, I suppose? Your usual stooge. If you manufactured the provenance before you left New York, that proves intent.”

“But all the pieces aren’t here,” Shayne said, “as you have reason to know, Professor. We were discussing strategy when you walked in. I think I’d talked him into putting up a cash reward.”

“How much?” Holloway said suspiciously.

“Two hundred thousand bucks.”

The girl squealed. Looking at Tree, Holloway said slowly, “You really must want this, Ellie. I wish your finances were in better shape, so you could bid for it out in the open.”

“Unhappily—”

Tree had gone back to the sofa and his cigar. His manner was probably the one he habitually used in New York — cold, a little withdrawn. None of the people in the room could have concerned him greatly. But Shayne had been watching him closely, and when Holloway pocketed his gun and Tree’s hand slipped between the sofa cushions, Shayne swooped and caught his wrist. He brought Tree’s hand out and shook the gun loose. When the girl grabbed at it on the floor, Shayne stamped at her hand.

“College professors. Museum directors. Graduate students. I’m going to have to change some of my ideas.”

Holloway’s hand had gone to the gun in his pocket.

Shayne told him, “If it really matters that much, take your guns out in the alley, both of you, and shoot it out. I just don’t want to be there. I get shot at too often by people who have a reason for shooting at me. Here.” He tossed the pistol into Tree’s lap. “Duel him for it.”

The girl shimmered with excitement. She looked from one antagonist to the other, as though watching tennis. Tree took the cigar out of his mouth slowly, his eyes on Holloway, who, equally slowly, brought his hand out empty.

“As gunfighters,” Tree said, “it’s true we’re miscast. Of course it wouldn’t be a maiden effort for you, Sam, having killed a man in Yucatan last winter.”

“A Mexican sneak-thief,” Holloway said.

“Absolutely. Now don’t you think we ought to get back to the big question? Which I take to be, who is going to do exactly what?”

“We had an agreement, Shayne,” Holloway said. “We didn’t sign anything, but morally I’m your client. The mask is mine. That’s never been questioned. I’m going to collect my property now and get out of here. See that there’s no shooting and I’ll gladly pay your regular fee.”

“I said I’d take ten percent if I recovered the fragment and you could complete the Terre Haute deal. I don’t see any chance of that happening unless we spend some money. Tree’s offer is two hundred thousand. Can you match it?”

“Of course not. That thirty-eight thousand they swindled out of me tonight cleaned me out. That doesn’t alter the fact that the mask belongs to me.”

Shayne made a brusque gesture. “We have two claims, and to me they look equally good. It’s time to go to arbitration, and I’m appointing myself arbitrator. First I’ll ask for ideas. Stick to the narrow question of the missing fragment. How are we going to find out who has it and get it back?”

Nobody answered until Tree said, “Be fair, Shayne. Nobody’s told me the full circumstances.”

“The full circumstances are highly peculiar,” Shayne said. “The girl who stole it may be sitting somewhere laughing at us. She may have thrown it away. Or she may have been killed, and the killer has thrown it away. But I wasn’t really talking to you. What do you have to suggest, Holloway?”

Holloway shrugged. “Wait till something else turns up.”

“That’s not good enough. Here’s the arbitrator’s award. I award the mask to Eliot Tree, for a payment of two hundred thousand dollars. We won’t pay out a penny of that until the missing piece is recovered. If that happens, Tree’s museum has a bargain and you’re out in the cold, Holloway. But he tells me there are various lesser ways you can be compensated. And if you can locate the goddamn left eye without spending any of this money, we redeal. He gets the money back, you get the mask and you can go through with your sale.”

“Tell me I’m not hearing this,” Holloway said. “I’ll wake up in a minute. Who do you thing you are, the Supreme Court? What makes you think you can enforce a decision like that?”

“We all have guns in our pocket,” Shayne said. “I’m the only professional in the room.”

“My God, you are groovy,” the girl said, sparkling.

“But I have a better way,” Shayne continued. “Nobody really knows what Meri was planning. One theory is that she was thinking of calling a press conference to announce that Holloway’s famous Toltec mask didn’t belong to Holloway, he stole it and smuggled it out. I know enough by now so I can break the same story, with a bigger cast. New York museum hotshot and Miami U. professor caught with concealed pistols. It would get laughs. Goodbye mask. Why I should care where the thing ends up, in Mexico or New York or Indiana? It’s something I really and truly don’t give a shit about. Believe me.”

“I guess I believe you,” Holloway said.

“It’s a gamble, Holloway. Nothing or six hundred thousand. But if you don’t take it, you get nothing anyway.”

“And what’s to stop you from collecting the full reward, regardless, and handing the mask to Tree?”

“The difference between you and me is,” Shayne said, “if people don’t trust you in the private detective business you don’t get jobs.”

Holloway considered. “Elly? Disregarding the innuendo and the insults, are you going to buy this?”

“I think I have to, Sam. If I spend two hundred thousand out of acquisition funds and don’t acquire anything, I’m in trouble, but I’m in trouble already.”

“Sam?” the girl said. This was probably the first time she had used his first name; her lips had started to say “Professor.” “The thing we heard on the radio coming over. You were going to tell Mike.”

“I was about to,” Holloway said. “The newspaperman, Tim Rourke, wants you to call him, Shayne.”

“How did you get that message?”

“My car radio was on. Some kind of squalling homosexual argument — you know the kind of program. Rourke interrupted. He wanted to talk to Mike Shayne, and if anybody knew where he was, to pass it on.”

Shayne picked up the phone and punched the button for an outside line. A moment later he was talking to Rourke.

“See? It worked,” Rourke said. “That says something about my far-flung audience. This may not be anything for you, Mike, but aren’t you doing something about the hitchhiking killer, as we call him because we don’t know his real name?”

“Trying to.”

“A woman’s body has been found on the West Palm Beach municipal golf course. Do you want the few details I have?”

“How old is she?”

“Young is all I know. It came in as I was leaving the paper. In the rough on one of the late holes. Guy was playing around, trying to finish before dark. He saw something that looked like a body, but he was playing his best golf of the year and didn’t want to break his concentration. A real enthusiast. He finished the round before phoning the cops. The woman was naked, under some kind of rain cape. No shoes, no identification. Somewhat bruised. She couldn’t have been out hitchhiking without any clothes on, but whenever anybody finds a dead female these days, they think about the mad Mr. X.”

“You don’t know if she was blonde or brunette?”

“That wasn’t included, Mike. I’ve got to get back. It’s the time of night when my guests start to bicker if I’m not there to ump. Are you coming in later?”

“I hope to. I’ll check this out first. Tell your people not to go to bed. I’ll have a major announcement. I’m posting a two-hundred-thousand-dollar reward.”

“Gulp,” Rourke said. “And you’re using me as a vehicle? That’s nice. Hurry, Mike. I’ll pitch you an audience.”