Last Seen Hitchhiking

Chapter 14

“Meri Gillespie’s roommate in college was a girl named Joanne,” Shayne said. “I wasn’t told her last name. If anybody’s listening at the university—”

Rourke broke in. “I have a terrific following there. I’m the current thing at pot parties. Tim Rourke, who believes in legalizing everything.”

“I want to talk to this roommate,” Shayne said. “If anybody knows her, wake her up and tell her to come over to KMW, and we’ll let her finger some hundred dollar bills.”

A Palm Beach man called to report that he had seen a dazed-looking girl, wearing the costume Shayne had described, get out of a pick-up truck near the West Palm Beach golf course and wobble off. Shayne questioned him closely. Deciding that he was merely fishing for a piece of the money, Shayne cut him off. Two others said they had seen a woman who looked like Frieda, with a guitar case, being picked up on the interstate. They differed about the kind of car, but agreed that the driver’s face had given them a creepy feeling.

The switchboard was already beginning to overload. While Rourke read a message praising one of his public-spirited sponsors, Shayne gave the switchboard handlers a list of major names and instructions to screen other calls and put through only those that sounded important.

He was wearing a headset. He put it aside to use one of the three phones in front of him to dial the St. Albans.

“Mike?” Tree said thickly. “Woke me up. I thought I was through for the night; took a pill. Any news?”

“Not yet. Fair warning — this conversation is going out on the air.”

“What the devil do you mean?” Tree said more alertly.

“I think I explained to you that we can’t sit on our hands and wait. We have to force it, or we’ll be spending our time the next few days going to funerals. We’re on the Timothy Rourke show. He usually winds up at one, but tonight we have clearance to keep on talking as long as it takes, all night if necessary. Your money’s piled up on the table in front of me.”

“And we’ve had some very nice compliments on it,” Rourke put in. “Either the air-conditioning is on the blink or that money is warm. I’m sweating.”

“You really are broadcasting?” Tree said.

“Check it, 805 on the FM dial. I’ll hold.”

He waited until the museum director completed the loop.

“By God, you’re right, I’m getting an echo. Well, it’s no secret that I put up the two hundred thousand. It’s my signature on the check.”

“Are you still maintaining that you’re the mask’s legal owner?”

“I seem to remember some kind of arbitrator’s award. As I believe I told you, I employed my good friend Sam Holloway—”

“Holloway still claims the mask is his.”

After a moment: “We’re doing it that way, are we? Call me on another phone.”

“I’ve already told the story as far as I know it. I’m still not sure how many people are listening, but we’re beginning to get some feedback. I want our listeners to get everybody’s version — yours first, then Holloway’s, then Maxine’s.”

“Just don’t be too candid, Shayne, or you’ll find yourself on the receiving end of an action for slander.”

“I’ll defend on the facts,” Shayne said coldly. “If there’s any of this cash left, I’ll use it to hire a good lawyer.”

“You’re a bastard,” Tree said, but almost admiringly. “What the hell then, if the damage is already done. Unusual circumstances, unusual methods. One way or another, I fear I’m approaching the end of my string of years as a museum director. And I still don’t know what a museum is supposed to be, Shayne! Probably Holloway showed you some kind of papers. They’re fraudulent. I say that without hesitation, and if anybody’s offered him money on that basis, anybody in Terre Haute, for example, too fucking bad. There will be other masks. As soon as the grapevine picks up the fantastic amounts of money we’re making available, the jungles of Central America will be flooded with treasure hunters and thieves. I’ve done as much of this kind of thing as anybody. It was the only way I could get some of the things I coveted.”

“Coveted?”

“A strong word, I know. But it fits. I covet that mask. I want it for my museum. We have a small domed octagonal room. I’d hang the walls with bright fabric — orange, I think — and light the piece from above, as though it’s being picked out by a ray of sunlight. I know why you’re acting so unprofessionally here, Shayne — to save a life. As for me, I don’t care that much about any living person. I do care about that mask. So what the hell, as I think I said before. What else do you want to know?”

“Have you had any phone calls you didn’t tell me about?”

“One. In New York. This, again, was a male voice with a Spanish accent. I’d seen photographs of a certain mask, being offered for sale by, let us say, a certain Swiss dealer. Did I like it enough to come to Miami to hear more about it? I’m here, so obviously the answer was yes. This was two weeks ago.”

“I’ll file that,” Shayne said. “And while we’re talking about Spanish accents. A Cuban named García. He’s six feet three, and his neck is too long for the rest of his body. Mustache, heavy jaw. I’ll repeat my usual offer. The first person who tells this man to call in will get two hundred dollars of Tree’s money. Anything else, Tree?”

“When you call Holloway, ask about the chiclero who was killed in Yucatan. I’ll be interested to hear what he says. I’ll stay tuned.”

Shayne had been drinking coffee with a splash of cognac. Both of Rourke’s earlier guests had been drinking cognac in snifters, and the bottle was empty. While Shayne was winding up the conversation with Tree, he pushed his car keys to Rourke and made a drinking gesture. There was a fresh bottle in the back seat of his parked car.

The next call yielded nothing. The next after that was from Harmon, the homicide lieutenant in West Palm Beach.

“Mike, this may be the screwiest way to handle a murder investigation I ever heard of. Wait a minute, let me cut in another extension. I’ve got the radio coming in my other ear and it’s confusing as hell.”

In another moment: “Do you have any phones you can switch off so we aren’t on the air?”

“All I have to do is push a button, but why not keep it out in the open?”

“I feel funny about it, that’s all. It just don’t feel natural. But I guess it’s O.K., as far as that goes, because I just checked and there’s no radio aerial on the guy’s car. Anastasia?”

“Andy Anastasia,” Shayne explained to his listeners. “The sculptor, the boyfriend of Professor Holloway’s ex-wife, Maxine. Go on, Harmon.”

“You suggested I stake out the Seminole Beach house. I just got the report. He came back, like you said. I had to take that on faith, and I still don’t see how it ties in with the golf course body. Sort of sneaked in without turning on lights. The woman was in the front room, listening to the radio, like the rest of us. Quiet for ten minutes. Then pow-pow time. Bang, crash. Those two people don’t love each other anymore. To jump right in with it, Mike — he knocked her cold. He left, carrying a suitcase, with a suit on a hanger. My guys went after him. Seminole Beach sent somebody over to see if a murder had been committed. But no, she was up and walking around.”

He interrupted himself. “Now hell! If her radio’s still on, she’s listening to this. Mike, are you a hundred percent sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Hell, no. I’m making it up as we go along. Maxine, any comment? If you get a busy signal, keep trying. O.K., Harmon.”

“Anastasia. There’s probably some logical explanation for what he did then, but I can’t give it to you. He drives this old VW with holes in the exhaust system, so it makes plenty of noise, and I’ve got two cars on him with radio communication and two more on the way. So if they lose him — and they all have transistors, so I know they’re listening to what I’m saying — eight cops are going to be looking for employment. What Anastasia did, he stopped at a phone booth and must have looked up a couple or three addresses, because then he just drove around town and looked. Slowed down on one block, picking out house numbers, then speeded up and tried somewhere else. And then over to Route One and down. He’s doing the same thing in Boca Raton. First the phone booth. Then looking.”

“He doesn’t make any calls?”

“That’s the peculiar thing.”

“Is he in a hurry?”

“Yeah, out in the open he drives like hell.”

Shayne thought for a moment. “When your new cars get there, have one of them go back to the booth he used in Boca Raton and look in the phone book. See if any pages are missing.”

“See if any pages are missing,” Harmon said skeptically. “O.K., guys, did you hear that? Call me and verify.”

Rourke’s competition for the stay-awake audience was a battle-scarred veteran calling himself Biscayne Fats. He had been in the radio business his entire adult life, moving from station to station, through varying formats, until he reached Miami and decided to look no further. He was a celebrity-chaser, a dropper of names, a professional fan. Most of the show-business personalities who worked the Beach hotels were willing to spend one or two long nights with Fats, in return for being mentioned and reminisced about the rest of the year. Tonight he had a stand-up comic and a singer. For some reason, phone calls were few.

“I’ve got to break in here,” he said, when one of his guests paused. “I see a light on the phone. Some lonely person is trying to contact me. Good evening. Biscayne Fats. What’s on your little mind?”

A woman’s voice: “Fats, you ought to catch the Rourke show.”

“Speak louder, dear. I won’t repeat what I thought I heard you say, because we don’t acknowledge that man’s existence. He’s the competition. This is a competitive society, and I’m patriotic about that.”

“Tonight make an exception. Mike Shayne’s on.”

Click.

Fats sighed. “The damage has been done, I’m afraid. In beds, in trucks, in parked cars, human hands are reaching for the dial. Don’t desert me, fans. The sponsors will hate you for it.”

“Tim Rourke,” one of the out-of-town guests said. “Didn’t he win the Pulitzer last year?”

“You spoke the man’s name. That’s twice. A newspaper reporter, and he should have stayed in the medium he understands. He uses the word ‘shit’ on the air. Appalling. Going out across the airwaves and into the ears of some wakeful minor. The poor kiddie could be psychologically scarred for life. To my vast public, now leaving me in droves, I say, hold on a minute, rats. I’ll tune in the jerk and find out what’s going on. Be loyal. Don’t forget all the tranquility I’ve brought you over the years.”

A transistor set on the table came alive. He found Rourke’s station and listened for a moment.

“This is some kind of first,” Fats said. “Charlie,” he called to the engineer on the other side of the glass. “Charlie! Wake up and check the level. We’ve just joined the Tim Rourke show. That way my people will stay with us and listen to our commercials.”

Rourke came back empty-handed from his trip for cognac. He picked up one of the live mikes.

“Let me break in. For those of you who have just tuned in, Shayne sent me out to his car to replenish his liquor supply. It begins to look like a long night. That’s a terrific car, chock-full of interesting electronic gadgets. One of the best things is the back-seat bar, for those friends of his who happen to be drinkers. Tonight there’s something else in the back seat.” He waited a tick. “Ask me what, Mike.”

“What?”

“A body.”

“All right, whose?”

“I didn’t disturb it. We’ll have a minute of dead air here, and when you hear us next, we’ll be talking on a remote from the sidewalk in front of the station.”

WKMW occupied half of a low cinderblock building, a block from the river. Shayne had parked under the tall sign giving the station’s call letters. Rourke jacked a hand-mike into an outlet in the lobby. Shayne, a step ahead of him, opened the Buick’s rear door.

The body, on its side, lay huddled against the refrigerating unit. It was male. An open newspaper covered his face, to keep off flies.

Standing on the sidewalk, Rourke described the scene and what Shayne was doing. The newspaper was stuck to the face. Shayne picked it off. He looked at Rourke. “Nobody I know,” Rourke said.

Shayne used a flashlight, and moved the upper part of the body to let the beam illuminate the face. The bluish hole in the temple had been made by a small-caliber weapon, and there were marks indicating that the gun had been in contact when the trigger was pulled. It was the most common suicide wound. Shayne moved the beam until it picked up a.25 automatic. He left it where it was.

“Strange place to commit suicide,” Rourke said.

“If that’s what it is.”

Shayne moved into the front seat. Using his car phone, he reported their find, with Rourke extending the hand-mike into the car to pick up Shayne’s end of the conversation. Then Shayne returned to the back seat and felt the pockets carefully, finding loose change and a key, but no wallet or identification.

A car arrived. A girl dismounted and started into the building. Recognizing Rourke, she stopped and came over.

“I’m Joanne Stewart, Meri’s roommate. I don’t know if there’s anything I can—”

Shayne straightened, and she saw the body.

She took a step forward, shaking her head. Then she cried, “That’s Scotch! That’s Scotch! He’s dead!”