Last Seen Hitchhiking

Chapter 9

They went in two cars, Holloway leading.

On the way, Shayne phoned the Highway Patrol. There were fourteen police cars working, within a circle with a fifteen-mile radius. So far they had found nothing.

Holloway lived in a divided pseudo-Moorish structure, within walking distance of the university. The streets in this section of Coral Gables were curving, tree-lined, and poorly lighted. When the brake lights came up on Holloway’s car, Shayne went to his own brakes and began looking for a parking place.

Ahead, he saw something move in the shadows, and picked up the glow of a cigarette. A long black sedan, with a bent aerial and oversize taillights, was waiting at the curb. The men who had searched Maxine Holloway’s house in Seminole Beach that morning had driven away in the same kind of car.

Shayne was already turning, hauling to the left into a short alley leading to a canal. He pulled into a private driveway, cut his lights and motor, and hit a recessed spring in the door panel. A loaded Smith and Wesson.357 dropped into his hand.

He kept to the grass on the tree line, moving more carefully as he approached the corner. A car door slammed. He crossed a lighted patch of sidewalk in one quick stride, and was swallowed up in a palm tree’s shadow. Holloway’s car had halted between the street and his garage.

Shrubbery hid what was happening from Shayne. He moved closer.

Holloway came into view, being marched rapidly toward the house between two men wearing ski masks. The man on his right was taller than average, and just enough out of proportion so he would be impossible to fit off the rack.

Shayne made another careful move. There had been four men in Seminole Beach. The driver — Shayne recognized his peaked tennis cap — dropped back into the car, and Shayne spotted the fourth man as Holloway and the two others started up the curving front steps. Also masked, this man crossed a lighted patch of lawn and went up the steps after the others, stopping outside the doorway.

Shayne thrust his gun inside his shirt and vaulted a low fence between houses. It was darker here. He used a pencil flash to pick his way to the back, then across a graveled yard. He turned the flash upward at the backside of Holloway’s building. The steps to an upper balcony were on the short side of the house, where they could be seen from the street. Avoiding these, he swung up onto the lower balcony, found handholds, and pulled himself up to the next level.

Bent double, he moved along the balcony to a lighted window. The shade was partially drawn. Inside was a bedroom. Holloway and the men with him passed the open door, along a hallway. Shayne moved to the next window. In a moment a light came on.

This was a long study, with a cluttered workbench. A larger-than-life stone head stood on the big desk; a modern beret had been added at a jaunty angle. The hooded eyes of the sculpture watched indifferently as the two masked men urged Holloway toward the front of a safe.

Holloway had been roughed up on the way upstairs. His shirt had been torn. The shorter of the two men pulled the telephone cord out of the wall while his tall companion and Holloway argued about whether or not he would open the safe without being mistreated further. The tall man hit him. Holloway staggered and, putting his hand out tentatively, touched the dial.

Shayne went back to the corner of the building, but the door there was locked. He waited, thinking. So far he had seen no guns, but the four men undoubtedly had them. He would have to move quietly and deal with each man separately.

He swung over the railing. Dropping to the ground, he returned the way he had come.

The driver was out of sight in the car. A car passed, and Shayne used the noise it made to cover his own movements. He slid past a low bush and around a stone urn planted with flowers. The man on the steps was the one who had worn work-gloves that morning. He pulled at a cigarette, and Shayne saw a dark, irregularly shaped mark on his hand.

The night was quiet, except for the noise of insects and the low hum of air-conditioning machinery. Shayne picked up a pebble and flicked it into the driveway. When the man at the door turned, Shayne took a long step and caught him around the neck, one hand over his mouth.

They struggled in silence. Shayne forced him out of the light, keeping the pressure on, and pressed him against the stone balustrade. The masked face worked from side to side under his hand. Hands flailed, trying to fasten on something. When these movements became more sluggish, Shayne turned him and clipped him hard, dropping him to his knees. Shayne hit him again, removed a gun from his pocket, and dragged him along the shallow porch.

He heard hurrying footsteps in the house. The door opened. There was a light in the vestibule, but Shayne was standing to one side, in shadow. The two men went past, pulling off their masks. The tall man was carrying a white box. He said something to Shayne in Spanish, and went down the steps and across the grass at a half run.

Hesitating only a second, Shayne followed.

The tall man sat in front. Shayne and the other went into the back seat by opposite doors. Before the dome light snapped off, Shayne pushed one of his two guns against the side of the other man, and told him with a look to say nothing, on pain of being shot. The two in the front were still unaware of the substitution. The car moved out fast. The tall man said something with a laugh, turned, and froze. Shayne touched the back of his neck with the second gun.

“I hope somebody speaks English. Otherwise I may have to shoot all three of you. I want to see everybody’s hands.”

He had to prod the tall man to make him lift his hands from his lap. The driver kept the car moving, looking from his companion to the mirror, then back to the road.

“You are from this morning,” the tall man said.

“That answers one question. You speak English. Do I remember somebody you called García?”

“García, yes.”

“I’ve got two guns here. I have a carrying permit, and carrying includes permission to use. I’m not trying to hijack you. All I want is a few more answers.”

García threw a remark in Spanish to the driver. Shayne moved the pistol barrel and fired. A starred hole appeared in the windshield.

The tall man lifted in the seat, hands flapping. He said something loudly, still in Spanish, and clapped a hand over his ear.

“Do you wish to make me deaf?”

“Speak English. I thought of shooting your ear off, but I think you’re going to start cooperating.”

“These do not understand English, so Spanish is necessary.”

“Then let’s keep it between you and me. Don’t stop,” he told the driver, moving the gun to make the meaning clear. The car turned north on the Dixie Highway, toward the Miami Beach causeways. “The first question is, who are you working for?”

“We are independent, for ourselves.”

“That’s not the right answer,” Shayne said. “I’m not a city cop. My name’s Michael Shayne. I’m a private detective. You’ve just committed robbery with violence. Do you know the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony? Robbery with violence is a felony. I hope you didn’t bang Holloway around too much, because there’s a lot he hasn’t told me yet. He’s an educated man, a professor. If I take you in, you know you’ll get max. Another thing I could do is rip off the box, and see how much I can raise on it from a fence. But I don’t want to do that. It’s against the law. I’ll let you deliver it, but I want to come along.”

“Why do you want that?”

“I don’t feel like explaining everything right now,” Shayne said wearily. “Maybe I’m eccentric.”

“But you see,” García said with dignity, “I must know your purpose. Why should you shoot me, unless you are thoroughly crazy? True, I would dislike very much to be sent to prison. It is not a romantic place, I know. But I cannot simply pour out name after name, so you can arrest others than myself. Then I will lose my reputation, and when I come out I will have no friends.”

“Do you know anything about art, García?”

“A few small things. I myself have been a painter.”

They were approaching South Miami Avenue. Watching the driver’s hands on the steering wheel, Shayne saw the knuckles tighten.

He said quietly, “Tell him not to, García. If he tries to corner too fast I’ll shoot him through the back of the seat. Why not? He’s a criminal. He can’t even speak English.”

García murmured, and the driver’s grip relaxed. Later, at the approach to the Venetian Causeway, he checked García again. The tall man nodded. Some moments after that, when they had committed themselves to the causeway and become part of the traffic crossing to Miami Beach, Shayne tapped the driver’s shoulder with the gun and told him to stop.

“With so many cars?” García asked in surprise.

“Three are too many for me to handle. I want two of you to get out. It’s a little tricky here, but it’s better than going to jail.”

García was now convinced that Shayne was in earnest. The car was halfway across the bay by the time he succeeded in making the driver stop. Shayne disarmed all three and supervised the dismounting. He had them stand close to the car with their hands on the roof, on the traffic side, while García slid across to take the wheel. Shayne scaled the unneeded guns and a pair of brass knuckles out into the bay.

“All right, take off.”

The two men outside jumped for the shoulder as the car moved. Horns blared behind them. Shayne gave García directions, and presently they pulled up in front of the Miami Beach police headquarters.

García looked up at the entrance unhappily. “My first arrest for anything serious.”

Shayne said thoughtfully, “I’ve been thinking I had to choose between a bust and a rip-off, but why can’t I do both? Holloway’s going to identify you, and he’s the kind of witness a jury will believe. I can claim that when your partners got away, they took the loot with them. I don’t know if anybody told you what you’ve got here. Holloway has a firm sale on it — six hundred thousand to some museum in Indiana.”

García’s jaw dropped.

“I thought that might surprise you. I should be able to do about half that somewhere else.”

“Then don’t arrest me!”

“I’m not quite that loose. I have to go by a few rules.”

“Wait! That I understand this. If I tell you one thing, where I was going, then I will be unarrested and you will give up a chance at this immense amount of money? How can I believe you? What are your reasons?”

“A colleague of mine was kidnapped when I was supposed to be bodyguarding her. In my business, that’s bad. A very good-looking woman, and we had a date to spend the night at a motel. There’s more, but that’s all I have time for.”

“And when I tell you, it will help you find and rescue your friend? I do not see how.”

“O.K., García,” Shayne said unpleasantly, “get the hell out or I’ll take you in bleeding.”

“I will do it! It is dangerous for me, but I know I would be most unhappy in prison. We will go now to the St. Albans Hotel. There you will please take me upstairs at the point of a gun, so it will be clear that I am helpless.”