Mermaid on the Rocks

chapter 11

When the drawer was almost out Shayne gave it a final flick and let it fall to the floor. He rolled over to wriggle into the open, and as he did so his trained eye followed the wire out of the little mike down the carved leg to a hole drilled in the baseboard.

“It better be there,” Eda Lou said, meaning the. 25. “I saw it a couple of weeks ago.”

The drawer had picked up the usual accumulation of household objects-a single glove, receipted bills, flashlight batteries, a package of Kleenex. Shayne took out the little automatic and released the clip. It was loaded.

Creeping along the wall, he twitched the plug of the big table lamp out of its socket. “Get the other lamps,” he told Eda Lou. “You were right in the first place-I’m getting the chandelier.”

The floor lamps blinked out one after another. Rolling over on one side, Shayne shot out one of the four overhead globes.

“Give the man a cigar,” Eda Lou said.

When Shayne shot out the second globe the man with the carbine fired twice, shooting at random.

“Mike,” Barbara said urgently, “listen, go down the hall and out through the kitchen. You’ll see the boathouse.”

Shayne fired again, leaving only one bulb alive. “I’m not chasing anybody. A. 25 is no good in a fire fight with a carbine.”

“I have a fast boat. Stay out of range. You can do it. We have to know who it is! If it’s really Frank-”

Shayne shot out the final light and rolled to his feet. A motor roared outside in the cove. He had mapped out a path between furniture and he moved fast in the sudden darkness. But Eda Lou hadn’t stayed in the same spot and they collided. Shayne got a mouthful of feathers. He sent her flying, and one of the heavy floor lamps went over.

He moved down the hall at a kind of half-run, the fresh stitches pulling at every step. He went through the brightly lighted kitchen and out the door toward the low boathouse. The door was half open. He felt inside for the light switch and found it on the second pass.

The boat was a 28-footer, a Hatteras cruiser. He swung over the rail, made his way to the short ladder to the pilot room and hitched himself up. Sliding behind the wheel, he turned the key. The powerful twin Chryslers took hold with a roar. As Shayne snapped on the running lights, the roar faltered and died.

After listening to the growl of the starter until it began to fade, he turned out the running lights, climbed down the ladder and limped back to the house. The sound of the other boat’s motor was already far away.

The two women met him on the terrace. “Here’s your. 25,” he said to the older woman.

“I was out this afternoon,” Barbara said. “Everything ran perfectly.”

“Somebody’s been tinkering with the fuel line in the meantime,” Shayne said. “Thanks for the drinks and the information.”

Barbara tried again, without being able to get much conviction into her voice. “Mike, I don’t know how much she’s paying you, but won’t you negotiate with me a little? I can give you a postdated check. I really have been helpful, haven’t I? Fifteen thousand for a few day’s work-I don’t care what anybody says, that’s good pay. Don’t just advise her to come in on the deal. Tell her. It’s the best thing for everybody, you said so yourself.”

Shayne lit a cigarette on the top step. “Remember what I told you,” he said in a grating voice. “Stop thinking up smart ways to murder people. This is the end of the line. When you see Frank, pass it on.”

Barbara stayed where she was but Eda Lou came down the steps to the Volkswagen.

“More excitement than we’ve had in the last twenty years,” she observed. “Can you actually get in that thing?”

“It’s not easy.”

Shayne contracted his big frame and backed downward into the tiny opening. After he closed the door Eda Lou touched his elbow.

“That swimming invitation’s still open.”

“I’ll bear it in mind,” he said. “But with a little luck I won’t be down this way again.”

“The soul of politeness,” she said agreeably. “So long, Mike.”

He wheeled the Volkswagen around and headed back toward the curving trestle to the next Key and the highway. Just before the road joined Route he remembered a dirt track running into a swampy tangle that was only slightly less dense than the one on Key Gaspar. Coming to this opening in the wall of undergrowth, he pulled off the paved road and followed the ruts, past No Trespassing, No Hunting, No Shooting and Positively No Fishing signs.

There was no way to leave the ruts until he reached the water’s edge. Here was an unpainted wooden bunkhouse, a rickety dock. He reversed the car and headed back, leaving it close to the road but around a bend where it couldn’t be seen. He began the slow walk back across the trestle.

His leg was hurting badly long before he reached Key Gaspar. He forced himself to hobble on, undoing much of the doctor’s work. He had been stretching matters when he told Barbara to look up the law on conspiracy. So far he had no case against anybody, merely a jumbled hodgepodge of guess, hearsay and conjecture. Before he could decide on his next move, he had to clear up a few of the relationships. His immediate concern was with the little microphone under the massive table. In the city, that kind of device usually tied into a miniaturized radio. The other end of the circuit could be anywhere within a two-hundred-yard radius, in any one of a thousand apartments, in a briefcase or a parked car. Here, with the sea on one side and swamp on the other, there was probably a wire and he wanted to know where it led.

The lamps in the living room had been plugged in again. Shayne kept at the edge of the crushed-clamshell driveway, making as little noise as possible. He found the wall he wanted. Crouching, he felt along the foundation. When his fingers found the wire he followed it to the ground, then along the base of the foundation to the terrace, and from there to the garage. It crossed an open stretch of unkempt lawn toward the swamp. He walked bent over, letting it slip between his fingers.

He was more careful after he struck in among the trees. If he lost it now he would have to go back and start over. He startled some animal, which plunged noisily away. The foliage made a tight canopy overhead. It was very dark. He forced himself forward, a few inches at a time. Before he had gone far he had an even better reason for hanging onto the wire; without it he doubted if he could have found his way out.

Creepers and tendrils fastened themselves about his face. Caught by a strong vine, he had to backtrack until he could free himself. When he could go forward again he felt a mound of loose dirt underfoot, and stepped into a deep hole.

He swore in disgust. This must be one of Eda Lou’s holes. She had gone down almost four feet before giving up, and the edge caved in under his weight. He managed to get out on the third or fourth try, then scratched about until he located the wire.

He presently found himself on a kind of path, and was able to move faster. After another twenty feet, the wire came to an end at the base of a big gumbo-limbo tree.

He snapped his cigarette lighter, shielding the little flame with one hand. The wire was stapled to the scaly bark. Some kind of crude wooden staging seemed to be nailed to the lowermost branches, twenty feet overhead.

He let his lighter blink out and thought for a moment. Then, snapping it on again, he examined the bark closely. Finally, on the side away from the house, he came upon a vertical line of one-inch holes bored into the trunk at 18-inch intervals. His foot struck something hard. Looking down, he saw a scattering of large spikes, the kind used by linemen to climb utility poles.

Shayne picked them up and began to fit them in the holes. As soon as he had the beginnings of a ladder he picked up as many spikes as he could carry in one hand and started to climb.

He moved upward step by step. Several times he had to use the lighter before he could find the next hole. Once a spike slipped from his hand and fell to the ground with a clatter, startlingly loud amid the more natural swamp noises.

After a moment Shayne clambered down, gathered another bundle of spikes and took them back up the tree.

The wire ended in a ramshackle three-sided tree house, crudely constructed of secondhand lumber. He tested the floor carefully before leaving the spike-ladder and swinging in. Part of what had passed for a roof was gone. Holding the branch with one hand, the detective waved the lighter flame from side to side to see where the wire had brought him.

It was a crazy structure about five feet high, narrower in one direction than the other. A faded skull-and-crossbones dangled from one wall. Other objects were more recent-a binoculars case slung from one of the broken roof timbers, a pair of earphones, a peanut can overflowing with smoked cigarettes.

Shayne lowered himself carefully to the floor. He was able to let one leg dangle through a hole where a plank had given way. Another plank in the wall nearest the house had been pried loose. The house seemed surprisingly close to Shayne, no more than a hundred feet in a direct line, though he was sure he had followed the wire a full quarter mile.

He found himself looking through a long horizontal window on the back wall of the living room. Barbara, smoking a cigarette in a long holder, moved restlessly into view. For an instant she seemed to look straight at him. Her lips moved soundlessly. Then she passed out of sight.