Win Some, Lose Some

Chapter 15

The van was moving erratically between lanes. Shayne, in the pickup camper, closed with it rapidly, flicking his headlights. With a competent driver and its initial advantage, the van could have outrun them, but whoever was at the wheel was having all he could do to stay on the highway. As Shayne came into position, he saw that it wasn’t somebody hijacking Canada, it was Canada himself.

He overflowed onto the steering wheel. He gave them a dazed look. Frieda nodded pleasantly and showed him the gun.

His mouth opened, and he stamped on the gas. Shayne was a half-length ahead now. He bore in sharply and herded the van off the asphalt. The fat man finally went to his brake. He stopped well off the road.

Frieda descended, the gun still out. Shayne pulled past and parked. Canada recognized him when he came into the headlights.

“Mike Shayne. Am I glad to see you! I thought-”

“We’ll talk in a minute, Larry. If we stay here, we’ll collect a crowd.”

“Do you know what happened? They jumped me, they chloroformed me-”

“They?” Shayne said coldly. “What do you think this is, a rescue?”

Canada looked uneasily from Shayne to Frieda, and to the gun in Frieda’s hand. “You aren’t going to try to tell me-”

“Get in back and shut up.”

Canada’s jaw fell open. “You mean that was you in those masks? I don’t believe it.”

Shayne clicked his fingernail against the door. “Move, Larry.”

Canada had difficulty freeing himself. He sidestepped between the seats. Frieda came in back with him, returning the gun to her shoulder bag. Canada made a hard landing on one of the beds, looking misunderstood and confused. His white suit had been disheveled to start with, and it had deteriorated badly in the last several hours while he was moved from his smashed Cadillac to the sand pile and on into the van. He licked his full lips.

“You wouldn’t have anything to eat, would you?”

“Later,” Shayne said from the wheel.

He crossed the median and headed back toward the fire. Three cars had stopped. Rourke saw him, walked away from the group casually, and crossed the highway.

“You had me worried,” he said, coming in. “Then I saw the place where you cut your way out. That’s a good rule. Never get trapped in a burning trailer without the right tools. How are you, Larry?”

“You’re in on this, too?”

“You’re my project for the month. Maybe we ought to get moving, Mike.”

“No, I want Larry to see it. Struggle up, Larry.” Canada forced himself out from the wall, and Frieda parted the curtains.

“All right. A trailer. It’s on fire. So?”

“The people who set it on fire thought you were in it.”

He saw a flashing light coming fast and went into gear. The cops were only interested in what was happening on the southbound lanes. They would find one burned-out Ford, one trailer still burning too hotly for anyone to come near it, one abandoned pickup camper. They might also find one dead body, but by now, Shayne thought, everybody else had undoubtedly scattered.

After another moment Canada said quietly, “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“You arranged it?”

“That particular twist we arranged. The rest more or less just happened.”

He left the big highway at the next exit and turned north again at once, remembering a fishermen’s turnoff along the canal. After parking, he and Rourke both went in back, leaving the overhead light on so they could all look at each other.

Canada’s eyes were rolling, and he was struggling to stay upright.

“If you’ve got some coffee,” he said. “Everything keeps going in and out.”

Shayne set the coffeepot back on the stove. Canada leaned forward, supporting his head in his hands. His nostrils widened as they took in the coffee smell.

“All right, what is it? What’s going to happen to me now? The same thing that happened to Eddie Maye? Maybe I’m trying to talk myself into something, but I really doubt it. Mike Shayne? Tim Rourke? It isn’t your kind of thing.”

“And you may not know Frieda Field,” Shayne said. “She’s been following Phil Gold around for a couple of weeks.”

“She has, has she? I suppose she followed him all the way to Homestead tonight. That’s one small point taken care of. You don’t know who those people were any more than I do. Let’s get back to town.”

Shayne laughed. “You still don’t understand the situation. If you don’t want to think of this as a kidnapping, call it a citizen’s arrest. Only we aren’t going to turn you over to anybody. This is the whole judicial system right here-state’s attorney, grand jury, criminal court. You can claim your constitutional privilege if you want to. That’s up to you.”

The coffee began to make noises. He filled a cup and gave it to Canada. Frieda looked in the icebox and brought out a coffee cake and a half-dozen hard-boiled eggs.

Canada came fully awake for the first time. He set to work, washing down bites of coffee cake and egg with great slurps of the bitter warmed-up coffee. No one joined him-he so clearly wanted it all. In an amazingly short time, he had consumed the whole cake and all the eggs, and sat back, his eyes bulging.

“Larry, that was interesting to watch,” Shayne said.

Canada looked at him evilly. “You don’t know a thing about it, do you? Let’s hear the rest of the bad news. A citizen’s arrest. What are you arresting me for?”

“No particular charge. We think you deserve it, but we haven’t been able to come up with anything that will stand up in court. The lawyers won’t let Tim print some of his best anecdotes. I didn’t plan to kidnap anybody tonight. Somebody else shook that tree, and you fell out. You’re right, we probably won’t shoot you. We’re going to hold you for ransom.”

“Come on,” Canada said uneasily.

“People have been talking about a million dollars. I think that’s a bit high, but you have a wide circle of friends. If they’re as loyal as I think they are, I’m sure they can raise it.”

“Oh, you’re a bastard, Shayne.”

“Am I?” Shayne said evenly. “Now I’ll tell you what I think about you. You moved into the top slot because the previous guy did something stupid and we put him away for fifteen years. People congratulated me on that, and there was an editorial in Tim’s paper. But ask yourself, Larry. Are you any improvement? The same stuff still goes on, with different people. I can be philosophical about that. But I don’t want to get you on some petty bribery rap and have somebody else inherit your contracts.”

“I never thought of you as a bleeding heart, Shayne.”

“No, it’s a new thing. As long as you stuck to dope and bookmaking and extortion, you didn’t bother me too much. But I don’t want you to build that spur through the Everglades.”

Canada’s eyebrows worked. “If I back out, do you think that will stop it? Hell, no. That’s Interstate money, ninety percent federal. It’s been approved at the top. If I don’t get it, somebody else will.”

“This isn’t an argument, Larry. We’re working out a deal. Who’s trying to kill you?”

“Never mind. That kind of thing I take care of myself.”

“Maybe I’d better tell you some of the things that happened while you were asleep. I think I’m finally beginning to sort everybody out. I don’t have any names yet. I’m hoping you’ll help me on that. There seem to be two separate sets of people. They want different things. What’s the last thing you remember? The guy with the bullhorn-when he was trying to talk you out in the open, he told you they weren’t trying to kill you. That has to be true. Paid hit-men would have cut you down the minute you stepped into the doorway. Now skip a few hours. Everybody thought you were tied to a bed in that trailer. One side wanted to put out the fire. The others wanted to let it burn. And they weren’t fooling around. They were shooting at each other.”

“I heard shots. I didn’t think I was awake. I’m not even sure I’m awake now.”

Shayne emptied the coffeepot into his cup. “What would happen if this was a real kidnapping? Does your wife know where you keep your emergency money?”

“No.”

“Would she dig it up and hand it over the way living wives are supposed to?”

Canada moved impatiently. “I don’t know what you’ve heard-”

“That means probably not. How about your number two and your number three men?”

“You’ve made the point, Goddamn it. They’d go through the motions to make it look good, but there’d be some kind of foul-up. Too bad for Larry.”

“Who would get some bullet holes in him and join Eddie Maye at Woodlawn Park. Yeah, I thought there was more to it than money when you were trying so hard not to be kidnapped back there. And that’s why I know you’ll be glad to cooperate.”

“Put it in English. What happens if I don’t?”

“We send the ransom note, giving careful directions about where to deliver the money. We’ll be patient. If they can’t make the deadline, we’ll give them an extension. And when the money’s delivered, we’ll back away. We’ll let them know where they can find you-tied up in the back seat of a car on some back lane. We’ll go home and turn on the TV news and see what happens.”

Canada wiped his forehead with a napkin. “That’s cold-blooded murder.”

“It’s not exactly cold-blooded, Larry,” Shayne said softly. “If we hadn’t moved in on that scene in Homestead, it’s pretty much the fix you’d be in right now.”

Rourke put in, “I don’t like to interrupt when you’re working, Mike, but I’m not sure I follow. Two separate groups. One wants to grab him so they can raise money on him. And that would be bad for Larry because he can’t count on his own people to follow instructions. Or else they come through with the money O.K., but the hit-men get to Larry before anybody else does. Bad either way.”

Canada went over his forehead again with the napkin. He seemed to agree with the diagnosis.

Shayne said, “And I think he’s ready to fill in a few details. Who’s the opposition, Larry? Who’s paying those guys who set the trailer on fire?”

“DelSarto?” Rourke suggested when Canada failed to answer. “Bottles Martino?”

“Bottles?” Canada said sharply. “Do you have any reason to-”

“Out of a hat,” Rourke said, laughing. “Larry, you’re on edge.”

“Who wouldn’t be? There are guys in town from New York, that much I know. The Eddie Maye knock-over-what do you think those were, kidnappers? That’s what they wanted us to think. Eddie was keeping me posted that there’s one certain person who wants all the marbles. And that’s hard to defend against, you know? What do you do usually? Put on some extra guards. Travel around with an army until it dies down. But that’s the act I’m trying to get away from. I’m trying to say that’s all in the past. If I show up at those Tallahassee hearings with my own Secret Service protection, I don’t look like your ordinary highway construction man, do I?”

“Let’s take a minute on Eddie,” Shayne said. “Was he telling you anything you didn’t already know?”

“I had my ideas, nothing definite. One name kept popping up. We aren’t on the best of terms lately. We’ve grown apart. He’s been seeing my wife on the sly, which is one of the things I happen to know.”

“So if we wrap you up and leave you somewhere-”

“And let them know where? I’d weigh fifteen more pounds from the bullets. And you don’t call that murder? What do you say, Frieda? You look like a smart girl.”

She gave him one of her nicest smiles. “Whatever you call it, the point is, it’s believable. It’s something any one of us could easily do. Couldn’t you in our place?”

“Now the nice guys and the bad guys are all mixed up together. I learn something new about human nature every day. Now we get to the deal. What are you offering me, Shayne?”

“A happy ending in return for some information.”

“A lot of information,” Rourke corrected him.

Canada tasted the coffee. He wanted it badly, but he wasn’t quite able to force it down. “Where do we start?”

“Were still on Eddie Maye. If that wasn’t a real kidnapping, what was it?”

“I’d call it a hit, but then I believe in calling things by their right names. He was approached for his support by the people who want to take over. I encouraged him to string them along. He was lining up people for them, supposedly. Collecting funds. Hell, I might as well spell it. DeLuca. Lou DeLuca. I made that guy, brought him up out of nowhere, gave him responsible jobs.”

“DeLuca?” Rourke said.

“What’s the matter, never heard of him? That’s the way Lou likes it. He cooks the books, basically. He counts the money, doesn’t do anything about bringing it in. What happened? I’ll tell you what happened. That woman Eddie was supposed to be seeing. She was the contact so they wouldn’t have to talk direct. Lou found out he was reporting to me, and he had it done. These same New York characters, I wouldn’t be too surprised. Not out in the open, that’s not how Lou does things. He’d rather sneak anytime. The kidnapping note-window dressing. I don’t have the same solid support I did once, but I’ve still got some debts I can collect around town. He’d know he was in a fight, I can tell you that. So he’s tiptoeing. If he can do me the way he did Eddie, fine, all to the good. Is that all you wanted to know? Can I go home now?”

Everybody laughed. He said gloomily, “No, I didn’t think so.”

“Tim has some questions about the way highways get built in this state,” Shayne said. “Who gets paid off, how often, how much. Who’s been making the real estate money. The Palm Beach interchange would be a good place to start. Tim has it all at the tip of his tongue. Which inspectors look the other way when you go under the specs. We want the whole thing, Larry, from the Tallahassee lobby down to the kickbacks to the Highway Patrol from the tow-truck guys. The insurance deals. The law fees. The sweetheart contracts.”

Canada was looking from face to face, very uneasy. “That’s asking a hell of a lot.”

“I don’t think so,” Shayne said curtly. “We want you to talk to a tape recorder. Then we’ll do a formal version on the typewriter so you can sign it.”

“That could get me quite a bundle of years.”

“You may decide to go along with the state’s attorney and get him to leave your name out of the indictment. Wait and see how it goes. Meanwhile you’ll be eating and drinking and enjoying yourself. You can’t do any of those things if you’re dead.”

Frieda said thoughtfully, “I’m beginning to see where you are, Mike. Even if you don’t get any convictions, you’ll stop the highway.”

“You’re dreaming,” Canada said scornfully. “Once those dotted lines go down on the map, that road is built.”

“Maybe not this time. You’ve had the momentum, but this could turn it around.”

“We’ve already got the interchanges at both ends, for Christ’s sake.”

“Let them alone for a few years, and the jungle will come back.”

“Then that’s part of the deal? I don’t bid on the new job?”

“No, Larry. We want you to bid, and then we want you to tell us how you rigged it with Gold so you’ll turn out to be low.”

After a moment Canada said slowly, “I can see I’m not going to be the most popular man in Miami.”

“Except with the birdwatchers. They’ll give you a certificate. Are you hungry? We can drive to Frieda’s and see what she has in the refrigerator. You and Tim can talk on the way.”

“I have another coffee cake with only one piece out of it,” Frieda said. “Most of a ham.”

“Very funny,” Canada said bitterly. “I was in a hurry last night, and I only had time for a light supper. I’ve been rolled around and bounced around and people have been trying to kill me. Now you lay out the terms-the least that can happen, I’m through in the construction business. Goddamn right, I’m hungry.”

“We’ll drive fast.”

“Do that. I want to be home for breakfast. Things to get underway.”

“Such as putting people on the street against DeLuca? No, Larry. I want somebody for Eddie Maye. Let’s send the ransom note and see what happens.”

“I already told you what will happen.”

“But wouldn’t you like to make sure? Then you’ll know who’s for and against.”

“I was hijacked once. They’ll have sense enough not to try it a second time.”

“Again, maybe not. They’ve got a lot invested. If we work it right, we can bring everybody out in the open. Don’t worry, Larry. You’re our bait, but you’re also our one big witness. We don’t want to lose you.”