Six Seconds to Kill ms-59 Page 6

  The dispatcher looked out of his office. “Another handkerchief switch, Mike? Take that one. It’s gassed up.”

  Shayne left his Buick in a parking slot and transferred to the cab. As he passed the office, the dispatcher handed him a cap, which he put on. It was much too small.

  Wheeling out of the exit ramp, he headed back to 15th Court, an address which Adele had blown when she thought she was threatening Shayne with a loaded gun. He was improvising. He had told her the truth-he had no plan at all.

  Soon he was cruising down 15th Court. The blue panel truck was still parked in the driveway. He checked the time. Three and a half minutes had elapsed since he changed cars. Finding no money in her purse, Adele would be unable to phone. It would take six or seven minutes to cover the distance on foot.

  He pulled into a gas station at the corner and checked his tire pressure, then got back behind the wheel and glanced at a copy of the News left by a previous driver. The next day’s anti-Crowther demonstration by Dr. Galvez’ group had been given the big headline.

  A moment later he saw Adele run across the street and enter the house by a back door. Her friends inside wasted no time. Shayne heard a door slam. The panel truck roared back out of the driveway. It proved to be easy to follow. It went west on 8th Street. At Ponce de Leon Boulevard, it turned south into Coral Gables.

  There was less traffic here, and Shayne dropped back. On one of the curving drives near the university, the truck’s brake lights flared. Someone jumped out, a slender young man who somehow gave the impression of having slept in his clothes. He started up the walk toward a four-unit apartment building. He glanced around, hearing Shayne’s motor, and Shayne got a flash of dark glasses, large moustache, prominent front teeth. He noted the address and continued to follow the truck, which led him to Route 1 and back into Southwest Miami.

  On 17th Avenue it swung north. Before long it stopped at an outside phone booth. Another young man jumped out. Shayne thought he was the boy he had seen run out of Dr. Galvez’ office, but he was wearing slacks instead of the checked shorts.

  Shayne worked fairly close to the booth before parking. The boy stayed at the phone, making call after call, and at one point he had to go into a stationery store for change. Finally he hung up and waited.

  Presently the phone rang. He talked briefly, then returned to the truck. It drove off, with Shayne still behind it.

  It parked in front of a loft building between the railway tracks and South Miami Avenue. Shayne was in a good vehicle for a pursuit. A cab is hard to see when it is moving, but conspicuous standing still. He parked three blocks away, in front of a luncheonette. Leaving his cap in the taxi, he walked to the next corner.

  There were two men in the front seat of the truck.

  He was still feeling his way, but a few things seemed obvious. If Lorenzo Vega was to the right of Dr. Galvez, Adele and her friends were certainly to the left. After her blunder with the unloaded.38, the 15th Court address had become dangerous. She had warned its occupants, and they had promptly scattered. For some reason that was not yet clear to Shayne, they considered it important to keep him away from Vega. Luckily, like Galvez himself, they had an exaggerated idea of how much one private detective is able to do. If Vega had gone into hiding, Shayne, they thought, with his many Miami sources, would be able to find him. So they decided to find him first. Then all they had to do was position themselves and wait for Shayne to show up.

  The boy who had done the phoning stepped out of the truck and concealed himself in the next doorway. Shayne instantly dropped into a new personality. Completely relaxed, he shambled up to a well-dressed man with a briefcase and asked for some change for busfare. The man shook him off irritably. Shayne panhandled his way back to the luncheonette, earning twenty cents on the way.

  He used the dimes to make two phone calls. One was to Tim Rourke. He passed on the information he had picked up, and gave his friend instructions about what to say in case he received another call, which Shayne thought he might be able to set up.

  After that he called the mobile telephone operator, who handled service to and from the radio-phones in moving automobiles, such as the one in Shayne’s Buick. He had never met this girl, but he had talked with her frequently. She listened carefully to what he wanted.

  “One of these fine days, Mr. Shayne,” she said reluctantly, “I’m going to lose my job on account of you. Deceiving people, you know, isn’t company policy.”

  “If you don’t want to do it I’ll arrange something else.”

  “Did I say I wouldn’t do it? I know you wouldn’t ask me if it wasn’t important.”

  He went into the luncheonette and ordered coffee, and found an empty booth from which he could watch the truck.

  He was into his second cup when he saw the boy step out on the sidewalk menacingly. Two men who had come out of the loft building retreated quickly into the lobby.

  Shayne returned to the cab. He started off fast, clapping on his taxi-driver’s cap and dousing the off-duty light. He had no doubt that one of the two men was Vega. If they needed transportation, he was ready to provide it.

  He went down into low as he came abreast of the panel truck. Inside the lobby, Shayne saw a man stabbing at the elevator button while a second man, in a business suit without a necktie, hatless, faced the street with a Luger in his hand. Shayne had seen a photograph of this man in bathing trunks. He had been armed then, too, probably with the same weapon.

  He saw Shayne and came out yelling, “Taxi! Taxi!” Shayne threw his meter-flag. Both men leaped into the back seat and Vega shouted, “Get away fast!”

  “Is somebody after you?” Shayne asked mildly, going into gear.

  “Driver!”

  Shayne was maneuvering for a look at the driver of the panel truck, and he didn’t let up on the clutch until the man looked around. It was the tattooed salad chef from the Mozambique. They recognized each other at the same instant.

  Shayne moved off, not fast, with the truck behind him. Vega was sitting far forward, throwing quick glances out the rear window.

  “Twenty-five bucks over the fare if you can lose him. It’s a piece of junk. You can do it.”

  “I’m driving a piece of junk myself. I take it slow and easy so everybody’s still alive at the end of the shift.”

  “Fifty!”

  “Fifty’s too high,” Shayne observed. “That makes me think you’re doing something to break the law.”

  He swiveled the rear-view mirror so he could see Vega’s companion, who met his eyes with a scowl. He was a familiar type to Shayne. He had the sprung nasal capillaries of a middle-aged drinker. He had been in too many brawls.

  He seemed anxious about Vega’s gun, which was still showing. He put out a restraining hand as Vega raised it and placed the muzzle at the back of Shayne’s skull.

  “A little more speed, damn it.”

  Shayne rotated the mirror to pick up Vega. “What are you worrying about, Lorenzo? Take a deep breath and think about something soothing, like running water. How many times in your experience does a taxi show up exactly when you want it? That doesn’t happen in real life.”

  Vega wet his lips and sat back. “I understand. Excuse me for becoming excited. I had the impression they wanted to kill me.”

  “You had the wrong impression. You’re more valuable alive. Who are they?”

  “In the truck? Alianza people. They think of themselves as being absolutely ruthless. Of course much of it is gas, but when anyone talks as much as they do about achieving success through violence, it is sometimes prudent to worry a little.”

  His companion murmured something in Spanish. Vega said, “You are right in your count, Carlos, only two are visible. These we could handle. I never shrink from a fight when the sides are approximately equal. But I can guarantee you that there are others lying in wait inside the truck. You know their strategy as well as I do-never attack without overwhelming local superiority. That is why I say to this driver, for the lov
e of the blessed Virgin, put on a little speed! At any moment they may pull up alongside and open on us with submachine guns. It happens daily in Buenos Aires, in Bogota.”

  “Are they part of the Ruiz organization?”

  “Ah,” Vega said. “That I am in no position to say of my own knowledge. Perhaps it is time we exchange credentials.”

  Shayne grinned. “All you’re going to get out of me is my hackie’s license.”

  Vega’s eyes flickered up to the license hanging from the back of the front seat, and returned to the mirror. “There is little resemblance,” he remarked.

  “That’s deliberate,” Shayne said. “If you really want me to speed up, hang on.”

  He accelerated sharply, and turned off 3rd Avenue, tires screaming. After two more quick turns, he ended at the ramp leading down into the taxi garage. The truck had good pickup and kept fairly close. In the garage, Shayne pulled in beside his Buick.

  “Here we change cars.”

  Both men got out readily.

  “Not you, Carlos,” Shayne said. “Just Vega, if you don’t mind.”

  Carlos minded, but there were several cabbies standing around watching, and he decided not to protest. Shayne slid behind the wheel. He slowed as he passed the dispatcher.

  “Thanks, Eddie. Send me a bill.”

  “What are you talking about, a bill? Any time.”

  “Get down,” Shayne told Vega. “All the way down.” Vega crouched out of sight as the Buick came up the ramp. The panel truck had stopped with its motor running.

  It didn’t follow. After turning a corner, Shayne told Vega to get back on the seat.

  CHAPTER 7

  After another quick turn he parked. Using the car phone, he called his old friend Will Gentry, Miami chief of police, described the panel truck and the two men who had followed him, and gave its location and license number.

  “Pick them up and hold them overnight,” he said brusquely. “I’ll let you know what charges to bring against them.”

  He held the phone tightly against his ear to contain Gentry’s reaction.

  “What the hell, Mike?” the police chief demanded. “Since when did you start giving me orders?”

  “That’s right.”

  Gentry broke off and began again, this time in a more equable tone. “I was a touch slow there. You’ve got somebody in the car and you want him to think you can call up the local cops and order them around. Yes, sir, Mr. Shayne, sir. I’ll be glad to pick up the two gentlemen, but unless they’re doing something illegal when we get there, such as booking bets, you know how long I can hold them. About an hour.”

  “That’s the general idea.”

  He gave Gentry the address of the four-apartment block in Coral Gables, and described the tired young man he had flushed from the building on 15th Court. “But most of that facial description probably doesn’t mean anything, including the prominent front teeth. This could be a major pinch, Will. I have reason to think that he’s in the country illegally. The situation calls for a good four-man tail.”

  “You concede that I have four good men? You’re mellowing, Mike. How important is this?”

  “If I’m right, damned important. That’s all I can tell you about it now.”

  “I’ll do what I can, sir. Can I go out to dinner now, or do you want me to have a sandwich at my desk?”

  “Keep yourself available,” Shayne said curtly, and broke the connection.

  Vega was fascinated. “This is a radio, am I correct? Can you call anywhere on it, or only within the city?”

  Ignoring the question, Shayne said roughly, “What the hell are you trying to pull down here, Vega?” He took out the anti-Galvez leaflet and slapped it against his palm angrily. “Do you have access to some secret intelligence we don’t know about? This dentist is harmless. He has about forty followers, and they don’t even come to meetings. The thing to do is pretend he doesn’t exist. Attack him and you build up his importance.”

  Vega tried to make his eyes meet Shayne’s, but they skittered away. “Ordinarily, of course. But the man has announced a demonstration against a high official of the United States government. His press statements have been vicious and one-sided. I thought-”

  “Vega,” Shayne said scornfully, “never think. Make that a rule. Haven’t you realized yet that you’ve been taken?”

  “I’ve been taken?”

  “Suckered. You think you’re going out there tomorrow and raise hell. It doesn’t take brains to do that. But who’s going to benefit?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Galvez, to begin with. You’ll make him a big man again. Then the students will move in on you and drive you into Indian Creek. You’ll be finished for good. You walked right into it.”

  Vega murmured, “I don’t care for your tone. I have certain connections myself. I asked to see your credentials, and you made a very unfunny joke about a taxi-driver’s license. Who are you, precisely? The question in my mind is, do I have to sit here and be talked to like an illiterate fieldhand?”

  Shayne picked up the phone and held it out. “Call your connection. If there’s any conflict here, let’s straighten it out.”

  Vega held up his hands. “That wouldn’t be procedure.”

  “Lorenzo, will you use your head? You’re in a jam. If you thought up this stunt by yourself without checking in, I’m authorized to tell you that you’ll never see another penny of government money, and you’ll be called in immediately for a tax audit. If you’re one of those people who tell the exact truth on your Form 1040, don’t worry about it. But if somebody conned you into putting out that leaflet, there are still things you can do to deodorize. This isn’t much of a national emergency, but it’s an emergency for Lorenzo Vega. Call the goddamn number.”

  Vega accepted the phone unwillingly. When the operator came on the line he whispered an area code and a number. She asked him to say it again, louder. Shayne had instructed her that all calls to area code 202 or 703-Washington, D. C., or Virginia-were to be put through to Tim Rourke at the Three Deuces bar.

  “Hello?” Vega said cautiously when he heard an answer. “Red Tiger calling. Red Tiger, Miami.”

  A voice exploded in his ear, and he winced away from the phone. He tried to speak, but Rourke overrode him.

  “Yes,” he said finally. “I hope you will not withdraw your confidence. I assure you nothing like this will occur again.”

  He hung up and turned aggressively on Shayne. “How can you people believe it was my private inspiration to organize support for Crowther? He is not congenial to me personally.”

  “Lorenzo.”

  “I will tell you a small sad anecdote. I have a potentially good business, importing and exporting with Latin America. I have correspondents in all parts of the continent. But I have been unlucky in my currency dealings. Delay is murderous for a man without credit. I see a chance for a profit in platinum, but it is held up, it is held up still, with the storage charges eating me up mouthful by mouthful. Some difficulty with the export license. And now I understand. U.S. Metals is also in the business of exporting platinum. Crowther and U.S. Metals are in each other’s pocket, if one can believe the newspapers.”

  “I really doubt if Eliot Crowther knows you exist.”

  “You think not,” Vega said stiffly. “I tell myself that coincidences happen. But sometimes, you know, these funny coincidences are not so funny. The amount of money involved is minor. But to me, a man who is not even on a small retainer from your agency any more, it is a matter of survive or not survive. Yet when I was asked, out of a love for democracy, to risk my neck for a man highly antipathetic to me, I did not hesitate.”

  “Who asked you?”

  “An individual calling himself Mr. Robinson,” Vega said bitterly, “because that is not his real name. The card he showed me was an excellent imitation of the real card. His rudeness was unquestionably CIA. I captured it on magnetic tape. I will play it for you, and you will see plainly that it wa
s definitely not the idea of Lorenzo Vega.”

  “How much did he pay you?”

  Vega shifted, embarrassed. Shayne repeated the question.

  “A miserly seventeen hundred and fifty dollars! Can you imagine? He wanted a special edition of my newspaper, but for various technical reasons that was impossible. I did as well as I could with leaflets. When I heard the sum he was offering I was nearly sick. In the old days I would receive that much every month or so for incidentals, and not be asked for an accounting. Except as a favor for an official agency of the United States government, would I involve myself in an affair that will almost certainly lead to shooting, arrests, hospitalization, for seventeen hundred and fifty dollars?”

  “Was shooting part of the deal?”

  “It was mentioned,” Vega admitted. “A small fusillade as an excuse to involve the police. As I say, a very good imitation of a genuine agent.”

  “Who do you think he actually was?”

  Vega flapped his hands. “I am at a loss to say! Shall I play you the tape? To the trained ear, perhaps he made some tiny mistake.”

  “Not now. You’ve got work to do.”

  “Yes?”

  “You realize you’ve got to call this off.”

  “But how can I?” Vega cried. “You mean publish another leaflet saying the whole thing has been a mistake? The community would laugh at me.”

  “For the first time, Lorenzo?” Shayne said without sympathy. “How many people have you signed up?”

  “It’s not that so much. It’s how many come out in response to the leaflets.”

  “Nobody’s coming out in response to the leaflets,” Shayne said flatly. “You’ve been passing out money. Not much, probably, but some. I want to know how many you think you can count on. Start with Carlos. He looks like a broken-bottle fighter. How many others?”

  “You must understand,” Vega said defensively, “that the climate in Miami right now is not favorable to a pro-United States position. As recently as a year ago I could mobilize hundreds, with a few phone calls. But everybody has jobs, they have become so materialistic. Lawn mowers. Washing machines.”