“It’s O.K., Mike,” Paula said quickly.
Shayne recognized one of the uniformed men. He was a short, wiry guerrilla who had been sitting on the dirt floor across from him, his knees drawn up to his chin, most of the afternoon. The uniform was too large for him.
He seized Shayne roughly and made an announcement in Spanish.
“We are being arrested,” Paula translated.
Shayne reached back in the booth and hung up the phone. The second bogus cop put him in handcuffs. Shayne submitted after testing them to be sure they were unlocked. He and Paula climbed into the back seat with one of the cops.
“They’re going to be looking for this car if it’s the one we had before.”
“We changed the plates,” Paula told him. “We’ve been dying to get our hands on such a car.”
They dropped down to the Valencia road; their first stop was to be the Alvares farm. So far everything was working well. Two known MIR people had taken coffee in a restaurant where a man thought to be a police informer worked as a waiter. This man was permitted to hear them talking about how the well-known North American detective, Michael Shayne, had hired them, in a sense, to get him out of the country. The stake was enormous-the huge illegal fortune Alvares had accumulated during his years in power. Palm Beach, Florida, was Shayne’s destination, and if they managed to deliver him intact, and if he didn’t betray them the minute they arrived, the movement stood to gain a large sum in dollars, with which they could purchase weapons on the flourishing secondhand market. They finished their coffee and left. Another guerrilla, posted in the restaurant, then saw the waiter make a surreptitious phone call.
Meanwhile, nothing had been heard from Senora Alvares’ maid, which meant that the widow was still at the farm. Entering the cypress avenue leading up to the house, the driver turned on his siren. The old man who had charge of the gate was already looking out through his little wicket. Seeing Shayne, he shook his head.
One of the presumed cops yelled at him, and when the old man responded by closing the wicket, he drew his police revolver and fired a shot in the air. Shayne signaled to the driver to back off and ram the gate. The bolt tore out of the wood on the second try.
The old man was unchaining the watchdog. Shayne pulled the Luger out of Paula’s handbag and fired as the dog leaped. The bullet passed through the animal’s brain, and he was dead by the time he hit the side of the car.
Paula and one cop came inside with him.
“Find out if she’s had any calls,” Shayne said.
He found the widow in her bedroom, sprawled across the flowered bedspread, breathing heavily. She was wearing unbuttoned pajamas, and there was no doubt that she was actually asleep. A glass on the bedside table held a little dead champagne.
Paula came in behind him. “Yes, Mr. Felix Frost phoned about twenty minutes ago. That would be ten minutes after Mejia got his call from the cafe. She talked to him in English, but kept dropping the phone. The servants put her to bed.”
“Get some help.”
He found a last split of champagne in the kitchen refrigerator, brought it back to the bedroom and drank while Paula and a maid attempted to get some clothes on the woman. She moaned and pushed, without seeming to understand what was happening. Her pajama tops came off, then the bottoms. Realizing suddenly that a man was across the room, she screamed and tried to hide behind her hands.
“Perhaps you should wait outside, Mike?” Paula suggested.
“If she’s embarrassed about being naked, all she has to do is get dressed.”
Her eyes on Shayne, the Senora made the women work for each small success.
“Go away,” she said in English. “I don’t want you in the house. I was sleeping.”
She hit at the maid and knocked her over. The struggle continued. The black dress was so tight that Shayne had to be called on to help. He pulled her off the bed and forced her to stand. In a swift change of tactics, she flung her arms around his neck.
“I hunt and I hunt. For a man with strong muscles.”
Together they wrestled her into some kind of shape. Shayne put her over his shoulder and started out of the room. The old man was in the gallery outside, glowering at the cop, whose hand rested on the butt of his holstered gun. Senora Alvares waved an arm and gave a drunken shriek.
“They are about to rape me.”
“I’m not promising anything,” Shayne said. “We’ll see.”
Paula opened the rear door of the police car and they manhandled her in. She fell off the seat and Shayne put her back.
“Where are we going?” she said when the car started.
“We’re picking up your friend Lenore Dante.”
“Friend, not at all a friend! She robbed me.”
“You had a phone call from Frost. What did he tell you?”
“A disgusting person.” She toppled against Shayne. “I’m so lonely.”
When they stopped at the apartment building where he had left Lenore, the widow was asleep again with her head against Shayne’s shoulder. He freed himself gently and backed out.
He had to use his lock picks to get into the inner lobby. Upstairs, he tapped on the door of 9-C. The little peephole clicked. Then the door was thrown open and Lenore propelled herself into his arms.
“Mike, Mike.” She pulled him against her. “You were so long! I thought they’d killed you.”
Shayne eased out of her embrace and moved her into the bare, unlighted apartment. There was just enough light coming through the uncurtained front windows so he could see the outline of her face.
“I’ll explain later. I’m just coming off a long session with your niece and a few friends, and they’ve agreed to cooperate. I think I can get you included. But they’re going to want money, and like everybody else they have an exaggerated idea about how much is available. If I do the talking I think I can get you a better price. You’ve had the afternoon to think about it. A little honesty from you about your friend’s retirement fund would make things easier.”
She was standing close, looking up into his face. She shook her head.
“Mike, I don’t know anything about that. Won’t you believe me? Of course I’m willing to pay to get out of this mess. I can sell the gallery. Would seventy-five thousand-”
“They’re thinking about more than that and we don’t have time to haggle. Everybody’s in a rush to get to Palm Beach. The first person to make it is going to win the jackpot.”
She grasped his arms. “Everybody?”
“Well, not Rubino. Rubino’s dead. Say half-a-dozen in all, starting with Mejia and working down.”
Her grasp tightened. “What are the MIR offering, exactly?”
“I have a plane waiting, but I can’t just walk up and get on. One of the things I’ve done since I saw you was take a grease-gun away from a couple of cops and steal their car. I’ve also been shot at a couple of times, and that puts you and me in the same bag. Serrano has assigned a couple of men to cover me. If you want to buy in, I’ll see if I can work it.”
She drew a long breath. “How much do you think I should give them?”
“Baby, you know you’ve got a damn good reason for getting back to Palm Beach before anybody else. Stop trying to con me. Mejia won’t charter a plane. That’s too conspicuous. He’ll be taking the nine-thirty flight to Miami. We can beat him by going straight to Palm Beach.”
She pushed back her hair. “That’s one. How about the others? The widow.”
“She’s coming with us. I want to keep a personal eye on her.”
She breathed in and out slowly twice. Then she clenched her fist and struck Shayne in the chest.
“You bastard. You’re taking me anyway, aren’t you?”
Shayne laughed. “I thought I’d give you a chance to persuade me.”
“What a four-flusher. For a minute you had me convinced. But you’re damn right! I’d pay anything to get out of here, to a top of seventy-five thousand, which is all I have. So Rubino’s dead, is he? I don’t suppose he died of emphysema from all those cigarettes.”
“He was shot twice, in the head and the chest.”
“I’ve never seen any sense in being solvent but dead. Yes, I’ve been thinking. I’ve been sitting here on the floor with my back to the wall getting rapidly older. I knew you’d come back for me, and I knew you’d put together some kind of arrangement with somebody, because it’s too confining for you here. But Mejia-I didn’t even know he was a factor! And now he’s taking the nine-thirty plane to Miami. You’re transporting the widow personally. Who else?”
“We’ll call the roll after we get there. How about that diary of Alvares’?”
“You’ve been talking to Paula, of course. I tore out one page and she used it to motivate your friend, Tim. He seemed to think it was salable. I mailed it to myself at the gallery, airmail special. It’s probably on my desk right now with the rest of the backed-up mail.”
“I’ll take that in lieu of a fee.”
She peered at him, trying to read his expression. “No money? Don’t tell me you’ve finally begun to realize I’m not sitting on a trunkful of gold.”
“If the diary is hot enough I can trade it for Rourke. I don’t think I can buy him out with money.”
“All right, you can have it,” she said decisively. “I had a lot to do with getting him put where he is.”
He heard the blare of a horn from below and reached the window in time to see a police cruiser pull to a stop before the building.
“Mike,” Lenore said beside him, “are they looking for us?”
“I doubt it. I think they’ve found Rubino and they’re going up to check his apartment. Give them a minute to get to the elevator.”
Two policemen got out of the cruiser, and the casual way they were moving confirmed Shayne’s guess that they were homicide men assigned to Rubino’s killing, here on a routine check. He and Lenore left the apartment carefully and took the elevator to the basement. After leaving by a side door, she stayed in the shadows while Shayne walked past the police car. On the outside it was a standard sedan, but it had been rebuilt to carry prisoners. There were no inside handles on the rear doors, and a grill of woven wire separated the front seats from the back.
He signaled, and the other police car pulled out of the lot and drew up beside him. Senora Alvares was still asleep in the back seat.
“We’re changing cars,” he told Paula. “We’ve got too many prisoners for two cops.”
Lenore greeted her niece with a cool nod. “I thought Mike would want to include you. Your parents are worrying about you, by the way.”
“Nothing bad has happened to me yet.”
Shayne started the other cruiser with his ignition loop and climbed into the back seat with the three women. The Senora had been jolted awake as she moved from one car to the other. She looked miserable and sick.
“I drank too much champagne.”
The door slammed shut from the outside and they moved off. The two-way radio was crackling, but the driver paid no attention. He asked a question which Paula translated: “Should he turn on the siren?”
“Certainly.”
They bulled their way through traffic to the airport highway and descended to the coast at high speed, stopping only once to allow Senora Alvares to be sick in the weeds at the side of the road.
After finishing she pulled out of Shayne’s hands and looked at the police car and the uniformed men in the front seat. “Why are we arrested?”
“You must be feeling better.”
“Not that much. Answer my question.”
Shayne put her back in the car and they continued, accompanied by the high wail of their siren. She covered her ears and moaned.
“Tell them,” she said to Lenore. “I had nothing to do with the explosion. I asked for the interview but permission was refused.”
She leaned forward to look through the grating. “We are going toward the sea!”
“I think they want us to identify somebody,” Shayne said. “Cops don’t like to explain things. Take it easy.”
She sat back suspiciously, but when they took the ramp to the airport she sat forward again and exclaimed, “I will not ride in an airplane. I have never done so. I’ll bite. I’ll kick.”
“In that case,” Shayne said, “you’d better do it here in the car where you won’t attract attention. We want this to run smoothly.”
He pulled out his shirt-tail and tore off a long strip. She tried to move away. He rolled the cloth into a tight cylinder and whipped it around her head deftly. When she started to yell, he pulled the cloth tight across her open mouth. She thrashed about, making desperate gabbling noises, while Shayne doubled her forward, pinning her with his elbows, and knotted the gag. Then he let her go and tore off another long strip with which he bound her wrists.
“Now if you’ll listen to me I’ll tell you what we think is going to happen.”
She crouched away from him, her eyes wide in terror.
“I tried talking politely, and you may remember that didn’t work. Every time I asked a question you hid in the champagne bottle. We have a few things to talk about, and I want you to start being responsive.”
She managed to emit a choked sound.
“How can you be responsive with a gag in your mouth? You’ve got a point there. But I don’t like to repeat myself, and I want to get a few other people in on it before I start listing the things I want to know. Take a good look at these guys in front.”
He nodded to Paula, who said something in Spanish. One of the youths looked around.
“Does he look like a Caracas cop?” Shayne said. “He’s an MIR man. This is Paula Obregon. She and her friends like people who cooperate. If you understand me so far, nod your head.”
She stared at him, but finally nodded.
“Good. They don’t want to be pulled in by the real cops because they know they’d probably be shot. If they have to kill us to prevent that, you know they won’t hesitate for a minute. I tied you up because you may not realize how serious this is. If you make any noise or trouble, we’ll all get it in the neck. It’s a little unfair because I have an idea how crummy you must be feeling, but you’ll have a couple of hours to sober up. That’ll give you time to think up a story.”
She tried desperately to express herself. Shayne shook his head.
“Not yet. Work it out and polish it. I’m giving you a break. I don’t know why. After I came to see you this morning you phoned somebody, and when I went through the gate a guy was waiting outside with a rifle. But so many worse things have happened that I don’t really hold it against you. I’ll buy any explanation that sounds halfway believable.”
Wrinkles appeared at the corners of her eyes. She had heard at least part of what Shayne had said and was thinking.
“Oh, what a bastard,” Lenore said. “But dear God, are you good at it.”
“You be thinking, too, baby.”
“That won’t be necessary-I’ve been thinking all day.”
The driver cut his siren. The sound died as they turned onto the access road along the perimeter of the airport. Half of a big Cyclone gate stood open and soldiers with rifles were lounging on either side of the opening. The driver slowed. The soldier on his side glanced in at the prisoners in the back seat and nodded them on.
Shayne saw the Miami News Learjet among the other planes on the waiting and taxiing strips. Its two engines were alight.
“That one’s ours.”
“Police,” Paula said quietly, nodding to one side.
“I see them,” Shayne said after a moment. “Tell him to keep going.”
A rescue truck was parked alongside the main arrival building. The men in the front seat had made no effort to disguise themselves as airport employees. They were wearing business suits with city hats.
“We could come up behind and take them by surprise,” Paula said. “Because of the uniforms we could do it without shooting.”
“Let’s see how it looks.”
They continued around the arrival building, past two truckloads of soldiers. At the end of the paved area they turned and came back.
“One pass is all they’re going to let us have,” Shayne said. “They’re watching the News plane, and even if we can get aboard they’ll shoot out the tires. See that 707 loading. It’s ready to roll.”
“Why would they let us get off in that?”
“They won’t want to harm innocent people. In the News plane there wouldn’t be any. Tell him.”
She relayed what Shayne had said, and the guerrilla at the wheel glanced around, frowning. The mobile loading steps had been wheeled into place against the 707, and the first passengers were beginning to stream out of the lounge.
“That’s it,” Shayne said crisply. “Tell him to remember there are no handles on these doors. One of them go ahead up the steps, one behind. Don’t be too rough. We look fairly authentic. The Senora won’t give us any trouble, but if she does, we’ll slug her and carry her aboard.”
Paula murmured in Spanish. The driver asked a question, slowing, and checked the mirrors. He consulted with his colleagues.
“We like to rehearse these things,” Paula said, “to be sure of assignments. Will Lenore be quiet?”
“Lenore will certainly be quiet,” Lenore said fervently.
The guerrillas exchanged curt nods. The driver slid under the wing of a big passenger plane and came back toward the 707.
He stopped at the foot of the loading ramp, blocking the trickle of passengers. The other uniformed man opened a rear door and ordered the prisoners to dismount. Paula had her hand inside her big purse. Senora Alvares was too terrified to move without help. Using both hands, Shayne walked her forcibly up the steps.
He brushed past the stewardess at the top, who was trying to ask a question.
Inside, Shayne surrendered the frightened woman to Paula. He told the stewardess calmly, “There’s been an uprising in Caracas. Don’t do anything to attract attention. We have to get off immediately.”
Her professional smile had vanished. Giving her no time to react, he blocked her back into the airplane and pulled the door shut. He took Paula’s Luger and went into the cockpit.
The pilot was drinking coffee out of a plastic container. He dropped it when he saw the long gun in Shayne’s hand.
“What the hell?”
“Nothing to be nervous about. We’re just taking off a couple of minutes early.”
The co-pilot said, “Aren’t you Mike Shayne?”
“Yeah. Notify the tower you can’t wait any longer.”
“Hell, man-”
Shayne lifted the gun. “This can’t be your first hijacking. Follow company policy. They don’t want you to risk the airplane. I have four armed men in the first-class cabin.”
“How many?”
Shayne grinned. “Two, as a matter of fact, but they’re pretty excited. Plus a girl, who’s as militant as they are. If you try to get help, bullets are going to be flying around.”
The co-pilot said reasonably, “This is Mike Shayne. You know he’s got reasons. Let’s roll.”
The pilot swore under his breath and brushed the spilled coffee off his clipboard. He reached for the transmitting switch.
“All right, where to?” he said sourly. “Havana?”
“Palm Beach.”