A theory was beginning to take shape, but there were still many blanks. Until Shayne could fill them in, he decided to take a few ordinary precautions. Instead of returning to his own apartment, he drove south on One, and picked a motel where his car couldn’t be seen from the road. He slept for three hours, had a quick breakfast in the coffee shop, and got on the phone.
He woke up the real estate editor of Rourke’s paper, and after apologizing for that, asked if there was any truth in the rumors about Harry Zell, the developer. Shayne had heard his business was about to fold.
“That’s nothing new, Mike. It’s always about to fold. He’s been in some terminal jams, and he always came out smelling of roses. I don’t know where his Surfside deal stands, now that Geary is dead. God knows Harry could use a winner. At the same time, it might be a cash drain, so nothing’s simple.”
“If you were giving advice to an investor-”
“I’d tell him to cross the street when he sees Harry coming. But I always give that advice about Harry, and some of my friends hate me for it. I’m not predicting anything. He’s had some dazzling successes when the phone company was just about to shut off his service. What can I tell you about operators like Harry? Most of the time they aren’t using their own money. In a typical office-building deal, they can’t get the mortgage commitment until they get a lease from the main tenant, and the tenant won’t give them the lease until they have the mortgage. So what they contribute is confidence. People have to be confident they can put it together. And Harry has lost some of that.”
“Who are his big creditors, banks?”
“Banks, yes, but he can’t get real money at the prime rate anymore. He’s in pretty deep with factors. C. and W. is the main one, and the vigorish there is brutal. Twenty percent and more. In other words, loan-shark money. They make loans to people the banks won’t let in the door.”
“What does C. and W. stand for?”
“Probably nothing. Charlie and Wilbur? I don’t know.”
“Can you find out?”
“I’ll try, Mike. If I get anything I’ll give it to Tim.”
More phone calls, to Rourke, to the sports editor, Ben Wanamaker. After several unsuccessful attempts, Shayne located Bobby Nash, a dog track owner. The Nash track was dark at present because Surfside, again, had been awarded the valuable middle dates. His father, now dead, had been a contemporary of Geary’s, and had been through the same kind of early trouble.
“I don’t know if I ought to be talking to you, Mike,” Nash said. “But I probably can’t catch anything on the phone. Just don’t try to put the bite on me, because I’m a poor man. Ask anybody. Ask IRS.”
“I’ll tell you in a minute why I’m calling,” Shayne said. “Can I ask a couple of general questions first?”
“Go ahead. That doesn’t mean I’ll answer them.”
“Were you surprised at the names on Max’s payoff fist?”
“Surprised?” Nash made a bitter sound. “In most cases, for obvious reasons, not at all. That statement is not for quotation. I’m surprised Max thought he had to write it down. To be frank with you, the one name that really surprised me was yours. My father used to think highly of you. I seem to remember you did a couple of jobs for him-straight jobs for a straight fee, agreed upon in advance. So surprised is too mild a word. Mystified would be better.”
“Thanks,” Shayne said. “What effect do you think this is going to have on dog racing?”
“On dog racing as a whole? I hope we can survive it. Everybody’s going to want to wipe the mud off his boots, and you know who they’re going to try to wipe them on. Max is out of the picture. The rest of us aren’t. I’ve just had my first report from Tallahassee. Two investigations in the works. Two separate committees, public hearings, possibly televised. I’ll be called. There’s no way it can be avoided. I’ll be asked questions that may be mighty hard to answer.”
“You don’t think the questions will be confined to Surfside?”
“We’re all in the same boat. Our security measures are much the same. We use many of the same people. We deal with the same unions, the same politicians, some of the same cops. If they ask me did I ever pay you, Mike Shayne, any money, I can say absolutely not. That one is easy. A couple of seasons back, I had a kennel situation I was going to bring you in on, but we straightened it out without calling in outside help. That’s just the sort of thing these inquiries are going to rake up. All I see ahead is trouble.”
“I think I may have thought of a way to get you off the hook.”
“Is that so,” Nash snapped. “What’s it going to cost me?”
“This would be barter. I need the loan of some equipment and a couple of technicians.”
“What kind of equipment?”
“I want to tie some of your closed-circuit cameras into the Surfside system. Would that be possible?”
“Complicated, but not impossible. I’ve got a full setup sitting here doing nothing. Now tell me why.”
“If I could answer that, I wouldn’t have to do it. I’m somebody else who’s going to be asked questions under oath, and not just by an investigating committee. By a grand jury. Don’t know and don’t remember-those are the two answers they don’t like to hear. Sometimes it’s the small man who didn’t cooperate who gets the longest term.”
“But we all know it’s the best legal system in the world. So cooperate, Mike. Why not? Geary’s dead. Nobody’ll blame you.”
“No, I’ve got to do it another way. If I can blow the whole thing open, there may be enough fallout so they’ll forget about me. There was a hell of a lot of money loose up there. Apparently Geary himself was taking six thousand a night.”
“Six thousand!”
“And that would be six thousand times what?”
“One hundred and eighty programs a year. That’s the million-dollar handle we’re always hoping to hit. You don’t mean out of the cash register? Here in Miami?”
“Where else?”
Nash waited a moment. “Mike, when I was trying to decide whether to take this call, I called my lawyer. He said absolutely not. But my old man was almost always right about people, so I’ll trust you to take this for what it is, which is guesswork. I’ve had a theory about the Surfside concessions. Assume that somebody’s involved in an illegal business, making good money. He can’t spend it freely because he hasn’t paid taxes on it.”
“Are we talking about Tony Castle?”
“Mike, Tony Castle would fit, but I’m not giving you facts. I’m giving you a supposition. Suppose that such a person or group of persons bought control of a concessions company and made a deal with Surfside and similar operations. Pick a figure. Say that if Geary put his concession business out to bid, he could get a contract for three million. Instead, he negotiates a contract with J. T. Thomas for four. That soaks up the track’s profit, but who cares? The extra million will be paid back somewhere offshore. Castle-if you want to use Castle as an example-could take it out of the skim from his Nassau casino. There’s no income tax in the Bahamas. Geary would set up a company and sign a service contract with the casino, so it would look legitimate. Do you follow me, Mike? Castle washes a million dollars of illegal money in Florida. Surfside doesn’t earn a profit, and so doesn’t owe the United States any income tax. Geary gets the million tax-free in the Bahamas. One of those lovely deals that benefit everybody.”
“Then why is Castle’s name in Geary’s book?”
“I didn’t know it was. It shouldn’t be.”
“Painter’s holding it back, to keep the story alive another day.”
“That’s in character. But I’m not trying to explain everything, Mike. If I understand your idea, you want to lay down enough smoke so people will forget to ask you about that three thousand a month. Castle is still a big name in Miami. If you bring in his head, you’re home free. The trouble is, he’s got sense enough to stay out of Miami.”
“Everybody makes mistakes. Yeah-I’d like his head. He put a team on me last night, and as far as I can tell, the contract is still open. But I don’t want to narrow this down to one man. I really want to take the lid all the way off. It’s like stopping an oil-well fire with dynamite. One bang, and it’s over. And of course I’d want everybody to know that I couldn’t have done it without full cooperation from Mr. Bobby Nash.”
“Who was delighted,” Nash said more happily, “to help expose the rascals who are threatening the integrity of the sport. Cameras? You’ve got them. But we’d better get together so you can tell me exactly what you need.”
Shayne arranged to meet him later, and continued to work through his calls. He took on a Spanish-speaking private detective named Gonzales and told him to go to work on the Surfside assistant kennelmaster, Ricardo Sanchez. Then he called Rourke again to see if he had heard from Frieda.
“She just hung up, Mike. I gave her your number, and she’s probably calling you now. I’ll get off the line.”
The phone rang the instant the line was open. “Michael,” Frieda said. “I’m in Castle’s casino. I’ve been playing roulette. So far I’m two hundred ahead, and I think it’s a good omen. The box was just delivered, and everybody’s behaving according to the script.”
“You’re being inconspicuous, I hope.”
“They welcome the public. Of course it’s a little dead right now, but I’m with some friends I made on the plane. We’re all drinking Bloody Marys.”
Her voice changed, becoming completely serious.
“Which isn’t the reason I’m calling, is it? I hired a boy to hand the box to the doorman and run like hell. Your name seems to be known down here. The doorman gave it to another flunky, and when he carried it in to Castle, he was holding it as though he knew there was something bloody inside, like an ear. I think Castle had already heard the news from Miami. He’s had people coming and going. A long pause after the box went in. Then three new men arrived from somewhere outside the casino, at a fast walk. I’d better get back now, because I can’t see the door of the office from here.”
“Sounds very good so far. Do you have a car?”
“Yes, but the parking is murder. If he leaves in a hurry I may not be able to get out in time to see where he goes.”
“To the airport, I hope. Do what you can, and go easy on the tomato juice. Don’t forget you’re outnumbered.”
“I’m aware of that, believe me.”
Shayne called Rourke back to report that the ear had been delivered, and to ask him to stay at his office phone so Frieda could call if she had more news. Then he called the Miami Beach police and was put through to his one friend on that force, a black detective named Barnes.
The identification had just come in on the man Shayne had shot in the Surfside men’s room. He was from California, and had earned a long list of demerits there, mainly for robberies with violence. The other two men involved in the skirmish, Shayne was told, hadn’t stayed around to give an explanation of themselves. One had been tentatively identified as a local problem named Angelo Paniatti.
“And that takes off some of the pressure,” Barnes told him, “but Painter still wants to hear it from you. When he couldn’t find you at the hospital he broke a perfectly good cigar into three pieces. I know he’d appreciate it if you stopped in.”
“That would just be a replay of yesterday,” Shayne said, “and we both have better things to do with our time.”
“Mike, about this sudden turnaround by Parker and Hamzy, this second car they think they remember. It turns out you and Tim Rourke were in asking for them last night. Is this just to get Painter thinking about something else, or is there anything to it?”
“I have a witness, of sorts. I don’t know whether to believe him or not. It might help to have a cop along when I talk to him again. Can you meet me in the St. Francis parking lot in about twenty minutes? He should be waking up just about now.”
Barnes had to agree, but it didn’t seem to make him happy.
Shayne checked out of the motel and drove back to Miami, where he picked up I-95 and crossed the bay on the Julia Tuttle Causeway. Barnes was waiting. Inside, Barnes identified himself and they were told they would find their patient in the accident ward.
But Dee Wynn was gone.
The bed he had been in was the way he had left it, with the sheets tumbled and the pillow on the floor. Of the other two patients in the four-bed ward, one was almost completely wrapped in bandages, being kept alive through tubes. The other, a young black in a head bandage, was watching a game show on a portable television.
“What happened to the patient who was here?” Shayne said, motioning at the empty bed.
The black returned reluctantly to the real world. “You say something?”
Barnes turned down the TV and Shayne repeated the question.
“Oh, he went chasing off. He had a cast on his leg, but that didn’t bother him after the first time he fell down. Things to do, man, he couldn’t lie around in bed all day.”
“When was this?”
“Today show was still on.”
The floor nurse, who had just come on shift, was unable to help. Wynn’s clothes were gone. All this was extremely upsetting to everybody, because he had managed to slip out without paying his bill.
Barnes had stood out of the way, letting Shayne ask the questions. Outside, he said abruptly, “Mike, now we’re going in to talk to Painter.”
They were standing on the asphalt in bright sunlight. He had put on dark glasses, and Shayne looked at his reflection in them.
“Why? He didn’t know Wynn was here, so he won’t know he’s missing.”
“Sometimes I’m willing to go outside the book,” Barnes said. “Not today. This is Miami Beach, and we have the home court advantage. I can’t go in and report this secondhand.”
From the way Barnes was standing, Shayne could see that if he turned to walk to his own car, the gun would come out, and other cars would be called to escort them. His name next to the sum of $80,000 in Geary’s book had made that difference.
“I don’t have anything to tell Painter except that the guy said he was in the back seat of Geary’s car when it happened, and there was a second car. He was drunk that night, and he was very drunk when he told me. That’s all there is.”
“Not quite, Mike. It came in as I was leaving. An old guy was found drowned in a canal off the Trail. He was out there alone, fishing and drinking whiskey. And he wasn’t able to pull himself out because one leg was in a cast.”