“It seems that Alvares spent his vacations in Miami-”
“Palm Beach, actually,” Frost said.
“Palm Beach, then. Tim has friends there. Maybe somebody who knows where the money is talked him into pushing for that interview, and then screwed him by giving him a bomb instead of Pall Malls. I said I doubted it very much. That’s when he said I had twenty-four hours to come up with a different theory.”
A soberly dressed youth walked quickly along the arcade, stopping a shade too abruptly when he saw Shayne. He came into the elevator lobby to look at the directory of tenants.
Shayne said, “I want to see what I can get from Alvares’ widow. Do you think she’ll see me?”
“You have to remember,” Frost said doubtfully, “that her husband was blown into little pieces last night. She won’t feel too happy about talking it over with a stranger. Still, you must run into that all the time.”
“It’s never easy. Were they happy together?”
“One doesn’t know. He was a typical Venezuelan. He had a succession of little mistresses, one or two of whom,” he added with a leer that came over the telephone line clearly, “were arranged for him out of this office.”
“What does the widow stand to inherit?”
“Virtually nothing. They lived in the Presidential Palace, the property of the nation. Her family has a little money. She lives on a farm west of the city, and that, I believe, is in her name. If not, it will undoubtedly be taken. She’s been a good friend of ours on occasion, and if she doesn’t want to be bothered today I hope you’ll respect her wishes.”
A second man, another obvious cop, came into the lobby and pretended to look up a number in the phone- book, one ear cocked toward Shayne.
“I seem to be surrounded here,” Shayne said. “I’d better find out how good they are. Stay on tap. I’ll be calling you again.”
He hung up. Before opening the folding door he lifted up on it hard, dislodging it from its overhead track. He beckoned to the man at the phonebooks.
“Come here a minute,” he said in English.
The man sent an uncertain glance at his partner and started toward Shayne, scowling. Shayne head-faked toward the street. His adversary had obviously never played one-on-one basketball. He went for the fake. Shayne caught him off-balance and pulled him into the empty phone booth. The second man reached inside his coat. Shayne feinted a kick, and when the cop doubled forward Shayne grabbed his hair in both hands. He pivoted, going backward. The first cop was trying to get out of the booth. The two Venezuelans collided, hard. Shayne gave the door a powerful yank and it jammed, shutting them both inside.
He grinned at the knot of people waiting for the elevators.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said pleasantly. “I do this sort of thing all the time.”
He walked out of the building.
EIGHT
The open Jaguar was cruising toward him. Rubino reached across to open the door. Shayne stepped in and issued a curt order.
Without hesitation Rubino wheeled about in a U-turn, using his horn to blast an opening. He swung right at the next corner, left at the next on a red light, and plunged into the older part of the city, a tangle of narrow twisting streets. A moment later they were edging into a fast-moving line of cars on an east-bound freeway. Rubino watched his mirrors.
“That gets rid of one,” he said triumphantly. “I used to live in that district, in my unlucky days. I know it like the inside of my pocket. But two pacos went into the building after you. I don’t see their car.”
“They’re trying to punch their way out of a phone-booth,” Shayne said. He took out a money clip and counted out five hundred-dollar bills. “This is an advance. Mejia’s giving me twenty-four hours, which means we have to keep moving. If I can get Rourke out I’ll ask his paper for a fifteen thousand buck fee. They’ll settle for half that. I’ll give you twenty-five percent on top of what I’ve just given you if you stick with me and don’t sell me out. That means no phone calls to Frost, Mejia, or anybody else.”
Rubino swept the bills out of his hand. “You’re a master of psychology, Mr. Shayne. You’ve won my allegiance! Where do you wish me to drive you?”
“Do you know where I can find Alvares’ widow?”
“Yes, but it is some miles away, on the road to Valencia. We can phone first, to make sure.”
“She won’t talk to me unless I walk in on her. Do you know if she speaks English?”
“A woman in that position, I believe she must. She would always be entertaining Yankee imperialists to dinner. And if she pretends she doesn’t, I will interpret for you.”
He circled the bullring and turned south. Presently the highway began to climb, and they left the city behind them.
Their destination, Rubino told Shayne, still called itself a farm, but though a large number of peasants seemed to be employed on it, their true function had been to bodyguard Alvares, who had spent as much time there as possible, preferring it to the stately and uncomfortable palace.
The countryside was rolling and rugged. Strips of mist lay in folds between the hills.
“This is Alvares land now,” Rubino said, “on both sides of the road. More or less worthless, because who in his right mind would wish to buy it?”
An occasional huddle of scrawny cattle grazed in the fields. They passed a group of farm laborers walking at the edge of the road-barefooted, in ragged clothes, with big hats and sheathed machetes. Rubino pointed and Shayne saw a kind of adobe fortress, reached by a dirt road between a double line of cypresses.
A car was being driven down this avenue, very fast, kicking up dust. It swung onto the paved road and passed them-a heavy green Olds. Shayne had a flash of a woman in dark glasses at the wheel, her blonde hair blowing.
Rubino’s foot lifted from the accelerator. He watched the rapidly receding car in his side mirror.
“Funny,” he said.
“What is?”
“That’s Alvares’ girlfriend. Lenore Dante. And she has been to call on the Senora. For what purpose, do you think?”
“You know more about it than I do.”
“Did you see the look on her face? She has the devil behind her, jabbing her with a pitchfork.”
After a moment he said slowly, “I think we should see where she goes in such a hurry. The Senora will still be here when we get back.”
“O.K.”
Rubino was still watching the mirror. “I don’t want her to see the brakelights if she looks. There is only this road. We can overtake her slowly.”
He swung into the cypress avenue, stopped, and then moved the switch that brought the top up out of the boot.
“If she noticed us pass, she saw an open convertible. Nov she will see a quite different car. I’m being clever today.”
He waited till the Olds was out of sight before backing out onto the road.
“Lenore Dante,” Shayne said. “What nationality?”
“A compatriot of yours, such a lovely one. An artist, her paintings have been seen on many walls in Caracas since Alvares became her protector. And now, I suppose, they will be hidden in the garages.”
“How old?”
“In her first thirties. Thin. Dashing. It is an arrangement of three years. That is a long time for a thing of this kind with Alvares. Formerly it was for short periods, and with a great effort to be furtive and secretive. Always Latin girls of bourgeois families. They would be given a check when he said good-bye for the final time. But he allowed himself to be seen openly with this one. He visited her in Palm Beach, in your country, where it is said she owns a
