died.”
“You don’t know what he said?”
“Whatever it was, it was hot enough so Henry thinks he can use it to collect some long-range dough. What are you looking so doubtful about?”
“There are laws against defrauding insurance companies, not to mention laws against arson and manslaughter. She could lose quite a bit of money and go to jail.”
“Hell, I realize that. That’s the point. She wants you to find out if he actually has a tape and to get it for her if he does. The price tag on this is ten thousand bucks.”
“If I find any evidence that a crime has been committed,” Shayne said, “it has to go to the appropriate district attorney. He’ll decide what to do with it.”
“You’re kidding. I’m talking about something worth an easy ten thousand.”
Shayne drank his cognac without replying. Brady studied him, then stood up.
“I wasn’t expecting this. I thought you guys were supposed to be pragmatic. Give me another few minutes.”
He went back into the stateroom. Shayne had finished his cognac by the time he came back. He fidgeted around the room and started to speak several times before saying finally, “She said to go ahead, she’ll take a chance on it, to get him off her back. She’s hanging over the john with her head in her hands. Does she know what’s at stake? Probably not.”
He dropped into his chair. “She mumbled something like, ‘Can’t arrest me, it was Tom.’ Who the hell would that be?”
“Tom Moseley?”
Brady looked up. “Moseley,” he said slowly, then shrugged. “I’m beginning to unravel. I’m not the type to make decisions.”
He picked up a coin, a quarter, and flipped it, catching it neatly and clapping it on the back of his other hand. “Heads. Henry told her if she didn’t believe he had it he’d play it for her. That means it’s here in Miami.”
“It’s not in his room,” Shayne said. “I looked for a claims check or a key to a coin locker. I didn’t find anything.”
“Here’s an idea. When he left tonight I thought I’d better find out what he was using for transportation-he wouldn’t depend on cabs. I whipped out to the other end of the dock. And he was driving a red Volkswagen, Mike. If there wasn’t anything in his room-”
He flipped the quarter again. This time it came up tails. “Somebody’s going to get the dirty end of this stick, and I have a feeling his name’s going to be Brady.”
Shayne stood up. “You’ve put in a lot of work on this. How much have you cleared so far?”
Brady drew a deep breath. “She bought some stock from me. I get a commission on that. On everything else I’ve been working on spec. And all of a sudden it occurs to me-” He swirled the whiskey around in his glass. “Do I really want to be husband number two? When you think about it, I mean, it’s a funny ambition, isn’t it?”
CHAPTER 14
Shayne started in Jennings Park and radiated outward. The neighborhood still throbbed and jumped. An open-fronted cafe on one of the side streets blazed with light and loud music, and the sidewalks in that block were jammed with drifting teen-agers. De Rham wouldn’t leave his car this close to the park. Most of his new set was opposed to the ownership of cars, including economy-sized imports.
Shayne found it on Flagler Terrace, in a quiet district where people went to bed early-a red VW with dealer’s plates. He double-parked and walked back.
The little car was locked. Using his picking apparatus, he had the front door open in less than a minute. He stooped to stuff himself in. But then he hesitated.
He looked around carefully. He was under a streetlight. There was an indistinct roar, punctuated by the solid thump of amplified drums and guitars, from the crowded blocks nearer the park, but here it was quiet and nothing moved. Finding the Volkswagen had been as easy as finding De Rham himself earlier. Both times Paul Brady had given him the lead. Things sometimes turned out to be simpler than Shayne had expected, but it rarely happened twice in a row. The little car suddenly seemed like a trap. Once inside it, he thought he might have trouble getting out.
He had learned to trust his instinct in these matters. Reaching in, he rolled down the windows and conducted his search from the outside, alert for any new sounds on the block. He emptied the glove compartment, felt along the underside of the dashboard and pulled up the floor padding. He brought out his picks again and opened the luggage compartment. Finding nothing, he bent down, gripped the frame between the doors, and straightened, tipping the little car on its side.
He saw the flat, cloth-wrapped package wired to the inside of one fender-well almost at once, and at the same instant his built-in radar picked up a surreptitious movement not far away. He moved fast. He slipped one of his picks between the package and the wire and used leverage to snap the wire. Stepping back, he saw Henry De Rham coming toward him. Shayne wrenched the package loose and slipped around to the other side of the car. Now he heard running footsteps. He dropped to his knees, keeping in the shadow. He saw a catch basin in the curb, and with a quick sideways flick, he scaled the tape toward it. It slithered across the asphalt, bounced against the grating and dropped in.
“That’s my car!” De Rham cried, “It’s tipped over!”
Shayne straightened. “De Rham,” he said calmly. “I didn’t recognize you. I didn’t know you owned a car.”
“What’s the bitch trying to do to me? Why can’t she leave me alone?”
Shayne, a savage grin on his face, whirled to meet the rush of two barefoot youths who had slipped between parked cars. One was swinging a short length of chain. Shayne went beneath it and drove upward, using his shoulder. He caught the second youth in a powerful grasp, tying him up and turning him, but before Shayne could do anything about finishing him, two more of the youths piled on him from behind.
That made four, not counting De Rham, and there were probably more on the way. The first glance had told Shayne that these were the ex-Dirty Angels he had heard about from Tim Rourke, members of the banned motorcycle club, a loose organization of wild young men who made savagery a cult. Two or three he might have been able to handle. Really dirty alley-fighters are more interested in fighting dirty than in winning, and they lay themselves open to retaliation from above. Shayne hammered downward, brought his knee up in one youth’s face, stamped and pivoted hard with an elbow out.
De Rham shouted, “Goddamn cops. Think you can come down on us whenever you like. I knew you’d be back! You’re going to get your ears knocked off, Shayne.”
He was carrying a piece of two-by-two lumber. He aimed it at Shayne and hit one of his own boys on the shoulder. After that he stayed back, keeping a running diatribe going against the brutality and stupidity and corruption of cops, who ignored depravity among the rich and harried people whose only crime was their long hair.
His friends didn’t need the encouragement. They were fighting for pleasure. Shayne caught one around the neck and smashed his nose with his fist. They were barefoot, and they were used to fighting in boots. Shayne, badly outnumbered, was trying to capitalize on the fact that he was wearing shoes. He connected seriously only once, and that youth staggered across the sidewalk with several broken toes.
Shayne himself had been hurt. Two other youths stopped to watch, and Shayne caught the reek of marijuana. If things went badly with him, it was only a question of time before the whole neighborhood joined in.
De Rham commented with disgust, “Somebody ought to educate these narcotics cops.” He screamed suddenly, waving his club, “Break him up! Let’s teach the mother a lesson he won’t forget!”
One of the watchers pinched out his cigarette and put it away.
Shayne picked up his smallest assailant by the neck and the crotch, spun him around and let him go. Breaking loose, he headed straight for the two newcomers and straight-armed the nearest one between the eyes.
He ran toward the park. He had been rabbit-punched repeatedly, and his midsection was on fire. His brain
