He tightened the knot of the makeshift bandage. She drew a quick breath.
“If you’ll stop breathing,” he said, “this would have a better chance to stay on.”
“Who is this Andres?” she said faintly. “Do you trust him?”
Shayne laughed. “Hell, no, but he’s my pipeline. I think he recognized the guy who jumped you.”
She looked up quickly. “Are you sure?”
“I’m not sure of anything, but I think he’s trying to figure out a way to squeeze some money out of it. Who wants to kill you at this point?”
She sighed. “I’ll give you a list.”
“Are the cops looking for you?”
“I imagine so.”
“They can’t know about the Olds. We saw you pass a checkpoint without being stopped.”
“I borrowed it from a friend.”
Shayne hitched the bandage higher. “All right, that’s the best I can do. I think you’d better try to walk.”
He put his jacket around her, transferring his gun from the pocket to inside his belt. He gave her more cognac before helping her up. They moved slowly and carefully.
She groaned as the sunlight hit her, and started to fall. He swept her up in his arms and carried her up the track to the Olds. There was still no living person to be seen. Rubino came out of one of the shacks and walked rapidly toward them. He helped Shayne put the injured woman into the back seat of the green car.
“We’re taking this one?” he said. “Yes. But to get his Jaguar back, Mr. Frost will have to pay a ransom of half its value. Of course it is not his money, and the United States is the richest nation in the world.”
He locked the Jaguar and returned to take the wheel of the Olds. Shayne, in the back seat, was adjusting the bandage again.
“I think we can go by autopista,” Rubino said. “Faster and smoother, a better journey for Miss Dante. No one saw the man of the knife come aboard the boat. The speedboat was tied up already at daybreak, and they considered it not their business. But of course it is all probably lies.”
Each small bump in the road meant a stab of pain for Lenore, and Shayne kept feeding her cognac. They were given only a casual glance by the police at the cloverleaf. Rubino concentrated on getting the feel of the car. At any speed over sixty the front end vibrated badly.
“We’re taking her to my flat,” he announced after a time. “It is a terrible, terrible risk, but to involve other people would be riskier still. If you are ever interrogated, Mr. Shayne, I will ask you to say you forced me at gunpoint. Say nothing about money.”
“I doubt if they’ll believe me.”
“In any case,” Rubino assured himself, “everything will go smoothly. First the doctor.”
Leaving the highway at the outskirts of the city, he parked and made a phone call. He talked for some time, gesturing freely. Returning, he nodded to Shayne to indicate that the arrangements had been made. He drove from there to a hospital, a modern concrete building painted in red and blue stripes, where he picked up a pudgy young man in shades and hospital whites, carrying a medical bag. No names were exchanged.
Rubino lived nearby, in a high-rise concrete block with brightly colored awnings on each terrace, so recently built that the lobby was still not entirely finished. Shayne carried Lenore past a group of indifferent workmen and put her in the elevator. When he set her down, she swayed against him.
“I’m all right. It’s the brandy.”
Rubino’s apartment, on the top floor, was air-conditioned, furnished with blonde department-store pieces upholstered in bright colors, and except for the view of the mountains through large picture windows, it might have been located in Miami Beach. The other Venezuelan made an admiring remark in Spanish, and Rubino answered with a modest laugh and a joke. He spread a sheet on the sofa, and Shayne laid the woman on it.
The doctor went to work.
After a moment Rubino joined Shayne at the front window.
“An opportunity,” he said in a low voice. His back to the room, he traced a dollar sign on the glass. “The subject we were speaking about earlier, Alvares’ plunder-”
“There’s that,” Shayne said. “But we don’t want to rush it. How about this doctor? Can we be sure he’ll keep his mouth shut?”
Rubino nodded seriously. “He has reason to be afraid of me.”
Lenore called, “What are you two conspiring about?”
Rubino turned with his bright smile. “I am speaking to Mr. Shayne about your biography. I am happy to say I own one of your paintings!”
He showed Shayne a carefully constructed arrangement of overlapping geometric shapes, in blues and reds. It was signed L. Dante, and dated eight years before. Its creator was watching from the sofa, waiting for his reaction.
“Yeah,” Shayne said noncommittally.
The doctor completed his bandage. One breast was covered with gauze; the other had been left bare. Rubino brought a soft striped shirt from his bedroom and the doctor helped her put it on. She brushed her hair while the doctor spoke to Rubino in Spanish.
“The damage is not too bad,” Rubino translated. “Only one thrust penetrated deeply. The other was on the surface, through flesh and muscle, and he has taken care of it. She should not exert herself, remain quiet, et cetera, take aspirin tablets if the pain is bad, sleep as much as possible and be careful not to be stabbed again too soon.”
The doctor snapped his bag and went to the bathroom to wash.
“After you drop him off,” Shayne said, “I want you to take a message to Frost.”
“He can find a taxi,” Rubino protested. “We have so much to decide, what strategy to follow, ways and means-”
Shayne was writing on the flyleaf of a book he had picked off a side table.
Rubino persisted. “Frost is on the other side of the city. He has a telephone line installed by his own technicians; it is checked daily. You can speak on it with perfect security.”
“I need some cash,” Shayne explained. “I can’t operate without money in my pocket. Unless you’d like to advance me something?”
“That would be against my lifelong practice,” Rubino said stiffly.
Shayne ripped out the page. He had written: “I hereby acknowledge receipt of $2000 from Felix Frost, to be repaid promptly by money order on my return to the U.S. or to constitute a binding obligation on my estate if that’s how things go. Half American money, half Venezuelan. Michael Shayne.”
He handed it to Rubino. “He’ll want to know what’s happening. Tell him as little as possible. We want to keep Lenore a secret. You can say I haven’t been able to see the widow, but I’m still trying. Get back as soon as you can.”
Their eyes held for a moment.
“If he asks me a direct question about the lady, I’ll have to tell him, Mr. Shayne. I cannot afford to annoy this man.”
“Get in and out fast. As far as I can see now, she’s the only leverage we’ve got.”
“Yes, but how to employ it? This we need to discuss.”
The doctor came out of the bathroom. Rubino hesitated, then nodded to him and they went out together.
“Leverage?” Lenore said. “In just what way?”
“Don’t tighten up, baby, or you’ll start bleeding again.”
He went to the front window, and waited until Rubino and the doctor emerged from the building. Then he began to search the apartment. She watched him check the base of the telephone, underneath the tables, along the frames of the pictures and mirrors. She started to say something, but Shayne stopped her with a quick shake of the head. He was examining a large mirror over a teak sideboard.
“Yeah. Here it is.”
“Am I allowed to ask-” she began.
“No. See if you can stand up.”
He pulled her to her feet and put his mouth to her ear. “There’s a mike in the room somewhere, so take it
