“During the afternoon,” Paula said. “Tim and I went out to reconnoiter the prison. I think probably then.”
“For Frost, a hotel lock would be easy,” Shayne said.
“It seems to me-” Boyle put in. “Am I permitted to interrupt?”
“Go ahead.”
“I probably don’t understand it-I know I don’t understand it-but in my experience, when there are two people with a piece of illegal money and one of them dies it’s usually the other one who did it.”
“You mean Lenore. But if she made the switch, she would have been out of the country by the time the bomb went off. Instead, she hung around all night, getting hotter and hotter. And not only that, she’s a nice girl. The idea would never cross her mind.”
“Thanks, I think,” Lenore said. “Mike, the man who was waiting on my boat-”
“I’m coming to that. Even if you slipped past the cops and got back to Palm Beach, you’d have no reason to move the paintings or put them on the market. Frost and his overweight lady-friend could steal them after the dust settled. But remember the Senora had that other motive.”
There was a sound at the door and Sam Katz looked in. “Do you want us yet?”
“Hold it out there, Sam,” Shayne told him. “I’m working up a surprise.”
The others looked back at him as he went on. “Lenore was planning to take her man out of the country on a fishing boat. The Senora knew that and hired somebody to wait there with a knife. But Lenore didn’t make it last night. This morning she went to tell the Senora how sorry she was and the Senora announced that she’d told the cops all about her. Mejia?”
“We have had no message of that kind.”
“This is all guessing and lying and vicious talk!” the Senora said. “I suppose she gave you her version, but the truth might be very different.”
“However it happened, Lenore fled to her boat and got herself knifed there,” Shayne said. “Take off your shirt, Lenore, and show the people your bandages.”
She put her fingers obediently to the button at her throat. “Do you mean it?”
“Never mind, I just happened to remember how good you look with your shirt off. The guy probably never stabbed anybody before and he bungled it. A little later, he took three shots at me with a rifle, and missed them all. Of course I was riding a runaway horse for some of that time. The one thing he did that worked-did you get a report of a homicide out near there, Mejia? A guy who was working for me, named Andres Rubino.”
“I know about that. His money was taken. Robbery, I think.”
“I’m the one who took the money. Most of it was mine, anyway.”
“And did I do this shooting,” Frost inquired, “along with everything else?”
“No, it wasn’t your kind of thing. To stand out in the open and take a shot at somebody? I hope not. I’d have to change all my ideas about you.”
“Then why did it happen?”
“He tried one pitch too many,” Shayne explained. “He got a good look at the guy who knifed Lenore and I think he recognized him. He was a pretty knowledgeable character, Rubino, as you told me yourself. He closed the connection with the Senora and made a couple of quick jumps. If she was sending people to kill her husband’s mistress, maybe she also had something to do with killing her husband. The police had no reason to look closely at that wrecked plane. But if Rubino could find some sign that it had been fooled with before it took off he could squeeze the Senora for real money. Here I’m guessing again. But maybe she realized the danger of that wreckage, and sent her boy to set it on fire. And he met Rubino, walking back with a smirk on his face.”
Mejia commented. “True, this plane was burned this afternoon.”
“I forgot to ask what you’re doing here, Chief,” Shayne said, his voice suddenly ugly.
The Venezuelan looked around. “I have information-”
“You thought you could beat the rest of us to the money,” Shayne told him, “and that’s so goddamned obvious it could get you in trouble. Other people in the government might think they have a better claim. Be thinking about what you can do to make me feel friendly.”
He strode to the door and called Sam Katz and the youth who had set fire to the Worth Avenue block. “Ladies and gentlemen, meet Jaime Mercado.”
Senora Alvares said something quickly in Spanish. Shayne looked at Paula for a translation.
“To be silent.”
Shayne looked at the youth, who seemed more ill at ease than frightened. He was younger than Shayne had thought the other times they had encountered each other. He was short and dark, with a line of even white teeth below a well-tended mustache.
“You son of a bitch,” Shayne said, “you’re a rotten shot with a rifle and not much good with a knife. You did a lousy sabotage job on that airplane and you can’t even burn down a building without getting caught.”
“I wonder if he understands English,” the Senora murmured.
Shayne laughed and turned his back on him. “He’ll have time to learn it in jail. I’m curious about you, Frost. Have you ever seen him before?”
Frost shrugged. “A common type.”
“I can hear that brain of yours clicking,” Shayne said. “All A’s. Phi Beta Kappa. Of course it adds up.
“This is the Senora’s special boy. Notice the bulge inside those tight pants. Not too smart, but young. Young. You know her. You must catch glimpses of yourself a couple of times a day in the mirror. You know now that she was stringing you along.”
“I won’t dignify that with a comment.”
“She needed you, Frost. Your brains and your confidential money and your high explosive. But that’s all she needed. She hasn’t had an easy life and as a matter of fact I’m a little sorry for her. But now that she’s free of Alvares why should she tie herself to somebody like you?”
“Shayne, I warn you-”
“Your warning days are over, Frost. I’ve got a page from Alvares’ diary. I wish I had the whole thing but that page is going to make the papers. It’s enough to get you canned. They don’t care what you do in secret, so long as it stays that way.”
“I don’t know this man. Whatever he’s done-”
“He burned down the Dante Gallery, for one thing. And if there were four million bucks worth of paintings inside and the Senora knew it, why would he do that?”
Frost’s eyes darted to the youth’s impassive face. Shayne said, “You’ve figured it. That was fast. Yeah, she crossed you. She never had any intention of selling those paintings and splitting that money with you. This kid is her style. If he goes to jail there are plenty of others to take his place. The minute she heard that everybody was converging on the gallery to grab the pictures, she sent him ahead. Then she got drunk, and when you called her she couldn’t talk, let alone meet you at the plane. You’re the mark, Frost! She had a deal with you, but with the gallery burned she wouldn’t have to go through with it. As soon as she was out of mourning she’d start spending money on boys.”
“On boys,” the Senora said haughtily.
Shayne turned to her. “However this turns out, there’s one good thing. You won’t have Frost around your neck from now on. I think he’s losing some of his illusions.”
For a moment Shayne thought he had overdone it. Frost was stiff and awkward, but he seemed to have himself in full control. He was still puffing on his cigar, but suddenly his face suffused with color and he shouted, “You bitch, you’re as bad as the rest!”
Howie Boyle had been joking when he suggested that Frost might be carrying an unconventional weapon, but that, after all, was the business the diplomat was in. Frost snatched out a cigarette lighter, snapped it open and fired twice.
The separate shots were sharp and distinct. His cigar was smoldering on the rug.
The woman looked at him in stupefaction. One of the. 25 caliber bullets had hit her in the neck, the other in the chest. She said something in Spanish before she fell cut of her chair.
Now Frost’s hand slipped into his side pocket, but Shayne seized his wrist, pulled out the hand, and forced it open. A capsule spilled to the floor.
Boyle took over while Shayne recovered the capsule. Frost’s pudgy features were working uncontrollably, and
