man all along. You know how most of those rich Cubans made their money. He ducked out with his fortune intact. I’d like to know a lot more about his activities here before I decide which side he’s on.”
“Mike, Mike,” pleaded Timothy Rourke. “Don’t you see you’re just grasping at straws, trying to find some way to justify yourself for going after Lucy?”
Shayne stood at the center table with his back to the reporter and angrily tossed off the rest of his cognac. In a flat voice and without turning his head, he said, “Maybe that is what I’m doing, Tim. No matter what my real motive is, I’d like to have a talk with that Cuban friend of yours I met about a month ago.”
“Alvarez?” asked Rourke alertly.
“Yeh. The newspaper guy. You’ll agree he’s no Communist, won’t you?”
“Yeh. That I will vouch for.”
“Think you could get hold of him this time of night?”
“I can try.” Rourke dug into his coat pocket for a badly worn address book. “I’ve got a couple of numbers here where I might reach him.”
While he was thumbing through the book, Shayne lifted the telephone and asked the switchboard for the Miami Beach telephone number he had memorized from Marsha’s anonymous letter a few hours earlier.
He heard six rings before a background of jukebox music came over the wire and a voice said, “Scotty’s Bar.”
“What is your address there? I’m to meet a guy and I don’t know where it is.”
He was given a street number on Fifth Street near the ocean, and he hung up and wrote it down.
Then he turned the telephone over to Rourke, and went into the bedroom to change his slippers for dry socks and shoes. Rourke was talking on the phone when he came back. “About an hour, eh? Are you positive?” He listened a moment and then said, “Hold it.” He turned his head and said, “Alvarez will definitely be in a back room at the Jai Alai Club on South Beach within an hour. Want to try and meet him there?”
Shayne looked at his watch. That wasn’t too far from Fifth Street, and should allow him to make Scotty’s Bar by midnight. He said with satisfaction, “That’s fine, Tim. I’ll be there.”
Rourke confirmed the appointment over the phone and hung up. “I don’t know what you’re getting into, Mike,” he said unhappily. “I hope to Christ…”
Shayne said briskly, “Grab another drink if you want it. We’ve got one other call to make before I meet Alvarez.”
“Where?”
“It’s out in the Northeast section. Have you got my car here?”
“It’s parked in front.” Rourke hastily slopped whiskey into his glass on top of half-melted ice cubes.
“I’d better keep on driving yours,” Shayne decided, “because I’ll be going on over to the Beach. I can drop you back here to pick mine up.” He went to a closet to get a light jacket, and took his hat from beside the door. Timothy Rourke gulped down the whiskey hastily and joined him, asking, “Who are we going to call on in the Northeast section?”
“A lady. That is, maybe not too much of a lady. At least, I want to find out whether she’s home yet or not.” He opened the door and followed Rourke out.
In Rourke’s car, Shayne drove east to Biscayne Boulevard and north toward Felice Perrin’s address which had been given to him by the Peralta governess. As he drove, he filled in Timothy Rourke briefly on the events of the evening after leaving the reporter to go to the Peralta house, and on his own surmises.
“I want to be in Scotty’s Bar at midnight when Marsha makes her phone call there,” he ended grimly. “I don’t know whether that threatening letter of hers has anything to do with this situation or not, but I want to see who takes the call.”
“This deal at Las Putas Buenas where the two knifemen jumped you,” said Rourke with interest, “that sounds like it was set up with malice aforethought by the luscious Mrs. Peralta, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” Shayne grunted sourly, still able to taste her mouth on his in the Green Jungle parking lot. “That story of hers about an unsigned note directing her to be there tonight sounds completely phony. If it was designed to put me on the spot, it would have to have been written before Peralta ever called me in on the case.”
“Do you think Laura did have the counterfeit bracelet made without her husband’s knowledge?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. I think her husband strongly suspects so, and that’s why he called me in on the thing in direct defiance of his confederates… and almost certainly without telling them why he was doing so. Isn’t this Felice’s street?” Shayne asked, peering ahead at the partially obscured street sign.
Rourke could see it better out the right-hand side, and he said, “Yes. Turn to the left, I think, for that number you gave me. Not more than a block or so.”
Shayne got in the left-hand lane and cut across the Boulevard divider. There was a small, neon-lighted restaurant and cocktail lounge on the southeast corner of the intersection as he turned into the quiet, palm-lined street where most of the houses on both sides were older two-story mansions, now cut up into furnished rooms and housekeeping apartments.
Shayne drove westward from the Boulevard slowly, letting Rourke crane his head out the window and watch for street numbers. A single automobile was parked half-way up the block on the left-hand side. Shayne noted idly that it carried Miami Beach license plates as he approached, and then saw the flare of a match in the front seat as they passed, indicating that it was occupied.
He turned to see the briefly-illumed faces of two men in the parked car just as Rourke said, “It’s the next house, Mike. On the right.”
Instead of pulling into the curb, Shayne increased his speed slightly to the corner where he swung left. He went around the corner and parked, turning off his lights and motor.
“I told you, Mike,” said Rourke in an aggrieved voice. “It was back there…”
Shayne said, “I know it was, Tim.” His voice was chilling and cold. “Did you see the car parked across the street?”
“I didn’t notice it. I was watching for numbers…”
“It has a Beach license, Tim. Two men in the front seat. I got a quick look at their faces as we went past. Unless I’m crazy as hell, they’re two of Painter’s dicks. A couple named Harris and Geely. Those names mean anything to you?”
“Wait a minute, Mike. In Painter’s office this evening…”
Shayne nodded grimly. “The pair whom Petey is officially commending for slapping me around and pulling me in.”
“What are they doing here?”
“A stake-out, I suppose. On Felice Perrin. Maybe with specific orders to see that I don’t make contact with her. I’m not positive, Tim. I may be wrong. I’ll slide out and walk around the block back to the cocktail lounge on Biscayne. You drive on and circle back and pull up beside them parked there. You’re a reporter, and you’re looking for Miss Perrin to interview her. Make them show their hands. If they are Beach cops on a stake-out, they’ll admit it to a reporter. They’ve got no official standing on this side of the Bay. As soon as you find out if they are Geely and Harris, come on around to the lounge where I’ll be waiting.”
Shayne opened the door on his side and stepped out. Timothy Rourke groaned dismally as he slid under the wheel. “The things you talk me into, Mike…”
Shayne chuckled. “How often do they add up to headlines? You should complain.”
He crossed the street and walked swiftly southward to circle back to the Boulevard and north a block to the open restaurant.
He was standing at the end of the bar enjoying a slug of cognac when Rourke came in six or eight minutes later. The reporter nodded as he moved up beside him at the bar. Shayne told the bartender, “Bourbon and water,” and Rourke told him, “It’s those two, all right. Harris and Geely. I made them show me their identification before I could be persuaded not to call on Felice Perrin.”
Shayne said happily, “I’ve got it all worked out, Tim. Take your time with your drink. I’ll beat it. In exactly three minutes, go in that phone booth behind you and call Police Headquarters. Be excited and don’t identify yourself. Just say that a couple of drunks are having a hell of a fight down the street, and they better send a patrol car. Then hang up fast and come walking on down to the Perrin address. I’ll be waiting for you there.”
The bartender brought Rourke’s drink and Shayne laid a twenty-dollar bill on the bar. He said in a low voice, “I’ve got a date with a lady, Mister. Will that pay for a pint I can take with me. You know how it is,” he added with a
