He told Rourke the name of the New York man.
“Mike, you know you’re getting to be quite a name-dropper?” Rourke said.
“I want to know what the cops are doing there, and if it has any connection with Harry Bass.”
“A local name. This gets better and better.”
“Harry went up on a nine-thirty jet. If he had any trouble the cops won’t be making it public yet, but a good reporter ought to be able to smoke it out. Call me on the car phone as soon as you get anything.”
He returned to the other booth and hung up the receiver. The phone rang immediately. That would be the long distance operator, trying to complete the New York call. Shayne backed into the Alfa-Romeo, leaving the phone ringing impatiently.
“Mike, tell me this instant,” Theo said urgently. “There’s trouble, of course.”
Shayne’s voice was hard. “That New York junket had trouble written all over it, from the word go. Harry’s friend has cops in his apartment. I don’t know how long they’ve been there. Tim Rourke is checking.”
“Mike, please, please,” she said helplessly. “How could I have stopped him?”
“He may be all right,” Shayne said.
He motioned impatiently and she started the motor. They continued north on Collins. She was tightly wound up. If there had been more traffic Shayne would have suggested driving himself. She gripped the wheel so tightly that the tendons stood out on her hands.
“I know this is going to sound self-centered,” she said. “But the minute I heard where Harry was going I knew I had to quit. I’m over my head. I tried to tell him when I was putting him on the plane, but he looked so-so pale and collapsed.”
“He can take care of himself,” Shayne said, and hoped it was true. “How did you know where to find me?”
“I got your secretary out of bed, I’m sorry to say. She was nicer about it than I would have been. She gave me Mr. Rourke’s number. I’ve been hoping you found out something so Harry wouldn’t have to go through with that New York loan. He shouldn’t be linked with that man.”
“I’ve found out who pulled the stickup,” Shayne said, “and how it was worked. I don’t know why.”
“Why?” she said, puzzled. “Isn’t two hundred thousand dollars a good enough reason?”
“Sometimes.”
Following his directions, she crossed the canal to La Gorce Island and parked behind his Buick, at the end of the lane running down to the dock. The police car, which had followed, stopped a discreet distance away. Leaving the door of the Buick open, Shayne tried Rourke’s number. The line was busy.
Theo had left her car and was nervously lighting a cigarette beside the open door of the Buick. “Mike, if you’re just going to be waiting for a call, can I talk to you? I know I ought to wait, but you may not be available later. I need some advice.”
Shayne took a flashlight out of the glove compartment. “I have to pick up something from the boat. I’ll be back in a minute. Answer the phone if it rings.”
She hugged herself miserably and glanced around at the waiting police car. “Can I come with you? I don’t want to stay here alone.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
She walked beside him, taking two steps to his one. “My father’s a Baptist minister, and the big thing when I was growing up was going to camp meeting in the summer. It wasn’t much of a preparation for this.”
The watchman had gone to bed. Shayne and Theo went aboard the Nugget, picking their way through broken glass and pieces of chairs. The boat looked as though it had been visited by a freakish tornado. The repair bill was going to take most of Al Naples’ winnings on his mare, if he ever succeeded in collecting from Doc Waters. Theo was appalled.
“My God, Mike!”
“A small disturbance of the peace,” he said, looking around with satisfaction.
Working the dented movie projector out of the way so the door would open, he went through into the main cabin. Mirror splinters crunched underfoot. The footboard of the bed had been smashed. Torn bedding littered the floor. Sliding the frame of the broken window aside, he pointed his flashlight down toward the water.
“Aim this for me,” he said, giving Theo the flashlight.
He brushed broken glass off the windowsill, swung out onto the rope ladder and started down. When he was able to reach the light line attached to the bottom rung, he pulled it in hand over hand.
The bait bucket floated toward him out of the darkness. He hoisted it up and carried it back up the ladder. A bucket filled with money is heavier than a bucket with nothing in it but air, and even before he unsnapped the lid and looked inside, he knew by the way it handled that it was empty.
16
“Mike, please, I can’t stand not knowing,” Theo said. “Please throw me a few crumbs.”
“At one point this was full of bills,” Shayne said. “Somebody beat me to it. I need a drink.”
“I think I saw a bottle in the other room.”
That was where most of the fighting had taken place, and the debris was ankle-deep. Shayne tried the light, but the fixture had been pulled out of the ceiling. The beam of the flashlight moved about the floor, stopping on a bottle.
“Brandy!” she exclaimed.
Stooping, she came back up with a bottle of Courvoisier. Perhaps, Shayne thought, his luck was beginning to change.
“I don’t think we’ll find any glasses,” he said. “Have you had much experience drinking out of the bottle?”
“Absolutely none.”
He unscrewed the cork and offered her the bottle. She took it dubiously, then put it to her lips and took a long swallow.
“It burns!” she said, gasping.
“It’s supposed to,” Shayne said, and drank himself. “Let’s get back to the Buick. I want to try Rourke again.”
He stopped short as he came out on deck. A black limousine zoomed past the mouth of the lane, braking to a stop beside the police car. It looked like the showy Lincoln which Peter Painter had recently talked the city into letting him use as his official vehicle. Theo caught Shayne’s arm.
“Take it easy,” Shayne told her. “The night’s a long way from being over.”
He waited, his eyes hooded, his powerful body deceptively relaxed. He had no more time to waste on Painter tonight.
Watching the Lincoln’s rear door, he said quietly, “Do you see where we’re tied to the dock?”
The Lincoln’s door opened and the sleeve of Painter’s white dinner jacket appeared.
“Throw the lines off the cleats,” Shayne said sharply. “We’re going for a sail.”
“We aren’t!”
Painter and Sanderson and the two cops from the squad car, walking quickly, passed under a street light.
Shayne snapped his fingers. “Move, Theo! Or we’ll spend the rest of the night answering questions.”
She sprang onto the dock. Running to the forward cleat, she cast off. Shayne held the gangway while she cast off the second line and scrambled back on board. He gave the gangway a powerful thrust. Its loose end dropped into the water and the Nugget shot away.
They still had a going tide. In a moment the current caught the boat and they began to turn. Painter’s little group had reached the boathouse. One of the cops pointed to the end of the dock and broke into a run.
“Didn’t they let you go?” Theo protested in a half-whisper.
“He must have had some news from New York. I don’t like to have Painter tell me things I don’t already know.”
