“Now lift the tailgate. Can you see where it unfastens?”
Rourke disappeared from sight. “You mean the whole back piece? I see a couple of clamps, but don’t blame me if-” He jumped down. “Try it.”
Shayne pulled a lever, and the conveyor started clanking. He shut that off and tried another. Slowly the enormous body began to tilt into dumping position.
“I only want to dump part of the load. Tell me when to stop.”
Rourke moved back to the edge of the pit and gave him a hand signal. Again Shayne guessed wrong, and the upended body began to descend. He tried something else. There was a sudden roar behind him as the chewed-up rubbish cascaded into the pit.
“Stop!” Rourke shouted. “That’s enough! That’s too much!”
Shayne returned the lever to its previous position and lowered the body. Rourke fastened the tailgate while Shayne moved the truck back down the floor. He drew up beside the one with the front wheel missing.
“I’m beginning to get it,” Rourke said. “It’s the old razzle-dazzle. We switch trucks. But why?”
“Later,” Shayne grunted.
The reporter had to do most of the work. He transferred fifteen cartons, piling them carefully on top of the trash so anyone opening the hatch for a quick look would see nothing but cartons. He located the missing wheel and put it back on. Then Shayne maneuvered that truck back into the gap in the line, the third from the far end. Returning to the other truck, the one with fifteen cartons of narcotics on top of its usual cargo, he moved it forward to occupy the exact space where the other truck had been. “Now we take off a wheel.”
Rourke jacked up the front end and with Shayne’s help managed to start the nuts. He rolled the wheel into the parts office, where he had found the other. They raised the hood. Shayne dented the fender with a careful blow from a pry bar, then concealed the dent beneath the oily pad.
“They’ve got different serial numbers,” Rourke pointed out.
“I didn’t look for serial numbers when I picked out the other truck,” Shayne said. “I looked for the dent. And that’s what’s bothering me. Now we’ve got two trucks with dented front fenders.”
He had backed the narcotics truck as far behind the others as he dared, but the sharp dent in the fender still screamed for attention.
“Hide it with something?” Rourke suggested.
“No, get me a hammer.”
The reporter scrambled away, meeting Shayne a moment later at the other truck with a heavy ball peen hammer. “I don’t know about beating it out, Mike. That’s body work. You’d have to take off the fender.”
“Like this.”
Shayne took the hammer. Holding it close to the head so he could swing it with one hand, he brought it down hard on the fender. The small dent disappeared in a larger one.
“Oh,” Rourke said. “Like that. Let me.”
Using both hands, he slammed the hammer down on the right fender, which until then had not been damaged. He swung again and again, until both fenders and the radiator grille were bashed in all the way across, as though the big truck had lost a decision to an even bigger one.
Shayne stopped him.
Rourke panted, “I’m glad you let me come along, Mike. That’s the most enjoyable work I’ve done in years.”
“That’s the only work you’ve done in years,” Shayne snorted.
Rourke put the hammer back while Shayne looked around carefully to see if they had left any signs of their visit besides the newly damaged front end of the narcotics truck.
“We probably left fingerprints,” Rourke said, coming back.
“It’s a longshot,” Shayne said with a grin. “And I think you pointed out that longshots sometimes come in.”
“That’s not what I said. I said they almost always lose.”
They snapped off the lights and returned to the Ford.
“You’ve only got that one arm,” Rourke said. “And you know me, the less roughhousing I get involved in personally, the better. We need some reinforcements.”
“Just what I was thinking,” Shayne said. “Reach me the phone.”
CHAPTER 17
The next morning at seven-fifteen, after an all-night vigil, Shayne was drinking coffee out of a soggy container and trying to keep his eyes open. His shoulder throbbed unpleasantly. The coffee was laced with cognac, but it tasted more of cardboard than of either cognac or coffee. He frequently had to stay awake all night when he was caught up in a case, but this was the least enjoyable way to do it, in the front seat of a car.
The deadline, he knew, must be approaching. The truck had to be out of the Motor Shop before the first mechanic arrived. Shayne had gone to considerable trouble to set this up, and he couldn’t afford to miss it. Nevertheless his head kept falling forward. The music coming from the dashboard radio blurred in and out.
Suddenly he saw a man wearing the familiar green Sanitation Department uniform. He shook Tim Rourke’s shoulder.
The reporter’s long, disjointed body was jackknifed over the steering wheel. He looked around wildly and exclaimed, “Whose deal?”
“Wake up, Tim. We’re about to move.”
“You don’t think I could sleep at a time like this, do you?” Rourke said indignantly. “How long till daylight?”
“Damn it, Tim, open your eyes. The sun’s been up for hours. Have some lukewarm coffee.”
Rourke took the container. He said suddenly, “Somebody’s going in!”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
They were still parked on Eleventh, pointing uptown. The man in the green uniform had reached the Motor Shop door. Shayne caught a glimpse of wraparound dark glasses and a full mustache as he looked around. Then he was inside.
“Seven-fifteen,” Rourke said in surprise, looking at his watch. “As late as that. Maybe it’s somebody coming to work early.”
“When did you know an auto mechanic to come to work early?”
“I guess I went to sleep,” Rourke said sheepishly. “Where is everybody?”
“Around. Let’s see if they’re all awake.”
He turned off the music and picked up the police transmitter.
“Shayne,” he said. “It’s been a long night, but we’re about to roll. The guy’s inside now. It shouldn’t take him more than two minutes to put on the wheel. Everybody check in, please.”
Three other cars responded.
“Good,” Shayne said. “He’s going to be easy to follow, and let’s not lose him.”
Rourke slurped down the coffee, his eyes on the Motor Shop door. Then the taste of the stuff hit him.
“You call that lukewarm? I call it cold.”
The overhead doors slid up. A big Sanitation truck with a dent in its left front fender rolled through and stopped while the driver got out and closed the door. Shayne described what was happening to the other cars. The Sanitation man climbed back into the cab and the truck turned east. Rourke started the motor. Shayne made him wait a full minute before letting him follow. By then they had a report from another car that the truck was approaching Tenth, apparently intending to continue across.
The four cars maintained a loose net around the big truck as it went downtown on Broadway. At Seventeenth Street, the driver jumped a light, skirted Union Square and headed back uptown on Fourth Avenue. Rourke’s Ford was now a block ahead of him. Another stock Ford was a block behind. The two other cars were moving on parallel avenues, one on Madison, the other on Third. At Thirty-third Street, the car behind them reported, “He didn’t take the underpass. Watch it.”
