match for you, Mike Shayne! You explain that this minute, or so help me I slug you with the phone!”
Shayne laughed. “Did you find anything when you dug those holes out in the swamp?”
She looked at him open-mouthed. “I wish I knew how much you heard,” she muttered.
“Everything that was said in this room,” he told her. “Let’s talk about Shanahan. Was he Brad’s lawyer, too?”
“God, no. He never handled anybody small.”
“Who made the deal that got Cal his jail sentence?”
“You’re really going back, lover. Frank made it, who else? And it was a tricky thing. He reached a couple of guys on the jury. They dismissed three out of four counts and let him off easy with manslaughter.”
Shayne was scraping his chin with one thumbnail. “What did you do while Cal was in jail?”
She smiled slightly. “Baby, that intuition of yours. I couldn’t write him because we weren’t man and wife. If I had to send him any messages, and I did, all the time, they had to go in through his lawyer.”
“You moved in with Shanahan?”
“This is ancient history! It sounds lewd to say it at my age, but I was only twenty-five then, and any time I had to spend a night by myself it was a night wasted. That was my philosophy. Cal never knew what was going on. Why dredge it up now? If you think that’s why he included me out of the Key, you’re wrong.”
Noises came from the phone and she sat forward. “Mr. Michael Shayne calling. Hold the line.”
The detective took the phone. “Quarrels?” he said without preliminary. “About the Key Gaspar deal. You’ve probably heard that another joint tenant was killed last night?”
“No,” the voice said cautiously. “Which one?”
“Uncle Brad.”
Eda Lou picked up Shayne’s empty coffee cup and took it to the kitchen.
“When you say killed,” Quarrels said, “I take it you mean accidentally?”
“No. He was knifed, cut up with a broken bottle and shot. All of which goes to prove that Gaspar actually may be worth something. I understand your purchase hinges on a document purporting to be a treasure map.”
Quarrels gave a small chuckle. “Put it like that and it seems absurd. But it’s going to give us a wonderful selling angle.”
“I can already see the ads,” Shayne said dryly. “How about you personally? Do you think there’s buried treasure on the Key?”
“Well-l, if you want an off-the-record answer, and I’ll deny it if anybody quotes me, let’s say that on that subject I have a well developed bump of cynicism. At the same time, I recognize a first-class story when I see one. There isn’t much romance in real-estate development as a rule, Shayne. We sell location and shelter. At so much a square foot. If you can add a small dash of pirate gold, yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum and all that, and make it look reasonably plausible, it gives you an edge. That’s all we’re looking for here. Will the Key be mentioned in connection with Tuttle’s death?”
“You can bet on it. I want to be sure I understand your attitude. As far as you’re concerned there are only two possibilities? If your bulldozers turn up a chest of doubloons you get back your out-of-pocket costs. If they don’t, you still get mileage out of the story.”
Eda Lou returned with another aromatic cup of coffee. Shayne drank some and set it down.
Quarrels said, “I think I can go along with that. It’s either-or.”
“No, there’s a third possibility,” Shayne said. “That you’re being taken.”
“I don’t quite see-”
“If the key word in the publicity is ‘fraud’ instead of ‘romance’ you’ll lose that edge, won’t you?”
There was a moment’s silence. Shayne sipped at his coffee royal while he waited. Eda Lou had put more cognac in this one.
Quarrels said carefully, “Will you enlarge on that a little, Shayne?”
“It’s only a theory. You’ll want to base your decision on facts. A good deal of work still has to be done on it. I was brought in on overnight bodyguard duty, and at the moment I don’t have a client. If I can prove before you pick up your option Wednesday that you’ve been a victim of a clever swindle, you’ll save yourself a million bucks and a certain amount of embarrassment. I’ll send you a bill for twenty thousand.”
Quarrels hesitated. “I’d say ten.”
Shayne was too tired to argue. “Ten. With luck I can wrap it up today. Are you in Miami?”
“No, in Atlanta. I’m about to leave for Miami.”
“O.K., we’ve got a deal. I’ll be in the Dade County Courthouse in Judge Shanahan’s chambers.”
Quarrels started to reply but Shayne handed Eda Lou the phone, which had become too heavy to hold. She hung up for him, looking worried.
“Mike, you’re pushing too hard. You can’t hope to snap back from that kind of knock on the head. Don’t pass out on me now. I’ll tell you one thing. You’re seeing a doctor before you take any helicopter rides. Finish your coffee. I’ll get out the car.”
Shayne’s head rocked. He tried to hold it still, using both hands, but then the whole house started to rock.
“Shot of cognac. I’ll be O.K.”
“Like hell I’ll give you a shot of cognac!” she snapped. “Cognac in coffee is bad enough. Hang on, for the love of God. You’re getting in that car under your own power or you’re staying right here.”
Heavy weights pulled at Shayne’s eyelids. Eda Lou’s face went in and out of focus. He needed sleep, he told himself. A brief nap would make a big difference. There was no point in going up against Shanahan in this condition. He needed a clear mind and a cool eye. He had to gauge reactions, which he couldn’t do when he wasn’t even able to keep one side of Eda Lou’s face from changing places with the other. And why did she have five eyes?
“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Get some sleep now and you can move faster when you wake up.”
He was lying on the sofa with his feet up, he discovered. This was more comfortable. He wound and set his mental alarm clock. He would wake up in exactly half an hour. He was vaguely aware that his friend Eda Lou was thumbing back one of his eyelids. It was a professional gesture. A professional himself, Shayne appreciated professionalism in others. She had drugged his second cup of coffee, of course, but she was such an unsentimental old lady that he could hardly hold it against her. He fell asleep.
chapter 16
A door slammed. An instant later a car got away to a wheel-spinning start on the crushed clamshell driveway.
Michael Shayne, sleeping heavily, heard these noises, and as they entered his dream they became transformed into something sinister and ominous. He stirred. Suddenly he was trying to escape on foot through loose clamshells from a squadron of armored helicopters, hovering above him at treetop level, adjusting their speed to his. He threw his head from side to side, weaving evasively while fifty-caliber machine-gun bullets sliced the air around him.
When the back of his head, where he had been slugged in the tree house, struck the unpadded arm of the sofa, the explosion of pain blew him to his feet. At first he was sure he had been hit by one of the gunners in the helicopters, and he was surprised to find himself alive, though tottering, staring blindly at double bullet holes in a picture window. Beyond the window, sunlight danced on water. His arms hung helplessly at his sides.
With the pain still vibrating in his head, he picked up the coffee cup. His lips came back in a snarl and he threw it at the great window. The window came down with a crash, and the noise helped clear his head.
Picking up the cognac bottle as he passed, he lurched onto the terrace. The harsh morning sun hit him like a blow from a plank. His brain could only hold one thought at a time. To get back to Miami he needed a helicopter. To get to the heliport he needed a car. He peered down the driveway.
Its straightness and blinding whiteness nearly hypnotized him.
He fumbled the cork out of the bottle and raised the cognac to his lips. A long swallow helped get him off the terrace and back in the house, mumbling under his breath, “Goose Key heliport, don’t know the number.” He himself knew what he was saying, and he hoped he could make the operator understand.
