Shayne wasted a second or two getting underway. The Volkswagen was already blinking for a right at Blue Road. There was no doubt in his mind that she must be going north. That was where the action was tonight. He continued across, turning into Bird Road at the end of the next long block. Here he gunned his powerful motor, crossed Granada Boulevard on the tail end of a green light, and hit seventy-five by the time he braked for Route One.
The red Volkswagen came into sight. As it went through the intersection, Shayne had a glimpse of Candida. She was driving intently, her hands high on the wheel.
From there it was easy. She crossed to Miami Beach on the Venetian Causeway. Shayne was the second car behind as she stopped to pay the toll. After passing Municipal Park on the Beach, she turned onto Collins, the street of the great hotels.
If she was about to turn, she would be watching her mirror, and Shayne dropped back. His timing was bad. Caught by a red light, he picked up the phone.
When the operator came on, he told her to hold. Ahead, the Volkswagen swung into the long curving approach to the St. Albans. Still immobilized by the light, Shayne gave the operator the St. Albans number. A moment later he was asking for the security man, Harry Hurlbut.
“Hurlbut,” a voice said.
“Mike Shayne, in a hurry. I know you like to be in on things. I have a strong feeling something’s about to happen.”
Hurlbut groaned. “Why here? Why not at the Fontainebleu?”
“A girl’s going to be along in a minute. Can you see the main-lobby entrance from your office?”
“Wait a minute,” his friend told him. “Yeah, now I can.”
“I can’t follow her in. I want to know what she does-it could make a big difference. She’s a blonde. Red skirt, sleeveless sweater, no hat. She’s alone.”
“Right,” Hurlbut said alertly. “I think she just came in now. Sweater buttons in front, all the way up.”
The light changed. Shayne wedged the phone between his shoulder and jaw. After crossing the intersection, he turned into the approach to the St. Albans.
“She’s using a house phone,” Hurlbut said. “I’ll get the board.”
He clicked off. Shayne fitted the Buick into an opening at the curb. In a moment Hurlbut was back.
“She’s calling twelve-sixteen. They’re still ringing. Still ringing. Wait a minute, I’ll check the register.”
After another brief pause Hurlbut said, “I thought that was the room. Ruth Di Palma. Mike, you’ll have to tell me more about this before I go any farther.”
“You know the girl?”
“I know her.”
“How about a Forbes Hallam, Jr., do you know him?”
“I don’t think so. Is he a guest here?”
“No. Still no answer?”
He waited. Hurlbut reported: “No answer. She hung up. There’s no back to that sweater! Jesus, that’s a really gorgeous number. She’s getting a magazine at the stand. Sitting down. I enjoy having girls like that in my lobby. They add to the decor. Go on.”
“There’s not a hell of a lot more I can tell you,” Shayne said. “Hallam tried to raise some money about a year ago so his girl could get an abortion. I don’t know her name but the indications are that it’s this Di Palma girl. I need to find out if he got up the money, and where it came from. I also may be totally wrong about the whole thing.”
“That doesn’t happen too often, Mike. The thing is, this girl is damn nice. By that I mean damn nice. I’ve had a couple of dates with her myself. Anything I tell you about her, you’ll get the wrong idea. We make her a rate because she knows everybody in town. Her friends tend to be good swimmers and divers with a year-round tan and it helps the pool. You know the tourist-hotel business. By the time people can afford our rates, they’re fat and bald. That doesn’t mean they want to spend their vacation in a hotel where everybody else is fat and bald, especially in bathing suits. Do you want to see her?”
“It would help.”
“I think I can find her for you. She’s at what they call a ‘soul session.’ You know? The papers are spreading the idea it’s a new kind of orgy, but it’s just a bunch of people with problems, and who doesn’t have problems nowadays? Ruthie wanted to know if they could have it here. I said why not, but the brass vetoed it-by the end of a long weekend everybody’s looking pretty grubby. I suggested the Stanwick, the new motel in Surfside. If you want to hold on, I can check. They’ll be breaking about now.”
Shayne told him to go ahead. He listened to a dead phone for several minutes. Then Hurlbut was back.
“Yeah-the Stanwick. Room twenty-four. You’ll recognize her. She’s got a great build. A short haircut-pretty near white.”
“Thanks, Harry. Keep an eye on the blonde for me.”
“A pleasure, especially from the rear. The thing about these backless fashions-you can’t help wondering what they’ve got on in front.”
Shayne hung up and went around the semicircle back to Collins.
CHAPTER 15
The Stanwick Motel had been in place for a season and a half, and it was looking a little seedy. One letter was gone from its neon sign. Its four floors were arranged around three sides of a lighted swimming pool. The pool was closed for the night.
Shayne found room 24 without trouble. It was one of a suite of three connecting rooms, and all the rooms along that gallery were dark. Apparently the organizers of the weekend had been talked into renting the entire section to avoid disturbing the other guests.
Shayne opened the door and walked in. His arrival went unnoticed by the six or seven people in the room. On one bed, a man with a magnificent head of white hair was weeping silently. A man and a girl, on opposite sides of a TV set, stared at each other as though they had never seen anything so strange and fascinating. The man was talking in a low monotone which gave an effect of extreme excitement.
Shayne stepped over the outstretched legs of a middle-aged Negro woman, several hours past the point of complete exhaustion, and continued into the next room. A young girl was studying her reflection in a mirror. Her lips moved silently; she was probably telling herself some home truths. In the third room, several people, including the girl Shayne had come to see, were attending closely to a discussion between two men and a much older woman. Shayne tuned in briefly. The older woman, it seemed, was being accused of playing a role in some kind of psychological game involving herself and the two men, but she was refusing to acknowledge that any such game existed or that she was a part of it. Probably, Shayne thought, if he had been present all Saturday and Sunday he would have understood why the exhausted audience was following the exchange with such interest.
He had spotted Ruth Di Palma the minute he came in. She was lying on her stomach on one of the beds, her chin on a doubled pillow, her eyes jumping from one speaker to the next. Her sun-whitened hair was very close- cropped. Her tan was excellent. She was wearing tight slacks, a shapeless sweatshirt, no makeup.
Shayne ripped the flyleaf from a Gideon Bible, scribbled “Can I talk to you?” on it, and slipped it inside the leather folder containing his detective’s license. He touched the girl on the shoulder with it.
The surface of her eyes as she looked up at him was opaque with fatigue. She took in his sling, then she looked again at his face. There could have been either hostility or indifference in her eyes.
After reading the note and glancing at the license, she commented with a slight upward movement of an eyebrow and rolled off the bed. She was barefooted, and not tall. She seemed to be smoldering quietly, and it was probably this quality, Shayne thought, that had impressed Hurlbut, a hard man to impress.
Shayne opened the door. They went out to the gallery without passing through the other two rooms.
“What time is it?” she asked.
Shayne told her and she said, “It’s about time we knock off.” She stifled a dry yawn. “I’m tired, and at the same time I’m not. Pills and coffee, coffee and pills. And I think that’s a different kind of oxygen we’ve been
