one.”
“And don’t try any razzle-dazzle,” Gold said. “He said half, and if we don’t give him half he’ll hold it against us.”
Shayne stepped up the volume again. Fifty minutes had now passed since the Arabs walked into Manny Farber’s office. The St. Albans was one of the long row of Collins Avenue hotels, almost as closely spaced as the two-family houses in Homestead Beach. The Fontainebleau security officer had listened intently to Shayne’s call, and had seemed to take it seriously. So where were the police?
“One for you,” the girl said. “One for us. This is fun.”
“Any ideas, Shayne?” Gold said after a moment.
“Yeah,” Shayne said slowly. “Did these guys trust you?”
“Not an inch. Trust me? You know Barney, the bondsman. They told him how he could find me, and he had a good financial reason to do it. That way I’d be tied up so I couldn’t call the cops and have them waiting at the hotel. I sneaked out of it O.K., but it damn near worked.”
“So why would they give you the right timetable?”
Gold’s eyes slitted down. “You said they put the snatch on Farber exactly at eleven.”
“But they didn’t make an announcement in the lobby at eleven-twenty, or we’d know it by now. This is a new kind of operation for them. If they’re smart they’ll try to keep it quiet until they’re gone-all the way out of the country. After they picked out the hostages they wanted, I think they left the others locked up in the hotel. Helen said that you and Rashid were looking at diagrams. He wouldn’t need diagrams if he was really planning to walk out the front door with all the guns showing.”
“They have to run a press conference somewhere, why not at the hotel? They’re perfectly safe, nobody’s going to shoot at them as long as they’ve got those hostages. Be serious, an hour isn’t a hell of a lot of time to raise six million bucks. You mentioned the racetracks. The money’s there, but somebody’s going to have to persuade those guys.”
“This is political. The Arabs didn’t come here to make money.”
“I grant you, but why would they pass up six or seven million bucks? They have expenses, like everybody.”
“Maybe their minds don’t work like yours, Murray. If they can pull it off, they’ll be famous. Money will pour in.”
“One for Mike Shayne, one for us,” Helen murmured.
Gold closed his eyes briefly, so he wouldn’t be distracted. His forehead tightened.
“Give me another jolt of cognac.”
Shayne passed him the flask. Gold drank. His eyes opened.
“Let’s don’t fuck around collecting ransom,” he said. “Kill them all.”
“They’re terrorists. One of the things terrorists do is kill people.”
“That was their first idea,” Gold went on, speaking slowly. “Wait till the chairman called the committee to order and walk in and turn the tommy guns loose. But then what? They’d be wiped out themselves. I wondered about Rashid sometimes, but the rest of them definitely didn’t want to die. And I made it clear to them that I wouldn’t go along with anything like that.”
“But you would go along with a kidnapping for ransom. So they worked up one plan for your benefit, and a real plan. They’ll keep the hostages alive as long as they have some value, and kill them in the plane.”
“Maybe,” Gold said tightly, drinking again.
“You’ve done a lousy thing here, Murray, and if they get away with it, people are going to say some unfriendly things about you.”
“Why should he care?” Helen said.
“He cares. He’s been careful with his reputation all these years, and all of a sudden he’s smuggling shit and helping a bunch of fanatics to kidnap some of the country’s top Jews. If the bombs work, fine. Good old Murray Gold. Crooked as they come, but what a conniver. The heroin won’t be mentioned-I’m being well paid to forget about that. The story would be that he heard about the plan in prison, and swindled his way in so he could blow them up at the last minute. Who knows, Murray? The government might even withdraw some of those contempt charges so you can come back and die in your home town.”
“I’m not ready to die yet,” Gold said. “Do you know what I’m starting to think? That before they went anywhere, the bastards looked under the hood and found the bombs. You’ve got a phone. Call the airport. Tell them who’s on the way.”
“And how many lives would that save? The minute the shooting starts, the hostages will get it in the head. No, let’s do some more guessing. Do they have anybody who can fly an airplane?”
Gold looked up quickly. “Goddamn it, yes. He was in on the break with us. Pilot in the Syrian air force.”
“So they won’t hijack a plane. They can steal one. At Miami International they’d have a hard time getting off the ground. Did Rashid and Sergeant Tibbett know each other?”
Gold said, “No,” but Helen contradicted him. “Yes, they did, Murray. He didn’t drive off right away that night. He waited till Marian left and they went someplace. Now there. I contributed something. Can we please get this conversation over with?”
“How much would Tibbett charge to let them into Homestead?” Shayne said.
“About three dollars and fifty cents.”
“He wasn’t as trashy as all that,” Helen said. “All he wanted was a chance at some illegal bread, and you’re in no position to criticize, Mr. Murray Gold.”
Shayne, abstractedly, had been stacking the packages of money as they rained down on the seat beside him. Now he picked out one of the hundred dollar bills and rubbed it between thumb and forefinger. With an abrupt change of manner, he looked at it more closely.
“Shayne?” Gold said, watching.
“Maybe I made this deal too fast,” Shayne said. He took a genuine hundred from his wallet and looked at the two bills together, showing more and more concern. Gold leaned forward. The girl caught the sudden tension and looked from one to the other. Shayne grunted.
“You’ve been taken, Murray. These are rags.” Gold snatched the bills out of Shayne’s hands. “Impossible.”
He put on his close-range glasses and compared them, moving his head in quick birdlike pecks. “I don’t see anything wrong. I know a queer bill when I see one.”
“Look at Ben Franklin’s collar.”
Using a pencil, Shayne pointed out the small imperfection Coddington had shown him. Gold picked it up at once. Swearing, he crumpled the counterfeit in his fist.
“Daddy!” Helen cried. “Is it true? After all this?”
“That’s what happens when you do business with crooks,” Shayne said. “They aren’t worrying about keeping your good will. You’ll be in Uruguay.”
“I haven’t left yet,” Gold said in a low voice.
Helen plunged into the open satchel and pulled her hands out filled with money. “It’s no good? It’s counterfeit? Murray, you goddamn old fart, couldn’t you check?”
“So our deal’s off,” Shayne said. “I could probably get five or ten thousand for my share, but that’s too much risk for too little money. Sorry, Murray. I’ll have to take you in.”
“But it’s weird!” Helen said. “Artie’s dead. Marian’s dead, I guess. All those poor Jews. And we get paid off in funny money.”
After a moment, Gold gave one of his small shrugs. “I don’t like to be conned, but at least I’m out of that goddamn prison. I’ve had some excitement and a little sex. I knew the odds.” He changed glasses. “Now what are we going to do about these Black September bastards?”
“From here, there isn’t much we can do.”
“I can’t do anything,” Gold said briskly. “I’m old and slow. You’ll have to beat them to Homestead and knock them off, one at a time.”
“Seven Arabs, armed with GI issue submachine guns.”
“Did I say it would be easy?” Gold said.
There was a sudden flurry of action further along the beach. Gold turned his head sharply. Shayne followed
