He felt for a cigarette, but gave up after deciding that lighting it would be too much of a problem. He kept his interval, the needle holding steady at a tick higher than 90. They headed north toward Hollywood, through light traffic. The operator tried another number. This ring was answered almost immediately, and he heard her asking for Larry Dietrich. He punched the radio on. Rourke’s show still had an hour to run, but the call from Shayne had emptied the studio. A record was playing.
Shayne’s gas indicator came to rest on the E. Now he had seventeen miles. After another five, he would close with the Olds and see if he could scare the driver into making a costly mistake.
Rourke’s voice interrupted the music.
“All right,” he said. “Out of breath. Give me a minute. This is Tim Rourke. It’s a first for this show, and my editor at the News won’t like it one bit. He wants me to save the hot stories for the paper. All right,” he repeated. “We thought that phone call might be a put-on, but definitely not. There is a black Ford. There is a body in the trunk. A woman, shot twice through the head. Description-somewhere in her mid-twenties, black hair, kind of low center of gravity, hair on her legs and under her arms, an arm vaccination. No purse, no identification. Cheap silver ring on her right hand. Wearing a white blouse, lavender skirt. Clothes look O.K., but not expensive. Good teeth. Now for anybody who’s just joined us, I’ll repeat what happened here. Mike Shayne, that’s the private detective, was just pulling up outside the station. He heard shots. We don’t know where he is now, but his mobile operator called in here for Will Gentry, who needless to say is Miami Chief of Police-”
The same operator was trying to get Shayne’s attention now. He cut Rourke’s voice down to a mutter.
Suddenly the Oldsmobile’s brake-lights flared. The Golden Glades interchange was ahead. Undoubtedly the driver had decided that he was out-powered in expressway driving, and that he would be better off on narrower roads with quick turns and heavier traffic.
“Hold it,” Shayne told his operator.
The Olds ran past the exit. Shayne followed. All at once the other car braked really hard and came about in a tight U, running off on the center strip. Shayne picked his. 357 magnum out of his sling and flicked off the safety. The two cars passed each other with both drivers firing. Shayne held the wheel with one knee and the pressure of his cast. He went down the Route 9 entrance ramp while the Olds went down the regular exit. Shayne was in time at the bottom to pick up the taillights before they disappeared.
“That sounded like shooting,” Shayne’s operator said.
“I don’t think we hit anything. Go ahead.”
Larry Dietrich’s voice said, “Do you need me, Mike? I hope so, because I’ve got bills. I’m a little soused, but I can fly.”
“How long will it take you to get a chopper in the air?”
“Five, six minutes. I think there’s one ready.”
“I’ve got the Buick. I’m on Route 9, going into Opa-Locka. Following a white Olds, and he knows I’m behind him. He should be easy to spot from the air, because I put a splash of fluorescent paint on his roof, running down over the rear end. Head northwest and call me.”
3
For the first long leg of the chase, Shayne had kept himself tightly keyed up, thinking ahead to the next corner, the next shift. Now he was beginning to lose his concentration. He overshot a turn and had to back up. Backing was his most difficult maneuver; he had to work from the mirrors. By the time he completed the turn, the Olds was out of sight.
By his earlier calculations, his gas tank was now totally dry. He swerved off the road and came to a stop by the premium pump in an all-night gas station. While the attendant filled his tank Shayne weighed possible moves. If the Oldsmobile’s driver thought he had finally shaken Shayne, he would head west, to pick up the Palmetto Expressway on the other side of the Opa-Locka airport. There he could turn either north or south.
Shayne juggled distances and times. The helicopter, casting back and forth overhead, might be able to pick up the Olds even if Shayne, on the ground, was no longer in contact.
Leaving the gas station, he drove north on 27th Avenue to Golden Glades Drive, making the turn just as Dietrich, through the mobile operator, reported himself in the air. The operator relayed Shayne’s instructions, and Shayne turned south.
He watched the traffic carefully, looking for the Olds with its telltale splotch. Flying west from the heliport, Dietrich would strike into the expressway near Miami International Airport. That would give them their bracket, with Shayne on one side, Dietrich on the other.
He relaxed against the belt, holding the Buick at an easy sixty, and collected his energies for the next spurt. His operator was having trouble maintaining contact with the helicopter. The signal cut in and out. Dietrich began a long slant to the south, keeping away from the flight lanes into the airport.
“There he is!” he called suddenly. “Absolutely. Mike, my God, he’s lit up like a birthday cake. Does he know what you did to him?”
“I hope not.”
“The poor guy. Travelling south. There’s no way he can get off for the next eight miles. I’ll haul back so he won’t hear me, and come in ahead of him.”
Shayne worked a quick equation. He increased his own speed to seventy, to close the gap. After a time, when he guessed that he was only a mile or so back, he came down to sixty-five.
It was sleepy driving. He maintained intermittent contact between his cast and the steering wheel, letting the painful little raps keep him awake.
The Olds passed the next exit, then the one after that. This interval was nearly ten miles. Dietrich set the helicopter down in a field and turned off his engine until he saw the Olds go by.
So they continued south, passing the airstrip where Shayne had piled up the Cessna earlier that evening, and on into Perrine. Whenever Shayne caught a glimpse of the luminescent roof, he dropped back at once. In the helicopter, Dietrich paralleled the highway, keeping out of sight and earshot, coming in for a quick fix only when the Olds had a choice between leaving the expressway and continuing on.
They were getting closer to the big Homestead Airbase. Here aircraft noises were part of the environment, and at Shayne’s suggestion, Dietrich moved in. At last the Olds left the highway, with Dietrich continuing to dog him, through Florida City and into the narrow road to Homestead Beach.
“He’s pulling off,” Dietrich reported. “Meeting somebody.”
“O.K.,” Shayne said. “I’d better monitor this. Pull back and I’ll pass him.”
“In a gas station, Mike. Right-hand side, about a quarter of a mile down.”
The helicopter clacked away, circling back toward Florida City.
Shayne continued along the road until he saw the announcement board: “Gas 500 Feet.” He switched off his dashboard lights and came down hard on the gas. The station was boarded up, without pumps. Two cars on the weed-grown service apron were lined up in tandem. The Olds had reversed, to point back the way it had come.
Shayne passed in high gear, accelerating. The second car was a compact wagon, its front door open. Both sets of headlights were burning, and the luminous paint on the Oldsmobile, so conspicuous in the dark, now seemed merely a slightly lighter patch on the mottled roof.
At the next cross-roads, Shayne pulled off into another gas station. This one had pumps, but they were locked for the night. He parked pointing out, and picked up the phone.
“I think it’s time to split up,” he told Dietrich. “You stay with the Olds. He may be heading back north. Let’s play percentages on this. Probably he’ll stay on the expressway as far as South Miami. Go on up and wait for him.”
“Right, Mike. Working for you is always interesting.” After a moment: “The Olds, pulling out. Yeah-coming this way. The other car’s moving toward you.”
“Keep reporting in.”
Shayne tightened up gradually, flicking the ignition on and off. When headlights appeared, he started his engine. The station wagon, a Volvo, slowed for the intersection, and continued across. This road went nowhere
