The bartender paused, cocking his head and rubbing the side of his nose, “You are a friend of Papa’s, Señor?”
“Michael Shayne,” the redhead repeated gently. “Por favor.”
The bartender scooped up the bill and went to the end of the bar where he spoke in a low voice to one of the men. Shayne continued to sip his good Island rum, looking straight ahead and disregarding the others.
He drained his glass and set it down when he was aware of movement behind him and felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned and a very thin young man of about twenty with glossy black hair and smouldering black eyes said, “You will come with me, Señor?”
Shayne followed him to the rear, behind the backs of the men seated silently at the bar, to an uncarpeted stairway that led up to the second floor where the young man stood aside and silently gesticulated upward.
Shayne climbed the stairs, hearing the resumption of animated conversation in the room below as he reached the top. A door stood open directly across an unlighted hallway, and Papa Gonzalez got up from behind a bare desk in the center of the room as Shayne stepped inside.
He was a tall, spare, distinguished-looking Spaniard, with silvery hair and aquiline features which remained unsmiling yet held a pleased, welcoming look as he leaned across the desk to offer Shayne a sinewy hand, and said pleasantly, “When the man said your name I did not know whether he erred or not. It has been a long time since you honored my poor place with a visit.”
Shayne shook hands warmly and said, “You can relax, Papa. I’m here to ask a favor of you.”
“There is no one in the entire city of Miami,” said the old man courteously, “to whom I would rather grant a favor.”
Shayne turned and closed the door behind him, then sat down in a wooden chair in front of the desk and crossed his long legs. Gonzalez reseated himself behind the desk, leaned forward with both elbows on the bare surface and rested the tips of his fingers on both sides of his forehead, shadowing and half-hiding his bronzed features.
“You are still… detecting?” he probed delicately. “I read… things in the papers.”
Shayne nodded, getting out a cigarette. “From the looks of things downstairs, you’re keeping busy, too.”
“So many of my countrymen are here with much leisure and little money,” said Gonzalez sadly. “For the price of one beer they are welcome in my place for as many hours as they wish.”
“That should make many of them available for a job that would put money in their pockets,” suggested Shayne.
“Yes. You have such a job, my friend?”
“I want your boys to find a gun like this one for me.” Shayne withdrew the folded newspaper from his pocket and pushed it across the desk. Gonzalez looked down at the picture and shook his whitehaired head, making a deprecatory clucking noise.
“I know nothing of guns. My boys, as you are pleased to call them, know nothing of guns. It is a rule…” He paused, regarding Shayne thoughtfully.
“This is a very special kind of gun. Look at it carefully, Papa. It is manufactured in Russia and two of them have appeared in Miami this past week. I must consider the possibility that they are part of a shipment of arms furnished Fidel Castro by the Russians and are being brought to Miami by refugees. This would disturb our government, Papa. It would be well if it could be proved otherwise.”
The Spaniard shook his head and sighed audibly. He repeated, “Those who come to my place know nothing of guns. It is a rule.”
“Those who do not know your rule would not refuse to sell your boys a gun like this,” Shayne told him. “If there is some place in the city where such a gun is for sale, it is worth a great deal of money to me to have the name of such a place. Pawn-shops and second-hand stores. Those who buy and sell merchandise without inquiring as to sources too closely. Perhaps you could have inquiries made at such places. It is an urgent matter, Papa. Perhaps twenty or thirty men asking questions in the right places both here and on the Beach.”
He got out his wallet as he spoke and opened it to extract a sheaf of bills. “Perhaps some small pocket money for each man to encourage him in the search?” He laid down three hundred dollar bills and looked across at Gonzalez inquiringly. The strong old face looked placidly interested.
“With a bonus,” Shayne went on, “for the lucky one who finds what I want?” He added another hundred and two fifties to the other three bills. “It is important to me. And it could be important to Cuba,” he added softly, “if what I suspect turns out to be true.”
“You do not ask them to buy a gun? It is a rule…”
“They don’t have to buy one. Just find out where one is for sale, and pass the word on to me. You have my telephone number?” Shayne got a business card and hesitated, then wrote his home number on it also and laid it on top of the five hundred dollars. “Any moment of the day or night. If no one hits the jackpot by tomorrow night, you can divide up the entire sum among those who tried.”
Shayne smiled and got up from the chair. “It will buy a lot of beers, Papa. Most of it spent across your counter.”
Papa Gonzalez stood up politely and inclined his head. “I will do what can be done. If you have no report by tomorrow night you will know we have failed.”
7
After leaving Papa’s Place Shayne got in his car and glanced at his watch indecisively. A little after twelve o’clock. Tony’s was only a few blocks away, closer than his own office. Timothy Rourke would probably be waiting for him at Tony’s with a couple of drinks already inside him. On the other hand, Shayne hadn’t even checked with his office that morning. Lucy Hamilton would be furious even though there might not be anything important on the agenda. She had known he was going on that warehouse stake-out last night. She would have read a brief account of the affair in the morning paper…
He sighed and started his car and turned around the first corner toward Tony’s. Sometimes Lucy was a trial. She mothered him, damn it. She worried about things when there was absolutely nothing to worry about. He’d call her from Tony’s, he decided, else she was very likely to start phoning all over the city trying to locate him.
Tony’s was a small, unpretentious, roast-beef and steak house not far from the News office. There were no tablecloths on the wooden tables, and if you ordered a very dry martini you got straight gin on the rocks. Their shot-glasses were honest measure with no false bottoms, and it was the kind of joint where the hard-worked waiters were happy to place a bottle of your favorite beverage on the table and leave you to do your own pouring and your own totting up of the bill. Most of the luncheon customers were habitués, and while there were no Men Only signs hung out, there was a severely masculine atmosphere about the place which effectively discouraged female customers.
Two bartenders were busy behind the long mahogany bar when Michael Shayne walked in out of the glaring sunlight. He stopped for a moment and glanced down the line of standing men (bar stools were considered too effete for Tony’s clientele) without seeing Tim Rourke.
The elderly beer-bellied bartender nearest him caught his inquiring glance and jerked his head toward the row of booths at the rear.
“Last booth at the back, Mike. Tim Rourke and a broad.”
Shayne raised his ragged red eyebrows incredulously. “A broad, Jimmie?”
“A dish,” Jimmie amplified with a broad wink. “A real dish.” He moved closer and added in a conspiratorial whisper which could be heard only half the length of the bar, “Lushing it up on cognac, she is, on account of that’s her favorite detective’s favorite juice. How do you like them apples?”