“But before you managed to do that, he put this paint on your car?”
“I didn’t know what it was. A big bang behind me. The chopper pilot picked me up from the air and Shayne could hang out of sight.”
Suddenly Rashid felt a spurt of adrenalin, and understood what the Jew was telling him, that a helicopter had followed him here. “When was the last time you heard a helicopter, as you entered this driveway?”
Gold shrugged. “They went to a lot of trouble. They wouldn’t knock off because it was after their bedtime or they crossed a county line.”
“So this Mike Shayne, whoever he may be-”
“He’s a private detective, and a bad man to know. Tough and smart and goddamn fast on his feet sometimes.” He looked up at the big house, an imposing Spanish-style structure of stucco and stained timbers. “So if he’s made the connection it’s not just me. It’s you guys and me, both.”
“We must move elsewhere at once.”
Gold was thinking, his eyes moving like cornered animals. He took several steps on the gravel and came back, several more and came back-these were the inside dimensions of his cell in the Israeli prison.
“This isn’t your house. You’re just staying here. If you start running around turning on lights, he’ll wake up the cops and move in.”
“You assume he’s nearby.”
“He’s got to be. He’ll want to know if he’s put me away for the night, or do I have some more errands. He’s driving a beat-up Buick with plenty of juice. Let’s set it up like this. I pull out and start south on One. Theoretically, I got rid of him hours ago, and I won’t be watching for headlights. I’ll take a couple of you with me, out of sight in the back seat. I’ll pick a spot and pull over. You come up behind in another car and we’ll wipe him out.”
“Making a certain amount of noise,” Rashid said skeptically.
“But fast. Then we scatter. I know that stretch of road. I’ll pick a place where we won’t be bothered.”
“I see why having this detective put out of the way would be a relief for you, to remove a witness to a killing. For us, it seems less urgent.”
“This is a special kind of private detective. I know him from way back.”
“But only one man, Murray. We can leave at once, now that you have been careless enough to lead him here. As for you, simply steal someone else’s car so that trick with the helicopter can no longer work. We can make sure he doesn’t follow you, without having to kill him. In my judgment, we should do as little as possible to draw attention before eleven o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“You can’t make book on this guy. All the people who’ve tried it have ended up dead or in jail. Without exception.”
“You’re an exception.”
“Am I?” Gold said bitterly. “He’s one of the big reasons I had to blow the country. Let me tell you about him. He’s no super-hero out of the comic-strips, but there are things he’s good at. He knows somebody on every block in town. He gets the feel of a thing, and anticipates. He’s stubborn as hell and when he’s underway he doesn’t give a shit about anything or anybody. Believe me. He can wreck us.”
“You, perhaps, if you’ve been rash enough to do murder underneath his nose. But we are a new species. All that experience of his will count for nothing. What sort of intuition will cause him to be waiting at the Hotel St. Albans tomorrow morning with a battalion of paratroopers?”
Gold shook his head. “He’s pulled off swindles I’ve never been able to explain.”
“No,” Rashid said. “We’ll take a chance with this miracle-worker. We didn’t come to this country to shoot somebody at the edge of a highway, like cinema gangsters. You say you know that road. You have a memory, from the last time you travelled over it. But things change. Here in America they change fast. There may be a police barracks there now, a hundred meters from the spot you choose. It is a strong principle of mine, to see the terrain, to prepare alternative plans, to know the strength of the enemy. Mike Shayne? Merely a name.”
“Let me tell you-”
Rashid interrupted, “I have decided. I am in command. We do it my way.”
“Then without me.”
“Sayyid,” Rashid called without turning his head.
“I am here,” Sayyid answered from the shadows at the edge of the garage. “I have a revolver. I am watching the Jew with it.”
Gold shrugged and started walking away. Rashid watched him go. He was bluffing, surely. That shipment of narcotics was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps a million. Gold reached the grass.
“Those plastic bags filled with the white dust,” Rashid said. “What would you like us to do with them?”
Gold looked back. “You can shoot it up your ass. I want to live.”
Sayyid stepped into the light, and the two Arabs looked at each other. Apparently this American, Mike Shayne, was a genuine threat.
“Murray,” Rashid called, and Gold stopped and turned. “You hire somebody to kill him, one of your own people.”
“I tried that once. It didn’t work out. Can’t you get it through your skull that I don’t want people to know I’m back?”
“The killing of this one man would satisfy you? It wouldn’t become necessary to kill the helicopter pilot, and after that someone else?”
Gold came back a step. “No, the one good angle on Shayne is that he works alone. He doesn’t check in until he has his package all tied up, nice and pretty.”
“I don’t like it, but very well, we’ll do it.”
The Jew came back. “In the desert, O.K., you’re in charge. But this is the pleasure capital of the world, and I know the ins and outs. I won’t take you into anything risky.”
“What if you’ve guessed wrong and he isn’t outside waiting for you to appear?”
“We’ll try something else.”
5
Shayne’s phone rang several times in the night.
He heard the ringing, but it was far away, as though taking place in somebody else’s dream. On the dot of seven, the phone struck again. This time it partially woke him.
He tried to reach for it but he seemed to be strapped to the bed. Nothing worked as it should. He was off balance and sliding. He lunged with his left hand and knocked the phone off the table. That stopped the insistent ringing. He still had no idea where he was, or why one of his arms was in a cast.
Rolling with difficulty, he sat up.
Scratching sounds came from the floor, as though a family of mice was trapped in the phone. Shayne crumpled and threw away an empty cigarette pack. He got out of bed, supporting the weight of the cast with his left hand. After some clattering and fumbling, he put water on for coffee. He used the bathroom. Then he put his head in a stream of cold water and held it there until he remembered a few of the questions that had been in his mind when he went to sleep.
He towelled himself off, still a long way from normal, and returned to pick up the phone.
“Shayne speaking.”
A long-distance operator asked him to hold for Leonard Dodd. Shayne pinched the bridge of his nose. He was still thinking in categories. Dodd. Washington. State Department.
A voice said, “Apologies, Mike. From the noises I’ve been hearing, I assume we woke you up?”
“I took a pill. I won’t be all the way back until I get some coffee.”
“Then maybe I’d better say my name again. Leonard Dodd. Do you place me?”
“State Department, isn’t it? Give me a minute. A couple of years back, something about forged passports. I seem to remember you were ninety-five percent human. In your department that’s high.”