“It was also mine. For months I was thinking of nothing else.”
“But without him you would all still be gathering dust, behind bars. You did the fighting, of course, and I admire your bravery. A word about this Michael Shayne. I see why Gold fears him. I was very much struck by him, to be truthful, and even with the one arm, I knew I would have to be quick. You have taught me to be willing to take chances, but only when necessary, and in this case it would have been foolishness. Oh, the Jew would be delighted to hear of Shayne’s death, but we should let him take care of his own part of that business. If a policeman and his mistress were making love in the next room, for example, and he heard the shots, I would have been captured immediately. But if you prefer to think I failed to shoot because I am a cowardly female-”
“Akhatari, you know I respect you. Where is Shayne now? Do we have to include him as a factor?”
“I sent him off on a wild chase, in the other direction from Miami Beach. All he thinks about is Murray Gold and the heroin, the one thing that occupies all Americans’ thoughts, it seems. He knows nothing about Palestinians, only that Gold last night bought ten machine pistols-”
“He knows that!”
“But could the cleverest detective in the world find out more than that in the next twenty minutes? Needless to say, no.”
“I still believe it would have been better-”
“If so, the harm is already done. But up to that moment, do you agree that I did well? I persuaded him I was a woman of action, formerly an officer in an army at war. Now I hope to convince you.”
“Akhatari, it’s impossible. Women have no place in the camps. And you are a sheik’s wife, it would be insane to offend him. He has given us much money and support.”
“He’s divorcing me in any case.”
Rashid was so surprised that he dropped his cigarette. “Does he know about Beirut?”
“He knows what he wishes to know. He wanted me to come with him to the United States because of my English, but I have developed the wrong style for him. I disagree with his opinions. Unheard of! He wants submission, and many children. Do you think he knows about you and Sayyid and the rest? Wait and find out! If the action succeeds, he will take credit for it-his own wife was one of the conspirators. But if it is a disaster-”
“Don’t say it,” Rashid said superstitiously.
“He will say he had no part in it, and cast me out. For me to come in the airplane with you, would fit either story.”
“When we land in Libya, we disperse and disappear, one by one. For you to disappear would be difficult. You are too beautiful.”
“Nonsense. I would disguise myself as a bent-over grandmother.”
But she could see there was no chance. This was going to be another all-male operation, from first to last. Very well. They could hardly object if she played an independent hand. A million dollars would be a marvelous sum of money with which to start her new life.
Changing the subject, she suggested that while they had the use of this big soft bed, they should give each other a moment’s pleasure. It would ease the tension in so many ways, and it might be their last time. He was reluctant, but masculinity has its bad side, and by making it into a challenge she left him no choice. He came down to her.
And nothing came of it in the end, for he failed to erect, for the first time in their dealings together. She had been three-quarters sure this would happen, and she wasn’t particularly nice to him about it. But she needed some compensation, she believed, for being struck in the face with his fist.
7
Shayne’s operator reported that Will Gentry had been calling. Shayne hesitated, and then told her to try to find Tim Rourke for him.
While she was trying numbers, Shayne crossed the river on the 27th Avenue bridge. Rourke came on. He was at his desk in the News city room.
“I wonder how you guessed I was writing my story. I’ve got two or three hundred questions. Do you have a minute?”
Shayne continued to maneuver through traffic, without replying.
“Mike? Are you on?”
Shayne had been counting backward. Three weeks before, Murray Gold had escaped from prison. A week before that, someone had appeared there to see him, with a Miami police card. At just about that time, Shayne’s good friend Gentry had been vacationing in Bermuda. Gentry’s wife had been sick for ten months, in the hospital for six. His expenses had been enormous. He had been spending all of his free time in the hospital, drinking too much, eating too little. Finally his own doctor had ordered him to take a few days off, completely alone, and do nothing but lie in the sun, out of the reach of the telephone. Shayne had been away from Miami himself, and he had wanted to ask Rourke if he or anybody else had been in touch with Gentry during that time.
But it was a question he found himself unable to ask. When Rourke called his name again, Shayne quietly broke the connection.
He drove to a small bar on 8th Street, patronized in the evening largely by homosexuals. The owner, a part-time homosexual himself, was a small, lively, brown-skinned man named Manson. He had once fought professionally at 150 pounds, and he still carried ring scars over one eye. Shayne, some years earlier, had broken up a ring of extortionists specializing in gay bars, and since then Manson had become one of Shayne’s principal sources of gossip.
Shayne interrupted him at breakfast, in the kitchen behind his bar.
“Mike, next time phone, all right? So I can meet you someplace. It isn’t good for the joint’s reputation to have private detectives walking in and out.”
“Today I’m in a hurry,” Shayne said.
He took out one of the hundred dollar bills he had confiscated from Marian Tibbett, the Homestead master sergeant, and laid it beside Manson’s coffee cup. Manson became more cheerful at once.
“Coffee?”
“No time,” Shayne said. “I have two topics. Number one, Murray Gold. Number two, heroin.”
Manson folded the bill and put it away. “And do they connect? Mike, anything’s possible. He always steered clear of it here, but you know it wasn’t for moral reasons. There he was, at loose ends, in the Middle East, where most of our shit comes from. If he really was broke, that’s the one way you recoup with one turnover of capital. But different ones have different ideas.”
“Why do you think he went to Israel in the first place?”
“We all thought they promised him a passport, and then they put on those delays and hesitations to run up the price. But Gold-you just know he couldn’t change his lifetime habits. A hospital orderly? After being that big? No, he saw an opportunity and started working on it, and they caught him at it. I’ll tell you what everybody’s saying about that prison break.” He finished filling his cup, and returned the pot to the stove. “He organized it.”
“Using Arabs?”
“That’s the nice part of the story. What other Jew would be so open-minded?” Manson took a sip of steaming coffee and lowered his voice. “I understand he’s in Uruguay.”
“Why Uruguay?”
“Why not? No, as a matter of fact, it was set up long ago. Maybe he hasn’t got there yet, but I do know he’s expected. This isn’t more of the usual crap, Mike. Most of what I give you is what I hear pouring drinks, but this I happen to know.”
“Can I count on that?”
“It’s definite.”
“Now talk to me a minute about the heroin situation. All I want is a market report.”
“I don’t know why everybody thinks I’m such an expert. I don’t do anything stronger than aspirin myself, and I keep it out of the bar. But when the subject comes up, I admit I don’t stop up my ears. It’s so-so, Mike. The big bust yesterday had everybody worried, but not that much, you know? No panic. Does that mean help is on the way? In the shape of a major shipment from someplace? You decide.”
“None of this is worth a hundred bucks. Now something specific. I’d like to get the name of his last girl friend before he left the country. Her first name was Helen.”