Leaving Tibbett in the dirt, Shayne went to the Volvo, where he found two things that interested him. One was a pint of good bourbon. Tibbett had been working at this and there was little left. Shayne finished it in two pulls, waited until he felt the warm surge, and continued his search of the car.
The rear seat had been folded forward to increase the cargo space. There was nothing there now except a few empty beer bottles and some torn green wrapping paper, heavy gauge, with a hard, shiny surface and a slippery feel. Shayne examined the paper closely. It was streaked with grease. He picked up some of this on one finger and smelled it. It was cosmolene, in which guns are packed when they leave the factory or arsenal.
Tibbett was breathing harshly, with a catch at the end of each breath, as though that one might be his last. Shayne broke a handful of ice out of the refrigerating unit in his back seat and applied it to the unconscious sergeant’s temples until his eyes opened and he said feebly, “What are we trying to do?”
“You had an accident, sergeant. Are you drunk, or did you fall asleep?”
“Fall asleep?”
“That’s the way it usually goes. Do you remember any dreams, like a hand grenade going off?”
The sergeant raised his head just enough so he could look at his smashed car. Comprehension returned slowly to his eyes. He clapped his hand to his chest and found that the envelope was gone.
“What’s the matter, sergeant?” Shayne said. “Have you been hijacked or something?”
“You bastard-”
He shifted weight, but before he could start his roll, Shayne kicked him in the neck.
He fell back hard. Shayne slid the butt of his pistol into view.
“Tonight I don’t want to wrestle anybody. I’d probably lose. If you try anything physical I’ll have to shoot you.”
The sergeant looked toward the wrecked Volvo and croaked, “There’s a jug in the front seat.”
“I found it, but I’ve already killed it. I also saw the paper the guns came in.”
The injured man was already feeling miserable, but now he began to feel worse. The flesh around his eyes contracted and the eyes themselves seemed to become smaller.
“Guns?” he said unhappily.
Shayne dropped into a squat to be on the sergeant’s level. “I took the liberty of checking your ID. The only reason to stay in the Air Force twenty-two years is to get that pension. And the one thing you’ve got to watch out for is a bad discharge.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”
“What’s your job on the base?”
“Headquarters company, sergeant major.”
“The Air Force wouldn’t like it if they knew you were stealing guns. But I don’t care that much about it. There are hundreds of loose guns floating around. A few more won’t change anything. I’d like to know who you sold them to, and how he’s planning to use them. It could be something I might want to get in on.”
“I’ve got a headache,” Tibbett complained. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”
“Nine or ten new Thompson machine pistols, 45 caliber. Of course I’m just going by the grease marks. It could be something harmless, except why would anybody pack something harmless in cosmolene?”
Tibbett’s breathing was still ragged, but otherwise he was on the mend. “You smashed up a good car and stole some money. And now you expect me to cooperate? Tell me why.” He started a movement, but looked up warily. “Are you going to let me sit up?”
Shayne motioned, and the sergeant came forward into a sitting position. “I mean, be realistic. You can’t prove anything with some smears of grease. They keep a pretty tight control of weapons on the base, especially automatic weapons. You’re right, that’s the one rip-off they don’t forgive. So with twenty-two years in the service, don’t you think I know enough to be mighty careful? I’m in charge of the paperwork, I’ve got it down to a science.”
“This can’t be your only angle. If they get the idea you’ve been stealing, you’ll be watched. That might cramp you a little.”
“It might. What do you want out of me, outside of my money?”
“The name of the guy in the Oldsmobile.”
“I’ll sell it to you for half the bread in the envelope. Fifteen hundred.”
“No, Marian. I like money as much as the next man.”
The sergeant’s lips worked in and out as he considered. “All you want is that one name and you’ll forget mine, is that it?”
“I may not forget it, but I won’t do anything about it.”
“Let alone could they prove anything,” Tibbett said grudgingly, “I honestly don’t want those intelligence jerks blowing down the back of my neck. Not that my few little swindles amount to anything, because they don’t. I’m not one of those big swingers. The opportunities down here in this off-corner of the world aren’t too extensive, believe it or not, especially now that the base is more or less closed down, with the budget cuts-”
His mind was working again, a little too soon for Shayne’s purpose. He broke off.
“You wouldn’t be Mike Shayne, would you, by any possible chance?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s the idea that suddenly hit me. I was listening to the car radio while I was waiting, you know? One of those creep shows. A lot of goddamn chatter. His pal Mike Shayne suffered a broken arm, so on and so forth and this and that. A body in the back of a car. Pretty heavy stuff. I mean-murder. I don’t know a thing. I make a point of not asking. So why don’t you just fuck off, Shayne? I put away nearly a full pint of bourbon whiskey. It’s all been a blur, one big blur in living color.”
“I’ve got a helicopter trailing the Olds. If this thing falls apart, you might be needing a friend.”
“I’ll worry about that when the time comes. I’m taking the Fifth. Why incriminate myself before I have to?”
A car stopped. The two young men in the front seat were wearing civilian clothes, but there were various indications that they were not civilians.
“Sergeant?” one of them called. “What the hell happened to you?”
Tibbett stood up, gauging the situation. He wanted his money back. Shayne eased the gun far enough out of the sling so he could touch the trigger. The sergeant studied him for a moment.
“Talk about petty crime.”
“Don’t desert,” Shayne told him. “I want to know where I can find you.”
“Hey, sarge,” the young man said from the car. “Are you O. K.?”
The sergeant turned. “Snapped the steering linkage or something. Ran the mother right off the road.”
Shayne returned to his Buick and belted himself in, then backed and filled until he was headed back toward the airbase. As he passed the group around the smashed Volvo, Sergeant Tibbett raised one finger.
Back on the expressway, northbound, Shayne built up his speed to over ninety, then brought in his operator.
“I’ve been trying to get you,” she said. “We’ve lost contact with the helicopter.”
“Where did he call in from last?”
“South of Hialeah. He said the Oldsmobile was still on the expressway, travelling north.”
Shayne acknowledged the message, and told her to keep trying.
For the next twenty minutes, he maintained the same pace, and was approaching Miami when the phone clicked beside him.
“Here’s Larry Dietrich. But it’s a ground call.” Dietrich came on, with bad news. Bypassing Miami, the Oldsmobile had continued north to Fort Lauderdale, and left the expressway at the Boca Raton turn-off. At that point Dietrich began having difficulty getting fuel. He stalled out twice, and had to put down on a golf course. As for the Olds, it had been about to enter Boca Raton. But this was a heavily-built up section of the coast. He was sorry to say it could be anywhere.
“I’m really sorry as hell, Mike. Maybe I could have hung on for a couple more miles, but I was running very rough. That golf course looked too damn inviting down there.”
“No, it’s a relief,” Shayne said. “Now I can go home and get some sleep. Not a bad way to tail somebody-we’ll have to do it again sometime. I’ll send you a check.”