Will Gentry, Miami Chief of Police and one of Shayne’s oldest friends, came into the lobby. He was stockily built and moved with authority. He had a gruff manner and a kind of directness and candor that was surprising to find in someone who had managed a big-city police department — in many respects a political job — with complete success for twenty years.
“I didn’t know you were working on this, Mike.”
“Since last night.”
“Excuse me, Congressman,” Gentry said. “We’ll get less repetition if I can talk to Shayne privately for a minute. There isn’t much more you can do right now. They’ll get you some coffee.”
Tucker nodded stiffly. “I have some phone calls. Don’t disappear, Mike.”
Gentry took Shayne to a sofa in an unused corner of the lobby. “I need a fast fill-in, and I can’t get it from him. I think he’s hoping to keep this small, but it’s going to be impossible. The media people will be swarming all over us in another ten minutes, and the more we can get accomplished before they get here, the better. So talk to me.”
“I’ve been making headway,” Shayne said, “but there’s a long way to go. Tell me what happened here, and I’ll try to tell you where it fits.”
“At seven fifty,” Gentry said, “a call to the emergency number downtown, a man’s voice. I wish we still taped those calls, but you remember they cut it out of the last budget. He only had a minute because he was catching a plane, and he didn’t want to get involved. Every time I hear somebody say that, the less I like it.”
“Well, you can see his point. He can buy the Miami papers to find out if it’s serious. He wouldn’t want to be called back to testify for anything minor.”
“You defend him,” Gentry said. “I can’t. He said he wasn’t registered here, and he made a big thing of it, so maybe that means he actually was — we’re checking everybody. He saw two guys come out of a room with a woman and put her in a car. ‘Put her in a car.’ Forcibly, is the idea. There was blood on her face. A big car, a Caddy or a Lincoln, with Florida plates.”
“I suppose this woman was a blonde?”
“Yes, indeed. High heels, glasses, good looking, nicely dressed. We got the identification from stuff in the room. It was definitely Mrs. Tucker.”
“Any description of the men?”
“He said they looked like hoodlums. I guess he meant hoodlums in the movies. Most of the hoodlums you and I know look like ordinary people. One of them had a beard. The other had had some trouble and was wearing a face bandage.”
“That’s interesting,” Shayne commented. “I knocked out some of Frankie Capp’s teeth in the middle of the night. Frankie’s one hoodlum who looks like a hoodlum even without a bandage.”
“I like that,” Gentry said. “If we could put Frankie Capp away for kidnapping, I’d retire happy.”
“Yeah,” Shayne said skeptically. “Get a call out on him. I want to talk to him about something else. But don’t expect him to confess. Anybody can put on a bandage. The town’s full of good-looking blondes. Good-looking brunettes can turn themselves into blondes by coloring their hair or wearing a wig.”
“You always were a suspicious bastard. It sounds pretty authentic to me. And there’s more, a long letter that definitely points a finger at Frankie, now that I think of it.”
“People have been trying to hustle and flimflam me all night,” Shayne said, “and I’m getting a little leery. This would be mild, compared to some of the performances I’ve been watching. All these people are actors. Was there any mention of luggage? I’m thinking of a suitcase large enough to hold six or eight cans of movie film.”
“Right. Now how’d you know that? A carrying case — our man on the phone thought it might be a cat or a small dog. Movie film? What kind of movie?”
“I haven’t seen it. Again, anybody can take an empty film can and stick on a label.” He stood up. “Let me see the letter. Then it may be time to start pressuring people. If I can find them,” he added.
“Who besides Capp?”
“A girl, Maureen Neal. She’s been staying at the Modern Motel and driving a Hertz Thunderbird. She has a friend named Peter something. I especially want to get my hands on him. He’s driving a Dodge, dealer’s plates, and the first three digits are five seven six. Did you hear what happened to Barnett Pomeroy? He’s a congressman from Illinois, a friend of Tucker’s.”
“The bomb in the VW?”
“Yeah, and if they’re finished with him at the hospital I want to know where he is and what he’s doing. Then somebody named Pussy Rizzo, from Los Angeles, and two friends. We’ve got them cold on a heavy felony rap, and they may want to cooperate with us. Again, we have to find them first.”
Gentry had been making notes. “That leaves a few points unexplained.”
“More than a few, Will. I’m expecting a call from Tim Rourke, which may shed some light.”
“What about Tucker? Do I push him?”
“No, let him alone.”
“For some reason I can’t warm up to the guy. He’s always onstage.”
As a matter of fact, Shayne thought that Tucker was playing his role well. He was in one of the sit-down phone booths with the door ajar, sipping black coffee from a container. He showed his fatigue not by slumping, but by holding himself unnaturally erect. When Shayne approached, he brought the conversation to a close and came out of the booth.
“I have a choice, Mike. I can cancel all meetings and pull out of the race, which will please certain people, or I can carry on as if nothing has happened, until we find out what precisely has happened. I have a breakfast appointment with people from upstate. I’ve decided to keep it. She left a letter, did Gentry tell you? It makes painful reading. He’s agreed to withhold it from the press for the time being. Can you think of anything else I ought to tell you now?”
“Has your wife ever mentioned anybody named Peter? About her age, a few years younger. Good shoulders. I’d say he’s lifted a lot of iron. Five nine, about a hundred and sixty pounds.”
“Here in Miami? We know a Peter in Washington, but he’s ten years older, and definitely not a weight lifter. Her brother’s name is Peter, but we haven’t seen him in years. Is he part of this ghastly movie?”
“I don’t know much about him. I ran into him last night.”
“Well,” Tucker said awkwardly.
He told Gentry where he could be reached, nodded to them both and walked off stiffly. He checked after a few steps, and came back.
“Find her,” he said in a choked voice. “Please. I want her back. I didn’t know this last night. The hell with everything else!”
Shayne said nothing.
“That’s what I mean about being onstage,” Gentry said as Tucker walked away again. “Does he mean it?”
They left the lobby. A reporter cornered Tucker as he was getting into his car. Tucker gave him a strained smile.
“No comment now, Jerry. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Just a minute. Congressman—”
Tucker drove off, waving.
“What name did she use when she signed up for the room?” Shayne asked Gentry.
“That’s it. It wasn’t her room. The letter explains it. It’s registered to a man and wife from Ohio, but they used a phony address. We called Cleveland, and there’s no such street. It wouldn’t be the first false registration here this year. The guy next door heard them get up early — five o’clock, daylight — use the john and so on and pull out.”
Two of Gentry’s men were in the room. Both beds had been used. There was an open suitcase and a light raincoat on the foot of one bed, overflowing ashtrays, crumpled tissues and other debris, an ice bucket, a portable typewriter.
“Any drugs?” Shayne asked.
“In a zipper bag in the suitcase. A good supply of prescription barbiturates. A tin of hashish, miscellaneous pills, who knows for what, all the colors of the rainbow. The letter was in the raincoat pocket. Just skim through it, Mike. I have the feeling there are things we ought to be doing.”