“Did Tim really know what he was letting himself in for?”
“It wasn’t really that dangerous, Mike. The timing device wasn’t supposed to go off until half an hour after he left. Meanwhile, another MIR detachment would be making a diversion downtown, robbing a bank and so on. I didn’t see how it could miss.”
“Did you see the cartons being prepared?”
“That was done by Paula’s people, somewhere else. And it was honestly just a beautiful job. They looked absolutely genuine, and felt absolutely genuine.”
“Now tell me how you planned to leave the country.”
“I had a car, the same Oldsmobile. The boat was fueled up and ready. Tim was going to meet us there and go with us. I was at the room Paula found for me, waiting for the doorbell to ring. Two longs and a short would mean that the truck had arrived, bringing my friend in a wig and false nose. I waited and waited, and of course nothing happened. I didn’t dare leave for fear of missing the signal. I heard sirens, and shooting. I stayed up on the roof most of the night. I knew something had gone wrong, but what if they’d been attacked after they got the prisoners out, and he was in hiding? In the morning I bought a paper, and there it was. And the whole thing had been my idea, Mike! I got it started and kept it going, and somewhere along the way somebody used my plan to murder him. And I did a stupid thing-I went to the farm. I thought I could persuade her I hadn’t done it, and if we went to the police together and told our story-but the woman was insane! She said I killed him, she’d told them everything, they were looking for me, I’d be arrested and put to death. She screamed horrible things at me and tried to tear out my eyes. I ran out of the house.”
She shivered, looked into her glass and drank some more cognac. Shayne had listened intently to her story, and now he began to push questions at her. How long had Tim Rourke had possession of the cartons? She counted backward; less than half a day. She herself had had them overnight, and had returned them to her niece in mid-morning, after the Senora had been denied permission to visit the prison.
“All right,” Shayne said. “Now we’re going to talk some more about the money. Try to be a little more convincing. I’m calling it money. I don’t know whether it’s in cash or securities or gold or real estate. You were big enough in his life so he wanted you down here at a time when he knew trouble could start popping any minute. He had his getaway plans made. As far as anybody’s told me, he didn’t have any shoe-boxes full of thousand-dollar bills when he crashed. That means the thousand-dollar bills were waiting for him somewhere else. You seem to be a bright, cool girl. If you didn’t want to leave your gallery in the middle of the season, you could have told him so.”
“He bought me that gallery! If what you’re saying is that I didn’t love him, Mike-”
“That doesn’t interest me.”
“Well, I’m sorry! Of course I knew he was rich, and I must have assumed it wasn’t money he saved out of his official salary. But I didn’t know any details.” She added, “Maybe I was afraid to ask.”
“You understand I’m not talking about the money he took out of his pocket to pay waiters. I’ve heard various sums quoted, from twenty million down.”
She looked startled. “Twenty million dollars!”
“That’s only a skim of about a million and a half a year. But pick a number. It doesn’t have to be twenty. Ten million, five. Call it five million, and I take back what I said about thousand-dollar bills. Fifties are as high as he’d want to go and that many fifties would fill a couple of trunks. You can’t buy real property without leaving a trail of paper. Somebody like you, sleeping in the same bedroom, using the same phone, would have to know what he was doing. Don’t go on denying it.”
He looked at his watch. “Rubino’s on his way back, and I know from driving with him that he doesn’t pay much attention to traffic lights. We’ve got a pretty good situation here, if we can work out, a way to exploit it. I want him to sneak in next door and listen to us talking. People who depend on surveillance techniques usually believe everything they hear.”
“I’m glad you’re finally using the word we.”
“You’re in enough trouble so I think you’re about to start helping. I’m not the only one who thinks you know where that money’s buried. Or can you think of any other reason that guy was waiting to knife you?”
“He could think it and still be wrong, Mike. Find out for me! I still want to hire you, but I can’t be too free with my promises, or you’ll think I have keys to all his safe deposit boxes. I’m thinking of my skin!”
She forgot and took a deep breath. “Damn it, that hurt. I’m willing to play ‘let’s suppose,’ if you are. Let’s suppose there is such a cache of money and we find it, who would it belong to?”
Shayne smiled. “We can ask a lawyer.”
“Perhaps I’d deserve some of it. I’m in his will.”
Shayne’s smile broadened, and she said, “I know! If it gets as far as the lawyers, the new junta will simply gobble it up.”
“Somebody has to turn it in first. I don’t think that’s likely. Let’s name a percentage. If I get you out of the country and wind up this bombing so they don’t come after you with extradition papers, I think fifty percent would be about right.”
Her eyes changed. “Fifty percent of nothing would be nothing. Fifty percent of five or ten million would be damned high.”
He made a quick gesture. “Then it’s settled. We’re partners. Now give me a few dribbles of information.”
She drew her eyebrows together and set her lips in a thin line. But she forced herself to relax, and drank.
“Fifty percent of nothing would be nothing for me, too, so-” She hesitated. “I think I may know what you’re talking about, but it certainly doesn’t amount to anything like twenty million, or ten or even five.”
“Four?”
“Less than four. That doesn’t matter. I know exactly what the police will do if they get hold of me. We talked about it. Guillermo thought he could defy them for ninety-six hours. I couldn’t last ninety-six minutes. That’s why I’m so concerned about this Andres Rubino. What if he brings the police back with him?”
“He hasn’t decided yet whether or not that’s his best deal.”
“They’ll try to hang those three murders on me, won’t they?”
“On you and Rourke. You’re both Americans. Palm Beach and Miami are in the same part of the world. It stands to reason that you know each other, and have been working together all the way. If they can’t find Paula Obregon, you’re cooked, and everybody tells me she’s going to be hard to find.”
He stood up. “I’ve got something to do before he gets back.”
She sat forward, alarmed. “Mike, you aren’t leaving me.”
“Only for a couple of minutes.” He took out his revolver, snapped off the safety, and laid it on the sofa beside her. “If he comes in, shoot him.”
“I couldn’t!”
“Yes, you could,” he told her. “Wait till he comes around the end of the sofa. Point it at him and pull the trigger. I’ll clean up after you.”
ELEVEN
Shayne rode the elevator to the lobby and looked at the ladder of names in the vestibule. Half the slots were empty, designating unrented apartments. He rang two of the bells at random and waited. A moment later, hearing no answering buzzer, he returned to the elevator.
The first of the two apartments was still being painted. Open cans of paint indicated that the painters would be back. The second was ready for renting. Shayne was about to leave after looking it over when something pulled at his eye-a car turning off the elevated freeway, much too fast, taking the exit curve on the outside of its tires. It was Lenore Dante’s green Olds-Rubino, coming back.