Diamond punched Pierre lightly in the stomach, a token blow. “You know I wouldn’t cut you out at this stage, Pierre. The trouble with you is, you’re thinking about money. That’s not the main problem. There’s plenty of money.”
“I do hope so, for all of us.”
Pierre turned and hurried to the parked Dodge. Shayne checked Diamond’s Mustang, without concealing what he was doing. It carried dealer’s plates.
“We borrowed it,” Diamond said.
Shayne got in, and the Mustang took them out of the neighborhood very fast.
“Well?” Diamond demanded.
“Not yet,” Shayne said. “I need to make one phone call, and then let’s go someplace where the light’s good. I want to see your expression change.”
Diamond’s expression changed for the worse, becoming cold and still. “Call the turns.”
“Straight ahead. Turn right on North Miami.”
Shayne caught the glint of the Dodge’s headlights in the mirror. They rode in silence until Shayne pointed to a dairy cafeteria, not far from where he had left his Buick.
“There are phones in there. Lend me your handkerchief.”
While Diamond parked, Shayne wiped some of Little’s blood off his face. Before getting out, Diamond said earnestly, “I warn you, I’m going to be listening in on that phone call.”
Shayne laughed. “Like hell you are. I have to check up on something. If I let you listen I wouldn’t have anything to sell. Don’t worry, as far as I know you’re the only market, and I’m in a selling mood.”
“I’m going to insist on this. I don’t have to hear both sides of the conversation, just yours.”
“No,” Shayne said. “I have a couple of choices. You don’t. I can go the law-and-order route if I have to. Little’s a problem, but without witnesses I think I can ride it out. You and Dessau won’t want to come forward. Or I can sit tight and see if anybody makes me an offer.”
Diamond took it with a tight mouth. They entered the cafeteria, and Shayne said, “Get me a cup of coffee and some pie. Be with you in a minute.”
He descended to the men’s room. Max Wilson, the black cop Gentry had assigned to help him, came in while Shayne was drying his face on a paper towel. One of the booths was occupied. Their eyes met briefly in the mirror. Wilson was wearing a faded porter’s uniform. He had been a middleweight fighter once, and his face showed signs of having been hit too often. His eyebrows were slashed with scars.
Back upstairs, Shayne shut himself in a phone booth and dialed Police Headquarters.
“Will,” he said without preliminaries when Gentry was on the line. “I’ve got a murder for you, and you’d better get up there fast while the corpse is still wearing a suit.”
He gave the details quickly, and Gentry repeated them to somebody in his office.
“There are some nasty angles to this,” Shayne said, “and I hope you’ll agree to sit on it until I can find out more about it. He won’t have any identification on him, and let’s leave it at that for now. You may want to connect it with that stolen car report from Grady Ramsay, but don’t leak it to anybody. You remember? Two people drove up and went into the building together. If you can find somebody who took a Polaroid flash, fine. Otherwise I’ll just have to go on groping. I heard a helicopter. Any news?”
“Not yet. But Mike, we found Tim, and he’s not in such great shape. He’s right here if you want to talk to him.”
“Hell, yes. Put him on.”
Rourke’s voice said, “I don’t like these slurs on my appearance. The chicks don’t like me because I’m handsome, but because I’m amusing. A few bruises, Mike, you know how it is. They look worse than they are.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“I might as well. You’ll remember I didn’t want to do this? I had a feeling I might be overmatched. And that’s the way it turned out. One-on-one I can play, but they were too many for me.”
“Tim.”
“Yeah. I forget where we were the last time we were in touch. I followed the Olds to the Holiday Inn. Fine so far. The guy went in and registered and then he moved his car down the line and they went in a room. The door barely closed. A man and a woman got in the Olds — a different couple, do I make myself clear? — and they were off and away.”
“Take this a little slower. Did they have the car keys?”
“They seemed to. I can’t tell you what they looked like, because the whole thing took me by surprise. I should have stopped to think. I was following the Olds and they were following the Olds. I’ve never had the knack of making myself invisible. So there had to be another car, right? It’s obvious now. The Olds turned off the expressway, I turned off the expressway, a third car turned off the expressway. And there we were on a one-lane exit ramp with me in the middle. The car ahead of me stopped. I stopped. The car behind me stopped. I was so fussed I forgot to lock the doors — it would have taken a little longer. And lately I’ve started fastening my seatbelt. That cut down my mobility. I hate to admit this, but it was a girl who slugged me. And she had muscles, Mike.”
“What did she look like?”
“Dark. Jewish, I think, if you don’t mind the ethnic note. I was trying to unsnap the damn belt and I didn’t see what she used, maybe only her fist, I don’t know. Whatever it was, it did the job.”
“How many people do you think there were?”
“In the two cars? Mike, don’t ask me. I wasn’t conscious enough to count. They could have killed me and they didn’t and I’m grateful to them for that.”
“It’s interesting,” Shayne said thoughtfully.
“I’m interested in it, too, as a matter of fact.”
“One person had already been killed. You’re a potential witness, but that didn’t seem to bother them. It must mean they didn’t think they needed a major delay. How did they leave you?”
“Bleeding from the mouth, man. They drove me off onto a side road and locked the doors. When I woke up I was too weak to fight my way out of the seat belt. The Highway Patrol found me. I was gone like twenty minutes, unless I skipped a whole day. I suppose I ought to apologize, except I did warn you this wasn’t my specialty, didn’t I? Who the hell were those people, do you know?”
“No, but I think I may be about to find out. Give me Gentry again... Will, any word from Washington on that picture of Jerry Diamond?”
“Nothing yet. They’re working on it.”
“I’m with him now, and I hope to get fingerprints. You might tell the Bureau to get a copy of the picture over to the CIA.”
“We’re getting up in the world. What makes you think the CIA would be interested?”
“I begin to get that feeling. The passport he’s carrying has recent visas for a couple of Middle Eastern countries. If you hear anything you think I ought to know, call this number.”
He read off the number of the pay phone and hung up. He met Diamond coming away from the counter with a tray.
“I didn’t know what kind of pie you wanted,” Diamond said. “I got lemon meringue.”
“I’m expecting a call,” Shayne said, sitting down near the booths. “Before you say anything I might as well tell you that I’m going to want some cash up front. Twenty-five thousand now, fifty more if I make delivery.”
Diamond, about to put sugar in his coffee, stared at him. “Aren’t you exaggerating your importance slightly?”
Shayne thought about it. “Maybe I am. Make that twenty and forty. If you can’t get hold of twenty thousand in currency tonight, forget it.”
Diamond put down his spoon and said carefully, watching Shayne, “It would be possible. Not so easy, but possible. I’d better find out if we’re talking about the same thing. Tell me what happened when we got the Bentley into a garage.”