“Mike, will you please come in and dictate a statement on that? Now there’s the second time I said please, and it’s the last time. But I’ll bait the request. We have something from Washington about Diamond.”
Shayne said quickly, “Tell me, Will. I had a gun at my head ten minutes ago, and right now I’m sandwiched between two cars with three men in them. They wouldn’t let me come in even if I wanted to. I’d be shot coming up the steps. I’ve got a minute and a half at the most. I’m picking up new bits all the time. There are two groups of people, and all I know about them is that they’re out for blood. Diamond thinks I committed that murder, and also killed a witness. He thinks it gives him a handle. That same pitch won’t work with the other side. I have to think up something entirely different. I need everything you’ve got, Will, believe me. Come on, come on!”
A faint crackling came from the phone.
Then Gentry said decisively, “All right, the hell with everybody. What can they do, after all, put me in jail? The fingerprints did it. Diamond’s only one of his names. He’s in demand. Washington wanted to know where I got those prints, and I had to tell them.”
“Forty-five seconds or less.”
“He’s in free-lance intelligence. Gets hold of something and peddles it around. He’s had a couple of big hits. On retainer for one of the American oil companies. A month ago he was seen in a Cairo bank that handles Egyptian intelligence payments. There’s a tip that he’s working for the Arab side in the Arab-Israeli hassle, another tip that he was in England putting together an organization. That’s all.”
Without saying goodbye, Shayne dropped the phone and pulled up at the corner where he had arranged to meet Anne. The Mustang continued through the light to the other side of the intersection. Shayne didn’t look for the Dodge. It was behind him, he knew.
Leaving his motor running, he took the cognac bottle from his glove compartment and drank.
After another long moment, Anne stepped out of a doorway and crossed the sidewalk. She looked exactly as good as she had on the Queen Elizabeth, as elegant, as self-assured, as unruffled.
“Mike Shayne,” she said, getting in beside him. “We’re back together. I love you.”
“No car? What’s happening?”
She put her hand in her open purse and raised it between them. “I’ve got a gun, Mike, and it shoots very hard. So stand at ease.”
“Everybody has guns but me. I gave mine away.”
“Don’t go anywhere,” she said as Shayne went into gear. “There’s somebody I want you to meet.”
Shayne remained with his forearms resting on the steering wheel, as the rear door opened and a man came into the car. Shayne glanced at him casually. It was the same man who had met Anne at the pier.
“You must be Sam Geller.”
“That’s right,” the man said. “And if you know that much you know what we want, and you know you’ll be killed if you give us any trouble.”
Keeping the clutch depressed, Shayne gave Geller a more searching look. At this range, it could be seen that he combed his black hair forward to cover a receding hairline. He had good skin and a pleasant expression.
“I didn’t know people at your level got involved in anything this messy, Geller. And where you get the goddamn gall to come into Miami and tell me I’ll be killed if I give you any trouble — You know it can still go either way. The cops had to be told some of it. I’m sorry about that, but I kept it to a minimum.”
“We’ll be all right if we go on being careful.”
Shayne snorted. “Careful? You people have been behaving like madmen. The elusive Sam Geller wouldn’t be here in person unless it was really big. My price is going up by the minute.”
“Does that mean you have it?” Geller said quickly.
“No, but I think I know where it is. You’ve broken every rule in the goddamn—”
Geller was leaning forward tensely. Without completing his sentence or looking back toward the street, Shayne released the clutch and came down hard on the gas. He was braced for the sudden acceleration, but Geller was hurled backward, arms out and feet off the floor.
At the same instant Shayne hit a dashboard button releasing a spurt of pepper gas from a nozzle set in the back of the front seat. The incapacitating spray fanned out on a flat plane and caught Geller squarely. He screamed and clutched his eyes.
Shayne swung the wheel, taking an abrupt left into 54th Street. He shifted smoothly, moving up to the extreme limit of the gear, passed a slow-moving pickup truck, and as he came back he whipped around against the pressure of the seat belt and slashed the helpless man across the face with his closed fist. The blow stunned Geller, anesthetizing him against the pain he was surely feeling.
Through the rear window, at the same moment, Shayne saw the Dodge jump the light and come after him. Diamond, in the Mustang, would have to make a U-turn to follow.
Anne had her gun out, steadying her right hand with her left. “Pull over, Mike! I’m going to shoot.”
Shayne sawed at the wheel. “Diamond’s right behind us. Two cars. Baby, there’s just one way.” He reached around with his left hand and unlatched the rear door. “Dump him. Get rid of him.”
“Pull over this minute!”
“Diamond has three men. They’re all armed. If you want to shoot it out with that little automatic, fine. You’ll do it alone. Geller can’t see. Don’t count on me for anything.”
She looked away from him, out the rear window.
“If I pull over,” Shayne snarled, “you’d better start running. Give them Geller! We don’t need him. You and I can swing this alone. Move, damn it! Get over and dump him.”
The gas supply, blown by the same kind of gadget that sprayed window-cleaning fluid onto the windshield, was used up. All the windows were open, but Shayne’s eyes were tearing. Geller, dazed and whimpering, had his face in his hands. He was swaying, about to fall.
Shayne yelled at Anne again. She made up her mind in an instant as the Mustang came out of a screaming turn. Swinging all the way around on her knees, she reached over and gave Geller a hard sideward push.
He toppled against the unlatched door, knocking it out of Shayne’s hand. He grabbed out desperately and caught the door. She chopped at his fingers with the gun barrel while Shayne swerved from side to side, swinging the blinded man out of the car. Fenders clashed, and Geller spilled out on the street with a scream.
A horn blared behind them. Tires squealed.
Shayne accelerated. Responding, the door slammed shut. He watched the mirror. The pickup truck behind him slewed across two lanes to avoid striking the fallen man. The Dodge skidded to a stop and Diamond’s men erupted from it. Shayne thought he caught the wink of a gun, but he couldn’t be sure; too much else was happening.
In high gear, the Buick slid through the Second Avenue cross-traffic like a fish. At the next corner Shayne signaled for a right, and swung left abruptly between the oncoming cars. In this maze of courts and terraces, he could lose anything but a bumper-to-bumper pursuit, and both the Dodge and the Mustang were caught in the tangle created by Geller’s fall from the car.
“God,” Anne said. “You startled me into that. I hope it was right.”
“It wasn’t the right thing, it was the only thing, sweetheart. He wouldn’t have been any good in a fight. That’s the first time I used that pepper gas gimmick. I wasn’t sure it would work.”
She glanced at him, her eyes watering. “It worked.”
He was taking turns on the outside of his tires. At 62nd Street he began to ease up, turned east and picked up Biscayne Boulevard.
“Sorry I didn’t have more time to chat with him,” Shayne said. “I understand he’s had an interesting career. How have things been since I saw you?”