“He talked about her all the time! Cecily?”
“That’s the name she gave me. Did you know she was meeting him?”
Her fingers, working on the buttons of her blouse, didn’t pause.
“You caught him in one of his clear moments. Most of the time he rambled and mumbled. He was worrying about how the cars would be handled, would it be in an enclosed building or out in the open where everybody could see? I remember he said, ‘I don’t want Cecily—’”
She thrust her feet into shoes. “What else? She was more on his mind than his son, certainly than his wife. How mature she was for her age, how much she’d appreciate the insurance money, how excited she was by his new job—”
“He never said in so many words that she was going to be here to meet him?”
“If he did, it didn’t make any impression. His conversation was out of Finnegan’s Wake most of the time.”
Shayne, having dressed quickly, was waiting. She snatched up her bag and stuffed her stockings inside it. “Mike, we still haven’t come to terms.”
“We’ll have to talk about it in the car. Relax. Walk slowly.”
He didn’t open the door for her until she forced a smile. “All right, I’m relaxed. But confused.”
He left the key in the door. Getting into the Buick without haste, he waited till she was beside him, then backed out of the slot and returned to the street. At the Shell station on the corner, he backed behind two parked cars and turned off the lights.
Taking the bag out of her lap, he examined her pistol. It was a short-barreled Smith and Wesson .38, fully loaded. He replaced it without comment.
“About terms,” she said.
“There aren’t going to be any. If the only way you can get hold of this tank is by shooting me, I know you’ll do it. But not yet. You still need me. And you need everything to break the right way. If that doesn’t happen, you’ll settle for keeping it away from Diamond. That gives us both room to maneuver — not much, but some. The FBI’s are beginning to gather. They always complicate things. I don’t mind explaining it to them later, but not while it’s going on. What about Sam Geller? Can we count him out?”
“For now,” she said quietly. “He and Diamond really hate each other.”
“How many others do you have available?”
“Just three, really. I don’t understand why you’re letting me keep the gun. You don’t really trust me that much.”
“I’ll explain it to you sometime.”
“I think you want us to cut each other down to where you can handle us. That’s why you dumped Sam out of the car.”
“You’re the one who did that. All I did was open the door.”
“Mike!” she burst out. “I don’t know what this is for you! A contest, a way to make some money? You’ve been made to look like a fool, and so somebody else has to suffer. It isn’t a game for me, Mike. If our enemies get hold of this bomb, we’re finished. It’s such a tiny blob on the map, Israel! Sixteen miles across at the narrowest point. A bomb dropped on Tel Aviv would knock out the country. Whereas if we have it, if they know we have it, they may give up their crazy dreams about driving us into the sea, and come to the bargaining table.”
Shayne’s attention shifted.
A black Ford sedan, with plates identifying it as a rented car, had drawn up in front of the Flamingo Springs. The driver tapped his horn twice.
“This could be Pierre Dessau,” Shayne said. “He went for cigarettes an hour ago and didn’t come back.”
“Was that who she was talking to?”
“No, no. Dessau’s the buyer. She’s a bright, observant girl. She noticed that her father was making some major repairs on his Bentley before he left, and I think she figured out the whole thing. If that car turns around, get ready to duck.”
He was watching the stairs to the second floor of the two-level motel. A girl’s slight figure came out of one of the rooms, ran down the stairs and across to the Ford. As soon as she jumped in, the Ford backed out and reversed.
“Down,” Shayne said.
Anne dropped out of sight. Shayne lowered his head so it wouldn’t show in silhouette. The rented Ford came past. The man leaning forward over the wheel was unmistakably the six-foot-four-inch Dessau.
Shayne cramped the Buick’s wheels sharply as the light changed. He left the gas station by the side entrance and made the left turn onto Biscayne through the green light. Dessau, ahead, was driving carefully with the moving traffic, and he was easy to follow.
“Better start rounding up your people,” Shayne said. “You must have a number you can call.”
“I do, but I’ll use a pay phone, if you don’t mind. You already know far too much about us.”
He was separated from Dessau’s Ford by two cars, and the lights on this section of the boulevard were unprogrammed, changing at random. He gave the girl a quiet instruction and she reached over in back for a battered fishing hat. With the brim pulled low over his eyes, he passed the intervening cars and closed with the Ford.
“I thought that was where they were probably going,” he said after a moment as the Ford slowed. “Good old Queen Elizabeth II.”
“Mike, tell me what she’s doing! She’s going to sell it to Dessau? How did she get it out of the Oldsmobile?”
“She has a friend aboard. I think we may see him in a minute.”
The Ford parked. Shayne, half a block away, pulled into a crosswalk and quickly produced a small camera with a high-definition telephoto lens. A youth with long browning hair parted in the middle crossed from the pier. Shayne broke the camera open and loaded it with fast film.
“There’s a phone on the other side of the street,” he said. “Don’t cross here. Go back a block. Their asking price is a hundred thousand. Not pounds, probably, but dollars. If you can double that you’ll be safe.”
“You know I can’t get hold of that much money without Sam,” she said sharply. “We’ll have to take it away from them.”
“Take your time. I won’t leave without you.”
“I wish I could be sure of that. In fact, I think I’ll make sure.”
She picked the key out of the ignition and walked away briskly. The youth, his hands in his pockets, was leaning down to talk to Dessau. When he straightened, his face caught the light from a streetlamp and Shayne took his picture.
Shayne picked up his phone, and when the operator came on he said, “You were ringing me.”
“Yes — a man at the Opa-Locka Airport, Mr. Buzz Yale. Can you talk to him?”
“Yeah, get him for me.”
Dessau came out of the Ford and Shayne made a picture of the two men walking together to the pier.
“Mike, that airplane you wanted?” Buzz Yale said in another moment.
“Give it to me.”
“It’s a Lear Jet-Star on private charter. The times check. They filed a flight plan to Bogota, and then the client was called away at the last minute. It’s still on call.”
“That’s the one. How many in the crew?”
“Pilot and co-pilot. The client’s a woman — I thought you might be asking. I can get her name, but probably not without calling some attention to myself.”
“I already know it. Where’s the plane now? I want exact directions.”
“Outside Hangar Two. That’s in the General Aviation area inside the canal at the north edge of the field. Coming along the service road, it’s the second building on the right — the service road paralleling the main east-west runway.”
“All this is fine, Buzz. Can you stay near the phone? I think there may be some activity out there soon.”
“I won’t mind. It’s been a dull evening.”
“Not for me,” Shayne said.
Anne rejoined him, having taken the same roundabout route back.