“Gag her,” Anne added. “I don’t like that whine.”
The boy and the truck driver found the tank and worked it into view.
“This mother’s heavy,” the driver said, surprised.
“Put it in the Ford,” Anne said, and repeated, “in the Ford.”
They began to lift it. The boy’s grip slipped and it clanked heavily to the pavement.
Cecily squealed, “For Christ’s sake, be careful! You know what’s in it.”
They staggered past Shayne carrying the tank. He was inserting a gag in Cecily’s mouth.
Anne took two quick steps one way and then another.
“I won’t ask for advice,” she said, biting her lip. “I ought to be able to work this by myself. Nobody else will be shot,” she said as the others came back, panting, “if you all do what I tell you. Dessau is an intelligence agent, and he knew what he was letting himself in for. None of the rest of you are that involved, but you realize that I won’t hesitate to kill you if you force me to. Mike Shayne will tell you I mean what I say.”
“She means what she says,” he agreed.
She told Shayne to bind and gag the driver, then the boy, and to drag them between the warehouses. Cecily and Dessau were next. Then Shayne himself lay down and let her truss him up, using the stockings from her purse.
“Mike’s car,” Shayne heard her say under her breath.
She swung up into the cab of the truck and cut the lights. Coming down, she put a bullet into the two front tires and the radiator.
Before she left she stooped beside Shayne. “I liked what happened at the motel, Mike, but I truly hate you.”
Her lips brushed his cheek.
The next thing he heard was the roar of the Ford’s motor. She turned at the next corner, heading for the unloading area at the rear of the warehouses, where Shayne had left his car.
Shayne rolled, kicking a weight off his legs. Hearing Dessau’s harsh breathing, he wriggled in that direction.
Light glowed suddenly as Anne, in the Ford, turned in through the broken gate. Shayne saw Dessau lying on his side. The big man’s neck was unnaturally twisted and his teeth were bloody.
Shayne rolled again, twisting, and jack-knifed himself over Dessau’s feet and back along his body until their hands touched. Shayne was making half-sounds through his gag. He thought he felt Dessau’s hand pull away slightly. Groping, he worked the knot in the stocking against Dessau’s fingers.
There were three more shots from the rear of the warehouse, then the sound of the Ford leaving. A moment later it passed on the street, moving fast. A horn tooted twice, derisively.
Dessau, of them all, had the most to gain by getting loose. Shayne willed his fingers to move. They were flaccid and unresponsive. Dessau’s breath was whistling feebly in his throat.
Shayne shifted position, aware that he had very little time. Now he thought he felt a faint answering pressure. He tightened his shoulders and began working his wrists back and forth. He had two of Dessau’s fingers in one hand, the thumb in the other, and for a moment he was able to work them almost as extensions of his own. He felt the stocking around his wrists begin to loosen.
Now he was able to pull at the knot in the cloth strip around Dessau’s wrists. Shayne had tied the knot himself, and in the end Anne had neglected to check it. After a moment’s tense fumbling he succeeded in picking it apart. Dessau rolled. Shayne felt hands at his wrists.
He held still and counted backwards from twenty-five. His hands were free before the count reached zero.
After that it was only a moment, and Shayne was up and running, tearing at the gag. He tripped on something and went sprawling, and felt a jagged piece of metal bite into his hand.
The Buick’s two front tires had been shot out. Fluid was leaking from a hole in the radiator. The phone had been ripped out by the roots and thrown away.
Nevertheless, when Shayne hit the switch, the motor caught instantly.
He came back fast through the open gate, running well enough on the rims as long as he moved in a straight line. But he barely cleared the side of the warehouse as he came about, heeling over, fighting the wheel.
He knew this part of town well. Plotting the straightest, shortest line to the nearest phone, he bounced over the railroad tracks and continued inland.
The red warning lights on the dashboard were on. The motor was hammering. Shayne kept the gas pedal all the way down even as he felt the car beginning to lose power. Steam swirled up across the windshield and up around his feet.
He was in a neighborhood of unoccupied buildings and vacant lots. Each new bump flattened the rims further and the ride became increasingly rough. The steering wheel seemed to be trying to tear itself out of his hands.
He saw lights ahead.
Waves of heat rolled back into the car. He saw an outside phone booth, and the Buick nearly reached it before the head gasket blew. Even then he kept going, bucking to a stop, smoking a few yards short of the booth.
He leaped out, feeling in his pockets for change. They were empty.
He uttered one single explosive epithet, swerved without breaking stride, and ran onto the porch of the nearest house. He kicked out a glass panel. Reaching in, he opened the front door. Before he could find a light switch, he had kicked over an umbrella stand and a chair. The phone was all the way through in the kitchen.
The Miami Police Headquarters had recently installed separate numbers for each extension. Shayne dialed Will Gentry’s number, and the police chief picked up the phone promptly.
“It’s Shayne. This has to be fast. Listen carefully. There’s a Lear Jet-Star at Opa-Locka, in front of the second hangar to the right in General Aviation. Buzz Yale can point it out to you. It absolutely can’t be allowed to take off. Call the tower. Tell them to hold up air clearance, and block the runway. Fake a collision — yeah. But I don’t want the people in that airplane to know they’ve been spotted. I’ll hold.”
There was a rustle in the doorway. A woman stepped into view, holding a shotgun in a businesslike manner. She was tall, wearing rumpled yellow pajamas, her dark hair in curlers, large horn-rimmed glasses halfway down her nose.
“What is—” she demanded hoarsely, then cleared her throat and started over. “Who are you and just what do you think you’re doing?”
Shayne held up his hand, palm out. “I’ll show you my credentials, but to do that I have to put this hand in my pocket. Don’t pull the trigger.”
He brought out his wallet and shook it open to show his detective’s license. She didn’t look away from his face.
“I’ve seen your picture,” she said. “You’re Michael Shayne. And I’d like to know how being a private detective entitles you to break into strange houses in the middle of the night.”
“I had to use your phone, and I didn’t have time to ring the doorbell and go through a long song and dance. I’ll see that everything’s fixed.”
She lowered the shotgun muzzle and pushed her glasses further up her nose. “All right, since you ask me so charmingly, feel free to use the phone.”
“Thanks.”
Gentry came back on. “That’s taken care of. They didn’t ask for an explanation, but I’m going to. That is, if you have a moment.”
“There’s one other thing we have to get out of the way, Will. Is the FBI still hanging over you?”
“Breathing heavily.”
“We’ve got some picking up to do, and I think we can let them help.”
He told Gentry where he could find Cecily Little and the three others. One of the three would be needing an ambulance.
“Now I have one more call while that’s getting underway,” Shayne said. “Keep this line open. I’ll get back to you.”
“Mike, make it a promise.”