“We got lots of eggs. No ham.”
Shayne sloshed the brandy around and wrinkled his nose at the odor. He arched red brows at the sign behind the fat man. “For a buck and a half you ought to have plenty of ham.”
The bartender shrugged. “No more ham till the first of the month. Maybe you don’t know it, Mister, but we’re rationed just like the rest of you.”
“It should last at that price.”
“But it don’t. I was tellin’ the boss coupla days ago — why don’t we put the price up to two dollars? Maybe we wouldn’t always be runnin’ out.”
Shayne asked, “Make it four eggs, over. Toast and coffee.” He took a sip of brandy.
When the bartender came back from giving the order, Shayne had the paper spread out in front of him. A headline read:
Shayne pointed a forefinger at it and said, “That’s the damnedest thing.”
“I’ll say.” The bartender leaned on the counter in front of him. “That Dinky Moore. He musta been nuts.”
“The fellow that got killed? You know him?”
“Sure. He was in here last evenin’. He’s in here every evenin’. Wife works here and he hangs around watchin’ her most of the time.”
“Jealous?”
“Plenty. Not that he didn’t have a reason to. She’s some babe.”
“Hostess?”
“Yeh.” He jerked his head toward the curtained doorway at the rear. “We got ten of ’em work the joint every night. But that Laura, she’s tops. She’s got what the soldiers go for — but plenty.”
“Lots of soldier trade here?”
“All we do have nowadays. There’s the airport and that training center. And we get a little play from that post where Dinky was killed last night. This is the closest joint where they can get any night life on their six-hour passes.”
“Is that all they get?”
“That’s all. Six hours. Other outfits get twenty-four hours leave. But not them.”
“That’s funny,” Shayne mused. “Way out in a camp like that. You’d think they’d get extra time.”
“I dunno.” The bartender sounded uninterested. “They gripe about it plenty.”
“What do they do at a place like that? I mean, what’s the idea setting them out on the keys?”
“I wouldn’t know, Mister. And if I did know I wouldn’t talk about it.” He jerked a spatulate thumb over his shoulder to a gilt sign that said, “DON’T. He MAY Be a SPY.”
Shayne grinned and said, “Yeh. I guess you’re right.” He drained his glass and shuddered. “This Dinky Moore must have been friendly with some of the boys out there, huh? Visiting them at night?”
“He wasn’t friendly with nobody.” The bartender shook his head. “I sure don’t know what he was doin’ out there like that. Never took him for a hoppy.”
Shayne rustled the newspaper. “That gun in his pocket sounds like he was after somebody. Any of the boys from that camp been particular friendly with his wife?”
“Might be. She goes for some of ’em. Young ones, mostly. You know how a woman gets over a kid in uniform. Boss has warned her a coupla times.” The bartender grinned lewdly. “He figures she ought to keep all that for him.”
Shayne returned his grin. “Boss goes for her too, huh?”
“If Dinky had wanted to go gunning, he didn’t have to look no further than right here.”
“But he didn’t know about that, I suppose?”
The bartender wrinkled his forehead thoughtfully. “I dunno. You know how it is. Sometimes a man don’t see what’s right under his nose. And sometimes he don’t wanta see. She was knockin’ down plenty of jack here.”
“He was willing to let her earn a living for him, huh? No matter how she did it?”
The fat man shook his curly head slowly. “I dunno. We usta wonder. Dinky got plenty sore when she fooled with the soldiers. If he’d ever caught her and the boss outright — but he never did.”
“How did he act last night? Before he went out there?”
“I didn’t notice him special. He was around. Not drinkin’ much. Then he wasn’t around. And this mornin’, wham! There it is spread all over the paper.” The bartender waggled his head and went to the kitchen for Shayne’s breakfast in response to the ring of the bell.
It was 10:18 by Shayne’s watch when he left the Club Lido. He drove at a moderate speed through the town of South Miami, and on south into the rich Redlands, a flat expanse of small truck farms basking in the Florida sun. A short distance north of Homestead, he turned to the left onto a graveled road leading directly toward the ocean. The farming district was left behind after a few miles and the road led through a section of tall Australian pines, which gave way, in turn, to mangroves and stunted palmettos as the shoreline was approached.
The road began twisting, crossing wooden trestles over wide sluggish inlets which rose and fell with the tide, creeping out along a chain of half-submerged islands so it was impossible to determine where the mainland actually left off and the keys began.
It was 11:42 when Shayne stopped in front of an open gate in a ten-foot fence of closely meshed galvanized wire at right angles across the road. A sentry with a bayoneted rifle stood in the middle of the road between the gateposts. Beyond him, the underbrush had been cleared off a twenty-acre area of flat land, none of which was more than five feet above high tide. Three long unpainted buildings stood in the center of the clearing grouped around a flagpole surmounted by the American flag. Another small frame building stood behind the sentry near the gate.
As Shayne got out, the sentry called over his shoulder, “Sergeant of the Guard. Post Number One.” And to Shayne, he said, “Advance ten paces to be recognized.”
Eight of Shayne’s long-legged strides took him up to the guard who stood at attention with his rifle at port arms. A sergeant came trotting from the little frame shack. He was puffing a little as he reached them, and he said, “No civilians allowed in here without a special pass.”
Shayne said, “Captain Richards is expecting me. Shayne.”
The Sergeant scowled at him dubiously. “Michael Shayne?”
“That’s right.”
“Prove it.”
Shayne got out his wallet and flipped it open to show his private license. The sergeant carefully compared the picture on the license with Shayne’s face, then grunted, “All right I guess. You’ll have to leave your jalopy outside. Right up there. This end of the first building is the Orderly Room.”
The sentry stepped back and Shayne passed between the two men. He looked about keenly as he approached the Orderly Room, but could see nothing whatever except the small clearing to denote human activity on the key. It was a masterful job of camouflaging a submarine base.
A corporal stopped pounding a typewriter long enough to lead Shayne to a rear door lettered C. O. He rapped on the door, opened it, and said, “Mr. Shayne, sir.”
Captain Richards was sitting behind a desk. He surveyed the Miami detective stonily. “Have you made any progress?”
“A little.” Shayne tossed his hat on the desk and lowered his body into a chair. “I’d like to see all the men who were on guard duty last night.”
The captain called through the open door: “Corporal Yonkers. Bring last night’s guard detail into the Orderly Room. I replaced them with a new detail this morning,” he added to Shayne.
The redhead nodded. “We probably won’t learn much from them.”
“I consider this entire investigation a waste of time,” Richards told him emphatically. “Captain Ott’s fear of sabotage seems to me utter nonsense. What could one man hope to do if he did get in?”