“I’m checking the voice levels. Something wrong with the wiring through here.”
The girl said, “Darling, come back. What do we care? I’m beginning to lose the feeling.”
“No, he bothers me. We don’t have to put up with it. I’m going to get the manager or somebody.”
He turned on his lights. Shayne reached in and turned them off.
“Those two guys in the MG followed a girl in here. She’s in the black Cad; do you see her? I think she’s meeting somebody. You didn’t come here to watch the picture. If you’re interested in real life, zip up and see what happens.”
A girl in the car at his other elbow said, “What’s the hassle?”
“Weren’t you listening?” Shayne said. “I don’t like to say everything twice.”
“What are you anyway, fuzz?”
“No, no. I’m married to the goddamn girl. Those guys are narcs, and I think they’re setting her up for a bust. Give it a couple of minutes.”
The first boy said suspiciously, “Narcs in a yellow car?”
“Aren’t they entitled to use a disguise?” his girl said. “He’s cute. He wants a couple of minutes. Give him a couple of minutes.”
Above on the screen, the deadpan hero was slaughtering men and women in a matchstick saloon. In the MG, the driver looked at his watch again and turned his head to say something.
“They’re getting impatient,” Shayne said.
“So am I,” the boy said, “so am I.”
“How long till the picture’s over, another half hour?”
Both the MG doors opened at once. The group around Shayne was now giving the problem full attention.
“There they go,” somebody said.
A girl suggested, “Let’s bug the bastards. Blow our horns.”
She leaned on the horn in her car, but it didn’t catch on. The two men who had come out of the MG walked directly to the Cadillac and got into the front seat from opposite sides. Shayne moved to the next line of cars. There was a quick flurry of activity in the Cadillac’s front seat. Shayne saw an upraised arm. From the mikes in the nearby cars came a mutter of dialogue and a sudden clatter of hoofs.
The boy who had spoken to him first came partway out of his car. “Hey, they’re creaming her in there!”
It was fast movielike action. The men were inside the Cadillac for no more than thirty seconds, time enough for one exchange of pistol shots on the screen. One man came out, then the other. Doors slammed.
They walked quickly to the MG, separating to go to opposite sides. Shayne came in on the driver. He was still holding the half-empty box of popcorn. He threw it in the man’s face and nailed him with a right to the head. There was a click of bone meeting bone, and Shayne knew from the pain in his hand that the man would drop. As he telescoped, Shayne brought his knee up hard, then kicked him in the head after he was down, wanting no more trouble with this one.
The second man, in a partial crouch, was already three quarters of the way into the low car. Shayne was on the other side in time to push the door as he came out, setting him up for a left. It went in high. He kept coming.
Shayne had made the wrong choice, for this was the one with the weight and the muscle. Shayne dragged him the rest of the way out, lifting him by the head, and banged him against the windshield. As he came off that, Shayne pivoted, lifting, and the canvas top crumpled inward under the man’s weight. An arm was flung out at Shayne’s face, almost carelessly. Shayne took it on his forehead and felt it all the way down to his heels.
He let go of the heavy shoulder and fell back amid a dazzle of lights. The hand came up again, and Shayne saw that it was wearing knuckles.
He told himself that he had to move fast. Before the message arrived, the artificial knuckles crashed against his cheekbone.
A pair of headlights flashed on behind him. Pinned in the bright beam, the big man swung around. He was unbelievably ugly: a heavy, underslung jaw; tiny features in a face marked with acne scars; ridges of bone over malevolent eyes. His legs were short and bandy.
“Old friend,” Shayne said thickly. “Turkey Gallagher.”
His hands hung at his sides. Being called by his name seemed to confuse the big man. Instead of striking again while Shayne was helpless, he blinked into the light; and his unarmored hand came up to wipe his mouth. He had been a professional wrestler once — a good one — but his muscles had seized up; and now the only jobs he could catch were occasional collections for the Miami Beach loan sharks. After one look at his face and torso, the debtor was usually quick to pay up.
“Take off the knucks, Turkey,” Shayne said, “or I’ll break your hand.”
A voice from the MG’s cramped interior said sharply, “Get in the car, both of you.’
So there was still a third man, crowded into a back corner, where Shayne hadn’t seen him from the rear. The long barrel of a Luger equipped with a silencer came into the light.
“Are you pointing that at me?” Shayne said. The sight of the heavy pistol partially cleared his head. Turkey was still staring at him stupidly. Shayne caught his arm and brought him around, forcing his heavy belly against the gun muzzle.
“You bastard, this is no business of yours,” the voice said from the car.
The Luger was withdrawn. The man tried to flop the other seat forward and get out the opposite door.
Turkey protested, “I didn’t know it was you, Mike.”
Shayne shifted his grip and forced Turkey’s fist downward. Turkey folded slowly. When the hand touched the ground, Shayne stamped on it viciously.
The third man, out of the car, fired over Shayne’s head to make him hold still. The sharp pop was almost lost in the rattle of unsilenced gunfire from the mikes.
Turkey grabbed Shayne’s leg. Shayne twisted free and jumped. The headlights blinked off. The man on the other side of the MG may have fired again; but if so, Shayne didn’t hear it.
He sliced into the next row three cars down, passed through, and came back. Both couples he had talked to were out of their cars. The boy who had performed the useful trick with the headlights held out a tire tool. Shayne took it.
“Who are those guys?” the boy said.
“Pros.”
Shayne dodged away and waited, crouching, between cars. Near him, he heard a girl’s muffled moan. The man with the gun came into view. He was tall and thin and must have been cruelly contorted in the back seat of the MG. He was holding the Luger along his leg.
When he was two strides away, Shayne came out of concealment, close to the ground. The tire tool was already moving. It hit the tall man below the knee and cut him down. He fired at Shayne as he rolled. The shot went low and into somebody’s fender.
Turkey stayed out of it; but the man Shayne had attacked first appeared beyond the MG, wavering. He, too, had a gun. Shayne threw the tool. It hit the asphalt and skittered away.
He reached the protection of the next line of cars. Lights were coming on behind him. Two cars starting out of their spaces at the same time collided with a rending of metal. A thought flashed into Shayne’s mind, cutting into the fuzziness that had been hanging there since Turkey hit him with the knuckles. All these cars had keys in the ignition. He looked for one with an empty front seat.
Sidestepping, he wrenched open a door. The couple in back pulled apart. Shayne was twisting to enter the car when a bullet from one of the guns caught him in the meaty part of his shoulder and spun him around.
He dropped but was up again at once, trying to lose himself among the parked cars. This part of the lot was untouched by the spreading excitement. He dived beneath a car, wriggled on to the next, and lay still. Quick footsteps passed. People were dying on the screen. He heard the simulated smack of bullets into flesh.
The car he was lying beneath eased slightly from side to side. Five minutes passed. He pressed his hand hard against his shoulder and followed the proceedings in the car overhead. He thought in the end that both participants had made it.