The picture was still far from over. Nevertheless, after too brief an interval, the driver of Shayne’s car separated himself from his girl and climbed into the front seat. Shayne rolled free as the motor started.
The pain was suddenly much worse, and he felt a rush of blood down his arm. He started toward his Buick; but after a few steps, he veered and went down. After a moment, he managed to bring his knees up under him and crawl into the weeds on the far side of the big screen.
Chapter 9
The picture ended.
Headlights came on, and the cars lined up for the slow creep to the exits. Shayne smelled grass and dirt, and the side of his face ached. He raised his head.
He forced himself to his feet and caught one of the uprights supporting the screen. Blood was running down the back of his hand. Headlights swept over him as the cars came around. When he released the wooden support, the ground tilted and sent him staggering into the moving line of cars. A horn blatted at him.
“Too many martinis?” somebody called.
The yellow MG was gone. His Buick sat all by itself in a clearing, and he slanted toward it. He had the trunk rigged so he could open it with a hidden spring. He reached in and brought out a loaded.38, which he stuck in his belt.
He waited, supporting himself on the fender, until enough other cars had left so he could be sure that the men in the MG hadn’t waited for him to reappear. The pavement had emptied around the black Cadillac from the Pussycat Club. Shayne made it without having to lean on anything or without falling down again. The overhead light flashed as he opened the door.
Mandy’s face was hidden in a tangle of hair. She was off the seat, one knee up and the other foot caught by the brake pedal. He moved her carefully.
His face tightened, and the broken skin on his cheek throbbed a warning. Her glasses were caught in her hair. One lens was broken. The eye that had been behind it no longer looked much like an eye. Her skin was the color of death.
Her purse was wedged beneath her. He forced her legs apart so he could get it. Then something tapped him on the shoulder, and he jumped aside.
“Show’s over,” a voice said. “Everybody’s going home.”
It was the slow-moving old man who had sold him his ticket. Seeing the look on Shayne’s face, he backed away, one hand raised.
“But take your time, take your time. All the time in the world. I’m knocking off for the night, is all. Most people appreciate it, being told.”
Shayne moved and let the old man look into the lighted front seat. He made a sound as though he had been hit in the stomach.
“We were mugged,” Shayne said, holding up his bloody hand. “Stay here. I’ll notify the cops.”
He let the door swing shut and walked away. Back in his own car, he took a flask filled with cognac out of the glove compartment and drank deeply. He opened a bandage and stuffed it into his shirt, holding it in place by leaning forward against the seat belt.
The exits were no longer blocked by departing cars. He turned west on Seventy-ninth Street, north on the expressway, and then left it at the next exit. At the North Shore Hospital, he swung into the emergency dock. He had been all right while he was driving; but as he left the car, there was a sudden blaze around him; and he went headlong, falling painfully on the gun.
Then he found himself in the emergency room being worked on by a Cuban resident. Shayne was known here; he had visited them before.
“Remember the last time, eh?” the Cuban said. “That broke the monotony. But this one — nice and clean. Does that hurt there?”
“It’s okay.”
“I’m glad it’s okay for you. For me, it would hurt. I would say to myself, enough. Enough for one day. I would have a few drinks. I would listen to a Mozart concerto and try to forget that a cheap gun can be bought on a street corner for less than a bag of heroin.”
“How do you know it was a cheap gun?”
“There are too many guns of all types in this town. Now you’ll have one more small scar on your body. For a few weeks, you’ll feel it each time you lift that arm. But do you know that a few small inches this way or that, into the head or the chest, and you’d be dead, Mr. Shayne?”
“Hurry it up, doctor. I’ve got a lot to do.”
“I’m sure.”
When the bandage was placed, a nurse brought a clean shirt that was only a size too small. She buttoned it for him. They watched him come off the table. The room clouded briefly; the outlines of the doctor’s sardonic face blurred and dissolved; but he found he could stand.
“Do you want a wheelchair to your car?” the doctor said.
“I’d better get used to walking by myself.”
“By the way, Mr. Shayne…”
He held out Shayne’s.38. Shayne took it.
“But I still say there are too many of these things floating around.”
“Hell, I agree with you.”
Shayne signed a paper, thanked them, and walked out slowly. He rested after reaching his car, bothered by the feeling that there was something important he was neglecting. Remembering, he emptied Mandy Pitt’s purse on the seat beside him. Out of the loose litter, he picked a St. Albans room key. There was no number on the tag, but Shayne had little doubt that it would unlock the room in which Kate Thackera had been killed.
He locked the key and the Brannon gatefold into the strongbox welded to the floor beneath the seat. He hesitated, his hand on the phone switch. More bits had fallen into place; but before he gave any of this to the police, there were several more important things he needed to know.
He returned to the expressway and headed south into the city.
All the windows and vents were open. He drove carefully at first; but by the time he came off the causeway onto Pelican Island, the cognac had taken hold; and he thought he was nearly back to normal. That didn’t mean he felt up to forcing his way in; and when the guard at the entrance to Oscar’s private quarters took a half step forward and gave him a hard look, Shayne stopped with a sigh.
“You recognize me. I was here with Mandy Pitt.”
“The party’s closing down. I’m not letting anybody else in.”
“Make an exception in my case.”
The guard gave him a disagreeable smile. “I was specially told not to make any exceptions in the case of Mike Shayne. We don’t like your type of troublemaker.”
Shayne’s acquaintance, the plumbing supply salesman, was watching from a distance. Shayne called him.
“I’ve been hanging around on the off-chance,” the salesman said. “Are we going back in?”
“I hope so. Give me a hand here. I only have the use of one arm. They told him not to let us in; and that’s ridiculous, isn’t it? I know for a fact that the parties go on and on.”
The guard was in his early twenties, with an unruly shock of blonde hair and a complexion problem. Having decided he could handle Shayne, he had resumed chewing gum. He wore a whistle on a cord around his neck, a light blue uniform, and a broad leather belt, into which his thumbs were hooked. Now he moved back a step, and his fingers went to his whistle.
Shayne caught the cord and yanked, pulling the guard forward into the salesman’s arms, who danced backward with him. The two men held each other to keep from falling. Shayne rapped the guard twice with his pistoclass="underline" first in the kidneys, and then alongside the face.
“I didn’t bargain for…” the salesman cried.
“It’s all right; it goes with his job.”
He told the salesman what to do, and they walked the semi-conscious man backward and tumbled him into a parked car. There they tore his shirt in strips and tied and gagged him. After that, the salesman decided it was time to say goodnight, really goodnight.