“When you were talking to Tree, did you tell him you knew who had a mask like the one you were describing?”
“I guess I implied it. And it did cross my mind — Tree’s in Miami, Sam Holloway’s in Miami. If the mask is still up for grabs, is that the real reason Tree happens to be in town?”
“What’s your own idea about what ought to be done with a thing like this? It’s stolen goods. Do you think it ought to go back?”
“I suppose I do,” she said slowly. “It comes from Quintana Roo in Yucatan. At least that’s what he’s letting us understand. The National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City is damn good, and that’s really the place for it. But if it was Guatemalan, my answer might be different. As the star piece in a North American collection, hundreds of thousands of people a year would see it, and presumably get something out of it. It would be well displayed and described, and carefully watched so it wouldn’t be stolen a second time. But if sending it back would mean doing Sam Holloway out of a dirty bonanza, I’d think very seriously about it.”
“We all have lots to think about,” Andy said. “But first we’d better find out if the kid’s been murdered. That would make the whole thing academic.” His face worked. “Academic — I even hate to pronounce the word.”
Chapter 5
“Now you see why I wanted you along,” Frieda said as they drove away. “You’re the expert. Were they lying?”
“There were things they weren’t saying. That’s normal.”
“Now you’re cheating. What I want to get you to admit is that it’s very likely — not certain, just likely — that Meri Gillespie was picked up and kidnapped by somebody, not because she had a piece of a Toltec mask in her knapsack, but because she was a young and good-looking girl. It doesn’t matter whether she was heading for an old boyfriend in Fort Myers or Maxine Holloway in Seminole Beach. She didn’t arrive. You know what I’m thinking about, Mike. I’m thinking about going out hitchhiking. If I can find out what happened, and find the knapsack, and if I’m right and the kidnapper didn’t know that that little bright fragment had any importance or value, I can buy myself into a game that seems to be played for rather high stakes.”
“It’s also a high-risk game.”
“Sometimes you have to take chances.” She was speaking soberly, looking straight ahead. “Here’s my situation, Mike. I try to look optimistic, because nobody likes to do business with a pessimist. But the agency loses a little more money every week. Not a whole lot more, just a little, little enough so it seems to me I have to stay open and hope for a change in the weather.”
“I didn’t know you were one of those people who think it’s disgraceful to go bankrupt.”
“I didn’t say it would be disgraceful. Just too bad. Have you ever seriously considered going into something different, or going to work for somebody else?”
“In the early days, sure. I’ve been at it longer than you have.”
“I’m stubborn. I still think there are things I can do that even you can’t. And this may be one of them! I’m not thinking just about money. I want potential clients to know I exist.”
“If you stake yourself out on the highway and capture the Interstate Rapist, you’ll get attention, I grant you. But nobody’s going to want their investigations handled by somebody who’s gone completely haywire. You’ve already got two strikes on you, as a woman. This isn’t your problem. If the cops can’t find him, the guy can’t be found.”
“That may be true, Mike. But I’ve been hired to locate a missing person and recover a piece of stolen property. If I’m willing to go hitchhiking in enemy country, those potential clients are going to be impressed, and you know it. It’ll put Field and Field on the map.”
“Or somewhere else. Do you want me to tell you how I figure the odds?”
She hesitated. “Better not. I’d probably agree with you. Let’s just fool with this for a minute. You said the totals in series murders tend to get inflated. Be conservative. Besides Meri and the two girls outside Jacksonville, there are three other pretty good candidates. All were hitching alone on a major highway. Between fifteen years old and twenty-five. I’m twenty-six, which puts me over the top range, but there won’t be many of us out today. We know what kind of clothes they were wearing. I think I’ll carry a guitar. I have a feeling that girls who play the guitar don’t pay attention to news broadcasts, and may have missed the warnings. Now for the odds. The odds against being picked up by the one man we want are probably a hundred to one. I know that doesn’t mean that if I take a hundred rides, I’ll finally hit the right one, because there may be something about me that won’t appeal to him at all. And if he does pick me up, the odds against anything happening are probably, again, a hundred to one. But the client’s going to like my attitude. It’ll show I’m trying. Mike, it’s better than advertising in the yellow pages!”
“I was thinking more about the odds against living through it.”
“I carry a gun. I used to be a terrible shot, but I’ve been going to the range and I’m much better. I know a few simple self-defense moves. In addition to all that, I hope you’ll be covering me.”
“I have a better idea,” he said. “Let’s charter a boat for a day’s sail. I’d like to get out in the Stream and see if any bluefish are waiting for me. You can lie on the bow, with or without bathing suit, and let your mind drift. That’s the way to find answers. Stop thinking about the questions.”
“If this was your case, would you go fishing?”
“Probably not. I wouldn’t dress up in a blond wig and stand out on the edge of the road thumbing, either.”
She laughed. “That’s what I was saying. You can’t. I can.”
“Why do you think so many police departments gave up using decoys? Too many got hurt. It’s a dumb idea, Frieda. It isn’t that important. A six-hundred-year-old funeral mask.”
“A twenty-three-year-old girl.”
“Those guys we surprised in the Seminole Beach house must have some kind of art-world connection. I know people I can ask. Let’s lean on this New York guy, Tree. Talk to Holloway’s colleagues. Koch. Give it another day, anyway, Frieda.”
She shook her head. “Will you help me, Mike?”
“Hell, no. Why should I take part in something I think is stupid?”
They were on the road by noon.
Frieda was wearing zip-up boots and old pants with a flowery patch on one knee, a tight purple sweater. Her hair was loose and blowing. Besides the guitar, she carried only a shoulder bag, holding everything she was taking with her, including a snub-nosed.38 revolver. A bright yellow scarf was looped around the handle of the guitar case.
They started at the 8th Street interchange, from which Meri Gillespie had set out two days earlier. Shayne drove ahead to the first gas pumps and parked. He had only a few minutes’ wait. He read the front page and the sports section of the morning paper, and was studying an open road map when Frieda passed him, the only passenger in a sports car. With her long black hair she was easy to spot, and to make the identification certain, she had closed the door on her scarf, which fluttered conspicuously from the side of the moving car.
Shayne folded the road map and followed. Frieda got out of the car at the next exit, having satisfied herself, apparently, that the driver was not the man they wanted. She waved Shayne past. He found another place to pull off the road and wait.
This first ride had been with a middle-aged man who didn’t seem to be tempted to use any of the sports car’s acceleration or power. He gripped the wheel tightly with both hands, except when he removed one hand to put a cigar in his mouth. He was leaning forward against the shoulder belt, in a state of some tension. Once Frieda was inside the car, he didn’t appear to give her a thought. When she tried to open a conversation, he replied in grunts, without removing his eyes from the road. He stayed in the right-hand lane, swearing under his breath when anyone passed him too fast, making his low-slung vehicle rock and swerve.