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“If you want a fight, I’ll give you a fight.” He began working her pants down over her hips. “Nothing like breaking a sweat.”

“You’re the one who killed all those girls.”

He said angrily, “What girls?”

“You picked them up on Ninety-five and raped them, and then you killed them and buried them.”

She lay beneath him quietly. He had removed none of his leather equipment, and it ground against her flesh. His pistol in its well-oiled holster was only an inch from her hand.

He blinked slowly. “Do you think it’s that hard for me to get laid? Yeah, I thought about it, how easy—”

“Some of them are probably buried right here, under the orange trees.”

He rotated above her, and the gun moved out of her reach. “I never raped anybody in my life. It just doesn’t appeal to me.”

“What are you doing right now?”

“I’m helping you get undressed. I gave you your free choice.”

“Have sex, or fifty days in jail.”

“Be honest, now,” he said. “Did I put it that way? I said if you’re nice to me I’ll be nice to you. You talked about putting the foam in. I don’t go places I’m not wanted! I get all the fucking I can handle, and they give it to me free. I don’t get any great thrill out of hurting girls.”

“You’re hurting me.”

Shifting, he saw the chafe marks on her stomach. “O.K.,” he said sullenly, “I’ll be careful. Rut I can’t take all my stuff off, because I’ve got to get back on the highway.”

Starting over, he tried to kiss her mouth. She turned her head, and his lips slid to the hollow of her throat.

“I like the salty taste. Be nice to me, darling.”

Shayne came around the car. “Do you need any help?”

“I can handle it, thanks,” Frieda said.

The trooper flopped over and stared up at the powerfully built redhead. His hand went for his gun. Frieda caught his wrist as Shayne dropped on his chest, knees first. Shayne planted one hand on the jowly face and picked the gun out of its holster.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Frieda said.

“I thought I saw something yellow in a VW bus,” Shayne said. “A big tangle of people. I went back to see if you were still there, and I heard the siren. He was in too big a hurry, and I thought I’d better see if he was chasing anybody. Is this our man?”

“I’m not sure yet. It could be.”

The trooper hacked soundlessly, trying to get air back in his lungs. Shayne pulled him to his feet and stood him against the car.

“As soon as you can talk, I want to get your side.”

Gradually the trooper’s face turned back to its usual shade of red. Looking at something off in the distance, he said, “We came in here to smooch. No law against that.”

“There are all kinds of laws against it,” Shayne told him. “We’ve got a sexual assault charge here, and you don’t have a chance of beating it. It’s one of the few times when there’s a corroborating witness.”

“What’s the penalty for rape in Florida?” Frieda said.

“I forget.”

“It can be life, but whites usually get less. And this was only attempted rape. It seems to me I got here in time?”

“Just.” Stepping up to the trooper, she hit him a slashing blow with the back of her hand. Her ring opened a red line across his cheek, at an angle to the line on his forehead left by the tight hat. “I want everybody to know I put up a fight.”

“You’re the one who brought up the foam, not me!”

She frowned. “You’ve got a point there. But I can be reasonable. Give me something and I’ll try to forget this happened.”

“How much? But go easy on me, because I don’t have nothing to my name that’s a whole hundred percent paid for.”

“Not money. It’s hard to describe. It’s a piece of a Mexican mask. About so big.” She shaped it with her hands. “Little bits of bright-colored stone on terracotta. If you have it, or if you know where it is, you can buy out of this, all the way out.”

He was shaking his head. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Terra-what? I wouldn’t know it if I saw it.”

“Then that’s too bad,” Shayne said. “Let’s go.”

“You know what happens when you’re a complainant?” the trooper said to Frieda. “You’re tied up for weeks.”

“In your case, I’ll be glad to spare the time.”

Shayne drove the patrol car, with the trooper caged in the back seat. When they came to Shayne’s Buick, Frieda shifted to that and followed him to the Lauderdale station. The trooper whined and complained the first five miles, then was silent. Shayne saw him booked, and Frieda swore out the complaint.

“Enough for now?” Shayne said after they returned to his car.

“I suppose so. That took a certain amount of adrenaline, and I’d better go slow until I can manufacture some more. Your timing wasn’t too good. A couple of minutes earlier, I was in real trouble. At that point I think I had him.”

Shayne gave her a sidelong look. It had been a dry and dusty few hours, and he was making drinks from the bar in the back seat.

“I didn’t want to break in the minute I got there. I thought I’d listen to some of the dialogue first.”

“Mike!” she exclaimed. “You mean you were there all the time he was trying to wrestle me out of my blue jeans?”

He smiled, dropping in ice cubes. “I knew you could out-think him.”

“You bastard.” She hit him with a clenched fist and then, surprisingly, she closed with him quickly and kissed him. “You were a pleasant sight, all the same.”

“And if I hadn’t wondered about that pile of people in the Volkswagen, I wouldn’t have gone back. We thought we had this worked out, but it didn’t occur to us that you might be picked up by a cop who could make a U-turn. There are too many possibilities, Frieda, and no way to cover them all. Don’t you think you’ve put out enough effort for the client?”

“Mike, I guess so, but the scary part was that I was in back and my gun was in front, with a wire mesh between. That won’t happen again.”

“There’s a new Italian restaurant on Key Biscayne. If we start now we can get there while they’re serving. I told Tim Rourke I’d show up at the radio station later, but that shouldn’t take more than half an hour. I made some phone calls while I was waiting. I didn’t get very far, but there are people who won’t talk on the phone who will talk in bars, and I think if we move around we should be able to pick up something.”

Frieda was playing with a loose thread in her jeans. “Naturally I know I can’t thumb up and down highways the rest of my life. But I think we’re on the right track. I’d like to stay out just a bit longer. Take the Trail to Fort Myers in the morning. Over and back, and if nothing comes of that, write it off. And one more ride tonight. I’m psyched up now, and I’ve got a funny feeling that this could be the one. The end of the afternoon. He’s been out all day. He knows he shouldn’t pick up anybody new until the excitement dies down, but he’s tired, he’s getting careless. It’s going to be dark soon. He’ll feel safe in the dark. And there I am, with my guitar and my yellow scarf, the first female hitchhiker he’s seen for hours, all by myself. And there you are, up the road waiting for us to drive by.”

“I don’t like it, Frieda.”

“I know you don’t, Mike, but let’s do it! And let’s go north again. That’s what the vibrations are telling me. And stay the night in Palm Beach. If that’s all right with you. If you can postpone Tim Rourke.”

They exchanged a look.

“All right, I’ll call him. Maybe this time it’ll be a harmless traveling salesman who just wants you to listen to him brag.”