“And when I tell you, it will help you find and rescue your friend? I do not see how.”
“O.K., García,” Shayne said unpleasantly, “get the hell out or I’ll take you in bleeding.”
“I will do it! It is dangerous for me, but I know I would be most unhappy in prison. We will go now to the St. Albans Hotel. There you will please take me upstairs at the point of a gun, so it will be clear that I am helpless.”
Chapter 10
García phoned from the lobby. He said only, “I have it,” and was told to come up.
After leaving the elevator, Shayne told him to hold still for a moment. When the Cuban turned, Shayne swiped at his face with the pistol barrel, drawing blood.
García went back. “But why?”
“Thinking of your reputation. You put up a great fight.”
“I am not a fighter. I use the gun if I have to, but as for hitting people with fists, never.”
Halfway along the corridor, he picked a door and touched a bell. When the door opened, Shayne gave him a blow from behind that sent him staggering into the room. He ran into a man nearly as tall as he was, but with the sections of his body in harmony. A long nose and prominent nostrils gave him a horsy look, and the sound he made when collided with by the moving Cuban was like a whinny. Shayne shut the door. His gun was showing.
“Are you Eliot Tree?”
“Evidently.” He gave García a displeased look. “I thought I was getting professionals.”
“We outnumbered him,” Shayne said. “There was a big fist-fight, but he’s a little awkward and he lost. He didn’t get a chance to shoot anybody, which is lucky for you because you’re already in serious trouble.”
Tree, Shayne had been told, was the director of a major New York museum, and people in that business, he was sure, were seldom exposed to the sight of guns and blood. But he was taking it coolly. He picked up the cigar he had been smoking.
“When did this fight take place,” he asked García, “before you finished your errand or afterward?”
Shayne handed him the white box. “They took this out of Holloway’s safe. Before we tell García to get lost, I want to ask him one question. Is it or isn’t it true, García, that this package never left your possession until we got to the hotel, and at no time has it been opened or tampered with?”
García looked confused. “Will you say that over, please?”
Shayne said it again, and García assented. “It is as we tied it when it came out of the safe.”
“Now get out. And next time don’t get caught.”
García took a step toward the door. “I am sorry about this, Mr. Tree—”
“I know, you were outnumbered.”
“That, but it may not be as bad as it seems. It is not a plain and simple robbery. This is Mike Shayne.”
“Are you trying to take a weight off my mind?” Tree asked. “I already know it’s going to cost me money.”
García left, and Tree looked at Shayne quizzically. “You want me to open this. I assume I’ll find that it’s not all here.”
“I’m assuming the same thing, but I’ve already had a few surprises. There seems to be a certain amount of chicanery in your business.”
“I’m distressed to hear that you think so.”
He took the box to a low table and used a silver cigar knife to cut the string. He removed a layer of tissue paper. Looking at Tree’s face and not at what was in the box, Shayne saw his nostrils open. He laid the cigar down carefully and lifted out a brightly colored fragment.
“Seems to be broken,” Shayne said.
“As you very well knew. But look at the color.”
There were seven pieces. He put them together, handling each delicately, as if afraid that some of the color he admired might rub off on his fingers.
“Who has the second eye?”
“I don’t,” Shayne said. “I’m fairly sure now that Holloway doesn’t.”
“A pity.”
“But I have an idea I want to talk over with you.” Leaving the mask loosely joined, Tree leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head, his cigar cocked at a sharp upward angle. He was in his early fifties. To judge by his skin, his clothes, the way he spoke, he had spent his childhood in a house with a big lawn, had learned to sail and play squash and tennis at an early age, had gone to a New England church school and a good college, and had spent his whole life among people whose histories were more or less identical with his own.
“An idea,” he said. “No doubt a money-making idea. But keep your aspirations within reason, Shayne, because the Fine Arts’ acquisition account is seriously depleted at this moment.”
“Very smooth,” Shayne said. “Is that why you’re dealing with a cheap thief like García?”
“Hardly cheap, hardly cheap. And I don’t accept your word ‘dealing.’ I have a legitimate reason for being in Miami. I’m not a hard man to approach. I answer the phone myself. I didn’t call him. He called me.”
Shayne touched one of the brightly colored pieces. “How much is this worth to you, as is?”
“Very little. We already have two post-Classic masks of good quality. They’re rarely shown because they’re fragmentary.”
Shayne picked up the piece he had touched and placed it on the floor. He took out his pistol, reversing it so he was holding it by the barrel.
“Then you won’t care if I smash this.”
Tree stirred. “Don’t do that, Shayne.”
“Nobody’s ever accused me of being cultured. I haven’t been inside any kind of museum for twenty years, and that time I remember I was looking for some guys who stole a bunch of gold coins. I saw the picture Holloway has been showing people. It didn’t impress me. Of course I have to have a certain amount of respect for anything that would bring that kind of price.”
His eyes narrowed. “I see I’m not getting through to you. I don’t think I’d be able to force myself to set fire to a ten-thousand-dollar bill. But this?” He touched the fragment with his toe, and Tree’s hand moved. “I know it means something to you, but it doesn’t mean a damn thing to me, so I don’t want you to be too lofty. I don’t have time to play games. I want answers, and I want you to forget for a minute that you went to Exeter and Harvard. But after three minutes I’ve taken a strong dislike to you, and for some reason I seem to be a little jumpy.”
He brought his gun down hard, missing the terracotta by a fraction of an inch. A strong jolt of electricity passed through Tree.
“For God’s sake! I know I alienate people, Shayne, but I can’t change my act at this late date. What you want is some honesty, is that what you’re saying?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
Tree took a heavy breath. “All right, dive in. It’s St. Paul’s and Yale. I realize that’s not what you meant, but I have to get used to this gradually. My wife has a little money. I don’t.”
“What’s a little money?”
“Twelve thousand a year, but I’m sorry to say she’s divorcing me and she doesn’t plan to pay alimony. My contract has six months to run, and again, I’m sorry to say there’s a distinct possibility that it won’t be renewed.”
“That’s the kind of thing I like to know about somebody,” Shayne said, putting his gun away. He picked up the fragment and added it to the others on the table. “Tell me what makes this so important.”
“In general, or to the Fine Arts, or to Eliot Tree’s career at the Fine Arts?”
“All three, but boil it down. I’m on a short fuse.”
“First things first. Naturally I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to support myself in six months’ time if they drop me. I have standards to keep up. I’ve made a couple of small mistakes. I had to send a Tintoretto back to Italy, because of a certain unconscionable scamp in the Italian Office of Antiquities who made a deal with the prosecuting attorney. We didn’t recover a penny of the purchased price. To replenish, I sold a few odds and ends that have been gathering dust in the basement, including, unhappily, a Van Dyck that had been misattributed. The papers pilloried me for that, in spite of the fact that deaccessioning has gone on continually since the museum was built, and every transaction can’t be favorable. My portfolio managers have had some bad luck in the market. Income is down, gifts are way down, the trustees aren’t returning my phone calls, and I need something spectacular to recoup. At a time when I don’t have the funds to buy anything spectacular in the marketplace, and it’s inexpedient to raise funds by going into the basement.”