He had a sure instinct for topics people wanted to hear about. Even by the freakish standards of nighttime radio it was an outrageous show. His high-water mark to date had been the occasion when a loanshark, describing the way he made his living, drew a pistol and shot and seriously wounded a police informer. After that Rourke made all his guests check their small arms in an outer office before going on the air.
When Shayne arrived, a carefully dressed homosexual in early middle age, with a tan so carefully acquired that it looked like stage make-up, was describing the qualities that attracted him to chickens. One such, a fourteen-year-old, the older man’s current companion, sat beside him with lowered eyes, working on his nails. Rourke teetered far back on two legs of a straight chair, a glass in one hand. When Shayne came in, he brought all four legs down.
“Excuse me, guys. As fascinating as this is, we’re going to change the subject. This is Mike Shayne, and at this time of night he often has some stories to tell. He’s been working on the hitchhiking murders, and he’s just back from West Palm, where the latest victim was found tonight on the municipal golf course. And the next sound you hear will be Shayne pouring himself a drink.”
He pushed a bottle of Shayne’s brand of cognac across to his friend. There were several half-emptied glasses. He dumped one onto the rug and gave it to Shayne.
Shayne said, “I’ve got to the point where I need some help, Tim. You keep telling me that the kookiest people in southern Florida listen to this show. Maybe we can mobilize a few.”
“Catch a thief to set a thief. No, it’s the other way around.”
“That’s the idea. But there’s a lot to explain, so if anybody wants to go out and get another beer, now’s the time.”
The older homosexual at the table was caressing the back of the boy’s neck lightly. “I take it this murderer is interested in girls?”
“So far, exclusively girls. A girl named Meri Gillespie started hitchhiking in Miami. We don’t know where she’s been for two days. But we already know quite a bit about her, who her friends were, who she’s been living with, where she was going, and why before she left Miami she stole a piece of a valuable Toltec mask.”
“Holloway’s,” Rourke said quickly.
“I didn’t know you knew about it.”
“I heard rumors about a big sale.”
“I want to tell you and your people everything I know and suspect about this mask. It’s going to feature some important names, including the well-known Miami U. professor Tim just mentioned, and the director of the New York Fine Arts Museum. This isn’t how we handle this kind of thing ordinarily. We move slowly and try not to scare anybody. We don’t throw charges around or make trouble for people who may turn out to be innocent. We can’t do it like that this time. We don’t know what applies and what doesn’t. We have to hurry. A colleague of mine, a private investigator named Frieda Field, has also been kidnapped. This was her case to begin with. She brought me in to provide protection while she did something that in my opinion was foolish and dangerous. I tried to argue her out of it, but she’s as stubborn as a goddamn mule. She’s trying to make it as a woman in a tough profession. She claims to be a good shot with a pistol. She’s competent, she’s tenacious, she works hard. And she’s very, very handsome. I’ll add here what I’ve already told several people. We were going to spend the night together. That’s happened three times in the last few years. We had one successful weekend in Jamaica while her husband was still alive. She won’t like the idea that I’m saying this on the air, but I don’t want any confusion. This is important to me. I’m willing to go to extreme lengths to see that nothing happens to her.”
“Mike,” Rourke said in a lowered voice, “you mean this same guy—”
“I think so. She went out as a decoy. We had a system worked out so that whenever she got a ride I’d follow her, but something went wrong. I bobbled it.”
“Man, this is heavy. That’s one hell of a woman. Now what can we do to help you?”
“I saw her last at the MacArthur interchange, northbound. She was carrying a guitar case and a shoulder bag. Bright yellow scarf, jeans, a flower patch on one knee, purple sweater, no bra, sandals. Dark glasses, loose black hair to her shoulders. She’s twenty-six, about one thirty-five, five-six. Except for the clothes, she looks like a model for perfume or jewelry.”
“Marvelous,” Rourke agreed. “I don’t usually pick up hitchers, but I’d make an exception in her case. No bra?”
“She was trying to get the attention of a sex-nut. All right. How many people do you think are listening to us?”
“Hard to say. The station isn’t rich enough to commission surveys. Raise your hands, everybody. Thousands, anyway.”
“And you’ve persuaded me that they’re special people. You wouldn’t advertise a floor wax to this audience. They don’t believe in waxing their floors.”
“Right. Or deodorants. We don’t care how we smell, so long as it’s natural.”
“Which automatically makes you all a little crazy. You sleep less than ordinary people. You believe in ESP and astrology.”
“We’re open-minded, Mike. I’m open-minded against, they’re open-minded in favor.”
“The point is, we’re talking to a kind of underworld, with its own culture, its own rules. New attitudes, new combinations. It would be too much to expect this killer to be one of your regular listeners, but he may have friends who are, if he has friends. Maybe somebody out there was hitching this evening and passed the MacArthur interchange during the crucial half hour. If there’s anything you can tell us, anything at all, call in. We think Meri was still alive when she climbed over the fence around the golf course, or when somebody lifted her over. She was wearing a red rain cape, bright red. What happened to her clothes, to a knapsack she was carrying? What happened to the left eye of that mask? I’m making the whole thing a single package, and the right answers are worth two hundred thousand bucks.”
“Better say that again,” Rourke said. “I’ve had time to adjust, but there may be people who didn’t hear it the first time. A dollar sign, a two, then five zeroes.”
“For information leading to the apprehension of and the recovery of,” Shayne said. “You understand, this mask has already been bid on by a museum for six hundred thousand. Whether they’ll want to go through with the deal after I’m finished talking is another matter. I’m going to lay out everything I know about it, and that will include the recent activities of the following people: Professor Holloway; a new girl of his named Diane; his ex-wife, Maxine, who runs a gift shop in Seminole Beach; her live-in man, Andy Anastasia, who thinks of himself as a sculptor; Eliot Tree from the big city of New York; a few assorted hoods; and one more I haven’t met yet, an ex-boyfriend of Meri’s, true name Sid Koch, nickname Scotch. But first.”
He picked up the cheap carry-on vinyl suitcase he had brought into the studio and turned it upside down over the table. Packages of money cascaded out. Rourke and his two guests responded with quick movements and sounds. In an age of credit cards, that amount of cash in one container still carried a certain magic.
“I hope the engineer could pick up that sound effect,” Shayne said. “Those were gasps. I’ve just dumped one thousand and fifty — one five oh — one-hundred-dollar bills on the table. I also have a check made out for fifty thousand and signed by Eliot Tree. He swears he has enough in the bank to cover it. How many phones do you have open, Tim?”