Shayne leaped, slammed a forearm across Ace Hart’s gun hand, knocking the gun aside. He whipped a fist into Ace Hart’s groin. Hart yelled and dropped the handsaw. Shayne heard Foster scream in pain. The redhead whirled, whipped up the stapling gun. He jammed it against Ace Hart’s thigh, yanked the trigger. There was an odd sound.
Ace Hart went up on his toes, his face registering surprise and dismay, and then he yelled and plunged to the floor and caught his thigh and writhed.
Shayne turned with the staple gun just as Ray Burlington came down from flight. Burlington had leaped at him. Shayne triggered a staple into Burlington’s shoulder, spun aside. Burlington bounced off, went to the floor with a high-pitched scream.
Shayne pitched the staple gun aside, lunged to Foster. Foster clamped his right hand with his left. Blood oozed through the fingers of his left hand.
The detective carefully pried Foster’s left hand open. All of the fingers on the right hand remained intact. There was a slice across the outside of his palm.
Shayne grunted relief. “Okay, let’s roll, Foster. There’ll be a hotel doctor at the Dolphin.”
XI
The hotel doctor took Foster into a private cubicle. Mike Shayne grunted satisfaction. He’d been waiting for this opportunity. He eased out of the hotel quickly. Foster would be angry, but Foster was not paying the detective’s tab — and the redhead had decided he could move more efficiently without a rookie accomplice.
The Jaynes’ mansion sparkled in the late afternoon sunshine. It might have been a low-slung fishing lodge. It was large, sprawling, rustic looking, with an expensive veneer. There were flowers and green things in the vast yard. Balconies on the front of the house overlooked the parking areas and the gleaming array of scattered station wagons and sports cars.
Shayne sat in his braked car for a moment, scowling. So many cars around. Party time at the Jaynes abode? He figured he would prefer to have Archibald Jaynes alone.
“Hi.”
Shayne looked over his shoulder. The girl stood behind him. She lounged against the car, head cocked in curiosity. She looked mid-twenty, wholesome and perkly in a yellow-white ponytail worn absurdly long. Her attire was simple: blouse and jean shorts. Obviously no more. She was braless and barefooted.
“Mike Shayne,” said the defective with a grin.
“New,” said the girl speculatively. “And older,” she added.
“Came out of nowhere,” nodded Shayne.
“Don’t we all,” said the girl. “Ada here.”
“Hi, Ada.”
“Hi, Mike.”
“Archie around?” Shayne asked.
“Yeah, somewhere.”
“Getting ready for the blast, huh.”
“What blast, man?” Ada said.
“Cars,” Shayne said, waving his hand.
“Oh... just the regulars, man,” said Ada. “Like you. Now if you become a regular, one more car, see?”
“Got it. Everybody kinda floats in and out, right?”
Ada waved an arm. “This is the scene, man. No pressures. Friends come, friends go, you never know. That’s how Archie figures it.”
“Archie’s a pretty groovy cat, okay,” Shayne nodded.
“You gonna be around for a few days?” Ada asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I hope you are,” said Ada. “You’ve kinda got an air about you. Archie’s inside — by the indoor pool.”
Shayne got out of the car, stood tall.
“God Almighty,” breathed Ada, “they make ’em that big?”
And then she went between cars and down the slight slope of the green lawn toward the front fence. Shayne watched her tight young hips work. She didn’t look back. He turned to the mansion, went to the wide open front door. He stepped inside to vast elegance. No one greeted him; no one was in sight. He heard voices from somewhere, looked into expensively furnished room’s, didn’t find anyone.
He wandered into the middle of the mansion, found a small indoor swimming pool. There was a cluster of humanity at the far end of the pooclass="underline" two girls, five boys hovering around a long young man who was sprawled on a webbed layback chair. The group seemed to look up in unison with Shayne’s arrival. No, one moved for several seconds.
And then the young man on the chair sat up and the group parted. The man probably was in his late twenties. He was trim, had straight-browed good looks, smooth dark skin and predatory eyes, long styled brown hair. Those around him were of different colors, skin tones, eyes, hair, but there was a carbonness about all of them, including a hungry, unsatiated air of restlessness and a slightly megalomaniac manner.
Shayne made a quick decision. He had to dominate. He took out the .45, fired a shot into the pool water, then stood bouncing the large gun in his palm, waiting.
No one moved until the young man on the webbed chair said, “I think the gentleman desires to discuss something with me alone, group. So everybody to their own thing. Outside. Okay?”
Only a black-haired girl remained with the young man. She was indolent and ripe, defiant in snap of eyes and manner.
“Kitty,” the young man on the chair said gently. He patted her hip.
She left. She was reluctant. Shayne would not have trusted her behind him. But she disappeared through a door on the opposite side of the open area and he kept an eye on the archway as he said, “You are Archibald Jaynes?”
“And you have intruded,” nodded the young man. “Why?”
Shayne fired a direct statement. “The Peking Man.”
Jaynes stood suddenly. He was rigid.
“And a bomb threat to the Daily News.”
Jaynes said stiffly, “You found your way in, find your way out. Now!”
“You don’t want to show me those footlockers?”
“Who are you, man?”
“Mike Shayne, private investigations.”
“Ahh.” Jayned leaped into the swimming pool, stood defiant. “Shoot me down now, man.”
Shayne stared at Archibald Jaynes for a moment, then plopped the .45 into its rig, turned and walked out of the mansion. Everyone seemed to have disappeared. He seemed totally alone as he left. He went to his car, walked around the hood — and heard the motor of a sports car leap alive. The car catapulted at him. He launched himself over the side of his car and yanked in his feet. When he straightened, the sports car was gone. But he had had a glimpse of the driver. It was the girl, Kitty.
Then Shayne heard laughter. He twisted and looked up at balconies across the front of the Jaynes mansion. There was a gallery of young people. They applauded and shouted “Bravo!” as he got into the front seat and headed out of the grounds.
Shayne was angry, too angry. Two blocks from the Jaynes place he pulled into the curbing and parked, shut off the motor of the car, slouched behind the wheel, letting himself cool off. He sat in the early evening Miami sun, pounding the steering wheel.
A cab approached. He saw the cab slow. Then, he saw Randolph Foster. The cab stopped. Foster was leaning out the back window. Foster paid off the cabbie, joined Shayne. His right hand was bandaged.
“You deserted me,” said Foster. “But I had a suspicion this is where I would find you. Is Jaynes available?”
“Yeah,” grunted Shayne. “He’s sitting in the middle of a swimming pool.”
“Wh-at?” Foster was startled.
“He defied me to shoot him between the eyes.”
“Shayne!”
“Foster,” Shayne said grimly, “he’s got the footlockers. I didn’t see any, but he has some. They may contain what you are after, they may not. The way I’ve got Jaynes figured at the moment is, he has a priceless object, he inherited it from his father, he could care less about the object itself, but he is hanging on to it for security.