“What are you doing?” cried the mayor.
The redhead already was lighting the cigarette, cupping the match against the end. He was turned slightly, as if guarding the flame against the breeze, but his eyes were searching far off to their left. The eyes roamed the fourth and fifth floor apartment balconies. He felt terribly exposed.
“I’ve got a feeling we’re being watched.”
X
There were people here and there on the balconies. Most were seated, holding up books, magazines, newspapers. One or two lifted a glass. A man stood alone against the railing of a balcony at just the right spot. Mike Shayne was positive the glint had come from the man who seemed to be staring into the park.
The man lifted what had to be a metal-coated pewter container to his mouth, drank. Sunshine glistened from the pewter.
Shayne sucked smoke deep into his lungs, exhaled. He picked up the suitcase and moved on.
“Did you see something suspicious?” the mayor asked Shayne.
The redhead fired the fresh cigarette into the grass, kept moving. He surveyed a young man and a young girl on a blanket off to their right. There was a large hat on the blanket beside the young man’s right leg. The young man was kissing the young girl.
“All I see,” said Shayne, “is comfortable people.”
He kept the couple in the corner of his eye for as long as he could, moved on a few more yards, then glanced over his shoulder. The couple was standing, had moved off the blanket. The guy was folding the blanket. The young woman had the floppy hat clapped on her head. It was a man’s hat, but on her head it looked quite feminine — in a modish sort of way. It fitted her spangled pullover half blouse, the tight, bright yellow hot pants.
The couple walked off in the opposite direction, keeping the green grass instead of concrete under their bare feet.
They could be friends, lovers or kidnapers, who were surveying. Or they could be police.
The guy moving along the walk toward Shayne and the mayor from their rear had appeared out of nowhere. When Shayne had stopped to light the cigarette and survey the apartment building, the walk had been clear. Now there was a tall thin man hustling their way. He wore faded jeans and a black and white checkered shirt. He had long unkempt hair and a drooping mustache.
He moved fast, as if with intent purpose. His face muscles were drawn, his mouth tight. He didn’t look to the right or left. If he was carrying a gun, it had to be a small weapon, possibly a derringer, in his rear pocket.
Or he might be a knife man.
Shayne moved along with the mayor, keeping a steady pace that was slower than that of the man who now was moving in behind them swiftly. Shayne’s ears charted the scrape and click of heels against cement. Mentally, he plotted the man’s closing of the distance that separated them.
Where had the guy come from? A bench? A grassy bed? Shayne searched his memory as he brought his right hand up to allow fingers to scratch his shirt front. Those fingers were just inches from the .45 in the shoulder rig. He could have the gun out in a flash, trigger a shot.
The thin guy passed them, moved out. Whatever his goal he was in a hurry to get to it.
“Mr. Shayne,” the mayor said, “we are almost through the park.”
They were approaching a curving park road that emptied into a busy street. They passed a Latin who wore the green coverall uniform of a park attendant. The Latin was using a long stick with a sharp end to stab litter that had been scattered around a park bench. He put the speared litter into a shoulder pouch. His movements were slow. Anyone who noticed him at all had to know he was merely waiting for four-thirty quitting time.
Shayne figured the Latin was one of Gentry’s cops.
“Mr. Shayne?”
“This is only one area of the park, Mayor,” the redhead said in a gruff voice. “We swing over to the other side from here.”
There was an ancient maroon sedan braked at the beginning of the curve in the road up ahead. The hood of the sedan was up and a guy was bent over the radiator, looking deep into the well that housed the car motor. On the sidewalk, moving around idly with a bag of popcorn in hand, was a girl who was large in chest, abundant in hip and long in leg.
Dancer’s legs, Shayne thought.
The thin guy who was moving along at a fast clip was forced to do a little dance around the girl. And then he was out to the sidewalk along the avenue and moving out, maintaining the swift pace.
The girl watched him, a hand reflexively feeding popcorn to her mouth. She was three-quarters turned from the detective. She looked over to the maroon sedan suddenly. “How you-all doin’, Burt? Find the trouble?”
“In a minute, cat,” said the guy without taking his head or hands from the interior of the motor well.
The girl had yellow hair that dangled straight and halfway down her spine. She wore a loose pink pullover top, short brown skirt and gold-brown clogs that bunched the muscles of her bare calves and made her seem two inches taller than her real height. Hooked from a shoulder was a large bag that was half-moon shaped and probably once had been a deep brown. Today it was sun bleached and showed scars.
She paid no attention to the approaching detective and mayor as she propped the popcorn sack on the edge of a swing lid litter container and dipped a hand deep into the brown bag.
Shayne’s hand moved again to his chest, but the girl withdrew a single cigarillo. She put it dead center in her lips, then searched the bag again. She brought out a packet of matches, lit the cigarillo.
“This way, mayor,” Shayne said, abruptly cutting across grass in a path that would take them behind the maroon sedan. “We’ll go back down the other side of the park, see how business is over there.”
He’d taken in the windshield of the sedan. It was unshattered. Anyway, the car he was interested in had a white top with rust spots, according to the deaf-mute witness.
The mayor yelped suddenly, froze, disappeared from the corner of the detective’s eye as if wiped out.
Shayne hadn’t heard a sound. He whirled around, hand going inside his coat. Fingers gripped the butt of the .45 and then the girl said, “Freeze!”
She stood behind the mayor, a gun muzzle jammed against the nape of the mayor’s neck. She stood slightly spread-legged, solid, unmoving. Her gray-green eyes held the detective.
“If that’s heat you’ve got under that coat, buster,” the girl said, voice brittle, “forget it, or His Honor is dead.”
XI
Mike Shayne didn’t move or speak. He saw the man come around the car. The man was swarthy, had a mean face and a lightweight body. He was hood. He looked hood, he smelled hood.
“Let’s go, baby!” he snapped.
Shayne saw more movement. It was inside the maroon sedan. Two heads popped up from the back seat and appeared in the rear window. One of the heads was framed in a floppy hat. The face inside the frame was young, grinning. The other guy looked worried, almost frightened.
“Move,” snarled the girl. “Into the heap. Steve-baby, the redhead is wearin’ heat.”
The hood stepped forward, whipped a short chopping blow into Shayne’s middle, and snaked the .45 from the shoulder rig. Then he took the suitcase and laughed.
The girl suddenly laughed with him. “How many more of you guys around the park, Red? The entire police force?”
Floppy Hat and the nervous man got into the front seat, the nervous man taking the wheel. The swarthy man got in beside them, Shayne’s gun still in hand. He hefted the .45, snorted. “Big heat. That makes for a big man. You know that, Varga?” The swarthy man snapped an expletive opinion.