Shayne had been jotting these directions down as the New York attorney gave them to him. Now he said, “I’ve got all that, Sutter. If you want to take that dope back to Murchinson in New York I advise you to do exactly as he says.”
“And you?” asked Sutter anxiously.
“Don’t worry about me. This is my town and this sort of thing is my business. Don’t look for me out of the cab. Don’t expect to see me following you. Remember that if you are able to see me, your man will too. Just have your driver do exactly what he told you lo. I’ll be in on the payoff, don’t worry about that, and you’ll be fully protected all the way.”
“Very well. I confess I don’t see how… but that is your business, isn’t it? Shall I take the full sum with me, or only twenty thousand?”
“All of it,” Shayne directed him. “In two envelopes will be best. You’re going to owe me the five if all goes well and you turn the twenty over to him.”
“Yes, I… I was afraid you’d drive that sort of bargain,” said Sutter sadly. “But I don’t care. If I can just conclude this unsavory business successfully and get back to New York I shall be most happy.”
“One more thing,” Shayne said sharply. “Have you been contacted by Sergeant Griggs?”
“The policeman who came to the Ames house? Not since I came to the hotel. I understand that he had no further interest in me.”
“That situation has changed,” Shayne told him. “He’s going to be looking for you to ask some more questions.” He looked at his watch and went on, “If you want to be certain to be free to leave your hotel at midnight, I suggest you get out of your room right away and stay out of it. There’s a cocktail lounge downstairs in the Costain. Go down there and settle yourself in a booth with a drink until twelve o’clock, and don’t pay any attention if you’re paged. Later on, if Griggs does contact you, you needn’t tell him I warned you to keep out of his way.”
“Of course not, Mr. Shayne. But why on earth…?”
“We’d better not waste time discussing it now. The sooner you get out of your room the better. Griggs is likely to be sending a man around for you at any moment.” Shayne hung up and sat back comfortably to finish his drink and to wonder who it was that had the Murchinson papers in his possession, and how he had come by them.
13
At five minutes before twelve a bellboy came through the cocktail lounge of the Costain Hotel in downtown Miami sing-songing, “Call for Mister Sutter. Mister Alonzo Sutter. Call for Mister Sutter.”
Seated alone in a shadowed booth near the entrance, Alonzo Sutter turned his head slightly and put his left hand up to instinctively shield his face from the passing boy. He had a feeling that everyone in the bar was looking at him and wondering why he did not answer the summons, though he knew that was utter nonsense because no one in the lounge could possibly know his name was Alonzo Sutter.
It was the second time within half an hour that he had been paged like that, and it gave him a guilty feeling to realize it must be the police who were looking for him. The two envelopes in his pocket containing five thousand and twenty thousand dollars added to his guilt feelings. He wasn’t accustomed to carrying large sums in cash, and the fact that the money was earmarked as a blackmail payoff made him feel like a furtive criminal as he sat in front of an untasted drink and waited for the final minutes to pass.
It had been bad enough when he first accepted the assignment in New York, but at that time it had seemed a relatively simple matter to fly to Miami and deliver an envelope to a well-known syndicated columnist, with a return reservation at ten o’clock which he had deemed would give him ample time to conclude the unpleasant affair.
He looked at his watch and sighed, realizing that he would have been in New York right now had things gone according to schedule. But there had been that infuriating delay at the Ames house when he arrived shortly before six. Wesley Ames’ secretary had admitted that he was expected to arrive from New York, although he implied he did not know the exact nature of Sutter’s business, but the man absolutely refused to disturb his employer’s privacy to announce Sutter’s arrival.
He would simply have to cool his heels and await the great man’s convenience, he was informed, and both Conroy and Mrs. Ames had been vague about the time Ames could be expected to emerge from his study and make himself available. They had been kind enough to give him dinner and offer him a room for the night when it became apparent that he was likely to miss his return flight.
In his irritation, Alonzo Sutter had drunk more cocktails than he was accustomed to before dinner, and had emptied his wine glass several times during the excellent meal.
Then had come the disgraceful shooting affair, with the house filling up with private detectives and reporters and the police, and with Sutter’s realization that he had failed to accomplish his mission in Miami.
And now it was one minute and thirty seconds until midnight, and he reluctantly began to slide out of the booth to keep his appointment with a blackmailer who was unknown to him. He had paid for his drink when it was served him, and he left a modest tip beside the still untouched glass. He nervously checked his watch again as he went from the dimness of the cocktail lounge into the well-lighted lobby, and he strolled toward the street door at a pace calculated to bring him out onto the sidewalk precisely at midnight.
There was no doorman on duty at this hour and Sutter walked to the curb and stood there in the bright light of a street lamp and looked to his left toward the taxi-stand. There were no empty cabs waiting, but as he stood there he saw one approaching, and he waved to it and it pulled in and stopped in front of him.
The attorney got into the back seat and closed the door, wondering nervously who was watching him from what vantage point, wondering if Michael Shayne was about, and where he was, and how he would manage his part of the assignment.
His driver was slouched behind the wheel wearing a vizored cap tilted down over his eyes and with the butt of a cigar clenched between his teeth. Without turning his head to look at his passenger, he spoke around the cigar in a Southern drawl, “Whereabouts you-all wanta go, Mister?”
“Uh… straight ahead driver. Due north to Sixty-seventh Street, and not too fast if you don’t mind. On Sixty-seventh I want you to turn west for a few blocks and I’ll give you further directions at that time.”
The taxi jerked forward away from the curb, and the driver threw back over his shoulder in a surly voice, “Tell me where you wanta go, Mister, an’ I’ll take you the quickest way. We got through streets in this man’s town an’ I know how to beat the lights.”
“Straight north to Sixty-seventh,” repeated Sutter firmly. “And not too fast, if you please. I’m a little early.” He turned to peer out the back window, wondering if the taxi was being followed, but he gave up the attempt after a moment, realizing that it really didn’t make any difference whether it was or wasn’t.
Actually, he told himself, if he were either the blackmailer or Michael Shayne, he wouldn’t bother trailing the taxi away from the hotel. The instructions he had been given specified a one-minute stop on 67th in the fifth block west of 3rd Avenue, and that was where contact could most easily be made. He settled back as comfortably as he could, sniffing the unpleasant aroma from the cheap cigar his driver was smoking, and got a Perfecto from his own pocket and lit it to help quiet his nerves and offset the offensive odor from the front seat.
The taxi moved steadily north at about thirty-five miles an hour. Sutter hoped and believed that pace would fit the “moderate speed” requirement given him over the telephone, and he congratulated himself upon having a driver who was willing to follow a fare’s instructions without argument. He shuddered to think what most New York taxi-drivers would do if asked to drive not too fast. He didn’t like Miami or anything he had seen of the city, but their taxi drivers, he thought, had a great deal to commend them.