Beigler coughed and hid a grin by lighting a cigarette.
With a shaking hand, Solo picked up the flimsy, read the message, then stared at Lepski.
‘How do you know your lifeguard is Mitchell?’
Solo flinched.
‘If he isn’t Mitchell... who is he?’
‘Now, Solo, you’re beginning to act intelligent.’ Lepski paused to light a cigarette while he stared at Solo with his hard, cop eyes. ‘Yeah... that’s a good question. Who is he? Maybe if you had made inquiries about him you wouldn’t be asking that question now. Have you ever heard of Dave Donahue?’
Solo shook his head. His face was bewildered.
‘You haven’t huh? You don’t read the newspapers? You’ve heard of the Boston Strangler?’
Solo gulped.
‘Yes... but...’
‘Well, Donahue is like him: a sex killer. He escaped from the Sherwin Institute for the Criminally Insane three weeks ago. It had a full coverage in the press, but then you’re too busy running this joint to read newspapers, aren’t you, Solo? The newspapers published a description. Donahue is a big man, blond, pale blue eyes, a badly set broken nose, around thirty years of age. One time he was a pro fighter. He was also a swimmer: won a bronze medal for diving.’
Solo’s legs collapsed under him. He groped for his chair and sank into it.
‘That’s Mitchell!’
‘No, it isn’t. Washington says Mitchell’s dead. That’s Dave Donahue, a dangerous, cunning sex maniac. He’s already killed three young girls. He’s as nutty as a fruit cake and when he gets a girl to himself he really gives her the treatment. When he’s through with her, he cuts her up.’
With sweat streaming off his face, Solo lumbered to his feet. He started across the office to the door. Both Lepski and Beigler tried to stop him, but it was like trying to stop a charging bull. He swept them aside and rushed out into the open where four of Beigler’s biggest and toughest patrolmen were waiting.
They got him back into the office again but only after clubbing him half silly. They slammed him down in his chair and drew back, panting.
Lepski winked at Beigler, then took up his stand in front of Solo who was holding his head in his hands, moaning to himself.
‘What’s the fuss about, Solo?’ Lepski demanded. ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’
Solo lifted his head and stared blearily at the four cops, then wrung his hands.
‘Let me go to my little girl, Mr. Lepski,’ he pleaded. ‘She’s with Mitchell... I was stupid to lie to you. Let me go to her.’
‘How are you getting to Sheldon, Solo... you swimming?’
‘I’ll get a boat... I’ll...’ Solo stopped, realising it would take some time to get a boat big enough to reach Sheldon.
‘We’ve got a boat, Solo,’ Lepski said. ‘You want a ride?’
Solo got unsteadily to his feet. His head felt as if it could burst at any second.
‘What are we waiting for? That sonofabitch could have killed her by now! What are we waiting for?’
‘You don’t get a ride until you sing, Solo,’ Lepski said, and smiled his evil smile. ‘I mean that. I want the whole Baldy story. I want to know why Mitchell is on Sheldon with Nina. I want to know where Cortez is and how he figures in this setup.’
Solo glared at him.
‘I don’t know anything about Baldy! I told you!’
‘That’s too bad.’ Beigler turned to Lepski. ‘How about some coffee? This is a restaurant isn’t it?’
‘Good idea.’ Lepski turned to one of the cops. ‘Get some coffee organised. We could be here all the morning.’
‘We’re wasting time!’ Solo shouted frantically. ‘He could be killing her!’
‘Well, if he does, you have only yourself to blame,’ Lepski said. ‘You don’t leave here until you sing, Solo, so make up your goddamn mind!’
Solo writhed with impotent rage.
‘You’re bluffing!’ he shouted, smashing his huge fists down on his desk. ‘I don’t believe Mitchell is Donahue! You’re lying!’
‘Washington says Mitchell died in 1967,’ Lepski said in a bored voice. ‘Maybe your barman reads the papers.’ He turned to one of the patrolmen. ‘Get the barman, Alec.’
A few moments later, Joe came in, sweating, his eyes rolling.
‘What’s your name?’ Lepski asked.
‘Joe Small, boss.’
‘Okay, Joe, have you ever heard of Dave Donahue?’
Joe gaped at him.
‘Have you or haven’t you?’ Lepski barked.
‘Ain’t he the guy who killed all those girls?’
Lepski smiled, reached forward and patted Joe’s shoulder.
‘That’s right. You read about him in the papers. You remember he was a big blond guy, huh?’
‘Yeah boss. A fighter.’
‘That’s it. Okay, Joe, beat it.’
When Joe had gone, Lepski stared at Solo who was now looking ten years older. His face was the colour of cold mutton fat.
‘Satisfied, Solo? You want to make up your mind. This guy does it slow, but they’ve been out there some time now. There’s still a chance if you hurry.’
‘I’ll tell you about it on the boat,’ Solo said huskily and got to his feet.
‘Okay,’ Lepski said, ‘Come on, boys, let’s go.’
While the police launch raced towards Sheldon Island, Solo sat in the cabin and talked.
‘Mr. Carlos wanted to get a big consignment of cigars out of Cuba,’ he told the two detectives. ‘They were his property but there was this ban on Havana cigars — there’s big money in cigars, you understand: everyone wants them — so he planned to smuggle them in. He hired Baldy Riccard who was a Castro fan to fix the deal and gave him money to pay off Castro’s boys and bring the cigars back. There was three hundred thousand dollars involved. Cortez who works for Mrs. Carlos, overheard Carlos and Baldy talking. He came to me because I have a boat. Now, I’m no Commie, Mr. Lepski, so I thought it would be in the National interest to hijack Baldy’s boat as it took off for Cuba. I was planning to hand the money over to the Customs authorities as soon as I got it.’
‘Yeah? I can imagine,’ Lepski said with his evil grin. ‘So what happened?’
‘Cortez and me intercepted Baldy’s boat off Sheldon. It was pretty dark and instead of stopping, Baldy tried to run for it. Cortez got kind of annoyed. He had a sub machine gun and there was some shooting.’ Solo looked hopefully at Beigler who was taking all this down in his notebook. ‘I didn’t want any shooting, you understand? I thought Baldy would heave to and there would be no unpleasantness. In the darkness he got away, but the boat was pretty hard hit, and after we had wasted a lot of time searching for it, we decided it was sunk and that was our bad luck.’ Solo licked his lips, hesitated, then went on, ‘A couple of months later, Baldy walks into the restaurant. Seeing him shook me because I thought he was drowned. He tells me he wants to hire my boat. I could tell by the way he talked he had no idea it was me who had tried to hijack him. Well, I wasn’t going to lend him my boat, but I told him he might get one at Vero Beach. As soon as he had gone, I called Cortez and told him to meet me at Vero Beach and Nina and I drove out there in my car and found Baldy. Cortez turned up in Mrs. Carlos’s car as his wasn’t running so good.’ Again Solo hesitated. ‘Well, Cortez played rough. He persuaded Baldy to tell us what happened to his boat.’
‘You mean Cortez stuck Baldy’s foot in a fire and kept it there?’
Solo wiped his sweating face with the back of his hand.
‘That’s what he did. I want you to understand, Mr. Lepski, I didn’t like it.’
‘And I bet Baldy didn’t like it either.’
‘No, I guess he didn’t. In fact, Mr. Lepski, he had a heart attack or something. Anyway, he died on us.’ Solo looked hopefully at Lepski. ‘You understand I had no idea he would do a thing like that.’