“You don’t know all that, Bruno.”
“Bud,” he said angrily. “No, I don’t, but who are they after? They know my name and the way I operate. They have a list of people I’ve supposedly killed.” He tried to smile, but it wasn’t much of a success. “The only thing they don’t know is where they can find me.”
In the WKMW station, Shayne decided to start tying the threads together. Using a battery of phones, he called Holloway in Coral Gables, Tree at the St. Albans in Miami Beach, Maxine Holloway in Seminole Beach, Harmon in West Palm. Rourke helped, one phone at each ear.
“Everybody leave the lines open,” Shayne said. “Any time you want to interrupt, we’ll switch you in. Start with Maxine. Are you sober enough to understand what I’m saying?”
A voice said faintly, “Barely.”
“Some of this has to be guesswork,” Shayne said. “Your friend Anastasia—”
“Friend?”
“Ex-friend. That fight I walked in on tonight, what was that about?”
“Do you need a special reason? I’m sick of the guy, sick of him—”
“The two main themes seemed to be money and women. Let’s get the money out of the way first. You’re overdrawn. Andy’s been living with you on the cuff. When he came back for his clothes tonight, the radio was on. A cash reward is being offered for a little piece of a stolen mask. He immediately jumped in his car and went looking for gynecologists. My question for you is, how would he know Meri was kept prisoner in a gynecologist’s office unless he talked to her before she died?”
“I don’t know what he knew or didn’t know.”
“Harmon,” Shayne said, picking up another phone.
“Yeah, Mike.”
“Arrange with Seminole Beach to have this woman brought in and booked for extortion.”
“Extortion!” Maxine cried. “What have I done that could possibly be considered—”
“Let’s go through this slowly,” Shayne said. “Bruno Lorenz. According to Natalie, who spent a couple of days with him, he picks up girls, scares them with some theatrical effects, rapes them, gives them a goodbye shot of LSD, and dumps them in a motel room, where they wake up hallucinating. Let’s assume he did that with Meri. LSD hits different people different ways. When she woke up she didn’t wait to get retracked. She remembered she’d started for Seminole Beach. She called you, and you went to get her.”
“A little farfetched, don’t you think?”
“So is Bruno. So are you and Eliot Tree and your ex-husband. You were surprised that she hadn’t brought you the mask. She hadn’t even succeeded in stealing the whole thing, just a fragment, and that fragment was missing. Probably you were disagreeable to her, you and Andy. She’d let you down badly. She’d cost you your chance at the big money, but wasn’t there time to squeeze a little something? Sure, if you worked it right. You wrote Holloway asking for thirty-eight thousand in return for the missing piece, which you didn’t actually have, and signed the letter Meri.”
He waited. Only silence came down the line from Seminole Beach.
“You used the right language and picked the right figure, and Holloway fell for it. He’s as greedy as you are, and he was shooting for bigger stakes. There’s a chance you may be able to sneak out of this, Maxine. I mean you, personally. When we bring Andy in I think we’ll find he’s carrying the full thirty-eight thousand. That’s why I was so sure he’d come back after I left, to pick up his half. But the temptation was too great. Why leave anything for you after all the names you’ve been calling him?”
“He’s a skunk. He’s capable of anything.”
Frieda said, “Everybody else in this is interested in money. Are you, Bud?”
Bruno gripped a cold glass of whiskey. He drank from it, sloppily, and rubbed his hand across his mouth. “What?”
“Two hundred thousand. That’s an attractive figure. There are ways you could collect it.”
He glanced at the bright eye on the bookcase. “If it hadn’t been for that damn thing, I wouldn’t be in so much trouble.”
“When Mike says no questions asked, he means it. He’s been go-between in some very big deals, and people know they can trust him. You’ll need a good lawyer, Bud. They cost money.”
“I’ve got to think. I’ve got to make some plan.”
“The reward is for two things. The mask and me. I can handle it for you.”
“What are you trying to get me to do? Think about it! I have to kill you, it’s the one chance I have. You have four hundred dollars and a gun. I have about five hundred and a car. I’m going to be moving from now on. Moving.”
“Tell me why, Bud,” Frieda said quietly.
“I killed her! Will you get that through your head? Accidental homicide, manslaughter. But do you think anybody’s going to let me bargain about what I plead guilty to? What about that girl up near Jacksonville, with her head cut off? I’m carrying newspaper clippings. I’ve told everybody I did it. That’s what I do! Murder girls! Maybe in real life I didn’t murder anybody but Meri, but the Mad Doctor can’t turn normal in the last reel, for God’s sake. I don’t even claim to be normal!”
He was in motion, swinging the drink. “We’ve all heard of the sexual revolution. Oh, yes. In ninety-nine cars out of every hundred at a drive-in, sexual intercourse is happening. And who’s in the hundredth car? Bruno! If I have a woman with me, we’re talking about the nuances and subtlety of the screenplay. It’s obvious that I’m out of my mind.” He swung around. “Isn’t it? Isn’t it obvious?”
“I think so, Bud. What isn’t so obvious to me yet is that you killed Meri.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said irritably. “The sound when I hit her. The way she looked at me. I killed her, all right. The victim doesn’t have to die on the premises.”
“According to Mike, she was alive when she got to Maxine’s.”
“She didn’t have to get that far. She called them up and died in the phone booth, and they came and got her and dumped her. If they were going to hit Holloway for money, they couldn’t just call the police and say here’s a dead body, come get it. Frieda, let me alone for a minute.”
“I can’t, Bud. You have me strapped to a table. All I can do is talk. Will you call the radio station and let me ask Mike one quick question?”
Chapter 18
“Your turn, Holloway,” Shayne said, picking up another phone. “Say something so I can be sure I pressed the right button.”
“Fantastic.”
“Anything else?”
“You’ve stirred up a wasps’ nest here, Shayne, no question about that. I’ve been waiting for this opportunity. If anybody has that fragment and can bring it to me, I’ll pay two hundred and fifty. Again, no questions asked, and inasmuch as I’m not tying it to the return of any missing women, you can count on being asked fewer questions. Did you cut me off, Shayne, or let it go out on the air?”
“I’m not censoring anything,” Shayne said. “You have six hundred thousand to play with, and I thought you might try to top our offer. So I reserved another piece when I was repacking the box in the St. Albans. I have it here somewhere. Yeah, here it is. Blue with red lines.”
“Talk about swindlers,” Holloway said through his teeth.
“Why did you shoot that Indian last year, Holloway?”
“You’re reaching. You’re reaching. That matter is closed.”