“Joe, meanwhile, tagged the Peking Man. The way I get it, it’s a general term for a collection of human bones, about forty skulls, one hundred fifty teeth and numerous other bones that date man back something like two million years. Chinese in origin, the collection — considered priceless, incidently — supposedly disappeared around the beginning of World War II. Stories about the Peking Man circulate among collectors, but all are vague.
“Foster apparently has some reason to think this treasure might be here in Miami. Incidently, he’s flying in here tonight. I wanted to talk to him, but there’s a line, I discover, between protecting the anonymity of one who places a blind ad and a news story. Classified is screaming that Foster has paid for anonymity and is entitled.
“Dirksen, of course, is screaming that Foster and his Peking Man and the bomb threat is a hot news story. The hierarchy debates. Meanwhile, I’ve got a hunch that bomb threat may tie in — and since you’re such a pal of mine, I thought you might be interested in helping me track it down.
“I might add, Mike,” the reporter said grimly, “that if Foster really is hunting the Peking Man, and if he’s digging up information, he could also be digging up trouble.”
“So you take this bomb threat seriously?” Shayne said.
“Yes and no. I think a few guns might be in order. Men have died because of these bones already, I understand from Roberts.”
“So we keep a sharp eye out. We take the caller seriously, for now, anyway. This all sounds like just my kind of case, Tim.”
“That’s what I thought,” Rourke grinned. “Do you want to ride along with me? See what we dig up?”
“You know it,” the redhead smiled back. “I don’t like threats any more than you do. And it sounds like you have a hell of a story building here. I’d like to watch it develop. Now — tell me how the threat came in, who handled it, the details.”
“One of the switchboard girls caught the call. Local call, male voice. According to the girl, the guy says ‘One more ad about the Peking Man and you get a bomb in the front door.’ The guy hangs up.”
“You talked to the girl?”
“Yeah, T spent almost an hour with her,” Rourke said. “She’s, the level-headed type, Mike. The caller had a bass voice, she said, words distinct. On the other hand, she thinks the caller was a young person, say mid-to-late twenties.”
“Why does she think that?”
Rourke shrugged. “She listens to voices on a phone five days a week. She subconsciously categorizes voices, fits them to people.”
Shayne used the thumb and forefinger of his right hand to tug the lobe of his left ear. “Your bosses think the caller might have been a nut?”
“The possibility was discussed, voted down.”
“And Will Gentry?”
Rourke took time to pass a sedan before he replied, “Will hasn’t been informed so far. No need to yet — and Dirksen’s still thinking story, naturally, and he figures that if Will and his cops are called, the door is opened to the TV boys. Dirksen thinks a private look-see is the only way to go — for the moment. And I agree. So I came to you, like I said.”
The detective said, “Dirksen understands, I assume, that if I turn up something big, Will gets it.”
Rourke nodded.
“Okay. You said Foster is flying in tonight?”
“When the Classified people called him this morning about the woman who answered the ad, he asked about hotels. I checked around this afternoon, found he’d made a reservation at the Dolphin, but that he’s not expected until after midnight. While waiting for you at the airport, I also checked incoming flights. There’s one in from Los Angeles at eleven-forty tonight. That should be Foster’s.”
Shayne grunted satisfaction. Rourke was not a man to allow moss to grow under his feet. “And I suppose you’ve got the woman staked out too?”
“Not staked out,” Rourke admitted. “But I checked the phone number she left for Foster in the Polk directory, and found it’s at a bar named the Red Fish. No one at the newspaper ever heard of it, so it must be a hole in the wall.”
“The Red Fish,” Shayne grunted. “Let’s hope our bomber and our lady aren’t just a couple of red herrings.”
III
The Red Fish had a narrow front, a sunken doorway and a broken neon sign. It was squashed among other low, squeezed business ventures that looked as if they should have gone the way of brick streets. Lethargic sidewalk loiterers were young Latins, and it was as if they were seeing moonmen. It was that kind of neighborhood.
As the detective and the newspaperman crossed the sidewalk, Rourke remarked, “I’ve got a suspicion, pal, we’d be more welcome if it was the first of the month and we were postmen bearing welfare checks.”
Inside, the Red Fish was a dingy, shallow watering hole oozing stale odors. A Latin man who hadn’t been to a barber in a year sat alone at the bar. He wore a sweat shirt, wrinkled pants and shower togs, and he didn’t bother to look up from his beer mug as Shayne and Rourke moved into the bar.
Shayne glanced around. From his vantage, he could see three sharpies huddled in a booth in a corner and a woman sitting alone at a table. The woman looked to be in her late sixties and weathered; her attire had survived since, the 1950s. She cupped a small glass in her hand and did not seem to be interested in new arrivals.
Shayne shot another glance at the sharpies. They were interested. They continued to huddle, but each had a head cocked so that with no more than a side glance he could take in the strangers. They were silent now, returning Shayne’s inventory. One had a hooked nose, another a narrow jaw and slit eyes. The third one was little more than a kid. He still had smooth skin, but he was nervous. He couldn’t seem to sit still.
Shayne turned to the bartender, a wizened little man with a black mole high on one cheek, yellow teeth and schooled eyes that were wary. The eyes danced between Shayne and Rourke, went outside to the parked car. “Name’s Bart,” the bartender finally grunted. “You guys from the newspaper?”
Shayne heard stirrings in the booth and the slight scrape of a chair behind him. Down the bar, the Latin emptied his beer glass, turned from the stool a clomped out of the Red Fish without looking to the right or left.
“We’re from the Daily News, right,” Rourke told the bartender. “Your wife here? I think she left a message at the newspaper earlier today.”
“Ain’t married,” grunted Bart.
“Well, now... I see,” said Rourke. He leaned elbows on the bar, pondered as if in deep thought. Then he said, “Tell you what I’m going to do, Bart. I’m going to confide in you. I really shouldn’t. It’s kind of newspaper business, none of yours, but you look like a guy who can keep his yap shut and—”
“I got button lips if’n I’m of a mind, that’s for sure, fella,” Bart interrupted.
“Well, then, I’ll tell you,” Rourke nodded. “We’re looking for a woman who might be a regular customer here, who might live around here, who might give your telephone number as a...”
Shayne tuned out Rourke’s words and went to the woman who sat alone at the table. She looked up at him from bright eyes without stirring.
“May I?” he said politely, pulling out the chair opposite her.
“I ain’t sure,” said the woman.
“You were at the newspaper office this morning. You left a telephone number,” Shayne said conversationally as he sat opposite her. From his angle he could see the three sharpies in the booth. There were far enough away to be out of earshot of ordinary voices, but they were cocked.