They were well out of the business section of the city now, and into the northern residential district, and the driver mumbled over his shoulder and past the foul-smelling cigar, “Sixty-seventh, you said, Mister? And you want I should turn left there?”
“Left, yes. For a few blocks. I will tell you where to stop. And I appreciate the way you’re holding the speed down.”
“All the same to me, Mister,” said the driver philosophically. “I got all night behind this wheel. If you ain’t goin’ nowhere special it’s a cinch I ain’t neither.”
He slowed as he approached an intersection, made a left turn and Sutter saw the sign for 67th Street as they passed it slowly.
He leaned forward and carefully counted the blocks. As they slid past the fourth intersection, he said nervously, “Slow down please. It’s in this block. On the right-hand side. There. Up beyond those two parked cars. Pull in to the curb, please.”
His driver followed his instructions without comment, but as he reached forward to pull up his flag on the meter, Sutter said hastily, “Keep your flag down, driver. I’m not quite sure… that is… I’d like to wait here in the cab just a minute until I decide whether or not…” He let his voice trail off uncertainly, wondering what reason he could give the driver for pausing here and then driving on as he had been directed, but the man solved that problem for him by chuckling lecherously and ending his sentence for him, “… whether or not her husband’s home? Is that it, Mister? Lemme know when you make up your mind.” He belched comfortably and expelled a thick cloud of noxious smoke toward the rear of the cab.
When the attorney was certain they had been stopped at least sixty seconds, he said, “I think I’ll just ask you to go on, driver. Turn left at the next corner, please, and head back toward town. But not too fast, please. I may change my mind after all. I can’t quite decide…”
The cab pulled away from the curb slowly and evenly, but the driver’s good nature appeared to be lessening as he said in a surly voice, “Games we’re playing, huh? Okay by me. I got all night like I said.”
Sutter sat tensely looking back as they approached the next corner, and he saw lights switched on in a car that was parked on the opposite side of the street behind them, and it moved out as they made the turn and started southward.
But only one car had picked up the trail there. That would be the blackmailer, he had no doubt. Then where was Shayne? The detective had given his word to be present at the payoff, but Sutter was desperately afraid that Shayne had failed him somehow. He kept his head craned back, watching to the rear, and he saw the headlights of a single car swing around the corner behind them, also going quite slowly, but gradually increasing speed so it cut down the distance between them.
Still there was no sign of the private detective. There was no other car at all moving in either direction on the empty street, and the one behind them was moving up now, and Sutter clenched his Perfecto tightly between his teeth and resigned himself to handling the situation as best he could with no help from Michael Shayne.
The taxi continued to cruise south sedately in the righthand lane, and the following car was coming up fast. It swung out to go around the taxi on the left, and Sutter saw that the driver was a man, alone in the car. As he came abreast of them he honked his horn three times, shortly and sharply, and began to turn in to force the cab to the curb on the deserted street.
His driver exclaimed, “Hey. What the hell?” twisting his wheel to the right to avoid a collision, and Sutter leaned forward and said hastily, “It’s all right, driver. A… friend who wants to talk to me. Just pull in and stop.”
The taxi eased in to the curb and stopped, and the other car did likewise, nosed in at an angle in front of the cab.
It was a late model Pontiac, and the driver leaped out as it came to a full stop, circled the back of his car and came up to the cab and jerked open the back door.
“Is that you, Sutter?”
In the dim light of a street lamp half a block away, Sutter saw a thin black mustache across the young man’s face peering in at him, and recognized Victor Conroy, the late Wesley Ames’ private secretary.
He replied with some asperity, “Of course it is I. Who else do you expect to be cruising around this section of Miami at midnight in this fashion? Have you the documents we discussed over the telephone?”
“Right here.” Conroy withdrew a thick envelope from his pocket. “What have you got for me in exchange?”
“Exactly what I promised you I would have,” Sutter told him. He reached across the length of the back seat for the envelope Conroy held. “I’ll have to check the contents before we conclude our deal.”
Conroy drew back his hand and said grimly, “You can check mine while I check yours. Let’s see the color of your money first.”
At that moment the front door of the cab came open and the driver came out from behind the steering wheel all in one lithe movement. The man’s figure was no longer slouched, but was tall and broad-shouldered, and Sutter saw the glint of blued-steel in his right hand and heard a harsh voice come from his lips that held no trace of a Southern drawclass="underline"
“All right, Conroy. Step back from the car with your hands in the air.”
Before he had finished speaking the young man leaped at him. Perhaps he didn’t see the gun in Michael Shayne’s right hand, or perhaps he didn’t care. His rush carried both of them back into the vee formed by the front fenders of the taxi and the Pontiac, and the vizored cap went spinning from Shayne’s head, and Sutter saw his face and the red hair and realized for the first time who his driver had been.
He saw the rangy redhead straighten with his back against the from fender of the taxi, saw Conroy raining furious blows on his face and body, and saw Shayne swing the heavy automatic in his right hand against the side of the younger man’s head where it made a smacking sound in the night and caused him to stagger back from the attack, and then Shayne calmly measured him with a straight left to the jaw which sent him backward and down like an expertly axed ox.
Shayne leaned down over him and impassively picked up the bulky envelope which had fallen from his fingers, and stepped to the open door of the taxi and leaned in to proffer it to the shaking attorney.
“Let’s get this part of our business finished before Conroy comes around or anyone else turns up to start asking questions. Hand over the two envelopes you’ve got.”
“But… but…” stammered Sutter.
“No goddamned buts. I’ll take the money. See if your stuff is all in here.”
Dazed and bewildered and frightened, Sutter hesitantly withdrew the two envelopes containing currency from his pocket and silently passed them over to the detective and seized the envelope Shayne had taken from Conroy in return.
Shayne stepped back a pace and hastily thumbed through the contents of both envelopes, then wadded the money into his pocket and turned to kneel beside Conroy who was beginning to stir and groan on the pavement.
14
He lifted the lax figure of the secretary as easily as he would have lifted a rag doll, and draped him forward, face down, across the front fender and hood of the Pontiac while he shook him down carefully for a weapon.
He found no weapon, but in his right-hand jacket pocket Shayne encountered a key with a heavy metal tab attached to it which he took out and held up to the light. The key had the number 25 stamped on it, and the metal tag was inscribed: Motel Biscay Rest, with an address on Biscayne Boulevard north of 79th Street.