The Negro climbed out of his baggy overalls before the crazy white man could change his mind. Shayne counted out forty dollars and donned the overalls. He stepped into the boat, and the Negro untied the mooring line, tossed the end aboard, cackling, “Theah you is, suh. They bites mostly down neah the causeway wheah it’s deeper.”
Shayne nodded and set the oars in the locks, put his back muscles into the strokes, and sent the flat-bottomed craft skimming over the gray-green waters away from the shore line.
He settled back and took it easy when he was well out into the bay, letting the boat drift toward the causeway while he rigged out the line and dropped a baited hook overboard.
The hot sun beat down pleasantly on his bowed shoulders and he gave himself over to a drowsy mood of meditation. He had to take it slow getting across the bay. To row briskly might arouse the suspicion of police launches puffing officiously back and forth along the channel patrolling the waterway between the peninsula and the mainland. As he lazily rowed, watching complacently from beneath the wide brim of the tattered straw hat, careful to keep his line in the water, he was vastly amused to see a police barricade operating, stopping and searching every westbound car before it was allowed to proceed to Miami.
He refused to let his mind dwell on the serious position he was in. There would be time for cogitation later. A lot of thought was required now that his carefully dovetailed pieces of the puzzle must be torn apart. His mind had not yet fully recovered from the shock of Marlow’s positive identification of the girl as his wife.
He had been so sure! Now, as he rowed and drifted over the lazily rippling waters in full view of the energetic officers of the law, he cursed himself for having been so positive. Damn all theories until they were indubitably proved! More than once in the past he had disdainfully said that theories were for guys like Peter Painter.
He gritted his teeth and stopped thinking about it, concentrated on the job of fishing his way across to the mainland without arousing suspicion.
It was well after noon before he nosed the blunt prow of the rowboat into the sandy shore of the mainland a couple of blocks north of the County Causeway. There were some bait casters along the shore hopefully tossing lines far out into the deeper water. One of them hailed him with the fisherman’s call, “What luck?” and he shook his head, held up empty hands. He moored the old boat carefully, grinning to himself with the thought that it might come in handy again some day, then walked ashore and circled along back streets toward Rourke’s bachelor quarters in a shabby apartment building not far from the Daily News building.
He bought the regular noon edition of the News at a stand and glanced at the headline. There it was.
Michael Shayne Accused of Murder. Makes Daring Escape From Miami Beach Officers.