Turning off Seventy-Ninth Street to the right, Shayne drove south one block, then west across the boulevard to Little River where he took Miami Avenue back to the downtown district of the Magic City. He felt quite certain that the two men in the coupé were vainly looking for him in the stream of traffic across the northern causeway.
When he turned into the Tamiami Trail, he slowed to a leisurely speed. The Wildcat was a well-known dance hall and open market place in the country beyond Coral Gables; a large rustic structure with a thatched roof, one of the last trading-posts before the trail dived headlong into the remote vastness and silence of the Everglades.
Shayne parked between two other cars in front of the Wildcat and got out. Snuggled-up youngsters and roughly dressed oldsters were dancing in a dimly lit pavilion, and the beer bar was getting a good play. The breeze sweeping over the open spaces bordering the redlands was soft and humid.
Shayne joined the unwashed, open-shirted crowd at the bar and was dawdling over his second beer when he saw Timothy Rourke’s lean body and tousled head in the doorway. A wild, stricken expression replaced the keen, searching look in the newshound’s slaty eyes.
Rourke leaped forward and grabbed Shayne’s arm and led him outside. “What the hell are you pulling on me, Mike?” he ejaculated nervously. “Maybe you think it was a gag, but I lost ten years off the other end of my life creeping up that damned fire escape and into your office.”
Shayne grinned. “You made it all right. What’s ten years off the other end?”
“By God, I’m through.” Rourke faced the tall detective angrily. “From now on you can handle your own bodies. I’m through.”
Shayne grabbed the reporter’s shoulder and shook him roughly. “You can’t let me down now just because we’ve got the girl out. Hell, Tim, this is just the beginning. I’d be sunk without your help. And don’t forget that the boys on the Herald would jump at the chance of one of my headlines.”
Rourke eeled away from his grip. “I didn’t mind helping,” he fumed, “but playing hide-and-seek with a corpse is definitely not my idea of fun.”
“We’ve got to get rid of her now,” Shayne warned hastily. “Every minute she stays in your car is dangerous.”