FOUR
THE BOOTHS in the barroom were vacant at this early hour. Shayne led the way to one at the farthest end of the low-ceilinged room, stopping at the bar to order a bottle of cognac and two glasses.
They sat in complete silence for several minutes, sipping the amber fluid and glowering dejectedly at the crude walls and thatched roof. The inexplicable disappearance of Helen Stallings’s corpse disjointed everything. It didn’t make sense. It injected a sinister note of mystery into the affair which had, heretofore, appeared to be nothing more than a frame-up to throw the onus of a kidnap-killing onto Shayne and thus ensure Jim Marsh’s defeat at the Miami Beach polls two days hence.
“Who the hell could have wanted her out of there except you?” Rourke’s voice was a low groan.
Shayne stared, a black frown on his gaunt face. “Someone giving us a friendly lift,” he suggested with heavy irony. “Somebody took the job off our hands. Why should we kick?” He emptied his glass and poured another drink.
“You’re whistling in the dark,” Rourke charged. “As long as we knew where she was we had control — in a nebulous way. Now we don’t know what to expect — what to guard against.”
Shayne sighed and settled both elbows on the table, cupped his lean jaw in rough palms, and cocked one red eyebrow sardonically.
“It does begin to look interesting. For a while I was ready to believe Stallings strangled her himself to shut her mouth and to tie her murder around my neck. But he wouldn’t have taken her away after planting her in my apartment.”
“Who would?”
Shayne shrugged and said mildly, “My theory about a good Samaritan or a helpful elf is as good as any until we have more facts to go on.”