Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 34, No. 5, April 1974

It was already past mid-afternoon, and the blazing Florida sun had passed over the building to the west. They sat in shade and a cool breeze blew in from the Atlantic and across the shining waters of the Bay.

“I suppose we just wait now,” Tim Rourke said over his drink.

“That’s the ticket,” Shayne said. “Whoever he is, he’s done us a favor. Instead of our having to chase all over Dade County looking for him — he’s promised to come to us.”

“Why would he do a fool thing like that?” Rourke asked. “If we had to look for him it’s a thousand to one he’d be perfectly safe. We don’t even know who we’re supposed to be looking for, let alone where to start.”

“He doesn’t know that,” Shayne said. “In fact he’s sure we do know who he is. If he wasn’t so scared by that thought he’d be a lot smarter. He can’t be smart while he’s frightened. That’s the trouble with murder, Tim. You and I’ve seen it a thousand times. As soon as a man kills he starts being afraid. Then he starts acting like a fool and keeps it up till sooner or later the murder catches up to him. It’s just a matter of time, and that’s what gives somebody like me the edge.”

“I suppose when he does call what we do depends on what sort of a proposition he has.”

“That’s it.”

The two men watched the Bay and nursed their drinks and waited.

The call they were waiting for came along about dinner time when the sun was well down towards the western horizon. Tim Rourke answered the phone as soon as it rang.

“Rourke?” the voice said. “You get off the phone and let me talk to Mike Shayne.”

“Shayne here,” the big man said a moment later.

“You listen real close,” the voice said. Shayne didn’t recognize it. “You listen real close. Real close. I’m only going to say this once. Get it or you won’t hear it again.”

“I understand.”

“Make sure you do. Both of you go down to the boat dock that goes with Rourke’s building. In the number ten slot on the dock you’ll find a runabout tied up. The Dolly. She’s all gassed up and ready to go. One of you know how to handle the boat?”

“We both do,” Shayne said.

“Okay. Take her out and go right on north. You’re heading for the yacht marina on the south side of seventy ninth Street Causeway just before the drawbridge.

“About an eighth of a mile due south of the marina and west of the channel you’ll see an anchored yacht. It’s a seventy footer, painted white. It’ll have an old outboard skiff tied to the stern. Tie your own boat to the stern beside the skiff. Go on board the yacht. I’ll meet you in the main cabin with the money. Do you get that?”

“I get it.” Shayne said flatly.

“Get started then and no tricks — no guns — no police.”

That was all. The phone went dead.

Shayne and Tim Rourke found the sleek sports runabout, Dolly, tied up where the Voice on the phone had said it would be.

Mike Shayne questioned the dock attendant, but the man denied knowing anything at all about the Dolly.

“I never saw that boat before in my life. All I know is it wasn’t tied up here last night or this morning. Somebody must have brought it in when I was off having supper earlier and then just gone off and left it.”

That would have been easy enough to do.

The keys were in the boat’s ignition as had been promised, and Shayne had no trouble casting off the lines and backing her out the short approach channel to the deeper waters of Biscayne Bay.

“This tub is named the Dolly,” Rourke said when they were under way. “Do you think maybe it could belong to Peters?”

“I’d make a big bet it doesn’t,” Shayne said with a laugh. “I think this was stolen earlier today, probably from the Dinner Key anchorage. Whoever took it probably had a good laugh at the name. Plenty of boats are called Dolly.”

He turned the boat’s bow to the north and opened up the throttle.

It was only a short run, first to clear, the midtown Julia Tuttle Causeway and then to head for the causeway marina to the north, but by the time they sighted their goal the sun was just about ready to set in the west.

The yacht was a big, diesel powered cruiser, painted white and with expensive mahogany trim. There was nothing except its location and the old outboard skiff at the stern to distinguish it from any one of hundreds of yachts that came into Biscayne Bay every year.

There was no one visible on deck, but the proper riding lights had been lit. There was also light in the wheelhouse and shining through the ports of the main cabin aft.

Shayne circled the yacht once and then pulled his runabout to the landing ladder which had been lowered on the starboard side of the yacht. This was the side furthest out in the Bay and shielded from the sight of anyone in the marina or any of the buildings lining the seventy ninth Street Causeway.

In spite of the instructions received by phone, both Mike Shayne and Tim Rourke were armed. Rourke had a flat .380 Browning in his jacket pocket, and the big detective had his forty-five Colts automatic in a belt holster back of his right ship.

They both climbed the boarding ladder to the yacht’s deck and waited.