Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 12, No. 6, May 1963

No face riveted his attention till Fiala noticed the limousine, with the crowd breaking round it and the Chief of Police, Jose Santiago. He was sitting beside his chauffeur, face bloated and dark, tinted glasses concealing incongruous blue eyes that resembled twin stones and reflected the basic nature of the man.

Without the uniform he might be the one I’m looking for, Fiala thought, turning away and moving on with the sullen crowd that refused to acknowledge the naked violence of the sun.

The funeral went off without incident, the police were relieved, Chief Santiago satisfied. His chauffeur returned him to the Municipal building, the location of police headquarters.

As he entered his office with Captain Torres, the phone rang. He picked it up, listened, then dismissed Captain Torres with a wave of his hand. Frowning now, he spoke to his caller, Victor Quevedo, Mayor of the city and the one who had “made” him. These two were friends of a sort, but the conversation that ensued between them now was strictly business.

The murder of Rosa Belmonte, with the killer not apprehended, as in both previous murders, had created grave criticism of the police which, in turn, reflected upon Quevedo, exposing him to the machinations of his political enemies. This was the gist of Quevedo’s complaint along with his sharp demand that Santiago do something and do it fast.

“Do what?” said Santiago.

“Get the killer before midnight.”

Astounded, Santiago hesitated, stuttered inanely and finally managed to say, “But Victor—”

Quevedo cut him off sharply. “I am being embarrassed politically and otherwise,” he snapped. “If you wish to continue as Chief of Police, find the killer. Don’t — and you’re finished.”

Sweating profusely, Santiago dropped the phone and sat back. Slowly with trembling hands he lit a cigarette and dispersed a cloud of smoke. His thoughts were in chaos, dark face swollen to bursting. Slowly the agitation within him receded. Behind his tinted glasses his cold eyes lit up as a face focused in his mind.

He crushed his cigarette, arose, opened the door, called Captain Torres into the office and gave him his orders: “Pick up Manuel Domingo for the murder of Rosa Belmonte.”

Manuel Domingo’s criminal activities were long known to the police — but murder? Captain Torres raised his brows in surprise.

“Are you sure you have the right man?” he asked.

“Are you doubting me, or my source of information?” Santiago wanted to know, asserting both the authority of his office and intimating that the phone call he’d received was the “voice” of a reliable informer.

Captain Torres flushed and retreated to the door. From there he said, “I’ll pick up Manuel Domingo personally”

At nine that evening, a black sky threatened the city and the lacy jacarandas stirred to a faint errant wind from the mountains where yellow lightning ignited the empty heavens. Behind the Municipal building four bars faced the plaza, loud voices broke from each of them.

Saturday night was just beginning and musicians lolled on the plaza benches, barefoot boys shined shoes, hawked blood-red and dove-white roses on trays of cardboard, like every one else, forgetting Rosa Belmonte.

It was on this scene that Captain Torres arrived with three of his men after an intensive and fruitless search of all the usual haunts of the criminal Manuel Domingo.

Captain Torres was convinced that Domingo had fled the city when chance directed his eyes to a bench where two shoeshine boys vied for the priviledge of doing the shoes of Detective Fiala.

Granting them each a shoe, Fiala, who was short and soft-fleshed, with the pallid complexion of a priest, looked up to see the strapping youthful Captain Torres and his three men confronting him.

The latter were innocuous fellows, Captain Torres an arrogant whelp, but hardly that now. He needed help and Fiala, whom he despised and who despised him, might provide the information he needed so badly.

“I am looking for Manuel Domingo,” Torres announced. “Perhaps you happen to know his where-abouts?”

With a derisive smile, Fiala nodded toward a bar directly across the street. “Manuel Domingo is in there. You’re picking him up?”

“For the murder of Rosa Belmonte,” Captain Torres replied and turned on his heels.

Fiala sat where he was. A half minute later Manuel Domingo came through the door of the bar across the street accompanied by Captain Torres and his three men. All five passed through the plaza and entered police headquarters.

Fiala, who had gone off duty early that day, lit a cigarette and shook his head. No matter what, Manuel Domingo’s fate was sealed, the murder solved. Tomorrow the newspapers would be full of it.

In disgust, Fiala flicked his cigarette to the gutter and noticed the group of men who’d come from the bar across the street. Anger echoed in their voices; word spread quickly round the plaza: Manuel Domingo had been picked up for the murder of Rosa Belmonte. Manuel Domingo...