Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 46, No. 11, November 1982

“Don’t hardly matter. What hurts Mr. McCord hurts our town. His development is gonna put people to work. Did you look around when you drove in? We need every job we can get. So don’t you go messin’ up things. Folks round here wouldn’t take kindly to that, if you know what I mean.”

“Just one more thing, Chief,” Shayne said as he lit up a cigarette. “Have you seen a thin guy driving an old Ford around here?”

“Ain’t no guy in no Ford. Now I’m busy.” Rudy punctuated his remark by spitting a dark stream of juice into his can.

Shayne ground out his cigarette on the sawdust floor and headed for the Buick. The late afternoon sun hung over the pines. He looked around — nobody. Then he heard a muffled “Over here.”

Walking around the side of the building, Shayne confronted the black kid standing beside a soft-drink cooler.

“Mighty hot, mister. Hard for a kid to talk about what he seen with a dry throat.”

Shayne bought two colas. The kid took them both.

“There be a fella in a Ford like I overheard you mention. He was askin’ questions coupla days ago. Shoot, he be even skinnier than old Rudy.”

“Know where he is now?”

The kid belched loudly. “Naw, but Portocall ain’t so big that I couldn’t find out somethin’, if, of course, I had reason to.”

Shayne sprung for another soft drink.

“You jivin’ me, dude? You got to pay out if you want the layout.”

The redhead peeled off a five. The kid shook his head. Shayne handed him a twenty and glared. “James Edward, when a man takes my money, I expect something in return.”

“You got it. Catch you back here in one hour.”

“How do I get to the bridge over to Mangrove Key?”

The barefoot kid pointed. “Keep goin’ down the road ‘bout half a mile.”

For a moment Shayne felt a real glimmer of hope. Behind where the kid had been standing was a pay phone and a rusty sign advertising NEHI.

V

The bridge to Mangrove Key, a half-mile span of newly poured concrete, offered a stark contrast to the decay that was Portocall. Looming in front of Shayne was a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire and a locked gate. Behind it and to the right sat a solitary guardhouse bearing the sign McCord Properties — NO TRESPASSING. Shayne called out, but all he heard was his echo against the sound of distant boats. If McCord and his associates were on Mangrove Key, they were doing their best to keep it private.

The sun had almost vanished when Shayne returned to Rudy’s, which was now dark and silent. Under the naked light beside the building sat James Edward, a streak of grease across his yellowed tank top.

“Hey, dude, I got what you want, but it’s gonna cost you a little more.”

Shayne got out and walked over to him. He stood directly in front of the would-be shakedown artist and shook his head.

James Edward swallowed hard. “Well, you can’t blame a guy for tryin’.” He skirted the big detective and jumped into the front seat of the Buick. “Let’s go.”

Following the kid’s directions, Shayne drove down a narrow dirt street past lines of dilapidated board shacks. The few men and women sitting listlessly on the front porches looked straight out of the dust bowl. His headlights suddenly glanced off a chain-link fence.

“Pull off,” said the kid.

Shayne reached into the tool box welded beneath the car seat and pulled out a flashlight. They got out of the Buick.

“Right there,” said his informer.

Shayne trained the light on a gate with the familiar McCORD PROPERTIES sign. James Edward led him past the locked gate to a spot in the fence where he pulled back the links.

They slipped in. The two passed a solitary bulldozer as they approached a utility shed. Shayne patted his jacket, feeling the gun in the small of his back. They pushed back a large door.

Caught in his flashlight was Tim’s Ford.

Shayne rummaged through the car. Under a seat belt which Tim never wore was a brochure advertising “Mangrove Key — Your West Coast Eden.” Shayne glanced at an artist’s sketch of a clubhouse and condos, then stuck the brochure in his back pocket.

Two bullets smashed through the utility shed before Shayne heard the report. The big detective pulled out his gun, and in the same motion threw James Edward to the ground. Shayne spun the flashlight out the door. Nothing. Like a snake the detective inched his way outdoors, stopping behind the only cover, the bulldozer.

He heard a screech as a car suddenly took off.

“Heavy,” came James Edward’s voice. “This is even more fun than spray painting the teacher’s lounge. How many kids get shot at?”

Shayne’s anger hit the boiling point immediately — at the kid for joking about a dangerous situation and at himself for getting the kid involved in the situation. Whatever was going on around here had just become too risky, and so his first order of business was to get the kid home.

James Edward insisted on being dropped at Rudy’s, but wouldn’t get out of the Buick.

“Listen, Big City, I want to go with you.”