Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 37, No. 1, July 1975

Every motorcycle gang in Dade County goes gunning for Mike Shayne, who has a twenty-thousand-dollar contract out on his scalp. But nobody seems to know who laid the contract on him, and time runs out while murders keep piling up in his wake...

I

Right at the moment, big Mike Shayne didn’t look like the ace private detective of the South Florida Gold Coast. Actually, he didn’t look like a detective at all, but just an ordinary man getting ready to enjoy a couple of lazy hours in the late Dade County afternoon.

There was really nothing but his size to distinguish him from any other of fifty cane pole fishermen between this spot and the Miami City limits. Like them, he had pulled his car off the Tamiami Trail on the canal side. He picked a comfortable spot on the bank, baited his hook with a shrimp bought at a bait store in town, sat down and waited for a bass or perch to provide some action.

A bit to his right and rear on the other side of the road, the ramshackle frame buildings of the Big Frog Bar and Indian Curio Store baked in the heat. There were a couple of cars in the parking lot plus eight or nine big shiny motorcycles painted an identical fire engine red.

Cars went past on the Tamiami Trail, making droning sounds with their tires on the hot concrete. Traffic was light at this time of day. Overhead the sky was clear except for a couple of big dark thunderheads building up far to the West over the Everglades. Shayne leaned back and began to relax. He tugged his old felt hat down over his brow to shade his eyes.

Without warning, a bullet ripped through the crown of that hat and almost tore it off his head. There was no sound of a shot, the growl of a truck engine a little way off could have masked it, but the crown of the hat had a neat hole that had not been there when he put it on.

Mike Shayne rolled over on his stomach and flattened himself on the canal bank. Off to his left, a little foreign bug rattled away towards town. To his right the big trailer truck was coming up — still more than a hundred yards away.

Nothing else moved. Nothing at all. It was all very peaceful indeed.

That is, except for the unmistakeable bullet hole in the crown of Shayne’s hat. An inch over and the hole would have been in his skull instead.

After a while, when nothing else moved but a car or two passing on the highway, Mike Shayne got up. He walked slowly over to where his car was parked and opened the trunk. There was a thirty-eight caliber snubnosed revolver inside in a clipon soft leather holster. Shayne clipped the gun to his belt under his jacket, just back of his right hip.

At that moment, some sort of fish, either a big bass or an equally sizeable gar, swallowed the bait he had left in the water and took off up the canal. The unattended cane pole slid off the bank when the big fish made its rush and was dragged along on top of the water.

Mike Shayne watched it go without regret. Then he crossed the road to the Big Frog Bar.

The front window of the saloon was very dirty and obscured by posters, old menus, empty bottles. The big man could not tell if anyone was watching him from inside. He walked around the building and found a rear door that led into the kitchen. The place was filthy. A big pot of coffee simmered on an old electric range. Outside of that and a stack of dirty dishes and skillets there was no sign the place was inhabited.

A door at the front of the kitchen was unlatched. Shayne opened it and walked through. He found himself behind the bar, a little to the right of the ranked beer taps.

The bartender was a big swarthy man sitting on a stool beyond the taps. When he saw Shayne, he started to get off the stool and at the same time reached for a sawed-off double-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun on the shelf under the bar.

Shayne beat him to the shotgun. He broke it open to eject the two shells and then dropped it on the floor behind him. The bartender changed his mind and a switchblade knife appeared in his right hand. The four-inch stilletto blade flicked open.

The detective feinted with his right hand. The knife flashed up. The big man kicked the bartender in the groin. The fellow lost all desire for further fight. His face went chalk white as consciousness left him and he crumpled onto the floor. His body flopped convulsively and then was still.

Mike Shayne put both hands on the bar and looked out over the room. Two middle-aged tourists, a man and a woman, had been drinking beer over by the window. They got up and left their unfinished glasses on the table and scuttled out the door, got in their car and raced the motor away towards Miami.

Nobody cared.

There were eight men in black leather jackets drinking whiskey around a big square table at Shayne’s left. They obviously belonged to the motorcycles outside.

Shayne tried hard to remember if there had been eight or nine bikes parked outside the bar. He couldn’t be sure.

The men in front of him ranged in age from middle thirties down to about sixteen. They had a certain wildness in common. The older ones were unshaven — one with a long yellow beard. None had washed recently. A couple showed the effects of the whiskey they had been drinking.

There was a fairly good chance that all were armed with knives, brass knucks or even guns. Their leather jackets could hide a lot. Shayne looked at them across the bar. They stared back impassively. It was a Mexican stand-off.

Finally, the detective said quietly, “I’ve got just one word for you boys. Don’t try it again. Don’t ever try it again.”

They looked back at him. Nobody even said, “Don’t try what again?”

Either they knew he was talking about the shot which had torn the crown of his hat — or they didn’t care.

Then he said, “Go on home. This bar’s closed for the day.” That was their chance to rush him if they planned to.

He couldn’t tell from their faces what was going to happen. They were like some feral, cautious, breed of animal that could be very dangerous.

Then the one with the yellow beard got to his feet. “We got no quarrel with you, mister. Come on, gang.”

He started for the door and the rest of them followed him. Shayne came around the bar and went to the front window when he heard the cycle engines revving up in the parking lot. The leather-jacketed riders rode out of the lot and turned East towards Miami.

Shayne counted. There were nine of them now. There had only been eight inside. That meant one had stayed in another part of the building or off in the Everglades sawgrass and brush while the big private detective had been inside.

The odds were one hundred to one that the ninth rider was the one who had taken the shot at Shayne on the canal bank. The big man hadn’t even managed to see his face.

Shayne considered getting into his car and chasing after the cycle riders. They had hit full speed by now, though, and had a head start that would make it almost impossible to catch them. If he did catch up, they were all wearing goggles as well as the identical leather jackets and helmets. He wouldn’t be able to tell one from the other — and it would do him very little good if he could.

Short of searching them all and finding a gun with one shell fired — or recently fired if it was an automatic — he would have no proof, and even that would not be enough to take into court.

The detective was fairly sure that one of the bike riders had tried to kill him. By appearing inside the Big Frog Bar and facing them down, he had let them know what he felt. For the moment that was all he could do.

He still hadn’t the slightest notion which one had fired at him. Just as important from the big man’s point of view, he had no idea why any of the riders should want him killed.

Up ahead on the road to Miami, the bike pack had picked up speed and was almost out of sight.

II

That was when big Mike Shayne became aware he could still hear the roar of cycle motors — and that these were coming up on him from behind. Normally Shayne wouldn’t have cared — but under the circumstances the sound alerted him. He watched them grow in his rear view mirror.

There were about a dozen riders, three or four with women riding pillion on the jump seats. This lot had their cycles painted yellow and wore tan leather jackets with a yellow stripe across the chest. They had on yellow helmets and big goggles obscuring their faces.

As the gang caught up with Shayne’s car, he was driving at a normal pace and making no effort to avoid them, they separated so that some would pass on each side of the car. None of them seemed to be paying any special attention to the big detective’s dark sedan.

However, one of them was. As the cycles roared past a rider on the right side tossed something through the open window of the car onto the front seat. Then the roaring motors were gone in a bunch.

Shayne’s big hand shot out to grasp the object that had been thrown into the car. His fingers told him it was only paper fastened around a small rock by a rubber band. If it had felt like a grenade or a stick of dynamite, he would have thrown it out of the car again.

As it was, he held on.

When he reached a spot where the shoulder of the Trail was wide enough, he pulled off the road and parked. The paper was a note with the words crudely printed in black ink from a felt-tipped marking pencil.

Shayne, it read, you’re dead. Yes, Mr. Shayne you are dead even though you still walk around. The riders have marked you for death. Next time it will be a bomb, Shayne. Next time you will really be dead.

That was all. No signature. Shayne hadn’t really expected one. He sat there and looked at the paper.

An hour before, Mike Shayne had been stretched out on the grassy bank of the Tamiami Canal for an afternoon of rest and relaxation and cane pole fishing in the warm sun. Now his hat had been torn by a bullet. Two separate gangs of cycle riders had given him very special attention indeed.

Somebody wanted Mike Shayne dead.

He didn’t know who it was. In fact, he didn’t have any idea who it might be. He was between cases. It could be any of a hundred persons out of his past, of course... persons whose plans he had thwarted or whom he had brought to justice in the course of his work over the years.

That thought was small comfort. He could hardly look them all up again. He had no idea where to start. Before he could analyze the danger Mike Shayne needed one vitally important piece of information which he most certainly did not have.

He needed to know why someone wanted him dead that badly.

With a motive, he could put an identity to the shadow who had unleashed the bike riders upon him. Or, with an identity, he could find a motive.

He had neither — and his own life was at stake.

“I’m pretty sure it’s not the bike riders themselves,” Shayne told his beautiful secretary Lucy Hamilton later that evening.

They were having dinner at one of their favorite places — the Steak House in Downtown Miami — and Shayne had finished telling her the events of the afternoon. They were eating two-inch-thick top sirloin strippers in a booth in the main dining room off the bar.

“What makes you think that?” Lucy Hamilton asked.

“Because if either of those two gangs had really wanted to finish me off, they certainly could have managed the job,” the big man told his lovely companion. “Remember there was only one shot at me on the canal bank. I was right out in the open there. The sniper had plenty of time for a second shot or even a third before I could get under any sort of cover. He could see I was still alive — but he didn’t try again. If he had really wanted me dead, then why no follow-up shot?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Lucy Hamilton said.

“I did,” said Shayne. “Then, when I went into the bar, not a one of them seemed surprised. They sat there like they knew all along I was coming. They didn’t attack me, either. They were eight to one and you’d think, if they’d wanted to kill me, those were real good odds for a try.” Shayne grinned his crooked grin.

“They never moved,” he continued. “Then, when the second pack caught up with me coming back to town, they could have tossed a hand grenade or a couple of sticks of fused dynamite onto the seat beside me just as easily as that stupid rock with the note. If I was really meant to die, that’s almost certainly what they would have done.”

“I still don’t understand,” Lucy Hamilton said. “Are you trying to tell me it was all fun and games?”

“No,” Shayne said, “it wasn’t fun. It was a real bullet that ruined a perfectly good hat. I simply think I wasn’t supposed to be killed right then and there.”

“Then what... Why...?”

“I don’t really know, Angel,” the big man said. “All I do know is that, when a lot of things happen that don’t really seem to make any sense, there has to be a reason why. In this case, I’d say it was a smoke screen to cover up something that does make sense.”

“What could that be, Michael?”

“I don’t know — but I’ve got a real good hunch I’d better find out. If I wait till it happens, it could be too late.”

Not five minutes later the waiter came to their table carrying a phone. “Call for Mike Shayne,” he said. “I’ll plug it in here.”

“Shayne here,” the big detective said when the instrument was activated.

“Good!” the voice on the wire said. “This is Stan Berg. You know who I am?”

“Sure I do.” Stan Berg was a sports reporter, and a good one, on the staff of one of Miami’s best known TV news programs. “What’s on your mind, Stan?”

“You are,” Berg said. “You are, old buddy. The word is out around town that your health is declining but good and but fast. They say your friends should get ready for a funeral before long. Is it true?”

“Who says it is?” Shayne was wary.

“Let’s say it’s on the grapevine,” Berg said. His voice was neither friendly nor unfriendly. “If I knew who started it, I’d tell you, Shayne. I’ve got no reason not to.”

That was true enough as far as the big man knew.

“I believe you,” he said. “I suppose you’re talking about the motorcycle riders?”

“You’re ahead of me there,” Berg told him. “All I know is, some of my news sources say there’s a contract out on your head. A big contract, Shayne... in the high G’s.”

“Interesting,” said Shayne, “but you know it’s happened before.”

“I guess so, with all the heads you’ve broken and the big fat toes you’ve stomped in this town. I guess you’ve had it happen more than once.”

There was admiration in Berg’s voice. Then he continued, “The question is, can you handle it one more time. The grapevine says you can’t. It says you’re going to be run ragged first and then killed when you’re all worn down. It says the price is so high this time that there’s too many takers for you to handle.”

“That remains to be seen,” Mike Shayne said. “What else did the grapevine tell you?”

“That’s all, old buddy,” Berg said. “Nothing specific. What’s this about bike riders?”

“Oh, nothing,” Shayne said. “I almost got run over, is all. Probably no connection at all. Anyway, thanks for the tip.”

“De nada,” Berg said. “Always glad to pass on a tip to an old buddy — even if it is the news he’s going to be hit. Seriously though, the best of luck.”

The wire went dead.

“What was that about?” Lucy Hamilton asked.

Shayne told her.

“That sounds serious, Michael. What are we going to do?”

“First of all, I’m going to finish my dinner and have a double order of pie a la mode.”

They didn’t have a chance to do even that much without interference.

III

Mike Shayne was only half through his pie when he saw the young man enter the dining room and look around. The big detective spotted him instantly. He was wearing a sports shirt, slacks and jacket instead of the black leather jacket and boots of the afternoon — but it was the yellow-bearded leader of the red cycle pack.

The beard saw Shayne and Lucy and came over to their booth. Without asking, he pulled up a chair from the nearest table and sat down. Lucy Hamilton looked at him with surprise, but took her cue from Shayne and said nothing.

The new arrival was about thirty — too young for his beard and too old for the boys he rode with. He looked Shayne over for a minute.

Then he said, “I just wanted to tell you I’m not to blame for what happened this afternoon.”

“If you aren’t, then who is?” Shayne asked him bluntly.

“I’m not sure — and that’s what bothers me,” the yellow beard said. “I’m supposed to call the shots in our crowd, but somebody shot at you on his own.”

“Don’t you know your eight boys that well?” Shayne asked.

“Seven boys.” The beard corrected him. “There’s only eight of us counting me.”

Shayne didn’t correct him. But he knew that nine riders in black jackets had left the Big Frog Bar ahead of him that afternoon. Nine riders — not eight.

Yellow Beard continued, “I suppose you know by now there’s an open contract out on you. Twenty thousand dollars to whoever kills you. All the motorcycle gangs in South Florida have been told. And that bothers me.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Shayne said. “Offhand, I’d figure I was the one to be bothered. So why does it upset you? Afraid you can’t collect.”

“I don’t even want to collect,” the Beard said. “I meant it when I said we had no quarrel with you. I’m not a killer anyway — just a rider. It bothers me that somebody thinks the riders would kill you.”

“Who is this somebody?”

“I don’t know, Shayne. Honestly I don’t — and that bothers me, too. All of a sudden, everybody knows there’s a contract out on you, but nobody seems to know who started the story.”

“If you did kill me, there might not be a payoff. Is that it?”

“No, that’s not it. I told you I’m no killer. It’s only that somebody’s trying to use the cycle riders, and I resent that. Some of the riders think they’ll make a game of it — harry and roust you till you don’t know which way is up. Then a killer can hit you easy. They think it’s funny. I don’t. I came to warn you.”

Shayne was almost beginning to like the obviously confused but well-intentioned young man.

“Thanks.” he said. “I appreciate it. Who are you, anyway?”

“My name’s Harry,” said the other. “Harry Comfort. I don’t suppose it means anything to you. They call my riders the Beard’s Boys. Incidentally the contract on you is open — not just for riders. At least, though, you won’t need to worry about my boys. We aren’t in on it.”

“One of you was this afternoon,” Mike Shayne reminded him. “I’ve got a ruined hat to prove it.”

“It won’t happen again,” Harry Comfort said. He got up from the table and left the restaurant...

Shayne and Lucy finished their meal in silence. Both of them realized a very serious situation indeed existed. But, from long and loyal association, there was no need for words between them.

After the pie Shayne had coffee and a cigar. Only then did he speak.

“I’ll take you home, Angel,” he said. “I don’t want any over-enthusiastic bike riders playing games as far as you’re concerned. Some of them play pretty rough. I don’t want to worry.”

She said only, “I understand, Michael.”

“I have to find out who put out that contract,” Shayne told her. “That has to come first.”

He paid their check and they went out the rear exit of the Steak House to the parking lot. There was a little knot of people around a dark sedan standing in the rear of the lot. There was also a parked police car and a pair of uniformed officers.

The dark sedan belonged to Mike Shayne. The policemen were pulling a body out of the rear seat onto the cement of the parking lot.

The body belonged to Harry Comfort. Even from a distance it looked very, very dead.

Someone had cut poor Comfort’s throat. There was blood in his beard and all down the front of his clean shirt and jacket. Lucy caught the big man’s arm.

“Oh, my God!” she gasped.

Shayne kept his head. “We’d better get out of here, Angel. Around the building to the Boulevard where I can hail you a cab. Take it straight home. When Will Gentry’s boys come looking for you, just say you don’t know a thing. Tell Will that I’ll be in touch when I can.”

When Lucy Hamilton was safely in the cab, Shayne boarded a bus going north on Biscayne Boulevard. He needed time to think, and the car would be traced to him within minutes. Someone in the restaurant would remember that the dead man had been sitting with Shayne and Lucy. The waiter knew who they were. So did the cashier, who saw them at least a couple of times a week.

Will Gentry was an old friend, as well as Miami Chief of Police. He would hardly believe Mike Shayne had murdered a man — particularly in the way this one had been murdered. Shayne wasn’t the sort to cut throats and the Chief and most of his men knew that well enough.

On the other hand, Gentry couldn’t help but order a pick-up-for-questioning order. The county sheriff and the Miami Beach Chief, who both disliked the big detective heartily, might improve on that and put out All Ponts Bulletins for him on suspicion of murder.

To be picked up at all could be fatal for the big redhead at this point. He figured he could clear himself of a homicide charge easily enough. After all, he and Lucy hadn’t left the Steak House till after the killing.

The real trouble was that he couldn’t afford to be held anywhere while answering questions. He needed to be free to find the man who wanted him killed badly enough to put out a twenty-thousand-dollar contract. He had to find out where the bike riders fitted into this bizarre picture. As far as Mike Shayne knew, he had never had any quarrel with bike riders as such.

They were a wild crowd, some of them perfectly capable of killing in a fit of passion, but hardly capable of anything of this sort.

Harry Comfort was already dead to prove it.

Shayne wondered about that, too. Had Comfort been killed by his own gang or by other bike riders or by someone completely unconnected with the riders?

On the surface, his death so soon after talking to Shayne and Lucy may have meant that someone didn’t want him talking to the big detective. Or perhaps someone was punishing him for having talked. Or it could be something purely personal, unconnected with Mike Shayne at all.

At least, though, the killing of Comfort gave the big redhead a point from which to start his own investigation. It gave him a place to begin.

Shayne stayed on the Metro Bus until it had passed North East 79th Street. Then he got off and walked over to an apartment building owned by a friend for whom he had done favors in the past. It was a row of efficiency apartments surrounding a court — and with the tourist season as poor as it had been of late, there were vacancies.

Shayne had no trouble renting one.

Doing this gave him the two things he needed most at that moment — privacy and a telephone. He called his Old friend Tim Rourke, ace feature writer for the Miami News and talked at length.

Then he called another old friend, B.J. (Betty Jane) Ramirez, a stunning redhead who had inherited and ran one of the area’s most active “Numbers” banks.

Four more calls to contacts around town followed.

At the end of an hour on the phone, Shayne had a pretty good briefing about the location, habits and personalities in the area’s numerous motorcycle gangs. He had names and addresses. He also knew that by this time word of the contract on him was common knowledge all over town. Everybody knew about it, but no one knew the identity of the individual who was willing to put up twenty thousand dollars to have him killed.

“It doesn’t make any sense at all, Mike,” Betty Jane told him. “Why those spooks on the bikes? If I wanted somebody killed, there are a dozen known hit men in town. They’re all pros, some of them really damned good. Any one of them would be a better buy than those gangs of crazy hopped-up kids.”

“Maybe somebody thinks I’m a pro too,” Shayne said. “I know the hit men. I know how they operate. I could handle them — but amateurs!”

“That’s not it, you big lug. If I thought that, I’d import a hit man from Chicago or the West Coast. Somebody whose face or M.O. you don’t know. I still wouldn’t stir up those kids with the bikes.”

“Well,” Shayne said, “the man isn’t you. He did stir up the riders. Maybe he thinks there’s so many of them they can be dangerous for that reason.”

“I don’t think that’s why he’s doing it,” she said. “I’m going to try and find out, though, so keep in touch.”

Tim Rourke had told his friend much the same thing. “Nobody knows why the cycle gangs are in this, Mike, but they sure are. Their favorite bars are packed and gangs of them are riding. The police can’t watch them all. It’s like they were mobilized for a war.”

“With me as the enemy,” Shayne said.

“Right,” Rourke told him. “If I were you, I’d keep an eye out for more than bike riders. Could be they’re supposed to divert your attention while an out-of-town hit man sneaks up on your blind side.”

“I don’t intend to have a blind side,” Shayne said.

IV

Shayne didn’t tell any of the people he talked to where he was or what his plans were.

As a matter of fact, he wasn’t yet too sure of what those plans really were. He only knew that he had to take positive action. It wasn’t in Shayne’s nature to sit passively by while danger came to him.

Far better to take the initiative...

As a first step, he sent the owner of the apartments out to rent him a car under his friend’s name.

Shayne usually drove a conservative dark sedan. The car he rented was a fire-engine-red foreign sports model that could outrun a cycle on the open road in case of need.

The biggest gang of riders in the area were known as the Blue Devils. It was characteristic of Shayne that it was to their headquarters he headed first...

The gang hung out at a roadhouse called The Blue Hades on a back road north and west of Miami near the little town of Dania. Shayne had no trouble locating the place.

He parked his car at a small shopping center a little way down the road and walked back to the bar. There were at least twenty cycles in the parking lot and he could see the jacketed riders and their girls drinking at the bar inside. He could sense their aura of excitement.

The obvious leader of this gang was seated at a table to the left of the door. He was older than the others, with a stubble of black beard and the cruel, hawk face of a ruffian used to command. He wore a crimson silk shirt under his leather jacket, and a couple of big diamond rings sparkled on his fingers. There was the bulge of a holstered gun under his left armpit. Two other men and three women sat with him. They were all about half drunk by the look of things. They were not expecting trouble.

Shayne came in the front door of The Blue Hades like any innocent stranger looking to buy a beer. He moved so smoothly and with such precision that none of the mob inside realized how fast and dangerous he really was — let alone recognized him for the man they were all supposed to be after.

Shayne got around behind the boss of the Blue Devils before any of them noticed him. He dropped his huge left hand on the man’s right shoulder in a grip that partially paralyzed the rider. At the same time Shayne’s own right hand dipped under the man’s jacket and came up with the fellow’s holstered gun. It was a heavy frame.357 Magnum with all the chambers loaded. A gun that could break a man in half at the sort ranges inside the crowded room.

Shayne’s thumb cocked the gun with a click of metal as he pressed the muzzle to the back of the hood’s neck. It was all done so fast and so smoothly that even the others sitting at the table didn’t realize until their leader was disarmed and helpless. They stared — open-mouthed.

The crowd at the bar didn’t realize anything had happened at all.

Shayne pulled a chair from an adjoining table and sat down on the gang leader’s left side. His right hand kept the gun nudging the man’s spine. He said, “I understand you boys are looking for me.”

The gang boss said, “What in the hell do you want?” His face had gone white under the stubble of black beard.

“I’m Mike Shayne,” the big redhead said. “You’ve heard of me.”

There was dry menace in his voice.

“You know me all right,” he went on. “I’m Shayne — and for twenty thousand dollars I won’t pull the trigger of this gun. For twenty thousand dollars, I won’t break your spine and blow your heart out the front of your chest.”

The rider boss said, “Hold on, hold on! Man’ you’re crazy.”

“I’m not crazy,” Mike Shayne said. “I’ve got the gun. I’m the one can pull the trigger and blast your guts out. I don’t think that makes me crazy.”

“That makes you crazy if you think I’ve got twenty thousand dollars,” the rider said. “No way, man, do I have that kind of bread. No way at all.”

“That’s funny,” Shayne said. Everyone at the table could hear him. “Some of you want to pay twenty grand to have me killed. I figure it’s only right I should charge you twenty big ones not to kill you. I mean, since there’s that sort of money floating around the riders, it seems only right I should get it. Since it’s me that has you under the gun. This way it seems only right.”

He spoke slowly and clearly, so the rest of them could hear. By now, the crowd at the bar had spotted him and were watching.

Nobody made any overt moves. The gun at their leader’s back made sure of that. The room was silent except for raucous music from the juke box. Someone reached over and pulled the plug out of the wall so that the music stopped.

The gang boss said again, “You got to be crazy, man! We ain’t got bread like that.”

“Then you’re dead,” Shayne said. “You’re dead unless you’ve got something to trade that’s worth twenty G’s to me.”

“Anything,” the other said. “Anything we got is yours when you take that rod off my back. You name it, man.”

“Information,” Mike Shayne said loudly enough so that all of them in the room could hear. “I want to know who put the contract on my head. Give me his name And maybe it’s worth your life.”

There was a silence broken only by hoarse breathing and the sound of an occasional car going by outside.

“We don’t know,” the man under the gun said. “You got to believe me, man. All we know is the word went round. The hit and the price. Nobody said who put it up.”

There was a chorus of agreement from the others in the room.

Mike Shayne believed them. Like everyone else he’d talked to this crazy day, they just didn’t know who wanted his life. He was beginning to feel desperate, and he fought to keep a clear head.

He tried again.

“All right then, think. Think hard and come up with something that will buy this man his life. Who has that sort of money that’s connected with you riders? Give me a name.”

He expected them to name a bike seller or a bar owner or someone in the dope-pushing business. But nobody answered.

An answer finally came after a couple of minutes of silence. The speaker was a blonde girl at the table with the leader.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know if this will help. Most of us ain’t rich. We come from ordinary folks. The only one who has money is Harry Comfort — that I know of. Him and that snooty sister of his, I think they’re rich.”

“Harry Comfort?” Shayne asked.

“Only Harry Comfort is dead already,” said a voice at the bar. “You killed old buddy Harry, didn’t you, Shayne?”

They looked at him with mixed expressions. Shayne got to his feet. His left hand caught the gang boss by the neck and hauled him up, too.

“I’m taking your friend out the front with me,” Shayne said. “If anybody moves — if anyone of you even breathes hard — I’m going to pull the trigger.”

“We’ll come after you, Rocky,” one of the men called.

“For God’s sake, no!” their leader called back. “This guy means business. Stay right here. Freeze!”

“What if he kills you, Rocky?”

“I haven’t killed him yet,” Mike Shayne said. “If he and you all behave yourselves — then just maybe I won’t kill him. Just maybe. It’s still a real temptation.”

There was a clear lane to the front door and Shayne walked the leader of the Blue Devils out and onto the street. He could feel all of their eyes on his back, but his big hand holding the gun was rock steady.

Nobody dared to challenge him.

Shayne walked Rocky a few doors down in the direction away from where he had left his rented car. He didn’t dare stay on the street too long, because he couldn’t be sure how long the other riders would stay inside.

Shayne pushed the man called Rocky into an alleyway between two stores. As soon as they were well off the street, he went into action. The gun butt caught Rocky back of the ear and knocked him out cold.

Shayne pushed the body of the unconscious cycle gang leader back of some trash cans, where he would be out of sight of his friends until he came to his senses. Then the big detective circled back through the alleyway behind the Blue Hades to where he had left his car. He drove away just as the bike riders boiled out of the roadhouse.

As far as he could tell, none of them spotted him in the rented red sports car.

V

Shayne was disappointed with the results of his confrontation. He had made some points in this grim game, of course. The word would get around town — and fast — that Mike Shayne was no frightened pigeon to be harried and rousted for sport. Once the riders accepted the fact of the danger, he figured most of them would leave him alone.

From now on, he’d be bothered only by the more desperate types out to collect the twenty-thousand-dollar bounty they believed had been put on his head.

That simplified things for both sides.

On the other hand, Shayne was no closer than he had been to finding the information he had gone looking for. He still didn’t know who had put the price on his head, or why it had been done. Till he did find out these things he was still running blindly in the dark from a menace that he could neither name nor come to grips with.

That didn’t feel right for Mike Shayne. He had to switch the roles so that his enemy would be running from him.

For lack of a better lead, he decided to go see “that snooty sister” of the late Harry Comfort. She might not know who was after Shayne herself — but perhaps she could tell him who had really killed the man with the yellow beard, her brother. That would be one more link in the chain.

Luckily, Harry Comfort was listed in the Miami phone book. The address was in a development of expensive homes just north of South Bayshore Drive and the Mercy Hospital properties. Whoever said Comfort and his sister were well-to-do had been right. Any house in that locale would go for one hundred thousand dollars and up in the day’s inflated real estate market. A strange home for a black-jacketed bike rider.

Mike Shayne parked down the block and walked up to the house. He had half-expected young Harry’s death might have filled the place with grieving, or at least curious friends and relatives, but this did not seem to be the case. There was only one car — an expensive American sports job — parked in the driveway, and a glance through the picture windows in front showed the living room to be empty.

Mike Shayne went quietly up the path to the front door and rang the bell. Almost at once he heard footsteps approaching from inside the house.

The girl who opened to his ring bore a general family resemblance of feature to the late Harry Comfort, but the details were subtly different.

Her features were cameo beautiful — a young oval face under masses of coiled black hair. She wore a tight pants suit of burgundy red velvet, accented at the waist by a belt of gold chain with a gold clasp set with pearls and amethysts. Her shoes were soft black leather. She had jeweled rings on both hands. To any regular bike rider, she would be “that snooty sister” and no mistake.

Her eyes were her most striking feature. They were grey with flecks of gold like a cat’s eyes and just as intelligent, ruthless and inquisitive as those of one of the big hunting cats.

She looked at Shayne and said, “Yes?” with a question mark.

Shayne wasn’t taking any chances of the woman recognizing him and slamming the door in his face. He pushed in past her and closed the door behind him. She stepped back to avoid him as he came, but there was no fear in her face. The odd eyes were completely calm.

Shayne had an odd feeling that they would stay as icy cold if he struck her or if she suddenly produced a gun and shot him instead. For the first time in a long while, he was uncomfortable in the presence of another human being.

He said, “I have to talk to you, Miss Comfort.”

“Obviously,” she said in a low, musical voice, “but why?”

“Because I’m Mike Shayne,” he said as quietly as he could.

Her expression didn’t change. Her stance didn’t alter, but the big man knew that every muscle in the lithe and beautiful body had come alert.

There was a small table against the wall to her right with a mirror hung above it. She didn’t look at it. She was very careful not to look at it.

Shayne could move as quickly and smoothly as a big cat himself when he wanted to. He did so now. He got between her and the table with a couple of easy strides. He opened the table drawer and found the gun he’d expected. It was a flat black automatic, but it wasn’t the.22 or.25 caliber popgun a woman usually owns and keeps. This was a.380 Browning — a much more formidable weapon.

Shayne picked up the gun. It was almost swallowed up in his big hand.

He said to her, “I’m not going to hurt you and there’s no reason for you to shoot me. I don’t care what you may have heard. I didn’t kill your brother.”

She looked at him steadily across the few feet of expensively carpeted floor. Her strange yellow eyes didn’t even blink. They just looked at him — and into him.

Then Shayne did a strange thing. He wasn’t quite sure at the time why he did it — perhaps because he just wanted to see those eyes change expression. He tossed the automatic pistol lightly to her.

She caught it with one hand — easily, as if she’d handled guns often before — and looked down to be sure what it was. Then she tossed it onto a big couch in the living room.

Suddenly she smiled. Her lips and her whole face smiled and her body relaxed. Only the eyes didn’t change expression. Shayne began to wonder if even death or the act of love could change their look.

At least the deadlock was broken. She continued to smile at him and said, “I think I believe you, Mr. Shayne. Even the police I talked to didn’t seem to think it was you who killed poor Harry. That other big man, Chief Will Gentry, was very positive about it. He said that if you killed a man it would have been either with a gun or your bare hands. That you weren’t the sort to use a knife.”

Shayne said, “And now that you see me?”

“Oh, now I believe him. I don’t think you would have come here if you had killed Harry. I really don’t. And besides — you don’t look to me like a knife man.”

Was that intended as a compliment or in mockery? Shayne couldn’t be sure. Too good to be a knife man — or not good enough? Did this strange young woman know a knife man when she saw one? She didn’t give him time to wonder.

“I’ll accept that you didn’t kill my brother,” she said. “In that case what did you come here for?”

“I just want to ask you some questions.”

She smiled again. “That’s easy enough. Come along to the Florida room and I’ll mix you a drink.”

She sensed the question in his mind. “Oh, don’t worry. We’re quite alone in the house. Harry and I had no relatives in town and few close friends outside of that gang he rode with. The police have the body — and you’re the first who called to express sympathy.”

There was no bitterness in that last remark. She simply said it.

Shayne let her lead him to the big comfortable Florida room facing out over a walled garden at the back of the house. There was a bottle of good brandy behind the built-in bar at one end of the room. Shayne poured himself a good three fingers and took some water in a separate glass for a chaser.

To his surprise she followed his example, tilted her head back and drank the fiery liquor like a man.

“Sit down,” she told him. “Call me Sally, Mike Shayne, and ask me any questions you want. If I know the answers, I’ll probably give them to you. I really think that I will give them to you.”

“I’d appreciate that,” the big man said and sat in one of the rattan easy chairs.

“Then fire ahead.”

“All right. First of all, who did kill your brother?”

She threw back her head and laughed. It sounded like genuine mirth. Then she said, “Come off it, Shayne. People say you did. If I knew any different, I’d have told the police, believe me, I would. It wouldn’t be a dark secret to share with you.”

“If you knew for sure?”

“That’s right — if I knew for sure. More than that, I’d have told him if I had even a reasonably good suspect to offer. I don’t want anyone making a habit of killing us Comforts. There aren’t enough to go round.”

“Then can you think of any reason why your brother was killed or who did it — or might have done it?” Shayne asked it quietly.

“Only some well educated guesses,” Sally Comfort told the big detective. “He could have been killed because one of the other bike gangs knew he had been talking to you. It’s possible one of them was following and saw you with him in the Steak House. On the other hand, it could have been because he wouldn’t go along with the idea of killing you. His own riders knew he’d decided to have no part of that. They could have talked. Or one of them who was greedy for the contract money could have decided to get Harry out of the way.”

“You don’t seem to think much of bike riders in general,” Mike Shayne said.

“I don’t.” She gave him a long, appraising look. “Most of them are no better than animals. I never approved of Harry running with them.”

“Not even when he got to be captain of his own pack?” Shayne asked.

“Least of all when he got that bunch of bums to follow him. They just wanted his money. Didn’t you know Harry bought the bikes and most of the equipment for them? It was costing us a fortune.”

“He did that?”

“Of course he did. How else do you think a reasonably intelligent guy like Harry could get to be head of one of those brutal and stupid gangs except by buying his way in?”

“I see,” Shayne said. “That’s why you think even his own boys could have cut his throat for him. Loyalty founded on money is no loyalty at all.”

She finished her brandy. “That’s the ticket, Shayne. Or it could have been any one of the other riders in town. They all hate and envy each other. They’re like a pack of wild beasts among themselves. Stupid, bloody animals!”

“So which of them put out this contract on me?”

“I should think you’d know that,” she said. “A smart man like you, Shayne, should know your own enemies.”

“Usually, I do,” he admitted. “I know I have no enemies among the bike riders. I know they exist, of course, and that’s all. Somebody else decided to hire them to roust me. Didn’t Harry say anything that would give you a clue.”

“No,” she said, “and I’m sure it was because he didn’t know himself, He got the word from the other captains. That’s all I know. He asked me if I knew who you were and why someone would want to kill you. T told him a man in your job has enemies.”

“I have to find the man who put out the contract,” Shayne told her.

“I can understand that,” Sally Comfort agreed. “Why don’t you let me help you?”

“Help me? Why should you?”

“For one thing because, whoever he is and why ever he wants you dead, the guy is responsible for my brother’s murder. If he hadn’t stirred up all this mess, Harry would still be alive. You got to admit I owe for that. Besides, I like you, Shayne. I don’t want you in trouble for something I don’t really think you did.”

Shayne was silent. What Sally Comfort was saying did seem to make sense. He pulled at the lobe of his left ear with the thumb and forefinger of one big hand. She took his silence for assent.

“I can be more help than you think,” she said earnestly. “I never rode with the gang myself, but I’ve heard Harry and his pals talk. I’ve even met some of the others. I know who most of the leaders are and where they hang out and what sort of people they are. I can be a big help.”

“Maybe you could at that,” Mike Shayne admitted thoughtfully.

“Sure I can. Just try me.”

“The first thing I need is a chance to talk to any of the riders who might have a clue to who wants me dead. Can you set that up?”

“I think I can do better than that,” she said. “There’s a place where the captains meet when they want to talk things over quietly among themselves without a big mob of the stupids around. On a night like this, it’s a hundred to one that’s where they are. Do you want to go see?”

Mike Shayne said, “Let’s go.”

VI

They took Mike Shayne’s car. Sally put on a lightweight black trench coat over her flamboyant pants suit. She also put the.380 Browning automatic into her big brown leather shoulder bag. She left all the lights burning in the home she had shared with her brother.

Their destination turned out to be a combined restaurant and bar on U.S. Highway #1 past Perrine on the way to the city of Homestead. It was a place famous for its steaks and patronized by a well-heeled and free-spending clientele.

Sally Comfort laughed at Mike Shayne’s expression when she named it.

“It’s not the sort of place you’d expect to find the riders,” she said. “As a matter of fact, most of them never heard of it and couldn’t get past the doorman if they tried. It’s only the captains who come here, and they meet in a private room upstairs. One of them is a nephew of the owner, and that’s how the connection was made. It’s a sort of neutral conference spot. No rough stuff is ever tried here.”

“I wouldn’t have thought of it,” Shayne said. “You’re already being a help.”

She was sitting close to him in the rented car with her shoulder and thigh both pressed against his. Now she looked up at him, her face near his, provocation and invitation in her eyes and voice.

“You see,” she said in a low, musical intonation, “I told you I can be a help. Maybe I can be more. I don’t know yet, but I do know I’m really beginning to like you. So who knows.”

Mike Shayne kept his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel.

There was ample parking in the lot behind the restaurant and Mike Shayne put his rented sports car in a spot from which he could make a quick exit in case of need.

There were other cars in the lot, but no motorcycles.

“You think they’re here?” he asked Sally Comfort. “I don’t see any bikes.”

She laughed with real amusement.

“You are funny!” she said. “We drive cars too, you know, and I recognize a couple over there. There’s a meeting on tonight, okay — but don’t look for leather jackets and boots when I take you in.”

They went in by the front door where Sally Comfort conferred briefly with the maitre d’. The man listened respectfully, then motioned them to go up a stairway to the left of the entrance.

At the top of the stairs they found themselves in a hall lined with the doors of private rooms. Sally Comfort knocked on the door of room number four.

One — two — three... One — two... One — two — three...

The door was opened from inside and they went in. There were three men seated at a long table with drinks and ashtrays in front of them. The man who had opened the door was obviously the waiter who had brought the drinks. He was on his way out.

The men at the table knew Sally. She pointed to each in turn. “Rocco Baldoni,” she said, “Sam Smith, Pete Reilley.” Then she paused, added, “Boys, I want you to meet Mike Shayne.”

One of them said, “Oh, hell!”

The one named Rocco said, “Sally, I always thought you were nuts and now I know it. What’s all this about.”

The third man moved to drop his hands in his lap. Shayne produced the.357 magnum he had taken from Rocky earlier in the evening. One second, his hand was empty. The next moment, the big gun was under their noses. It seemed to appear there all by itself, like something in a professional magician’s repertoire.

The three motorcycle captains were duly impressed by this legerdemain.

“All hands on top of the table,” Shayne said in deep, authoritative tones. It was a voice that carried a clout all its own.

“I didn’t come here to use this thing,” he told them, “and I won’t unless I have to. All I want is to talk. If we can settle this thing peacefully, it’s to your advantage as well as mine.”

“He means exactly that,” Sally Comfort told her friends. “I wouldn’t have brought him here if I hadn’t believed him. You know me.”

“We know he killed your brother,” one of them said. “How can we talk after that?”

“I didn’t kill Harry,” Mike Shayne said. “Why should I? He’d just finished telling me he wasn’t after my head. Besides I was eating pie inside when Harry died.”

“I believe him,” Sally said again.

Pete Reilly said, “You do. Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t.”

“At least, talk with him,” Sally said.

“I guess we can do that,” Rocco Baldoni said, “at least as long as it’s him that has the gun on us and not the other way round.”

“So what do you want, shamus?” Sam Smith asked him coldly.

“All I want is information,” Shayne said. “I want to know who started all this. I didn’t. I’ve no grudge against the riders, but now it looks like I have to shoot some of you to save my own neck. I don’t think any of us really wants that. Just tell me who put the contract out on me, and it takes both of us off the hook. I want him — not you.”

“We don’t know who it is,” Rocco Baldoni said.

Shayne said: “Hell! All I get from any of you is you don’t know. If it’s true, you’re stupid as so many Barbary apes in the rocks. Suppose one of you should kill me — who does he collect twenty thousand dollars from? Is Mister Mystery going to walk in and introduce himself and pay off?

“Do you really think your Mister X is going to be fool enough to pass out that sort of bread when you don’t know who he is? More likely, you’d be left with a Murder One rap to take care of and no payoff at all. Right?”

“It does sound reasonable,” Sam Smith said.

“I never thought of it that way,” Baldoni admited.

“I did,” Sally Comfort said. “That’s why I figure we had better help him. Does one of you know who put out the contract?”

From their silence it appeared nobody did.

“It was just all round town,” Pete Reilly said. “Everybody seemed to have heard of the contract all at once. I just assumed somebody had to know who put it out.”

“That kind of assuming is dangerous,” Shayne said.

“Against somebody like Mike Shayne it can be very dangerous,” Sally Comfort said. “Think hard. Who would know?”

They sat and thought, with their hands on the table and a wary eye on the gun the big redhead held. Finally Rocco Baldoni broke the silence.

“I honestly don’t know, but if it was me, I think I’d ask the old man. He might know if anyone—”

The door was snatched open from the hall side and another man ran in. This one wore his jacket and boots. He was out of breath from running.

“Calm down, Ed,” Baldoni said.

The man fought for breath. When he saw Shayne, he pointed. “Who’s that?”

“That’s Mike Shayne. We’re just talking over a deal.”

“Oh, God!” Ed gasped. “You can’t deal with Mike Shayne!”

“What do you mean we can’t? We are.”

“Did he tell you he dropped over for a chat with Rocky at the Blue Hades? Did he tell you that?”

“He told me,” Sally Comfort said. “So what has that got to do with this? I brought Shayne here because I wanted to save everybody trouble.”

“Oh, sweet...” Ed said. “But did he tell you all about Rocky? Did he...?”

“What’s all this about?” Mike Shayne demanded.

“It’s did you tell her the whole thing?” Ed said. “Did you tell her how, after the talk was over, you took Rocky out in the alley and killed him? Did you tell her how you cut Rocky’s throat, just like you did her brother’s? Did you tell her and the boys about that, Mr. Shayne?”

VII

There was a long silence while emotion built up in the room like an electric charge in a battery. Mike Shayne could feel it. He could see it in their faces.

“He never told me!” Sally Comfort said. “I swear to God he never said anything about killing Rocky.”

“I didn’t kill him,” Mike Shayne said. “I knocked him out so he couldn’t point the rest of his gang to me. I knocked him out and somebody must have found him there and cut his throat — that is, if his throat was cut. I don’t use a knife.”

“Oh, sure,” Reilly said. “You didn’t cut Harry Comfort’s throat and you didn’t cut Rocky’s. You don’t even use a knife to cut meat.”

Baldoni said, “It looks like we’re going to have to kill you after all, Shayne. Even if there isn’t any twenty thousand dollars to cut up, we’re going to have to kill you anyhow. We can’t have you cutting throats all around like that. We can’t.”

They looked at each other across the table. Shayne held the gun rock steady. For the moment, the gun was checkmate — but he could feel the charge build up. These were reckless and emotion-packed men with violence in their blood.

When the charge built up past a point of no return, they’d be at his throat like wolves. They were probably armed — and they were four to one — even if Sally Comfort stayed neutral.

Sally was beside him — on his side of the table where he couldn’t watch her and the men too.

“This is stupid,” Shayne said. “If I was the sort of man you think, you would have just committed suicide talking that way. I have six shots in this gun and only four of you to put down. I can’t miss.”

They thought about that and some of the rage in their faces changed to fear.

As long as Shayne could keep on top of the situation, there was a chance he could get out of the room without open violence. Either that, or he’d have to kill some of these men. Shayne was capable of killing if he had to — but he was not the man to enjoy it. For him, killing was a last resort, to be used only after every other alternative had been tried and failed.

He took a chance now — a calculated risk designed both to save Sally Comfort’s “face” with the rider captains and to get them both out of the room without a battle.

“You can think what you want,” he told the men, “as long as you stop with thinking it. Make a move, and I’ll kill the lot of you.”

He could see that they got the point. There was hatred in their eyes, but the fear was gaining.

“I’m leaving here right now,” Shayne said. “I’m taking the lady with me just so nobody will get any bright ideas about chasing us. Try that, and she’ll be dead.

“You stay right here for half an hour. After that you can do as you please. You can even try chasing me if any one of you is crazy enough. But remember this, though — I can take you and any of your men, and I will if I have to.

“You pass the word around to leave Mike Shayne alone. There’s no reward for the man who catches up with me. There’s nothing but a bullet in the gut, and that I can guarantee the lot of you. Just stay clear of me and let whoever started the story about that twenty grand contract come and try to make the hit for himself.”

He hoped they heard him. Even more that they would believe what they heard — enough to sit tight.

Shayne made a show of putting his gun to Sally Comfort’s back as the two of them left the conference room.

Inside his head, there was still a question mark. If it had come to a shootout, whose side would the beautiful girl have actually been on? It had better have been his, or he’d have been a dead duck with her gun behind him.

Now, he supposed that he’d never know.

Anyway, she came along quietly. While they were in the room, she gave no sign of being anything but an unwilling victim.

They had one close call in the parking lot. A couple of County Sheriff’s deputies had just parked their car and were headed for the kitchen door to pick up a couple of steaks “on the house.”

Shayne put his arm around Sally’s shoulder and bent down as if whispering in her ear. It hid his face, but it probably wasn’t needed. The two deputies paid them no attention at all. Their minds were on other things.

Shayne got his car out of the lot and into the highway traffic without being noticed.

“Who’s the old man?” he asked Sally.

“Who?”

“The old man that Baldoni referred to back in the room there. The one he said would know about the contract if anybody would.”

“Oh!” she said. “I’d forgotten. He’s the one who fences most of the stuff the gangs steal — when they do stage a ripoff. He Shylocks for them, too, when they need money. Loans at very high rates.”

“I see,” Shayne said. “If something goes on, he’s the one who knows.”

“Exactly. If anything happens, somebody’s bound to mention it. The riders are in and out of his place all the time. It’s a neutral ground when two gangs are at war with each other. They both need him, so they keep his place safe for all.”

“Just the man I want to see,” Shayne said. “Who is he, and where is this place of his?”

“His name is Simon Kane,” Sally said, “though nobody ever calls him anything but the Old Man. He has a garage and bike sales agency out in the northwest section and a home not far from that. His biggest ripoff though is fencing and loan sharking for the gangs. That’s where his influence comes from, where he really makes his money.”

“I want to see him,” Mike Shayne said.

She looked up at him. “Did you ever consider he might be the one that put the contract out on you?”

“I consider everything,” Shayne said. “I don’t think that’s the man though.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t think of a single reason why he should have done it. Nobody puts up that kind of money without a motive, and I can’t think of a motive Kane could have. I never crossed his trail before — let alone did anything serious enough to make him want to kill me. Killing is serious. Your brother’s bike-riding pals might not think so, but anyone with twenty thousand dollars to spend does. That sort doesn’t put out a contract without a reason. What reason does the Old Man have?”

“I don’t know,” Sally said, “but on the other hand, can you give me a motive for anybody else tonight? You can’t. The motive is as secret as the man, so you can’t really rule out the Old Man. Besides, who’d be more likely to put the cycle riders onto you?”

Shayne didn’t agree with her line of reasoning. Anyone as close to the bike riders as Simon Kane, had to be the last man to use them to do a killing for him. It would just bring the police into his own private and profitable preserve.

He’d be much more likely to give an out-of-town hit man a thousand dollars to shoot Shayne in the back without fuss or publicity.

However, the big detective didn’t argue with Sally Comfort. He stuck to his original point.

“I want to see him anyway — and that’s where we’re going.”

“Not unless I call him first,” Sally Comfort said. “His place will be full of bike riders — and by now they’ll be ready to shoot on sight anybody who even looks like you. The killing of Rocky will have them all as dangerous as so many mad dogs. Your only chance to see the Old Man will be with some sort of safe conduct.”

“What makes you think you can get me any kind of safe conduct?” he asked.

She said, “The same way I got you in to see the captains back there. Fm known as Harry’s sister. I never really rode with his people, but I’ve met most of them. I’ve gone to see the Old Man with Harry.”

“What was Harry fencing?” He was probing for a reaction, and he got it right away.

“That’s a low blow, Mike Shayne, and you know it. With the money we inherited from our parents, Harry didn’t have to steal, and you should know he wasn’t the kind to do it without a real reason.”

Shayne said, “I believe you.”

“That’s better, then. No— Harry was always buying a new bike or boots for that bunch of hoodlums who rode with them. It was the only real hold he had on them. The only way he could be a captain was to throw his money around. That was his claim to leadership.”

She spoke bitterly.

“Harry wasn’t the first to buy a leadership position,” Shayne said.

“He was the first in our family.” She was still bitter. “Do you know what it costs to outfit a gang first class. I guess you don’t, but believe me, it takes a lot of money.”

“Harry could afford it, couldn’t he?”

“That’s all in the way you look at it,” she said. “He paid his way without going to the Old Man for a loan, but it couldn’t have gone on much longer. After all, our parents weren’t that rich, and the taxes and lawyers took a big bite out of what they did leave.”

“I see.”

“Anyway I did meet the Old Man. You better find a phone booth and let me call ahead though. And you’d better believe it’s the only way you’ll get to him alive tonight.”

VIII

Sally Comfort had no trouble getting through to the Old Man at his place of business. Setting up a meeting with Mike Shayne was another matter, though. She had to talk hard to convince Simon Kane that Shayne just wanted to talk.

Finally he agreed to let Sally Comfort bring the big detective to his home. The Old Man would wait there and talk with them.

“He’s got more sense than the rest of them,” Sally Comfort said.

“If he didn’t have, he wouldn’t be head man.” Shayne agreed.

“Anyway, he listened to me,” Sally continued. “I’m not sure he really agrees that you didn’t kill Rocky, but he’ll go along with me that you didn’t cut Harry’s throat. Anyway, he’ll talk to you — and I think that’s important right now. You convince him, for he’s the one man in town who can take the cycle gangs off your back. They will listen to him.”

“I hope they will,” Shayne said. “This crazy feud over nothing has cost two lives already. So let’s get on with it.”...

Shayne found Simon Kane’s house easily enough. The outside yard lights were on and so were the lights inside. There was no sign of an ambush, so the big detective parked in the driveway beside Simon Kane’s late-model Lincoln. The two-car garage made one wing of the house and was obscured from the street by a cement wall and some ornamental planting about ten feet high.

“He wants to talk to you alone,” Sally Comfort told Shayne as he parked. “I’ll wait for you in the car.” She reached over and pressed his big hand with her small soft one, added, “Good luck, shamus. Good luck.”

Shayne had to walk back down the drive to the street and then around the wall to get to the front entrance of the expensive house. The door opened the instant he rang.

“Come in, Shayne,” said Simon Kane. “Let me get a look at you.”

The bike riders’ Old Man had the look of any successful Dade County businessman. Short, stocky, balding, he wore an expensive sports shirt and slacks and soft leather sandals on his feet. His glasses were in solid gold frames and there was a heavy gold ring on his right hand with at least a two-carat diamond.

“Come in, come in,” he repeated. “We can talk freely here tonight. I live alone and my servants have gone home. No guards and no bugs, Mr. Shayne. Just you and I to talk.”

Shayne said, “That’s fine. I hope we can clear this up once and for all.”

His host led him through the living room to the rear of the house. There was a semi-Florida room — part pool and patio arrangement. The rear wall was screening backed up by ornamental tropical plantings. The rear of the house itself was a series of sliding glass doors opening directly onto the pool area.

Near the pool was a table and two wrought iron chairs. A bottle of rum stood on the table with two glasses.

“Pour yourself a drink,” the Old Man said and seated himself.

Shayne poured rum into a glass. It was high grade imported Jamaica — not as good as his favorite brandy but still a strong and warming drink.

“You’re sure we’re alone?” he asked.

“We are, as far as I’m concerned,” Simon Kane said. “Nothing at all up my sleeve. How about yours?”

“Both of mine are empty, too,” Shayne said. “Nobody came with me but Sally — and I told her to wait in the car. I wanted this to be private as much as you did.”

“Fine, fine! Now why are you going around killing motorcycle riders, Mr. Shayne?”

“I think you know I’m not killing anybody,” Mike Shayne said. He made it a statement, almost an ultimatum, and let it lie like something tangible on the table between them.

Simon Kane drank some of his rum — not very much — as a courtesy gesture to his guest. He looked over the rim of his glass at the big redheaded detective and took his own good time about answering. Outside, the hot tropical night seemed to brood over the house. The only sound was that of a television set in a neighbor’s patio.

Finally the Old Man spoke. “You know, Shayne, I’m inclined to believe you. I honestly am — and that’s what bothers me the most about this whole affair.

“If it was you by yourself carrying some crazy vendetta against bike riders — why, we could deal with that. Myself, I’d have you found and watched and tip the police where to find you. That would be reasonable man’s way to handle you — and I’m a reasonable man, no more a killer than any other businessman. I’m no mafioso.

“Some of the boys and girls on the bikes might try to kill you, of course. If they did, I’d try to stop them,” he added, “One way or another, we’d get you out of the picture. You’d have to be crazy to start a one-man war — and lunatics can always be handled.”

“I agree with you on that,” Shayne said. “My whole life has taught me the truth of what you say. Crazy killers go down fast.

“I’m not crazy, though, Kane. I’m not the one doing the killing. That complicates things. You don’t know where to look. There’s somebody killing bike riders and he’s using all this ruckus about me to hide himself.

“I don’t really know whether he wants me killed — or even whether it’s you he wants out of the way. Right now, he’s got us both looking over our shoulders. Maybe he thinks we’ll kill each other off.”

“I’m inclined to believe that may be it,” Kane said. “If it is, we’ll fool him there, at least. Have you come up with anything yet, Shayne?”

“Maybe,” Shayne replied. “Just maybe. Nothing I can really get my teeth into.”

“I was hoping that girl you rode up here with could help you,” Simon Kane said. “I’ve only met Sally Comfort a couple of times, but she struck me as a knowledgeable broad. She should have her heart in helping, anyway. Both the men killed were so close to her.”

“Both?” Shayne asked.

“Sure, both. One was her brother and the other — that Rocky — either was or had been her boyfriend. Didn’t you know that?”

“By God, I didn’t!” Shayne spoke emphatically. “She never mentioned that!”

“Well, well, well!” Kane Said. “Perhaps there is something else I ought to tell you.”

He never got the chance.

The shot came through the screened wall of the patio behind the still waters of the swimming pool. The screen held in and reflected the lights from the house. Anyone outside could see in, but Shayne couldn’t see out.

The shot was from a small caliber pistol — perhaps a twenty-two.

It caught Simon Kane right in the center of his forehead. Only one shot was needed. He was dead even as he slumped in his chair.

Shayne hurled himself sidewise out of his own chair and rolled over the sill into the living room through the open glass doors. Within seconds, he was sheltered behind a big overstuffed leather chair with his own gun in his hand. He heard feet running through the plantings toward the far end of the house.

Seconds later, a gun was fired twice out in front of the house. From the sound of the two shots, he figured that was the.380 Browning Sally Comfort had been carrying.

Half a minute later, he heard a motorcycle motor kicked to life partway down the block. Then the cycle roared away.

Sally Comfort did not fire again, but he heard her at the front door calling, “Shayne! Mike Shayne! Are you all right, Mike Shayne?”

IX

Shayne called to Sally Comfort through the front door of the house and then opened it.

“Go back to the car,” he said. “Start the engine and wait for me. I’ll be right back.”

He went out on the patio and wiped the glass he had drunk from and any other spot where he might have left fingerprints. He did not touch the body. Simon Kane had died instantly and there was nothing that could be done for him.

Once clear of the house, Shayne lost no time in getting the car moving. Some of the neighbors must have heard the shots fired from Sally’s gun even if the pop of the twenty-two which killed the Old Man had gone unnoticed.

Of course, they might not have called the police. Most people nowadays prefer not to get “involved” and might prefer to believe a car had backfired twice.

Still... Shayne couldn’t count on that.

There was also the solitary bike rider to be accounted for. If he came back with his gang, Shayne preferred to be somewhere else.

Sally Comfort didn’t speak until they had covered several blocks.

“What happened back there, Mike?”

“Somebody killed the Old Man,” Shayne said. “Didn’t you figure that out?”

“Yes I did,” she admitted. “I heard a shot and then a man ran around the end of the house as I headed for the front door. He took off down the block and I fired at him twice. I wasn’t really trying to kill him, of course — just to hit his legs and stop him. I’m not used to a gun, though, and I missed. He got to his bike and took off.

“Then I called you. When you answered and there was no sign of Kane, I figured he had to be dead or at least badly wounded. Am I right?”

“Simon Kane is dead,” Shayne repeated. “One shot into the brain right through the forehead.”

“What will happen when they find him?”

“What do you think will happen?” Shayne asked bitterly. “The word will go round that I killed him, of course. Every place I show up tonight, somebody gets killed. Why would they blame it on anyone else this time?”

“I’m sorry,” Sally Comfort said. She sounded as if she really meant it.

“I’m sorry, too.”

“What are we going to do now?”

“I’m going to issue an invitation for whoever is behind this whole thing to come and get me,” Mike Shayne said. “It’s one of the oldest tricks in the game and I’ve used it before. It always works, because the killer can’t wait for me to come get him. He thinks he has to come after me, so he does. That gives me the advantage.”

“Once you bait the trap with yourself the other guy has to spring it? Is that the idea?” Sally asked.

“It’s not only an idea,” Shayne said, “it’s a system — an M.O. as they say in the manuals — modus operandi.”

“I know my Latin,” she said. “But what if he doesn’t come?”

“He will, because he knows that otherwise, sooner or later, I’ll come for him.”

“Suppose he hasn’t left a trail for you to follow to him? Apparently this one hasn’t. Everywhere we turn, we find ourselves in another dead end. This one hasn’t left any trail at all.”

“Don’t kid yourself about that,” Shayne said. “This one has killed or had a killing done three times already. He’s left a trail. All killers leave a trail. We haven’t found it yet, but we will. We have all the time in the world. He doesn’t. He has only till we catch up with him. Every second that passes cuts his time that much shorter. Sooner or later the strain will build up till he can’t stand it any more. I know. I’ve seen it happen too many times?”

“Suppose it’s more than one person?” Sally asked as they drove through the night. “Suppose one person put up the contract and somebody else killed Harry because he thought Harry was squealing? Maybe Rocky was killed by one of his own gang out of jealousy. He was a great ladies’ man and ruled his pack with an iron hand.

“Suppose the one who killed the Old Man was trying to get you instead and hit him by mistake. They could have been three separate killings and not related to each other at all. Isn’t that possible, Mr. Shayne? Can you say it isn’t?”

“Of course I can’t say that. I may even think it’s the way things are, but it doesn’t really change things. Whoever put out the original contract has got to find me to collect. He has to find me or send a hit man I can trace back to him. If there are other killers, too — then they have to find me or else risk my finding them to clear myself. One killer or three, it’s me they have to come to.”

“You make it seem so simple and logical and deadly,” she said and pressed her warm shoulder against his. “There’s only one part of the whole thing that doesn’t seem so simple and logical to me.”

“What’s that?”

“When he or they or whatever do come for you, Mike Shayne, how can you be sure they won’t kill you? How can you be so cool and calm and absolutely sure about that? That’s what I want to know.”

“Don’t worry your beautiful head about that,” he said. “Leave that part to me. Murder’s my business.”

A few minutes he said, “There’s only one thing I have to figure out right now — and you haven’t mentioned it.”

“Give me credit for some brains,” Sally said. “You’re wondering where you can go to wait for this killer to come and put his big foot in the trap you’ll have all ready and waiting for him.”

“Right,” the big man said. “Normally I’d go home or stay with someone known to be a friend. I can’t do that tonight because the police are after me, too, and they know all my places as well as anyone else in town. If I go to one of them, I’ll be picked up. They’ll hold me a while for my own protection if for no other reason.

“No killer will come after me in a holding cell or in Chief Gentry’s office. Of course I could hide out. I know places nobody could find me — but that defeats the whole idea. I need to have the killer find me.”

“By this time everybody must know I’m with you,” Sally Comfort said. “The killer will know it, too. Why don’t you stay with me?”

“If the killer can figure I’m at your house, so can the cops,” Shayne said. “That place will be staked out right now and I can’t even go near it to take you home. I’ll have to drop you where you can catch a cab.”

“Forget that,” Sally Comfort said. “I’ve gone this far with you. I’m not about to drop out and go home now. Besides I didn’t mean to stay at our house in town. Harry has — I mean had — a cabin out in the Glades where we can spend the night. He and his boys used it for parties and as a hunting and fishing camp. It’s not far out of town.”

“What do you call far?” he asked her.

“One of the old loop roads this side of Forty-Mile Bend on one of the ponds in there. Take the Trail, and I’ll tell you where to turn off.”

“It sounds like a good spot,” Shayne said.

“It is. The bike rider people know about it. They’d look for me there if they find the house in town staked out by the cops. If your killer is one of them and you’re right about his having to come at you, this is the place to set a trap for him.”

“You’re awfully anxious to help,” Shayne said.

“He killed my brother. Don’t forget that,” Sally said. “Besides everybody will know I’ve been helping you by now. That makes your enemies mine as well.”

“I see.”

“On top of that, I like you, you big lug.”

“All right,” Shayne said. “We’ll try your cabin.”

The Comfort fishing camp was reached by a narrow dirt road — more like a track — leading south for about a half mile from the Tamiami Trail. It followed a ridge of high ground through thick underbrush and scrub growth except at one point, where it was broken by a deep slough full of mud and water. This channel was narrow and crossed by a roughly built wooden bridge strong enough to support Shayne’s rented car. The track then made a loop, still following the ridge and curving back to a small “hammock” or natural island where the cabin itself was located.

The cabin itself was actually a mere few feet from the bridge, but could only be reached by following the long bend in the track. Anyone in the cabin could thus observe the bridge and anyone crossing it, but could only reach it by wading through the swamp — or by going back around by the track.

Shayne observed these facts with considerable interest while Sally Comfort opened the padlock on the cabin door with a key.

Inside, she lit a kerosene lamp so that Shayne could observe the rough but comfortable furnishings.

“This might help,” she said as she opened the single closet in the place and produced a pump-action twelve-gauge shotgun and a box of shells. “Harry kept it for shooting birds and small game.”

Then she poked about the closet floor again and came up with a box holding three sticks of dynamite together with loose caps and fuses. She held them up for the detective to see.

“I thought these were here,” she added. “One of Harry’s boys stole these from a construction site. They were always talking about using them to dynamite one of these ponds for fish and ’gator skins, but I guess they never got around to it.”

She also showed him canned food and bottles of drinking water.

“This place is a regular fort,” Shayne said. “If we had to, we could stand quite a siege here.”

“So what do we do now?”

“We wait,” he said. “Get some sleep if you can. It won’t be long till daylight, and I don’t really expect any attack till then. Whoever they are, they’d need light to work about in this swamp.”

He turned out the light.

Somewhat to his surprise, she curled up on one of the bunks that lined two walls of the cabin. From her even breathing, she dropped off to sleep almost at once.

Shayne looked at the luminous dial of his watch. It was almost half-past three in the morning. Off to the east, the myriad lights of the city made a false dawn in the sky.

Shayne sat by the open window of the fishing camp, lit one of the big cigars he favored — and waited. Any danger had to approach by way of the bridge only a few yards away in the swamp. The bike riders were road people. On foot and in the swamp, they’d be helpless.

From where Shayne sat, he could observe the bridge.

A little after four o’clock — when it was still dark — he heard motorcycle engines coming along the Trail from Miami. There were a lot of them and they made a lot of noise in the night.

He wasn’t surprised when he heard the engines turn in off the Trail on the track leading to the fishing camp. About halfway in along the track they were all turned off. The riders would be covering the rest of the way on foot.

Shayne grinned to himself in the dark.

“They’re coming, aren’t they?” said the quiet voice of Sally Comfort from the bunk against the wall.

“Yes, they’re coming.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to let them come,” Mike Shayne said. “That’s what this whole thing is about.”

“You’re that sure of yourself?”

“I’m that sure.”

“From here, you can use the shotgun to keep them from crossing the bridge.”

“I could use the dynamite to blow up the bridge — but why foul them up in the swamp. Besides, don’t forget I’ve got a rented car on this side of that bridge.”

“I don’t understand you, Mike Shayne.” Her voice in the darkened cabin sounded as if she meant that.

“Simply hang on,” Shayne said. “You’ll understand in a little while. I promise you that.”

X

It was only a little while after that when some of the bike riders began to cross the bridge under cover of the evening darkness. With their bikes back up the track, some of them actually took off their boots on the bridge itself and crossed in socks or barefoot.

They were as quiet as they could be. An untrained City man might possibly not have heard them come. But Shayne had the ears of a cat when he wanted. He figured twelve to fifteen men came over the bridge. More strung themselves out along the track and in the brush on the far side to cover the cabin from that angle.

He figured most of them would have firearms of one sort or another — probably for the most part, small-caliber pistols that would be inaccurate at more than a few feet. Shortly after the attack party got across the bridge and took up position covering the cabin, dawn began to break in the east. It rapidly became light enough to see what was going on outside the cabin.

The bike riders were all under cover — or thought they were. Shayne could locate two or three in the brush and could have picked them off easily. But that was not part of his plan.

“All right now, Sally,” he said in a low tone. “It’s time to start the ball rolling.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re going to open the door and go out with your hands up.”

“They’ll kill me. They think I’m on your side now, and they’ll gun me down as soon as I show.”

“No they won’t,” Shayne said. “Those are hoodlums out there — not hit men. If shooting had already started, they might kill a woman. But it’s not in them to do it in cold blood. Besides, the leaders know you. It would be like killing a friend. You’ll be safe enough as long as you do what I say and as long as you do it right now before they get worked up any more.

“They think they have us trapped. That makes them overconfident. We can’t give them too much time to get all blooded up. Above all, we can’t let the shooting start first.”

“What am I supposed to do out there?”

“Keep your hands up and keep your cool. Walk away from the door out to where they are hiding. Don’t walk so far that I can’t see you and keep you covered.

“Call out to them. Tell them I’m inside and have been holding you prisoner. Say I know they have me trapped and I’m willing to give up...”

“What!”

“Say it,” Shayne said. “It isn’t so, but say it. Say I want to be sure of safe conduct back to the City Police and so I’ll only surrender to their leaders. The leaders have to come in here with you and give me their word.”

“They’ll want you to throw out your gun first.”

“I know,” Shayne said. “I’ll throw out the.380 Browning you have in your bag, and the shotgun — that should convince them. Now give me the gun out of your bag and get out of here with your hands up. Hurry! We’ve no time to lose.”

Sally did as he said.

It seemed like an hour, but she was actually back in less than ten minutes. Shayne tossed out the pistol and shotgun as he had promised. He still had the.357 magnum he had taken from Rocky the evening before tucked into his belt under his jacket where he could draw in a split second.

Sally Comfort had three men with her. As he had expected, they were the three they had met in the restaurant — Rocco Baldoni, Sam Smith and Pete Reilly. All of them had pistols hung from their broad leather belts.

Shayne met them one step outside the door of the cabin. What they did and said could be heard and seen by the riders hidden in the brush, but the three men and the woman were between him and them and shielded him against a shot from ambush. He wanted this little scene to be completely public.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Shayne said. “I’m glad you decided to accept my invitation to clean up this business once and for all.”

“We’ll clean it up,” Smith said. “Hold out your hands to be tied, and we’ll take it from there.”

“That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” Shayne said. “The killer is going to go back to town with you today — but that doesn’t mean it’s me.”

He was watching them closely, praying none of the three would go for his own gun. He had to keep complete command of the situation or that would happen.

“Bear with me a minute more,” Shayne said as easily as if this were a social gathering, “and I’ll give you the killer.

“A few days back, somebody put out the word among all you riders that there was a big contract on Mike Shayne. It had to be somebody you knew and who knew you. A hint here and a word there would start it and gossip would pick it up. In hours, the word was all over town.

“It was put out by someone intelligent and careful — someone who had studied me and my habits down to my favorite fishing spot — someone able to guess correctly what I’d do next once the action began. It was someone who could ride with Harry Comfort’s gang without being noticed. There were eight men in the Big Frog Bar yesterday, but nine riders on the road to town.”

“What’s all this getting to?” Baldoni asked.

“Hear me out,” Shayne said. “Somebody took a shot at me yesterday. The gun was a.380 Browning like the one I tossed out to you. The shot hit my hat.

“That same somebody followed me to town and was watching when I went to dinner. He saw Harry Comfort talk to me. When Harry left, the killer walked him to my car and killed him there. Harry didn’t cry out or fight. It was someone from the riders that he knew and trusted. That someone wanted Harry killed in my car, so I’d be suspected by the rest of you.

“The killer tailed me from then on till I went after Rocky. I took Rocky into an alley and knocked him out. The killer saw me do that and cut Rocky’s throat after I was gone.”

“Why?” Baldoni asked. “Why?”

“I’m getting to that,” Shayne said. “I was tailed to Simon Kane’s place. The killer listened outside the screen. He was afraid that Kane would tell me his name, but before Kane could do that he was shot. Kane had a rider waiting down the street in case of trouble. The rider heard the shot, but then Sally here fired at him and chased him away.

“I had Sally bring me out here to wait for you. I knew who the killer was by then, and I wanted you to come so I could tell you fellows.”

“There’s one thing wrong with all that,” Rocco Baldoni said. “If the killer tailed you all that time, he must have had plenty of chances at you. So how come you’re still alive?”

“That bothered me, too, boys,” Mike Shayne said. “At least it did until I figured out the killer didn’t want me dead at all.

“This whole business of the phony price on my head was only to cover the real murder. The intended victim was Harry Comfort from the first.

“Consider that and everything else falls in line. Sally Comfort wanted her brother dead before he ran through all their money. I was to be the patsy for that. Who else could ride with his gang and know all of you?

“When I left Rocky in the alley, she got a bonus. Rocky must have been her lover and turned her down or I miss my guess. She could settle that score and blame it on me again.

“Simon Kane guessed it was her. He was about to tell me when she shot him with a second gun she had in her bag. She ran out to the front of the house and fired at Kane’s lookout but missed so he could get away and tell you I’d shot your Old Man.”

“It’s a pack of lies!” Sally Comfort cried. “Can’t you tell it’s all damn lies?”

“One of you go into the cabin and bring out her bag,” Mike Shayne said. “You’ll find a small-caliber gun with one shell fired. It’ll match the slug in Simon Kane’s head when the coroner digs it out.”

Baldoni found the gun as Mike Shayne had promised. It was curtains for the blonde killer.