She was sleek and smart and she loved a fast buck. Now she was dead and ugly and unmourned. Could Mike Shayne pierce a web of incredible danger and bring back her phantom killer?

I

Mike Shayne was abruptly wary without knowing why. The feeling came over him as he escorted his secretary, Lucy Hamilton, out the main door of the elegant hotel into the balmy early morning. He stopped to scrape something from the sole of his shoe, looking around as he did so.

The U-shaped Cassandra spread light. It was a towering structure of stark, modernistic architecture, the newest, glassy and fountain-prone hotel in Miami Beach. People were hustling in and out and around as if it were 1:20 in the afternoon instead of 1:20 of a Tuesday morning.

Polished cars pulled up to the main entry, the occupants greeted by the doorman in tails and top hat. Polished cars pulled away. No deep building shadows to conceal lurking purse snatchers, muggers, rapists, assassins, or any other antisocial grifter.

But Shayne smelled danger. He wished he was wearing his .45 as he took Lucy’s bicep in strong fingers and piloted her along the walk that flanked the hotel drive, his eyes busy.

“What’s the matter, Michael?”

At another time he might have chucked at the perception of the girl with the brown curls and lithe physical structure. The perception never ceased to amaze him. But at the moment his lone interest was in reaching his parked convertible. There was a gun stashed in a special compartment under the front seat.

“I’ve got that feeling, Angel,” he growled as they moved swiftly along, her heels clicking a rhythm.

Lucy glanced around. “Everything looks normal.”

“Doesn’t it?”

And then they heard the shrill scream above them.

Shayne reflexively shoved Lucy toward the strip of grass that separated the sidewalk and the Cassandra wall, turned and flattened himself in a high racing dive in the opposite direction.

He landed on the hood of a parked car. Flipping, he stared up at the spread-eagle body that was outlined against the star-filled sky. The body was up high yet, out from the row after row of wrought iron balcony railings. It seemed to be floating. Still, he knew the body was plummeting fast. He knew, too, it was the body of a woman.

A scream of terror trailed the descent, and then there was the horrible sound of splintering bones and gushing of innards squeezed through suddenly split skin.

The tepid night abruptly was quiet. Shayne sat up on the hood of the car. People had become statues. They were frozen out there.

He propelled himself from the car hood. Lucy came out from under a palm tree. She moved cautiously. “Michael?”

All hell broke loose. The statues came alive, shouted, shrilled, babbled and moved in. People rushed forward, then skidded to a halt as they saw what was on the sidewalk. It was not a pretty sight.

The expensively-dressed woman had landed on her back. She was spread and split, blood snaking along the blue of her dress. A thick substance spread from under her dark hair. Her face remained intact. It was screwed up in a combination of horror and pain.

“Michael?”

“Yeah, Angel.”

“We just met her an hour ago — in Salvadore’s suite...”

“Yeah.”

The dead woman’s name was Melody Deans.

II

Salvadore Aires was a Detroit multimillionaire. He was in insurance. He had the Midas touch too. Salvadore could look at an ancient and very dead volcano and it would spit valuable diamonds almost immediately.

About two years before, Shayne had successfully turned a trick for the insurance giant. It had saved Salvadore and one of his companies a bundle. But the two men could have met casually at a beach blowout and they would have finished the night together. The relationship between them was an instant thing. The large redhead liked Salvadore Aires. The lean, dark tycoon liked the Miami private investigator. It was why Shayne and Lucy Hamilton had gone to the party at the Cassandra.

“Just a small bash, Mike,” Salvadore had said over the phone. “Just a few friends stopping by; nothing really fancy.”

“The occasion?”

Salvadore Aires chuckled. “Hell, do I need an occasion, my friend? Okay, if I do, we haven’t seen one another in about a year.”

“I thought maybe you had found another wife,” the detective needled.

Salvadore’s laugh was a burst. He had had five wives. There would be a sixth. He liked having a wife. The only trouble was he liked other women too. He had the money and could make the time to humor his pleasures.

“Not yet,” Aires said into the phone. “Still roaming the field. But... well, you know, I’ve always got the eye open. Incidentally, how about Lucy? You think she’s susceptible?”

“You could ask her, pal.”

Another burst of laughter. “And get my head chopped off? No, thanks, friend. But bring her along, hear? There will be some very handsome, very eligible, gents present. Maybe she’ll discover there’s more to life than being a secretary-girl friend of an ugly redhead.”

Shayne’s grin spread across his Flagler Street office. “See you ’round ten.”

“Mike?”

Shayne had started to put the phone together. He jammed the receiver back against his ear, instantly alerted by what he thought was a sudden quality of urgency in the summons.

“Yeah?”

There was a pause; then another chuckle. “I’m in town for a few days of fun and games, Mike, that’s all. But... well, maybe I’ll have a surprise for you.” No urgency now.

Click. Salvadore had hung up. Shayne stared at the phone receiver for a couple of seconds before putting it in its cradle. His grin was huge again. Yes, sir, he liked Salvadore Aires.

The Cassandra suite was huge, expensive and crowded. Shayne recognized a few faces here and there. By pooling their dough, these people could buy and sell nations. They had one thing in common: money. It never hurt to mingle with the blessed. A guy never knew where his next thousand might come from.

Salvadore was a tall man, almost as tall as the detective, but where Shayne was huge across the shoulders, thick and hard in body and leg and long ago had given up fighting unruly red hair, Salvadore was a trim, slender man with a full head of perfectly groomed silver and brown hair, an almost-too-narrow face and greenish eyes that laughingly reflected merry independence.

He also wore a flashy white blonde on his left arm this night. The blonde had sauce, youth and cleavage in a pale pink gown that left no doubt about her physical attributes. Her name was Jo.

Mildly amused, Shayne wondered if Jo was to be Number Six.

“Whee,” breathed Lucy as Salvadore took Jo off to a cluster of four men in a corner. “She might as well be naked.”

Shayne chuckled. “Perhaps she is,” he said philosophically.

He pointed Lucy through open french doors and onto the small balcony. They were alone. Seventeen stories below them Miami Beach sparkled. Shayne swirled cognac and drank. Lucy sipped Seven-Up.

Then, behind them, Salvadore Aires said, “You in the mood for marrying, Lucy darling?”

When they turned, he was laughing softly. He had rid himself of the blonde bomb. Shayne noticed she was cornered by the four men now.

“Maybe,” countered Lucy. “You?”

“Always,” grinned Salvadore.

“Your Jo has vitality,” said Lucy.

Salvadore’s laugh was genuine. “Yes. I wish I could recall her last name.”

“Oh.”

“She came with someone. I don’t remember who.”

Shayne grinned, finished his cognac.

“Okay, Mike,” accused Salvadore. “What’s that smug look supposed to convey?”

“Just fun and games,” said the detective with a shrug.

“Un-huh,” Salvadore nodded. “And not my potential surprise.”

Aires turned then as if on a silent signal, glanced over his shoulder.

A woman had entered the suite. She stood alone slightly inside the door, a bag purse dangling from her right shoulder. She looked in her early forties, was tastefully groomed in body and wardrobe, leaning a little toward the severe. She wore a plain, sky-blue street dress that had come from an expensive shop and a diamond wristlet that was a stark contradiction. Her hair was dark, her legs firm, and her inventory of the suite consuming.

“But there,” breathed Salvadore Aires, “is my surprise, Mike.”

Shayne watched his friend go to the woman and he had the distinct impression that everyone else in the suite suddenly did not exist for the lean man. Salvadore took the woman’s hands, pecked her cheek.

They talked for a few seconds. The woman’s face did not change. Salvadore’s posture did. He took a step backward, seemed to be pulling the woman slightly. She remained rooted, frowning slightly, looking around.

Salvadore stepped back into her, talked again. The woman answered him. Then they stood in silence briefly before Salvadore turned and gently escorted her through people.

“Lucy Hamilton, Mike Shayne,” Salvadore said, sounding vaguely triumphant, “Melody Deans.”

“Melody is from Las Vegas,” he continued. “Just got in on a flight,”

Up close, Melody Deans looked fatigued, nervous and on the borderline of impoliteness.

“Unfortunately,” she said, “it was an uncomfortable flight. We hit much turbulence.”

“Will you excuse us for a few minutes?” Salvadore asked.

“Miss Lucy Hamilton, Mr. Shayne,” Melody Deans nodded in polite acknowledgement.

Then they were gone, threading through the people again. Shayne watched them disappear behind a closed door far across the main room of the suite.

“Number Six, Angel,” Shayne said. “You just met her.”

“I’m not so sure, Michael.”

Shayne gave her a sharp glance. “When they return, Salvadore will have an announcement to make. I’ve got a hunch it’s the reason he’s pitching this—”

“I don’t think so,” said Lucy.

“How come?”

“There’s something about her. She has more than marriage to Salvadore Aires on her mind. It’s something — something she hasn’t told him. She’s telling him now. Didn’t you notice how she didn’t want to come over here and meet us, at least not immediately? She wanted to talk to him first. She has something very heavy on her mind.”

A houseman with a silver tray of drinks approached. The redhead plucked a fresh cognac from the tray. He nodded to the blonde Jo still penned by the four men. He laughed gently. Jo couldn’t get her eyes off the door that hid Salvadore Aires and Melody Deans.

“Hopes dashed,” said Lucy. “It happens to every girl sometime in life. Even those with cleavage. But we all recover. You watch.”

Shayne found himself keeping an eye on the closed door too. He wasn’t sure why the door bothered him, except that he knew Salvadore Aires seldom disappeared for long when he was a host.

“Would you like to go over there and open that door and find out what is going on?” Lucy asked after awhile.

Shayne countered, “Would you?”

“I’m dying.”

The redhead laughed, inventoried the room. “Well, our lady of the cleavage has switched horses.”

The white blonde had a new arm to lean on. It belonged to a stumpy, fat man who obviously was proud of a thick beard.

“Maybe we should leave, Michael. Maybe Salvadore would like to have all of us leave. Perhaps we could start it.”

Shayne looked at his watch. Twelve-twenty-five. “Yeah, maybe,” he agreed.

Suddenly across the room the closed door opened and Melody Deans and Salvadore Aires re-entered. No one, Shayne noticed, seemed to pay any particular attention to them. But he was curious.

Melody Deans looked distraught, her mouth a tight line, skin coloring gone, and she moved straight to the corridor door and disappeared. Salvadore watched her. He wasn’t the Salvadore Aires that Shayne knew. This Salvadore’s juices had quit flowing. Suddenly. He looked as if he had been hit with a wet fish and couldn’t believe it.

Salvadore moved through the people.

“Trouble, pal?” Shayne asked.

Salvadore seemed to gather himself slightly. “What?”

“You and Miss Deans.”

“Oh. No. That was just a little misunderstanding, Mike.”

“She’s an attractive woman, Sal. Looks as if she’s got savvy.”

“Mike, can we drop it?”

“It’s dropped. Grab yourself a drink. We’ll have it and then Lucy and I are going to cut.”

“What for?”

“We work for a living, stiff.”

Salvadore tried on a grin. “Insurance bums don’t, huh?”

“If the rates I pay are a guide, they don’t have to.”

“You ever figure how those rates got where they are, Mike?”

Shayne felt better. Salvadore’s juices seemed to have started again. At least, he suddenly was hep to the one-upmanship game.

Salvadore became himself, the gracious host, the party man, fun and games. It seemed as if he had put Melody Deans out of his mind. The blonde Jo attempted to hitch up anew, but Salvadore put her off politely and she proved intelligent enough to return to her stubby friend. Shayne’s opinion of the blonde bomb went up a notch.

Then Lucy said, “Michael, it’s after one o’clock.”

They left the protesting Salvadore, rode the silent express elevator down to the elegant lobby and walked outside to Melody Deans’ death plunge.

Uniformed cops swooped down. They finally were followed by plainclothed detectives. Red police car lights swirled, creating weird glows across the front of the hotel. Clusters of people continued to surge forward toward the body, then fell back with murmurs of distaste. Presently a small, aggressive man, impeccably dressed, moved in beside Shayne who remained on one knee near the corpse.

Shayne looked up. The small man moistened an index finger and stroked a threadlike black mustache. It was one of the few times in his life that Peter Painter, chief of Miami Beach detectives, had the opportunity to tower over Mike Shayne. The two men shared an inborn animosity toward each other that neither ever was able to explain.

Painter snapped, “I might’ve known. What are you doing here?” His small black eyes glittered.

Shayne stood, looked down on the detective chief. “I live over there in Miami, remember?” he said.

“Point,” Painter replied coldly.

“I have a friend staying at the Cassandra. Lucy and I were visiting.”

“You two just happened to stumble across this diver, huh?”

“She was no diver, Painter.”

“She fell?”

“She was thrown or dropped.”

“Oh, God,” breathed Painter. He looked around as if seeking condolence.

“Smell her,” Rasped Shayne.

“Huh?”

“Melody Deans stinks of chloroform.”

Painter jerked.

“And a diamond wristlet is missing. I saw her wearing it earlier,” the redhead said.

III

Peter Painter took time to establish order at the death scene, rid the area of gawkers and have the body covered before he thumbed Mike Shayne and Lucy Hamilton to an unmarked police car. “Okay, shamus, explain how you know the deceased.”

Shayne did. Briefly.

“And this Aires is where now?”

“Try Suite 1745.”

“Michael,” Lucy Hamilton interrupted in a soft voice, “Salvadore is coming out of the hotel. Someone must have phoned upstairs.”

Salvadore Aires was allowed a quick look at the body. He turned aside and vomited. When he had recovered, Painter said, “Can we talk now?”

Salvadore said he had known Melody Deans for almost three years. He occasionally traveled to Las Vegas, maybe every six weeks or so. He liked to gamble. He also had found Melody Deans attractive. They had dated often in the last eighteen months. A few weeks ago, Melody had told him that she was going to take some time from her job as a social hostess at a hotel-motel-casino; she was going to come to Miami Beach for relaxation. He had made arrangements to be in Miami Beach at the same time. He even had made the hotel reservation for her, to be sure she got a suitable suite.

“What floor are you on, Mr. Aires?”

“The seventeenth.”

“Front?” Chief Painter looked up.

“Yes.”

“Miss Deans?”

“Seventeen, front.”

“Next door?”

“No.” Salvadore Aires lit a cigarette. Shayne noticed the shaking hands.

“Painter, as you should know, hotel accomodations in Miami Beach are not the easiest obtainables. I desired adjoining suites. Such was not available. The Cassandra management, I thought, was quite accomodating when Melody and I were put on the same floor.”

Painter shifted in thought. “Tell me, Aires, would you say you and Miss Deans were close?”

“Yes.”

“Intimate?”

“That depends on what you mean.”

“I mean, were you expecting to sleep together?”

“Why would I reserve two suites? People don’t sneak around anymore, Mr. Painter. Haven’t you heard?”

“Did you kill her?”

“Kill?” Salvadore Aires suddenly looked confused. He shot a look at Shayne.

Shayne said flatly, “It looks like murder, pal.”

“But I supposed—”

Salvadore didn’t finish his thought. He crushed the cigarette under the toe of his shoe. His brow was furrowed. Presently he said, “You believe she didn’t commit suicide, Mike?” He sounded subdued.

Shayne countered, “You know of any reason she might have?”

“No,” Salvadore said quickly. “I just assumed—”

Painter interrupted, “Do you know any reason she might’ve been killed?”

“No.”

“How about if we take a look at her room?” Shayne suggested.

“Not you, shamus,” Painter said quickly. “You aren’t involved in this. You don’t have a client and, even if you did, this is Miami Beach. You can bull your way with Will Gentry in Miami all you want, but over here—”

He cut off the barrage as Salvadore Aires took out a coat pocket wallet. He removed a dollar bill from the wallet and thrust it at Shayne.

“Shayne is hired, Mr. Painter,” he said in a flat voice. “I’m paying him to find Melody’s killer.”

“That doesn’t mean a thing, Aires,” Painter snapped. “He doesn’t get into the room.”

“Nor do you,” Salvadore countered, “without the proper papers. It is my room. I paid for it. I—”

“This is a murder investigation,” Painter snarled, anger curling the edges of the words. “I don’t need papers!”

“Try going up there without my permission and see how fast you and your city are sued. It may not stop you, admitted, but we are going to make some choice headlines in the next few days. I believe Shayne has a friend, Timothy Rourke, who is a Miami newspaperman and who—”

“Aires,” Painter cut in coldly, “I’m going to concede to you for one reason only. I have some more questions to ask Shayne. Let’s go upstairs.”

He stomped away. Shayne shot Salvadore Aires a glance. Salvadore was grim, his mouth a thin line.

Painter collected an assistant hotel manager and a key at the desk and they rode the express elevator. But they found they didn’t need the key when they arrived at what had been Melody Deans’ room. The door was ajar.

Shayne scowled as Painter held everyone back with outstretched arms while he stared at the door. Light in the room showed through the door crack, but no sound came from inside.

Shayne looked at Lucy. Her lips were pursed, eyes bright. He started to reach across Painter’s shoulder, then the small man put up a hand and with one extended finger pushed the door until they all could see inside the suite.

The main room was vast and expensively furnished. There was light everywhere. On the opposite side, the french doors were wide open, exposing the balcony. A breeze blew in, but the breeze did not clear the smell of chloroform or right the general disarray. The room looked ransacked.

No one said anything for several seconds; then Painter dismissed the unhappy assistant manager. Shayne moved around the room, looked through two open interior doorways. Each revealed a bedroom and each bedroom had been pawed thoroughly. In one, two new suitcases were open on the bed and feminine clothing was scattered everywhere. The suitcases had been cleaned out. A sliding closet door across the room had been pushed or left open. It revealed three hanging dresses, a pant suit and another dress on the carpeting.

Shayne continued to inventory the room. He spotted a passport and an airline ticket envelope on a dressing table. He looked inside both and scowled. The passport contained a photograph of Melody Deans but it was made out in the name of Flora Ann Perkins. The detective found a one-way ticket to Madrid, Spain, in the airline envelope. The ticket was made out to F. Perkins.

“What have you got, Shayne?”

He turned on Painter’s barked question. The dapper man crossed the room swiftly, took the passport and ticket. He studied both, then grunted. “Who the hell is Flora Ann Perkins?”

Shayne shrugged.

“But this is Melody Deans, isn’t it?” Painter said, holding up the passport picture.

“Yeah.”

“So what was she doing? Scooting out of the country under a false name?”

“I don’t know,” Shayne answered. He was remembering what had seemed to be a mild argument between Salvadore Aires and Melody Deans at the party, remembering how Salvadore and the woman had closeted themselves.

“Sal?” he called out.

But Salvadore Aires did not provide an answer. He seemed deeply puzzled as he stared at the passport and ticket.

“I can’t help you,” he said.

“There’s a bag purse in the outer room,” Painter said, looking around. “On the floor and open, like these suitcases, everything scattered. I didn’t spot money or travelers checks. It looks like she was cleaned out. You said she flew in tonight, right?”

“Yes. The flight was due in at International around eleven. It must have been on time, perhaps even a bit ahead of schedule. If you will recall, Mike, it was around midnight when she arrived at my suite.”

Shayne nodded. He also remembered that Melody Deans had not stayed more than thirty minutes, which meant she had returned to her suite around twelve-thirty if she had come straight back. And it had been one-twenty when she had come plunging down the seventeen flights to die against the sidewalk. That put her in the room for just slightly under an hour, plenty of time in which to be attacked by a hotel burglar.

But something was wrong. Something other than the scattered clothing, the lingering smell of chloroform, the suite was spotless, no cigarette butts, no used glasses or cups, no magazines, newspapers.

Shayne went to the bath between the two bedrooms, snapped on a light. It was spotless, the paper band on the toilet still intact. No damp towels or wash clothes, no water on the tile floor, the shower curtain hanging straight and clean, the two wash bowls glistening in the light.

Painter snapped, “What’s eating you, Shayne?”

“The place is too damn clean.” The redhead explained swiftly. Painter nodded in agreement and Salvadore Aires wore a deep frown.

From the doorway, Lucy Hamilton added, “A woman wouldn’t sit in a chair for almost an hour, Michael. She’d smoke a cigarette, wash her hands, fiddle with her hair, turn down a bed, unpack. A woman would do something.”

“So would a man,” Shayne mused. “Okay, it means Melody Deans didn’t stop here after checking in. She probably had the bags sent up while she went straight to your place, Sal. It also means she did not return directly here after leaving the party, or she returned and found someone ransacking, was subdued with the chloroform and dropped from the balcony.”

“Michael,” Lucy put in again, “she should have screamed if she walked in and found—”

“We’ll check that out,” Painter interrupted.

“There’s also the possibility,” Shayne said, “the burglar had latched the door, heard her key in the lock, had time to get behind the door with his chloroform patch and got her before she could yell.”

“A burglar, huh,” Painter snorted.

Shayne’s look was hard “How are you figuring it? I told you she was wearing a diamond wristlet. It’s gone and — hell, man, all you have to do is look at this place.”

“Just a run-of-the-mill hotel snoozer who uses chloroform — and kills.”

Shayne didn’t twitch muscle against Painter’s near-sneer.

“He slaps here with chloroform,” Painter went on harshly, “puts her under. So he’s got all night to plunder. My God, Shayne, the guy’d have time to wallpaper the joint! So why kill?”

“I told you she screamed coming down,” Shayne said coldly. “Maybe the stuff didn’t work on her, or maybe he simply missed. Maybe he took a Swipe at her, missed, and then shoved—”

“The missing wristlet?” Painter interrupted again, and this time the sneer was genuine.

“Stripped from her in a struggle.”

“Shayne,” Painter said, suddenly sounding as if he was seeking patience, “it isn’t that simple. Flora Ann Perkins.”

He turned suddenly and fixed Salvadore Aires with a stony look. “Who is Flora Ann Perkins, Mr. Aires?”

Salvadore Aires blanched, took a step backward.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t understand any of this.”

Painter was cruel. “Don’t give me that crap, Aires! You’re sleeping with a woman! Don’t stand there and tell me—”

“I don’t know a Flora Ann Perkins!”

“But you do know why Melody Deans was going to travel under that name.”

“I do not!”

“You’re lying, Mr. Aires.”

Salvadore wriggled, then seemed to gather himself. He stood tall. “Mr. Painter, I can sue you for—”

“Knock it off,” Painter snarled. “I’m no longer impressed. A woman was killed here tonight, a woman you have been intimate with. I want to know why the hell that woman was going to Madrid, Spain, under a false name!”

Salvadore Aires stood taut about five more seconds, then bent under the onslought. “I can’t tell you,” he said in a tone that was just above a whisper. “I simply do not know if Melody planned to go to Spain, I do not know why she had a passport and an airline ticket in the name of Flora Ann Perkins. All of this is a mystery to me.”

Shayne knew his friend was continuing to lie. He also knew Painter knew Salvadore Aires was lying.

“Sal?” he said, cocking shaggy eyebrows.

Salvadore persisted. “I don’t know, Mike.”

Shayne drew a deep breath. He wished his friend would square with them. But he decided to go along with Salvadore for the moment. He said, “Sal didn’t kill the woman, Painter. He didn’t leave his party.”

“Not while you were there, maybe,” Painter said coldly. “He could’ve run down here after you left.”

“The chloroform?” Shayne countered. “Do you think he used chloroform?”

“Mike,” Salvadore Aires put in softly, “I didn’t leave my guests. You can check. I’ll give you names.”

“Get him the hell out of here,” Painter said with a sudden wave of an arm. “I have to get this place dusted. But Aires don’t go running back to Detroit — or anyplace else.”

“I don’t have any reason to run, Mr. Painter,” Salvadore Aires said.

Leaving the suite, Shayne stopped to check the door lock. It wasn’t scratched. No jimmying, but that didn’t have to mean anything. He caught up with Lucy and Salvadore Aires in the corridor.

“Got any of the cognac left, pal?” he asked.

“No, Mike,” said Salvadore, sounding defeated. “Not tonight.”

Shayne turned hard. “You lied in there, Sal. Who is Flora Ann Perkins? Melody Deans needed a birth certificate to get the passport. She could fake out the rest of it, but she needed a birth certificate from someone near her age. And why was she going to Spain incognito? Was that what you two were arguing about when she came to your suite?”

“Mike, give me back my buck.”

Shayne stared for a moment, then passed the dollar bill.

“You have no more interest,” Salvadore Aires said flatly. “You no longer are employed. I can handle Mr. Painter.”

“I can help, pal. Painter can be a bastard.”

“No. It’s finished.”

“What’s finished?”

“I’m returning to Detroit in the morning.”

“Painter isn’t going to like that.”

“Mr. Painter will know. I won’t be running. I won’t be hiding.”

“Sal, like Painter said, someone killed Melody Deans. Aren’t you the least bit interested in who that person was and why he killed her?”

“I am not.”

“Then you’re hiding something.”

“Am I? Good night, Mike. Good night, Lucy.”

IV

Tuesday Morning glowed, promised heat before the day was finished. Mike Shayne was unimpressed as he sat staring out a window of his office. His brow was deeply furrowed, bushy red-tinted eyebrows pulled together. Sleep in the earlier hours had been fitful. He felt out of sorts with the world and with Salvadore Aires.

Lucy Hamilton buzzed the intercom from the outer office. “There’s a Mr. Deans to see you, Michael.”

“Deans? Husband?”

“Brother.”

Albert Deans was round in head and in body. He was fifty-five or so, Shayne guessed, bald and out of dress in native Miami sportswear. He looked as if he would be comfortable in laborer’s clothing.

“I own farms,” he said bluntly. “Three of them in Iowa. My sons are operating them. I am retired, Shayne. I’ve lived in Miami for two years now. Widowed. Mother died about a year ago. Of course, I go back to Iowa every so often, to see that things are going as they should. But my boys are good boys. They know how to farm. Melody should have stayed there. She never should have left home. She wouldn’t be dead this morning.

“Who killed her, Mr. Shayne? I heard on the radio you were over there in Miami Beach last night, I heard you and this man Painter are investigating what happened. I went over there this morning, but I didn’t get any satisfaction out of Painter. He’s kind of a snotty little runt. I don’t like him. Treated me like he thought it was impossible that Melody could have family, especially here in Miami.

“Just because she got in last night and I didn’t know she was coming this trip, and she didn’t call me right away, what difference does that make? I don’t see anything to ask questions about. She would’ve called today, let me know she was here. Why wouldn’t she? But this man Painter got all excited when I told him I didn’t know Melody was here. He wanted to make a big deal out of it.

“What kind of a deal? Melody wouldv’e called this morning. Nothing wrong with a woman taking a vacation in Miami Beach, is there? Who’s going to call in the middle of the night? Melody knows I go to bed around nine, always have, probably always will. She isn’t going to call, she’ll wait till this morning. I can’t see making a big deal out of not calling. Who could’ve killed her, Mr. Shayne?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Deans.”

“You were there, weren’t you? You’re a private detective, aren’t you?”

“Mr. Deans, do you want me to find your sister’s killer?”

“Mr. Shayne, somebody killed my sister. I want to know who and why. If I was home in Iowa I could go to the sheriff. He’d find out pronto, probably would already know. Sheriff Miller is good, knows his job, not much goes on in our county he doesn’t know about, but here— What’s your price for finding out who killed my sister?”

“Two hundred a day, plus expenses.”

“Do I give you the two hundred now or this afternoon?” he asked, taking a checkbook from his shirt pocket. “We can settle the expenses later.”

Shayne said, “Sometimes it takes longer than a few hours to find a killer.”

Deans looked up from writing. “How come? Somebody must’ve broke in on her in her room. They say she was robbed. Well, somebody in that hotel must’ve seen this man fiddling with her room door or something.”

“Mr. Deans, you’re not depressed.”

“Huh?”

“Your sister was murdered early this morning. I assume Painter took you to the morgue. You saw the body. I—”

“Certainly, I saw her. It was a shock, I want to tell you. Wait a minute — I get it. You figure I should be at the funeral parlor, huh? You figure—” He put down the ballpoint pen.

“Mr. Shayne,” he said, his lips flattening, “I don’t like the idea of my sister being dead. I don’t like the idea of somebody killing Melody and thinking they can rob her and just go on today, eating hamburgers and stuff. I don’t like it at all. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m writing this check. I’ll do my grieving in due time. Tomorrow we’ll grieve. But today I want to know who killed Melody.”

“Mr. Deans, I may not find the man today.”

“So take tomorrow, too. Do you want me to make out the check for four hundred? Is that what you’re after, Mr. Shayne?”

“Don’t write the check, Mr. Deans.”

The round man sat silent for a few seconds, his face pinking. Then he capped the ballpoint and stuffed the checkbook in his shirt pocket. “Sorry I took up your time, Mr. Shayne. But perhaps you’ll find some satisfaction in knowing that you have just convinced me. I’m moving back to Iowa pronto, where people care about people.”

“You can write the check after I find your sister’s killer,” Shayne said. “You can write it for a single dollar if you feel like it.”

Albert Deans puffed, reddened, and then sat back with an expulsion of breath. “Mr. Shayne,” he said finally, “I thank you for setting me on my butt. I needed that. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what happened to Melody, or why. God, to die like that! Dropped from a hotel balcony—”

He sat shaking his head.

“Tell me about your sister, Mr. Deans. All you know about her.”

Melody Deans was forty-two years of age when she died. She had been gone from the Iowa farms twenty years. She had gone to California to an airline stewardess’ school, worked for a line for six years before quitting and going to Las Vegas. No one in the family knew why she had quit the airline. It had been sudden. But she had found a good job in Las Vegas and had seemed settled.

Albert Deans and others in the Deans family had visited her in Las Vegas. She always had seemed happy to see her family. She treated them well, put them up in good accomodations. Perhaps a bit more fancy than the Deans were used to, but then Las Vegas was different than an Iowa farm.

Albert Deans and his wife Clara had retired in Miami. Melody had vacationed here twice a year. She stayed in a hotel, but she always spent a lot of time with Albert and Clara. In the last year it had just been with Albert, of course. Clara had died. But on this final trip to the Miami area Melody had not told Albert she was coming. Yes, it seemed a bit unusual, but then maybe it was a sudden trip. Maybe she hadn’t had time to notify Albert. Not even by telephone? Well... Albert didn’t know, but there must have been a reason. Whatever it was, it was all right, Melody would have called this Tuesday morning.

Except that she was dead, murdered.

“Albert, does the name Flora Ann Perkins ring a bell?”

“No.” He frowned deeply.

“When was the last time you visited your sister in Las Vegas?”

“Three years ago, a bit before I retired. Me’n Clara went out there, spent five weeks. We was looking for a warm place to sorta hang up the harnesses, you know? Found out Las Vegas wasn’t it. We came here. Who is this Perkins woman? What’s she got to do—”

“She could have been a friend of Melody’s.”

“Never heard of her. Never met no friends of Melody’s named Perkins.”

“Melody worked in a hotel. Do you recall the name?”

“The Trout. Odd name, ain’t it?”

“Who were Melody’s friends here in Miami, Miami Beach?”

“Didn’t have none. It was why she come down here, to get away, to spend some time alone.”

“Do you know a man named. Salvadore Aires?”

“I heard his name. This Painter, he said—”

“But you never heard your sister mention his name?”

“No.”

“I think she and Salvadore Aires were thinking about marrying.”

“I doubt it,” Deans said bluntly. “Melody went too long without marrying. She got set in her ways, lived like she wanted to. And she always seemed satisfied. How come she’d change?”

“Maybe Salvadore was the first right man to come along for her.”

“I doubt it.”

Shayne sat forward. “Okay, Mr. Deans, leave your phone number with Miss Hamilton in the outer office. She’ll want to know a few other odds and ends. It’s all for bur records.”

Deans stood. “You’ll call me tonight about Melody?”

“I’ll call you when I have something significant,” Shayne said.

He waited until Deans was out of earshot and then he snapped up the phone and called his longtime friend, Will Gentry, chief of Miami police. Gentry had already heard from Peter Painter, and the Miami cops had already searched their files.

“A hotel man who packs chloroform for ready use is a little different, Mike,” Gentry said, “but we didn’t turn up anybody.”

“I need a rundown on an Albert Deans, Will. Says he’s a brother of the dead woman.” Shayne filled in with particulars, then added: “Is he legit, that’s all I need to know.”

“What are you, an Armchair Eye these days?” Gentry wanted to know.

Gentry’s voice was gruff and Shayne had a mental image of the bulky man chomping down hard on the stub of a black cigar. He grunted. “Got a lot of miles to travel.”

“Okay, okay.” Gentry grumbled. “I’ll put a bloodhound on Deans. How long’s he got? An hour?”

“He can have the entire morning,” Shayne grinned.

Then the police chief wiped the grin from the redhead’s face. “Just where in hell does your friend Salvadore Aires fit in all of this, Mike? Painter is hot on the guy.”

“He’s involved,” Shayne said grimly. “Somehow, he’s involved. That’s what I’m up against. I’ve got to get how out of him. Maybe this morning. If he got any sleep, he might feel differently, think differently. I’m figuring on doing a little leaning on him.”

But when Shayne telephoned the Cassandra he discovered that Salvadore Aires had checked out of the hotel.

Had Salvadore cleared out of the Cassandra to get away from the gawkers, checked into another hotel somewhere on the Beach, or had he cleared out of town? Why was he running?

Shayne sat low on his spine, a huge fist thumping the edge of his desk as his thoughts churned. Did Painter know Salvadore had hiked? If he didn’t know, should he be told?

His intercom buzzed. Lucy Hamilton said, “Peter Painter is on the line, Michael.”

Shayne sat up. Painter’s voice was flat. “Earlier this morning, shamus, you mentioned a diamond wristlet. Was the woman wearing any other jewelry?”

“No.”

Painter hesitated and Shayne envisioned the stroking of the tiny mustache. “She was thoroughly cleaned out. We didn’t find a dime. Incidently, your friend Aires has returned to Detroit. He called, said he had pressing business. I didn’t buy it, but I gave him an okay. I can find him when and if I want him again. Oh, yes, he also said he had dispensed with your service.” Painter paused to take a breath, then snarled, “You stay the hell out of my hair on this one, Shayne!”

Shayne said, “I’ve been retained by Albert Deans.”

“Goddamnit—”

The line went dead.

Salvadore had left town, and Painter had let him go? What the hell was going on? Painter didn’t let murder suspects trot out from under his thumb.

Shayne went to a window, stared outside.

And Gentry had just told him Painter was hot on Salvadore. So how come he let Salvadore Aires leave town? Was Painter suddenly playing some kind of cute game?

He thumped his thigh viciously, returned to his desk. Damn, he’d wanted to lean on Salvadore, get some answers. He yelled at Lucy to look up the number of a Detroit contact. Then he phoned Leo Peterson.

“Got a tail job for you, Pete,” he told the Detroit man. “Salvadore Aires, the insurance guy. You know him?”

“Not on sight, Mike, but I can round up a photo.”

“He may be coming in on a commercial flight from Miami sometime today. I said may. He could switch flights in midstream and not show. But keep an eye, huh? And if you pick him up, stay on him. I want to know where he goes. Let me know soonest. If you can’t get me here, phone Lucy. She’ll give you the numbers.”

After the call Shayne sat scowling for a long time. He needed a contact in Las Vegas and he did not have one. His lone tie had died six months ago. But he needed some digging done out there. For one thing, he wanted to know if a Flora Ann Perkins lived in Las Vegas, and if she and Melody Deans had been friends. He also wanted to know what kind of action Salvadore Aires liked when in Vegas. Had he ever left himself exposed to blackmail?

From Melody Deans, for instance.

Had she told Salvadore Aires to meet her in Miami Beach with cash? Had Salvadore attempted to haggle with her at the party? Was blackmail the reason she had a passport and an airline ticket to Spain in another name? Had she planned to collect and run?

Had Salvadore hired her murder because of blackmail? Had he set her up?

Lucy was on the intercom again.

“There’s a young man to see you, Michael,” she said, and the crispness of her voice alerted Shayne. “He says he has some information about Melody Deans.”

V

“So you’re Mike Shayne, the famous private eye,” the youth said with a half grin that didn’t mean a thing.

Shayne sat silent, waited. The youth occupied the chair in front of the redhead’s desk. He was a good looking kid in Bermuda shorts, tank top, barefooted, athletically trim, dark hair worn moderately long; maybe in his mid-twenties. He was the kind of kid, Shayne thought, who would impress women.

“I heard on the radio,” he said, “you’re involved in the death of this cat at the Cassandra last night, this dame who took the long step down from the balcony.”

“So far you’re wasting my time, fella,” Shayne said truthfully.

The youth shrugged. “Name’s Cal Stone. I’m a beach boy at the Cassandra. I figure what I got is worth a hundred clams to you.”

“There’s cops.”

“Cops don’t dole out government green, Mr. Shayne.”

“Okay, Cal, what’ve you got?”

“A hundred?”

“Depends.”

The youth debated and Shayne pressed, “Figure it this way, pal: there isn’t any other place to sell it. Whatever you get from me is tax-free bread.”

The youth bit his lower lip, then said, “Okay, you’re hanging me high, but I’m at the Cassandra last evening, entertaining a little northern mother who’s down for a little relaxation from her tycoon-type husband, and I’m leaving her around twelve o’clock, little before. I’m coming down in the elevator and crossing the lobby when I see this doll checking in at the desk. And I mean she’s a doll, Mr. Shayne. Very chic, very heavy, got lots of interesting things about her, including a beautiful, sparkling thing on her wrist.”

“It’s your dame, all right, the one who took the long step later, only I don’t know she’s gonna be dead inside a couple of hours, of course. All I know is, she’s a looker, checking in alone.”

“Anyway, I lay back, wait for her to go upstairs, then I’m gonna get the pitch on her from the desk clerk. The only trouble is a guy checks in right behind the Deans dame and I know the guy! I also know he’s on her tight, trailing her. Those kind of signs I can read in my sleep, Mr. Shayne, believe me.

“So I back off, stay out of sight. But I’m curious. I ain’t seen Ralph Bastone in town for maybe a year now. We used to work together at another hotel down the street from the Cassandra, the Silver Arms. We worked the beach for maybe six, eight months together, and I was glad to see him cut when he did. He’s a gunner, real competition.

“But, like I said, I’m curious. I ain’t seen Ralph in a long time, and I’d heard he was out of town, had gone out west some place. So I hang around. I can’t figure if Ralph is bringing the cat in, or maybe he’s just on her tail. Anyway, I check with the desk after he goes upstairs, and he’s signed in as a Bernard Anderson, San Diego.

“That smells lovers to me, Mr. Shayne. Ralph and the dame are playing cutsies, check in separately as if they don’t know each other from yesterday, but give ’em five minutes upstairs and they’ll be in the same bed. The only trouble is — the dame fell off a balcony. Maybe Ralph pushed her. Is that worth a hundred?”

“Cal,” Shayne said in a voice that grated, “if you’re manufacturing this for the buck, I’ll find you and grind you into little pieces.”

He let it hang for emphasis. It got results. For the first time, the youth squirmed and dropped his eyes. Then he said, “I’m not putting you on, Shayne. Bastone was there, and he was with her or trailing her, I swear.”

Shayne contemplated. “Where might he hang his hat if he still is in town.”

“I wouldn’t know, man. I only worked with the guy. And, like I said, that was a year ago, maybe a little less. All I know is, he’s a gunner with the dames. I figure it’s how come he split with his living-in companion. Too heavy on the gunning. Too many overtime hours, you know?”

“You don’t know anything about him, but you know he was married.”

“I didn’t say he was married, Shayne. He and this Debbie shared a pad, that’s all. I think they had a kid, too, but I ain’t sure about that. Anyway he and Debbie split. I do know that. I ran into her about a week, ten days ago. First time I’d seen her since Ralph cut. The only reason I know her, is she used to come around to the hotel sometimes, looking for Ralph. He didn’t like that. He’d blow. But she came around anyway. I guess she was real hung on the guy. Anyway, I never cooled it with them, ever. Away from the Silver Arms, I never seen Ralph or Debbie.”

“Where does Debbie live, Cal?”

“Haven’t the slightest idea.”

“Okay, it’s worth fifty. My secretary will pay you as you vanish.”

“Hey, a hundred, man!”

“I’m not a dame, Cal — or hadn’t you noticed?” Shayne stood tall and wide, his large jaw set.

Cal Stone padded out of the inner office.

“Fifty, Lucy,” Shayne yelled.

And then he heard an exchange of grunts in the outer office, a rasping of feet moving fast. A male voice said, “Easy, Adonis.”

“Man, you stepped on my toes!” Cal Stone complained.

Shayne went to the open door and took in the scene. The youth and Tim Rourke of the Miami News looking squared off. But Rourke was grinning. Only Cal Stone was unhappy.

“So we crashed,” Rourke said to Cal Stone. “I was coming in, you were going out. No reason to start a war, kid.”

Lucy Hamilton put a fifty dollar bill in Cal Stone’s hand and the youth disappeared, his sandals slapping.

Rourke grinned at Shayne. “Who the hell was that?”

Shayne motioned his friend into the inner office where he explained. Rourke took it all in without interrupting. Then he shoved a hat to the back of his head and hooked a leg over the arm of the chair. He was a thin man, almost scarecrow thin, with deep-set, slate-colored eyes, a veteran newspaperman. He and Shayne had been friends for more years then either cared to count.

Rourke pinched his lower lip in thought.

“I’m here because of Melody Deans, Mike. You know that. I heard about her on the radio while I was shaving this morning, called the office. What they have is sketchy. I’m going over to see Painter, of course, but I wanted to hear it from you first. Now, about this Las Vegas angle. You’re hurting, huh?”

“I lost my contact when Elmer Fletcher died, Tim. I know a couple of guys out there, but neither of them is Elmer. I might have to take a run out there myself. I’m thinking about it.”

“I know a guy who might do you some good,” Rourke said. “Name’s Max Wallace. He’s a columnist, one of these man-about-town things. Max has been in Vegas for centuries, knowns the town’s underwear. Are you interested?”

“Would he be?”

“Max is interested in anything that will get him a line of copy. It’s where he lives the hardest.”

“What he turns up might not be copy.”

“It will be, eventually,” Rourke said with a crooked grin. “I trust him, Mike.”

“Okay, I may give him a buzz later today.”

Shayne dug a well-thumbed phone book out of a drawer and looked up the number for the Silver Arms Hotel in Miami Beach. He had to go through three connections at the hotel before he got a manager with a crisp voice who repeated Ralph Bastone’s name as if he had just chomped on a used sweat sock. But he did have a last known address for Bastone.

It was a small, two story, faded yellow stucco building on the edge of a shopping center. There was a sporting goods store downstairs and two apartments upstairs.

Shayne and Rourke found they wanted the back apartment. Shayne rapped on the door. It was opened after a few seconds by a nicely built, slim young girl with brown hair hanging down below her shoulders. She wore blue-white jeans and a tight pullover top. She was braless and barefooted. Level blue eyes that were clear measured the two men without registering anything. She smelled of cleanliness.

“Debbie?” Shayne said.

“I don’t know you,” she replied. There was no animosity, and no fear. Just a simple fact.

“I’m looking for Ralph Bastone.”

The girl turned and yelled into the interior of the apartment, “I think we got fuzz, Art.”

The young man who appeared in the room behind her was a physical giant, taller than Shayne or Rourke. He wore faded jeans too, was bare-chested and footed, and he probably weighed 240 pounds. But there wasn’t an extra ounce of flesh on him. His chest was wide and deep, and his stomach looked hard. He had long, hay-colored hair and a groomed handlebar moustache. A blonde baby of a year or so was parked on his shoulders, tiny fat legs straddling his neck, fingers clutching the long hair.

The giant handed the baby to the girl and said, “Buzz off.”

“Come on, Art,” Shayne said. “We aren’t here to play tough.”

“I’m not playing, Red. Buzz. Ralph doesn’t live here anymore.”

“And you do.”

“Try to throw me out. Use your friend for leverage.”

“Art,” said the girl, “Let’s see what they want. I was wrong. They’re not fuzz.”

Shayne asked, “May we come in?”

“No,” said the girl.

“But you are Debbie,” said the detective.

“I’m Debbie. Who are you?”

Shayne introduced himself and Rourke.

“What do you want with Ralph?” she asked.

“I hear he left town about a year ago.”

“That’s right. Ralph and me didn’t click. Once we thought we would, but we didn’t.”

“How come?”

The blue eyes measured him. “Shayne, you’re not a stupid gook. You’re looking for Ralph, that means you know a little something about him. You know he’s a woman-hustler. I didn’t mind the beach work at the hotel in the daylight hours, understand? That was his job. But when it got to be all of those nights on Biscayne Bay — bull!

“I pointed him, and he went. With a green-eyed blonde from San Diego. But she must’ve gotten tired of him, or he tried to play twosies with her too. I guess he hit hard times. Anyway, about four or five months after he cut, I got a letter from him. He wanted money to come back here. If I’d had a million dollars stacked up on this living room floor I wouldn’t have sent him a dime.”

“How long ago did you get the letter, Debbie?”

“Two, three months ago. I don’t remember. All I remember is, he was staying at a motel. If it helps you any, I do remember the name of the joint — the Lamplighter. How come you’re looking for Ralph, Mr. Shayne?”

Shayne ignored the question. “When was the last time you heard from him?”

“I just told you. The letter I didn’t answer. So I guess he got the message.”

“You didn’t hear from him, see him, last night, this morning?”

“Lord, is he back in town?”

“I have reason to think so.”

The girl looked at the boy. “Trouble, Art.”

“No trouble,” he said confidently.

“Ralph might want to come around to see his child,” Shayne suggested.

“Buddy isn’t his kid,” the girl said defiantly. “Buddy belongs to me’n Art. Which: Ralph knows, incidently. Yeah, you should’ve seen ids face when I told him, Mr. Shayne. He just about flipped out. He thought I was sitting here night after night watching television, I guess. It was a bomb, letting him know how wrong he was.”

“So why do you think he might be trouble if he is in town?”

“He pesters,” said the girl. “He’s that kind.”

“He won’t show more’n once,” said Art. “And he won’t pester.”

“Mr. Shayne, you still haven’t said why you are looking for Ralph,” the girl said.

He decided he didn’t want to explain. He didn’t want these two kids involved. He lied, “A woman is looking for him. She’s heard he’s back in town. She’s retained me to find him.”

“Does she want him cold or hot?” asked the girl.

“Cold,” Shayne further lied.

“Then leave a phone number,” said the girl. “If he shows, one of us will call you.”

“One more question,” said Shayne, “Does Ralph have a family in town?”

“His parents are dead,” said the girl. “He has a brother, Renfro, a fink. But he isn’t around here, never has been to my knowledge. Last I knew he was in Las Vegas. But he could be dead by now too. He’s that kind. Somebody has or will kill him. Everybody tires of roaches sooner or later.”

“Debbie, thanks,” said Shayne.

“For what?” said the girl, sounding as if she really wanted to know.

But Shayne was tracking. Melody Deans had lived and worked in Vegas. The previous night, at the Cassandra, she had been trailed or was accompanied by a kid named Ralph Bastone who had a brother who hung his trousers in Vegas.

Was it a tie?

In Shayne’s convertible, Rourke said sagely, “I think Max Wallace is about to get a workout.”

Lucy Hamilton was out to lunch when they returned to the office and Max Wallace was asleep in Las Vegas.

“What the hell,” he grumbled in Shayne’s ear, “we gotta rest sometime out here.” He came awake fast as the Miami detective outlined what he wanted.

“Melody Deans, Renfro Bastone, Flora Ann Perkins,” Wallace repeated. “Those names aren’t in lights, that much I can tell you already, friend. Okay, I’ll see what I can smell out.”

Shayne left numbers for a return call and then looked up a San Diego number in Lucy’s special book of phone listings. Stan Smith operated a large investigative agency in San Diego and was a longtime contact. He greeted Shayne cheerily and then listened without interrupting as the detective outlined what he needed.

“It could be tough, Stan,” Shayne said. “Bastone might’ve just been an overnight guest at this Lamplighter, and I can’t give you an exact date when he was there. On the other hand, he could’ve been sleeping, there semi-permanently. He asked for money to be sent there.”

“I never heard of the place, Mike,” Stan Smith said, “so it isn’t one of the biggies out here. But if it still exists, and if they keep books, I’ll have something for you by five, your time, this afternoon. You want me to call you or—”

“I’ll be in touch, Stan. I’ve got some moving around to do.”

“Now where?” Rourke asked as Shayne put the phone together.

“A cheese on rye and then Gentry,” said the redhead. “I’m hungry.”

Will Gentry was stuffed with information. Albert Deans had checked out. He was what he said he was: a semi-retired Iowa farmer, living in Miami. The only mystery about him was his bank accounts. He seemed to have several.

“And speaking of bundles, Mike...”

Gentry sat back, let it hang as he chomped on the stub of his evil-smelling black cigar. His stare was flat, his heavy features sour.

“There are very interesting little stirrings around town,” he said finally. “The informers are whispering among themselves. Word had drifted in that certain people in Las Vegas are hot. It seems your Melody Deans may have been carrying a bundle, $500,000, and she got hit.”

VI

“Skim money?” Mike Shayne snapped.

Gentry shrugged, tilted the cigar stub.

“If Melody Deans was bringing in skim money, it could only have been going to one guy, Antonio Cicerone.”

Antonio Cicerone built recreation areas from Florida to Texas. Antonio Cicerone gave handsomely to the United Fund, the Heart Fund, and any other fund man might concoct. Antonio Cicerone was chairman of the board and president of Recreation Investment Corporation. Antonio Cicerone belonged to two country clubs, three tennis clubs, a boat club, and was square in the middle of the fight to preserve the Everglades.

Antonio Cicerone also was the biggest live mobster in all the southeast United States, headquarters: Miami.

“Painter’s already tried to see him,” Gentry said.

“And Antonio is out of town.”

“Isn’t he always?”

“But is he?”

Gentry shifted in his chair, wiggled the cigar stub. “No.”

“On the other hand, Will, Antonio didn’t hit her.”

“That right? You never heard of the doublecross, huh?”

Shayne shook his head. “If she was pulling a run on him, why would she show here? She’d have cut straight for Madrid.”

“Okay, so she was bringing the stuff in, somebody on the outside knew, and that somebody got to her.”

Shayne continued to wag his head. “No good, either. Antonio would’ve had an army meeting her plane. Once the stuff was here, he’d take over. Thirty seconds inside International terminal, and she’d be clean. Will, if Melody Deans was carrying skim money, it’s original destination wasn’t here.”

“All I’m telling you is what I hear,” Gentry said. He paused, then added, “Goddamnit, Mike, informers don’t manufacture these things! There’s half million involved!”

Shayne stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“To see my old friend, Antonio Cicerone. Where else?”

Gentry became busy with a stack of folders on his desk. But Shayne knew that while he was heading out of the police station, Gentry already was alerting his stakeouts at Recreation Investment Corporation.

Outside, Tim Rourke said, “Okay if I tag along, Mike?”

Shayne hesitated. “I might have more luck alone, Tim.”

“Yeah. Okay, I’ll buzz over and see our friend, Painter. Talk to you later.”

The RIC Building stood tall and shiny in mid-afternoon sunshine, ten stories higher than any of the other gleaming high rises in the lush district of Miami. Steel and glass, with a penthouse on top, it had been constructed so that Antonio Cicerone could look down on people and things. Antonio liked stature.

Shayne was familiar with the building. He’d been all the way to the top on a day when Antonio Cicerone had been squirming under the threat from kidnapers of having his grandson’s heart delivered to him by U.S. Mail.

The gutty kidnapers had been hitting the mob, snatching a hood here and there, demanding and getting ransom cash. Then they’d snatched Cicerone’s grandson and the Big Man had turned to the private eye for help. Shayne had delivered the boy intact and the kidnapers on a platter.

It was why he felt he had an in as he turned into the RIC Building. No Cicerone heavy was going to tread on The Deliverer. They’d walk lightly.

He crossed the posh lobby on quick strides. Out of the corner of one eye he saw a neat young man in a three hundred dollar suit gently ease away from a tiny cigar counter blonde. Out of the corner of the other eye he saw a short young man, also immaculate in a three hundred dollar suit, leave a deep chair.

They met at the self-service elevator. The door slid open silently, allowed two chattering secretaries freedom. Shayne stepped into the elevator.

The two young men stepped in behind him. They faced the front in unison and Shayne punched the button for the penthouse floor. The elevator door slid shut. Neither of the young men reached for a button. Neither said anything as they stood slightly behind and flanked the redhead. The elevator whisked them skyward.

Shayne was acutely aware. He knew, for instance, that in the lobby two new young men had immediately replaced the ones who were riding with him. He knew that all around the building, at every entrance, other young men lolled and were being flashed the message: potential trouble going up in the elevator. But he also knew that none of the young men were armed. Hoods were gentlemen these days. Besides, Antonio Cicerone did not allow guns in his personal vicinity.

When the elevator stopped and the doors opened, he stepped into the plushness of a large foyer and also stopped. The move surprised the goons. The one on his right brushed him in stride and slid off. The other one managed to dance around him. They were where he could see each now and he took the .45 from his shoulder holster and dangled it from an index finger shoved through the trigger guard.

“I’m here to see Antonio,” he said.

Neither young man moved. They ignored the gun. The one on his right said, “Mr. Cicerone is not in town, Mr. Shayne. He will not be for severed days, perhaps weeks.”

“Bull. Cicerone’s here and I’m going to see him.” He put the .45 away.

Neither young man flinched. The one on his left smiled.

“Mr. Shayne,” he said politely, “perhaps you hear better on this side. Mr. Cicerone is not in town. The only reason you have been allowed this far is we like privacy, quiet. And please try to understand that you are at a distinct disadvantage, even with your weapon. You might shoot one of us but the other will crush you. Actually, what he will do is twist and turn and bend you in so many opposite directions you’ll split at the seams and spill blood and guts all over this nice carpeting. We are experts at karate. Shall we go down?”

“Out of my way, pal.” The detective took a long step forward. A closed door in the opposite wall was his goal but he didn’t get to take the second step. He suddenly was pinned.

“Tell Cicerone,” he seethed, “I want to rap about a half million dollars.”

“He has people who want to rap about a half mill every day, Mr. Shayne,” said one of the young men, not even breathing hard.

Then Shayne was released abruptly.

“Look,” said the guy on his right. The front suddenly was gone. He was plain hood now. “Cicerone ain’t gonna see you nor nobody else. So just run along and get the hell out of our hair, huh? We ain’t looking for trouble, but you’re spoiling. Man, you’re crazy, coming in here heavy. You know how the man is about cannons. So how come you do this kind of thing? Don’t take time to answer. Just get the hell out. Okay?”

The detective took another step. He was pinned again, and this time a fist slammed into his stomach, bending him slightly and forcing him to draw a breath. He attempted to flail with his arms. Neither moved. Then the .45 was snaked from its rig and the heel of a shoe cracked down on his toes. He snarled oaths and heaved.

“Gentlemen?”

The voice came out of nowhere. It stopped the action. Shayne looked around, didn’t find Cicerone. He still was alone with the two goons in the foyer. The door in the opposite wall remained closed tight. One of the goons was hefting the .45 as if testing it for weight.

“Mr. Shayne,” said Cicerone, “I’m not interested in a half million dollars.”

His voice seemed to come out of the ceiling of the foyer. The detective looked for a speaker, saw paneling only.

“The hell you’re not, Antonio,” the readhead said.

“Mr. Shayne—”

“Was the dame on the run, Antonio?”

“I’m sorry,” said Cicerone, “I don’t have the vaguest notion about what you’re talking. Please leave, quietly. I’m quite busy. Good afternoon.”

“Cicerone, she was cutting with a half mill of Vegas money and somebody hit her! Not you! I can figure that much. You’re not going to hit anyone on your own doorstep, but—”

“Good afternoon, Shayne.”

“That’s it, friend,” said the goon on the detective’s right.

“Out,” said the goon on his left.

They turned him, shoved him into the elevator. He came off the back wall with a snarl, whirled, crouched, steeled for either or both of them. His .45 was sailing toward Him. He caught it reflexively. And then the elevator doors swished shut, and he was going down — alone.

The big detective hadn’t touched a button.

Shayne crossed the lobby on angry strides. No one seemed to pay any particular attention to him, but he knew he was being watched closely. Outside in the sunshine, he stood for a few seconds on the sidewalk, ignoring the pedestrians he forced to curve around him.

He sucked several deep breaths. And then suddenly he snorted, shook his head and moved off toward the parked convertible. A seedy-looking guy abruptly matched strides with him.

“Gentry wants a report,” he said as they walked along.

“Gentry had his damn report before I left his office,” the redhead snapped.

“Figures,” said the seedy-looking character. He dropped away.

At his Flagler Street office, Lucy Hamilton said, “Michael, you’re to call Leo Peterson in Detroit.”

Shayne sailed his Panama toward an old-fashioned coat rack in the corner. The Panama settled on a hook as he went on into his inner office.

From Detroit, Leo Peterson told him, “Your mart hit town, Mike. Had a car waiting for him, went straight to his insurance building and inside.” Leo Peterson paused, then added. “He also went straight up to the roof and took off in a copter.”

Shayne slammed a fist against the edge of his desk.

“And,” said Peterson significantly, “he had a tail coming off the jet. But the guy got left shuffling his feet, just like my man.”

Shayne wondered how Peter Painter felt at the moment. There was no doubt in the redhead’s mind now that Painter had allowed Salvadore Aires to cut, put a tail on him, figuring Salvadore might lead him to some answers. But what answers? And to what questions?

And why was Salvadore Aires running?

“Okay, Pete.”

“I can keep an eye on his house, Mike.”

“Yeah, do that for a day or so, but I figure he’s traveling. Probably over to Canada.”

“Un-huh.”

Shayne put the phone together, sat contemplating Salvadore Aires’ behavior. He wished Salvadore had not run. He wished his friend had come to him. Had Salvadore, on previous trips to Miami, become acquainted with Ralph Bastone the Beach Boy? Had he hired Bastone for a kill, set up Melody Deans?

Shayne shook his head. It didn’t sound like a Salvadore Aires operation. Sal wouldn’t go with an amateur when there were plenty of pro killers around.

Shayne pondered Ralph Bastone. Where did he fit? Should he tip Painter about the kid? No. Let Painter find out about Ralph on his own. Hotel employees were alert people. One of them, sooner or later, would remember the kid who checked in immediately behind Melody Deans, in the meantime, Shayne decided, he needed time to pin down Salvadore. He hoped Aires never had heard of Ralph Bastone.

The detective glanced at his watch. Ten minutes before four. Too early to call Stan Smith in San Diego. He’d said he’d call at five, Miami time. Still, maybe Stan had been lucky, had gotten a fast line on Ralph Bastone.

“Ralphie is a louse, Mike,” Stan Smith said from San Diego. “A beautiful boy, but a louse.”

“Who says?”

“Dame named Connie Norton. She owns the Lamplighter, operates it, lives there in a little pad behind the office. The Lamplighter is small, neat, inexpensive, off the beaten path. Connie is plump, shall we say, but also neat, inexpensive and divorced. She got the motel in the settlement about six years ago. She’s forty-five or so, not attractive, not unattractive — but attracted. At the moment, to Ralph Bastone. Still, he’s a lousy louse. That’s a direct quote.”

“Is Bastone out there?” Shayne asked in a sharp voice.

“Nope, but Connie is yearning. If he comes back, he’ll get in the front door, even if he is a louse.”

“How long’s he been gone?”

“Left last Sunday. With three hundred bucks of Connie’s reserve cash. She kept it in her pad for emergencies. It’s gone now, along with Ralphie.”

“She knows why he cut?”

“Not for sure, but she’s got a hunch he’s in Las Vegas, living it up on her green. He got a call from Vegas last Saturday night. He was out at the time, had gone to the store to get a bottle — using some more of her money, naturally — and he got the call. She took a number from the operator, that’s how she knows the call was from Vegas.”

“She listen in on the return call?”

“Nope. Ralphie went across the street to a pay phone. Said it was private. She didn’t think any more about it after he returned. Then Sunday she wakes up and he’s gone from her bed and so was her reserve cash.”

“How long has Ralphie been living there?”

“Several months. She can’t remember how many.”

“Have a job?”

“Nope. But occasionally he helped at the motel. Emptied waste baskets, carried out trash. Most of the time, though, he had to lay in the sun at the pool. He has this skin disease, you know. If he doesn’t get plenty of sunshine on his skin, he breaks out in a rash.”

“Okay, Stan.”

“You want me to keep a stakeout on the joint, Mike?”

“Yeah, but I’ve got a hunch Ralph Bastone is wallowing in much greener pastures.”

Like maybe a half million dollars worth, Shayne thought as he put the phone together.

Las Vegas was the key. Should he hustle out there, start turning up rocks? He sat thumping the desk edge, thinking about Max Wallace. What had Wallace found out? He put in a call to Las Vegas. But Max Wallace wasn’t anywhere near a phone.

He killed a frustrating evening. Lucy Hamilton fed him cognac and steak and taped music while occasionally admonishing his frustration. Mildly. Finally, Lucy sent him home, where he waited until midnight for the call from Wallace, then fell asleep in the chair. It was a few minutes after five Wednesday morning when the jangle of the phone jarred him awake.

“Forgive the hour, Shayne,” Max Wallace said, “but I’ve been traveling all night and I’m pooped. Five minutes from now I’m going to be in the sack for the day.”

“I’ve been waiting, pal,” Shayne said.

“Hey, cool it, man. These are night people out here. Nobody stirs while the sun is up. At least, nobody you’re interested in.”

“What have you got?”

“Renfro Bastone isn’t in town. Nobody’s seen him for at least two days, so make it Sunday or Monday he vanished. Of course, he could be dead on the desert. He’s that kind, a scavenger. No one likes him, trusts him, or wants anything to do with him. He’s strictly a cheapie. Nobody knows how he lives, people figure he probably holds up gas stations, convenience stores, that kind of thing, strictly a cheapie. And there’s no tie between him and this Melody Deans — whose death, my friend, has some people shuffling sand.”

“She was carrying skim money,” Shayne grunted.

“Right on, man. How’d you know?”

“There’s been noises on this end, too.”

“Understand, Shayne, I wasn’t told flat out that she was carrying, but all the signs point. She was a house hostess at the Trout, been there for years. She could’ve been doubling as a carrier, too. She made a lot of short trips out of town during a year’s time. East, west, north and south. It could figure she was distributing the wealth, as they say.”

“Is anybody figuring she was distributing a half million dollars among her own pockets?”

Max Wallace whistled. “Whee! I hadn’t heard that much or that angle. No wonder there’s shuffling.”

“Could Bastone have been in on the operation?”

“Not from what I’ve heard.”

“Could he have found out she was leaving town with a bundle?”

“Those are supersecret moves, Shayne. And like I told you, this Bastone is small stuff, desert bait.”

“What about Flora Ann Perkins?”

“She was Melody Deans’ best female pal, and she’s all torn up about Melody’s death. By day, she’s a receptionist in a law office. By night, she’s engaged in the world’s oldest — and one of the best paying — professions. Before you ask, no, Melody Deans was not a hooker. She merely was a friend of a hooker.”

“Okay, Wallace, I’m coming out.”

“I’m the best Indian guide in town, friend.”

“You got an afternoon paper out there?”

“Yep.”

“Got a column in it?”

“Yep.”

“Can you still get something in this afternoon’s column?”

“If I stay up another hour.”

“Tell the people who I am and that I’m coming out to find Melody Deans’ killer.”

“Shayne, I think I’m going to like you.”

“Hoods sweat too, pal.”

VII

Las Vegas was gritty.

“Couple more hours, after the sun goes down, it’ll sparkle,” Max Wallace promised Mike Shayne.

Wallace was swarthy, looked healthy at forty, even with a slight paunch and the black goatee. He had a good head of dark hair and very white teeth. He wore a diamond ring, a pink shirt open at the collar, dark blue trousers, white shoes and a black and white checked sports coat. His eyes were bright.

“Did you announce me?” Shayne wanted to know.

Wallace handed him a folded newspaper as they left the air terminal. Shayne found himself to be the lead item in the column. After the roses were taken out, the item said that Michael Shayne, a famed Miami private detective, was coming to town to find the killer of Melody Deans, who had been a hostess at the Trout.

“It brought out a couple of natives, at least,” Wallace grinned as they got into a dusty sedan. Wallace stuck a key in the ignition switch.

“See that guy up ahead, getting into the blue convert? His name is McKeever. He’s a detective, a good one, respected. He wants you — and others — to know that he knows you’re here. He probably will get around to talking to you, but right now he’s your protector. He doesn’t want someone gunning you down in a parking lot.”

“How about the guy behind us?” Shayne wanted to know. “The heavy guy in the green suit. Is he the gunner? He trailed us out of the terminal, too.”

Wallace started the sedan motor.

“I knew I was going to like you,” he said. “Name’s Benjie Rhodes. He’s a two-timer in the Big Cell. Been out a year now, unemployed, but McKeever can’t hang him for being a vag. Benjie pays cash for everything, lives quiet, won’t even pick up a package of gum from a counter without a buck in his hand. He floats. You see him here, you see him there. Anytime of the day or night. Hangs around the Trout, but those there who count say he’s just a customer, and nobody throws out customers these days.”

“Straight, Wallace.”

“He’s a gun without a gun.”

“Strong fingers, huh?”

“There’s three or four buried people who might vouch for that, but, of course, they can’t. Where do you want to go?”

“I need a room, and figure the Trout’s as good a place as any.”

Wallace grunted again and yanked at the goatee as he piloted the sedan. “Somehow I knew you were going to pick it, so I already tried. They’re filled. All of the big places are.”

“Did you try in my name?”

“No.”

“So let me try in my name. I’ve got a hunch I’ll be accomodated, especially since the management was considerate enough to send someone to the airport. Benjie Rhodes is representing the management of the Trout, is he not, Wallace?”

“Ever consider moving to Vegas, Shayne?” Wallace grinned.

“From what I’ve seen so far, I won’t. Is McKeever behind us?”

“He’s beautiful. He’s got Benjie between us.”

The Trout was low-slung in front, high in back, polish, with a sense of vast airiness. Its neon and glass and fake flower beds glistened. Shayne was put in a suite that opened onto the patio of the second floor outdoor swimming pool.

Max Wallace stood at the huge sliding door, looking out on the patio. He shook his head. “If I didn’t know better, Shayne, I’d say you were expected.”

“You heard the man at the desk. I was fortunate. They’d just had a cancellation.”

“I hope they can’t say the same thing in the next couple of hours.”

“Nice scenery out there?” Shayne asked.

“Skin is beautiful.”

Shayne showered and shaved and changed clothing while Max Wallace admired flesh. Then they went to a small lounge off the lobby, where Shayne ordered a cognac while Wallace had a beer.

Shayne asked the bartender, “Did you know Melody Deans?”

The bartender scooped Shayne’s change from the bar. “Did I, Max?”

Wallace shrugged, “Did you, Eli?”

“She was a nice lady,” Eli decided. “Too bad she got killed.”

“Who’d kill her?” Shayne asked.

Eli stared at the redhead for a few seconds, then went to a telephone.

“Oh, brother,” breathed Wallace, “you do know how to get action.”

Shayne caught a reflection in a side mirror. “McKeever, the cop, just came in.”

“This is a public bar and McKeever likes beer,” Wallace said. “He’s free to drink his beer here, but that doesn’t mean he can roam this palace. You’d better ease off a little.”

Eli returned. “Mr. Cordova would like to see you gentlemen,” he said. “At your convenience, of course.”

“Who’s he?” Shayne wanted to know.

Eli ignored the question. “You know the way, Mr. Wallace?”

“I know the way, Eli.”

Shayne drank his cognac and Wallace left the beer, then the redhead walked with Wallace out of the small lounge, across the airy lobby and entered a long, carpeted corridor. Shayne looked over his shoulder. McKeever was nowhere to be seen!

There was a door at the end of the corridor. It opened as they approached and Shayne took in a nattily dressed man of fifty or so who was manicured and smiling.

“Max,” he said.

“Julio.”

“And this is Mr. Shayne from Miami, I assume. Welcome to Las Vegas, Mr. Shayne. Come in. I believe you are drinking cognac. You will find one poured.” He pointed to a corner bar. “Another beer, Max?”

Julio Cordova was a smiler. He kept smiling as he faced Shayne head-on. “We have a mutal acquaintance in Miami, Mr. Shayne. I’ve known Antonio Cicerone for years. He is doing quite well in the recreation business, I understand.”

“I assume Antonio also told you I don’t live on double talk,” Shayne said.

Cordova kept smiling. “Yes, he did say you are aggressive. You are a private detective, and you are currently seeking the killer of Melody Deans. I read that much in Max’s column this afternoon, of course. Well, Mr. Shayne, how can I help you? Miss Deans was a valued employee here. We liked her work. Frankly, we are quite upset with her death. She is going to be extremely difficult to replace.”

“Carriers can be, I suppose.”

Cordova’s smile flickered, came back to full strength.

“And I don’t imagine you’re particularly happy about the disappearance of a half million bucks,” Shayne added.

Cordova shook his head, pulled the lower half of his smile with fingertips. “Antonio mentioned you had some crazy notion about missing money, Mr. Shayne. Frankly, I’m puzzled.”

“Somebody hit her, Cordova.”

The smile remained, but his eyes hardened.

“I’ve got a hunch she was on the run with a big bundle, made a stop in Miami and got hit. How about you? What’s your hunch?”

The smile finally disappeared. Cordova pulled at his lip thoughtfully. His eyes had turned brittle. He wasn’t angry. Simply cold, like an exposed marble slab on a winter day. “You’re talking riddles, Shayne. If you came out here looking for that kind of lead, you’ve wasted time. I can’t help you.”

“Ever hear of a dude named Renfro Bastone?”

A flicker of curiosity hit the hard eyes. “The name is vaguely familiar, yes.”

“He may have hit your princess.”

Cordova went to the bar and poured tap water from a pitcher over ice cubes. He drank before he looked at the redhead. “Then your journey here really is to find Mr. Bastone. I wish I could help you, but I can’t. I don’t know the gentleman that well. Max there is your best source in town anyway. Max knows everyone.”

Shayne walked the length of the room, turned around. “Cordova, let’s set up a hypothetical case. Let’s assume that someone out here wanted skim money delivered somewhere back East and that Melody Deans was supposed to make the delivery. We’ll eliminate the possibility that Melody Deans had an idea of her own, was going to make a normal delivery. Okay, there’s this guy Bastone, a punk. Could a punk get a line on such a delivery?”

“I doubt it,” said Cordova. “I don’t know about such things, of course, but—”

“So if Bastone hit the dame, it had to be for another reason,” Shayne interrupted.

“Possibly.” Cordova frowned in deep thought.

“You used her one too many times, didn’t you, pal?”

Cordova stopped the glass halfway to his lips. He stood like a statue. Then he said carefully, “Shayne, if my employees choose to moonlight I couldn’t care less — unless it interfers with their employment here, of course.”

“Miss Deans made frequent plane trips, I’m told.”

“She traveled some,” Cordova nodded. “On her own time. She earned the time.”

“Un-huh.” Shayne yanked at his ear. “And I understand she lived in. I’d like to see her place.”

“Miss Deans had accomodations here, that’s true,” Cordova nodded. “We do that with some of our employees as a part of the consideration. But as to seeing the apartment, I’m sorry, Mr. Shayne, it already has another occupant. Miss Dean’s personal things were shipped to her family in Iowa yesterday.”

“Was that before or after McKeever got a look?” Shayne snapped.

Cordova smiled, drank water. “Sergeant McKeever okayed the shipment.”

Shayne snorted and looked at Max Wallace. The newspaperman was stonefaced, the goatee jutting slightly.

Shayne said, “See the both of you,” and walked out.

Wallace caught up with him on the sidewalk. “Hey?”

The town was bright now, flashing lights beckoning the suckers, and they were out, crowding the sidewalks. Shayne ignored both the lights and the suckers.

“How come you didn’t tell me McKeever is on their payroll, pal?”

“McKeever isn’t,” Wallace said bluntly. “He’s the straightest cop we’ve got.”

“Yeah?”

“You have to trust somebody, Shayne,” Wallace said, sounding sour. “You’re in strange territory. I’m telling you McKeever is straight like the good arrow.”

Shayne looked around. He didn’t like the tinsel or the smell of Las Vegas. He wasn’t even sure he liked Wallace.

“Where do I find Flora Ann Perkins?” he growled.

“We drive there. She’s got a place on the edge of town. You want to tell me about her, where she fits?”

“No.”

“Okay. I just thought I might be entitled.”

They got into the car. Wallace wheeled out of the hotel parking lot. Shayne sat low in the seat and glowered without seeing anything. He felt as if he was running in deep water. He wasn’t getting anywhere.

Then Wallace said, “You’re an impatient bastard, Shayne. You’ve been in town — what? A few hours. You’re acting like you should have this thing all wrapped up and be heading back to Miami. Man, what did you expect out of a smoothie like Cordova? The platter?”

Shayne slid the newspaperman an oblique look.

“We’re not cowboys out here. Big city private detectives don’t awe us. We’ve seen ’em before, and we’ll see ’em again. Incidently, we’ve got a tail. It’s probably McKeever, but we could have Benjie Rhodes, too. I doubt if I can shake him. I’m no expert at this sort of thing.”

Shayne said, “I’d be expected to visit Flora Ann Perkins sooner or later. She and Melody Deans were pals.”

Flora Ann Perkins lived in the first floor middle of a squat apartment building. She did not answer the summons produced by Shayne’s thumb against a small door button. He rapped hard. The door remained closed. The only sounds were muted voices that came from behind the door.

“Sounds like a television program,” Wallace said. He paused, then added. “She could be working.” He shot Shayne a side glance.

The redhead scowled. A crawly feeling in his gut made him shift his feet and open his coat so that he had quick access to the holstered .45. The last time he’d experienced the same feeling Melody Deans had come crashing down almost on top of him from a seventeenth floor hotel balcony.

“Something stinks,” Shayne said.

Wallace stroked his goatee and looked around. “What makes you say that?”

Shayne tried the door knob. It didn’t turn. “Let’s hustle a manager. I want to see inside.”

“Hey, hold it a sec,” Wallace said. “Flora Ann might not want to be disturbed. She could be—”

Shayne found the manager in a front apartment. He was a young guy with long sideburns and a bushy mustache. He wasn’t interested in opening Flora Ann Perkins’ apartment until Shayne edged back his coat and allowed him a glimpse of the holstered gun.

“Okay, okay,” he said.

He picked up a large ring of keys from a table near the door and went ahead of Shayne and Wallace down the corridor. At Flora Ann Perkins’ door, he said, “I’m going to open up, and then I’m going to fade, okay? I’ve got no beef with anyone.”

Shayne smelled death the instant the door swung open. He also heard the sound of shower water above the television voices.

He pounded into the small bath. The shower curtain was closed. He swept it aside and looked down on the naked crumpled figure of the woman who was curled in the bottom of the bathtub, luke warm shower water splattering her hip.

“If you figure McKeever is waiting outside, get him,” the redhead snapped.

VIII

McKeever was a lanky, loose-jointed man, coldly efficient. He called in help, supervised the preliminary investigation and then talked to the building manager before finally motioning Mike Shayne and Max Wallace outside. They stood at an unmarked police sedan under a street lamp light.

McKeever looked down the street. “Benjie’s still with us, I see,” he said.

Shayne spotted the car braked at the curbing about a block away as Wallace said, “She was strangled, McKeever.”

The cop shook his head. “Benjie’s been on you two since Shayne got to town. He didn’t kill her. Right now I halve to figure it was some john.” He shrugged. “Which isn’t too unusual. Johns get angry, hustlers get killed. It’s mostly always like that.

“Crumford, the manager, says she came in alone around five-thirty this afternoon. He knows because he was working out back in the parking lot when she drove in. She parked her VW, spoke to him, and went inside to her apartment. She didn’t leave again in her car. He knows that too because he was working out there in the lot until about twenty minutes before you two showed at his apartment. So right now I have to figure some john came to her place early this evening, probably some client she hustled at the law office. She worked for a law firm by day. I’ll check out the office in the morning.”

“McKeever,” Shayne said flatly, “you know why I’m in town?”

“I’d have to be blind not to. Everybody in Las Vegas reads Max Wallace. I had a call from a detective named Painter this morning. Among other things, he said there was the possibility you’d show.”

“Did Painter give you Flora Ann Perkins?”

“The passport and airline ticket business? Yes, it was the main reason he called.”

“So you can write her murder off to a john? You can’t tie it to—”

McKeever sounded as if he was thinning on patience, as he said, “I’m not writing off anything. There damn well might be a tie between the death of Melody Deans and what you just discovered. But the killing here could be a simple thing, too, and totally unrelated. It could be a john killed her. I have to consider that.”

“So consider it, then forget it. This woman was killed because she knew something about Melody Deans!”

“Maybe.” McKeever shrugged.

“You know a character named Renfro Bastone?”

McKeever fixed Shayne with a hard look. “We talk to him every so often, yeah, pull him in for questioning. About a stickup here, a stickup there. What about him?”

“Is he in town right now?”

“No,” McKeever said slowly, frowning.

“Know where he is?”

“He still could be down your way, I suppose. Miami, Miami Beach...”

McKeever let it hang and Shayne pressed. He knew he had the cop thinking in the right direction now. “You figure Bastone could’ve known Melody Deans was carrying a half million, trailed her, hit her?”

“It’s a possibility, I suppose.”

“What’s more probable?”

“That he was sent after her.”

“By whom?”

“By somebody who has a beef with Cordova, or by somebody in the know who is greedy.”

“Any ideas?”

“The beef doesn’t fit, as far as I know. Things have been quiet here, nobody angry with anybody else. But the greed, now that could fit. We have plenty of greedy people around.”

Shayne said, “I get the picture that Bastone is a cheap punk, not trustworthy. Who’d take a chance on him in a half million dollar caper?”

McKeever waved a hand. “Bastone isn’t known for smarts, that’s, true. But somebody could’ve talked him into the dead with a promise of a few thousand, then killed him at the time of the payoff.”

“You figure Bastone is dead?”

“He could be.”

“Know anything about his brother?”

“I didn’t know he had a brother,” McKeever said slowly.

“He does. Okay, if Bastone is still walking, could he have slipped in here today, and killed the Perkins woman? The passport and the air ticket made out in the name of Flora Ann Perkins could have scared him. No smarts again. He spots both, knows something isn’t right, becomes confused, then scared. He doesn’t understand the Perkins woman’s role in all of this so he heads back here and strangles her.”

“Maybe,” McKeever said, tugging his lower lip in thought. “But I’m more inclined to think that Bastone pulled off the heist, then told his silent partner about the passport and ticket. Partner kills Bastone, takes the haul, returns here, hits the woman.”

“Okay, who are the candidates?”

McKeever looked almost startled. Then he permitted himself a tight smile. “Shayne, you’ve got to be kidding. This town is loaded with greedy characters.”

“But how many would know Melody Deans was being sent on a journey with that kind of bread?”

McKeever moved. He went around the front end of the sedan and got inside. He stuck a key in the ignition switch. Shayne hung in the open door window. McKeever said, “Get a good night’s sleep, Shayne. I’ll be in touch.”

He started the motor and drove away.

Shayne watched the tail-lights disappear and then rejoined Max Wallace on the sidewalk.

“I don’t like the way your friend operates,” he snapped. “But at least he’s forgot that assinine theory about a john.”

Wallace dropped the redhead at the Trout.

“It’s been an interesting evening,” he said. “And I’ve got work to do.”

“Give me some names, Wallace,” Shayne said. “Who’s McKeever going after?”

“Shayne, this town exists on greed. Your best bet is to do as McKeever says: get a good night’s sleep while he singles out the few possibilities. Tomorrow, maybe, you can do your thing. McKeever will play ball. He’s not allergic to assistance. It’s what makes him a good cop. The fifty cent advice is: let him get things rolling. He can do more eliminating overnight than you could do in a year of tromping.”

But Shayne tromped. Back and forth in his room, with cognac and ice water in hand. Occasionally he went to the closed drapes, swept them aside and stared out on the late swimmers. The swimmers paid no attention to him. But in the back of his mind he wondered if Benji Rhodes was out there somewhere around the pool, keeping an eye on things, so to speak.

He also wondered if the Bastone brothers had been found by now and were they dead, as McKeever had theorized. Or were they in the Miami area? Should he call Painter, Gentry?

A sudden flash hit him. He stopped pacing, scowled against the remote possibility it offered. He used the thumb and forefinger of his right hand to tug at the lobe of his left ear.

He’d been around for a long time. He’d been up against all kinds of people, their incentives, their drives, their lusts. He had learned to expect anything from anybody. Still, this possibility was difficult to accept. It existed, okay, but perhaps it was a mere product of his frustration, the need to get his teeth into something solid.

He shook his head, resumed his pacing. But he couldn’t get the possibility out of his skull. Hell, there was one way to ripen or kill it. He placed a call to Peter Painter in Miami Beach. Painter was out of touch. Some nut had thrown a gasoline bomb in the front door of a nightclub. Painter was at the scene.

He tried to find Will Gentry with no luck. Gentry had a possible kidnaping on his hands. He was out beating bushes.

He phoned Lucy Hamilton, but before he could ask anything she exclaimed, “Michael, Stan Smith has been phoning from San Diego since late this afternoon! You’re to call him!”

Stan Smith said, “I think you’ve got action at the Lamplighter, friend. I think Ralphie is back in town.”

“Think?”

“I kept a man out there. Two guys showed shortly after noon, one younger than the other, each with a single suitcase. They hit the office, then Connie Norton came out with them and they cut together in her car. My man trailed them. They went to another motel, place called Weaver’s, about the same caliber as Connie’s layout. The two guys checked in, and she hightailed it back to her establishment. Then the young guy showed at the Lamplighter again. He arrived alone in a cab; no suitcase this time. He went into the office and didn’t come out. From the description of Ralphie I got from Connie earlier, I’d say the kid has returned. Her pad is behind the office, remember.”

“It’s important, Stan.”

“Ralph Bastone is here, Mike. I’ll pay your fare out if it isn’t him.”

San Diego in early morning, orange-gray light made Mike Shayne think of Miami. Stan Smith took him from the air terminal to the Lamplighter in a shiny New Lincoln Continental. In the drive-in slot in front of the office, he said, “Ralphie’s here. The other guy’s about four miles down the street at Weaver’s. I’ve got two boys working now, Mike. One is watching us at this moment, the other is parked outside Weaver’s.”

“Keep the Weaver man,” Shayne said. “But tip him. This one can go home.”

“And me?” Stan Smith said with a crooked grin as Shayne vacated the Continental.

“You finally got married?”

The grin widened. “Naw, but I’ve got a girl friend.”

“Tell her to send the statement to Miami.”

“Natch.”

Inside the Lamplighter office, Shayne banged the desk bell several times, then positioned himself at the door behind the desk. The door was yanked open by a voluptuous, dark-haired woman who carried a few ounces of extra weight here and there but still could boast of a good figure. She was barefooted. She had thrown on a negligee and she held it together with one hand as she stared in amazement at Shayne.

“Mister, you’ve got a lot of guts! This is private back here! You want a unit, I’ll come out and—”

The redhead pushed her aside and shot past her. He stomped across a small living room and went through an open door into a tiny bedroom as Connie Norton screeched. “Ralphie—”

The kid came off the foot of the rumpled bed. He wore blue boxer shorts, nothing more. He was wide-eyed and trim with long hair. He also looked frightened as he leaped at Shayne.

The detective stepped aside and slammed a long arm against Ralph Bastone, bringing the arm around in a backhanded sweep. The blow sent the boy reeling off balance.

Shayne heard another screech. It was a warning. He doubled forward and jammed back his elbows, keeping his arms tight against his sides. Connie gasped when she landed on the elbow points.

The redhead straightened with a snap and jammed with the elbows. The move freed him. When he whirled, he saw Connie peeling back, her face screwed up in a combination of pain and surprise. She sat down hard on the bed, bounced.

Ralph was coming in again from the side, low and off-balance, face contorted. Shayne caught his long hair and flipped him on across the room. Ralph banged into a wall. When he came around, a leg buckled. He went down on one knee. Shayne stood over him, the muzzle of the .45 against the boy’s forehead. The boy became frozen and behind the detective Connie gasped in a broken voice: “God, don’t kill him!”

Shayne snarled, “Tell me about Miami Beach, Ralph!”

Ralph crumbled. “All we wanted was her jewels, her money. Ren figured she’d be heavy. But we didn’t get a dime! She was there on the floor, out cold, and the place stunk. Then...”

“Then?” Shayne pressed.

Ralph took a couple of seconds, and Shayne knew that whatever came next was to be a lie. Ralph was struggling with his thoughts, seeking an out. He reverted, as most liars do: “Look man, Ren had this dame staked out in Vegas. He found out she was leaving town on a little vacation. He found out she was going to Philly, I don’t know how. He called me in to trail her because she’d know him if she spotted him. She took a Philly plane, but she changed in Kansas City, headed down to Miami. Ren was already in Philly, waiting for me to call when I hit town. He had a helluva time getting down to Miami so fast, but he made it. And all we wanted was her green, her jewels. Ren had it figured no dame would travel without money, jewels.

“Anyway, I got her room number at that hotel, we waited a little while to let her get to sleep. That was our plan. We were going to hit her while she was asleep. Not hurt her, just knock her out, then clean out the joint. The only trouble was somebody’d already been there. We couldn’t believe it when we hit her room, but she’d already been cleaned! All we got was a diamond thing off her wrist, then we cut, but Ren didn’t want to go straight back to Vegas for some reason. So we came here. I figured Connie would put us up for a few days.”

“Ralph,” Shayne said coldly, pressing the .45 tighter against the boy’s forehead, “where’s the half million? You aren’t stupid enough to let your brother keep it down there alone in the other motel, are you? He’ll be gone quicker than—”

“What the hell you talking about, man?”

“The half million bucks you two lifted from Melody Deans.”

“You’re putting me on!”

“Am I?”

The boy looked confused. He breathed harshly. “Man, if we’d lifted half a million you think I’d be here?”

“I figure you’re not too heavy on the smarts, Ralph.” Shayne grunted, eased up with the .45 slightly, but he kept the muzzle about an inch from the boy’s left eye. “You said you found Melody Deans out cold on the carpeting.”

“Yeah! And the plaice stunk!”

“Chloroform?”

The boy looked confused again. “I don’t know. What’s chloroform smell like?”

Shayne ignored the question. “How’d you two get inside, Ralph?”

“Well, Ren has these tools. I don’t know what you call them, but they work in door locks. Only we didn’t need them. The door wasn’t locked!”

“Un-huh. Okay, you’re inside and you find a passport, an airline ticket, and—”

“We didn’t find nothing like that, man!”

“But Melody Deans came awake while you were there.” It was a question.

Ralph’s eyes jumped, lighted up for a moment, then died.

“Y-yeah,” he said.

He suddenly sounded very frightened again, and the redhead plunged, “You two threw her from the balcony because she recognized your brother.”

Ralph clamped his lips, remained silent, but he wouldn’t look at the detective now. He began to quiver.

“Ralphie?” Connie said from somewhere behind Shayne. Her voice was soft, held a pleading note. “Tell him you didn’t do it.”

“Shut up!” the boy screamed.

Shayne holstered the .45 and caught a handful of — Ralph’s long hair, yanked him up on his feet.

“Melody Deans recognized your brother,” he repeated in a voice that grated, “and he panicked. He knew she had tough friends in Vegas. He knew he could end up in a desert grave if she said the right Word to the right people. What he didn’t know was that she was on the run and was going underground.”

Ralph looked totally confused.

Connie moved around Shayne, put herself between the boy and the detective. She took Ralph’s face in her hands, tilted up his head. “You’re in trouble, lover,” she said. “Big, bad trouble. But I’ll pick up the pieces, put you back together again — if you’ll let me.”

He broke. He sagged. “Connie-baby,” he said, grasping her biceps, “help me.”

“You turn in your brother to this cop,” she said.

“I’m not a cop,” said Shayne.

Connie Norton turned slowly, stared hard at him. Her eyes danced to the coat bulge.

“Then you’re going to have to kill the both of us,” she said.

“But I’m going to call the cops,” the detective said.

The police listened, rousted Renfro Bastone from his motel room, then took everyone to headquarters, where a call was placed to Peter Painter in Miami Beach.

“Let me talk to Painter,” Shayne said. “I can explain it quicker.”

Painter snarled, “And just who the hell are these Bastone brothers, Shayne? I never heard of them!”

Shayne grunted. “You got a smell on the money, Painter?”

Painter snorted. “Tell me what area of Canada your friend Salvadore Aires might disappear in, and I’ll have a smell!”

“Letting Sal leave town was dumb,” Shayne said. “But he wasn’t carrying treasure. He’s got his own treasure chest, and it’s loaded.”

“Nobody,” Painter seethed, “would walk away from a cool half million dollars, Shayne.”

“And anybody could be attracted by it,” the detective countered. Then he said, “Okay, Painter, here’s a cop. Tell him what you want done with the Bastones, I’ll be seeing you — unfortunately.”

“Shayne...”

He heard the yell as he passed the phone to a detective. He ignored it.

IX

It was early Thursday evening when his plane put down in Las Vegas. He found Max Wallace at the newspaper office.

“Little early for you to be out of bed, isn’t it, Wallace?” he said.

The newspaperman cocked an eyebrow, pulled the goatee in a moment of silent contemplation, then said, “You’re testy, friend.”

Shayne shuffled. He felt out of sorts with the world.

“The Bastone brothers are in jail in San Diego,” he growled.

“That right?” Wallace said, cocking an eyebrow.

Shayne reviewed the arrests. Wallace listened. Then the newspaperman said, “Okay, the Bastones are in jail. But it doesn’t finish it, does it? You’re still hot. What’s the pitch?”

“There’s a missing half million dollars, a dead woman here neither of the Bastones killed, and I’ve got a friend who is in trouble.”

Wallace nodded thoughtfully, sat back in the chair behind the typewriter. “Well, we’ve had an interesting little tidbit turn up here too. Flora Ann-Perkins left an estate. One of McKeever’s men turned up a checkbook and a tin box in her apartment. The checkbook showed a balance of $3,150. Inside the tin box was $2,500 in cash, a savings deposit book showing $49,700 in an account — and a will. If the will stands up, the single beneficiary is one Harold Wilson McKeever, cop-detective.”

Shayne grunted, his thoughts whirling. He grabbed the lobe of his left ear with the fingers of his right hand.

“Who’s McKeever’s superior?” he asked bluntly. “What kind of cop is he?”

Wallace lifted an eyebrow again. “Chief Amster, and he’s A-1. A tough man. Why?”

“Are he and McKeever pals?”

“They’re both long-timers here. Cops come, cops go. Not Amster and McKeever.”

“But are they pals?”

Wallace frowned. “Outside the station?” He hesitated. “I’d say no. They work together like meshed gears, but off-duty... well, Amster is married, got a batch of kids. He’s got his home life while McKeever, a bachelor... well, hell, Shayne, they don’t roam in the same circles, you know what I mean?”

“McKeever roamed with Flora Ann Perkins, huh?”

“Christ, nobody can figure that one! I mean it’s a surprise! McKeever, the cop, and Flora Ann, the hustler! What the hell, it’s—”

“What’s McKeever saying?”

“Nothing! He’s clammed. Aw, he’s probably laid it out for Amster, but—”

“I want him,” Shayne said, standing abruptly.

Wallace looked up. He sat without moving. His eyes were bright and filled with questions. But all he said was, “You came back here, Shayne, to get somebody. You came into this office a few minutes ago, sniffing and quivering like a hound dog on the track of a strong scent. What I want to know is where did you pick up that scent, and what the hell is that scent?”

“I picked it up right here, pal, last night. McKeever knew Renfro Bastone had been in Miami Beach. At first, I figured Painter, the detective on the case down there, had told him. McKeever said he had had a call from Painter. With Bastone being from here, it seemed natural that Painter would bring up the guy. But later I remembered that there was a helluva strong chance Painter didn’t know about Renfro Bastone. I got tipped to his brother, Ralph, by a money-hungry beach boy, one of these kids who doesn’t volunteer anything unless there’s a buck in it. It didn’t figure the kid had gone to Painter. Cops don’t pay. Still, there was a chance he had.

“So I tried to get Painter on the phone, couldn’t. Then I got sidetracked by the Bastones showing in San Diego. Finally, after rounding up the brothers, I did talk to Painter — and he’d never heard of either of them! So how did McKeever know Renfro Bastone was in Miami Beach? Maybe he was down there, huh? Spotted Bastone? And if he was down there Monday night, early Tuesday morning, how come?”

Wallace used the telephone on his desk, dialed a number, then said, “Bryant? Hi. Max Wallace here. Hey, is McKeever around? Naw, I don’t want him. But check the duty roster for me, will you? I need to know what days off he has. Some guys are planning a little surprise bash for him next week.”

Wallace waited, drumming fingernails against the typewriter, then said, “Wednesday and Thursday next week? Let’s see, you boys are on a rotation schedule. That’d mean he had Tuesday and Wednesday off this week, right?”

The newspaperman listened, frowned. The frown became a scowl.

“Okay, Bryant, thanks.” He put the phone together, looked up at Shayne. “McKeever traded out days off this week so he could have Monday and Tuesday. I don’t like this, Shayne. Not one goddamn little bit, but McKeever could have been in Florida. Monday night and back here sometime Tuesday. What’s it mean?”

“McKeever is at headquarters?”

“Yes, of course.”

“See you.”

“See, hell. This is my bailiwick.”

McKeever was alone in an office cubicle off the squad-room. There was a desk and two straightback chairs in front of the desk. Nothing on the walls. McKeever sat behind the desk, munching half of a sandwich. The other half remained in an open wax wrapper on the desk. Beside it was a small carton of milk. His face showed nothing, but his eyes were wary as he looked up at Shayne and Wallace. He looked like he didn’t want to be disturbed.

Shayne plunged. “You want to take me to the half million or do we play cat and mouse games, McKeever?”

The cop sat like stone for a second, the sandwich halfway to his mouth. Then he put down the sandwich slowly and sat back in his chair. Shayne watched where he kept his hands. He wanted the drop if McKeever decided to go for a weapon.

McKeever said finally, “Painter told me you could be a wild man.”

“But he didn’t tell you about the Bastone brothers, Renfro Bastone in particular. He didn’t know about them until this afternoon. So how the hell did you know Renfro was in Miami Beach earlier this week?”

McKeever took a few seconds, eyes narrowed. “Shayne, it’s my business to know about guys like Bastone, where they are at all times.”

It was possible; McKeever could be that kind of cop. But Shayne refused to accept that possibility. Somebody in Las Vegas had killed Flora Ann Perkins, somebody with a strong motive.

McKeever said. “Lay it out for me, Shayne,” in a voice that had ice on the edges. “Just how you think it is.”

Smart, Shayne thought. Lay it out, expose his thinking, his theories, his speculations. McKeever was smart, a man who had listened to thousands of explanations. You listen to the explanations and then you have its holes and you rip it apart at the seams.

“I will, pal,” Shayne said in a hard voice, “to your chief. Wallace, get Amster in here. If he isn’t in the building, find him.”

“Hold it, Max,” McKeever said sharply. He stood behind the desk, looked straight at Shayne. “Let me see if I have this straight. We’ve all heard the rumors that Melody Deans was carrying a half million dollars in skim money. Shayne, are you saying that I now have that half million?”

“I’m saying.”

“I see.” He came around the desk. Shayne was alert, waiting for a fast move. But McKeever remained at a distance. “All right, Mr. Shayne, where do I have it?”

“Wherever you live.”

McKeever lifted an eyebrow slightly. His eyes were brittle. “Not buried in the desert and not put away in a safety deposit box?”

“It’s possible to get a court order to look in a bank box,” Shayne said, “and I don’t think you’d take that chance with a half million. You aren’t going to bury it in the desert, either. A half mill is too much. You’d be going out to the burial grounds every five minutes, checking. Winds play tricks with sand. But more important, I figure you’re planning to fly, McKeever. I figure you’ve got it mapped out to sit around for a few weeks, maybe a couple of months or so, then resign for one concocted reason or another and vanish with the bread.”

McKeever nodded. “As Painter said, you are wild, Mr. Shayne. I live in a duplex. Shall we go? You may look all night, if you wish.”

“I’ve got all kinds of time, pal.”

“You drive, Max,” McKeever said.

Outside, McKeever got into the front seat beside Wallace. Shayne sat in back. McKeever looked straight ahead, didn’t twist a muscle. Shayne frowned. Was he wrong about this dude? He’d expected McKeever to make a break once the were outside the station. McKeever had stopped Wallace before the newspaperman could summon Chief Amster.

The duplex was in a quiet neighborhood. Both sides of the squat house-looked empty. The doors were closed, drapes were drawn, and there was nobody in the yard.

“I live on the right side, Wallace,” McKeever said.

Wallace braked at the curbing out front. Shayne saw a two-year blue convertible in the drive next to the right unit of the duplex. McKeever used a key to open the front door. “My landlord lives next door, but he’s gone down to Mexico.”

McKeever entered, and Shayne saw the movement of the cop-detective’s right arm. He slammed Wallace out of his path and shot his palms against McKeever’s spine, sending him stumbling across the room.

McKeever crashed against a table, knocking a lamp: to the carpeting, but he spun as he went down and there was a gun in his hand. Shayne lashed out with his foot, the toe of his shoe driving the gun hand up. He caught the gun in both hands and twisted savagely, wrenching the weapon from McKeever’s hand.

McKeever sagged against the carpeting. He lay breathing hard for a long time, staring at nothing. Finally, Wallace whispered, “Hey, what the hell...”

“The money is here,” Shayne said. “We were next to being dead men, Wallace. All he had to do was get away from the station, lure us here, kill us and vanish in that car outside. Do I kick it out of you, McKeever, or do you talk?”

It all had started with Melody Deans, who was planning to leave the country. She had needed a passport, and to get the passport, she had needed a birth certificate. But Melody had wanted to leave the country under another name. So she had gone to her friend, Flora Ann Perkins, told Flora Ann she was running from some man from Detroit. She wanted to disappear for awhile, but she had to go under another name so the man couldn’t follow her. She even had laid out travel plans: purchase an air ticket to Philadelphia, then switch flights enroute, fly to Miami, then to Copenhagen, the maneuvering to throw off the man in case he should try to follow her.

Flora Ann had bought it. Confiding women understood those kind of things. But Flora Ann also could not keep a secret. She had to tell someone. She had told Harold Wilson McKeever, clandestine cop-lover, who, being a cop, was immediately suspicious. It did not seem to Harold Wilson McKeever that a woman needed to lay such elaborate plans to rid herself of an unwanted suitor.

Melody Deans always had been a suspected carrier of skim money. Could it be that this time out she wanted to obtain a passport under another name so that she could journey to Copenhagen with a bagful of stolen loot?

McKeever arranged his days off duty so he could be inside Miami’s International air terminal when Melody Deans arrived. Surprise! Inside the terminal, McKeever spots a Vegas creep he recognizes — and who would recognize him.

McKeever stays out of sight but keeps Renfro Bastone in range. Then, second surprise. When Melody Deans arrives and marches out of the terminal, Bastone is moving along behind her. Bastone is a shadow, maybe a second shadow. There’s a kid up front who seems to be trailing Melody Deans too.

It’s all screwy as hell, and it almost forces McKeever to pull in his horns, turn back, but at this splashy hotel in Miami Beach, the shadows go one way while Melody Deans goes another. McKeever takes off after Melody Deans’ luggage. Bellboy makes his deposit, comes out of suite, checking door to be sure it is locked, disappears.

McKeever slithers to door. It’s no sweat. He’s got keys to open almost any door. But inside he’s frustrated. He can’t find money. Only two suitcases that produce clothing, a passport and an airline ticket to Madrid, Spain. Madrid? Not Copenhagen? But it could figure. A confiding woman might have lied if she didn’t want her friend to know her true destination.

And then there’s the sound of a key in the door lock. Again no sweat, for McKeever had come prepared. In the beginning, he had figured on allowing Melody Deans to retire, then sliding into her room and slapping a chloroform patch on her face. Now he scrambles behind the door, pouring chloroform on the run, and he smacks the patch against her face the instant she is inside the suite.

Then he gets lucky and discovers money in a bag purse. Rolls of money. All in denominations he’s never seen before. McKeever cuts with loot, returns to Las Vegas. He’s bothered by the fact that Renfro Bastone seemed to have been tailing Melody Deans too. What did it mean? McKeever is nervous. Was Bastone dangerous to him? If Bastone returned to Vegas cop might have to do something about him.

But an even more disturbing thing happens. Melody Deans is killed in Miami Beach. And suddenly there are police and private investigations. Somebody, police or private eye, is going to get to Flora Ann Perkins. Flora Ann must be silenced and is.

The only trouble is, Flora Ann leaves a ghost to haunt. She leaves a will. Who would think a hooker would leave a will? On the other hand, it figured. By day, the hooker worked for a law firm; she would be aware of the value of wills. But damn Flora Ann Perkins. She had pointed a finger from her death bed, placed McKeever in a precarious position. And he had been sweating. He had been sitting in his little cubicle at police headquarters, munching a sandwich without tasting it, trying to figure when and where to run with a half million dollars when more trouble had walked in.

McKeever eyed Shayne and Wallace. A sudden glimmer of hope appeared in his eyes. “A three-way split of a half million bucks wouldn’t be too bad.”

But all McKeever saw was stony stares. The glimmer blinked out.

A chief of police and a called-in IRS man took McKeever. Shayne took a jet. He slept all the way to Miami, where Lucy Hamilton was waiting for him inside International Airport.

There was a certain set to Lucy’s greeting smile, a certain glisten in her eyes, a certain grip of her hand on his bicep as they walked that alerted Shayne.

“Okay, Angel, spill,” Shayne said.

“I have a surprise for you.”

“I know.”

“Salvadore is waiting in the car in the parking lot.”

Salvadore Aires shook Shayne’s hand perfunctorily. He looked grim. “I’ve got to get this off my mind, Mike.”

“Shoot, pal.”

“Melody Deans and I had a thing going. I wanted to marry her, but she said nix. I’d already had five wives, which wasn’t much of a recommendation for marriage. But she’d take a trip with me. She wanted to see Madrid. We could spend a few days, weeks, months, however it worked out. I said, ‘Hell, yes, why not?’ So we planned to meet here, go on together, except—”

“She showed up with a half million dollars,” Shayne finished for him. “She laid it all out for you at the party.”

“I couldn’t believe it, Mike. For the first time in my life I wasn’t sure how to handle something. We finally agreed to wait until morning, hash it over again. I wanted time to think. Somehow I had to separate Melody from that money, the people associated with it.”

“Then she was killed.”

“They didn’t have to kill her, Mike,” he said, sounding as if he was in a well. “They were going to get their money returned. But they were too quick for me and when — when I saw her dead on the sidewalk, smashed the way she was, I panicked. I felt sure they either knew about me or would find out. I ran. Some people — you, for instance — might not be frightened by the thought of having mobsters eyeing you. I am.”

“They didn’t kill her, Sal.”

“Then who did?” He sounded totally mystified.

Shayne lighted a cigarette and went over the entire case. He’d have to do this, at least in part, three more times, once for Painter, once for Albert Deans, and once for Gentry. But Salvadore Aires seemed entitled too.

When he had finished, Salvadore breathed, “God, a couple of punks...” It was all he said.

“If it hadn’t been Bastone, it would’ve been somebody else, eventually. Melody Deans made her death bed the second she made her turn from Philadelphia to Miami Beach.”