Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 37, No. 1, July 1975
MIKE SHAYNE MYSTERY MAGAZINE, Vol. 37, No. 1, July, 1975. Published monthly by Renown Publications, Inc., 8230 Beverly Blvd., Calif.
Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine
The Casual Killers
by Brett Halliday
(ghost written by unknown)
Every motorcycle gang in Dade County goes gunning for Mike Shayne, who has a twenty-thousand-dollar contract out on his scalp. But nobody seems to know who laid the contract on him, and time runs out while murders keep piling up in his wake...
I
Right at the moment, big Mike Shayne didn’t look like the ace private detective of the South Florida Gold Coast. Actually, he didn’t look like a detective at all, but just an ordinary man getting ready to enjoy a couple of lazy hours in the late Dade County afternoon.
There was really nothing but his size to distinguish him from any other of fifty cane pole fishermen between this spot and the Miami City limits. Like them, he had pulled his car off the Tamiami Trail on the canal side. He picked a comfortable spot on the bank, baited his hook with a shrimp bought at a bait store in town, sat down and waited for a bass or perch to provide some action.
A bit to his right and rear on the other side of the road, the ramshackle frame buildings of the Big Frog Bar and Indian Curio Store baked in the heat. There were a couple of cars in the parking lot plus eight or nine big shiny motorcycles painted an identical fire engine red.
Cars went past on the Tamiami Trail, making droning sounds with their tires on the hot concrete. Traffic was light at this time of day. Overhead the sky was clear except for a couple of big dark thunderheads building up far to the West over the Everglades. Shayne leaned back and began to relax. He tugged his old felt hat down over his brow to shade his eyes.
Without warning, a bullet ripped through the crown of that hat and almost tore it off his head. There was no sound of a shot, the growl of a truck engine a little way off could have masked it, but the crown of the hat had a neat hole that had not been there when he put it on.
Mike Shayne rolled over on his stomach and flattened himself on the canal bank. Off to his left, a little foreign bug rattled away towards town. To his right the big trailer truck was coming up — still more than a hundred yards away.
Nothing else moved. Nothing at all. It was all very peaceful indeed.
That is, except for the unmistakeable bullet hole in the crown of Shayne’s hat. An inch over and the hole would have been in his skull instead.
After a while, when nothing else moved but a car or two passing on the highway, Mike Shayne got up. He walked slowly over to where his car was parked and opened the trunk. There was a thirty-eight caliber snubnosed revolver inside in a clipon soft leather holster. Shayne clipped the gun to his belt under his jacket, just back of his right hip.
At that moment, some sort of fish, either a big bass or an equally sizeable gar, swallowed the bait he had left in the water and took off up the canal. The unattended cane pole slid off the bank when the big fish made its rush and was dragged along on top of the water.
Mike Shayne watched it go without regret. Then he crossed the road to the Big Frog Bar.
The front window of the saloon was very dirty and obscured by posters, old menus, empty bottles. The big man could not tell if anyone was watching him from inside. He walked around the building and found a rear door that led into the kitchen. The place was filthy. A big pot of coffee simmered on an old electric range. Outside of that and a stack of dirty dishes and skillets there was no sign the place was inhabited.
A door at the front of the kitchen was unlatched. Shayne opened it and walked through. He found himself behind the bar, a little to the right of the ranked beer taps.
The bartender was a big swarthy man sitting on a stool beyond the taps. When he saw Shayne, he started to get off the stool and at the same time reached for a sawed-off double-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun on the shelf under the bar.
Shayne beat him to the shotgun. He broke it open to eject the two shells and then dropped it on the floor behind him. The bartender changed his mind and a switchblade knife appeared in his right hand. The four-inch stilletto blade flicked open.
The detective feinted with his right hand. The knife flashed up. The big man kicked the bartender in the groin. The fellow lost all desire for further fight. His face went chalk white as consciousness left him and he crumpled onto the floor. His body flopped convulsively and then was still.
Mike Shayne put both hands on the bar and looked out over the room. Two middle-aged tourists, a man and a woman, had been drinking beer over by the window. They got up and left their unfinished glasses on the table and scuttled out the door, got in their car and raced the motor away towards Miami.
Nobody cared.
There were eight men in black leather jackets drinking whiskey around a big square table at Shayne’s left. They obviously belonged to the motorcycles outside.
Shayne tried hard to remember if there had been eight or nine bikes parked outside the bar. He couldn’t be sure.
The men in front of him ranged in age from middle thirties down to about sixteen. They had a certain wildness in common. The older ones were unshaven — one with a long yellow beard. None had washed recently. A couple showed the effects of the whiskey they had been drinking.
There was a fairly good chance that all were armed with knives, brass knucks or even guns. Their leather jackets could hide a lot. Shayne looked at them across the bar. They stared back impassively. It was a Mexican stand-off.
Finally, the detective said quietly, “I’ve got just one word for you boys. Don’t try it again. Don’t ever try it again.”
They looked back at him. Nobody even said, “Don’t try what again?”
Either they knew he was talking about the shot which had torn the crown of his hat — or they didn’t care.
Then he said, “Go on home. This bar’s closed for the day.” That was their chance to rush him if they planned to.
He couldn’t tell from their faces what was going to happen. They were like some feral, cautious, breed of animal that could be very dangerous.
Then the one with the yellow beard got to his feet. “We got no quarrel with you, mister. Come on, gang.”
He started for the door and the rest of them followed him. Shayne came around the bar and went to the front window when he heard the cycle engines revving up in the parking lot. The leather-jacketed riders rode out of the lot and turned East towards Miami.
Shayne counted. There were nine of them now. There had only been eight inside. That meant one had stayed in another part of the building or off in the Everglades sawgrass and brush while the big private detective had been inside.
The odds were one hundred to one that the ninth rider was the one who had taken the shot at Shayne on the canal bank. The big man hadn’t even managed to see his face.
Shayne considered getting into his car and chasing after the cycle riders. They had hit full speed by now, though, and had a head start that would make it almost impossible to catch them. If he did catch up, they were all wearing goggles as well as the identical leather jackets and helmets. He wouldn’t be able to tell one from the other — and it would do him very little good if he could.
Short of searching them all and finding a gun with one shell fired — or recently fired if it was an automatic — he would have no proof, and even that would not be enough to take into court.
The detective was fairly sure that one of the bike riders had tried to kill him. By appearing inside the Big Frog Bar and facing them down, he had let them know what he felt. For the moment that was all he could do.