He still hadn’t the slightest notion which one had fired at him. Just as important from the big man’s point of view, he had no idea why any of the riders should want him killed.
Up ahead on the road to Miami, the bike pack had picked up speed and was almost out of sight.
II
That was when big Mike Shayne became aware he could still hear the roar of cycle motors — and that these were coming up on him from behind. Normally Shayne wouldn’t have cared — but under the circumstances the sound alerted him. He watched them grow in his rear view mirror.
There were about a dozen riders, three or four with women riding pillion on the jump seats. This lot had their cycles painted yellow and wore tan leather jackets with a yellow stripe across the chest. They had on yellow helmets and big goggles obscuring their faces.
As the gang caught up with Shayne’s car, he was driving at a normal pace and making no effort to avoid them, they separated so that some would pass on each side of the car. None of them seemed to be paying any special attention to the big detective’s dark sedan.
However, one of them was. As the cycles roared past a rider on the right side tossed something through the open window of the car onto the front seat. Then the roaring motors were gone in a bunch.
Shayne’s big hand shot out to grasp the object that had been thrown into the car. His fingers told him it was only paper fastened around a small rock by a rubber band. If it had felt like a grenade or a stick of dynamite, he would have thrown it out of the car again.
As it was, he held on.
When he reached a spot where the shoulder of the Trail was wide enough, he pulled off the road and parked. The paper was a note with the words crudely printed in black ink from a felt-tipped marking pencil.
Shayne, it read, you’re dead. Yes, Mr. Shayne you are dead even though you still walk around. The riders have marked you for death. Next time it will be a bomb, Shayne. Next time you will really be dead.
That was all. No signature. Shayne hadn’t really expected one. He sat there and looked at the paper.
An hour before, Mike Shayne had been stretched out on the grassy bank of the Tamiami Canal for an afternoon of rest and relaxation and cane pole fishing in the warm sun. Now his hat had been torn by a bullet. Two separate gangs of cycle riders had given him very special attention indeed.
Somebody wanted Mike Shayne dead.
He didn’t know who it was. In fact, he didn’t have any idea who it might be. He was between cases. It could be any of a hundred persons out of his past, of course... persons whose plans he had thwarted or whom he had brought to justice in the course of his work over the years.
That thought was small comfort. He could hardly look them all up again. He had no idea where to start. Before he could analyze the danger Mike Shayne needed one vitally important piece of information which he most certainly did not have.
He needed to know why someone wanted him dead that badly.
With a motive, he could put an identity to the shadow who had unleashed the bike riders upon him. Or, with an identity, he could find a motive.
He had neither — and his own life was at stake.
“I’m pretty sure it’s not the bike riders themselves,” Shayne told his beautiful secretary Lucy Hamilton later that evening.
They were having dinner at one of their favorite places — the Steak House in Downtown Miami — and Shayne had finished telling her the events of the afternoon. They were eating two-inch-thick top sirloin strippers in a booth in the main dining room off the bar.
“What makes you think that?” Lucy Hamilton asked.
“Because if either of those two gangs had really wanted to finish me off, they certainly could have managed the job,” the big man told his lovely companion. “Remember there was only one shot at me on the canal bank. I was right out in the open there. The sniper had plenty of time for a second shot or even a third before I could get under any sort of cover. He could see I was still alive — but he didn’t try again. If he had really wanted me dead, then why no follow-up shot?”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Lucy Hamilton said.
“I did,” said Shayne. “Then, when I went into the bar, not a one of them seemed surprised. They sat there like they knew all along I was coming. They didn’t attack me, either. They were eight to one and you’d think, if they’d wanted to kill me, those were real good odds for a try.” Shayne grinned his crooked grin.
“They never moved,” he continued. “Then, when the second pack caught up with me coming back to town, they could have tossed a hand grenade or a couple of sticks of fused dynamite onto the seat beside me just as easily as that stupid rock with the note. If I was really meant to die, that’s almost certainly what they would have done.”
“I still don’t understand,” Lucy Hamilton said. “Are you trying to tell me it was all fun and games?”
“No,” Shayne said, “it wasn’t fun. It was a real bullet that ruined a perfectly good hat. I simply think I wasn’t supposed to be killed right then and there.”
“Then what... Why...?”
“I don’t really know, Angel,” the big man said. “All I do know is that, when a lot of things happen that don’t really seem to make any sense, there has to be a reason why. In this case, I’d say it was a smoke screen to cover up something that does make sense.”
“What could that be, Michael?”
“I don’t know — but I’ve got a real good hunch I’d better find out. If I wait till it happens, it could be too late.”
Not five minutes later the waiter came to their table carrying a phone. “Call for Mike Shayne,” he said. “I’ll plug it in here.”
“Shayne here,” the big detective said when the instrument was activated.
“Good!” the voice on the wire said. “This is Stan Berg. You know who I am?”
“Sure I do.” Stan Berg was a sports reporter, and a good one, on the staff of one of Miami’s best known TV news programs. “What’s on your mind, Stan?”
“You are,” Berg said. “You are, old buddy. The word is out around town that your health is declining but good and but fast. They say your friends should get ready for a funeral before long. Is it true?”
“Who says it is?” Shayne was wary.
“Let’s say it’s on the grapevine,” Berg said. His voice was neither friendly nor unfriendly. “If I knew who started it, I’d tell you, Shayne. I’ve got no reason not to.”
That was true enough as far as the big man knew.
“I believe you,” he said. “I suppose you’re talking about the motorcycle riders?”
“You’re ahead of me there,” Berg told him. “All I know is, some of my news sources say there’s a contract out on your head. A big contract, Shayne... in the high G’s.”
“Interesting,” said Shayne, “but you know it’s happened before.”
“I guess so, with all the heads you’ve broken and the big fat toes you’ve stomped in this town. I guess you’ve had it happen more than once.”
There was admiration in Berg’s voice. Then he continued, “The question is, can you handle it one more time. The grapevine says you can’t. It says you’re going to be run ragged first and then killed when you’re all worn down. It says the price is so high this time that there’s too many takers for you to handle.”
“That remains to be seen,” Mike Shayne said. “What else did the grapevine tell you?”