“Anything,” the other said. “Anything we got is yours when you take that rod off my back. You name it, man.”
“Information,” Mike Shayne said loudly enough so that all of them in the room could hear. “I want to know who put the contract on my head. Give me his name And maybe it’s worth your life.”
There was a silence broken only by hoarse breathing and the sound of an occasional car going by outside.
“We don’t know,” the man under the gun said. “You got to believe me, man. All we know is the word went round. The hit and the price. Nobody said who put it up.”
There was a chorus of agreement from the others in the room.
Mike Shayne believed them. Like everyone else he’d talked to this crazy day, they just didn’t know who wanted his life. He was beginning to feel desperate, and he fought to keep a clear head.
He tried again.
“All right then, think. Think hard and come up with something that will buy this man his life. Who has that sort of money that’s connected with you riders? Give me a name.”
He expected them to name a bike seller or a bar owner or someone in the dope-pushing business. But nobody answered.
An answer finally came after a couple of minutes of silence. The speaker was a blonde girl at the table with the leader.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know if this will help. Most of us ain’t rich. We come from ordinary folks. The only one who has money is Harry Comfort — that I know of. Him and that snooty sister of his, I think they’re rich.”
“Harry Comfort?” Shayne asked.
“Only Harry Comfort is dead already,” said a voice at the bar. “You killed old buddy Harry, didn’t you, Shayne?”
They looked at him with mixed expressions. Shayne got to his feet. His left hand caught the gang boss by the neck and hauled him up, too.
“I’m taking your friend out the front with me,” Shayne said. “If anybody moves — if anyone of you even breathes hard — I’m going to pull the trigger.”
“We’ll come after you, Rocky,” one of the men called.
“For God’s sake, no!” their leader called back. “This guy means business. Stay right here. Freeze!”
“What if he kills you, Rocky?”
“I haven’t killed him yet,” Mike Shayne said. “If he and you all behave yourselves — then just maybe I won’t kill him. Just maybe. It’s still a real temptation.”
There was a clear lane to the front door and Shayne walked the leader of the Blue Devils out and onto the street. He could feel all of their eyes on his back, but his big hand holding the gun was rock steady.
Nobody dared to challenge him.
Shayne walked Rocky a few doors down in the direction away from where he had left his rented car. He didn’t dare stay on the street too long, because he couldn’t be sure how long the other riders would stay inside.
Shayne pushed the man called Rocky into an alleyway between two stores. As soon as they were well off the street, he went into action. The gun butt caught Rocky back of the ear and knocked him out cold.
Shayne pushed the body of the unconscious cycle gang leader back of some trash cans, where he would be out of sight of his friends until he came to his senses. Then the big detective circled back through the alleyway behind the Blue Hades to where he had left his car. He drove away just as the bike riders boiled out of the roadhouse.
As far as he could tell, none of them spotted him in the rented red sports car.
V
Shayne was disappointed with the results of his confrontation. He had made some points in this grim game, of course. The word would get around town — and fast — that Mike Shayne was no frightened pigeon to be harried and rousted for sport. Once the riders accepted the fact of the danger, he figured most of them would leave him alone.
From now on, he’d be bothered only by the more desperate types out to collect the twenty-thousand-dollar bounty they believed had been put on his head.
That simplified things for both sides.
On the other hand, Shayne was no closer than he had been to finding the information he had gone looking for. He still didn’t know who had put the price on his head, or why it had been done. Till he did find out these things he was still running blindly in the dark from a menace that he could neither name nor come to grips with.
That didn’t feel right for Mike Shayne. He had to switch the roles so that his enemy would be running from him.
For lack of a better lead, he decided to go see “that snooty sister” of the late Harry Comfort. She might not know who was after Shayne herself — but perhaps she could tell him who had really killed the man with the yellow beard, her brother. That would be one more link in the chain.
Luckily, Harry Comfort was listed in the Miami phone book. The address was in a development of expensive homes just north of South Bayshore Drive and the Mercy Hospital properties. Whoever said Comfort and his sister were well-to-do had been right. Any house in that locale would go for one hundred thousand dollars and up in the day’s inflated real estate market. A strange home for a black-jacketed bike rider.
Mike Shayne parked down the block and walked up to the house. He had half-expected young Harry’s death might have filled the place with grieving, or at least curious friends and relatives, but this did not seem to be the case. There was only one car — an expensive American sports job — parked in the driveway, and a glance through the picture windows in front showed the living room to be empty.
Mike Shayne went quietly up the path to the front door and rang the bell. Almost at once he heard footsteps approaching from inside the house.
The girl who opened to his ring bore a general family resemblance of feature to the late Harry Comfort, but the details were subtly different.
Her features were cameo beautiful — a young oval face under masses of coiled black hair. She wore a tight pants suit of burgundy red velvet, accented at the waist by a belt of gold chain with a gold clasp set with pearls and amethysts. Her shoes were soft black leather. She had jeweled rings on both hands. To any regular bike rider, she would be “that snooty sister” and no mistake.
Her eyes were her most striking feature. They were grey with flecks of gold like a cat’s eyes and just as intelligent, ruthless and inquisitive as those of one of the big hunting cats.
She looked at Shayne and said, “Yes?” with a question mark.
Shayne wasn’t taking any chances of the woman recognizing him and slamming the door in his face. He pushed in past her and closed the door behind him. She stepped back to avoid him as he came, but there was no fear in her face. The odd eyes were completely calm.
Shayne had an odd feeling that they would stay as icy cold if he struck her or if she suddenly produced a gun and shot him instead. For the first time in a long while, he was uncomfortable in the presence of another human being.
He said, “I have to talk to you, Miss Comfort.”
“Obviously,” she said in a low, musical voice, “but why?”
“Because I’m Mike Shayne,” he said as quietly as he could.
Her expression didn’t change. Her stance didn’t alter, but the big man knew that every muscle in the lithe and beautiful body had come alert.
There was a small table against the wall to her right with a mirror hung above it. She didn’t look at it. She was very careful not to look at it.
Shayne could move as quickly and smoothly as a big cat himself when he wanted to. He did so now. He got between her and the table with a couple of easy strides. He opened the table drawer and found the gun he’d expected. It was a flat black automatic, but it wasn’t the.22 or.25 caliber popgun a woman usually owns and keeps. This was a.380 Browning — a much more formidable weapon.