Shayne picked up the gun. It was almost swallowed up in his big hand.
He said to her, “I’m not going to hurt you and there’s no reason for you to shoot me. I don’t care what you may have heard. I didn’t kill your brother.”
She looked at him steadily across the few feet of expensively carpeted floor. Her strange yellow eyes didn’t even blink. They just looked at him — and into him.
Then Shayne did a strange thing. He wasn’t quite sure at the time why he did it — perhaps because he just wanted to see those eyes change expression. He tossed the automatic pistol lightly to her.
She caught it with one hand — easily, as if she’d handled guns often before — and looked down to be sure what it was. Then she tossed it onto a big couch in the living room.
Suddenly she smiled. Her lips and her whole face smiled and her body relaxed. Only the eyes didn’t change expression. Shayne began to wonder if even death or the act of love could change their look.
At least the deadlock was broken. She continued to smile at him and said, “I think I believe you, Mr. Shayne. Even the police I talked to didn’t seem to think it was you who killed poor Harry. That other big man, Chief Will Gentry, was very positive about it. He said that if you killed a man it would have been either with a gun or your bare hands. That you weren’t the sort to use a knife.”
Shayne said, “And now that you see me?”
“Oh, now I believe him. I don’t think you would have come here if you had killed Harry. I really don’t. And besides — you don’t look to me like a knife man.”
Was that intended as a compliment or in mockery? Shayne couldn’t be sure. Too good to be a knife man — or not good enough? Did this strange young woman know a knife man when she saw one? She didn’t give him time to wonder.
“I’ll accept that you didn’t kill my brother,” she said. “In that case what did you come here for?”
“I just want to ask you some questions.”
She smiled again. “That’s easy enough. Come along to the Florida room and I’ll mix you a drink.”
She sensed the question in his mind. “Oh, don’t worry. We’re quite alone in the house. Harry and I had no relatives in town and few close friends outside of that gang he rode with. The police have the body — and you’re the first who called to express sympathy.”
There was no bitterness in that last remark. She simply said it.
Shayne let her lead him to the big comfortable Florida room facing out over a walled garden at the back of the house. There was a bottle of good brandy behind the built-in bar at one end of the room. Shayne poured himself a good three fingers and took some water in a separate glass for a chaser.
To his surprise she followed his example, tilted her head back and drank the fiery liquor like a man.
“Sit down,” she told him. “Call me Sally, Mike Shayne, and ask me any questions you want. If I know the answers, I’ll probably give them to you. I really think that I will give them to you.”
“I’d appreciate that,” the big man said and sat in one of the rattan easy chairs.
“Then fire ahead.”
“All right. First of all, who did kill your brother?”
She threw back her head and laughed. It sounded like genuine mirth. Then she said, “Come off it, Shayne. People say you did. If I knew any different, I’d have told the police, believe me, I would. It wouldn’t be a dark secret to share with you.”
“If you knew for sure?”
“That’s right — if I knew for sure. More than that, I’d have told him if I had even a reasonably good suspect to offer. I don’t want anyone making a habit of killing us Comforts. There aren’t enough to go round.”
“Then can you think of any reason why your brother was killed or who did it — or might have done it?” Shayne asked it quietly.
“Only some well educated guesses,” Sally Comfort told the big detective. “He could have been killed because one of the other bike gangs knew he had been talking to you. It’s possible one of them was following and saw you with him in the Steak House. On the other hand, it could have been because he wouldn’t go along with the idea of killing you. His own riders knew he’d decided to have no part of that. They could have talked. Or one of them who was greedy for the contract money could have decided to get Harry out of the way.”
“You don’t seem to think much of bike riders in general,” Mike Shayne said.
“I don’t.” She gave him a long, appraising look. “Most of them are no better than animals. I never approved of Harry running with them.”
“Not even when he got to be captain of his own pack?” Shayne asked.
“Least of all when he got that bunch of bums to follow him. They just wanted his money. Didn’t you know Harry bought the bikes and most of the equipment for them? It was costing us a fortune.”
“He did that?”
“Of course he did. How else do you think a reasonably intelligent guy like Harry could get to be head of one of those brutal and stupid gangs except by buying his way in?”
“I see,” Shayne said. “That’s why you think even his own boys could have cut his throat for him. Loyalty founded on money is no loyalty at all.”
She finished her brandy. “That’s the ticket, Shayne. Or it could have been any one of the other riders in town. They all hate and envy each other. They’re like a pack of wild beasts among themselves. Stupid, bloody animals!”
“So which of them put out this contract on me?”
“I should think you’d know that,” she said. “A smart man like you, Shayne, should know your own enemies.”
“Usually, I do,” he admitted. “I know I have no enemies among the bike riders. I know they exist, of course, and that’s all. Somebody else decided to hire them to roust me. Didn’t Harry say anything that would give you a clue.”
“No,” she said, “and I’m sure it was because he didn’t know himself, He got the word from the other captains. That’s all I know. He asked me if I knew who you were and why someone would want to kill you. T told him a man in your job has enemies.”
“I have to find the man who put out the contract,” Shayne told her.
“I can understand that,” Sally Comfort agreed. “Why don’t you let me help you?”
“Help me? Why should you?”
“For one thing because, whoever he is and why ever he wants you dead, the guy is responsible for my brother’s murder. If he hadn’t stirred up all this mess, Harry would still be alive. You got to admit I owe for that. Besides, I like you, Shayne. I don’t want you in trouble for something I don’t really think you did.”
Shayne was silent. What Sally Comfort was saying did seem to make sense. He pulled at the lobe of his left ear with the thumb and forefinger of one big hand. She took his silence for assent.
“I can be more help than you think,” she said earnestly. “I never rode with the gang myself, but I’ve heard Harry and his pals talk. I’ve even met some of the others. I know who most of the leaders are and where they hang out and what sort of people they are. I can be a big help.”
“Maybe you could at that,” Mike Shayne admitted thoughtfully.
“Sure I can. Just try me.”
“The first thing I need is a chance to talk to any of the riders who might have a clue to who wants me dead. Can you set that up?”
“I think I can do better than that,” she said. “There’s a place where the captains meet when they want to talk things over quietly among themselves without a big mob of the stupids around. On a night like this, it’s a hundred to one that’s where they are. Do you want to go see?”