Easing himself to the chair, he lifted his feet to the desk top again. While he sipped the drink he listened to the pleasing murmur of Lucy’s voice until it was all but drowned out by a hoarse insistent bass. A moment after, as he knew it would, a knock sounded at the door of his inner office and even before he said, “Come in,” the door was opened by Lucy.

At first glance Shayne didn’t like the looks of the man who loomed over her shoulder. At second glance he knew why. He recognized him-Henry Henlein, a confirmed mobster, a “muscleman” who made his living by playing his fists over faces, and sometimes a switchblade, and sometimes a broken bottle or beer stein-or half a brick. “Henny” was versatile. He was also durable. For more years than the law of averages allows, to say nothing of man-made law, he had hired out for the fast and dirty dollar to a succession of Miami crime bosses.

Shayne’s gray eyes were cold as he pointedly looked past the man to Lucy. “I’m busy, Miss Hamilton.” He turned his glance to the wispy clouds in the sky outside the window. He liked the view better there.

“Mr. Henry Henlein insists on seeing you,” Lucy said in equally as cold a voice.

Still looking out the window, Shayne said with deceptive gentleness, “Henny’s probably collecting for the Private Investigator’s Protective Association. Tell him I’ll protect myself. Tell him if he’s still there when I turn around I’ll break his arm across your typewriter. Tell him I’ll snap his fingers one at a time and lay his face open to the bone with my leather gloves that I soak in salt water and dry out fast so the seams are like knives.”

Shayne’s sarcasm was lost on the muscleman. “You got it all wrong, Mr. Shayne,” he protested. “I’m here like anyone else, to hire a detective. I need one bad.”

“I don’t need the business bad.” Shayne took a slow sip of brandy.