“Look, Mr. Shayne,” Henlein said, his voice rising, “you’re a private eye, ain’t you? Well, I got something that needs looking at.”

The voice carried such a hoarse and curious urgency that Shayne turned reluctantly from the window to survey the hoodlum. Henry Henlein topped Lucy by half a foot. He was heavy-boned and thick-waisted and going a little to pot. His faded blond hair started low on his forehead and the Miami sun had not been kind to his desiccated skin; it was blotched and red. Even if Shayne hadn’t known who the man was or how he made his living, he’d have been repelled by the gross brutality on the loose-lipped face.

There was a peculiar sort of irony, Shayne thought, in the difference between the punishment the law exacted and that which racketeering crime lords did. While the offender against the law often escaped with nothing worse than a short jail sentence, the offender against illegal syndicate activities usually ended up maimed or dead. As a result, musclemen and enforcers for gangsters were seldom out of work.

“I’ll say it once more.” Shayne spoke with morose disinterest. “I’m busy. And I expect to be busy for a long time.”

The hoodlum’s hand jerked toward the glass of brandy which Shayne held. “Yeh, I can see you are.” The wry observation indicated an inordinate show of intelligence for Henlein who was rated, even by those who hired him, as “strong back, dim brain.”

Henlein shouldered past Lucy, scuffed across the room and lowered himself to the edge of the chair beside Shayne’s desk. “It won’t take you but a second,” he said in a voice that was, strangely, almost pleading, “to see what I came to show you.”

For the first time Shayne turned his full attention on the man. His gray eyes narrowed and his fingers lifted to pull gently at his left earlobe.

This hoodlum was terrified! His thick lower lip drooped like that of an imbecile, revealing ground-down, tobacco-stained teeth, and his milk-blue eyes were vacant of everything except fear.