“You don’t like my perfume?” Chagrin mingled with anger in her voice. “I can tell you right now, Mister, that it’s Black Sin an’…”

“It’s im ported from Paris and costs fifty bucks a throw,” Shayne interrupted her. “Is your name Piney?”

“Esther Piney. Say, you are a sure-enough smart detective,” she marveled. “How’d you ever know…?”

Shayne held a big hand out and looked at his wrist-watch. “Thirty seconds gone.”

“Huh? Oh, two minutes, huh? But look, I gotta case for you, Mr. Shayne.”

“What sort of case?”

“A detectin’ case, that’s what. I want you should find a man for me.”

“I think you could manage that without any help from me.”

“Gee, Mr. Shayne.” She bridled happily at the compliment. “I mean a special man, see? He’s disappeared right here in Miami. He’s the real sweetest man I ever met and I want him back.”

“Doesn’t he know where to find you?”

“Oh, he knows that, all right. I reckon you don’t recognize me, but I’m Sloe Burn.”

Shayne blinked and said, “Come again.”

“Sloe Burn.” She seemed childishly disappointed that he didn’t react. “You spell it, S-L-O-E, see, but you pronounce it Slow. Catch on? That’s the way they bill me at the Bright Spot. You know it? Out on the Trail west of town.”

Shayne said, “I know it by reputation. You one of the strippers?”

“Well, I do a coupla strips between numbers, but I’m a dancer mostly. Me’n Ralphie, from down on the Keys. We worked up this dance together, see, an’ we got top billin’ already in two months.”

“Your dance partner has run out on you and you want me to find him?”

“Ralphie? Gawd, no. He wouldn’t run out. Why, if it wasn’t for me… No, it ain’t like that atall. There’s this fellow, see, been comin’ to the Club most every night.