Us girls work the floor, you know, an’ he’s a real sport. Scads of money, an’ real sweet like I say. He went for me big right off. Poor Freddie.” Her voice softened so it was almost maternal. “He swears the only real lovin’ he ever had from a woman in his whole life is from me. And him a married man, too. Think of that. He let it slip once about havin’ two kids back home. You know what I think, Mr. Shayne? Shucks, do I hafta call you Mister? Mike’s a lot cuter.”

“What do you think, Miss Piney?” Shayne was amused and interested in the swamp-girl’s complete ingenuousness in spite of himself.

“I think he’s hidin’ out down here from his wife,” she announced triumphantly. “Lotsa little things. Him always actin’ scared an’ lookin’ back over his shoulder. And that funny mustache… you can’t tell me he ain’t just grown it recent… ’way he keeps fingering it all the time. I think maybe she’s got detectives after him an’ he’s scared they’ll catch up with him. That’s why he talks crazy when he’s drinkin’ about us running off together to some island where there’d just be the two of us… all alone on this island he’s dreamed up.”’

She stopped to catch her breath and Shayne asked with a grin, “You’d like that?”

“Well, not the island part, maybe,” she admitted with a candid smile of her own. “But, to go off with him, sure. To South America, maybe, or somewheres… if he’s really got all the money he keeps hintin’ he’s got.”

“So,” said Shayne patiently, “you’ve lost a rich sugar-daddy and want me to get him back for you.”

“It ain’t like that at all. He’s real sweet an’ I’m scared for him. If you just knew Freddie, you’d see what I mean. Somebody else’ll just roll him. Me, I never did. Hundred bucks is the most he ever give me at one time, an’ I never even asked for that. But he’s just like a babe in the woods here in Miami. You know the kinda woman’ll get her hooks into him.”