But she would do the deciding.

That was okay with me. I learned long ago that sex is pretty dull and uninteresting unless it is completely mutual between man and woman.

She had a drink of straight cognac and didn’t bother to wash it down with anything. She didn’t gulp it, but she didn’t make any great pretense of inhaling the bouquet in preference to drinking it down.

And we talked some, mostly about my books. She wanted to know all about Michael Shayne-whether there really was a private detective whom I’d patterned him after, or whether the whole series was just a figment of my imagination.

When I assured her there really was a Michael Shayne, and all I actually did in my books was to fictionize his cases, she nodded happily and said: “I felt sure of it all along. He’s so real that you just know he can’t be made up. Not like… oh, that freak of Van Dine’s. The one who said ‘comin’ and ‘goin’.”

“Philo Vance,” I supplied.

“U-m-m. Even the name is patently fictitious. Characters like that remain so exactly the same book after book, year after year. They never develop.”

I grinned and shrugged. “Writers like Van Dine have it easier than I. They control their characters. Mike Shayne makes his own decisions, and all I can do is record them for posterity. Speaking of private detectives,” I went on, aware of the way Avery Birk continued to look at her from the other side, “are you acquainted with one named Johnny Danger?”

She was looking sideways at me and fiddling with her empty glass. Her fingers tightened on the glass and the curving line of her full lips became straight and rigid. She said in a low voice, “I know Avery Birk is right behind me. Don’t force me to put my opinion of his books into words he might hear.”