Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 12, No. 6, May 1963

Raymond smiled faintly. “At least, Effie’s a fighter. There’s a lot to be said for fighters. Even when they fight in the wrong,”

Mike Shayne just nodded, as he kept Tod and Effie covered. It was time to call the operator and ask for the local law to come down and make an arrest — two arrests.

But he hadn’t reckoned on Hat Raymond. The old man fixed an eye on Tod Bascom and his badly frightened granddaughter and spoke to Shayne.

“No law, Shayne. Hat Raymond takes care of his own. I’m responsible for Effie losing her head. I know this much. This young husband of her’s is no good for her. If he divorces her and forgets any claim he may have on her, I’ll let him clear out of Florida right now — providing Effie stays with me and lets me make it up to her. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

In a moment, Effie had rushed to him, eyes streaming with tears, trembling with remorse. Hat Raymond folded her gently in his arms and glared at Tod Bascom.

“There’s your answer, Bascom,” he growled. “You leaving now or does Mike Shayne have to run you in?”

Tod Bascom gulped nervously, flung a look at Effie, at the determined Hat Raymond and nodded his acquiescence. “Would you wait for me, Mr. Shayne,” he said, “while I go upstairs to pack my few things and drive me to the station.” And he walked slowly up the stairs to his room.

Mike Shayne rubbed his earlobe speculatively. Hat Raymond may have lost a son-in-law — but he seemed to have acquired a brand new granddaughter. Shayne fervently hoped so, for the old man’s sake.

“Well, Shayne,” Raymond said happily over Effie’s shoulder. “I guess everything may work out just fine.”

Mike Shayne shrugged. “Looks like it. But you’re lucky they were just a couple of crazy, rank amateurs. Well, there’s nothing left for me to do but drive back to Miami and have my secretary send you a bill for two thousand dollars.

“By the way, Hat,” Shayne went on. “I just checked the shotgun. Not a damned thing in it. They were just a pair of amateurs to the end.”

A Small Matter of Time by Shane Stephens

They were still somewhere in the room, he knew that even though they had stopped talking. He wasn’t sure how many there were, he thought at least three.

Only two of them had spoken, never to him, always to each other. One had a lisp, especially on words like three. He gave this man the name three-she, pictured him as tall, angular, with thin nervous movements and washed-out complexion. The other man spoke in ordinary tones, neither loud nor soft, no inflection, no dialect, nothing to give him away. He was no-face.

He tried to determine the man’s height. Three-she garbled his final words as if he were bringing his face down for someone shorter than he. Couple this with three-she’s height and the other man must be quite a bit shorter. A mutt-and-jeff pair.

Another thing was his walk. No-face walked with a heavy foot. People who walk with heavy feet are usually short and squat. He remembered an uncle he had as a boy. Whenever the uncle would visit, he would know him by the walk. His uncle was just over five feet, and he weighed at least two hundred pounds.

He had liked his uncle, sometimes they would play games like tap-tap, hide and go seek, blind man’s bluff. His uncle showed him how to Indian wrestle, used to tell him how strong he was getting. His uncle was a good man. Solid, short, squat. Like no-face.

There was someone else in the room. Little noises that didn’t belong to the two who spoke, a kind of breathing from somewhere on the side when he imagined mutt-and-jeff to be elsewhere.

He listened for a sound, a gasp for air or any sound that a human makes, but all he could hear was the breathing, very faint, with a rhythm of its own. He wasn’t even sure it was breathing, it was more like a humming noise. But very soft, very soothing.

He tried to think of other things. Time was very important, people always did everything on time. There was that old joke about the world coming to an end when they ran out of time. It was silly in a way, people run out of time but not the world. Maybe he ran out of time, maybe he’s dead. No, it couldn’t be that, he was alive a little while ago.

He had been busily going about his affairs like any ambitious young lawyer. Praise for his courtroom conduct had just come from a very important client, he knew that within five years he would be made a partner in the firm, and this before he was forty. It didn’t make any sense to be dragged away from the world and shut up in a room with strange men.

If only he could see. They didn’t have to put suction cups over his eyes. He had a feeling he wouldn’t see anything even if he were not blindfolded by the cups, that the room was in total darkness. Not that he could take them off, with his hands and feet tied so tightly.

That’s another thing they didn’t have to do, he couldn’t go anywhere. He didn’t know where he was, didn’t even know if it was a room at all. He couldn’t be sure he wasn’t in some kind of cave.