Donk’s piggish eyes were fixed on the right fist bulging his coat pocket. When Shayne withdrew it, Donk let out a hearty snort of relief. “So you’re gonna spar with me, huh? Thought mebbe you had a gun. Seein’ as you ain’t—” His left lashed out swiftly at Shayne’s chin.
The detective swayed back, and the left missed. Shayne twisted forward, drove his weighted fist twelve inches forward into the big man’s belly. It sank deep into the flesh. Donk shuddered and hunched forward, dropping his guard.
Shayne set himself and lifted a battering uppercut to the unprotected chin of his opponent. Reinforced by the leaden weight, the blow had bone-shattering force.
Donk stood partially erect, and a glazed look of incomprehension spread over his small eyes. He collapsed and groveled on the walk, moaning with the pain of a broken jaw.
Shayne stepped over his barrel-like torso and dropped the lead weight into his pocket.
A scrubwoman was working on the floor of the cocktail room. Shayne went past her to Bugler’s private office in the rear. The chinless man who had trailed him from his apartment was sitting on Bugler’s desk munching a mouthful of peanuts. A sharp-featured young man sat behind the desk checking figures in a heavy ledger.
Shayne stopped in the doorway and said, “Hello, Johnny.”
The chinless man stared at him in complete surprise as his jaws worked mechanically on the peanuts. “Say — how’d you get in? Didn’t Donk—”
“I paid Donk back like I promised,” Shayne said softly. “You’re next, Johnny.”
Johnny slid off the desk and backed away, tugging at the blackjack in his hip pocket. Shayne rushed him before he got it free, drove him to the floor with a left over the heart and a right to the mouth.