Shayne took his hand and pressed it hard. “I believe you will, Marsh. I knew I couldn’t be altogether wrong about you.” He turned to Tim Rourke and grunted, “You’d better start writing for the headlines. And I’ve got to catch a plane. I’m afraid Phyllis hasn’t been enjoying herself much in New York. And I could certainly stand a date with a live woman for a change.”
MICHAEL SHAYNE AS I KNOW HIM
by Brett Halliday
MANY OF MY READERS are familiar with the dramatic first meeting between myself and the man who was later to become the central figure in a series of mystery novels featuring a redheaded, fighting Irishman whom I call Michael Shayne. This first meeting occurred on the Tampico water front more than a quarter of a century ago. I was a youngster then, working as deck hand on a Pan American oil tanker, and on a stopover in Tampico a bunch of us spent the evening ashore in a tough water-front saloon.
I noticed him before the fight started, and was intrigued by him even then. A big, rangy redhead with deep lines already forming on his face. He sat at a table in the rear, surrounded by lights and music and girls. There was a bottle of tequila on the table in front of him, and two glasses. One of the glasses held ice water, and he was drinking straight Mexican liquor from the other.
I don’t remember how the fight started, but it turned into a beautiful brawl with half a dozen unarmed American sailors slugging it out on uneven terms with twice as many natives who seemed to be carrying knives or guns.
We were doing all right, as I remember, making what you might call a strategic retreat and almost out the door, when I got a crack on the head that sent me under a table.
I remember lying there and wondering dazedly, What next, little man? when I heard the crash of a rear table overturning and peered out to see the redhead sailing into the fracas.
He was a fighting man, and you could see he loved it. Three or four Mexicans went down in front of his fists before he reached me, dragged me from under the table, and tossed me out the door bodily.
That was all of that. I got back to the ship somehow; we sailed the next morning, and I didn’t know who the man was or what he was doing in that saloon or why he came to the rescue of a fool kid he’d never seen before.