“That’s Arch Bugler. He cuts quite a dashing figure, don’t you think?”
“Arch Bugler?” Shayne snorted. “Hell, I didn’t know he’d stepped into society.”
“And how! He’s out of the slot-machine racket, you know. Ostensibly, at least. He opened a place on the Beach a few months ago. Made quite a flurry with it at first, but the cops clamped down on the back-room gambling, and he’s had to concentrate on selling food and drinks.”
“Sure. I know about his place on the Beach,” Shayne murmured, “but I didn’t know that qualified him for a place in society. Hell, Tim, everybody knows he’s a mobster — and one of the toughest ever to invade Miami and the Beach.”
“Mobsters are the latest social craze.” Rourke pointed out with a wry grin. “The blasé debs have found a new thrill. They get a perverted kick out of stepping with a known killer.”
“I wouldn’t know about that.” Shayne leaned back and drank deeply from his glass. “Still, I’d think Stallings would put his foot down. Didn’t he and Bugler have a run-in a couple of years ago on a labor-racketeering angle?”
“Yeh, but that’s all patched up now. They’ve been as thick as thieves since then, and Stallings was one of the biggest plungers when there was gambling at Bugler’s new joint.”
“I ought to take you into partnership,” Shayne growled. “I’d do less guessing if I had your sources of information.”
“It’s a reporter’s job to get around,” Rourke admitted modestly. He emptied his glass and reached for the bottle.
“Lay off. We’ve got things to do.” Shayne came out of a brown study. A look of grim alertness supplanted the bemused expression which had clouded his face since Rourke announced the disappearance of Helen Stallings’s body from his office.