“There you are, Mike. You want to shake the Florida sand out of your shoes. You need a case to take your mind off — things. How does New Orleans strike you?”
Shayne shrugged. “New Orleans is all right.” His tone intimated that New Orleans was the only thing that was all right.
Rourke hastily dumped a pile of rubbish from a chair and shoved it toward his friend, emptied another of a tier of boxes and took it for himself. “Mr. Little is a magazine editor,” he confided to Shayne. “He’s in Miami to interview an author about an important serial.”
Shayne hooked his right hip over a corner of the desk and said, “Honest to God, Tim, I’m not ready to take a case.”
“You can help a friend of mine. At least you can listen to what he has to say, dammit. Go ahead and tell him about it, Joe.”
Mr. Little took off his pince-nez and polished the lenses. His pale-blue eyes squinted at Shayne, then at Rourke. “If Mr. Shayne is not interested—”
“He’ll get interested,” Rourke promised. “Go ahead. I’d like to hear all of it, myself. You’ve given me only a bare outline.”
“Very well.” Mr. Little replaced his glasses and stopped squinting. “It’s about my daughter, Barbara. She’s — I’m afraid she may be in danger — in desperate need of protection.”
“Your daughter is in New Orleans?” Shayne bent forward, then scowled, angered at himself for showing interest.
“Yes. I’d better start at the beginning. You see, Barbara is the reckless type. She is headstrong and willful. I don’t understand her at all.” He made a gesture of defeat with his well-kept hands. “Perhaps it has been my fault for having lost contact with her. Her mother died when she was a baby. I’ve tried to be both mother and father, but — the press of business—” He stopped talking and held his mouth tight for a full minute.