Stranger in Town

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Michael Shayne’s first impression of the girl was her breath-taking loveliness. Not more than twenty, he thought, she had that illusive sheen of youthful vitality that would be replaced in later years by a more mature and steadfast sort of beauty, but right now it caused a catch in your throat just to look at her standing there hesitantly just inside the door of the drab bar-room.

She would be outstandingly beautiful anywhere, Shayne told himself. At a Junior League dance in a New York ballroom, or at a Hollywood premiere flanked by all the Monroes and Gardners and Lollobrigidas the film colony could dredge up to throw into juxtaposition with her.

But in these surroundings she was like a single American Beauty rosebud with the fresh dew of dawning on its petals rising gloriously out of a heap of stinking garbage.

Sure, it was fantastic for a guy like Mike Shayne to have such thoughts the moment he glanced up and saw her. He grinned inwardly at his own poetic imagery while he was conscious of the undeniable catch in his throat, the violent leaping of a pulse that he had long ago thought too atrophied to respond that way to the mere sight of a beautiful girl.

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