“He can’t go out,” Cole amplified. “He’s confined to a wheelchair. Paralyzed from the waist down. That’s why Barry drew such a stiff sentence. He broke his back.”
Shayne accompanied them to the door, watched as they crossed the outer office and left. Then he said to Lucy, “Get me Will Gentry on the phone, will you, angel?”
A few moments later the inner office phone buzzed and Lucy informed Shayne that Police Chief Will Gentry was on the phone.
Shayne said, “How are you, Will?”
“Fine,” the chief said cordially. “What’s up, Mike?”
“I need a little information. A five-to-ten felon was released from the state penitentiary yesterday after serving five. Probably it was an unconditional release, inasmuch as he served the full lesser term, but it may be just a parole. He went in from here, so you’d automatically be informed of his outside address, wouldn’t you?”
Gentry said, “If he returned to Miami, we’d automatically get it even if he isn’t on parole. What’s his name?”
“Barry Trimble.”
“The ex-fighter?” Gentry asked in a surprised tone. “I remember that case. He made a cripple out of some guy. Just a minute, Mike.”
The chief was gone from the phone about two minutes. When he returned, he said, “It was an unconditional release, Mike. He’s not on parole. But he returned to Miami, so they sent us his local address. Ready?”
Shayne poised a pen over his scratch pad. “Shoot. It’s what I need most right now.”
Gentry reeled off the address of a rooming house on South Portage, and the redhead wrote it down.
“Thanks,” Shayne said. “See you, Will.”
“Wait a minute, Mike. What do you want with Trimble?”
“Just a welfare report, Will. An old friend wants to know what his prospects for the future are.”
“Oh. Well, you can let us know if you think he’s a problem case. We’re interested in knowing how ex-cons get along too.”
“Sure, Will,” the redhead said, and hung up.
He left the office, telling Lucy not to expect him back until after lunch.
II
Mike Shayne’s first stop was at the office of the Miami Daily News, where he got his reporter friend, Timothy Rourke, to dig out of the newspaper morgue both the story of Barry Trimble’s assault on a reporter and the later assault for which he had drawn his prison term. In both cases it seemed the man had been so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing.
In the latter case Marie Cole’s brother, whose name was given as Harlan Wright, apparently had been drunk also and couldn’t recall what had happened beyond a vague recollection of having an argument with his brother-in-law. He had fallen down a flight of stairs, fracturing his spine. The only witness was Trimble’s wife, who testified that Trimble had knocked her brother down the stairs in a drunken rage.
From the newspaper office Shayne headed for the rooming house on South Portage. He arrived about eleven thirty A.M.
The place was a two-story frame building badly in need of paint. A dim hall contained a double bank of mail slots with cards beneath them. A brand new card beneath slot number 212 had Barry Trimble inked on it.
Shayne climbed carpeted stairs to the second floor, located 212 halfway down the hall. His rap brought a burly, cheerful-faced man in his late thirties to the door. The man had a somewhat battered face and one cauliflower ear, but nevertheless there was something pleasant about his appearance. Years back Shayne had seen him in the ring a time or two and had liked his roughhouse style. Today, after reading the news accounts of the brutal beatings he had given two men, he had been prepared to dislike him on sight. But the ex-fighter gave him such a disarmingly friendly grin, he found himself instinctively smiling back.
“Barry Trimble?” the redhead asked.
“Uh-huh. What can I do for you?”
“I’m Mike Shayne,” the detective said. “Like to talk to you.”
“The private detective?” Trimble asked with pleased surprise. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Come on in.” Hospitably he held the door wide.
Shayne walked into a bare room furnished with an ancient double bed, a single dresser with a marble top and one straight-backed chair. In lieu of a private bath there was a grease-ringed washbowl in one corner.
“Have a seat,” Trimble invited, pointing to the lone chair. He seated himself on the edge of the bed and looked at Shayne expectantly.
Shayne took the proffered chair, brought out cigarettes and offered one. Trimble accepted it, allowed the redhead to hold a match to it, then leaned back and took an appreciative puff.
After lighting his own and reaching to drop the match into a dresser-top ash tray, Shayne said, “Understand you just got out of the big place yesterday, Barry.”
“Uh-huh,” the man said with cheerful lack of embarrassment.
“What are your plans?”
“Why?” Trimble inquired curiously. “Got a job lined up for me?”
Shayne shook his head. “Just making a welfare investigation. Somebody’s worried about you.”
“No fooling?” the ex-fighter said in surprise. “I didn’t think I had a friend left in the world. I didn’t get a single letter my last three years in the joint.”
There was no resentment in his tone. It was merely a statement of fact. Despite the man’s record of brutality, Shayne couldn’t help beginning to feel a liking for him.
He said casually, “Your ex-wife wonders if you’re still as sore as you were five years ago.”
Trimble’s cheerful expression evaporated. But he didn’t look angry. He merely looked reproachful, as though the redhead had disappointed him in some way.
“I always heard you were a right guy, Shayne,” he said in a wounded voice. “Don’t tell me you’re working for that witch.”
“Just to make a welfare investigation,” Shayne said mildly.
“Welfare investigation, hell,” Trimble said with a touch of bitterness. “She wouldn’t care if I starved in the gutter. Why’d she really sick you onto me? Because she’s scared that I’ll wring her rotten neck?”
“She’s a little upset by that possibility,” the detective admitted in the same mild tone. “She says that five years ago you promised to kill her. Still plan on it?”
Trimble’s good humor returned. Reaching out to crush his cigarette in the dresser ash tray, he chortled. “Losing some sleep, is she? I never said I’d kill her, Shayne. I said I’d wring her neck.”
“That often kills people,” Shayne said dryly. “Still plan to do it?”
The man made a gesture of amused impatience. “I never planned to kill her. It was just one of those things you say when you’re mad. It didn’t mean anything. I’d dance at her funeral, but I wouldn’t walk across the street to bat her one. I hope I never see her again.” He grinned widely. “No fooling, is she having nightmares?”
“A few.” Shayne examined him contemplatively. “Is this straight? You’re holding no grudge?”
“Sure I’m holding a grudge,” Trimble said. “I hate her guts. But I’m not going to the electric chair for the privilege of getting even. She railroaded me into five years. That’s enough.”
“Railroaded you?” Shayne said. “You made her brother a cripple.”
“Sure,” the ex-fighter admitted with a regretful frown. “When we were both so drunk neither of us remembered the fight. You don’t think I meant to cripple him, do you?”
“That’s beside the point. You did.”
“Listen,” Trimble said earnestly. “For five years I’ve regretted what I did to Harlan. Not just because it got me a sentence, but because I wouldn’t deliberately do that to anybody. But I never regretted choosing him that night. He’d been sponging on me since the day I married his sister. He lived with us, you know, and he never worked a day in his life.