Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 6, May 1961

“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.

“On top of that he rode me all the time about being a punch-drunk fighter. He deserved to have me clobber him. I don’t know just what happened, because we were both drunker than skunks. But it must have been an accident that he fell down the stairs. Marie could have said it was an accident. She was the only witness. But she testified that I picked him up and heaved him down the stairs. She didn’t have to say that.”

“You mean she could have lied to save you?”

“She could at least have shut up,” he said. “The law says a wife can’t be forced to testify against her husband. It doesn’t say she can’t, if she hates him enough to want to. They couldn’t have touched me without her testimony. But she got on the stand and deliberately sent me up.”

“Maybe she had some regard for her brother,” Shayne said.

“She hasn’t any regard for anyone but herself,” Trimble said cynically. “But why rehash things that are over and done with? Tell her to rest easy. I’m staying on the wagon.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”