“No face,” Rumbo said regretfully. “Just the hands and forearms. I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman. It all happened so fast, and I had you to look after.”
“So you did,” Shayne said. “I won’t forget it either, Rumbo. Believe me.”
“It was nothing,” Rumbo said. “Say, what did you find in there? Was Big Hans in that place? I’m sure he’s part of the gang.”
“No Big Hans.” Shayne shook his head. “I did meet an old friend though and I’m beginning to think maybe there could be a Friendly Rest gang. At least I’m a lot more sure than I was before somebody tried to flatten me.”
“Just think of it,” the little man said. “Inside of one hour somebody tries to kill both of us. Me and the famous Mike Shayne. I never thought to live so long.”
“It’s not funny, Rumbo,” Mike Shayne said.
At that moment Nurse Hadley was standing, with left hand on her hip, in front of Dr. Amor’s big desk.
“It’s serious, Paul,” she was saying. “That big guy I showed around isn’t named Kelly and he hasn’t any wife’s uncle to put in here. That was the private dick, Mike Shayne. You’ve heard of him.”
The doctor’s expression showed that he thought it was serious too.
“I’ve heard of him. What in the devil was he looking for?”
“I’m not sure. By the way, one of those big plants fell off the roof as the shamus was walking along.”
Dr. Amor’s face brightened. He said: “How terrible! I hope the poor man wasn’t injured badly.”
“He wasn’t injured at all, Paul. It missed him.”
“Oh, a regrettable accident. I’ll send one of the orderlies out to clean up the mess before some cop notices it and asks questions.”
“Paul,” she said. “Shayne asked me if we had a German or Danish man working here named Hans. A big man.”
“Well we don’t,” Amor said. “If that’s who he’s looking for maybe we don’t have anything to worry about after all.”
“A big man,” Nurse Hadley said. “Big Hans. Paul, you don’t think he could have meant Julio, do you?”
“Since you’re here anyway,” Mike Shayne said to Tom Rumbo, “I guess you might as well trail along.”
“Where are we going now?”
“I want to stop by and see an old friend at Police Headquarters. You don’t mind do you?”
“Mind? Why should I mind? I always wanted to see the inside of a first rate police station. The labs and the morgue and stuff like that. A detective had oughtta know.”
“I’ll see you get the grand tour later,” Shayne said. “Right now I want to talk to an old friend.”
Fifteen minutes later they were seated in the office of Miami Chief of Police Will Gentry, and he was listening carefully to everything that the two of them had to tell him.
“As usual I think you’ve got something there,” the Chief told Shayne when the big man ended his story. “You’re right about it being a letter bomb at the rooming house. I got the homicide report a few minutes ago. A bomb like that self-destructs very effectively. No trace of who sent it.”
“Of course” Tom Rumbo said and looked important.
“As for you,” the Chief said to the little man. “We’ve got you to thank for saving Mike. I don’t think even his head is hard enough to take a tree and a planter without caving in. What’s more I don’t know whether a judge or jury would take your word, but I believe you saw somebody deliberately try to drop it on him. Our boys will have to keep a closer eye on that Friendly Rest place in the future.”
“What do you mean a closer eye?” Shayne asked. “Have you had the place under observation?”
“Not exactly that, Mike. As a matter of’ fact we’ve never really had a serious complaint on the Friendly Rest. Always passes its fire and health inspections — not too good, of course, but as good as most of those places. Never any dope there that we know of. It’s just that some of those homes we like to keep an eye on.”
“You must have some reason, Will.”
“Oh we do — but it isn’t always something you could tell the grand jury, or Tim Rourke, or even your own wife. More like a hunch. In this case there’s too many funerals.”
“Funerals!” Tom Rumbo said. “Dead people. Do you think it’s murders, Chief?”
“If I did, Mr. Rumbo, we’d have raided the place long ago. All the deceased have regular death certificates that name a natural cause of death. Not all by the same doctor either, Mike, in case you were going to ask. The families don’t squawk, where there are families. Mostly there aren’t. The folks who pick a spot like the Friendly Rest to wait to die in our town don’t run to loving families. Mostly they’re nobodies.”
“Like the late Sam Willison,” Shayne said.
“Sam was no nobody,” Rumbo protested. “He was my friend. He was a good guy.”
“Sure he was,” Chief Gentry agreed, “but we both know what Mike means. In this town being a good guy doesn’t make you somebody.”
“It had ought to.”
“Are there any warrants still out on Millie Love?” Mike Shayne asked and changed the subject. “She must have recognized me even though she never let on. She just had to know me, Will.”
“No warrants,” Chief Gentry said firmly. “Matter of fact I never even heard you mention that name. That dame knows where too many bodies are buried, and not the kind that get funerals either. If it was her you saw, she’s real smart not to admit who she is.”
“Her type might use a place like that for a cover for all sorts of shenanigans,” Shayne added.
“She might, but if you think so you better have plenty of proof. That’s such a hot potato nobody will want to touch it with a ten-foot pole unless you got ironclad hanging evidence. Don’t ever make any mistake about that, boy. I wouldn’t touch Millie Love for anything less.”
“I guess that woman must be what you all would call a somebody in this town then.” That wasn’t a question. It was a statement from Tom Rumbo.
Both of the big men looked at the little old man and tried to decide whether or not they were angry.
The phone rang then and broke the tension. Chief Will Gentry picked it up, spoke briefly, and then put the instrument back in its cradle.
“That was the rundown I had the boys do on this Big Hans you were talking about,” he said to the other two. “None of the boys ever heard of him. Neither did our computor. They’re doing a long distance double check on the F.B.I. files, but if he’s ever been in our town he must be whiter than a field of lillies, or we’d have something on file.”
“I guess so,” Shayne said. He turned to the little man. “Are you sure that’s the name Willison used before he died? I mean absolutely sure and not just you think or you guess or something like that?”
“Sure I’m sure,” Rumbo protested. “I told you I been practicing to be a detective. Detectives don’t guess.”
Gentry snorted with sardonic laughter. “I wish none of mine did.”
His evident amusement put Tom Rumbo more at ease.
“I’m absolutely sure about that,” he said, “because I’d never heard Sam afraid of anybody or anything before. He said he was afraid of Big Hans. Big Hans might be after him. He said Big Hans made him nervous, but he wouldn’t ever explain. When I tried to ask, he’d clam up tight.”
“He sounds like he’d thought there was a Big Hans,” Will Gentry said.
“Okay then. If there’s such a guy anywhere in this town, I guess I better find him.” Shayne got to his feet and reached for his hat. “Come on, Tom. I’m going to take you back to my office and handcuff you to the desk or Lucy, for safekeeping. Then I’m going out and turn over rocks till I find this Hans. I want a talk with him for sure.”