“Only three or four,” he vowed in a whining tone. “All stuff I knew you’d turn down, divorces and like that. I was all ready to quit when I got that second letter from Bates.” He paused to moisten his thin, dry lips, and added, “So I thought I might’s well do one more.”
“Why did you give Mrs. Carrol the wrong key last night?” grated Shayne.
“The wrong key?” His teeth chattered nervously, and he gulped before adding, “I didn’t. What you mean? I gave her the key to her husband’s apartment so’s she could slip in and get him caught with her to stop the divorce.”
Shayne let the letterhead flutter to the bed as he caught the man’s scrawny shoulders and, holding him aloft with his left hand, he clenched his right fist and drew it back.
“So help me, God,” he warned, “I’m going to coldcock you if you don’t tell the truth. Did you think it was funny to send her to my room instead of her husband’s, or did somebody pay you to do it that way?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Nash swore, writhing and twisting in the redhead’s grip. “I had the lawyer get him in there on account of they knew I’d worked for you and wouldn’t think anything if I asked for a key.” Shayne slapped his face with cold, precise, and carefully calculated force. Blood spurted from Nash’s flattened nose and a deep gash in his upper lip. He cried out in agony, choked, and spit out two front teeth in a mouthful of bloody froth.
The redhead lowered him until his feet touched the floor, but he still held Nash inexorably with his left hand. “That’s just a sample,” he said with frightening calm. “I’ll knock every goddamned tooth down your throat if you don’t start talking.” He shook Nash like a rag doll. “Who paid you to switch keys on Mrs. Carrol?”
Nash’s eyes bulged with fear. His body went limp in Shayne’s grasp and, as he drooled and sputtered wildly, he denied any knowledge of what Shayne was talking about.
Giving up in disgust, the redhead tossed him across the bed where he lay in a heap. “Get into some clothes,” he ordered, stalking into the other room. He found a bottle half full of whisky, took a long drink out of it, then went back to the bedroom. Nash was trying to staunch the nosebleed with the top of his pajamas.
“You can let it bleed,” he told Nash flatly, “or you can get into the bathroom and put cold water on it. I’ll give you five minutes. Then, we’re going to headquarters whether you have any clothes on or not.”