A Taste for Violence ms-17

by Brett Halliday

  “’Stead of Brand? There’d be hell to pay. Brand would be a hero and we’d have strikes all over the country.”

  “Maybe not. Why not make a deal with Brand?”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “Put it up to him straight. He’s in one hell of a spot right now and he knows it. Look at it this way.” Shayne sat down and poured himself another drink.

  “I’m from the outside looking in,” he went on. “You’re bucking a losing proposition here in Centerville. Maybe you can pull this off. I’m not sure you can, but maybe.”

  “No maybe about it,” rumbled Elwood. “Brand hasn’t got a chance.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting the evidence that may have been in my letter from Roche?”

  “Then there is somethin’…”

  “I’m not saying whether there is or not. I’m admitting you may be able to ride this out. But it’s just one wave, Elwood. The tide is rising against you. There’ll be another man… and another… like Brand. You can’t arrange a murder every time and get a conviction every time. You may be able to sit on the bomb another year or so, but the fuse will keep getting shorter. You’ve got this chance to get in solid. Fix things so you’ll stay in the saddle and there’ll be labor peace in Centerville for years to come.”

  “What’s your proposition?”

  “That you and I throw in together. Jethro Home might be persuaded to come back to testify, and Dave Burroughs might repudiate that statement you got from him this evening if you suggested it. With what I’ve got, we can spring Brand and put a noose around Seth Gerald’s neck at the same time.”

  “Why in hell would we do that?” he demanded. “I told you…”

  “And I say we could make a compromise deal with Brand before we go through with it. Fix up some sort of settlement with the miners… give them certain concessions that’ll keep them happy for a long time. You’d be their friend… their benefactor. In solid with them.”

  A slow grin spread Elwood’s thick lips. “Mr. Persona,” he said slowly, “would be fit to be tied. Any concessions the miners get here would spread all over the state… and fast.”

  Shayne said, “To hell with Persona. You’ve got yourself to think of… and Centerville.”

  The grin faded from Elwood’s lips. He rolled his bulging eyes up at Shayne. Suspicious eyes. “Where would you come out?” His tone was suspicious. “Isn’t your fee contingent on Brand’s conviction?”

  “I like the feel of money,” Shayne told him flatly, “but I’ve already cashed a five-grand check from Charles Roche on this job. And I’ve never helped frame an innocent man, no matter what you may have heard about me. And I don’t think,” he went on grimly, “too much of my chances for ever collecting that fee from AMOK. Not if you’re telling the truth that it wasn’t your men who tried to run me off the road tonight.”

  “I swear it wasn’t,” rumbled Elwood.

  “Then it was some of Persona’s deputies.”

  “I didn’t like what you said awhile ago about taking over my job.”

  “Then you’d better throw in with me and make a deal with Brand.”

  “Or else?” His expression and his voice were still filled with suspicion. He looked down at the. 38 on his lap.

  Shayne shrugged. “I don’t like ultimatums.” He emptied his glass and got up. “Why don’t you think it over?”

  “And what’ll you be doing?”

  “Digging up evidence to hang Seth Gerald. The only way you can stop me is with a bullet.”

  He turned and went out the door with long, slow strides, down the hallway and out the front door.

  14

  The hands of the big wall clock pointed to eleven when Shayne got back to the Eustis Restaurant. The dinner crowd had thinned somewhat, but there were still couples dancing to the jukebox music and some half dozen tables occupied. He stopped just inside the door, lit a cigarette and looked over the crowd, grinned at the expression of alarm and surprise on the proprietor’s face, and strolled over to the desk. He said mildly:

  “Things are going to be different around here from now on. You’ll have to take your profit out of the business and pass up the split fees you’ve been collecting.”

  The proprietor swallowed his Adam’s apple and brought it up again. “I don’t know what… you’re talkin’ about,” he stammered.

  “The hell you don’t. Next time you phone the cops to come and pick up a drunk, they won’t be in such a hurry to get here.”

  “I didn’t… I swear I never did,” he drawled.

  “Nuts,” said Shayne. He turned to look back at the table he and Lucy Hamilton had occupied. Rexard was still there, with a man he had not seen before. Turning back to the proprietor, he scowled heavily and demanded, “Where’d my girl go?”

  “Your… girl?”

  “Yeh. The young lady I was with before your stooges made the mistake of picking me up outside the door. A yokel named Titus Tatum was with her when I left.”

  “Oh… her? Why, she and Mr. Tatum went out around half hour ago. You say you got picked up… by the police?” He was perspiring freely, and his glasses slid down on his nose. He pushed them up, and wet his lips with his tongue.

  Shayne grinned and said good-naturedly, “Don’t try pulling your stuff on me. Just remember next time not to pick on a bosom friend and pal of Hank Elwood’s.”

  He left the proprietor swallowing his Adam’s apple again, and threaded his way between empty tables toward Rexard.

  The balding dry-cleaning man looked up with a start, and his jaw dropped laxly. “Mr. Shayne! I sure didn’t expect…”

  “To see me back so soon?” Shayne supplied. He drew out a chair and dropped into it. “Where did you think I’d gone?”

  “Well… I thought,” sputtered Rexard, “well, hell, the way you was staggering when you went out… I figured the cops’d grab you and throw you in the dink.”

  Shayne said grimly, “They did. And right on schedule.”

  “You look sorta like they treated you rough,” said Rexard.

  “As a matter of fact, they were gentle as lambs,” said Shayne, touching his sore and split lip lightly, “in comparison to some things I’ve observed.” He twitched the corners of his mouth pleasantly. “They handed me this souvenir of Centerville justice before Chief Elwood decided it was all a mistake.” He looked across the table at Rexard’s companion, a thin, middle-aged man, pale and gray. He wore gold-rimmed glasses and a strained smile. “I don’t believe I’ve met your friend,” he added, turning to Rexard.

  “Pardon me. I was so taken up with… well, I forgot my manners. Mr. Seveir, meet Mr. Shayne. Mr. Seveir publishes the Gazette,” he explained, turning to Shayne again.

  The publisher held out a bony hand. “Stranger in town, Mr. Shayne?” His pale eyes beamed behind his glasses. “The Gazette is always interested in visitors.”

  “I’m a stranger,” Shayne admitted, crushing the publisher’s frail fingers in an iron grip, “but I’m getting acquainted fast.” He upquirked the corners of his wide mouth, carefully protecting the slit in his lip. “How would you like to run a story on how the local jail stinks?”

  Mr. Seveir chuckled and caressed his aching hand. “I see you must have your little joke, Mr. Shayne.”

  “I’m not joking,” Shayne said harshly. “Vomit on the floor, stale urine, clogged toilets, and men sleeping on concrete floors and iron bunks with no bedding, and denied the privilege of calling in a lawyer or friends.” He turned suddenly from Seveir’s bewildered and astonished eyes and asked Rexard, “What became of Lucy Hamilton and Titus Tatum?”

  “They went out with Mr. Persona. He runs AMOK. A very important man from Lexington. He dropped in soon after you left.”

  “So, she wasn’t concerned about what became of me?”

  “I… don’t think she mentioned your name… after you left,” he stammered. “I gathered that… you all had a quarrel,” he ended, staring into Shayne’s cold gray eyes.

&nbs
p; “Is Persona spending the night in town?”

  “I don’t know.” Rexard glanced at the newspaper man. “You know, Frank?”

  Seveir nodded. “He’s at the Moderne. With the strike fizzling out, he’s paying off the special deputies tomorrow.”

  “Are your columns open to news?” Shayne asked abruptly, “or do you print what you’re told?”

  “The press of the United States is free,” Seveir told him with stiff dignity.

  “If I brought you proof that Seth Gerald murdered Charles Roche, would you print it?”

  “What!” The exclamation came simultaneously from both men.

  Shayne grinned crookedly. “You made several attempts to find out my business tonight,” he said to Rexard. “I’m in Centerville for just one purpose: To smash the town wide open and put a rope around the neck of the man who actually murdered Roche.”

  “United States Marshal?” Seveir quavered, and mopped sweat from his face.

  Shayne neither denied nor affirmed the conjecture. “Print that in your paper tomorrow,” he told the publisher grimly, “and you can quote me.” He got up and sauntered away from the table to the door, went down the street and found his car parked where he had left it.

  He had left the keys with Lucy, but shorting a wire across the ignition switch was easily accomplished, and a few minutes later he was speeding toward the Moderne Hotel.

  A light shone in the lobby of the hotel building as he swung past the cottages. He stopped in front of the cabin assigned to him. All the cabins were dark except the one at the end of the row. He turned off the headlights, left the motor idling, and went to the door he had left wide open earlier. It was cooler inside now, and everything seemed to be just as he had left it.

  He went outside and crossed to Lucy’s cabin, rapped on the door several times, and receiving no answer he walked on toward the lighted cabin at the end.

  The shades were not drawn and the windows were open. Shayne walked cautiously on the rocky ground, crept close enough to a window to look in. Lucy Hamilton reclined on the bed, propped up on one elbow. Mr. Persona sat in the only chair. He had removed his coat and loosened his collar, and his sleek black hair was disheveled. A bottle of whiskey was on the table beside him. He was talking and gesticulating and laughing heartily at his own wit. Lucy was laughing with him, her eyes very bright. Titus Tatum was not with them.

  Shayne went back to his car, got in, and backed around, leaving the headlights off until he turned onto the highway. There were no cars on the road driving back to Centerville, and when he reached the heart of the village most of the night-life had died away. Only a few business places were lighted, and an occasional car was parked on the main street. He drove straight through, turned up Magnolia Avenue and parked in front of Ann Cornell’s house which was aglow with light.

  He heard no sound from within until he was on the porch. Through the closed door, radio music could be faintly heard. He knocked and waited until Ann Cornell opened the door. She wore a blue flowered cotton dressing gown and blue bedroom slippers. Her face was flushed, and she lifted one hand to brush a strand of damp hair from her face. Her blue eyes held a fixed, drunken stare, but her voice was pleasant and slightly thick when she said, “I wondered when you’d be back.” She swayed a little as she stood aside for him to enter, closed the door firmly, and crossed the floor with careful exactitude to the chair beside the table where the jug of corn liquor stood. There were only about three inches left in the jug.

  Shayne sat down, lifted his bushy red brows and asked, “Who’s been drinking your whiskey?”

  She looked at the jug and said, “Nobody but me.” She picked up her glass and drank the half-inch of liquor remaining. “Been saving it for you.”

  Shayne’s empty glass was on the end-table beside the chair where he had left it. He got up, poured it a quarter full and asked with a frown, “What are you afraid of, Ann?”

  “Me?” She opened her eyes wide, then half-closed them. “I’m not afraid of Old Nick himself.”

  “You’re afraid to be alone,” Shayne told her. “That’s why you keep a jerk like Angus around. Where is he now?”

  “Back room. Sleeping off a load.”

  “Like he was last night?” Shayne asked harshly.

  She moved uneasily, ran her hand around the low-cut neck of her dressing gown nervously. Her chest and shoulders were firm and creamy where the flesh flowed away from her throat. She said, “Still harping on last night?”

  Shayne nodded. “And I’m going to be from now on. Why don’t you get it off your mind? Drinking too much corn isn’t going to help.”

  “What?” she asked indifferently.

  “The truth.”

  “What good’s the truth?” There was more of hysteria in her short laughter than drunkenness. She checked herself, took up the jug and half-filled her glass.

  He was still standing beside her, and he bent over her, placing one hand on the arm of her chair, to say, “This is one time in the history of Centerville when the truth is worth something. Look at me, Ann.”

  She lifted her head slowly and looked up at his angular face. His cheeks were deeply trenched, his mouth grim. She did not speak.

  Shayne said quietly and with deep intensity, his eyes holding hers in a hypnotic gaze, “You know plenty about men. You know these punks in Centerville can’t stop me. You know that deep inside when you look at me. And you’re decent deep inside, Ann. You’ve always been decent and you’re proud of it.” His voice didn’t waver, didn’t rise or fall in tone. Her eyes were fixed on his and were becoming slightly glazed, as though she didn’t see his face, but something far beyond him.

  “I’m getting hold of things,” he went on slowly, “and all I need is a hint. You can make it easy for me, or I can do it the tough way. Who was with you last night, Ann? Who saw Roche across the street and phoned Seth Gerald? Was it Angus?”

  Speaking the name was a mistake. He knew it as soon as it left his lips. Ann Cornell’s eyes turned aside and the spell was broken. She lifted herself slightly and moved her hand upward toward his face. “Did you say your name was Michael?”

  “That’s right.” He took her groping hand in his. It was moist and warm and firm. Her fingers gripped his with the strength of a man’s, and there was a look approaching panic in her eyes.

  She said throatily, “None of this is any good, Michael. Drop it. We could have fun, you and me. I knew you’d come back. I wanted to be drunk when you came.” She was pulling his hand down to her lips, parting them to press a finger between them. “Whyn’t you get drunk, too?” Her voice was low and pleading. “There’s plenty liquor. ’Nother jug in the kitchen.”

  Shayne straightened up, taking his hand from hers. She leaned back and looked up at him. Her eyes were humid and her breathing was rapid and audible.

  Shayne said slowly, “Time is running out, Ann. I have to keep moving. If you won’t give me the truth, I may have to lock Angus up and make him talk.”

  “No!” She came to her feet swiftly. “You can’t do that! Jail would kill Angus.”

  “Not quite. He’ll just think he’s going to die after about twelve hours without dope. Then he’ll talk. He’ll tell me anything for a shot. Anything I want him to say. He’ll say he saw you shoot Roche if I tell him to.”

  “You bastard!” she screamed. “You lousy stinking bastard!” Her face was contorted and she sprang at him with her fingers curved into claws.

  He fended her off, flung her back roughly. She fell into the chair, her hips on the edge of the cushion, her feet sprawled out before her. She remained there, her arms clutching the chair arms for support, a stream of obscenity pouring from her lips.

  Shayne half-turned from her to pick up the glass he had dropped. She straightened up suddenly and he ducked just in time to dodge the glass flung at his head. It shattered against the opposite wall. Ann Cornell crouched in her chair and startled him with the filth and violence of the epithets she hurled at him.


  “Shut up,” Shayne said harshly, “or I’ll have to…”

  A slight sound behind him brought him around in time to see Angus slithering across the room, clad only in the bottom half of his red and yellow striped silk pajamas, a six-inch kitchen knife in his hand.

  Shayne leaped to one side and swung his left fist in a wide arc as he moved. It connected with the smaller man’s bony chin and Angus dropped to the floor.

  Ann Cornell was on Shayne’s back like a wildcat before he could set himself, scratching and biting and screaming shrilly.

  He got a hold on one of her arms and jerked her off, clamped a big palm over her mouth, and dragged her across the room toward the door. There was an open hallway and a bathroom at the end of it. He went toward it in long, rapid strides.

  Holding her with one arm, he opened the medicine cabinet above the lavatory. He found a large roll of half-inch adhesive tape and a carton of absorbent cotton. He tore off a wad of cotton and forced it between her teeth, taped her lips tightly shut with four strips running from cheek to cheek and four more running from her chin upward.

  She was gasping and jerking and writhing, but he worked coldly and methodically, then hoisted her in his arms and carried her into a bedroom where he tossed her in the center of a single bed, spreadeagled her on her back, and with extreme difficulty taped each wrist and ankle securely to the corner posts of the iron bedstead.

  He was breathing hard and sweating profusely when he stepped back to survey his handiwork. Her dressing gown had been torn from her in the struggle and she lay nude with arms and legs outstretched.

  Shayne wasted only a glance on her voluptuous feminine figure and accouterments before pulling a light spread from the foot of the bed and covering her, while her body writhed and her angry eyes glared venomously.

  He lit a cigarette and sat down on the edge of the bed. “You asked for this,” he told her harshly. “I told you I was on my way and nothing could stop me. I’m going to leave you here while I take Angus away and store him in a safe place where he won’t get any dope until he decides to talk. You’ll be all right… I hope.”