Murder is My Business

by Brett Halliday

  He said nothing and made no move as Shayne walked toward him. He waited until the detective was ten feet away before saying harshly, "I thought you'd be out to see me."

  Shayne said, "I'm glad I didn't disappoint you." He stood for a moment eyeing Towne levelly, and neither of them made any motion to shake hands. Shayne lifted his left shoulder in an almost imperceptible shrug, and turned aside to sit in a leather upholstered chair. Towne didn't move from his position on the tiled hearth.

  Shayne said, "It looks as though you've got yourself into a mess."

  "I didn't send for you."

  Shayne lit a cigarette and grinned up at the big man. "I figured maybe you didn't know how to reach me."

  "You had no right to tell Dyer you were acting for me. Demanding an autopsy! Of all the damn-fool things."

  "I didn't tell Dyer I was acting for you."

  "You gave him to understand I had retained you," Towne growled.

  "He probably wouldn't have ordered the autopsy if he hadn't thought that," Shayne agreed tranquilly.

  "Do you realize what you've done by your interference? You’ve given the impression that it's something more than a mere traffic accident. People know that a man of your reputation isn't called in on a case unless it's pretty desperate."

  Shayne said mockingly, "That's too bad. I should be ashamed of having such a reputation."

  Towne's dark eyes glittered angrily. "The whole thing would have died a natural death if you'd stayed out of it."

  "I thought an autopsy was a good idea," Shayne murmured. "If we can find some evidence that the man was dead before your car struck him, raise a reasonable doubt ..."

  "But damn it, that's the worst thing possible under the circumstances!" Towne exploded. "Read last night's Free Press and you'll see what I mean. Your guns are spiked before you get started. Any testimony of that sort will be regarded as whitewash. Every voter will believe the medical examiner was bribed."

  Shayne said, "I read last night's Free Press."

  "Then you know how things stand. The best thing you can do is to get out of town and leave it alone."

  Shayne said, "I was never paid a fee to stay off a case, but—" He shrugged and let the implication lie there before Towne.

  "How much?" asked Towne bitterly.

  "I don't know whether we can hush up the autopsy now," mused Shayne, frowning down at his cigarette. "With Dyer and Doctor Thompson both”

  "What's that?" demanded Towne. "I told Dyer last night there wouldn't be an autopsy."

  "He must have misunderstood you."

  "Are you telling me it's already been made?"

  "Why, yes." Shayne looked up in surprise. "And it clears you, Towne. The soldier was dead before you ran over him."

  "No one will believe that," Towne snorted. "The Free Press will howl bribery and corruption. Of all the asinine stunts! If you'd deliberately planned to lose me the election, Shayne, you couldn't have done worse."

  "The man was obviously murdered," Shayne told him dispassionately. "You wouldn't want to cover up murder, would you?"

  "What the hell do I care how the soldier died?" raged Towne. "He's dead. All the autopsies in the world won't bring him back to life. No one even knows who he was, it seems. Probably enlisted under in alias to hide a criminal record. Lord, the Free Press will be saying next that I murdered him."

  "So you do need me," Shayne pointed out happily. "The only way now is to find out who did murder him. You're lucky I'm available for a modest fee."

  "Lucky!" roared Towne. "By God, Shayne, I get it now! You planned it this way. You fixed that autopsy to make it appear the man was murdered and force me into a corner where I'd have to hire you to solve a crime that was never committed. I'll see you in hell first."

  "You have a filthy mind," Shayne reproved him.

  "I know the way you work. You've planned a sweet shakedown, but I'm not playing. Get out."

  Shayne reached out a long arm and mashed his cigarette butt in a smoking stand. He sighed, "I'm sorry you see things this way. I'm on the case now whether you like it or not. If you don't want to retain me "

  "Get out of my house," grated Towne between clenched teeth. He unclasped his hands from behind his back and swung them loosely at his sides, balled into big fists.

  Shayne got up and walked toward the hallway. He stopped in the entrance and turned to ask, "What were you doing at Lawton and Missouri at dusk? Was it a regular route you took, or did you have an appointment with someone?"

  Towne glared at him and didn't answer.

  Shayne shook his red head reprovingly. "You're making it tough on yourself, Towne."

  He waited a moment, then turned and went out when he still didn't receive any reply from the Reform candidate.

  IV

  A man was lounging against the wall opposite Shayne's hotel door when the detective got out of the elevator and walked down the corridor. He had a thin, hatchet face, with a Panama tipped forward over it, and he was idly chewing on a toothpick. A pair of watery blue eyes watched the detective speculatively from beneath the brim of the Panama as he approached.

  Shayne stopped at his door and put the key in the lock. The man straightened up and said, "Shayne?" as he opened the door.

  Shayne looked over his shoulder with his hand on the knob. He said, "That's right," and pushed the door open and went in.

  The man sauntered across the hall and followed him inside. He said past the toothpick, "Boss wants tuh see yuh."

  Shayne had gone over to his suitcase lying open on the bed. He lifted out a bottle of cognac and unwrapped a pajama jacket from it, threw the jacket back into the suitcase, and set the bottle on a small table by the bed. He said, "That's fine," and went into the bathroom.

  The man was still standing by the door when he returned with two water tumblers. He set one glass down and poured the other half full of cognac, then held the bottle out toward his uninvited guest, suggesting, "You'd better pour your own."

  "Un-uh," the man said placidly. "Thanks jest thuh same."

  Shayne nodded and set the bottle down. He moved back to a rocking chair and sat down, held the glass to his lips, and swallowed three times. He smacked his lips approvingly and said, "That hits the spot."

  "Dintcha hear what I said?" the man asked in a troubled voice.

  Shayne said, "Sure." He took another drink, and set the glass on the floor beside his chair. He got out a pack of cigarettes and held them out, "Have one of these?"

  "Un-uh." The man jerked his head. "Thanks jest thuh same."

  Shayne lit a cigarette. The man took the frayed toothpick from his mouth and inspected it mournfully. He put the unchewed end back between his teeth and said, "Well, whatcha say?"

  Shayne blew out a cloud of smoke and reached down for his glass. "Why don't you sit down if you intend to stay?"

  "But I ain't gonna stay. You're goin' with me."

  "Where?"

  "Tuh see thuh boss," the man explained patiently.

  "Who is the boss, and why doesn't he come here if he wants to see me?"

  "People alius come tuh see Manny," he was told in a tone of mild surprise.

  Shayne finished his drink. He laughed shortly and got up. "All right. I wouldn't want to upset the local routine." He went to his suitcase and fumbled in it, withdrew a .38 revolver. Without any effort at concealment, he slid the weapon into his coat pocket and went toward the door.

  "Hey! Whatcha packin' that gat for?" The man backed away from him, looking frightened.

  Shayne said, "My coat hangs better with a weight in one pocket." He followed the other out and locked his door.

  "I dunno, but I don't think Manny'll like it," the man told him lugubriously. "It ain't friendly-like."

  Shayne said, "We'll hope Manny doesn't feel too badly." They went to the elevator together and got in. On the sidewalk outside they walked three blocks in silence to the entrance of a small hotel which his companion indicated with a jerk of his head.

  They wen
t through a small lobby to a self-service elevator, and up to the third floor. The thin-faced man led the way down the corridor to a closed door, on which he knocked twice. It was opened almost immediately by a fat man in his shirt sleeves. He had dimpled cheeks and a cleft chin and very small white teeth. He said, "I was beginning to wonder where you were, Clarence," looking past him at Shayne.

  His cheeks were pink and smooth and bulbous, and his eyes twinkled happily at the detective.

  "I brung him, boss," Clarence said. "But he's packin' a rod, boss."

  "A dangerous habit," Manny Holden told Shayne. He held out a fat, moist hand. "It was good of you to come, Mr. Shayne."

  Shayne took his hand and dropped it. He walked past the fat man into the littered sitting room of a hotel suite. There were papers on the floor and highball glasses on the center table, together with a bucket of ice, a bottle of whiskey, and a siphon.

  Shayne said, "Hello, Cochrane," to an undersized man who got up hastily from a deep chair at the other side of the room.

  Ten years hadn't added to the attractiveness of Neil Cochrane. His head was still much too big for his body, and a shock of bushy hair made it look even more so. He had a way of hunching his thin shoulder blades up and inclining his big head forward that gave him a vulturous appearance. His eyes were bright and ferrety and intelligent.

  He said, "So it's Mike Shayne again," and for some reason he laughed. His laughter was brittle, like the sound made by two pieces of broken glass being rubbed together.

  Manny Holden closed the door and told Clarence, "That's all. You can wait in the other room."

  Clarence went through an inner door and closed it, leaving the three of them in the sitting room.

  Holden went past Shayne to the center table and asked cheerfully, "Will you have a highball, sir?"

  Shayne shook his head and said, "Thanks." He asked Neil Cochrane, "Do you ever see Carmela Towne these days?"

  Cochrane's thin lips formed an embittered grimace. He said, "No," and sat down.

  Shayne pulled a straight chair around and sat down in it backwards, resting his forearms across the back. He said, "Chief Dyer tells me you boys are backing Carter for mayor."

  Manny Holden was putting soda in a glass on top of ice and whiskey. He said, "I've got close to a hundred grand riding on him." He stirred his drink with a swizzle stick, and sank back into a deep chair.

  "That makes the death of the soldier a lucky accident for you."

  "That's right," Holden purred agreeably. "Until that happened, I figured Towne had a better than even chance of winning."

  "But you were putting up even money he wouldn't."

  "I banked on something happening to change the odds."

  "Something like a soldier lying down in front of his car and getting run over?"

  "Something like that," Manny Holden agreed. He set his glass down and folded his fat hands across his stomach. "And now you come in to pull one of your fast ones," he complained.

  "It won't work, Shayne," Neil Cochrane said hoarsely. "I got a jump ahead of you by being in Dyer's office yesterday when your call came through. I don't know what kind of stuff you'll pull out of your hat on the autopsy, but nobody'll believe a word of it."

  Shayne didn't look at him. He was watching the fat man. "But you'd rather stop the autopsy?" he asked him.

  Holden pursed his thick lips and nodded. "Naturally I'd rather not have any trouble."

  "Worth anything to you to keep it quiet that the soldier was murdered before Towne's car ever touched him?" Shayne asked gently.

  Cochrane repeated, "Murdered?" in a shrill voice, but neither of the others looked at him.

  Holden blinked his eyelids and asked coolly, "Is that the angle you're working on, Shamus?"

  "How do you like it?"

  "I don't like it," he sighed. "Homicide investigations always stir up a lot of dirt."

  "Somebody should have thought about that—before they planted a body where Towne would run over it."

  Holden asked, "Can you prove that?"

  Shayne shrugged his wide shoulders. "It's a reasonable assumption—as soon as we accept the murder theory'. And Doc Thompson will make a good witness."

  "I don't like it," Holden told him.

  "It's one of his damned crooked tricks!" Cochrane blazed out. "Everyone knows he pulls that kind of stuff all the time."

  Shayne glanced at him and warned, "You're not sitting too well. Your article last night sounded as though you had prior knowledge of what an autopsy might bring out."

  "Nuts!" Cochrane shot back venomously. "I knew that's the sort of thing you'd try to pull."

  Shayne said, "A jury might think differently—if I can show you knew Towne was going to turn that corner just when he did." He turned his attention back to the fat man. "How do you feel about your hundred grand now?"

  "Quite well." Holden was unperturbed. "I don't think you're going to stir up a stink, Shayne."

  "I'm open to offers."

  "I'm not bidding against Towne," Holden said. "I'm telling you to get out of El Paso."

  "I've got to make a profit," Shayne told him. "With a hundred grand riding on the election, you could afford to do some bidding."

  "But I'd never be sure Towne wouldn't go higher." Danny Holden took a sip of his highball and added regretfully, "You'd better go back to New Orleans."

  "How'd you like it if I twisted things around to prove that Towne killed the soldier before he ran over him?"

  Holden moved his head slowly from side to side. "Things were going all right until you showed up. They'll be all right again as soon as you get out of town."

  "It's easier to buy me off than to run me off," Shayne warned him.

  "I don't think so. This isn't your town, Shayne. It belongs to me."

  Shayne said, "All right." He stood up, his gaunt face inscrutable. "Be seeing you around," he said to Neil Cochrane, and went out.

  The door of his hotel room stood slightly ajar when he returned. He knew he had locked it when he went out. He walked casually past the door, glancing aside through the crack as he went by, but was unable to see anything inside.

  He went on around the comer of the corridor and stopped. He took his time about lighting a cigarette, moving back to a position where he could watch the door. It stayed slightly ajar.

  The incident didn't make much sense to Shayne. If this was an ambush, the person inside his room was playing it dumb to leave the door open to warn him. On the other hand, he realized fully that he had stayed alive for a lot of precarious years by never taking anything for granted.

  He tranquilly smoked his cigarette down to a short butt, then walked rapidly along the corridor, drawing his gun as he approached his door from the wrong direction.

  He hit the open door with his left shoulder in a lunge that carried him well into the center of the room.

  A woman sat in a chair by the window. She dropped a water tumbler on which she had been helping herself to his cognac. Otherwise, he remained perfectly calm.

  Shayne's alert gray eyes swiftly circled the room, returning to IT face while he slowly pocketed his gun. "Carmela Towne," he said in a flat tone.

  Carmela pushed herself up from the chair with both hands gripping le arms. Her black eyes searched his face and she said, "Michael," taking three syllables of his name, her voice throaty and a little blurred. "Someday you'll get yourself shot," he said, and went toward her.

  V

  Carmela Towne giggled, "I'm already half-shot, Michael," and held out her arms to him. Her lips were dry and hot and hard. Ten years and done some shocking things to her. She had been a leggy youngster and a rich dark beauty that burned beneath the surface and glowed 1 her eyes. She had been vital and alive, tingling with youth and nth a fervid passion for life and love.

  Now her long-limbed body was thin and taut, her face almost haggard. Two spots of rouge far back on her cheeks gave her a feverish look, and her eyes glittered with the same unnatural brightness. She was the
embodiment of a woman who for a long time had made a point of drinking too much, and sleeping and eating too little.

  Shayne stepped back from her embrace, and she slid her hands own his arms to grip his fingers tightly. She asked, "Do you always come in your room with a bound like that?"

  "How did you get in?"

  "Oh, I bribed the bellboy. He asked me if I was Mrs. Shayne, and told him I wasn't, and he seemed to think that made everything all right."

  Shayne released his hands from hers and went back to close the door. He said morosely, "You spilled some of my cognac. It's hard to get nowadays."

  "I'm sorry. I didn't spill much, Michael." She sank back into her chair, and got a cigarette from her bag. She put it between her red lips and looked to him for a light. When Shayne struck a match to it, she inhaled deeply and let the smoke filter slowly through her nostrils. Tilting her head to look into his eyes, she said, "It's been a long time," and for a moment forgot to be glib and flippant.

  He nodded and extinguished the match. He moved back to sit on the edge of the bed and asked, "How did you know I was here?"

  "I read the Free Press. And I know you were out to see Father this morning."

  "At this hotel, I mean."

  "You stayed here ten years ago. I took a chance and asked at the desk." Carmela made an impatient gesture with the long, thin fingers of her right hand. "Have you seen Lance?"

  "Not for ten years." Shayne reached for the bottle of cognac by the bedside table and poured a drink. He didn't offer Carmela one. She didn't appear to notice. Her great dark eyes were fixed on his face. She said, "He's here."

  "In El Paso?"

  She nodded. "I saw him three days ago in a taxi downtown. He didn't see me. He was riding with a Mexican girl. A common little Mexican wench whom he must have picked up in Juarez on the Calle de Diablo. He looked terrible," she ended in a lifeless tone.