Murder is My Business
Page 15
"He's holding a lot back," Shayne agreed. "By the way, I left the death gun with ballistics for a report last night. Has it come in?"
"Not yet. I don't see that we need it now."
Shayne said, "It might be important." He changed the subject abruptly. "Ever hear of the Plata Azul mine in Mexico?"
Dyer nodded with a look of surprise. "One of Jeff Towne's properties. A white elephant, from what I hear."
"What do you hear?"
"The Free Press carried a write-up about it a month or so ago," Dyer recalled. "Taking Towne to task for investing capital earned in this country in a worthless Mexican mine. Seems he's a stubborn cuss and has been pouring money into it for ten years without getting anything out, installing a modem stamp mill and keeping a big crew at work without producing anything. Mining men are apt to be like that. Make a fortune out of one mine, and put it all back into another hole in the ground."
"Where's the Plata Azull located?" Shayne asked tensely.
"Chihuahua, I think. About a hundred miles northwest of Ojinaga."
"How close to the border is that?"
"Not so far from the Big Bend. Queerest part of it, as the Free Press pointed out, is why an American wants to fool with looking for Mexican silver when our government pays a subsidy on American silver making it worth almost twice as much."
Shayne settled back with a frown. "Say that again."
"Sure." Chief Dyer was relaxed and discursive, with Lance Bayliss safely in jail. "One of the New Deal boondoggles still in effect. I think it was back in nineteen thirty-four when they raised the price of raw domestic silver to about seventy cents, leaving the price of foreign stuff at thirty-five or thereabouts. It was a big help to the western miners even if the rest of the country did have to pay the difference out of tax money."
"I don't quite get it," Shayne argued. "Do you mean our government pays more per ounce for silver mined in this country than if it comes from abroad?"
"That's it. Every ounce that goes to the mint has to be accompanied by proof that it's freshly mined, and of its source. Government investigators are on the job checking shipments all the time. Our department has co-operated in running down a couple of operators trying to slip Mexican silver across and pretend it was mined in this country."
Shayne was sitting erect, listening alertly. He leaned back now and massaged his left ear lobe between his fingers. His rugged features held a queer, brooding look of expectancy.
Chief Dyer puffed on his cigarette and watched him for a moment, then asked, "Have you anything that ties Bayliss in with the other two deaths we've been investigating?"
"All of them have to tie together," growled Shayne. "Find out "why Cochrane was bumped, and you'll have the answer to the other two."
"Bayliss says "
"He lies," Shayne told him wearily. "He hadn't seen Carmela Towne for ten years. He's been around El Paso for weeks without getting in touch with her. He didn't commit murder last night just because she was out with another man."
"Why, then?"
Shayne wasn't listening to him any longer. The brooding look went away from his face, and he became grim and alert. He muttered, "I've been wondering how I was going to earn my expenses up here . . . may I use your phone?" He reached for it without waiting for the chief to answer, called Jefferson Towne's number.
The Mexican butler answered. Shayne asked for Towne, and waited. After a few moments, he said, "This is Mike Shayne, Towne. Have you heard the news?"
He lifted one eyebrow at Dyer as he listened for a moment, then he chuckled and explained, "Lance Bayliss has confessed using Carmela's gun on Cochrane last night. That's right. Thought you'd be interested."
He listened a moment, and then his voice and expression hardened, "You've still got an election to win in two weeks. Remember what I told you last night? That you'd be glad to pay me my own price? This is it. Listen carefully, because I'm just going to say it once: I have in my possession information that will put both John Carter and Manny Holden behind bars if and when I turn it over to the Federal authorities. I'm the only man who has that dope or even knows about it. It's the only thing that will beat Carter at the polls the way things stand now. If you don't want to buy it, I'm sure Holden will."
Pausing to listen, Shayne glanced across the desk at Dyer, who glared at him with amazement and anger ludicrously mingled on his naked face.
"That's the way it stands," Shayne said into the telephone. "How much is it worth to you for me to spring it before the election? Sure, it's blackmail," he chuckled. "You should be used to that by now. You paid Jack Barton ten grand to keep him quiet about something that would defeat you. Another ten grand won't break you."
He waited a moment, then said harshly, "I don’t trust you either. This is going to be an open-and-shut sale, with everything on top of the table. I've got something you want to buy. I'll sell it for ten Gs, and let you look it over to satisfy yourself it's the McCoy before you make payment.
"We'll do it at your house in two hours," he went on sharply. "I'm catching a plane to New Orleans at noon. Do we deal? Or do I have to sell it to Holden and Carter?" He listened again, then said, "Right. In two hours. Have the money ready." He hung up, and grinned at Dyer. "Now you know how a private dick manages to earn a living in these hard times."
"Damn it, Shayne," Dyer roared, "are you serious about this thing? Have you got such information?"
"I haven't looked at it yet," Shayne told him, "but I'm pretty sure it's on the level."
"And you would deliberately keep it out of the hands of the authorities unless Towne paid you for it? I know your reputation for pulling fast ones, Shayne, but I've always heard you played fair with justice in the end."
"Maybe I wouldn't have held it out," Shayne argued good-naturedly. "Maybe I was going to turn it over to you anyway. Isn't justice going to be served this way just as well? And I'll net ten grand out of it."
Before Dyer could reply, Shayne went on briskly, "Did you ever get a report from Washington on the fingerprints of that drowned boy? Or find out anything about Jack Barton in California, or anywhere between here and California on the bus?"
"There hasn't been time on the fingerprints," Dyer told him, "and so far we haven't located Barton."
"I'd like a set of those prints." Shayne's gray eyes were very bright.
"And I've got to make a trip to the marriage license bureau. Where is it?"
"Marriage License bureau?" Dyer raged. "You're not—?"
"No," Shayne said blithely. "I'm not. Where is it?"
"Look here," said Dyer heavily, "about that information you say you have against Carter and Holden. Suppose Towne refused to pay you for it at the showdown? How do I know you won't go to Holden for your ten grand?"
"You don't," Shayne admitted with a grin.
"I can't let you play around with important evidence like that for your personal profit," Dyer sputtered. "Where is it?"
Shayne said, "I've got it in a safe place."
''What is it? What have you got on Holden and Carter?"
Shayne shook his head. "I've got to do some bargaining first."
"You're compounding a felony by holding out such evidence."
"Don't worry about that. Towne will rush it to you as soon as he gets his hands on it."
"But you threaten to take it to Holden if Towne doesn't pay off. He won't turn it over to me."
"That's right," Shayne agreed. "But Towne knows that, too, and that's why he'll have to deal with me."
"Give it to me first," Dyer urged him. "Keep the documents, or whatever they are, to sell to whoever wants to buy them. But let me have enough information to act on if anything goes wrong. That way, you play both ends against the middle."
"The stuff is valuable to me only so long as I have the exclusive decision as to how it shall be used," Shayne argued good-naturedly. "Towne wouldn't pay out a dime if he knew you already had the dope and were going to use it against Carter whether or not he buys it."
"But that wouldn't be playing it fair," Shayne said blandly. "This way, I'm actually giving him something for his ten Gs." He stood up and yawned. "Where did you say the license bureau was?"
XXIII
Michael Shayne's first stop was at the police laboratory, where he picked up a set of fingerprints taken from the unidentified body found floating in the river, and got a report from ballistics on the bullet taken from Cochrane's body and Carmela's pistol.
The ballistics report was as meager and uninformative as he had feared after viewing the bullet and gun last night. The smashed condition of the bullet, together with the lack of rifling in the sawed-off .38, made it impossible to make a positive comparison to determine whether the death slug had been fired from that pistol or not. All the external evidence pointed to an affirmative answer, but the police experts would go no further than that. The three empty cartridges had been checked, however, and there was no difficulty in determining whether or not they had been fired from Carmela's gun.
From the laboratory, Shayne went to the marriage license bureau, and he spent fifteen minutes going over old license records with the clerk. He was whistling cheerfully when he emerged from the City Hall and walked up the street to the police coupe parked in front of his hotel.
A shabby little man sauntered along the street behind him. He looked like a western rancher in for a holiday, and was intensely interested in the shop windows along the street. He loitered inconspicuously behind the detective while he was getting in his car, and Shayne watched him in the rear-view mirror as he pulled away. The little man continued to loiter on the sidewalk, seemingly unaware of his departure. Shayne thought maybe he was wrong about him.
He drove directly out to Fort Bliss, and without too much difficulty was able to talk with the post adjutant. He introduced himself and explained his interest in the death of Private James Brown, and learned that the body had been given a military burial after all efforts to uncover his real identity had proved unavailing.
Shayne kept his own council about the recruit's letter to his mother in New Orleans. He didn't think the Army would appreciate his holding out that information all this time, and it didn't seem a good moment to broach the subject.
After a brief discussion of the mystifying elements of the case, Shayne said, "I understand you sent a set of fingerprints taken from the body in to Washington for possible identification. No luck there?"
The adjutant shook his head. "We didn't bury the body until the Washington report was received. We had his fingerprints on his enlistment papers, you know, and we sent them in as soon as Cleveland reported no such address as he had given."
Shayne asked, "May I have a set of those prints from his enlistment record?"
The adjutant didn't see why he couldn't, and he sent an orderly to get a set for the detective. Then he eagerly asked what angle Shayne was working on, and what hopes he had of identifying the dead body.
Shayne told him it was too theoretical as yet to talk about, but he thought he could promise definite progress within a few hours.
When he went out to his car with Jimmie Delray's fingerprints in his pocket, he saw a taxi parked half a dozen cars back of his coupe. The shabby little man whom he had last seen loitering in front of the Paso Del Norte was inconspicuously shrunk down in the back seat of the taxi.
Shayne grinned to himself as he drove off. He hadn't been mistaken, after all.
He drove straight to his hotel and went up to his room. Lance Bayliss' briefcase was still in the closet where he and Lance had placed it earlier.
It lacked half an hour of his appointment with Jefferson Towne. He opened the briefcase on his bed and looked through the documentary evidence Lance had promised was there.
It was very complete, with names and dates and facts. Lance Bayliss had made a thorough investigation of the business of smuggling deserters across the border into the interior of Mexico. Larimer's secondhand clothing store was one of three such places in El Paso that specialized in furnishing civilian outfits to the deserters. The registration cards and other identification papers were forged in El Paso, and there was documentary proof that Honest John Carter had been allied with Holden as a financial backer in his pre-war smuggling enterprises, and was continuing to take his profit from this new angle.
Only one thing disappointed Shayne. Neil Cochrane's name was mentioned several times in Lance's material, but there was no evidence at all that the reporter had had any actual knowledge of what was going on.
Shayne sighed, and replaced the papers in the briefcase. It was dynamite, right enough. Plenty strong enough to blow Honest John Carter right out of the mayoralty race, leaving Townc unopposed.
Shayne sympathized with Lance's wish to keep the evidence under cover until after the election. If it wasn't made public until after Carter was elected, he would simply be removed from office and someone else would be appointed to serve out his term in accord with city statutes. Any danger of Towne's filling the position would be definitely eliminated. Knowing Lance's bitter hatred for Towne, Shayne could understand why he wanted the information handled that way.
But if he waited until Towne was elected, the stuff wouldn't be worth a penny to the new mayor. Before election, it was easily worth ten thousand dollars to him.
It was as simple as that.
Shayne poured himself a drink, and put a gun in his coat pocket. He tossed off the liquor, picked up the briefcase, and went out.
He didn't bother to look around for the shabby little man as he drove off to keep his appointment with Towne. It was unlikely that they would bother to tail him any further.
He didn't have to wait at Towne's front door this time. The Mexican butler recognized him with a nod, and led the way back to the library. Towne was standing in front of the fireplace with his hands clasped behind his back. He nodded with a scowl, his gaze going to the briefcase Shayne carried. "That the stuff you described over the telephone?"
Shayne said, "This is it. Guaranteed to knock Carter out of the race." He set the briefcase down on a table, put his big hand up warningly when Towne stepped forward. "Let me see your end of the deal before you look at mine."
Towne laughed shortly. "I had to answer some embarrassing questions at the bank this morning when I drew out this second ten thousand." He drew an envelope from his pocket, opened it to riffle a sheaf of bills before Shayne. "When the police investigated the money I drew out for Barton, they practically told the bank it was for blackmail," he went on bitterly.
Shayne said, "If you lived right, you wouldn't be embarrassed by having to pay out blackmail." He nodded. "I'm satisfied. Look it over and see if you are." He unstrapped the briefcase and stepped back.
Towne replaced the money in his pocket and went to the briefcase. He took the papers out and began studying them eagerly. It was dark and gloomy inside the library, with the windows closed and half-covered with dark drapes.
Shayne strolled to one of the end windows and pulled the drapes back to let sunlight slant in. The windows were set in steel frames, opening on a ratchet arrangement operated by a hand crank.
Shayne twisted the crank to open the window and let in a little fresh air. Towne was engrossed with the papers from Lance Bayliss' briefcase. Shayne leaned on the low window sill and lit a cigarette. It was very quiet there on the hillside above the city, inside the big stone house set off from its neighbors by a thick box hedge.
Shayne smoked quietly for a time, and then asked without turning his head, "Are you satisfied it's what I promised you?"
"There's enough evidence to put Carter and Holden behind bars the rest of their lives," Towne told him exultantly. "I don't know how you dug this up, Shayne, but—"
"That doesn't matter." Shayne turned slowly. "Is it worth ten grand?"
"It's an
outrageous hold-up for me to pay you for this," Towne asserted angrily. "You could be jailed for trying to withhold this from the government."
Shayne nodded calmly, but his eyes held a dangerous glint. He dropped his right hand toward the gun sagging in his coat pocket and drawled, "You're not thinking of backing out, are you?"
"I never back out of a bargain," Towne said stiffly. He reached in his pocket for the envelope, tossed it toward Shayne.
The detective caught it in his left hand. He opened it and took out the bills, fingered them lovingly while he counted the total.
"Okay," he said finally, straightening and replacing them in the envelope. He put the envelope in his left coat pocket and remained lounging back against the sill of the open window. "Now let's start talking about something important."
"I haven't anything else to discuss with you." Towne half-turned away from him.
"We've got lots to talk about," Shayne corrected him gently. "Like the price of domestic silver . . . and the Plata Azul mine in Mexico."
Towne's wide shoulders stiffened. He turned slowly, and his eyes were murderous. "What do you know about the Plata Azul?''
"Practically everything," Shayne assured him. "When Cochrane was murdered last night, we found a telegram in his pocket from an attorney in Mexico City stating that title to the mine passed to a certain Senora Telgucado twenty-five years ago on the death of her husband, to be passed on to his heirs."
''Interesting," sneered Towne, "but scarcely relevant."
"I think it is," Shayne insisted. "You see, I visited the marriage license bureau this morning and confirmed a hunch. You and the widow of Senor Telgucado were married less than twenty-four years ago.
"It's a matter of record," Towne shrugged.
"But Carmela is almost thirty years old. That makes her your stepdaughter."
"Suppose she is my stepdaughter? I adopted her legally soon after we were married." Towne's voice was edged but restrained.
"She's still her father's legal heir," Shayne argued. "The Plata Azul mine legally reverted to her on her mother's death."