In a Deadly Vein

by Brett Halliday

  Patrick Casey turned to look at them. His exhaled breath made a faint whistling sound through his lips. He tilted his straw hat far back on his bullet head and asked, “You boys looking for somebody?”

  “For you, Casey.” The man on the left spoke in a hushed, rasping tone. His face was blank of expression, stony calm, as was that of his twin.

  His companion amplified. “You was told to keep your nose clean, Casey,” in a flat monotone.

  Phyllis Shayne drew closer to her husband, appealing to him with dark, frightened eyes.

  Shayne’s gaze was negligently fixed on the two men. His rangy body was relaxed. He struck a light to a cigarette.

  Casey smiled blandly at the two gunsels and tilted his straw hat to a cockier angle. He said, “All right, boys. You caught up with me.”

  “Bryant’s got a bug to put in your ear,” the rasping voice told him, jerking his head toward the corridor.

  They touched shoulders and moved into the room, separating when they reached Casey to allow him to pass out between them.

  Casey said, “Maybe I got a bug to put in Bryant’s ear. A hornet, maybe.” He put his hands in his pockets and sauntered through the doorway, a gunman on either side.

  Shayne said to Phyllis, “Casey knows the angles. Don’t worry about him.”

  Casey’s voice boomed into the room from the hallway, hard and demanding: “Hello, Two-Deck. What have you got for me?”

  Shayne heard Bryant’s voice but couldn’t distinguish the words. He stalked to the door with smoke rolling through his nostrils.

  Phyllis caught his arm and pleaded, “Don’t, Mike, please.”

  He did not look at her terrified eyes. His face was flinty. He put her restraining hand from his arm and kept moving toward the door.

  In the corridor, the two gunsels intercepted him with snarling faces. “Watch your step, lug,” they said in unison.

  Phyllis edged toward the doorway, gripping it with white knuckles.

  Casey was saying, “You’re a card, Bryant. By God, if you ain’t. I’m out here to soak up some scenery and get some culture—just like you are. Think I’d follow a cheap chiseler around the country?”

  Shayne said to the gunsels, “I’m going out,” in a placid voice. His big hands dropped and swung loosely from his shoulders.

  “Says who?” one of the punks asked. He put the palm of his hand on Shayne’s chest and pushed.

  Shayne’s right looped to the point of his sharp chin in a long uppercut. The back of the gunsel’s head thumped against the wall. He wavered there for an instant, then slid to the floor.

  His twin ripped out an oath and clawed under his coat for a shoulder holster, backing away.

  Shayne moved swiftly on the balls of his feet, his gray eyes points of steel. He said, “Don’t try it.” He lunged, caught the gun and the man’s hand in a crushing grip, and laughed as an ejaculation of pain dribbled from thin lips. With his right palm up, Shayne caught the automatic as it fell from nerveless fingers. He pocketed the weapon and said, “You need more practice on the draw.”

  “You said you weren’t working, Shamus.”

  Shayne whirled to face Two-Deck Bryant’s cold blue eyes glaring at him.

  Shayne said, “I knew, by God, you were going to spoil my vacation.”

  Casey chuckled, standing behind Bryant. “Nice layout you’ve got here, Mike.”

  One of Bryant’s bodyguards was slumped against the wall with the knuckles of his injured hand pressed against his mouth. The other was out cold.

  Shayne’s eyes bored into Bryant’s. He said, “I’ve been looking for you all day. What angle are you playing—trying to get me in Dutch by saying those Indian blankets were phony?”

  Bryant laughed uproariously and unpleasantly. “You were made for a fall guy, Shamus. I figured the big yokel would smear you up good, especially when the sheriff was standing right behind you.”

  Shayne slapped Bryant a backhanded blow that brought a trickle of blood from the gambler’s upper lip.

  Bryant wiped the blood away with a white linen handkerchief. In a low, furious voice, he warned, “You’re going to swing on the wrong guy one of these days.”

  “Not as long as you set up tenpins in my alley.” Shayne turned to Casey and asked, “Are you having trouble with Bryant?”

  “Oh, he thinks every dick in the country is after him. Just a bad conscience, Mike.”

  “You’ve been told,” Bryant said thickly, “and it goes for Shayne, too. Keep out of my way.”

  “Or you’ll sick a couple of panty-waists on us?” Shayne grinned. “That just scares hell out of us, Bryant.” He caught sight of Phyllis’s terrified eyes over the balustrade and hurried to her, tucked her arm in the crook of his elbow and said, “Scared, angel?”

  “That Bryant man—he looks like a murderer, Michael. The way he looked at you,” she whispered frantically.

  “He looked more like a little boy who’s had his candy taken away after we handled his gunmen.”

  Casey chuckled behind them. “You went and spoiled my set-up, Mike,” he said when they were halfway down the stairs.

  “What’s Two-Deck’s lay now?” Shayne asked.

  “Running a wired clip joint out on the Hudson Parkway. Lots of floss outside and the same old jipperoo when you lay money on the line.”

  “Running his own place?” Shayne mused. “That’s a forward step for him. How does that tie with the two of you popping up here in Central City?”

  Casey stopped at the top of the stairs. A welter of sound blasted upward from the merrymakers in the lobby below.

  “That’s the job I started to tell you about. We got a tip that Two-Deck was heading west to put the clamps on some bird that fed his joint a handful of rubber markers.” He paused to mop his forehead. “Happens there’s a couple of unsolved murders on the books. Both of them were suckers that bet over their heads in Two-Deck’s place before they ate lead. Well, we figure maybe those killings wouldn’t be unsolved if Bryant didn’t have so many connections in the city where he can buy alibis a dime a dozen. So, the Chief hopes he’ll maybe get careless out here and not waste money on an alibi, so I tag along just for a look-see.”

  Phyllis was amazed to see her husband nod his head, indicating that he understood Casey’s gibberish perfectly. He muttered, “Too bad he pegged you for a tail. He’ll wipe his chin every time he spits from now on.”

  They went down the stairs. Upon reaching the crowded lobby, Shayne tucked Phyllis’s arm into Casey’s. “Make her buy the drinks this time,” he suggested. “I’ve got to nose around and see if Nora Carson has turned up.”

  He went outside and glanced speculatively over the heads of the milling throng and spotted the uniform of a courtesy patrolman. It was Stout, one of the officers who had been with Pete’s body when he left.

  Stout nodded affably when Shayne approached. “I’ve always wondered how a private detective works. Got that murder solved?”

  “Not quite. Seen anything of the girl who identified the old man as her father?”

  “The actress? Not since she started for the opera house with her husband.”

  “She’s not in circulation. I wish you would pass the word around quietly among the other officers. No use starting a panic.”

  “Sure thing—right away,” Stout said.

  Shayne saw Sheriff Fleming’s broad hat down the street and moved in that direction. He caught the sheriff’s eye and beckoned to him. When they met, Shayne inquired about Nora.

  “I sure haven’t seen her,” the sheriff said. “Not since she was up the hill there.”

  “Have you been around all the time?”

  “You bet. Right up and down the street, sort of keeping an eye out to see no trouble comes of all this drinking and whoopee. We want folks to cut loose and have a good time, but we got to be careful.”

  “Of course. But, damn it, that girl started out to find you three hours ago. If you were around all the time, how did she miss you?�
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  “By golly, I don’t know. Mighty big crowd out here, but she could of asked anybody.”

  “That,” said Shayne, “is just what I’m afraid she did—asked the wrong person.” He shrugged and rubbed his lean jaw. “Any leads on Pete’s death?”

  “Haven’t had time to do much work on that.” Fleming was apologetic. “Been asking questions around. Screwloose has been in town a couple of weeks celebrating his new prospect up on Arrow Mountain. Poor old devil. First time in ten years he’s hit pay-rock, and all he gets is a smashed head.”

  “Do you mean to tell me he has recently located a rich mine?”

  “Plenty rich, I reckon. I heard Pete had turned down a cold hundred thousand for his third share just on the first assays. With that kind of money offered for a prospect, you can bet your boots it’ll pan out near a million.”

  Shayne whistled softly. “I thought all the gold was taken out of the hills forty years ago.”

  “All the gold in them mountains? Look at ’em.” The sheriff waved his hand toward the peaks rising black and ominously against the sky. “The surface hasn’t hardly been scratched yet. Why, there’s a dozen mines producing gold the year ’round in a mile of here.”

  “A million dollars,” Shayne mused, “is motive enough for a dozen murders. You said he had a third share. Who are his partners?”

  “Well, sir, there was another old-timer in with him by the name of Cal Strenk. And Jasper Windrow grubstaked them both. So it’s got to be split three ways.”

  A muscle twitched in Shayne’s cheek. “The storekeeper?”

  “That’s right.” Fleming cleared his throat elaborately. “Fellow you had a run-in with this afternoon. He’s been grubstaking Pete and Cal for years, and now he’s due to clean up.”

  “Then Strenk and Windrow will profit by Pete’s death,” Shayne mused aloud.

  “I don’t rightly see how,” the sheriff said. “I reckon Pete’s girl will get his third.”

  “But, if the daughter hadn’t shown up?” Shayne said harshly. “No one knew who Pete was until tonight. Suppose he had died without an heir? Wouldn’t his share revert to his partners?”

  “I don’t know what the law’d be on that. But I don’t see how it matters. His own girl identified him. You saw her do it. She’ll come into his share, all right.”

  “It does matter,” Shayne grated. “Whoever killed him didn’t know he was Nora Carson’s father—that by a strange coincidence she was going to see and recognize him a few minutes before he was murdered. That was pure chance. Something the killer hadn’t reckoned on. Looking for a motive, we can leave the girl’s identification of Pete out of it. See what I mean?”

  “I reckon maybe I do,” Fleming said dubiously, “but I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. Nobody hereabout would of killed Pete. I’m betting it was one of these city dudes the town’s got more of than a hound dog has fleas.”

  Shayne said, “Maybe. But Westerners aren’t immune to gold-fever any more than they were sixty years ago. They’ve murdered each other for gold plenty of times.”

  “That’s just fool talk,” the sheriff said angrily. “Central City has been a gold town sixty years and nothing like that ever happened here. But when you start bringing in Easterners, look out. Liquor does funny things to a man when he’s a mile and a half up.”

  “Thanks for the tip. I’ll wander into the bar and investigate that angle.”

  Shayne was half a dozen long strides away when an excited man ran past him shouting, “Sheriff! Sheriff Fleming! Come here quick!”

  Shayne stopped to listen.

  “There’s a man in the bar threatening to kill one of the actors—fellow named Carson. You better get hold of him before there’s trouble. He’s shooting drunk.” The sheriff bolted through the crowd, his bronzed face perplexed and angry.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SHAYNE FOLLOWED FLEMING into the barroom. Circled by a group of men and women spectators, a big, ruddy-faced man was pounding the mahogany and proclaiming loudly:

  “You bet I’m not taking it lying down. Not John Mattson.” His pudgy hand caressed the butt of a long-barreled, single-action .45 thrust into the waistband of his gray business suit. His voice was thick with liquor and rage; bloodshot eyes peered around defiantly at the circle of amused faces. He should have been a ludicrous spectacle of middle-aged drunkenness, but he wasn’t even slightly funny to Shayne, who stopped in the doorway while Fleming pushed his way forward.

  John Mattson was dangerously in earnest. Drunkenness removed the normal inhibitions that govern civilized man. He thumped an empty glass on the bar and straightened his bulky body, folded his arms across his chest in a posture of dignified solemnity, and delivered a speech which brought nods of approval from the crowd:

  “This is still a free country where a man can fight for his rights and his home. Trying to steal my wife, by God. Thinks he’s back in N’York where people trade wives like we trade horses out here. Sneaking behind my back and making up to her with his slick talk. That’s what he did. Where is he? That’s all I wanta know. Where is he?”

  He took a step forward, but swayed back against the bar. His right hand dropped to the butt of his frontier weapon again.

  “Somebody bring him here,” he shouted. “Tell him we still shoot coyotes when they sneak into our back yards.”

  Sheriff Fleming was efficiently working his way toward Mattson, moving slowly, his rugged face now retaining its good humor as he spoke quietly to open a passage through the circle. He stopped in front of the drunken man and laid a sinewy hand on his broad shoulder. In the silence his slow drawl was clearly heard throughout the barroom:

  “Better take a walk in the cold air with me, Mister. Seems sort of stuffy in here.”

  Mattson’s bloodshot eyes glowered at Fleming, then wavered away. Behind the sheriff’s drawl was the cold ring of authority, and Shayne began to understand why Gilpin County had remained crimeless with Sheriff Fleming in office.

  “Best to come on along with me,” Fleming urged. “Cold air is mighty fine medicine for what ails you.”

  Mattson squinted between puffy lids at the sheriff’s badge. He squared his shoulders and thrust out a blunt jaw and shouted, “I’m taking the law in m’own hands. I’ll handle things in my own way.”

  “Why, no. I reckon we can’t have anything like that. You’re disturbing the folks that came up here to have fun.” The sheriff’s big hand tightened on Mattson’s shoulder and drew him forward, though Mattson hung back like a balky mule.

  From his position of vantage on the threshold, Shayne’s attention was attracted by a gasp from a tall, willowy woman standing in the doorway leading to the lobby. Her brown eyes were riveted in terror upon the sheriff and his unwilling companion, and there was a shocked look of comprehension upon her white face. She was quite tall, sheathed in a trailing gown of ice-blue. Diamonds glittered on her fingers and pearls circled her thin neck. Shayne guessed she would be on the short side of forty.

  Shayne’s gaze moved to the right. Standing a few feet back of the woman, he saw Two-Deck Bryant’s saturnine features. He, too, watched the sheriff and Mattson with more than a normal spectator’s interest.

  A grin twitched Shayne’s wide mouth. Bryant was getting an eyeful of how the law worked Out West.

  Shayne turned his attention to the woman again. Some of the terror had gone from her eyes, leaving a sickly and desolated apprehension. Her thin lips were tight. She turned and went slowly into the hotel lobby.

  Shayne followed Fleming and Mattson outside. The sheriff suggested, persuasively, “Better give me your shooting iron until you cool off.”

  Mattson started to be damned if he would, but his voice trailed off to a mumble. He surrendered the frontier relic to the sheriff who let it dangle on his forefinger by the trigger guard.

  Fleming said, “We’ll take a little walk up the street and let some of the liquor in you cool off.”

  The disarmed man wet his thick lips.
“Guess I’ve been a fool,” he admitted humbly. “I’m—look here, sheriff—I’m John Mattson, from Denver. You won’t have to—this won’t have to go any further, will it? The publicity—”

  “Reckon I won’t lock you up. Hate to spoil my record.” He chuckled. “I just want to make sure you don’t stumble into more trouble.” He urged the big man up the street with a hand on his elbow.

  Before they had gone ten feet, the tall, glittering woman slid out of the shadows and confronted them. She sobbed, “John! Oh, John, what made you do that awful thing!” and flung bare arms around her husband’s thick neck.

  The sheriff stepped back and almost bumped into Shayne.

  Mattson said, “Olivia!” and the word was smothered by her teary voice:

  “Oh, John! How could you ever have been so silly! I didn’t know you cared that way. As if I’d ever leave you. You know I love you, John. You know I do.”

  Mattson took her arms from around his neck and demanded harshly, “What about Carson? You were drooling about him this afternoon.”

  She sobbed, “That was nothing, John. Honestly it wasn’t. If I’d thought for a moment you’d take me seriously—”

  “Seriously? Good God ’lmighty. You were demanding a divorce this afternoon so you could marry Carson. Yes, and by God, you wanted half my money to turn over to him. Now you say you weren’t serious.”

  Olivia Mattson laughed scornfully. “Marry that youngster? I guess I was just a silly old woman wanting some flattery, John. But it’s all over now. I wouldn’t trade you for a hundred Frank Carsons.”