Brett Halliday - A Taste for Violence

There were few people on the streets when he came to the business section of Centerville, a lone laggard now and then, hurrying past the groups of two or three deputies with guns displayed in open holsters at their hips. Always in groups of two or three. Clinging together for assurance and for safety. The lid was tightly clamped on Centerville, but it was likely to blow off with a mighty roar at any time.

Charles parked his car at the curb in front of the Central Hotel beside three other cars. The lobby and the small bar-dining room were brightly lighted. Two local policemen stood outside the entrance to the dining room. They swung wooden clubs in their hands, their uniform coats were unbuttoned, and one of them was chewing tobacco. A dribble of brown sputum ran down his jaw.

They stood there solidly and watched Charles Roche get out of his car and cross the sidewalk toward them. Their faces betrayed neither animosity nor friendliness, only the surly disinterest he knew so well.

Charles said, “What happened out at the east end of the Roche line about half hour ago?”

The tobacco chewer spat and asked, “Somethin’ happen out there?”

“I heard gunfire, saw an explosion and a house burned.”

The other man said, “You know how it is with them damn Commies, Mr. Roche. Allus makin’ trouble.”

“Was anyone hurt?” Charles asked quietly.

“It’s outside the city limits,” the first man told him. “Some of the deputies went out, I reckon.”

Charles restrained his anger and asked, “Have you seen George Brand around tonight?”

“He don’t show his face much around town at night.”

“I want to see him. Pass the word around where he’ll get hold of it.” Charles started past them into the dining room.

“Mr. Roche…”

He stopped to look back, his hand on the knob. “Yes?”

One of the men said, “Jimmy’s in there. Him… an’ some others. Kinda smoked up, I reckon.”

Charles looked at him, puzzled. “Smoked-up” was a new expression. It smacked of dope… or a new kind of liquor. His muscles contracted, and he asked, “What do you mean?”

“That gasoline,” the man said vaguely, “flings out a pow’ful puff when it’s mixed with enough powder.”

Charles nodded slowly, his eyes hard and grayish in the dim light. He said, “Thanks,” and went in.

There were a number of small tables huddled together at the rear of the dining room, the covers dirty, and eight dirtier men leaning upon them. Three of them had deputies’ badges affixed to their shirts, guns on their hips. Two others Charles recognized as local hangers-on at the City Hall. The others were strangers. All except his brother, who was second from the left. Half of the men had smudged faces and hands.

Standing quietly by the door for a moment, Charles heard their animated conversation. It stopped abruptly when one man, roaring with laughter, looked up and saw him. He stopped with his mouth open and his bleary eyes gazing.

The others turned to see Charles standing there.

“Hello, brother,” Jimmy said mockingly.

Jimmy’s face had a bloated look. His cheeks were round and sallow, his lips bloodless. His white shirt had been blackened, the sleeves rolled up under his armpits. His brows and lashes were singed off and his thick dark hair, the ends burned and crinkly, stood out ludicrously. He was quite drunk.

Charles disregarded the stares of the men seated at the table. He went straight to Jimmy and said, “Let’s go home.”

Jimmy didn’t move. He growled, over his shoulder, “If I had what you’ve got to go home to, that’s where I’d be.”

One of the deputies chortled loudly.

Charles took a step backward, his hands clenched. He asked quietly, “Do any of you know where I might locate George Brand tonight?”

The men whom he faced across the table shook their heads. One of them grunted derisively and said, “That son-of-a-bitch is keeping out of sight tonight.” His grimy face fell forward upon his folded arms.

Jimmy twisted his head and looked up at his brother. “Didn’t Elsa get home from the dance?” he asked drunkenly.

“Of course. What has she to do with it?”

Jimmy’s dark, clouded eyes wavered, and he turned his head away from Charles’ steady gaze. “Nothing,” he growled, “I reckon.” He picked up his drink and poured it down.

There was a moment of heavy silence as the men watched the two brothers with a look of eager anticipation in their bleary eyes. Jimmy pushed his chair back slowly, his hands gripping the edge of the table. He pulled himself up and turned to his brother. He said, surlily, “Get out and leave me alone.”

Charles ignored him. He moved around to the other side of the table and stood rocking back and forth on his heels. After a time he said, “If any of you see Brand, tell him I’m looking for him.”

None of the men said anything. Jimmy eased himself back into his chair. Charles looked toward the door. The two policemen were standing just inside, watching him, and when he started out, they moved aside.

Charles got in his car, started the motor, made a U-turn to drive back and climb to the nine-room house high above the village where Elsa waited for him.

It was late in the afternoon three days later when Michael Shayne made the sharp turn on the gravel drive up to the wide veranda of the Moderne Hotel. There had been no signs along the highway warning him of the hill-top turn. There had, in fact, been no advertisement whatever to advise travellers they were approaching the Moderne. Both he and Lucy Hamilton had been watching for a sign for fifty miles or more through eyes salty with the perspiration dripping from their foreheads and brows. They had decided that the Moderne was not catering to tourists. They had seen the huge wooden board, probably lighted on both sides at night, on the north side of the grounds just in time.

A half dozen elderly guests sat rocking in the chairs on the veranda, languidly waving fans. The hotel was a rambling structure, two stories high. To the left, a dozen or more modern cabins sprawled, separated some ten or twelve feet, all baking under the fierce rays of the Kentucky sun. There was not a tree in sight.

Lucy Hamilton touched his arm as the car stopped with the bumper touching the concrete edge of the porch. “It says up there in the electric curlicues on the sign, ‘Centerville’s Finest’. I wonder what the others must be like.”

“Hotter,” Shayne said, turning to grin into her wide and contemplative brown eyes.

“But you said it would be cool here, Michael. For the last hundred miles you’ve been telling me…”

“That it would be cool when the sun goes down.” He reached over and patted her moist hand. “Besides, we can buy a cool drink in Kentucky… I hope.” He pulled his long legs up, unlatched the door, and stepped from the car. He wore a polo shirt and light cotton slacks. He took a sweat-sodden handkerchief from his hip pocket and mopped his face and neck, running it along his hairy bare arms.

Lucy had stopped a hundred miles back and freshened her face with cold water, combed her hair, and applied make-up. She looked cool and girlish in her white linen frock when she got out on the other side and went up the steps with him.

The occupants of the rocking chairs stopped fanning and regarded them listlessly, picked up their fans and turned their faded eyes once more upon the thundering, chugging highway traffic.

Shayne led Lucy into a small, dim lobby. An electric fan turned half-heartedly in the ceiling, ineffectually stirring the stale air exuding from cigar and cigarette butts in tall, open ashtrays, and the smoke rising from fresh ones puffed toward the ceiling by the men who were smoking in the four comfortable chairs. Except for a wall-crank telephone, four slot machines, an ancient cabinet radio and two spittoons, there were no other furnishings.