Brett Halliday - A Taste for Violence

A tall, gaunt-faced woman came to the door. She wore a long white apron over her house dress, and when he asked to see Chief Elwood she shook her head decidedly and said, “Chief’s jest a-settin’ to ’is breakfast. I wouldn’ no-way bother ’im till he’s done eatin’.”

“Neither would I,” agreed Shayne pleasantly. “I’ll wait in his office down the hall, and you can tell him not to short his breakfast on my account.”

“He wouldn’ do that nohow,” she assured him, stepping back reluctantly to let him enter.

He followed her down the hall and went into the study where he and Elwood had talked the preceding night. The woman kept on to the kitchen.

Shayne went over to the desk and found the silenced revolver lying where Elwood had placed it. He carefully folded a newspaper into a cornucopia around the death weapon, tightening the small end over the silencer, and laid it on a chair near the door where he could pick it up upon leaving.

The smell of fresh coffee and fried bacon was strong in the house, making Shayne’s stomach muscles gnaw with hunger. He found the whiskey bottle on the desk, took a long drink from it to kill the butterflies in his stomach and prepare him for what was coming.

He felt extraordinarily good after the second drink. A bit lightheaded from loss of sleep and too much mental exertion, but alert and strong, sure of himself, now that he had things pretty well under control, and eager to get on with the job.

He heard Elwood coming down the hall toward the study. He knew there was a good chance that there had been a leak and the chief might be prepared for what was coming. He set the whiskey bottle down and turned casually, his hand going to his hip and resting on the corrugated butt of the heavy gun in his pocket. He thumbed the safety off and waited.

Henry Elwood was in his shirt sleeves. A small badge that read “Chief” was pinned to his blue suspenders. His face wore a stubble of gray beard and an uncertain smile when he saw Shayne. Both his hands were in sight and empty.

He said, “Early, ain’t you?”

“A little, maybe,” Shayne admitted. He relaxed and took his hand off his gun.

“I been thinkin’ over your proposition,” Elwood said forthrightly, “and I don’t like it. I’m satisfied with things just like they are, and I reckon I’ll make out like always ’thout any help.”

Shayne said, “It’s too bad you feel that way.” He stepped close and fingered the badge.

“Solid gold,” Elwood assured him. “I ordered it from a place in New York m’self. City paid the bill, of course.”

“Of course,” Shayne echoed. He deftly loosened the clasp and pulled it off before the chief could protest, stepped back and held it against his chest admiringly. “It’s mighty pretty. Must make a man feel like something special when he wears it.”

“It does at that,” chuckled the ex-chief of the Centerville police force.

Shayne pinned it on his own shirt and took his gun from his hip pocket. With his left hand he drew out a pair of handcuffs. With one swift movement he snapped one of the rings on Elwood’s right wrist.

Elwood’s protruding eyes looked at Shayne’s gaunt face and glinting eyes. “What in hell you think you’re doin’?” he bellowed.

Shayne slugged him between the eyes with the barrel of his. 45. Elwood staggered back against the wall, stunned and half-blinded by the blood streaming into his eyes.

Shayne jerked him forward and secured the other cuff, shoved him out into the hall, picking up the paper-wrapped revolver on the way. He got Elwood in the car before he recovered enough to realize what was happening. Before he started the motor, the ex-chief began to mutter oaths. Shayne hit him hard with his left fist, hurling him against the car door, then drove directly to police headquarters.

Two patrolmen were going up to the side entrance to report for duty. Shayne hadn’t seen either of them before. They stared at him in uncomprehending astonishment when he stepped from the car and ordered briskly, “Bring this prisoner inside.”

The chief’s gold badge was glittering on Shayne’s chest and he held his automatic in his hand. The patrolmen stopped in their tracks, their astonished eyes staring from Shayne to the portly, hand-cuffed man in the car, his body slumped against the door, his face scarcely recognizable with blood and tears streaming over eyes and jowls.

“But… isn’t that… the chief?” One of the men stammered.

Shayne raised his gun and ordered, “Bring this prisoner in,” again.

The men reacted to the badge and the gun and the tone of authority in Shayne’s command. They went to the car and laboriously supported the heavy, stunned man from the front seat. Shayne went up the steps ahead of them and on into the room where he found the officer named Gar still sitting at the desk from which he had relieved Gantry the night before.

Shayne said, “Book this man for murder. He’s out and I’m in. The faster you birds get that through your heads the better we’ll all get along.”

Gar’s bleary eyes were popping. “Looka here… you can’t do nothin’ like this. The chief…”

A car had stopped outside and a tall, distinguished appearing man got out. He came up the steps spryly and entered the room.

“Looka here, Mayor,” Gar said, “can you tell me what’s goin’ on around here?”

The mayor looked over at Elwood. He was slumped in a straight chair, his head lolling on his shoulder. Turning to the gaping members of the police force who had gathered for day duty, he quietly explained the new order of things in Centerville, appealed to them for co-operation.

When he finished his brief speech he held out his hand to Shayne and said, “Good luck to you. If there is any insubordination, just call on me.”

When the mayor went out Shayne waved his hand negligently and said, “Lock him up,” to the two men guarding Elwood. “Then get some hot water and plenty of lye and a scrub brush and put him to work scrubbing that stinking hole up there. Kick him in the rump every time he slows up, and keep him at it until the job’s finished.”

Shayne said to Gar, “Bring the records on every prisoner to my office at once. No one is to go out on assignment until I talk to them,” he added, looking at the day officers who immediately snapped to attention.

He turned and strode into the large office previously occupied by Elwood, picked up the telephone and called Lucy Hamilton at the Moderne Hotel to tell her it was time his secretary got on the job.

Shayne worked straight through the day, forgetting the lunch hour. Twice during the morning he sent out for containers of black coffee, and surprised Lucy Hamilton by drinking cupfuls without the addition of cognac. At two o’clock he had sandwiches and more coffee sent in while he dug into past records of the men under him. He suspended some, shifted the assignments of others, calling them in one by one to size them up and get an idea of their personalities and inquire into their particular duties.

He then attacked with enthusiasm the charges on file against the thirty-five prisoners and ordered eighteen of them released immediately. Each of the released prisoners had been brought into his office where he explained privately why they were being released and the sort of new deal he was inaugurating in Centerville. Of the remaining seventeen prisoners, he ordered that twelve should be brought to trial at once and faced by their accusers and either sentenced or released.

Only five of the entire number were charged with crimes serious enough to require grand jury action. After a long conference with the city attorney, it was agreed that a special jury should be called within one week to consider those cases.