Brett Halliday - Murder Is My Business

“So you retired after making your pile?”

“I’m not rightly sayin’ that, Mr. Shayne. No, sir. I never made what you could call a fortune. Seemed like I had bad luck, sorta.” He looked wistfully at the whisky bottle, but Shayne made no motion toward it.

“What brings you to see me, Riley?”

“Well, sir, I see by the paper that you come all the way up from New Orleans to help clear Jeff Towne in that there accident last Tuesday where the soldier got killed.”

Shayne sipped from his glass and watched the old prospector thoughtfully and didn’t say anything.

Josiah Riley hunched himself a little closer. His old eyes glittered hotly. “I’m thinkin’ maybe you and me can do business.”

“What sort of business?”

“I reckon you’ve done found out the soldier was dead before Towne’s car ever run over him, hey?”

Shayne looked surprised. “What makes you think that?”

Riley waggled his head knowingly. “Maybe I got a reason for thinkin’ it.” He hesitated, and then went on in a querulous tone: “What I don’t savvy is why Towne got you up here to stir up a stink. Not after he went to all that trouble to make it look like an accident. No, sir, I don’t savvy that.” He poked Shayne’s knee with a lean forefinger. “Knowin’ Jeff Towne like I do, I’d guess he’d want to leave sleepin’ dogs lay.”

Shayne reached for the bottle, and the old man held out his glass. Shayne poured a big slug into it and sweetened his own drink. He set the bottle back and said, “You know Jeff Towne, then?”

“I usta know him right well. Yes, sir, I guess you might say right well.”

“He wants to be elected mayor,” Shayne explained. “Running down a soldier at a time like this isn’t a very good way to win votes.”

“That’s just the p’int.” Josiah Riley waggled his head triumphantly. “Why’d he do it, then?”

Shayne’s face remained expressionless. “It was an accident.”

“That’s what he hoped the voters’d think,” Riley agreed. “Then I reckon he got scared an’ called you in to help him out, hey?”

Shayne shrugged and asked abruptly, “What has all this to do with your reason for wanting to see me?”

“You might say it’s why I’m here, Mr. Shayne. Yes, sir, you might say that. Jeff Towne’s payin’ you plenty, I reckon, comin’ here from New Orleans and all.”

Shayne said, “I generally get well paid.”

“Yes, sir,” Josiah Riley cackled admiringly. “A man can see that.” He looked around the hotel room. “Livin’ here in a fancy hotel an’ all. Drinkin’ mighty fine bonded likker.” He emptied his glass and smacked his lips again. “And Jeff Towne’s the man that can pay plenty. I reckon he’d put out big to win that there election, all right.”

Shayne said, “I guess he would.”

“Well, sir, I’ve got a proposition, Mr. Shayne. Yes, sir, a straight out-an’-out proposition. All I wanta know is — does the doctor say the soldier was dead before Towne’s car hit him?”

Shayne shrugged. “The Free Press will be out on the streets in a few minutes and you can read all about it. It isn’t any secret. The soldier was dead, Riley.”

The old prospector nodded his head and cackled happily. “ ’Tain’t no secret to me, neither. No, sir, I guess you might say I’ve known it all along. And Jeff Towne thinks that’ll put him in the clear, don’t he? Thinks he’ll win the election now that he’s proved his car didn’t even kill the lad?”

“It looks that way,” Shayne agreed. “How do you come to know so much about it?”

The old man wrinkled his face into a sly grimace. “That’d be tellin’. Yes, sir, it sure would be tellin’.”

Shayne got up and put the cork back in the whisky bottle. “If that’s all you’ve got to say-”

“Sit down, Mr. Shayne.” Josiah Riley’s voice no longer quavered. It was thin, but it had a harsh quality of command. “How much do you reckon it’d be worth to Jeff Towne to stay in the clear an’ win that election?”

“You’ll have to talk to him about that.” Shayne remained standing with the bottle swinging gently from his fingers.

For the first time fear showed on Riley’s face. “I wouldn’t take a chance on talkin’ to him.” The quaver was back in his voice. “Not to Jeff Towne. I reckon it’d be better for you to handle it.”

“What?”

“My proposition, Mr. Shayne. I’m an old man an’ I don’t want much. Two-three thousand, maybe. That’s all I’m askin’ to keep my mouth plumb tight shut.”

“About what?”

“About what I saw down to the river last Tuesday afternoon.”

Shayne eased himself back down into his chair. He uncorked the bottle and tilted it over Josiah Riley’s glass. “What did you see down at the river Tuesday afternoon?”

“Enough to bust Jeff Towne’s campaign for mayor higher’n a kite,” the old man told him confidently.

“Exactly what did you see?”

Riley shook his head slyly. “You just tell Jeff Towne that. Tell him I was Johnny-on-the-Spot an’ saw it all. That is, don’t you go tellin’ him who ’twas. He’s got a fearful anger when he’s riled up. He’s liable to think he can shut me up cheaper’n he can pay me to keep quiet. Like they say in Mexico, ‘Los muertos no hablan.’ ”

Shayne tugged at his left earlobe and frowned at the old man. “Los muertos no hablan?” he repeated. “The dead don’t talk, eh?”

“That’s it,” Riley cackled. “I wouldn’t feel safe in my bones if Jeff Towne knew I saw what happened Tuesday afternoon.”

“You’re talking about blackmail,” Shayne charged.

“Call it what you like, Mister. I don’t want much. Say, three thousand. It ought to be worth that for him to get elected mayor.”

Shayne said, “You’ll have to put your proposition to Towne yourself.”

“I tell you I don’t dare do that. You’re gettin’ paid to clear him, ain’t you? If I tell the police what I know, you’ll never collect a penny from Towne.”

“Why not?” Shayne snapped.

“ ’Cause,” the old man chortled, “los muertos no pagan, either.”

Shayne considered that statement frowningly for a moment. His knowledge of the Spanish language wasn’t extensive, but he did know that pagan meant pay. “Do you mean you have information that’ll lead to Towne’s death?”

“A man don’t live very long with a hangman’s noose ’round his neck.”

Shayne said angrily, “You’ve been beating all around the bush without saying anything. What is the information you’ve got for sale?”

“All right, Mister. Here it is.” The old man’s eyes glittered venomously. “I saw Jeff Towne kill that soldier Tuesday afternoon. Saw him choke the life out of him with his own hands down by the river.”

Shayne said, “You’d better tell the police what you saw.”

Josiah Riley stared at him incredulously. “Ain’t you workin’ for Towne?”

“Not to cover up murder.”

“If I tell the police, I won’t get paid nothin’,” the old prospector whined.

“Try the Free Press,” Shayne suggested contemptuously. “Neil Cochrane will pay you something for that information. And now you can get out,” he ended casually.

Riley got to his feet. He licked his lips and started to protest further, but Shayne’s uncompromising appearance stopped him. He went hesitantly toward the door, lingered there a moment as though he simply couldn’t believe the interview was over, then sadly went out.

Shayne poured himself a drink when he was alone. He tugged at his earlobe with his right hand and went to a curtained window to peer out somberly. A newsboy was trotting down the street shouting a headline of the Free Press. Shayne couldn’t hear what he was shouting. He went to the telephone and ordered a copy of the afternoon paper sent up. A sudden and enervating lassitude gripped him. He moodily went back to his chair and sat down to wait for the paper.