Murder Is My Business

CHAPTER SEVEN

Early in the afternoon Shayne strolled down to police headquarters and went up a corridor toward Chief Dyer’s private office. He was nearing the door when it opened and Dyer came out. He was accompanied by Neil Cochrane of the Free Press and a long-legged young man with tousled hair and a solemn face and round, wondering eyes behind a pair of thick-lensed glasses.

Dyer was puffing explosively on his inevitable cigarette in its long holder. When he saw Shayne, he told the two men, “Here he is now, if you want to ask him those questions. You can use my office if you like. You know Cochrane, don’t you, Shayne? And this is Jasper Dodge, on the morning paper.”

Shayne said, yes, he knew Cochrane. He shook hands with the solemn-faced young reporter, who mumbled that he was happy to meet Mr. Shayne. Dyer started to go on by, but Shayne blocked him for a moment. “What’s this all about, Chief?”

“I just gave the boys a statement on the autopsy. They want to ask you a few questions. They want to know on what information you based your request for an autopsy, and who retained you on the case.”

Shayne grinned and said, “The hell they do.”

“And other pertinent questions,” Neil Cochrane shot at him incisively, thrusting his bushy head forward. “My readers will want to know-”

Shayne said, “To hell with your readers, Cochrane. I’m not ready to make a statement yet.” He linked his arm in Chief Dyer’s. “I’ve a couple of things I wanted to talk over with you.”

“Busy right now.” Dyer started down the hall. “Boys have pulled in a couple of suspects on an angle we’ve been working on for some time.”

“I’ll tag along,” Shayne said agreeably.

“Yeah. And we’ll tag along too, Shayne,” Cochrane grated disagreeably. “My paper wants to know who put up the bribe money that caused Doc Thompson to falsify an autopsy.”

Shayne didn’t pay any attention to the little man’s yapping. He went down the hallway with Dyer, and the two reporters trailed behind.

“What sort of an angle?” Shayne asked the chief idly.

“Boys from Fort Bliss have been turning up in Juarez more or less regularly with civilian clothes for an evening’s what-have-you,” Dyer told him. “We’ve been cooperating with the army authorities-” He broke off to stop and open a door into one of the detention rooms just off the booking desk.

Shayne went in with him. There were two uniformed policemen standing in the bare room, and two other occupants were seated.

One of them was a young Mexican girl. She didn’t look over sixteen. She had sultry eyes and a sullen, heavily rouged mouth. She wore a thin white blouse that showed a pink brassiere beneath, and a very short skirt that came well above her knees as she sprawled on a bench. Her rayon stockings were twisted, and one of them had a run all the way down the inside of her calf.

Her companion was a tall, dapper man. He sat bolt upright beside the Mexican floosie, with his hands folded in his lap. He had fierce eyes and a beaked nose, and a square, aggressive jaw.

“Here they are, Chief,” one of the patrolmen said. “The guy won’t do no talkin’, but the girl says-”

She opened her mouth and spewed out a torrent of Mexican vilification at him. Her companion compressed his lips tightly and did not look at her. She ceased abruptly in the middle of a sentence, and her eyes widened as the two reporters peered through the doorway behind Shayne and Chief Dyer. She jumped up and cried out, “Senor Cochrane! You ’ave come for tal them Marquita ees not bad girl. You weel mak’ them let me go, no?”

Neil Cochrane lounged forward with a sickly smile on his ferrety face. He asked, “What have you been up to, Marquita?”

“Nossing. I ’ave done nossing at all. Bot zees mans arrest me, for w’at I do not know.” She shrugged her shoulders defiantly and wriggled her thin hips, then plopped herself down on the bench again, twitching her skirt above her knees and letting her mouth relax into sullen lines.

“How well do you know this girl?” Dyer demanded of the Free Press reporter.

“I’ve run into her in Juarez a couple of times. What are the charges against her?”

Chief Dyer turned inquiringly to the patrolman who had first spoken.

“We picked her up taking a couple of young soldiers in uniform into this man’s secondhand clothing store,” the officer said. “We’ve been watching his place for some time on the hunch that he rented civvies to soldiers who want to slip across the border for a good time. Couple of M.P.’s went in with us, and the soldiers said, sure, she’d picked ’em up on the street and offered to show ’em how to get out to Juarez without gettin’ caught,”

“Who are you?” Dyer growled at the dapper man.

“I am Sydney J. Larimer.” He spoke in precise English, forming each word carefully, his tone incisive and superior. “I have a legitimate business and I protest this outrage. I demand the protection of a legal advisor.”

“What kind of a business do you run?”

“I purchase and sell slightly used clothing and luggage.”

“And rent civilian clothes to soldiers who want to slip across the border?”

Larimer glared at the police chief. “I demand to be allowed to call my lawyer.”

Dyer turned his attention to the girl. “How long have you been taking soldiers to his place to get them fixed up so they could cross the border with you?”

Neil Cochrane interrupted to ask reprovingly, “You haven’t ever done that, have you, Marquita?”

Chief Dyer whirled on the reporter and bellowed, “Get out of here! Both of you!”

Cochrane backed toward the door, protesting, “Is this a Star Chamber? I just want to see that-”

Dyer nodded to one of the patrolmen and growled, “Put them out.” He waited until the door was closed behind the two reporters and then ordered the Mexican girl, “Answer my question.”

She was looking down at her lap. She shook her head and said sullenly, “I do not know w’at you mean. Me, I ’ave done nossing. I am theenk eet ees nice eef ze soldados can go weeth me to Juarez for ’ave fun, an’ I am theenk maybe they can buy clothes for change from uniform.”

“So you took them to Larimer’s store, where you’ve often been before.”

“Never,” said Larimer tightly. “I have a legitimate business and-”

“How much does he charge to rent clothes to soldiers?” Dyer demanded of the girl.

She lifted her head and widened her eyes at him. “I do not know. I theenk I weel ask-”

Chief Dyer uttered a disgusted exclamation and turned to stride out of the room. To the patrolman at the door he said, “Have Sergeant Lawson get all the dope, and then release them. You made the grab too fast. If you’d waited until the soldiers actually changed clothes in the shop, we’d have something.” Muttering to himself, he strode back to his office.

Cochrane and Jasper Dodge were lounging against the wall in front of his door. He brushed past them and went inside. Following Chief Dyer, Shayne was intercepted by Cochrane, who stepped in front of him and said, “Look here, Shayne. I want some answers-”

Shayne put a big hand flat against the reporter’s thin face, and shoved. He stepped inside the chief’s office and closed the door. Dyer was seated at his desk fitting a cigarette into his long holder. His naked-appearing face depicted extreme disgust. “That’s the way it is in police work,” he said. “Have to depend on a bunch of incompetents who go off half-cocked and ruin things.”

Shayne eased one hip onto a corner of the chief’s desk. “Speaking of those two back there?”

Dyer nodded. “We haven’t a thing on them now. And they’ll be careful from now on.”

Shayne lit a cigarette and blew smoke into a cloud already rising from a violent puff from Dyer. “Larimer appears to be some kind of a foreigner.”

“He speaks mighty good English,” growled Dyer.

“Too good,” Shayne said. “Too precise and bookish.”

“We’ll have to work up another lead on the racket now.”

“You could hold the girl,” Shayne suggested to the chief.

“On what? Juvenile delinquency? There are hundreds like her in Juarez and El Paso preying on the soldiers.”

Shayne’s gaunt face was grave. He murmured, “That would be a logical approach for a spy ring. Getting young soldiers across the border with a girl like Marquita. I suppose there are still places in Juarez that go the limit.”

“If there is any limit,” Dyer grunted. He leaned back to peer at the redheaded detective through a haze of cigarette smoke. “Are you saying there’s a spy ring operating here?”

“Could be. It’s a good spot. Close to the border, where information is easily relayed overseas.”

“What sort of information?” Dyer snapped. “What sense would there be in pumping a couple of privates? They possess about as much secret military information as a taxi driver.”

“If enough of them do enough talking, things begin to add up,” Shayne told him. “The modern espionage agent is taught the value of extracting minute bits of information from every source. Add ten thousand of them up and you may have something.”

“Do you think they’d hire a girl like Marquita for that?”

Shayne shrugged. “Not as a Mata Hari, but as a decoy to get the boys across the border to the right places. It’s just a thought,” he went on easily. “How did Cochrane take Thompson’s autopsy?”

“He choked over it,” Dyer chuckled. “The Free Press is all set to tear it to pieces as bought and paid for with Towne’s money.”

Shayne said pleasantly, “Towne didn’t like it either.”

“I know. He called me after you’d been out to see him. He figures you’re playing the Free Press’s game.”

Shayne grinned imperturbably and admitted, “Maybe I am.” He stood up and yawned, “Any chance of borrowing a spare police vehicle to do some poking around the city?”

Chief Dyer regarded him quizzically. “Who are you working for?”

“Myself. As far as I can see, I’m the only one actually interested in how and why the soldier was murdered before Towne ran over the body.”

“I’ve got men on it, but it looks like a dead end to me,” Dyer growled. “Look up Captain Gerlach and tell him I said to give you the key to one of the homicide crates.”

Shayne thanked him and sauntered out to look for Captain Gerlach.