In a Deadly Vein (6 page)

“NO, SIREE, ol’ Screwloose Pete wasn’t as screwy as most folks thought,” Cal Strenk said firmly. His faded blue eyes held a knowing gleam. He drank noisily through lips flattened against toothless front gums and wiped beer foam from drooping mustaches with the back of a gnarled hand. “Reckon I knowed Screwloose better’n most, and Mister, you git to know a man when you prospect these hills ’longside him for nigh on ten years.”

The aged prospector sat opposite Shayne and Sheriff Fleming in a booth at the rear of a musty beer joint on Main Street. The din of a string orchestra and the bang and whir of slot machines from an adjoining building almost drowned his nasal twang. Across the aisle from the booths, the crowd at the bar were mostly natives, with a sprinkling of tourists who had dropped in for local color.

Strenk was bareheaded. Thin, gray hair framed his parched face in wispy locks. Above a straggly growth of gray mustaches his faded eyes held the sly look of an unfrocked priest as he hunched forward, nursing his mug of beer in calloused hands.

Shayne asked, “Didn’t Pete ever speak of the past—didn’t he ever tell you that his name was Dalcor and that he had a family?”

“Nope, Never did. But shucks, that don’t mean nothin’. Not in these here parts. Plenty hereabouts that’d jest as soon not answer questions, eh, Sheriff?” Strenk cackled a toothless laugh and squinted at Fleming.

Sheriff Fleming pushed his hat back and scratched his forelocks.

Shayne asked, “Do you mean you think he had something to hide? A criminal record, perhaps?”

“Wouldn’t want to say that, Mister. I jest mentioned there was some others, mebby, wasn’t usin’ their right names.” Cal Strenk screwed up his face and appeared to be deep in judicial concentration. “I allus had me an idee Screwloose put on a hull lot of his actin’,” he went on, “to keep from answerin’ fool questions. He was quiet-like, you might say. I recollect onct we was gone three months together, packin’ on burros above timber-line, an’ we didn’t have but two talks in the hull of them three months.”

Shayne bent forward, folding his knobby hands. “What did you talk about those two times?”

“Waal, one time Screwloose tol’ me the pack burros had got their hobbles off an’ we’d have to hunt fer ’em. T’other time was when we was comin’ in after bein’ out prospectin’ fer four days an’ he ast me for a chaw off my plug. He’d run plumb out o’ tobaccy. Nossir, Screwloose weren’t one fer wastin’ words when ’twant no need.”

“And you were his closest friend?” Shayne asked, amused.

“Reckon I was his only friend. We batched together in a shack up back o’ town when we wa’n’t out diggin’ around in the hills.”

“Did he have any personal possessions—anything that might possibly connect him with his past?”

“Nary a thing that I knowed about. Ol’ Pete wa’n’t one fer havin’ things. One wearin’ o’ clothes at a time was all he had use for.” Strenk greedily emptied his beer mug and peered over the tilted edge at Shayne. He set it down, pursing his parched, bloodless lips at its emptiness.

Shayne shoved his empty mug beside it and called for a refill.

“No more for me,” the sheriff declined hastily. “I’ve got to set an example tonight. If folks see me drinking more than one or two beers they’ll swear I was staggering drunk and I’d have trouble.”

“Guess you’re right at that,” Shayne agreed. He lit a cigarette, studying the old miner in silence while they waited. He had an uneasy feeling that Strenk was intentionally drawing him on—holding something back. For a price, perhaps, or out of perverse delight in forcing a detective to probe for information which no one else could give.

When the beers came, Shayne asked Strenk, “What’s your idea about what happened to Pete tonight? Who had a reason to murder him?”

Strenk shook his head warily, buried his whiskers in beer foam and drank. He wiped his mouth carefully before answering, “I sure dunno, Mister Shayne. It beats me. Ol’ Pete was as harmless as a steer in a herd of bullin’ cows. Most folks hereabouts was mighty happy for the ol’ coot when he fin’ly struck it rich.”

Shayne detected a faint emphasis on the word “most.”

He looked sharply at Strenk, but the old miner’s eyes were looking past him, reminiscent and far away. He bent his head over the beer mug and started drinking again.

Shayne asked impatiently, “How many are in on Pete’s discovery? How many besides you will share the mine?”

“How many?” The old man appeared to come back to reality with a jolt. “Why, jest me an’ Pete and Jasper Windrow. Me an’ Pete located the claims side by side, an’ Jasper was grubstakin’ us both. Jasper gets a third,” he ended with the suspicion of a whine.

“Jasper deserves it, too,” Fleming said after a long silence. “He has been grubstaking half the prospectors in Central City for years. It’s high time he got something back. A man can’t keep on doing credit business.”

“Wall, I dunno ’bout that.” The slyness came again to Strenk’s pale eyes. “Notice he still gets to N’York every year on what he calls buyin’ trips. I reckon he ain’t so doggone broke.”

Shayne was conscious of a tension between the sheriff and the aged prospector. Though the words of both had been spoken without stress, there was the impact of a clash across the narrow wooden table. More than ever, he recognized his inability to gauge these men of the West by their spoken word.

Sheriff Fleming said, “Jasper figures he gets better discounts buying direct from New York than in Denver.”

Wrinkled lids veiled Cal Strenk’s watery eyes. He wiped foam from his mouth with elaborate unconcern. He gazed absently past both Shayne and Fleming and said, “Mebby so. Feller like me wouldn’ be knowin’ much about business. There’s some that think Jas is doin’ right well by hisself. Seems like he does some smart steppin’ with the swells durin’ Festival time.”

“A man’s got a right to have some fun once a year like we do in Central,” the sheriff said indulgently. “If you’d put on a clean shirt, Cal, and scrape off your whiskers you might sport some of the ladies around.” He grinned amiably.

Strenk was unresponsive to his humor. He drained the last drop of beer from the glass and sucked noisily at the foam. Shayne ordered a third round for the two of them.

Strenk’s grizzly chin sunk against his chest and his blue-lidded eyes were half closed. He began talking drowsily:

“Funny thing about Pete since we come back an’ filed our claims. Seemed like he got all over hatin’ to have folks come to the cabin. He ast ’em in, b’gosh, an’ sometimes talked hull sentences. Seemed like he got a kick outa havin’ his pitcher took an’ hearin’ Eastern folks say how quaint he was. Quaint, by God. Makes a he-man sick to his stummick. Me, I had to move out.”

“That was after news got around about Pete’s rich strike,” Sheriff Fleming explained to Shayne. “There was a piece about him in the
Register-Call
with his picture, and the Festival crowd pestered him a lot. You got to admit that striking it rich changes a man a little,” he ended apologetically.

Shayne said, “Yeh. That’s natural, of course. Any particular people you can mention?” he asked Strenk.

The old miner’s expression changed quickly from disgust to one of sly pleasure. The provocative hinting at untold secrets filmed his eyes again. He waggled his head and said, “Don’t know’s I can name any of ’em—me not takin’ any part in it and not bein’ quaint enough for pitchers to be sent back home.”

“Could you describe any of Pete’s visitors?” Shayne asked.

“Waal—yes. A couple of flashy sports an’ a older one not so flashy. They was allus buyin’ drinks for Pete ’round town.”

Shayne stiffened. In careful detail he described Two-Deck Bryant and his gunmen. “Would they be the men?”

“Could be, but the town’s so dang full of dudes it’s hard to say for sure.”

“Would you recognize them if you saw them?”

“Reckon so. Could try.” Strenk sucked on his half-filled beer mug.

Shayne turned to Fleming. “That might be an important lead, Sheriff. Sounds like a New York gambler who is suspected of being out here on the trail of a welsher. He has a reputation for collecting overdue gambling debts with a gun. It couldn’t be Pete’s trail he was on,” he mused wearily. “I don’t suppose he has been in New York recently.”

“Not in the ten years I’ve knowed him,” Cal Strenk said drowsily. “He ain’t been to Denver—or even Idaho Springs.”

Shayne said, “I’d like to have you see the men I’m thinking of. See if they’re the ones.”

“Glad to, Mister. Yes, sirree, I’ll be glad to ’blige you. Reckon it was one of them give it to Pete tonight?”

“Not necessarily, but there might be some connection.”

“You lead me to ’em” Strenk finished his third beer and combed his whiskers with broken nails. He took a red bandanna from his pocket and blew his nose violently. “Folks’ll mebby be tellin’ you that me an’ Pete had a failin’ out recent on account of I moved out from batchin’ with ’im, but Pete was still my friend an’ I’ll sure he’p all I can to find out who smashed his head in like that.” A watery film spread over the furtive glint in his eyes as they observed Shayne closely.

Shayne said heartily, “That’s fine, Strenk. I suppose you’ve got an alibi for the time Pete was killed.”

“You ain’t thinkin’ I done it?”

“Nothing like that,” Shayne said pleasantly. “Alibis are just a hobby with me when I’m on a case.”

“Waal, I can sure give you one, Mister.” Strenk’s voice trembled with righteous indignation. “But I won’t take it kindly for you to be thinkin’ I done it.”

Shayne waved a big hand. “All I want from you is an alibi.”

“I was playin’ dominoes with Jeff Wharthous, that’s what I was doin’. You can ast him.”

“I will,” Shayne said. “Rather, I’ll ask the sheriff to check it. Right now I want you to go around with me and see if you can identify Two-Deck Bryant. We’ll try the gambling joints first—I beg your pardon, Sheriff—the charity bazaars.”

The sheriff grinned. “From what I’ve heard and seen of the slot machines not paying off, I reckon it couldn’t legally be called gambling. It’s more like a cinch you’re donating to charity every time you pull a lever.”

“Rollered tight?”

“I don’t know what you call it, but it isn’t hardly gambling.” The sheriff pulled his big frame partially erect and squirmed out of the cramped quarters of the booth. “You two go ahead and mosey around some. I got to show my badge in public so folks’ll know there’s some limits in Central City tonight.”

Shayne and Strenk pushed their way out into the street while the sheriff loitered to speak with friends.

It was past midnight, and the night was clear and biting cold beneath a star-studded sky. Shayne shivered and drew the inadequate coat of his tuxedo closer about him while Strenk strolled along comfortably with a sweaty cotton shirt open at the neck and blue jeans flapping about his scrawny legs.

The streets were jammed, and sounds of revelry came from every lighted building. Shayne started across to the two main gambling casinos, saying, “The man I’m looking for is a professional gambler, but they’re always suckers for a game on their night off. Let’s look over here.”

“Them tourists sure go for this kinda trimmin’,” Strenk said scornfully. “They got a idee it’s like it was sixty years ago.”

“Isn’t it?”

Strenk guffawed and spat in the gutter. “’Tain’t no more a parcel of the ol’ times than a painted face is all of a sporty woman.”

Shayne chuckled and led the way into a large room crammed with crap layouts and roulette tables, chuck-a-luck games and faro dealers; with every game of chance besieged by players waiting to lay their money on the long odds against them. At two o’clock, an early hour for the night-long carousal, the crowd was riotously good-natured and still reasonably sober.

Shayne stayed close to Strenk as they made a slow circuit of the room, but neither Bryant nor his two gunsels were in evidence.

After a thorough search, Strenk said, when they reached the door again, “Didn’t see any of ’em in there.”

They repeated the procedure next door where a fraternal order was raking in charitable donations across the green baize, with the same negative result. When they were once again on the boardwalk outside, Shayne shivered and asked, “Any more joints open?”

“No more big ones like these city fellers’ve put up for the festival. Slot machines around most everywhere, an’ there’s a poker game runnin’ down to the pool hall. Small stakes, I reckon.”

“Bryant wouldn’t be interested in small stakes,” Shayne told him. “He’s a plunger.”

“Tell you what.” Strenk lowered his voice and tugged at Shayne’s sleeve. “I heard talk about a backroom game bein’ mebby open tonight. Not for no charity. Regular ol’ time gamblin’. It’s sorta secret-like, but I reckon you’re awright—not bein’ the real law.”

“Hell, no. I’m not the law. Haven’t even a private license in this state.”

“It’s down the street here—couple of buildin’s past Windrow’s store.” Strenk’s flapping jeans led the way past the old bank building on the corner, across Eureka Street and east, past the dark fronts of shuttered buildings on the north side of the highway leading in from Black Hawk.

“Right acrost yonder,” Strenk pointed south across the bottom of the canyon to the steep barren slope rising beyond, “is our ol’ cabin—Pete’s an’ mine. You can see it in the daytime, settin’ there all by itse’f—”

He stopped abruptly, sucking in his breath. “Looks like a light up there right now. That’s what it is. See it yonder?”

His voice and his pointing finger shook with excitement.

Shayne saw a light flicker like a will-o’-the-wisp a couple of hundred feet up the opposite slope and some distance east. It flickered out as he looked.

“Ghost lights,” Cal Strenk whispered, awed. “Nobody up there now with Ol’ Pete dead. Ghost lights. That’s what. Ha’nting our ol’ cabin.”

The light appeared again in the cabin high on the slope. It shone steadily.

“That’s a flashlight,” Shayne scoffed. “Ghosts aren’t that modern. How do we get up there?”

“They’s a path right acrost the street here. Leads over the end of the flume an’ up the hill. What you reckon—”