“Nice graft these yokels have here,” Bryant murmured confidentially. He moved a step closer to Shayne. “Three ninety-five blankets from Brooklyn marked twenty bucks and stamped genuine Navajo. Maybe you and me could take some lessons.”
Shayne’s nostrils flared. “Is this stuff junk?”
“Nothing but. I saw them unpacking it yesterday out of boxes shipped from New York.”
Shayne saw Phyllis fingering a rug with a garish Indian design. Anger burned in his eyes. He asked, “Any of those packing boxes still around?”
“Sure. In the back.”
Shayne stalked toward his wife. A large man had come up to wait on her and was pointing out the fine workmanship of the blankets. Hulking shoulders dwarfed a lean waist and thin legs. His eyes were black beneath black brows that met across the bridge of his nose. High cheek bones, a beaked nose, and blunt chin looked as though they might have been rudely chiseled with a miner’s drill and single-jack. His shirt sleeves were rolled above the elbows, revealing hairy forearms. There was a dominant air of uncouth strength about him that was out of place behind a store counter.
“Yes, ma’am,” he was assuring Phyllis. “Right off the Navajo Reservation. I make a trip through New Mexico every summer and buy direct from the Indians.” Phyllis’s face glowed with enthusiasm when she looked up at her husband. “Only eighteen dollars, Michael. It’d make a grand lap robe for the car, and I’ve always wanted a real Indian blanket.”
Shayne said, “Nix.”
The big man insisted, “That’s dirt cheap, Mister. I reckon you don’t know anything about Indian stuff.”
Shayne snorted, “An Indian named Moe Ginsberg in the Bronx?”
The man’s heavy brows came down threateningly over his eyes. “Don’t say anything like that in here.”
Phyllis was staring at her husband in hurt astonishment when, behind them, a soft western drawl inquired, “Trouble, Jasper?”
Customers were edging closer, attracted by the scene. The storekeeper spoke in a harsh tone, “This man’s a trouble-maker, Sheriff. Claiming my rugs aren’t real Indian stuff.”
Shayne turned his head and looked into a pair of steady gray eyes level with his own. The sheriff wore a broad-brimmed hat and there was a lean, tough look about him. His face was burned the color of old leather by the Colorado sun, and laugh crinkles radiated from the corners of eyes which had the far-seeing expression of one accustomed to the vast distances of the west.
He studied the detective soberly for a moment, then said, “There’s no call to make a fuss, Mr. Shayne. Mr. Windrow don’t want to sell you something you won’t be satisfied with.”
Shayne was on the verge of arguing with the sheriff when a large woman who had detached herself from the crowd walked up and said, “I’ve been waiting until you were free, Mr. Windrow. I’m determined to take several of your lovely Indian things back to New York with me. I’ll be the envy of everyone when they find out I picked them up for a song.”
Her voice was a pleasant contralto, and her figure was corseted and gowned to deceptive trimness. Turning away, Shayne glanced at her suspiciously. Although middle-aged, her smile and voice had effervescent charm.
Sheriff Fleming was urging Shayne toward the door. He said, “That was Miss Moore, one of the actresses come out from New York for the Festival.”
Phyllis clung to Shayne’s arm, her faced clouded with dismay. Shayne growled, “She acted like a shill to me.”
The sheriff stopped when they reached the door and said firmly, “Now, I want you to get this straight, Mr. Shayne. No hard feelings, but you were wrong about Jasper’s Indian stuff.”
“You mean they aren’t cheap imitations shipped from factories in the East?”
“No, sirree. I’ll take my oath on it. Jasper is tight-fisted and he drives a hard bargain, but nothing crooked.”
Shayne asked, “How about those packing cases in the back from New York?”
“Jasper made a trip back east and bought a lot of stuff to sell during the Festival, all right, but none of it was Indian stuff. He gets that off the Reservation, like he said.”
Shayne’s face was a mask of disgust at himself, and anger at Two-Deck Bryant for roping him in like that. He stepped inside the store again and looked around, but Bryant had disappeared.
He said, angrily. “So, I’m dumb enough to fall for a plant, and I can’t open my big mouth without putting my foot in it.” He started back to the blanket counter.
Phyllis caught up with him and grabbed his arm. “What are you going to do, Michael?” she asked in alarm.
Shayne laughed shortly. “Apologize to Mr. Windrow. Then I’m going to start looking for a gentleman known in all the best gutters as Two-Deck Bryant.”
Chapter two
AT 7:30 THE SUN had sunk far below the mountain ramparts westward and the soft haze of twilight cloaked the rugged contours with illusive beauty. Eureka Street was barricaded to vehicular traffic in front of the hotel and the opera house, and the area was jammed with first-nighters in full evening attire — among them celebrities from every state in the nation — and with gay spectators. There was a generous background of natives in old-fashioned garb, the clanking of spurs on heavy boots, cowboys in full regalia, and miners in clean blue jeans.
The Teller House dining-room and the bar were filled to capacity and the din of merriment rose by the moment.
Somewhat uncomfortable in his dinner jacket, Shayne mopped his brow as he worked his way to the bar with Phyllis clinging close beside him. Over the heads of other bar pressers, he caught the eye of a perspiring waiter and held up two fingers, which, after a week at the hotel, sufficed as an order for straight cognac. There was constant good-natured jostling in the barroom, famous for its legendary “Face on the Barroom Floor,” and no one minded when Shayne reached out a long arm to take a tray from the bartender.
As he turned away, a voice exploded beside him: “Mike Shayne! All dressed up like an undertaker.” Holding the tray high, Shayne ducked his head down and saw a ruddy face near his shoulder. Blue eyes twinkled up at him and a wide smile showed two gold front teeth. His snub nose was generously freckled and a straw hat was tipped back on his bullet-like head.
Shayne said, “By God, if it isn’t Pat Casey. How’d you leave Broadway?”
“Still kicking when I left but I doubt it’ll survive my absence,” Casey told him.
Carefully lowering the tray, Shayne handed Phyllis a glass of cognac and placed the second in Casey’s outstretched hand. He signaled for a third, then explained, “My wife dragged me out here for a vacation. Phyl, Pat’s an old sidekick of mine. A blooming Dutchman by the name of him.”
Casey’s round blue eyes grew rounder. He held out his hand to the slender, smiling girl with lustrous dark hair framing an oval face, who looked not a day over sixteen in her white fur jacket and flowing evening gown.
Casey dragged his gaze away from Phyllis’s loveliness and glared up into Shayne’s amused eyes. “’Tis not true,” he vowed. “By the Saints, Mike, if she can stand your ugly mug, think what’s waiting for a handsome lad like myself.”
“It’s the glamour of being a private op,” Shayne chuckled. “You still on the force in the big town?”
“I’m on special assignment.” Casey lowered his voice to a hoarse rumble though he could not have been overheard had he shouted. “An old pal of yours.” He jerked his head toward the crowded room and complained, “I need a megaphone to tell my secrets in here.”
The bartender shouted, “Hey, redhead!”
Shayne reached for his glass and said, “Let’s find a place to sit down.”