He got up, reluctant to give up the quest for information, but convinced of the uselessness of further questioning. As he slowly turned toward the door, he noticed a framed photograph of a flagrantly pretty girl on the sideboard. The full, round contour of the face was that of a child, but the sensual lips and the flashing gleam in her dark eyes indicated a maturity far beyond her years.
The picture was without question that of the Mexican girl whom Shayne had seen at the police station, taken before her mouth had become sullen. He went toward it, saying politely, “This is a beautiful picture. It must have been made when you were much younger, but the resemblance is remarkable.”
“That is my Marquita. She is a good girl, Senor.” There was fierce, throbbing pride in her voice. “Marquita goes to the school in Juarez and comes to this house not often.”
Shayne murmured, “Your daughter? but she looks older-”
“Thirteen only, Senor, when she pose for it. I have one that is later.” Beaming maternally, she went to the center table and shuffled through some snapshots, selected one, and held it out proudly.
Marquita was seated on a stone wall with her knees crossed, her skirt drawn down so that it almost covered her knees. She was smiling into the camera and her long black hair framed her face in two demure braids.
Shayne studied the snapshot carefully, comparing it with the larger photograph on the sideboard.
“A girl to be proud of,” he said, and placed the snapshot atop the others on the table. “When did you see her last?”
“She comes on Sundays. On most Sundays she comes,” Mrs. Morales amended.
Shayne started toward the door, stopped, and asked, “I wonder if I could trouble you for a drink of water before I go?”
“But yes, Senor.” She went into the kitchen and Shayne turned back to the table. He pocketed the recent snapshot of Marquita Morales, and was waiting at the kitchen door when Mrs. Morales returned with a brimming glass of water. He drank it and thanked her, went out and drove away in the police coupe.
CHAPTER NINE
When Shayne stopped at the hotel desk to pick up his key, the clerk said, “There’s a party here inquiring for you, Mr. Shayne. He’s sitting right over there on that circular lounge.”
Shayne turned to look at the man indicated by the clerk. He was an old man with deep-set eyes beneath shaggy brows. He had sunken cheeks, a weak chin, and a long scrawny neck. He wore a shiny black suit and was obviously ill at ease in the marbled grandeur of the Paso del Norte lobby. A dirty black felt hat was tipped far back on his gray head and he was sucking noisily on a short-stemmed briar.
After studying him for a moment, Shayne was positive he had never seen the man before. He walked over to him and said, “You wanted to see me? I’m Shayne.”
“The detective I read about in the papers?” He came hastily to his feet.
Shayne nodded.
“Then I wanta see you, I reckon. Yes, sir, I sure do.” He bobbed his head up and down several times as he spoke.
“What about?” Shayne made a move to sit down on the circular lounge.
“It’s sorta private,” the old man quavered, glancing around the crowded lobby. “Couldn’t we go out some place to talk?”
Shayne dangled his room key and suggested, “I’ve got a drink up in my room.”
“Now, that’d be right nice. Yes, sir, I say that’d be right nice.” The old man chuckled and held out a blue-veined hand, gnarled and callused by long years of hard work. “Name’s Josiah Riley,” he announced.
Shayne shook hands with him and led the way toward the elevator. They went up to his room, and he indicated a chair while he went into the bathroom to wash out the two glasses he and Carmela had drunk from. He came back and uncorked the bottle of rye he had ordered after Lance Bayliss left, poured out two drinks, and handed one to Josiah Riley.
“I take this right friendly of you,” the old fellow told him. “Yes, sir, it’s a real gentleman that offers a man a drink without knowin’ what his business is.”
Shayne sat down and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “What is your business, Mr. Riley?”
“I’m what you might call retired,” the old fellow chuckled. “Yes, sir, I reckon that’s what you might call it. Live by myself in a little shack on the river flats north of the College of Mines. Mighty pleasant an’ quiet an’ comfortable livin’ by myself thataway.” He put the glass of rye to his lips and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down until the glass was empty. He sighed gustily and licked his lips. “Got kind of usta livin’ by myself back in the old days when I was prospectin’.”
“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?”