MICHAEL SHAYNE said, “So this is what we’ve waited a week to see.” He stood in the doorway of the historic Teller House in Central City, and let his eyes roam pleasurably over the scene.
“I told you it would be worth coming all the way to Colorado to see.” Phyllis stood on tiptoe trying to see over the heads of the crowd swarming over walks and street.
By mid-afternoon of opening day of the annual Play Festival, Central City was beginning to look like the hell-roaring town it would become by nightfall. Since early morning tourists and natives and first-nighters from Denver had been streaming into the ancient mining village wedged between the steep walls of a gulch high in the Rockies — a town built more than sixty years before by rugged pioneers in a ravine so narrow that the creek flowing along the bottom had to be flumed over with stout boards to make space for the business district.
For a pleasant, dreamy week Michael and Phyllis had watched the old town slowly stretch itself and come to life again. Vacationing in the high country had been perfect, with July nights icy, and long, lazy, sunny days for hiking into the mountains pockmarked with tunnels and scarred with placer mines which had produced tons of gold in the Sixties.
A rising tide of excitation was rushing toward a climax of frenzied activity today. Ghost stores were refurbished and opened; small shops that barely eked out an existence eleven months of the year glistened with fresh paint, and counters were replenished with merchandise. All week, miners had been drifting in from the hills, getting their whiskers trimmed and donning new overalls for the Festival. Two deserted buildings on Main Street were transformed into gambling casinos to re-create the spirit of the Sixties and to raise money for charity.
Up and down the steep walls of Eureka Gulch the shuttered homes built by pioneers were opened by new owners who would keep open house during the three weeks of the Festival, and since early morning progressive cocktail parties were the order of the day.
Shayne nodded to his eager young wife. “I’m beginning to believe you, Phyl. Your idea for a vacation in the Rockies wasn’t bad.” He caught her arm and they moved into the gay throng drifting down Eureka Street. Crossing at the corner, they passed old structures which had once been important business buildings, but were now in ill repair and vacant.
Heavy black clouds hung above jagged western peaks, blotting out the sun, but failing to dampen the holiday spirit of the throng. Streaks of lightning forked through the lowering clouds, and the roar of thunder was added to the noise of feet tramping on boardwalks, and the hubbub of talk and laughter. A stiff breeze swept through the narrow canyon, bending the boughs of stately spruce and quaking aspens on the canyon walls.
“Oh, I hope it won’t rain and spoil everything,” Phyllis cried. She clung to her hat with one hand and to Shayne’s arm with the other.
Shayne chuckled. “It would take more than rain to spoil their fun. If it rains everybody out of the streets there’s enough room to open up in some of these old buildings.”
“But the streets would be all muddy — and slippery,” she protested. “I think it would be a shame.”
“We can’t complain, angel,” he answered. “We’ve had a good week up here. It has to rain sometimes, you know.”
“Oh, it has been fun! I was thrilled to meet some of the actors and actresses. Why, they’re just like other people. I’d always imagined they would be snooty.” She laughed gaily as the wind whipped her short skirt.
Shayne pulled his hat tighter on his red head and looked up at the darkened sky. An ominous black cloud appeared to hang lower than the gray film. It moved in the high wind, growing larger momently.
“Looks like we’re going to get it,” he said, “and quick.”
“There’s no use trying to hurry,” Phyllis laughed. “That is, unless everybody hurries.”
Raindrops suddenly spattered in the street, a forerunner of the deluge that sent the crowd scurrying for shelter. Michael and Phyllis were swept along by mass movement into a huge and well-stocked general store, the largest and only modern establishment in the town.
Pushing their way through the double doors, Phyllis shivered from the icy wetness of her suit, but her dark eyes sparkled as they flashed around the walls and occasionally glimpsed a gaily bedecked counter through an opening between the throng of shelter seekers.
“I’ve been planning to lure you in here,” she said, “ever since I saw the marvelous display of Indian blankets in the window.”
Shayne took out his wallet and handed her a sheaf of bills. “Here, go pick out a blanket and wrap it around you. You’re all wet.”
“But — I want you to help me select one, Michael,” she urged.
“Not me,” he said emphatically. “I wouldn’t tackle that mob for forty Indian blankets.”
He grinned and watched her eel her way through, murmuring apologies, then turned to stare through the plate-glass window. Rain fell in wind-driven sheets. The steep street and gutters were a rushing torrent. People were still pushing through the doors, and on the boardwalk women laughed and squealed and shivered as male escorts urged them along.
While the last of them were pressing into the store, Shayne stood on feet planted wide apart, knobby hands thrust deep into trousers pockets, his coarse red brows drawn down in a straight line over slitted gray eyes. Something within him responded to the elemental fury of the mountain storm. He felt alive and vibrant. A week in the high country had dispelled the lethargy which had slowly crept over him at sea-level Florida.
A sardonic smile twitched his wide mouth. His big hands drew up into fists in his pockets. He felt a strong urge to get back into harness — to drive himself hard, as the wind drove the sheets of rain from a cloudburst.
Even as he watched, the wind appeared to swoop low and pick up the rain-sheet to pour it back into the clouds to be dropped somewhere else. Only a misty spray was left and bright sunlight filtered through. The torrent in street and gutters slowly subsided.
As he turned from the window, his gaze brushed the face of a man standing alone in the angle of the walls. He was watching eager buyers at the counters, and there was a caustic smile on his thin lips.
Something told Shayne he should recognize that smile. The man was of medium height, solidly built. A quiet gray business suit was tailored to emphasize his height. His eyes were very blue and still, with a hard opacity. He was not more than fifty, but his hair was a clean, glistening white, cut rather long and parted in the middle. His features were finely sculptured, almost ascetic.
Shayne worried the lobe of his left ear, his gray eyes brooding across the room for a long moment. Abruptly, he strode over to the man and said, “Hello, Two-Deck. You want to be careful of this clean air. Your lungs aren’t used to it.”
Two-Deck Bryant turned his head slowly. His cold eyes studied the tall redhead without a flicker of recognition. He said, “You’re one up on me,” in a mellow, reflective voice.
Shayne grinned. “Last time we met you were dealing seconds in Harry’s Casino at Atlantic Beach.”
A frown ruffled the gambler’s smooth brow. He mused, “That would be eight years ago.”
Shayne nodded. “I was with World-Wide.”
Bryant said, negligently, “Don’t expect me to remember every two-bit dick I run across.”
The hollows in Shayne’s cheeks deepened. “What are you doing out here?”
“Lucius Beebe and me, we’re hell on drama,” Bryant replied.
“No hard feelings.” Shayne shrugged. “I’m not working.”
Bryant’s brow smoothed. “Not that I’m hot, Shamus.”
“Glad to hear it,” Shayne told him. “I was afraid my vacation was going to be spoiled.” He turned to look for Phyllis.
“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.”