Crossing the street, Steward repeated his routine as he worked his way westward, back toward the center of town; his route took him across the main street and on into the far western reaches. Bloch was not seen.
Steward gave special attention to the theater.
The evening’s performance of Fashion, or Life in New York was nearly over, but the fusty box-office attendant insisted that he buy a full ticket if he wished to enter the theater. The Character purchased the ticket and went in. What little he saw of the play bored him. He studied the darkened house as well as he could, and waited until the curtain fell and the lights went up to be absolutely certain. Until this moment, he had been willing to bet that Bobby Bloch was in the theater, taking mental notes on his ancestral colleagues. The audience applauded sparingly and left. Bloch was not among them.
Still mindful of actors’ habits, he went around to the stage door and bluffed his way in on the pretext of wanting autographs. He got the autographs on his program, but he got no glimpse of the missing man. Steward stalled for time until the troupe left the theater, and followed them to a nearby restaurant, knowing that there was usually an after-theater feed of some sort even if the performers had to buy it for themselves. Bloch did not appear for the party.
Steward resumed his lasting, weary search of the town streets, one forlorn street after another.
Hundreds of bragging, thirsty men filled the saloons, impeding his progress, but he pushed doggedly on. The noisy and unruly mob milling about the courthouse square still numbered in the thousands, and he had no recourse but to avoid it. To satisfactorily search that crowd seeking one familiar face would require hours, and that many hours he could not spare. The Character detoured around the square and took up the quest on the far side. He plodded the streets east and west, north and south. Setting caution aside, he explored the alleys. He stumbled across the vacant lots, looking under trees, probing the shrubbery, and inspecting the heaps of refuse which local citizens insisted on dumping in such lots. He poked among the stacks of lumber and piles of brick of half-completed buildings; rummaged through the incompleted houses, and pried into the seemingly deserted shacks which littered the town. Steward looked into the many livery stables, inquiring after a tipsy friend who might have sought sleep in their haymows. He walked out to the railway depot, to search the wooden seats for a sleeping form. He found—and entered—two houses of ill repute, and had time to wonder at the changes which would take place in the next seven hundred years. He was quickly but politely ushered out of a gambling hall when it was discovered he had come only to gape, not to play. Steward paused before the newspaper office and found it closed; stopped in at a dimly lit job-printing shop and found it occupied only by a printer turning out handbills. The printer gave him one.
And once again the Character chanced across the traveling medicine show, now open and vigorously operating. He gave scant attention to the show’s proprietor and his weird spiel, to the brightly dressed but wooden-faced Indian standing at one end of the platform, to the piebald horse tethered at the opposite end of the wagon. Steward scanned the audience. Bloch was not among them.
At this late hour he knew the business district of the town as thoroughly as a map maker. He could, if asked by the cartographers, not only lay out the streets in their proper order, but place each separate business establishment in its proper location. At this late hour—
Guiltily, Benjamin Steward looked at his watch and turned to run. It was more than an hour past midnight.
He sought out the street leading to the rendezvous and hurried along it. The unexpected lateness of the hour contributed to his dismay, and made it imperative that he send Karl Dobbs home.
Dobbs would not leave the rendezvous until Steward returned, empty-handed or otherwise, and by this time the older man would be alarmed at his absence.
12
ALIBI
KARL DOBBS was squatting on his heels beneath the hitching rail when Benjamin Steward returned from town. This time Dobbs did not vocally express his mounting anxiety when the crew leader reached him. It was a familiar character trait, and one that revealed the true depths of the man’s concern. Dobbs had been frightened.
There was no greeting exchanged between them, and at first no words at all.
Steward sank down on his heels beside his companion, expelled a heavy breath of fatigue, and then toppled backward to sit down. His feet were aching. He pulled off the antiquated boots to massage the hurt.
The little tavern was still open and doing business, catering to a few late revelers who were loudly rehashing the evening’s speeches. Their boisterous voices were annoying. Above the tavern the deep night sky was riotously afire with stars.
“Did you look in the theater?” Dobbs asked gently after an interval. “An empty stage fascinates him.”
Steward nodded. “I looked.”
Dobbs did not press further. He knew without asking that Steward had covered the prairie town as thoroughly as a desperate and determined man could. Steward was that kind of Character, and now his physical weariness underwrote the completeness of his search. The missing actor could be anywhere. If he was still among the living, he could have moved from tavern to tavern only minutes ahead of, or behind, his pursuer. If Bloch was dead, he could be in any secret place where his assailants had thrown the body. He did not believe the actor was dead.
Dobbs held his silence and waited for Steward to speak his mind. The next move was his.
Presently, Steward said, “Disraeli?”
Dobbs was not caught by surprise.
“A government leader in another country across the ocean,” the older man explained, as if the afternoon conversation had occurred only a few minutes ago. “Alive now. This year. Powerful speaker, that Disraeli. Something of a liberal and a reformer. His best is still to come.”
“Can Lincoln match him?”
“In power, in his native land, yes. In the finer points of education and intelligence, no. Were the two to meet, to debate before an impartial judge, Disraeli would prove himself the master. But in their respective lands the two are equals.”
“Lincoln had you.”
“I was spellbound, completely absorbed. Disraeli accomplished the same thing. Each of these men will reach the topmost goals, if they live.”
“How much margin would you allow yourself?”
Again, Dobbs was not caught off balance by the abrupt change of tack. He had recognized Steward’s preamble for what it was, a minor discussion of one subject while preparing to broach another.
Now, with one sentence unrelated to the others, he asked Dobbs to place himself in the imaginary position of crew leader, and make a decision. How much of a safety factor would he allow himself between ending the search for Bloch, and retreating to the bullet to protect his own life.
Dobbs did not hesitate.
“At least ten minutes.”
“I was thinking of a little less than that.”
“Don’t,” Dobbs warned. “You should have at least ten minutes to clear yourself. You could use more.”
“I swear to God, Karl, I can’t abandon that crazy actor.”
“You may have to,” Dobbs answered harshly.
Steward rubbed his aching feet but said nothing. He studied the stars overhead, and pretended to find something of interest there.
Sam Wendy’s bloody, severed image danced on the sky. Below the image, and disconcertingly near, he thought he saw Evelyn Kung’s eyes studying him. They were mocking eyes.
“I found that accursed wire—again.”
“Upstairs?”
“In the auditorium, thrown on the floor. No spool, no machine, no Character. Only the wire.”
“I don’t believe Bloch reached the auditorium.”
“Probably not.” Steward averted his gaze from the sky. “Karl, was anyone else in the hall when you went up to look for him?”
“There were four, perhaps five men standing about, talking. And one or two others sitt
ing down.”
“ ’Sdeath—and you didn’t see fifty feet of wire strewn between the seats?”
“I did not. But remember that I was looking for a man; supposedly one standing on his own two feet. I watched the floor, but not under the seats.”
“But the wire might have been there.”
“It might, but it isn’t likely. That much loose wire could trip a hundred delegates. I suspect the wire was tossed after the room was cleared. Perhaps by one of those half-dozen men.”
“Why?”
“Why does the world go around? They tell me somebody pushes it, and who am I to disagree?”
“That confounded wire worried me. I was angry about the overshoot, but that worked itself out all right; I was upset about the ruckus with Lovejoy, and that turned out to be molehills and mountains; but the wire worried me. One of us had to lose it and I had to find it; I couldn’t take it back with me, and so I had to violate the rule about leaving foreign matter in the field. Does this world have spun wire of that caliber?”
“I don’t know. Insufficient data.”
“Well, they’ve got it now—fifty feet or more of it. If Whittle knew that, he’d send a squad of security police back for it! Cardinal sin, and all that.” Steward twisted around to look at the town. “So we know now whose wire it is.”
Dobbs said quietly, “Do you still have the extra spool?”
Steward hastily clapped his hand to his pocket.
“Yes.”
“Very well, then we know whose wire it is. But I was wagering my sour money on your extra spool.” Dobbs got up and stretched. “Stop whipping yourself.”
“What are you talking about?”
“About you, about the decision all of us made to bring Bobby Bloch along on this shoot. We all participated in the decision because we all wanted to give him a hand; each of us felt bad about his brother, and each of us volunteered to carry him. We thought we could straighten out the lad. We thought wrong. Each of us will pay for making an error in judgment.”
“I pulled him—it’s on record.”
“Bonner and myself will swear differently.”
“You can’t dispute Evelyn’s records.”
“We can confess our conversation and our agreement on the matter; we can insist on equal blame and equal sanctions.”
“Fat lot of good that will do!”
“I expect no good to come of it, but I’m not one to welsh on agreements or bemoan bad judgment. My only regret is—well, Bloch will have to pay the piper. Severely.” Dobbs sighed and consulted his watch.
Steward said, “I’m going back into town.”
“I expected as much. You’re a stubborn ass.” And Dobbs put out his hand. “Give me the faked wire.”
“Why?”
“Don’t ask useless questions. Give it to me.”
The Character handed over the extra spool.
“The time is ripe for another round in the battle of Kadesh,” Dobbs explained. “Ramses is still winning.”
“What goes?”
Dobbs grasped the end-loop between his fingers and deliberately pulled ten or fifteen feet of tightly wrapped wire from the spool. He gauged it with his eyes, judged it to be sufficient for his purpose, and then loosely rewound the spool. The result was what he wanted: a jumbled outer layer of wire, obviously hand-wound, overlaying the precise, tight layers packed onto the spool by the machine.
Oblivious of Steward’s astonished stare, Karl Dobbs next rolled up his trousers, pulled back the long underwear and exposed the skin of his leg. He jabbed a long fingernail into the leg, tore the skin and drew blood. The recording spool was then smeared with the blood.
“What in the devil are you doing?” Steward demanded.
“Writing the big lie.”
“Karl, have you shot your bolt?”
“Look alive, man, the buzzards are waiting for you in the chamber! Have you got your story ready?”
“What story?”
“Hell and high water, Stew, do I have to spell it for you? Bonner has already laid the foundation—we lost Bloch in the crowd after the speech, and haven’t seen him since. My turn comes next. I’m going back in a few minutes and I’m taking this spool with me as exhibit A.
“When you searched the town a while ago you found strong indications of Bloch’s death, remember? You found this unwound spool in the alley behind the auditorium. It had blood on it. Hold the spool—put your fingerprints on it. The scene in the alley gave clear evidence of a struggle, perhaps a fatal one. You fear the worst. Now, dang it, Stew, the rest is up to you!”
“Slow down, Karl.”
“You can’t afford to slow down,” Dobbs retorted heatedly. He tapped his watch in warning. “About three hours from now the engineers will pull back that bullet, with or without you. You’ve got to hump it, soh, and hump it fast. I’m going back to Whittle with a story that will give him high blood pressure. This spool will underwrite my story. But I’ll tell it in such a way as to leave the ending open for you. Apparently, Bobby Bloch has been killed. But he might not be. You finish the story.”
Steward shook his head groggily. “Cue me in. You’ve talked me to sleep.”
“You are going back into that town once more tonight,” Dobbs explained patiently. “You are staying in the field until the last ten minutes, hoping to determine the truth. Is Bloch dead? Is the bloody spool and the scene in the alley reliable evidence? Or was it merely dropped under duress?
“If you do find that drunken bum, clean him out, brief him, and bring him back with you. Tell him what has happened, and then concoct a good story to cover us. Maybe, five years from now, we can all have a drink and a good laugh over it.”
Nervously, Dobbs once more consulted his watch.
“And if I don’t . . .?”
“If you don’t find him, Stew, jump for the chamber before your time runs out. Hell and high water, man, do you realize you are pushing cancellation right now? I have no right to give you orders, but I’m going to give you one: jump, and be damned to the consequences! Jump for home, and report Bobby Bloch’s death. Have something handy to back it up, something which will stave off an investigation by the security police. T-R won’t spend money to shoot back and recover a corpse. Will they?”
Dobbs snapped the question, wanting it to bite.
“No,” Steward answered tautly, “they didn’t.”
“Well and good. That will wrap it up! That will give Bloch one more chance of making something of himself, assuming he has any guts at all. He wouldn’t live very long on the labor squads back home; perhaps he can manage to stay alive here. Find work. There’s that Shakespearean troupe coming to town next week.” Dobbs shook his head. “And I suppose I wish him luck when he sobers up in the morning. Luck. I have no other charity in my heart for him.”
“I dunno, Karl. Whittle won’t believe this.”
“Go tell that to the Egyptians. Ramses will laugh in your face.” He reached down and caught Steward by the coat collar, yanking him to his feet. “Whittle will have no other choice. By now, Bonner will have worried him. In a few moments I’ll make him sweat. You shock the living guts out of the man, if you come in without the actor. Make it bloody, but make it sincere. Now, dang it, son, hump!”
Hopping first on one foot and then the other, the Character replaced the boots on his distressed feet.
“See in what peace a Christian can die,” he said with resignation. “I’ll try, Karl, but if it doesn’t work we all go to the salt mines.”
“Have you never pulled a fast one on Whittle? Or the others?”
“Of course I have.”
“Then pull one more, and let it be a reminder to our egos. Sentiment warps a man’s good judgment.” Dobbs was shaking his watch in the other’s face. “And remember the time limit! Evelyn has no wish to be twice widowed.”
Steward froze.
“That hurt,” he said.
“I intended it to.”
“We aren’t married.”<
br />
“Not yet.”
“I wondered if you knew about it.”
“I knew. Get along.”
“You’d better give Bonner the soft word.”
“Will do. Don’t fret about my preparations; just make sure yours will stand scrutiny.”
“Okay, okay, it will be bloody. And sincere. Well—so long, pardner.”
“Ten minutes’ margin, and no less,” Dobbs warned again. “Double it if you are able; triple it. I’ll stall those deadline-happy engineers as long as possible, but that isn’t saying much. They’d rather take a beating than lose their precious machine, and Whittle will beat them if they do. They can’t save you if you haven’t returned when the limit expires, but they can save the machine. Remember that.”
“Oh, stop preaching.”
“If I were younger I’d thrash you.”
“Scat,” Steward told him. “It’s getting late.”
Karl Dobbs hesitated only a moment longer, to stare at his companion.
“I think it is a sign of weakness,” he declared.
“What is?”
“Your cloying sentimentality.”
He spun on his heel and stalked away into the night.
Steward grinned at his departing back. Dobbs was getting on in years and his empathy was showing.
Moving gingerly in the now uncomfortable boots, Steward stepped out into the dusty road for his fourth trip into Lincoln’s town. The torchlights were dying away as the excitement ebbed and the townspeople prepared for bed. Their day in history was done.
Behind him, from somewhere on the darkened prairie, Dobbs suddenly shouted his name.
Steward whirled and raced toward the sound.
Dobbs was loping in to meet him, breathless.
“Stew!” the senior Character gasped, “did you think about the jail? Did you look in the jail?”
“Jehoshaphat, no!”
Dobbs wasted few motions. He quickly emptied his pockets of what little native money he possessed, passed over his pocket watch, and then removed an expensive ring from his finger. He crammed the valuables into Steward’s hand.
The Lincoln Hunters Page 14