The Dead Ringer

by J. R. Roberts

  “You can give him your horse,” Ruiz said.

  “If he’s not careful, he’ll lose a finger or two,” Clint said.

  “He knows,” Ruiz said.

  Clint shrugged, dismounted, and handed Eclipse’s reins to the man.

  “We can go inside,” Ruiz said. “They will see to the horses.”

  The old man approached the large house with a halting gait, and then a vaquero appeared at his elbow to help him up the steps.

  “Gracias,” he said when they’d reached the top.

  The front door opened and a Mexican wearing a white jacket appeared. He said something to Ruiz.

  “Speak English, Carlos,” Ruiz said. “Mr. Adams does not speak Spanish.”

  “I will tell Don Alfredo you are here,” Carlos said. “Please wait inside.”

  They entered the house, stopped just inside the door while Carlos closed and locked it. The floor was made of many pieces of slate. The house itself was made of a combination of wood and adobe.

  “This is Mr. Clint Adams,” Ruiz said, “also known as the Gunsmith. He came to speak with Don Alfredo.”

  “I will tell him, Señor Ruiz.”

  Carlos, who looked to be in his sixties, moved away quietly, his footsteps making no sound at all.

  “You didn’t tell him why I wanted to speak to him,” Clint pointed out.

  “If I did,” Ruiz said, “he probably would not speak to you.”

  “And now?”

  “He might be polite because you are here already.”

  They waited in silence the rest of the time and Carlos finally reappeared.

  “Don Alfredo will see you,” he said.

  “Muy bien,” Ruiz said, and started to move forward.

  “No, not you, señor,” Carlos said, “just Señor Adams.”

  Ruiz took the news in stride.

  “Go ahead, señor,” he said. “I wish you luck.”

  Clint followed Carlos.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Carlos led Clint to a room in back of the house that was furnished in the plush style of many whorehouses he had been in. It surprised him that Don Alfredo Escalante was sitting in the center of it on a red sofa.

  “You are surprised,” Escalante said. “You expected crucifixes, statues, and old-fashioned furniture?”

  “Actually,” Clint said, “I wasn’t expecting much of anything, but yes, I am surprised.”

  “Sit down, please. Would you like something to drink? Or perhaps some coffee?”

  “Strong and black,” Clint said.

  “Carlos?”

  “Sí, jefe.”

  Clint took a seat in a rich-looking armchair.

  “You were expecting me.”

  “Sí.”

  “How?”

  “I have ways of getting information,” he said, “especially when it comes to my children.”

  “So you know Andrew is in jail?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what for?”

  “Yes.”

  Clint studied the man. Whereas Ruiz looked eighty, Escalante may have been eighty but could have passed for sixty. He was extremely fit, wearing white pants and a white shirt with an open collar.

  “And you intend to do nothing?”

  “I intend,” Escalante said, “to have coffee with my guest.”

  “What about Ruiz?”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s still standing in your front hall,” Clint said. “I think he needs to sit down.”

  “Manuel is being cared for,” Escalante said.

  Carlos appeared with a silver tray, bearing a silver coffeepot and china cups. He set it all down, filled the cups, and withdrew.

  Escalante picked up one of the cups and sipped it.

  “I thought you would take it with milk,” Clint said.

  “I have never acquired a taste for café con leche,” the man said. “I prefer my café to be negro.”

  Clint picked up the coffee cup. It smelled wonderful, tasted even better.

  “Bien?” Escalante asked.

  “It’s very good. Thank you.” He put the cup down. “So you have people watching your children for you?”

  “Not specifically,” the older man said in unaccented English, “but I receive reports.”

  “Then you know that Isobel shot me when she thought I was the reason her brother was in jail.”

  “Yes,” he said. “And I appreciate the fact that you did not shoot her, or have her arrested.”

  “She needed help, she didn’t need to be arrested,” Clint said.

  “And you are helping her.”

  “You’re the one who should be helping her,” Clint said. “And Andrew.”

  “My children made the decision to go out on their own,” he said. “They took what I offered them and threw it back in my face.”

  “I think perhaps you overreacted to their desire to be their own people.”

  “I built all this,” he said, waving his arms, “for them. How do you think I felt when they said they did not want it?”

  “I understand—”

  “Do you?” Escalante asked. “Do you have children of your own?”

  “No.”

  “Then you cannot understand, can you?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “No.”

  Clint picked up his cup and drank again. Escalante seemed to be annoyed enough to kick him out at that point.

  “Do you know why I agreed to see you?”

  “No.”

  “I am aware of your reputation, and I wanted to hear what you had to say. So go ahead, please. Convince me to change my mind.”

  “I’m not sure I can, now that I’m here,” Clint said. “I didn’t realize how hurt you were. I didn’t realize how much petulance had to do with your decision to do nothing to help your children.”

  Don Alfredo Escalante stared at Clint for several moments, and then abruptly started laughing.

  “That was very good,” he said. “Petulance. Insult me by comparing me to a petulant child. Very good. Hoping that would force me to act to show you that I am not what you accuse me of.”

  “It was worth a try,” Clint said. “Look, I’m trying to help your children. I’m looking for a man named Jess Mitchell. I think he’s in Nogales. I’ll find out for sure tonight, when I get back to town. If it’s him, I’ll be taking him back to Tubac.”

  “And how will you prove that he is the killer, and not my son?”

  “I don’t know,” Clint said. “Maybe I’ll be able to get him to admit it.”

  “And maybe you’ll have to kill him before that happens,” Escalante said. “Then what?”

  “Then Andrew will need a good lawyer. And good lawyers cost money. Unless you send yours.”

  “My lawyers do not practice law in the United States.”

  “Then you can hire an American lawyer,” Clint said.

  “And why should I?”

  “Are we back to that again?” Clint asked. “They’re your children.”

  “Tell Isobel to come back.”

  “What?”

  “Tell her to come back and ask me for help.”

  “And then you’ll help?”

  “I do not know. But we’ll see.”

  Clint stood up.

  “Are we finished?”

  “I am,” Clint said. “I’ve got work to do.”

  “Don’t you want to talk to my wife?” Escalante asked. “See if she can have an influence over me?”

  “Nobody can influence you,” Clint said. “You are definitely your own man, something you can’t seem to appreciate in your own son.”

  “My son? His own man?”

  “If you can’t see that, then you need help,” Clint said.

  “Señor,” Escalante said, “you have no idea—”

  “You’re right, I don’t,” Clint said. “At least, I didn’t when I got here, but I have a better idea now. Thanks for seeing me, Don Alfredo. And thanks for the coffee.”r />
  “Señor—”

  “I’m sure you’ll know everything that happens right after it happens,” Clint said.

  He walked out, found his way back to where Manuel Ruiz was seated—still in the hall. Someone had brought the old man a straight-backed wooden chair. He looked extremely uncomfortable.

  “Is that all?” Ruiz asked. “That did not take very long.”

  “No, it didn’t,” Clint said.

  “Did you accomplish anything?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Señor?”

  Clint turned, saw Carlos standing there.

  “Yes?”

  “Doña Estrella would like to speak with you before you leave.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “Sí, señor.”

  Clint looked at Ruiz.

  “You had better go,” he said, shifting a bit in the chair.

  “Get Carlos to bring you some coffee,” Clint said. “It’s really good.”

  He turned to the servant and said, “All right, lead the way.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Clint followed Carlos to the kitchen, which surprised him. It also surprised him to find a handsome woman in her fifties there, kneading some dough. She was using her fists on it, and he wondered whose face she was envisioning there.

  “Señora, Clint Adams,” Carlos said.

  “Gracias, Carlos,” she said. “That is all.”

  As Carlos left, Estrella Escalante looked at Clint, wiping her hands off on the apron she wore, which covered her from the neck down.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me, Señor Adams,” she said.

  “That’s all right, señora.”

  “You have finished talking to my husband, I assume?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And are you frustrated?”

  “Very much so.”

  “Then you know how I feel every day since the children left home,” she said. “I was hoping that someone like you would be able to talk sense into him.”

  Her English was not as good as her husband’s, but it was only slightly accented. Clint could see past the lines in her face and neck to the beauty she had once been.

  “I’m afraid I wasn’t able to talk any sense into him,” he said, holding his hat in his hand.

  “Have you been able to help my stepson at all?” she asked.

  He explained to her everything he had done so far, and what he intended to do. He even told her how Isobel had shot him.

  “I am very sorry about what my stepdaughter did to you,” she said, “but I am grateful for all you have tried to do to help Andrew and Isobel. I love them like my own children.”

  “If I find Jess Mitchell and take him back to Tubac,” he said, “we might be able to get Andrew out of jail.”

  “But how would you prove that this man, Mitchell, is the real killer?”

  “As I told your husband, maybe I can get him to confess.”

  “But that is only if he does not force you to kill him.”

  “Well . . . yes.”

  “And if he knows he is going back to the United States to face a murder charge, that would be likely, eh?”

  “I’m going to do my best to get him back there alive, señora.”

  “I believe you are, señor,” she said. “I can tell by your actions so far that you are an honorable man.”

  “Thank you, señora.”

  He turned to leave. She moved so quickly she was beside him before he knew it, her hand on his arm.

  “Señor, I have some money that my husband does not know about,” she said. “It should be enough to hire a lawyer. Please let me know if you need it.”

  “I will, señora,” Clint said, “but I’m hoping to resolve this without the need of a lawyer.”

  “I hope you can, señor,” she said, “and I thank you with all my heart.”

  He nodded. She removed her hand from his arm and he left the kitchen.

  Ruiz was still sitting in the hard chair when Clint got back to the hall. The old man was shifting uncomfortably but abruptly stopped when Clint appeared.

  “Are we finished?” he asked, looking up at Clint hopefully.

  “He doesn’t want to talk to you before we leave?” Clint asked.

  “I am sure he has nothing to say to me, señor,” Ruiz said.

  “Are you going to get into trouble for bringing me here?”

  “I have been in trouble with Don Alfredo before,” the man said with a shrug.

  Clint put his hand out to help the older man to his feet, then offered his elbow to help him down the front stairs. Once they were outside, the vaqueros brought Eclipse and the buggy around, and helped Ruiz up into his seat. Clint was secretly satisfied to see one vaquero hiding his bleeding hand. Eclipse had taken at least a piece out of the man, if not a finger.

  Ruiz turned the buggy around and looked at Clint.

  “Did you find satisfaction, señor?”

  “Very little, I’m afraid,” Clint said, “but the señora seems to be a remarkable woman.”

  “You have no idea, señor,” Ruiz said, and snapped the reins at his horse.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Back in town, Clint helped Ruiz get his rig back to the livery, and then accompanied the old man back to his office.

  “Thank you,” Ruiz said at the door.

  “Señor Ruiz, I was told Don Alfredo has several lawyers.”

  “Sí, that is true,” the older man said. “He has me, and Frederico works for me. He uses one other lawyer for his business matters.”

  “So no one who specializes in criminal matters?” Clint asked.

  “No,” Ruiz said. “Don Alfredo is not a criminal.”

  “Okay, well, thank you for taking me to see him.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “See if I can find Mitchell and squeeze a confession out of him.”

  “I wish you luck.”

  Ruiz went into his building and Clint walked to his hotel.

  It was late afternoon, still time to find the third gringo, the other “Smith,” and see if he was Jess Mitchell. If he wasn’t, then Clint would have to admit that he might have gone the wrong way, the wrong direction. If Mitchell had fled north—or east or west—then he was gone. Getting Andrew Escalante out of jail would be almost impossible. They needed that confession.

  If he wanted to, he could continue to track Mitchell when he got back to the United States, to make sure the man did not ever impersonate him again. But that wouldn’t help Andrew. He’d go to trial, and probably be hanged. Clint couldn’t let that happen, especially now that he had two women—Isobel and Estrella—depending on him.

  He left his hotel and walked to the cantina the sheriff had told him about, which had rooms to rent behind it. It was an adobe building, all on one level.

  He entered and approached the bar, wanting simply to be another customer for a little while. The place was busy, all the tables taken, three women with long black hair and peasant blouses working the floor. Behind the bar was an evil-looking man in his thirties. He had black hair, a black mustache and beard, and a shirt with the sleeves pushed up over large forearms. He looked as if his face would crack if he ever tried to smile. The bar top was pitted and filthy.

  “Whiskey,” Clint said. He figured drinking something from a bottle was the safest course of action.

  The bartender poured him a shot glass of whiskey and took his money.

  Looking at the bartender, Clint decided the man would not react well to questions. Not direct questions anyway.

  He drank his whiskey, checking the room. He did not see any other gringos in the room but himself. Every table was taken up by two or three Mexican men, but nobody seemed to be paying any special attention to him.

  The women kept working the room. They looked enough alike to be in the same family, but he noticed they were of varying ages. And while two were tall and slender, the older woman had a lusher figure packed onto about five inches less height.

>   He turned back to the bar and asked for another whiskey. The bartender poured it without a word. Clint wondered if the man spoke much English.

  He decided to find out.

  “Do you speak English?” he asked.

  The man glared at him, then nodded.

  “I heard you had rooms to rent in the back,” Clint said. “I’m looking.”

  “No room,” the man said.

  “Oh? Why not?”

  “All taken.”

  “I see. Okay, well, thanks.”

  He finished his whiskey and decided to leave. The room didn’t feel right to him. If he started to ask questions, people would begin to notice him.

  He decided to find out what he needed to know on the outside. Only it would have to wait until after dark. He didn’t want to be seen peering in the windows.

  He left the cantina, and while he didn’t notice anyone specific watching him when he entered, he felt there were more than one set of eyes on him as he left.

  Mitchell opened the door to the light knock, saw Rosa standing in the hall.

  “Not ready for you, honey,” he said.

  “There was a man in the cantina,” she said. “A gringo.”

  “What’d he want?”

  “A room,” she said. “He asked José about a room.”

  “What did José tell him?”

  “No rooms.”

  “Okay,” he said, “okay. Come and tell me if he comes back in, okay?”

  “I will.”

  “And come back in a couple of hours anyway.” He hooked his finger in the front of her blouse, so that the finger was between her breasts.

  “Sí,” she said, “I will be back.”

  She went down the hall, and he watched her walk until she was gone.

  Rosa didn’t like the gringo. She thought she was his favorite, however, because she squealed a lot when she was in bed with him. He seemed to like that.

  All the girls, and José, knew that he was on the run from someone. When they saw the gringo walk in, and then leave after two drinks, José sent her back to warn Mitchell. After all, he had agreed to pay José a lot for the room, and the service.

  Rosa wouldn’t have minded if Mitchell left them this week. She was ready for him to go.

  And she wouldn’t have minded if the new gringo came in and stayed awhile.