Dutch Uncle

by Marilyn Durham

  She sniffed angrily and threw the second drink down her throat, laid one hand on the decanter again, but changed her mind with a shudder.

  ‘I don’t suppose any of your girls would know where he might have gone?’ Jake asked.

  ‘You think he’d go upstairs afterward and say, “Hey, girls, I just robbed the house. If anybody asks for me, I’ll be down the road”?’

  ‘I just wondered. Did he sleep alone?’

  She gave a magnificent shrug. ‘Who knows where he slept? He was supposed to share a room with Slim, but I never checked to see if he did.’

  ‘Did he leave anything behind up there?’

  She looked at him with new respect. ‘Say, maybe you’re not so dumb after all. I never thought of that. Let’s look.’

  Slim didn’t seem to be seriously indisposed. The room was unoccupied. There wasn’t much in it, and what there was Delia identified unhesitatingly as Slim’s. While they were looking, Slim arrived with one of the girls from yesterday’s walk.

  ‘Hey, Deel, Bea just told me something you might want to hear.’

  Bea preened herself at the sight of Jake, but sobered under Delia’s hard stare.

  ‘Somebody came here last night asking for Georgie, Deel.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I never saw him before. He wouldn’t come inside, either.’ She smiled at Jake.

  ‘Well?’ Delia prompted impatiently.

  ‘Well, he came about midnight and knocked on the door. When I opened it — first thing — he asked for some girl named Rosie. I told him there wasn’t nobody here named Rosie, but would I do — you know? But he said; “You mean there ain’t a pretty little Mex here named Rosana?” And I said, “You mean Chica? With a gold tooth?” And he said—’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, get on with it, Bea!’ Delia’s voice cut across the other woman’s, hard and high, with a note of fear in it.

  ‘Well, honey, that’s about all. Except then he asked if George Ramey was in here, and I said he was in the middle of a game. I asked him to come on in and have a drink with me, but he wouldn’t. He just said to tell Ramey he’d be over at the cantina waiting to talk to him, and to tell him he was much obliged. Then he left.’

  ‘What did Ramey do when you told him?’ Jake asked her when Delia didn’t.

  ‘Nothing. He didn’t even act like he heard me at first. Then, when I was just starting to tell him again, he laughed, sort of, and said, “Okay. Thanks for the message.” It didn’t seem to be any big thing to him, so that’s why I forgot it until now.’

  Delia was looking pale. ‘Thanks, Bea. Slim, will you go downstairs and give Angelina a hand dragging my rug out of the bedroom? That coal oil’s going to have to be scrubbed out and let dry in the back yard.’

  ‘Bea,’ said Jake. ‘One more thing. What did the man at the door look like? How was he dressed?’

  ‘Well, listen to old Bill Pinkerton!’ Delia scoffed, but even her sarcasm was muted for once.

  ‘Now that you mention it, that was kind of interesting,’ Bea told him. ‘He was a white man, I’m sure. But he was dressed like a Mexican. You know — white pants and one of those blanket things they stick their heads through. But he took off his hat real polite when he talked to me, so I could see he was American.’

  ‘Light, dark; old or young?’

  ‘Oh, light and young. He had blond hair, lighter than mine. He was real sweet spoken and good looking, except for a kind of long scratch on his face that pulled his eye down at the corner.’

  ‘You sure as hell saw a lot on a dark porch!’ snapped Delia.

  ‘Well, it’s never too dark to see some things,’ Bea said indignantly.

  Jake smiled and made himself comfortable on Slim’s bed. ‘Thanks, Bea. You can go now;’

  Delia shut the door after her and turned to pace the room, not looking at Jake.

  ‘Who was he?’ he asked her after a moment.

  ‘How should I know who he was? Ramey’s partner, I guess,’ she said irritably, flipping the sash back and forth across her hips with one hand, as if lashing herself.

  Jake sighed and sat up from the bed. ‘Yeah, I guess. Well, I’d better be getting along. I’ll send their descriptions out on the wire and see what turns up. It may be a week or more, though.’

  ‘Wait a minute! Is that all you’re going to do?’

  ‘Well, sweetheart, there isn’t much else I can do, is there? I’ll ask around town to see if anybody saw them ride out last night. It doesn’t seem like they’d stick around, does it? In fact, if they aren’t halfway to the Mexican border right now there must be something pretty big holding them back.’

  She stood perfectly still staring at him, her eyes and mouth the only spots of color in her face.

  ‘Is there something?’ he asked her.

  ‘You know damn well there is, don’t you?’ she said through her teeth. Then she hurried over to sit on the bed beside him, since he had leaned back again smiling at her. He could see the paddles churning inside her head. But she got something settled with herself in a moment and managed to smile back at him, though her eyes were still scanning him.

  ‘Listen, Highpockets, can you really do anything like they say, except deal funny poker?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like use that gun? Is it true what Clem says about you, that you’re really pretty good with it?’

  ‘I don’t know. What’s good?’

  ‘Goddamn it, can you shoot somebody with it if you try?’

  ‘Who do you want shot, sweetheart?’

  ‘You know who I want — oh, hell, I should have known better than to expect any help from you! After all, what do you owe me?’ She looked as if she might be close to tears. She also looked genuinely worried.

  Jake reached out and took her arm. ‘Hey, you throw in too soon. How’d you ever learn to play blackjack? Try me again. I never said I hated redheads.’

  She eyed him. ‘What do you want to hear?’

  ‘Try the truth. Only act like you’re still lying. It’ll make it come out easier.’ He waited. ‘Who’s the man?’

  ‘A friend of Rosie’s. Maybe. I don’t know.’

  ‘But you think. Who?’

  ‘A kid — a man — called Frank Becker. He used to work for us as a shill in the tent show. A rube come-on for the shell game or monte.’

  Jake stroked her arm. ‘There, that didn’t hurt too much, did it? What else did he do?’

  ‘He robbed the express office in Yuma when we were there once! Got away with ten thousand dollars — almost. They caught him just before he would have hopped over the Mexican border, but they didn’t find the money with him.’ Her eyebrows took wing. ‘If that’s any big surprise to you. They put him in the Yuma pen for it.’

  ‘Then why are you worried? Maybe he’s still there.’

  ‘And maybe he’s here, looking for Rosie, who maybe had the money he stole all this time! Isn’t it time you had something to say to me?’

  ‘Rosie didn’t look very rich when she died.’

  ‘No? Well, she was carrying fancy luggage!’

  Jake laughed happily. Delia continued to glare at him for another second. Then she softened, even began to chuckle herself. She put her hands around his throat, as if to strangle him, and shook him.

  ‘Damn you, you Dutchman! You’ve known about all this from the start, haven’t you? And you’ve enjoyed watching me try to hustle you!’

  ‘I like to see a pro work.’ Still smiling, he drew her down to him. The change in her attitude was gratifying. Her mouth was absolutely pliant; her firm, heavy breast was as pleasant as gold in his hand. When she drew away after a long moment she had a look of feline smugness about her.

  ‘You like me?’ she purred.

  ‘You’re very nice.’ She was.

  At the next opportunity he asked, ‘Why are you scared of Rosie’s boyfriend? In jail or out, what’s he got against you?’

  ‘I put the law on him. Gave them his d
escription and everything. He stole Pop’s magic bag out of the wagon and fifty dollars out of our money box when we were broke down and stranded in Yuma. The little sonofabitch tried to make it look like Pop was in on the steal, too, when they caught him. They put Pop in jail — on Becker’s say-so — when he was coughing up blood, and the old guy died before they could even have a trial. He had rotten lungs, but Frank Becker killed him as much as they did! So I testified against him. I don’t think we’d be friends any more.’

  Jake smoothed back her hair. ‘Rough,’ he murmured. She was accepting sympathy, too. They grappled softly for a time. He began to think the next two weeks in Arredondo weren’t going to be so bad after all.

  ‘Did you lock that door?’

  ‘No, but nobody will come in while it’s shut.’

  ‘Mn. Who’s Ramey? Did he work for your old man, too?’

  ‘I never saw him before he came here. And I swear I never knew he had anything to do with Becker or Rosie, or I wouldn’t have let him in the door.’

  He thought that made sense. If she was on the track of the missing money she wouldn’t have stuck Rosie’s kids under the nose of somebody who might know them. ‘You were pretty anxious to keep him away from me, though,’ he reminded her.

  ‘The way you acted, I thought there was paper out on him. I didn’t want you arresting him and having to take him up to the county seat and not come back with—’

  ‘With the money,’ he supplied. But his opinion of her was improving by the minute.

  ‘Listen, Jake. I did you some good, didn’t I? I mean, I told you about Becker so you’d know what to do when he comes back.’

  ‘Maybe he won’t come back.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t he?’

  ‘Why should he? He didn’t find Rosie here, and neither did his partner. I don’t know what they had agreed between them. Maybe this wasn’t the place they were supposed to meet after all. It would have been somewhere below the border, and they’re on the way there now.’

  ‘But when he doesn’t find her there, he’s bound to come looking for her!’

  ‘You’re supposing a lot. He’s a wanted man. He didn’t. like to show his face to you last night. You think he’ll come back and make a house-to-house search later? He’d be smarter to forget about the money and enjoy Mexico.’

  He saw she wanted to believe that, but that there was something else just as urgent with her. She wasn’t about to forget the money, whatever Becker did.

  ‘But what I told you meant something, didn’t it?’ she urged.

  ‘I never forget a favor.’ He began to kiss her throat.

  ‘I could do you another favor. No, we could do each other a favor, couldn’t we? You could quit that chicken-feed job and come in here with me. We could get along with each other now, couldn’t we?’ She was half on top of him, her kimono open while he nuzzled her breasts.

  ‘It seems like it. But Sánchez says you’re pretty expensive. I don’t know if I could pay the board for all three of us down here.’ He expected a laugh for that, and then he was going to tell her about the bag. But she pulled back.

  ‘All three of us — who?’

  ‘Me and the kids.’

  ‘What do you want with those greaser brats now? You’ve got the money. Get rid of them. I don’t know why you’ve kept them this long!’

  ‘I’m not sure myself.’ Something in her reaction made him say, ‘But I thought you wanted them down here to keep the old woman happy.’ Then he added with a straight face, ‘They don’t eat much. And they hardly drink at all.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Jake! You know why I said that! And you ought to know that if Becker does come back looking for Rosie and that bag, having them around would be like putting up a sign: “Here it is.” And anyway,’ she said with a ritual shudder of distaste, ‘I can’t stand kids, especially half-breeds. Give them to Carrie Hand. She’s got a big yen for you, only she’s too prissy to show it. She’d bust up with gratitude if you made her a present of them. Better than that, sell them to Sánchez. He—’ She looked at him in sudden exasperation. ‘You’re kidding me, aren’t you?’ She laughed. ‘My God, you take me in every time! How am I ever going to know when you’re serious, when you’re so good at playing dumb?’

  She leaned forward again, but he was somehow less ardent. He fixed a strand of her hair behind her ear and gave her a thin smile.

  ‘Better yet — I could tie them in a bag and drop them down a mine shaft.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think the world would lose much if you did. But I didn’t mean anything like that. What’s the matter? Did you go soft on those dingy little spicks? Do they make you think about what you might have left behind in somebody else’s bed, somewhere? I guess there could be a little Jake or two running around the country that you don’t know about, huh?’ She laughed at Jake’s eyes, grown suddenly darker, like those of a surprised cat. ‘Haven’t you ever thought about that? I guess men don’t, damn ‘em.

  ‘Never mind, honey. I’ll tell you what to do. You tell Sánchez that you can’t keep them any longer. He’ll find somebody who’ll buy them for — oh — twenty or thirty dollars apiece. He keeps that. Then you give him a few dollars extra and tell him, if anybody comes looking for them, to say they and their mama stopped here with him and rode one of his wagons down to Sonora. Easy. And the kids won’t come to any harm, if you’re worried about that. The people who buy them don’t hurt them. They just train them to be useful, like house servants or farm workers. What else would they ever be anyway?’

  She beamed at him. ‘How’s that? Can’t Delia fix things? Sure she can, because, honey, you can put your boots under my bed any time. But I can’t run a charity house for you or anyone else, even if some of the damned men around here seem to think so, like that lousy Sánchez! And some of the other cheapskates — they’re so poor, I ought to have holiday sales, like Ezra French!’

  She chortled at the notion. She was beginning to sound confident of him, though she kept her eyes on the small, cold smile that bad set on Jake’s mouth.

  She began to run one hand down his lean body with deliberate slowness, but before she had satisfied her curiosity he caught the hand, kissed its palm, and got up, pulling her along with him. She came smiling but puzzled. He untied the belt of her robe and drew her against him, his mouth on hers like a thirsty man at a spring. With a deft motion he slipped the robe from her shoulders and let it drop, smoothing her back and buttocks with a firm hand. She purred her triumph.

  Into her mouth he asked, ‘How much?’

  ‘Wha—’

  ‘Everybody pays. How much?’

  ‘Honey, I don’t—’

  ‘Ten dollars?’

  ‘Jake—’

  ‘Eight?’

  ‘I don’t know what the hell you—’

  ‘Or maybe just for love, or because we’re so much alike.’ He scooped her off her feet and swung her around to the bed. A certain doubt had been growing on her face, but now she sighed and closed her eyes, reassured.

  Then he dropped her on the bed so suddenly she squealed and bounced.

  ‘That’s not a bad idea about having a sale,’ he said in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘You need something to compete with that tent. I’ll mention it around town if you like.’ She stared up at him, unblinking. ‘Unless you’d rather run an ad in Hand’s paper, or put a poster on the porch.’

  ‘Jake!’

  ‘It’d be cheaper to just put signs on the girls asses.’ He was going out the door before she could scramble off the creaking bed. She made a grab for her robe as she staggered up, but missed it. The door slammed shut in her face; she jerked it open again as he reached the top of the stairs at the far end of the hall.

  ‘Jake Hollander, you dirty sonofabitch!’

  He descended the front stairs to the landing at an easy lope. She ran to the railing and hung over it, gripping it with white fingers. Her eyes were like a mad horse’s.

  ‘You lousy, cheapskate Dutch bastard! Don’t y
ou ever show your face in here again! Do you hear me? Or send those dirty brats here, either! Stick to the cantina! That herd of sheep is more your style!’

  He stopped halfway down the second flight of steps. Doors were flying open all over the house as the girls rallied to the sound of her voice. Slim and Bea appeared behind her with astonished faces and tried to lay soothing hands on her. She shook them off furiously.

  ‘You two-bit, stinking, penny-ante card shuffler!’ she yelled. ‘You’re going to get what’s coming to you! I hope to God somebody catches you cheating and shoots off both your thumbs. They’re worth more than your balls!’

  He reached into his vest pocket and fished out a coin. It was a ten-dollar gold piece. He winced, but it was the necessary final point to the lesson he was giving her. He flipped it up as she hung over him, screeching. It went between the banister spindles and fell at her feet. She swooped down on it and flung it back at him, cracking her hand painfully on the newel post in the backswing.

  ‘Take it back, tío, and buy yourself a tonic! I don’t make any charge for old men who can’t get it up!’

  He strode past a frozen Angelina in the front hall and slammed the door behind him. Inside, it sounded like a barnyard gone mad. He stalked toward the jail, a hard elation stiffening his legs so that they moved jerkily.

  Paco and Urraca weren’t in the jail when he got back. He called them several times with the sharp whistle that could bring them in from the other end of town, then went out back and looked over the litter of boxes and barrels that Paco had dragged from other lots to build a miniature Arredondo of his own around his pretended silver mine.

  ‘Paco!’ he shouted.

  Carrie came out of her back door at his call, fixing paper sleeve guards around her wrist to protect her spotless white shirtwaist.