Power in the Blood

by Greg Matthews

  “Explain yourself,” demanded Leo, and Rowland did, by producing the letter he had received from Denver. He poured a stiff drink for Leo while it was being read, and handed the glass over as the sheet fluttered to the floor.

  “Oh, Rowland …,” Leo said. “What have I done?”

  “What many a man has done before you, my friend.”

  “This is … monstrous.”

  “That may be something of an exaggeration, but an embarrassment … yes, I believe it could be so termed.”

  “What am I to do with such a creature? She has her hooks deep into me, Rowland.…”

  “Pay her off. She’ll leave without a murmur once she knows you’ve learned the truth about her.”

  Leo was assembling in his mind a larger picture than that suggested by Price. He knew now that he had sent away a good woman to be replaced by a whore, a professional temptress for whom he must have presented the easiest of targets. The way she had introduced herself to him aboard his private car; the way she had succumbed to his advances with pretty confusion and maidenly blushes; the way she had manipulated him into providing her with more than Zoe had ever asked for; the way in which she had suggested to him that the crowning glory of the home that was to be theirs would be a life-sized elk of solid gold … The impudence and cunning of this Lovey Doll Pines were beyond comprehension, beyond the natural avariciousness of the average whore, were in an unnameable class all their own. He had been a perfect fool, the most willing of dupes, a plaything in her practiced hands.

  And he had dispatched an anonymous assassin to find Zoe and kill her, because he had preferred the charms of the liar. He had once accused Zoe of being just that, but her lies of omission were as nothing in comparison to the monstrous deception wrought by this Lovey Doll Pines. A whore for a wife. The truth would have emerged sooner or later, possibly while he was seeking political office; it would have been a disaster of tremendous proportions.

  “Pay her? Rowland, she has already cost me too much … too much, you see.”

  “Then a little more won’t break you, Leo. You gave your wife one million dollars.”

  “But she was a virtuous woman, despite her shortcomings. This one … How dare she attempt such a tactic against me! I won’t pay her a single cent!”

  “That is your choice to make.”

  “How dare she!”

  “A devious minx of the worst kind.”

  “She won’t get away with it, Rowland.”

  “Indeed she will not.”

  “And she won’t tell anyone how close she came to succeeding either; you’ll see to that, won’t you?”

  “I don’t quite follow your line of thought, Leo.”

  “The fellow you sent to Durango, the one with the dagger—have him take care of Miss Pines at the earliest opportunity.”

  “Are you sure such a move would be wise? Send her away, and that will be that.”

  “It will not! She has attempted to make a fool of me … she has made a fool of me, and I can’t forgive her! Set him onto her, I say, and be damned to all liars!”

  “Leo, that will be difficult. Our man has left his usual haunts to pursue your wife. He could be almost anywhere. I have no way of reaching him until his current work is completed.”

  “But I don’t want it completed! I want Zoe left alone, do you hear!”

  “It’s too late for new instructions now. I have no means of conveying them, Leo. Try to understand.…”

  Leo slumped in his chair, face flushed, a light sweat gleaming on his brow. Rowland had never seen him so distraught, so clearly without control over himself. It was an unnerving sight. Leo Brannan had never seemed less like presidential material, and Rowland experienced the first faint shudderings of some great collapse in the making, the popping of nails from timbers strained beyond their natural strength. If there was no change in Leo soon, the edifice he was an essential part of might very well come crashing down. Rowland would do what he could to prevent that, since Leo’s fall would bring about his own, so closely were they bound.

  “Leave it to me,” he said. “The Garfinkles once were a problem, and then they were not. There are surely answers to all this.”

  “Fix it, Rowland, and quickly.”

  Availing herself of the funds Leo had set aside for her was a daunting prospect. Since Leo had already attempted to have her killed, Zoe was sure the million dollars in Denver was set up as bait, to lure her into revealing her location. She had withdrawn a small amount through a bank, in Durango, and that had been the thing that drew the killer to that town, she was sure. If she withdrew all or part of the remaining funds by way of some other bank, in another part of the state or the country, Leo would again send his assassin along the path taken by those funds, and this time strike without warning, probably by sniper fire undertaken at such a distance as to render Omie’s inner alarms useless. Zoe could not risk that, and yet she needed every dollar of the million, to take herself and Omie beyond Leo’s reach.

  They were living in a cabin near Telluride, having abandoned most of their belongings for the sake of greater mobility, faster flight. Zoe did not want to leave the cabin’s comforting isolation for anything but the best of reasons. She knew they could not stay there forever; her physical appearance, and that of Omie, were beacons for local gossip. The woman who had rented the cabin to them was unable to keep her eyes from Zoe’s stump and Omie’s face; eventually the population of San Miguel County would know they were there, and word would be passed along Leo’s clandestine grapevine to the killer in a dress.

  She discussed her quandary with Omie, there being no one else to talk over such matters with.

  “Go directly to Denver, Mama, and have them give the money to you there. He won’t expect you to do that.”

  Zoe thought it over. The idea had merit.

  “But what if the bank manager there has been given instructions to delay giving us the money, so that the awful man with the knife can be set on our trail while we wait.”

  Omie had an answer for that too.

  Mr. Blye was informed by the head teller that a woman calling herself Mrs. Poe wished to discuss with him in private the opening of a very large account. Mr. Blye, the director of Denver National Bank and Trust, had the woman ushered into his office immediately. Mrs. Poe was accompanied by a small girl wearing a heavily veiled hat that concealed her face completely. Under one arm Mrs. Poe carried a large satchel, presumably stuffed with cash to invest at Denver National; her other arm was in a sling, presumably sprained or broken.

  “Please sit down, ma’am, and you too, young lady.”

  Zoe and Omie took chairs facing Blye’s highly polished desk, and he sat opposite them. “May I order you coffee, ma’am, and a soda for you, miss?”

  “We are not thirsty,” Zoe told him. “You may bring to me my money instead.”

  “Your money, Mrs. Poe? I understood it was you who had brought money to me, ha ha!”

  “My name is not Poe, Mr. Blye, and I should like to have the rest of my one million dollars, without delay, and without discussion between yourself and any other person.”

  “Mrs. Brannan …?”

  “Please begin the counting now, Mr. Blye.”

  “Mrs. Brannan, such an enormous amount, and in cash …”

  “Bills of large denomination only, thank you, since I have only one hand to carry it with.”

  “This unnecessary disguise, Mrs. Brannan … I don’t understand.”

  Omie was removing her hat. Mr. Blye stared at the half-blue face revealed as the veil was set aside. He had heard about Brannan’s daughter and her birthmark, but there was more to the child’s face that disturbed him than the simple fact of her blemish. Under her intense stare he felt sweat beginning to trickle from his armpits, and the woman’s voice came to him as if she spoke from a great distance, through a thickly swirling mist. When she produced from inside her sling a heavy-caliber Smith & Wesson he could not even be afraid of it, or her, so great was the pow
er of the girl’s eyes; everything beyond the eyes was blurred, every sound faintly echoing. Mr. Blye experienced sudden pain in the forehead and stomach, and hoped he would not be sick.

  “Proceed as directed, Mr. Blye. I say again, you will not discuss the money with your staff beyond telling them to assemble the cash. Is that clear?”

  “Yes …”

  Mr. Blye attempted to strike the bell on his desk to summon his secretary, but was unable to move his arms. Amazingly, the bell rang anyway, without human assistance. Mr. Blye began to wonder if what he was undergoing was some strange and discomforting dream; had he eaten too much lobster the night before?

  “Yes, sir?”

  The secretary had entered, and Mrs. Brannan’s pistol was shoved inside her sling.

  “Begin counting out the balance of the special Brannan account,” droned Mr. Blye. “Large bills only.”

  “The entire balance, sir?”

  “Put two tellers onto it right away.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And …”

  “Sir?”

  “Soda,” gasped Mr. Blye.

  “Soda; yes, sir. For three?”

  “One …”

  “Very good, sir.”

  The secretary departed. Mr. Blye felt quite faint. He had not wanted a soda, but the girl did, and he did not know how he knew, any more than he could fathom the unseen hand that rang the bell. It was almost certainly a dream. Zoe Brannan, or Dugan, or whatever she was calling herself since Leo Brannan threw her out, would certainly not have had the gall to walk into Denver National Bank and Trust coolly to withdraw the money he had been instructed to hold against the revelation of her whereabouts. This could not be happening. It is too happening! came a shrill voice inside his head, and Mr. Blye grew frightened; what if it was not a dream, but madness of some kind.

  His secretary knocked and entered, bearing a soda bottle on a tray. “I’ve organized everything, sir,” he said, setting the bottle down before Mr. Blye.

  “Oh, good,” said Mr. Blye. It was not his usual mode of address at all, and the secretary studied him briefly. Blye was red in the face, his eyes unfocused.

  “Are you unwell, sir?”

  “Feeling fine, thank you,” Mr. Blye assured him. The secretary went out again, and as the door was closed behind him, the soda bottle slid across Mr. Blye’s desk and was snatched up by Omie, who began taking greedy swallows from it. Interestingly, Mr. Blye could taste it also—sarsaparilla, a flavor he detested.

  As he waited for the dream or fit of madness to pass, Mr. Blye reminded himself of the obligation he would have been betraying if the events in his office were real. Leo Brannan would be very angry to learn of the unanticipated withdrawal. Mr. Blye was a member of Big Circle, a fact that Leo Brannan knew; he was also a Praetorian, which Leo also knew. What Leo did not know was that Mr. Blye was a spy for Mr. Jones of The Six. If the dream was reality, Mr. Jones would have to be told, along with Leo Brannan, but since it could not possibly be real, Mr. Blye did not worry much about the consequences. He would not even tell his wife. The taste of sarsaparilla was clogging his throat with its cloying sweetness. He wished the girl would hurry up and finish drinking the damned thing. He wished the money would arrive so his unusual customers could leave; perhaps then the dream could end, and he could treat himself to a shot of the fine bourbon he kept in the cabinet by the window. Oddly, the cabinet door swung open as he thought of it, and the decanter rattled on its silver tray; then the door swung shut again, then open, then shut, then open.…

  “Omie, stop that,” said Mrs. Brannan.

  Mr. Blye closed his eyes. No more lobster—ever. Behind his eyelids there formed an interesting series of pictures, tableaux that moved, but slowly, much slower than in life: a woman with a long knife (yet somehow this was a man; how interesting, thought Mr. Blye); a mountain view as seen from the window of a train; a tall man in a long coat, his face pierced by holes; a sailing ship of the old-fashioned kind; a burial at sea; robbers taking valuables from train passengers; a huge stone house overlooking a valley blackened by mining and smelting; the face of Leo Brannan, a barely recognizable caricature of the man, with devilish horns sprouting from his skull; himself, sitting straight as a poker behind his desk, eyes closed, mustaches quivering.…

  The door opened at the same instant as his eyes. The money was carried in, tightly bundled, tenderly cradled in the hands of his secretary, and set down on the desk.

  “Sir, the head teller is anxious. He’s unsure we can conduct business in the usual manner with so large and sudden a depletion of bills.”

  “Plenty more where that came from!” Mr. Blye assured him breezily, and the secretary departed once more.

  Zoe scooped the money into her bag and stood up.

  “Is there a private entrance?” she asked.

  Before Mr. Blye could answer, the mother was following her daughter toward a concealed door in the oak paneling through which Mr. Blye took the pretty thing who visited him on Wednesday afternoons while the office door remained locked. The door led to a windowless private chamber, and from there to the street. The girl turned once before they passed through it, and the liquor cabinet danced on its legs like a thing come alive, spilling out the bourbon decanter. Mr. Blye watched its precious contents empty onto his Persian carpet with a melancholy glugging sound. There was nothing he could do about it.

  “The thing is,” said Smith, pouring himself another drink, “if your first Injun goes to the dogs, you get yourself another one.”

  The opening date for public revelation of the Sleeping Savage was already a week overdue. Since they had paid rent on the store until the end of the month, Smith and Nevis simply placed a card in the window that read: DISPLAY POSTPONED DUE TO UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES.

  “Another one? I don’t understand.”

  “What I mean is, we dig up someone out of the ground and dress him up in Injun rig and put him under the glass and who’s to know the difference?”

  “Us,” said Nevis, with some alarm. “We would. That’s an outrageous proposal, Smith.”

  “Sounds practical,” offered Winnie. “How much money did you sink into this already?”

  “Too damn much. This way we can get it back.”

  “It’s dishonest,” protested Nevis. “Are you both pretending it isn’t?”

  “I’m all for pretending,” Smith said, “especially pretending the new feller we dig up is the Injun. It could work if we did it right, but we need to work fast.”

  “Those fellers that stole him,” Winnie said, “won’t they open their mouths when they see a new one laid out?”

  “Not if they don’t want to get arrested for thieving the first one.”

  “Stop! This is absurd!”

  “No it ain’t.”

  “And just where do you expect to find a newly deceased corpse? Will you have us become grave robbers? I refuse!”

  Smith was used by now to such outbursts from Nevis. The shock of having been betrayed by a woman had come down hard on him, and a certain lack of reasonableness was to be expected.

  “Doc Pfenning’s place,” explained Smith.

  “Pfenning? He’s no doctor.”

  “Used to be, but anyway, you don’t need to cure folks to run a funeral business. Good doctors are bad for Doc Pfenning’s business now, I figure!”

  “Sure,” said Winnie. “He could tell you where a nice fresh one’s been buried recent.”

  She was becoming excited over the scheme for a bogus Indian. The original investment in a genuinely ancient body had never struck her as worthwhile, but deliberate deception of the public contained just enough risk to make her blood run a little faster. Writing the letter of denunciation to Leo Brannan had excited her, but was not enough; she wished to see Lovey Doll’s attempted sabotage turned upside down.

  “I don’t know.” Nevis sighed. “I really don’t.”

  “What’s there to lose if we don’t? We already lost everything, pretty near.�
��

  “Nonsense. The ice and sewage businesses will support us for some time yet, until Brannan kills them off.”

  “Dunnigan, sometimes you strike me as fainthearted.”

  “I certainly am not!”

  “Then shake on it and we’ll take ourselves down to see Doc Pfenning.”

  Nevis hesitated. “Go on,” urged Winnie.

  Pfenning’s Mortuary and Funeral Parlor was located two blocks west of Brannan Boulevard, in an area not known for its excellence in architecture or the sophistication of its inhabitants. Pfenning buried miners, for the most part, and terminal drunks and sickly children. Himself an alcoholic, Pfenning was able to show a steady hand at all times to his clients, and paint the faces of their dead with expert skill, “so as to render the deceased as they were in life, joyously present among us,” as his sign declared. There hung about him in equal measure the sharp reekings of whiskey and formaldehyde, and many who saw the permanent despoliation of his waistcoat were unable to determine the precise nature of the greasy film that clung there; was it merely the spilled meals of yesterday, or was it the grim exudations of the departed?

  Long since removed from the ranks of legitimate M.D.s for his role in the deaths of Philadelphia women sent to him for abortions, Pfenning tended to view all representatives of higher authority as a bunch of upstarts in cahoots, a cabal of manipulators who had ruined him out of personal hatred for his reckless nature and nonconformist ways. He was, therefore, more than interested to be offered inclusion in the scheme Smith and Nevis brought to him. Pfenning saw the reborn Savage as an apt symbol for all forms of commercial enterprise, including his own; doctors pretended to know what they were doing, but very often knew nothing; he himself pretended to embalm the bodies brought to him so they might lie beneath the ground in a state of permanent incorruptibility, but he pumped only as much formaldehyde into them as would keep them fresh until church services were over and the deceased safely buried beyond the reach of their loved ones’ noses.