Giardello growled in reply. "Yeah. Sure as hell is. But it wasn't your ass he came to see, it was your big tits." He scowled at her. "I still don't like it. Got the idea he was snooping. Just watch out for him. He come in here again, you tell me, pronto!"
The girls nodded. He caught two more who were not busy and talked with them.
Katie walked away with Stella.
"Didn't mean to get you in trouble, Stella. But he did ask me and then I saw you talking to him."
"Yeah, we spoke, business. He was short of cash. Said he'd be back, but I guess he stopped in somewhere else."
"Don't let Tony ride herd on you girl," Katie said.
Stella shrugged. "Don't worry about me. Tony Giardello ain't man enough to give me trouble."
Stella said it bravely, but when she turned away, smiling at a man with a bottle of whisky heading for a table, she shivered.
Tony talked with the rest of the girls when he found them not busy. Nobody knew anything else about the big lawyer man. Tony went out the alley door and walked to the courthouse. When no one was looking he ducked in the side door and went around to the Sheriffs office.
Sgt. Anders held down the duty desk tonight as Tony knew he would. They went into the deep shadows outside just in front of the office, looking out on the dark street.
"Heard you wanted to talk to me, Anders."
"Yep. We might have a problem."
"He about six-two with sandy brown hair?"
"True. Sheriff got in a special telegram about this bird, from Washington D.C."
"Thought he was off kilter somewhere."
"Telegram said his name was Spur McCoy and he's a federal lawman of some kind with `certain business' in Virginia City. The sheriffs office is to render to him `any and all assistance possible.' It was signed by somebody from the Justice Department, some general."
"Yeah, could be trouble. Then again, he could be here on any of a hundred other problems. The others know about this?"
"You was the only one I could find. You better tell Sommers and let him handle it."
"I see this McCoy again, I'll take care of him myself, permanently."
"No! Sommers said no killing until we get the actual operation underway. We've been planning this for six months, we can't let the roof cave in on us now because we make a stupid killing. You better go up and tell Sommers. The sooner the better. I can't get away from here until morning."
Tony Giardello nodded, grudgingly. "Yeah, you're right. I'll get up to his big house right now. You know anything else this jasper from Washington might be sniffing around here about?"
"Nothing the sheriff's office is working on or knows anything about. Course, maybe they wouldn't tell us."
Somebody walked toward the sheriffs office. Sgt. Anders hurried back to his desk and Tony slid away in the darkness, headed for the big brick house at the end of the street with the large gold plated rooster that served as an expensive weathervane on the very peak of the three story mansion.
Damn, he hated telling Sommers bad news. But somebody had to. Ever since they started putting this together after an all night poker game, the project had excited Giardello. There was nothing like doing something illegal, just for the hell of it! And if a guy could grab off six or eight or ten million at the same time...!
Yeah, he'd wake up Sommers and tell him. He had a feeling the big man with the big mine was going to be mad as hell.
THE YOUNG BLACK man who answered the door at the Sommers' mansion up on the side of the hill in the "owners-managers" section of Virginia City, stared at Tony Giardello for several seconds through an iron grillwork, then he nodded. He asked for a name, then turned.
"I go tell Mistah Sommers you here. You wait right there."
Tony did not like to be told what to do by a black man, but there was nothing else he could do but wait.
A short time later the black youth hurried back to the door, unbolted it and nodded.
"Mistah Sommers say you should come right up. I'll show you the way." He locked the outside door, then walked ahead through a long corridor, up a flight of curving, open stairs and down another hallway to an ornate door.
The young man knocked, unlatched the door and motioned for Tony to go into the room.
Past the door, Tony found himself in an ornate bedroom. It was more of a den than bedroom. A moose head glared at him from the far wall, a bighorn sheepshead stared glassy-eyed straight ahead. On the wall across from the door sat a four poster bed. The posts were carved figures of naked girls, but held up no canopy.
"Hey, sorry, I can come back," Tony said.
Rush Sommers sat astride a naked girl, and another stood in front of him with her crotch covering his face. The man leaned back from the girl and glanced at his visitor.
"Giardello. Hear we got problems. Don't mind the girls, both are Chinese whores who can't speak or understand a word of English. But they are damn good when it comes to cunt and tits." He lunged ahead a dozen times and Giardello realized Sommers was having intercourse with the girl lying on her back underneath him.
"Well, what kind of problems we have?" Sommers said, not stopping his sexual encounter.
Sommers gave a shout and climaxed. At once he rolled away from the girl and sat on the side of the specially made large bed and gasped for breath.
Sommers was a big man. A little over six feet tall, with carrot-red hair, the residue of freckles on his face, arms and shoulders, and a body that had expanded with his income until it now weighed a little over two hundred and sixty pounds. He mopped his face with a towel and stared at Tony.
"What's the matter, you never seen a man fuck a Chinese whore before?"
The saloon keeper laughed. "Afraid not, but it looks interesting."
"You can have them both for the rest of the night right after we settle our business."
Giardello sobered. "Got word from Sgt. Anders down at the sheriffs office that the Federal government has sent a man into town. The Justice Department telegraphed the sheriff to give this guy all the cooperation he asks for. Guy's name is Spur McCoy. And Anders said the guy was mad as hell that the telegram came at all. He wants it all kept hush hush."
"McCoy?" Sommers said in surprise. "Yeah, I've heard of him. A mean, talented sonofabitch. He's with the U.S.Secret Service. I was in Denver once when he took on three guys. Damn good with that six-gun and a rifle. Question is, is he here about our little play, or is it some other Federal problem?"
"I can't help there. Anders said the telegram didn't say why this McCoy was in town."
"So find out."
"How, walk up to him and ask him? I'd rather see him have an accident in one of the back alleys."
"No. Too damn risky now that we're so close. The day we take over that train we can blast anybody we want to, but not until then."
"We, hell! You'll be sitting in your office talking with the sheriff about some problem at the mine, or another public welfare project so you can establish an ironclad alibi. The rest of us will be taking all the risks."
"My money is financing the whole thing, Giardello. You want out you just say so and we'll replace you."
"Hell no! I'm just worried about this McCoy."
Sommers stood, his naked belly folding over his waist in a huge bulge. He motioned to Tony.
"Come on, try out some good pussy, born in China. Haven't been inside this country more than a month. Just as wild as hell. You ever fuck Chinese style?"
"Our business done?"
"Damn near. You find out what McCoy is here for. If it's us, we'll decide what to do about him." Sommers motioned to the two naked Chinese girls who had been sitting on the bed. They giggled, hurried to Tony and pulled him down on the bed, then began undressing him. One lowered a small round breast into his mouth and he mumbled something as he began chewing on the morsel.
"You don't mind if I watch, do you?" He went on without waiting for or expecting a reply. "Then too I want to talk over a couple of details with you. We're down to th
e last week the way it looks. The actual day of the shipment is never known until the last day. Somebody in San Francisco decides and sends a coded message. The same kind of coded telegrams have been coming for three days now.
"We get the word about eight o'clock in the morning, and by midnight of that same day, the bullion has to be all loaded from the vaults of each individual mine, put on the train on the siding and the guards all set in place.
"I'll know about the timing, since we have a small shipment of silver going out on the train." Sommers was sitting on the edge of the big bed. He slapped his thigh. "Damn! Stealing my own silver. How about that!"
Giardello was naked by this time. The sight of the two nude Chinese girls had given him a solid hardon, and one of the girls played with it. The stroking made Tony quiver with anticipation.
"What about the damn army?" Giardello asked. "They going to have a bunch of armed troopers on the train this time?"
"Ten armed soldiers have been riding each train in and out of Virginia City for a week. It will be the same on the real run."
"Ten, that's not so bad," Tony said. "We can handle that many."
"Do it easy if you use those special dynamite bombs we made," Sommers said.
Tony had made the bombs himself. He had learned the trick back east from a friend of his who turned to bank robbing. It was the simplest kind of bomb. Take three sticks of dynamite and tape them together. Then tape on the outside of the dynamite two hundred four-penny nails. When the dynamite goes off, the nails are blasted outward like grapeshot, tearing a man in half if he's up close to it. He'd seen men killed up to a city block away by flying nails from that kind of a bomb. They would use the dynamite shrapnel bombs on the soldiers and anyone else who tried to stop them.
The bombs all had fifteen second fuses, so they had to be careful that they got fuse that burned at a foot a minute. Anything faster and a bomb might go off before it could be thrown.
Tony stared in delight as the two girls played with him. One was lying on top of him, and the other lowering her delightful little bottom over his face.
"How do we know we can get our engineer on this run?" Giardello asked.
"Easy. I find out when the train goes early in the morning. I tell him and we knock the other engineer in the head, or get him drunk or take him on a long ride in the desert. Pritchard has a reputation for wanting to work all the time. He'll accidentally be down at the station house when they discover they need an engineer."
"And he stops it right where we tell him to?"
"He will. He wants the money. I gave him two hundred dollars last week just to keep him interested." Sommers laughed.
"He still thinks he's getting a half million?"
"Indeed he does."
"And I'm the man who takes charge of the bullion and gets it remelted and cast and stamped and sold in some other part of the country."
"That's your job. And you know the first ten million comes to me to get my Consolidated back in operational condition."
"And I get the next ten million, and we split the rest," Giardello said. He looked down and moaned. "Oh, damn! Not yet!" One of the girls had his erection jammed in her mouth and was sucking and pumping up and down on it. She had two fingers pushed as far up his rectum as possible searching for his prostate trigger. The other girl spread her legs and lowered her pink nether lips within an inch of his face, and his tongue reached out just as she lowered more.
Sommers sat there with his big fist gripped tightly around his penis as he slowly masturbated.
"Welcome to the two for one club, Giardello. Doctor said my heart will probably give out one of these nights when I have these two and a cute little black girl in my bed all at once, and all bare assed and bare tit naked, but damn.. .what a great way to go out!"
Tony Giardello worked over his own fancy ladies whenever he had the urge, but he could not remember such an uninhibited display of sexual pleasures as the two Orientals gave him. He couldn't concentrate on what Sommers was saying for a few minutes as he achieved one climax and then another almost on top of it. He could never remember such intensity, such a release, and as he lay on the bed totally exhausted, the small, slender Chinese girls rolled him over on his stomach and gave him a relaxing massage.
Tony woke with a start.
The two girls were gone.
Rush Sommers sat in a big chair, a whisky bottle in one hand and a huge piece of chocolate cake in the other.
"Woke up at last," the rich mine owner said. "Thought my girls might have given you a fatal fuck, but I think you'll make it."
Giardello shook his head and sat up. He blinked and yawned and then pointed at the whisky bottle. Sommers passed it over and the saloon owner took a long drag.
"Now, you should be ready to talk business. Have you seen this McCoy guy?"
"Fact is he came into my place wanting me to hire him as a lawyer. Don't know why he picked me, unless he is trying all the saloon owners. I'll find out tomorrow."
"That don't matter. Get in touch with him and hire him. Tell him you have somebody suing you for something... maybe he got shot in a shoot-out in your place. He was an innocent bystander. Tell McCoy any kind of story. Then start finding out about him. He might slip up and say the wrong thing."
"Yeah, he might. I'll try it." He shook his head. "Damn but them little Chinese girls are great! Like to get a couple for my place. Who cares if they can speak English or not when they fuck good?"
"Expensive. You have to buy them from some old Chinaman in San Francisco. He steals them in China and brings them over."
"Maybe. I'm still not sure just how the last part of this stickup is going to work. We get the train stopped and unload the gold and silver. Then what do we do with it until I start melting it down and selling it?"
"You let me worry about that, Giardello."
"You've been saying that. But I think I am entitled to know. I'm putting a lot into this, it's a big gamble. And remember I can lose twice, both here and back in New Jersey."
Sommers had not dressed. He took the whisky bottle back and washed down a big chunk of chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.
"All right, Giardello. I'll tell you. We stop the train less than three miles outside of town. We have twenty pack mules out there and five drivers, and we load that gold on the pack mules as much as they can each carry, and we bring it all back here to Consolidated's vault at the mine. That will be about two a.m. to five a.m. with nobody awake to see it. We make as many trips as needed. Who would think to look for stolen gold in the vault of one of the men stolen from?"
Giardello looked shocked at first, then a smile slipped around his face and he guffawed in delight.
"Yes! Perfect. Sommers, you are a goddamned genius. Not even I could think up that kind of hoodwinker. That's great!"
"Glad you like it."
Giardello stretched, rubbed his genitals. "Where the hell are them little slant-eyed whores? I'm ready for another go-round with them. You did say all night, didn't you, Sommers?"
The big man laughed whistled through his teeth and the two girls burst into the room, both wearing white nightgowns.
Sommers pointed to the two girls, then to Giardello, and at the door.
"Try a new bed this time. In the next room. They are yours until tomorrow noon if you think you can hold out that long."
"All of this and fifteen million dollars," Giardello said. "I think I can hold out for both!"
The girls had slid out of their loose nightshirts and pulled Tony toward the next room.
As soon as they left, a Mexican girl came into the room and changed the sheets on the bed. She was young and slender with big breasts. She opened the buttons of her blouse letting her big, brown, black tipped breasts surge out.
Sommers patted her bottom, shook his head and fell on the bed. A man needed a little sleep.
He thought about Giardello. The man could be useful. He would be in command on the train, and of the transfer. But there was no chance that
Tony was going to get his hands on half the gold and silver. No chance at all. He would be a witness. On this one there could be no witnesses. None whatsoever. That's why it had to be held to such a small group of participants. There would be fewer to kill. He smiled. With the thirty million from the gold and silver, he would be able to complete the deep tunnels on the Consolidated, and open up another fifty to one hundred million in high grade silver and gold ore.
Yes, this whole operation was looking better all the time.
But what about Spur McCoy? Was he in town to try to stop the great train robbery?
Rush Sommers thought about it for half an hour. He was not a stupid man. He had taken a mining degree in the east before he moved west. His father had been a small manufacturer who had never made-nor lost-the fortunes that his son had. The present was simply a low point in his career. He would rise again, and damn soon!
The more he thought about Spur McCoy, the more he decided that he must check the man out. He must be certain within two days one way or the other.
There was a private detective in Virginia City he had used before. The man was reliable, close mouthed and could be silenced if the need came up.
Sommers sighed and settled down in his huge bed and blew out the kerosene lamp.
Yes, if Spur McCoy was in town to stop the train robbery, then Spur McCoy would be quietly and unobtrusively killed and buried, leaving no trace that he had never been in Virginia City!
McCOY HAD BEEN up since dawn. He walked around the southern part of Virginia City were the Virginia and Truckee railroad came into the Julia mine. Somewhere along here was the point they would load the gold and silver bullion on board the special train to take it on the first leg of its rail trip to San Francisco.
Great heaps of tailings showed in back of the Julia mine buildings. Smoke trailed from four smaller stacks on the right side of the three story building. The Cholla Potosi works stood behind him, up the hill a long New York city block. Another six blocks up the hill right at the face of the mountain stood the Fulton Foundry.
Spur: Nevada Hussy Page 5