Bullets & Lies (Talbot Roper 01)

by Randisi, Robert J.

  4

  Roper found Harwick in his compartment.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing?” he demanded.

  “Proving a point,” Harwick said. He had dumped his money on his bed and was smoothing the bills out.

  “Well, fine, you’ve proven it,” Roper said. “You’re a better poker player than they are, even working together. And now they want to kill us both.”

  “But…you made them back down.”

  “So they probably want to kill me even more than they want to kill you,” Roper said. “You took their money, but I took their pride.”

  “I—I’m sorry,” Harwick said. “I didn’t think—”

  “I know you didn’t,” Roper said. “I advised you not to play with them.”

  “Yes, you did,” Harwick said. “I should have listened to you.” He looked down at the money, dropped the bills he had in his hand. “What do we do now?”

  “Now,” Roper said, “we try to live through the remainder of this trip.”

  They agreed that Harwick would not leave his compartment unless Roper came to get him. They spent a quiet night, and then Roper knocked on Harwick’s door.

  “Breakfast?” he asked.

  “I thought we were going to stay in our compartments.”

  “No,” Roper said, “we’re not going to hide. Besides, we’ve got to eat.”

  “Well, if you’re sure.”

  “I’m more than sure,” Roper said. “I’m hungry.”

  Harwick pulled the door to his compartment closed and followed Roper to the dining car.

  As they entered, Roper saw that the three poker players were not there.

  “Perhaps you scared them away,” Harwick said as they sat.

  “I doubt it,” Roper said. “More than likely they’re off making plans.”

  “To kill us?”

  Roper nodded, waved at the waiter, the same black man who had come to his door.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Flapjacks for me,” Roper said. “Coffee.”

  “Ham and eggs,” Harwick said, “and also coffee. Thank you.”

  “You have even more to thank him for,” Roper said. “He’s the one who came and got me when he saw you were in trouble.”

  Harwick didn’t respond. He didn’t seem to like having been aided by a black man—although he didn’t mind having a black man wait on him.

  The car was busy, but the table the three poker players had occupied was still open.

  When the waiter came with their breakfast, Roper asked, “What’s your name, sir?”

  “Oh, you ain’t gotta call me suh, suh,” the man said. “My name is Roscoe.”

  “Well, Roscoe, is that table reserved for those three gents?”

  “Yes, suh,” Roscoe said. “They done reserved it as soon as they got on board.”

  “Which was when?” Roper asked.

  “Just before you did, suh.”

  “Do they have compartments in the same car as we do?” Roper asked.

  “They do not have compartments, suh,” Roscoe said. “They are seated together in the next forward car.”

  “I see.”

  “If they’re not playin’ cards, suh, they’re up to no good,” Roscoe said.

  “Thanks for the warning, Roscoe,” Roper said.

  “I’ll bring more coffee, suh.”

  “Thank you, Roscoe.”

  “What do you think they’ll do?” Harwick asked.

  “Whatever it is, they’ll do it soon,” Roper said.

  “So what do we do?”

  “Finish our breakfast,” Roper said. “By the time we’re done, I’ll have an idea.”

  “Will you?”

  “Yes,” Roper said, “I will.”

  As promised, when they had finished eating, Roper told Harwick what they were going to do.

  “That puts you at risk,” the lawyer said.

  “And keeps you safe,” Roper said.

  “And that’s okay with you?” Harwick asked.

  “I have the feeling that keeping you alive ensures that I’ll get paid,” Roper said.

  “But there’s no guarantee you’ll even take the job,” Harwick said.

  “Well,” Roper said, “we’ll both have to arrive in one piece to see what happens.”

  5

  Cummings came back and sat across from Landau and Carl.

  “Well?” Carl said. “Did you get the compartment numbers?”

  “I got them.”

  “When do we move?” Landau asked.

  “Soon,” Carl said. “Very soon. We have to get this done before we arrive in West Virginia.”

  “And soon means…” Cummings asked.

  Carl grinned and said, “Now.”

  “And how do we do it?” Landau asked.

  “The lawyer first.”

  “Why him first?” Cummings asked.

  “Because he’ll be easy,” Carl answered. He drew his gun. “Then we take Roper.”

  The other two men touched the guns in their shoulder rigs and nodded.

  Roper was reading when the knock came at the door. He set the book aside.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s the conductor, sir,” a man’s voice said.

  Roper had spoken to the conductor on several occasions. He recognized the voice.

  “Yes, what is it?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation and then he said, “There is a problem. I need to…to see you.”

  “All right.”

  Roper drew his gun, stepped back, and said, “Come on in.”

  The door slid open. Just for a moment the conductor stood in the doorway, and then he was pushed or yanked aside.

  The three gamblers hadn’t planned this assault very well. They all tried to come through the door at the same time, but only two were able to squeeze through. Of course, they were only expecting a lawyer, so they were shocked to see Roper standing there.

  Roper felt he had no choice. These men all had guns in their hands. In a moment they’d recover from their surprise and start shooting.

  So Roper shot first.

  He shot Cummings in the belly and then, as Landau began to lift his gun, shot him in the chest.

  In the hall, Arthur Carl panicked, turned, and started running. At that moment the door to Roper’s compartment opened and Harwick stepped out.

  “What’s going—”

  He stopped short when Carl ran into him.

  “You!”

  Roper stepped out, saw Carl and Harwick tangled in the hall.

  “Hold it!” he shouted.

  Carl grabbed Harwick around the neck from behind and used him as a shield. Behind him the conductor cowered, afraid he’d be hit by flying lead.

  “Let him go,” Roper said.

  Carl was in a panic, his eyes darting about in his head wildly.

  “I—I only wanted my money back!” he shouted.

  “And you were ready to kill for it?” Roper said. “I think it’s time to drop your gun. Or we can stand just like this until we arrive at our next stop, when the law will be sent for.”

  “I’ll kill him!” Carl pressed the barrel of his gun against Harwick’s temple.

  Roper had only one chance. He’d learned from a very famous doctor that you could shoot a man in a place that would instantly kill him. He wouldn’t even have a chance to twitch a finger enough to pull a trigger.

  “I’ll give you one more chance,” Roper said. “Drop it. You’ve got no place to go.”

  Carl was beyond logical thought. He’d seen his two friends shot down and was in danger himself. His panicked eyes were growing wider still, and Roper felt he had no time to wait.

  He pulled the trigger. The bullet entered just beneath Carl’s chin and severed his spinal cord. His body went limp and he slumped to the floor, the gun falling away from Harwick’s head.

  “Jesus!” Harwick said. He jumped away and looked down at Carl’s body. Then he looked at Roper. “He could have shot me
!”

  “He could have,” Roper agreed. “But now he’s dead.”

  Roper stepped back into Harwick’s compartment to check on Cummings and Landau. They were dead. He came out and checked Carl’s body. He was also dead. He ejected the spent shells from his gun, replaced them with live ammunition, and then holstered it.

  “Aren’t you glad we exchanged compartments?” he asked.

  6

  Upon arrival at the first stop in West Virginia, they had to wait for the local police to board the train and ask questions about the three dead men. Roper had the conductor’s testimony that they took him at gunpoint and made him knock on the door. He was also a witness that Roper had acted in self-defense. Harwick—being a West Virginian himself—had some influence, and the train was finally allowed to continue on, with Harwick and Roper aboard.

  From the railroad station in Huntington, they took a buggy ride to the town of Hurricane. (Harwick said “Hurri-kin,” not “Hurri-cane.”) On a perfect late summer day, beneath a clear blue sky, the town seemed peaceful and beautiful. Once they arrived there, Roper found that he had been registered in the Rockland Hotel.

  “It’s the best we could do here in town,” he said to Roper, almost apologetically.

  “When do I see your client?”

  “Tomorrow,” Harwick said. “I will go home, and you go to your room. We can both have a good meal tonight, and a good night’s sleep in a real bed. In the morning, refreshed, we will ride out to the Westover home.”

  “How far is it?” Roper asked as they stood in front of the desk.

  “Just a short buggy ride from town.”

  “Then why don’t you meet me in the morning for breakfast?” Roper suggested. “We can have a talk before we leave.”

  “Talk?”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Roper said. “I still have some questions before we take the final step to see your client.”

  “Do you mean—are you implying that you still might, uh, change your mind?”

  “I wasn’t implying that at all,” Roper said, “but it is a possibility.”

  “I don’t understand,” Harwick said, looking confused. “You’ve come all this way.”

  Roper smiled and patted the attorney on the shoulder in a placating manner.

  “I’ll see you at breakfast, Harwick,” he said and went upstairs to his room.

  He didn’t see why Harwick had felt the need to apologize for the accommodations. The room was well appointed and clean. The bed was large, the mattress deep. The curtains on the window were as fancy as any he’d seen in a Denver hotel. And there was a sink with running water. What more could a man ask for? Roper had stayed in better, fancier, more expensive hotels, and much worse, but truth be told, all he needed was a clean room and bed.

  And after twenty-five hours on a train, a bath.

  * * *

  After his bath, he dressed in clean clothing, donning a long-sleeved shirt and Levi’s. Refreshed, he decided to walk around town. He stopped at the front desk and asked the clerk for the recommendation of a good restaurant.

  “Even a small café,” he added. “As long as it’s good.”

  “Sir, our restaurant here is excellent—”

  “I have no doubt,” Roper said, “and I’m going to try it in the morning, but right now I want to go for a walk, and along the way I’m going to want something to eat.”

  “Of course, sir,” the man said. “There’s a small café a few miles from here, if you walk that far.”

  “I’m very healthy,” Roper said, “and I’m sure I’ll be able to walk a few miles. Draw me a map, please.”

  “Yes, sir,” the clerk said. “Of course.”

  Armed with the clerk’s map, Roper began to walk. Hurricane was a small town by most definitions, but a walk of a few miles showed him several churches, many stores, and residences. Oddly, there didn’t seem to be many old buildings—until he reached the “X” marked on the map. Apparently, the café the clerk sent him to was in a part of the town called Old Town.

  The buildings here were much older, some wooden, some brick-and-mortar, but most of them falling down. The café was in a brick building that looked as if it had seen some recent repairs and renovations. There were fresh, new brick patches here and there, and some of its windows had been bricked up as well.

  He went inside and a middle-aged woman, gray-haired and thickset, wearing a simple cotton dress, came up to him and said, “Welcome to Saint Mary’s.”

  “Saint Mary’s?”

  “Yes, that’s our name,” she said. “We have a mission.”

  “This is a mission?” he asked.

  “No,” she said patiently, “we have a mission to see that the less fortunate people are taken care of—fed, clothed, housed. Cared for.”

  “I was told this was a café.”

  “Oh, it is,” she said. “If you’d like something to eat, you’re welcome.”

  “But…I’ll be paying,” he said.

  “Of course,” she said. “Please take a table. Tell me what you would like to eat, and after you’re done, you may pay us.”

  “How much?” he asked.

  She smiled and said, “However much you think the meal was worth. We operate on donations, sir.”

  “I see.”

  “What would you like?”

  “Well, I’ve just had a very long train trip and I’d like something…comforting, and warm.”

  “Fall in West Virginia is beautiful,” she told him. “It won’t get very cold, but I know what you need. If you’ll leave it to me?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then I shall return shortly with your meal.”

  Roper looked around. The café was simple, with plain walls and fixtures, nothing fancy, and tables and chairs that looked recently handmade. There were no other customers. He wondered why the desk clerk would send him here, rather than other restaurants and cafés he had passed along the way.

  He sat back to wait, and the woman reappeared with a coffeepot and cup. She placed both on the table, and then filled the cup for him.

  “Your food will be here soon,” she assured him.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “I am Sister Katherine.”

  “Are you…a nun?”

  “No,” she said with a shrug. “I am only a sister in that we are all brothers and sisters.”

  “I see.”

  “Let me get your food.”

  She went back to the kitchen and returned shortly with a big bowl of stew. As she set it in front of him, he saw great chunks of meat, squares of boiled potatoes, pearl onions, sliced carrots, and in the center of the bowl, a mound of mashed potatoes.

  “Comfort food,” she assured him.

  “I can see that.”

  He picked up a chunk of meat with a spoon and put it in his mouth. It was perhaps the tenderest, tastiest meat he’d ever eaten. The mashed potatoes were creamy and delicious. The two kinds of potatoes did not seem incongruous; rather, they complemented each other.

  “It’s wonderful,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Did you cook it?”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “We have several cooks, but I am not one of them.”

  “Why is there no one else here?”

  “I don’t know if you noticed,” she said, “we are off the beaten path.”

  “Yes, that’s rather obvious.”

  “But people find us,” she assured him.

  “Can you sit with me while I eat?” he asked. “Answer some questions?”

  “About what?”

  “About Saint Mary’s,” he said, “about Hurricane…about someone named Howard Westover. I’m here to see him, but I don’t know anything about him.”

  “The Medal of Honor winner?” she asked, sitting across from him. “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything,” he said.

  7

  The next morning Roper was in the hotel dining room when the lawyer
, Harwick, entered. The man saw him and walked quickly across the crowded room to join him. They were dressed similarly in vested suits, Roper blue, and Harwick gray.

  “I’m sorry I’m late.”

  “Five minutes,” Roper said.

  “Yes,” Harwick said, “very unlike me. Again, my apologies.”

  “It’s all right.”

  A waitress came over, much too bright and happy at that hour of the morning, and they ordered their breakfasts.

  “I went for a walk yesterday.”

  “Yes?”

  “Found out a few things.”

  Harwick frowned.

  “Like what?”

  “Like Howard Westover is a Medal of Honor winner from the Civil War.”

  “That’s no secret.”

  “It was to me.”

  “No,” Harwick said, “not a secret. Just something you would have found out later today.”

  “I see.”

  “Who told you?”

  “A lady named Sister Katherine.”

  “From Saint Mary’s?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How did you get to Saint Mary’s?”

  “It was recommended to me.”

  “By who?”

  Roper sat back in his chair.

  “I’m not sure I want to answer that right now.”

  The waitress came back with their eggs, setting the plates down in front of them.

  “All right,” Harwick said. “I am not going to ask or answer any more questions.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not my place.”

  “And whose place is it?”

  “You’ll find out later today.”

  “And what if I won’t move from here until you do answer some more questions?”

  “You took the check, cashed it,” Harwick said, “and you came all this way. That would seem silly, don’t you think?”

  Roper hesitated, then said, “Yeah, probably.”

  “So let’s eat,” Harwick said, “and then we can go.”

  Harwick had a buggy waiting for them outside the hotel. Roper would rather have ridden a horse, but he climbed aboard and allowed Harwick to drive.

  A few miles outside of town he spotted the house in the distance. A three-story antebellum mansion with four great white columns, galleries rather than balconies, large windows, and ivy-covered walls. There were even a couple of turrets, giving it a small castle-like appearance.