Bullets & Lies (Talbot Roper 01)

by Randisi, Robert J.

  “Two bits?” Roper asked. “That’s kind of steep for a name, isn’t it?”

  The boy bit his lip and thought a moment.

  “How about a nickel?”

  “I think I could do a nickel,” Roper said. “But it better be a good name.”

  The boy stared at the horse again, gave it some serious, brow-furrowing thought, then brightened and said, “How about Nickel?”

  “And if I had agreed to two bits,” he asked, “would you have said Two-Bits?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re a very enterprising young man,” Roper said.

  The boy put out a grimy hand and said, “A nickel, please.”

  Roper took out two bits and put it in the boy’s hand.

  “Wow.”

  “Okay, Nickel,” Roper said to the horse, freeing the reins from the hitching post, “let’s go. On to Vega.”

  “You goin’ ta Vega?” the boy asked.

  Roper mounted up and stared down at the boy.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “For two bits I’ll tell you somethin’ about Vega.”

  “Do you really know something about Vega?”

  The boy nodded his head.

  “Okay.” Roper took out another two bits and tossed it to the boy, who caught it in the air very nimbly.

  “Okay,” Roper said. “Talk.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ there.”

  Roper waited, then asked, “That’s it?”

  “That’s what my pa says,” the boy answered. “He don’t know why anybody would go to Vega. There ain’t nothin’ there.”

  “What’s your name, boy?”

  “Jackson.”

  “Thanks, Jackson,” Roper said. “Don’t spend it all on candy.”

  Roper wheeled his horse around and headed out of town, knowing that the minute he turned, the boy was off to spend every penny on candy.

  And why not?

  30

  He made Vega before nightfall. Jackson’s pa had almost been right. There was almost nothing there, just a few buildings. One of them, however, was a saloon. He reined in his horse in front of it and dismounted. He looped the reins over a rail, said, “Wait here, Nickel,” and went inside.

  He stopped just inside the batwings, looked around. There were about ten men in the place, plus the bartender. They all stopped what they were doing—drinking, talking—and looked at him. He looked back, then walked slowly to the bar.

  “Lost?” the bartender asked.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Nobody ever comes here unless they’re lost.”

  “How about to have a beer?”

  “Is that what you want? A beer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Comin’ up.”

  He drew a beer from the tap and carried it over to Roper.

  “Four bits.”

  “Twice as much as a horse’s name.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Thanks.”

  The bartender nodded. He was a big man with thick hands, sloping shoulders, the kind of man who broke up bar fights with those hands.

  “How many people live in this town?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Let me ask you this,” Roper said. “Does everyone who’s in here now live here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But there are more?”

  “Oh, sure,” he said. “Why are you askin’?”

  “I’m looking for someone.”

  “Are you law?”

  “Do you have any law here?”

  From underneath the bar the bartender took out a badge and set it on top.

  “Is that yours, or are you offering it to me?”

  “It’s mine, I guess,” he said with a shrug. “Nobody else wants it.”

  “Then you’re the man who can help me.”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether or not you’re looking for trouble,” the bartender/sheriff said. “And you ain’t answered my question. Are you any kind of law?”

  “I’m no kind of law, Sheriff.”

  “Don’t call me that.” He took the badge off the top of the bar, stowed it back underneath. “My name’s Dan.”

  “Okay, Dan. My name’s Talbot Roper, I’m a private detective from Denver.”

  “Denver. What are you doin’ here?”

  “I’m looking for a man named Gerald Quinn.”

  Dan didn’t say anything.

  “Is he in here? One of these?”

  “No,” Dan said.

  “Do you know him?”

  “Yeah,” Dan said, “yeah, I know him.”

  “Can you take me to him?” Roper asked. “Or tell me where he is?”

  “What for? What do you want Quinn for?”

  “I want to talk to him about a man he served in the war with,” Roper said. “A Medal of Honor winner.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  Dan didn’t answer.

  “I just want to ask him some questions,” Roper said.

  “Are you plannin’ on payin’ him?”

  “No, I wasn’t,” Roper said. “But I suppose I could.”

  “How much?”

  “I could negotiate that with him.”

  The bartender/sheriff did some thinking. Roper sipped his beer.

  Finally he asked the man, “Do you want me to pay you?”

  “No,” Dan said, “I don’t need your money, Roper. But Quinn does.”

  “Fine,” Roper said. “I’ll pay him something.”

  “Okay,” Dan said. “Okay, I’ll take you to him.”

  “Good.”

  Dan looked around the room, then said, “Hey, Harry.”

  “Yeah?”

  He came around the bar.

  “Watch the place for me for a while. I gotta go out.”

  “I get a free beer?”

  “Yeah, have a free beer.” Dan looked at Roper. “Follow me.”

  Outside he said to Roper, “As soon as we’re gone, he’ll give everybody a free beer.”

  “I’ll pay,” Roper said.

  “This way,” Dan said. “You won’t need your horse.”

  “You’re not taking me to a grave site, are you?”

  31

  Dan led Roper to a dilapidated house just outside of Vega. Everything around it was dead or dying. All hardscrabble ground, dead brush and trees. Dead, like the town.

  “Quinn lives there.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s quiet.”

  “Yeah,” Dan said. “Too quiet.”

  “I’m going to go in,” Roper said, drawing his gun.

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Roper approached the house carefully, listening intently for any movement. When he got to the door, he saw that it was flimsy and ajar. Wouldn’t have taken much to force it.

  He pushed the door open with his elbow, went inside holding his gun in both hands out ahead of him.

  “Quinn?” he said.

  Nothing.

  “Gerald Quinn?”

  Still no answer.

  There was a second room. Roper went to the door, pushed it open with his foot, then stepped inside. That’s where he found Gerald Quinn—or a man he assumed was Quinn—shot in the back. He’d need the bartender, Dan, to make sure.

  He checked the body first. The man had been shot twice. The body was still warm, the blood fresh. He turned and went to the front door, waved Dan in.

  “What is it?” the man asked.

  “In there.”

  Dan went to the back room and looked inside, then turned and looked at Roper.

  “Is that Quinn?” Roper asked.

  “Yeah,” Dan said. “Did you kill him?”

  “No,” Roper said.

  He’d holstered his gun. Dan came out from behind his back with one and pointed it at him. Roper had seen the man secrete the gun behind his back in the bar. He’d wondered when it woul
d make an appearance.

  “How do I know you didn’t kill him?”

  “He’s been shot twice,” Roper said. “Did you hear any shots?”

  “How do I know you didn’t kill him an hour ago?”

  “Why would I kill him, and then come into the saloon looking for him?”

  “So nobody would think you killed him.”

  “If I killed him, why didn’t I just ride away?”

  Dan studied Roper, then said, “I ain’t no good at bein’ a lawman.”

  “Relax,” Roper said. “Put the gun away.”

  Dan looked at the gun in his hand as if he were seeing it for the first time. “Oh, sorry.” He stuck it in his belt.

  “Anybody around here want Quinn dead?”

  “Nobody around here wants nobody dead,” Dan said. “We’re all just tryin’ ta survive.”

  This was too much of a coincidence, the first two men on his list being dead. Even though the first had been dead over twenty years. Roper had a most uncomfortable feeling.

  “Why don’t we go back to the saloon,” he said, “and you can arrange a burial detail.”

  “Bury him that fast?” Dan asked. “Somebody’s gotta find out who killed him.”

  “Well, if you’re the sheriff, it’s your job.”

  “I ain’t no sheriff,” Dan said. “I’m a barkeep. I’m just holdin’ on to the badge. How about you? You wanna be sheriff?”

  “Of Vega? No thanks. I’ve already got a job.”

  “Well, whatever your job is, you was lookin’ for Quinn. Can you find out who killed him?”

  “You know, Dan,” Roper said, “I think I probably could.”

  The man called Kilkenny watched them from behind a tree. He knew Roper wouldn’t be far behind him, but this had been close. Quinn’s blood was still wet on the floor.

  He waited while they discovered the body, then watched as they walked back to town. He knew they’d be coming back with somebody to collect the body. It would have been easy to pick Roper off, just as easy as it would have been in Washington. But he’d missed on purpose then, and he had no orders to fire any more shots at the detective. When he did fire next, it would be for real.

  As soon as they were gone, he came out of hiding, then walked to where he had hidden his horse. Before mounting up, he took the list from his pocket, and a nub of a pencil, leaned against the leather saddle, and drew a line through Quinn’s name. That left Wilkins, Hampstead, and Templeton.

  He put the list away and mounted his horse.

  They walked back to the saloon, where Dan announced that Gerald Quinn was dead. That seemed to upset everyone. Vega appeared to be a close-knit community, and they didn’t take it well that one of their number had been killed.

  “This guy do it?” one of them asked.

  “No, he found the body with me. Quinn was shot twice, and this fella ain’t fired a shot.”

  “Then who did it?” somebody else asked.

  “I dunno.”

  “Do you?” Roper was asked.

  “No,” he said, “but I just might be able to find out.”

  “How?”

  “By continuing on with my job,” Roper said. “If somebody killed him because they didn’t want me talking to him, I’ll find out. Meanwhile, you might want to call in the law from Amarillo. Or maybe somebody federal, like a marshal.”

  “And what will you be doin’?” Dan asked.

  “I still have a few more men to find and talk to,” Roper told him. “That is, unless they’re all dead already.”

  32

  Roper stopped at the next town that had a hotel and got himself a room. He counted himself lucky that the citizens of Vega had let him leave. They could have held him until they got a proper lawman on the job. As it was, he’d left his name, and when a sheriff or marshal did arrive, he was going to be damned angry that they’d let him go.

  Roper only intended to stay the night. He needed some time to figure out his next move. The next name on his list was Henry Wilkins in Jerome, Arizona. After that David Hampstead, in Helena, Montana, and Zack Templeton in Pierre, South Dakota.

  But what if he got to Jerome and found Wilkins dead? Freshly killed? That would definitely mean that someone was either following him, or working off the same list he was, in the same order. Why would that be? Who would have given them the same list he’d gotten from Victoria?

  Somebody was lying to him. Victoria? Harwick? Donald White?

  If he was being used, he could spoil the plans by forgetting everything and going back to Denver. But if he did that, and three more men died, how would he feel?

  He could send each of the three men a warning telegram and then go home. Or send them a telegram and continue on.

  But if he wasn’t going to go home, why should he continue on in the original order? Why not mix it up?

  He was getting a headache, and he was hungry. He decided to continue his thought process over a meal, and then a drink.

  The town was called Shamrock, the hotel the Shamrock Hotel, and the saloon the Shamrock Saloon. Whoever had founded the town had remarkably little imagination.

  He went to a restaurant called O’Malley’s and, in keeping with everything else in town, ordered Irish stew.

  “Our specialty,” the proud waiter said.

  “And a mug of beer.”

  “But of course.”

  The waiter brought the beer, and minutes later a steaming bowl of stew.

  “Enjoy your meal, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  By the time Roper finished his meal, he had decided to move on to Arizona to find Henry Wilkins. It was just so much closer than Montana or South Dakota. But he’d also decided to send a telegram ahead, warning the man that he was in danger. And he was going to take steps to make sure he wasn’t followed. If someone tried to kill Wilkins before he arrived in Jerome, Arizona, it would mean that someone was ahead of him, not following him. That would mean they were working off the same list. If that was the case, he’d send telegrams to the other two men, and to Harwick and Victoria in West Virginia, telling them he was done, because at that point it would be obvious that he had not been told everything.

  And then there was the involvement of Donald White. If it was anyone else, Roper would think he was being set up as a patsy, but maybe he was actually being set up as a bird dog. His friendship with White notwithstanding, there had to be some Secret Service duplicity going on here.

  He walked back to his hotel, mindful of whether or not he was being watched. If he was, it was by somebody who knew what he was doing. Somebody with training.

  He spent a fitful night and got an early start the next morning.

  33

  Roper did his best to lose anyone that was following him when he left Shamrock, Texas, and then instead of riding the six hundred miles to Flagstaff, Arizona, he made the trip by rail.

  Flagstaff was the largest town near Jerome, about eighty miles away. Sedona was between the two, but he wasn’t sure what Sedona was like these days. Flagstaff, on the other hand, had grown by leaps and bounds.

  He got off the train at the Flagstaff station, retrieved his horse and saddle from the stock car, then got the horse situated at a livery stable. Again he got himself a hotel room, just for the night. In the morning he’d head for Jerome, but before he did, he had some telegrams to send.

  He left the Carriage House Hotel after getting his room and walked to the telegraph office. All during the trip he had been carefully wording the telegrams, and he wrote them out exactly that way.

  He intended to send one to Jerome, to Henry Wilkins, warning him that his life might be in danger and he should take steps to protect himself until Roper arrived. He didn’t know how Wilkins would react, but if Roper himself got a telegram like that, he’d get real careful. That was all he wanted from Wilkins.

  “There ain’t a telegraph key in Jerome,” the key operator told him.

  “Where’s the closest one?”

  “
Sedona.”

  “Okay, send it to Sedona with a request that someone get it to Henry Wilkins in Jerome.”

  “Okay.”

  The next one went to Harwick, in West Virginia. This one said he couldn’t locate Quinn, but was on his way to Helena, Montana, to see David Hampstead. He also asked Harwick to pass the word to Victoria. They’d probably wonder why he’d go from Texas to Montana without stopping in Arizona, but let them wonder.

  He couldn’t send a telegram to Donald White in Washington. You can’t just send the head of the United States Secret Service a telegram. But if White had somebody keeping an eye on Harwick and Victoria, he’d know what the telegram said. Hopefully, he’d be confused as well.

  Roper wanted everyone but himself confused.

  He kept a low profile in Flagstaff, kept an eye out his window for someone trailing him, ate in the hotel, and left early the next morning for Sedona. If he pushed, he could probably make it by nightfall, but that would tax the horse to his limit. He decided to make the ride in two days, and keep a sharp eye behind him.

  In Hurricane, West Virginia, Edward Harwick took Roper’s telegram with him to the Westover home and showed it to Victoria.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “He doesn’t say why he couldn’t find Quinn, or why he’d go to Montana from Texas when Arizona is closer.”

  “I don’t understand either.”

  “Are we sure Mr. Roper knows what he’s doing?”

  “He has an impeccable reputation and many good references.”

  She sighed heavily and said, “Then I guess we just have to trust he has his reasons.”

  “That’s what I suggest,” Harwick said.

  “Thank you for bringing this to me, Edward. Stay to dinner?”

  He smiled and said, “Of course.”

  In Washington, D.C., a man entered Donald White’s office and handed him a piece of paper.

  “When was this delivered?” he asked.

  “Today, sir, to Hurricane, West Virginia.”

  “Okay, thank you. You can go.”

  “Yessir.”

  After the young man left, White unfolded the message and read it.

  “What the hell is he up to?” he asked himself.

  34

  Roper rode into Sedona the next afternoon with a few hours of daylight left. Jerome was another twenty miles, and he wasn’t sure whether he should rest the horse or push him.